The Library of the Unwritten

by A J Hackwith

  The boy fixed sightlessly on the pills, tugging one end of the blanket to make the little blue ovals twitch back and forth. Back and forth, up and down. As if balancing the scale.

  “You already know what happens.” Rami made his voice as gentle as possible.

  The teenager raised his eyes dully to where Rami stood in the corner of his bedroom. The boy’s face didn’t change. Didn’t register surprise, as if a strange angel popped into his room at midnight every day. He made no move to cover up the dozen pills before him. “I deserved it.”

  “Do you want to tell me why?” Rami already knew what he would hear, but the question wasn’t for him. He had to step carefully, so carefully here. Pulling a soul from its memory was a fragile process, and Rami was aware how desperately out of practice he was. The memory seemed already to be fraying at the edges; an eerie vignette of dark blur muddled the corners of the room.

  “I . . . He’s dead because of me. I killed him.” The boy started toying with the pills again.

  Rami gestured. “This doesn’t look like where society keeps a murderer.”

  “I might as well have killed him. Darren, he . . . We were friends. Since we were kids. But lately he was just so . . . annoying. And always complaining. I tried. I tried!” Frustration flickered to life in Leto’s voice, giving it an uneven edge. “I invited him to stuff! He shit all over everything.” He flicked a begging glance to Rami, but the angel said nothing.

  He clenched the blanket in his hands as his eyes diverted again. “It’s like he wanted to be miserable. He was always threatening to kill himself. Always talking about it for attention. I just . . . You panic the first few times, because you care, right? But after the twentieth time, it felt like it was just talking. He was on about it again and . . . I snapped. I said, ‘Sure, yeah. Hurry up and do it if you’re going to do it already.’ God, I was . . . ‘Just do it or shut up,’ I said.” Leto’s breath became ragged, his voice thick as he swallowed. “So he did.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rami said.

  “Don’t.” The boy was suddenly tense. “Just . . . say anything but that. Don’t. That’s what they all said. All they ever say. I kept waiting for someone to figure it out. Read the texts he was always sending me. Ask questions. Figure out I’m the reason that . . . But no one did. Everyone just knew we were friends. Everyone’s sympathetic, everyone’s sad. I’m not sad. I’m mad. I’m so—” Leto screwed his eyes shut again, and his voice broke. “But everyone’s so fucking sorry.”

  “You really think they’d blame you?”

  “They should. I . . . Darren never cared about normal stuff. The guys at school called Darren— Well, they called him a lot of things. I dropped him just to impress guys who couldn’t give two fucks about me. I abandoned him.” More pills crept between the boy’s fingers, and the shadows stirred across the floor. “Betrayed him.”

  Rami watched the blue dots leaving dust on clenched hands. “You think this will help?”

  “Nothing helps. Nothing fixes this.”

  “Nothing stops it either,” Rami said. “The hurt doesn’t stop just because you turn your back on it.”

  The boy was silent a moment, knuckles white. “Does it even matter?”

  “It always matters to those you leave behind. You broke her heart, you know.”

  His shoulders hunched. “Mom won’t care. She—”

  “Not your mom. Claire.”

  Confusion replaced some of the tension on the boy’s face. Memory foggy. “Wh-who?”

  “The librarian.” Rami stepped forward. Not aggressively, but as one would come around the bedside of a sick person. “It’s time to remember, Leto. You’ve tortured yourself enough.”

  “The librarian.” Leto repeated the word. His brow furrowed, and the boy seemed about to dismiss it. In this permeable place of time past, grief spent, Rami could almost taste the memories as they cracked through the boy’s brain. A headache, gravelly sand, bronze chain, bronze hair. Sun on stones, snack cakes. Ale and ravens. A kiss. Papers and tea. Uncomfortably squishy.

  Leto shook his head to clear it. “That’s not. I haven’t. I still have to—”

  “You already have. There’s no need to relive this,” Rami said. “Take my hand, and we can talk.”

  Leto’s gaze drifted from Rami’s outstretched hand, was pulled again to the constellation of pills in his palm. “Who are you?”

  “You can call me Rami.”

