Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,82
the house. Time and weather had warped the boards, so light leaked out from within. “The light is a good sign Fagerlie hasn’t killed him yet. He wouldn’t leave the room lit for a corpse.”
God. Poor Ves, for even having to consider such things. “He probably means to keep you under his control, even after he gets the book.”
Ves nodded thoughtfully. “I would make a useful soldier.”
Sebastian reached for his shoulder, found a tentacle instead. He squeezed it in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “You’re a great deal more than that.”
“I hope I am.” Ves glanced at him briefly, then back to the house. “May I tell you something? I don’t want you to think less of me, but…”
“Please tell me.”
“I missed having a sense of purpose. The cult was terrible, and we suffered, but…there was a reason for it all. A grand destiny, which gave such a feeling of…I don’t know, intensity, perhaps, to everything. Even on our most normal days, we knew our actions were building toward something amazing.” Wistfulness touched Ves’s words, and Sebastian wished he could see his face more clearly. “I know it sounds wrong, or mad, but I missed that. Fagerlie offered me a goal. A direction. A purpose, even if only a temporary one. I think I liked that, at least at first. Perhaps that makes me a bad person.”
“No.” Sebastian leaned against him, shoulders touching. “I understand. I mean, I can’t truly know what you’ve been through, but it makes sense to feel that way.”
“Thank you,” Ves said. He might have said more, but his muscles went tense against Sebastian. “They’re leaving.”
The man who stepped off the porch and into the street might have been on his way to a costume party. He wore a close cap on his silver hair, and his attire consisted of a stiff ruffled collar and a fine black robe such as John Dee or the Wizard Earl might have worn in Elizabethan times. In his hand he carried a brass staff—his sorcerer’s wand, no doubt.
“Mr. Fagerlie, I take it?” Sebastian whispered.
“He said he was a ‘professor’ in the School of Night. I suppose that’s his regalia.” Ves leaned forward as men in more ordinary clothing followed behind. Three carriages clattered up, and Fagerlie and his retinue climbed into them. Within moments, they were off, no doubt on their way to the museum.
“He had five men with him, and two remained behind,” Ves sat back. “Not bad odds, at least for us.”
Sebastian tried not to worry about his fellow librarians. Surely they could handle a mere six men, even if one of them was a sorcerer. They had Irene, after all, and had seen battle against far worse during the Dark Days of 1902. They’d be fine.
He hoped.
“All right, then,” he said. “Let’s get down off this roof and put my plan into action.”
Sebastian raised his hand and knocked firmly on the door.
He strained his ears, but heard no sounds from inside. Curse it, surely his plan hadn’t failed already. Swallowing back the nerves that threatened to choke him, he knocked again, more insistently this time.
The creak of footsteps across the rickety floor rewarded him. The door cracked open, revealing a sliver of dirty face and a glaring eye. “What d’you want?”
Sebastian plastered on his most affable smile. “Good evening, sir. I’m from First Esoteric Church. Have you heard the good news about—”
“Not interested,” the man said, and attempted to close the door.
Sebastian had already stuck his foot in, though, so the edge dug into his shoe. “Just a few moments of your time,” he said. “It won’t take but a minute!”
“I said get lost,” the man snarled, throwing the door open. He towered over Sebastian, and it was everything he could do to keep his back straight and his smile on.
“Azathoth cares for us all equally,” Sebastian babbled, even as he backed toward the edge of the porch. “By which I mean not at all, as we’re mere ants, unnoticed and unseen before his divine—”
“That’s enough out of you, freak,” the man began, raising his fist to pummel Sebastian.
A tentacle looped around his wrist, then another around his neck. Before he even had the chance to cry out, his head impacted with the sagging porch railing. He made an odd sound like a sigh and went limp, before his body was dragged out of sight and into the shadows.
“He’s alive,” Ves confirmed as he joined Sebastian. “Though he’ll have a bad headache.”