‘I think it must be the Iron Brotherhood,’ Irene answered. ‘They probably followed Silver.’
‘Oh, this is simply getting ridiculous,’ Bradamant sniffed. ‘Which way next?’
The insectoid robot head swivelled to focus on Irene and Bradamant. It took a jointed pace down the corridor towards them, the claws attached to each segment of the body dragging it along and leaving horrible gashes in the wood. Its top scraped the ceiling, bringing down cobwebs that had probably been centuries in the making, leaving a long swathe of scoured white plaster in its wake.
‘Go right,’ Irene shouted to Bradamant on no particular evidence, and ran in that direction. She was already calling vocabulary to her mind – words for gears, joints, pedals, steel, glass, struts and nuts and bolts. But there was always the chance that the construct would decide to chase Silver and the werewolves rather than them, and it seemed a shame to wreck it if so.
‘It won’t work, you know,’ Bradamant said, catching up and outpacing her. ‘Do you seriously think that thing won’t chase us?’
‘It’s worth a try,’ Irene gasped. She turned and looked back over her shoulder.
The iron automaton came jolting forward in a screeching rattle of steps, then halted as it reached the junction. With a whirr the head turned to edge itself into the passage that Bradamant and Irene were running down. Its shoulders began to creak after it, manoeuvring so it could bear down the passage after them like an oncoming train.
Irene and Bradamant looked at each other.
‘I’ll do the gears if you do the joints,’ Irene said.
‘Right,’ Bradamant said. ‘Give it a moment so that it can block the junction.’
The robot managed to half-negotiate the turn. Its claws dug into the floor as inner springs rewound themselves. The huge lenses set into the head reflected the two women, mirror-like. If they were in fact windows, it was impossible to see who might be lurking behind them.
‘Gears, lock up!’ Irene shouted, pitching her voice to carry as far as possible. ‘In head, in claws, in body, and in every part which can hear me – gears, seize solid and stand firm!’
The robot came to a standstill in a horrific mechanical screaming of blocked joints and gears. Even the distant howling of the werewolves was drowned out. Wires and cables tensed and broke. One claw rotated backwards, caught itself in the floor at an angle, and snapped. And a fragment of steel went flying, pinging off the wall with a high-toned ring of metal, audible even over the noise of the machine destroying itself.
Both women turned, and ran down the corridor away from the thing, past closed offices and storerooms. The air was full of fresh dust, the smell of oil and burnt metal. A part of Irene’s mind wondered if it’d make tomorrow’s front pages. Probably. She didn’t like making headlines. A good Librarian was supposed to read headlines, not make them.
‘There!’ Bradamant pointed unnecessarily to a stairway ahead of them. They plunged down it at a run, Bradamant swinging wide on the banister at the curve and almost hip-checking Irene. The door at its base opened on to the ground floor, revealing a room full of shells and corals. Several family groups turned to look at them disapprovingly.
Irene smiled her iciest smile, brushed some of the dust off her skirts, and took a firmer grip on the precious ledger. Behind her, Bradamant whispered something to the door lock. Irene couldn’t quite make it out, but it had the cadence of the Language.
Hopefully they had a couple of minutes before any werewolves, Fae, Iron Brotherhood, or other book-hunters caught up with them. Irene spotted a small office on the other side of the room and caught Bradamant’s eye. ‘Over there,’ she suggested, jerking her chin towards it.
‘Absolutely,’ Bradamant agreed.
The two of them walked decorously across the room, skirting glass cases full of dried sea anemones, brittle polyps, and other brightly coloured objects that were probably happier when they’d been underwater. With a polite nod to an elderly man shuffling along behind a walking frame, Irene quietly tried the handle of the office door.
‘Is it shut, dear?’ Bradamant enquired quietly.
‘Oh no,’ Irene said, keeping her voice down. ‘In fact, this door is open.’ The Language rolled in her mouth, and the handle loosened under her hand, turning obediently to let the pair of them in.
‘Not bad,’ Bradamant said, closing the door behind them. She looked around for a key, saw none, and muttered, ‘Door lock, shut.’ The lock clicked to again.
