Prudence

by Gail Carriger

  “Nay, you do not,” the prince replied cheerfully. “Pretty wants to know where her sibling is. The prince knows.” He petted the little goblin on the head as he bared his teeth at me – a smile.

  Sweet baby Jesus. Even my spleen trembled at that awful sight.

  Trying to hide my fear was futile, as he could surely smell it. Still, I had to give it a go. “Would you be so kind as to share my sister’s whereabouts, my lord? Please? I am concerned about her.”

  If there was one thing goblins understood it was blood – both as sustenance and connection. Offspring happened rarely because of their degree of mutation, and were treasured. No decent goblin – and I use “decent” as loosely as it can possibly be construed – would turn down a request that involved family. “New Bethlehem,” he replied in a grave growl.

  I pressed a hand against the boned front of my corset, and closed my fingers into a fist. I would not show weakness here, no matter how much the prince might sympathise with my plight – he was still a goddam goblin. “Bedlam?” I rasped.

  The prince nodded. “She was taken in two nights ago, in shackles.”

  Albert’s fangs. I blasphemed the Queen’s late consort to myself alone. My mind could scarcely grasp the reality of it. “You’re wrong,” I whispered. “You have to be wrong.” But goblins were never wrong. If he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have said. That was their way – so I’d been taught. “Honourable monsters”, Church had called them.

  “Alexandra.”

  I jerked. I shouldn’t be surprised that he knew my name. Of course he knew it. It was the posh way he said it – his voice sounded almost like my father’s.

  He stood before me – I was right, he was my height. The little one remained glued to his side. I had the sudden and inex plicable urge to reach out and pat her on the head, just as I had wanted to do to a tiger cub I once saw in a travelling exhibit. The comparison kept my hand fisted, and at my side. I wanted to keep it.

  “Your prince regrets telling the pretty lady this news.”

  I turned my attention back to him. The pity in his eye almost brought me to tears. Why should a monster pity me?

  “There was an incident at Ainsley’s. The Vardan get tried to stab the earl, she did.”

  That I believed, and therefore I had to believe my sister really could be in Bedlam – where all the special barking mad went to die. Dede and Ainsley had history – a painful one.

  The goblin held out his furry hand, and etiquette demanded I take it. The prince was offering me friendship, and my getting out of there alive just might depend on my taking it, treaty or no.

  I nodded, my throat tight as his “fingers” closed around mine. He was warm. For a moment – and only one terribly mad one – I could have hugged him. “Thank you.”

  He shook his head. “No thanks, lady.Never thank for bad news.”

  I nodded again and he released my hand. The goblins watched me as I turned to leave, but no one spoke. They didn’t even try to tempt me to stay; they simply let me go. I think I despised them most at that moment, especially that little one who waved goodbye.

  My sister was essentially in hell and goblins felt sorry for me. As far as I was concerned, things couldn’t get much worse.

  I stumbled cobbleside on shaky, numb legs. The heavy door closed with a thud behind me as I braced a palm against the closest chipped and pitted brick wall. Scorch marks and faded maroon paint marred part of the once impressive frontage. The two buildings flanking the old station had been empty since the fires of ’32, their derelict state a blemish on the formerly opulent neighbourhood. This end of Down Street looked like it belonged near the docks rather than within the walls of Mayfair. It was still the most exclusive neighbourhood in London, but for the past eighty years it had existed behind high walls of stone and wire, guarded against the possibility of another human uprising. Broken lamps kept this part of the street, unaffectionately nicknamed “Gob Lane”, in the dark. Further up, just past Brick Street, the lamps retained their bulbs, casting a golden glow over the worn cobblestones. Here, grass and weeds poked up from between the cobbles, and someone had propped a broken carriage wheel against the side of the building to my right. Mayfair had its share of ruins, but this was the only one with ABANDON ALL HOPE above the door in flaking white paint, and the only one that still had bloodstains on the threshold.

