God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (30 page)

When the gob … when
Elsbeth
had said that Simon’s body had been left for the goblins to hide, she meant that he’d been left for them to eat, effectively getting rid of the evidence. He would simply be one more missing person in the vast necropolis of London.

It made me think of all the bones I had seen in the plague den. Most of those were from the Insurrection, or scavenged, rooted out of plague pits and ancient graves, but how many of them were from murder victims tossed down here like garbage and blamed on the goblins? It was an easy and efficient way to dispose of a body. It was what would have happened to Simon if the gobs hadn’t caught my scent.

There was blood on Simon’s lab coat – my blood. Not much, but it was there. Perhaps from his tests, or maybe there had been some left over, I dunno. It was enough that the goblins had smelled it and identified it, and for that reason I was glad. I was still afraid of them – would be a fool not to be – but they could have just eaten him. Instead, they’d risked coming above ground, where some human might have tried to be a hero, to find me.

Simon hadn’t been dead for long, and judging from his injuries he’d been tortured shortly before being killed. I knew this because the wounds hadn’t been given a chance to heal. They’d stabbed him through the heart with a silver blade – it was still in him.

“He was killed because of me.” I glanced at the prince. “This is my fault.”

The prince regarded me with his one eye. It was a gaze full of knowledge, predatory yet sympathetic. “Because of you, yes. Fault of you, no. Many secrets is your life.”

“That’s one way to put it,” I agreed. “Could you smell anything on him?” My own senses were so overwhelmed by the scents of the underground that I didn’t trust myself to sniff out more subtle odours.

“He stinks of the blood.”

“My blood stinks?”

A soft bark – laughter. “
The
blood. The fanged ones killed but did not feed.” His muzzle wrinkled. “Tried to hide their stink.”

Nothing could be hidden from a goblin nose. I almost imagined I could smell the strains of the plague, the Prometheus Protein that made up the vampire bloodline, but it was only my imagination desperately wanting to assign blame so that I could assuage my own.

“You’re sure?”

He shot me a look of indignant arrogance. Of course he was sure. He
knew
. Fang me. Vampires had done this. Christ. A tear slid down my cheek. Poor Simon.

Soft fur touched my face – the prince was wiping my cheek. I froze, fear making steel of my spine as I waited for my throat to be ripped out. Claws brushed my skin but didn’t scratch. Gentleness from a goblin? Why the hell not, seeing as how fucked-up everything else was. “He was your friend?”

I nodded, and he patted me on the shoulder with that same paw – it was a strangely soothing gesture. “The plague will not take him. The plague will honour your friend and put him where he will be found, not lost.”

I swiped the back of my hand across my cheek. I was not going to cry for Simon, I was going to find who’d done this and make them pay for it. “You will?”

A resolute nod followed. He turned to the others. “Take the meat to St James’s Park for the mice to find.”

Good God, and I thought I was bigoted – and harsh. Meat, of course, was what goblins called any food source, but hearing that term applied to my friend turned my stomach, even though it wasn’t meant to offend. And mice … well, that was a charming term for humans. Mice and rats didn’t cohabit, and those of the plagued blood thought of rats as our mascot, if you will. Like the Americans and their eagle.

“Thank you,” I said. “I owe you a great debt.” I felt the gravity of those words as I spoke. Indebted to a goblin was not a position in which I wished to find myself, but there was no way around it.

The prince shrugged. “I think not, but if pretty would like to bring tribute another day, that would be good.”

I was getting off easy and smart enough to know it. “All right.”

Two goblins picked up Simon’s body and made their way down the track, their eyes covered by dark glasses. A lump pressed against the walls of my throat, choking me. I had failed him. I hadn’t been careful, hadn’t taken all of this seriously enough, and he had paid for it.

Well, I was taking it rutting seriously now.

The prince bowed his head to me and disappeared into the dark. The others followed after him, leaving Vex and me alone. We found the exit and quickly escaped cobbleside. From there he hailed a hack that returned us to my place. Good thing Vex had a few quid in his pockets, else we would have ended up walking.

“Come,” he said when we were inside once more. Avery wasn’t home. He took me by the hand and pulled me into the kitchen. “I’ll make us something to eat.”

He was quiet while he cooked and so was I. What was he thinking? Was he wondering what the hell he had got himself into? Was
he, like most people I had cared about, going to leave or be taken away?

Poor Simon. He’d said my blood was different. But the prince had said it smelled normal. Whatever my defect, it had no scent and was worth killing to keep secret. What the bloody hell was it?

I was pulled from my thoughts when a plate was set on the table in front of me. Steam rose, bringing the most delicious aroma to my nose. Saliva flooded my tongue.

I looked down at the thick steak, seared on the outside but undoubtedly red and juicy within. Vex had fried potatoes and eggs to go with it, and added toast that was such a beautiful shade of brown I was almost reluctant to butter it.

“I think you might be the perfect man,” I told him.

He chuckled and sat down across the small table from me. “I doubt that.”

I picked up my fork and hesitated. He was being so good. “Vex …”

“Eat first,” he commanded. “I can wait for an explanation – but you will give me one.” There was no anger in his eyes, just simple determination. I had no problem with that. He had come into the tunnels with me. We were in this together now, so I owed him at least an explanation. And my frayed nerves told me that if I held on to all of this any longer I’d blow an artery in my brain.

We ate in silence. It was so unbelievably good. I soaked up every last trace of yolk with my buttery toast and slumped back in my chair, sated. Vex had already finished and sat with an arm hooked over the back of his chair, legs stretched out, waiting for me to speak.

