Through The Looking Glass

Clara's heels clicked across the floor in a way that was becoming uncomfortably familiar to Flynn. She'd been living in the Library for around three weeks now, the two of them falling into an uneasy routine, with an even more uneasy rapport springing up between them. They largely left each other alone, Clara completing the menial tasks Flynn laid out for her, a list that usually involved cleaning the display cases or dusting the bookshelves, interspersed with random bouts of filing and typing that didn't really fill any purpose beyond keeping Clara occupied.

But Flynn kept up the pretence Clara was contributing towards her keep, because it kept her happy and out of his hair, leaving him to get on with his duties as the Librarian. The Library was lending to the lie, creating enough dust and disorder to ensure Clara didn't have the time to cause any more trouble. The Library cleaned itself, it didn't require Clara's help, but while she was here, it let its standards slip a little. In return, it provided her with all the necessary facilities needed for the average female, Flynn haphazardly providing the rest.

As Clara ran a cloth along the lowest bookshelf, Flynn set down the tome he'd been perusing, his brow furrowing slightly as he watched her work. She seemed content enough, adapting to the bizarre turn her life had taken with apparent ease, but he knew that appearances were deceptive. Clara's character might have been of a pragmatic, practical bent, but whenever he checked in on her during the night, he would hear her crying, her sobs echoing around his office. Sometimes when she thought he couldn't see, she'd lean her forehead against a bookshelf, or her eyes would widen at something he'd say or do, her face taking on a shellshocked expression that she'd swiftly try to conceal.

Sensing his stare, Clara glanced up, her eye catching his. To his surprise, she smiled at him, a small, uncertain smile, but a smile nonetheless. But Flynn didn't smile back, and Clara's smile faded, her lower lip trembling slightly. She turned her back on him, pretending to be engrossed in wiping a mark off the oak wood. Flynn picked up his book again, trying and failing to focus on the page in front of him, the words dancing wildly before his eyes.

"She still here?" Charlene boomed as she strode through the doors, making Flynn start violently.

"Yes, I'm still here," Clara snapped over her shoulder.

"Hello, Clara," Charlene said coldly.

Clara just smiled sarcastically at Charlene before turning her attention back to the bookshelf.

"I didn't know you needed a housemaid," Charlene said to Flynn, nodding at Judson who bowed in his mirror to her.

"I don't need anyone," Flynn retorted, slamming his book down on the desk, ignoring its loud Ow! "But until I work out why the Serpent Brotherhood want to kill Hartley, she has to stay here. It's not safe for her to leave the Library until I do so, and I'm no nearer to working out the answer to that particular puzzle than I was three weeks ago."

"Have they gone to ground?" Charlene asked.

"I think so," Flynn said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, "whatever it is they're doing, I don't think they intended for me to stumble across their sordid little scheme."

Clara glanced up at Flynn, her jaw tightening slightly. After a lot of emotional blackmail, Flynn had explained a very little about the woman with the dagger; that her name was Lamia and she was connected to an organization called the Serpent Brotherhood. The old Clara would have laughed in his face at this, but not now, not after what had happened, what she had seen.

Other than that, he'd refused to tell her anything else, stating the less she knew, the better. But both of them knew that Clara couldn't live in a state of ignorance forever, cleaning shelves and making cups of tea; that sooner or later reality would return to claim her. Yet she had nowhere else to go. No matter where she went, she wouldn't be safe. She was a marked woman.

"You know, maybe this is life's way of forcing you to let somebody into that icy fortress you call a heart," Charlene said quietly, startling Flynn again, her words making Clara stiffen. "Hell, maybe it's the Library itself who made your path cross with Clara's that day. Out of all the Starbucks that damn door could have led to, it just had to be the one she was in."

"Don't be ridiculous," Flynn said from between gritted teeth.

"She's here, isn't she?" Charlene pointed out, gesturing impatiently to Clara. "She's here in the Library with you, Flynn. Is the message getting through yet or do I have to hit you over the head with the Magna Carta again?"

Flynn just ignored her by sticking his fingers into his ears and humming the National Anthem very loudly.

"The flood-gates are opening, Flynn Carsen," Charlene said ominously, heading for the doors, "they're opening whether you like it or not."

