The Hidden Library (36 page)

Which, you know, hurts like a
motherfucker.

I reel back, hunched over in pain. I am going to kill this man-boy if it’s the last thing I do. Pan growls again, and the next thing I know, he’s got a hold on his weird, glowing blade. I swing out an arm, but it’s too late.

He slides it straight into my body, through my side.

I—I—

I’m down on the ground. And then Pan is, too, and Alice is standing above us, wielding a broken piece of wood.

“Finn!” She’s on her knees next to me. “Are you all right?” And then, once she gets a better look, “That little pissant stabbed you!” She’s so outraged she kicks his prone body.

“It’s—” I pull my hand away. Excruciating, is what I ought to say. Instead, I tell her, “I’m fine. I don’t think it hit anything.”

Pan gurgles and lifts his head. Alice takes my gun from me and slams the butt down against the back of his head. The boy slumps back to the ground.

“You—” I gasp as she presses her hands down upon the wound. “You should get this asshole back to the Institute.”

She looks at me like I’m insane. “Do not be ridiculous. I am not leaving you, Finn. If anyone should get back to the Institute, it’s you.”

Victor shouts something from farther on down the alley. People have spilled out of their houses and are watching the fight go down between my brother and Todd. Victor is good in a fight—one of the best—but I am not going to leave him alone to face Todd.

“I’m fine. Please. Take this sack of shit back and Victor and I will be right behind you. Help Mary figure out what happened. I have a bad feeling about all of this.”

“Me, too.”

“
Go.
”

She digs her feet in, but Pan makes the choice for me. A hand grapples clumsily for his nearby sword.

“Son of a jabberwocky! What does it take to bring this fiend down?” She snatches his sword and uses the hilt to strike across the base of his skull once, twice. Then her daggers are out and she’s shoved them both into his sides.

The little man-boy squeals and then shudders.

Victor shouts my name.

“Alice, please. You need to go put that poultice on, too. We can’t risk any lingering boojum infection taking over.”

She takes a deep breath, no doubt ready to argue. But then she kisses me swiftly. “Fine.” A finger juts out toward me. “If you do not follow within a quarter of an hour, I will come back.”

“Of course.” Nearly out of time, I flip to the first page in my Institute book and write her in to the lobby. The door opens before us. Alice grabs hold of Pan’s leg and drags him forward. “A quarter of an hour, Finn.”

I give her a small salute. And that’s when the second explosion happens.

As I hit the wall behind me, my pen goes flying past Alice into the Institute. The door vanishes right as Todd rushes past me, Victor hot on his heels.

“He has grenades!” my brother shouts.

I push off the wall and push past the pain. I’m off after them.

“H
ELLO, ALICE. HAVE YOU found the right rabbit hole yet?”

The door and all of the chaos I’ve just left behind vanish as I toss the fiend who attacked Finn across the lobby floor. Standing behind us, wearing a crisp tuxedo much more suited to a fine event such as the gala rather than the lobby of the Institute, is Gabriel Lygari. Or Gabriel Pfeifer, considering. He’s holding something small in his well-manicured hands. Lovingly, like it’s precious to him.

In between us lies Finn’s editing pen.
Bloody hell.

Mary appears, but from her angle on the stairs, she cannot see Lygari. “Alice! Thank God. I can’t seem to find anybody. I’ve just gotten back from 1865/71CAR-AWLG. Where are Victor and Finn?”

My teeth clench together. “We have a visitor.”

By this point, she now has an excellent view of Lygari. Shock and then anger fill her face. “How in the hell did you get in here?”

It is an excellent question.

Lygari smiles, his teeth white and yet still tombstone-like all at once. “Some of us are more familiar with rabbit holes than others. Isn’t that right, Alice?”

The pull of Finn’s pen between us is a siren. Finn and Victor are—I have no idea. Somewhere far away, chasing after Todd. They have no pen to edit back with. And now, here stands a man just earlier tonight we were hunting. There is no surprise at my appearance via a magical door, no awe or terror over things that cannot be easily explained. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I say coolly, “but I concur with my friend. How is it you found your way into this building?”

