Library of Souls (14 page)

“That isn't how it works. They came to me willingly. I'm their
agent.”

“You're their pimp,” Emma spat.

“Without me they'd have starved. Or been taken.”

“Taken by who?”

“You know who.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

The woman laughed. “That's not a good idea.”

“Yeah?” I said, taking a step forward. “Why not?”

“They have ears everywhere, and they don't like being talked about.”

“I've killed wights,” I said. “I'm not scared of them.”

“Then you're an idiot.”

“Shall I bite her?” said Addison. “I'd really like to. Just a little.”

“What happens when they take people?” I said, ignoring him.

“No one knows,” she said. “I've tried to find out, but …”

“I'll bet you tried
very
hard,” Emma said.

“They come in here sometimes,” Lorraine said. “To shop.”

“Shop,” Addison said. “That's a nice word for it.”

“To use my people.” She looked around. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I hate it. You never know how many they're going to want or for how long. But you give them what they ask for. I'd complain, but … you don't complain.”

“Bet you don't complain about what they pay,” Emma said contemptuously.

“It's not hardly enough for what they put 'em through. I try to hide the little ones when I hear they're coming. They bring 'em back roughed up, memories blanked out. I say, ‘Where'd you go? What'd they make you do?' But the kids don't remember zip.” She shook her head. “They get these nightmares, though. Nasty ones. It's hard to sell 'em after that.”

“I oughta sell
you
,” Emma said, livid, trembling. “Not that anyone would pay half a farthing.”

I stuffed my fists into my pockets to stop them from flying at
Lorraine. There was more to be gotten from her. “What about the peculiars they kidnap from other loops?” I asked.

“They bring them through in trucks. Used to be a rare thing. Lately it's been all the time.”

“Did one come through earlier today?” I said.

“A couple of hours ago,” she said. “They had guards with guns all over the place, blocking the street. Made a big production of it.”

“They don't usually?”

“Not usually. Guess they feel safe here. This delivery must've been important.”

It was them
, I thought. A trill of excitement shot through me—but was immediately stifled by Addison lunging at Lorraine. “I'm sure they feel
quite
safe here,” he snarled, “among such perfect traitors!”

I snatched his collar and held him back. “Calm down!”

Addison struggled against me, and I thought for a moment he might snap at my hand, but then he relaxed.

“We do what we have to to survive,” Lorraine hissed.

“So do we,” said Emma. “Now tell us where those trucks go, and if you lie, or it turns out to be a trap, I'll come back and melt your nostrils shut.” She held one burning finger just beyond the tip of Lorraine's nose. “Agreed?”

I could almost imagine Emma doing it. She was tapping into a deep well of hatred I'd never seen fully revealed before, and as useful as it was in situations like this, it was a little scary, too. I didn't like to think what she might be capable of, given the proper motivation.

“They go to their part of the Acre,” Lorraine said, turning her head away from Emma's hot finger. “Over the bridge.”

“What bridge?” said Emma, holding it closer.

“At the top end of Smoking Street. Don't bother trying to cross, though, unless you want your head to end up on a pike.”

I reckoned that was all we were going to get out of Lorraine. Now we had to figure out what to do with her. Addison wanted to
bite her. Emma wanted to trace an
S
on her forehead with her white-hot finger, branding her for life as a slaver. I talked them out of doing either, and instead we gagged her with a sash cord from the curtains and tied her to a leg of the desk. We were about to leave her like that when I thought of one last thing I wanted to know.

“The peculiars they kidnap. What happens to them?”

“Mrrrf!”

I pulled down her gag.

“None have escaped to tell,” she said. “But there are rumors.”

“About?”

“Something worse than death.” She gave us a smile dripping with slime. “I guess you'll just have to find out, won't you?”

* * *

The moment we opened the office door, the man in the overcoat charged at us from across the parlor, something heavy raised in his hand. Before he could reach us, a muffled shout of alarm sounded from the office and he stopped, changing course to see about Lorraine. When he'd crossed the office threshold, Emma slammed the door behind him and melted the handle into useless slag.

That bought us a minute or two.

Addison and I bolted for the exit. Halfway there, I realized Emma hadn't followed. She was banging on the window of the enslaved peculiars' quarters.

“We can help you escape! Show me where the door is!”

They turned sluggishly to stare, splayed on their chaises and daybeds.

“Throw something to break the glass!” Emma said. “Be quick!”

None moved. They seemed confused. Perhaps they didn't believe rescue was really possible—or perhaps they didn't want to be rescued.

“Emma, we can't wait,” I said, tugging at her arm.

She wouldn't give up. “Please!” she cried into the tube. “At least send out the children!”

Full-throated shouts from inside the office. The door shook on its hinges. Frustrated, Emma slammed the glass with her fist.

“What's the matter with them?”

Rattled stares. The little boy and girl began to cry.

Addison tugged the hem of Emma's dress with his teeth. “We must go!”

Emma let the speaking tube fall and turned away bitterly.

We hit the door running and burst out onto the sidewalk. A thick yellow murk had blown in, bundling everything in gauze and hiding one side of the street from the other. By the time we'd sprinted to the end of the block we could hear Lorraine bellowing behind us but couldn't see her; we turned one corner and then another until it seemed we'd lost her. On a deserted street by a boarded-up storefront, we stopped to catch our breaths.

“It's called Stockholm syndrome,” I said. “When people start to sympathize with their captors.”

“I think they were just scared,” said Addison. “Where would they have run to? This whole place is a prison.”