~*~

"Lamia's accent," Clara said suddenly, making Flynn look up from the scroll he was studying, "it wasn't real. I mean, it wasn't her voice."

"She's actually British or English or whatever you call it," Flynn said tiredly, "she was just playing games with you, pretending to be American. Her French accent is very popular with her male victims though."

"Oh."

"It's what Lamia likes to do best," Flynn continued, getting to his feet, "toying with her food before eating it."

Clara just passed her cloth from one hand to the next, not sure what to say. Charlene's words that morning had shaken her up, but she hadn't the courage to broach the subject with Flynn, sensing she would be crossing a line with him. Why he was so determined to shut the world out, she didn't know, and she supposed it was none of her business either, but it didn't stop her from fervently wondering why he was that way.

"Don't wait up for me," Flynn said, shrugging on his tweed jacket, "and don't forget about the Christmas pudding in the oven. That'll do for your supper. I'll just run down to Marrakech for a bite to eat."

Clara just nodded, making Flynn glance sharply at her. She had that shellshocked look on her face again, the sight of her so making something inside him snap. Before he realised what he was doing, he took her face between his hands, fiercely kissing her brow, making her look even more shellshocked. There was no passion in his kiss, it was chaste, platonic, but it still shocked Clara with its suddenness.

"You're going to be alright," Flynn said quietly. And then he was gone, as though he'd never been there.

Till I start wondering, I start wondering
Till I start wondering, I start wondering
If you are ever here at all...

~*~

Clara paced the ground, heart thudding in her chest at the sight of the row of doors in front of her. It was now or never. If she was here for a reason, it was up to her to find out why. Maybe Charlene was right and it wasn't co-incidence after all that her path had crossed with Flynn's that day. But she would only find out by taking fate into her own hands. Taking a deep breath, she selected a door at random, not knowing if it would take her to where Flynn had gone. But she had to try, and she turned the handle, expecting resistance, only to find it opening with ease under her fingers.

She stepped through the door, feeling like Alice on the threshold of Wonderland, only for the world to suddenly shrink around her, forcing her onto all fours. For a moment it felt like the air was being squeezed out of her lungs, and then the invisible hand released its grip on her, making her slump forwards, her breath coming in huge rasps. As it dimly dawned on her she was in a tunnel of sorts, she also realized with a faint exultation the Library had allowed her here, that it hadn't barred its doors to her like it usually did.

Spurred on by this thought, she started to crawl forwards, following the sound of voices, the darkness dulling her senses whilst sharpening others. As she moved, there was a loud tearing noise, the tight white lace dress she'd donned that morning now seemingly doomed for the dustbin -

The ground gave way beneath her, the palms of her hands hitting air for a moment. Then she was tumbling forwards, almost head over heels, her body slamming into merciless concrete. Spluttering, she sat up, pushing the hair out of her face, only to find herself looking up at a furious Flynn. Behind him stood three people, a tall woman with blonde hair scraped back into a bun, wearing some sort of black military uniform and holding a gun aimed in Clara's direction, whilst nearby were two men in leather jackets, their hands raised in apparent surrender.

"What are you doing here, Hartley!?" Flynn hissed, helping her to her feet.

"What are you doing here?" Clara countered.

"Who the hell are you people?" the blonde woman demanded, her voice shaking slightly, even as her grip on the gun remained steady.

"Hello again, Fraulein," Flynn said formally, bowing to her, hiding his anger as he did so. "I'm nobody and she's nobody," he said, gesturing to Clara.

"We're Mr. and Mrs. Nobody," Clara said hastily, following his lead, only for Flynn to shoot her a funny look.

"If you're nobody, what on earth is the Opal of..." the blonde asked, her voice trailing off in confusion, making Clara realise she was continuing an earlier conversation, one her sudden entrance had interrupted.

"The Opal of Sumara," Flynn said loftily, dusting his suit down, "Teutonic knights recovered it from Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, but it was stolen by the Nazi Occult Division and stored here, forgotten after the war..." He suddenly sped off towards a dark corner, Clara standing there helplessly as he rummaged amongst the rubbish there. Her gaze met the blonde woman's, but there was no solidarity to be found in that quarter.

