‘Let’s at least agree that everyone in this room is threatening me in some way,’ Irene said. And this was where she tore up her cover story and danced on the fragments. ‘And my name is not Marguerite.’
Jin Zhi leaned back in her chair in surprise. Clearly she hadn’t expected Irene to deliberately blow her own cover. For a moment her eyes showed confusion, not calculation.
Qing Song, on the other hand, leaned forward. His fingers dug into the arm of his chair, and around the room the wolves stirred, their heads rising and their eyes focusing on Irene. ‘You lied to me?’ he demanded. There was an undertone to his voice like the wind in heavy forests.
‘I was not entirely honest with you,’ Irene said. She saw his lips tighten as she threw his earlier words back at him. ‘Nor was I honest with Hu. I came to this world to investigate what had happened to one of our own Librarians. Evariste. I believe you know the name?’
Qing Song was silent.
Irene could feel the coldness entering her voice. ‘We’re aware of your arrangement with him.’ She saw the brief flash of confirmed suspicion in Jin Zhi’s face, and wondered briefly how she’d known about that in the first place. ‘He is out of the picture – for now.’
‘Out of the picture?’ Qing Song said slowly.
‘Under investigation.’ Irene looked down at him. ‘Such an investigation can stretch to great length. All the way to his family, for instance. It would be a shame if it should spread to yours as well. Since I understand that you have broken any number of rules.’
Qing Song hadn’t expected that. The arm of the chair actually creaked as his hand dug into it, and his nails pierced the leather. Irene could see the scale-patterns flicker across the skin of his face and hands, deep emerald as dark as holly leaves. His anger was palpable in the air, as thick as the tension before an earthquake. ‘You – how dare you threaten my family—’
‘You will return your hostage,’ Irene said, cutting him off. ‘And in return we will keep silent about your actions. You will make no attempt to take vengeance on him.’ She took a step forward, her Library brand burning across her shoulders in the face of his power, her anger a deeper and hotter fire within her. ‘That is the only deal I’m offering. I suggest that you take it.’
‘I would know your true name,’ Qing Song growled. A red light flickered in the depths of his eyes. ‘I will be remembering it for a long time.’
‘Irene,’ she said. She saw his eyes widen. ‘Some people call me Irene Winters.’
Hu’s left arm came round her throat from behind, tight enough that she couldn’t breathe. He caught her right wrist with his free hand, twisting it up behind her as she struggled for air, trying to speak – to use the Language – and failing.
‘My lord,’ he said, ‘she’s lying.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘Careful now,’ the man in charge of the group said. He patted the side of the crate that held Evariste and Kai. ‘That’s expensive stuff in there, that is. Worth more than your salary.’
Kai heard the other men carrying the crate grunt in agreement. For a moment he anticipated a smoother ride for the two of them.
It didn’t happen.
The last few hours had been a frustrating sequence of steps, each of them with the deadline burning down like the lit fuse of a bomb. The first step had been to find a speakeasy where there would be men for hire. The second step had been to convince them that, as part of a joke, Kai wanted himself and a friend carried into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, crated up as a new exhibit. The bribe helped. But it had all taken time, too much time, and it was getting near to sunset already.
‘What’cha got there?’ someone demanded. One of the museum’s security guards, Kai assumed.
A pause as the leader of the crate-carriers fumbled in his pocket. ‘It’s a set of Ming Dynasty sculptures,’ he said, reading from the note Kai had prepared. ‘To be delivered to Professor Jamison’s rooms. Got this letter for the professor, too.’
Another pause. Kai resisted the urge to push the crate lid off and ask whether this was going to take all day.
‘I guess if it’s arranged,’ the guard finally said, after far too long a delay. ‘You’d better take them up. Professor Jamison’s on the third floor, along from the Asian Art section there. Peters here will go up with you, show you the way. The professor’s out at lunch right now, but he should be back soon.’
Five minutes later the crate had been deposited inside Professor Jamison’s office. Kai listened to the door slam shut, and to the sound of feet retreating down the corridor. He gave it another five minutes before he nudged the bowstring-tense Evariste. ‘Now,’ he whispered.
‘Thank God,’ Evariste muttered. ‘Crate fastenings, come undone. Crate lid, open.’
Kai straightened with a sigh of relief, shoving the crate lid the rest of the way off. He looked round the office. It was part of a small set of rooms – one actual office, and two storerooms that had once been dignified little anterooms. They were now piled high with disorderly stacks of notes. Miniature skyscrapers of books rose towards the ceiling as though they would blot out the light. The faint odour of rotting cheese suggested that sandwiches had been lost in the trackless wastes of paper and never found again.
Evariste rubbed the small of his back and surveyed the area. ‘Shit,’ he said succinctly. ‘We don’t have time to search through all this. The book could be anywhere.’
‘Then I suggest we get started,’ Kai said firmly. He checked that the door was locked. ‘Before Professor Jamison comes back from lunch.’
‘Assuming he’s coming back at all.’ Evariste glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly five o’clock already.’
‘The longer he’s out, the better for us,’ Kai said.
They’d powered through the room, by the expedient of checking everything they came across and dumping everything that wasn’t their target in a big heap, and were just about to try the storerooms. Then Kai heard footsteps, and a key grating in the lock. He gestured Evariste to silence, and stepped to one side of the doorway.
The door swung open and an elderly man stepped inside. He’d already shut the door and was removing his hat before he noticed the state of the office. ‘What—’ he began.
Kai clapped one hand over the man’s mouth, grabbing his wrist with the other. ‘Don’t say a word,’ he warned.
The man stayed silent, allowing Kai and Evariste to hustle him across to one of the chairs and bind him there with his own tie. Kai locked the door again. ‘Now,’ he said, feeling a bit guilty, ‘I understand that you may be worried – you are Professor Jamison, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ the man said. He was looking at them with fascination. His grey hair was receding, leaving most of his head bald, and the redness of his nose and the stains on his jacket suggested that his lunch had been largely alcoholic. ‘Tell me, are you the Tongs?’
‘No,’ Kai said, a bit confused.
‘Triads?’
‘No.’
‘Yakuza?’ He looked at Evariste. ‘Leopard Society?’