And If Thou Wilt, Forget

“You know what confuses me?”

“Quantum physics? Non-euclidean geometry? Why the Tory party is still in existence, never mind in power?” Tim put the cap back on the eyeliner and turned to Gerry. “How’d I do? Is it even?”

“Looks good to me. Also, you’re a dick,” Gerry grumbled. “I’m being serious.”

One corner of Tim’s mouth turned up. “Lay it on me. What’s confusing you that’s relevant to our immediate lives?”

“Well, the Tory thing might qualify for that, actually, but…” Gerry propped his hip against the sink. “How the hell did Jane Prentiss get into the tunnels without you noticing?”

Tim’s smile slipped. “I’ve been asking myself that for months.”

“No, that’s—not what I meant. I just meant…” Gerry flapped a hand helplessly. “Not you specifically. Just…general ‘you’. The worms could squeeze through the floorboards but Prentiss herself couldn’t. How did she get into the tunnels without going through the Archives? Did Jon let her in?”

“Not bloody likely. Even if he is a killer, he wouldn’t have wanted to risk the Corruption getting a foothold in the Archives, it was as much a danger to him as to the rest of us.” Tim shrugged. “She probably went in another entrance.”

“There are other entrances?” Gerry asked, surprised.

“Gerry. Millbank Prison covered most of what’s now Chelsea, and the tunnels—some of which look like they were eroded by curls of the Thames—go at least that far if not further. Statistically, the likelihood that there aren’t other entrances is virtually nil.” Tim sighed. “I don’t know how Prentiss found another entrance, let alone how to get to the Archives afterwards, but that’s almost certainly what happened.”

Gerry mulled that over. “You think Jon knows?”

“No. He wouldn’t use the one in the Archives if he did. Too much risk of being detected.” Tim gave Gerry a quick kiss. “Hey, how do you feel about sushi for dinner? I can pick up some on the way home, and then we can talk a little bit more about what we’re doing about those tunnels tonight.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Gerry said softly.

He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him that there were other way into the tunnels, but Tim was right; it didn’t make sense for there not to be. And he had a point about Jon not having found them, too. They hadn’t been able to get all the way to the end of Jon’s arrows, although they’d found one pointing down a flight of steps that didn’t look right that he knew Tim wanted to investigate further, but if there was another way out he’d have marked it…somehow. It stood to reason he hadn’t found one yet. That didn’t mean he was okay with the way Tim had come out with that information. It wasn’t that he thought Gerry was stupid—far from it—and he’d always had a talent for picking up on hints and piecing things together. But sometimes…just sometimes, he said these sorts of things in a way that implied he thought it was incredibly obvious, and Gerry genuinely wasn’t sure at this point if it was because he assumed Gerry had already pieced it together too, because he thought it was common knowledge, or because he was trying to keep Gerry from asking how do you know that so he wouldn’t have to give an answer neither of them would like.

He kept mulling that over as he started downstairs for the shop, as well as the possibility of the other entrances. The last of the books had been packed up and put into storage, and the walls were hung with examples of his artwork. He was currently working on a commission to hang in a drawing room, and by rights he ought to spend the day working on that, or possibly on a new sign for the front of the building to make it clear they no longer sold rare books, but…

But it would make their lives a lot easier if they found another way in. The sooner, the better.

After spending most of the morning halfheartedly painting while debating with himself, he went back upstairs to fetch Rowlf before heading out.

He didn’t exactly blend in around Chelsea ordinarily, but he had a few things of his father’s—at least he assumed they’d been his father’s—that would help with that. It was about thirty years out of date, but at least it fit him, and it looked pretty decent. A bit of extra makeup covered those tattoos not hidden by clothing, and he and Rowlf were on their way. Gerry figured he would start looking relatively close to the Institute—under the assumption that Prentiss wouldn’t have found the Archives so quickly otherwise—and go from there. It had to be admitted that he had no earthly idea what the other entrances would look like. Still, he reckoned he could at least make the effort.

