The Dark Archive (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 4

  At the other end of the corridor, a thin rim of light outlined another door. She listened but could hear nothing. Either the room beyond was empty, or whoever was there was silent. Or perhaps someone was lying in wait for her . . .

  But this was no time to hesitate. She tried the door handle.

  It opened.

  The room beyond had once been a lounge, high-ceilinged and elegant; it had gone to seed just like the corridor behind her. Tall windows in the opposite wall had been covered with tattered curtains. The marble fireplace held a radiator rather than logs, and the bare light bulbs that hung from the ceiling glowed unevenly, as though they might burn out at any moment.

  Close to the fireplace, a man huddled in a battered armchair, a laptop resting on his knees. A cigar smouldered in one limp, gloved hand and the laptop screen was blank. The man drooped forward, head nodding, on the edge of sleep.

  It was unmistakably Lord Guantes.

  She knew that man. She’d killed him. She’d put a knife into his heart, then watched his wife mourn over his corpse and promise vengeance.

  She could accept alternate worlds, dragons, Fae, vampires, werewolves, and magic. But now a part of her—the logical, rational part—urged her to run, to slam the door closed and escape back to the submarine base. Even if all the men there had been turned into lurching zombies by cerebral controllers, at least the threat was something she understood.

  Lord Guantes had almost gained control over her, once. He’d almost twisted her around his little finger and made her answer to his bidding. She would have been his pawn, his captive, his tool. Confronting him now was pure idiocy. She had no idea of his resources, how many guards he had, or what snares might be waiting for her. Every instinct in her body screamed for her to get out of here. She’d learned what she needed to know. It really was him.

  But if she ran, she would always be running from him. She might know enough . . . but there must be still more to learn.

  Her mind somewhere on the scale between pure terror and stomach-curdling fear, she made herself say, “Lord Guantes, I assume?”

  His head jerked up and he twisted round in his chair, the laptop clattering to the ground. He still looked just as she remembered—dark grey hair and a small imperial beard, deep-set eyes with the power to compel. His business suit could have come from any decade and almost any world, and the gloves that sheathed his hands were plain black. The left side of his face was concealed by a leather mask, which started at his forehead and ended above his upper lip.

  “You should be dead,” he said after a moment, his voice deep velvet, but with the old iron behind it. There was something in his eyes that took Irene a moment to recognize. It was . . . fear? He was afraid of her?

  “I could say the same about you,” she said. “Clearly someone has made a mistake.”

  At the back of her mind a clock kept counting down. Just because Lord Guantes was here didn’t mean that Kai was safe. Lord Guantes could be working with—or for—anyone.

  “Fresh from an imploding submarine base and not even damp.” He looked her up and down. It wasn’t the measuring glance of a martial artist judging her competence, or the deliberately insulting appreciation of a libertine like Lord Silver. It wasn’t even the cold stare of an assassin deciding how best to remove her. It was as if she were less than human—a paper clip, a crumpled newspaper, a disposable coffee cup, and he could either stand up to put it in the bin or get away with simply throwing it to the floor. “What does it take to dispose of you, Miss Winters?”

  “A miracle,” Irene said promptly.

  “According to Dante, thieves like you end up in the Eighth Circle of Hell.”

  “Dante placed ‘evil counsellors’ like you in the next ditch along,” Irene countered. “So tell me, Lord Guantes, what precisely are you up to? Besides trying to kill us. You must have some far grander plan than that.”

  She was hoping she could play on one of his archetypal weaknesses. Very few Fae who based their personalities on cunning masterminds could resist the urge to gloat. If she was really lucky, he might even go into detail about how very doomed she was . . .

  But to her surprise, he only laughed. It was a thin, hollow sound compared with the full-blooded chuckle of their previous encounters. “Kill you? My dear Miss Winters, you have no idea how much I enjoy hearing you say that. And such a brave attempt to learn my secrets too. But I’m afraid . . .” He coughed, and his whole body shook with it. “You’re too late.”

