‘Trust me,’ Kai said, walking round behind her to insert a gag in her mouth. ‘It could be worse.’
It was coming up to six o’clock as they headed downstairs to the basement, having left a Do Not Disturb sign on the professor’s door. The crowds of visitors were thinning out, and the light coming through the windows was shaded with sunset colours, painting the exhibits in red and orange tones.
‘I’m surprised they haven’t already put the Journey to the West out on display, given all the other classics here,’ he said quietly to Evariste, keeping his tone of voice conversational.
‘From the description in the catalogue, I don’t think the copy’s in the best of condition,’ Evariste answered. ‘It’ll be a low priority for exhibition.’
‘At least we’re not having to bring back the provenance as well.’ Kai tipped his hat to a young lady who was smiling at him.
Evariste gave him a look of mild horror. ‘You’re just enjoying coming up with ways to make this worse, aren’t you? How do we prove that it’s the correct book, without waving the provenance under Qing Song’s nose?’
‘Irene will think of something,’ Kai said confidently. ‘She’s very persuasive.’
‘Yeah,’ Evariste muttered. ‘She talked us into this, after all.’
Loyalty demanded some sort of response. Unfortunately nothing convincing came to mind.
The elevators down to the basement were half-hidden behind grand displays of medieval and Byzantine art, which filled several rooms. The elevators’ polished brass and wooden doors almost seemed artworks in themselves. But the basement below had been designed for efficient and clean storage, with white-tiled walls and floors.
At this time of day the only person around was the entry clerk sitting behind the reception desk. Kai stepped back, allowing Evariste to take the lead.
‘Good afternoon,’ Evariste said politely. ‘We’ve been sent down by Professor Jamison to collect some texts from the Asian Art section.’
The clerk sniffed. He was a thin fellow, his chin jutting out like a promontory, with suspicious bloodshot eyes. Unfortunately there was an alarm button on his desk, within easy reach of his hand. ‘Entrance desk is up on the ground floor,’ he said flatly. ‘Only graduates and above would be getting access to these archives. If you’re wanting to look something up, you’ll be needing full proof of your identity, and letters from at least a few of your professors. This here isn’t some sort of public library.’
‘But I am a graduate,’ Evariste said persuasively. ‘I took my degree in—’
‘Harlem?’ the clerk snorted. ‘Don’t give me that, boy. I’ve seen your sort before.’
Evariste’s mouth tightened, and there was a very nasty glint in his eyes. ‘You perceive that I’m currently showing you full documentation of everything that you should need to give me access to the archives,’ he said firmly in the Language.
The clerk frowned. ‘You can show me all the documents you like, boy, but you’re not going to walk through those doors till I’ve had a word with my boss. He knows how to handle people like you.’ He reached for the phone. Apparently the Language could bypass his perceptions, but that wouldn’t alter his prejudices.
Evariste glanced back at Kai, and the expression on his face was a clear invitation to violence.
Kai stepped forward and caught the clerk’s wrist, dragging him forward over the desk. As the clerk gasped for breath, Kai brought the edge of his free hand down on the nape of the man’s neck. He went limp with barely a sound, flopping across the desk.
‘Sorry,’ Evariste said with a shrug. His tone made it more of a pro-forma apology than a genuine expression of regret. ‘I guess this is where we tie him up and hide him till later.’
Kai considered. ‘If we do that, they’ll raise an alarm when they find he’s missing. He should be unconscious for at least half an hour . . .’ He tipped the clerk back into his chair and arranged the man with his hands folded over his belly, chin resting on his chest as though he’d fallen asleep. He also reached under the desk and ripped out the wire leading to the alarm bell. ‘There. That will buy us a little more time.’
When they entered the archive section, it became clear that they were going to need every bit of that time. Kai was grateful for the woman’s directions, but even so, the place was large. He approved of large collections in principle, but they were a nuisance when you had to trek through them to steal something.
‘I’d rather have been doing this at night,’ Evariste said quietly as they hurried through the corridors. ‘We wouldn’t have been so likely to run into people.’
Kai nodded. ‘Yes. But there wasn’t time.’ He imagined the fervid hum of the city above them, the constant buzz and surge of business and activity, and Irene drifting through it like a single butterfly with a pack of wolves on her tail. The image lacked poetic balance, and he frowned. ‘What chases butterflies?’ he asked.
Evariste glanced at him sidelong. ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’ he asked.
Kai looked back in disdain. ‘Poetic metaphor,’ he said.
A few minutes later they were finally opening a small corner cupboard.
The books inside had been carefully organized, much like one of those puzzles where one had to fit a set of blocks into a limited space. The person who’d filed them had been extremely careful not to squeeze them in or cram them together, but had clearly found it necessary to use every last fraction of space.
‘Careful now,’ Evariste said, abruptly taking charge. He began to lift the books out from the cupboard, placing them one by one on the room’s table. ‘No, not this, nor the other . . . wait, here they are. Six-volume set. All there.’
The volumes that he drew out from the depths of the cupboard were not in ideal condition. Kai could see why the museum might have preferred to put other, more obviously striking books on display. But when he opened one volume and began to leaf through it, he was relieved to see that the interior condition was sound. The pages were firmly attached, the yellowed paper was solid and untouched by damp or insects, and the ink was clear. He opened his mouth to congratulate Evariste.
And then an electric bell broke into wild shrieking peals, ripping through the silence of the archives like a chainsaw.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hu’s arm was an iron bar across Irene’s throat, cutting off both breath and speech. It brought back unwelcome memories of her doing the same thing to Evariste. Unhelpful thoughts about poetic justice pinwheeled dizzily through her head. She tried to get the fingers of her free hand underneath Hu’s arm and pry it loose from her throat. She stamped on his feet, throwing her weight into it, then kicked back at his kneecaps.
All she managed was the satisfaction, through the buzzing in her ears, of hearing him grunt in pain. ‘My lord,’ he said, through what sounded like gritted teeth, ‘I know you reserved the dose for the other Librarian, but under the circumstances . . .’