Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (16 page)

Vex was tense when I met him at Down Street to go on to the palace.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, eyeing the south wall at the end of the street. In addition to the new electric fence at the top, there were an extra two feet of barbed wire, and another three of strong-looking mesh. That should keep people – and projectiles – out of my garden for a bit.

His jaw was tight as he looked at me. “We’re going underground tonight.”

I shrugged. “I thought we were anyway. It’s the easiest route to the palace.”

“And the safest. There are one hundred and fourteen humans gathered at the Mayfair gates. They’ve had to close the shutters, and the halfies on guard are inside – wearing full armour.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Fang me.”

“Exactly.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Some fucking half-bloods thought they needed payback for the fire at Freak Show. They started trouble at a coffee house, got a real brawl going. Two humans ended up in hospital because of their injuries.”

My shoulders sagged. “And now the humans are out for plagued blood.”

“Of course they are.” He was really pissed off. “Somebody’s going to get killed.”

He didn’t mean one of us. He meant a human. That was when everything would go to hell.

My rotary rang. It was Val. “Special Branch and riot coppers are en route to Mayfair. Stay underside if you need to travel.”

“I will. Are you part of the crowd control?”

“No, I’m still working on the fire. Be careful, Xandy.”

“You too.” I hung up and sent a quick digigram to Avery telling her to stick close to home. Then Vex and I joined William underside.

“How’d it go with your father?” Vex asked. He still sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth.

“Fine,” I replied. “Surprisingly fine. He’s in.”

“Good. No word on Ali?”

Him using her name made her less monstrous. “No.” I wanted to tell him my suspicions, but it would hurt him so badly if I was wrong. Hell, it would hurt him even more if I was right.

“I suppose we ought to be thankful for that.”

William glanced over his shoulder as we started through the tunnel, his one eye glowing amber in the dark. “She will have to feed eventually.”

And with that hanging over our heads, we moved on towards Buckingham Palace.

Maybe it was the discussion that I’d had with Vardan, the mention of Church that made me think about the night my mentor and I had fought in these tunnels. The weight of him as I dragged him by the foot into the den was something I would always remember. Sometimes I heard his screams still ringing in my ears. I remembered the taste of his heart.

And if I felt the least bit remorse, I made myself remember
Dede dying on the ground in front of Buckingham Palace, and my former mentor’s smug pleasure at my pain.

If I could bring him back to life, I would, just so I could kill him all over again.

“Are you all right?” Vex whispered.

I glanced at him. “Sure. Why?”

He lifted the hand that was entwined with mine. “You’re holding on a bit tight.”

“Sorry!” I instantly loosened my grip, feeling foolish.

He smiled. “No harm done. Anything you want to talk about?”

I shook my head. “Just bad memories.”

He didn’t press. I’m sure he realised I’d been thinking about Church. He knew more about that night than anyone else, but even he didn’t know all of it. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to tell him.

Finally we reached our destination. As we walked up the steps and filed out through that slightly concealed door into the damp night, I turned my head towards the palace gates.

“Fang me,” I murmured. Of course, my companions heard it – they both had excellent hearing. They also paused to survey the chaos.

Halfies in protective armour, armed with weapons to shock, maim or kill, somehow managed to hold back the dozens upon dozens of humans shouting and raging beyond the fortified walls. The humans wouldn’t get in, even if they killed the guards. There was an electric fence on top of the wall, guards with sniper rifles on the roof of the palace, and more halfies stationed inside the gates. If by some miracle they did get in, the moment they tried to breach the palace they’d be killed by poisonous gas.

Victoria didn’t fuck around when it came to personal security – not after she’d been shot at in her own house.

A ball of flame whisked through the air. I reached up and snatched it before it could land. It was a bottle of something flammable with a ragged old wick stuffed into it. A crude but effective bomb – just like the ones used at Freak Show.

“Xandra.” Vex’s voice held a touch of warning. He knew me too well, the bastard. I was tempted to throw the bottle back, let it light up the Human League when it smashed to the ground.

Instead, I tossed it far enough away not to hurt us and to give the spectators a bit of a jolt.

I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that it was always the humans who started the violence between our kind and theirs. Yes, some halfies retaliated, but that was just it – retaliation. We never attacked first, though we certainly could. Maybe it was because we needed humans as a food source, or perhaps we weren’t as afraid of them as they were of us.

Or maybe we were just sneakier. We weren’t any better for it, I knew that. There was no convincing myself that I was on some moral high ground. Not any more.

“Fucking goblin!” someone shouted. Then a shot rang out.

I barely had time to react, but William was faster. He dived in front of me as the bullet sliced through the air, and took the shot to his chest.

“William!” I cried, dropping to my knees with him as he fell to the ground. I’d tried to catch him but he slid from my grasp, gasping for breath.

The bullet was probably silver, laced with tetracycline. It was particularly effective against us – goblins. It had missed his heart, but I was worried it had nicked a lung.

My friend looked up at me with his one eye. I took his hand. “You better not fuck off on me.”

He smiled, but I could see the pain in his gaze. “Fine is your prince, lady. Couldn’t let the cun—bugger hurt my queen.”

I might have smiled at his sudden censorship, but I was too scared and too angry. First Vex had got hurt, and now William. They were my invincibles, the things to which I clung.

No one was taking either of them from me.

I lifted my head and saw the human running away. He tossed the rifle aside and bolted. Instinct demanded that I chase, even as palace snipers fired upon him.

So I did. I raised my face and sniffed, catching the scent of his exhilaration and fear – his sweat. In the cold and damp, the heat of him might as well have been a cake fresh from the oven right under my sensitive nose.

