Authors: Skelton-Matthew
A
Minutes dragged by, agonizing in their slowness.
Then, when Blake could stand the suspense no longer, he heard a metallic quiver thrum the air as an invisible clock chimed the hour.
This was followed almost immediately by a tiny, scratching noise at the opposite end of the room.
He raised his head, alert.
A key whispered in the lock.
The door opened — just a little — and a shadowy form slid into the room.
The hooded figure was dressed entirely in black.
Blake barely breathed.
The person glanced round the murky room and then drifted on soundless feet towards his hiding place.
Blake closed his eyes, not daring to look.
He hoped that by remaining perfectly still, by shutting out the outside world, he, too, might disappear.
One thing was clear.
Duck was not with the Person in Shadow.
They were alone in the ancient library.
He had been tricked.
Crouched like a sprinter, he considered making a mad dash for freedom, hoping to summon help from outside; but then he felt the floorboards beside him stiffen slightly and a black shape fell over him.
A gloved hand slid silently over the railing near his shoulder and grabbed him by the wrist.
"Hello, Blake."
The chilly female voice sent shivers up and down his spine.
He
know
instantly who it was.
He looked up.
"Isn't this a surprise?"
Diana Bentley greeted him with a cold smile.
Blake couldn't bring himself to respond.
The sound of her voice, the touch of her glove, both seemed icy now, despite the special butterfly clasp she always wore as decoration and the dark woolen cloak she had draped over her shoulders.
Blake blinked, confused.
The butterfly had singed wings, like burnt paper.
"You should mind your knees," she said, pulling him to his feet.
"They'll get dirty."
He looked down at the hard wooden floor and dumbly rubbed his jeans, which were patched with dust.
His clothes were torn and filthy.
"You poor boy," she murmured.
"You really are in trouble.
Sneaking into the Bodleian like this.
What will your mother think?"
"She doesn't know," he said miserably, then bit his tongue.
Diana observed him with mock sympathy.
"Ah, I see.
You're on your own."
Blake grimaced, realizing his mistake.
"Where's Duck?" he barked.
"All in good time," she said.
"First, where is the book?"
"I don't know what you mean."
She locked his arm in a tight, vicious grip and wrenched it behind his back.
He yelped, surprised by her strength.
"Be careful," she warned.
"You don't want to make things worse than they already are."
Her words brought the gravity of his situation home.
He stopped struggling.
"The book," she said again.
"Where is it?"
She levered his arm slowly upwards and he gasped as hot spears of pain shot across his shoulder.
"My mother," he managed at last, between clenched teeth.
"She'll be furious if we don’t turn up soon.
She'll go to the police... and
...
aah
!... tell them we're missing."
He risked a look at Diana, but she seemed unfazed by the remark.
She eyed him with steely composure.
"What's in your bag, Blake?"
He squirmed and she jacked up his arm one notch.
He winced.
Blake could feel her fingers
spidering
along his back and wriggled to prevent her from discovering the book inside his knapsack.
Once again, she tightened her grip on his arm and he fought back tears.
It was as if her desire to obtain the book had given her superhuman strength — and ruthlessness.
"Of course," she said, breathing softly into his ear, "there would be no reason to go on inconveniencing your mother — or Duck — if we came to a mutual agreement."
The image of Duck's lifeless yellow coat, stuffed hastily into his knapsack, filled Blake with guilt.
All of this was his fault.
He'd got obsessed with the book — to the point of abandoning her.
Still, he couldn't help it:
the book was
his.
Endymion
Spring
had chosen him.
For hundreds of years scholars had searched for what he, Blake Winters, had found.
And the Person in Shadow — Diana — wanted it for all the wrong reasons.
Slowly, she tilted his chin towards her, so that he could see into her cold, gray eyes.
They were as hard and unflinching as stone.
"Where is the
Last Book
, Blake?"
His heart cowered inside him.
He had no choice but to hand over the book to save his sister.
The sinister riddle from two nights ago had warned him as much:
The Sun must look the Shadow in the Eye
Then forfeit the Book lest one Half die...
He started to shiver uncontrollably.
"I'll help you on one condition," he said finally, gritting his teeth.
The words tasted like ash in his mouth.
"You have a condition?"
She almost laughed.
"And what might that condition be?"
She considered him like a cat toying with a bird."
"
Ive
hidden the book," he lied.
"I'll take you to it, but only once I know my sister is OK.
I need to see her first."
Diana sounded bored.
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
Blake was thinking fast.
"You need me to read from it," he said quickly.
His response seemed to trigger a reaction, for she regarded him less certainly for a moment.
"I want to see Duck," he said again.
"Enough!" cried Diana, losing her patience.
"I'll take you to see your odious little sister, but then you'll hand over the book.
No funny games."
Still gripping his arm tightly behind his back, she marched him towards the far door.
He fought desperately to come up with a plan, a way of escape, but the pain shooting across his shoulder blocked out any coherent pattern of thought.
He was terrified.
