A Hackwith - The Library of the Unwritten

Might be, the unwritten have an idea or two of their own on how their story should go. Might be, they’d have reason to be angry. Pray they never wake up.

THE STENCH OF CRACKLING leather and burned ink stole the breath from her lungs. Claire tried to breathe through her mouth, until her tongue clotted with paper ash. The Library’s tall stacks slumped like defeated giants, ripped from their moorings and spilling their contents in a trail of paper and leather around the front lobby. Black blood and fading sheaves were the evidence of those crushed underfoot or eaten by the wyrm’s acid. So many books damaged, so many stories lost.

Claire’s eyes were reserved for one book in particular.

Soot and ink nearly completely covered Hero’s skin, painting his bronze hair gray. He was barely conscious, but swollen and split lips twitched up as he tried to open his injured eye. The Horror held a claw over Hero’s pages, uncertain what to do now.

Andras forgot his game entirely as his yellow eyes lingered over Claire, taking in her patches of blood, stopping at the amulets looped around her neck. For the time being, surprise and the dangerous sizzle of Rami’s sword kept the Horrors at bay. The gargoyle creaked at her back, wings flexing to create a protective shadow over their heads. It let out a low, warning rumble. Claire raised her hand, and it stilled.

Andras’s eyes narrowed. “It appears the Hellhounds have not lived up to their reputation.”

“Can’t blame them too much for their failings,” Claire said. “Demons are so unpredictable.”

“We share that with humans.” He opened his mouth as if to say something more. It would be just like him to have a dramatic speech, Claire thought. But he seemed to think better of it. His hand twitched, and the time to talk was over. “Kill them.”

The Horrors surged like the tide.

Rami strode forward and met one group, gray feathered coat billowing as he buried his blade in the chest of the first demon that approached, then pulled it cleanly out to strike at another. The smell of ozone and storms and fury filled the air, and he moved like a powerful dervish. A building storm of lightning and force. Ramiel, the Thunder of God.

The gargoyle had swept aside the nearest Horrors with one hand, and the wyrm surged and attacked. The serpent twisted and coiled around the bellowing creature. The wyrm was bigger, but the gargoyle’s stone skin was slick, difficult to gain purchase on. They clashed in a titanic roil of scale and stone that knocked another shelf to the ground.

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw Leto hunker behind a shelf near the door as he’d promised.

Leto. Matthew Hadley.

He might have been, what, a nephew? Grandchild? Had it really been that long? The impossible thought had a stranglehold on her heart. In a whisper, while they prepared in the hallway, Rami had told her what he knew and how he’d found Leto. It was too much for a coincidence.

And too much to think of now. Claire ducked as a wing swept over her head, and she focused her attention on the demon at the eye of the storm. Andras took one look at the titans clashing over their heads, cast a sour look at Brevity, then turned and ran.

Claire cursed and rushed forward to where Brevity supported Hero. The Horrors were beginning to move again. “Arlid! Anytime now!”

A grackling cry built from the doorway. A conspiracy of ravens, all those freed from the Arcane Wing and more, shrieked in and swept wide passes through the air, out of the reach of the demons. They dove in groups to rake sensitive tentacles and scalps of the Horrors, claws coming away bloody. The flock swept around and hurtled themselves at the ground. Birds disappeared in a flurry of feathers and came up leather-clad fighters, wielding thick swords and cruel sickles.

Andras’s Horrors, suddenly flanked, whirled and lost formation. Arlid cast the nearest one a manic grin and lopped its spiny head off.

A shattering sound drew Claire’s attention. Two ravens had cut off Andras at the entrance to the stacks. The demon held them at bay with his strange black dagger. Then he ripped a red-gemmed bauble from his coat and flung it against the nearest shelves. An unnatural fire bloomed where it shattered. Claire’s heart stopped as the first books began to crackle. She staggered to her feet.

Then another row of unwritten books smoldered and leather began to boil and pucker.

“Brevity!” Panic made Claire’s voice shrill and sour.

“On it!”

Brevity didn’t bother with running: one moment she was behind her; the next, she emerged from a shadow near the flames. She ripped a light globe from the wall as she passed and bolted toward the fire, dodging Horrors and ravens locked in combat. She twisted the globe sharply until it turned blue and began spraying a fine jet of delicate, glimmering foam at precise places on the shelves. The foam evaporated the moment it touched the books, taking the fire with it. “I’ve got this!”

Claire turned back. Andras stepped over the burned bodies of the ravens. He tilted his head, as if acknowledging her, before disappearing into the stacks. She cursed and moved after him.

“Claire.”

The hoarse voice arrested her steps. Hero had propped himself up on the ground and made attempts to bunch his coat over the worst wounds. Black ink spread too fast between his fingers. His face was swollen and blackened on one side, but the undamaged part of his mouth curved into a familiar, bitter-edged smile. He shifted, grimacing as he did, and pushed his sword. It skittered across the floor to stop at Claire’s feet.

Claire took the weapon and found her heart in her throat, wondering how much pain he could survive without a book to repair back to. The question must have bled onto her face. Hero waved her on. “Go. End this.”

Claire clutched the sword to her chest, turned, and ran into the stacks.

THE STACKS HAD BECOME narrow ravines of shadow. Between the fighting and the fire, the globes that had so reliably lit dark corners were gone. The deeper Claire went, the less the damage, these shelves being more removed from the initial battle. Only a few jostled books scattered the aisles. She could just see the retreating flutter of Andras’s coat as it threatened to disappear at the far end of the aisle.

He wanted her to follow him. Would have some trap in mind. But Claire just wanted this over.

Her knee protested as she ran, slowing her down. A wheeled ladder leaned against the shelves to the right, and she leapt, landing on it with her full weight to send the ladder flying. A few kicks picked up speed, and Claire could see the back of Andras’s head clearly now. She was gaining on him.

Then he disappeared around the corner at the end of the row. The ladder hit the end of the track, and a black blade swept out at chest level. Claire flung off the ladder, barely avoiding the wicked edge as it bit into the wood.

She landed hard on her hip and slid across the polished floor. When she came up, Andras had his dagger free but was still.

“Whatever happened to ‘I could never hurt you, pup’?” Claire hissed. She slid Hero’s sword from its sheath and held it out unsteadily. Her hands were trembling something awful. She was a librarian . She knew next to nothing about swordplay or fighting. She hadn’t had the heart to tell Hero that.

The corner of Andras’s lips twitched. “I said I could never kill you. I would never lie to you, pup. This?” The dagger swayed in his hand. “A single piece of soul stone. Didn’t do much to Hero earlier, but the soul of the book isn’t in the paper, is it? It’s high time yours took a rest, Claire. You’ve earned it, though it needn’t have been this way.”