The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (9 page)

Penny’s notes went back almost six months. The first entries were in point form, pages from a calendar: “23 February–Jacob, sword swallower, never showed for work.” Then, a fortnight later, “Still no sign of Jacob. No one has heard from him. Flat empty.”

Around March and April she began keeping more detailed accountings. There were three disappearances in March, each on a different night of the week, but all three busy nights. The three were all patrons, and according to Penny, the kind of person that wasn’t likely to be terribly missed. The Prometheus protein could lurk unnoticed in regular humans; that was what made courtesans so popular with aristocratic men. Sometimes aristos did the nasty with humans who weren’t courtesans and didn’t know they were carriers, and that was when these unexpected halvies were born. Often they were ostracised from their human families and left to their own devices once the social system was done with them. A few made it into the Academy, but many did not.

“Four disappearances in April,” I remarked aloud when Vex refilled my coffee mug with French roast. “Albert’s fangs, did no one notice?” It’s not like half-bloods are so numerous.

“Penny did,” he commented, sitting down at the table.

I looked up and met his gaze. “Besides Penny. Why didn’t the rags run this?”

“People disappear all the time, Xandra. Four halvies in April, God knows how many humans. It only makes the papers when there are bones to be picked clean.” He didn’t like the press.

A bitter taste rose in the back of my throat. “I suppose they’d blame the goblins.” But goblins wouldn’t nab a halvie–it was against the treaty, and goblins had more honour than I would have given them credit for two and a half months ago. If a body was tossed into the tunnels, the goblins considered it carrion and the treaty didn’t apply. It was only because they’d scented me on the corpse that my friend Simon’s death became public at all. If not for the goblins’ loyalty, he’d just be one of the missing.

“There are more monsters out there than just goblins. Humans torture and kill their own all the time. I’m not saying it’s right, just that missing doesn’t make a story.”

“Some people run away,” I murmured, thinking of Dede. “Some disappear because they don’t want to be found.”

“Do you really think that’s the case with Freak Show?”

I shook my head. “No. It would help if we knew if there was anything special about these halvies.”

size="-1">Vex went still. “You mean like you. Like Duncan.”

I nodded. I knew it pained him to talk about his son, so I wasn’t going to dwell. “I’ll have to talk to Penny. Maybe she remembers something she didn’t write down.”

My wolf frowned. “Special would mean these abductions aren’t random.”

I dumped sugar into my cup. A lot of it. “Val’s certainly wasn’t.” I stirred my creamy coffee. “I should have taken all those files in Church’s safe.” He’d had a stack of folders on “different” halvies. One of those files was mine, and that had
been my main concern when I broke into my dead mentor’s office.

“You reckon his safe’s been cleaned out?”

I shrugged. “Probably, but it wouldn’t hurt to check, I suppose.” Fang me, even from beyond the grave Church wouldn’t let go of me.

“One of us should talk to Ophelia.” From the tone of his voice, I knew which one of us he thought that should be. My half-sister had been abducted and experimented on, and she had a number tattooed on her arm to prove it. Our mother had rescued her from a facility.

A splinter of fear dug into my insides. If the people who took Ophelia, Val and Duncan were the same, then they were the sort who would love to get their hands on a goblin who could walk in the sun and looked like a half-blood.

What the fuck was I getting myself into? How much danger would looking for Val bring down on my head? How long before I was a target?

It didn’t matter. The danger to me was irrelevant. I wasn’t trying to be a hero; I simply couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to bring my brother home safely. I had failed Dede. I could not fail Val.

“I’ll talk to Ophelia,” I said. Hadn’t she extended an invitation anyway? And if she could help me find Val, then I’d gladly apologise for almost killing her. “I’ll ring her in a bit.”

Penny shuffled into the room clad in a purple silk kimono and slippers, her short dark hair mussed and not a lick of make-up on her flawless skin. She was female to me and had been for years, so it was odd to see her with stubble, faint as it was.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I quipped.

She smiled–it was tired but genuine. “It’s not fair that you look so gorgeous without a face on. Morning, sexy.” The last was directed at Vex.

He grinned and poured her a cup of coffee.

“There’s French toast and sausage in the oven,” I told her. “You two certainly know how to treat a girl.”

I waited until she was at the table and had eaten the better part of her plateful before asking her if she could remember anything unusual about the missing halvies.

“They didn’t have any special powers or horns growing out of their heads,” she replied, sitting back and crossing her legs. “At least nothing that I ever noticed, but then I never thought there was anything unusual about you, ducks. No offence.”

“None taken,” I assured her. I’d never known there was anything off about me either. Not really. Though the things I had noticed made perfect sense now that I knew the truth.

“Although…” Her brow puckered, but immediately smoothed again. She rubbed at her skin as though she could smooth out any wrinkling the expression might have caused.

“What?” I prodded when she didn’t immediately go on.

“The two of you know about the private rooms at the club?” I got the impression this was something she could get into trouble for telling us about if we didn’t already know.

I nodded. “I’ve seen the one where you can spy on aristos feeding. Vex has seen it too.” Though he’d assured me that he’d never been on the other side of the glass.

Penny sagged in relief. “Several of them participated in the… entertainment. Aristos will pay good money to a halvie for a tickle and a pint.”

She didn’t mean beer. “Blood whores?” A crass term, but succinct.

“Not on a professional level,” she replied. “It happens a fair bit–aristos see someone they like the look of and offer them compensation for opening a vein. They rarely take the same person twice.”

I turned to Vex, my gaze locking with his. Sometimes a person’s blood tasted different depending on diet, species, etc. It could be that the aristos were doing a little taste test to see if the halvies were unusual. It was a bit of a stretch, though. It would make more sense to take blood samples and send them to a lab for testing. It was what I had done with my own blood, and what had got Simon killed.

