The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(25)
There was something else in the air today. Something musty with a hint of axle grease and copper. I could tell that Charlie had caught the scent as well, and I followed his eyes to a band of mottled gray-green creatures loitering around the alcove window seats. They were about the height and build of muscular eight-year-old boys with gangly arms and ill-fitting clothes. Each of the sinewy little men carried a weapon. These ranged from a bandolier of daggers to a massive blunderbuss that looked more like a small cannon in the hands of the diminutive figure.
“Chief Nudd.” Jackaby gave a civil nod to the goblin in the center, who was wearing a black top hat with a spray of cardinal feathers tucked neatly in the band.
Nudd tipped the showy hat and gave me a glance. “Ye’ve kept yer new Douglas around, I see. Have nae gotten ’er turned inter a bird or anyfin’ yet. You goin’ easy on thiss’n?”
“Mm? Oh, yes. Miss Rook is hale and whole.”
I nodded. “I was dead for a short while, but that was weeks ago. Very kind of you to inquire, Mr. Nudd.”
He smiled up at me with all his jagged teeth, a goblin’s most affable expression—which was, as far as I could tell, indistinguishable from a goblin’s most menacing expression.
“Do pardon us,” Jackaby said. “I just mean to have a quiet word with my associates. The house is a bit more . . . occupied than I generally prefer.”
“Know the feelin’. Yer bookroom is fair an’ all, but th’ twain keeps watchin’ me, and all them nimmies is righ’ unsettlin’ after a time.”
“Twain? Nimmies?” I glanced around. “I didn’t see anyone else in—oh my!” A woman’s face, which had moments ago appeared to be carved into the side of one of the heavy bookshelves, leaned forward and blinked out at us with eyes like glittering sapphires.
“Oh, that is a bit off-putting, isn’t it,” said Jenny. “Is that what it’s like when I come through a wall unannounced?”
The nymph peered at her mournfully for a few seconds and then turned to Jackaby.
“You’re not wearing the hat I made for you,” she said in a whisper like the wind through leaves.
“Erm, yes. No. I am not, actually. There was an incident.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes before falling backward, melting into the woodwork entirely.
“Wood nymphs,” said Jackaby.
“Not a real cheery lot, them,” observed Hudson.
“In retrospect, a library is a rather somber locale for their kind. A bit like housing a man in a graveyard. Well, a bit like housing a man in a graveyard in which his people’s bones have been mashed to a pulp and reconstituted into slim sheets, onto which one has scribbled a lot of silly words with pictures of monks and satyrs in the margins.”
Even with unexpected guests coming out of the woodwork, the library was still an oasis of calm. I had always found it comforting—so long as I did not allow my curiosity to draw me back into the Dangerous Documents section. Something indescribably eerie lay in those foggy depths at the end of a mazelike series of bookshelves. I much preferred keeping to the front of the library.
“All right, then, straight to the back,” said Jackaby. “We need to talk.”
“Secret meetin’, then?” Nudd said, scrambling away from his horde to join us. “This yer trusted few? Inner circly sorta thing, nae? A’righ’. I’m wit’ ye. ’Bout time ye took command.”
“What? No,” Jackaby said. “I’m not assuming command of anything. God knows why, but these fools are hardy enough to keep my company even in the face of this mess, so I simply intend to put their foolhardy company to good use.”
“Aye. Tha’s the inner circly bit.”
Jackaby shook his head. “Come on, then.”
We followed through tight corridors filled with an inexplicable fog of dread until they gave way to an opening entirely enclosed by bookshelves, with just enough space for a single oval reading table. The table had a small oil lamp in the center, which Jackaby lit. There were only two chairs, but there was room enough for four or five to stand around the table comfortably. The six of us did our best.
“So, this is the Dangerous Documents section.” I glanced at the spines and scrolls around us. Some were sealed with iron clasps and heavy locks; others had been chained directly to their shelves. Those that sat freely seemed to have edged away from their more intimidating colleagues.
“Yes,” Jackaby said. “Don’t worry, they won’t bite. Well, none of the ones on that end, anyway. You can take a look, but nobody do anything colossally ignorant like read them out loud. Or let them read you out loud.”
“Okay,” said Hudson, scratching his beard with his hook. “Care to tell us why we’re here?”
“I have no idea why you’re here,” said Jackaby. “I understand why the fairies and sprites and the other oddlings have come—they’re here for my protection, what little of it I have to offer. You’re human, though, Hank. You were in no danger. You could be anywhere right now, so why are you here?”
“It don’t take an expert to read the signs, chum. Things ain’t right. You got a way of makin’ things right, and I aim ta help. Last time I got involved, it was me who made ’em wrong in the first place—so if you’re fixin’ this, I’m fixin’ to fix it with ya.”