Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (20 page)

Fee looked as though she didn’t know what to make of this, but realised she had no say in it. If she was going out, she was going with Rye – and vice versa.

Geared and armed, we prepared to leave. The goblins went underside, to search catacombs and tunnels; the rest of us were cobbleside. Everyone was equipped with a small square from the sheets that had been on the bed Ali had slept in during her brief stay in the den. She could change her look, but smell was smell. If we could find her scent and keep hold of it, we’d find her.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just hang about the palace and wait for her to show up?” Avery asked.

“If we weren’t trying to save any potential victims in the time it takes her to get there, sure.”

An odd expression crossed my sister’s face. “The humans. I forgot about the humans.” She looked much more upset by the realisation than I ever would have been. I wasn’t in favour of human death or suffering by any means, but I wasn’t about to forget their penchant for violence, or put their survival above my own.

I patted Avery on the shoulder. “I can’t keep it straight if we’re supposed to fight against them or for them.” It was true.

The inconsistency of my feelings toward humans was as back and forth as my feelings for Ali.

Instinct told me to love and protect her. She was my child and my responsibility. My heart still hoped she could be saved, while the practical side of me knew that wasn’t likely. I didn’t want to be the one to hurt her, but another part of me wanted retaliation, vengeance against her.

Since I couldn’t trust my instincts or feelings, I decided to trust my gut and concentrate on just stopping her rather than saving or ending her.

I turned to Vex. “Any vamps show up?”

He surveyed our gathered ranks from his superior height. “Couple of halfies. Not like we really got the word out though, did we?”

He had a point. It wasn’t as though my father could have done much in this short a time anyway, but a few halfies at least had decided to come and check us out. They wouldn’t learn anything from us if they were spies. Still, it would have been nice to have a few more fangs in the ranks – if we knew who we could trust. There were too many vampires involved in the labs to know for certain.

Vex frowned over my head. “Well, that’s unexpected.”

I turned in the direction he was looking – the front door. There at the threshold was Lord Ainsley, Dede’s former lover and father of her child. He was pretty much a rotten bastard, but he had my nephew, and he’d given me good information from time to time.

He was also a full-blooded vampire, who knew about the labs. He had two halfies and another vampire with him. The vamp was Viscount Ockham, grandson of the poet Lord Byron.

“Ainsley,” Vex said by way of greeting as the blonde vampire drew closer.

“Kintyre,” Ainsley replied, using Vex’s proper title as a marquess. Then to me, “Your Majesty.”

I didn’t even wince, though there was something about him that made me feel as though I required a shower. “What are you doing here, Ainsley?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “Vardan said you might appreciate some assistance in finding the creature from the lab. We’re here to help.”

Vex appeared just as dubious as I felt, but Ainsley fixed me with a steady gaze. “We can’t afford a war with the humans, and these laboratories and experiments affect us
all
.” He arched a brow.

How could I have been so stupid? Of course he would want to help. He was the father of Dede’s son, the son he was now raising as his wife’s. If anyone figured out that his pure-blood son actually had a halfie mother, that child could become another victim of these aristos. Even if they didn’t harm him, they would want access to him, would want to monitor him, just as they’d monitored me.

I hadn’t thought of Vardan’s limited involvement with the experiments and other activities as a way of keeping a watchful eye and protecting his child. Then again, I was beginning to learn just how short-sighted I actually was.

I offered him a square of the cut-up sheet and a tracking device. “Here’s her scent. Don’t engage her. Ring for reinforcements. She can shape-shift, so trust your instincts and your nose.”

He paused, holding the items I’d given him. “Shape-shift? You mean into a wolf?”

I wished. “I mean into other people, other forms. I saw her become my sister.”

There was no denying the pain in his eyes. I didn’t like him, but I think at one time he had loved Dede as much as anyone could love her. I’m not sure any amount of love would have been enough for my baby sister.

“Wellington district,” I told him. I had thought Vex and I would search there since it used to be my home neighbourhood, and that Ali might know that, but I’d realised there was a better place to look. In fact, I was ashamed of not thinking of it before this.

“All right!” Vex’s voice boomed through the house, immediately quieting our gathering. “The goblins have a head start. You all know where you’re going, so go. Be back here an hour before dawn.”

It didn’t leave us a lot of time, but we still had several hours ahead of us. Someone would surely at least catch a whiff of her somewhere.

The doors opened and our party spilled out into the dark. I waited on the step for Vex to join me. We were the last to leave.

“So, where are we going?” he asked.

I reached out and took his larger hand in mine. “Home,” I said. “We’re going to the only home she’s ever had.”

The laboratory looked sinister by moonlight. It was deserted, a gouged-out ruin scattered with broken glass and misshapen metal.

“Did you take the logic engines or did they come back for them?” I asked.

Vex stood beside me with his hands in the pockets of his long wool coat. “We got a few. When I went down, everyone lost focus.”

I turned to face him, laying the palm of my hand over his broad chest. “I’m glad they lost focus.”

He smiled and covered my fingers with his. “I wasn’t about to expire without seeing you again.”

I blinked and looked away so he couldn’t see just how rattled I really was. Part of me wanted to break up with him – honestly – but it was better to be at his side and afraid than apart and feel just as helpless.

Not a big fan of helpless, not at all.

“I remember when they discovered how halfies were conceived,” Vex commented, as though picking up on my train of thought. “It was such an amazing thing. Now, I realise that they must have been experimenting back then. They had to, to figure it out. I know you feel like so much of this is because of you, but it started a long, long time ago.”

