ABSINTHE PERLE
Louis Girard & Lyon
She put down the bottle, picked up the tray, and started to walk toward the door. She didn’t turn around, even though she could feel someone’s eyes on her between her shoulders. She pushed the door with her elbow—and heard a soft, short laugh behind her. Or maybe her imagination was smiling, aroused by the strangeness of this place?
Cardsharp was waiting for her, tense like a hunting dog. When he saw the door open, he threw himself at Nicole, but Gumshoe blocked his way and sternly held out a hand. Cardsharp stopped and irritably put a bottle of potion in his open palm. The door shut, and he cried out, “Hold the tray a little more, dear!”
Gracefully, with a single long, fluid movement, he uncorked the absinthe, poured it into the glasses, and grabbed one of them.
“Faster, take it!”
Gumshoe took the tray from Nicole and placed it on the pavement, and only then did he pick up their glasses. He gave her one. Nicole picked up the pastry.
Cardsharp’s eyes were shining.
“I would like to propose a toast to the most valuable thing that exists in this world: my health!” He downed the glass in one gulp, sighed, and rolled his eyes.
Gumshoe drank calmly. His face was expressionless. Nicole carefully sniffed. Bracing herself, she poured the liquid into her mouth all at once. It took her breath away, but it was actually quite tasty. Her eyes teared and her head started to spin slightly. She shifted from foot to foot, and Gumshoe grabbed her by the waist as if she were about to fall. She stepped away and tossed the pastry into her mouth—almost rakishly, like a cowboy suavely throwing a gun into his holster—and swallowed it almost without chewing. The pastry was enchanting . . . or so it seemed. After the absinthe, Nicole hardly tasted it.
With no thought for his suit, Cardsharp lowered himself onto the pavement in front of the tray, sitting down cross-legged. He reached for the bottle—he no longer needed company. Leaving him to commune with the absinthe, Gumshoe and Nicole made the now-familiar trip back to the Collector’s House. Staggering slightly from the strong drink, Nicole leaned on Gumshoe’s arm.
The copper Head met them with a gloomy, suspicious look.
“Open the door!” Gumshoe demanded threateningly, stepping closer. He was holding the open bottle of potion behind his back. From her vantage point behind him, Nicole saw an oily liquid swishing around in the bottle.
“The key!”
Something clattered from behind, as if a large stone had fallen from the roof and was splitting on the pavement. Nicole jumped and turned around, but the dead end was completely empty.
“What’s there?” Gumshoe threw back disjointedly without looking around.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Keep watch for now.”
But she was much more interested in watching Gumshoe pour the drink into the Head. Nicole looked at the square again—it was empty—and turned back to the door of the house.
The Head stared morosely at Gumshoe.
“Open up,” Gumshoe ordered.
“The key!” the Head retorted.
Gumshoe lifted the bottle to the copper lips and tilted it. There was a gurgling sound, and the Head gagged. The metal started to move as if it were alive, and the lower jaw started to twitch. Nicole held her breath.
The copper face’s expression changed. The eyes popped out more, and then narrowed. Now, the Head looked far more alive and human. It frowned in confusion, wiggled its brows, and blinked. The mouth opened.
“You again?” It turned out that the copper guard did, in fact, know more words. “I’ve told you—” Glug . . . glug . . . glug . . . (that was Gumshoe pouring the last of the potion into its mouth). “Aha! I swear on my copper beard, what is this drink of the gods that you’ve poured down my throat? Glorious swill! Imagine, somehow I’m hanging—”
“Where are you hanging?” Nicole asked in surprise.
“What do you mean, ‘where’?” the Head let out a roar. “Here, on the door. Where else could I possibly hang? You see, somehow, I’m hanging at my workplace, and a pigeon flies up! Well, not alone—with its friends. And what do you know, they circle over me. And coo. Circle and coo, circle and coo, so they danced before my eyes. I was patient for as long as I could be, but then, how I shouted at them! And out of fear, they . . . well, you know what pigeons do. Anyway, I felt very decorated until the next rain. And then—”
“Listen, we want—” Nicole began, but the Head wasn’t even thinking of listening.
