Slippery Creatures

by KJ Charles

  “Ingoldsby’s not my boss,” Kim said. “But yes, I did. You weren’t supposed to come back in time to find out.”

  “No, you were going to keep me busy, weren’t you? An evening on your knees for king and country. Pity your fiancée showed up, really. I was planning to enjoy myself.” He saw the red bloom over Kim’s cheekbones with bitter satisfaction. “Was it a relief she arrived when she did, rather than when I had you over your bed? Or do you enjoy your government work?”

  The red spots spread. “Will—”

  “I’m sure you’ve got a justification. I dare say you can explain how very important this information is and why it was all worth it. Don’t bother.”

  “It is important.” Kim’s voice was steady, even if his skin was treacherous. “I’m told you wanted answers. I have them.”

  “Are you saying Ingoldsby sent you to tell me what’s going on? You? To me? Christ, you people have a nerve.”

  “There’s nobody else, for reasons I can explain if you’ll listen. Or you could not listen and carry on, but I wouldn’t put money on your chances of living to Christmas that way. That’s not a threat, incidentally. It’s a prediction.”

  Will gave it a moment longer, then he swung his feet up onto the desk again. “Go on.”

  Kim contemplated him, then strolled into the back room, returning with the other chair, which he set down by the desk and sat on. “Let’s start with Professor Edward Draven. He was a scientist, a very bright man, and a lone wolf. He had an independent income, and his own laboratory. He became very interested in what the Germans were trying to do with anthrax and glanders in the war. And a few months ago, he claimed to have developed a new sort of weapon.”

  “A new sort of weapon,” Will repeated. “Gas?”

  “Not exactly. It would be spread from canisters in a similar way, but the essence of it isn’t gas. It’s disease.”

  Will stared at him. Kim met his eyes and spoke levelly. “Imagine the Spanish ’flu again, but this time on purpose.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. He said he’d found a way to create plague in a test tube. Invisible, deadly, and highly contagious. A terror weapon of monstrous power, because once people knew others carried it, they’d shut their doors against survivors of an attack, or just shoot them. Drop a few canisters on a capital city and watch the people turn on one another in fear of their lives. So he said.”

  Will’s breathing had gone shallow. He could smell the pineapple-pepper scent of gas, feel the acrid tang in his mouth. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know if he fully appreciated what he was doing in human terms, at least at the time,” Kim said. “He was interested in the science, not the slaughter. It’s all theory if you sit sufficiently far away, isn’t it? Anyway, he came up with this little flower of genius, and contacted the War Office wondering if they might be interested.”

  “Christ.”

  “And this was when things got tricky because, shortly afterwards, Draven was contacted by a group who had heard about his research and wished to have it for themselves. They are, or they say they are, anarchists. They want to destroy the capitalist power structures and, by means of radical disruption, usher in a new era of equality and jam for all. They are called Zodiac.”

  “Libra,” Will said.

  “And Aries, who you also met, and the rest. They run on a system of anonymity like all the best secret societies. The important thing here is, to borrow your favourite phrase, a new era of equality my arse.” He gave Will a mirthless smile. “Zodiac have true believers—useful catspaws—but the ones at the top are out for nobody but themselves. They would happily burn down the world in order to sift the ashes for gold. Of that I am quite sure.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I believe rich men, plutocrats and aristocrats. People who already have power and wealth and don’t feel like sharing; who see things like universal suffrage and the labour movement and higher taxation as an attack on their divine right to sit at the top. They don’t like the way things are going, and they’ll do anything to their own benefit, in service of which they leave a trail of ruined and ended lives. Blackmail, destroyed businesses, murder.”

  “Why isn’t something done about this?”

