And If Thou Wilt, Forget

They’d decided to table the question of the tunnels for a couple of days, but that didn’t mean Tim stopped thinking about them. Among other things, he wondered how he was expected to get his work done knowing what was underneath the floor of the Archives. The others seemed to be managing, but then again, so did he. He still did his work just like before, but the tunnels were always there, in the back of his mind. Lurking. Waiting. Looming. The temptation to try and get into them during the workday was higher than he might have expected, even knowing the difficulties involved.

He also discovered that he was starting to get twitchy whenever someone who wasn’t part of their crew came down to the Archives, even another Institute employee. Someone from Research had come down with a box of statements, and even though Sasha had greeted him by name and they’d chatted like old friends, Tim had found himself staring at the man through narrowed eyes, unable to continue with his work until he left. Sasha had remonstrated him, playfully enough, and he’d tried to brush it off as a joke, but he wasn’t altogether certain he had succeeded.

That was borne out when the phone on his desk rang, shortly before he was planning to leave for lunch. Tim, who’d been trying to work the ring off his finger, pursed his lips briefly before shoving the ring back into place and picking up the receiver. “Archives, Stoker speaking.”

“Mr. Bouchard would like to see you in his office, please,” Rosie’s voice chirruped down the line.

Which meant he was in trouble. Rosie never sounded that delighted unless someone was getting raked over the coals. He wished he didn’t know what this was all about, but he could probably claim ignorance if he needed to. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

He hung up without giving her a chance to reply, then pushed back from his desk. Martin looked up in surprise. “What’s up? Someone with a statement?”

“No, Elias just wants to see me,” Tim said shortly. “Probably about Jon. I’m going to go see what he wants and then head to lunch.”

“Oh—um, okay,” Martin said quietly. He glanced at the door of Jon’s office, then back up at Tim. “I’ll see you when—well, when I get back, I suppose, since I’m going when Sasha gets back.”

“Yep.” Tim gave Martin a smile, rapped his knuckles once on the desk, and headed to the door of the Archives.

He hadn’t gone through the main floor of the Institute since coming back, except for on his clandestine run to Elias’s office. It wasn’t that he was suspicious of anyone above basement level, but…okay, maybe he was a little suspicious of anyone above basement level. Not that he thought they’d do anything to him, but they were all, or almost all, unknown quantities. He couldn’t say for certain if they were friend or foe, ally or enemy, safety or danger. He didn’t know whose side they were on.

He shook his head impatiently at the thought. They worked for the Institute; they were on the side of the Eye whether they wanted to be or not. Agents of another Fear would have to be pretty damn slick to sneak in and work for them. That they might be someone opposed to all the Fourteen trying to take them all down one by one was even less likely, and by now they’d have been claimed by the Eye, same as Tim and Gertrude had been, whatever their intentions at the start. It was too late for any of them.

Anyway, there was no reason for him to be so damned suspicious. But he was.

Rosie smiled at him, that sharp, smug smile that said she knew what was about to happen and he didn’t, when he approached her desk. “Go right on in. He’s expecting you.”

“Thank you, Ms. Zampano.” Tim matched her smile tooth for tooth and sincerity for sincerity, then turned and headed into Elias’s office. He didn’t bother squaring his shoulders. No sense in letting Rosie know he needed to brace himself.

He did, however, take a moment to ensure his mental shields were in place.

In contrast to the last time he’d been called into Elias’s office rather than follow him—his six-month evaluation—Elias was not sitting with his hands patiently folded, staring at the door and smiling as he waited for Tim to come in. Instead, he was seemingly engrossed in some forms he was filling out. In blue ink, Tim noted, which was a departure for the normally staid Elias Bouchard.

“You wanted to see me?” he said, not bothering with the “sir”. What was Elias going to do, fire him?

Elias looked up. “Ah, Tim, yes. Please, have a seat.”

