Paper and Fire (The Great Library) (32 page)

“Jess, your job is to turn it off. Let me handle the distraction.”

Jess nodded. Thomas said quietly, “Frauke can help.” That meant Frauke could go in single combat against the other lion, but Jess was well aware that if that happened, things would get much worse, much faster. The rest of the pride would come, and Frauke wouldn’t last long against numbers.

Neither would they.

“Stay together until we get close. I’ll draw the lion off,” Santi said. “Jess, you know what to do then. The rest of you, just head straight inside. Don’t wait for us.”

Jess nodded and turned to Thomas. “Keep Frauke with you. Of all of us, you may be the one they want most.”

Thomas knew that. His face was thin and pale under his new-cut hair and beard, and underneath his surface calm, he looked like he was fighting an urge to curl into a ball. He put a hand on Frauke’s mane, and she purred that metallic, singing purr, and it seemed to help. “I know,” he said. I won’t go back, Jess. I can’t do that.”

He’d rather die.
Wolfe would be the same,
Jess thought.

“We’re going to make it. Trust me.” Jess tried to make himself sound positive of that and cheerful, and might have even succeeded, because Thomas pulled in a deep breath and nodded.

“I do. Of course.”

As Santi started to take the lead, Morgan suddenly grabbed his arm. “No,” she said. “Let me. It will know me as an Obscurist, but that means it will also be under strict instructions not to harm me.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely. It won’t dare.”

Jess hoped she was right as they mounted the marble steps. She looked confident and bold, all right, with her head held high. The ends of the silk scarf Jess had bought her floated like dreams on the cooling breeze. She looked beautiful and fragile and brave, and Jess couldn’t take his eyes off of her as they climbed.

The lion tilted its head down to regard their approaching group.

Morgan took in a breath and hurried up ahead of the rest of them, and the lion rose from a crouch to a standing position.

A mother with three young children ahead of them was startled by the movement and rushed her brood inside the Serapeum; Jess was grateful she did, because in the next second, the lion’s eyes flickered red. It growled.

“Move!” Santi called, and Glain grabbed Wolfe and hustled him inside fast, acting—once again—on her built-in priority to protect a Scholar. Khalila stayed with Thomas, and Jess glanced back to see that Thomas wasn’t following the plan; he was waiting, ignoring Khalila’s pulls on his arm to try to rush him to the entrance. Frauke paced restlessly near them, growling now herself.

The Library lion paced down toward Morgan now, with his growl ratcheting up to an intimidating snarl. She backed slowly away from it, and Jess ghosted sideways, trying to work his way around it while it stayed focused on her. She circled and went backward up the stairs, and it paced to follow her. She let it back her up against the wall, and it pressed forward, snarling jaws inches from her face as it boxed her in.

Then it let out a curious roaring sound that he’d never heard before. That must have been a signal to summon help, and Jess realized that they were out of time and luck. He darted in to get his fingers on the switch under the lion’s jaw, but it saw him coming and shifted its weight sideways to block him. It was like running into a stone wall, and he was knocked into a sliding fall on the marble. As soon as he slowed, he rolled to his feet and tried again, slipping in under the swiping paw. The lion yanked its head aside as he tried to get to the switch, and this time, a batting blow connected squarely.

It sent him rolling down the steps in a breathless heap of pain.

As he blinked away bloody afterimages, he saw a shadow pass over him and heard the heavy crunch of a lion’s body landing on the steps, then leaping away again.
No, no—it’s going after Thomas.
But it wasn’t the lion that had sent him tumbling down the stairs. It was
their
lion.

Frauke let out a wild, full-throated cry of rage and slammed into the Library lion with so much force, it sounded like two steam trains colliding. Jess tried to get to his feet and managed it, though everything seemed wavy and blurred. Someone was helping him—Khalila. Thomas rushed to take his other side.
No, don’t,
Jess tried to say but couldn’t. He couldn’t quite grasp what was happening now. Morgan was crouched in a heap near the doorway, covering her head as the two massive lions battled and tore at each other above her. He saw movement and realized more lions were coming, drawn to the fight.