  “We’re trying,” Kim said shortly. “Zodiac are rich, secretive, and powerful. They’re clever, too, using people they despise as cover for their own schemes. If someone gets caught, the blame goes to Bolshevists or anarchists. And they are ruthless. They are driven by staggering greed at the top and fanatic idealism below, and between greed and fanaticism people can justify anything. If they got hold of this monstrosity of Draven’s, they’d... I don’t know what they’d do. Hold it over the heads of governments, perhaps, ransom entire cities. Wipe out the London and New York stock exchanges, and make a killing in the resulting chaos. They intend to entrench their power and wealth at other people’s expense, one way or another, and they must not get their hands on this weapon to help them do so.”

  “No,” Will said. His chest hurt. “I see that. If you’re telling me the truth, of course.”

  “Could you please assume I am for long enough to hear me out? I’m not enjoying this meeting any more than you are. I’m here because this matters.”

  Will tried to read his face, failed. He had no idea what a truthful Kim might look like. The man sounded sincere, but he’d sounded sincere when he was advertising his obliging nature.

  What the hell. “Go on.”

  “Thank you. So this now brings me to the current problem. You told Ingoldsby that Libra had been here, and that he was searching for Shakespeare.”

  “Yes,” Will said slowly. “He was, and he knew I’d found it, too. But how—”

  “How did Zodiac know?” Kim asked for him. “How did they know about a revelation I’d had literally the night before and communicated only to the War Office? Good question. Right up there next to the question of how they found out about Draven’s invention in the first place.”

  “You’ve got a leak. You fucking useless bastards have a leak.”

  “Don’t be so generous. What they have is a traitor,” Kim said flatly. “Someone in the War Office is owned by Zodiac. Hence my involvement now: they are locking down the flow of information since they don’t know the point at which it’s being tapped. I’m sure this will strike you as an extremely good reason not to hand over Draven’s work to the aforesaid useless bastards, but unfortunately there is really no choice. The WO have plans in place to keep the invention safe—yes, quite,” he added at Will’s snort, “but if worse comes to worst, at least we’ll also have it as a deterrent, and our scientists can perhaps find a counter or antidote. What we can’t risk is for Zodiac to have the weapon and not us.”

  “How about neither?”

  “If one could rely on neither, it would be marvellous, but we can’t. Don’t delude yourself you’ve a choice, Will. You can’t just burn the pages. Or, rather, you can, but you’ve been sufficiently obstreperous that nobody’s going to take your word for it that you did. Zodiac will kill for it, and the War Office isn’t going to take the risk of you quietly selling it. You’re up a gum tree, and I don’t see how you get down short of handing over the information to the WO and hoping Zodiac turn their attention away from you.”

  That was more or less exactly what Will had concluded. He swung his feet back to the floor so he could put his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. “Shit.”

  “Quite.”

  “It kills entire cities.” Will could picture it. London still and silent. Bodies lining streets and Tube platforms, driverless trains full of corpses rattling on towards their terminus. He imagined an apple spilled from an abandoned straw shopping basket with extraordinary vividness; it took him a moment to realise that was a memory from Flanders.

  “That’s what Draven claimed.” Kim tipped his head back. “It may not work, of course. I’ve lain awake at night trying to tell myself he was a fantasist.”

  “
Do you think he was?”

  “We can’t risk it. We have to take this seriously.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Kim shrugged. “He destroyed his laboratory—notes, samples, equipment. Burned it all, except for the aide-memoire he sent to your uncle. Then he contacted a chap in the War Office to say that Zodiac were making intolerable threats to him and others and that the information was with his old friend William Darling, and took cyanide the same night. He didn’t give them a code-word; possibly he simply forgot to. God knows what was going through his mind, the poor swine.”

  “I’ve seen gas go through people’s lungs. I hope he burns in hell.”

  “Also a viewpoint. Anyway, that’s your truth, Will, that’s what it’s all about. I don’t blame you if you aren’t impressed by Draven, or Ingoldsby, who is perhaps the worst man to have handled this, or by me. I’m not greatly impressed by myself.” He shrugged. “Needs must.”

