Catherine’s eyes went worryingly blank. “But he said I could be his librarian. He said he wanted me to be a librarian.” Her fingers fumbled, losing their grip on the buttons. “I don’t need to worry about anything . . .”
“Take off those gloves,” Irene said softly, “or you’ll never touch a book with your bare hands again. Do you remember holding the Malory? What it was like being able to touch those old pages, to open it and read it? What do you want, Catherine?”
“Stop nagging me,” Catherine snarled. Her eyes focused again, angry at Irene, but even more so at herself. She yanked at the glove, one last button ripping loose and bouncing to the floor. Then she dragged it off her hand, letting it drop as if it repulsed her. Fingers trembling, frowning at her own slowness, she pulled off the second glove. She was muttering to herself, her voice barely audible, as she dropped it in turn.
The two discarded gloves lay on the marble floor—uncannily lifelike, resembling some old sculpture of praying hands.
Catherine raked her arm across her face, wiping away tears, and looked at Irene. Finally her eyes showed true awareness. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“We get out of here,” Irene said grimly. “And we raise hell.”
CHAPTER 21
Is there nothing on except soap operas?” Shan Yuan demanded.
He’d taken possession of the apartment’s sofa and reclined on it, in what should have been a commanding posture. However, it was more akin to an invalid’s weariness. Kai sympathized. This world they’d been yanked into was towards the chaotic end of the universe—further than Vale’s world, further than others he’d tolerated in the past. As a result, he and his brother were grossly inconvenienced. It felt like a particularly bad bout of influenza, or how he imagined radiation sickness might feel—or worse. They certainly couldn’t take their natural forms here, and even if there was a large quantity of water nearby (which there wasn’t), Kai wouldn’t have been able to bend it to his will.
In fact, it was possible to imprison two dragon princes simply by locking the door—and that really galled Kai. Some things simply should not be allowed to happen.
They were in a rather nice apartment suite in a skyscraper. It was hard to be sure how high they were, but a glance out of the locked and barred window suggested the thirtieth floor at least. Outside, the city’s lights glittered in the darkness. Kai could just make out tiny vehicles flashing between them like luminescent deep-sea fishes, both at ground level and in the air. In the far distance Kai could see the Sagrada Familia—a building he recognized at once. The cathedral was floodlit, revealing a façade as intricate and fascinating as coral. It was an impressive landmark in the surrounding darkness. The feel of chaos hung heavy in the air around him, but he could sense it lay even deeper there. Part of him wanted to flinch from the sight, but the more mature, combative side of his nature marked it as a target. Lord Guantes had been the last person Kai had seen, before they were snatched to this world. And if that was the cathedral another Lord Guantes had mentioned to Irene with his last breath, then this was the centre of the conspiracy . . .
“I’m talking to you, Kai.” Shan Yuan amplified his complaint. “Stop staring out of the window.”
“I’m analysing our surroundings from a military point of view,” Kai excused himself. He picked up the television remote control and skipped through channels, feeling lethargic. Everything was in Spanish. “Do you suppose they’re trying to brainwash us? With chaos?”
“It could explain why we’ve been kept alive,” his brother muttered.
Kai still didn’t have an answer to that, other than wondering what came next. But he kept that to himself.
He did feel guilty about Shan Yuan’s presence. When the lights had gone out, back in the People’s Palace, some sort of chaos portal had formed under his feet. His brother had leapt to Kai’s side without a moment’s hesitation, trying to drag Kai free—and he had, as a result, been pulled through too. Kai was responsible for his brother being here, trapped at the wrong end of the universe, in peril of death or worse . . .
“Kept alive to languish in this banal cell, forced into each other’s society, deprived of liberty, with chaos sullying our bodies and spirits—you should have been able to handle your affairs better than this, Kai.”
. . . though he had to admit that Shan Yuan’s attitude wasn’t helping. And Shan Yuan hadn’t been invited to join their mission anyway, so it was his own fault he was here.
