A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“I knew you were a clever one.” Claire let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and made sure that Hero walked in front of her.

He made an offended sound. “I just find Heaven’s agents interminably dull.”

“Well, long as you quit trying to hare off, I’ll endeavor not to bore you.”

“Now, that you’ll never do.” Hero stuffed his hands in his pockets as they headed back up the street.

WHEN THEY RETURNED TO the alley to retrieve Leto, Andras was fussing at the boy’s waterlogged curls.

“That was fast,” Hero grumbled.

“Walter isn’t the only one who deals with artifacts like ghostlights. You’re easy to find.” Andras shrugged.

“Did the angels give you any difficulties?” Claire looked over the demon carefully for any signs of abuse.

“Child’s play. I left when the tall one threw a tantrum. All’s well in Hell, by the way.”

“What is this ?” Hero made an injured sound that drew her attention. He dangled a large handgun pinched between two fingers. His lip curled like he smelled a dead animal.

“It’s called a pistol, Hero. Your sword would have been a little obvious in streets filled with cell phones. The sword changed to fit, like our ghostlights.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Or do you need me to show you how to use it? It’s like a sword. Just aim the pointy end and—”

“I know how to use a gun,” Hero said archly, sniffing one more time to ensure the full measure of his disgust was felt. He checked the weapon over with surprising dexterity, then stowed it in his coat pocket. “The muse foisted all sorts of combat manuals on me for instruction before we left. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t an insulting choice. Guns are all noise and bluster. Nothing intelligent about their use.”

“You’ll get along fine with it, then,” Andras said.

“Oh! A sarcastic demon. How original!”

“Uh, did mine change too?” Leto came up with a familiar blue lighter and held it up to the sun. It still glowed faintly, but it was markedly dimmer.

The pool of light had dimmed to a sliver of a thumbnail, sending a shiver across Claire’s shoulders. Measuring ghostlights was imprecise, but Claire had never been out long enough for it to matter. Usually, when out on an errand, she took note of when she left Walter’s office and entered Earth. But between trips to and from Hell, plus the hours spent in Valhalla, time had gotten fuzzy. Claire couldn’t do more than vaguely guess how much longer they had.

“It’s fine,” Claire said, voice grim. “Let us proceed, if we’re all done complaining?”

Claire motioned to the street. Leto exchanged a humiliated look with Hero but declined to say anything about his detour. Claire trusted they’d work it out themselves. She focused on the codex’s song, the snip of card pinched between her fingers in her pocket, and began guiding them up this alley, then down another. They finally paused outside what appeared to be an apex of the tourist district. From a map on the wall, Leto identified where they were. “Valletta. That’s in Malta?”

“Yes. The island was a British trading port in my day,” Claire said.

“It appears to now be a stronghold of old men with poor taste in footwear.” Andras frowned as a portly gentleman trundled by, flip-flops smacking against the ancient stone streets.

“Regardless…” Claire leaned against the wall. “The codex pages aren’t here.”

“I thought the point of this expedition was to locate the thing?” Andras asked.

“I can .” Claire’s hand waved vaguely to the northeast, where past the city walls they could see cobblestones falling away to rolling, dry countryside. “It’s that way, but we can’t exactly set out cross-country without knowing how far. I still can’t understand why the path couldn’t get us closer.”

Leto’s attention had turned back to the tourist board. A map was printed in bright colors, dotted regularly with saccharine-cute icons of desirable landmarks for tourists. His fingers drifted away from the “You Are Here” mark. “Could it be Mdina?”

Claire squinted over his shoulder. “Possibly. Or it could be anywhere in the countryside. Impossible to say without getting closer.”

“There’s a tour bus that goes that way.” Leto pointed to a thick blue line.

Claire cast a wary glance at the stable of buses that roosted along the street farther down and spared an aggrieved thought for her missing bag. “As much as you’d like to play tourist, Leto, you forget—I don’t have my books anymore to fake a fare or spin a story.”

Sure enough, a steady line of dawdling tourists was purchasing paper stubs, which they handed to the bus attendant as they got on. Claire could feel Leto’s mind turning as he searched over the crowds before stopping. “Maybe we still have something. Ma’am, may I borrow Hero?”

“Borrow me?” Hero echoed.

“Not all of you.” Leto gave him a positively cheeky grin and tugged him by one arm with growing confidence. “Just need your smile.”

“THAT WAS HUMILIATING,” HERO muttered.

“Look at it this way—you made her day.” Leto swayed with the rock of the bus and felt a grin threatening to escape. It felt strange, made his cheeks hurt. He couldn’t remember, of course, but it felt like something he hadn’t done for a while. A buoyant feeling tugged up inside him, smothering the other stuff—the demon stuff—for a moment. It had helped him start to remember things, human things. Like teenage girls and the internet.

Which was handy in forcing a flustered Hero to sweet-talk the ticket vendor. He’d helped Claire, and more important, it was fun .

Leto was having fun. He was pretty sure that wasn’t something demons were allowed to do. It was a satisfying kind of scandal.

“She propositioned me!” Hero wailed. “As if I would like to go for a tumble like some cheap—”

“She asked if you were on Tumblr . You should take it as a compliment; girls never want to share their Tumblrs with guys. Jeez, relax.” Leto paused with a thought. “Maybe when we get back to the Library, we should find you guys some unwritten books on the internet. There’s got to be something Doctorow didn’t get around to, maybe. Wait—does the Library even get Wi-Fi?”

He turned to Claire for an answer, but the librarian was hunched in her seat, staring out the window at the hard clay furrows that rushed by. Leto wasn’t precisely sure where Malta even was, besides on Earth, but it was sweltering. And that said a lot, since he’d come from Hell. Heat split the roadway, and the tour bus’s sad excuse for shocks transmitted every pothole into a teeth-shattering bass line. Leto, and everyone else on the bus, clung to his seat for dear life.

Everyone except Claire. The “song” she was tracking appeared to be giving her trouble. She swayed with the bus, eyes closed and lips pressed in concentration. After she nearly toppled for the third turn in a row, Hero muttered something sharp under his breath. He shoved her into a free seat, neatly ignoring the death glare Claire pinned on him.