Neither Jerome nor Lady Ciu spoke. If they were counting to three, they were doing it to themselves, listening to their own heartbeats.
Then they moved. There was no signal, no word spoken, nothing – but they both slid into action at the same second. Lady Ciu dashed towards Jerome even as his hand fell to his holster. Her sword rose as he aimed. The movements were almost too quick for Irene to see.
Lady Ciu’s sword blocked the bullet.
The crack of the gunfire mingled with the sound of bullet against steel, and the shot ploughed into the marble floor. Lady Ciu’s blade cut from high to low, as Jerome fired a second time.
They stood for a moment like statues. And then Lady Ciu sagged, her hand clasped to her shoulder; but Jerome fell. Blood pooled around him, black against the white marble floor.
He shuddered as he lay there. ‘Not quite . . .’ he whispered.
Lady Ciu took her hand away from her shoulder. It was dark with blood. ‘You are the first man in sixty years to have wounded me,’ she said. ‘I salute you.’
Jerome smiled weakly, then went still. His fingers lost their grip on his gun.
Lady Ciu turned to Irene and the others. ‘Well? Will you surrender, or must I come after you?’
Irene turned away from Jerome’s body, as if in shock – which was genuine enough – to whisper unobserved into her headset. ‘Indigo, when I give the word, turn on every single alarm in the building at top volume. Can you do that?’
‘If I do, people will come,’ Indigo said.
‘Do it anyway. We need the truck here. Right away.’ Then she locked eyes with Kai, mouthing: ‘Get everyone to cover their ears. Now.’
Below, Lady Ciu sighed. ‘Very well,’ she said. She strode towards them, bloodied blade naked in her hand.
‘Now,’ Irene said into the headset, and ran forward, urgently beckoning the others.
She’d underestimated the sheer volume that the entire building’s alarms could produce. Urns trembled in their niches. The statue of Theseus stabbing a centaur shook. Dust came loose from the ceiling, showering down in a choking mist. The noise was deafening: it shivered her bones and drilled into her skull. These alarms weren’t designed to go off all at the same time and at this volume – especially not with humans present.
Or Fae.
But especially not dragons.
If it was painful for Irene, it was that much worse for Lady Ciu. She sank to one knee, her hands pressed against her head – though even in her pain, she didn’t let go of her sword. Her dark glasses came loose and fell, and for a moment Irene saw the wide band of scarring across her face, like an old-fashioned domino mask. My eyes are my least important sense . . .
There was no time to gawp. Staggering in the turbulence of sound, Irene and the others charged down the stairs, clipping the statue of Theseus with the canvas – Irene winced – then they were down the final flight, and out into the central hall. Kai was worst hit by the noise, his keen draconic senses doubly punished by the volume, but he was somehow still upright, still moving.
There was no time to stop for Jerome’s body. Irene could only hope that he’d been telling the truth when he’d said this was what he’d wanted – and that he hadn’t been disappointed by his final gamble.
Even through the noise, Lady Ciu stayed alert. Her voice was inaudible as her lips moved in curses, but her fury was obvious.
Light pulsed around her.
She’s going to take dragon form, Irene realized in horror. In an entrance hall this big, she has the space to do it . . .
The canvas-carrying team faltered. Felix and Ernst had possibly never seen a dragon assume their natural form before. Kai of course had, which gave him all the more reason to hesitate before advancing. Irene grabbed Felix by the shoulder, dragging him on. The sound of screeching wheels was just audible over the shriek of the alarms. ‘Keep moving!’ Irene gestured and shouted, loud enough to make her throat hurt. ‘Don’t stop!’
Lady Ciu’s shape resolved as they stumbled past – a dragon, huge and serpentine, great tail lashing as her wings strained outwards. Her natural colour might have been the dull yellow-brown of sandstone, but in the thin moonlight she was a mass of shifting shadows, a flow of muscle under rippling skin. Scars marked her face in this form as well, an intaglio of silvery lines like watermarked silk. She lowered her head, her long neck sweeping round as she tried to locate the smaller figures scrambling past her.
