Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (6 page)

Wolfe nodded. Jess moved carefully through the clutter in the way—broken, dusty furniture; bolts of rotten cloth; unidentifiable bits of shattered lives that had been dumped here for show and to make their job harder. He didn’t see any enemies lurking; there wasn’t room for them. One door at the back, still closed, though he supposed someone might have shot Helva through it, then shut it again. He rattled it, to be thorough. It was securely locked.

He knelt down next to her, put the light down, and checked her for signs of trauma. No blood. No, wait—a small trickle of it running down her hand . . .

Something moved in the crook of Helva’s arm, and for a bizarre, insane moment Jess thought she’d grown a third arm, until some screaming, instinctive wisdom in the back of his mind recognized the sinuous way the thing moved as it glided over her chest.

Cobra.

Jess involuntarily flinched and the cobra reacted, rearing up to eye level and flaring its hood wide around its sleek head. Black eyes glittered in golden light, and for an eerie moment the thing looked like a ghost of ancient pharaohs risen again. It swayed slightly, watching him.

From somewhere behind him, Wolfe whispered, “Don’t move,” and Jess didn’t. He stayed as still as he could, exchanging stares with the reptile that swayed slowly in front of him. He didn’t know much about snakes—there weren’t many in England, and none like this deadly creature—but he knew sudden moves were a
terrible
idea, even if all he wanted to do was throw himself backward. Cobras, he remembered his friend Khalila telling him, could strike the length of their body, and this one looked as long as Jess was tall. At least Egyptian cobras didn’t spit. He was remembering a surprising amount of information from new-minted Scholar Khalila Seif’s lecture, to which he’d only half listened. Most critically, he remembered that the venom could easily be fatal without immediate treatment.

“Move back very slowly,” Jess heard Wolfe say. The Scholar hadn’t moved, thankfully. “Very deliberate movements. Native Egyptian cobras are not overly territorial; it wants escape, not confrontation. Give it a chance to go.”

“It had a chance,” Jess said. “It didn’t go.”

“It was attracted by her body heat. And
stop talking
and do as I say!”

Helva’s eyes were fixed on him, too. Her face was a dirty gray, covered
in sweat, and he didn’t like the labored way she was breathing. The cobra continued to focus on Jess, which he supposed was the best outcome; if it turned on Helva again, she’d have no chance at all.
I could try to shoot it,
he thought. If he fired accurately, he might kill it. If he didn’t, it could bite him or Helva, and shooting Helva even with half-strength rounds might kill her, anyway.

“Back away,” Wolfe said again.
“Do it, Brightwell!”

It was the snap of command in Wolfe’s voice that made Jess finally comply. He’d grown so used to following the Scholar’s orders as a student that before his forebrain could argue with the order, his hindbrain had already begun to move him backward, one slow scrape of his knees at a time. The snake shivered, as if considering a strike, but it held back and watched him shuffle in retreat.

The hood slowly deflated, and the snake—sleek and fast now—slid off of Helva and made for a darker corner of the room. Jess watched it without moving until he was certain it was set on escape, and then breathed a burning sigh of relief and lunged forward to Helva. She struggled to sit up, but he held her down. “How long?” he asked her. She gave him a weak, pale-lipped smile.

“A few minutes,” she said. “I was afraid he’d bite me again, so I didn’t dare call out. Thanks.”

“For what? I didn’t even kill the thing.”
I should have,
he thought, looking down at his comrade’s sweating, pallid face. He should have killed it. What if it came back?

The cobra had been shocking enough that he’d all but forgotten the shooting until he became aware it had stopped, and then alarm spread a net over his body, pricking every nerve to alert. He looked back to see Glain stepping through the broken window into the store. She kept her attention fixed on the street outside, but for the moment, at least, it was quiet.

“How is she?” she asked Jess without turning.

“Cobra bite,” he said, which he knew would tell her everything.
They
should
have had a Medica officer with them, if this had been a real mission, but for training all they had were basic first-aid kits, and nothing that would help against that venom. “We need to get her out of here.”

“No,” Glain said. She sounded calm but grim. “Jess, I need you to bring help. Get
Santi
. Bring back Medica for Helva and anybody else who needs it.”

“You think we’re under real attack.”

Glain nodded sharply but he saw the set of her jaw, the line of her shoulders. She was angry. “Get to the gates,” she said. “Get Santi here and
not
Feng. Watch your back. Go, Jess.”