  My ride was waiting for me where I’d left it – no worries about theft on Gob Lane. I swung my leg over the Butler 1863 motorrad and started the engine. The machine roared to life, and I tore off down the street on three hundred kilos of rubber and steel, my frock coat whipping out behind. I stopped at the gates because I had to, but I couldn’t remember anything John or Mick, the Royal Guards on duty, said to me. I must have given the correct answers because they let me go.

  It wasn’t until I neared Wellington district, and my part of it – the area formerly known as Belgravia – that the numbness eased and I began to feel like myself again. I’d entered the plague den and survived, and now I knew where Dede was. It did nothing to make me feel better, but at least I knew.

  Bedlam. Fang me.

  Why couldn’t she have run off with one of the wolves who were down from Scotland for the season? That was what other Peerage Protectorate girls – and boys – did. Shagged the hairy brutes and protected them at the same time – not that weres needed an abundance of protecting. The Scots were looked down upon by some aristos for being a little too physical, but they were impressive in their strength.

  I pulled the Butler to the kerb outside the house my sister Avery and I shared on the upper west side of Belgrave Square. The closer to Buckingham Palace and Mayfair you got, the older the neighbourhood appeared. In the East End they’d repaved some of the streets, and even had tall buildings, but here almost everything looked as it had two centuries ago. Even the parts that were new had been made to look old.

  It was the same in most cities across Europe with a strong concentration of aristo citizens. The plague had spread across trade routes, taking the Prometheus Protein with it. There were vampires and werewolves all across the continent – halvies too, though the first of my kind had been born right here in London. Or at least, the first halvie in historical record had been. Aldous James was born in 1900. His father was Devonshire, but this was before we took titles as our surnames.

  My house had been built in the 1820s. It was a large town house that used to be part of a huge mansion. My father had bought it for his children, but only Avery and I lived there now. Val had his own flat, and Dede had moved out six months ago, claiming she wanted her own space as well.

  I unlocked the door, slipped inside the darkened foyer and punched the code into the alarm. That was as fancy as we got. When you were half-vampire, and trained to survive and protect at any cost, you didn’t really need much outside security.

  I ran straight up the winding staircase to my bedroom. So far my night off had been a nightmare, but it wasn’t over yet. There was one person who would try to help me if what the goblin prince said was true. I had to get changed and haul my arse to a party in Curzon Street before sunrise in order to find him.

  I had several decent gowns in the walk-in off my bedroom. I had to – Queen V didn’t like what most of us considered fashion, so at fancy aristo functions the Royal Guard and the Peerage Protectorate had to dress to code, females in gowns and men in black tails. Sometimes it was a bit of fun, but other times – like now – it was an exercise in frustration. It wasn’t that the aristocracy fought progress; just that time moved so slowly for them, it took change longer to take hold. They clung to that which was familiar.

  I grabbed the easiest to get into – a pewter-coloured silk with tiny sleeves and long concealed slits on either side of the skirt in case I needed to move quickly or fight.

  My shower took exactly four minutes, including waiting for the water to get hot. I didn’t have time to wash my bright red hair, so I dusted it with shampoo powder, gave it a bit of a back-comb and
twisted it up on to the top of my head.

  The hair thing was often copied by humans looking to emulate halvies, but wigs and dye couldn’t quite get the same shine. Aristocrats had gorgeous hair – thick and rich, with extraordinary highlights due to the plague’s mutation of the pigmentations that determined hair colour. The only way I can describe it is to say that the plague seemed to make everything “more”. With halvies, this pigmentation was often sent into overdrive by our unique maternal genetics. It didn’t happen in all halvies, but the brighter colours were something of a status symbol amongst our kind. My colour, the same red as Christmas barley candy, was highly unusual.

  Clean undies and a fresh corset that hooked up the front went on as quickly as I could manage, followed by stockings, boots and then the gown. I was still fiddling with the zip on the side as I raced back downstairs. I had to get to Curzon Street. I had to find Church.

  It was quarter past three in the morning. Most aristo functions ended around four to give everyone time to get home and into their dark chambers before the sun rose, so that gave me forty-five minutes. Luckily, my destination was less than a mile away.

