The Masked City (The Invisible Library 2)

‘Such a pity that your husband is not with you,’ Silver said, his voice redolent with meaning. ‘It must be a great inconvenience for you to travel this way, lacking his abilities.’

Lady Guantes simply shrugged. ‘I am confident that he will be meeting me very soon.’

Was Silver being typically melodramatic, Irene suddenly wondered, or was he trying to draw Lady Guantes out, so that Irene could get some idea of her? While he was technically helping her to reach this ‘Venice’, Irene hadn’t expected any real aid from him, short of getting on the train. But she was used to operating alone - and after Vale’s little tantrum, she’d written him off in terms of assistance. One of the thugs strolled casually towards the circle of servants around Silver’s mound of luggage. His nostrils flared to an unnatural width. ‘Rabbits,’ he mumbled. ‘I smell a whole lot of rabbits.’

Silver raised a brow. ‘Madam. Control your servants.’

Lady Guantes watched as a few other thugs began to drift towards Silver’s people, following the first. ‘Why? Do yours have something to be afraid of?’

Irene’s first thought was that she had been personally scented out, and the werewolf was going to drive through the tangle of servants and bags, straight for her. But he didn’t seem specifically interested in her. He paused by one of the other maids instead, looming over her, and looked down at the maid’s neat cap. ‘I like pretty girls with yellow hair,’ he informed her. ‘They squeak better.’

That raised a jeering laugh from his friends. Who were closer now.

I can’t make a spectacle of myself, and I can’t be heard using the Language. That’ll just draw Lady Guantes’ attention, and then she’ll guess who I am and … Irene’s thoughts ran around the hamster wheel inside her head. But I can’t just stand by and let him assault the poor girl. Well, nothing had actually happened yet.

But why wasn’t Silver getting involved? An answer suggested itself. Power politics. It’s his servants versus Lady Guantes’ servants, and the first high-ranking Fae to interfere or call off their minions loses prestige.

She darted a quick glance left and right, assessing the servants as if they were possible threats this time, and feeling foolish for her earlier casual disregard of them. Now she saw the casual shifts in balance, the downing of bags, the shaking of knives or knuckledusters down from sleeves, and the slipping of hands into pockets.

‘C’mere,’ the thug grunted, grabbing for the maid’s arm.

She squeaked and flinched back. Not one of the combat-trained ones, then. But the man standing next to her moved forward, and his punch took the thug straight in the nose. He staggered back, blood spraying out, and his teeth lengthened as he growled.

Someone in the crowd was yelling for the police, but both groups of servants ignored it. Irene joined the half-dozen of Silver’s servants who were moving forward towards the werewolves, trying to blend in. She slipped an umbrella free from where it had been strapped to a nearby suitcase and hefted it thoughtfully. Good size, good weight, unusually heavy handle, solid construction, and it put three feet of steel between her and the nearest werewolf.

She wasn’t the only woman in the group. The other woman was pulling up her skirts to the knee, baring three-inch-heel stiletto boots with vicious spurs at the ankles. Two of the men were slipping on knuckledusters, a third had a razor and the remaining two were both as muscular as the werewolves themselves.

It dissolved into an unruly melee within seconds, as the thugs came charging at them, and Irene realized that Silver’s people not only had combat skills, but had training in working as a group. The two burly men grabbed one werewolf between them, and one of the men with knuckledusters worked him over with several vicious blows to head and stomach, leaving him groaning on the ground.

Of course that left Irene and the others facing five werewolves between them. The maid spun forward in a whirl of legs, kicking high at one werewolf’s face. He raised his arm to take the blow and her spur left a trail of blood down his arm. He recoiled with a strangled growl, quite out of proportion to the size of the injury. Her spurs must have been silvered.

One of the thugs came at Irene, hands gnarled in partial transformation, fur bursting from his cuffs. She went into a fencing lunge, probing at his face with the point of the umbrella, and he recoiled, sidling to the left. The others were keeping their own opponents busy, and while they were dealing the odd blow, her side’s principle of ‘gang up on them one at a time and take them out of the fight’ was working better than the thugs’ own penchant for one-on-one brawls.

Not really the pack behaviour one would expect from werewolves, Irene reflected as she snaked the umbrella into another lunge at her opponent, and danced back from his return blow. Perhaps it’s because there’s nobody actually leading them in this fight.

She was humming with adrenaline, and it was a relief to have an enemy to fight, even if it didn’t do anything immediate to help Kai. She jabbed the umbrella point into the werewolf’s stomach, then flipped the umbrella in the air as he bent over, catching it by the point end, and whacked the weighted handle hard into his skull. He went down with a thud.

When she looked around, four of the other werewolves were down, but so were one of the heavyweights and one of the knuckleduster-users on her side. The razor-wielder and the maid with spurs were engaging the remaining werewolf, while the other servants stood guard over their downed opponents. The maid was carrying one arm close to her chest, but both her spurs dripped blood as she spun and kicked.

But this time she was too slow. The werewolf grabbed her foot as it came at him, and twisted. She left the ground, spinning through the air in a fluid ripple of skirts, and landed with a tumble. Her spurs screeched as they scraped against the floor tiles. With a grunt, the werewolf lunged for the razor-wielder.

I don’t think so. Irene threw herself forward, the umbrella still ready in her hand, and brought it down in an overhand swing. The handle slammed into the thug’s wrist with an audible crack. For a moment Irene wasn’t sure if she’d shattered bone or umbrella, but the man’s choked scream told its own story. He recoiled, clutching his arm against his belly, his other hand coming up in defence. f the thugs strolled casually towards the circle of servants around Silver’s mound of luggage. His nostrils flared to an unnatural width. ‘Rabbits,’ he mumbled. ‘I smell a whole lot of rabbits.’

Silver raised a brow. ‘Madam. Control your servants.’

Lady Guantes watched as a few other thugs began to drift towards Silver’s people, following the first. ‘Why? Do yours have something to be afraid of?’

Irene’s first thought was that she had been personally scented out, and the werewolf was going to drive through the tangle of servants and bags, straight for her. But he didn’t seem specifically interested in her. He paused by one of the other maids instead, looming over her, and looked down at the maid’s neat cap. ‘I like pretty girls with yellow hair,’ he informed her. ‘They squeak better.’

That raised a jeering laugh from his friends. Who were closer now.

I can’t make a spectacle of myself, and I can’t be heard using the Language. That’ll just draw Lady Guantes’ attention, and then she’ll guess who I am and … Irene’s thoughts ran around the hamster wheel inside her head. But I can’t just stand by and let him assault the poor girl. Well, nothing had actually happened yet.

But why wasn’t Silver getting involved? An answer suggested itself. Power politics. It’s his servants versus Lady Guantes’ servants, and the first high-ranking Fae to interfere or call off their minions loses prestige.

She darted a quick glance left and right, assessing the servants as if they were possible threats this time, and feeling foolish for her earlier casual disregard of them. Now she saw the casual shifts in balance, the downing of bags, the shaking of knives or knuckledusters down from sleeves, and the slipping of hands into pockets.

‘C’mere,’ the thug grunted, grabbing for the maid’s arm.