“You're both wrong,” Emma said. “They were drugged.”

“You sound pretty sure,” I said.

She pushed back hair that had fallen over her eyes. “When I was working in the circus, after I'd run away from home, a woman approached me after one of my fire-eating shows. She said she knew what I was—knew others like me—and that I could make a lot more money if I went and worked for her.” Emma gazed out at the street, her cheeks flushed from the sprint. “I told her I didn't want to go. She kept insisting. When she finally left she was angry. That night I woke up in the back of a wagon with my mouth gagged and hands cuffed. I couldn't move, couldn't think straight. It was Miss Peregrine who rescued me. If she hadn't found me when they stopped to reshoe their horse the next day”—Emma nodded behind us, to
where we'd come from—“I might have ended up like them.”

“You never told me that,” I said quietly.

“It's not something I like to talk about.”

“I'm very sorry that happened to you,” said Addison. “Was that woman back there—was she the one who kidnapped you?”

Emma thought for a moment.

“It happened such a long time ago. I've blocked out the worst of it, including my abductor's face. But I know this. If you'd left me alone with that woman, I'm not sure I could've stopped myself from taking her life.”

“We've all got demons to slay,” I said.

I leaned against a boarded window, a sudden wave of exhaustion breaking over me. How long had we been awake? How many hours since Caul had revealed himself? It seemed like days ago, though it couldn't have been more than ten or twelve hours. Every moment since had been a war, a nightmare of struggle and terror without end. I could feel my body inching toward collapse. Panic was the only thing keeping me upright, and whenever it began to fade, I did, too.

For the merest fraction of a second, I allowed my eyes to close. Even in that slim black parenthesis, horrors awaited me. A specter of eternal death, crouched and feeding upon the body of my grandfather, its eyes weeping oil. Those same eyes planted with the twin stalks of garden shears, howling as it sank into a boggy grave. Its master's face contorted in pain, tumbling backward into a void, gutshot, screaming. I had slain my demons already, but the victories were fleeting; others had risen up quickly to replace them.

My eyes flew open at the sound of footsteps behind me, on the other side of the boarded-up window. I hopped away and turned. Though the store looked abandoned, someone was inside, and they were coming out.

There it was: panic. I was awake again. The others had heard the noise, too. Acting on collective instinct, we ducked behind a
stack of firewood nearby. Through the logs I peeked at the storefront, reading the faded sign that hung above the door.

Munday, Dyson and Strype, attnys at law. Hated and feared since 1666
.

A bolt slid and slowly the door opened. A familiar black hood appeared: Sharon. He looked around, judged the coast clear, then slipped out and locked the door behind him. As he hurried away in the direction of Louche Lane, we consulted in whispers about whether to go after him. Did we need him anymore? Could he be trusted? Maybe and maybe. What had he been doing in that shuttered storefront? Was this the lawyer he'd talked about seeing? Why the sneaking?

Too many questions, too many uncertainties about him. We decided we could make it on our own. We stayed put and watched as he turned ghostly in the murk and was gone.

* * *

We set out to find Smoking Street and the wights' bridge. Not wanting to risk another unpredictable encounter, we resolved to search without asking for directions. That became easier once we discovered the Acre's street signs, which were concealed in the most inconvenient places—behind public benches at knee height, dangling from the tops of lampposts, inscribed into worn cobblestones underfoot—but even with their help, we took as many wrong turns as right. It seemed the Acre had been designed to drive those trapped inside it mad. There were streets that ended at blank walls only to begin again elsewhere. Streets that curved so sharply they spiraled back on themselves. Streets with no name—or two or three. None were as tidy or tended to as Louche Lane, where it was clear a special effort had been made to create a pleasing environment for shoppers in the market for peculiar flesh—the idea of which, now that I'd seen Lorraine's wares and heard Emma's story, turned my stomach.

As we wandered, I began to get a handle on the Acre's unique geography, learning the blocks less by their names than by their character. Each street was distinct, the shops along them grouped according to type. Doleful Street boasted two undertakers, a medium, a carpenter who worked exclusively with “repurposed coffinwood,” a troupe of professional funeral-wailers who did weekend duty as a barbershop quartet, and a tax accountant. Oozing Street was oddly cheerful, with flower boxes hanging from windowsills and houses painted bright colors; even the slaughterhouse that anchored it was an inviting robin's-egg blue, and I resisted an odd impulse to go inside and ask for a tour. Periwinkle Street, on the other hand, was a cesspit. There was an open sewer running down its center, a thriving population of aggressive flies, and sidewalks that overflowed with putrefying vegetables, the property of a cut-rate greengrocer whose sign claimed he could turn them fresh again with a kiss.

Attenuated Avenue was just fifty feet long and had only one business: two men selling snacks from a basket on a sled. Children crowded around, clamoring for handouts, and Addison veered off to snuffle around their feet for droppings. I was about to call after him when one of the men shouted, “Cat's meat! Boiled cat's meat here!” He came scurrying back on his own, tail tucked between his legs, whimpering, “I shall never eat again, never, never again …”

We approached Smoking Street from Upper Smudge. The closer we got, the more the block seemed to wither, its storefronts abandoned, its sidewalks emptying, the pavement blackening with currents of ash that blew around our feet, as if the street itself had been infected by some creeping death. At the end it curved sharply to the right, and just before the bend was an old wooden house with an equally old man guarding its stoop. He swept at the ash with a stubbly broom, but it piled up faster than he could ever hope to collect it.