Page 14 of Unbroken
“Be careful,” Ves warned. “Step only where I’ve stepped.”
Noct swung onto Ves’s shoulders as they approached what seemed to be the pantry door. Sebastian’s flashlight beam reflected dully off old glass jars, filled with the gods alone knew what. Jam, perhaps, or other preserved things, reduced now to black slime.
Sebastian let out a soft hiss. “I feel something! It must be the Book.”
Thank the trees. The murderer must have left it here, believing it to be a secure hiding spot. The basement door was inconveniently small, forcing Noct from Ves’s back and onto the ground. It opened onto a set of wooden stairs with no rail. Rather than lead straight down, the staircase wrapped tightly around a brick column.
The resting place of the Book. It must be.
“Is it in there? Can you tell?” Ves asked.
Sebastian’s lips parted…then he frowned. “I’m…not sure? Something is down here, but…”
“Don’t worry—I’ll find it,” Ves said. “The rest of you stay up here—I don’t trust these stairs.”
Sebastian didn’t look happy about Ves going alone, but he nodded. “Be careful, angel.”
The wooden steps moaned under his weight, but held for the moment. The basement below was flooded, five feet or more of saltwater lapping against the stone walls. Where was it coming in? There must be some crack or hole hidden beneath the surface.
The staircase made its first tight turn. Beyond, clumps of brick and mortar lay discarded where someone had torn through the wall.
The Book couldn’t be gone. Sebastian was sensing it. And yet, there was nothing within its former hiding place but a simple, flat shelf, empty except for dust.
Had someone removed it, then flung it away into the water? That didn’t seem likely, but it would explain why Sebastian hadn’t been sure if it was still concealed.
“The Book has been removed,” he called up. “But I’m going to look?—”
Something splashed in the water below.
Sebastian stared at his sleeve, as if he could see his scars through coat and shirt. The Book wasn’t where Dromgoole and Ladysmith had left it…but he still felt a tugging, as though the cotton thread was yet laced through his arm.
The scars reacted to the Books…and to things touched by their magic, like Penelope. Or maybe the person who’d been using them?
“Ves, get back up here,” he said urgently.
Ves stared at the lapping water. “I heard something.”
Sebastian’s mouth went dry. He directed his flashlight beam at the flood below, as did Irene.
Nothing. No…wait. A v-shape of disturbed water crossed into the beam as something swam below the surface.
“Ves—come back up, now!” he shouted.
A gray, slimy hand shot up out of the water and seized Ves’s ankle.
Caught by surprise, Ves slipped on the steps, hip slamming hard enough into the aging wood to crack it. The entire staircase juddered and groaned a protest.
From the water rose what had once been a man. Mud encrusted his formerly fine suit, as though he’d been lying in the silt at the very bottom of the flooded basement. His body was misshapen, bending sharply to the left, something badly broken inside.
Judging from his gray skin and sunken eyes, he had been dead for days.
“No!” Sebastian made a slashing motion with his hand, and the scars on his arm pulled hard. A bloodless wound opened across the dead man’s face—but he didn’t so much as react.
Ves’s tentacles shot out, wrapping around the decaying corpse. Skin sloughed off beneath his grasp, and a horrible stench filled the air. The dead man again didn’t react, straining his arms forward as though he meant to seize Ves. His mouth fell open, wider and wider, until the water-logged flesh ripped at the corners of his lips.
Something shot out of his throat.
A strange tube, like the proboscis of a mosquito, launched from between the corpse’s teeth. The questing end latched onto Ves’s chest, and he let out a startled cry of pain.
