Library of Souls

by Ransom Riggs

  I scrambled to the guard and tore the keys from his belt. Then I stood frozen with them in my hand, my eyes darting between the cell doors and Emma.

  “Hurry up and let us out!” Enoch said.

  “With which key?” I said. The ring held dozens, all identical save the big gold one.

  Emma’s face fell. “Oh, no.”

  More guards would be coming soon, and unlocking every cell would cost precious minutes. So we ran to the end of the hall, unlocked the door, and gave the keys to Hugh, whose cell was closest. “Free yourself and then the others!” I said.

  “Then stay here until we come back to get you,” Emma added.

  “No chance!” Hugh said. “We’re coming after you!”

  There was no time to argue—and I was secretly relieved to hear it. After all this time struggling on our own, I was looking forward to having some backup.

  Emma and I heaved open the big bunker-like door, took a last look at our friends, and slipped away.

  * * *

  On the other side of the door was a long rectangular room cluttered with utilitarian furniture and lit from above by greenish fluorescent bulbs. It was doing its best impression of an office, but I wasn’t fooled. The wall was spongy with foam soundproofing. The door was thick enough to withstand a nuclear blast. This was no office.

  We could hear someone moving around at the far end of the room, but our view was blocked by a bulky filing cabinet. I touched Emma’s arm and nodded my head—let’s go—and we began to advance quietly, hoping to sneak up on whoever was in here with us.

  I caught a glimpse of a white coat and a man’s balding head. Definitely not an ymbryne. Had they not heard the door opening? No, they hadn’t, and then I realized why: they were listening to music. A woman’s voice sang a soft, slinky rock song—an old one I’d heard before but couldn’t name. So strange, so dislocating, to hear it here, now.

  We slid forward, the song just loud enough to mask our footsteps, passing desks crowded with papers and maps. A rack mounted to a wall held hundreds of glass beakers, silver-flecked black liquid spinning inside. Lingering, I saw that each was labeled, the names of the victims whose souls they contained printed in small type.

  Peeking around the filing cabinet, we saw a lab-coated man seated at a desk shuffling papers, his back to us. All around him was a horror-show of random anatomy. A skinned arm with musculature exposed. A spine hung like a trophy on the wall. A few bloodless organs scattered like lost puzzle pieces on the desk. The man was writing something, nodding his head, humming along with the song—something about love, something about miracles.

  We stepped into the open and moved toward him across the floor. I remembered where I’d last heard the song: at the dentist, while a metal pick stabbed at the soft, pink flesh of my gums.

  “You Make Loving Fun.”

  Now we were only a few yards away. Emma held out a hand, ready to light it. But just before we got within reach of the man, he spoke to us.

  “Hello, there. I’ve been expecting you.”

  It was a slimy-smooth voice I would never forget. Caul.

  Emma summoned flames that shot from her palms with the sound of a whip-crack. “Tell us where the ymbrynes are, and I might spare your life!”

  Startled, the man spun around in his chair. What we saw startled us, too: below his wide eyes, his face was a ruin of melted flesh. This man was not Caul—he wasn’t even a wight—and it couldn’t have been him who’d spoken. The man’s lips were fused together. In his two hands he held a mechanical pencil and a small remote control. Pinned to his coat was a name tag.

  Warren.

  “Gee, you wouldn’t hurt old Warren, would you?” Caul’s voice again, coming from the same place as the music: a speaker in the wall. “Though it wouldn’t matter much if you did. He’s only my intern.”

  Warren sank low into his swivel chair, looking fearfully at the flame in Emma’s hand.

  “Where are you?” Emma shouted, looking around.

  “Never mind that!” Caul said through the speaker. “What matters is that you’ve come to see me. I’m delighted! It’s so much easier than hunting you down.”

  “We’ve got a whole army of peculiars on their way!” Emma bluffed. “The crowd at your gates is just the tip of the spear. Tell us where the ymbrynes are and maybe we can settle this peacefully!”

  “Army!” Caul said, laughing. “There aren’t enough fight-ready peculiars left in London to form a fire brigade, much less an army. As for your pathetic ymbrynes, save your empty threats—I’ll gladly show you where they are. Warren, would you do the honors?”

