Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(48)

‘Thank you for taking me,’ she said to Aaron a little awkwardly. ‘I know you don’t believe we can change anything.’

‘I know you have to do this,’ Aaron said. Joan was reminded of his weary expression from last night. ‘Every monster goes up against the timeline.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everyone goes up against the timeline,’ Aaron said. ‘Everyone tries to change something at some point.’

What had Aaron tried to change? When had he gone up against the timeline? What had happened that had made him so weary now? Joan wanted to ask him, but something in his expression silenced her.

Just like yesterday, the nineties were everywhere. As they walked past newsstands, Joan glimpsed headlines: ‘New Disaster for John Major.’ ‘Steffi Poised to Win Wimbledon.’ On the cover of Vogue, the model had heavy mascara and thin eyebrows.

Aaron took the same kind of twisting route he’d taken to get to the monster inn: through parks and shops and churchyards.

‘This isn’t a shortcut,’ Joan said slowly, when Aaron doubled back.

‘I’m avoiding security cameras,’ Aaron said. ‘Monsters don’t like being captured on camera. There aren’t as many in this time as in yours, but there are enough.’

Joan took that in. The Hunts didn’t like being photographed either. Joan had always thought that was one of their eccentricities. But it seemed this was another thing that was cultural.

Not long after that, Aaron turned into a narrow commercial street, full of jewellers and bespoke shoemakers. If Joan were to guess, they were somewhere north of Covent Garden. He stopped halfway up the street. ‘The Lius,’ he said.

The shop—if that’s what it was—had no signage, not even a street number. The front was just a cool wall of frosted glass bricks. Patches of violet and green shimmered beyond the glass like the dart of exotic fish. In the summer sunshine, the effect was almost tropical.

As they stood there, a beautiful woman pushed past them, briefly enveloping them both in a scent that made Joan think of summer gardens. She pushed at the wall, and a piece of the glass moved inward—a door, its edges cunningly blended into the glass bricks. Joan caught a glimpse of vibrant colour. Then the door swung shut, and there was only the wall.

‘We need to be very careful,’ Aaron said. He had a relaxed hand in his pocket, but Joan was beginning to recognise his mannerisms now, and she could see the tense line of his back. ‘Nothing’s free between families. If you want information from the Lius, you’ll have to trade for it.’

‘I have money,’ Joan said. She’d sold the phone yesterday.

But Aaron was already shaking his head. ‘Something like this is considered a favour. It’ll be a favour for a favour. And monsters take debts seriously. You’ll have to pay what you owe.’

‘And after all this, what will I owe you?’ Joan said.

Aaron’s cheeks turned pink. ‘I told you. I’m the one who’s in your—oh, will you stop asking questions so we can do this?’ he said with an exasperated tone that was becoming a familiar part of their conversations.

Joan shrugged. She turned and pushed the wall where the woman had touched it. To her surprise, the door crashed open. She’d measured her effort for a heavy glass door, but in some genius of craftsmanship, it had been weighted to open to the lightest of touches. Joan’s push had made it fly. She flushed, the violent entrance making her feel ridiculous. Distantly, she heard Aaron make a disapproving sound at her clumsiness, but she barely registered it as she stared around her.

The space inside was huge—far larger than it had seemed from the street. Light streamed from skylights. More light shone through the glass-brick wall, scattering into rainbows on the pale wooden floor.

The layout was a crisscross of white walls. It took Joan a second to realise that they were strategically angled away from direct sunlight. The slashes of tropical colour that she’d seen from the outside were paintings, the streaky abstract kind that she’d always thought looked like children’s finger paintings.

But these weren’t painted by children. Perhaps aided by the layout of the room, perhaps by careful placement and progression, these paintings were intensely compelling—raw and mysterious. Joan found herself walking closer.

Just a few steps revealed a man, hidden by the angle of a wall. He was in profile, repositioning a painting, and he had Chinese features, handsome and grave. He looked up at Joan’s approach.

‘Ying?’ It was the woman who’d entered ahead of them. She was even more beautiful now that Joan could see her properly. She was perhaps thirty, with flawless golden-brown skin. Her face was as delicate as a doll’s. She gave Joan a casual up-and-down look that dismissed her, and then reconsidered the dismissal. She tilted her head. ‘Daughter?’ she asked the man—Ying. ‘Niece?’

Ying’s pause was long. ‘She is not a Liu.’

Now that he was looking at Joan directly, she could see that his face was cut with deep, sad lines. His dark hair was parted perfectly and pulled back into a short ponytail. His clothing was both impeccable and slightly incongruous: shirt collar as white and rigid as porcelain, trousers a blue-grey linen that made Joan think of stormy seas.

Joan felt Aaron appear beside her. ‘Excuse me,’ Aaron said. ‘I want to trade.’