Tim took the chair opposite Elias. It was just slightly shorter than Elias’s chair, a cheap psychological intimidation tactic that would have worked if Tim wasn’t six foot two in his stocking feet while Elias barely topped out at five foot nine if he was wearing lifts. It was also extremely uncomfortable. Tim didn’t give any sign of that, though, only sat rigid and upright, feet firmly planted on the floor and back ramrod straight, as he waited for Elias to spit out whatever the fuck it was he wanted to spit out.

He didn’t have long to wait. Elias capped his fountain pen and set it to the side, then folded his hands on the desk and looked up at Tim. “I’ve had a…well, I wouldn’t exactly call it a compliant, more of a concern…from another employee about you, and I wanted to discuss it frankly. Patrick O’Donnell from Research says that when he brought down the last delivery, you, and I quote, ‘stared him down like a lion stalking a giraffe.’ Would you care to comment?”

“Only to say that if I stared him down like anything, it wasn’t stalking,” Tim said, a bit more sharply than he’d meant to. “I’d never met him before and I didn’t know who he was.”

“He came down with a box.”

“And the last person who came down to the Archives with a box—which I wasn’t there for—was a pair of delivery men nobody could describe, who got into the Archives God alone knows how, intimidated Martin, and left him with a package for Jon,” Tim pointed out. “And also delivered that table to Artifact Storage with no explanation of who sent it or where it had come from. Martin was shaking for a week after that. Between that and Jane Prentiss getting into the walls, I think I’m perfectly justified in wanting to make sure that nobody comes into the Archives without warning and hurts my—coworkers.”

He’d almost said my people, which…wasn’t right. He wasn’t the Archivist, that was—well, however reluctantly, that was Jon. He’d never been the Archivist, never wanted to be the Archivist. But it didn’t change the fact that the Archivist, and the other assistants, were his and he needed to protect them. Somehow.

“Sasha knew him, did she not?” Elias said. It was entirely reasonable, and said in an entirely reasonable tone of voice, but it pissed Tim off to no end.

“Sasha talked to him,” he said. “She sure acted like she knew him, but neither of them ever addressed each other by name. And since she’s the one who spoke to a complete stranger and ended up getting lured into an abandoned pub by a malicious entity—which I’m sure you know about, since ‘nothing escapes your notice’—you’ll forgive me if I don’t exactly trust her judgment when it comes to people, or things that looked like people.”

Elias shook his head sadly. “I believe Jon’s paranoia may be contagious,” he said. “Tim, I must warn you that openly showing suspicion and hostility towards your colleagues, even those in other departments, will only serve to make everyone’s job untenable, and may cause those in other departments to continue registering complaints, or to quit. I ask that you please not make anyone else’s lives difficult.”

“Fine. I’ll get Martin to come in early tomorrow, and we’ll sit in the lobby while everyone else comes in to work and he can tell me all their names,” Tim said sarcastically. “Then I’ll know everybody else who works here.”

Either the sarcasm went entirely over Elias’s head or—more likely—he chose to ignore it in favor of the chaotic option. He beamed. “Capital! That seems like an excellent plan. Martin certainly has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the rest of the Institute staff.”

“More dictionary than encyclopedia, but sure.” Tim huffed. “Can I go, or was there more?”

“You’re free to go, Tim. I trust you were on the way to lunch?” Elias tilted his head to one side. Tim, involuntarily, clenched his right hand into a fist and mentally braced his arm against the shield in his mind to keep Elias from probing deeper than that. He felt a small, malicious pang of satisfaction as Elias gave a tiny, almost disappointed shrug. “I suggest you take an extra long one. You deserve it.”

Tim didn’t bother agreeing with or refuting the assertion. He merely grunted, got to his feet, and strode out of Elias’s office.

He wasn’t going to the canteen. After the conversation he’d just had, after the assertions he’d just laid at the feet of the Head of the Institute, he didn’t want to be around his “colleagues”, certainly not in a space where they had access to weapons. It wasn’t that he mistrusted everyone—and, actually, if he was being honest, if he met them on their turf, he wouldn’t suspect them at all. It was just when they came down to his turf. It was just when they were in the Archives.

