The hummingbird killer, p.3
The Hummingbird Killer, page 3
Keeping it hidden from Comma isn’t an option: if she starts working here, it needs to be in her file so they don’t send someone on a hit that’ll blow her cover. But they’ll be a lot less likely to approve it if it interferes with their business.
‘All right, I’m all yours,’ says Jem, emerging from behind the desk. ‘Let’s head into one of the meeting rooms.’
Isabel follows Jem obediently. ‘So why are you short-staffed?’ she asks.
‘Bunch of reasons,’ Jem says, unlocking the door. ‘But it’s mostly because we lost three members of staff this month. One got another job, one’s taken long-term medical leave, and one was a guild hit.’
Isabel swallows. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s shaken us pretty badly. He didn’t seem like the type to warrant a Hummingbird contract, so it was a shock when we got the news.’
Hummingbird. At least he wasn’t one of her own assignments; it’s more of a relief than it should be. ‘Do you get a lot of guild hits?’
Jem shakes her head. ‘None in the library itself for decades, and few on the staff. Most of our clientele aren’t desirable targets, and Ed… Well, it just goes to show that you can’t tell.’ She takes a seat and gestures for Isabel to do the same. ‘So, like I said, this is a formality. If we can’t fill their shifts, we’re going to struggle to keep the library open. Me and Beth are already pulling doubles to manage it. If you’re even vaguely competent, it’ll save us from having to cut our opening hours.’
‘I really don’t have any experience,’ Isabel admits. ‘But I need a job, and you need me…’
‘You said you read Russian. Tell me about that.’
She can’t explain that her father taught her languages in case she needed to cut a deal with a foreign government or kill somebody overseas; she probably shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. But she can’t take it back now. ‘I’m reasonably fluent in Russian. I also speak German, French, Spanish. My Korean is both rudimentary and rusty, but I can read the basics.’
There’s a short silence before Jem says, ‘And you learned those from books.’
She wants an explanation, and Isabel doesn’t blame her. Modern languages are a rare skill in Espera. Unless she can come up with a story, she’s basically just outed herself as guild. ‘My father,’ she says. ‘His family were, uh, refugees. He thought it was important. Not to forget the world.’
Jem’s expression clears. ‘You’re from Lutton, right?’ Isabel nods. ‘That explains it.’
Does it? Espera’s population has always been bolstered by refugees, its unfounded reputation as a safe space from global conflicts drawing people in like moths to a flame. Most of them live in the industrial boroughs, because that’s the deal. You get a life behind the walls, but you’ve got to work for it.
And once you arrive, you can’t leave.
Lutton, although a civilian borough, is bordered by industrials, and maybe Jem knows something Isabel doesn’t about how people keep their languages and cultures alive, decades after they left their own countries. If she’s willing to accept that as an explanation, Isabel won’t argue.
‘Where’s your father now?’ Jem asks.
‘Dead,’ says Isabel shortly. ‘Just over two years ago.’
‘Guild?’ says the librarian, and for a second Isabel panics, until she realises Jem’s only asking how her father died.
‘Yes,’ she confirms, and adds, ‘Comma,’ which is technically true.
‘All right.’ Jem leans back in her chair. ‘Well, we have a bunch of material in the archives that we don’t know how to deal with because nobody here can speak anything except English and a smattering of Esperanto—’ She catches Isabel’s surprised look and says, ‘What?’
‘I didn’t think anyone here was guild.’ Esperanto is the language Comma and Hummingbird use for business, a remnant of their history; it’s rare for civilians to speak it.
‘They’re not,’ says Jem. ‘But Mark’s family are adjacents, and he’s clever as shit, so they sent him to a spon. Fortunately, he decided guild life wasn’t for him, but now he’s our go-to translation guy.’
Attending a guild-sponsored school is one way of learning the language. Linnaeus Secondary, the school Isabel once attended, taught exclusively in Esperanto from fifth year – not that she made it that far.
‘So you have guild materials, then?’ Isabel asks.