  Irene froze. Anyone who knew her would have known she’d try the mysterious door. Was this all some further elaborate trap?

  Then common sense kicked in. He’d been genuinely surprised to see her. He’d been afraid.

  “You’re wasting your time taunting me,” she responded. “As you can see, I’m still alive. Your little plot didn’t work.”

  As she’d hoped, the adjective stung. His hands trembled, clenching into fists. “You have no idea . . .” he said, voice smooth again, the words both a promise and a threat. “As usual, Miss Winters, you have come into the story partway through, and you’ll be removed from the game board long before you can appreciate the grandeur of this particular plot. It’s already too late for you, as I said. Before, you’ve always had other people to save you. Not any longer.”

  “My friends and I keep each other alive. You didn’t plan on my accompanying Vale into the submarine base, did you?”

  “I admit I failed to make allowances for that—for whatever sentimentality caused you to accompany him, rather than do your job. I thought better of you, Miss Winters.”

  “Stop playing games,” Irene said flatly, suppressing a growing sense of dread. What if he was telling the truth, and it was “already too late” for Kai and Vale too? “Get to the point—or I’m leaving.”

  Lord Guantes frowned at having his gloating so cruelly cut short. “Very well. It’s true that I want revenge on my enemies, but there are others who have something even worse in mind for you. I cooperated with them—but I have been betrayed. I have been used.” A deep fury at this flared in his eyes. To a Fae of his archetype—mastermind and schemer—this was the ultimate violation. “And since you have conveniently walked past my threshold and into my home, I will give you the tools for vengeance. If—”

  He broke off, seeming confused for a moment, and raised one gloved hand in protest. “So soon?” he asked the air.

  “Lord Guantes,” Irene said, pitching her voice to get his attention. “Why are you here? In this sordid place, with this old house falling to pieces around you? Who are these others you mention?”

  His eyes focused on her again. Without answering he thrust himself out of his chair towards her, tottering as he tried to stand upright.

  Irene dodged. She’d been ready for any sort of attack—if this was an attack—but she hadn’t expected something so . . . ordinary. Or, to be honest, so uncoordinated. He moved like an old man—or someone who’d been injured but hadn’t realized it yet. This was all . . . wrong.

  The Fae’s motion turned into a stagger, then a collapse. He sank to his knees, then to the dirty marble floor. His gloved fists clenched and his whole body convulsed, breath coming in great heaving gasps.

  It could all be a pretence. But it didn’t feel like one. Lord Guantes enjoyed showing off his cunning. To him, watching his enemies scurry round trying to escape was the icing on the cake, the cream in the coffee, or the hand-rolled cigar and brandy that set the seal on a good evening. He wasn’t the sort of Fae who would be taken by surprise in a dirty old house and go on to reveal his weaknesses.

  Unwillingly and extremely carefully, Irene approached. “Are you ill?” she asked.

  Lord Guantes rolled to one side, looking up at her. She had never thought that she’d see vulnerability in his eyes.

  “Under the cathedral . . . the dark archive . . .” he gasped, the last of his breath hissi
ng between his teeth as he fought to get the words out. For a moment he managed to focus. “Irene Winters, the man behind the Professor knows you, and he wants you . . .”

  And then he stopped moving and his body went limp.

  Irene hesitated, then reached out a hand to check the pulse in his neck. But as she touched him, his neck crumpled under her fingers. She snatched her hand back in revulsion. A bruise spread under his skin like ink, and as it grew, the flesh behind it collapsed into dust. She leaned back to avoid inhaling her erstwhile enemy. And she shivered. This was the second time she’d seen him die.

  Shadows seemed to grow in the corners of the room, and the back of her neck prickled with the sensation of being watched. It felt as if she’d caught someone’s attention—and they weren’t amused.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Sir? May I come in?” It was a man’s voice, speaking Spanish.