"So much for sisterhood," Clara muttered, turning her back on her.

"A-ha!" Flynn shouted, ripping off a dust-sheet, revealing some sort of sarcophagus. "It's still here! Locked in its original magical safe!"

"And this is good?" Clara asked, wrapping her arms around herself.

"It summons demons," Flynn replied as he pulled out a stethoscope from the inside of his tweed jacket, "but it doesn't control them."

"One little opal does that?" Clara squeaked, exchanging another glance with the blonde, who still had her gun trained on her, and not Flynn funnily enough.

"Hence why it's so valuable to the wrong people," Flynn said, studying the sarcophagus with an expert eye, "and dangerous to the right ones."

"Dangerous?" one of the men in the leather jackets asked nervously.

"Valuable?" the other asked slyly.

"And that illustrates my argument perfectly," Flynn said smartly.

Clara glanced at the men, wondering what their deal was, barely registering the box at their feet. The sly one raised his eyebrows suggestively at her, the other ignoring her very existence. She turned away from them, Flynn now going off at a tangent about something else altogether, Clara catching the phrases careless and homicidal. Despite the situation, she sensed Flynn was showing off, but she wasn't fool enough to believe it was for her benefit.

"Another common pair," Flynn said to himself, donning the stethoscope and pulling something small out of his pocket.

"Pair of...?" the blonde asked, shifting her gun from Clara to the men instead.

"Of adjectives," Flynn explained, "they travel in pairs. Unlike me and Mrs. Nobody here," he added, shooting Clara a dirty look, before hitting the sarcophagus with a tuning fork, a tinging sound ringing round the room.

"What?" the blonde woman asked, bewildered now.

"Do try and keep up," Flynn sighed, waving the tuning fork over different corners of the sarcophagus before suddenly slamming the furthest edge with the palm of his hand, making a cloud of orange dust suddenly explode in mid-air like a mini Hiroshima. Clara leapt backwards like a scalded cat, the blonde standing her ground, the men reeling sideways, arms flung over their faces.

"Oh," Flynn said, staring at the sarcophagus.

"Oh what?" Clara asked, stepping forwards.

"I've apparently set off a trap," Flynn said slowly, "which I have..." he pulled out a fob-watch from inside his waist-coat, stretching its silver chain to almost breaking point as he studied its frontispiece, "about three minutes to disarm."

Clara just gawped at him.

"What happens if you don't disarm this device?" the blonde asked quickly as Flynn removed the stethoscope from around his neck.

"The Opal transforms every corpse within a hundred mile radius into flesh-eating zombies," he said, rifling through his satchel, "which seems unnecessarily dramatic, but there you go" -

- "Well, stop it!" Clara cried. "Don't just stand there talking about it! Do something for chrissake!"

"I'm trying to in case you haven't noticed!" Flynn flung back, sounding like a truculent teenager.

"I don't see you doing it," Clara snapped, stomping over to him. "So bloody sort that sarcophagus out or else!"

"Or else what?" Flynn taunted. "You'll slap me again? Or slam a cream puff in my face like last time?"

"Save it for later, guys!" the blonde shouted, sounding nervous. "Time's ticking!"

"This is a very complex alpha-numeric code," Flynn retorted, "it requires finesse and tender loving care!"

"So do I!" Clara bellowed. "But I'm not going to turn everybody into the living dead, so get to it, big boy!"

Flynn sighed heavily before bending over the sarcophagus, humming Greensleeves very loudly, almost as though he was trying to drown something out. It was at that moment Clara realised there was something beeping. "Latin Bible verses," Flynn muttered to himself, "which I can't decipher because I can't concentrate due to that beeping nuclear bomb in the corner over there!" he shouted, making Clara jump violently.

The blonde looked at the men, who looked down at their feet, the box lying on the ground between them suddenly becoming the centre of attention. Then the blonde suddenly struck the men, scattering them sideways as she lunged for the box, snatching it up. But Clara was too busy watching Flynn's dirt-smeared face contort in a variety of grotesque shapes to do much else. One second he looked like he smelt something terrible, the next it looked like he was taking his last breath. It was oddly fascinating to watch, capturing Clara's attention completely -

Suddenly bullets were whizzing through the air, making Clara duck down, throwing her arms across her head. But Flynn remained oblivious to the fire-fight, throwing back his head before sneezing very loudly.

