Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,71
could muster. “You know what I am.”
Underell swallowed convulsively. “Please don’t…Iä, Iä, the Goat with a Thousand Young.”
How many times had he heard that chant? Hell, how many had he spoken it himself, hands raised to the weathered stones atop Caprine Hill? The firelight had flickered on his mother’s face, her eyes turned to the wood with a look of joy he never saw at any other time. Voices responded on the wind, the whisper of the trees that watched their every move with some sense other than sight.
No matter where he went, he couldn’t escape his wretched past. “Do you worship the All-Mother, Lord of the Trees?”
Thankfully, Underell shook his head. “I-I give her respect. I don’t want to cross her. Or you.”
At least there was that. “And I’d prefer not to be crossed. Tell me who you work for, and I’ll walk out of here right now. Leave you be.”
Underell licked his lips uncertainly. No doubt weighing which he feared more in the moment: those he worked for, who might punish him later, or the monster in front of him right now. “We didn’t kill the first binder, I swear. I don’t know what happened to him. And we—I—don’t know the name of the man who hired us.”
Ves didn’t want to destroy his clothing again, but he let his eyes go orange. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I wouldn’t! I swear!” Underell’s terror seemed genuine. “Please, you have to believe me! We do some work on occasion for the barman at The Silver Key. Nothing too serious, just knock the heads of people who owe him money. He contacted us, said he had a regular looking for some trustworthy men who could clean out an apartment and keep their mouths shut about it. It was easy money.”
“What’s the barman’s name?”
“Renie Milton.” Underell swallowed convulsively. “We did the job and got paid. Then last week, Renie contacts us again. The same boss wants us to follow one of the librarians. Find out what he knows about the guy whose stuff we made disappear. Who he’s talking with, what he might be looking for. So we do. Renie was the go-between the whole time.”
“And last night?”
“I don’t know what Rath did, but he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. We were supposed to get rid of him and any witnesses. ‘No loose ends,’ that was what the boss wanted.”
A low growl escaped Ves. Underell took a nervous step back. “So you waited until Sebastian was home and his guard down, and ambushed him there. In a house with children in it.”
Underell raised his hands in a plea for mercy. “Please—I’ve done what you asked! I’ll do more—whatever you want! Do you want sacrifices for the All-Mother? I can get them!”
Disgust washed through Ves. He blinked his eyes back to human and stepped away from the bars. “You can’t give me what I want,” he said. “But if I ever see you on the streets of Widdershins again, you’ll regret it.”
After Arthur left to help the other librarians continue the search for the Book of Breath, Sebastian turned his attention to Kelly’s commonplace book. He found the point where Vesper had left off yesterday.
Vesper. Hopefully he’d be able to learn something from the prisoner. With any luck, his presence alone would intimidate the man into revealing everything.
Sebastian’s heart ached at the familiar sight of Kelly’s hand, and he wondered if his mother had kept a similar book. If so, it must have been lost in the fire, along with so much else.
If only he’d followed her wishes, perhaps all this could have been avoided.
Or maybe he’d be the one gone missing instead.
After about ten minutes combing through the book, finding nothing but day-to-day notes, Sebastian came to a solid wall of text. His pulse grew faster, and he leaned in, peering at Kelly’s cramped writing through his glasses.
I think I understand, if not all of it, at least where it began. It took months of sorting through Ladysmith and Dromgoole’s correspondence, some of which was written using code words, rather than daring to put the truth to paper without some veil to cover it from curious eyes. There are details I need to revisit, which I hope will reveal where the various Books of the Bound are concealed.
So. The beginning. Or what seems to be the beginning, though I cannot in truth say for certain, any more than one who looks upon a spider’s completed web can say which strand served as