“And then another thing: I started to think about getting married. I found myself a head, an excellent mistress . . .”
“The key!” Gumshoe barked in a thunderous voice that briefly interrupted the Head’s rhythm. It blinked and said, “What? What key?”
“To the door that you’re hanging on.”
“Key? To the door? Man, it’s under the mat.”
“Huh?” Gumshoe was confused.
“Huh? Under the mat! For crying out loud, where else would it be?”
Nicole and Gumshoe stared at each other.
“Don’t look at me,” she said quickly. “You’re my Sherlock Holmes, and I’m your Watson. You’re supposed to think, and I’m supposed to do—that’s how it works.”
Gumshoe looked like he wanted to punch himself in the forehead. The Head kept babbling. “Just don’t go anywhere! I haven’t had anyone to talk to lately. All I do is say the same thing: ‘key, key,’ but what can you do? That’s my job. It’s nice to just talk—why, if someone could take me down in return! Where was I? Right: I decided to get married. I found a decent bride. Sure, she was from a poor family, but to make up for that, she worked, even if she was a little bit of a blockhead. Hahaha! That was a joke, a play on words! And . . . and . . . and . . .”
The Head was stuck—with a squeak, the jaw began to twitch, as if a hinge had jumped off the groove. Then inside, there was a snap, and the Head again started to expound, but Nicole was no longer listening. She lifted the mat, found the round key under it, showed it to Gumshoe, who in response, only sheepishly spread his arms, and inserted it in the keyhole that was hiding in the Head’s mouth. She turned it. The Head choked on its monologue and started to make a screeching sound.
Gumshoe pushed on the door, and it opened with a quiet creak. Before them lay a dark entryway with an umbrella stand in the corner, an empty coatrack, and a stairway leading upward.
Choking on the key, the Head babbled something unintelligibly. Unfamiliar sounds came from the street that the dead end met. Nicole looked around but didn’t see anyone. Gumshoe pulled the key out of the keyhole, forcefully pushed Nicole inside, went in after her, and slammed the door shut. The lock clicked. The quiet of a long-abandoned house surrounded them.
After they left the roof, Mike and Lilith crossed the square and entered the dead-end street. At the end, in front of the Collector’s House, two people were standing with their backs to Mike and Lilith. The Inquisitors could hear muffled voices.
In the wall of the house on the left, a gap appeared by the door. The Inquisitors turned into it and stopped, looking out.
“Is that her?” Lilith asked quietly.
“Yes. And Gumshoe. He’s definitely pretty small.”
“That’ll make it even more fun to kill him.” She removed from her neck one of the tubes she had received from Weapon Maker. “We have time. We know that it’s not easy to open the door to the Collector’s Hou—”
At that moment, the copper door swung open. Lilith gasped with irritation and pitched forward. Mike flung himself on her. He had not yet come up with a way to outsmart Lilith, yet he did not intend to let the one fall into Lilith’s clutches.
The girl who had landed on the square the previous night stepped into the House, and Gumshoe, entering behind her, closed the door. The lock clanged and snapped, and the dead-end street became quiet. Lilith hopped toward the door and tugged on the massive handle.
“How did they open it?” she cr
ied. She shoved the door in a rage.
Aware of the senselessness of the endeavor, Mike leaned on the door with his shoulder. If the House didn’t want to open to them, there was nothing they would be able to do about it. Suddenly the copper head on the door started to gurgle. It began to laugh. It said condescendingly, “Well, why are you two smarties pulling on the handle? That’s pointless, it’s not going to open no matter what—the key is inside now. Idiots! So, what am I . . . ow!”
The Head let out this last sound when Mike hit it in the jaw. The metal under his hand was unexpectedly pliant; it was like embedding his fist in clay. The Head distorted, the lower part crumbled, and the jaw and beard receded deep into the door.
“Fwat are you foing?” the Head started to mumble, insulted.
“How do we open the door?” Lilith bellowed, leaning on it.
