The Invisible Library (33 page)

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 paralytic . . .’

‘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 . . .

That must be the strychnine. She wouldn’t normally let her mind wander like that.

‘Mm, okay,’ she managed to mumble. ‘Thank – thank you. Got to – it was Bradamant, the book’s with Aubrey, not really Aubrey – ’

Vale exchanged a meaningful glance with Kai. She could guess what they were thinking:
She’s still delirious.

She had to make herself understood.

Irene closed her eyes for a moment, focused, thought vicious curses down upon Bradamant’s head, and opened her eyes again. ‘Three things,’ she said distinctly. ‘First.
The book was posted to Dominic Aubrey. I believe Wyndham must have wanted him to keep it safe from Silver. Second. Bradamant poisoned me. She wants to get the book first. Third. I think Alberich
killed Dominic Aubrey before we arrived. Think he was posing as him when we arrived. The only reason he doesn’t have the book yet is because he hasn’t checked Aubrey’s
post.’

Her leg spasmed. She leaned over awkwardly and banged it with her fist. ‘Ow,’ she said.

Vale and Kai exchanged glances again. She had the feeling that more was being communicated than she could see. Perhaps it was a manly thing. Perhaps it was a dragon thing on one side and a Great
Detective thing on the other.

‘Could Bradamant be working with Alberich?’ Kai asked. ‘If she poisoned you?’

Irene shook her head and regretted it. She put her hands on the arms of her chair and struggled to push herself up to a standing position, glaring at Kai when he tried to help her.
‘Bradamant has no
clue
,’ she snapped. ‘Bradamant is an idiot. Bradamant ran off to get the book . . . I didn’t get to tell her about Alberich and Dominic. I’m
not sure she even believed me that Alberich is here. And if he’s still around the British Library when she arrives . . .’ The thought made her throat go dry. She wanted to take some
sort of painful and pointed revenge on Bradamant, but she didn’t hate her
that
much. ‘We have to get there first,’ she said firmly.

She took a step, and almost fell over.

Vale caught her elbow and supported her. ‘Miss Winters, you are in no condition to accompany us. You should rest here while Mr Strongrock and I go in search of your errant
comrade.’

‘While I would normally agree with you,’ Kai said, ‘there are those werewolves.’

‘Didn’t you even deal with the werewolves?’ Irene snapped. She was aware that she was being just a
little
unfair here, but at least presumed allies hadn’t stabbed
them in the back while they were trying to do their job. Or their neck. Whatever.

‘True,’ Vale said. ‘The werewolves may be a problem. We only inconvenienced them, rather than finishing them off. I have sent for the police, but they will need to reach here
first. Perhaps if we—’

‘Perhaps if yer what?’ a snarling voice enquired. A ragged figure stood in the open doorway, hair sprouting from his clothes at neck and cuffs, with snarling teeth gaping in his
mouth. ‘This time it’s too late for Mr bleedin’ Vale—’

Kai snatched up the inkwell from the desk, and threw it straight at the werewolf’s face. Ink splattered everywhere, on the varnished floor and the papered walls, but mostly on the
werewolf. He had time for a single black-drooling look of surprise before Kai’s kick caught him in the chest and sent him stumbling back into the central hall. Kai followed it up with an
elbow blow to the werewolf’s chin, another kick to the back of his knee, and a two-handed smash to the back of his neck.

The werewolf lay flat in a splatter of drool and ink. Vale half supported, half dragged Irene out of the office and into the main hall. ‘It seems you will have to come with us after all,
Miss Winters,’ he said.

‘Quick,’ Kai exclaimed, ignoring the general mob of bystanders either shrieking or staring. ‘We need to catch a cab.’

‘A cab? My dear fellow, a cab would be far too slow,’ Vale said. ‘We need to get to the roof.’

‘The roof?’ Irene said. She was possibly being a bit slow here, but she wasn’t sure that Kai turning into a dragon and flying them there would be much use, unless . . .
‘Oh. Of course.
The airships
.’

‘Precisely,’ Vale said, hurrying her to the stairs. ‘Of course, there may be some problems with mooring subsequently, but it’s our best option.’

Kai caught up with them, and grabbed Irene’s other elbow to assist in the dragging-her-along-like-a-giant-doll process. ‘I hear more of them coming . . . Which way, Vale?’

‘Left at the top,’ Vale instructed. They dashed past two astonished tour groups and turned left, entering a wide gallery full of large glass cases. Here, stuffed hyenas menaced
stuffed deer, a giant stuffed polar bear towered over some bored-looking stuffed seals, and a rainbow of stuffed birds sat mournfully among dried flowers.

‘Catch them!’ she heard Silver’s voice calling from behind them.

An utterly blood-chilling howling rose up ahead of them. Panicked visitors fled the room, forcing Irene and the two men to one side as they stampeded out of the far doors.