They had bare seconds until Lady Ciu gave up trying to find them and blocked the exit instead. Irene threw herself against the barred entrance and called, ‘Doors, unlock and open!’ The doors heard her, even if no one else did, and undid themselves and swung wide open. She could only hope Lady Ciu hadn’t noticed over the alarms.
But the boom of heavy wood as the doors slammed open couldn’t be missed. With a thundering snarl of pure fury, the dragon twisted her body to strike.
Irene threw herself through the doors and down the steps outside, into the cold night air, almost falling as she slipped on the smooth marble. Their truck was there, engine running. Felix was a step behind her. Ernst, carrying pretty much the full weight of the canvas, staggered out like a javelin-thrower with the world’s biggest spear. It sagged at either end as he charged down the steps and dragged it towards the back of the lorry.
Good, one of us has the sense to keep to the plan, Irene thought. But she couldn’t look away. Not till Kai was out safely.
A great coil of dragon body slid past on the other side of the doorway, and Irene thought of boa constrictors tightening around their prey. She still couldn’t see Kai.
‘Come on!’ Felix yelled.
She’d pulled Kai into this. He’d only come on this mission because of her. She was not going to leave him in there. The words in the Language for brick, mortar, marble and come apart tumbled through her mind as she prepared to demolish the museum’s entrance to get him out of there. Whatever it took.
And then Kai launched himself over Lady Ciu in an acrobat’s smooth jump, rolling head-first down the stairs in a graceful somersault.
Irene bit back the commands that she was forming, just waiting to be spoken. Her relief was too huge for words, which for a Librarian was huge indeed. She ran to where Felix was scrambling into the back of their vehicle and leapt up beside him, holding her hand out for Kai. They crowded into the confined interior, already full of Indigo’s computers, with the great roll of canvas propped crossways like a huge inconvenient cigar.
Lady Ciu’s draconic cry of thwarted rage drowned out the alarms and rattled the glass in the windows. The bronze statue of the Empress Maria Theresa in the square outside shivered on its plinth. Then the dragon slid through the wide-open museum doors, her wings tight against her body.
Tina hit the accelerator and the truck lurched into desperate speed, jolting along the park’s paths and out onto the road.
There was chaos on the streets of Vienna. Traffic surged through the main arteries of the city, spurting at top speed when it could – slowing to an aggrieved crawl when it hit police or CENSOR barricades. Their stolen CENSOR vehicle gave Irene’s group some leeway – police waved it through without hesitation. But it also made them terribly conspicuous.
Irene squeezed Kai’s hand, beyond grateful that he was out safely, then turned to Indigo. ‘Are we being followed?’
‘By CENSOR? Not yet. By Lady Ciu? Look out of the window and tell me yourself.’
Tina was hunkered over the wheel, jiggling in her seat as she steered the truck between two cars and into an impossibly tight gap in the traffic. In a momentary glare of streetlights, Irene could see she was chewing gum as if her life depended on it, with a manic grin on her face.
Felix scrambled into the front passenger seat. He lowered the window, letting in a blast of street fumes and noise and cautiously poked his head out – then yanked it back in. ‘We’ve got trouble,’ he said. ‘There are two of them up there.’
‘Is the other dragon blue or grey?’ Indi
go asked.
‘Greyish? I wasn’t exactly holding up paint samples to match its colour.’
‘It’s Shu Fang, then. We could have a problem.’
‘The wind’s picking up,’ Felix replied hopefully. ‘That should inconvenience them, right?’
‘The wind’s picking up because Shu Fang’s out there,’ Kai said, cutting in. ‘It’s her element. And even if Lady Ciu can’t spot us among the traffic, Shu Fang definitely will. There can’t be that many CENSOR trucks near the museum.’
‘Well, damn.’ Tina jerked the lorry into a right turn, and all of them grabbed something to hold onto. Indigo cursed under her breath as she steadied her keyboard. Horns outside screeched in protest, and voices emboldened by the night and the anonymity of traffic yelled insults at the CENSOR vehicle. ‘We’ll never make it to the Kaisermühlen tunnel if they’re right on top of us. It’s another ten minutes across town . . . at least.’