‘Not many. But we try to get all the newspapers, including La Revuo. Mark tells us if there’s anything interesting in there.’
Intriguing. Isabel always thought it was tricky to obtain the guild paper without a direct connection, so they must have one, somewhere. She’s beginning to think there’s more to the library than meets the eye.
‘I suppose,’ she begins tentatively, ‘being in Central Espera, not everyone who uses the library is a civilian?’
Jem shrugs. ‘I mean, we don’t ask, obviously. And the guilds have their own resources, so I’m not sure what they’d want from our library. But, yeah, it’s always possible some of them are guild.’ She adds, ‘It must be weird for you, after living in Lutton, suddenly not knowing if your neighbours are civilians or not.’
Right, because Isabel has no idea what it’s like not to trust people, and no familiarity with being surrounded by threats. ‘I was on the border,’ she says. ‘Close to Weaverthorpe. But Central Espera is… different.’
‘You can say that again. Still, they mostly leave us alone. Apart from when they don’t.’ Her expression slips, slightly – a glimpse of sadness, and something like anger, as she remembers her lost colleague. ‘Anyway,’ she continues, recovering, ‘we’ll need help dealing with the archive once we’ve taught you to catalogue. In the meantime, we need a junior library assistant. Somebody to shelve books, help people find things, work the front desk, and generally keep things ticking over while me and Beth do the actual hard stuff. Think you can handle that?’
Shelving books she can handle. Patiently helping strangers fill out paperwork, as Jem was doing when she arrived, might be beyond her skill set. But Isabel nods.
‘Good. One last question. We’re open to everyone, but we’re not interested in inviting trouble. So are you, or have you ever been, a member of Comma or Hummingbird?’
A civilian life, a day job, friends – they were always going to be built on a foundation of lies. ‘No,’ says Isabel Ryans, the Moth, Comma’s most notorious contract killer, and her tone doesn’t change at all. ‘Civilian through and through.’
Jem holds out her hand for Isabel to shake. ‘Great,’ she says. ‘You’re hired.’
4 BONVENIGI (TO WELCOME)
‘How’d it go?’ asks Laura later, returning from her afternoon shift at the restaurant.
Isabel’s curled up on the settee with one of the books she brought home from the library, hoping that if she pretends to be comfortable in a communal space for long enough, eventually she’ll stop feeling like she needs to watch her back. ‘I got the job,’ she says, watching her flatmate kick off her high-heeled shoes and loosen her tie. ‘I start on Monday.’
‘Congrats.’ Laura comes into the living room and nods at the book in Isabel’s hand. ‘Homework already?’
‘Curiosity.’ Isabel holds it up to show Laura the cover.
The other girl chokes at the sight of the figure in a black catsuit embracing an unrealistically muscular shirtless man. ‘You’re reading Holly Emerald?’ she says incredulously. ‘By choice?’
Isabel turns the book to see the author’s name. ‘You know her work?’
‘By reputation. You know there are good romance novels out there, don’t you? Why would you inflict that on yourself?’
She shrugs. ‘I had a friend who collected these. I wanted to know if they were as bad as she made them sound.’
‘And?’
‘Worse.’ Isabel puts the book on the coffee table without bothering to mark her place. ‘The prose isn’t terrible, but I can’t get past the idea of somebody willingly sleeping with the person paid to kill them. Besides,’ she adds, ‘that catsuit would be completely impractical. Where’s she going to keep her weapons?’
‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ says Laura lightly, and goes into the kitchen. ‘Do you want a cup of— Why do we have two toasters?’
The book had been sufficiently bizarre for Isabel to forget she’d gone shopping for kitchen equipment on her way home. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘That’s mine. I’m allergic to wheat. And a bunch of other things, but that’s the worst.’ A lasting legacy of the poison that almost killed her when she was seventeen – a parting gift in the form of a fucked-up immune system and a temperamental gut. ‘I thought it would help. Reduce the risk, that is. I can keep it in my room if it’s a problem.’
