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‘And is there someone backing you?’
‘Someone you don’t want to antagonize,’ she said. She’d got the measure of his suspicion now. She’d only met lesser Fair Folk before, but they practically defined ‘so devious that they’d fall over if they tried to walk in a straight line’. This one was thinking in terms of conspiracies and agents. She could play that game just as well as anyone else. ‘But I can’t give names. Not even to an Ambassador. But what I can perhaps give is a degree of cooperation.’
He released her wrist and raised a delicate eyebrow. ‘You intrigue me.’
She understood that sort of language. She was getting the message that he might find her useful loud and clear – and intrigue had nothing to do with it. Instead, she nodded towards the safe. ‘Perhaps we are both looking for the same thing, sir.’
He nodded once, sharply. ‘Perhaps we are. Well? Open it.’
‘Do you have the combination, sir?’
He rattled off a list of numbers as she worked at the safe’s combination mechanism. So it was just the iron that had kept him out. She wondered what he’d have done if she hadn’t been here – perhaps enchanted or coerced some passer-by off the street, or brought a human agent here later.
His gloved fingers brushed the back of her neck, and she shivered. He needs you for the moment, he won’t try anything until he’s got what he’s looking for, the best way to deal with him is to give him something more interesting to pounce on . . .
‘Open it,’ he purred from far too close behind her.
Irene swung the safe door open and put some distance between herself and the Fae, physically feeling his focus shift from her to the safe’s contents.
Several stacks of papers lay tidily in the large iron cavity. On top of them was a small piece of card, embossed with a golden mask, signed with the name Belphegor.
The Fae hissed. His hands clenched, and Irene heard his kid gloves rip. He turned towards her, his face furious.
Saying ‘Don’t blame me’ or ‘It wasn’t my fault’ would just have been signalling that she was a victim. As calmly as she could manage, and wishing for a few more feet of distance between them – actually, make that a few yards, or even a few miles – she said, ‘This makes no sense. If Belphegor stole the book, and wanted to advertise the fact, why leave her card here inside the safe and not out on the desk?’
He blinked once, and seemed to take a step back mentally. ‘Indeed,’ he said, pacing the room. ‘It’s the book that’s important here. Keep talking, little mouse. Tell me what you know, what you see here. Tell me what you know about the book. Explain it to me. Make yourself worthwhile to me.’
‘There were two factions,’ Irene guessed. It was as good a theory as any. It might even be true. She needed more data. The Ambassador seemed to be looking for the book as well, so why not others? Perhaps she could use that. ‘And Belphegor wasn’t necessarily after the book. She could have been after something Lord Wyndham kept in his safe. So what if the person or people who stole the book and who killed Lord Wyndham were entirely different? If they were waiting here in the study while he was hosting the party downstairs.’ She walked over to look at the glass display case where the book had been. ‘I can’t tell whether they would have taken the book first and then killed him, or vice versa.’ Well, of course she couldn’t tell, she was deducing all this on the spot, or to be more accurate, guessing wildly. ‘But we know they beheaded him on the desk. Then they went out through the house and left his head on the railings outside the front door.’
‘Why not out through the window?’ he interrupted.
‘It wouldn’t open.’ She’d glanced down at the catch while hiding in the window embrasure. It had been soldered closed. ‘It must have been one of Lord Wyndham’s precautions. Besides, there was a party going on. It would have been simple enough to walk through the house and out through the front door if they’d concealed the head and if they looked enough like guests or servants.’ ‘Mm.’ He turned and pointed a finger at her. ‘And Belphegor?’
‘If she escaped by catching a rope from a passing zeppelin, then she must have gone up by the roof.’
He nodded. ‘And now a crucial point, little mouse. I’m not asking for the names of any people, but if you don’t tell me what group you are working for, I shall be reluctantly forced to . . . Oh, really, why soften things? I won’t be reluctant about it at all.’ His smile cut like a knife.
Irene was fairly sure that she could invoke the Language against him before he reached her, or simply slam the safe door into him, but fairly sure wasn’t enough. She tried to recall Dominic’s dossier, as he’d provided a list of the better-known secret societies.
‘The Cathedral of Reason. Sir,’ she said reluctantly, letting it be drawn out of her. That had been one of the more neutral groups, more concerned with general scientific progress than slaughtering horrific fiends and dangers to humanity. Or being dangers to humanity.
He nodded as if she had confirmed a hypothesis. ‘Very good. Now, little mouse, I have a bargain for you. Or rather, for your masters. We both want the manuscript, but we’ll get it faster by working together. A copy could be arranged. A deal can be made. Do you agree?’
What Irene truly wanted to say was that she didn’t like being called little mouse. It wasn’t even as if she was that small. She was five foot nine, which was a perfectly good height for a woman in most worlds. Fair Folk or not, this man was an arrogant, insulting, offensive boor, and if she could she would personally make him run a marathon ahead of an oncoming locomotive.
What she said was, ‘Yes, sir.’ She dropped her eyes submissively. Fair Folk were so accustomed to falling into attitudes and high drama themselves that they half expected it from humans, and were always gratified to find their expectations borne out. They thought of everything in terms of stories, with themselves as the main character. They played roles – no, they lived roles, and they saw the world around them in terms of the mental movie in which they were starring. He wanted her to be a meek little agent. Very well, she’d play the part for him, and use it to get the job done, and try to ignore the burning throb of anger and incipient ulcers.
He smiled at her. This time it was more of a seductive smile than an angry thin-lipped snarl. It was warm enough that she could nearly have smiled back, if she hadn’t known how much of a mask it was. It was inviting, somehow suggesting darkness and candlelight and closeness, a catch in the breath, a warm hand in hers, a pressure against her body . . .
‘Good girl. Wait a moment.’ He walked across to the desk, and began throwing drawers open, rifling through them to find paper, pen and ink. ‘Where did he keep it – ah, yes.’ He dropped a sheet of paper on the dried blood, opened a bottle of purple ink, dipped a quill in it, and scrawled a quick note. ‘There. We’re having a ball at the Embassy tomorrow. Here’s a private invitation for you. Bring a friend. Bring a lover, even. Find me there and tell me what your masters say to my little proposition. And remember . . .’
He let the sentence hang in the air. Obligingly, Irene said, ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Remember that I would make a better master for you than the Cathedral of Reason.’ There was a glow about him, an aura of presence, as if the light that fell on him came from somewhere else, somewhere more beautiful, more special. His eyes were pure gold, reassuring, enchanting, all-encompassing. Even the slit cat-pupils now seemed more natural than human eyes ever could. He stepped forward to lay his hands on her shoulders, drawing her close against him. ‘I will be everything to you, little one. I will protect and shield you. You will be my adored one, my own special love, my sweet, my pet, my beauty, my heart’s delight.’
He smelled of spice and honey. She could feel the coldness of his hands through his torn gloves and the fabric of her clothing.
‘Say that you’ll be mine,’ he murmured, his lips close to hers.