And so I spoke. I told him about Dede going missing and how I’d gone to the goblins for information. I told him how she’d been taken to Bedlam – which he already knew because of his association with Ophelia. I told him that I had seen the halvies in
the cells, and that I’d been told I was different. I went on about giving Simon my blood – even though I’d already told him some it before. I told him I didn’t know who I could trust, that I didn’t think I even knew myself any more.

Afterwards I fell silent, gnawing on the side of my thumb as I waited for him to say something.

“You need to get someone else to take your blood,” he said finally.

“Ophelia kept a sample to test.”

He nodded. “Good. I’ll check with her. Don’t use your rotary or house line for discussing any of this.”

“I’ve taken care of that as well – now. That’s how I reckon
they
” – I made quotes with my fingers in the air – “found out about Simon.”

“You’re no doubt right.” His expression was grim. “Promise me you’ll be careful. If the people who took Duncan are involved, they won’t hesitate to kill you.”

An image of Simon’s corpse flashed in my mind. The marks on him … there were worse things than being murdered. “What about you? How deep are you in this, Vex?”

He got up to pour each of us a second cup of coffee, obviously weighing how much to tell me. I think we’d both begun to realise that we’d only get the answers we wanted if we took a chance on trusting each other. “I met Victoria and Albert not long after their marriage. She was enamoured of Scotland and our people – we were a curiosity for the English back then, with our wolves. Still are, for that matter, though many vampires treat us like well-behaved dogs. I got on well with Albert. He was a good man. Smart, fair. He didn’t see humans as simply a convenient food source. He wanted to do right by them.”

I took my cup as he offered it across the table. “I can’t imagine having that sort of sentiment for humans.”

“Aye.” He took a drink. “This was before your time – long before the Insurrection. Things were different then. Everything changed in the nineteen-thirties.” He fell silent, remembering.

“Albert was killed by humans.”

“He was killed. I’m not convinced it was at human hands, not with the finesse with which he was done in.”

I frowned. “What do you suspect?”

Sharp grey-blue eyes lifted to stare at me. “He was killed by someone every bit as strong as he was. Someone he knew. He hadn’t tried to defend himself.”

“You don’t think …” It was almost too horrible for me to even speculate. “… that
she
killed him?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Careful, sweetheart. That sort of talk will get you arrested. All I know is that after he died, I asked a few questions and suddenly Her Majesty wasn’t so in love with Scotland any more, and my wolves became somehow inferior to her vampires. Did you know that I was supposed to be in charge of training half-bloods at the Academy?”

“No. She gave the job to Churchill instead?”

“Yeah, for all the bloody good it’s done him, the bastard. He’s never forgiven me for it, either. He thought it would curry favour, but all it got him was kicked down the social ladder. Makes me wonder what he did to get her to notice him in the first place.”

His tone made me frown. “Are you insinuating that you think Church killed Prince Albert?”

Vex held up his hands. “I’d never dream of impugning the honour of your hero, but I notice you’ve not confided any of this to him.”

“No.” I looked away. “I haven’t.” Why hadn’t I? Church had always been there for me. I should have gone to him straight away, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t wanted him to know. Hadn’t wanted him to
look at me differently. Hadn’t known if I could trust him. I still didn’t know.

But I trusted Vex, and he was a human sympathiser.

“Are you a traitor?” I asked him, lifting my chin to meet his gaze once more.

“No,” came his quick reply. “I love my people and my country. I’ve not done anything to jeopardise that, but I will do whatever is necessary to protect them both.”

I understood what he meant. I didn’t mean to keep to myself what I knew about Bedlam, but I couldn’t hurt people I loved. At least I knew my priorities now.

“I’ve been worrying this bone for a long time, Xandra.” Vex’s voice rumbled down my spine. “And now that you think you have blood on your hands, I reckon you won’t be able to play ignorant any more. I will find out what happened to my son. I will find out why you’ve been singled out, and I will deal with the people responsible.”

“Even if they’re of the aristocracy?” The word trembled on my tongue. Fang me, why couldn’t I have simply believed Dede was dead?

He flashed a slightly feral grin. “Sweetheart, I might be a wolf, but I’m a Scot first, and I’ve
never
trusted those English bastards.”

Some American fellow once said that the English people possessed “an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm”. I always found that sentiment a little … offensive until I experienced that very sensation.

Talking to Vex about Dede, Bedlam, the past, would normally have made me nervous, and perhaps made me wonder if I wasn’t hatters after all for trusting someone else with my secrets, especially someone I hadn’t known for very long. Instead, I felt a strange kind of peace at having let it out. The world hadn’t ended. No one had hauled me off to Newgate. I felt lighter – unburdened. I also found my desire to discover the truth for myself refocused. Maybe I didn’t want to believe that aristos – vampires in particular – were behind some of these awful things, but I couldn’t hide my head in the sand.

But I needed … no, I
had
to find out what had happened to Simon. I wasn’t going to have his blood on my hands for naught.
I also owed it to Dede to treat her claims about Ainsley as though they might be true.

And I owed it to Church to take what Vex said about him with a bucket of salt, just as I owed Vex the same. In fact I reckoned I owed Vex a tad more than that. He trusted me with the truth about his son, and accorded me more respect than anyone had in quite some time. Church was good to me, but he still treated me as though I were a child – to be protected and coddled.

Vex and I went back to bed after we’d talked. I needed … something. Reassurance, perhaps? Validation? Comfort? Regard less, we had something of a desperate shag and passed out wrapped around one another. He felt warm and solid next to me, and I realised how much I had craved just that. It was a little pathetic really, my needing someone to lean on. It had been a long time since I felt as though someone had my back rather than me always having theirs.

By the time we woke up, Scotland Yard had Simon’s body. This we found out from the news on the box. Missing halvies didn’t garner quite so much attention, but a dead one sure did – especially on a conservative human news programme that was all too happy to report the death.