The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) - A. J. Hackwith Page 0,75

even as it softened at the edges. “I never cared for the puritan notion of policing a man’s thoughts. I think the weight of a man’s life lies in what he does with it. Reasons and heart are important, but it’s your actions that have long-reaching effects.”

Hero blinked. He leaned forward and pinched Rami’s cheek until he grimaced. “Are you sure you’re our Watcher? Or maybe you’ve seen him around? Tall, dark, and endlessly broody?”

“You are taller than me,” Rami muttered, rubbing his cheek.

Hero arched a brow and opened his mouth to respond before a noise rose from the crowds near the bridge. He half braced himself against a pillar to see over the turmoil of heads.

Something was happening on the bridge. A segment a few yards from the entrance had begun to shrink, rainbow material flaking away rapidly on either side. Souls crossing the bridge scrambled, peeling backward and forward to escape, but the decay seemed to follow. Finally, like frantic schools of fish, the crowds on the bridge parted, backing away from one old man who was rooted with shock as the bridge narrowed on either side of him.

Even the dead still had a sense of self-preservation. The man regained his senses and lurched ahead, hands outstretched for the crowd. There was a hesitation, a perilously hung moment when it seemed someone—anyone—in the crowd might reach back. But a groan, far and deep, shook the bridge under their feet, and the edges disintegrated faster. The man reached the edge of the crowd, but panic had set in. Someone shoved; the man stumbled back with a cry.

The rainbow section he stood on had narrowed to the size of a tea table. The doomed man swiveled, but it was obvious by now no one behind him would risk their own eternal soul to assist. Froth of mist churned to either side of the bridge, but whatever moved in the ravine stayed out of sight.

The bridge had crumbled to a balance beam beneath the doomed man’s feet. He swayed once, twice, trying to keep his balance, but his arms pinwheeled and signed his fate. His fall seemed silent at this distance. A gout of mist lashed up into the air as the man fell through, then nothing. The crowd was quiet for the count of one breath; then a susurrus of murmuring returned. More subdued.

The bridge quickly rebuilt itself, filling out again to be a uniform shimmer. Sooner than Hero had thought possible, migrants planted their feet over the space where, moments before, a soul had fallen to the dark.

“Hero.” Rami said his name, but not for the first time. A hesitant hand wrapped around his elbow. In a moment he would shake him; in a moment Hero would be sternly reminded of their duty; he’d have to shrug and pretend nothing had happened and—

“Are you okay?”

The question was like an unexpected drop into cold water. Hero tore his gaze away from the bridge. Rami had angled himself to create a kind of buffer from the crowds, and all of him was focused on Hero. Shoulders turned, serious face emanating concern. It was a question asked in earnest, and it shocked him so much, an earnest answer fell out.

“When have any of us been okay?” Hero focused on relaxing his hold on the pillar until color returned to his whitened knuckles. He constructed a shrug and a smile in much the same way one might erect a barricade. Brick by brick. “No offense, dear man. I think I preferred the crocodile.”

“That’s not happening to you.”

Hero huffed. “Of course I wouldn’t beg so inelegantly—”

“No, Hero. Listen to me.” The weight in Rami’s tone forced Hero’s head up again. Rami’s gaze flickered over his face, as if searching for a key. “That won’t happen to you. I won’t let it. We will force our way across the bridge if we have to. I am not leaving you behind.”

“I believe you,” Hero whispered and found it true, despite all logic. He did. He believed Rami. He believed in Rami. It was entirely foreign ground to Hero. He allowed Rami to help him down off his vantage point.

Rami continued to study him. “Ready to do this?”

Absolutely not. Terribly, terribly unready. Hero flashed a brittle smile. “To storm a magical drawbridge? My good Ramiel, I was written for that.”

20

HERO

So much frivolity and fuss over the human soul. You’ve got to wonder why. What makes the stick-around-ness of a human more special than, say, a muse