The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,79
to realize Hero had been repeating her name. Not “warden,” but her actual name. She closed her eyes and tried to shove her drumming heartbeat back into her chest. It took another try to wet her mouth enough to speak. “Andras . . . I don’t suppose you brought anything that—”
“Nothing that would stop them, pup.” Andras’s face was not made for compassion. The pitying look was disturbing on his sharp features. Her ears thundered again with howls.
“I know that,” Claire snapped. Her eyes flickered over the room. The door led down the stairs to the street. But what good would descending them do? “Doesn’t mean I have to make it easy for them.”
“For who?” Hero raised his voice, nearly drowned out.
The floorboards shuddered beneath her feet, as if something impossibly large had slammed into the building. Claire braced herself against the wall for support. She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing down the bile that rose in her before answering.
“Hellhounds.”
Hero’s frown froze, and their collective gaze turned toward the door.
Creatures had to be terrible to escape Hell, and the hunters sent after them had to be even more terrible. Hellhounds were not made to retrieve, for Hell gave no second chances; they were made to destroy. Hellhounds didn’t stop to listen to reason or defenses. Their jaws tore through not just flesh and bone, but soul and spirit. They could rage through the world unseen, and neither time nor space nor reason would placate them. Once they’d been loosed, they’d stop only once they had you in their jaws. They were made to eliminate, they were made to be tireless, and they were made to be ruthless.
When their ghostlights expired, Claire and Leto had officially become lost souls. And lost souls were within the Hellhounds’ purview. They would hunt their prey to the ends of the Earth.
The room rocked again, but though the howling had become nearly incessant, it didn’t sound any closer. Her pulse pounded in her throat once, twice, three times. But nothing came through the door. Hellhounds could ghost through wood, stone, steel. When on the trail of an escaped soul to destroy, they were relentless. Nothing stopped them—nothing should have stopped them.
Andras was the first to move to the window and he stilled as if transfixed. “Claire, you might want to see this.”
Claire glanced at Leto, wide-eyed and panicked behind her. She was unsteady as she pushed away from the bookcase and joined Andras at the window. “What—”
“There.”
The apartment they were in was built into one of the tiered walls of the city, which gave the window a clear view of the grassy moat and sunbaked fields beyond. She took in the massive walls, the bridge with a thinning stream of travelers flowing through, the way the afternoon sun’s light was syrup and honey across the fields dappled with old buildings beyond.
She looked down.
Directly beneath the wall, darkness moved. Creatures, large as lorries and composed entirely of smoke and jagged shadow, prowled the thick city wall. Howls like cudgels and bodies like secrets. There was a handful of them, and they swarmed like airborne sharks, drifting over the empty moat that surrounded the city. Each took a turn throwing its massive body against the walls, and each time one did, the floor shuddered, and Leto and Claire flinched.
“It appears they’re stopped,” Andras said.
“Nothing stops Hellhounds. What in the world is holding them?” Claire wondered.
“The Treaty of Mdina.”
The voice was low, too low to be Leto’s, too human to be Andras’s, too serious to be Hero’s.
Claire spun. The collector stood very still a few steps from Claire, familiar enough to make her heart clench. The deep brown skin at her neck was smooth, showing no sign of the gunshot wound. Dark twists of hair curled neatly over a strong, composed face.
“What the hell—” Hero already had his pistol leveled, but Claire held a hand up. The collector’s eyes were deep and calm, and though Claire stared, she couldn’t quite bear to meet them. She studied her mouth instead. Her lips were parted on words Claire wasn’t sure she could stand to hear. But she had to.
“Talk,” Claire said.
The book collector’s shoulders dropped a little, as if she’d been expecting a warmer greeting. “During the last great war, there was a treaty, sealed with wards. This city has been warded against anything not of mortal make for years. It means you and your people are safe.”
Claire shook her head. “Hellhounds are too powerful to be stopped.”