“It could be a lot worse, elder brother,” he said. “We could each be chained up in a windowless cell, on our own, with no idea whether the other is alive or dead.”
“Don’t give them ideas, Kai,” Shan Yuan hissed. “They might be listening for you to describe your worst nightmare, so that they can act on it.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re listening. We’ve seen this place is high-technology. Only someone really stupid wouldn’t put hidden microphones in here.”
Kai sat down, giving in to the weariness that suffused his body and made his bones ache. He wished he could explain to Irene that he didn’t loathe high-chaos worlds due to prejudice, but because they made him feel ill and utterly shattered. This brought his thoughts back to Irene again—and Vale, and Catherine—and he wondered where they were. In other rooms inside this skyscraper? Or somewhere far worse? The Sagrada Familia? His hand clenched on the remote as he brooded on his powerlessness.
He forced himself to loosen his fingers. Enough self-indulgence. Time to be proactive.
They—their mysterious captors—had removed his knife and lockpicks. He prowled the apartment, assessing its furnishings and features with a view to mayhem. There were no sharp kitchen implements or razors, though the bottles in the drinks cupboard could be broken. There was no computer access. The window was possibly breakable, but given how high up they were, a human body wouldn’t survive the fall—and jumping out, in the vague hope that he might take dragon form before he hit the ground, would probably end unhappily. However, Irene had shown him many useful applications for harmless household goods in the past . . .
“What are you doing?” Shan Yuan asked querulously.
“Reviewing the situation,” Kai answered. “We have basic microwave meals in the kitchenette here. No sharp knives, though.”
“Microwave?” Shan Yuan pulled himself out of his despond and wandered over to inspect it. “Probably not very useful,” he said, after a minute or two.
Kai construed that as wouldn’t cause significant damage if I rewired it to explode, and nodded. But something else had crossed his mind. “Nice drinks cupboard,” he said, keeping his tone casual. “At least we can get drunk while we’re waiting for our possible doom.”
Shan Yuan made a noise of disgust. “Is that your best idea? I thought you were keeping bad company, but now I know it for certain.”
“I might surprise you with my mixing skills,” Kai said. “Let’s see. I could make a dry martini, but that’s boring. They don’t have absinthe or blackberry liquor, so an Aunt Roberta’s out of the question, and I don’t feel like a Death in the Afternoon or a Tropical Zombie . . . do you? Or how about a Long Island Iced Tea?”
Shan Yuan glared at him, and even here, in the depths of chaos, Kai could feel a brief surge of blazing heat from his brother’s body. “You embarrass yourself.”
Kai cursed silently. Apparently Shan Yuan didn’t know his cocktails and hadn’t grasped the salient factor here—all the drinks Kai had mentioned had an extremely high alcohol content. Since they were certainly being monitored, there was no way to be more direct. “Older brother,” he said, “we’re both suffering due to the chaos level here. We won’t be given any drugs—or if we are offered any, I wouldn’t advise taking them. The most sensible option is to have a few drinks to dull the pain. Watch me and I’ll show you.” He pulled a fork from the cutlery drawer and passed it to Shan Yuan, nodding meaningfully at the m
icrowave.
Kai’s control over water wouldn’t extend to the liquids in this world—they were far too infested by chaos, too deeply infiltrated by its essence. And their captors would know this, assuming Kai would be just as helpless here as he’d been before, that time in Venice.
It was a rewarding experience to disprove one’s enemies’ expectations, and the more drastically the better.
Well, rewarding for him.
Shan Yuan took the fork and looked uncomprehendingly at it. Then he looked more closely at the spirits Kai was gathering. Gin, vodka, tequila, rum . . . “Maybe you have a point,” he said, and pried off the microwave’s control panel.
Kai suspected they’d only have a few moments to act, once his brother started mangling the microwave’s electronic guts. He gave up on subtlety and started uncorking all the bottles.
From the lounge area, a gentle electronic voice intoned, “Stand away from the kitchen equipment. This is an order.”
Shan Yuan hissed between his teeth and did something to the wiring.