“A couple of them were related,” Penny added. “If I remember correctly, there were at least two sisters taken, and another pair were brother and sister.”

Vex glanced at me. “That supports your theory that these are unusual halvies.”

It certainly did. Genetics was a grand thing.

I frowned. My maternal sister had been experimented on. My paternal sister had given birth to a fully plagued child. I was a goblin.

The blood rushed from my face.

“Xandra?” Vex frowned. “What is it?”

“What if Val wasn’t taken just because he stuck his nose in where he oughtn’t?”

His mouth tightened. “This is not because of you.”

“No,” I agreed. I didn’t feel the need to shoulder this particular responsibility. “But it might be because of my genes. What if Ophelia was taken because our mother was turned into a were?”

“Your mother was what?” Penny demanded, wide-eyed.

“My mother was bitten when she was pregnant with me.
The change took. That’s how I became a goblin–because she was special even for a courtesan. Dede said someone had come for her before she went into Bedlam.” I didn’t mention her baby. That wasn’t something Penny needed to know. “Clearly some interesting genes run in both sides of my family, so maybe Val was taken to see if the pattern held true.”

“If that’s the case, why haven’t they nabbed you?” Penny asked.

“Church had plans for me,” I told her flatly. “I reckon I’m a little too high-profile for them. People are going to notice if I go missing. It would be in all the rags.”

“Val’s a copper. Isn’t that high-profile too?”

“Cops go undercover. Sometimes they go missing. Sometimes…” I stopped.

“They die,” Penny finished, saying the words I couldn’t. “How much time does he have?”

“I don’t know.” I hated feeling this helpless. “Depends on how usewids on hoful he is.”

Tears filled her dark eyes. “We have to find him, Xandra.”

I reached out and put my hand over hers on the tabletop. “We will.” Val’s disappearance might not have been my responsibility, but finding him was.

I just hoped that when that moment came, it wasn’t in a goblin tunnel.

While in the Wellington Academy for Half-Blood Educa tion, all students have a small tracking chip injected beneath their skin. This is, we’re told, for our own safety. It’s nothing quite that simple. It’s an intrusion into our privacy, a way to keep tabs. However, it could also be quite useful in times of danger.

I’d had my chip cut out of me shortly after Church’s death, and then I personally destroyed it. Right now, I was hoping that the people who had taken Val hadn’t decided to do the same thing. It was a slim hope, but all I had at that moment. I’d called the Yard, but they refused to give me details on Val’s case, or confirm that he was even on one that involved Freak Show.

Had my brother been poking about off the books? Maybe Special Branch didn’t know any more about it than I did. I’d
curse Val for endangering himself with a secret investigation, but even I was aware of just how pot vs kettle that would be.

Penny had a friend who was something of a techno-genius. Once she had dressed for the day–it took two hours for her to get ready–she climbed on the back of the Butler with me and we went to visit this friend while Vex took care of some pack business. I had called Ophelia and set up a meeting for later that night, so Vex decided he’d go to one of his clubs that evening and see if he could get information out of any of his cronies who took advantage of the feeding opportunities at Freak Show.

He also had the horrible suggestion that he look into whether or not there’d been an increase in horror shows here or abroad. I refused to think of my brother being bled and fed on to death on a stage for the enjoyment of a bunch of sick aristos. I didn’t mention it to Penny either.

If I thought Avery a living doll, Penny was even worse. Her off-hours kit was a purple and green confection of ruffles and bows with a snug satin corset and high lavender boots that laced up the front and had bows down the back. In black and white striped trousers, black boots, white shirt and black corset, I felt positively plebeian next to her.

She had a parasol too–sunset wasn’t for another three hours–but knew better than to put it up while the motorrad was in motion. The goggles I gave her pouffed up her blonde wig, but would help keep the false hair in place as we weaved in and out of traffic.

Her friend Lester lived near Covent Garden, in a brown brick and cream stucco building with a shop on the ground floor. I found a pay post for the Butler nearby, and slipped my
goggles on to the top of my head once the Butler was stable. “Is that him looking out the window?”

Penny glanced up to where a sliver of a face peeked from between a narrow opening in the shabby curtains. She waved. “It is.” The curtains jerked closed. “He’s such a knob.”

I didn’t care what he was. He could spend the entire visit in a cupboard if he wanted,d ww just so long as he could get a fix on Val’s signal.

We entered the building through a narrow door and climbed a creaking set of equally narrow stairs to the first floor. The hall was dim, with a slant of sunlight through one window, catching dust particles. The place smelled of old age and mothballs.

A worn rug covered the dip in the floorboards in front of a door numbered 1A. Penny sashayed right up and rapped her rings against the wood. “Lester, darling, it’s Penny. Do open up.”

There followed the thunk of a deadbolt and the slide of a chain lock. The door opened a fraction, revealing a dark eye with a rather wild look about it set in a pale face. The eye shifted from Penny to me and back to Penny. Lester closed the door again, released the chain lock, then opened the door completely. “Come in.”

I arched a brow as I crossed the threshold, unsure of what to expect when I stepped inside. A cross between a museum back room and a bird’s nest, perhaps? Instead, I discovered myself standing on a freshly scrubbed floor in a space as sterile and tidy as an operating theatre. Everything was old and worn, but spotless. Paranoid and obsessive-compulsive. Wonderful combination.

I sneezed. Industrial cleaners were hellish on a nose as sensitive as mine.

Lester was watching me narrowly. He was a little man–shorter than my five foot seven–thin, with a thick head of curly dark hair that desperately needed to be cut. He wore a pair of khaki trousers with a crisp pleat and a starched white shirt, and highly polished oxfords.