  A familiar twinge crossed his face. Leto frowned. “You were chasing us.”

  “I’m not now,” Rami said. “I just want to help.”

  “Did it matter?” Leto rubbed his eyes. Rami could feel him fluttering between two memories, two kinds of now. Past and present warring. That was another feeling Rami knew well. “Did any of it ever mean anything?”

  “We make our own meaning, like everything else in life. What matters to you now?”

  “The Library.” Leto flinched, an apparent realization like ice water. “They were trapped.”

  Souls usually didn’t pivot this fast. Rami grew concerned. “Easy, easy. You’re forgiven. You’re not in Hell anymore—”

  “Who’s that?” Leto interrupted, frowning toward the other side of the bedroom. Rami swiveled around, half expecting to see a parent, a teenage friend. But the corner was empty to his eyes.

  “What exactly are you seeing?” Rami asked hesitantly. Saving souls didn’t mean they necessarily came back intact either.

  “Old dude, kinda looks like a hipster? He’s got glowing creepy eyes and a suit and . . . striped hair? Like a tiger. Who does that?” Leto froze. “He’s . . . familiar. Why do I know him?”

  A demon with tiger-striped hair and a cold light in his eyes. No, Andras didn’t belong in the mortal world. Not in the memory of a tragic, senseless death. It was wrong, just wrong. Rami felt a chill on his neck. “Did you see him here . . . before? The first time around?”

  Leto clenched the pills in his fist before nodding, eyes still locked on the corner.

  Rami scrutinized the corner of the room, but whatever Andras had done once upon a time, he was not there now. If the demon had something to do with Leto’s human death . . . he’d been planning something longer than anyone expected. Worse, he’d involved the mortal world and unaware souls like Leto to do it. It crossed an unconscionable line, one that signaled larger ambitions than just Hell. Alarm built in his chest, and Rami was eager to be out of the memory. “Let us leave, Leto.”

  “That’s not my name. . . .” The boy frowned. “He said—he said he could make it all go away. Take me someplace better. And then it hurt, so much. He lied. What about you? Are you really helping?”

  “I can only try.” Rami had to answer honestly. The room felt darker, as if the shadows were folding in on themselves. The memory was unraveling, and they couldn’t be caught inside it. “This memory . . . I tried to catch you sooner, but this was all that was left. We need to get you out of here to have a chance.”

  Leto’s eyes reluctantly drifted away from the corner of the room and back toward Rami. He considered. “What about the others?”

  “The . . . You mean the librarian?”

  “Yes.” Leto was already beginning to fade.

  “Just . . . take my hand, and we can talk.”

  Leto considered the blue tablets in front of him. “You know, it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Dying.” He slid off the bed and turned toward Rami.

  Rami let out a breath as Leto took his hand. “It’s not meant to. The pain in death isn’t the dying. It’s the wounds we leave in our wake.”

  He cast one wary eye back to the empty corner where Andras had once been, then swept them toward Heaven.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  RAMI DIDN’T LET GO of Leto’s hand until they safely set down in Purgatory. He brought him in far from the processing
desk and the Gates, wanting to let the boy fully regain himself before overwhelming him with the bureaucracy that was Heaven.

  Rami felt a rush of relief as he looked at the teenager. Leto had color in his cheeks, an alert interest in his eyes that said he was centered and aware. It had been close—rescuing a ravaged soul was always a delicate process—but he was whole and stable.

  They stood a little apart from the meandering mass of souls that shuffled by them as Rami took stock. Leto’s eyes focused on the dazed dead waiting in a tidy, if unwieldy, line. This far away from the desk, the quiet was eerie. The dead didn’t have much need for small talk, so the limitless space was filled only with the shuffle of feet.

  When Leto’s eyes drifted back, Rami felt the question. “You remember now?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Leto ran a hand through his hair absently before touching his rounded ears with a jerk. “If this isn’t Earth, why aren’t my ears—”

  “You are purified.” Rami saw Leto’s incredulous look, and he waved a hand. “I know, stilted term. Heaven loves them. You were never wrong to begin with. But it means you’re not sentenced to be a demon anymore. An act of sacrifice can do that. You’ve remembered and forgiven yourself for what you did when you were alive.”

