“Not surprising, considering who owns it.”
Patrick jumped up to grab the carved elephant head from the top shelf. As his fingers dragged it off the shelf and into his palm, recognition punched through his magic with sickly force. He swallowed the taste of hell, twisting around to face where the threat stemmed from once his feet were back on the floor.
At the end of the reading room, framed in the open doorway, stood the stuff of nightmares.
“Soultakers,” Patrick snarled, shoving the artifact into his pocket so he could reach for his dagger sheathed at the small of his back.
20
Patrick ranfor the stairs that led back down to the reading room’s floor, book held tight in one hand, dagger trailing white-hot heavenly fire in the air behind him. The trio of soultakers that had either been summoned through the veil or eaten their way through screamed as they staggered toward where Sage and Gerard stood.
The soultakers’ screams were reminiscent of tearing metal and made Patrick’s ears pop. The sound of cracking glass told him the windows were going to break soon.
“Get to the other exit!” Patrick shouted as he raised a shield between them and the demons.
“We can’t leave the fucking soultakers behind when we still have security guards in the library,” Gerard yelled back even as he and Sage ran to his position.
Patrick’s feet hit the floor hard. “The damn things will follow us. That’s what they do.”
Gerard glared at him and twisted his free hand in the air, the crackling pop of displaced air the gesture produced revealing theGáe Bulg. The sleek weapon had a pole made out of bone topped with a long, notched blade. The magic pouring off it made Patrick’s hair stand on end.
Or that could’ve been the presence of the soultakers.
“You aren’t fighting them in close quarters,” Gerard snapped.
Patrick conjured up a mageglobe, knowing the damned demons would eat his magic and drain him dry if he gave them half a chance. His dagger, on the other hand, was the safer option.
“You have a better idea?”
Sage shoved them both with preternatural strength, forcing them into a stumbling run. “Yes. We get the hell out of here to a more open area, and I tear off a couple of heads.”
While a tank was good, and Patrick’s dagger could turn the demons to ash, Sage in her weretiger form was strong enough to rip the heads off the demons if she could stay out of reach of their dangerous mouths and never-ceasing hunger for magic and souls. It was a risky attack, and the only time she’d done it successfully had been with the support of other werecreatures last summer. Patrick wasn’t willing to risk her, not when he had a weapon that could kill the demons.
Sage hadn’t shifted yet, but she had kicked off her high heels and torn her skirt on either side of her legs for more maneuverability. The soultakers had halved the distance between them, their toxic, whiplike tongues lashing through the air in front of them.
The trio slammed through the entrance opposite the one the soultakers had appeared in, racing into the hallway. Patrick’s shield lasted a couple of seconds more before he felt the vicious bite on his magic as the soultakers ate away at his defense. He let the defensive ward go and severed his connection to it, letting the soultakers eat what they’d already gotten their teeth into while he drew the rest back into his soul.
“I want a tank,” Patrick said, trying not to whine.
Gerard tossed Patrick an exasperated look over his shoulder before his attention shifted farther behind them. “Not even the president has the authority to request tanks be deployed in downtown DC.”
“The government should change that.”
“Keep running.”
The sound of clawed feet scraping against the floor behind them had Patrick listening to Gerard. Adrenaline and fear crawled through Patrick’s veins as he ran, the smooth soles of his oxfords sliding along the floor when he tried to take the corner at the hallway intersection without slowing down. His shoulder slammed against the wall, and he propelled himself right back off it, staying on Gerard’s six.
Most of the lights in the Library of Congress were off; only a handful of dim recessed lights in sparse locations lit the way. Visiting hours had ended well before the sun had set, and it was dark outside. Despite knowing they only had to worry about security guards inside the building, it was everyone else outside that would eventually become a problem.
“We can’t contain three soultakers by ourselves,” Patrick said, breathing hard as Gerard led them to the exit with unerring strides.
They didn’t have the support to do that, not like they’d had on the Skellig Islands last December. Back then, they’d had the entire Hellraisers bolstered by Gerard’s fury, and Wade in the sky as aerial support. Here, it was only the three of them, and the last thing Patrick needed was another fight in the middle of a major city to get picked apart on the news.
“We’ll have to try,” Gerard said.
They burst through a set of doors and nearly bowled over a security guard.
“What the hell?” the guy exclaimed, fighting to keep his footing as Sage grabbed him by the arm and yanked him along.
