The Library at Mount Char (33 page)

They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Carolyn said, “Is that all?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Yeah. That's all.”

“Thanks again.”

“Sure, of course. We're going to meet at the jade stairs around sunset.”

Carolyn shut the door.

W
hen Jennifer was gone, Carolyn went down to the baths. They were communal and unisex, but there was no one there at the moment. She filled one of the tubs with the hottest water and bathed herself. She stood up and dried off.

She took down a clean robe to dress, looked at it, then hung it back up again. She filled the tub a second time. She felt the filth of him on her even still. She rummaged in the closet until she found a very stiff brush and a caustic soap used to remove tar or certain toxins. She scrubbed herself with these until her skin was raw, scrubbed until her skin was
bleeding
. She only stopped when she noticed she was sobbing. Then she composed herself and dried off a second time.

Rachel came in while she was dressing. She gave Carolyn a sympathetic look. “Hey,” she said. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine. Why?” She busied herself with putting up her hair.

“I, um…you know. I heard.” Rachel walked over and put her hand on Carolyn's shoulder. “If you want to come by later, Alicia and I could—”

Carolyn looked down at Rachel's hand. “Thank you,” she said, “but I'm fine. Really, it was nothing.”

“Um…OK. If you say so. But if you change your—”

“You're very kind.” Her tone sounded a little bit like David's. Neither of them recognized this consciously, but Rachel let her hand drop.

“OK,” Rachel said again.

Carolyn walked back down the hall to her room. On the way out she passed David and Father walking down the hall. They were both covered head to toe in ballistic armor, and sweating.

Father didn't seem to notice her, but David gave her a two-dimple grin. “Hello, Carolyn.”

She nodded back at him, expressionless. “Hello, David.”

He tipped her a wink.

Carolyn didn't react at all.

In her room she shut the door behind her, and locked it. She didn't waste any more time thinking about David. It was the first time he had killed her, true, but he had hurt her before and she'd survived. This was her world. She had adjusted.

Instead, she cleaned. She was by nature a tidy person, and this business had left her room cluttered. Teeth gritted, she shelved the books first, then turned the desk back over and scraped off the blood. The Mont Blanc he had crucified her with was ruined, but she thought the Montegrappa he used on the other arm would be fine with a new nib. Jaw muscles jumping, knuckles white, she cleaned the pen with a solution of ammonia and water, polished it, and set it back in the coffee cup she used as a holder.

By sunset, around the time Jennifer and Rachel and Alicia were setting off on their picnic, she had the room back in something like good order. Only then did she return to the scrap of paper she had been holding when David came in. When he shut the door behind him, she used it as a bookmark for the text on Quoth. He hadn't noticed.

The bookmark was something she had found three years ago, in a Spanish text. It was a rough draft from a book on various methods of travel. It was not part of her catalog. It had apparently been left in the Spanish text by accident. It described something called the
“alshaq urkun”
which “maketh the light to pass through.” It was related to something called the
“alshaq shabboleth
,
”
which “maketh the slow things swifte” in some deep conceptual way. The
alshaq shabboleth
apparently had some side effects that rendered it impractical.

Alshaq urkun
, though, was eminently practical. The way
alshaq urkun
worked was by making physical objects transparent to the electromagnetic spectrum—invisible, among other things. When it was invoked on, say, a person, that person might walk about freely and unobserved, no matter who was watching.

It had some drawbacks, too. The worst of them was that the rods and cones of the eyes were also transparent to light—that rendered you
completely blind for however long the
alshaq
was invoked. But if you were careful, and if you planned your route in advance, you could get around just fine.

Carolyn picked up the book that was only slightly hidden on the small corner bookshelf, the book whose presence she had concealed from David at such horrific cost. David would have recognized it immediately, of course—it was bound in red leather, as were all the books of his catalog. Carolyn's own catalog was green. The title of the red book was
Mental Warfare vol. III: The Concealment of Thought and Intention
. It was a master-level text. Carolyn had finished it just the night before she died.

She stood in the doorway of her cloister, then performed the ceremony of the
alshaq urkun
. She didn't need to consult the slip of paper, not anymore. Everything she needed was committed to memory. When she was done, the world went dark. Red book in hand, she turned right. There were thirty-seven steps down the hall to the staircase. There were thirteen steps up to the main level of the Library, each of them nine inches high. That brought her to the jade floor. From there, one thousand and eighty-two steps took her to the ruby floor, where all books with red bindings were shelved.