Even that, he thought as he stepped out into the crisp October sunlight and started down the block, intent on a quick curry and a return, even that wasn’t really a problem most of the time. He didn’t mind people coming down to the Archives if they had some sort of notice—a heads-up from Research about some statements, a call from Rosie about a visitor, even an email from a student about booking time to review some files. It was when they turned up with warning that he had an issue…and especially, maybe even particularly, when they turned up when his people were there.

Which had, he reminded himself, only happened once. In the whole two weeks he’d been back, the only person other than the Archives crew who had come in had been Pat O’Donnell with his box of bullshit. There wasn’t a single real statement in the bunch, which was good, since it meant keeping his people safe, but was also bad because it would be forever and a day before they really got into them. Jon was more focused on doing supplemental research on the older files, and really, Tim should have put a stop to that long ago, before it became an issue. Just like he should have nipped the idea of doing audio recordings in the bud. If he’d been smart enough, fast enough, to stop Jon before he’d really got going, none of this would be happening.

Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe this would all have happened anyway. Maybe Jon was doomed the minute he signed the contract in Elias’s office. But surely there had been something Tim could have done.

He’d never know now, would he?

There was a food truck just across the Thames. Tim bought a falafel sandwich and ate it while chatting with the gentle middle-aged man who owned it, who seemed delighted; Tim figured most people didn’t stop to talk with him very often. He wished him a good day and started back across the river just as the man placed a BACK IN FIVE MINUTES sign on the counter and stepped behind the truck for his midday prayer. The break had done him good, he thought, and the falafel hadn’t hurt either.

He was a bit early getting back, and he probably could have stayed out in the courtyard, but some impulse tugged him forward. He decided not to fight it and just go back in. If nothing else, he thought as he reached for the door of the Archives, maybe he could have a hunt around to see if there was another entrance to the tunnels elsewhere in the Archives. More likely it would be outside somewhere, but he could make a start.

The instant he opened the door, however, every nerve in his body went on the alert, more than the low-grade tension he felt on a daily basis upon entering the Archives now, worse than they had when Dr. Elliott came to give his statement, almost as bad as they had when he’d seen the first worms pouring through the wall.

Something got in.

Tim let the door fall shut behind him and cleared the steps in a single bound, zigzagging through shelves like a border collie at a sheepdog trial as he made his way to the front of the Archives. Who was there? Who should have been there? If Sasha was back, Martin would be gone, but if she wasn’t, if she’d taken a long lunch, then Martin was there, and either way Jon was almost certainly there. Sasha would run to save her skin, maybe, but Martin would never leave Jon and—

He almost ran smack into Sasha as she pulled a handful of files off the shelf, seemingly unconcerned with everything. She started and blinked up at him. “Oh! Tim—is everything all right?”

“Where is it?” Tim barked.

“Where is what?” Sasha looked terribly confused. “Are you all right?”

“Something—someone—where’s Jon?” Tim demanded. His nerves were still pinging left and right, it was here, something was here—

“In his office. He had someone giving a statement, I think, but they must have just left a little while ago.” Sasha frowned over her shoulder. “He was asking me about—”

Tim’s body was moving even before his brain had fully registered the signal from his ears—a cry of pain, muffled by the wood of the door to the Archivist’s office, barely audible over Sasha’s words. In fact, based on her bewildered “Tim, what—?” as he brushed past her, she hadn’t heard it either. But he had, and he knew, he knew that whatever was in there had attacked the Archivist, he knew he had to get to it, had to stop it…

He burst through the door of the Archivist’s office so fast he almost took it off its hinges, chest heaving, nostrils flaring, instantly on the alert for whatever the fuck had got in, whatever had hurt—

Jon gave a wet, ragged gasp and backed up, eyes wide and terrified. One hand was wrapped tightly around his arm, which was pressed against his chest, and there were spatters of bright red scattered across the surface of the desk. There was nobody else in the room.

