Ash and Quill(79)

"I told you-I'm to accept your surrender, and you're to return with me to the New York Serapeum and then be Translated to Alexandria." Rafa still seemed unbearably smug. "I'm told what the Archivist wrote will explain the uselessness of your continued defiance."

Nothing for Morgan, Jess, or Wolfe. Jess scrambled to understand what was going on here. Something big enough to rock Khalila on her heels.

But she was back on balance again now, and when she spoke, her voice was tight with suppressed fury. "A question, for my friends," she said. "Who else has family in Library service now?"

"Now?" Dario asked. "I've had dozens, but none at the moment."

"Same," said Thomas.

Glain nodded. "First and only in this generation."

"I had one," Santi said. "A brother. He's retired."

"No wonder he only meant this for me, then," Khalila said. She flung the scroll into her cousin's chest. "Death sentences," she said. "For our family! That is a sentence of death for my father, my brother, and your own father! All of them loyal to the Library without question, their entire lives. All arrested! He didn't even bother to tell you!"


      ///
       
         
       
        

Rafa froze, then unrolled the scroll and scanned it enough to know that she wasn't lying. "But-"

"They've already been arrested. They're in prison, under sentence of treason," she said. "Your name would have been here, too, only he must not have such respect for you. Instead, he uses you as his errand boy."

"I-" Rafa stared at her for a few seconds, then licked his lips as though they had gone suddenly very dry. He let the scroll drop again. "I didn't know. I swear it."

"Then now you know why we're fighting," Santi said. "Rafa. Come toward us."

"Why?"

"Just try."

Rafa frowned, but he took a step out into the open space.

Next to him, the automaton lion gave a little shake, as if it was waking up. They all stopped and looked toward it, but it subsided without more movement. But Jess could feel it watching. Waiting. What was it here to do? Rafa must have thought it was simply for his protection. Jess knew better. This is wrong, he thought.

Khalila slowly drew the sword that she'd belted on at her side before they'd left. "Rafa," she said. "Pick up the scroll. It might believe that you're presenting it to me again. I don't think it can understand what we're saying."

"It's just an escort," Rafa said. "It won't attack me."

"You're wrong," Santi said. "Listen to her. She's trying to save you."

"From what?"

"From your own stupidity," Khalila said. "Rafa, do what I ask! Now, for the love of Allah, I beg you, while you still have a chance-"

Rafa didn't move. He stayed under the fluttering, fragile protection of his banner, next to the lion, and stared at her with a grim frown. "I'm going nowhere with you. I'm loyal to the Library! The Archivist understands that I'm his servant, that I am trustworthy, and my loyalty will save our family from what you have done-"

He broke off suddenly, because the automaton lion rose from its comfortable sitting position. Standing, its head was level with Rafa's chest. It was massive and beautiful and terrifying, and it turned toward the Scholar and bared sharp metallic fangs.

He backed away, suddenly realizing that he was not in control of this situation. That he never had been.

That was the moment when, in utter silence, another lion eased up to a standing position from the grass directly behind him. Not bronze, this one. A dull matte pattern that blended perfectly with the grass, like High Garda camouflage. 

This was what the Artifex had really planned. Not parlay. Not negotiation.

Death.

Jess couldn't shout, couldn't move for the shock of it . . . until the camouflaged lion lunged, sank teeth into Rafa's shoulder and cruel claws into his back, and dragged him screaming into the grass.

"No!" Khalila shrieked, and would have lunged forward except that Glain caught her and held her back. It was a cruel choice, but wise; Rafa was dead already. A spray of ruby red blood clouded the air, and it seemed to Jess that he could see each and every drop with perfect, individual clarity . . . the way they rose, fell, spun, caught the light, splashed, dripped. The way the Scholar's heels flailed at the ground before they, too, vanished into the green hell of grass.

Gone.

Jess couldn't think about that, couldn't think about the sounds of flesh rending; he looked out, instead, at the large open field around them. Sunset was coming on fast, but the last gilding of light on the grass showed some of it shifting the wrong way. Seven of them, he thought. Seven at least, plus that damned bronze one meant to draw our attention. Another irrational fact stuck in his mind: the lion that had taken Rafa had no showy, flowing mane. That lion had been constructed to resemble a female.