Darkness Hidden by Zoe Marriott

Author:Zoe Marriott [Marriott, Zoë]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406355284
Publisher: Walker Books
Published: 2014-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

LOOKING FOR AVALON

Museum Street.

It was another narrow road, made narrower by the motorcycle rank that took up half of the tarmac. On the corner there was a cafe with its white awning still out, although the window and door were shuttered and the little metal tables and chairs you’d have expected to see outside were missing. A hairdresser’s and the Japanese restaurant on the other side of it were both obviously closed too. But next to the cafe, and to the right of the hairdresser’s, there was a shop with a dark blue-green façade. Its large display window was unshuttered and an OPEN sign hung on the door. The plate glass was painted with swirling golden lettering that declared:

AVALON BOOKS

OCCULT AND ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLERS

EST. 1977. PROPRIETOR: L. LEECH

I read the words aloud, then repeated, “Nineteen seventy-seven.”

“That must be incorrect. The king said this being has dwelled here for centuries.”

I waved that away. “I suppose he’d have to change his name and business every now and again, to stop people getting suspicious. It’s just … seventy-seven was the year my grandfather came here from Japan with my dad.”

Shinobu eyed the lettering with more interest. “Perhaps it is a message?”

“If it is, that means he’s been waiting. For me. Waiting since – since – before I was born. And…” I gulped and squared my shoulders, “the only way to find out is to go in there.”

I moved forward. Shinobu quickly stepped in front of me and pushed the door open, holding it for me while making sure that his body was between mine and the interior of the building. Bodyguarding me again, damn it.

Then we were both inside, and the door had snapped quietly shut behind us.

The first thing that struck me was how big the place was. Not exactly TARDIS-like, but a lot larger than I’d been expecting from the exterior. This row of buildings had three storeys, and the height of the ceiling in here seemed to suggest that someone had taken out the second floor to create a double-height space for the shop.

The ceiling was painted the same vivid blue-green as the outside. Some really talented artist had mixed the darker shade with subtle swirls of silver and pale greens and blues, until you felt like you were looking up into a deep ocean. The walls were hidden behind fitted, crammed-full bookshelves of sand-coloured wood that climbed to about seven feet, and the space between the tops of the shelves and the ceiling was filled with … fish tanks. They ran, uninterrupted, from corner to corner. The things must have been custom-made to fit the gap. I squinted at them, expecting to see bright exotic fish or something. Instead I realized that the clean, sparkling water was filled with… Were those jellyfish? All different kinds of jellyfish, ranging from tiny white blobs barely as big as a button, to one vivid red umbrella-sized one with trailing streamers as long as my leg. They drifted through the tanks with that peculiar halting motion, in apparent harmony with one another.

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