“Stand away from the kitchen equipment, or we are authorised to use lethal force,” the voice continued, in the pleasant female tones of an electronic alarm system that had been designed to sound comforting and reassuring.
Shan Yuan nodded to Kai and jammed the fork into the wiring. Blue sparks jumped. Kai tipped the vodka onto the wiring; the sparks belched upwards, flaring into sudden alcohol-fuelled flames.
Fire wasn’t like water. Fire existed only for a moment, remade with every passing second, constantly replaced by newly created flames. While the burning materials might be of this world and contaminated by chaos, the actual tongues of fire were untouched. They were free from corruption as they winked in and out of existence. Which meant Shan Yuan could command the fire howsoever he wished.
The fire leapt up, wreathing the microwave and melting the plastic-topped counter it stood upon. Shan Yuan directed it downwards, so it could rush across the floor—then it flared across the room, charring the neutral beige carpeting and bland walls. It spread around Shan Yuan and Kai in a growing circle, blossoming outwards to shoot towards the apartment door.
Shan Yuan followed the flames, and Kai followed Shan Yuan, a bottle of vodka in his hand in case a top-up was required.
Guards had begun to assemble beyond the apartment door, but they weren’t prepared for the rolling wall of flame that smashed the door down and came roaring towards them. A few had enough sense to shoot at the two dragons, but most sprayed their bullets blindly into the flames.
Kai knocked Shan Yuan to the floor and out of the line of fire, biting back a curse as a bullet seared his upper arm. Shan Yuan said nothing, but the heat of his body beneath Kai redoubled, and the flames burst forth with new fury, reaching out for the guards like living things.
The guards weren’t being paid to face down an inferno. They broke and ran.
“Take one alive,” Kai murmured in Shan Yuan’s ear. “We need information.”
“Good idea. You do have more experience in these situations,” Shan Yuan admitted. He hooked his hand in a gesture and the flames leapt ahead of the rearmost guard, circling to cut him off.
The guard turned to face them. He was anonymous behind his helmet, face mask, and body armour, but his posture spoke eloquently of how much he feared the fire. “Keep back!” he ordered them.
“Question this fool for me, Kai, before I incinerate him where he stands,” Shan Yuan said dismissively. The strain in his expression was only visible to Kai, and only because he knew his brother well.
As Kai glared at the guard, he was every inch the son of Ao Guang, Dragon King of the Eastern Ocean. Blood trickled down his arm from the bullet wound, merely adding to his anger. “You,” he snapped at the man, and saw him flinch. “We need information. You may assist us or you may die. The choice is yours.”
* * *
* * *
The guardroom nearby did have a computer terminal, and Shan Yuan bent over it with renewed energy. The flames had filled this floor of the building and were now rapidly spreading to other levels. This had apparently halted any attempts to find or recapture them, and the screaming mass of civilians being evacuated provided an additional distraction. Kai did feel guilty about their fright, and the damage. He reassured himself that once he and Shan Yuan were safely out of the building, the fire crews could put out the flames.
“How long will this take?” Kai asked, knotting a bandage of torn cloth over his wound. It would have seriously inconvenienced a human; as a dragon, he could endure it without too much difficulty.
Shan Yuan’s fingers flickered across the keyboard. The guard had provided the password and his fingerprint to enter the system and had therefore been allowed to keep his hand. “I’m interfering with the building’s security network—telling it to focus on the fire and evacuating the building. But we’re bound to be discovered quickly . . . It’ll take too long to reach the ground floor, but the system says there are air cars docked on the roof. Can you fly an air car?”
“Yes.” Well, yes in other worlds. That would just have to do.
“But where shall we go?”
“The Sagrada Familia,” Kai replied, without hesitation. “You can see it from the windows. It’s guesswork, but Lord Guantes did talk about a cathedral, and there was the information on the laptop. It’s too much of a coincidence to avoid. I’m assuming Irene will be in the most dangerous place and under the highest security.”
“Higher than us?” Shan Yuan didn’t try to suppress the offended pride in his voice.
