Page 42 of Better in Black
Not knowing what else to do, Thomas attempted to bounce the twins and shush them gently; he could barely focus on what washappening. What was happening? He wondered if anyone would mind if he started screaming like the twins were. Very sensible of them, really.
The man—Zachary, somehow—had drawn a brass pocket watch from his vest and examined it closely. He harrumphed and hopped down from the table. “I don’t know what game you lot are playing, but I don’t appreciate it at all. I have a very important appointment, and after that I shall probably have lunch at my club.”
He pushed past Alastair and began striding up the stairs. Alastair seemed frozen in shock and didn’t try to intercept him. At the top of the stairs the man surveyed the laboratory. “What a ridiculous place,” he snapped. “And I’ve no memory of how I got here. I suppose you two kidnapped me. You’d best stay away, lest I inform the constabulary.”
Zachary slammed the door at the top of the stairs, setting the twins wailing again—just when they were starting to calm down, of course. Alastair was making for the stairs to follow his brother; Thomas, without a hand free, scrambled into his way to stop him. “Get the mirror!”
Alastair blinked at him, then appeared to register the wisdom of this suggestion and went back for the silver mirror. There were sheets of oilcloth draped over a lamp in the corner; he grabbed one and carefully wrapped the mirror in it.
“What do you think it is?” he said frantically.
“How should I know?” Thomas said, even more frantically. The twins wailed louder. “Some magical thing of Henry’s! Some cursed artifact from a demon dimension! You know, just the sort of thing you’d leave lying around for anyone to take—”
There was a loud scream from upstairs.
Alastair shoved the mirror into his inside jacket pocket and took the stairs two at a time. He flung the door to the parlour open, to the sound of a second scream.
Thomas followed, careful not to drop a wailing twin. In the parlour stood Zachary, his arms folded impatiently. Across from him was an older woman, presumably Mrs.Paisley, who had screamed once encountering a strange man in the house, a second time at Alastair’s flinging the door open, and now a third time as Thomas emerged with her charges.
“Madam,” Zachary was saying, his voice calm but clearly irritated, “as I’ve already said, I’m leaving now.”
“Zachary, wait,” Alastair protested. His brother ignored him and began fussing with a hat and umbrella he found on the coatrack. Thomas, who had been in actual melee combat with actual demons that was less fraught than this moment, used every ounce of his fortitude to make himself walk over to Mrs.Paisley.
“I’m Thomas Lightwood; this is Alastair Carstairs, and that is his brother Zachary,” he said calmly. “We were just visiting Charlotte, and she gave us the twins to hold until you returned. Here, let me just—”
Mrs.Paisley snatched the twins out of Thomas’s grasp. “What on earth were you doing, taking the babies down to the laboratory? There’s dangerous things down there!”
“So we’ve learned,” said Thomas, darkly.
Behind Thomas the front door closed with a click. Zachary had made his escape. Alastair swore, loudly.
“Not in front of the children!” Mrs.Paisley said.
“They’ll have to learn sometime!” Alastair cried, and flung the door open to give chase.
Thomas, who was growing rather tired of having to remainthe calm, collected one, started to tell Mrs.Paisley to please thank Charlotte for her hospitality and apologize to her that they’d had to run—
He cut himself off as Alastair’s running footsteps faded in the distance. “Never mind,” he said. “Tell her whatever you like.” And leaving Mrs.Paisley goggling behind him, Thomas hurried after Alastair and his transformed brother.
—
Out on the pavement, Alastair was staring in frustration at the back of a hackney cab rattling away from them, already almost to the corner. Thomas looked about wildly, grabbed Alastair’s arm, and pulled him across the street to where another cab was just dropping off a dignified-looking mundane couple.
“I never!” the mundane woman exclaimed as Alastair all but leapt over her to get in the newly available carriage.
“Sorry,” said Thomas to the mundane couple. “Sorry, sorry. Urgent problem. Sorry.”
Alastair reached out and clapped the carriage driver on the shoulder, pointing with his other hand. “Follow that carriage!” he commanded.
The driver turned to look at him in amazement. The two of them stared at one another for a moment. Then the driver said, in a hushed tone, “Sir—I have been waiting the whole of my career for someone to say those words to me.”
He roused the horses, and the carriage took off at speed. “Good man!” Alastair cried, as the cab swung out into traffic. Thomas nearly fell off his seat.
Zachary’s cab had turned off the square, and their own cab followed. Thomas willed the horses faster: Zachary wasn’t getting any farther ahead, but they weren’t catching up, either.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Thomas said, turning to Alastair, who was patting down his pockets.
“If I had to guess?” Alastair said grimly. “Ice cream.” He withdrew a small notebook from his pocket and tore a sheet of paper out of it.