Thomas and Khalila half carried him toward the door. The battling lions thrashed and roared next to them, bits of metal flying off as claws shredded bronze skin, then a sharp snap as a cable was bitten through,
the smell of spraying fluids, a metallic roar that was almost one of pain as one of the lions lurched unevenly, one leg useless.

“Frauke,” Jess said, and the wounded lion turned her head toward him. “Kill.”

Her eyes blazed an intense, bright white, and she roared and threw herself into the fight, a fight she couldn’t possibly win, and he knew he was killing her as well. He felt like a monster.

Thomas pulled him through the doorway, and he lost sight of Frauke just as her jaws closed around the paw of the other lion and yanked; metal ripped, cables shredded, gears scattered. Dark fluids spilled like blood.
She’s winning,
he thought, but in the next instant, another Library lion, red eyes glowing hellishly bright, landed on Frauke’s back and dug claws in.

The embattled first lion closed its jaws over Frauke’s throat.

Jess looked away, but he couldn’t help but hear the heavy
crunch
of the bite or the hissing spray of liquids, or the high-pitched metallic shriek that couldn’t have been one of pain, but that was how it sounded to him, like pain, as Frauke died.

Then he was across the threshold and couldn’t see anymore. He heard screaming and panic, and realized that the Serapeum was full of innocent people and more lions were coming.

Wolfe rushed for a control lever by the door and pulled it. The doors began to crank shut, and almost closed before a lion got a paw between them. Metal shrieked and bent. The doors didn’t quite close. They shuddered as a lion’s body hit, and then another.

“Stay out of the way!” Santi shouted to the bystanders. “Get against the walls! Don’t get in the way when they come in. You’re in no danger if you
stay out of the way
!”

The civilians were already following that wise advice, cowering in corners or near bookcases. The sound of the lions battering at the door, clawing, screaming echoed from the marble walls and floors as Wolfe took the lead, running across the broad, open central hall toward the far end of the Serapeum. The building passed in a blur for Jess, who finally
was feeling his body again—not that it was a blessing—and got his feet working to move under his own power. Nothing was broken, at least, though he’d be aching badly tomorrow. He had an impression of a vast, columned hall lined with row upon row of shelves—a whole section of precious originals sealed under glass, available only to authorized Scholars, but open shelves lined with prefilled Blanks, or ones ready to be filled. Podiums held giant, permanently affixed Codex volumes. Roman statues graced alcoves, and for a bad moment he imagined those marble maidens and lads stepping down to grab them, but they were just statues, after all.

Wolfe made it to the door, but it was fixed with a heavy lock. Jess pushed forward and fumbled for his tools; his head wasn’t clear, and it seemed to take forever for his fingertips to begin to sense the vibrations of the metal pins.

Somehow, despite the tension, the others managed not to yell at him, and he was grateful for the concentration. At last he felt the lock snap under his fingers and the door sag open. He moved through and held it open for the others, and at the far end of the Serapeum, one of the double doors shrieked and fell and a Roman lion bounded through and skidded on the marble floor, roaring.

“Go!” Jess shouted, though they hardly needed encouragement. Santi came through first, ready to shoot any opposition, but the hall was empty for the moment. Glain stepped through last, still facing back toward the Serapeum’s hallway as the lions crowded in. Jess slammed the door shut and locked it as the first of the pride fixed a red gaze in their direction.

Then they were running through the empty halls of the basilica. Jess managed to keep up without help, though he felt Morgan next to him, anxiously steadying him when he faltered. “I’m fine,” he told her, and she sent him a breathless, disbelieving look. “You were right about the lion. I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, and her hand slipped into his. The warm touch of her hand pushed back the pain a little. “Come on, Jess. Just a little farther.”

Santi led them through a maze of corridors, avoiding High Garda patrols responding to the summons from the Serapeum, and Jess recognized where they were now: the hallways close to where he and Glain, a lifetime ago, had begun their patrol. “It’ll be guarded,” he told Glain, and she nodded. “Don’t hesitate to shoot, no matter who it is.”