He didn’t like leaving her here, all but alone to protect Wolfe, but, then again, there was no one he’d trust more with that job. And, he thought with a bitter spike of awareness, no one
she
would trust more to risk this. He’d grown up running books for his father through the mazelike, dangerous streets of London. She knew that.

“Here.” Jess pitched her his weapon. “I won’t need it, and it’ll just slow me down.”

Glain caught it one-handed and promptly handed it to Wolfe. When he tried to protest, she fixed him with a straight glare and said, “Take it. We’re beyond all that now, I think.” In Wolfe’s hands, it looked entirely out of place, but Jess well knew the Scholar was no stranger to fighting or killing, if it came to it.

He cast one look down at Helva, who managed a smile. She was holding her own weapon now—a smaller sidearm—and said, “Run fast.”

“Always,” he said, and—mindful of the cobra lurking in the dark corner—moved to the closed back door. He opened it and checked. It seemed clear. The alleyway was bright after the dimness of the shop, and he took a breath to let his eyes adjust, then stepped out and turned to scan the roofs. No one in view, which meant he
might
have a chance.

Running for his life was a feeling that settled on him like old, familiar clothes. He wasn’t frightened by it: he’d played keep-away with the
local London Garda all his childhood, and running in that vast labyrinth of a city was much harder than in these straight lines and clean angles. It meant, though, that there was less cover, less chance to lose pursuers in blind corners and narrow passages. He’d have to make up for that with sheer speed.

Jess took in three deep, stomach-straining breaths, oriented himself by the sun and memories of how far they’d come from the entrance, and
ran.
At the next alley, he cut around to the main road—it was, as the centurion at the gate had warned, the only way out. No point in wasting time.

The first block was easy; he’d caught their attackers by surprise, and when he exited the back of the alley at a flat run, he was moving like a blur. He heard the shouts rise like smoke, and a scramble up on the roofs, but they were nowhere near the right position. Someone shot at him, but it went wild. Five steps farther down, there were more shots flung his way, but with the same lack of accuracy.

Someone up there made good time or was in a lucky spot, and he saw a bottle of Greek fire arc toward the ground two body lengths away from him. No good choices: if he swerved, he’d lose momentum, and there was no telling which way the fire would splash. Going through it wasn’t an option. The thick goo would cling to skin and fabric and couldn’t be wiped or washed away. He’d burn.

As the bottle hit the ground and the fire rushed to life, Jess ran straight at the nearest wall. He put more energy into his stride and ran two gravity-defying steps sideways on the wall, then pushed off hard and launched himself like an arrow past the roiling green blaze in the middle of the path. He landed hard on the cobbles on his shoulder, and close enough that the toxic smoke crawled hot into his lungs, but he coughed it out and rolled to his feet and
kept running
. Shots scattered behind him, but they all missed, and now the inferno behind him was also—usefully—cover.

Only another block to the exit gates, and Jess made the turn and
poured on even more speed. His heart was pumping furiously now, his lungs rebelling from the effort and the smoke, but the goal was within sight.

That was when a shot hit him squarely in the back with enough force against the flexible armor beneath his Library coat to knock him off stride and stun his lungs into paralysis. Deprived of breath, blazing with pain, Jess tumbled to the ground, rolled helpless as a beached fish, and convulsed as he tried to pull in air.
Right in the same spot Tariq hit me.
He saw black and red spots, and the pain came in waves as hot as Greek fire.
I’m going to die,
he thought, and it seemed incomprehensible to him, because the gates were
right there
. Rescue for Wolfe, Glain, Helva—all of them. It depended on him.

He wasn’t going to make it.

You will,
he told himself over the screaming, mindless fear he felt.
You have to! Get up. Get up! Do it!

His lungs released suddenly, and he sucked in a breath so fast it burned, then coughed it out and tasted bloody copper. The pain didn’t matter; he had air, and the pain couldn’t stop him.
Wouldn’t
stop him.

Jess crawled to his knees, then his feet. He was bitterly aware of seconds slipping by and pursuers catching up as he lunged forward. Half a block to go—hardly anything; just a few steps.
Go. Just go.

