“Someone put a lot of effort into that,” Irene said. “Do you think it’s possible to trace whoever made it?”
“We can try,” Erda said. She reached into her cape and pulled out an anachronistic electronic camera, then strolled around the cake, taking photos from different angles. The flash glared mercilessly, and Irene had to look away.
“I’ll get these printed out back at our hotel,” Erda explained, putting the camera away again. “We can explain the photos as a new printing technique. I’ll make sure you and Mr. Vale get copies.”
“Thank you,” Irene said gratefully. Using anachronistic technology in an alternate world was always risky; she tended not to rely on it, because without the physical infrastructure to handle repairs, or the ability to recharge items, it could become more trouble than it was worth. But this would be useful. Craftsmanship like this cake had to be recognizable.
She sniffed again. Perhaps it was her imagination, but there seemed to be something other than the smell of oranges in the air. And the natural scents from the garden and the Seine, of course, but the bitter cold and frost cut down on both of those to some extent. “Can you smell anything?” she asked the others.
Frowns and shrugs. “Perhaps,” Erda suggested. “I’m not sure.”
“You suspect gas?” Hsien asked.
“It’d be a logical trap.”
“Then allow me to spring it.” He reached inside his jacket—getting the same sort of reaction from Erda as his earlier twitch in response to her camera—and withdrew a knife, tossing it at the cake. The blade spun through the air and thudded solidly between two profiteroles, slicing through the icing and into the interior.
The vapour that came spilling out was a malicious, foul yellow-green under the garden lanterns, and the outright stench made them all retreat. The gas flowed over the ground towards them, billowing in nightmarish waves.
Irene had never actually been under gas attack before, but memories of chlorine-cleaned swimming pools told her what the gas had to be. “Toxic vapour, return to the cake and remain inside!” she ordered hastily.
“Reseal the icing?” Erda suggested, as the gas flowed backwards again, leaving a seared trail in the icing around the hole.
“That’d only be temporary. We need to dispose of that stuff.” The Language worked on gas, but only temporarily: gas wouldn’t stay where it was put unless there was some better way to seal it in. Better to defuse the whole thing, if that was possible. Irene racked her brains for memories of chemistry lessons at school. Chlorine reacted with almost everything, she remembered that much. “Everyone stay well back in case this goes wrong, please—”
The speed with which everyone backed even farther away was gratifying. It was nice to have people pay attention to her orders.
“Snow on the ground around the cake, melt,” she said. “Poisonous vapour”—she wished she knew what the word in the Language for chlorine was—“emerge from the cake and dissolve in the water.”
Once again the gas flowed outwards, with more of the cake drooping and dissolving in its wake, but at the same time the surrounding snow collapsed in on itself, dissolving into water. Fortunately the ground was frozen hard enough that the water couldn’t immediately trickle away. The gas fluxed and shifted, moving like a living thing as it snaked into the growing puddles, which heaved and bubbled as the chemicals reacted.
“If I’d tried to do this at school, they’d have made me use a fume cupboard,” Irene said absently. This was taking more energy than she’d expected. She folded her arms, fingers digging into her forearms as she focused. Frozen ground vegetation wilted and turned yellow as the liquid hydrochloric acid ate into it. Holes formed in the ground as the acid trickled farther down. Some moles were going to get a nasty shock. The cake gave up the ghost, collapsing in on itself in a heaving yellow-smeared morass of spoiled icing, profiteroles crumbling and sugar towers tumbling down.
“You did this sort of thing at school regularly?” Hsien asked. Irene wasn’t sure if his tone was one of shock or jealousy.
“Well, occasionally. With test tubes and so on. Not with the Language, and not with cake.” Irene watched the last of the gas dissolve into the water. Fragments of glass protruded from the remains of the cake. “I think the gas must have been in thin glass containers inside the cake structure. The moment someone stuck a knife in there . . .”
“You are probably correct,” Hsien said. “Fortunately it wouldn’t have been a danger to my lords, but even so . . .”
