Henry Neff - The Maelstrom

“Shhh!” whispered Max as several scholars glanced up irritably from their tables.

“Well, I want to be able to change shapes at Rowan!” hissed Toby. “They should lift that silly prohibition. Promise me you’ll put in a word with the Director.”

“Okay,” said Max. “But keep your voice down. You have to be quiet down here—it’s like a big library.”

Indeed, the Archives were like a library, but one that was larger than any cathedral. It was a vast, arched space with many levels where millions upon millions of manuscripts were housed behind archival glass. Vaults were spaced along the main level, gargantuan steel doors set into the stone and protected with various runes and spells. One of these belonged to the Red Branch and housed their greatest treasures, but some belonged to different orders, including the Vanguard, the Minstrels, the Promethean Scholars, the Bloodstone Circle, and many other esoteric groups from Rowan’s early days. Light was provided by witch-fire lanterns and from pale shafts of daylight that filtered through translucent stone high above. Despite the crowded tables on the main level, the atmosphere was quiet and this reverential hush—even more than the space’s grandeur—reinforced the impression that one was in a holy setting, a temple of sacred antiquity.

A domovoi directed them to David, who was hunkered down in one of several top-secret laboratories housed in a restricted wing. Cupping Toby, Max walked past many windows behind which Mystics were peering at various objects or even creatures suspended within glass orbs that held swirling vapors or shimmering lights of every color. He stopped at one, peering at an evil-looking creature that turned about in its orb, glaring at its captors. At Max’s knock, one of the Mystics glanced up, did a double take, and hurried over to open the door.

“Hi,” said Max. “Sorry to bother you, but is that a Stygian crow?”

“A very nasty one,” confirmed the Mystic, a graying middle-aged woman wearing glasses. “We captured a sortie from one of Prusias’s detachments.”

“What are you doing with it?” asked Max as the creature gave a furious shriek that shot flames from its membranous blowholes.

“Testing its sensitivity to various concentrations of Blood Petals and Zenuvian iron,” replied the Mystic. “Most promising.”

Max nodded and took another gander at the hideous creature before leaving the Mystic to her work. David’s laboratory was at the end of the corridor, conspicuous among the rest with its circular iron door set into a wall of smoky runeglass. Max knocked.

Miss Boon answered, looking tired and careworn.

“Max,” she said, embracing him. “What a wonderful surprise to have you up and about so soon.”

“Is that really him?” rasped a voice within the chamber. It was a heavy, Balkan accent and belonged to a man who had played a strange but instrumental role in Max’s life.

Stepping across the threshold, Max saw Peter Varga sitting on the edge of a chair and leaning forward on his cane. His black hair was now flecked with gray, but his face was less gaunt and harrowed than it had been when Max first saw him on a train in Chicago. Then, the man had been an outcast from Rowan—hunted and pursued for making unauthorized overtures to the witches and the Workshop. Having rescued Max from Marley Augur’s crypt, Varga had earned his way back into Rowan’s good graces, but it had come at a terrible price. Marley Augur’s hammer had broken his back and he’d never fully recovered. Even now, he refused a wheelchair and relied instead upon a cane to get about with ungainly, stumbling steps that invited inconsiderate stares.

Few stared for very long, however. Peter Varga’s most arresting trait was not his injury, but his eye. While one was green and unremarkable, the other was entirely white and possessed a ghostly, sentient quality that seemed to latch on and study its subjects with chilling intensity. No one lingered long under the eye’s prescient gaze, and it, combined with the man’s lurching gait and notoriety, made him a popular subject for rumor and gossip. Even after Cooper invited him to join the Red Branch, few people trusted Peter Varga and many shunned his company.

Max was among these, but his feelings had nothing to do with the man’s appearance. When it came to Peter, Max’s feelings were confused and deeply personal. Agent Varga had once protected Max and saved his life, but his prescience played a role in the disappearance and untimely death of Max’s mother. Gratitude, guilt, and anger were difficult feelings to reconcile, and Max did not try. Since his mother’s passing, he simply ignored Peter Varga and rebuffed every attempt at friendship.

But he could not ignore him now. Pushing up from his chair, Peter hobbled toward him, smiling faintly as he took Max in. He stopped several feet away, uncertain whether a handshake would be welcome. It was an awkward moment. Max thought of Byron Morrow’s letter and the sad absence of any closure or reconciliation.

“I envy your powers of recovery,” said Peter, shaking the proffered hand appreciatively. “David said your wounds were very serious. At least they were not in vain.”

The man gestured toward a large, levitating orb of runeglass in which the pinlegs was scuttling about like a hamster running on a wheel. As the orb turned, its inscriptions changed, ranging from the most basic Solomon Seal to intricate pentacles involving hundreds of tiny runes and sigils. Every so often, there was a spark and the pinlegs jumped to avoid a particular rune or section of an inscription. When this happened, enchanted quills recorded the details upon a huge roll of parchment like a sort of seismograph. Several sheets had been torn away and hung upon the far wall, where David was appraising them, studying the dense symbols and patterns like an astronomer trying to identify one particular star among the infinite heavens.

Sipping his coffee, the sorcerer spoke in a weary voice. “Did Mina charm you into bringing her? She’s been trying to sneak in.”

“No,” said Max. “But Toby’s here. He was waiting in the vestibule.”

“Toby,” chided David, his pale eyes never leaving the patterns. “What did I say?”

“You said this was top secret,” recounted Toby, uncoiling as Max set him upon a table.

“Exactly,” said David.

“But I helped you acquire the awful thing!” the smee protested. “I—I’m part of the team!”

“You are part of the team,” David assured him. “But you’re also an inveterate gambler who is willing to do or say just about anything to impress your audience. For example, did you not boast to a certain faun how your timely actions saved us above Piter’s Folly?”

“I don’t recall,” sniffed the smee.

“I do,” said David calmly. “It was three nights ago in Cloubert’s casino. You were at the roulette table and were already down four lunes and eleven coppers.”

“H-how do you know that?” sputtered Toby nervously.

“I bribed that faun to inform on you.” David shrugged. “A single lune was all it took for her to report everything you’d said throughout the evening. She didn’t even know—or care—who I was or why I wanted the information.”

A beat of mortified silence as the smee swelled up with indignation. “That was an unconscionable assault upon my privacy!”

“Very true,” David confessed. “It is also an invaluable reminder to you that we are on the threshold of war. Rowan welcomes refugees and new arrivals every day. Most are simply seeking shelter, but there are doubtless many spies and saboteurs among them—even in Cloubert’s. We cannot trust you with confidential information if you’re going to blab secrets to every faun that catches your eye at the roulette table. The stakes are too high.”