The Invisible Library (9 page)

Blood had soaked into the carpet too, but it was barely visible, a slightly darker brown amid the rich thick crimson.

The glass display case in the corner could have held the Grimm book, Irene decided. For one thing, the case was sealed with all manner of complicated locks, catches and alarms. For another
thing, it was now empty.

Irene turned thoughtfully, looking around the room. Wyndham was the sort of man who would have needed a safe, and where better to keep it than in his study. She would have bet money on it. Now
she just had to try and find it.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest pseudo-Degas hid the safe. She swung the painting back and examined the heavy iron door. Combination lock. Well, she could always talk it open, but . . .

She heard quick approaching footsteps on the main stairs. It must be a man; a woman wouldn’t stride like that, not in these skirts. But there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the
house! Perhaps another burglar? What marvellous timing.

She quickly concealed the safe, and retreated behind one of the thick curtains. She needn’t fear discovery within its thick folds. Merely suffocation.

The door swung open with a heavy creak. Clearly the intruder wasn’t bothering with caution. She waited until she heard the sound of the painting swinging back before she carefully peered
round the edge of the curtain.

The man had his back to her. He was of above average height, with well-squared shoulders and a slender waist. His pale hair, a shade somewhere between silver and lavender, was gathered back in a
short tail that fell neatly against his perfectly fitted jacket. His trousers were just as well cut, moulded elegantly to his body. It was perfect formal visiting gear. If your host hadn’t
been murdered. His top hat was tilted insouciantly to one side, and he was wearing pale grey kid gloves.

He reached out a hand to delicately brush the wheel-handle of the safe, then snatched his fingers back with an angry hiss. A thin scent of burning flesh hung in the air, even through his
gloves.

Irene let the curtain fall back into place, and considered. Clearly there was more to Lord Wyndham’s alliance with the Fair Folk than met the eye, if he’d made sure that his safe was
made of cold iron, so proof against Fae. This supported the newspaper’s whole ‘diabolical intrigue’ theory, and it rather fitted what she knew about the Fae. They liked
complicated relationships. It didn’t matter if they were loved or hated, as long as the other person had strong feelings towards them. Strong enough, for instance, to install a completely
Fae-proof safe. And if she’d been able to choose her options a few hours ago, being trapped in a dead vampire’s private study with an angry Fae would not have been one of them.

Then, more alarmingly, she heard him sniff. It wasn’t the phlegmatic nose-clearing of a cold, it was a hungry sniff, a tasting of the air.

‘Ohhhh.’ His voice hung on the air like incense. ‘Come out, come out, little mouse. Or shall I come looking for you?’

Irene took a deep breath, set her face to an expression of polite unconcern, and moved the curtain back. ‘The Liechtenstein Ambassador, I presume?’ she guessed.

His face was as pretty as his body had suggested, but his eyes were slitted like a cat’s and pure gold. ‘Why,’ he said, tone smooth as honey, ‘you are quite correct. But
what sort of little mouse hides behind the curtains? Are you a blackmailer, little mouse? A spy? A detective? A little rat in the arras, just waiting to be stabbed?’

She seized the opportunity to present her cover-story. ‘I’m a journalist here to investigate Lord Wyndham’s murder, sir. I was hoping to interview you. I hadn’t dared
hope to catch up with you so soon. If I could ask you for your views on the situation . . .’

He glided a step towards her. ‘What paper do you represent?’

‘
The Times
,’ she said. There was a
Times
in practically every single alternate she’d ever visited.

‘And how did you know that I’d come here, pretty little mouse?’ There was something very predatory about his face now.

‘Well, of course, I had no idea,’ she rattled off hastily, reaching into her reticule. ‘It was a total surprise to meet you here, sir. But I suppose it’s not surprising
that on hearing of his death, you naturally hurried to his domicile, with the intention of expressing your condolences to his—’

His hand caught her wrist. ‘No guns, little mouse. I don’t think we want the police coming. No, this is all going to be very nice and quiet, and you’re going to tell me exactly
what’s going on . . .’

She could lie to him. She could try to resist him. Or she could simply get that cool, elegant, well-gloved, slender hand off her wrist. ‘Take your hands off me, sir,’ she said, anger
sliding into her voice. ‘Or you will regret it.’

