“Something big with lots of teeth is in the way, isn’t it?” I whispered.
I knew it by the way Dilly’s hand shook. A woman who ran into a storm just to see a Kraken was afraid.
“It’s called the Leviathan,” she said, reaching over and grabbing another all too familiar book.
“Oh god, does this really call for the Bible?” I groaned.
Oscar snorted. “Rose didn’t pay attention in Sunday School.”
Dilly ignored him and flipped open the leather-bound book that my Grandmother used to hold up and tell Oscar and me we were going to hell if we didn’t obey our elders.
“The biblical Leviathan appears in several passages, and together they paint a remarkably consistent picture. In Job, it is a creature of overwhelming strength—armoured, fire-breathing, and entirely beyond human control. The Psalms describe it as multi-headed and ultimately subject only to divine power. Another psalm speaks of it simply existing within the sea as one of God’s creations. And in Isaiah, it becomes a symbol of chaos that only God can defeat. Taken together, Scripture portrays Leviathan as ancient, untamable, and accountable to no one but the divine.”
And just like that, I knew I had a month to live.
“What else?” Bash asked, tension rippling off of him.
“The creature we call ‘Leviathan’ appears explicitly only in Hebrew Scripture, but it has clear parallels in several older and contemporary ancient Near Eastern texts. These myths share the same themes—a primordial sea serpent, a chaos-dragon, or a multi-headed monster defeated or restrained by a chief deity. Plato makes no mention of it when he spoke of the fall of Atlantis.”
“Any chance you are a deity?” Val asked, downing another shot.
“What kind of funeral do you want?” Oscar asked.
“Oscar.” Inu and Bash were chastised as one.
I was fucked, but I also wasn’t a complete idiot.
“I was worried Edmonds was making an elaborate trap and that if I failed in his task, he would just give me an impossible one and hang Oscar and Bash anyway. So part of the agreement and vow was that he believed there was a reasonable chance of my succeeding. He said the words and the vow took so thatmeans something in that book he gave you has a way we live through this.” I said.
“You could have added that earlier.” Bash snapped.
I shrugged. “Well, I didn’t know how bad it all sounded before.”
“And now?” he snapped. “Do you realise how fucking bad it all sounds?”
Emille reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy,” the doctor murmured.
My husband took a long steadying breath, and even now I knew I wasn’t sorry. I would rather face a biblical monster than see him hang. Even if I failed, he was in a better place to outrun Edmonds, and so was Oscar. I knew without a doubt, I would do it again.
I also had just enough self-preservation to not say that out loud at the current moment.
“Has anyone ever seen it?” I asked.
“And lived?” Dilly asked. “No.”
Excellent.
“When Edmonds gave me the book, he said everything I needed was in here, but honestly, it’s more of a journal than a book, and there are also entire pages missing, like he didn’t want us to know anything about the author. I think there is more to this than meets the eye.” Dilly hummed as she flipped through the pages.
I stepped forward, eyeing the careful cursive inked into yellowed pages, and it felt like maybe it was time to say the other part I’d been avoiding. Something that made it feel like my skin was crawling every time I remembered. I didn’t run from my problems anymore, and that meant saying it out loud.
“At the wedding–” I swallowed hard, running my fingers over the well-worn paper of the book. “He told me I was a rarity andthat if I wanted to know what I was, all I had to do was read in between the lines.”
“Anything else you’ve been holding back, Rosamund?” Bash said, irritation pouring off of him in droves.
I lifted my eyes to him and smiled sweetly. “Nope, I think that’s about all of it.”
