by A J Hackwith
The transport office neared, then flew past them. Rami’s heavy steps picked up.
“Don’t we need to return to the Unwritten Wing?” Rami asked. “Or wherever this secret exit is that you found?”
Hero stopped and pinned him with a baffled look. “Dear gods, you think it’s a literal door, don’t you?”
Rami had too much dignity to blush, which was a pity, but Hero rather appreciated the way his glare turned self-conscious. “The warding of books was not a Watcher’s concern in my day.”
He said “warding of books” not quite the way one would say “mucking stalls,” but it was close. Hero’s lip curled and he leaned in. “It’s entirely all right. I’ll make sure you can keep up.” He started off again before Rami could entirely respond. “Wards don’t have physical weaknesses; they have logical ones. What we’re looking for isn’t a secret door; it’s a secret loophole.”
The loft of his lecturing air was not lost on Rami. “So, you cheat.”
“Of course I cheat. Dear gods, what am I, a real hero? No.” Hero waved away the absurd insinuation. “It’s more about obeying the letter of the law than the spirit. Entirely appropriate. We’ll use the Library’s own processes, even.”
“Definitely cheating,” Rami muttered.
Hero suppressed a burr of irritation. He was being incredibly clever and his audience couldn’t even appreciate it. Claire and Brevity had tried for hours to wheedle this secret out of him, and here he was, just handing it to the damned man and he couldn’t even pretend to be impressed. Angels, really. And yet, Hero needed him for this next part.
“Voilà.” Hero withdrew a small strip of paper from his jacket and flourished it under Rami’s nose. “A hold.”
“A what?” Ramiel snatched the paper out of Hero’s hand with surprising dexterity.
“A hold request, for the IWL,” Hero said, then helpfully clarified, “the interworld loan.”
“I know that much,” Rami said stiffly. Brows knit as he studied the sheet. Hero had taken the liberty of filling out most of the details. Title and catalog information for his own book, each detail triple-checked. Just two blank spaces remained. “Is this how you escaped the first time?”
“Sort of. It was easy, once I thought of it. Took a few months to convince a visitor to risk taking a slip back with him to Earth—suspicious lot, demons are—but, well, I’ll show you.” Hero shrugged and rifled for a pen. “Your signature goes at the bottom, of course, and—”
“Elysium?” Ramiel squinted at the sheet, then back up at Hero. “Why there?”
“Why not start with the Greeks?” Hero made a broad gesture. “I’ve had a lot of time to study the Librarian’s Log lately. A shake-up—the last big shake-up—happened under the tenure of a Greco-Roman librarian. Claire and Brevity are astonishingly tight-lipped about it. Seems as if she tried to start a bit of a war. If this rebel librarian was sent packing to the Library wing in Elysium, we can get some answers.”
Even Ramiel had to admit that the logic was sound. “But you’re stamped, part of the permanent collection. Doesn’t that mean you’re not lendable?”
“Not to patrons. Not anymore, a shame.” Hero made a face. It would have been so much easier if he was. “But the rules are less strict for esteemed colleagues of the Library. Like, say, an assistant curator of the Arcane Wing.”
Ramiel began to crumple the sheet. “So that’s why you need me.”
“Only partially! Though I admit your charming company is leaving something to be desired.” Hero stopped Ramiel’s hands with his own. “You want answers, don’t you?”
Whether it was the question or Hero’s hands on top of his knuckles, Ramiel stilled. A complicated look washed over his face, but before Hero could blink to read it, it was gone. Rami yanked his hands free and took the pen. “I want solutions, to help Claire. We go, we ask if anyone’s encountered such a thing as this ink before, and we get out. No games.”
“No games,” Hero repeated solemnly. Bless the sweet man, he almost seemed to believe him.
Almost. Rami shot him a reproachful look again and scribbled a signature on the bottom of the sheet. He allowed Hero to take it back along with the pen. “And now what?”
“Oh, now.” Hero flashed a smile that was nervy and peaked with a touch of fear. He was already feeling it, that slow, seeping feeling, like he’d more than gone pale. He patted the square spot where his book always rested tucked into his vest pocket, just to be sure. Gods, Hero hated this part. “You know the way to Elysium, right?”