“Tim, what—” Jon gasped out, obviously struggling to be professional despite the fear and pain.

Tim’s vision seemed to sharpen, focusing on Jon’s arm. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Jon said quickly. Too quickly. His eyes darted nervously back and forth, particularly lingering on a blank patch of wall nearby—not the one Jane Prentiss had come through, a different one. In that moment, Tim knew he was right. Something had been here, something had attacked him.

And he hadn’t been there to stop it getting in.

“Let me take a look at that.” Tim reached for Jon’s arm.

Jon pulled the arm closer, despite the obvious agony it caused him, whether from moving it or squeezing it. “I’m fine, it’s nothing,” he insisted through clenched teeth.

Tim tried to tamp down his anger and fear and whatever other stupid emotion was currently surging through his veins. “Dammit, Jon, show me.”

Probably responding to the note of authority in Tim’s voice that said he meant business, Jon held his arm out immediately, gasping at the too fast movement. Tim didn’t bother to apologize as he reached out to take his arm in his hands.

Which were immediately coated in blood.

Fuck.

Right. First priority: Triage. Second priority: Shoring up the Archives’ defenses. Third priority: Strangling Elias for shooing him out of the Institute right when he was needed, damn the bastard. Never mind that Tim would have been at lunch anyway. For the moment, he’d decided it was Elias’s fault. But that could wait. It had to wait. This was bad enough that Jon was at risk of bleeding out if he didn’t get immediate medical attention.

“Sasha!” he yelled over his shoulder without taking his eyes from the torn and sodden sleeve in front of him. “First aid kit!”

At that, Jon flinched and tried to pull his arm away. Tim held on as tight as he dared. His eyes snapped up to Jon’s. “For fuck’s sake, hold still unless you want to make this worse.”

“I’m—” Jon began.

“If you say you’re fine one more time, I will gag you with your own cardigan.”

Sasha suddenly appeared at his elbow, kit in hand. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”

“I need you to get the hell out of here.” Tim had seen the way Jon’s pupils suddenly blew out further, and he realized too many people in the room would only serve to make things worse. “Go finish whatever else you were doing, Sash. I’ve got this.”

For a wonder, Sasha complied, dropping the kit on the desk and backing away. Tim flipped it open, sent up a prayer of thanks to Saint Brigid of Ireland for whoever had replenished its contents, and grabbed one of the pads of gauze. He ripped it open, extracted the gauze, and slapped it on the injury. It immediately began to soak through, but he’d been prepared for that and was already reaching for a second. He folded this one in half before pressing it over the top, then reached for the roll of bandages.

“I still have my shirt under that,” Jon protested, his voice strained.

“Yeah, I know. I’m not peeling it away, that’ll make things worse. We need to stop the bleeding, or at least slow it enough to keep you conscious until you get to the hospital.”

“I don’t need the hospital.”

“The hell you don’t.” Tim wrapped the bandage as quickly and tightly as he dared, using the whole roll. No sense in tearing it off, the more layers the better. He just had to keep Jon alive and intact. “This is bad. Whatever happened, you’re going to need stitches.”

“I’m—it’s not that bad,” Jon argued. “I’ll go to a clinic or something after work.”

“No, you will go to a clinic or a hospital now.”

“I am capable of taking care of myself—”

“Yeah, but you don’t, so I’m going to,” Tim snapped.

Jon bristled. “I certainly don’t need—”

“Jonathan Thomas Sims,” Tim interrupted, “there are exactly three options here. Either I’m taking you to the clinic up the road, I’m calling 999, or I’m calling Martin. Your choice.”

Jon stared at Tim, and for just a second, he could see the flicker of indecision and, yes, longing in his eyes. Then he pressed his lips together in a tight line. “Fine. Take me to the clinic.”

Probably the best choice. Martin would just take him to the clinic anyway, and 999 would probably be delayed by the fact that it was the Institute and the paramedics likely had their own version of Section Thirty-One. Tim nodded. “Lucky thing it’s not too cold out. Or too far. Come on.”

