Read Online God Save the Queen (The Immortal Empire) by Kate Locke - Free Book Online

audio system. The small metal tube stored hundreds of songs on its internal memory – a vast improvement from the wax cylinders used a century and a half ago. Like so many other blokes I knew, Val had a thing for electronics, and he liked to play loud music when he drove. Today he had the noise at a decent volume – I could still hear the rain on the roof. I only half-listened as Sid Vicious warbled a slightly off-key, yet strangely melodic version of “Luck Be a Lady” from the Frank Sinatra tribute album he’d released last month.
    I couldn’t get Dede out of my head. I still didn’t believe she was dead, but a lump of dread sat like cement in the pit of my stomach. What if I was wrong? What if all the trust I put in my instinct and blood was nothing but ego?
    “Did you ring Vardan?” I asked, rejecting the doubt in my mind.
    Val didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Avery did on the way to find you.”
    “How did he take it?”
    He shot a dry glance in my direction. “How do you think? He was stunned, just like the rest of us.”
    I may have imagined the slight barb in his voice, but I ignored it regardless.
    It took us almost half an hour to reach our destination. The Triumph was fast, but traffic was heavy, the road stuffed with motor carriages much like the Triumph, horns blaring and engines revving. It never failed to grate upon my nerves. I was more accustomed to Mayfair, where horsedrawn carriages were more the norm, and motorists were much more relaxed.
    Eventually, we reached our destination. Of course there were no open parking spots on the street when we arrived – all the pay posts were taken. Fortunately Val had brought his Scotland Yard permit, which he placed on the dash so it was visible through the windscreen. Normally I would have teased him for such a cheeky abuse of power, but not today.
    “You don’t have to do this,” he said to me as I opened my door, umbrella in hand.
    I looked at him and didn’t feel any conflict between my head and my heart. That was how I knew I was doing the right thing. My gut was another matter – it rolled and churned as though trying to digest itself. Just the sight of this place was enough to make me want to puke. “Yes I do.”
    We braved leaving the dry warmth of his carriage at the same time, both of us as protected as our gear allowed. We ran together through the opening in the wrought-iron gate topped with lengths of metal twisted and formed to spell out the name Bedlam. Water splashed up my boots as I hurried up the paved walk to the impressive columned portico.
    The asylum formerly known as New Bethlehem Hospital didn’t look like a house of the damned. It wasn’t dark and monstrous, falling down upon itself. In fact, it was quite the contrary – a fact that only served to make it all the more intimidating. It was a long, sprawling red-brick building with white trim and a dome on top. Three storeys high, it had to have six dozen windows along the front of either wing – most of those were barred.
    “Almost looks like a country house, dunnit?” Val remarked, his words echoing my thoughts.
    “Mm.” It was as much conversation as I could offer through my clenched jaw. My palms were beginning to sweat and there was a hot, prickling feeling in my torso. When we reached the shelter above the steps, we stopped running.
    And then my feet didn’t want to move at all. I stood there, just beyond the rain mark on the stone, frozen like a fucking statue.
    Val shook the water off his umbrella and turned to me. “You coming, Xandy? Xandra?”
    I blinked and met his gaze. The pins and needles inside me had grown insistent. I could feel them in my head now. “I need a little help, Fetch.” That was what I’d called him when we were still in the courtesan house, so long ago now that I didn’t even remember how the moniker had come to be.
    His face softened and for a moment I thought he might actually break down, but he came towards me, holding out his