He paused. ‘You’re very self-assured,’ he said, and for the first time there was a fraction of something other than malice or purring self-satisfaction in his voice. Perhaps an
edge of uncertainty. ‘I wonder. Are you perhaps a little more than you look?’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Irene answered.

‘And is there someone backing you?’

‘Someone you don’t want to antagonize,’ she said. She’d got the measure of his suspicion now. She’d only met lesser Fair Folk before, but they practically defined
‘so devious that they’d fall over if they tried to walk in a straight line’. This one was thinking in terms of conspiracies and agents. She could play that game just as well as
anyone else. ‘But I can’t give names. Not even to an Ambassador. But what I can perhaps give is a degree of cooperation.’

He released her wrist and raised a delicate eyebrow. ‘You intrigue me.’

She understood that sort of language. She was getting the message that he might find her useful loud and clear – and intrigue had nothing to do with it. Instead, she nodded towards the
safe. ‘Perhaps we are both looking for the same thing, sir.’

He nodded once, sharply. ‘Perhaps we are. Well? Open it.’

‘Do you have the combination, sir?’

He rattled off a list of numbers as she worked at the safe’s combination mechanism. So it was just the iron that had kept him out. She wondered what he’d have done if she
hadn’t been here – perhaps enchanted or coerced some passer-by off the street, or brought a human agent here later.

His gloved fingers brushed the back of her neck, and she shivered.
He needs you for the moment, he won’t try anything until he’s got what he’s looking for, the best way to
deal with him is to give him something more interesting to pounce on . . .

‘Open it,’ he purred from far too close behind her.

Irene swung the safe door open and put some distance between herself and the Fae, physically feeling his focus shift from her to the safe’s contents.

Several stacks of papers lay tidily in the large iron cavity. On top of them was a small piece of card, embossed with a golden mask, signed with the name
Belphegor.

The Fae hissed. His hands clenched, and Irene heard his kid gloves rip. He turned towards her, his face furious.

Saying ‘
Don’t blame me’
or ‘
It wasn’t my fault
’ would just have been signalling that she was a victim. As calmly as she could manage, and
wishing for a few more feet of distance between them – actually, make that a few yards, or even a few miles – she said, ‘This makes no sense. If Belphegor stole the book, and
wanted to advertise the fact, why leave her card here inside the safe and not out on the desk?’

He blinked once, and seemed to take a step back mentally. ‘Indeed,’ he said, pacing the room. ‘It’s the book that’s important here. Keep talking, little mouse. Tell
me what you know, what you see here. Tell me what you know about the book. Explain it to me. Make yourself worthwhile to me.’

‘There were two factions,’ Irene guessed. It was as good a theory as any. It might even be true. She needed more data. The Ambassador seemed to be looking for the book as well, so
why not others? Perhaps she could use that. ‘And Belphegor wasn’t necessarily after the book. She could have been after something Lord Wyndham kept in his safe. So what if the person or
people who stole the book and who killed Lord Wyndham were entirely different? If they were waiting here in the study while he was hosting the party downstairs.’ She walked over to look at
the glass display case where the book had been. ‘I can’t tell whether they would have taken the book first and then killed him, or vice versa.’ Well, of course she couldn’t
tell, she was deducing all this on the spot, or to be more accurate, guessing wildly. ‘But we know they beheaded him on the desk. Then they went out through the house and left his head on the
railings outside the front door.’

‘Why not out through the window?’ he interrupted.

‘It wouldn’t open.’ She’d glanced down at the catch while hiding in the window embrasure. It had been soldered closed. ‘It must have been one of Lord
Wyndham’s precautions. Besides, there was a party going on. It would have been simple enough to walk through the house and out through the front door if they’d concealed the head and if
they looked enough like guests or servants.’

‘Mm.’ He turned and pointed a finger at her. ‘And Belphegor?’

‘If she escaped by catching a rope from a passing zeppelin, then she must have gone up by the roof.’

He nodded. ‘And now a crucial point, little mouse. I’m not asking for the names of any people, but if you don’t tell me what group you are working for, I shall be reluctantly
forced to . . . Oh, really, why soften things? I won’t be reluctant about it at all.’ His smile cut like a knife.

