Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,88

he didn’t hesitate. His tentacles lashed down, grabbed the man around the chest, and hurled him in the direction of the stacks. Hopefully Waite would take care of him there.

Either someone inside saw Ves grab the guard, or heard his body hit the stacks, because a cry of alarm immediately rang out.

“Keep working, curse you!” Fagerlie ordered.

Damn it.

“Vesper, Vesper,” Fagerlie called sadly. “I’m very disappointed in you. I thought you’d come around to my way of thinking. A shame.”

They were going to have to fight. But at least Ves was more or less impervious to sorcery. Fagerlie had to be his target.

He swung from the shelf he perched on and through the door.

A small hole had been knocked in the wall opposite, using what looked like a hammer or some other instrument not as well suited to the job as the big mallet one of the men wielded now. Even as Ves entered, he swung it one last time, and the masonry crumbled to reveal a hollow space beyond. “There’s a hidden room!”

“Open it!” Fagerlie roared.

Ves charged the nearest man, slamming him down. Another slashed at him frantically with a knife—and left a line of stinging, blazing pain on one of his tentacles. Ves recoiled instinctively, and Fagerlie laughed.

“What?” he said. “You think I would work with two of the Dark Young and not have any sort of defense against them handy?”

Ves grabbed for the wrist of the man with the silver-plated knife, but it was only a feint. Another tentacle swept down, wrapped around the man’s ankles, and yanked him off his feet. Unexpected satisfaction shot through Ves, all of the old training coming back, even though he’d never truly used it in a fight like this.

Then Waite charged in, and Noct swung down, hovering at the entrance, his blue eyes burning like cold fire. While Waite laid into the first lackey he saw, Noct’s tentacles wove a hypnotizing pattern, creating a spell without words.

The wooden shelves suddenly burst into verdant life. Branches exploded outward, knocking men down or else impaling them on jagged thorns. The wild scent of spring in the deep woods filled the air, and Ves laughed from the joy of it.

All of the men who still could run, did so. Noct whipped up out of the way of a silver dagger, and they fled into the stacks. Fagerlie ran after them; Noct made a grab for him, but only succeeded in tearing the staff from his hand.

“I’m resistant to magic—I’ll get him,” Ves called to Waite. Hopefully Sebastian would show up with the rest of the librarians before any of the others could escape.

Hopefully Sebastian and the librarians could show up.

Ves chased Fagerlie through the maze of rooms. At first, it seemed as though Fagerlie would find his way up, toward the top level where the only escape waited. But he took a wrong turn, and within moments fetched up in front of the doors leading to the bat room. He tried to open them, but found them still locked.

Fagerlie turned and put his back to the doors. “I’m disappointed in you, Vesper. Though not nearly as disappointed as your mother is.”

Ves walked slowly between the imposing towers of shelving. His tentacles flared around him, and he saw a flicker of fear on Fagerlie’s face. “I doubt she could be all that disappointed, considering she’s rotting in whatever hell her gods consigned her too.”

The fear was replaced by a look of smug superiority. “Foolish child. Do you really believe that?”

The words stopped Ves in his tracks, as surely as if he’d walked into a wall. “She’s dead. She and Grandfather both. The world wasn’t remade.”

“Failure doesn’t always equal death, my boy.” Fagerlie lifted something in his hand. “Although in your case, it does. Have you ever heard of the Beast of Gévaudan? One of the few Young to reach infamy outside of arcane circles. Impossible to kill, until a hunter finally realized its nature and shot it with a silver bullet.”

Ves’s breath froze in his lungs as Fagerlie leveled a revolver at him. “Your brother could have exploded this in my hand, but you have no sorcerous ability. No wonder your mother felt so let down by you. Good-bye, Vesper. You really should have known better than to cross me.”

Chapter 29

Ves stared at the black bore of the gun. He had no doubt the silver bullet in the chamber would kill him if it struck. His only hope was to somehow move fast enough to