  Warren pushed a button on the remote in his hand, and with a loud whoosh a panel slid aside in the wall to one side of us. Behind it was a second wall made of thick glass, which looked into an expansive room engulfed in shadow.

  We pressed against the glass, cupping our hands around our faces to see. Gradually, there came into view a space like a neglected basement, jumbled with furnishings and heavy drapes and human forms frozen in strange postures, many of which appeared, like the spare parts on Warren’s desk, to have been stripped of their skin.

  Oh God what’s he done to them—

  My eyes darted around the dark, my heart racing.

  “That’s Miss Glassbill!” Emma cried, and then I saw her, too. She sat in a chair off to one side, mannish and flat-faced, perfectly symmetrical braids falling down either side of her head. We pounded on the glass and called to her, but she merely stared, in a daze, unresponsive to our shouts.

  “What have you done to her?” I shouted. “Why won’t she answer?”

  “She’s had bit of her soul removed,” Caul said. “Tends to numb the brain.”

  “You bastard!” Emma shouted, and punched the glass. Warren backed his rolling chair into the corner. “You black-hearted, despicable, cowardly …”

  “Oh, calm down,” Caul said. “I only took a little of her soul, and the rest of your nursemaids are in top health, if not spirits.”

  A harsh overhead light flicked on in the jumbled room, and it became suddenly clear that most of the figures were just dummies—no, obviously not real—mannequins or anatomical models of some kind, posed like statues with their tendons and muscles all flexed and popping. But in among them, gagged, bound to chairs and wooden posts, flinching and squeezing their eyes shut against the sudden light, were real, living people. Women. Eight, ten—I hadn’t time to count them all—most of them older, disheveled but distinguished-looking.

  Our ymbrynes.

  “Jacob, it’s them!” Emma cried. “Can you see Miss—”

  The light flicked off before we could find Miss Peregrine, and now my eyes, ruined for the dark, could see nothing through the glass.

  “She’s there, too,” Caul said with a bored sigh. “Your pious bird, your wet-nurse …”

  “Your sister,” I said, hoping that might inject some humanity into him.

  “I would hate to kill her,” he said, “and I suppose I won’t—provided you give me what I want.”

  “And what’s that?” I said, pulling away from the glass.

  “Nothing much,” he said casually. “Just a little bit of your soul.”

  “What!” Emma barked.

  I laughed out loud.

  “Now, now, hear me out!” Caul said. “I don’t even want the entire thing. Merely an eyedropper’s worth. Less even than I took from Miss Glassbill. Yes, it’ll make you a bit dopey for a while, but in a few days you will have fully recovered your faculties.”

  “You want my soul because you think it’ll help you use the library,” I said. “And take all that power.”

  “I see you’ve been talking to my brother,” Caul replied. “You might as well know: I’ve nearly accomplished it now. After a lifetime of searching, I’ve finally found Abaton, and the ymbrynes—this perfect combination of ymbrynes—have unlocked the door for me. Alas, it was only then that I learned I needed still another component. A peculiar with a very specific ta
lent, not often seen in the world these days. I had nearly despaired of ever finding such a person when I realized that a certain peculiar’s grandson might fit the bill, and that these ymbrynes, otherwise useless to me now, could act as a lure. And so they have! I do believe it’s fate, my boy. You and I, we’ll go down in peculiar history together.”

  “We’re not going anywhere together,” I said. “If you get that kind of power, you’ll make the world a living hell.”

  “You misunderstand me,” he continued. “That’s not surprising; most people do. Yes, I’ve had to make the world a hell for those who’ve stood in my way, but now that I’ve nearly achieved my goal, I am prepared to be generous. Magnanimous. Forgiving.”

  The music, still warbling below Caul’s voice, had faded into a calm instrumental number, so at odds with the panic and terror I was feeling that it gave me a chill.

