Page 38 of The Assassin and the Libertine
“What is it?” I whispered.
“It smells of the murderer. Stay close and keep your pistol cocked.”
He wrenched the boards from the doorframe, and they came away easily. He beckoned me to him, and we entered the shop together.
“What do you see?” I whispered. We stepped over broken glass and a few discarded books. Most of the shop’s contents had been looted, it seemed. I picked up one of the remaining books from the floor and held it up to the moonlight to read the title.
“Étienne,” I said, fear building in my gut. “This is a book of dark magic. I don’t think this is a normal bookshop.”
He sniffed the air again and tugged me to the back of the store. An open door—probably a storage room—gaped like a tall, dark mouth.
“There’s something in there. I can’t see it, but the smell is getting stronger from that direction.”
“Should we light a candle? I won’t be any help to you if I can’t see what I’m fighting,” I hissed. In that moment, I wished for supernatural abilities of my own.
“I don’t want to give us away,” he whispered back. “Just hold onto me.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I held onto his coat and willed myself calm. I was trained for this, after all.
We crept forward to the doorway and Étienne paused, listening. I couldn’t hear anything, but I was beginning to detect the smell Étienne had tried to describe to me. A stinking, burning, rotting smell, like a tannery on fire. It made my insides twist with nausea.
“Well?” I pressed. “What is inside?”
“A stairwell going down. I can’t see all the way, though. The drunk was right. There is something unnatural about this darkness,” Étienne said.
Navigating the stairs proved to be incredibly difficult. We were forced to move slowly. After an interminable amount of time, we finally reached the floor below. It felt like hard-packed earth beneath my feet.Is it some kind of cellar?
“Étienne, what do you see?”
He was quiet while he surveyed our surroundings.
“I can’t be sure,” he began. I sensed an undercurrent of unease from him and started to grow nervous. He pulled away from my grip momentarily and bent down, then straightened again. He struck a flint, lit a small stub of a candle, and handed it to me.
I held it aloft and looked around. I’d been right on one count—we appeared to be in some kind of root cellar beneath the bookstore. It was strangely empty, except for a few wooden crates stashed to one side. In front of us, drawn on the floor in something suspiciously blood-like, was a circle filled with a pentagram and numerous symbols. At each point of thepentagram sat a glass jar containing a different object. I picked up the jar closest to me and gasped.
“Étienne! It’s Jeanne’s ring!”
He stooped to look in the jar opposite and growled an oath. The jar contained a pink ribbon garter stained with fresh blood.
“It’s Brigitte’s,” he said. “She was wearing it when we…her initials are stitched onto the side.”
“Check the other jars,” I ordered, trying to stem the tide of panic. “I’ll see what else I can find.”
I ran to the crates along the wall. At the bottom of one was a large, leather-bound book with the wordsPseudomonarchia Daemonumwritten in black. Dread gathered inside me. I picked up the book and flipped it open to the middle, where a gold ribbon marked a page titledThe Demon Asmoday. What did it all mean?
“Two of the jars are empty,” Étienne said. “One of them contains a gaming piece from a casino in Venice. It, too, is bloody. I recognize it, but?—”
Without warning, the door upstairs slammed shut. A dry, hot gust of wind rushed in, blowing the book closed and extinguishing the candle. The rotten, sulfuric smell grew worse until I could barely breathe. Étienne leaped for me across the room, but as soon as he stepped over the markings on the floor, an invisible force hurled him back against the wall. He slammed into it with a violence that would have killed any human.
“Étienne!” I screamed. He moaned shakily.
“Daphne,” he coughed. “Run!”
From all around us—yet nowhere at all—a dry laugh echoed through the room.
“Run? Before introductions? How…impolite,” the voice rasped, whispering like sand across stones.
“Who are you?” I yelled. Anger warred with my fear.
