The Hidden Library (2 page)

Attempts to whip her head about are stymied by both my grip and the awkward angle of her body trapped beneath mine. “Eat shit,” she hisses.

I am undeterred at her pathetic efforts. She no longer holds the upper hand, no matter what delusions she suffers under. “Where is S. Todd?”

“You’re going to die, bitch!”

Further questions are answered with loudly voiced assurances of my upcoming albeit untimely demise. I am close to violence when a thought comes to me.

I release her face and stand up. Interestingly enough, my sudden retreat has left her momentarily stunned.

“Alice?” Mary’s voice fills my ear. “Is everything okay?”

My colleague has been observing the interrogation via a security camera stationed in the corner of the room. To answer, I push on the small earpiece. “Have the door opened.”

Rosemary resumes her cackling. She thinks she has bested me, and I allow her this piece of assumed yet false accomplishment.

When I exit the room and the door is locked behind me, I instruct the guard, “As she chose to fall to the ground, leave her be.” And then I make my way to the nearby medical wing of the Institute.

“She’s going through detox,” Victor Frankenstein Van Brunt informs me minutes later. The Society’s resident doctor has been overseeing Rosemary’s so-called health for the last few days. “From what I can tell, she’s been hooked on meth for ages. I warned you that getting straight answers out of her would be difficult.”

Despite having gone through detoxification myself after leaving Wonderland and all of its drugging influences behind, I harbor no sympathy for Rosemary. Nor do I personally care what
meth
is or how difficult it may be for one to wean herself off of it either voluntarily or by force. I desire answers that will lead to solutions and nothing else will suffice. “What can be administered to compel her to answer my questions?”

Even after fighting alongside me just last week, somehow this statement from my lips surprises the doctor. He glances down at Rosemary’s chart, brows furrowed. “You mean, like a drug?”

“Exactly.”

His brows furrow even farther. “I think that she’s—”

“One of two links we have to Todd. And most likely a murderous fiend herself.”

A wry hint of a smile curls a corner of his mouth. “I was going to say that, coming off meth the way she is, I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of any such drugs.”

“But do you possess them?”

He nods toward the door. “Lady’s choice down in Mary’s lab.” Before I leave, he stays me with a gentle hand. “Did you ever interrogate suspects in Wonderland?”

I think that, given the chance, Dr. Frankenstein Van Brunt may be horrified at how many times I have done just such a thing. “War often requires a person to do whatever is necessary.”

“But we aren’t at war.”

“Ah, but there you are wrong, Doctor. We most certainly are at war right now.”

I march down the hallway to where Victor’s love and partner, as well as my friend and colleague, awaits. Inside, I find Mary Lennox hunched over a microscope, swearing under her breath. I allow the door’s slam to indicate my arrival. Never one for surprises, though, she doesn’t even flinch. She simply motions to the tablet next to her, now showing a muted scene of Rosemary appearing as if she’s howling herself hoarse whilst still lying on her side upon the floor. “Don’t tell me you let that hag get to you.”

I sigh irritably as I make my way over to where she is. “The so-called kid gloves I’ve been requested to utilize aren’t working. It’s time to switch tactics.”

“That’s Society policy for you, I suppose.” She glances up from the microscope. “We’re thieves, not interrogators. Nobody really knows what to do with all of this.”

“Is the belief that, one morning, Rosemary and F.K. Jenkins will wake up and think to themselves,
‘Goodness, the folks at the Society are upstanding gents and ladies. I think I’ll tell them everything today,’?
”

An unladylike snort escapes her. “Maybe Jenkins. That toad might crack sooner or later. But Rosemary?” Her nose wrinkles. “That’ll be the day. Coming down off meth is only making her even more batshit crazy.”

Thankfully, Mary doesn’t sound as if she pities Rosemary any more than I do. “When I was in recovery, I was placed in a straight jacket.” After being exiled from Wonderland, I’d returned to England and immediately checked myself into an asylum. It took months to wean myself off of the natural yet addictive drugs found in Wonderlandian food and drink.