“I don’t—”
“Open the door.” Pulling off the cap from the index finger, Lilith aimed it at the Head so that the nail nearly touched the pupil. “Open it right now, or you’ll lose an eye!”
“But I’m just a keyhole!” The Head’s lower jaw snapped back into place, and it started to speak clearly. “I can’t—I don’t know how! Only with the key!”
“Where’s the key?” Mike asked.
“Those two—the sweet couple inside—have it! They went in and shut the door. I’m only—”
“This is the end of you, copper!” Lilith pronounced ominously.
Mike took her by the elbow and said, “Wait a bit.”
“Shove off!” she grumbled and exerted pressure, threatening with a long nail in a large, protruding eye. The Head screamed wickedly.
“We’re going to need him,” Mike said. “Knock it off.”
Instead of answering, Lilith pushed him away with her elbow.
Mike knew how to behave with women—in any case, with women like this one. He grabbed her by her thin waist, lifted her off the ground, and hurled her away from the door.
Lilith began to scream hatefully. She rolled along the pavement, hopped into a crouch, and showed a hand with splayed fingers. She had time to pull off three more caps, and shining, purple, beastly claws were aimed at Mike. She jumped, swung her arm like the blade of a sword, and approached him. Her eyes spun and her upper lip lifted, revealing small teeth.
“Looking for trouble, Inquisitor?” Lilith hissed.
Mike grinned in response, internally preparing for an attack and struggle with the furious Inquisitor. He answered with a hint of scorn, “We’re not going to go into the House now. That’s clear. That means that we need to keep watch for when they come out. And ambush them.” He paused and added, “So, think about that!”
Lilith took two more steps. The anger on her olive-toned face turned into thoughtfulness. With the next step, she straightened her back, and with the next one, she dropped her arm. Mike moved to the side, tensely watching her. Lilith stepped toward the door and barked in the face of the Head, which had screwed up its eyes, “We’re staying close by. We’re going to keep watch. If you betray us to those two when they come out, I’ll prick out your eyes and slit your rotten mouth to your rotten ears! When they show up, start chattering to them so they don’t think about danger. Got it?”
“Yes!” the Head shouted without opening its eyes.
Lilith turned away from the door—and suddenly threw herself at Mike. She clutched his shoulders hard, jumped on him, entwined him in her thin, strong legs, and fastened her lips on his.
Mike felt desire and arousal. He turned around and pressed her back to the grating on the window, but Lilith pushed him away and jumped down onto the pavement, lasciviously licking her lips.
“My, how you take liberties, Inquisitor. We don’t have time for that nonsense. I can’t wait to catch the girl . . . and return to your room, and there, nothing will stand in our way!”
“Get your weapon out,” Mike answered calmly. “They could come out any second.”
Showing the Head a fist, Lilith walked away from the Collector’s House, swinging her hips, and he followed her. When he caught up, he indicated the gap in the wall of the building where they had hidden before and said, “They could look out the windows, so we’d better hide again.”
“I know that,” she snapped back.
Inside, she found what she had been holding in the case on her belt: a small, folding wooden crossbow covered in black varnish that looked graceful and lethal. Lilith pulled apart the two halves of the bow and secured them. From the quiver on her belt, she pulled out a short, featherless arrow with a heavy tip that glowed with green sparks. She placed it in the bow, took one of the tubes from Weapon Maker off her neck, unbolted it, and looked inside.
Mike, who had turned away from her, stood up in the gap. The house with the copper door was twenty steps away, and that meant that the two people who would come out of it would have nowhere to go. Now the one couldn’t be saved from the Shadow . . . unless Mike killed Lilith.
He looked stealthily at her—and saw that she was giving him a sidelong look. Lilith was on her guard—she was always on her guard. Until now, she hadn’t had a reason to be suspicious of Mike, but still . . . she was suspicious of everyone. Everyone, except for Master. And her animal passion for Mike would in no way prevent her from betraying a lover. Should he throw himself on her now? If it weren’t for her poisonous and sharp, deadly nails hidden under the black caps, he would have taken the risk.
Let things slide. No matter. He would handle her.
