God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (4 page)

There had to be at least a dozen of them. From their swagger and their cricket bats I pegged them as bubonic betties – humans who injected themselves with aristo hormones. Eight male and
four female, dragging what appeared to be two unconscious people along the dimly lit path. Despite the dark I could see the two of them very well, see the blood on their faces and the jacked-up state of their captors. And I could see their hair – the girl had blue and the bloke’s was purple. They were halvies, and they were in trouble.

“Oy!” I shouted as I approached. I didn’t even have a weapon in my hand. My ID I’d shoved inside my corset as soon as I jumped off the motorrad.

The men didn’t listen to me, of course. I hadn’t expected them to. The females at least glanced in my direction. I yelled again and picked up the pace, running past them to cut them off. “Let them go,” I said as I stood before them. I had no delusions of getting out of this unscathed, but defeat wasn’t an option.

“Sod off,” retorted one in a deep, low-brow voice.

They were all in the vicinity of six feet tall and wore black clothing. In the sparse light I could see the sores on their faces, the blackened tips of their fingers. Aristo hormones gave them heightened senses and strength, but the price was an early and painful death. Sometimes they cut the drug with silver nitrate to lessen the harmful side effects, but it weakened the potency and increased skin-blackening.

That was what the plague did to those not of royal blood.

“Let them go,” I repeated through clenched teeth. I had somewhere else to be, damn it, and these fuckwits were taking up minutes on my ticking clock. Still, wouldn’t have been right of me not to intervene.

One of the males from behind came forward. The breeze that carried his scent to me brought the smell of unwashed flesh, stale sweat, blood and the early whiff of decay. “It’s another one,” he said in a cockney accent so thick I could have spread it on toast. “Another dirty half-blood.”

Well, at least I now knew that these Samaritans weren’t simply helping two sick halvies home – as if the thought had even crossed my mind. Fucking humans. They hated us, tried to kill us, but poisoned themselves so they could be more like us. “Hand them over to me and there won’t be any trouble,” I said.

The betties laughed. They always did – like the laughter track on those American sitcoms broadcast on the pirate box stations. With my bright hair and my expensive gown I obviously didn’t look like much of a threat.

The chuckles stopped pretty abruptly when I slammed my shin into Stinky’s wedding tackle. The breath rushed out of him in an animalistic moan. As he sank to his knees, I jobbed him between the eyes – twice – and laid him out cold.

“You beauties going to let them go now?” I asked sweetly as the betty crumpled at my feet. “Or do I have to humiliate each and every one of you?”

Of course they didn’t oblige me. I’d just relieved their mate of his manhood and my taunting only made them further obligated to exact a little revenge. Two of them came at me – one straight on and the other sneaking around behind.

Albert’s fangs
. I was still shaky from the goblins, hungry, tired and I’d forgotten to take my supplements – again. All I wanted was for them to leave the halvies alone so I could get to the bloody party on Curzon Street and talk to Church. They were standing in the way of me getting help for Dede and I did
not
have time for this shit. Those limp halvies had better hurry up and metabolise whatever the betties had given them, because I was on a schedule.

The betty up front came at me swinging. I ducked, but not enough. He caught me on the right jaw with a solid blow that knocked my head back and pissed me off. I came back with two quick punches to his gut, and when he bent double, the wind knocked out of him, I brought my knee up and broke his nose.
Then I pivoted, whipped that same leg up – thank God for my split skirt – and brought the back of my heel down on his skull. He hadn’t hit the ground when I whirled around to take on the next betty. She wasn’t expecting me, so she went down a little faster than her friends.

Somebody really ought to tell them that bubonic-derived steroids might make you faster and stronger, but that wasn’t much help up against someone even faster and stronger and better trained. It would be like me taking on Church – no contest.

Three down. Only nine more to go.
C’mon, halvies, wake the hell up
.

Two more came at me. These two actually had weapons. No matter how strong you are, a crowbar to the temple
hurts
. I tried to shake it off, but while I was recovering from that, another betty punched me hard in the stomach, and I wasn’t wearing a reinforced corset. When he attempted to break my nose as I had his friend, I kicked him hard in the side of his opposite knee. He screamed, but he didn’t go down immediately. That required a tap or two on the noggin with his own crowbar, which I then used to render his companion incapacitated. She went down a bit easier than he had.

Seven more. My head hurt – enough that I couldn’t quite ignore it. I would probably bruise.

One of the women came at me. Her lips were grey, and the skin on one side of her neck was patchy and black – swollen. She wouldn’t live much longer than a fortnight. I could be merciful and kill her here and now, but I wasn’t feeling overly merciful at the moment. She’d taken the plague willingly; let her ride it right to its ever-suffering end.

My knuckles split those cadaverous lips. Infected blood splattered across the backs of my fingers, soaking through the thin silk of my gloves. I had the sudden urge to suck the coppery warmth
out of the fabric, but I ignored the craving as the bleeding betty recovered and came back swinging. I grabbed her raised arm with one hand and twisted hard.

It’s an odd sensation, feeling bone break beneath your fingers. She crumpled with a scream. I backhanded her with my other hand, hard enough to knock her backwards and end all that nonsense.

The other betties didn’t seem to know what to do. Out of the six remaining, only two of them had their hands free – the others were supporting the dead weight of the battered halvies.

One of the female halvie’s eyes was swollen shut. The fact that she hadn’t woken up yet worried me. And then, as the next goon stepped up, I saw her foot move. One boot came up, the sturdy sole planted firmly on the pavement. She was waiting for me to dig in before she caught her captors unawares. Smart girl. Lazy, though, letting me do the brunt of the work. How long had she been awake? The male was coming round as well. This was going to become knobbed-up very quickly.