Fury counterbalanced Irene’s weariness and hunger. This wasn’t just a plan to spoil the alliance and cause who knew how many deaths in the process: this was a murder attempt that would have hit the hotel staff first and foremost. It would have been a waiter or chef who cut the cake open, and waiters who were gathered around to distribute it when the gas came pouring out. It would have been ordinary innocent humans who would have suffered.
She wasn’t sure whether or not she liked Hsien and Erda, but she really didn’t like whoever was behind this. Whether it was the Blood Countess or some other totally unexpected villain hiding in Paris. Or some devious machination by the Cardinal. Or . . . whatever. There were too many possibilities and not enough facts.
“We’d better get back to the hotel,” she said. “Can someone else guard the evidence till Vale’s had a chance to examine it, then dispose of it?”
“I’ll have some of my people do it,” Erda said. She looked at the surrounding damage. “We don’t want to be blamed for this. The gardeners will probably think that wholesale poisoning would have been better than damaging these grounds.”
Irene nodded, brushing snow off her hair and shoulders as they turned back to the hotel. And, really, Erda had put the basic problem in a nutshell. Everyone here viewed damage to their own particular interest as more significant than damage to anyone else’s. Whatever the scale of the damage.
“Wait,” Hsien said, holding out an arm to bar Irene’s way.
A shadow covered the pavement around the hotel. At first it might have been simple darkness, but as the three of them stood there, it moved, sliding over the paving like water. Dozens—no, hundreds—of little eyes glinted in the darkness, tiny and feral, catching the light from the street lamps.
The carpet of rats rippled across the road towards them, slowly enough to make the blood crawl and to allow a full understanding of the situation. They were moving to encircle them.
CHAPTER 14
Irene found herself retreating, step by step, unwilling to take her eyes away from the rats. She’d never tried outracing rodents before, but she wasn’t sure she’d win. Especially not in thin slippers and a full-length dress. And there was something about the rats that made it impossible to look away: there was a presence that united them, that bound them together and looked out of their eyes at their targets. It wasn’t a remotely healthy presence; it conjured unpleasant squirming thoughts of blood and darkness. She could taste chaos on the air, more potent than sewage, more poisonous than chlorine.
“Perhaps if we could reach the Seine . . .” Hsien suggested quietly.
A little wave of movement ran across the rats, as though they could perfectly well hear and understand him. They scuttled faster.
A desperate plan came together in Irene’s head. She grabbed Erda’s arm—half to get her attention, but the other half to keep her where she was. The rats had to be in just the right position for this to work. “Could it be the Blood Countess commanding them?” she demanded.
“It’s her.” Erda was keeping her composure, but her eyes were wide with fear and her arm was tense under Irene’s hand. Of the three of them, she probably had the best idea of what they were facing, and she was clearly horrified. “Who else would it be? It’s exactly the sort of thing that she’d do. They say she sealed people up in a dungeon once, for rats to eat.”
“Tell me what she is!” Irene gave
Erda’s arm a shake. “I need to know!”
“The witch-queen,” Erda whispered, “the demon-summoner, the crone who washes her skin in the blood of maidens, the lady of the dungeons, the . . .”
The rats had slowed their pace to a crawl again, spreading out across the road in a broad, rippling wave of rancid fur, eyes, and teeth. Just as I thought, Irene reflected drily. No powerful Fae is ever going to miss out on the chance of hearing someone else talk about them.
But it put them where she wanted them. Almost all of them on the road.
“Street, hold the rats!” she shouted at the top of her voice, forcing the words out as fast as she could.
The rats burst into movement as Irene’s words in the Language seared the air, scurrying towards them, but she was—just—in time. Stone flowed as if it were water, clasping tiny clawed legs and writhing bodies. A hideous screeching chorus broke out as the creatures squirmed and tugged at the stones that now held them.
