The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,112

intense Probity was painted in mint and sunshine colors. But this one was pale as bone, and just as sharp and thin. The light flickered over her and it almost seemed to pass through her, as if Hero could make out smudged impressions on the other side. That was impossible, but then so was the face she revealed when her head tilted up. Beneath ivory straw hair she had a blank expression, grayscale eyes glazed with a hunger-pang gloss. Her mouth was the only contrast when a snarl pulled back her lips to reveal rows—rows—of black, jagged teeth.

“Stay back,” Rami warned with a sway of his blade.

The creature paused, glassily considered the sword point, and slowly closed her hand around it. The holy light leapt from the blade to her knuckles, but instead of burning, it danced over her bleached skin before twining up her wrist. The muse’s razor-tipped smile widened.

Hero wasn’t written to curse—his author had probably thought it too lowbrow—but what slipped out as the white muse stepped forward was a very heartfelt, fervent “Shit.”

Rami’s grip on his arm tightened. “Run.”

They ran. Dust-dry scrolls crumbled beneath their feet as they scrambled. Rami’s lit sword made shadows jump and frenzy around them with every step. They heard the muse’s steps lurch into a ragged run behind them. The thought hit him that they had no way of knowing whether she was alone. Hero remembered the predator behavior of the lion Furies in Elysium. Every wild flinch of dark shadows could be another one of those things springing a trap. The image hit Hero hard: a white demon launching itself at Rami, black razor teeth tearing feathers and closing around his unprotected throat.

The sick fear kicked Hero forward, pulling him ahead as the scrolls crumbled and gave way to the canyon of clay tablets again. They fled past the spot where Rami had found Hero, and were running blind.

Broken piles of shards rose around them, like menacing walls of teeth. Teeth behind them, teeth to either side. There was no time to consider their route. Hero didn’t remember this path through the slate canyon, and he worried that at any moment the terrain would drop off or close in entirely.

Almost as he thought it, the teeth on either side of them began to draw closer, closing like a maw. The path beneath them began to slope up. The clay pieces were precariously balanced, and Rami with his heavier feet and frame was slowing down. Hero had to grab his shoulder as he stumbled. Clay shards clattered down the slope and momentarily masked the sound of the muse in pursuit. Hero’s pulse wedged itself between his ribs for a nice panic attack.

“Climb, you great, dull bastard,” Hero muttered, dragging on Rami’s coat. The angel took another step and a cascade of clay dislodged beneath them, dragging them both down.

Rami arrested their slide by planting his sword. “It’s too steep.”

“Then sprout some goddamned wings and fly,” Hero growled. “I don’t think that creature behind us is coming to give us a boost.”

“I keep telling you, not—” Rami winced as he stumbled hard to one knee. “Not that kind of angel.” He pressed to his feet and glanced above them. The blade lit them from beneath and threw his eyes into complete shadow. “It narrows and levels out up ahead. Make it over the crest and there’s enough space to lose her.”

“Fantastic. After you, then—”

“It’s too steep,” Rami repeated grimly. Hero couldn’t see his eyes. Why wouldn’t Rami move so he could see his goddamned eyes? “You go up that way. I’ll find a different way around.”

Rami had never endeavored to be a believable liar, and in Hero’s opinion it was far too late to start now. He scoffed, but the sound was buried in the loud crunch of clay. The bleached muse came into view at the bottom of the rise. Hero had a moment of hope. “Perhaps she’ll have the same difficulty—”

The phantom girl scrambled again, then launched herself into the air. She cleared several meters, grabbed a ledge of clay jutting from the cliff side, and hung there like a gargoyle. A feral, hungry growl filled the air.

“. . . or not,” Hero finished.

“You should go,” Rami said. There was a cracking sound. The tablets appeared to start to disintegrate and wither everywhere the muse touched. Hero shuddered and had to suppress the memory of black ink rotting him from the inside, how it felt to melt away like that.