Still counting her steps, she brought the book she had hidden back to the shelf from which it had come—radial eight, case twenty-three, shelf nine. She returned it to the twelfth slot from the right, just where she had found it the week before. She would not need to consult it again. She had studied diligently. She had mastered the concealment of thought and intention. Now it was time to move on to other things.

She took down a different book from shelf two of the same case, slot eight. It would be red as well, she knew, with a cover the color of arterial spray.

Back in her quarters, Carolyn shut the door behind her. She went to her desk, sat down, lit the oil lamp. Even with the blood gone, her desk was scarred with two holes, just under arm's length apart. She considered filling them, then decided against it. She would look at them from time to time. They would help her focus. Then, with a small smile, she opened the red book she had stolen—well, borrowed—from David's catalog.

This was cheating a little bit. She had first happened on the
alshaq
urkun
bookmark about three years ago. She had been studying ever since. She started with Jennifer's catalog, then bounced around as her plan began to take shape. The course of study she'd laid out wouldn't have brought her to this volume for another month or two. But it was one she'd been looking forward to very much, and she thought that tonight she deserved a treat. The title and author were printed on the cover in the gold leaf of Western tradition. It was called
The Plotting and Execution of Vengeful Murder
by Adam Black.

She opened it to “Chapter 11: Notes on the Subjugation of the Martially Superior Foe.”

She read until late in the night.

It was very comforting.

“T
his is far enough,” Carolyn said.

Steve rolled to a stop about a quarter mile down the road from the entrance to Garrison Oaks. He didn't bother to pull over onto the shoulder. Carolyn was twitchy, nervous, swaying and rocking in her seat. Steve had never seen her like this. Naga watched from the backseat, fascinated.

It was around nine p.m. Now even the light of the stars was gone.
Is it just cloudy, or did she do something to them, as well?
He realized, dimly, that he was in something like shock.

“Why are we stopping?”

Carolyn pointed. Not far from the subdivision sign a streetlight shone down, a little island of light in the long sea of black. Steve squinted. Three people stood under the light. His vision wasn't good enough to make out faces, but one of them was clearly wearing a tutu. Somewhere in his belly fear squirted, bright and cold.

“Is that David?”

Carolyn pursed her lips, considering, then nodded. “He's bleeding. Erwin must be better than I realized. It's been a long time since anyone made David bleed.”

“That's
Erwin
down there?”

She nodded.

“What's he doing here?”

“He's angry. He came to ‘fuck a bitch up.' ”

“Anybody in particular?”

“The enemy. Me, David, anyone else who's left. He figured out that we'd turn up here eventually. He's very smart.”

“But what—”

“Shh!”

Erwin raised the pistol to David's face. David grinned. He leaned forward and put his nose right at the tip of the gun's barrel. Erwin fired. The pistol's slide slammed down on an empty chamber. David backhanded Erwin across the mouth.

“OK,” Carolyn said. “Game time.”

“What?”

“Later,” she said. “Right now I want you to go to the Library. Do you remember which one it is?”

“I do but—you're not going down
there
, are you?” Steve gestured at the streetlamp, David. In the backseat Naga rumbled.

“I am. And you're going to go to the Library. You'll be safe there. I'll be along when I've finished.”

“What? Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what that guy can—”

“Steve, you need to listen,” Carolyn said. “There isn't much time. I need to go down there, and you can't come.”

“You're going there? Alone?”

She nodded.

“I'll go with you,” he said. “Maybe I can—”

“Steve,
listen
. I'm not saying this to insult you, but if it came to a fight against David, you would have absolutely no chance of winning. None. It could not happen.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but then he remembered how David had come to the jailhouse armed only with his spear, how he had filled the corridors of that place with the corpses of armed men. He shut his mouth. Then, after a moment, “Oh-kay. Point taken. And you do?”

“More than just a chance.”

“Carolyn, unless you can fight a lot better than you've been letting on—”

“Steve,” she said. “Go. Just go. I can do this. You'll be safe inside the
reissak
. No one that matters can get to you there.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I just do.” She hesitated. “A long time ago, there was a…sort of homecoming party. A feast. The main course was two deer. That's the
reissak
's trigger. No one who tasted of their flesh can approach the Library. And that's everyone of consequence. You'll be safe there.”

“But—”

“Just
go
, Steve. Everything will be fine if you leave it to me.”

