The Ice House

by Tim Clare

‘New lover every week but admirably reluctant to reveal trade secrets during pillow talk.’ Patience looked Butler up and down, disguising a smile with her teacup. ‘Though you never know . . .’

  Butler emitted a low, disapproving growl from the back of his throat. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t need to bed her. If you didn’t want to, that is. Just . . . keep her away from her chambers for an hour. I’m told when she’s not working she likes to frequent the Salon Au Delà Du Temps in the high town. She’s a rum drinker.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you look so smart,’ said Alice.

  ‘I prefer the murder option.’

  ‘Butler!’ said Delphine.

  ‘I’ve found you all outfits,’ said Patience. ‘Legal vestments, and some costumes for the festival. You’ll be able to move through the high town with reasonable anonymity.’

  ‘What about getting in?’ said Butler. ‘If it’s on the esplanade we can’t very well go kicking down the front door.’

  Patience cocked her head and smiled at him. ‘Well, Butler, once again you’ll have to rely on your legendary charm. There’s a young fellow who works for her I think you ought to talk to . . .’

  Children played in the frothing run-off from a burst water pipe – harka, vesperi, human – while in the adjoining alley Butler pinned a vesperi to the wall by his throat.

  ‘Did you get them?’

  The shadows were lengthening and the alley was dark. Delphine glanced about for peace officers. Butler placed his free hand on the young clerk’s cheek, running the back of his fingers down the soft, grey fur with gentle, proprietary strokes. The clerk’s eyeball was swollen and blood-glutted, trending orange down to a capillary-mazed red. He sucked in his chin and nodded.

  Butler cast an idle glance towards the children as they squatted on their hams, racing little boats made of dry grass in the haemorrhaging flow. Delphine stood behind him with Alice.

  ‘Give them to me,’ said Butler, mildly.

  The clerk closed his eyes and delved into a pocket of his oversized jacket. His hand withdrew clutching a bunch of large iron keys.

  ‘Venner,’ said Butler.

  Delphine stepped forward and took them. They jangled and the clerk flinched.

  She understood his anxiety – there was something disturbingly polished about the way Butler operated, a clinical edge to his menace. She recalled something of the awe she had felt when she first encountered him, sitting across from her in the van – he exerted a kind of gravity, as if all his years had accumulated inside him, gaining weight and pull.

  ‘And you’re sure you told no one,’ said Butler.

  The clerk nodded frantically.

  ‘This is your last chance to own up if you did. It would be better for you to be honest. If I find out you’ve lied to me, I shall skin you and kill your family.’ Butler relayed this information with horrifying blandness. Delphine was in no doubt as to his sincerity.

  The clerk shook his head. ‘I . . .’ He could barely croak out the words. Butler relaxed his grip a little; the clerk inhaled sharply. His bulging eye lent him a manic look. ‘I said nothing. I swear. I wouldn’t . . . I wouldn’t dare lie to you, sir.’

  Butler smiled broadly. ‘Good boy.’ He cast a last glance over at the children, who continued to play, oblivious.

  He slammed the clerk into the wall. Delphine jumped. He raised his other hand; braids of vapour rose from his fingers. A sharp odour hit the backs of her nostrils, like chlorine.

  Butler clamped his steaming palm onto the clerk’s scalp. The clerk’s ears splayed; his eyes rolled back in his head. He writhed. His wings pumped, scraping against dirty red brick as he slid down the wall. Butler drew himself up to his full height, taking on a regal disdain in counterpoint to the clerk’s cowed submission. In that moment, there really was something monstrous about him – a hunger in his gaze, in the way he seemed to feed on domination.

  Butler let go. The clerk slumped. Delphine ran in and caught him under the armpits. He was surprisingly light, but it was a job to hoist him back upright, his head lolling against her shoulder as he murmured dazed nonsense in her ear.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Butler. ‘He’ll never know he met us.’