  “We’ll finally live in peace and harmony,” he said, his voice smooth and reassuring, “with me as your king, your god. This is peculiardom’s natural hierarchy. We were never meant to live like this, decentralized and powerless. Ruled by women. There will be no more hiding when I’m in charge. No more pathetic cowering beneath the skirts of ymbrynes. Our rightful place as peculiars is at the head of the human table. We’ll rule the earth and all its people. We’ll finally inherit what’s ours!”

  “If you think we’re going to play any role in that,” said Emma, “you’re out of your gourd.”

  “I expected as much from you, girl,” said Caul. “You’re so typical of ymbryne-raised peculiars: no ambition, and no sense at all but one of entitlement. Quiet yourself, I am speaking to the male.”

  Emma’s face went as red as the flame in her hand.

  “Get on with it,” I said tersely, thinking of the guards that were probably on their way, and our friends, still fumbling with keys in the hallway.

  “Here’s my offer,” said Caul. “Allow my specialists to perform their procedure on you, and when I’ve got what I want, I’ll let you and your friends go free—and your ymbrynes, too. They’ll pose me no threat then, anyhow.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “If you won’t let me remove your soul the easy and painless way, then my hollows would be more than happy to do it. They aren’t known for their bedside manner, though, and once they’re through with you, I’m afraid I’ll be powerless to stop them from moving on to your ymbrynes. So you see, I’ll get what I want either way.”

  “That won’t work,” Emma said.

  “Are you referring to the boy’s little trick? I’ve heard he’s been able to control one hollow, but how about two at once? Or three, or five?”

  “As many as I want,” I said, trying to sound confident, unflappable.

  “That I would very much like to see,” said Caul. “Shall I take that as your answer, then?”

  “Take it however you like,” I said. “I’m not helping you.”

  “Oh, goody,” Caul said. “This will be loads more fun!”

  We could hear Caul laughing over the PA, and then I startled at the sound of a loud buzzer.

  “What’ve you done now?” Emma said.

  I felt a sharp pulse in my gut, and without Caul having to explain anything, I could picture exactly what was happening: in a tunnel below the ymbrynes’ room, a hollow had been released from deep within the bowels of the complex. It was coming closer, climbing toward a grate in the floor that was scraping open. It would be among the ymbrynes soon.

  “He’s sending up a hollow!” I said. “It’s coming into that room!”

  “We’ll start with just one hollowgast,” said Caul. “If you can manage him, I’ll introduce you to his friends.”

  I banged on the glass. “Let us in!”

  “With pleasure,” said Caul. “Warren?”

  Warren pushed another button on the remote. A door-sized section of the glass wall slid open.

  “I’m going!” I said to Emma. “You stay here and guard him!”

  “If Miss Peregrine’s in there, I’m coming, too.”

  It was clear there was no talking her out of it.

  “Then we’re bringing him with us,” I said.

  Warren tried to dart away, but Emma caught him by the back of his coat.

  I ran through the door, into the dark and jumbled room, and Emma was behind me with the squirming, mouthless intern collared in one hand.

  I heard the glass door bang shut behind us.

  Emma swore.

  I turned to look.

  On the other side of the door, on the floor, lay the remote. We were locked in.

  * * *

  We’d only been inside the room a few seconds when the intern managed to wriggle from Emma’s grasp and tumble off into the darkness. Emma started to chase him, but I held her back—he didn’t matter. What mattered was the hollow, which was nearly out of its hole now and into the room.

  It was starving. I could feel its gnawing hunger as if it were my own. In moments it would start feasting on ymbrynes, unless we could stop it. Unless I could stop it. First, though, I would have to find it, and the room was so crowded with junk and shadows that my ability to see hollows wasn’t of great advantage.

  I asked Emma for more light. She strengthened the flames in her hands as much as she could, but it seemed to only lengthen the shadows.

  To keep her safe, I asked her to stay by the door. She refused. “We stick together,” she said.

  “Stick together behind me, then. Way behind me.”

  That, at least, she granted me. As I moved past catatonic Miss Glassbill and deeper into the room, Emma hung back several paces, holding one hand high above her head to light our way. What we could see of the room looked like a bloodless battlefield hospital, deconstructed human forms scattered everywhere.

