The Masked City

She heard the sound of pursuing feet as she ran down the corridor, mentally plotting the quickest route round to the backstage passages. Left and down should work. She grabbed the door frame as she swung into a turn, her shoes skidding on the marble floor. There were no convenient doors to lock, no tapestries or carpets to throw in her pursuer’s way.

In desperation she snatched the packet of nuts from her pocket and threw it behind her. ‘Nuts, burst!’ She heard a noise like tiny fire-crackers going off, as fragments of sugared nuts sprayed in all directions, and a curse as the steps behind her stuttered. Even if they hadn’t done any damage, having a packet of nuts go off at ground zero must have startled him.

The passage bent further left and she saw a stairway just ahead of her. Almost there.

Then Sterrington stepped into a doorway to her right. Irene recognized her business suit, and the mask she’d purchased yesterday. She was holding something in her right hand, but it was too small to be a gun and too dull to be a knife. Irene decided to keep running, until the screaming jolt to her muscles took her completely by surprise. She went down in an uncoordinated lump and stayed down, her whole body spasming with shock.

Oh. Right. A Taser. Sterrington must have come from a world which has that technology. Irene’s mind framed curses, but her tongue and mouth were numb.

‘Pick her up,’ Sterrington said to the two pursuers, who had caught up with them. ‘Carefully, please.’

‘Do we need to get her identity checked?’ the professional-sounding pursuer asked. ‘The werewolf said he’d confirmed her smell, but if we take the wrong person to his lordship, he’ll be annoyed.’

‘No need,’ Sterrington said. ‘I can confirm her identity, even with a new mask. Bring her this way.’

Irene hung like a doll between the two men as they draped her arms over their shoulders, supporting her between them. She was unable to raise her head as they trailed Sterrington back along the corridor, and Irene’s feet scraped along the floor.

Sterrington was heading towards the entrances to the boxes, rather than backstage. So I’m being handed over to someone. Irene’s stomach sank. She tried to remember how long recovery from Taser-shock took, and wished it was faster.

She could hear the music again. A tenor and a soprano were singing a duet, the tenor swoopingly romantic, the soprano allowing herself to be convinced. It was almost incendiary in its intensity. Irene vaguely remembered that La Fenice had been burned down once or twice in some alternates, and wondered if this one had also gone up in smoke and been rebuilt.

It would make such a good story, after all …

Sterrington paused outside the door to a box. She reached across to touch Irene’s chin, tilting her face so that Irene could see her clearly. ‘You do understand that this is all professional?’ she said politely. ‘Nothing personal, Clarice.’

Really, on the whole, it was one of the nicer things that had been said to Irene when she was drugged, Tasered or otherwise unable to reply. But her inability to reply prevented an angry response, rather than the polite Of course, I quite understand, which Sterrington seemed to expect.

Sterrington nodded. ‘Later, then.’ She knocked on the door, a light rap of her knuckles, then turned the handle and held it open for the men to carry Irene in.

The box was dark, of course. All the light in the theatre was on the stage, and the boxes on either side were unlit, each one a secretive little world of its own - thick with curtains and dense with luxury. For a moment the sheer spectacle of the view took Irene’s breath away. The opera house was magnificent. Even in the darkness she could admire the network of white boxes along the theatre walls, the pale frescoed ceiling so very high above, the blaze of the high chandelier and the way the seats below were filled - no, packed full - with all the citizens of Venice.

There were two wide wing-backed chairs in the box, turned to face the stage. She couldn’t see who, if anyone, was sitting in either.

Then the chair nearer the stage turned, and Irene’s heart hit rock bottom as she saw who was sitting there. She wasn’t stupid, she had been suspecting it, but she would really have preferred for it to be anyone else. It was the Fae whose photo she had seen on Li Ming’s computer, the man she’d seen meeting Lady Guantes at the Train and with her at the tavern. Lord Guantes. And she was shut in an opera box with him.

‘Miss Winters, I believe.’ His voice was soft and deep, with a hint of command to it. He spoke in English. ‘Please come and sit down.’

The two men carried Irene across to the other chair and deposited her in it, before bowing to Lord Guantes and leaving. The door clicked shut behind them as a cannon sounded in the orchestra pit and the noise shuddered through the theatre. There were screams from the audience. Irene tried to work her mouth again, and this time she had a little more control as she considered her options. Collapse the whole box and try to escape in the confusion was tempting, but had some obvious flaws in the execution.

Lord Guantes gave her five minutes of peace, watching the action on the stage and listening to the singing. Then he turned to her. His dark-grey silks and velvets faded into the shadows of his chair, and his gloves concealed his hands, leaving the impression, for a moment, of a floating face. A floating skull. ‘Please do relax. We have a number of matters to discuss. You are by no means doomed. I don’t want you to panic, Miss Winters. Or would you prefer me to call you Irene?’

Should I fake being incapable of speech or movement? Not much point; he’d just wait for me to recover. ‘I would prefer Miss Winters, at our current stage of familiarity,’ Irene mumbled, her tongue thick in her mouth.