  “I didn’t do it to be forgiven.” Leto shook his head. “What I did—”

  “Forgiven doesn’t mean no regret. We’ll always regret the wrongs we’ve done. It just means you aren’t punishing yourself for it.”

  Leto folded his arms. His morose look was surprising, given the circumstances. Most forgiven souls couldn’t race to the Gates fast enough. Rami tried again. “That means you don’t have to go back to Hell.”

  Leto’s eyes widened. “Oh no, you have to take me back. We have to go to the Library immediately.”

  Rami frowned. Perhaps there had been some damage after all, some touch of insanity. He touched Leto’s shoulder and willed calm into the boy. Leto’s shoulders drooped, and Rami began guiding him through the crowd. He skipped the line of waiting mortals entirely—surely even Heaven would understand some line cutting, given the circumstances. “You really don’t mean that.”

  Despite all reason, Leto persisted. “I do. And I think you’re going to take me.”

  “I think you are misinformed.”

  “No. You came after me after a crocodile creature . . . god . . . monster-thing tore up my soul. Somehow, I don’t think you do that for everyone. Why me?”

  Rami furrowed his brow. “It was a brave thing you did, there. Even if you’re misguided about what side you’re on. You didn’t deserve to disappear.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I think it’s because you wanted something. I’ll be honest—I’m not helping you do anything to hurt the Library. But”—Leto looked cagey, and proud of himself for it—“if you get me back to the Library, maybe the librarian will listen to you.”

  Rami let go of Leto’s shoulder. His touch had made him calm and obedient but obviously hadn’t dissuaded him from his loyalties. Rami crossed his arms. “You’re awfully shrewd for a purified soul.”

  Leto grinned. “Turns out you can learn a lot of things in a library.”

  “And willful.”

  “I think I was always that,” Leto said. “I just forgot for a while.”

  Rami snorted and considered the offer. Uriel had ordered him to find a path into Hell. Even if Uriel’s orders mattered little to Ramiel now, it was no major concession to agree to go back. He wanted to see what had become of the librarian. But it would not be safe; he had intended to leave the boy at the Gates. The fact remained that Leto was a purified soul now. Bringing him back to Hell risked condemning him all over again.

  It was a risk that didn’t sit well with him. “You won’t be able to touch anything or anyone there. One touch, you risk your soul being corrupted again, reverting to your original judgment.”

  Leto’s eyes fished toward the distant Gates and back. “I understand.”

  Rami wasn’t confident that he did. “You won’t be able to help them.”

  “But you can,” Leto said.

  Rami shook his head. “That’s not why I would—”

  “You help people. That’s what you told me. The Library is under attack by a dude who wants to ruin everything. Aren’t demons, like, your natural enemy or something?”

  “I’m not a part of Hell or the Library.”

  “Are you part of Heaven, then?”

  Guilt settled in Rami’s stomach like a stone. “Not precisely.”

  “And do you think Claire is working for evil?”

  “She’s Hell’s lib—”

  “That’s her title. Is she evil? Is what she’s trying to do evil?” Leto insisted.

  Rami was not accustomed to moral debate with mortals. He ground his teeth. “No. Not as far as I know.”

  “Did she try to do anything to harm Heaven? Even when your partner tried to kill her?”

  Rami sighed. Uriel really wasn’t giving the best impressions of Heaven. “You heard about that.”

  “For an angel, that didn’t seem very nice.”

  “There were—it wasn’t—it’s not as if—” Rami fell silent. 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 gon
e 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, the Arcane Wing, and a legion of Horrors at his command. Just getting out of this blighted place would be a feat.

  An exit, naturally, presented itself the next time she turned a corner and faced another dead end.

  She was just about to let out a groan when she saw the arch. Wedged in the corner where two stone walls met, lost nearly in shadow, stood a darkened doorway. It was roughly the same shape and build as the one they’d encountered up the stairs, only the light was more muted. Lamplight, not sunlight.

  “Oh, is it my turn now?” Claire muttered, wary of a trap. She brought her nose as near to the surface as she dared.