His words reminded me of what Victoria had said earlier, that this wasn’t all about me. I was glad of them, but they also made the world seem so vast, this fight so… futile, and shamefully less personal.

“Vex, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to stop her if we find her. I don’t know how to stop a war. I don’t know if we
can
stop a war.”

He shrugged, his usual relaxed self. “Your instincts have been dead sharp through all of this. I’d keep listening to them if I were you – minus the mad ones, of course.” He smiled.

I stared at him, throat tight. His faith in me was unwavering and undeserved. “I love you.”

He pulled me close, kissed me, squeezed me, and then let
me go. Neither of us said another word as we silently picked our way through the rubble. I tried to ignore all the blood. Some of it was Vex’s – I could smell it – and it ignited panic deep in my chest. I was overwhelmed by the need to protect him.

“I don’t smell her,” I said after we’d poked about for a while. “Nothing fresh.”

“Agreed.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’m thinking your hunch about someone picking her up is the soundest thing we’ve got to go on, which means they do have some way of tracking her.”

“She wouldn’t come back here to be safe, because they’ve got her somewhere safe already. Somewhere we’d never think to look.” I smiled grimly. How could we have missed it? Fucking brilliant. We’d set out to search every neighbourhood but our own.

Vex nodded, expression grim. “She’s in Mayfair.”

Ali’s scent teased the back of my nose, like a sneeze that refused to come. The smell of her was in the lab, and lingered at the spot where she’d eaten the motorist. It was at Vex’s and in the den, and because everyone had a bit of those sheets, the smell of her was all over us too.

It made it very hard to track her in Mayfair.

Maybe they hadn’t brought her here, but my gut insisted I was on the right path. Vex told me to trust in my instinct, and I was. They would know how to subdue her. They would know how to care for her – which was why she hadn’t killed anyone else. If I could have a corpse delivered, someone else could too – or they were giving her blood. If I thought it would do any good, I’d check with the agency to see who was getting more blood than normal, but they didn’t give out that sort of information. Wasn’t good for business.

But where would they keep her? It would have to be so very, very secure, and I had to think that there weren’t many Mayfair mansions with such facilities inside. After the Great Insurrection, quite a few aristos had built special rooms in their homes in case there was ever another uprising, but those were designed to keep humans out, not aristos in.

So what was the reality of this situation? I reckoned someone wanted Victoria out of the way, but why? Was it to stop a war, or start one? Were her enemies looking to replace her, or demolish the monarchy altogether? Had Ali been made in order to kill Victoria or to increase the aristo population? Or both? And was I supposed to be the one to take the blame? Or did she simply look like me because of her genes, and she was going to kill Her Nibs while wearing someone else’s face?

Where the hell was she?

We had returned to Mayfair almost immediately to follow up on my suspicion, and I was beginning to doubt my instincts along with my sanity. We’d traversed the streets following our noses until the scents became muddied and we couldn’t tell if we were on the right path or not.

I stood on Vex’s doorstep and tasted the air. She was out there. Somewhere.

Then something else hit me. Was that… blood? Yes, it was. It was familiar too, but then so many scents in Mayfair were. That was the problem, and with so many halfies, vampires and weres out and about, it was extremely difficult to pin down just one.

A few from our search party had already returned, their sectors yielding nothing of use. Rye and Ophelia had come back after catching Ali’s scent around the house I once shared with Avery. They followed the trail back to Mayfair, where it
dwindled away. It was as though someone had taken pains to ensure we couldn’t find her.

As if they knew we were going to organise a search. Did we have a traitor in our midst? Of course we did. Probably more than one. Even if it wasn’t intentional, there was no way to keep anything secret with this many people in on it. I should have known the bloody thing was a waste of time. Should have anticipated that our unknown enemies would swoop in to protect their creation and their own arses.

I stood in front of Vex’s home and sniffed the crisp air once again. It smelled like snow. Snow and blood.

Vex joined me on the step. “Do you smell that?” he asked.

I nodded. Neither of us said another word as we walked towards the gate together – slowly. Cautiously.

Vex opened the gate, and as we stepped out on to the pavement, a man staggered towards us – he was the source of the blood. Was it all his? He was covered in it. When we got close enough, the fog in my nose cleared – like taking a snort of coffee beans – and his scent hit me like a brick.

My father.

I ran to him just as he fell to his knees on the pavement. He looked like something out of a horror film – slashed and beaten. Chewed. Christ, there were bites taken out of him.

“Vardan?” No response. “Father?” His left eyelid twitched.

Had Ali done this? It had to be her – that would explain the trouble I’d had immediately identifying him when my sense was overwhelmed with the scent of her. He stank of her – just like the rest of Mayfair.

His blood soaked my hands, soaked the ground beneath him. And all I could do was just kneel there, staring at it.

Vex swept the duke up into his arms and ran back to the
house with him. That was the jolt I needed. I jumped up and followed close on his heels. My father was taken to the small infirmary Vex had set up for such occasions.

“He’s lost too much blood,” Vex said. “He needs to feed. If he can.”

I didn’t like the look in his eye. My father was on the brink of death, and I couldn’t save him. He didn’t even have enough blood left in him to heal, and mine would only hurry his death.

“I need a vampire!” Vex yelled. My father could take Vex’s blood, but the most beneficial would come from the veins of his own kind.

“Here.” It was Ainsley who rushed to help. He bit his own wrist as he prised Vardan’s mouth open with his fingers, then shoved the torn flesh of his arm to those dry lips. It was a crude but expedient way of giving blood in an emergency.