  Damn. Irene had lost her best source of information, she couldn’t fool Lord Guantes’s servant by imitating his voice with any hope of success, and she’d run out of time. Kai and Vale—and Catherine—needed her. The body in front of her was nothing but an empty suit of clothing and a scattering of dust. Desperately she checked the suit’s pockets, but there was nothing—no wallet, no conveniently revealing documents. Not even a note saying Meet me next week at a helpfully specified location.

  Her eyes fell on Lord Guantes’s laptop. Even if it contained nothing of interest, someone might be able to track where it came from. She scooped it up, then turned and ran. And as she hurried down the corridor, she could hear Lord Guantes’s remains being discovered—followed by yells for assistance.

  Her sortie through the door hadn’t answered her questions; it had just given her a whole new set. For instance, who’d created that chaos-infused exit from Vale’s world? It didn’t match what she knew of Lord Guantes. He was a Machiavellian schemer, not an engineer—or whatever the appropriate term was for someone who could make a stable portal between alternate worlds. Fae could walk from world to world without doors, dragons flew in the space between them—but she’d only seen a permanent door between worlds once. And that had been in an ancient Fae prison, not a modern convenience. And who had that kind of capability anyway? “The man behind the Professor . . .”

  The way back loomed in front of her. Without breaking step, she ordered, “Door, open!”

  Pain rammed itself into her temples like a blow to the head. Both the door before her and the one now far behind—to the room where Lord Guantes had died—flung themselves open. She ignored the sudden yells of pursuit and the bullet that sang past her to hit the distant wall. She staggered through the exit, nearly collapsing. Someone caught her, and it took her a moment to recognize it was Vale.

  The door slammed shut.

  “And you complain that I am reckless,” Vale muttered. “Winters, whatever you’ve done, I hope it was worth it . . .”

  Then the station’s alarm sounded again, and lights flashed red.

  “The self-destruct . . . maybe they reactivated it?” Irene said with horror. “Let’s get out of here—then I’ll tell you what I found.”

  “What about that door?” he asked.

  “With any luck, it’ll be destroyed with this base. But I’ve found something that may help.” She tapped the laptop, still clasped under one arm. “Come on!”

  They rushed down another corridor, at a sprint this time. And as the alarms continued, shrieking in time with the pounding in her head, Irene could only hope that the door would be destroyed.

  Its existence was a huge unanswered question—and it worried her.

  * * *

  * * *

  Kai actually looked at the waitress this time. She was now a threat, rather than a convenient provider of tea and cakes. She didn’t look sinister, garbed in the long black dress, white apron, and mob cap common to all the waitresses in this café . . .

  However, he now realized, none of the other waitresses had been visible since this one had entered the room. He’d thought the privacy was convenient, allowing him and Catherine to have an unobserved chat. But this now signified something rather more dangerous. Her manner was also far less subservient than he’d expect from someone who waited on others and washed dishes for a living. While Kai lacked Vale’s skill at deduction, he realized this woman probably wasn’t a waitress, he and Catherine were compromised, and the whole mission was in danger.

  “Please excuse me a moment,” he said, and sipped his tea.

  “What are you doing?” Catherine hissed. “She just said that was poisoned!”

  “No, she just said that we had been poisoned. But as far as I can judge, there isn’t any poison in this tea.”

  Kai glanced sidelong at the so-called waitress from under his lashes; she seemed taken aback by his lack of panic. He’d managed to get her off balance. Now to see if he could provoke her to talk.

  Catherine looked as if she was about to boil over. “We have been poisoned,” she said again. “We’re about to die! I’ll never get at those books!”

  “Now, that’s the right attitude,” Kai agreed, glad to see her demonstrating a proper sense of priorities. “But from my personal experience, people don’t inform you that you’ve been poisoned if you’re about to die on the spot. It’s usually to blackmail you by offering the antidote—or something like that?”

  “Wait a second,” the waitress said. “You’ve done this before?”