"Bless you!" Clara called out before she could stop herself.

"Say it in Swahili and I'll love you forever!" Flynn called back, whipping out a measuring tape.

"Akubariki!"

"Now Flynn loves you forever!" Flynn boomed, manically measuring the sarcophagus from all angles.

"Save it for the honeymoon, Romeo!" the blonde hollered.

"The moon really is made of honey, now you come to mention it" -

- "Never mind that!" the blonde cried. "What the hell do I do with this thing!? How do I defuse it!?"

"Of course!" Flynn beamed. "It's the stations of the cross!"

"For the bomb?" Clara hazarded, lowering her arms.

"For the bomb?" the blonde echoed hopefully.

"No, no, no," Flynn said, "it's for the death-trap. For the bomb, it's actually much easier."

"How?" the blonde demanded, firing another round.

"Is it black cylinder or round like a soccer ball?"

"Cylinder!" the blonde said, before leaping backwards as a bullet hit the box, sparking.

"Pop open the side casing," Flynn instructed, unperturbed. "See that blue wire?"

"Yes!"

"Don't touch the blue wire," Flynn said reprovingly, making Clara roll her eyes.

"Arrggh!" the blonde screeched. "Start with don't, start with don't!"

Flynn just ignored her, mumbling about the number eight and crosses again, confusing Clara.

"There are fourteen," the blonde said, bewildered, confusing Clara even further.

"Only eight in the Bible," Flynn corrected her, "John is the fourth Gospel condemned for execution, Book 19, Verse 17, Latin numerals 4, 1, 9, 1, 6, 1, 7," he counted, operating the sarcophagus like some kind of switchboard. Then there was a sharp hiss as something rose out of the depths of the sarcophagus, a sort of small cylinder decorated with a swirling sideways pattern, reminding Clara of a Grecian pillar gone wrong. The sight of it made Flynn cheer like a cheerleader, Clara wrapping her arms around her head again, realising with a sickening jolt just how out of her depth she was at this moment.

"Now we're fifty per cent less likely to die," Flynn said in a theatrical aside to the cowering Clara.

Before she could say anything, one of the men rushed out from behind a pillar, firing his rifle at the blonde, roaring like a lion as he ran. But the blonde kept her nerve, shooting him in the shoulder, bringing him down.

"What were you saying?" Clara squeaked, hastily crawling over to the sarcophagus.

"Ssh, Hartley," Flynn reproved, "I'm trying to remember the words to the Macarena."

"The Macarena!?" Clara hissed, now clinging unceremoniously to his leg.

"Final disarm, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6," Flynn intoned.

"Yours or mine?" the blonde asked nervously.

Flynn thought about it for a moment. "Improbably, both," he said, his eyes meeting hers. Then in almost synchronization, they turned to their respective death-traps, saying at the same time, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, Clara holding her breath until the beeping stopped, another sharp hiss filling the air, Flynn snatching up the Opal that glowed amongst the smoke like a star in a winter sky.

"Give me the bomb," a voice said, making the blonde whirl around, only to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"3, 1," Flynn said coolly, tucking the Opal inside his tweed jacket.

"3, 1?" the blonde echoed, raising her hands, the man reaching for the bomb.

"There are 30 rounds in an AK-47 magazine," Flynn said like he had all the time in the world, "and 1 in the chamber. I heard him fire 31 shots, but I didn't hear him reload."

The man pulled the trigger, but it just clicked uselessly, the blonde suddenly attacking him, bringing him down, Flynn looking unmoved by the sight of such extreme violence. He glanced down at Clara's frightened face, something shifting behind his gaze she couldn't decipher.

"When's the wedding?" Flynn asked suddenly, startling her.

"What wedding?" Clara asked, getting unsteadily to her feet.

"Yours, I presume," Flynn said, gesturing to her, "what with that dress and everything."

"Shut up," Clara said, punching him on the arm.

"What wedding?" the blonde asked, turning around, only to find an empty space where the strangers had been standing.