Irene glanced round the room. It was clearly someone important’s office: the desk and chairs were newer than the ones downstairs, the pieces of artwork and diagrams hanging on the walls had frames, and there wasn’t any dust. ‘We’d better not take too long,’ she said, walking over to the desk. She sat down and flipped the ledger open. ‘Someone might come in at any moment.’
‘My dear Irene,’ Bradamant said, raising her hands to adjust her hat and her hair, ‘I may not be able to handle a set of werewolves and an angry Fae, but I can certainly handle one museum official. Especially as he is overweight.’
‘Overweight?’
Bradamant’s smirk was obvious in her voice. ‘I don’t need to be a great detective like your Vale to look at the chair you’re sitting in and see that it’s usually sat in by an extremely fat man.’
‘Oh,’ Irene said, a little stung. Just because she had her own particular tastes in fiction didn’t mean that she liked to be sneered at about them. She flipped through the pages, looking for entries dating two days ago. It arrived five days ago, then three days after that he would have sent it on . . . ‘Ah!’ she said, finding the date. ‘Mm. He’s had a lot of packages going through. Professor Betony must get a lot of mail.’ She ran her finger down the page, looking for a mention of Wyndham’s name. ‘Got it. Package from Lord Wyndham, redispatched to—’
‘To Dominic Aubrey, British Library!’ Bradamant said in shock, reading over her shoulder.
‘Of course!’ Irene slapped her hand against the desk. ‘You said it yourself, Dominic was indiscreet in what he told Wyndham! And Wyndham was afraid of Silver striking at him or trying to steal the book.’ Well, technically a cold iron safe would keep a book safe from any thieves, not just Fae ones, but Silver had known to look there for the book. ‘If Wyndham wanted to hide the book from Silver, and if he knew more or less about Dominic, or at least if he knew for certain that Dominic was an enemy of Fae in general, and Silver in particular . . . Wyndham must have sent this package before his death, once he had the copy of the book made, the one that you stole.’ She was aware that she was getting incoherent, and she took a deep breath. ‘He must have expected to get the book back from Dominic later.’ Suddenly her earlier fears about Dominic returned to her. ‘But that means—’
A bright pain knifed into the side of her neck, as sharp and vivid as a wasp’s sting. She would have exclaimed in shock, but the words were somehow fuzzy in her mouth and her lips were numb. She was sagging back into the wide seat, thoughts clear but body numb and loose, unable to form a single deliberate word.
‘But that means,’ Bradamant said, wiping the end of her hatpin on the shoulder of Irene’s coat before sliding it back into her own hat, ‘that I don’t need you any more.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘What’reyoudoin’?’ Irene slurred. She could barely form the words in English, let alone in the Language.
‘Making sure that this mission will be a success,’ Bradamant answered. ‘I haven’t broken my word. I promised you that if I found the book, I’d bring it to you before returning to the Library. I will still do so once I’ve collected it from Dominic Aubrey’s office. But that will be at my own convenience and in a way that I choose. In the meantime, I don’t want you interfering any longer.’
‘Stpd,’ Irene mumbled. Stupid. She needed to tell Bradamant what she suspected about Alberich, but Bradamant’s attack on her had just made that impossible.
‘Don’t worry,’ Bradamant said. She stroked a fragment of
strayed hair back under her hat. ‘It’s a curare derivative. You should be back on your feet in half an hour or so. It probably won’t affect your breathing or your heart.’ She smiled maliciously. ‘Or perhaps it will. It’s not as if I’ve tested it that often, after all. Cheer up, Irene dear! Soon you’ll be free of all these annoying worries about the Library and your actual job, and you can concentrate on your friends here instead. Perhaps you’ll get another mission more commensurate with your talents. Gathering toilet paper, for example.’
Irene glared up at her, struggling to form words. You stupid idiot, don’t you realize that I was about to tell you something important?
This would have been the perfect time to develop telepathy, except that as far as she knew, it was purely fictional.
