Kai mimed knocking and raised an eyebrow.
Irene considered it. If Evariste was guilty of something, then even knocking at the door might panic him into trying to escape. Perhaps she should have had Kai wait outside, beneath the fire escape.
Oh well, hindsight always had all the best ideas. Be ready to open the door, she mouthed at Kai.
He nodded.
‘Door, unlock,’ she said softly.
The lock clicked audibly. Kai kicked the door open: it swung back to crash against the wall, giving them a clear view of the apartment lounge.
The room was full of books. Volumes had been piled up against the walls in gaudy slices of colour, and bags and boxes of yet more books turned the floor into an obstacle course. There were no pictures hanging on the walls, no furniture other than a table and a couple of chairs, no rugs, no decorations – nothing except the books.
It reminded Irene of her own rooms back at the Library.
The man sitting at the dining table jerked his head up from his arms, looking at them in bleary-eyed shock. He was in his shirt sleeves: his tie hung unfastened round his neck, and stubble made his dark skin even darker. He looked at Irene, his attention skipping over her as unimportant, and then at Kai, and his eyes widened with shock. ‘Books, hit that dragon!’ he shouted, pushing his chair back and shoving himself away from the table.
Kai threw himself back from the doorway with a curse, as books came tumbling from their piles and rising from the floor, slicing through the air towards him.
‘Books, down on the floor!’ Irene shouted, abandoning all hope of silence. She couldn’t see past the books, but: ‘Trousers, hobble Evariste!’
The crash of books hitting the floor – and a few of them hitting Kai – echoed through the building. Another crash from inside the apartment suggested that Evariste had gone from vertical to horizontal. ‘Clothing, release me!’ he ordered. ‘Door, close!’
Irene dived into the room, rolling across the floor, just as the door slammed shut behind her. That was the problem with duelling in the Language: the longer you spent talking, the more opportunity you gave your opponent to take action. Evariste shouldn’t have wasted time disentangling his legs. ‘Tie, choke Evariste,’ she said quickly. It was cruel, but it was the quickest way she could think of to silence him. ‘Table, pin Evariste to the wall.’
The table slid across the floor, catching Evariste between it and the wall behind, and his tie rose up to circle his throat and twist round his windpipe. He struggled with it, his fingers clawing at the fabric, but he didn’t have the breath to say anything in the Language.
Irene rose from her crouch and walked across to him. ‘Stop fighting me and we’ll talk,’ she said. ‘Nod if you agree.’
Evariste jerked a tiny nod. It wasn’t a gesture of surrender, just a temporary accommodation.
‘Tie, release Evariste’s throat,’ Irene said. She felt a twinge of guilt as she saw the red mark it had left behind. ‘Sorry. But we need to talk. I’m from the Library.’
‘That much is obvious,’ Evariste snapped. ‘And I see that you’ve sold out too.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Him.’ Evariste pointed at Kai, who’d entered the room and was kicking aside the fallen books that littered the floor as he stalked towards them. A trail of blood streaked Kai’s temple where one of the missiles had connected. ‘So much for the Library’s neutrality!’
‘He isn’t my ally, he’s my student,’ Irene said, conscious that this might look like splitting hairs. ‘And I am a full Librarian, sent by the Library to find out what you’re up to. It will make things a great deal easier for us both if you tell me, here and now. I think we both know just how dangerous the current situation is.’
Evariste flinched. Guilt and desperation fought visibly across his face. He took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself. ‘All right. If you let me go, then we can talk about this.’
He might have been a good researcher, Irene decided, but he wasn’t a good liar. Perhaps it was because he was exhausted. He looked as if he hadn’t slept properly for days. But the way his eyes flickered around the room, looking for options, indicated that he was going to try something the moment she ordered the table to release him.
She hoped she was a more convincing liar than he was. It would be embarrassing to be that obvious.
‘Very well,’ she said with an inner sigh. Best to give him the chance to behave, even if she suspected he wasn’t going to take it. This was not going to be tidy. ‘Table—’
A sound from outside made her break off mid-sentence, and all three of them turned towards the window.
It was the howling of wolves.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sheer panic filled Evariste’s face. ‘Floor—’ he began in the Language.
Kai’s fist caught Evariste in the jaw, cracking his head back against the wall. Evariste sagged across the table.
‘That was a bit hasty,’ Irene said, picking her way across the book-strewn floor to the window. She was feeling conflicted. Normally she’d be absolutely against the idea of Kai punching other Librarians. But the next word out of Evariste’s mouth would have been something like collapse, to facilitate his escape.
Kai shrugged. ‘You’re the one who’s always saying an operative needs to know when to take decisive action.’
‘My life would be easier if you didn’t have such a good memory,’ Irene muttered. ‘Or at least it wouldn’t involve you using the word hypocrisy quite so much. Or giving me meaningful looks.’ She peered out of the side of the window, to avoid being spotted from the street below.
The wolves were just turning the corner at the intersection a block away. There were half a dozen of them – large, vigorous-looking creatures, their glossy dark coats gleaming in the shadows as they stalked along the sidewalk. They weren’t running. They moved with a slow deliberate pace that nevertheless ate up the yards.
A burst of cold atavistic fear told Irene they’d be reaching this building within a minute or so.
Behind them walked a couple of men, their pace making it clear they were following the wolves, not guiding them. It was difficult to see them clearly from this distance, but the one in the lead was clearly in charge.
‘Is that Qing Song?’ Irene asked.
‘I don’t know what he looks like,’ Kai replied. ‘But if it is . . .’
They both turned to look at Evariste.
‘Right,’ Irene said briskly. There was no time to waste. ‘You take him down the fire escape – no, wait, go up the fire escape, not down, and along the roof if possible, and see if you can break the trail. Then get a cab. Tell them he’s sick. Get a hotel room somewhere. And give me the map.’ She held out her hand for it. ‘I’ll catch up with you later – I’ll track Evariste and find you both. You’ll need to make sure he doesn’t escape.’