He shepherded Jon out of his office, past Sasha’s raised eyebrows from where she was reorganizing the Discredited section, and out the door. Jon blinked in the sunlight—been a while since you’ve seen it? Tim thought uncharitably—and then started down the street. In completely the wrong direction. Tim blocked him and pointed. “That way, O Fearless Leader.”

“I’ve never been before,” Jon snapped.

“Then why aren’t you letting me lead?” Tim snapped back. “And don’t think I’m going to let you go on your own, either. I don’t trust you to actually go if I do.”

Jon narrowed his eyes at Tim suspiciously, but did at least allow himself to be herded the short distance to the clinic, just on the edge of what was considered Chelsea. Good thing it was a short distance, too, because by the third block Jon was starting to stagger a little, and by the time they got there Tim had his arm around him, probably to both of their annoyance, to keep him upright.

The person behind the desk was a pierced, green haired person of indeterminate gender wearing purple scrubs with dancing cats on them. Jon focused on the cats, which wasn’t a surprise since he was more fond of cats than he was of dogs, as the person looked from Tim to Jon and back. “Hi, what can I do for you?”

“We’re from the Magnus Institute. We have a very badly bleeding wound.” Tim indicated Jon’s arm. “I think he’s getting loopy.”

“I’m fine,” Jon protested.

Tim grabbed the undamaged sleeve of Jon’s cardigan threateningly, and Jon subsided quickly enough. The receptionist’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, if you’re from the Magnus Institute, go right in. Exam room one, it’s to the left and all the way back. I’ll send Dr. Early in as soon as possible. What department are you from?”

“The Archives. Thanks.” Tim decided not to ask questions, even though Jon was clearly gearing up to. He half shoved, half dragged him through the door, bullied him around the corner, and muscled him into the room, then pointed at the exam table.

Jon sat without further fuss, although he was glaring the entire time.

The white-coated doctor, whom Tim’s instincts said was actually a doctor and not some psychopath masquerading as one, came in shortly after. “Well, now, what seems to be the trouble?”

Tim indicated Jon, who lifted his left arm slightly, then winced and pressed it back against his chest. The doctor, presumably Dr. Early, pursed his lips. “Hmm, yes, that does look nasty. Zig tells me you’re from the Magnus Institute…can you tell me what happened?”

“I stabbed myself,” Jon blurted out.

Tim turned and glared at Jon. That was possibly the biggest lie he’d heard in ages. Dr. Early also didn’t sound convinced. “Stabbed yourself? With what?”

Jon paused for no more than a split second. “A bread knife. I was making lunch, and it slipped.”

“A bread knife,” Tim repeated flatly.

Jon’s eyes flicked up to Tim’s, a hint of a challenge in them. In a cold tone reminiscent of the way he’d spoken to Martin in the early days, he said, “I would like you to not be in the room, please.”

Tim wasn’t Jon’s partner, thank God, and he wasn’t his brother or father, and he didn’t actually have a right to be in there, especially if Jon said not to be. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

He didn’t go far, though. Instead, he took up his post right next to the door, arms folded across his chest. Waiting. Watching.

Jon could lie all he wanted. He could insist from now until the cows came home that he’d accidentally stabbed himself making a sandwich. But Tim knew he’d been attacked. By something that had got in under Tim’s guard.

Tim didn’t particularly like Jon right about then. He was still fairly certain Jon was a murderer. But whatever else he was, he was still the Archivist, and Tim still had a responsibility to him. If only to ensure he stayed whole so Martin and Sasha were safe. So to that end, he would protect him with his very life if he had to. At least until he knew for certain that it was a life not worth protecting.

And as soon as Tim got hold of that tape and listened back to it, and figured out who had attacked the Archivist on his home ground, then heaven help whoever or whatever had done it. There wouldn’t be enough left of it to serve as a warning when Tim was through. Of that he was certain.

Nothing was going to get at Jonathan Sims ever again. Not until Tim said it was going to.