God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (23 page)

We dived for one another, colliding like snarling cats. Fists and feet flew – some connected and some didn’t, but each of us was in it to win, possibly to kill. And I had no idea why.

She hit me hard in the face, and I retaliated with a kick intended to get her in the stomach but caught her in the thigh instead as she managed to move out of the way. She smashed me in the skull with a brick. I staggered back, world spinning as my head rang like Big fucking Ben. Ophelia grabbed me by the throat and squeezed. Blackness threatened to take me down.

“Why did you do it?” she demanded. “He’d done nothing to you. Nothing.”

“Didn’t … do …” That was all I managed to say before I was robbed of oxygen and started gasping for breath.

Something took hold of me then and reared up in the darkness flooding my mind. I loosened her grip and sucked air into my starving lungs as I lunged forward, slamming against the side of the building. My fangs scraped the warm skin of her neck before I managed to regain control. I threw myself backwards, shoulders smashing against the opposite wall of the alley.

Panting, fighting for calm, I leaned against the wall to keep from falling to my knees, and looked up at Ophelia, who slid down the wall to sit at the bottom of it, elbows on her knees, forehead against her fists. She didn’t seem to notice that I’d almost ripped her throat out. I’m not sure she even realised how close I’d come to seriously hurting her.

Against my better judgement, I went and sat down next to her on the cold dirt and stone. I touched my head where she’d hit me. Thankfully it wasn’t bleeding. “What happened?”

She lifted her head and looked at me with real anguish in her eyes and a stony tightness to her jaw. “Raj.” Her voice was rough and raw.

“Your human?” I didn’t know how else to phrase it.

She nodded. “He went out earlier today and didn’t come back. When I rang him, he didn’t answer. Finally I went looking for him.”

I didn’t like the direction this conversation seemed to be headed. “You found him?”

She nodded and ran her hands over her hair. “Yeah. I found him.” She sniffed and turned her head towards me, hand cupping the back of her neck. “He’s dead.”

“You think
I
killed him?” The woman had bollocks the size of Big Ben.

“No,” she replied, but my relief quickly expired, “I thought you’d turned him in so someone else could kill him.”

My jaw dropped. Never mind that I would have thought her capable of being just as vengeful.

“Because I’m just a vindictive bitch, or because I’m so misguided in my perception of the world?”

She thought about it. “Both.”

If she hadn’t been so obviously pained by the loss of her lover, I might have thought she was trying to be funny. “Where did you find him?”

Ophelia laughed – that bleak, hoarse bark of grief. “Traitor Lane. They carved ‘Insurgent Meat’ on his face.” Traitor Lane was where they’d marched the captured insurrectionists to the gallows. “Well, I’m certainly delighted that you thought I’d put someone else to the task rather than do it myself.” I stopped there, biting my
tongue to keep from saying more – words that would be tactless and cruel given the situation.

My sarcasm barely registered with her. “It seemed rather convenient, given your recent appearance at Bedlam.”

I shot her a wry glance. “Right. Because I’d turn in a human rather than you.”

“Fair enough.” She wrapped her arms around her bent knees. “Dede said you don’t like humans. I thought you’d done it to punish me.”

“Most halvies don’t like humans,” I retorted, leaning back against the wall. “Ophelia, if I wanted to punish you, I’d punish you. They would have raided Bedlam if I’d given you up.”

She seemed to consider that. “Why haven’t you reported us?”

“I have no idea,” I replied, as honestly as I felt able. Dede’s remark that I’d be suspected of being a traitor as well was of little consequence. “I suppose there’s been just enough bizarre shit going on that I’m not one hundred per cent certain which way is up.”

“I felt that way at first too. Then Mum showed me the truth.”

“How long have you been with her?” Why was I doing this to myself? Did it really matter?

“Little more than a year.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Until then I thought she was lost to me, same as you.”

Same as me. Was she trying to butter me up? “So what? She found you, fed you her vague history of Bedlam’s secret citizens, and you signed up?”

She shot me a droll look. She looked just like our mother but with blue hair. “By the time she rescued me from the facility the aristos kept me in I didn’t really need much convincing. Even before that I wasn’t partial to vamps. In Scotland we have quite a
different view of Buckingham Palace than you Londoners do. Victoria tends to treat the pack like we’re dumb hounds begging for scraps.”

Did it make me a small person that I envied her for feeling like she was part of the pack? Every were in the UK was accepted into the pack, including were halvies. As a vamp halvie I was well treated, but I was well aware I wasn’t one of “them” as far as the aristocracy was concerned.

Maybe that was why I’d been so attracted to Vex – he didn’t treat me as though I was below him.

“What about Vex?” I asked, feeling suddenly – oddly – protective of him.

She regarded me warily. “Vex is it? What of him?”

I ignored her dig, and cursed myself for using his Christian name. “You swore fealty to him.”

“To him and the pack, yes. And I meant it.”

I wanted to ask how much he knew about her treasonous activities, then decided better of it. I didn’t want to find out, coward that I was. “You don’t think being part of a traitorous group might be seen as a betrayal of that oath?”

“I’ve never betrayed my alpha, and I never will. The monarchy, however, betrayed us a long time ago.” She held up her tattooed arm. “I have the number to prove it.”

I frowned. The brick at my back caught at my coat – little annoying snags. “What did they do to you?”

Ophelia shook her head. “Nothing I feel like sharing with you. I wouldn’t want it to come back and haunt me later. And don’t pretend you’re above doing just that. You and I aren’t that different.”

I shrugged, and winced when my coat rasped against the wall. It better not be ruined. I loved this coat. “What would happen to those poor halvies in the underground cells if Bedlam was raided?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’d let them stay. Maybe they’d
lobotomise them. Or maybe they’d be tried for treason as well, hard to say. Regardless, they’ve already suffered enough.”

