The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

by Garth Nix

  “Merlin!” shrieked Susan, finding her breath. She wriggled away from the massive wolf like an inchworm, but it put one great paw on her and held her in place and bent its head down, huge jaws opening. Susan lifted her bound-together feet and kicked it at the point of the lower jaw. But the attack did not meet fur and flesh. It was more like jumping into cold water from a height, giving but shocking at the same time, and there was a sudden flare of pins and needles through her feet up into her calves.

  The wolf lowered its head still more, jaws closing on Susan’s middle, but it pressed down without closing, snout digging into the prize turf of the lawn, positioning its mouth so it could pick up Susan with the least dangerous part of its maw. Susan stopped wriggling as she saw what it was doing, and the wolf slowly worked its nose deep to get a safe grip on her. If it was going to eat her, she thought, it would simply gulp her up, careless of the damage.

  Susan was right. The wolf worked its lower jaw under her, and slowly lifted her up, with her head and feet dangling outside its mouth. Again, it didn’t feel like she was in the mouth of a living creature. While she was held securely, it felt very strange, as if the wolf’s teeth weren’t always entirely there or completely present in the real world. Susan had the unpleasant sensation of floating on something like oil, far more buoyant than water, with enough pressure that she could not get free.

  She lay still as the wolf slowly angled its head, making her slide a bit farther back to be securely settled directly behind its great canines.

  “Susan!”

  It was Merlin’s voice. From the sound of it he was on the roof of the house. Susan turned her head and shouted, but the wolf was already moving, spinning about. It tensed to leap, there was a kind of meaty thud, the wolf gave a shuddering whimper that Susan felt as much as heard, then it jumped and it was Susan’s turn to cry out as the landing jarred her, despite the weird cushioning effect of the wolf’s otherworldly jaws.

  The jump took them to Waterloo Terrace, fifty or sixty yards away. The wolf accelerated immediately into a swift lope, but it held its head as still as possible so Susan was not hurt. She saw streetlights rushing past and could not guess at their speed, but it felt fast. They overtook a car and then another as the wolf turned north onto Upper Street.

  There was a long line of cars and trucks there, but the wolf ignored the steady line of traffic, moving around each slower vehicle, using both sides of the road and even jumping over cars when necessary. The drivers did not see the creature, or react to its presence. There was no swerving or emergency braking. Susan shut her eyes at some of the overtaking procedures, when the wolf almost miscalculated an oncoming vehicle’s speed. Even if the humans couldn’t see the monster, it was avoiding possible collisions, which was some relief to Susan. It might survive a head-on at speed. She knew she wouldn’t.

  The wolf didn’t stop for red lights. It ran so fast, and the angle she was held at was so confusing with buildings and lights flashing by, that it was impossible for Susan to work out where they were going, until they took the sharp turn at Highbury Corner and she got her bearings.

  The wolf was taking the A1, going up Holloway Road. Back towards Highgate and Frank Thringley’s manor, thought Susan. Back to where everything had begun.

  Susan slowly moved her wrists to try to find a sharp piece of tooth to saw the cord against, but there was nothing like that. She could see the giant teeth very clearly, she knew she was held between them, but when she moved her bound hands against the surface of the tooth under her, she felt only the weird soft resistance. Her hands sank in a little and then rose back, and all she got was pins and needles for her effort.

  Susan stopped the sawing motion and tried to angle her head to get a better view of where they were going. At first it was all nondescript London street and traffic, but then she saw the great arched viaduct of Archway Road, confirming her guess about their destination, only to be confounded a little later when the wolf did not turn onto Muswell Hill Road, but kept on up the A1.

  And on, and on, towards the M1.

  Northwards, always north.

  Merlin swore as the Fenris jumped away with Susan in its mighty jaws. His sword was deeply embedded in the wolf’s left haunch, but he’d aimed for the back of the creature’s head. The wound would slow it down, but there was no sign of that happening quickly, and the weapon had embedded itself so deeply it had also sealed the wound, so there would be no obvious blood trail to follow.

