Page 64 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“I have been,” Clovis said, glancing down at the mattress.

“They’ll be hunting us in the streets,” Arpix said, suddenly very conscious of every inch of Clovis. “Circulating our descriptions…” His mind might have missed all the cues, but his body seemed to know exactly what was going on, and although it hadn’t bothered to tell him, it had risen to the occasion. The mattress, grey and thin as it was, seemed far more inviting than it had a few moments earlier. “We really should find the others…”

“We will,” Clovis said in a low, throaty growl. “Afterwards. First, there’s the canith code to consider.”

“The what?”

“The canith code. Rule one.” She went to her knees, pulling him down with her.

“Rule one?”

“Never lie to barkeepers.”

The question “Is it wrong to punch a Nazi?” raises a range of ethical dilemmas over the use of violence in a good cause. For many people however, the true question is simply how hard should one punch them?

Deplorable, by Helen Clintoff

Chapter 28

Anne

Anne stood trembling. The thing had been some sort of unholy alliance of bear and ape, fashioned by the city’s hate out of the tarry blood that now pooled before her. In the face of her defiance, the monster had lost cohesion and fallen apart. The black puddle at her feet seemed too small to have contained such horror.

The library’s neatly arrayed shelves lay toppled and broken, books scattered everywhere. Out in the foyer, Kerrol levered himself up, groaning. He got to his knees and inspected Yute, who lay beside him.

“Is he…” Anne had been going to say “hurt?” but of course he was hurt—the monster’s blow had thrown him through the air and Yute had never struck her as sturdy.

“I don’t think he’s broken any bones.” Kerrol sounded as if he might have a few broken ribs himself, speaking with the wheezy delicacy of someone unwilling to test the limits of their own ability to inhale. “Can’t see any blood…except…” He wiped at the trickles from the librarian’s nose and mouth. The man’s blood wasn’t even red but something closer to a mix of crimson and silver with both colours trying to separate at every opportunity.

Anne picked her way through the wreckage and knelt beside Yute. “He’s breathing.” She looked up at Kerrol, tall as a man even when kneeling, his chestnut mane, the muscle and the bone of his chest and shoulders notthose of a human. The face, that she had first seen as nothing out of the ordinary, shared similarities with that of a lion and that of a dog, his mouth and nose closer to a muzzle, whiskered, almost without lips. He looked at times regal, adorable, and scary, though now he was none of those, merely concerned, the face of a friend worried about another friend. “We just fought a monster made out of oil.” The strangeness of it crowded her vision. She felt faint, breathless, as if she were the one whose chest had nearly been staved in.

“Breathe,” Kerrol advised. “Deep breaths.” He waited while she took a few. “And yes. Well, you fought it. Yute and I mainly got thrown around.”

At the mention of his name, Yute inhaled sharply and began to stir.

“Wait…how am I understanding you?” Anne realised she’d been talking to Kerrol for a while without Yute translating. “It’s like it was before…”

Kerrol looked puzzled. “Yute would know. But we’re connected to the library here—thereallibrary. It’s bleeding into this place. Literally. So, that must be it. Somehow.”

“But what—” Lights moving in the blackness out beyond the foyer doors seized Anne’s attention. “People are coming!”

“That’s not good.” Kerrol stood up, wincing.

“What should we do?”

“My first instincts would be to talk my way out of the problem, or failing that, ask Yute, even though I really haven’t known him that long.” With a deep groan Kerrol lifted Yute in both arms. “But something about this place has set me knocking heads together and trying to punch monsters.” He started to retreat into the library as outside flaming torches drew closer. “And even if I can suddenly speak the language again, I’m not sure I can talk down an angry mob. So…I suppose we hide?”

Anne could hear voices outside now, muted by the intervening glass and wood but still carrying an angry edge. Glass broke. Shouts. Shoving. Splintering. The first of the torchbearers pushed in through the front doors, alien in the light of flames, as monstrous as the creature Anne had just defeated, though they were neighbours, people who lived in the same streets as her family, worked in the same places. Some of them might have held cards to this very library, and come here in the daylight, respectablecitizens, looking to be enlightened or entertained or even educated. Now they bayed like hounds.

“Quick!” Anne beckoned. “We’ll take the back door. Lose them in the night.”

Her plan lasted only as long as it took to open the door to the corridor. The rear exit had already been opened. The first men through it brushed her aside and brought Kerrol down, tackling his legs while Yute encumbered his arms. More people poured in from behind, piling on top of Kerrol as he struggled to rise.

A woman carrying an electric flashlight took painful hold of Anne’s arm, nails digging in. “This one’s a Jew!”

“Whore!” someone shouted from the back without even seeing her.

The main lights went on, suddenly painting the scene in full detail. The burning torches looked pale now, the people holding them more ordinary, the destruction more shocking.

---