angel had once stood, a passageway now yawned. But Elisabeth had eyes only for the ceiling, where the crack had snaked across the cavern and split the rock above the portcullis. When she seized the bars and shook them, she felt a slight give.
Ashcroft was bent over now, Hyde’s face writhing grotesquely. He staggered to the Chronicles’ pillar and caught himself against it with a hand that clenched repeatedly into a fist. Using the other hand, he unsteadily raised his Director’s key toward a slot in the column.
There was still time. Ashcroft missed once, twice, the key glancing from the stone. Elisabeth threw herself against the portcullis. Metal groaned as it pushed outward an inch on one side, the grille flexing against her shoulder.
With his lips peeled back from his teeth, Ashcroft at last forced the key into place. When he turned it, a panel slid open. Green-tinted mist flowed out of it, pouring down, lapping over Hyde’s boots.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. The convulsions of the dead, ancient heart filled the cavern, thudding inside Elisabeth’s bones. The stench nearly brought her to her knees. It was like standing at the entrance to a crypt, breathing in rot and stone and ancient magic, the smell of skulls crawling with beetles, of moss speckling crumbled tombs.
The portcullis screeched as she wedged her shoulder into the gap, using the passage’s wall as leverage. But she was too late.
Too late to stop Ashcroft as he reached inside, and plunged his fingers into the beating heart.
THIRTY-FOUR
THE HEART’S VEINS pulsed with emerald light. They began to spread, to grow, twining rootlike along the chains, sending branching tendrils outward. Elisabeth’s paralyzed thoughts fixed on the illustration of a nervous system that she remembered from one of Master Hargrove’s anatomical texts. The Chronicles was growing into a Malefict, beginning with its heart.
Within seconds, the Malefict’s expanding form crowded the inside of the column. Clawed fingers curled over the lip of the opening, their exposed tendons dripping ink. She remembered the shadows of those claws stretching across the Royal Library, reaching for the wardens as they wheeled its cage along the hall.
Ashcroft stumbled back, clutching his hand to his chest. Wild-eyed, he dove for the sword lying discarded beside the sigil. Not Ashcroft any longer—Hyde. Ashcroft had finished his work and relinquished his hold on the body, leaving Hyde at the mercy of the Chronicles of the Dead, just as he must have done to Irena after releasing the Book of Eyes.
The Malefict’s hand shot out. Metal rattled as it jerked to a halt mere inches from Hyde, reaching the limits of the chain wrapped around its wrist. The links warped under the strain as the claws stretched closer, grasping for him.
Determination hardened Hyde’s face. He hefted his sword. “Not on my watch,” he growled. “Not while I still live, abomination.”
“Then die,” the Malefict whispered, in a voice like wind rushing from a sepulcher. One of the claws straightened and touched Hyde’s cheek.
Hyde’s face emptied. Green light flowed up the veins in his neck, rippled through his cheek, and traveled into the Malefict’s claw. He blinked once. Then he toppled over dead, striking the floor as a blanched and withered corpse. His body exploded into dust upon impact, as though it had lain desiccating in a mausoleum for centuries.
The Malefict’s hand shuddered as the stolen life pulsed up its wrist. Cracks spiraled around the column. That was the only warning before the pillar burst, sending chunks of obsidian flying. A tall, gaunt shape unfolded from the wreckage, obscured by swirls of dust. Broken chains dangled from its wrists, and a pair of antlers crowned its brow.
Elisabeth had seen that shape before, during the night she had spent with Nathaniel in the Blackwald. The grimoire’s heart—Baltasar had torn it from one of the moss folk. A giver of life, transformed into a taker of it; she couldn’t imagine anything more profane.
As though sensing her thoughts, the Malefict’s head snapped around. Its green eyes burned through the dust. It stared at them for a long moment, perfectly still. Though it wasn’t much taller than the Book of Eyes, its presence exuded an ancient, festering malevolence that sent terror washing over her skin in frigid waves. Her instincts screamed at her to reach for Demonslayer, but she couldn’t move.
After a few more seconds, the monster appeared to lose interest. It turned and made for the passageway, stepping through the dry section of the channel before it disappeared into the darkness beyond.