The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,41

was distinctly rural.

The road was smooth with fresh stone pavers, out of place in the pastoral scene, and Hero paused to survey it. The road cut a neat line between a patchwork of tidy golden wheat fields and meadows luridly feral with yellow flowers. The greenery spilled right up to the edge of a cliff that sheared down to a bay that was a watercolor of impossible blues and greens. A far hill was crowned with the low outlines of a pale city, but nothing so grand and spiraling as Hero had expected.

Still, it was the most promising sign of civilization, the modest farm homes dotting the fields excluded. Hero set off toward it. He’d barely made it over the first rise when a rustle caught his attention above the gentle wind. A disturbance snaked through the wheat field on his right, something graceful and low to the ground parting the stalks. A subtle glance found a mirroring disturbance on his left.

Just once, Hero would have liked to enter a realm without immediately being challenged to mortal combat. Was that too much to ask? He sighed and forced his pace to stay slow and lazy, allowing the pincer formation to close in on him precisely as he came to a small stone bridge. At the foot of the bridge, he turned and scowled at the empty road. “Honestly, if you’re trying to be subtle—”

A roil of muscle and fur glided onto the road, stopping Hero’s breath. Two creatures emerged from the wheat. They might have been female lions had their fur not been distinctly metallic. Fine strands of gold, mottled with copper, flowed over the beasts’ hides. Muscle, sleek and defined, rolled underneath with every sinuous step.

The lions came to a stop in the middle of the road and regarded Hero with unblinking eyes. They gave the distinct impression that they were waiting.

Hero’s mind scrambled for the what. If there was a password for entering this realm, he didn’t know it. There was likely a toll—there was always a damned price in these kinds of places—but he’d hoped Ramiel would catch up before he had to pay it. An angel with a flaming sword would not have been unwelcome just about now.

“Simon says?” Hero tried, then spun and broke into a run.

It was a short sprint across the bridge, made longer by anticipating the razor claws shredding into his back at any moment. Hero risked a glance behind him, but the beasts had followed at a mere saunter. Well, maybe they’d eaten recently. Maybe they were vegetarians. Maybe at this rate he’d outrun them—

A freight train took him at the shoulder. At least, that’s what it felt like as Hero went down, tumbling with an unbelievable weight on top of him. He let out a shriek—an entirely manful, intimidating shriek, mind—and succeeded in rolling blindly away across the dirt. He came up in a clearing of trampled wheat, nose to nose with a third, very large, glimmering lion. This one was more copper than gold and had a rainbow sheen when the light played off the roll of its shoulders. Silver claws dug into the fresh-churned dirt as Hero rose.

His hand drifted immediately to his sword hip, but—no. Book and bind it, he’d left the sword back at the Unwritten Wing. He’d not wanted to raise any suspicion with Brevity, and he’d been so certain that traveling with Ramiel would have provided more than enough armament if needed. And it was needed, very much, right now, without an angel in sight.

“Damn the man,” Hero murmured with a placating gesture. Raising his hand must have appeared threatening, because in a breath the lion launched itself in the air.

Hero dove to the dirt again, rolling as the beast raked the air where he’d been. He managed a lucky kick in the face, which set the cat back on its heels for a moment, but it was the only opening he was liable to get. Hero lunged before the lion could turn around, latching his arms around its neck in a way that he prayed kept the razor claws out of reach.

The lion’s pelt had shone metallic in the sun, and Hero had expected a rasp of metallic needles as he wrapped his arms around the neck in a death grip. Instead, the fur was velvety, so soft it was almost slippery as the lion bucked. It howled its outrage, twisting. Hero didn’t have long to develop a plan before the lion would