It was close to the lunch hour when he made it to Chelsea, which he deduced from the number of people milling about. Still, that was all to the good, it meant he was more likely to escape notice, dog notwithstanding. He let Rowlf sniff about, getting the canine news bulletins, while he peered at rocks, bushes, and random structures, wondering if one of them might be what he was looking for.

He noticed a figure coming out of the side door to the Institute, the one that led directly to the Archives, and for a moment he wondered if it was Tim. Instead, it was a petite, curvy woman with black curly hair that he guessed to be Sasha James. Rowlf, always on the outlook for a potential new friend, went on the alert, tail waving excitedly, but he knew better than to pull.

As most people did, she stopped to address him. “Oh, what a cutie! Can I pet him?”

“Sure.” Gerry let a little bit of German into his voice, just to be sure he wouldn’t be recognized.

The woman bent down and rubbed both of Rowlf’s ears vigorously. From the way his tail wagged harder, he must have liked that. “Who’s a good boy? You are! You are! Oh, you’re such a soft baby. What’s your name, sweet thing?”

Gerry could have given any part of Rowlf’s name without giving away that it was Tim’s dog, even though Sasha had met him once before and might have known his full name, but what popped out of his mouth was, “Rowsby Woof.”

“What a silly name for such a majestic beast.” The woman gave his ears one last rub, straightened, and smiled. “Thanks for letting me pet him. I love dogs…have a good day.”

“You, too.” Gerry clucked his tongue at Rowlf, who followed obediently as they moved off in opposite directions.

Gerry had just decided to widen his search a little bit when he saw another figure peering around the corner in the direction the presumed Sasha had gone. He’d only seen this figure once before, and that in deep shadow, but it wasn’t hard to suss out who he was. If nothing else, the worm scars, significantly worse than Tim’s, gave it away.

Jonathan Sims, the Archivist of the Magnus Institute, was watching his assistant with open suspicion—probably because he didn’t think he was being observed. His posture—flattened against the wall, chin craning to just hook over the corner, tense twist to his shoulders—spoke of an attempt to be stealthy. That he was bundled into an oversized trench coat, clinging to the wall in a way that immediately drew attention to the fact that he wasn’t meant to be there, and completely exposed on three sides spoke to a lack of practice at it. Gerry shook his head in despair and turned back to Rowlf. He was definitely going to get caught following her if he kept that up.

Two things occurred to Gerry simultaneously. The first was that if Sasha caught Jon following her, she was going to be furious. The second was that Jon was not paying enough attention to his surroundings to know if anyone other than Sasha noticed him. Word had gotten around that Gertrude Robinson’s body had been found—the Archivist is dead, long live the Archivist—and that probably meant that most servitors of the Fourteen knew there’d been an attack on the Archives, and that it sure as hell hadn’t been the new Archivist that had stopped it. He was weak, he was vulnerable, and all it would take was one strike to take him off the playing field, so to speak. Depending on how close the Unknowing was—he and Tim really had to get back into investigating that—the Stranger might try to take down the Archivist as a preventative measure. And while he wasn’t actually much less convinced than Tim that Jon had been the one to take Gertrude out, that didn’t mean he wanted anyone or anything else to take him down. In the first place, Tim, however reluctantly, was still somewhat protective of him, and if anything happened to him on his watch, he’d never get over it. Something—they weren’t sure who—had already tried once, and might very well have succeeded, had it not been for Tim’s timely arrival and intervention.

In the second place, if anyone was going to kill the little bastard, it deserved to be Tim.

Gerry turned around and, sure enough, Jon was heading in the same direction Sasha had gone. He heaved a sigh and looked down at Rowlf. “You up for an adventure, boy?”

Rowlf perked his ears up and wagged his tail ferociously. While Gerry knew he’d have got the exact same reaction if he’d asked if he wanted to have his balls reattached and taken off again—he did that every single time one of his dads talked to him—he decided to take it as assent and set off down the street.