His head tilts to the side; his bright eyes almost appear regretful as he looks at the battered man-child bearing both my blades at my feet. “Sometimes, sacrifices must be made in order for an objective to be met.”

Silent alarms ring throughout me. Where is everyone? One of our quarries has appeared within our walls, and no one is to be found? A surreptitious glance around proves that we three are the only ones within the elaborate, large lobby. “What are—”

He extends the object until it settles within his palm, leaving my words lost between us. It is a postcard with an Asian script, featuring a series of cats.

Prickles of unease send nearly every hair on the back of my neck standing straight up. There were so many cats on the streets I just ran upon. So many.
Please, for all that is good in all the Timelines, do not let that be what I think it is.

Mary immediately pulls out her cell phone and punches at the screen. Near-paralyzing dread fills my belly. This man with two names has hidden a library and altered the shape of his house. What more is he capable of?

“Are you ready for the next move, Alice?”

I reach for my daggers, but remember I have none on my person, as they’re in the Pan-boy’s belly. I am weaponless: no gun, no dagger, no nothing. Lygari must be stopped, though. If what he holds is, in fact, a catalyst, then—

Lygari tsks again and then calmly tears off a corner of the picture-postcard in his hands. The piece flutters to the floor. But to both my and Mary’s amazement, before it touches the gleaming wood, the bit turns to ash.

“What in the bloody hell!” Mary’s whisper is like the crack of a shot, though.

Bloody hell indeed.

Fast as a wink, my hands wrap around a nearby statue of a Greek Muse. It’s black and thin and has protruding edges that will do nicely. But Gabe merely laughs—throaty and amused, warm as honey in tea. “Go ahead,” he murmurs, another piece of the picture-postcard falling to the floor in soft whispers of gray and black. “Let’s see if you can strike me before I finish what I’ve started.”

Mary’s scream is deafening as she sounds an alarm. I swing the statue toward Lygari right as he drops the remaining shredded pieces of the picture-postcard to the floor and grinds them to dust beneath his feet.

No!

An explosion, white and cold and terrifying, sends Mary and me sprawling across the room and into panes of stained glass. Ribbons of colored knives slice through my skin, leaving me dazed as I blink through the smoldering remnants of a once beautiful lobby.

Gabriel Lygari murmurs, his voice gentle against the ringing in my ears, “It pains me to do that, you know. But it was time.” And then he pulls a musical pipe out of the inside of his coat and plays a few dissonant yet beautiful notes.

Everything is liquid. I feel like I did for years in Wonderland, drugged.
Has he drugged us?

I struggle to push myself up, but cry out when my hands land upon the spiky jags beneath me. I cannot focus through my injuries. How can that be? Years of training . . .
Why can’t I focus?
Mary, for her part, does not move from where she lays bleeding nearby.
Get up, Alice. You’ve been in worse situations than this before.

Haven’t I?

Haven’t I?

He lowers his pipe. “Nowhere is safe,” the man I regretfully once allowed to press his lips against my neck in a darkened nightclub says. “And no one. Not if I don’t want them to be.” He smiles again, his teeth much too bright in the haze enveloping me. “Not even you. Not even those from the Society who think they can halt what needs to be done. I wanted you to know this tonight. It’s best to stay out of my way unless I seek you out first.”

“Wha—” Words, garbled. Boys and girls of varying ages, dressed in brown jerkins, dance about me. They lift up the Pan-creature who stabbed Finn and carry him across the room.
What magic is this?

“
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and
Frankenstein,
” he continues softly, “were filled with irresponsible characters. Even those who originated from those Timelines resented their stories, did they not?”

My bones and muscles are useless, even as his words sink in like rusty nails driven in by hammers.