Another half-strength bullet (he thought they must have been half-strength, or he wouldn’t have been able to get up the first time) raced past him, so close he felt the heat of it score his cheek. The hot desert sand hissed up into his face as if the street itself tried to hold him back, but he plunged on, only half coordinated now, step after pounding, uncertain step. He was leaving a trail of bloody drops behind him, and for a panicked second he was back in the streets of London, worried about leaving a trail for the Library lions to follow . . .

Focus.

He put his head down and forced his muscles to ignore the pain and managed one last, desperate burst of speed.

He made it to the closed gate at the end of the street where they’d
entered and collided with the wood. His fist pounded weakly on it, but his lungs still felt too traumatized to shout.

Exposed. Pinned like a bug to a board. This was his greatest moment of vulnerability; he was a perfect target for anyone who cared to aim a well-placed shot.

Jess pulled in a painful breath and shouted, “On the gate! Open! Open
now
!”

To his sweet and unexpected relief, it swung wide in the next few seconds. He nearly toppled out, but the centurion who’d let them in caught him. The man barked, “What in Ra’s name is going on in there? Did you idiots start a war?”

“Santi,” Jess gasped out. “Captain Santi. Get him. Now.”

“Look, recruit, you don’t request the presence of an elite captain of the High Garda just because—”

Jess grabbed the centurion’s collar and yanked him close enough to smell his morning breakfast. “
Get him!
We have wounded, and our Scholar
will be killed
if you don’t shift your arse
right now
!”

“Scholar? What Scholar? You don’t give orders, you little—” The soldier stopped talking. Jess had pulled his utility knife and now it pressed gently on the man’s abdomen, right where it could do its worst.

“Someone betrayed us,” Jess said. “Tell me it wasn’t you.”

The centurion’s face was hard to read, but he seemed more angry than guilty. “You’d better use that toy if you think I’d put baby soldiers at risk. Betrayed you how?”

“Greek fire. Real bullets. You heard it. That was no exercise.”

The centurion’s expression didn’t change, but something did around the edges of Jess’s awareness; a slight shift of his feet, tightness around his eyes. “Drop the knife, boy. Before my comrade gets upset.”

Comrade.
Jess felt the movement at his back and knew the other soldier was there, ready to shoot.

“Tell me you’re not with them,” Jess said quietly.

“I’m not.” The centurion looked past him and nodded. “Stand down.” His gaze locked back on Jess. “You, too.”

There wasn’t any other play to make. Jess stepped back and put his knife away. He said, more quietly, “I need cobra antivenin for one of our squad. Get that, too.”

For a terrible second, the centurion didn’t move, and then he looked at the soldier behind Jess. “Send a message. We need Captain Feng.”

“Not Feng,” Jess said. “Santi.”

“Santi’s not in charge of this—”

“Get Santi!”

The centurion might not have believed him, but he was willing to play along for now. Jess thought there would be plenty of reprimands in his immediate future, but he no longer cared. And that, most of all, must have gotten through to the centurion, who abruptly nodded. “Antivenin is in my pack. Let me get it.”

“Don’t move,” Jess said. “I don’t trust you.”

“Boy, I could have got that knife from you like taking a toy from an infant,” the man said. “I’m getting the pack.”

With the pounding surge of adrenaline starting to recede, Jess figured the soldier probably could have taken him down easily, and he nodded. The soldier reached down, grabbed a field pack, and snugged it on. Then he took up his heavy black weapon—more powerful than Jess’s, and not loaded half-strength, for certain.

“Well?” he said, when Jess stared back. “Go on, then. You’re taking me inside. I need to assess the situation.”

“I’ll need a weapon.”

“Where’s yours?”

“I gave it to the Scholar.”

The soldier gave him a sharp look, then took out his sidearm and handed it over. “Shoot me and I’ll end you,” he said. “I’m Centurion Thabani Botha, in case I die.”

“Brightwell, sir.”

“Good. Now we’re mates. Move.”

Jess was still winded and hurting, but he didn’t protest; he just turned and led Botha back through the gates and watched the rooftops. It was eerily quiet now, no more shots coming their way, though the Greek fire still blazed away in a snapping fury. Looking at it now, Jess was shocked he’d managed to get around it, since it occupied all but a small strip of safety against the farthest wall. He and Botha squeezed past as quickly as possible. Once they were out, Botha said, with quiet grimness, “I wasn’t told there’d be a Burner simulation along with your confiscation assignment.”