One of the rats had made it across the road in time, and it raced towards them. Hsien’s knife pinned it to the ground. “I’m impressed, Miss Winters,” the dragon’s servant said. “I hadn’t realized—Miss Winters?”
Irene was sagging with the effort of multiple Language uses in a short time. She leaned against Erda, grateful for the other woman’s support. “Let me get my breath,” she muttered. “Anyone got some aspirin?”
But something was prodding at her mind besides the oncoming pain of a headache. Something was wrong here. No, not exactly wrong; but she was missing something.
Erda made a noise of shock and disgust. “I’m not sure we have the time,” she said.
Irene forced herself to look up. The rats were actually gnawing at their own trapped limbs, trying to bite through the flesh in order to pull themselves free. Her stomach twisted with nausea. “That’s . . . repulsive.”
“She controls them,” Erda snapped, pulling herself together. “And they may be infected with diseases. We can’t let them bite us. Time to retreat—”
“No,” Irene said quickly, trying to focus. Her head ached. She could try to sink the rats farther into the pavement, but that might knock her out. They had chaotic power invested in them; she’d be fighting that as well as the nature of reality. Her first attempt had been hard enough; she wasn’t sure she would succeed with a second one. “Let’s circle round them and get back into the hotel. They can’t get in there.”
“Are you sure?” Hsien asked. He had a new knife between his fingers now.
“If they could, why would they bother being out here chasing us?” Irene reached down to gather up her dress to run. “Damn these slippers—”
“I’ll take her,” Erda said to Hsien. “You guard us.” She grabbed Irene and easily slung her over one shoulder, not bothering to ask Irene’s opinion first.
“Now,” Hsien agreed. The two of them began to run, heading sideways down the pavement and towards the hotel entrance.
Irene jolted along on Erda’s shoulder, trying to control her growing feelings of nausea. A fireman’s lift might be a more efficient way of carrying a passenger than sweeping them up in your arms, but it was much less pleasant. And it gave her a view of the rats ripping themselves out of the stone, leaving bone and flesh trapped behind, dragging themselves after Erda and Hsien with bloody mouths and mad little eyes.
She really, really hoped that she was right about the hotel being safe.
Erda gathered up her skirts with her free hand and took a long running leap over a swirling mass of rats. She nearly stumbled as she fell, but Hsien caught her elbow and steadied her. There were yells of encouragement from ahead of them, but Irene couldn’t see what was happening. The rats were moving again, faster now, flooding towards them and leaving trails of blood on the stone and snow.
And then Erda and Hsien were stumbling into the hotel reception area, and hotel staff were gathering round them with murmurs of shock and horror, offering assistance. Erda let Irene slide off her shoulder, setting her on the floor again, and someone pushed a glass of brandy into Irene’s hand. Irene tossed it back before the thought of poison even crossed her mind. It helped her steady herself. She glanced towards the hotel doors: they were safely shut. The rats weren’t trying to enter.
The hotel staff offered apologies, swearing that such a thing had never happened before, that the police would certainly do something about it, or the fire brigade, or someone at any rate. Irene made a mental note that another Librarian might need to go out there later and use the Language to smooth down the street’s surface, before anyone asked awkward questions.
But now that she was out of immediate danger and had a moment to think, her feeling that she was missing something had clarified. “Hsien,” she said quietly, pulling the man aside, and beckoning Erda. “Erda. Would it be fair to say that all the threats so far this evening have been—well, not safe, but manageable? Things that we could handle, if we devoted sufficient time and attention to them?”
Erda frowned. “I’m not sure we could have handled them as well without your assistance, but you may be right. Why?”
“We’re being diverted,” Irene said savagely. “Managed. Distracted. Our attention’s being kept focused on minor threats while our enemy is up to something else. Something more serious.” She glanced between the two of them, but neither of them disagreed; they were both nodding slowly.
“What do you think she’s trying?” Hsien asked. He didn’t need to explain who she was. Mu Dan must have passed on their suspicions about the Blood Countess.