“I won’t,” she said, and moved up to run with Santi. They rounded a last corner, and there, halfway down the long hall, lay the statue of Pluto with the hidden entrance behind him, and a group of five soldiers in front.

Blue Dogs—their own squad. Jess recognized the Englishman with the beard and a few of the others, and it hit him like a sick jolt.

Someone shouted, and the Blue Dog soldiers all turned to face them. One of them fired, but it was a wild shot and dug gouges from the stone above and behind them. Santi and Glain fired back, and Jess managed to get his own weapon up, too. Two of the soldiers dropped immediately, and another one followed in the next second, but the two on the left abandoned the open hallway and took cover. “Glain, Jess, with me!” Santi shouted, and they pelted forward. Another shot came their way, and this one wasn’t wild at all; it was well-placed, accurate, and hit Glain in the meaty part of her thigh. She cried out and went down, and Jess blinked at the splash of bright red blood left on the wall where she’d been. He dragged her up and pressed her behind the statue of Juno, then ran after Santi, who’d activated the secret entrance behind Pluto. He skidded to a halt and aimed at the soldiers who had already lined up on Santi’s back.

One shot, and missed, but Jess didn’t. He placed his shots carefully, and both men dropped.

Santi looked angry and ill with it. “Get them in,” he said. “Look after Glain. We still have to take the Translation Chamber, and there may be more guarding it . . .” His voice trailed off, and his eyes fixed somewhere beyond Jess, toward the other end of the tunnel.

Jess heard a ringing, echoing roar.

He turned his head to see the Roman lion—the one he’d turned off on their way to rescue Thomas—racing toward them in a flat-out run, claws
digging into the stone floor of the hallway as it ran, and flinging up chips behind it. His weapon wouldn’t matter to it, not at all, and from the tenor of the roar and the red shine of its eyes, it didn’t intend to take them prisoner. It would crush them, rip them, leave them bloody rags on the stones.

He heard Santi’s quiet sigh behind him and recognized the resignation in it. Santi was giving up.

Jess damn well wasn’t.

He dropped his gun and, as Morgan and Khalila ducked through the opening, with Glain held up between them, he went straight at the lion at a run.
Not this time,
he thought.
This time I won’t miss.
He couldn’t. They were in the path now, and the lion would crush them all, Scholars and Obscurists and High Garda alike. They were now enemies, and enemies had no safety.

Now.

He flung himself forward into a tight ball and rolled, slammed his legs down flat to stop himself as the lion passed over him, and then he was up,
behind
it, as it passed him.

“Jess!” Morgan screamed. She thought it had trampled him, and, near enough, he’d felt one paw graze his shoulder and leave a massive bruise, but he was alive. And now he grabbed hold of the automaton’s whipping tail, careful of the barb at the end, and swung himself up on the broad, muscular back.

It was like riding a storm. The lion reacted instantly to the pressure, twisting and writhing, slamming against the wall; he dodged the barbed tail that tried to spear him from behind and locked his arms around the massive neck before he swung his legs off and let momentum throw him forward. For a second he was dangling from the lion, and his head wedged in under the lion’s jaw, preventing it from biting.

Now.

He let go, and as he fell, he stabbed his fingertips up onto the switch. It gave with a sharp click, and then he hit the floor and scrambled backward as the lion lunged at him, snapping its jaws.

It came to a frozen halt a handbreadth from his face.

“Dio mio!”
Santi said, lapsing just for a moment into his native Italian, and then recovered a second later to lunge forward, grab Jess, and drag him backward to his feet. For just a moment, the captain looked at him with silent approval, and then he turned and said, “We have to get to the Translation Chamber. Move.” As the others began to go, he said to Jess, “I thought we were dead.”

“So did I,” Jess admitted. “I just thought I’d rather go out fighting.”

Santi slapped him on the same shoulder the lion had bruised. “I’ve decided I like you, boy.”

Jess somehow found himself grinning. “Everybody likes me. I’m charming.”

“Shut up and move.”