The Book of Secrets

LXXXI

Oberwinter

Nick slid back the bolts. They might be old, but they were well oiled. The hinges squeaked, but only for a moment. Then the door was open.

‘You came.’

Gillian flew across the room and flung herself against him. She kissed him on the lips and he let her. He’d wanted this moment for so long – way before he had ever heard of the eight of beasts, the Master of the Playing Cards or any of it. So many nights he’d lain awake, wishing for her, until dawn came up over New York. It had been worth it – as sweet as he’d ever imagined.

But he couldn’t capture it. All too quickly, it began to fade, even as he held her. He found himself thinking about the danger, about how they would get out, about all the things he wished Gillian hadn’t done, about Emily. Still hugging Gillian, he opened his eyes. He saw Emily watching, coolly sympathetic, and gave her an embarrassed smile.

He held on until he felt Gillian’s grip loosen, then eased away. There were a thousand questions to ask, a lot of answers he probably didn’t want to hear. But that was for later.

‘We need to get out.’

Gillian stepped back. Her face was drawn and haggard, her cheeks raw from the cold. The overhead light bulb made the shadows around her eyes even darker. She seemed to be wearing pyjamas.

‘Are you OK?’ Nick said.

‘I’ve been better.’ She straightened. ‘No, I am better. Thank God you came.’ For the first time, she noticed Emily. ‘And you – I don’t even know you.’

Emily gave a polite smile, as if they were meeting at a cocktail party. ‘I work at the Cloisters. If I still have a job to go back to.’

‘I don’t remember you.’

‘I started after you left.’

‘Leaving would be good.’ Nick looked at Gillian’s bare feet. ‘There’s about two feet of snow outside and it’s a long walk back to town. Do you have any shoes?’

‘We can’t go yet.’ Gillian slipped a rubber band off her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Nick and Emily stared at her. ‘The castle’s empty. I haven’t heard anyone since yesterday morning.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Nick. ‘There’s a dead man at the end of this corridor and he’s still bleeding. The guy who shot him can’t be far.’

‘Come on, Nick. Don’t you want to see what this was all about?’

‘It was about you.’

Gillian flashed him her pixie grin. Once it would have made him glow with happiness; now it seemed contrived.

‘I’ve spent almost two weeks in this cell – and a month before that tracking these bastards down. They’ve done things…’ She let her gaze slide towards Emily. ‘If you two want to go ahead, go ahead. I’m not leaving without what I came for.’

‘Of course not.’ He was shocked to find he was actually tempted. He’d assumed it would be different, that gratitude would overwhelm everything. Instead, he found himself as confused as he’d ever been, the familiar feeling of always being two steps behind and looking the wrong way.

She’s been kidnapped, locked up and God knows what else. Did you think she’d melt in your arms?

He glanced at Emily, who gave the slightest shrug in reply.

‘It’ll only take five minutes.’

Gillian seemed to know the way. She led them through a door at the end of the corridor, up a spiral stair and out onto a broad rampart. Nick flinched as the cold night hit him. To his right, he could see a small courtyard covered in snow, two pointed towers flanking a gatehouse and a square keep rising into the darkness. On the other side, far below, the snow-bound forest stretched down to the river. A foghorn sounded in the distance.

‘Keep low,’ Gillian whispered.

‘I thought you said this place was empty.’

‘No point taking risks.’

They crawled along the wall, keeping below the rim of battlements, until another flight of stairs brought them down to the courtyard. They skirted its edge, keeping in the shadows around the storehouses and sheds, under a trellis of withered vines and past a stone well. Tyre treads and footprints gouged the snow; Nick wondered how fresh the marks were.

He was so busy looking ahead for danger that he didn’t watch his footing. He kicked against something, tripped and fell forward. He pushed himself up on his hands.

A three-eyed monster, like some horror from the bestiary, stared at him out of the snow. Its skin was stippled blue and black, its lips locked in a silent scream. Nick opened his mouth, but no sound came out of his frozen lungs. He scrambled back, caught his knee on something else and rolled over. Face to face with another monster.

They were monks. Two more of them, each with a single bullet hole drilled in his forehead. There was less blood this time: the cold and snow must have frozen it almost instantly.

Nick got up. ‘We really need to get out of here.’

Even Gillian looked frightened now. But she’d always thrived on proving she could do what others were afraid of. Before Nick could stop her she’d run along the foot of the wall to a doorway into the keep, turned an iron ring and opened the door. Nick cursed and followed.

‘Don’t they lock anything around here?’

‘The only way into the castle – the only way they know about – is across a drawbridge over a hundred-foot gorge. It’s worked for five hundred years.’

As she said it, she led them across a corridor and flung open a pair of double doors. Nick and Emily stared.

It was like a cathedral built of books. Gothic pillars eight feet thick rose to a dimly raftered ceiling high above. All the space between was filled with shelves, and every shelf was jammed tight with books. Every storey or so wooden galleries emerged, snaking around the pillars and in front of the shelves like the canopy of a forest. The floor mirrored the image back: interlocking swirls of many woods, inlay on a giant scale, twisted in scrolls like foliage.

‘The Bibliotheca Diabolorum. The Devils’ Library.’

As they advanced into the room, Nick saw that the books weren’t free on their shelves, but locked behind a lattice of thin wire bars. Some looked impossibly ancient, with varicose cords running through their spines; others had the split cloth and frayed edges of old school books. The whole room was suffused with the musty smell of old paper – and something more acrid. Gasoline?

Emily peered through the bars and examined the names on the spines. She shuddered. ‘No wonder they call this the Devils’ Library. Pretty much every book ever written about the black arts is here. And some I’ve never heard of.’

‘There’s a reason for that,’ said Gillian over her shoulder.

She walked quickly to the back of the room. The smell of gasoline was stronger here and some of the books looked damp. Before Nick could wonder why, Gillian was reaching for a small leather book, almost invisible between the massive volumes around it. To Nick’s inexpert eye the books here looked older than in the rest of the room: he was surprised there was no grille protecting them. A second later he saw why. The book rattled as Gillian withdrew it. When it came free, Nick saw a heavy chain anchoring it to the wall. Most of the links were black with age, though one gleamed steely fresh.

‘Bolt cutters,’ said Nick, remembering her list.

‘I don’t suppose you brought any. They took mine away.’

Nick’s brain ached from trying to keep up. He didn’t know who he’d thought he’d come to rescue, but it wasn’t this incarnation of Gillian, who strode around forbidden castles as if she owned them. He’d have taken more care in a video game.

‘Who are they anyway?’

‘The Church? The mob?’ Gillian shrugged. ‘The Italians have only managed to organise two things since the Roman empire: the Catholic Church and the Mafia. I guess it’s not surprising they work together.’

‘But why-’

Gillian rested the book on the shelf and slid it across.

‘Take a look.’