‘Why would I make you keep your toaster in your room?’ Laura says, as if it’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. ‘Obviously, we should avoid poisoning you. We can label the utensils too, if that helps. Do you want to stick a list of your allergies on the fridge, so I can make sure to be careful?’
Isabel swallows the unexpected lump in her throat. ‘Really?’
Her flatmate frowns. ‘What did you think I was going to say? “Sorry, Isabel, I’d rather make you sick than mildly inconvenience myself”?’
She hadn’t thought that far ahead. The last time she shared a kitchen, it was with her parents, and they actually poisoned her, on purpose, so she has low expectations for people’s willingness to adapt to her needs. ‘I don’t know. I thought it might annoy you.’
‘Trying to protect your own health isn’t being annoying.’ Laura looks around the kitchen, counting the cupboards. ‘Do you want the left-hand cupboards as a wheat-free zone? I can shift my stuff over and give it a bit of a clean. Better safe than sorry, right?’
Isabel has known Laura a scant handful of days, and already the other girl is trying to think of ways to keep her safe. It says a lot about her life that this small kindness makes her eyes prick with unfamiliar heat. ‘Thanks,’ she says, voice small.
‘While we’re on the topic, I guess we should discuss some ground rules. I’m pretty chill, but if your hair dye turns the shower blue, it’s your job to clean it.’
Isabel’s had too much practice scrubbing away bloodstains to need the warning, but she nods anyway. ‘Anything else I should bear in mind?’
‘Sometimes I like to bring people home. Would that bother you?’
Laura’s watching her carefully, like the answer matters, but Isabel barely understands the question. ‘As in friends?’
‘As in sex,’ says Laura baldly, and laughs at the look on Isabel’s face. ‘Please, you’re reading The Assassin’s Fuckfest, or whatever that book’s called—’
‘That is definitely not the title.’
‘—I hadn’t pegged you for a prude.’
‘I’m not a prude,’ says Isabel, put on the defensive by Laura’s amusement. ‘I just don’t get it. Or this book, for that matter. It’s all so… unappealing.’
‘Well, if you’re getting sex ed from Holly Emerald and her hunky heroes’ throbbing members, I’m not surprised it doesn’t appeal.’ Laura fills the kettle and takes two mugs from the cupboard. ‘If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing. Personally, it’s the whole “eternal love, staring into each other’s eyes, die for each other” side of things that I don’t understand. Sex without the love complication is a lot more fun.’
‘Really?’ Isabel’s horrified and fascinated at the same time, and she hates how obvious they both are to Laura. ‘But why would you sleep with people you’re not in love with?’ She suspects the question she’s really trying to ask is, Why does anyone sleep with anyone?
‘Mostly because they’re hot and it’s fun,’ says Laura, and shrugs. ‘We’re all wired the way we’re wired. If you’re not into it, that’s cool with me. But maybe you should ask your librarian friends for some better book recommendations. No doubt they can find you something with no kissing whatsoever, if you want – though it’ll probably be replaced by brutal death and everyone will be tragically destroyed before the end.’
If those are really the only two options, Isabel has a horrible feeling she knows which path her life is on. ‘Noted,’ she says.
‘So would it bother you?’ Laura measures a teaspoon of tea leaves from one of the jars she’s got lined up on the counter. ‘If I brought someone home of an evening?’
Isabel hesitates. It’s not the sex part that bothers her. It’s the ‘strangers in her home that she hasn’t vetted’ part. Laura obviously has vastly different standards for personal safety, and Isabel’s beginning to feel like she’s made a mistake moving in with a civilian so unconcerned by the city’s dangers. ‘Maybe?’ she says. ‘But I don’t want to stop you having… fun.’
Laura laughs. ‘You won’t, trust me. I’ll make sure I check with you if someone’s coming over, deal?’
That doesn’t fix the problem, only offsets it to a later date, but Isabel nods. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay,’ agrees her flatmate. ‘Well, if that’s everything…’ She pushes the second mug towards Isabel. ‘I reckon this will work out just fine.’
