A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

“Uriel!” Rami suddenly had his blade out and was charging forward. Whether toward Uriel or the Hounds themselves, it was uncertain. Claire and Hero began backing up instinctively.

Uriel withdrew her sword. And the barrier fell.

The Hellhounds had faded to prowling ghosts when they could not cross Uriel’s ward. But with the barrier gone, shadows lurched from beneath the bridge, gobbling up the air. Hero raised his faltering gun at the nearest wraith. A gun, even a gun that started its life as an unwritten sword, would do nothing. They both knew that.

“Back!” Claire grabbed Hero by the shoulder and tried to yank him toward the gates.

“You can’t pass the walls.”

“The point is, you can!” Books were made by humans. The Mdina wards had to recognize them as such after all. “Get going.”

“Still not taking your orders, warden,” Hero said.

Claire snarled the filthiest oath she knew. Now, of all times, was not the moment for a villain to get ideas about heroism.

Rami jabbed at the Hellhounds with his blade while exchanging heated, indistinct words with Uriel. Rami’s sword produced enough lightning to dissuade the beasts, but did not have the same stopping power as Uriel’s wall. One Hound kept him busy while the others shuddered, blinking through existence to burst onto the bridge. An approaching Hellhound lurched, paws landing on the cobblestones with an oily, lethal grace. Claire jerked back but was forced to stop when a crackle of pain danced against the back of her skull. The ward sparked at her back. An echo sang in her mind. A song.

Claire prayed that Leto had carried out the rest of the plan. That Leto had made it. Would make it. That what she felt at the edge of her senses, a glimmer of a sound, was true and not wild delusion.

She licked her lips. They had seconds, not minutes. “You have to trust me, Hero.”

Hero moved to position his tall frame a breath ahead of her, pressing her back hard enough to bury her face in his soft velour jacket. She felt, more than saw, his brittle amusement. “Why start now?”

A chill ran up her spine, and she curled a hand into Hero’s jacket. “It’s what humans do.”

The nearest Hound, teeth dripping oblivion, leapt. Hero’s shoulders dipped and braced. Claire swung her arms around his waist and held tight just as the ward behind her crackled. Another set of hands latched onto her shoulders and yanked.

Claire had a momentary view of the darkening star-touched sky filled with the Hellhound’s red dagger teeth before she fell backward through the Mdina wards, Hero toppling in after her.

HELLHOUNDS, DESPITE THEIR CANINE appearance, were not deterred by thunder. The air crackled all around Rami, and the blade grew heavy in his hands as he moved, extending his sphere of reach ever farther to drive the creatures back from their prey.

Then a reprieve. The moment Claire fell back through the ward, the Hellhounds stopped. They sniffed the air, ignored Rami’s feints completely, and melted back into the night. Their absence underlined the stillness of stone, rapidly cooling in the evening air. Rami glanced behind, but the librarian and her rescue had disappeared into the city.

Rami leaned on his long sword a moment, breathing heavily. It had been a long time since he’d needed to raise his sword against anything, let alone against a foe like a Hellhound. He drew another staggered breath.

When he finally turned, he could see only Uriel’s back. She was hunched over the crumbling stone railing that marked the end of the bridge. It was crumbling more by the moment, as she slowly ground her fist into the cornice.

“What. Was. That?” The words growled out of Rami’s chest, and he found himself having to stop, take another heaving breath, and clamp down on the frozen horror sitting in his chest. Uriel still hadn’t turned, so Rami tried again, pleading this time. “Uriel! That was cold-blooded. You’ve gone too far.”

That brought her around. The archangel lurched toward him. The anger on her severe face didn’t surprise him; the tears did.

“Don’t talk to me about ‘too far,’ Ramiel of the Fallen. Not when you practically leapt to defend a demon—”

“The librarian is not a demon! That was a human soul you just unleashed Hellhounds on for no good reason. They were under our protection! You—”

“They have their god. Why should they be protected ?” All confidence and command were gone, leaving the jagged edge of misery behind. “Why should they have anything? The Creator is gone. Gone. She has abandoned us and that snake has the only means to bring her back.” Uriel’s ragged voice bounded off the stone and broke.

A shriveling feeling crept under Rami’s lungs. The collar of Uriel’s coat fluttered; a smear of dust flinched up one side of her cheek, stopping just short of the glow of fury-banked eyes. Uriel was fastidious. She would never have tolerated dirt on her face. But her hands came up not to wipe it away, but to knot in agony in her hair.

Uriel was the Face of God, to all. But to Rami, she’d become more: she’d become the face of home . The face of hope, the hope of returning. The hope of welcome. The hope of rest. She was shattering, bleeding violence at every jagged edge, and Rami’s hope bled with it. The cost was too high. He couldn’t follow this. An angel with a thirst for vengeance… no. Not again. He’d already seen the devastation that caused. He couldn’t go down that path again.

Even if that path was the only one that led him home.

He would say it was like a closing door, but the Gates of Heaven had never been open for him. Instead, a dull certainty welled in his chest, and with it a realization. Rami found himself reaching out a hand, but the tremors marked Uriel’s shoulders like delicate earthquakes. He dropped his hand. “Why do you really need the codex, Uriel?”

“For the Creator, you fool. For…” Uriel stopped, glaring sightlessly at the warded city through her tears. The archangel went quiet. “I can’t do it for much longer, Rami. None of the Host can. I don’t know why we ever thought we could. Running things… It’s all falling apart.”

Fear deepened Uriel’s flawless face, lines etched where none had been, not in the ages since the birth of the world. Shadows in a being of light were far, far out of his experience. All of this was. Rami was used to falling, to running, to wandering. Not this.

“I don’t know what else would bring Her home,” Uriel whispered.

There would be no answer that way. The Creator was a god, not a lost house cat. She would not be tempted back by a bit of warm milk left outside the door. Wherever She was, if She even was, She was exactly where She wanted to be.

The Creator was lost, and so was Ramiel’s way home. But he wasn’t as strong as the Creator; he couldn’t turn away, even now, not without another path presented to him. So instead, his mind numbly reached for what it knew best: duty. The codex was an obvious danger, and they couldn’t risk it in the hands of a demon like Andras, especially with the Creator absent. He sheathed his sword so as not to look at her. “What would you have of me now?”