Bradamant leaned across to retrieve the ledger. ‘I’m not blind, you know,’ she said. ‘I have been aware of you watching me. Your little sneers at the fact that I enjoy nice clothing. I’ve seen you turn up your little nose at my interest in completing the mission, and my willingness to lie to get the job done. Your general . . . dislike of me? Yes, dislike is a good word. We wouldn’t call it quite scorn now, but you don’t like me at all.’
I suspect Dominic Aubrey isn’t really Dominic Aubrey, Irene tried to convey with her eyes. I think Alberich replaced him days ago. I think that the kind man who Kai and I met was actually something old and vicious wearing Dominic Aubrey’s skin. And I think the only reason he hasn’t found the book yet is that he didn’t know about Dominic Aubrey’s contacts. And, crucially, he hasn’t bothered to check Dominic Aubrey’s mail.
‘Get over it.’ Bradamant smiled down at Irene. ‘Some of us aren’t the spoiled offspring of lucky parents, who then spend the rest of their lives being treated like little angels. Some of us are grateful to be out of places worse than you can imagine.’ A shadow flickered behind her eyes. ‘We appreciate what we’ve been given. And we would do anything, anything at all, to do our job properly. You can play around with your great detective as much as you like, Irene – oh, don’t think I never worked that one out. I know who you want to be. But I know who I am. I’ll sacrifice whoever and whatever I must sacrifice to complete the mission. If you really understood, if you were really a proper Librarian, then you’d do the same. Perhaps some day you will understand that.’
You’re about to walk right into his arms. Irene could feel tears burning at the corners of her eyes. You’re going to walk in there and you have no idea.
‘I’ll lock the door behind me,’ Bradamant said helpfully. ‘You shouldn’t have any werewolves bursting in on you while you’re helpless.’
I hope they bite your bloody nose off, Irene thought vengefully.
‘Don’t think of me as malicious,’ Bradamant said, then paused. ‘Actually, do think of me as malicious. Think of me as a malicious bitch who’s going to take your mission, your credit, and possibly your apprentice if you haven’t spoiled him too much. Think what you like. But – ’ She leaned forward and patted Irene’s cheek gently.
Irene couldn’t even feel the touch of Bradamant’s hand against her skin.
‘Think of me as a bitch who gets the job done,’ Bradamant said. She walked across to the door. ‘Don’t call me. I’ll call you.’
The door clicked shut behind her.
Irene stared at the bare desk in front of her, sprawled like a doll in the chair. She couldn’t turn her head, and she didn’t have the muscular focus to scream. She tasted bitterness and despair.
Perhaps she had been wrong to bind Bradamant by an oath in the Language, she thought through the confusion. Perhaps this betrayal ultimately came down to her own insult to Bradamant’s integrity.
Or then again, perhaps Bradamant was a back-stabbing bitch.
A nagging twitch of guilt lurked at the back of her mind. Yes, she had to admit it, she had enjoyed working with Vale. It wasn’t just a case of her Great Detective fixation. (She’d always loved the Holmes stories. And the Watson stories. And even the Moriarty stories.) But there was more to Vale than just being a Great Detective. There was the prickly man who’d confessed to his split with his family, but who was still ready to help them when they asked. There was his surprising generosity and courtesy. There was even the humanizing touch that he’d lent Kai his dressing-gown, and she’d found them sitting over breakfast discussing airships.
She wasn’t a child looking for a role. She was a Librarian with a job to do, and sharing information with Vale and Singh had resulted in things getting done.
Letting herself be immobilized by guilt would be as poisonous as Bradamant’s curare, and as harmful.
There was something deeper to this, though. As she struggled to stay alert, as her mind fought not to follow her body into lassitude, she tried to think it through. She had nothing better to do, after all. Librarians didn’t betray other Librarians like this. Bradamant had been playing the part thoroughly but, just once or twice, she’d seen that Bradamant had been afraid. She’d taken up someone else’s mission – something which was, if not actively forbidden, at least a serious breach of convention. She’d already tried and failed once to get the book. Now she’d assaulted Irene and left her in danger in order to reach the book first. Who could have pushed her that far?
Irene felt chilled. Some of the older Librarians had . . . unsavoury reputations. A lifetime among books didn’t cultivate depravity or debauchery, as much as a love of mind games and politics. And those games could turn dark. Even Coppelia could have her own objectives. Look at Kai, for instance. He’d been planted on Irene in the middle of a mission involving Alberich. What precisely was going on there? How many people had guessed the truth about him?
