Page 15 of Unbroken
Sebastian bolted down the stairs toward Ves. Irene cried a warning, but it was drowned out by the pounding of his heart. His powers from the Books of Breath and Flesh would do him no good against an opponent who neither breathed nor bled. But it still needed its bones.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to concentrate. Yes, there—the femur, bright in his mind’s eye?—
Before he could shatter its leg, the corpse reeled back, retracting its proboscis. It clawed at its mouth, as though it had swallowed acid. The decay around its gaping maw accelerated before Sebastian’s eyes, teeth coming loose and face caving inward. It flailed, trying to get away from Ves now, but he kept a tight hold on it.
Noct swung past Sebastian, adding his tentacles to the mix. Within moments, the two brothers had torn the corpse to pieces, its arms, head, and legs dropping into the putrid water, followed swiftly by its torso.
“Ves!” Sebastian reached for him, but the stairs groaned a warning.
Ves held up a hand. “Everyone up! Onto the street.”
Thankfully, the stairs held long enough for them to get back up. They rapidly retreated the way they’d come, until they stood again in the fresh night air. Even the pervasive smell of fish on the wind was preferable to the stench released from the corpse in the water.
“What the hell was that thing?” Irene asked. “And what happened when it attacked you?”
Ves quickly unbuttoned vest and shirt, both of which displayed a small, round hole that seemed to have been punched through the cloth with an awl. A matching pink spot on his skin finished healing even as they watched. “It bit me. It felt like…like it was trying to suck the blood out of me, like a mosquito.”
A chill went through Sebastian. “Or a vampire.”
CHAPTER 8
“A hematophage,” Mr. Quinn said the next day, when Ves and Sebastian went to his office to report their progress. “We faced one before, back in 1902…but those circumstances were very different. You say this was some sort of living corpse?”
“I suppose you could call it that,” Ves said. The sharp, piercing pain, followed by the horrible sucking had invaded his dreams last night. “As to why my blood seemed to have such a negative effect on it, I couldn’t say.”
“You’re resistant to sorcery,” Sebastian said. “Maybe your blood negated the magic keeping it animate?”
“Fascinating.” Mr. Quinn steepled his fingers. “What else?”
“I’m placing Alexander Dromgoole’s architectural plans in the archives,” Sebastian said. “They’ve told us all they can, and are taking up a great deal of space in my office.”
Dromgoole’s work was completely undone; there was nothing more his designs held for them. They’d go back into storage, perhaps never to be looked at again. The final legacy of a man whose brilliant mind was slowly warped out of true by the Books he’d Bound himself to, until he ended his days in the madhouse at Taunton.
Mr. Quinn nodded. “And Ladysmith’s letters?”
“I’d like to keep them a bit longer. Ladysmith had some idea of how to destroy the Books—one of the letters says he was going somewhere remote. He may not have committed any more to paper, but I can’t be certain without going through the rest of his correspondence.”
“But wherever he went, he didn’t find anything,” Ves pointed out. “Otherwise, he would have destroyed the Books instead of merely walling them away.”
“It never hurts to be thorough.” Mr. Quinn leaned back in his chair. “How do you propose finding the Book of Blood?”
“We don’t have much choice except to interview the people who were at Penelope Tubbs’s party,” Sebastian answered. “Find someone who had a grudge against her and David Siewert. Perhaps figure out who the corpse belonged to, before they became a vampire. Er, hematophage.”
“I like leech,” Ves said, resisting the urge to rub his chest where it had attached to him.
“Hmm.” Mr. Quinn splayed his spidery fingers on the desk in front of him. “Why do you think our foe left the undead to watch over the place? The Book was removed—what were they guarding against?”
“Or was it simply drawn to the place where the Book used to be?” Ves asked. “Pulled there by its lingering magic?”
Sebastian bit his lip uncertainly. “My ancestor, Gregorio, the one the siblings came here to resurrect, was accused of being a vampire back in Ipswich. His corpse dug up, body desecrated. From what little I know, that was ordinarily done when the ‘vampire’ had died from consumption, and subsequent family members also took ill. It was thought the vampire was feeding on their life force from the grave, not literally rising from it and drinking their blood. But we don’t actually know any of the details surrounding his death and the accusations that led to him being dug up again.”
“I doubt he was anything like the leech we encountered last night,” Ves objected. “He studied at the Scholomance, so he must have been a powerful sorcerer. The leech…” He suppressed a shudder at the memory of the raw, desperate hunger in its eyes. “No one would turn themselves into that willingly.”
“You’d be surprised,” Mr. Quinn said dryly. “But I concede your point—it hardly sounds like the best of the options available to a sorcerer. Mr. Rath, a trip to Ipswich might shed some light on the subject, if you deem it relevant.”
“I do,” Sebastian said. “I’ll make arrangements to leave tomorrow. In the meantime, we need to interview Siewert’s widow, since Tubbs is being obstinate about giving us the list of people who were at the memorial dinner.”
Mr. Quinn nodded. “Very well. Good work, gentlemen. Carry on as you have, and soon all four of the Books will rest in our safekeeping.”