  Obvious to one of the right-handed, Merlin hoped, since he didn’t know himself how to track the spilled ichor of a mythic being who both did and didn’t exist in the contemporary world at the same time.

  He ran back across the roofs and dropped through the hole into the roof space. The dead man there was a skinhead, safety pins in his ear, chains down his trousers. Probably a local who had no idea he was being set up to be a sacrifice to get the goblins past the roof wards. The hard men who died in the back garden, shot by Inspector Greene, probably hadn’t known, either. Though they must have wondered why they had to wear the strange tubed vests that had been filled with mercury. Merlin wondered about that, whether Greene really didn’t know not to shed blood on the wards, or whether she was part of a conspiracy he was fairly sure was at work. Though perhaps whoever had planned this had been prepared to shoot them from behind anyway, in order to spill both quicksilver and blood, and Greene had beaten them to it.

  He lowered himself into Susan’s room, noted the dead man also wore a mercury-filled vest. He was middle-aged, had a holster for a pair of heavy wire cutters on his belt and rings tattooed around his fingers, indicating he was a sworn follower of a malevolent entity. One of those termed “Death Cultists” by the St. Jacques. This one would have known what the vest was for, and had offered himself as a willing sacrifice. He’d probably killed the skinhead on the roof before going on to his own purposeful death.

  The alarm bells were loud in the hallway, and Merlin could hear multiple sirens approaching.

  He ran down the stairs and found Greene on the phone and her radio at the same time, alternatively barking orders into one and listening to the other. She looked at Merlin.

  “Bookshops been notified?” asked Merlin.

  “Yes,” snapped Greene. “First thing. Your response teams are en route.”

  “I’m going to pack up the Cauldron-Born,” said Merlin.

  “What—”

  Merlin was already gone. The bookseller went into the kitchen and threw open cupboard doors until he found the saucepans. Taking out a giant soup pot, with its lid, he went out into the garden.

  Greene had sat Mrs. London up with her back against the rear wall of the house, her pistol in her lap. She had no obvious wounds, but blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, and she was very pale.

  She was conscious.

  “Ribs busted, into my lungs, too . . . probably everything else inside,” she gasped as Merlin looked at her.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” said Merlin. He hesitated. “Did you ever brief Greene on the wards? And what fresh-spilled blood would do, with mercury?”

  “No,” she gasped. “Thought she knew. Always a problem . . . in this job . . . no one knows what anyone . . . already knows . . . or is meant to know.”

  “That’s true,” said Merlin with a sigh. “Um, is there anything I can—”

  Sipper saliva could not be applied to internal wounds, unfortunately. And the right-handed had healing powers.

  But he was not right-handed.

  “One short sleep past, we wake eternally . . .” she whispered, and shut her eyes.

  Merlin left her and walked across the lawn to where various pieces of the Cauldron-Born were wriggling and writhing, trying to reach each other and piece themselves back together. But Merlin had chopped it up into a great many small parts and stomped them into the damp grass, so they hadn’t gotten far.

  The head he’d left intact, because he knew the right-handed would want to talk to it. It was still in t
he vegetable garden, but had managed to pull itself some distance through the earth using its chin. Merlin bent down and scooped it into the pot and held the lid down as the head used chin and tongue to bang itself against the stainless steel sides. He carried the pot back towards the house, treading down the pieces on the lawn again in a strange, capering dance.

  Near the door, he noticed Mrs. London was no longer breathing and her head had lolled to the side. A great deal more foamy, bright blood was dribbling from her mouth.