Glass crunches beneath Lygari’s feet as he turns away; a mournful melody trails his steps. A glowing doorway appears before him, books and shelves, glass cases filled with familiar items fill the distance.

Bücherei.

Colors swirl around me, light and bright and dark and heavy. Rage percolates, though. Rage and more sorrow than I thought ever possible.

The children trail him through the doorway, swaying to the tune as they haul the Pan-boy’s body. Music swells and then falls, and then the doorway disappears.

Clarity strikes me fast and hard in the new silence. Despite the pain, I am able to push myself up. Crawl on bleeding knees over to Mary. Fingers fumble against her neck. She’s alive. Thank God, she is alive, even though there are new gashes on her head bleeding profusely.

The wreckage of the lobby swarms with bodies. Nobody can seem to remember much of the evening, to be honest, but one thing is for sure. A catalyst has been destroyed within the Institute’s walls for the first time. They’ve seen enough of these events to know their markers.

A catalyst has been destroyed.

Breathing becomes laboriously difficult.

So many people asking what happened. So many people wondering why they feel like they’ve been asleep for a century. So many people scared, because time is missing for them.

Van Brunt finds me once I’m upon my feet, and the look in his eyes—the questions, the fear, the assumptions—are nearly too much to bear.

He asks me about my failures anyway. “What happened?” he barks. “Where are Finn and Victor? Who did this, Ms. Reeve?”

“They—” I swallow. I must focus, if I am to get through the coming minutes. I must focus, if I am to do what must be done. “They stayed behind to capture Todd. I came ahead with—” And yet, my prisoner is gone. “I must get the doorway opened quickly. Finn was stabbed, and I don’t think it best he continue for much longer.”

Van Brunt swears softly before he snatches up the Muse statue I’d attempted to use as a weapon earlier. It hurls it across the room in a burst of shouted anger. The hole in the wall it leaves behind is not so small.

“Gabriel Lygari was here in the lobby. How did he get past your security measures?”

His attention reverts to me, his eyes glassy. “Lygari? You mean Pfeifer? The rare book collector we were hunting at the gala?
He
was here?”

“The very one.”

The Librarian appears, somber as she surveys our surroundings. When did she return? “What did the catalyst look like, Alice?”

I tell her, doing my best to remain calm and failing all at once, “It was a picture-postcard. It was . . . Japanese, maybe. It had cats on it and appeared old.”

Her eyes close. The room around us falls silent. Van Brunt’s fingers curl into fists when he takes in her sorrow.

I ask what I fear anyway. I ask, “What Timeline was that a catalyst for?” When neither answers me, I shout the question anew.

“1905/06Sōs-IAAC,” the Librarian tells me, and for the first time in a long time, I do not think she is playing word games with me. “It is for a book about a cat that takes place in Japan in the early Twentieth Century called
I Am A Cat.
”

No.
No.
I stumble backward, my balance lost.

“Ms. Reeve,” Van Brunt says flatly. “What Timeline are my boys in?”

I shake my head. They—they could be anywhere. We were in Japan, yes, and there were cats, but . . . but it does not necessarily mean 1905/06Sōs-IAAC. It could—it could be any Timeline. There are thousands of books written about Japan at this time. There—

My name is said. Hands take hold of me, but I shake them off. Van Brunt asks me again, but I simply shout my denial.

I would know if Finn was dead. I would sense it, wouldn’t I? My footing would no longer be on firm ground. Gravity would abandon me and I would once more be adrift.

Marianne weeps openly. Flemming and Holgrave are pale and shaken. Mary is still blissfully unaware of how our world has just been so very horribly altered, and the A.D. is shrill in his insistences about how they need to get her to a hospital immediately.

“You must go, too.” Van Brunt’s words are hollow. “You’re in bad shape, Ms. Reeve.”

These words mean nothing to me. I fight for logic. Fight for clarity. “Lygari went through a doorway, into a library.” I turn to the Librarian. “It must be Bücherei. It must be.”