• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 304 0

back on an easy chair to read about the fabulous life of General Charles Gordon. Four hours later she had worked her way up to his correspondence with the great Victorian explorer, Sir Richard Burton, and was reading in rapt fascination when she came to a page that was missing. She didn’t think much of it; it was a very old volume, and perhaps six or seven other pages were missing as well. But in a later letter to Burton, Gordon referred to his letter of June 3, 1883, and mentioned that he had used it as the basis for a magazine article. When she turned back to see what he had said on June 3, she found that was the letter that was missing.

She tried to continue reading.

The letter. Find the letter.

“Who was that?” she said, leaping to her feet, pistol in hand.

The letter. June 3, 1883.

It wasn’t a voice. It was more as if the wind itself had formed the words.

The letter.

“All right, all right!” she said to the empty room. “I heard you.”

The letter.

She walked to the door, then thought better of it. There was no way she could go down to the lobby and walk out the front entrance without picking up an escort, and she definitely didn’t want an escort for what she was about to do.

She decided to leave the Black Demons behind again. The last thing she needed was to be stopped by the police for walking around with weapons in the middle of the night, and robes were too bulky for what she had in mind.

She opened the French doors and stepped out on the balcony. There was no fire escape, but every room on this side of the hotel had balconies. She climbed over the edge, holding on to the railing, and lowered herself as much as she could. Then she began swinging her legs back and forth, and when they were over the balcony below she released her grip and landed lightly, then repeated the process, landing on the sidewalk.

She looked around to make sure she hadn’t been seen, then began walking quickly to the library. It was locked, of course, but she had known it would be. She walked around to the alley where she had fought the huge man earlier in the day, again used the pile of discarded crates and boxes to reach the insulated power line, and walked along it to the nearest roof. Then she walked over to the library. Its roof was twenty feet higher than the roof she was on, but there was an ornamental chimney—she was sure it was never used, not in this climate—with enough handholds that she felt confident she would be able to catch it without falling to the alley below.

Her decision made, she hurled herself through the air. Her outstretched fingers latched onto a pair of weeping bricks that extended out from the chimney, and she slowly pulled herself up. Her feet found purchase, and she began climbing the chimney. She reached the roof a moment later.

She had hoped to find a door, or some means of entering the library, but there wasn’t any. She walked to the edge, leaned over, and checked the nearest window. Closed. She methodically made her way around the building, checking each window—and finally came to one that was cracked open.

She slung her legs over the side of the roof and lowered herself until she was hanging by one arm, opposite the window. With her free hand she raised the window until it was fully open.

Her problems didn’t end there. This wasn’t like a balcony she could drop onto. Any kind of straight drop would send her to the pavement thirty feet below. She could have swung her body, as she did on the hotel’s balcony, and crashed her feet through the window, but she didn’t want to alert any guards or passing police.

She extended her body to its utmost, and found to her relief that her toes just reached the windowsill. She slowly released her grip on the edge of the roof, balancing precariously. She felt herself slipping, unable to hug the building as she lowered herself. Then, just before she fell to the ground, she managed to slide her feet inside the window, and she now slid down until she was sitting on the ledge with her legs inside the building. From there it was just another few seconds before she was