It seems to work out just fine for the next couple of days, at least. Isabel begins to acquire the trappings of a normal life, and her bedroom goes from sterile to colourful, with lurid bedsheets and a wall covered in prints. She still barely understands art – still wishes Emma were there to explain the colours to her, the significance of the shapes, or the meaning behind the way two figures are positioned – but the colours are comforting, and there’s something about the confusion that feels like a choice. All her life, she’s been given the answers; for once, she wants to ask her own questions.
On Sunday, Laura presents her with a mug that reads No bread. Only pain in ornate script over the crossed-grain symbol that’s stamped on the packaging of Isabel’s wheat-free alternatives.
‘Because seriously,’ she says, ‘I’ve seen that stuff you make toast with, and I’m pretty sure that’s cardboard, not bread.’
Isabel concurs. She also appreciates the bilingual pun, although she doesn’t remember telling Laura that she speaks French.
And on Monday, Isabel starts work at the library.
Jem’s busy in the archives, so it’s Beth who has been tasked with showing Isabel the ropes. Today, their outfit is less eye-wateringly bright, but their smile makes up for it. ‘Hope you’re ready for this,’ they say. ‘Time for the grand tour. We’ll start in the children’s section.’
Isabel hopes they won’t expect her to sit and read stories to children. She has absolutely no experience of working with kids, and her own memories of childhood won’t help her much. But she doesn’t want Beth to think she’s reconsidering the job already, so she forces a smile. ‘Lead the way.’
The children’s section is in a state of chaos, which Beth sadly confides is its usual state, small children not being overly keen on things like putting books back on shelves and alphabetising. After introducing Isabel to the classification system – fairly basic, clearly indicated by the coloured labels on the books’ spines – they test her on her ability to shelve a few items, and when she succeeds, they give her a thumbs up.
‘See, totally qualified,’ they say. ‘The rest of the library’s pretty similar, but it’s organised by genre rather than age. Fortunately for you, me and Jem are still doing most of the cataloguing, so all you lowly assistants have to do is obey the labels.’
They leave the children’s section, and Beth points out the different genres as they pass. ‘Sci-fi and fantasy. Historical. Romance. Non-fiction. That’s by topic, so shelve by the numbers on the label, not by author. Crime. General fiction. Research suite is over there, that’s mostly used by teachers. Getting your bearings yet?’
‘Just about.’ Isabel pauses by one of the shelves to pull out a book. There’s a guild stamp on the copyright page, but it was originally published outside the city. Most of the books must have been; she can’t imagine Espera’s literary scene sustaining a whole library of this size. Putting the book back, she asks, ‘What would you say is popular?’
‘Crime and thrillers, weirdly.’ They shrug. ‘Why people want more murder when they already live in Espera, I have no idea, but they’re consistently popular. Sci-fi’s taken a real nosedive in recent years. Less of it gets past the censors, for some reason, though I’ve no idea why the guilds object so much, and I guess people aren’t as keen to read about going to space when they can’t even leave the city.’
‘So everything here has passed the censors?’ says Isabel, an innocent request for clarification that comes out sounding accusatory.
Beth hesitates. ‘I don’t know what you’re implying, but we do things legally around here. Our collections—’
‘I wasn’t implying anything,’ says Isabel honestly, although their defensiveness is intriguing, so perhaps she should have been. ‘I was curious. Do you ever have books that used to be approved and aren’t any more? What happens to them?’
The librarian relaxes slightly. ‘They get pulled. Some are destroyed. It depends why their permit wasn’t renewed, really. Some of the less controversial ones end up in the store.’
‘The store?’
‘Part of our archive. We have access to material that isn’t permitted on the open shelves.’ They give Isabel a mischievous smile. ‘Librarians are the keepers of knowledge – including the things nobody else is allowed to know.’
And they’ve welcomed Isabel into their fold. She suspects it’ll be a while before they let her anywhere near the illegal books, but even the way Beth trusts her with knowledge of their existence sends a frisson of excitement through her – and guilt. Because Beth definitely shouldn’t be trusting her. Isabel’s guild, and if she chose to hurt the library staff, she could do so very badly.