  He walked out of the alley to the burst pipe, where he knelt and began to fill a leather waterskin. The children became wary at his approach, their laughter tailing off. Butler stood and glared at them. The children fell silent. Delphine’s heart tightened; she hurried towards him. Butler pressed his taloned foot to the mouth of the pipe, spraying the children in a rainbow blast. They shrieked, giggled, scattered, then rallied, scooping up handfuls of water and flinging it at him. He shielded himself with his wings, then theatrically stumbled, fell, and lay supine while the children ritually soaked him, crowing their triumph.

  He returned to Delphine dripping, his white tunic translucent and creasy, his dark fur flattened round the contours of his bones. He handed her the waterskin.

  ‘Drink up.’

  She accepted it numbly. The water had the faintest tang of blood.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Alice. ‘Wow, you look so . . . fancy.’

  Butler was wearing a sheer silk scarf with an open, embroidered jacket over a sort of maroon sarong. He had combed sweet, musky oil into his fur and above his long, taloned toes hung a pair of bronze cuff anklets set with polished opals.

  ‘It’s done, all right?’ He flourished his jacket sleeves. ‘I’m meeting her at the bar in an hour.’

  ‘You’ve got a date?’

  Butler scritched at the backs of his ears. ‘Can we please get moving?’

  Vesperi could not blush or sweat, but the way he was trying to hunch down into himself reminded Delphine of Algernon.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘We’ll be done before you know it.’

  The sun was setting by the time they reached the high town. Half the street was in shadow, the other half drenched a delirious red. Delphine began to feel nervous, her belly tensing. She kept focusing on the back of Alice’s head, on locks of white-gold hair curling in the heat.

  They entered the cobbled esplanade from the south end. Lamplighters were using poles to light paper lanterns hanging from trees. At the centre was a tower of sheer red stone, perhaps a hundred feet tall, capped with a silver turret that tapered to a shining needle. Banners fluttered from the top and what looked like strings of fireworks hung around it.

  Trains of big, ostrich-like birds stood in the shade of the trees, their long, ribbed beaks daubed with glowing paint, bells jangling from their leather harnesses. Here and there stood big wooden carvings of animals, most of which Delphine did not recognise. Folks were gathering around the barrows of food vendors, or watching acrobats, a harka axe-juggler, a bird trainer, and a long-haired, squat old woman who sucked coloured smoke from tubes attached to a series of large glass cylinders, blowing elaborate shapes for the delighted crowd.

  Butler led Alice and Delphine off into the shade of a tall, spreading tree. ‘There.’

  He nodded towards a row of buildings. There was a display window full of tinted, abstract glassware, lit by oil lamps with spiral mantles that turned slowly as she watched, giving the impression that molten glass was flowing down out of thin air. Next door, separated by an alley, was a smaller mullioned window, then three stone steps leading up to a black door. From a metal bracket hung a sign depicting a balance scale holding an eight-pointed star and a mountain, around which was written: ASHESH-RO – A Member of the Noble Southern College of Pandecti.

  Butler leaned in and spoke in an undertone. ‘Remember: once you’ve got your robes on, get in, find the lockbox, get out. The clerk said it’s probably upstairs. Best to get it now while there’s plenty to distract everyone.’

  Delphine tensed. ‘There are people everywhere.’

  ‘They don’t care. They have their own stories. Trust me. Act like you’ve every right to be here and no one will notice.’ He turned to Alice. ‘Cross. You’re playing lookout.
Stand guard on the ground floor. If anyone enters who isn’t me, shoot them.’

  Alice bit down on her bottom lip, frowned. ‘Won’t that just attract more attention?’

  ‘Of course. But it’ll buy you enough time to run.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill anyone.’

  Butler adjusted his collar. ‘Then I suggest you work quickly. I’ll do my damnedest to keep the Advocate occupied. If you hear my signal to get out, I don’t mean in thirty seconds. I mean now. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ said Delphine.

  ‘Right.’ He slapped her on the shoulder and she winced. ‘If we get separated, meet by the volunteer fire wardens’ clubhouse down in the stilt city. Don’t die.’

  Five minutes later she rounded the corner in her dark blue robes and half-cape. Alice marched by her side, looking brilliant, professional – perhaps laying it on a bit thick. They were supposed to be junior clerks, after all, not high-flying barristers. Even so, Delphine walked briskly, keeping her head up, as Butler had instructed her. She was on her way to retrieve some documents. She had every right to be there. She was probably in a rush, put out at having to perform her duties on festival night.