Yum
.

“Xandra,” Vex said as I started to move. “Xandra!”

I didn’t stop. I didn’t listen. I ran towards the fence, veering left to take me further away from the crowd. They saw me coming – the shouts became louder and more guttural, violent. Flash blubs went off, but I kept my focus on the runner and managed to avoid being blinded.

If any of those humans came within five feet of me, I was going to snap. I think they figured that out as the bones of my face shifted. It hurt – more than usual. The teeth forcing their way into my mouth felt bigger, sharper. It had to be the adrenalin.

I spotted my prey through a line of perfectly aligned trees that gave the palace a bit more privacy but weren’t really thick enough to hide in. He was a good runner, my delicious little cake-man, but he couldn’t outrun me.

A few feet from the fence, I jumped, clearing the electrified barrier and landing on the other side. I crouched as my feet struck, then sprang upright into a full sprint. I wanted to dive forward, hit the ground on all fours and take him down with my jaws around his neck, but I couldn’t do that; I wasn’t William. I growled low in my throat, and my prey glanced behind him.

As he hit the street, and traffic, he began screaming for help – fucking coward. I almost laughed as he ran towards a horse-drawn carriage. Did the idiot realise that he was running up Constitution Hill
towards
Mayfair, rather than away from it? He had probably gone this way to use the trees lining the street as cover from the snipers. It would have been a smart ploy if not for the neighbourhood.

He tried to flag someone – anyone – down to help him, but no one stopped. I couldn’t blame them. First of all, he looked like a madman, and secondly, I was hot on his heels, and I certainly wouldn’t stop if I saw me coming.

I didn’t even tackle him, though I wanted to. Instead, I just reached, grabbed a handful of hair on the back of his head and jerked him backwards off his feet, so that I could turn around him in a strange – but graceful, I must say – dance that left us face to face. I held his hair tight, pulling his head back and keeping him up on his toes. We were pretty much eye to eye.

“You shot my friend,” I said. Fang me, was that my voice? It sounded like it came from a cold, dark pit. It was the growl of something terrible and awful.

I liked it.

My companion did not share my enthusiasm, if the wet patch spreading across the front of his trousers was any indication.
Why did they always piss themselves? Books, films, on the box – whenever someone was supposed to be terrified, they pissed their pants. Mostly it happened to men. I always thought it happened much more on screen than in real life.

It was nasty and unappetising.

“What shall I do with you, eh?” I gave him a little shake. “Fucking human, calling us monsters and then shooting one of us with silver and poison with absolutely no provocation.”

“It
is
a monster. It shouldn’t be allowed to live!” He struggled against my hold. He was going to scalp himself if he wasn’t careful. “It would kill me if given the chance. You all would, you fucking mutants. Abominations!”

“That’s a big word for such a little fellow as yourself.” I tightened my grip, yanking his head back further, and pulling down so that his knees buckled. Now I stared down into his pale face. “He would only kill you if he was hungry. Is that what you planned to do to him? Eat him?”

“Of course not!”

“Then who’s the monster, you little cunt? You’d kill him just to watch him die!” My control was slipping. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, and I could feel the familiar ache of claws extending from my nail beds. I was one big itching ache of bloodthirstiness, and I wanted this little shit’s heart between my teeth while it was still beating inside his chest.

Sirens cut through the roaring in my ears, the bright lights washing the area in blood red.

“Special Branch just saved your life,” I whispered near his ear. I didn’t add that in doing so they’d probably done me a good turn as well.

“Xandy?”

Fabulous. This night couldn’t get any worse. I sighed and
turned. There in front of me was the last person I wanted to see me threatening someone. The last person I wanted to see me like this.

“Hey, Val.”

There’s something humbling about looking into your brother’s face and seeing his expression turn to horror.

“Fang me,” he muttered. “Just relax, all right? You can’t look like that when the vultures show up.”

The press. Of course there would be press. I could hear them nearby, along with police, shouting humans and the whinny of horses. Tabloid reporters loved this kind of shit, as did box news teams. At least the VBC ones would try to slant the story in our favour.

Had I not got myself plastered on enough rags and box screens these last couple of days? When I’d left my father earlier, Vardan jokingly accused me of becoming the face of the aristocracy. I didn’t want to be the face of anything.

I took a deep breath as Val relieved me of my prey. With the stink of urine and sweat gone, I was able to compose myself
rather quickly, so when a bright light shone upon me I squinted, but didn’t look like something out of a nightmare.

At least I didn’t think I did.

“Perhaps you could shine that somewhere other than my eyes,” I suggested, blinded by the glare. My eyes weren’t as sensitive as other goblins’, but lights like that stung like hell.

Someone muttered an apology and the light moved – marginally. “Lady Xandra, can you tell us what happened here tonight?” a woman asked.

I peered around the light, holding up my hand to better protect my eyes. I pulled a pair of dark spectacles from my coat pocket and slipped them on. There, that was better. “A human shot a goblin in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.” I needed to get back there to check on William. He was more important than standing here defending my actions. If a human had chased one of us for attacking someone, they’d be handing out medals right now.

“Can you tell us the circumstances surrounding the alleged incident?”

“Alleged?” I drew my shoulders up straight. “There’s nothing ‘alleged’ about the hole in my friend’s chest. Bottom line is this: we were at the palace to discuss what to do about these unsanctioned research laboratories, how to assure the humans of London that they are safe, and how to protect ourselves against growing Human League violence. In short, we were meeting to discuss making the empire safer for
all
of its citizens, when one of the protesters – who were throwing bombs, I might add – pulled a gun. If he’d shot another human, you’d have him in Newgate by now.”