“Our enemy’s folly is our good fortune. Can you sustain the flames until we reach the roof?”
“Of course,” Shan Yuan said disdainfully, ignoring the sweat that streaked his brow.
“Without burning down the entire building?”
“That might be more difficult,” Shan Yuan conceded. “We should hurry.”
Bombarded by blaring sirens and warnings to evacuate immediately, and without using the elevators, they made for the roof. Shan Yuan’s flames cleared their way, and roaming squads of guards and panicked civilians fled the walls of fire that surrounded them. Fortunately those same walls of fire hid the fact that Shan Yuan was leaning on Kai for support. The effort of moving the blaze ever onward, against a background of chaos, drained him.
They staggered out onto the roof together—a landing zone marked into separate quadrants by artificial foliage and bordered by garages. Kai only saw a few parked air cars, and those were being fought over by panicked citizens. Multiple fire escapes offered safe routes to the roofs of other buildings—but it seemed that some refused to leave without their cars, or were taking advantage of the situation to do some looting.
“That one,” Kai said, pointing at the nearest—a sleek gold two-seater. Shan Yuan raised a hand. Flames blossomed from the halo that surrounded them, flowing across the tarmac like oil to circle the air car. The fire forced back the pair who’d been about to seize it, and Kai grabbed the key card from one of the distracted opportunists. Another burst of flames caused them to flee, as Kai dragged Shan Yuan into the passenger’s side before jumping into the driver’s seat.
Kai stared at the rows of controls. A keyboard. A screen. Multiple buttons. Key-card reader. Close enough to air cars he’d flown before. He waved the key card at the reader hopefully and was delighted as the controls all fired up. He spared just a moment to wonder if the card was a counterfeit or genuine, meaning they were stealing the air car, then shrugged. Their need was great and the screen was glowing in readiness, showing what looked like a local map. He tapped a building, and the screen helpfully suggested various speeds and routes to reach it.
The fires were dying down without Shan Yuan to boost them. Emergency vehicles had now converged on the building, some pouring foam through open windows. Kai hit the choices for high speed and direct route, mentally urging the
air car to hurry. It rose, drifting into the air like an overweight pigeon trying to remember exactly how one went from pavement to airborne. It steadied a couple of yards up, then rotated, before plunging into motion.
“Good job,” Kai said, relaxing for a moment. “Well done, brother.”
“You were quite competent yourself,” Shan Yuan said, gracing him with a thin smile.
“Next stop, the cathedral,” Kai said triumphantly, touching their real target this time—the Sagrada Familia—on the screen. Other air cars from the roof were heading in all directions, merging into what might be regular traffic flows. The emergency vehicles were fully occupied with the still-burning fire, darting around the building to squirt foam at the flames.
But the expected routing options failed to materialise. “Unacceptable end-point,” the air car’s voice unit said, sounding less friendly than earlier. “Sagrada Familia is not a permitted destination. Please state new travel end-point.”
Somehow, Kai wasn’t too surprised. The reports on the stolen laptop had indicated the place was closed. He hunted for the manual override and turned it on. Luckily this was indeed like air cars he’d driven before. Two levers, a bit like joysticks, slid out from a concealed recess. “Things may get a little bumpy from here on,” he warned his brother.
“Is that car approaching us?” Shan Yuan asked, pointing. The vehicle heading towards them was a sleek black with silver trim. It had red lights on its sides and looked worryingly official. Kai ignored it. Then the vehicle opened fire. The two dragons ducked in their seats as bullets came hammering through the roof, sides, and windscreen; fragments of glass cascaded down upon them. Their pursuer slid sideways to draw level with them, matching their pace, and a rough amplified voice roared, “Stop your car and maintain position or be shot down!”
“Right,” Kai said, a vicious smile curving his lips, and began to get creative. He urged the air car into a rapid dive, dropping away from their pursuer. Then he curved to the right, ducking under a stream of traffic to slide between two skyscrapers.
The Dark Archive (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 24
