God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (29 page)

That and I wanted him close. I didn’t consider myself weak, but being with him made me feel stronger, and I needed that right now, whether it was real or not.

I had to find out about Dede’s kid. I had to do a lot of things. But first I had to eat. My stomach let out a low growl that sounded vaguely feral. I was starving – so much so that Vex looked tasty in ways that weren’t just sexual. “Breakfast,” I said. “We can talk while we eat.”

“I’ll cook,” he said, sliding out of bed. “It’s one of my many talents.”

I chuckled and tossed back the blankets. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood. He was probably wondering if he’d revealed too much to me.

“I suppose you learned to cook while trying to charm a kitchen maid?”

“You’re right. Mary MacConnell.” He pulled on his trousers. “She was a fine little thing.”

I slipped into a purple satin kimono. “And how long ago was that?”

“Eighteen fifty-seven, before I even knew I was plagued.” The smile disappeared from his face as the glaze of a painful memory slid across his eyes. He reached for his shirt, which was tossed over a nearby chair. “That was the same year my brother Robert died.”

Fang me, but he’d lost a lot of people he’d loved. Near-immortality had its misfortunes. “What happened?”

“Apoplexy – that’s what they called it back then. I suppose it was a brain haemorrhage or the like. He died and I became the heir. I was the first wolf in our line, you know.”

I stared at him. “Your brother was …” I couldn’t quite make the words come out.

A small smile curved his lips as he pulled the fine linen over his shoulders. “Human, aye. I’m one of the few aristos who remembers where we came from.”

His smile was teasing, but I felt shame at his words all the same. “I didn’t know aristos could have human children.” Then again, I hadn’t known that an aristo and a human carrier could produce a full-blood.

“Well, we were all human at one time. It took centuries of plague waves to make us what we are. Human births were much more common in the beginning, but then more of us changed and our human relations aged and died. These days a human child being born to full-blood parents is more rare than a goblin. It’s not like our diets are conducive to carrying healthy human babies.”

“No, I suppose not.” Why had I never heard this before? Not even in school were we taught about the humans who came before
aristos – who gave birth to aristos and in turn were sometimes born to them. This knowledge unsettled me a little, though it shouldn’t have. But I was even more disturbed by the fact that I had never once wondered about it.

I was trying to put the thoughts from my mind when there came a noise at my balcony – a scratching sound, like claws on glass. Vex and I exchanged glances and I moved towards the doors. He stepped in front of me, putting himself between me and whatever was outside. I peered over his shoulder as he turned the handle and opened the door.

It was something worthy of an old skit-based comedy production – or rather, it would have been were it not so terrifying.

A goblin stood on my balcony, shielding its eyes – already covered by bright magenta sunglasses – from the candlelight inside the room. Its paw slowly lowered as it realised the light wasn’t much brighter than that inside its den. It was wearing a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat.

Vex growled low in his throat – a rumbling, menacing sound that made the hairs on my body stand up and take notice. He didn’t attack, though, which said much for his control over his inner predator. Most people would react to a goblin with fear or violence and get themselves killed.

The goblin bowed. “The MacLaughlin. Lovely. Xandra lady – I have words for you by order of my prince.”

It was female, and obviously found Vex easy on her protected eyes. Scowling, I moved in front of him. His hands gripped my shoulders, as though trying to push me through the floor like a tack.

I regarded the goblin much like a mouse regarded a hungry tom. “It must be important for the prince to send you cobbleside.”

She nodded, the light from the room glinting on the numerous golden studs piercing both her tufted ears. “Something was
left in the tunnels, something that reeked of the Xandra lady.” Her accent sounded vaguely Welsh, though it was difficult to tell when she spoke in that stilted English the gobs seemed to favour. “The prince says you should know. You should come.” And then she stepped back as though she expected me to follow immediately.

“She’s not going with you,” Vex informed her through clenched teeth.

The little goblin – she only came up to my chin – gazed up at him and smiled – baring her immense fangs. “Hers to decide, wolf.”

“I have to get dressed,” I told her. This wasn’t a ploy to get me into the tunnels – no goblin would be so obvious, nor would they come this far above ground, to a private home, to hunt. No, if the prince had sent this goblin to collect me, then he had something I needed to see.

The hirsute woman bowed her head, turning in such a way that her cloak opened, and I could make out the slight curve of her breasts. A pink nipple peeked through the fur. That was something I couldn’t unsee, no matter how much I wished it.

I closed the door, relegating the fiend and her bits to the dark. I turned and immediately grabbed my underpants from the floor, where they’d landed earlier that evening.

“What are you doing?” Vex demanded as I shoved my feet in and wriggled the silk up my legs.

“I’m going with her,” I replied, snatching up my undershirt.

“Are you mental?” he demanded.

I pulled the thin garment over my head. “Quite, but that doesn’t change the fact that the prince sent her here. The goblin prince, Vex. Don’t you find that strange? Intriguing, even?”

“Aye, it’s a fucking marvel, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s dangerous!”

I flipped my hair out from beneath the straps of the tank before reaching for my black-and-white-striped knee-length trousers. “I’ve dealt with the prince before. I’ll be fine.” Oddly enough, I believed it.

He turned the air blue with his curses as he began buttoning his shirt. He shoved the tails of it into the waist of his trousers before reaching for his boots.

“There’s no way I’m letting you simply walk off with a fucking goblin.” He pinned me with a look that reminded me he was alpha for a reason. A look that also told me that once this current situation was over, I was going to have to explain just how I had “dealt with the prince”.

