He sighs, the fingers of one hand curling momentarily into a fist by his side. “Still. What’s the point of a partner, if they’re not there to protect you?”
“If I’m not mistaken, I held my own quite adeptly.”
His disappointment last night suddenly makes sense. He wasn’t disappointed in me—he was upset at himself.
It’s such a bittersweet, familiar sentiment that my heart clenches.
“If this is really Sweeney Todd, he’s a brutal killer. Nobody should have to go up against him alone.”
“And here I was thinking he was a barber,” I murmur. “A demonic one, no less. How ghastly. Do you know this scoundrel?”
“In the sense that he was a character in books and movies, yes. But the Society rarely interacts with Timelines associated with villains.”
“Meaning?”
He looks away from me, but in the mirrors surrounding us, I see the hardness in his face. “Meaning, when there are only so many of us to go around, collecting catalysts from Timelines whose claim to fame comes from horror isn’t exactly at the top of the list.”
“There are innocents in those Timelines, ones whose actions have nothing to do with a character in a book. Can you really tell me that every person’s existence in Todd’s Timeline is less worthy of life or protection than any other?”
He isn’t amused, though. “Aren’t you the little philosopher?”
“There are villains in my Timeline.” It’s my turn to look away. “Ones whose deeds are often unspeakable. I cannot imagine that any other Timeline is different. Along with good, there is always evil. It’s just the way it is.”
The elevator slows to a stop, but the doors do not open. Finn flips open another panel, one I hadn’t noticed before, and presses his left thumb against the glass. “Identity verified, Finn Van Brunt. Enter code for entry.”
Numbers fill the screen, from zero to nine. He types in an eleven-digit code, and the same disembodied voice announces, “Code verified,” seconds before the doors finally slide open.
“We’ll have to get you inputted into the system,” Finn says as we step out into a wood-paneled hallway.
“Will it require my firstborn?”
It annoys me how much I like his laugh, even as soft and brief as it is right now. “Oh, most definitely.”
The hallway we’re in has no doors and is lined in crystal sconces. It stretches quite a distance before offering two directions; Finn leads us to the left. One more turn has us in front of the only door so far. Once more, Finn flips open a panel and presses his index finger against a circular button with a concave center. The disembodied voice announces, “Hold still, please.”
When Finn retracts his finger, I notice a drop of blood welling upon the pad. “Blood is required?”
“It’s nothing. A pinprick.” He sucks briefly on his finger as the voice tells us, “Identify verified. Clearance has been approved, Finn Van Brunt.”
A click sounds, and then the door slides open to reveal the largest room I’ve ever seen. Two sets of mosaicked steps lead down to a room whose chandelier-adorned ceiling soars above us. Row upon row upon row of brightly lit glass cases stacked upon one another stretch as far as the eye can see.
“This,” he tells me, “is the Museum.”
The same strangely bland yet peppy music from the elevator continues to play in this room, although I can find no direct source of its origins.
“There you two are. I was wondering how long it would take for you to come. I’m having trouble pinpointing your arrivals and departures, aren’t I, Alice?”
I hate that I start when the Librarian’s words echo around us. She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, just to the right, so that had she not spoken, I would not have easily spotted her.
Finn trots down the steps. “Alice had to see Victor first.”
She peers up at me, her eyes running the length from my head to my feet. “I’m glad to see there is no lasting injury, little bird.”
I’m halfway down the steps when my feet freeze. “What did you just say?”
Her head cocks to the side, her face carefully neutral as her dark hair falls to her waist.
The brightly colored ground below my feet feels soft and unsteady. In between blinks, the Librarian both smiles widely and remains impassive as she looks up at me.
I’m about to ask her to repeat what she’s said, but Finn has reached where she’s standing and is kissing both her cheeks in a familiar gesture that inappropriately bothers me. “Do you have a case ready?”
“Of course.” She returns the kisses, her hands on his shoulders. “Come along, Alice. There’s no time to dawdle. You have a long night ahead of you, so you’ll want to rest up as much as you can.”
I trail the pair down several rows before hooking right into one and then another right and then left. The Librarian comes to a darkened box halfway up a row of five, accessible by a small, rolling ladder already present. A small button is pressed near a glass handle, and a light I cannot pinpoint the source of flares to life. She pulls out a small black card and runs it through a nearly invisible slot just to the side of the handle.
“Each catalyst is stored in a temperature-controlled environment,” she says as Finn hands her the playbook. “Although that might be a tad overkill, considering it takes active intent to destroy a catalyst. Left on their own, they are nearly immortal.”
“Then why not leave them on their own?”
The playbook is set upon a bookstand inside the box, opened to the title page. “Because there are always those whose intent is to destroy.” The door is shut, and the white card is once more inserted into the slot. “Isn’t that right, Alice?”
There is nowhere you could go in which I cannot find you, little bird. Nobody is safe if I don’t want them to be. Not little birds, not diamonds, not grinning cats, not even kings.
I swallow, hating how the echo of these words are just as strongly felt today as the day I first heard them. “Is your intent pure, then?”