Her mind felt as if it was stuffed with marshmallows, clogged at the edges and fuzzy in the middle. It must be the drug. But she had to think: she had to work this out. She had the facts. She just needed to apply them.
Compared with Coppelia, there were people like Kostchei, Bradamant’s patron. He was reclusive and exacting. Nobody dared argue with his messengers when he ‘requested’ a specific book. Rumour had it that he had a great deal of influence among the older Librarians, when he cared to use it. The fact that he’d chosen Bradamant as a protégée was interesting in itself. The fact that she would assault other Librarians and steal their work in order to avoid disappointing him . . . was even more so.
Irene was abruptly filled with a burning desire to read the damned elusive book, if it was so very important. (She was aware that this sort of logic had landed people in trouble before. Screw logic. She was furious.)
Was that her finger twitching? Please let it be her finger twitching.
She tried to cough. Something resembling coherent noise came out.
She was so going to have Bradamant’s ass for this. Metaphorically speaking.
The door handle rattled. She could hear the murmur of voices outside, but nothing distinct. She struggled to call out intelligibly, but only a ragged gurgle emerged. In desperation she jerked her leg, kicking out at the desk. There was a thud as her shoe banged into the hollow side.
Another brief exchange of conversation. A pause.
The door swung open with a bang. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Vale and Kai standing there, Vale refolding something about the size of a wallet and sliding it into his pocket. Both of them looked mildly battered and unkempt, but not lethally so.
‘Irene!’ Kai exclaimed, rushing into the room. ‘Are you all right?’
No, I’m currently suffering from curare poisoning, she attempted to communicate. A gargle came out of her mouth.
Kai’s eyes went to the scratch on her neck. ‘Heaven and earth!’ he exclaimed. ‘She’s poisoned! Silver must have got here before us! I’m going to kill him—’
‘Excuse me,’ Vale said, and picked up Irene’s hand where it lay limply on the arm of the chair. He slid back her cuff and checked her pulse. ‘The lady is conscious, as you can see, and seems in good enough health otherwise, so one must assume a p
aralytic . . .’
‘Irene, say something!’ Kai leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands, staring into her eyes. She could just barely feel the touch of his skin against her face. ‘Can you hear us?’
‘Hear . . .’ she managed to force out. ‘Cur . . . curare . . .’
‘She’s been poisoned with curare!’ Kai swung round to Vale. ‘Quick! Where can we find a doctor?’
Irene wondered sourly if dragons were particularly prone to stating the obvious at moments of crisis, or if it was just him.
‘Aha.’ Vale brightened, his eyes flashing with enthusiasm. ‘I believe we can deal with this here and now. I have a small amount of a strychnine derivative with me, which I use as a stimulant in moments of emergency – ’
Much is now explained, Irene thought, even more sourly.
– ‘and while there may be some minor side-effects, with any luck it should restore her enough to speak. Mr Strongrock, if you would be good enough to hold her shoulders steady?’
‘Of course,’ Kai said, stepping round behind her chair to grasp her shoulders. She could actually feel his fingers biting into her through the folds of clothing. Either the curare was wearing off, or that was a very firm grasp indeed.
Vale removed a small glass tube from an inner pocket of his coat. Leaning forward and turning his head away, he flipped the lid off and briefly passed it under Irene’s nose.
Irene inhaled. Her whole body jolted in an undignified convulsion, legs kicking wildly and tangling in her long skirt, the muscles in her arms clenching and contracting. Her head snapped back and without Kai’s grip on her shoulders, she would have sprawled out of the chair to thrash on the floor.
‘Miss Winter?’ Vale said, closing the glass tube and putting it back in his pocket. ‘Can you understand me?’
Irene coughed and focused on breathing for a moment, as the twitching in her limbs slowly eased. It just felt like cramps now. Really bad cramps. The sort of cramps that would ideally warrant a long, extremely slow rubdown in a hot bathhouse . . .
The Invisible Library Page 23