King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,91

someone had given her a tissue – and glanced up, she found herself in a conference room, three people murmuring to one another at the end of the table. One was du Lac. Another was a man with a bulldog face, and the other was a woman with short hair and sharp eyes.

All of them turned to Rose as one. She imagined du Lac’s expression to be encouraging.

“Rose Greer?” the woman asked.

“How do you know my name?”

“We have resources,” she said, coolly. “Can you tell us what happened tonight?”

She blinked, eyes gummy and dehydrated.

Beck’s gone, she thought. My Arthur Augustus. I was his Rosie, and he’s gone. That was all that mattered.

~*~

She could tell they didn’t know what to do with her. Someone had produced Miss Tabitha’s forged paperwork, and then produced her original paperwork. She was a legal adult. Du Lac vouched for her, and kept her from being taken into custody. She didn’t explain the knives she wore, and no one asked, nor took them from her.

She stood at a window in the small break room where they’d installed her, untouched paper cup of tea in her hand. Her breath slowly fogged the glass, but she could still see the mayhem unfolding; more cars than normal, pedestrians hurrying, hiding under awnings.

She heard someone come into the room behind her. Du Lac said, “We’re getting the first reports in from a fishing vessel in the Atlantic: the Rift is opening again.”

Just a few days ago, she would have gasped. Would have looked at Beck and said, “What do we do?” Now, she didn’t respond. She was so, so empty.

“According to the local authorities, there’s already been calls about people acting strangely. Fires.” He moved to stand beside her, resting his fingertips against the glass. “Heaven and hell on earth,” he murmured. “Things are going to get – bad.”

Things had never been good. She’d had one bright sliver of time – but that was over.

“Rose.” He turned toward her, she could tell. “I want to help you. It won’t be safe here in the city alone. There are secure locations. You’re good with a knife.” A weak chuckle. “We’ll be recruiting soon, I’m sure, if you want to join up. It’s not pretty work, but there’s food, and it’s…it’s somewhere to belong.”

But she didn’t belong anywhere, not if Beck was gone.

“I want to go home,” she croaked.

He sighed. “Okay.”

~*~

But home wasn’t home anymore. Not with the front door standing open, and the drawers of the hall cabinets ripped out, paper scattered across the floor. With the lamps smashed, and the rugs ripped up. Not with a chair through the screen of the TV.

Kay lay on the hall runner on the second floor, outside of what had been Rose’s bedroom. Crumpled on her side, impossibly small, one arm flung out, hand limp, fingers curled. Her neck had been snapped.

Rose knelt beside her, felt for her pulse; her skin was cold and smooth as marble. Her glasses were askew. Rose removed them, carefully, folded them, and pressed them into her hand. Then she closed her eyelids.

Went into her room, and packed everything she could carry. Shirts, pants, socks, underwear, toothbrush. Essentials. She already wore all her knives. She pocketed her phone.

The jewelry box caught her eye, as she turned to leave, miraculously untouched. Inside lay the gold ribbons, and gleaming nuggets of old money; a legacy of a family no longer alive.

The grief welled up, sharp as a heart attack, and for a moment she thought it would choke her.

She swallowed it, though.

From the box, she took the ruby rose ring, and the matching necklace. Fastened the ring to the chain, and then the chain to her neck; tucked the jewels down inside her shirt collar, to rest alongside the crown, already warm from her skin.

Every king needs a queen.

Arthur Augustus Becket’s queen dropped a kiss on Kay’s cold forehead, walked down the stairs, and out the door, and never looked back.

~*~

For three days, a jagged white shape like a bolt of lightning hovered over the Atlantic Ocean. The images on the TV screen resembled the ones she’d seen in the books in Beck’s library: humans glowing; humans performing miracles that looked like murder. Fires. Death.

Only now, there were two kinds of conduits. Two colors of fire dancing on the screens during broadcasts. And humans weren’t the central targets anymore. No, now there was a proper war being waged.

Good and evil.

Things did get bad, as Lance du Lac had said they would.

But.