The Library of the Unwritten - A. J_ Hackwith Page 0,127

There was no defending Uriel’s lust for revenge. Hadn’t Rami already come to that conclusion? Why did he seek to defend Heaven, after all this time?

Leto appeared ready to pounce at the opening. “I hated myself so much I hurt innocent people and it sucked. I’m . . . I’m not doing that again. How about you?”

They were approaching the processing desk. Rami slowed as he saw his replacement noticing him. The cherub was an eager sort and tipped his head respectfully. Rami’s eyes slid past the desk to the guards at the Gate, then to the high tower, where he knew Uriel’s office was.

Leto was bound for Heaven, but Uriel would detain him first for information. And what would Uriel do to a spirited, distinctly uncooperative soul like Leto?

Chances were that Rami wouldn’t even be able to get them into Hell. His old access had likely long since been revoked. Even if he did . . . Heaven was invading Hell anyway.

That was all he was doing, Rami reasoned, even as a different decision began to take root. He pushed it aside and tugged Leto around to head back down the hill, away from the eyes of judgmental guards and eager upstarts.

“You’re purified, and I’m not rescuing you again. If I agree to this, there are going to be some ground rules.”

37

CLAIRE

The trouble with reading is it goes to your head. Read too many books and you get savvy. You begin to think you know which kind of story you’re in.

Then some stupid git with a cosmic quill fucks you over.

Librarian Fleur Michel, 1721 CE

CLAIRE WALKED.

After Hero had left she’d stayed there for a time, staring at the walls, not quite seeing anything while the shadows lengthened. She didn’t know how much time she’d lost. Even with the ruthless sun progressing in the sky, time had a way of shifting and skittering out of her grasp.

Her body ached from the cold stone. In her chest there was a troublesome hollowness that grew and crowded her heart and lungs, making it hard to breathe. But Claire won the argument with her body, and one foot in front of another, she walked.

She kept taking lefts. It seemed pointless to change their plan now . . . her plan now. Claire trailed one hand along the wall to keep her path straight and her mind from drifting.

She had all the time in the world to drift now. It was hard not to follow the thoughts. Brevity would not have resorted to the IWL unless something dire had happened. Andras had the pages, and Andras wanted the Library. There was a faint hope that Hero could assist and they could hold out long enough.

Long enough for what, though? Claire was lost in a dead-end world. Beatrice and Leto were gone. But what bothered her most was that Andras could have gone this far without Hell noticing. It wasn’t possible. Lucifer and all his generals were too powerful, too paranoid for that. Either Andras had bested all of them in his scheming or . . . Lucifer had allowed it. The Library had become part of the game.

Claire had always been aware that the Library and its books were pawns. Andras himself had taught her enough about the intrigues and deadly maneuvers the demons made in Hell’s court, but she’d never imagined the Library was a pawn Lucifer paid attention to.

Andras had paid attention. Claire knew there was more to the Library than her literary ghosts. Some demons came to read, either out of curiosity or to understand the genuine magic of human imagination. But she also knew there were demons that ate dreams instead, consumed them and extracted pleasure and power from the destruction. Obviously, the Library was kept apart from the rest of Hell for just that reason.

Lucifer had to know. He had to know about Andras’s goal. There were too many coincidences. Perhaps he planned to sweep in when they were all dead and start over. She’d read the histories. She knew Lucifer had used purges to quell uprisings in his realm before. She knew she wasn’t the first librarian.

She knew hers wasn’t the first Library in Hell.

But the books. The books couldn’t be purged. They most definitely could not be parceled up, doled out, and fed to the vile underbelly of Hell. She had to get back. Get back, get in control, somehow find a way to destroy a demon with the power of the words of Hell’s god,