  I thought of Dede – not of her locked up in Bedlam, but as she had been when we were younger. She’d always been tiny, spritelike. Shiny and sweet and full of life. Our family, especially me, had been so protective of her, but even we couldn’t save her from herself. She’d fallen for Ainsley’s charm as though her bones were made of lead. I’d held her after she lost the baby, crying myself as she sobbed as if the world was ending. I suppose for her it had. I thought she was done with the bastard.

  I turned on to Grosvenor Place. Checking the traffic, I saw something in the park to my right that made me put my foot down to stabilise the Butler and look again.

  “Fang me,” I muttered. Why now, of all times? I had somewhere to be. I did not have time for betty-bashing.

  I lifted my foot and whipped the machine between two cars – the space from the boot of one to the bonnet of the other was just large enough for my ride. I kicked the stand and jumped off. Skirt hitched, I raced along the pavement, wishing I’d worn my arsekicking boots instead of the pointy-toed, hourglass-heeled ones that matched my gown. Still, I was fast and quickly caught up with the people I was chasing.

  There had to be at least a dozen of them. From their swagger and their cricket bats I pegged them as bubonic betties – humans who injected themselves with aristo hormones. Eight male and four female, dragging what appeared to be two unconscious people along the dimly lit path. Despite the dark I could see the two of them very well, see the blood on their faces and the jackedup state of their captors. And I could see their hair – the girl had blue and the bloke’s was purple. They were halvies, and they were in trouble.

  “Oy!” I shouted as I approached. I didn’t even have a weapon in my hand. My ID I’d shoved inside my corset as soon as I jumped off the motorrad.

  The men didn’t listen to me, of course. I hadn’t expected them to. The females at least glanced in my direction. I yelled again and picked up the pace, running past them to cut them off. “Let them go,” I said as I stood before them. I had no delusions of getting out of this unscathed, but defeat wasn’t an option.

  “Sod off,” retorted one in a deep, low-brow voice. They were all in the vicinity of six feet tall andwore black clothing. In the sparse light I could see the sores on their faces, the blackened tips of their fingers. Aristo hormones gave them heightened senses and strength, but the price was an early and painful death. Sometimes they cut the drug with silver nitrate to lessen the harmful side effects, but it weakened the potency and increased skin-blackening.

  That was what the plague did to those not of royal blood.

  “Let them go,” I repeated through clenched teeth. I had somewhere else to be, damn it, and these fuckwits were taking up minutes on my ticking clock. Still, wouldn’t have been right of me not to intervene.

  One of the males from behind came forward. The breeze that carried his scent to me brought the smell of unwashed flesh, stale sweat, blood and the early whiff of decay. “It’s another one,” he said in a cockney accent so thick I could have spread it on toast. “Another dirty half-blood.”

  Well, at least I now knew that these Samaritans weren’t simply helping two sick halvies home – as if the thought had even crossed my mind. Fucking humans. They hated us, tried to kill us, but poisoned themselves so they could be more like us. “Hand them over to me and there won’t be any trouble,” I said.

  The betties laughed. They always did – like the laughter track on those American sitcoms broadcast on the pirate box stations. With my bright hair and my expensive gown I obviously didn’t look like much of a threat.

  The chuckles stopped pretty abruptly when I slammed my shin into Stinky’s wedding tackle. The breath rushed out of him in an animalistic moan. As he sank to his knees, I jobbed him between the eyes – twice – and laid him out cold.

  “You beauties going to let them go now?” I asked sweetly as the betty crumpled at my feet. “Or do I have to humiliate each and every one of you?”

  Of course they didn’t oblige me. I’d just relieved their mate of his manhood and my taunting only made them further obligated to exact a little revenge. Two of them came at me – one straight on and the other sneaking around behind.