The first draft of the plan had involved Tina simply driving the truck between worlds, in the same way as they’d arrived. But if they were being actively followed by dragons, either the dragons would pursue them from one world to the next, or the dragons’ metaphysical ‘weight’ might tether them to this world. So they’d decided to use a large tunnel, where Tina could shift worlds unobserved. The problem with this was now becoming clear; it relied on having a head start.
Irene glanced at Felix. He was looking uncertain, indecisive, as if he wanted a place to hide. If the lorry hadn’t been rocketing along the road at eighty miles an hour, he’d probably have jumped out and made a run for it. All right. I can do this . . . time to take charge. ‘Indigo, can you report the dragons to CENSOR as a major supernatural threat? They could actually do their job for once.’
‘You think I haven’t already tried?’ Indigo spat. Her rapidly typing fingers gleamed in the light from her monitors, and her eyes flickered red. ‘Someone’s in the system and actively working against me. I’m having enough trouble stopping anyone putting our truck’s number plate out as stolen.’
‘But who . . . Hao Chen? Or his minions?’ Irene said, remembering Hao Chen’s links to CENSOR. They’d simply let him go during the casino incident. ‘It could explain why he’s not up there with Lady Ciu and Shu Fang.’ She realized another unwelcome fact. ‘And if you try to clear the traffic between us and the tunnel electronically, CENSOR will spot that. If the dragons are in league with them, they’ll know where we’re going . . .’
‘So do something about it!’ Indigo demanded. ‘I’m doing my part of the job. You do yours and buy us some time. Otherwise we’ll be trapped here – they’ll have stopped us and spotted us before we can get out of here.’
‘“Spotted us and stopped us”, is the order I would expect,’ Ernst pointed out.
‘Do not contradict me!’ A glare of streetlights showed the snarl on Indigo’s face. ‘I will not be taken alive.’
A gust of wind hit the lorry side on, strong enough to make it sway on its wheels. Then in a great fanfare of car horns and screaming, something came down on the roof. The lorry shook under its weight, and Tina muttered curses as she struggled with the wheel. Long rasping shrieks of claws against metal came from the roof as the dragon began to slice its way through.
Irene grabbed for the taser at her belt, and Ernst pulled out his gun. ‘Hold steady!’ Irene called to Tina. At least nobody would get in the way of a truck with a dragon perched on its roof, but it was small consolation.
Something in the lorry’s roof gave with a crack, and a limb tipped with steel-bright claws ripped through.
Tasers were only made for incapacitating humans, as Irene knew. However, the Language could get round that. ‘Electroshock weapon in my hand, deliver your full charge into that dragon’s flesh!’
The flaring discharge lit the crowded lorry interior with a flash of blindingly harsh light. It outlined everything and threw black shadows against the floor. With a scream the dragon clinging to the roof dragged herself loose, shaking the battered vehicle so hard that it nearly came off its wheels. They rocketed forward as Tina slammed her foot on the accelerator.
‘It’s only due to pure luck that your idiocy hasn’t fried all my computers,’ Indigo said between her teeth, with the careful control of a woman inches away from severing heads. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘No time. Sorry.’ Irene looked around at the motley crew. ‘Any thoughts about what to do next? We’re still not out of this world.’
Then one of Indigo’s computers chimed, and Hao Chen’s voice came through loud and clear. ‘Good evening to those of you hacking CENSOR. We wish to talk.’ He paused. ‘Unless you’d prefer to die instead.’
‘How’s he talking to us?’ Felix demanded.
‘Broadcasting on a CENSOR channel,’ Indigo said. ‘Are we going to answer?’
‘Can’t you counter-hack his computer and make it blow up or something?’
Indigo’s expression of utter scorn was more acidic than vitriol. ‘Hacking doesn’t work like that.’
‘Well, sod hacking, then,’ Felix muttered. ‘Anyone got any other bright ideas?’
Kai’s eyes were on Irene. ‘If I go out the back and take my proper form, I could distract them,’ he suggested. ‘My colour wouldn’t be enough for them to identify me . . .’
