Library of Souls (Page 26)

We turned to find a woman standing behind us. (How long had she been there? What had she heard?) She was dressed in sharp and businesslike 1950s style—knee-length skirt and short black pumps—and puffed lazily at a cigarette. Her hair was teased up in a beehive and her accent was as flat and American as the Midwestern plains.

“I’m Lorraine,” she said, “and you’re new in town.”

“We’re waiting for someone,” said Emma. “We’re … on holiday.”

“Say no more!” said Lorraine. “I’m on vacation myself. Have been for the last fifty years.” She laughed, showing lipstick-stained teeth. “You just let me know if I can help you with anything. Lorraine’s got the best selection on Louche Lane, and that’s an actual fact.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Don’t worry, hon. They won’t bite.”

“We’re not interested.”

Lorraine shrugged. “I was just being friendly. You looked a little lost, is all.”

She started to leave, but something she’d said had piqued Emma’s interest.

“Selection of what?”

Lorraine turned back and flashed a greasy smile. “Old ones, young ones. All sorts of talents. Some of my customers just want a show, and that’s fine, but others have specific needs. We make sure everyone leaves satisfied.”

“The boy said no thank you,” Addison said gruffly, and he seemed about to tell the woman off when Emma stepped in front of him and said, “I’d like to see.”

“You what?” I said.

“I want to see,” Emma said, an edge creeping into her voice. “Show me.”

“Serious inquiries only,” said Lorraine.

“Oh, I’m very serious.”

I didn’t know what Emma was up to, but I trusted her enough to go with it.

“What about them?” Lorraine said, casting an uncertain gaze at Addison and me. “They always so rude?”

“Yes. But they’re all right.”

Lorraine squinted at us as if imagining what it might take to forcibly eject us from her place, should the need arise.

“What can you do?” she said to me. “Anything?”

Emma cleared her throat, then bugged her eyes at me. I knew right away what she was telegraphing: Lie!

“I used to be able to levitate pencils and things,” I said, “but now I can’t even get one to stand on end. I think I’m … out of order, or something.”

“Happens to the best of ’em.” She looked to Addison. “And you?”

Addison rolled his eyes. “I’m a talking dog?”

“And that’s all you do, talk?”

“Sometimes it seems that way,” I couldn’t resist saying.

“I don’t know whom to feel more insulted by,” said Addison.

Lorraine took a final puff of her cigarette and flicked it away. “All right, sugars. Follow me.”

She started to walk away. We hung behind a moment and conferred in a whisper.

“What about Sharon?” I said. “He told us to wait here.”

“This will only take a minute,” Emma said. “And I have a hunch she knows a lot more about where the wights are hiding than Sharon does.”

“And you think she’s just going to volunteer such information?” said Addison.

“We’ll see,” Emma said, and she turned to follow Lorraine.

* * *

Lorraine’s place had no window and no sign, just a blank door with a silver bell on a pull chain. Lorraine rang the bell. We waited while a series of deadbolts were slid from the inside, and then the door opened a crack. An eye glinted at us from the shadows.

“Fresh meat?” said a man’s voice.

“Customers,” Lorraine replied. “Let us in.”

The eye disappeared and the door opened the rest of the way. We came into a formal entrance hall, where the doorman waited to look us over. He wore a massive overcoat with a high collar and a wide-brimmed fedora, the hat tilted so low that all we could see of his face were two pinprick eyes and the tip of his nose. He stood blocking our way, staring us down.

“Well?” said Lorraine.

The man seemed to decide we weren’t a threat. “Okay,” he said, stepping aside. He closed and locked the door behind us, then trailed after as Lorraine showed us down a long hallway.

We came into a dim parlor flickering with oil lamps. It was a sleazy place with delusions of grandeur: the walls were trimmed with gold scrollwork and velvet drapes, the domed ceiling was painted with tanned and tunicked Greek gods, and marble columns framed the entrance to the hall.

Lorraine nodded to the doorman. “Thank you, Carlos.”

Carlos glided away to the back of the room. Lorraine walked to a curtained wall and pulled a cord, and the fabric slid aside to reveal a wide panel of sturdy glass. We stepped forward to look, and through it saw another room. It was very much like the one we were standing in, but smaller, and people were lazing about on chairs and sofas, some reading while others napped.

I counted eight of them. A few were older, graying at the temples. Two, a boy and a girl, were under the age of ten. They were all, I realized, prisoners.

Addison started to ask a question, but Lorraine gestured impatiently. “Questions after, please.” She strode to the glass, picked up a tube connected umbilically to the wall below it, and spoke into one end. “Number thirteen!”

On the other side of the glass, the youngest boy stood and shuffled forward. His hands and legs were chained, and he was the only peculiar wearing anything resembling prisoner’s garb: a striped suit and cap with the number 13 stitched boldly onto them. Though he couldn’t have been older than ten, he had a man’s facial hair: a bushy, triangular goatee and eyebrows like jungle caterpillars, the eyes below them cold and appraising.