Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine Read Free Book Online Page B

special.” He then turned and walked back through the years of Ministry history. “No need to show me the way out. I know my way down here.”
    Wellington was adrift in a void. And there he remained with Agent Eliza D. Braun, in silence.
    Well, not complete silence.
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    â€œBy God, that drip is annoying!” Braun snapped suddenly. “Where is that coming from?!”
    From his desk, Wellington heard a single bell chime. The analytical engine had finished brewing the tea.

CHAPTER FOUR
Where Our Dashing Hero of History and Cataloguing Undertakes the Taming
and Training of This Shrew!
    W ellington glanced up from his desk, his eyes narrowing on the woman sitting opposite him. It had been a week. Only one week.
    168 hours.
    10,080 minutes.
    604,800 seconds.
    And Wellington Thornhill Books, Esquire, had felt every one of those seconds. Even during the weekend.
    He had no idea what he could have done to deserve such a punishment. He stared at the words jotted down in his journal only hours ago. And yet with all my accomplishments and accolades, I find myself asking repeatedly ‘If I am so bloody brilliant, how in the name of God on high do I continue to find myself here? With her?
    Very simple , his inner voice chided. You were captured. You’re lucky she wasn’t sent to kill you right on the spot out of worry you had been compromised.
    He dismissed the thought immediately. Wellington knew his value in the Ministry. No one could do what he did. Any replacement would take years to reach his clerical adeptness. No, he was indispensable.
    Wasn’t he?
    A tension rippled up along his spine to stop at the base of his skull: the omen of a splitting headache.
    Braun did not even bother to look at him, and Wellington was fully aware of his “over-the-spectacles” stare’s reputation: it was legendary in its ability to part the aether with a chill rivaling the place where he had been kept prisoner. Shaking his head, Wellington closed his journal concealed within the gutter of the ledger, tapped in its code to lock it tight, set it back in its place on the shelf next to his desk, and continued with his own cross-referencing, this time with a set of small clay vases just checked in by Agent Hill. His memoirs reminded him of how he wanted to bring up to Doctor Sound, once more, the deplorable condition of the Archives. Wellington had been promised improvements months ago, and still there seemed to be no steps in remedying the situation. He understood there was no other place for the Archives, and he accepted that the facility needed power; and what better power supply than the Thames?
    However it was criminal so many rare antiquities and irreplaceable documents were kept in a basement with a moisture quotient rivaling Welsh summers.
    Then he noticed it: the constant droning of the Ministry generators. That was all he heard. There was no other sound accompanying it. Nothing. Only the low rumble of their shared power source.
    â€œWhat happened to the dripping?” he asked, his voice now sounding too loud for the Archives.
    â€œWell, thank God! He lives!” Braun scoffed. “I thought I was the only one consumed by the boredom of this hole!”
    Wellington stared at her for a moment. Every slight against the Archives, he felt, was a slight against him. Perhaps he shouldn’t expect a field agent to be sensitive to that. “Agent Braun, do you not notice that? The drip is—”
    â€œGone. Yes. I mended that damnable leak my third day here. It was working under my skin a bit.”
    â€œAfter only two days?” he asked incredulously.
    â€œBooks, when you are interrogated, you achieve a sort of Zen state, knowing you are about to be tortured. That way, your threshold for pain is far higher.” She motioned around her. “Walking into your place of work and being subject to a torture that you have control to end