My comment makes my colleague smile. “Were you in a padded room?”

“After threatening to bite bits of their faces off and send my armies after them, the nurses and staff of the Pleasance Asylum felt it best I be restrained to just such a room for both their and my safety.”

“Too bad we don’t have a padded room,” she says forlornly. “We ought to petition for one once Brom is up and running.”

I survey the lab—multiple refrigerated cabinets with glass doors line the walls. Inside are bottles and vials of all shapes, sizes, and colors. “Are these all from different Timelines?”

She rises to her feet only to lean against the gleaming white counter. “Pretty much. There are some from here, though. The Society has been collecting samples as long as they’ve been visiting Timelines.”

“What about the Wonderlandian ones you collected?”

“Over in refrigerator seven.” She motions toward the far wall. “I hope to start working on them soon. The SleepMist that took me and Finn out is totally intriguing. Plus, I’ve still got to work on synthesizing the venom from your spider soldiers that came home with us. They are such sweet little things.”

Intriguing is definitely not the word I would have chosen to describe what the Queen of Hearts’ soldiers did to my colleagues at the Society. Infuriating is a bit closer, in my opinion. “And here I was thinking you were all about plants.”

“Plants make drugs.” She’s smiling again. “You can thank my interest in botany for leading me to my degrees in chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences.”

Ah, yes. As I’ve recently learned, Mary’s purpose in the Collectors’ Society is multifaceted. In addition to helping collect catalysts, she’s sent to various Timelines to collect plants, medicines, and drugs for research. As she once informed me, “You never know when such things will come in handy on future assignments.”

It’s something I’m hoping holds true. “Do you have anything in here that might compel an unwilling person to loosen their tongue?”

She walks over to where I’m standing and places both hands on my shoulders. “You are a woman after my own heart. I most certainly do have something in here that will do as you request—several somethings, actually. And I will happily supply you with any and all of these concoctions.”

“A few months back, I saw on a television program that there’s something called a truth serum.”

“Locally, you mean?” She waves a dismissive hand between us. “Sodium thiopental is unreliable. It’s used to relax people, yet even relaxed, there are those who can lie, distort, or embellish with the best of them. Its reliability is movie stuff.” A slim beaker is extracted with a clear fluid within. “Now this bad boy is
book
stuff. I nicked it from a recent yet futuristic Timeline, and it’s bloody fantastic. The only problem is, I’m having trouble synthesizing it. There are certain chemical compounds found within that Timeline that I’m unable to reproduce yet. I suppose this will just give me a reason to go back and get more.”

I take the vial from her. Its label reads: TRUTH SERUM. “This is not sodium thiopental?”

“Oh no. This does exactly what it says.”

“I’m terribly disappointed it doesn’t have a clever name.”

She shrugs. “The people in the Timeline I collected it from are a bit literal. What can you do?”

“How many dosages does this contain?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I have two vials of the stuff. We can start small and adjust as needed. I ought to point out I’ve only ever read about its effects; I’ve yet to see them in action. Should I warn you that there’s always the possibility of overdose?”

I hand her the vial and press the button on my ear. Someone other than Mary has also been listening in on my interrogation attempts. “Have Rosemary brought into the medical wing and strapped down upon a bed. I plan on resuming my questioning within the next hour.”

A small hiss sounds before the A.D., otherwise known as Jack Dawkins or the Artful Dodger, answers. “Copy that, ARL.” As Van Brunt’s assistant, he’s been overseeing the housing for our two prisoners of war.

I take out the earpiece and stuff it in my pocket.

“Will you tell Finn what we’re doing?”