She chuckles as she descends the ladder. “Is anyone’s intention ever one hundred percent pure?"
With no hesitation, I tell her, “Yes.”
“Tell me, Alice. Has your intent always been pure?”
My nails dig once more into my palms. “I think it depends on the situation.”
“What about when you left Wonderland? Was it then?”
Long seconds tick by as a standoff forms between us. I know I ought to hold my tongue, but I snap, “You don’t know the first thing about what you’re talking about.”
Because it was pure, dammit.
It was.
It had to be. Even though I had no choice.
There’s that smile of hers again, the one that is off-putting. “No creature is completely selfless. Not even those whose hearts are more gold than tin.”
Finn clears his throat. “We ought to leave you to your work and go fill out the report.”
The Librarian pats his cheek. “Try to remember it comes from the best of places, will you?”
Finn rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything in return.
The Librarian leads us back through the maze of catalysts until we reach the steps. “Alice, do not take offense that the documentation has been sent to Finn. You have no knowledge of technology yet.”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle, but then she reaches over and pats my cheek, too.
“I told you not to take offense.” And with that, she turns around and disappears back into the rows of catalysts.
When we’re back in the elevator, heading to the basement, I ask Finn, “How did she know we were back early?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, like he’s weighing what to tell me. Finally, he offers, “She just did.”
I wait patiently, but he doesn’t add anything. So I’m forced to ask, “Is she always like that?”
“Like what?”
“Creepy.”
For a moment, he simply stares at me, l
ike he can’t believe I said such a thing. But I’ve been around plenty of creepy beings in my time, and so far, the Librarian stands right up with them.
“Does my honesty bother you? I thought partners were supposed to be honest with one another. Isn’t that a basic tenant of a successful business relationship? Because even in Wonderland, we typically tried to be honest with those we were allied with.”
He scoffs. “Typically tried? What the hell does that mean?”
I don’t tell him that, more often than not, it seemed deceit and subterfuge were necessary. Instead, I say, “My point stands, Huckleberry Finn.”
Something in the man before me shuts down, like the off switch to a machine. “I asked you not to call me that.”
The elevator door slides open. He holds his arm out and waits until I exit first.
He does not say anything further.
WHAT THE LIBRARIAN WAS undoubtedly referencing with her eerie warning to Finn was Van Brunt’s volcanic explosion once my partner and I debrief him on the night’s events and the identity of the would-be thief. This leaves her ever creepier in my opinion, no matter what disappointment Finn may have in me for believing such.
In other news, I find Van Brunt’s lack of decorum comforting in a way. I’m mesmerized by this side to the normally unflappable man. Finn, for his part, sits in stony silence as his father paces back and forth whilst lecturing us. Eventually, he says flatly, “I get it. I fucked up.”
That steals the wind right out of Van Brunt’s sails.
My response is immediate. “You most certainly did not.”
Finn won’t look at me, though. His attention shifts to a small ink drawing hanging near the bronze plaque above Van Brunt’s desk. It’s of a boy and a man on a raft with a pole. Even more disappointment fills Finn’s eyes before he angles his head toward the windows.
Van Brunt finds his chair and offers in a much calmer voice, “I want Todd found. If he is, in fact, the culprit behind the mass deletions over the last couple years, we cannot leave him loose upon the streets.”
“Isn’t it obvious he is the culprit?” I ask. “He is the same man in Wendy’s video.”
Van Brunt muses, “Although I don’t know his story too well, if I recall correctly, Todd rarely acted solo. He had a partner, even if it was a tenuous connection that ended in murder. The truth is, I’m surprised to hear he was alone in your room, Ms. Reeve.”
I feign casualness when I say, “It’s curious that he appeared to know exactly where the catalyst was, wasn’t it?”
Finn stands up and heads over toward the window he’d just been staring at. Van Brunt says, his eyes on his son rather than me, “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” And then the recently seated head of the Society is also on his feet. He reaches out and gently grabs his son’s arm. “I apologize for the fool’s errand.”
For a moment, I wonder if Finn will tell his father off. But he remains silent.
Van Brunt continues, “I thought to placate the Janeites and humor what I saw as harmless, but after you left, your brother and I had a chat.”
I perk up. Brother?
“Katrina would have raked me across the coals for such stupidity, that is for certain. In her place, your brother did so quite admirably.”
Finn briefly glances over his shoulder at me. He tells his father, “We should focus on finding this S. Todd.”
Van Brunt does the only thing he really can do by nodding before reclaiming his chair, his face impassive as ever. “It appears, Ms. Reeve, you have hidden talents that our research did not unearth. It’s impressive you were able to best a known killer.”
I allow a modest shrug, but do not clarify further.
Van Brunt steeples his fingers as he leans back in his chair. “What were your impressions of him?”
As his son doesn’t turn around from his post at the window or answer, I assume he’s talking to me, as I’m the one who had the most face time with the fiend. “Overly confident, when he clearly did not have the skill to back up his claims.” My nails click against the wooden arm of my chair. “He also has poor hygiene. His teeth were blackened in places. Interestingly enough, though, he didn’t smell rancid.”