  Delphine checked her reflection in the window of the glassware shop, experienced the brief, thrilling shock of seeing a young woman staring back from beneath a coarse-knit woollen hood. It was still odd, this body – electric with otherness. She would never quite belong in it, but the body she had left behind in England felt foreign too. Nowhere was truly home. She was an expat of the flesh.

  She climbed the three rounded steps to the advocate’s door, inhaling the aroma of frying dough, gunpowder and a sourish funk that came off the tethered birds. Beneath the door’s polished upright handle was a brass keyplate in the shape of a pair of latticework wings. She took out the bunch of keys, selected the largest, and inserted it into the lock. Inside her felt gloves, her fingers were sweating.

  The key caught, refusing to turn. Shit. She rattled it. Stay calm. No one’s watching. She tried again. The tumbler clicked; the key rotated. She pressed down the thumb-plate and heard a latch rise on the opposite side. The door swung open. They were in.

  The hallway floor was made of coloured glass beads sunk beneath some sort of clear resin, as if one were walking upon the surface of a frozen lake, filled with gems. She passed a ground floor reception room and a parasol stand. A carpeted staircase climbed past mounted carvings of robed vesperi in dark wood. She waited until she heard the door close. She held her breath, listening for movement. After five, she nodded back at Alice and headed up the stairs.

  The first floor smelt of varnish and stale smoke. She opened a glass-panelled door with one of the smaller keys and entered an office. Red evening light bled through locked shutters. There were two desks, some cabinets and several leather chairs. Beneath her feet was a blond rug made from the pelt of some kind of hexapodal feline, complete with claws and a gaping, toothless face. Through the shutters came the rising pound of drums, the occasional echoing bang of a firecracker.

  It seemed to take forever to work through the various shelves and drawers. Some locks she had to force with her penknife. No time for disguising the break-in. Documents were in English, an odd, archaic variant of French, and at least one language whose alphabet she did not recognise. Anything she wasn’t sure about, she stuffed into the satchel under her robes.

  She came out onto the landing and signalled down to Alice, then headed to the top floor. The stairs were covered in a finely braided mat of silk ropes. Unlit oil lamps sat in wooden sconces with chamfered edges. The landing outside the Advocate’s room had a lacquered wooden bust of a vesperi with wide, triangular ears, a round jaw and a prominent, lupine noseleaf.

  The door was stained black, with an oval doorknob of smoked blue glass. She stopped outside and listened. Her heart was pounding from the climb. Time was running out. From outdoors came the faint jangle of bells.

  She tried several keys, wincing each time. Finally, the spindle slid aside. Click.

  A stained glass skylight threw a collage of shapes against the east wall. Beneath elegant sloping eaves, the room’s centrepiece was a pentagonal desk with carved wooden bosses on the corners. A set of bookshelves took up the entirety of the back wall.

  Delphine rounded the desk, pushing aside a low-backed chair of chocolate brown leather. Its feet scraped with a harsh grating. She winced. She had left the door ajar in case Alice called. Through the closed skylight, dull discordant clanging was rising with the thump of drums.

  She worked systematically through the bookshelves. Most were dry legal tomes with minute printed type. She wanted to be thorough in case something had been slipped between the pages – that’s where she would have hidden documents. She felt so tantalisingly close.

  She moved to the cabinets, opening drawers in turn, removing documents separated by card dividers and rifling through them with gloved fingers. Here her search grew more promising – every so often she would stumble across a floorplan, an architect’s pencil sketch, tables of numbers. Some documents were obligingly annotated in all three languages.

  It was hard to read in the failing light and she didn’t think she could carry it all. Delphine dumped a pile of papers on the desk, sat in one of the chairs and began searching through the drawers for something she could use to light the large oil lamp. Up close, she could see the ornamental bosses on the desk’s corners each depicted a thick-lipped fish swallowing an orb.

  Two drawers just contained paper and what looked like templates for form contracts or documents. One was locked. Delphine tried the smallest of the keys on the bunch on the lock. It did not fit.

