CHAPTER 5. SHE’S SO COLD
“What are you doing here?” Gil asked for about the sixth time. Apparently his version of interrogation involved asking the same question over and over.
While she was still out cold, I had carried her downstairs. Gil had insisted we at least tie her hands, so I dropped her into a chair, pulled a cord off a very old lamp, and knotted the old rubber-insulated wire around her wrists and through the chair’s backrest. Since coming to, she had been very uncooperative.
“What are you doing here?” Gil said again.
A line of blood had run out of her red hair, drying on her forehead in a trickle. Other than that, she looked unhurt. Her eyes were knives, though, and I was starting to feel okay about tying her hands. I’d guess she was about twenty-five, but she had smart eyes that made the cop in me nervous. What’s that line in Jurassic Park? “When she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Boss, give it a rest,” I said, taking a seat across from her. I’d cleared a wide space in the center of the book mountains, moving everything out of her kicking distance.
“Sorry about your head,” I said. “If this place had a working fridge, I’d get you some ice.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, twisting her wrists behind her back. I could hear the electrical cord creak.
“This is a good knot,” she said. “Eagle scout?”
I nodded. “I was also in the military.”
She smiled. “Cop?”
“Yep. Cop, too.”
She smiled again, this time with less humor and more venom. “You seem too smart to be a cop. Not by much, but just barely.”
“Cop jokes don’t bother me,” I said.
“How about dumb jokes. Do dumb jokes bother you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, rats. And here I was just gonna make you all Hulk smash so I could escape.”
“You’re pretty clever.”
Gil appeared at my side. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“That’s the wrong question, Boss. The better question is what book were you looking for?”
A faint line appeared at her brow. Surprise. “What?”
“You’re in a creepy mansion hospital in the middle of the night, and rather than trying to lift antiques or medical relics–or just escape with your life, we’ll get to that later–you’re in the library. I don’t think you’re responsible for this whole mess of books, but you’re probably responsible for at least some of it. When a thief is in a library in the middle of the night, it’s usually not because they’re looking for a good read. You’re looking for something worth money, and if you’re in a library then it’s a book. So, what book were you looking for?”
Back to the silent treatment. I turned to Gil. “What’s her name?”
“Jane Julius,” he said. “I caught her one time in my penthouse of all places, trying to steal a painting. A painting of all things! I mean, why bother?”
“It is a priceless relic, you old fool,” she growled.
“What’d I say about being mean?” I said. “No name-calling. If you aren’t gonna make me mad, you really aren’t gonna make him mad.”
Gil smiled and stuck his tongue out.
“So what book was it?”
Her gaze moved slowly from Gil to me. I didn’t like looking into her eyes. They were like a hungry lion’s.
“How much do you know about this place?” she asked.
“A little. You?”
“More than you, I’m sure. I’ve been researching this place for weeks. I’ve read enough about it to make me surprised to find someone else here.”
“Why?”
A different crease on her brow. Confusion, this time. “What exactly did you read about Callowleigh?” she asked.
“Um, well. Opened at the end of World War II as a site of surgical recuperation and rehabilitation. It functioned mainly as a sanatorium for veterans until it was forced to close in the late fifties due to...” I glanced at Gil, wishing he’d read something. Or anything at all. I didn’t understand the full implications of what I’d read, and I knew he would. I was a little uncomfortable admitting how little I understood to the girl. It was like being called on in high school when you didn’t really know the answer. “Due to mysterious deaths. Lawsuits were raised–”
“That’s it?”
“What?”
“That’s all you know?”
“I mean, I know people died here, which would explain the whole haunted thing.”
Gil spoke up for the first time. “What kind of deaths, though?”
“I, well, I couldn’t find many details, honestly. I think the lawsuits kind of buttoned them up for good.” Gil bit his lip and looked down at the floor. It looked like he was thinking, after a moment I realized he was looking at the books at his feet.
“What?”
Jane smiled. “Abercrombie knows there’s more to this,” she said.
“It’s not a haunted mansion hospital thing,” he said. “It’s... worse.”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“Do you remember when I told you that books could be very dangerous things?” he said. “That there is a reason that libraries have guardians.”
“I mean, I remember you saying it, but you didn’t exactly elaborate.”
He dug his toe into the pile of books on the floor and turned over a few copies. “I need my pipe,” he said finally. “I need to think.”
“Boss?”