That was at least one point on which she and I agreed. “Dede’s already hurt enough people with her
death
. This kind of scandal could destroy my family.”

“Destroy the Duke of Vardan, you mean.”

“And his children – my brother and sister.”

“Ever stop to consider that maybe your father deserves a little hurt?”

I bristled. “Ever considered my boot in your face?”

A mocking gleam lit her eyes. She didn’t look all that broken up for someone who had just lost a lover. When Rye died, I was a mess. I cried for three days before anger took hold. Either my maternal sister went straight for rage, or she was an unemotional bitch.

I knew which one of those had my wager.

“Your family’s your biggest weakness,” she informed me – as though she had some great insight into my inner workings. “Someone’s going to use it against you one day.”

I smiled – an ironic twist of my lips. “Someone already did. Dede knew I’d find her. Hell, she might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow.”

Speaking of which … “How’d you find me?” I asked.

“Your tracking signal,” she replied. “The RG isn’t the only bunch to find those things useful.”

That was it. I was finding my fucking displacer and I was going to do it quick. I didn’t want the Bedlamites following me any more than I wanted Church watching my every move.

“So …” She looked me in the eye. “Can we trust you?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” That was as honest as I could be.

My sister didn’t look at all surprised – or worried. “You could always join us.”

I laughed bitterly as I shook my head. “Not going to happen.”

“It will,” she insisted, so certain of it I wanted to slap her – or ask what she knew that I didn’t. “There’s too much honour in you for it not to.”

Right, because she knew so much about fucking honour. “Five minutes ago you thought I was a murderer.”

She shrugged. “You still could be for all I know.” Her eyes were hard. “Honour’s relative.”

“Right.” I slapped my hands against my thighs. She was mad as a sack of cats. “Well, I have somewhere I need to be. I’m sorry for your loss. Don’t come near me again.”

I jumped to my feet and started for the mouth of the alley.

Suddenly she was there in front of me, blocking my way. “Xandra, wait. Look, I’m … thank you.”

That was as close to an apology as I was going to get, and I was glad of it. If she went all emotional on me I’d probably go mental. As it was, my response came in the form of a terse nod.

She ran a hand over the back of her neck. “You want to grab a pint or something?”

She might have asked me if I wanted to go to the moon I was so bloody gobsmacked. “No.” It came out wrapped in a laugh of disbelief. I wanted to add, “You fucking nutter.”

Maybe I was naïve – or conceited – but she appeared genuinely disappointed by my rejection. Guilt nudged me right below my breastbone but I ignored it. I didn’t know her, didn’t like her and couldn’t afford the association, even if she was family.

“I am sorry about your boyfriend,” I said – lamely – and slipped past her out of the alley.

I hoofed it to Freak Show, brushing the dirt from my coat as I walked. Fortunately the scuffle with Ophelia, and that damned brick wall, hadn’t mussed me up too badly. I didn’t want to have to explain my appearance to Vex.

There was a longer queue in front of the club tonight than there had been last time. It was fairly early in the evening for such a crowd. The sounds of live music thumping from inside explained why.

“Hey, there’s a queue!” a voice protested as I walked to the front. The halvie at the door wore a bright yellow corset that matched her hair and warmed her caramel-coloured skin. Short bloomers showed off mile-long legs with garters. A gauzy bustle cradled her hips to fall almost to the ground. She towered over me in five-inch heels.

She sneered at me, full lips parting to reveal a hint of fang. “I don’t have to let you in, you know. Just because you’ve got that badge don’t mean you’re privileged.” Her accent was cockney – a very human way of speaking. Most halvies born to official courtesans were raised in a fairly posh, if not physically challenging environment. This one hadn’t the skills to be Protectorate, Yard or RG, so she spent her nights tossing rowdies out on their ears.

And now, for whatever reason, I was going to get some of the blame for that.

“Actually,” I replied, about to rub a little salt in, “it does make me special – top five per cent of my class and all that, which you already know. I’m not asking you to cater to my whim, or even play nice, but I’m meeting the MacLaughlin in ten minutes, and I don’t think you want to be the reason I give him for being late.”

She either wanted to puke or to job me – I wasn’t certain which. Regardless, she moved aside so I could cross the threshold. I forced a smile and a sweet word of thanks.

“What is it about you that antagonises everyone you meet?”

I froze. People milled around me in the swathes of light that punctuated the dark. Slowly, I turned.

“Did you follow me?” I demanded.

Ophelia shrugged. “This was the closest place to get a drink.”

My ego didn’t quite believe her. “Right. Enjoy, then.” I turned to make my way through the club.

The crowd was mostly halvie and human – not an aristo in sight. Having to deal with a gathering of humans set my teeth on edge, despite the club’s no-violence policy.

I went to the bar rather than the tables, as that would give me the best view of the door when Vex arrived – and the best view of the club if a human or six decided to get rowdy. The ebony wood gleamed with polish and had several high stools along the length of it.

I hopped up on to one of the stools, which resembled a taller version of an eighteenth-century chair. The bar was designed to be an elegant mishmash of eras, but the upholstery’s various designs complemented each other in a way that made the whole thing work.

The skeleton of Joseph Merrick stood in a glass case against the wall beside me, adding a little cover from possible attack. There had been great debate over the Elephant Man in his time. A small band of aristos had wanted to make the attempt to turn him, to see if the blood would cure him, but a human doctor stepped in and convinced Merrick to refuse. Said it would be a degradation.

Staring at the twisted, distorted remains, I thought of what Ophelia had said when I was at Bedlam – that even amongst freaks I was freakish.