“We need to be prepared for something large and wholesale, just in case.” Irene said. “But I’m not sure . . .”
She frowned, trying to make the pieces whirling round in her mind come together into a recognizable shape. The rats, buzzing with chaotic power and malice, but unable to enter the hotel. But why? Because of the Library wards? But the Fae delegation had been able to come and go without any problems. Was there some other reason why the rats hadn’t tried to get in? The witch-queen, Erda had called her. The Blood Countess was a Fae, and Irene knew that powerful Fae could infuse their power into dramatically appropriate animals.
Yet what had the rats actually done? Well, they’d attracted everyone’s attention to outside the hotel . . .
Her eyes opened wide in shock. She recalled the empty cat’s basket in the kitchen. The cat being traditionally a witch’s familiar . . . The archway leading down to the wine cellars. And the fact that with the anarchists, an enemy had already proven that they could use the Paris sewers to move around underground . . .
“The threat might be down in the wine cellars,” she said, very softly. “Whatever it is. I don’t know, but I have to check. I’m about to disregard Prutkov’s instructions. I need Vale, and Mu Dan and Silver, or if you can’t get them, someone else competent from both sides, and I need them now.” Besides, the political back of her mind pointed out, in addition to the straightforward physical and metaphysical assistance, having witnesses from both sides might be very useful in the near future—if Irene found what she was afraid she might find downstairs. “As fast as possible. I’ll be down in the wine cellars.”
“Alone?” Hsien demanded.
“We have no time.” Irene shrugged off her cape and tossed it to Hsien, brushing snow from her hair. “I’ll take along some of your people if we meet them on the way, but we have to search the place now—and if there’s nothing in the cellars, then we’ll go through the rest of the hotel. We’ve gone past the point of worrying about disturbing supper. If I’m wrong, then I’ll take the blame for it. Now, please!”
She put authority into her voice, and they responded, heading off at a run for the dining room. Irene herself caught up the skirts of her gown and ran for the kitchens, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her. If she was right and the Countess had a bigger scheme ready to trigger, then it wasn’t a matter of if she’d do it—it
was a case of when.
The kitchen was still quiet. Well, technically it wasn’t quiet, it was a hive of activity with a constant buzz of noise. It would be more accurate to say that it wasn’t a scene of bloody murder or any other sort of violent disruption. Asparagus was being chopped, squabs were in the final stages of being roasted, and foie gras was being carefully positioned on artfully decorated plates.
“Madam, is something the matter?” Hsien’s assistant demanded. She’d been keeping an eye on the cooks, but Irene’s entry had been hasty enough to signal that something was wrong.
“Has anyone been down to the wine cellars?” Irene asked quietly.
“No, madam. All the wines for the dinner were removed earlier, and there has been no need yet to fetch extra bottles.” The woman flicked a glance at the archway. “Is there some reason . . .”
“There may be. What lighting do they have down there?”
“Electric, madam, like the rest of the hotel.”
“Good. We need to investigate down there urgently. Can you be spared from supervising here, or do you need to stay on guard?”
The woman hesitated. Irene suddenly realized how dubious she must look: she’d shown up here alone, without Hsien to back her, and she was demanding that the woman leave her assigned post to accompany her. “It’s all right,” she said. “Keep an eye on things up here. I’m going down there. Send Hsien and anyone else down after me as soon as they arrive.”
The woman nodded, clearly relieved. “I will do that, madam.”
As Irene passed the cat basket, she glanced at it. It was still empty, except for a scattering of black hairs on the blanket.
The archway yawned in front of Irene. She flicked the light switch, then began to descend the stone stairs in the sudden glare of light. The stonework was older than the new gilding and woodwork upstairs; it belonged to a Paris that disregarded time and was built to last. The air down here was colder than in the main hotel, stroking along her skin in icy draughts and raising goose bumps on her bare shoulders and arms.
The Mortal Word Page 19