  Albert’s fangs. I was still shaky from the goblins, hungry, tired and I’d forgotten to take my supplements – again. All I wanted was for them to leave the halvies alone so I could get to the bloody party on Curzon Street and talk to Church. They were standing in the way of me getting help for Dede and I did not have time for this shit. Those limp halvies had better hurry up and metabolise whatever the betties had given them, because I was on a schedule.

  The betty up front came at me swinging. I ducked, but not enough. He caught me on the right jaw with a solid blow that knocked my head back and pissed me off. I came back with two quick punches to his gut, and when he bent double, the wind knocked out of him, I brought my knee up and broke his nose. Then I pivoted, whipped that same leg up – thank God for my split skirt – and brought the back of my heel down on his skull. He hadn’t hit the ground when I whirled around to take on the next betty. She wasn’t expecting me, so she went down a little faster than her friends.

  Somebody really ought to tell them that bubonic-derived steroids might make you faster and stronger, but that wasn’t much help up against someone even faster and stronger and better trained. It would be like me taking on Church – no contest.

  Three down. Only nine more to go. C’mon, halvies, wake the hell up.

  Two more came at me. These two actually had weapons. No matter how strong you are, a crowbar to the temple hurts. I tried to shake it off, but while I was recovering from that, another betty punched me hard in the stomach, and I wasn’t wearing a reinforced corset. When he attempted to break my nose as I had his friend, I kicked him hard in the side of his opposite knee. He screamed, but he didn’t go down immediately. That required a tap or two on the noggin with his own crowbar, which I then used to render his companion incapacitated. She went down a bit easier than he had.

  Seven more. My head hurt – enough that I couldn’t quite ignore it. I would probably bruise.

  One of the women came at me. Her lips were grey, and the skin on one side of her neck was patchy and black – swollen. She wouldn’t live much longer than a fortnight. I could be merciful and kill her here and now, but I wasn’t feeling overly merciful at the moment. She’d taken the plague willingly; let her ride it right to its ever-suffering end.

  My knuckles split those cadaverous lips. Infected blood splattered across the backs of my fingers, soaking through the thin silk of my gloves. I had the sudden urge to suck the coppery warmth out of the fabric, but I ignored the craving as the bleeding betty recovered and came back swinging. I grabbed her raised arm with one hand and twisted hard.

  It’s an odd sensation, feeling bone break beneath your fingers. She crumpled with a
scream. I backhanded her with my other hand, hard enough to knock her backwards and end all that nonsense.

  The other betties didn’t seem to know what to do. Out of the six remaining, only two of them had their hands free – the others were supporting the dead weight of the battered halvies.

  One of the female halvie’s eyes was swollen shut. The fact that she hadn’t woken up yet worried me. And then, as the next goon stepped up, I saw her foot move. One boot came up, the sturdy sole planted firmly on the pavement. She was waiting for me to dig in before she caught her captors unawares. Smart girl. Lazy, though, letting me do the brunt of the work. How long had she been awake? The male was coming round as well. This was going to become knobbed-up very quickly.

  I didn’t have any more time to wonder about it as another girl betty came at me, brandishing a cricket bat as though I was the only thing standing between her and total victory. She swung and I ducked, the edge of the bat bouncing off my shoulder. “Fucking hell!” It hurt – but only for a couple of seconds. Adrenalin is a wonderful thing.

  I didn’t have much time, as the rest of them had finally begun to think with that one dim-witted brain they seemed to share, and had realised that if they ganged up on me they might stand a better chance. Thankfully, the halvies chose that moment to jump into the fray and began battling it out with the betties who had been holding them. The humans never saw it coming.

  Blood screamed through my veins, my heart thumping wildly. Fang me, but I loved a good punch-up. At the Wellington Academy – where all halvies were educated and trained – I’d excelled in violence. Church held me up as an example to other students of how to fight. No goblin was ever going to take me down without a struggle again.

  As if to prove that point, I delivered a walloping kick to the betty’s head with the side of my boot. She was a little tougher than the last, however, and came staggering back at me, bat held high above her head as though it was a claymore and she was William fucking Wallace. I rolled my eyes.