“What?” Ramiel sputtered, and was too shocked to stop him as Hero reached out, sank his fingers into Ramiel’s dour, dusty overcoat, and came away with a fistful of gray feathers. His hand was so pale the feathers looked nearly black in comparison. His book, tucked inside his vest, felt like a hot ember pressing and burning a solid rectangle into his own chest.
“Never mind. Do your best.” Hero’s voice was faint, raspy as old paper even to his own ears. He clenched his eyes shut. This was his very least favorite part of cleverness. “I’ll leave a light on for you.”
The solid weight of the book turned cold. A heat raged through him, and his insides felt turned from solid to liquid to ash. Ramiel made a baritone squawk of protest, and Hero was swept away.
11
HERO
Hell is a place for forgetting. Kind enough, really, because anyone who lands here has plenty they’d be happy to not recall. But makes you wonder, donnit? Where those forgotten memories go when they’re gone from life and death? Maybe there’s a life of “after” for memory too.
Librarian Fleur Michel, 1771 CE
PARADISE WAS NOT GOING according to plan. Not at all. Hero had expected to appear in some elegant version of the Library he’d just left—artful marble pillars, airy, maybe some grapes and wine? Surely at least a comfortable spot and refreshments to wile away the time in comfort until the angel found his own way to Elysium. But no, instead, he’d come to in tall wheatgrasses, which had fought back as he clambered his way out to the field’s edge. Cockleburs clung to his jacket and were working their way into other places, and Hero was unimpressed with this realm’s entire concept of idyll.
Paradise, it seemed, 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 wait
ing.
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 discover this position brought Hero’s legs into appetizing mauling range. On impulse, Hero tangled his ankles past the lion’s haunches, wrenched his knees tight to the flanks, and rolled.
It wouldn’t have worked if the lion had been firmly planted—lions were surprisingly hefty beasts. But Hero had caught it midstep, just enough to knock it off-balance. They hit the ground again and Hero threw all his strength into it, using the momentum to fling the beast away.
It was not expected. The beast tumbled across the beaten-down grass, and Hero heard a solid sound as the back of its head hit the half-buried boulder. Hero tensed on his hands and knees, dragging long fistfuls of air into his chest as he waited to see if the lion would rise again.
A crunch of dried grass interrupted. Over his shoulder, he saw movement. Two other cats, the damned beasts that had followed him across the bridge, had caught up. They sliced through the grass at a languid pace, but they no longer looked like the statues he’d mistaken them for before. A hungry ghostlight lit their gaze and followed Hero’s slightest movements.
Hell. Hero could not catch a break. He made a furious sound in his throat and pressed shakily to one knee.
“Come on, then! Scabrous mongrels—coddled tabby cats—see if I don’t scratch.” His hand fisted in a gouge of dirt. Perhaps if he managed to fling it in the eyes of one . . . but then the other would be on him. It was a small chance, but he wasn’t dead yet, if he—
A low snarl came from his back and—oh, strike that—Hero was dead. The initial lioness was not down for the count. The two beasts in front of him tensed, a shadow of movement flickered in his periphery, and Hero flinched his eyes shut. He would die, and it would probably be gory and entirely undignified, and the brutes would likely shred his book in the process and even Claire wouldn’t be able to paste him together again, assuming she even bothered enough to try. And he’d die as lion poop and he hoped they choked on his binding and—
Copper heat brushed past his shoulder. A shadow shifted, and Hero couldn’t resist peeking open one eye. His view was blocked by a wall of burnished fur and muscle. The lioness shifted in front of him, but her attention was not on Hero; it was on the two beasts that had been about to eat him.
Hero wasn’t versed in the languages of cats. Or metal cat deities. Or whatever these blasted things were. But the air thrummed with tension as a wordless communication ensued. Finally, the ears on the two opposing lions flicked back, displeased as they dropped their heads and slunk away. They disappeared back into the grass, quick and silent as they had come.
Hero might have sighed his relief, but there was still one murder cat inches from him. The beast’s fur twitched, as if sensing his speculation, and it turned to regard him with a baleful silver eye. Blood dripped down one side of its face, almost black against the copper fur. Injured, he supposed, when it had been thrown against the rocks. Hero’s fault, then.