“Sweeney Todd has allegedly butchered hundreds of people. As distasteful as it sounds, one might believe his confidence in his ability to kill is well earned.”
I repress a shudder. “And yet, we are in possession of both of his knives, and I would bet every last cent of mine that he’s sporting a wicked concussion alongside a broken nose and some cracked ribs today. Had I not followed into the hallway, we most certainly would be in possession of his body, too.”
Before another word is said, Finn stalks across the room and out of the door. He does not slam it, though, but my body jerks with the click just as surely as if he had.
Van Brunt sighs quietly once his son is gone. “Do you ever hold yourself to unreasonable ideals, Ms. Reeve?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“No,” he muses. “I don’t think they do.” His bright blue eyes zero in on me. “Sometimes our pasts are chains we cannot let go of, even if the key is in our hands. They define us in ways we resent, and yet they are somewhat precious, too. Because, logically, we understand that our pasts have made us who we are, even if we want nothing more to close our eyes to them.”
I shift in my chair, unsure of what to say. Finn Van Brunt holds himself to unreasonable ideals?
“Did you know that I was the villain in my particular story?”
And now I have even less words at my disposal.
“Maybe not so much a villain, but an anti-villain.” He scoffs quietly. “Whatever that means.”
For a moment, I can’t help but wonder if I am sleeping, because there is no way the man sitting before me could be anything less than honorable.
“I think of this label often, Ms. Reeve. Not a day goes by in which I don’t reflect upon the documented follies of my youth, of how abhorrently irresponsible and petty I was in my actions and behavior. I look back on that man and do not recognize him. I suppose these are chains that most do not find themselves shackled with. They grow up without their names attached to deeds and actions that enjoy longevity due to the compulsive resilience of beloved stories. They are allowed the luxury of maturing, of evolving as all people do rather than being forced into a tight box of expectations.”
I’m well aware and more than a bit ashamed my eyes widen in surprise.
“Most of the people here in the Society bear scars from the stigmas surrounding them,” he continues. “It is a natural inclination, I think, for many to act out against such injustices while ironically holding them close to the vest. To hold themselves at a much higher standard, to prove that they are more than just words in a book written by a person they’ve never met. I hope you can remember that in the coming weeks and months, Ms. Reeve. Each of us here has a story, but it’s not necessarily the one people think they know.”
I think to myself, I’d like to know Huck Finn’s story. But until then, I have another mystery to solve. “What do the words on the plaque behind you mean?”
Van Brunt twists in his chair. “In paginis mundūs invenimus. In verbis vitam invenimus. In pages, we find worlds. In words, we find life.”
How fitting.
When I exit the office minutes later, Finn is nowhere to be seen. The A.D. is, though. He’s leaning against a wall, arms and legs crossed like he has precious few cares in the world. “Just the beauteous woman I’ve been hunting high and low for.”
I wonder if he’d still feel that way after a well-placed knee to the groin.
If my face appears as surly as I feel, he pays no heed. “Wendy wants you in the lab. It’s time for a little crash course in technology, luv. You’ve been skipping protocol left and right. Instead of going around and beating the crap out of people, you ought to be spending your time acclimating to the Twenty-First Century.”
I tell him sweetly, “Call me luv again and you’ll have to go get your
self a nice piece of meat for the bruised eye you’ll be sporting.”
He pretends to swoon, an arm across his forehead. “Be still me heart.” And then, with a rubbery grin, “Do you talk this dirty to all your beaus?”
I’m halfway down the hall when he catches up with me. “You’re no fun, little Miss Alice.”
It’s my turn to playact, a hand pressed against my heart. “That wounds me deeply.” And then I smack his hand as it brushes up against my pocket. He yelps, but thankfully there are a few more feet between us now.
“Steal from me, and I’ll do more than gift you with a black eye. Keep your hands to yourself. Understand?”
“No fun at all,” he mutters sadly once we’re upon the elevator.
FOR MUCH OF THE rest of the next few days, I am Wendy’s captive pupil as she drags out machine after machine in an effort to, and I quote, “better prepare for situations that might arise during assignments.” I neglect to inform her that I handled myself quite well with only a fireplace poker, but that is neither here nor there. I’m given a laptop computer, a cell phone of my own for what she calls everyday use, a secondary cell phone for emergencies, a tablet for research, an email for internal communication, something called login codes for Internet access, and two white key cards to access various doors within the Institute. She goes over each item at a rapid speed, and more than once, I fear the tools of the Twenty-First Century will get the better of me.
Automatons and machinery have officially taken over the world.
“Keep your phone on you at all times,” she says. “In addition to letting other members call or text you, it also has a GPS that will prove handy if we need to track you. I’ve had to work around satellites and towers to ensure that, even in different Timelines that bear different technology, you’ll still be able to track your partner if needed.”
Goodness knows what GPS is.
“I’ve had your phone pre-programmed alphabetically with all current Society members’ numbers.” She slides her finger across the screen and presses random buttons that don’t actually exist. “Don’t worry about having to memorize any.”
The Collectors' Society Page 12
