if I could see what she’d found so interesting. Pretty standard business correspondence: job openings and opportunities, accounts and invoices and memos covering the upcoming week’s meetings. But all very bland, very vague, almost too generic to be true. What was more interesting was what wasn’t on the desk: namely, not a single personal touch. No photographs, no coffee mug with an amusing saying on the side, not a mark out of place. Nothing on the walls, either: not a portrait or a print . . . or a window. Only a featureless box for someone to sit in and do . . . businesslike things. No, this wasn’t an office. It was something set up to look like an office, enough to fool an outsider.
Molly was rapidly approaching the end of her story, so I took the opportunity to quietly study her sister Isabella. The crimson biker leathers looked well lived in and hard used, like she’d done a lot of travelling in them, and she looked muscular enough to bench-press a Harley-Davidson without breaking a sweat. Even standing still she burned with vitality, as though she couldn’t wait to be out and about doing things. And, given that she was one of the infamous Metcalf sisters, probably wild and destructive things. She was handsome rather than pretty, had a hard-boned face stamped with character and determination, and wore surprisingly understated makeup. She had a certain dark glamour about her. A dangerous glamour, certainly, but there was something about Isabella that suggested she could be a whole lot of fun, if you could keep up with her.
She was the only woman I knew who had a worse reputation than my Molly. A supernatural terrorist, a twilight avenger, the Indiana Jones of the invisible world, been everywhere and done everyone. Isabella had given her life to the uncovering of mysteries and the pursuit of truth, and she didn’t give a damn whom she had to walk through or over to get where she was going. Always out in the darker places of the world, digging up secrets and things most people had enough sense to leave undisturbed. Just to ask questions of the things she dug up, and kick them in the head if they didn’t answer fast enough. She was looking for something, but I don’t think anyone knew what. Maybe not even her. I think she liked to know things. And if Molly was the wild free spirit of the Metcalf sisters, Isabella was by all accounts the tightly wrapped control freak who always had to be in charge.
I knew we weren’t going to get on. But she was Molly’s sister, so . . .
Having finally understood why Molly was so pleased to see her alive and well, Isabella grudgingly allowed Molly to hug her, but only briefly.
“So,” she said coldly, fixing me with an implacable gaze, “someone impersonated me? Someone actually dared? My reputation must be slipping. I did hear there was a rumour going around that I might have mellowed, and I can’t have people saying things like that about me. I can see I’m going to have to go out and do something appalling. Even more appalling than usual, I mean. Can’t have people thinking I’ve got soft; they’ll take liberties.”
“Trust me, Iz,” said Molly, “no one thinks you’ve got soft. There are still religions in some parts of the world where they curse your name as part of their regular rituals.”
“Well,” said Isabella, “that’s something. You have to keep the competition on their toes in this game. There’s never any cooperation when it comes to digging up graves, despoiling tombs and desecrating churches. It’s every girl for herself, and dog-eat-dog. Or perhaps that should be god-eat-god. . . . It’s all based on fear and loathing and a complete willingness to take risks no sane person would even contemplate. You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here, interrupting my work.”
“I thought you’d want to know that the Droods now know you know how to get past their defences,” said Molly. “I hate sentences like that; they’re
Molly was rapidly approaching the end of her story, so I took the opportunity to quietly study her sister Isabella. The crimson biker leathers looked well lived in and hard used, like she’d done a lot of travelling in them, and she looked muscular enough to bench-press a Harley-Davidson without breaking a sweat. Even standing still she burned with vitality, as though she couldn’t wait to be out and about doing things. And, given that she was one of the infamous Metcalf sisters, probably wild and destructive things. She was handsome rather than pretty, had a hard-boned face stamped with character and determination, and wore surprisingly understated makeup. She had a certain dark glamour about her. A dangerous glamour, certainly, but there was something about Isabella that suggested she could be a whole lot of fun, if you could keep up with her.
She was the only woman I knew who had a worse reputation than my Molly. A supernatural terrorist, a twilight avenger, the Indiana Jones of the invisible world, been everywhere and done everyone. Isabella had given her life to the uncovering of mysteries and the pursuit of truth, and she didn’t give a damn whom she had to walk through or over to get where she was going. Always out in the darker places of the world, digging up secrets and things most people had enough sense to leave undisturbed. Just to ask questions of the things she dug up, and kick them in the head if they didn’t answer fast enough. She was looking for something, but I don’t think anyone knew what. Maybe not even her. I think she liked to know things. And if Molly was the wild free spirit of the Metcalf sisters, Isabella was by all accounts the tightly wrapped control freak who always had to be in charge.
I knew we weren’t going to get on. But she was Molly’s sister, so . . .
Having finally understood why Molly was so pleased to see her alive and well, Isabella grudgingly allowed Molly to hug her, but only briefly.
“So,” she said coldly, fixing me with an implacable gaze, “someone impersonated me? Someone actually dared? My reputation must be slipping. I did hear there was a rumour going around that I might have mellowed, and I can’t have people saying things like that about me. I can see I’m going to have to go out and do something appalling. Even more appalling than usual, I mean. Can’t have people thinking I’ve got soft; they’ll take liberties.”
“Trust me, Iz,” said Molly, “no one thinks you’ve got soft. There are still religions in some parts of the world where they curse your name as part of their regular rituals.”
“Well,” said Isabella, “that’s something. You have to keep the competition on their toes in this game. There’s never any cooperation when it comes to digging up graves, despoiling tombs and desecrating churches. It’s every girl for herself, and dog-eat-dog. Or perhaps that should be god-eat-god. . . . It’s all based on fear and loathing and a complete willingness to take risks no sane person would even contemplate. You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here, interrupting my work.”
“I thought you’d want to know that the Droods now know you know how to get past their defences,” said Molly. “I hate sentences like that; they’re
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