Unlike Jon, Gerry had a lot of practice at being stealthy, and also with not being noticed in general. Creeping about, ducking behind signposts and shrubbery and around corners whenever you thought you’d been spotted, and moving in short, quick bursts were all great ways to get yourself spotted; it made you out of place, unusual, something to draw the eye. This was especially true if you were wearing a trench coat, for God’s sake, and especially if you were doing so on one of the warmest days of the month, when normal people were in their shirtsleeves. The streets they were walking down weren’t very populated, either, which meant he stuck out like a sore thumb. A very, very paranoid sore thumb.

Gerry knew better. Confidence, that was the key. Look like you belonged somewhere and nine times out of ten people would assume you did. His piercings, metal t-shirts, and dyed hair were akin to protective coloration—it warned people not to mess with him, but it did make him obvious. Look at me—now walk away. Having grown up being shoved into the background, he wore that with pride, usually; he wanted to stand out in a crowd, wanted to be noticed, wanted to take up space. But there were times he did want to blend in with the crowd and become a nonentity. Going to church with Tim and his grandfather. Strolling through small towns where their status as “outsider” made it hard enough to get answers and it was more than their lives were worth to even let their fingers touch for the briefest of seconds. Stealth missions.

Having Rowlf did help with following. Not because the dog was a skilled tracker, he absolutely wasn’t by nature and they hadn’t trained him otherwise, but because he stopped periodically to sniff a lamp post or low stone wall, giving Gerry the chance to stop in a perfectly normal and natural way. He did worry about how long this was going to take but, he rationalized, it couldn’t be that far if Sasha (and by extension Jon) were planning to walk it. Those sandals Sasha was wearing looked like the kind that were worse on the feet over long distances than actually going barefoot. And Rowlf’s stamina was pretty good—he was young, and of course he was a spaniel, so he would probably run the length and breadth of England without stopping if Gerry let him—so walking at a reasonable pace wouldn’t be too bad.

Keeping Sasha in sight wasn’t difficult—she obviously hadn’t figured out she was being followed, so she just kept moving in a straightforward manner—but Jon was going to be a problem. His jerky, erratic progress meant that if Gerry stopped every time he did, even he’d be able to figure out he was being stalked. Ordinarily he would have walked past him without looking in his direction, then moved aside and waited for him to pass again before resuming following, but since half the reason he was following was to make sure nothing attacked him, that wasn’t much of an option. He didn’t have eyes in the back of his head; the ones tattooed on his skin were more in the nature of protective charms. There was also the issue that Jon had met Rowlf before, and vice versa, which meant there was a chance of them recognizing each other. He could probably play it off by claiming to be Tim’s dog-walker—or, in a pinch, make up a fake name for himself and make sure Tim had never called him Gerry in front of Jon—but it wasn’t going to be optimal by any means.

Just as he thought it was no use and he’d have to try the ruse, Sasha turned into the entrance of the Tube station, which was…interesting. As far as Gerry knew, this was her lunch break; at the very least, he assumed Jon wouldn’t be following her if she was investigating a case and he knew it. Even though everything around the Institute was on the expensive side, there were plenty of places within easy walking distance that did a quick and inexpensive lunch. Gerry should know, he’d eaten at most of them with Tim over the past three years. If she was taking the Tube somewhere, she must be planning to take an unusually long lunch.

Jon hesitated, then strolled into the station with such obvious nonchalance he might as well have been humming his own theme music while doing it. Gerry rolled his eyes and looked down at Rowlf. “Come on, Brian, let’s go make sure Uncle Gadget doesn’t get taken by the Claw’s men.”

Rowlf lolled his tongue happily at Gerry, and they proceeded together into the station.

The Circle train was just pulling into the station, and somehow Gerry wasn’t surprised to see Sasha rush for it in a flurry of beads and gauzy cotton. Nor was he surprised when Jon turned up the collar of his trench coat, wrapped it more tightly around himself, and darted into the same car. He took his time and selected a car that had a seat by the window where he could watch to see when Jon and Sasha got off. They would be far less likely to notice him if he didn’t insist on sitting with them. It did mean leaving Jon relatively unprotected, but he took comfort in the fact that there was a limit to what anyone or anything could do to him without alerting the rest of the train…or at least those who knew what was what.