  “And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die,” he whispered. He set the pot down and sat on it, leaning forward to gently close Mrs. London’s eyes with his luminous silver hand.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In the spring green shoots

  Small signs of renewed triumph

  Death’s grip is broken

  VIVIEN ARRIVED AT THE MILNER SQUARE HOUSE FIVE MINUTES AFTER the response teams from both bookshops and, it seemed, every possible other emergency vehicle. The entire length of the square in front of the safe house was jammed with two police Rovers, a police armored Land Rover, a police van, two police motorbikes, two ambulances, a paramedic motorbike, and two fire engines, one a ladder truck, its turntable ladder being extended to the rooftop of the third town house in the row along from Mrs. London’s. There were uniformed police officers outside almost every house, sending people back inside, who kept ducking out to see what on earth was going on. The short stretch of cross street on the northern end of the square’s garden was blocked by two of the bookshops’ taxis and a dozen motorbikes from the Old Bookshop response team.

  Vivien was in the third taxi, driven by Audrey, who said, “Lord love a duck” and parked up on the curb at the southern corner of the garden. Vivien was out of the cab even before Audrey had turned the engine off.

  Two edgy armed police officers in the street outside the safe house raised their H & K MP5s but lowered them as Vivien held up her warrant card, and they let her proceed to the unarmed constable by the front door, who was recording names of personnel as they arrived. He looked at her card for a few seconds, made a face, and waved her in without writing anything down.

  As she went up the front steps, a group of paramedics came out with a body on a stretcher and she had to stand aside. A green blanket was pulled over his or her face, but Vivien noticed the shoes, and stopped, shocked into stillness.

  Mrs. London’s sensible square-toed shoes, from some nursing supplier that had somehow survived into the twentieth century. Florence Nightingale shoes.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. L,” whispered Vivien, and went inside.

  Greene was on the hall phone, standing almost at attention and listening to someone who liked the sound of their own voice. Vivien—who, as with all the right-handed, had extraordinarily acute hearing—could make out most of it, particularly as the one word deniability was vehemently repeated. The inspector cupped her hand over the receiver and said, “Merlin’s out back.”

  Vivien rushed past. Merlin, his left hand in a paisley oven mitt rather than a glove, was standing on the floodlit back lawn, talking earnestly to Una, who for once was listening intently. The younger bookseller had his foot on a cooking pot, which was rattling and thudding. The other left-handed members of the response team were picking up . . . wriggling bits of meat . . . from the lawn and garden, using forks and barbecue tongs and dropping them into half a dozen smaller saucepans, sorting them in some fashion because they didn’t drop them into the closest pot. Three of the right-handed booksellers from the New Bookshop response team were taking notes and making drawings of the pieces, while another two were on their knees, inspecting the wards at the back of the garden.

  There were two bodies near them, right on the boundary, men in workmen’s overalls with pig-face plastic masks, sprawled in pools of drying blood and ever-lambent mercury. One still held a sawn-off shotgun, the other lay sprawled near a Sterling submachine gun. Three SOCOs—scene-of-crime forensic officers—in their blue nylon suits and slippers were standin.g together in the far corner, waiting their turn and pointedly not looking at what the various booksellers were doing. They had all donned elbow-length gloves and were fingering their gas masks nervously.

  Vivien could hear the SOCOs whispering something about MI5, biological and chemical weapons, and Porton Down and distrusting the assurance they were safe, but she paid them no attention.

  “Cauldron-Born,” said Vivien quietly behind Merlin, working it out. “Different pots for different bits so it can’t put itself back together, right? And I guess the head’s in that pot.”

  Merlin turned. He looked terrible.

  “Vivien. They’ve got Susan.”

  “What? Who?”

  “This was all to kidnap her. Men killed here and on the roof, fresh blood and mercury to break the wards. Then they came in through the ceiling of Susan’s room. Islington goblins, you know, the leather apron crew. They took her to a garden a few doors down and a Fenris carried her away. I threw my sword at it—hit it—but from the way it jumped it can’t have been badly wounded.”

  “A Fenris? Which one?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “There are only seven in England,” said Vivien. “Did you see any distinguishing features? Silver hairs along the snout? Extra toes? The wider tail?”

  “No, no, it was dark and it was a huge bloody wolf, so I didn’t take the time to check its identity!” said Merlin. “I was on the roof, it was preparing to jump, I threw my sword like a spear and you know how hard that is. I missed the head, got it in the haunch. I thought that might stop it for a second, it was deep, but the sword stayed in the wound and it took off.”