Victor’s brother and my partner, Finn Van Brunt, has taken over the Society’s day-to-day operations as his father recuperates from his horrific attack. I’m loathe to trouble Finn with anything right now, as he’s carrying many heavy weights on his shoulders, but as we’ve recently begun to build a meaningful relationship between us, I don’t want further secrets to be the norm, either. While both our pasts have skeletons not yet revealed, I firmly believe our present and our future have no room for such further deceptions.

“Of course.” And then, more wryly, “If I can lure him away from those meetings he’s been trapped in from morning to night these last few days, that is.”

“Poor man. You couldn’t pay me to deal with all those people.”

Once word got out amongst Society members and liaisons, Finn’s phone has rang constantly. Everyone has questions, even more have opinions. The task of putting out fires is not an easy one.

“Fortunately for Finn,” Mary continues, “Brom is coming home today. Man has his throat slashed, and what does he do? Insist upon convalescing at home as quickly as possible so he can continue working. Personally, I’d find myself a nice manly nursemaid and enjoy a bit of R&R, if you know what I mean.”

Once Victor determined their father was in stable condition, the Van Brunt brothers immediately drafted plans to bring him home to be tended to by specialists they hand selected from Timelines the Society has good diplomatic ties with. To bring in local doctors would risk Society secrets, something Van Brunt would never stand for.

Both my and Mary’s phones beep. Upon each of their screens reads the following message from the Librarian:
Meeting in three hours to discuss latest wall findings.

An immense collection of photographs, newspaper clippings, book pages, and drawings from key stories were found taped and tacked upon the attic wall of the Ex Libris bookstore. It was a terrifying, infuriating monstrosity to gaze upon, as it is now assumed to be the key to unraveling Todd and Rosemary’s destructive plans toward catalysts and Timelines. Van Brunt contacted several people across various Timelines to crack its cyphers.

I motion to my phone, an object still so foreign to me. “I pray this is good news.”

“You and me both.” Mary checks the time. “Best go and inform Finn of what we’re planning. I’ll get the serum readied and meet up with you in about fifty minutes. Be prepared to kick some ass.”

I always am.

F
INN IS, AS MARY and I correct assumed, entrenched in yet another meeting. Inside the Institute’s conference room is a group of a dozen or so men and women from various Timelines, hammering away at the younger Van Brunt with the same questions he’s fielded for days now:
Where is Todd? What is Rosemary saying? What is F.K. Jenkins saying? Why can’t you find Todd? Are any Timelines currently in danger?

My partner handles them deftly, though. He is a smooth talker and has an uncanny way of setting even the paranoid at ease. When he notices me standing in the back of the room, though, he wraps the meeting up in just a way that has members and liaisons filing out with relief on their faces.

I shut and lock the door behind the last straggler.

“You,” Finn tells me, “are a welcome sight.”

As is he. My heart flutters as I take in his handsome visage. Tall, sandy-haired, and with the most lovely blue-gray eyes I’ve ever seen, I have been painfully attracted to Finn Van Brunt since the day I arrived at the Institute. I resisted the burgeoning feelings growing within me for months, reluctant to reopen my heart after the prophecies of Wonderland tore me apart from the man I loved and planned on spending my life with. And yet, when finally forced to face the truth, I could not deny the strength of my feelings toward my new partner.

He is good and kind and honorable. He is my north star after being lost for too long.

I make my way around the table, to the front of the large room. “Perhaps not so welcome. Rosemary is resisting answering my questions.”

This does not surprise him in the least. “Jenkins, too. Henry Flemming spent a good two hours earlier today beating his head against the wall. All Jenkins has to say is how he’s going to sue every single one of us and that he’s an American.”

Flemming is an older former military man who, like me, was sorely disappointed in how Society members stymied us from proper interrogation techniques. Old habits die hard, because irritation rose within me during the meeting in which we were told this.
Me, the Queen of Diamonds, requiring permission to interrogate a prisoner of war the way I see fit?
But then I remembered I am in New York City, not Wonderland. My position in the Society is not elevated above the rest, nor are its members mine to command.