The Masked City (6 page)

Silver swayed a hand backwards and forwards. ‘Let’s suppose that it might not be so much that I’m helping you, as that I’m hindering someone else.’

Irene glanced sideways at Kai. He gave her a very slight nod of cautious agreement. She looked back to Silver. ‘Which you can’t tell us about, of course.’

‘Precisely,’ Silver said. He took a sip of his coffee.

There had to be some way Irene could exploit this situation. But the Fae couldn’t be trusted. It was practically written into their implied social contract. They weakened any world where they congregated, increasing its tendency towards chaos, and she totally agreed with Kai that they should be stopped wherever possible.

‘Your skin is very nice too, sir,’ she said as blandly as she could. His skin was perfect, actually, with the sort of idealized golden tan that came with an inner glow and a feeling of warmth that invited one to lean over and touch it - damn it, he was trying his glamour on her again. She decided to go on the attack. ‘Tell me, does the name Vlad Petrov mean anything to you?’

‘Vlad Petrov?’ Silver looked perplexed. He leaned backwards to murmur to his servant. Kai took advantage of his distraction to whisper in Irene’s ear, ‘Wasn’t that the cabby they mentioned last night?’

Irene nodded in response, as Silver leaned forward again. ‘Well,’ he said lazily. ‘I have no idea why I should remember every driver on my Embassy staff. I cannot see why you expect me to be aware of the fact that he was assigned as driver to Lady Guantes while she’s been staying here, even if she’s been monopolizing the Embassy network of informants. Goodness knows what she’s been doing with them. Guests can be so inconvenient, and so difficult to refuse. Honestly, if this is an example of your pettifogging concerns, I am going to be bored to tears.’ But there was a glint to his eyes that suggested she was on the right track.

Lady Guantes. And the woman who hired those thugs was a Lady … But that’s scarcely enough to go on.
Something else tickled the back of Irene’s mind.
Guantes. Gloves. The woman had worn a scarf pin showing a pair of hands
…
or a pair of gloves?
If Silver was reliable, Irene now had a name to investigate.
If.
This could all be a complicated lure into an even bigger trap. Frustration gnawed at her guts. What she needed was more information about this Lady Guantes.

‘Now, to return to our previous subject,’ Silver said. ‘What do you intend to do?’

‘Ask more questions,’ Irene said promptly. ‘Which means that we need to be on our way. I will leave you to your coffee, Lord Silver. Since you haven’t warned us about anything, we have nothing to thank you for.’

Silver nodded. ‘In the meantime, you may therefore consider this to be an open invitation to my Embassy.’ He reached into his coat and picked out a card, flicking it across the table towards Irene. It slid across the table’s glossy inlay, pivoting round and coming to a stop exactly in front of her.

It was a heavy cream card with a secretive sparkle in every letter of the print. On the one side it gave a full list of Silver’s titles, in a tiny font, to fit them all in. The other side was bare, except for a scrawled:
To be admitted to my presence at once - S.

‘You think we’ll need that?’ Kai asked, reading it over Irene’s shoulder.

‘I plan for the worst,’ Silver said. ‘That way, at least I’m dressed for the occasion.’ He rose to his feet in a swirl of cape. ‘Johnson! We must not keep Lord Guantes waiting. The bill!’

‘Already paid, sir,’ Johnson murmured.

Silver bowed to Kai. He bowed to Irene. He almost managed to grasp Irene’s wrist and kiss her hand, but she successfully stepped back, while thrusting the visiting card into her handbag.

‘What do you make of that?’ Kai demanded as Silver swept out.

‘That he left us to tip the waiter,’ Irene said. ‘Typical.’

‘No, no. Other than that. He’s going to talk to Lord Guantes?’

‘We don’t know enough,’ Irene said, frowning. ‘And we’ve been delayed, in any case. Let’s hope that wasn’t his objective in the first place. Kai, I’m going to take the Stoker book to the Library and do some digging on Lady Guantes. Or Lord Guantes. If they’re a notable threat to Librarians, then something may have been recorded. I want
you
to update Vale, ask questions and get his advice. I’ll meet you at his lodgings. I shouldn’t be long.’ And by that time she should know if retreat to the Library, or a vacation to another continent, would be the best option.

‘Irene …’ Kai reached out to touch her wrist. ‘Be careful.’

She managed a wry smile. ‘Yes, of course. And you too. Even if we aren’t dressed for the occasion.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Kai was still speculating about Silver’s possible treachery when Irene pushed him into a cab. He drew a verbal picture of the two of them being goaded into paranoia and turned into serial killers, before tragically cutting a loved one’s throat. Irene made a mental note to find out where Kai was getting
Sweeney Todd
plotlines from and to take it away from him.

It was certainly true that the Fae liked to construct complicated and melodramatic plots, and enjoyed drawing everyone nearby into roles in the storyline. Irene had been warned about it, and she’d avoided more than one of these herself in the past. And it was true that, due to the Fae presence, this world had a higher level of chaos than was comfortable, or indeed safe, given the potential for reality distortion. The Fae infested it (as Kai would put it) like worms in a well-seasoned grave.