All he could do for now was
obey
.
"One careless move and I assure you your sister will suffer the consequences," lisped Diana behind him, almost biting his ear.
A
Diana ushered Blake through the blue and gold doors and sharply to the right, up a final flight of steps to the Upper Reading Room, nestled beneath the roof of the library.
The thin double doors were open a fraction and she guided him into a large room full of study carrels and hard wooden chairs.
The air was stuffy and dim, like a museum.
Frescoed faces watched them from a frieze above the book-lined shelves; yet the ancient scholars who had helped to shape the university's illustrious history now turned a blind eye to his predicament.
There was no one to help him.
The blinds on the windows had been pulled down, shutting out the outside world, and the cork linoleum deadened their footsteps.
There was no sign of Duck
anywhere — neither here in the vast reading room, nor
around the corner where Blake encountered yet more tables, followed by a series of computer terminals and a central desk, where library staff presumably distributed books.
Hidden in the corner was a cream door that led up to the tall square tower that formed the principal peak on the library's prickly skyline.
Diana motioned him towards it.
Another spiral staircase corkscrewed away from him — this time rising to what must be the very top of the library.
What was she going to do?
Throw him off the roof?
She forced him inside.
"Where are we going?" he asked nervously as she locked the door behind them and followed him up the stairs.
The steps were tight and treacherous; his legs trembled.
The bottom was a long way down.
Diana responded by prodding him sharply in the back with the tip of her key.
He kept going, marching upwards — past two thin lancet windows and a tiny wooden door.
Blake's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Where's Duck?" he asked.
His question was answered by a frantic hammering on the other side of the door.
"Duck!" he cried, leaping towards it.
He grasped the handle and pulled.
"I'm here!
I've come to get you out!"
The door was locked and would not budge.
His sister was thrashing even more urgently now she could hear him.
He knew she must be terrified.
Duck hated confined spaces.
He turned to Diana, enraged.
She was dangling a precious silver key from her fingertip.
He lunged to grab it, but she deftly closed her hand in a fist.
"What's wrong with her?" he hollered.
"Why can't she speak?"
"I took the liberty of gagging your sister's mouth," replied Diana curtly.
"She was driving me to distraction."
Blake could not contain his anger.
"Let her out!" he screamed.
"She can hardly breathe in there!
If anything happens to her, I'll—"
"You'll what?" asked Diana savagely, shoving him forwards.
His ankle twisted and he fell, his knee catching the edge of a sharp stone step.
He cried out in pain.
Remorseless, Diana pulled him to his feet and pushed him further up the twisting staircase.
"I'll come back
... " he
called out to Duck, his voice cracking.
They came to a tall door with
university archives
engraved above it in the stone.
A brass plaque on a central panel read:
dr. d. bentley, archivist
.
Blake looked behind him, surprised.
"You work here?" he asked.
Diana frowned.
"Naturally.
Do you think Giles is the only person in a position of power?"
She unlocked the door and shoved him inside.
Blake stumbled against a desk in the middle of the spacious room and fell to the floor, winded.
Dazed, he took in his surroundings.
Four enormous windows, partially obscured by large wooden cupboards, provided spectacular views of the surrounding domes and spires.
A choir of angelic figures stood on top of one of the nearby buildings, playing their silent instruments, while a statue of blindfolded Justice turned her back to him on the other side of the glass.
He raced to one of the giant windows and tried to flag down help from the people in the street far below.
Tiny figures, no more than matchstick men, marched back and forth.
The window had no latch and all he could do was hammer on the glass with his fist.
The muffled sound did not travel far.
"Had enough?" asked Diana, behind him.
"I have kept my part of the bargain.
Now I suggest you keep yours."
He turned to face her.
She was calmly inspecting a row of books in one of the cupboards.
"These are my favorites," she said, indicating several volumes, as large as Bibles, fastened with iron clasps.
"I keep them up here, so that no one — not even Giles — can touch them."
She stroked the dimpled black surfaces with her fingers.
"They're books that date back to the foundation of the library."
Blake didn't respond.
His eyes dashed to the door, which Diana nudged to with her foot.
"Don't even think about it," she said.
"You can't go far.
Besides, I have all the keys between you, your sister and freedom.
The only way out of here is to give me what I want."
"I told you I don't have the
Last Book
," he said defiantly.
"I couldn't even find it."
"Oh, I doubt that," said Diana with a knowing smile.
"You were chosen."
She slowly advanced towards him and he took two steps back.
"Give it to me," she said.
Blake flushed.
"No," he defied her again, and involuntarily tightened his grip on the straps of his knapsack.
He backed into a glass cabinet full of handwritten documents sealed with flattened dollops of red wax, like squashed bugs.
Two more lines from
Endymion
Spring
's riddle floated unbidden into his mind:
The Lesion of Darkness cannot be healed
Until, with Child's Blood, the Whole is sealed...
His eyes landed on a sleek, silver paperknife placed crosswise on a pile of unopened correspondence on the desk.