Irene couldn’t take that chance, for the sake of the treaty – and for Kai’s sake. Why had Lady Ciu been so eager to learn whether Jerome was employed by a dragon or a Fae? Why would dragons want to steal such a thing? If Kai appeared and confirmed to her that a dragon had been involved, he wouldn’t get away easily – if at all.
‘No,’ she said firmly, assembling her thoughts. ‘Tina – you need a long run-up to get away, because of the load you’re carrying, right? Two dragons and a Librarian, as well as three Fae and the truck itself?’
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ Tina replied, swerving round a pair of cars which had collided in the centre of the street. ‘No offence, but you’ve got weight.’
‘I know, I know, it’s all the sachertorte.’ Irene swivelled back to Indigo. ‘Can you give me a temporary channel to Hao Chen, and cut it off whenever I signal, so that he can’t hear us?’
‘Easily,’ Indigo said.
‘Here’s a new idea,’ Felix suggested. ‘If we can get up to a high place and have Tina drive off, would she be able to make a transfer to the next world – before we hit the ground?’
‘Not in a lorry,’ Tina said, without turning a hair. ‘Could do it in a plane. Have done it in a hang-glider. But not in this. Besides, it wouldn’t sort out the problem of dragons following us.’
‘Okay,’ Irene said. ‘Felix, we need to buy time. Can we play good cop/bad cop over the audio connection? I’m the hardliner, you’re the reasonable one who wants to negotiate.’
Felix nodded. ‘I can do that. But what are we buying time for?’
‘We need to get to the nearest underground garage. I know there’s one nearby –’
‘There is, but once in, we wouldn’t have enough run-up to escape through it,’ Tina said. ‘Even if it gets us out of sight of the dragons.’
‘It would,’ Irene countered, ‘as long as some of us get out, first.’
‘Connection made,’ Indigo said, hitting a key. ‘You’re through.’
The wind outside shook the truck again. Irene raised her voice. ‘Hello CENSOR! We are the independent association of mages and supernatural beings, and we demand that you immediately cease all operations against our kindred!’
There was a pause. ‘You’re what?’ Hao Chen said.
‘Independent association of mages and supernatural beings,’ Irene repeated. ‘We don’t have a cool acronym yet. We demand immediate release of all our colleagues from your prison camps – and law reform!’
Hao Chen snorted. ‘Don’t be stupid. We know what you really are. I’m here to negotiate your surrender. Or death.’
‘Wait!’ Felix managed to interject real panic into his voice. ‘We can be reas
onable about this. I know the painting’s important to you. How about we make a deal?’
‘Fool!’ Irene snapped at Felix, doing her best imitation of an irritated aristocrat – Lord Silver would have been proud. ‘These people won’t listen to anything except strength. We should burn the painting. Now.’
‘Someone hold her down!’ Felix told the empty air. ‘Look, whoever you are, you said you’re willing to discuss terms. What can you offer us?’
‘Well, your lives, for a start,’ Hao Chen began. ‘And if you’ve been paid for this attempted theft, then—’
Irene gestured to Indigo to mute the connection.
‘Right,’ Indigo said, as Hao Chen continued to offer freedom, money and possible employment opportunities. ‘He can’t hear you. What do you mean, some of us get off first?’
‘You, Kai and I leave the truck as soon as we’re in the garage. Would that lighten the load enough, Tina?’
‘Piece of cake.’ Tina turned a harsh left, directly against the oncoming traffic, and shifted her gum. ‘But what about you?’
Outside, in the windswept night sky, one of the dragons roared. The noise rang across the city, echoing in the bones of the humans below. A panicked howl of vehicle brakes and alarm bells answered, and all the Fae in the truck winced.
Irene looked around at the unlikely team. Tina, only interested in the road ahead; Kai, unreasonably trusting, utterly reliable; Ernst, inscrutable as ever behind his thuggish archetype; Indigo, focused on her work, as bright and brittle as lightning; and Felix, jittering in his seat. ‘Kai and Indigo can fly me out. They won’t be looking for three people on foot – and we can leave once we’ve lost the dragons. But you’ll need to wait for us –and your word on that would be really reassuring.’
The Secret Chapter Page 20