  Will had an unpleasant crawling sensation all the way up and down his back. Something had changed in the way Kim spoke, a tone altered or a pose dropped. Before there had been a likeable air about him; now it was gone as if it had never been, and those dark brown eyes weren’t warm any more. He remembered Phoebe’s chatter. Kim says, ‘Well, that needs to be dealt with,’ and he deals with it, and then you’ll be sorry. He had to make an effort not to reach for his knife, just to have the comforting sensation of a weapon.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. “I don’t know,” Will said at last. “I need to think.”

  “You need to act, because you’ve made rather a tangle of things and we have limited time and capacity to unpick it. What did you do this morning? Everyone is terribly confused.”

  Will shrugged. “I dug out all the Shakespeares in the shop—”

  “How did you know it was Shakespeare, by the way?”

  Will explained briefly about the dust tracks. Kim’s mouth twitched. “Very nice. Sloppy from Ingoldsby, though. Tut.”

  “I dare say he was in a hurry. I looked through them this morning and found the copy with Draven’s work in it.”

  “So it unquestionably exists?”

  “Well, there’s a lot of writing, very small, with chemical symbols.”

  Kim sighed. “I had held out a little hope for, ‘Ha ha, fooled you all’. Never mind. Go on.”

  “I’m not telling you what I did with it. But I took eight of the other Shakespeares over the back way, and hid them in bookshops up and down the Charing Cross Road.”

  “So I am told. Several agents are cursing your name. Why?”

  “I thought all the people watching me could have fun playing Find the Book in the Bookshop too, since you and I enjoyed it so much.”

  “This isn’t a game, Will.”

  “Then why is everyone toying with me?” Will demanded. “Why couldn’t you be honest with me from the start?”

  “I’ve been honest now. Has it changed your mind about handing over the information?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.”

  That left Will briefly speechless. “You didn’t have to lie! You didn’t have to— Christ, man!”

  You slept with me, he wanted to say. You kissed me and sucked me off and whimpered when I fucked you. You came, twice. Did you enjoy it? Tolerate it? Hate every touch? He wasn’t even sure if he’d been the abused or the abuser; the thought made him sick. “Was that—what we did—were you acting under orders all that time?”

  Kim’s face was statue-like, remote and unmoving, saying everything with its silence. Will was almost glad not to have an answer in words. It was too shameful to bear. “And what about Phoebe?” he demanded. “Your fiancée?”

  “Don’t worry about her.”

  “Don’t worry?” Will said, latching on to something he could be uncomplicatedly angry about. “You made me a party to adultery, or near as dammit! Don’t tell me not to worry!”

  “Oh, come off it. You knew I was engaged. You chose your course.”

  “I hadn’t met her then!” Will shouted, knowing as he spoke it was paper-thin. Kim might have pointed that out but instead his composure cracked unexpectedly, a little smile tweaking his lips.

  “Yes, I know what you mean. She’s wonderful, isn’t she? A wonderful tissue of nonsense from head to foot. Her welcome to you was quite real, you know, and she will be bitterly disappointed to learn you’ve joined the ranks of people who will never speak to me again.”

  Will sat back in his chair. “You don’t deserve her.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “You assume she’s an idiot,” Kim said. “She’s not, and her affairs are none of your business.”

  “You made them my business.”

  “You did that too. I didn’t assault you.”

  “No, you took damned good care to let me make the first move, didn’t you? And did you report back to your masters at the War Office afterwards? Blow by blow account, was it? I assume the plan is to threaten me with prosecution for gross indecency if I don’t hand over the information.”

  Kim’s face was unmoving, but you could no longer say it gave nothing away, because Will could see the tension of the muscles keeping it still. “That is not my plan.”

  “It’s Ingoldsby’s.”

  “Did he say that?”

  Will had to stop and think back. “He implied a threat. He didn’t specify it, but he wouldn’t have to.”

  “Not if you have a guilty conscience.”

  Will nodded. “Proud of yourself, are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “I wouldn’t be, either. Go to hell.”

  Kim smiled mirthlessly. “I have no doubt I will oblige you, but you’re still evading the point. You are in trouble, Will. Two years for gross indecency is trivial compared to what Zodiac might intend for you. Just hand over the information. Please.”