Mike’s hand crept toward the knife, the very one that he had used last night to deal with Albino. Since the morning, when Lilith had awoken him, Mike had been waiting. This had already gone on too long. His patience was nearly exhausted, and the moment to take matters into his own hands had come. First: do away with Lilith. Second: capture the one. Then get Gumshoe out of the picture so he would no longer be in the way. Hide the girl in one of the secret places that no one besides Mike knew about. Tell Master that Lilith had perished at Gumshoe’s hands and the one had escaped. Mike didn’t know what would happen after that—the City wasn’t a place where you could plan too far ahead.
His fingers squeezed the handle of the knife. But in the next second, he caught sight of a dull, dark blue ball on a thin chain hidden in Lilith’s unfastened collar, deep in the groove of her chest. Mike had not previously noticed it next to the two transparent tubes from Weapon Maker hanging around her neck, but now, Lilith had taken them off.
The blue ball. The Shadow’s eye. She had taken it with her.
That meant that this whole time, Master had seen what they were doing.
Mike loosened his fingers on the handle of the knife and turned away from Lilith. It would be impossible to deal with her right now—Master would find out and quickly finish with Mike. All he could do was act how he was supposed to act as an Inquisitor and loyal servant of the Shadow.
Sooner or later, the copper door would open, letting out the two people who had entered the Collector’s House.
And then, one of them would be killed and the other would be taken captive. Now, it was inevitable.
Chapter Five
“The Mascara ended up in your hands for a reason,” Gumshoe said.
They were slowly ascending the wooden staircase. A few paintings hung on the walls, which were overlaid with ornamented oak panels. The paintings were impressionist landscapes in huge gilded frames. The carved railings were covered in chipped varnish, and spider webs softly waved in the corners.
“Why do you bring that up now?” Nicole asked.
“Oh, I was just thinking about it. In the City, nothing happens by chance. It’s an absolute rule. I realized it soon after I got here. At first glance, everything seems chaotic and random, but in reality . . .”
He fell silent. The wooden steps did not creak, although they should have. The House was quiet. The quiet wasn’t malevolent, and not even mysterious, just a dusty, ingrained, deep quiet of a long-abandoned building, a quiet that no one had
broken for years.
“In reality, what?”
They had walked up a large portion of the staircase, which ended at a small, square landing with a single door.
“The fact that you ended up here last night isn’t random. Something shifted in the City, something we can’t see, and it pulled you here. Your appearance set off a chain of events. Events that, for the time being, are hidden from us, secret events, but we’ll soon see—something has started that didn’t exist before. It’s like unseen cogs of a huge, complex mechanism have started turning, and it has come to life.”
“And this Mascara, the fact that I found it, is one of those events?”
“Yes. It’s an important object, like your pendant. Don’t give it to anyone.”
“Okay,” was all she said.
They lingered in front of the door and exchanged glances. Gumshoe, as if ashamed of his uncharacteristic timidity, boldly pushed it. It did not escape Nicole that as he did this, he kept his right hand under the flap of his unbuttoned jacket.
They were met by a vast study. The dim sunlight penetrating the grated windows looked like a sunset because the walls were almost entirely draped in cherry-colored fabric. The room held a dark blue rug and high-quality, antique mahogany furniture—Nicole had seen things like it in antique parlors. In fact, the study called to mind a parlor. It was crowded with writing desks, small tables, small shelves, and chests of drawers. The room was filled with all sorts of appealing knickknacks and books in huge covers. On the closest shelf, there was a row of seven porcelain elephants, arranged by size.
But the far end of the study was empty. There wasn’t even a rug—just a dusty, mosaic parquet. A curtain hung on the wall.
Pulling back the side of the curtain, Gumshoe looked behind it and said, “There’s a window that looks out on the dead-end street we know so well. To be honest, I was hoping to see the street of my hometown.”
“Not me.” Nicole shrugged. “It’s much more interesting here than in the real world.”
“That’s for sure.” Gumshoe snorted. “But it’s also more dangerous.”
Hidden City: The Shades of Silence (Book 2) Page 6