But while the cat had seemed intent on his demise earlier, now it just stared at him, as if considering whether he was worth the time. Hero grew light-headed from holding his breath by the time the lioness snorted, breaking the standoff. She turned and took two paces to the edge of the clearing. She paused, glancing over her shoulder impatiently. Hero got to his feet slowly, and the lioness made a satisfied sound and stepped into the grass.
After a few steps she stopped again, pinning Hero with another glance. As if she expected him to . . . follow her.
Follow the murder lion into the murder grasses and hope for the best. The residual adrenaline bubbled out of Hero’s throat as a laugh. It was a ludicrous idea. And once upon a time Hero would have roundly ridiculed anyone who even entertained the prospect. That would have been before he followed a half-mad librarian into a labyrinth of a fully mad dead god, of course.
A murder lion seemed almost quaint by comparison, really.
Short of better options, Hero scrubbed his face, muttered curses to every god, librarian, and damned Watcher that had led him here, and stumbled into the long grass in pursuit of a lion.
The lioness led him across a wheat field and through a valley that Hero hadn’t thought the island large enough to contain. She never allowed him to fall far enough behind to get lost, but she only waited with an air of indifference when Hero stumbled or struggled his way over a climb. By the time they reached the rise of the white-walled city, Hero had developed a fine film of sweat and grime and torn his velvet coat in three places. His favorite velvet coat, mind you. He was still picking an extra burr from the top of his boots when the lioness stopped.
Hero looked up and had to shield his eyes from the sun. Light reflected off the polished marble like a mirror, and it took a moment to identify the wide portico of the building he’d spotted from the road. A step into the shade gave his eyes relief, and he could make out that the veranda was scattered with low couches, invitingly outfitted with pillows. On each end table sat fluted ceramic cups of refreshments, which were being enjoyed by a small gathering of rather beautiful men and handsome women who paid Hero no attention. Only one inhabitant was looking his way, and when he registered, Hero’s lip curled.
Ramiel, fallen Watcher of the Creator and glorified overstuffed bulldog of a git, did not so much sit on the couch as perch uneasily on the edge of the cushion. The fragile cup of wine looked practically toylike between his calloused fingers, and he held himself with a still awkwardness. Probably entirely due to the company to his left and his right. A stunning woman, composed of lush curves, olive-gold skin, and curls the color of perfectly roasted almonds, reclined on his right, eyeing Ramiel with a look that could only be read a
s hungry. Her twin—brother? clone? had to be one of those—attended a fruit plate on the Watcher’s left. Hero considered him even more beautiful, which was saying something, considering Hero knew beauty, thank you very much.
It might have provided an excellent opportunity to intuit Ramiel’s preferences, if he didn’t look stoically constipated trapped between them. His eyes jumped to the door and Ramiel nearly dropped his wine cup. “Hero.”
“Oh please, don’t bother yourself with getting up.” Hero allowed acid to positively drizzle his words. Ramiel, at least, had the good nature to look ashamed and rushed to his feet.
“You told me to meet you in Elysium.”
“Yes, well, obviously you have availed yourself of a shortcut,” Hero said.
“Lord Ramiel is always welcome in Elysium. He is known here,” the pretty man with the plate said with an earnestness.
“Others are expected to pass a hero’s trial,” his presumed sister cooed. She swept her glance over Hero in a clinical way that said he’d been found wanting. “Is this your friend, Ramiel?”
“Yes—no, I mean . . .” Ramiel’s fingers fluttered along his goblet until he recovered enough to set it down and clear his throat. “Ah, Iambe, Pallas . . . Hero is an emissary from the Unwritten Wing.”
“Oh, you work for the Library, then?” The boy, Pallas, asked with excitement.
Pallas wore a chiton that looked butter soft to the touch, if cut too short. It revealed a new inch of muscled thigh every time he shifted. It would have been unseemly to modern eyes if not paired with wide, guileless blue eyes. He was the kind of innocent that was expensive, and required resources for upkeep. Just the kind of beauty that Hero might have enjoyed flirting with once. But at the moment Hero could only find irritation at how closely the boy watched Ramiel. Perhaps that pastime, too, had been ruined along with his book.