  “No.”

  “You will get yourself killed through bloody-mindedness. You cannot handle this alone.”

  “I know. That was why I wanted your help,” Will said. “Shame how it worked out. What’s the thing the chap says in Timon of Athens? ‘I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.’ I read that yesterday. Stuck with me, for some reason.”

  “‘Oh, happy they that never saw the court, nor ever knew great men but by report’,” Kim retorted. “A bit late when the bodies are piling up. I suggest you concentrate on getting out of the situation you’re in now.”

  “Tell me something,” Will said. “You didn’t, still don’t, strike me as being without shame. You’ve betrayed me, and your fiancée, and every decent impulse. I assumed that was because you thought it was the right thing to do. Am I wrong? Did you just do it for the money? For fun?”

  “It was—is—the right thing to do,” Kim said levelly. “We need this information.”

  “You’ll do the right thing by your lights, no matter the unpleasant consequences. Fine. I don’t know why you’re assuming I’m more cowardly than you.”

  Kim examined him, face unmoving, for a long moment, then quite suddenly shoved both hands into his hair. “Will...”

  “No.”

  “Please. If you won’t give me, or Ingoldsby, the papers, give them to someone. The Prime Minister. Anyone.”

  “No.”

  “Then at least let me help.”

  “If you’re going to ask me to trust you, don’t,” Will said. “It would just embarrass us both.”

  Kim’s head dropped back. “Yes, I suppose it would.”

  “What you can do is remind your master of what I said to Libra and get him to organise whatever he’s going to do.”

  “What you said,” Kim repeated. “What, precisely, was that?”

  “He wanted to buy the information. I told him to come back with an offer in three days. Ingoldsby can arrest him.”

  “...what?”

  “You can arrest him on whatever charges. I’ll gladly cooperate with that.”
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  “In the course of which, you have agreed to sell Libra Draven’s work?”

  “I told him to make an offer. Why not? I’m not going to do it.”

  “God almighty.” Kim put a hand over his face, massaging his temples. “You bloody fool. You idiot. It’s not illegal to offer to buy a private citizen’s papers from another private citizen in lawful possession of them.”

  “It was illegal for him to tie me up and threaten me!”

  “And? This is not going to be played out in the courts, Will. What do you think would happen if we arrested Libra?”

  “Maybe you could get some information out of him!”

  “We already know who he is. Worthless stuff: he’s a true believer, not of the real inner circle. Give me Capricorn and we might have a bargain.” Kim exhaled hard. “And even if Ingoldsby wanted to set up some sort of trap, may I remind you that Zodiac would probably find out all about it in advance? There’s nothing for him to gain here so he won’t do a thing except, possibly, wait for them to wring the papers out of you and then see if he can swoop in.”

  “So he won’t help. Fine. What’s your problem?”

  “My problem is that Libra will turn up here with a suitcase of money, expecting victory, and when he doesn’t get it, his masters will be very disappointed. And Zodiac do not have a positive history with disappointment. I’d expect Libra to do a great deal to avoid that. Most of it to you.”

  “But—”

  “No, Ingoldsby won’t help,” Kim said flatly. “Or, rather, he will if you give him the papers. Not otherwise. It will be his view that you put your head in this noose, and I’m not sure he’s wrong.”

  Will stared at him. Kim’s mouth was set. “I wish this were a threat, Will, but it’s not. I have no power to order protection for you and I really do promise you Ingoldsby won’t. He’s there to protect the British state, not its inconvenient and unhelpful citizens who bring trouble on themselves. Is the information somewhere safe, and can you get at it?”

  “Yes, and not easily.”

  “Improve on that one way or the other. If your priority is to live, you’ll want it to hand so you can give it to them to make them stop hurting you. If your aim is to keep the thing safe, you ought not be able to get hold of it at all, because keeping quiet under torture is not usually possible, no matter how brave you think you are. Would you like my advice?”