  My foot kicked an arm. It rung dully and spun away—plaster. Here was a torso on a table. There a head in a liquid-filled jar, its eyes and mouth agape, almost certainly real but not of recent vintage. This seemed to be Caul’s lab, torture chamber, and storage closet all in one. He was a hoarder, like his brother, of strange and ghastly things—only where Bentham was organized to a tee, Caul badly needed a maid.

  “Welcome to the hollows’ play space,” Caul said, his amplified voice echoing through the room. “We conduct experiments on them here, feed them, watch them disassemble their food. I wonder what part of you they’ll eat first? Some hollows start with the eyes … a little amuse-bouche …”

  I tripped over a body, which yelped as my foot dug into it. Looking down, I saw the scared-to-death face of a middle-aged woman peeping back at me, wild-eyed—an ymbryne I didn’t know. Without stopping I bent down and whispered, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here,” but no, I thought, we would not; this chaos of forms and mad shadows would be the scene of our death—Old Jacob ascending, doom-saying, un-shut-uppable.

  I heard something shift deeper in the room, followed by the wet draw of a hollowgast’s mouth opening. It was here among us. I aimed myself toward it and ran—tripping, catching myself, Emma running too, saying, “Jacob, hurry!”

  Caul, over the PA, mocking us: “Jacob, hurry!”

  He had turned up the music: driving, upbeat, deranged.

  We passed three, four more ymbrynes, all tied and struggling, before I finally saw it.

  I stopped, breathless, my mind reeling at its sheer size. The hollow was a giant—several heads taller than the one I’d tamed, its skull nearly scraping the ceiling despite its hunched frame. It was twenty feet away, its jaws wide and tongues raking the air. Emma stumbled a few feet ahead of me and stuck out her hand, pointing at something and lighting it at the same time.

  “There! Look!”

  It wasn’t the hollow she’d seen, of course, but what it was moving toward: a woman, upside down and twisting, hung up like a side of beef, her black skirts blooming about her head. Even like that, even in the dark, I knew her—it was Miss Wren.

  Addison was hanging right next to her. They were strugg
ling, gagged, and mere feet from a hollowgast whose tongues were now stretching toward them, slipping around Miss Wren’s shoulders, drawing her into its jaws.

  “STOP!” I screamed, first in English, then in the rasping language the hollow could understand. I shouted again, then again, until it did stop—though not because it was under my control, but because I had suddenly become more interesting prey.

  It released the ymbryne and she swung away like a pendulum. The hollow turned its tongues toward me.

  “Cut down Miss Wren while I draw the hollow away,” I said.

  I moved away from Miss Wren while talking to the hollow in a constant stream, hoping to draw it away from her and keep its attention on me.

  Close your mouth. Sit down. Lie down.

  It turned away from Miss Wren as I moved—good, good—and then as I backed away, it came forward.

  Yes. Okay. Now what?

  My hands went to my pockets. In one I had what remained of Mother Dust’s finger. In the other, a secret—a vial of ambro I’d swiped from the previous room while Emma wasn’t looking. I’d taken it during a momentary lapse of confidence. What if I couldn’t do this on my own? What if I needed a boost?

  Sit down, I said. Stop.

  The hollow whipped one of its tongues at me. I ducked behind a mannequin and the tongue lassoed that instead, lifted it up and flung it against a wall, where it shattered.

  I dove away from a second tongue. Banged my shins on a tipped-over chair. The tongue slapped the empty floor where I’d just been. The hollow was toying with me now, but soon it would go in for the kill. I had to do something, and there were two somethings I could do.

  The vial or the finger.

  There was no way I’d be able to control this hollow without the boost in my abilities a vial of ambro could give. Mother Dust’s crushed finger, on the other hand, wasn’t something I could launch away from me, and I’d lost my mask. If I tried to use it, I’d only put myself to sleep; it was worse than useless.

  As another tongue smashed into the ground beside me, I slid beneath a table and pulled the vial from my pocket. I fumbled to uncork it, my hands shaking. Would it make a hero of me, or a slave? Could one vial really addict me for life? And what would be the worse outcome, being an addict and a slave, or being dead in this hollow’s stomach?