They glared at each other. After a long moment, Steve said, “All right. OK. But what do you want me to do if it doesn't work out the way you think? Should I come back, or—”

“No.” Her tone was flat. “Don't try anything. I
could
lose. It's possible. It might happen. We'll know one way or the other in a few minutes. If I don't come for you in an hour or so, or if you see David at all, ever—don't try anything. Find a gun and blow your brains out. Or hang yourself. Or jump off a bridge. Anything. David can't do the resurrections, not yet. Probably by the time he learns he will have forgotten about you.”

Steve gaped at her.

“I mean that literally,” she said. “I am not kidding. It is not a joke. Tell me that you understand.”

After a long moment he gave her the barest sliver of a nod. “Sure,” he said. “Yeah.” He didn't know whether he meant it or not.

She smiled, a little, then blew out a long breath. “But it will not come to that.” She spoke calmly, and with great certainty. “I will not allow it.” She examined her hands. Steve looked too. Her fingertips were steady, untrembling. “I still love you, Steve. You should know that, too.”

“You what?” He paused. “ ‘Still?' ” He trailed off, baffled, completely empty of things to say. After an uncomfortable moment he opened his mouth. “Carolyn, I…” dribbled out.

She smiled, a little sadly. “Wait until they're busy with me, then you and Naga sneak in over there.” She pointed over her shoulder into darkness. “The fence doesn't go all the way around. You'll be fine.”

He followed her finger, saw nothing. “What about the dogs?”

“What? No. They won't be a problem.”

They were a pretty damn big problem yesterday
, he thought, but bit it back. There was something about her now, something like a hooded cobra, swaying. Instead he said, “How can you be sure? I thought they were your father's—”

“You won't be harmed, Steve. The dogs obey me. They've been mine all along.”

Steve stared at her, his expression darkening.
Dresden
. “Carolyn—”

“Later.”
Her voice was infuriatingly calm.

Steve's eyes narrowed.
Dresden, swarmed by the pack, buried under them, but still fighting as
…He felt his anger rising, fought it down.

“Now, I have to go,” Carolyn said. “Do you understand what you need to do?”

Steve managed to nod without looking too pissed off.

“I'll explain later,” she said. “Really.” She studied him, clearly unhappy with what she saw. She frowned, then leaned over and kissed him once, very quickly, on his right cheek. It was over almost before he realized it was happening. Then she sank back in her seat, shut her eyes, let out a long breath. Without a word, she opened the car door and stepped out in front of the headlights. Her shadow stretched out, eclipsing David and Erwin and Margaret.

For just a moment Steve watched, transfixed.

Carolyn was barefoot, and wore the same ridiculous clothes—bicycle shorts, sweater, leg warmers—he had first seen her in, now torn and dirty. There was a streak of dried blood down the side of her thigh. Steve could see himself and Naga framed in the rearview mirror, both of them bloody and taut, the lion peering over Steve's shoulder from the backseat. But at the same time he saw Carolyn walking, saw the way the muscles of her calves flashed in the headlights with each step.

Something in this tableau—he never quite settled on exactly what—put him in mind of Dresden, turning to face the pack of dogs, how every muscle of the lion's anatomy stood out in taut relief, the mute vehicles of his titanic and furious will.

D
avid was twirling Erwin's pistol on his fingertip. Erwin knelt on the ground in front of him, trying to stand. David put the gun against Erwin's head and said, “Bang!” He laughed and tossed the pistol into darkness. Margaret sat with the president's severed head in her lap, cooing softly to it. The president's dead lips were moving.

Carolyn couldn't tell what he was trying to say. “Hello, David.”

David turned. He was crusted in blood from head to toe, mostly dried. The lace of his tutu was stiff with it. It jutted out like knives. Here and there little bits of meat stuck to his skin. He smelled metallic, with just a hint of rot underneath, or maybe the rot was Margaret. He grinned from ear to ear, as happy as she had ever seen him.

“Looks like you've had quite an evening,” Carolyn said.

Margaret tittered.

“Hello, Carolyn,” David said. He winked at Margaret and punched Erwin in the face. Erwin sagged to the ground, semiconscious. David turned to face her. “So…it was you?”

Carolyn nodded.

“I have to say, I'm more than a little surprised. You're so…
mousy
.”

“It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

“I'll keep that in mind. Father's dead, isn't he?”

She nodded again.

David's grin widened a little bit. His teeth were strong and brown. “You killed him.”

She nodded again.