He raised a finger. With his other hand he pulled his pipe from his jacket once again and began packing it with tobacco. I gave him a minute, understanding that Gil’s walking encyclopedia–Finch–wasn’t here. He knew most of what Finch knew, it just took him a lot longer to recall.
Jane looked at me, pouting her lips, and smiled alluringly. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, why don’t you come over here, big fella?”
I gave her a look of genuine confusion. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, you look like you appreciate a good–”
“Why don’t you stop right there.” I couldn’t help but smile. “We’re here trying to rescue a missing caretaker and you’re here to loot the place. I wouldn’t call that ‘together,’ would you? Now you’re trying to seduce me? While you’re tied to a chair? Seriously?”
She sighed, her countenance hardening in the blink of an eye. “If this caretaker of yours is still alive–and I’m not saying one way or the other, quite simply I don’t know–then he is only the fourth living human in this whole place. The other three are all in this room.”
“What’s your point?”
“We should stick together. Just because we’re the only three humans alive in this room, doesn’t mean we’re the only things alive in this room.”
“This is a library,” I said. “The only things in here are us and books.”
“That’s right.”
“So? What’s your point?”
“Some books are very, very dangerous,” Gil interrupted. “And some books are... well, for lack of a better word, alive.”
“Alive?”
Jane smiled. “Yes, alive.”
“I... don’t think I follow.”
Gil sighed. “This is Finch’s thing, and I wish he could explain it to you, but some books are tied to this world through their history. Sorry if I get too abstract here, but it is written that the only true history is that which is written in blood. I’m not talking literally, but rather history that is created by spilled blood. You know, like wars and assassinations and martyrs. Anyway, unlike simple ink, blood can’t be so easily erased. Or forgotten. Ergo, history created by spilled blood ties the written words to the lives lost.”
“Hold on,” I said. “The big guy’s not really following. I’m the brawn, remember?”
“Okay. Try this on for size: you’ve heard ‘the pen is mightier than the sword,’ right?”
“Of course.”
“The philosophy behind the expression is that words can be more dangerous than weapons.”
“Sure.”
“Well, I imagine you would agree that just as many people have died because of beliefs or ideologies or doctrines or contracts or treatises as have died in wars?”
“I dunno, I guess.”
“Okay, well stick with me here and try this idea on for size, it’s the crux of the argument. Some books gain power through the lives that are lost because of them. Following me?”
“You mean people who have either sacrificed themselves or been killed because they believed in or ascribed to a specific text?”
“Exactly.”
“That can give a text power?”
“In the same way that true and genuine belief can, yes.”
“And so some books...”
“Some books are very powerful. Powerful to the point of being dangerous because of the amount of passionate blood that has been spilled either because of them or in their name.”
“And some of these books...”
Jane spoke up. “Some of these books are in this very room,” she said.
“What I can’t figure out,” Gil said, “is why?”
“Because of a man named Deacons Fehr,” Jane said. “He was a Dutch doctor who worked here in Callowleigh from the day they opened to the day they closed.”
“I don’t know that name,” Gil said. “Who is he?”
The girl smiled. “I don’t work for you, Mr. Abercrombie, and so I don’t particularly feel compelled to cooperate.” She sat back, grinning smugly. “But I’ll give you a hint.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
She nodded. “Y Ddraig Goch,” she said in a whisper.
Gil’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Her mouth fell open in shock. It was immediately apparent she had never expected him to recognize the words she’d spoken. “Wait, do not say anything more. I shouldn’t have, do not speak its name aloud–”
Gil’s hand smacked his forehead. “Y Ddraig Goch? The Red Dragon? The Sworn Book of Honorius?”
Jane was hissing wildly now, her body shaking against her bindings and the chair. “Silence, you fool! Be silent!”
But Gil was lost in some revelation. “Le Veritable Dragon Rouge? Good grief! The freaking Grand Grimoire?”
Above us was a popping. Collectively, we turned our heads to the cathedral ceilings in time to see chandeliers swinging, their lightbulbs exploding. It started at the rear of the room and moved towards us like a lit fuse, leaving nothing but darkness in its wake.
“You moron! You complete idiot! You do not speak its name! It is listening!”
“What?”
The doors to the library opened in a gust of ice cold air before slamming shut. They had no trouble latching and locking this time. Above us, the last lightbulb exploded, leaving the entire room lost in pitch black.
“Oh crap,” Gil muttered. “We’re trapped.”
Around us, we could hear noises, subtle at first but not for long. It sounded like pages turning. Then came the hiss of snakes. Then came the sound of footsteps. Big ones.