Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,90
in texture though not color.
And Arthur had just slipped the edge of a pen knife beneath the thread.
“Don’t!” Sebastian shouted as he clambered through the hole.
Arthur didn’t look at him, didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, faster than Ves could move to interfere, he slashed through the hair thread and unbound the book.
“No!” Sebastian shouted. His heart pounded in his throat, the air so thick it felt more like liquid, and the sound died almost as soon as it left his mouth.
Ves slapped the book out of Arthur’s hand, but too late. It fell to the ground and skidded away, shedding folios as it did so.
Wind roared through the room, tearing at Sebastian’s hair and nearly hurling him off his feet. The thick air made it feel as though he’d been caught in a whirlpool rather than a whirlwind. Arthur threw back his head and stretched out his arms, welcoming the blast.
And something began to coalesce, rising like mist from the unbound book.
Ves stepped back, moving protectively between it and Sebastian. Sebastian grabbed one of his tentacles, and the air seemed to grow thinner, so that it was less like being battered by a current of water and more like a strong wind. Something to do with Ves’s magic resistance, perhaps?
The form that gathered in the air was a horror. For the first time, it occurred to Sebastian that incorporeal creatures, even those that had once been human, wouldn’t be limited in their shape by either physics or imagination.
She—it—might have once been the woman called Emeline, but either death or the process of being made into a sentient book had stripped away any semblance of humanity. The very sight of her made Sebastian’s brain ache, as his mind sought to find some order amidst the tangled limbs, loose skin, and slavering mouths. They opened and closed, devoid of either teeth or tongue, and the lungs that pumped air into them dangled on the outside of her body. Bile stung Sebastian’s throat, and it was all he could do not to retch.
“Free,” said a thousand voices, some whispering, some shouting, some raggedly screaming in pain.
Arthur’s face had gone the color of spoiled milk at the sight of what he’d unleashed. But still, he braced himself and said, “I kept up my part of the bargain! I freed you at the proper hour, while the tail of the comet you died beneath enshrouds the earth. Now it’s your turn to help me.”
A horrid, creeping laugh seemed to crawl around the floor. “No.”
Arthur’s mouth worked. “But—”
“Why should I do the bidding of something like you?” The words were hot in Sebastian’s ear, then far away. “The comet has given its power to my brothers and sister, as well as myself. They will feed until they grow strong enough to be unbound. But for now, I shall feed on you.”
Arthur grabbed at his throat, alarm spreading over his face. “It’s killing him!” Sebastian said, grabbing Ves’s arm.
Ves’s eyes were desperate. “Get out of here before she does the same to you! I’ll try to bind her book.”
Sebastian tightened his hold. “I’m not leaving you. I can help. I’m going to help.”
He’d failed to save his mother, when she’d died screaming in the flames. But he’d be damned if he failed Ves.
Ves hesitated, then nodded. “Don’t let go of me.”
“I won’t. But we need something to distract it.”
“Leave that to me,” Irene called from the hole in the wall.
Irene’s round face was slick with sweat, and the wind had torn off her hat and left her short hair in disarray. The fashionable skirt twisted around her legs, and the arm of her coat had ripped at the seam.
In her hand she held Fagerlie’s staff. The gemstones embedded in it glowed with an inner light as she drew magic through it. She thrust the staff in front of her, chanting in the language of sorcerers in a clear, commanding tone.
Sebastian didn’t know enough about magic to guess what she was doing, but it enraged Emeline. She let Arthur’s corpse fall and unleashed a scream that made Sebastian’s ears ache.
Ves tugged on him, and they both ran, while Irene kept the spirit’s attention on her. They grabbed up the loose pages; the paper looked like vellum and had a greasy feel that turned Sebastian’s stomach. He didn’t dare do more than glance at what was inscribed on the paper in spiky handwriting, every line like the slash of a knife.