Irene was fairly sure that she could invoke the Language against him before he reached her, or simply slam the safe door into him, but fairly sure wasn’t enough. She tried to recall
Dominic’s dossier, as he’d provided a list of the better-known secret societies.

‘The Cathedral of Reason. Sir,’ she said reluctantly, letting it be drawn out of her. That had been one of the more neutral groups, more concerned with general scientific progress
than slaughtering horrific fiends and dangers to humanity. Or being dangers to humanity.

He nodded as if she had confirmed a hypothesis. ‘Very good. Now, little mouse, I have a bargain for you. Or rather, for your masters. We both want the manuscript, but we’ll get it
faster by working together. A copy could be arranged. A deal can be made. Do you agree?’

What Irene truly wanted to say was that she didn’t like being called
little mouse
. It wasn’t even as if she was that small. She was five foot nine, which was a perfectly good
height for a woman in most worlds. Fair Folk or not, this man was an arrogant, insulting, offensive boor, and if she could she would personally make him run a marathon ahead of an oncoming
locomotive.

What she said was, ‘Yes, sir.’ She dropped her eyes submissively. Fair Folk were so accustomed to falling into attitudes and high drama themselves that they half expected it from
humans, and were always gratified to find their expectations borne out. They thought of everything in terms of stories, with themselves as the main character. They played roles – no, they
lived
roles, and they saw the world around them in terms of the mental movie in which they were starring. He wanted her to be a meek little agent. Very well, she’d play the part for
him, and use it to get the job done, and try to ignore the burning throb of anger and incipient ulcers.

He smiled at her. This time it was more of a seductive smile than an angry thin-lipped snarl. It was warm enough that she could nearly have smiled back, if she hadn’t known how much of a
mask it was. It was inviting, somehow suggesting darkness and candlelight and closeness, a catch in the breath, a warm hand in hers, a pressure against her body . . .

‘Good girl. Wait a moment.’ He walked across to the desk, and began throwing drawers open, rifling through them to find paper, pen and ink. ‘Where did he keep it – ah,
yes.’ He dropped a sheet of paper on the dried blood, opened a bottle of purple ink, dipped a quill in it, and scrawled a quick note. ‘There. We’re having a ball at the Embassy
tomorrow. Here’s a private invitation for you. Bring a friend. Bring a lover, even. Find me there and tell me what your masters say to my little proposition. And remember . . .’

He let the sentence hang in the air. Obligingly, Irene said, ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Remember that I would make a better master for you than the Cathedral of Reason.’ There was a glow about him, an aura of presence, as if the light that fell on him came from
somewhere else, somewhere more beautiful, more
special
. His eyes were pure gold, reassuring, enchanting, all-encompassing. Even the slit cat-pupils now seemed more natural than human eyes
ever could. He stepped forward to lay his hands on her shoulders, drawing her close against him. ‘I will be everything to you, little one. I will protect and shield you. You will be my adored
one, my own special love, my sweet, my pet, my beauty, my heart’s delight.’

He smelled of spice and honey. She could feel the coldness of his hands through his torn gloves and the fabric of her clothing.

‘Say that you’ll be mine,’ he murmured, his lips close to hers.

The markings across Irene’s back burst into sudden agony, and she pulled away harshly, gasping for breath. He took a step towards her, but she raised her hand, and he paused.

‘I belong,’
to the Library
, ‘to the Cathedral of Reason,’ she spat. ‘Seducing me so I’ll betray my masters will
not
convince them to form an
alliance.’

‘Oh well.’ He raised his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. ‘I felt like trying. I’ll see you tomorrow, little mouse. Don’t forget. Or I’ll come and
find you.’

He turned on his heel and strode across to the safe, scooping up the papers and visiting card. She could see the care that he took not to touch the cold metal. ‘Merely our private
correspondence, my dear,’ he tossed over his shoulder. ‘About library books. Nothing to concern you.’

Irene bit her tongue hard enough to hurt, trying to keep her face inquisitively bland. He could have used the word ‘library’ just in passing. He didn’t necessarily suspect her.
Or he might have been talking in order to keep her attention on him, rather than on anything else . . .