  “The sword? That sword! You’ve lost it as well?”

  “I haven’t lost it, it’s stuck in a Fenris heading north,” said Merlin. “And as soon as I’m finished here I’m going to find the wolf, Susan, and the sword.”

  “You are finished here,” said Una. “But you can’t simply hare off north. The Greats will want to see you as soon as possible. Merrihew’s even cadged a helicopter ride from Hereford at night and you know she hates that.”

  “The Greats can wait,” said Merlin. “I’ll phone from somewhere along the road.”

  “How are you going to find out where the Fenris has taken Susan?” asked Vivien. “And what if the sword falls out along the way?”

  “I’m not worried about the sword!” said Merlin tensely. “It will find its way back to the Grail-Keeper if necessary; it always does, doesn’t it? It’s Susan I’m worried about. Who would—or could—go to all this trouble to kidnap her, and why? Four . . . five . . . mortals dead, the Islington goblins scared enough to take Susan even though they know they’ll be on our shit list for years, one of the seven sacred wolves of England forced to become a kidnapper. . . .”

  “Yes,” said Vivien. She hesitated. “It may be her own father, of course.”

  “What?” asked Una.

  “Need to know,” said Merlin hurriedly, with a swift look at Vivien.

  “Yeah, well, I think I do need to know,” said Una dangerously. She pointed at the jiggling pot Merlin had his foot on. “A Cauldron-Born, attacking a safe house we maintain with the Metropolitan Police? I’m the senior left-handed here. Tell.”

  “It’s because there was a Cauldron-Born I want to keep this information very close,” said Merlin.

  “What?”

  Merlin took a deep breath.

  “Who has a cauldron?” he asked, very softly, so Una had to lean in. “And who goes to Silvermere most often?”

  “The Greats . . .” Una started to say, then stopped. “You don’t seriously think . . .”

  “I don’t know,” replied Merlin uncomfortably. “But I want to focus on getting Susan back with as few people as possible knowing that’s what we’re doing, okay?”

  Una was silent for a long three seconds.

  “We have told Aunt Helen and Zoë,” said Vivien. “They don’t think Merlin’s suspicions are well founded, but
they’re going to consult the Grail-Keeper, whether Thurston and Merrihew do or not.”

  Una nodded slowly. She looked at Merlin, very intently.

  “Vivien’s going with you?”

  “Of course,” said Vivien swiftly.

  “You’ll telephone from the road, at least once every two hours,” said Una. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” said Merlin.

  Una raised her left hand and fluttered her fingers.

  “Get going, then,” she said. “Be clever.”

  Merlin lifted his foot, spun about, and stalked away. The pot rattled vigorously, Una put her foot on it, and when she looked up Merlin and Vivien had gone inside the house.

  The older bookseller took a deep breath and looked over to one of her compatriots.

  “Darren, give me your belt.”

  “Why?”

  “To tie around this bloody saucepan.”

  “But my pants will fall down. You’ve got a belt.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want my pants to fall down. Oh, don’t make that face. Go and see if you can scrounge up some string or rope. Or some warning tape. The coppers will have tape. Get that.”

  Merlin and Vivien hurried upstairs. Merlin picked up his glove and swapped it with the oven mitt, repacked his yak-hair bag with the Smython and other items, and got his suitcase, while Vivien looked at the hole in the ceiling. The two SOCOs—a man and a woman—who’d been looking at the body that had come down the hole turned their backs, and whispered to each other. One of them thought Vivien was cute and he didn’t even mind when the woman warned him off, describing the right-handed bookseller as “one of those really weird spooks.”

  On the way back out, they first had to skirt Mister Nimbus, who was crouched in the hall, his fur up all along his back. He was watching the door with narrowed eyes where Mrs. London’s body had been carried out, and now Chief Superintendent Holly was trying to come in, with Inspector Greene intent on keeping him out.