‘Get me a megaphone,’ Irene said quietly to Kai. Her legs were still cramping, and she had to hold on to Vale to stay upright. But she had an idea and this time, just this time, she
had the feeling it was going to work. ‘The tour guides have them . . . ’

Kai grabbed a tour guide as he rushed past, and swiftly relieved him of his megaphone. ‘Will this do?’

The first werewolf came howling into sight, rounding one of the glass cases. Its head and hands were totally wolflike now, and its clothing was splitting down the seams as it changed shape.

Irene tried the megaphone. ‘IS THIS THING ON?’ Feedback fuzz echoed in the room.

The werewolf seemed to laugh. Another one joined it. They were approaching slowly. Clearly they were just as interested in fear as they were in bloodshed.

‘Miss Winters,’ Vale began, ‘if you have anything in mind – ’

Irene held up her hand in apology. Very precisely, she directed the Language through the megaphone, ‘
Stuffed creatures, come to life and attack werewolves
.’

The words shook in the air and drew energy from her to make themselves real in the world. It was simple enough to tell a lock to open, or a door to shut. These actions came naturally to those
objects, and the universe was glad to oblige. But stuffed animals weren’t in the habit of reanimating to attack things.

Except now, as Vale looked at her in growing comprehension and Kai smiled a sharp-edged smile, it was coming true.

The polar bear burst from its case with a silent roar, mouth open to display all those carefully preserved teeth. The glass panes crashed in a waterfall of shards onto the tiled floor,
shattering in all directions. The seals came crawling after it, flopping in spasmodic jerks across the floor. Elsewhere in the room, more glass cracked as a flood of creatures fought their way out.
A wolf pack staggered forward on stiff legs, and a carefully wired boa constrictor came writhing out of its own case, uncaring of the glass daggers stuck into its sawdust-stuffed body, and even the
birds threw themselves at the walls of their cases, struggling on the ends of their wires.

‘Dear heavens,’ Vale said. ‘Miss Winters. What have you
done
?’

‘They’ll only attack the werewolves,’ Irene said, tossing the megaphone to one side. It crunched and tinkled as it hit the floor. ‘We need to run while they’re
distracted, before Silver gets here.’

Vale had a good instinct for knowing when to act now and ask questions later. It must be part of being a Great Detective, Irene decided giddily, wondering if the strychnine / curare cocktail was
making her delirious. One of the werewolves tried to break away from the attacking mob of otters and crocodiles to get at them, but a persistent baby alligator (
Observe the Young of the Species,
Only Two Feet Long
) chomped on its ankle and dragged it back into the melee.

Vale navigated confidently though more stairs and corridors, and then they were on the roof. The air outside was smoggy and cold. It hit Irene’s throat and made her cough. Two small
airships bobbed on the end of moorings in a darkly ominous sky, hovering perhaps twenty feet above the roof of the museum.

A guard came hurrying towards them. ‘Mr Vale!’ he said, moustache quivering. ‘Now excuse me, sir, I’m sure that you have very urgent business up here, but this is off
limits.’

‘There is no time for that, man!’ Vale declared. ‘Barricade the doors. There are werewolves at large in the museum. Inspector Singh is bringing a force from Scotland Yard to
sweep the place. In the meantime, I require one of your zeppelins to stop the perpetrator before he can escape.’

The guard’s eyes widened. He stroked his moustache nervously. ‘Is it that urgent, sir?’

‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ Vale snapped. ‘Inspector Singh will explain everything when he gets here. Are you with me, man?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the guard declared, nearly snapping his heels together in his enthusiasm. Werewolves and assisting great detectives must be somewhat unusual. He turned to look up at the
floating airships, waving an arm. ‘Jenkins! Throw down a ladder, girl, you’ve a run to do!’

With a certain amount of pushing from below and pulling from above, Irene was assisted up the swaying rope ladder. She decided to be grateful that firstly, she hadn’t just been left
behind, and secondly, that she was wearing traditional underpants rather than anything scantier. The rest of her mind was preoccupied with clutching the rope ladder with sweating hands, trying not
to fall off and die.

The pilot was a woman, in canvas and leather clothing – the first that Irene had seen in trousers so far in this alternate. Her goggles were shoved back over a coiled heavy braid of hair
and she looked more suspicious than the guard had been. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said, ‘but I’ll have to see some authorization.’

‘My name is Vale,’ Vale announced. ‘I require your assistance to reach the British Library as fast as possible.’

‘That and a shilling’ll buy you a pound of onions,’ the woman said. Unimpressed, she leaned back in her seat, a hammock-like sling of leather straps and creaking rubber.
‘Go find some other poor sod to risk their job if you want to chase criminals.’

Irene considered the possible mental damage of what she was about to do. Librarians were generally supposed to avoid it, because of the risks of imposing on people’s minds, not to mention
the universe occasionally backlashing in interesting ways. But they were running out of time. ‘Miss Jenkins—’