He almost missed Sasha getting off, and probably wouldn’t have noticed had he not seen Jon hurrying after her. He clucked to Rowlf and stepped off the train just before the doors closed, then emerged into the sunlight.

They were at Baker Street, an unusual choice for lunch, but Gerry was no longer certain that was what Sasha was up to. Rowlf, of course, was delighted by all the new things to see and smell—they’d not brought him up this way before—and it was more prone to tourists, even in late September, than Chelsea was, which meant far fewer people minding their own business and more wanting to pet the nice doggy. Rowlf ate the attention up, and Gerry answered questions as best as he could while keeping an eye on Sasha and Jon. The crowd wasn’t so thick he lost them, even as short as they were, but he wasn’t sure he could help Jon from this distance. Maybe the crowd of people taking pictures of themselves in front of the Sherlock Holmes Pub would provide a bit of a buffer, but not much. To his interest, Sasha kept going until she got to Marylebone—still crowded with tourists, at least enough that he and Rowlf weren’t conspicuous, except for all the can I pet your dog people.

He finally managed to extricate himself from a little girl whose mother urged her to go have lunch and let the nice doggy finish his walkies and made his way down the sidewalk just as Sasha finally turned into a building. Jon, of course, stopped dead a few feet away, standing by the lamp post at the curb like the main character of some 1940’s noir detective flick who had suddenly and unexpectedly found himself transported into a family musical comedy. Any minute now—yep, there it was, he reached into the trench coat and pulled out what Gerry could tell, even from a distance, was a pack of cigarettes.

Gerry kept walking down the sidewalk without seeming to look in Jon’s direction, not that he would have noticed if he had; as he lit the cigarette with shaking fingers, his eyes were firmly fixed on the building Sasha had gone into. Rowlf, thankfully, stopped to investigate a fire hydrant a couple of feet past it, which gave Gerry the opportunity to look back at what restaurant she’d gone into. He had to look twice, because it didn’t make any goddamned sense, but…no, Jon was still staring at it, too, that was the right one.

Sasha had come all the way out to Marylebone on her lunch hour…to go into Madame Tussauds?

That was…certainly a choice. Gerry was familiar with the museum, of course. He’d been once or twice, although he hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience. The waxworks were works of art, of course, and remarkably well done; there’d been more than one incident of celebrities whose sculpture was due to go up coming out, to this one or to one of the branches elsewhere in the world, and posing as a waxwork without anyone seeming to realize this one wasn’t fake. Still, something about the glassy stares in the perfectly smooth, perfectly still faces gave him the willies. He’d never been able to last more than about twenty minutes or so before he started having a hard time convincing himself he wasn’t the only actual living person in the entire building. And the self-portrait Marie Tussaud had done of herself reminded him uncomfortably of his mother.

There was a café just across the road that had outdoor seating and advertised itself as pet friendly. Gerry stopped in and bought two sandwiches, a large lemonade, and an apple fritter, then settled outside. Rowlf snapped up his roast beef quickly and lay down at Gerry’s feet; Gerry ate at a slower, more decorous pace and gave the air of people-watching in general while actually keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Jon.

He made a mental note to talk to Tim about going out on Saturday to get him a mobile phone. He’d resisted, largely because as a young man he hadn’t wanted to give his mother an easy way to get hold of him and now he just didn’t want to always be in reach for any Tom, Dick, or Harry who might want his attention, but there were definitely circumstances when it would be useful to be able to contact Tim while they were both away from the flat. Now, for instance. It seemed like something he ought to alert him about, and now he’d have to wait until he got home…or, more likely, until Tim got home. Somehow, Gerry didn’t want to talk to Tim where anyone else might overhear them about this. It was just…bizarre.

Why a wax museum? He really didn’t think it was to do with a statement; quite apart from the fact that Jon wouldn’t have felt the need to stalk Sasha if he knew she was just doing research, if there was a real statement involving waxworks it would almost certainly be to do with the Stranger, and Tim was ruthless about doing the practical research on those. Unless Sasha had sniped it out from under him. If she wasn’t meant to be doing the research, that could explain why Jon was following her. On the other hand, her movements had seemed…purposeful. Deliberate. She hadn’t had to think about anything, she’d just done it, which spoke to this being a well-established route. Tim had mentioned Sasha was taking extra long lunches a couple times a week without saying so in advance.

