Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children #3)(59)

“Don’t look,” Sharon said, backing us against a wall. But I couldn’t help myself.

Slowly the man poured black liquid from the vial into each of his mask’s eye holes. Then he dropped the empty vial, lowered his head, and began to groan. For a few seconds he seemed paralyzed, but then his body shuddered and two cones of white light shot from the eye holes of his mask. Even in the bright room they were distinct.

Emma gasped. The man, who had thought he was alone, turned toward us in surprise. His eye-beams arced over our heads and the wall above us sizzled.

“Just passing through!” Sharon said, the tone of which managed to say, Howdy, friend! and Please don’t kill us with those things! at the same time.

“Pass through, then,” the man snarled.

By then his eye beams were starting to fade, and just as he turned away they flickered and winked out. He walked down the hall and went out the door, leaving two wisps of smoke curling in his wake. When he’d gone I ventured a look at the wallpaper above our heads. A pair of caramel singe marks traced the path his eyes had made across the wall. Thank God he hadn’t looked me in the eye.

“Before we go a step farther,” I said to Sharon, “I think you’d better explain.”

“Ambrosia,” Sharon said. “Fighters take it to give themselves enhanced abilities. Trouble is, it doesn’t last long, and when it wears off you’re left weaker than before. If you make a habit of it, your ability wears down to almost nothing—until you take more ambro. Pretty soon you’re taking it not just to fight, but to function as a peculiar. You become dependent on whoever’s selling it.” He nodded to the room on our right, where murmuring voices created an odd counterpoint to the full-throated shouts outside. “It was the greatest trick the wights ever pulled, making that stuff. No one here will ever betray them, so long as they’re addicted to ambrosia.”

I peeked into the side room to see what a peculiar drug dealer looked like, and I caught a glimpse of someone in a bizarre bearded mask flanked by two men holding guns.

“What happened with that man’s eyes?” Emma asked.

“The burst of light is a side effect,” Sharon said. “Another is that, over a period of years, the ambro melts your face. That’s how you know the hard-core users—they wear masks to hide the damage.”

As Emma and I shared a look of disgust, a voice inside the room summoned us. “Hello out there,” the dealer called. “Come in here, please!”

“Sorry,” I said, “We have to go—”

Sharon poked my shoulder and hissed, “You’re a slave, remember?”

“Uh, yes sir,” I said, and went as far as the door.

The masked man was sitting in a little chair in a room with frescoed walls. He held himself with unsettling stillness, one arm resting on a side table and his legs crossed delicately at the knee. His gunmen occupied two corners of the room, and in another stood a wooden chest on wheels.

“Don’t be afraid,” the dealer said, beckoning me in. “Your friends can come, too.”

I took another few steps into the room, Sharon and Emma just behind me.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” the dealer said.

“I just bought him,” Sharon said. “He doesn’t even have a—”

“Was I speaking to you?” the dealer said sharply.

Sharon went quiet.

“No, I wasn’t,” the dealer said. He stroked his fake beard and seemed to study me through the hollowed eyes of his mask. I wondered what he looked like underneath, and just how much ambrosia you’d have to pour into your face before you melted it. Then I shuddered and wished I hadn’t.



“You’re here to fight,” he said.

I told him that I was.

“Well, you’re in luck. I just got a prime batch of ambro, so your chances of survival have shot up dramatically!”

“I don’t need any, thank you.”

He looked at his gunmen for a reaction—they remained stone-faced—and then he laughed. “That’s a hollowgast out there, you know. You’ve heard of them?”

They were all I could think about, especially the one outside. I was desperate to be on my way, but this creepy guy clearly ran the place, and making him angry was more trouble than we needed.

“I’ve heard of them,” I said.

“And how do you think you’ll do against one?”

“I think I’ll do okay.”

“Just okay?” The man crossed his arms. “What I want to know is: should I put money on you? Are you going to win?”

I told him what he wanted to hear. “Yes.”

“Well, if I’m going to put money on you, you’re going to need some help.” He stood up, went to the medicine cabinet, and opened its doors. The interior glittered with glass vials—rows of them, all brimming with dark liquid, the tops plugged with tiny corks. He plucked one out and brought it to me. “Take this,” he said, holding out the vial. “It takes all your best attributes and magnifies them times ten.”

“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t need it.”

“That’s what they all say at first. Then, after they get beaten—if they survive—everyone takes it.” He turned the vial in his hand and held it to the weak light. The ambrosia inside swam with sparkling, silvery particles. I stared, despite myself.