“Fair enough,” I replied, and meant it – on all accounts.

When we were dressed, I opened the French doors again. Leaving this way, I had less chance of disturbing Avery. The goblin was still there, sniffing the night. “Your house reeks of sex,” she said conversationally.

Sweet baby Albert
. A flush rose to my cheeks. “Is that a problem?”

She met my gaze without guile or innuendo. “The thing what unites us all, Xandra lady. No problem, never.”

A philosophical goblin. Who would have thought? I supposed you didn’t survive and become the efficient predators they were without some manner of intelligence. They only sounded uneducated.

Before I could think of a response, she’d vaulted over the side of the balcony. I strained my ears and heard the grass below rustle as she landed. Vex followed – I suppose to make certain I wasn’t alone with the goblin for even a second – and then me. I landed with nothing like the goblin’s grace, but stealthily enough that I got my pride on. She gave me a nod, like a teacher approving of a student’s first attempt.

She led us through the shadows, blending with the darkness behind buildings and deepened by gardens. Perhaps five or six minutes passed before she ducked between two houses, the space barely wide enough for Vex to move through sideways. At the end of this narrow alley was a square grate set into the ground. Thick plumes of grass kept it almost completely hidden from sight, and the reinforced iron top gave it a formidable appearance. It would take several very determined humans to open it – determined and stupid.

The goblin lifted the iron with relative ease, and immediately disappeared into the hole without a word. I made to follow her, but Vex stopped me. “Me first,” he said.

I might have rolled my eyes if it weren’t for the fact that I found his protectiveness a little sexy and endearing. I’ve
never
been treated as something delicate – and I didn’t think that was how I was being treated now. It wasn’t that Vex doubted my ability to protect myself; he would simply rather that if one of us got hurt it be him.

It was rather lovely knowing that he was putting my welfare before his own.

As soon as he started down the ladder secured to the subterranean wall, I followed. Our hostess immediately climbed back up to pull the grate closed. I could have done it if she’d only asked.

A little ambient light found its way down to us, but it was going to get very dark very quickly – too dark for me or even Vex to see well. Obviously the goblins had prepared for this, because there was a soft click and the light of a very small hand torch made an oval in front of us.

Vex reached back and took my hand in his, guiding me. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“Little way,” the goblin replied, before taking a left turn down
another corridor. It was like an underground labyrinth. Had the goblins carved these tunnels and fortified them, or were they from the London of years ago? I’d hate to be left to my own devices down here.

Eventually we came upon what looked like a tiny Met station. On the track was a small cart with an engine in front.

“Is this the old post rail?” I asked – with what I’m ashamed to say sounded like awe in my voice.

Ahead the goblin nodded. “City wanted we plague to be happy, so left us trains. Get in, please.”

At least she was mannerly. Vex and I joined her in the red cart – it was a close fit. Our companion didn’t have the odour I associated with goblins. In fact she smelled almost good to me, like warm fur with a smoky hint of incense.

“What’s your name?” I asked, tired of thinking of her as “the goblin”. I was curious too.

She shot me another glance – one I’d seen a lot in my life. It was the look people gave me when they didn’t know what the blooming hell to make of me. “Elsbeth,” she replied, and then surprised me by adding, “Born of Norfolk.”

I had to clench my jaw to keep it from dropping. Norfolk was rumoured to have been the first dukedom ever bestowed in the Kingdom, and to think that this abomination descended from it … well, it made it that much harder to think of her – Elsbeth – as just a monster.

All goblins were of aristocratic birth, though they considered themselves something more. That they were monsters was what made them frightening – disgusting – but underneath that fur and sharp teeth beat hearts more plagued than mine had ever thought of being. They were mutations, simply put. The same as halvies.

“I think we might be related,” was all the intelligent response I could muster.

Beneath her muzzle I thought I saw a hint of a smile, but she said nothing. I wasn’t as afraid of her as I had been. Maybe that was because I had Vex with me. Or maybe it was because I was more afraid of this thing that was so important a goblin had come above ground to fetch me.

The rest of the trip passed in relative silence. From what I could tell, we were headed north-east – away from the den beneath Down Street station. Eventually our cart stopped and we disembarked, following Elsbeth on foot down another track. Just as I had thought – we weren’t far from the Prince Albert Hospital stop.

“Left it to be found, they did,” Elsbeth told us as the faint scent of train, dirt and decay reached my nostrils. “Reeking of Xandra lady and death.”

She hadn’t mentioned death earlier. “What is it?” I asked. My voice had a slight tremor to it. A suspicion had already begun to take root and I prayed that I was wrong.

“Left for us to dispose of,” Elsbeth continued, as though she hadn’t heard me. “For the plague to hide.”

She stopped walking and I was brought up short behind her. Out of the shadows came half a dozen goblins, one of whom was the prince.

“Xandra lady,” he said by way of greeting. “Your prince regrets, yes. Greetings, wolf.”

And then he did the damnedest thing. He took my hand in one paw and patted it with the other. I shivered but didn’t snatch my hand away. “Come.”

I walked beside him for maybe ten or twelve feet – Vex, looking tense, close behind, with the rest of the goblins closing ranks. We stopped next to what looked like a bundle of rags, but when the light of the torch made the journey from end to end, I knew it wasn’t rags. Rags didn’t wear loafers.

The prince nodded at another goblin, who came forward and
turned the body over. I knew before I saw the face who it was, but the lifeless eyes that stared up at me drove a spike of dread right through my heart.

Simon.