  She rattled the handle. She took out her pocket-knife. The lock gave with a snap. Inside was an engraved silver dip pen, a small hinged notebook with a brass lock, a one-shot derringer-style pistol, a pipe, a flint and steel, a pendant with three red gems set in its face, and a strip of firecrackers.

  Delphine pocketed the firecrackers, took out the notebook and broke the lock with her knife blade. The cover was black leather, with an embossed monogram in the bottom right corner: CN. Inside was just handwriting, using the strange alphabet she had seen elsewhere. There were sketches of humanoid profiles, lines showing approximate height. Some pictures appeared to be in sequence, showing what looked like crude blobs growing into people. Bloody hell. Was this it?

  She tried the flint and steel, creating a shower of blue sparks. She lifted the frosted mantle from the oil lamp, lit the wick, and wound the key in the base. A clockwork mechanism began puttering, drawing oil from the reservoir in the clawfooted base.

  In the improved light she flicked through the notebook, her heart beating faster with every page. There were detailed sketches of a black, winged insect she recognised as a godfly, studies of its stinger, its dissected venom sac. The paper crackled beneath her gloved fingers, stinking of solvents. She was almost sure this was what they were looking for. Her time had to be up. She should leave. She glanced up at the door and the skylight caved in.

  She fell backwards. A shower of coloured glass struck the desk. Someone dropped from above and landed in a crouch.

  Delphine slammed flat against the bookshelves. Standing on the table was a child, a little girl in boots and a black hat. Straggly blond-brown hair fell to her shoulders. She wore a jacket of faded brown leather that came down past her knees. Little boxes hung from her belt, chattering softly. Her underlit face was both youthful and strangely haggard, red marks underscoring her eyes as if she had been crying.

  Delphine stared. A line ran from the skylight down to the girl’s belt. The girl grinned. One of her top incisors was missing. She looked about ten. She threaded her fingers, stretched her arms leisurely.

  ‘Fair tides, Advocate,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse.

  Delphine glanced down. Oh God, she had dropped the book. It lay beside one of the table legs. Had Alice heard the crash? Should she call out?

  The girl’s smile vanished. ‘You’
re not the Advocate.’ She stepped forward. ‘Where is she?’

  Delphine straightened up. Shit. It was a trap. Shit.

  ‘Who are you?’ The girl took a step closer. ‘Qui êtes-vous? Are you a thief?’

  As the girl talked Delphine traced the trailing rope up through the skylight. Had she been lying in wait?

  ‘Well, yes,’ the girl was saying, ‘I may be responsible for some tortious malfeasance.’ She knelt and began to pull a thin stiletto dagger from her boot. The blade kept coming.

  A silver ashtray stand stood to Delphine’s right. Solid. Tall. She braced herself. She was not above walloping a child.

  The knife danced in the girl’s gloved fingers. She gripped it by its needle tip.

  Delphine glanced towards the open door. ‘I hope you brought a second knife for him.’

  The girl turned to look. Delphine snatched the ashtray stand and swung for the girl’s ankles. The base was good and massy. It connected and the child fell. Delphine went for a decisive downward blow. The stand struck the table with a wrist-jarring bang. The girl was up, gone. Papers flew in a blizzard.

  Delphine dragged the stand off the table and switched to a double-handed grip. The girl threw her arms out in a combat stance, empty palms tightening into fists. This was no ordinary child.

  Her gaze dropped. Delphine hurled the ashtray into her chest. The girl caught it, pivoting. She brought the stand round in a sweeping stroke. Delphine dropped and the heavy base swished overhead.

  She saw the notebook lying under the desk and crawled for it. Footsteps thumped against the tabletop overhead. She shoved the book under her robes. Something smashed. Christ.

  She scrambled from under the desk. The girl was blocking the door. She held a wire taut between her outstretched fists. Smoke. Something was burning.

  ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ said the girl. ‘I’m on a mission of peace.’

  A fishy stink was clogging the air. The girl was talking. The wire slackened slightly. ‘We may have a common goal.’ Her tongue worked a gap in her teeth. ‘I want nothing to postpone the Grand-Duc’s arrival.’