  Kai put down his teacup and raised an eyebrow. She was still just out of arm’s reach, but if he could persuade her to come closer . . . “I was taught to recognize a large number of poisons as a child. Though unfortunately not this one.”

  “Seriously?” Catherine said. “I’d heard noble dragons were bad parents, but I’d thought that was rumour. Looks like I was wrong.”

  Kai charitably forgave her this slander—she hadn’t been raised as royalty, after all. “So you see,” he said to the waitress, “if you were serious, we’d be dead already. As it is, we have no reason to believe your threats.”

  The woman pulled herself together, trying to regain control of the situation. “What if I told you it wasn’t in the tea?!”

  “The petit fours?” Catherine asked. “I thought they tasted a little bit off.”

  “No, not the petit fours either. It was . . .” She paused dramatically. “It was in the gâche!”

  Kai looked regretfully at the remains of the local fruit bread. “Ah, raisins. My fatal weakness.”

  As he spoke, he was thinking as fast as he could. He hadn’t tasted anything unusual, though the mixed peel, raisins, and sultanas could have masked a number of poisons. More to the point, he hadn’t felt anything yet, and it had been at least a quarter of an hour since they’d eaten.

  Dragons were harder to poison than ordinary humans, but if he’d eaten a dose sufficient for the poisoner to march up and boast about it now, it must be something with a delayed effect . . . Heavy metals? Black lotus?

  “Or maybe you’re bluffing.” He smiled at the so-called waitress, but there was nothing pleasant about the curve of his lips. “A cheap attempt at extortion, maybe. Why should we believe you?”

  “Well, fine . . .” the woman declared, throwing her hands in the air. “Sit there till you curl up and die. See if I care! I thought you’d appreciate a chance to bargain, but if you’re going to be pigheaded about it—”

  “What exactly are you claiming to have poisoned us with?” Catherine demanded.

  “It’s something you won’t have heard of before—a new discovery,” she said smugly. “But trust me when I tell you it’s utterly fatal.” Her smirk blossomed. “Did you know that it’s possible to extract a lethal poison from castor-oil plants?”

  Ricin. Kai maintained his ruthless smile, but inwardly he sighed in relief. Ricin was toxic in food, but it wasn’t as bad as if they’d inhaled it. Assuming they received prop
er medical treatment within six hours or so, they should be fine. “Oh, that,” he said. “Should I be worried? It’s not as if I’m suffering from anything that would require a dose of castor oil.”

  “Yes, you should be worried.” The woman could barely contain her irritation. “And if you don’t follow orders and come along with me now, your worry will be short-lived. Because you’ll be dead. Painfully.”

  “I can see you haven’t had much experience at this sort of thing,” Kai said kindly. “You should have told us that first. So who are you, and why do you want us to go with you?”

  The woman tried to assume an air of menace. “We know you’re here to exchange money for a certain book. We know you’re waiting here to make the exchange. You’re both to accompany me now. Then we’ll give you the antidote.”

  Now Kai was worried. The woman’s air of incompetence and the simplistic nature of her demand concerned him more than the demand itself. This was obviously linked to the earlier kidnap attempts on Irene: clearly whoever was behind the crimes had traced them here. But in that case, why send in such a pathetic agent to deliver threats? What if she was a pawn, delaying them while someone else made a move on them—or Irene? But all he said was “I see. Now I’ll make you an offer in return.” Kai leaned forward, feeling his claws prick at the ends of his fingers as anger rose in him. “Tell us who gave you this information, and I’ll allow you to walk out of this café alive.”

  His fury must have reached her, for she flinched before she could catch herself. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she attempted, her voice trembling. “If you don’t get the antidote, you’ll die. I won’t be bullied like this—”

  Kai rose to his feet and casually picked her up by the neck. “The poison you’ve given us won’t take effect for hours yet,” he said, and watched her eyes dilate in terror. She hadn’t known that.