David threw back his head and laughed, long and loud. “Amazing,” he said. “Simply amazing. I'll bet”—he wagged a finger at her—“I'll
bet
someone's been reading outside of her catalog. Hmm? Hmmmm?” Carolyn smiled, shrugged.

He laughed again. “I hope you were careful. You can get in trouble for that.”

“I was.”

“How did you kill him, if you don't mind me asking? Father is—was—very good. Even discounting the rest of his skills, I think he may
have been the single best hand-to-hand fighter in the world. He told me he was stiffening up a bit, but you couldn't tell it by me. I—
I
—wouldn't have wanted to fight him. Not yet, anyway. Please tell me how you killed him. I am simply dying to know. Scholarly curiosity and all that.”

“I used a knife.”

“A knife.” His tone was incredulous.

She nodded. “I had the element of surprise, of course.”

On the asphalt behind David, Erwin stirred, trying to push himself up.

David's brow furrowed under thick, bloody locks. He kicked Erwin, but in a distracted way. He was studying her, trying to decide if she was lying to him. He was a little telepathic, she knew. Not to the same degree that Father had been, but he could see things in the minds of his enemies, especially in the heat of battle. She might have concealed the truth of what she said, might have let him wonder, but she didn't.

“The element of surprise,” he said slowly. “Yes. I'd say that you do have that. With a
knife
.” He shook his head. “Amazing. For what it's worth, I was leaning towards a knife myself. The simplest weapons are the only chance, against one like Father. Most people wouldn't understand that.” He squinted at her, considering. “I may have underestimated you, Carolyn.”

Carolyn didn't want him to pursue that line of thought. “Did anyone get out at Mrs. McGillicutty's?”

Erwin was on his knees now, crawling slowly away from them.

“Nope! I'm pretty sure it was just me and Margaret. Those soldiers were good, for Americans. Maybe a mouse could have snuck out. Not much else. Oh—sorry, Carolyn. You and Michael were buddies, weren't you?”

Carolyn felt Margaret's gaze on her, hot and greedy. She was careful to keep emotion from her voice when she spoke. “No,” she said. “Not really.”

Margaret frowned, disappointed, and turned her attention back to the president's head.

“And I suppose it's your
reissak ayrial
as well?” David's tone was casual, but he wasn't fooling anyone. If the
reissak
was hers, that meant she had worked alone. When she was dead, the Library would stand
unguarded. David would find a way in sooner or later. Then, unopposed, he and Margaret would plunder Father's catalogs. The universe would enter a darkness that would make the third age seem like paradise. Out of the corner of her eye Carolyn saw that Erwin had reached the sidewalk.

“Mine, yes.”

“I thought so. What was your plan, then? You thought Nobununga and I would do one another in, perhaps?”

“It was a possibility I considered.” This was true. She had also rejected it. “But he died earlier than I was expecting.”

Erwin, groggy, picked up the empty pistol. He looked at it as if he didn't quite remember what it was.

“So then…what? Were those soldiers supposed to do me in?
Americans?
Kill
me
?” He smiled. “Is that it?”

She shrugged. “Conceivably. There were a lot of them. They had guns. You're not invulnerable, David.”

“True enough.” David smiled. “Neither are you.”

“What if I told you that I have a propos—”

Faster than she could even see, David's hand shot out. Her left cheek exploded with pain. She tasted blood. “—proposal. We could join forces, David. I've always admired you, you know—”

Another slap. More pain, this time on the right side. Margaret giggled.

“—that. Admired your strength.” Her heart was like ice. She dropped to her knees, her face inches from his crotch. “I could be yours,” she said. “Willingly. I've always wanted that, you know. I often thought about you. In secret. I would have said something, but I'm so very shy.”

The cogs of her plan were ticking into final alignment. At first she had rejected this approach out of hand. It was too obviously a ploy. Only after deep study had she considered the idea seriously. Father's texts were adamant about its effectiveness. As illustrated in any number of footnotes, men are almost always 50 to 60 percent dumber in matters involving their crotch. Close proximity enhances the effect. Now, with clinical approval, she saw that something stirred in the depths of David's tutu.

Margaret raised an eyebrow. Erwin staggered into Garrison Oaks, inside the boundary of the
reissak
.

Safe for now
.

Carolyn turned all of her attention to David. He looked skeptical, but not disinterested. “Here,” she said, “let me show you.” She reached out and stroked his leg with the tips of her sharp nails.