But the attack last night had been real. And Silver’s warning had felt real, too. It was reassuring to know that Kai would be with Vale while Irene herself was in the Library. She did trust Kai; she just wasn’t sure that she trusted him not to do anything valiant but stupid.

Not being able to saunter between worlds like a dragon, she had to use a nominated Library doorway to enter its halls. And the current main Traverse from this alternate to the Library was situated in the British Museum, in what was the previous Librarian-in-Residence’s office. After a series of unfortunate events, it was now a box room, meaning that she had to make a special trip to access it. And special trips could be traced, so it was time for a slightly riskier mode of transport.

All that a Librarian really needed to reach the Library was a sufficiently large collection of books or similar media. For Irene’s purposes, she also needed a place where she could be undisturbed for half an hour or more. The Senate House Library in Malet Street was within walking distance of her lodgings and would do the job nicely - and she’d previously enrolled as a student, so all her identification would be in order.

She collected the Stoker book and headed over. The library was moderately busy, but Irene had no difficulty finding her way to a side corridor, using the Language to open the lock on a ‘restricted section’ with a quick whisper of
‘Open, lock’
and then locking it behind her again. The walls were heavy with ranks of leather-bound volumes, their titles barely discernible in the thin ether-light from a swaying bulb. Dust on the shelves and floor indicated that this area was not often used. She’d scouted it a couple of weeks ago.

She walked along to the first storage-room door, put down her attache case and took out a small bottle of ink and a fountain pen. This was a new skill for her, only passed on when she became a Librarian-in-Residence. (She was still a bit resentful about that. It would have been extremely useful. And how many
other
things were still hidden from her?)

Normally, when creating a temporary doorway to the Library, a Librarian spoke specific words in the Language, while using a strong access point (such as a large collection of books) to forge a connection. This lasted long enough for the agent to pass through. They must then let the connection close behind them, as the two places dropped out of synchronization. More recently, Irene had been shown that with the written form of the Language one could make the connection last a little longer. Long enough to go through to the Library, transact some business and then get back again to the same alternate-world location through the same door.

Carefully she went down on one knee, drawing the characters for
THIS DOOR OPENS TO THE LIBRARY
above the handle. It would work just as well to scrawl the words across the middle of the door, but she liked to keep it unobtrusive.

As she finished the last character, she felt the sudden shift in reality and her energy levels dropped to fuel the connection. She stayed on her knees, focusing on her breathing until it steadied, and put away the pen and ink. The Language characters were visibly drying on the wood and already starting to fade. They’d last perhaps half an hour. She didn’t have long.

‘Open,’
she said, giving the word its full inflection in the Language, with the special suffix indicating that the door must open to the Library itself.

And it did.

Irene stepped into a warmer, high-ceilinged room, the walls draped with red-and-white quilts. Multiple incandescent lights blazed whitely in the ceiling, but the soft cotton of the quilts muted the effect, making the room more tolerable.

Curiously she pulled one of the quilts away from the wall. Behind it there were shelves of books, their spines in a mixture of English, Swedish and German, with titles such as
Little Sod House on the Prairie, Vigilante Stories of New Gothenburg
and
Runestones of North America
. There was no explanation for why the quilts were covering them. Then again, there was often no reason for the Library’s architecture or furnishings.

Outside the room, the brass plaque on its door read:
B-133 - NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE-20TH CENTURY - SECTION FIVE
. Not a room she recognized. And she found herself in a corridor both paved and walled in blue-and-white marble, with shuttered windows that would have been too high to see out of anyway. To her right was a flight of stairs, leading downwards. To her left was a simple bend in the corridor.

This was the problem - well, one of the problems - with coming through on a random Traverse. There was no way to be sure where you would emerge. What she needed, as fast as possible, was a room with a computer where she could look up Lady (and possibly Lord) Guantes. She also required a local library map, so that she could locate a wall slot into which she could deposit the Stoker book and fulfil the request - the Library’s version of internal post. She hurried down the corridor, noting the decor in case she came this way again. The blue markings lay within the white marble like midnight-blue ink stains, and she had to restrain the urge to rub one of them to see if it would smudge.

I am still far too easily distracted.

Two turnings later she came to a couple of doorways, with a deposit slot between them. With a sigh of relief she opened her attache case and dropped in the envelope containing the book. One job done. Now she could get down to some serious research.

The doorway on her left bore the plate:
B-134 - BELGIAN GRAPHIC NOVELS - 20TH CENTURY - SECTION ONE
. She pushed it open to look inside and was relieved to see a computer on the table. An overweight orange cat was curled up on the chair, feigning sleep. With barely a glance at the thickly shelved walls - and the occasional brightly displayed front page of a moon-bound rocket or a set of dwarfish mummies - she pushed the cat off the chair with a mumbled apology, sat down and logged in.

She scanned her list of personal emails, rated them all as non-essential and ignored them. There was nothing from her mentor Coppelia, and nothing from her parents. Everything else could wait.

Instead she brought up the
Encyclopaedia
function. It was supposed to be a general compendium of information from Librarians in the field in alternate worlds. In practice, although better than nothing, the information was patchy - Fae and dragons often inconveniently used false names.

Guantes
, she typed in.

One record came up, twenty years old. Irene resisted the urge to do a fist-pump in the air, and clicked on it.