Frith in a fog, Gerry thought, which was proof he’d been spending too much time with Tim lately.

Half an hour later, Gerry caught the shift in Jon’s posture and guessed what was happening a moment before Sasha emerged from the front of the museum, smiling faintly but otherwise showing no signs of what she’d been doing in there. Gerry tossed off the last of his lemonade, placed his dishes in the receptacle designated for that purpose, and clucked to Rowlf, who got to his feet eagerly.

There were no surprises this time; Jon and Sasha both went straight back to the Institute. Gerry tailed them both until they were safely inside, then stood for a moment in indecision. He had come out here for a purpose…but Rowlf was probably getting tired, or at least restless. He ought to take him for a run in the park and then go home.

The mutt in question suddenly pricked his ears up and started wagging his tail hard enough his back half nearly lifted off the ground. Gerry didn’t need to think too hard about why, and sure enough, a moment later, Tim emerged from the side door, looking tired. Gerry rested a hand on Rowlf’s head and gave a low whistle.

Tim’s head jerked up, and he came over, smiling but also uncertain. “Ger? Everything okay? What are you two doing out here? Hey, boy,” he added to Rowlf, who immediately tried to put his paws on Tim’s shoulders and clean out his nostrils despite being too short for either. Tim kindly knelt and scratched his neck.

“We’re about to pack it in, but if you want company we’ll walk you wherever you’re going,” Gerry offered.

“Thanks. I’m just grabbing lunch. Sasha and Jon were both gone forever today, and I made Martin take his whole lunch break, so I’m starving,” Tim grumbled. “I just hope whatever they were doing was worth it.”

Gerry waited until they’d gone a few steps away from the Institute before he said quietly, “Madame Tussauds.”

Tim blinked at him. “What?”

“Sasha went to Madame Tussauds. Jon followed her.” Gerry shrugged at Tim’s incredulous look. “I actually came out here to see if I could find one of the other entrances to the tunnels, and Sasha was just coming out when I did. Jon came out a few minutes later and did the world’s worst job of sneaking after her, so I followed to make sure Jon didn’t get killed.”

“Thank you. I think.” Tim rubbed a hand over his face. “And they went to Madame Tussauds? Why?”

“Dunno. I couldn’t follow her in with Rowlf, and Jon didn’t go in either, so I stayed outside to watch. She was in there for about half an hour, then came out and came back to the Institute with Jon following.”

“And Jon?”

“Stood outside smoking a cigarette.”

“Damn him, he said he didn’t smoke,” Tim muttered. “And that means he didn’t actually eat. I’ll have to try to get a sandwich in him or something. Martin might have better luck, I don’t think he trusts me enough to accept any food I give him in case I’m trying to poison him.”

Gerry suppressed a smile. “Aww, it almost sounds like you care.”

“I have to keep him safe.” Tim’s eyes took on a distant look. “That’s my job. To keep him safe and whole.” He stopped and shook his head, then said in a more normal tone, “Anyway, even if he did…you know…that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him destroy himself. That’s also my job. I’m not going to let him take my revenge from me because he’s too stupid and obsessed to look after himself properly.”

“That’s my Tim.” Gerry kissed Tim’s cheek. “Go get lunch and go look after your Archivist. I’m going to take the nice doggy home and try to get the underpainting finished before you get home with the sushi. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Tim stopped him, pulled him around, and kissed him properly. That he was doing so in public, and so close to the Institute, spoke to how worried he was about what he’d just learned. Then he bent down, gave Rowlf one last pat, and disappeared into the café they were stood in front of.

Gerry watched him go. Then he sighed and, with one last glance over his shoulder in the direction of the Institute, he headed back to the Tube station he’d already seen one too many times today.

Next time he came looking for tunnel entrances, he thought, he was leaving the damned dog at home.