I didn’t have any more time to wonder about it as another girl betty came at me, brandishing a cricket bat as though I was the only thing standing between her and total victory. She swung and I ducked, the edge of the bat bouncing off my shoulder.

“Fucking hell!” It hurt – but only for a couple of seconds. Adrenalin is a wonderful thing.

I didn’t have much time, as the rest of them had finally begun to think with that one dim-witted brain they seemed to share, and had realised that if they ganged up on me they might stand a better chance. Thankfully, the halvies chose that moment to jump into the fray and began battling it out with the betties who had been holding them. The humans never saw it coming.

Blood screamed through my veins, my heart thumping wildly. Fang me, but I loved a good punch-up. At the Wellington
Academy – where all halvies were educated and trained – I’d excelled in violence. Church held me up as an example to other students of how to fight. No goblin was ever going to take me down without a struggle again.

As if to prove that point, I delivered a walloping kick to the betty’s head with the side of my boot. She was a little tougher than the last, however, and came staggering back at me, bat held high above her head as though it was a claymore and she was William fucking Wallace. I rolled my eyes.

“Bored with this,” I said, at the same time whipping my arm up to smash the heel of my hand into her nose.

She dropped the bat behind her, and then fell to the ground. She didn’t move. For a second I wondered if I had killed her. I’d never killed anyone before.

Any remorse I might have felt was eclipsed by the large bulk blocking out the street light. The other halvies were making sport of their opponents, leaving me just this one last betty.

He was big – the biggest of the lot. And he was much faster than the others – graceful as well. Anticipation hummed inside me. He was a real fighter, an actual challenge. Smacked me a hard one on the jaw before I was ready for it – same side as the crowbar, bastard.

I shook off the stars dancing before my eyes and came back with a few shots of my own. His head flew back, but he didn’t fall. He hit me again in the same spot. The pain made me grit my teeth and want to make him eat his own spleen. Enough of this. I caught him with two quick jabs to the stomach and then one between the eyes. He staggered backwards, then came back at me with a solid punch to my mouth. I tasted blood as I pulled my dagger out of its sheath.

That was when what I always referred to as my “aristocratic genes” kicked in, and the vampire half of me really woke up. It
was something I kept to myself, because it wasn’t a typical halvie reaction to blood, and it didn’t matter whetherit was my own or someone else’s, and it was the equivalent of flicking a switch inside me – like going from low to high. It was why blood-sharing was more of an intimate thing for halvies. It made sex incredibly intense – switching off our humanity and making us all instinct and sensation. Appetite.

I had planned to gut him if necessary, but now … I wanted to eat this betty – and not in a sexy way. Fangs extended from my gums with the sweetest of aches, eager to pierce some flesh regardless of how diseased and disgusting it was.

I smiled, enjoying how his eyes widened.

Then I pounced – straight at his jugular.

Strong hands grabbed my shoulders just as I was about to take a bite out of my reeking victim, who trembled beneath the blade I pressed against his heart.

“Don’t,” said a low female voice. “He probably tastes like shit, and you don’t want to go there.”

I thought about turning on her and maybe taking a bite out of her instead, but she was right. He
would
taste like shit, and I
didn’t
want to go there. I’d never bitten anyone, and I didn’t want to start with this piece of filth.

It was a struggle to clear the haze in my mind – the need. It was like having chocolate pressed against my lips and fighting the urge to take a bite, only multiplied by a thousand. I released the betty. As soon as I let go, his hands clutched at me, trying to pull me close again. Albert’s fangs. He
wanted
me to bite him. He even had a hard-on.
Humans
.

Up on my knees, I punched him in the face – hard – with the fist wrapped around my dagger, and knocked him senseless. His hands fell away, landing with a dull thud on the ground.

“Good choice,” said my blue-haired companion, offering me a hand up, which I gratefully accepted after sheathing the knife.

“Thanks.” I swiped my knuckles across my lip – it had stopped bleeding.

“I should be thanking you.” She smiled at me as though this kind of thing happened to her every day. Maybe it did, because I sure as Sunday wouldn’t be smiling if my face looked like that. “They probably planned to toss us in front of the next tourist bus.”

I glanced at her purple-haired friend, whose battered face was expressionless. “That would have made some Yank’s trip.”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t it, though?”

I stared at her. There was something familiar about her pale face. Her eyes – the one that was open – were almost the same greenish blue as her hair. She was about my height and I was certain I didn’t know her, and yet …

“Thanks for saving my arse,” she said, squatting down and rooting through the big betty’s pockets. Her search turned up a wad of pound notes. She quickly counted through them and offered me several.

“Not necessary,” I said, holding up my hands. It wasn’t that I was morally opposed to her robbing the bastard; I just didn’t need the money.

She shrugged, and I noticed dirt on the back of her black satin coat. Her companion’s too. “Did they … hurt you?” I asked.

She stood up, stuffing the money into the pocket of her tight black leather bloomers. Not sure how she managed to fit her hand in there, let alone all those notes. “Did they rape us, you mean? Nah.”

I frowned. “Why not? This one” – I kicked the still motionless betty near my feet – “obviously wanted a tickle. I’d have thought if he had a couple of unconscious halvies in his possession he’d take advantage.” Both of them were pretty. Her friend was
downright gorgeous, even with a faceful of bruises. He had very fine chiselled features, dark green eyes and a nose that could cut butter. I took a second to appreciate his loveliness as he shoved his rotary into his trouser pocket. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d made a call.

Blue-hair pulled a pack of fags from her cleavage and offered me one. I refused. She lit up and took a deep drag before responding. “Fang fetish, most likely.” The clove-scented tang of her smoke drifted around her head. “You were just another filthy halvie till you fanged out, then he got all tingly for your aristo bits.”