Paper and Fire (The Great Library #2)(59)
Remarkable, how cool Jess felt, how focused. He calmly brought up his weapon, thumbed the switch to turn it on, and waited an instant until he felt the shiver of power run through it. The weapon fired in regular mode for closer range, but the bottle-throwing Burner was high up on Jupiter’s shoulder, well out of range of the normal setting of the weapon.
But not for this one. It took a steady hand and good eyes, but Jess had both, and as he sank down to one knee for stability, he aimed the gun sights directly on the man perched on the shoulder of a god, preparing another bottle to throw.
Below in the Forum, the lions were roaring and alarmed screams went up. More guns barked behind him, but Jess had one singular focus: this man. He could see the Burner’s sweating face—reddened from heat and exertion and excitement—and could see the large bottle he had in his hand, ready for a second throw.
Jess’s shot took him in the shoulder. The bottle tumbled out of the Burner’s hand, not toward the Library troops, but down, plummeting past the god’s muscled back and toga-draped legs to smash on the ancient Forum stones. It created a huge green blaze and a wave of sickly black smoke, but no innocents were in the way. They now scrambled to avoid the toxic spread.
The Burner stood up on Jupiter’s shoulder. His right arm was a bloody mess, but he held up his personal journal in his left hand—the same personal journal they all kept. The same as the worn little volume in Jess’s pack. “Tell your precious Artifex! A life is worth more than a book!” he shouted. “Vita hominis plus libro valet!”
Jess, sickened, watched him deliberately fall backward and disappear into the hissing flames below. If he wasn’t dead from the fall, the Greek fire would eat him to the bones.
“Down!” Glain yelled, and she shoved him forward as she hit the marble steps next to him. A leaping shadow passed over them, and Jess looked up to see that one of the giant Roman automaton lions had taken a position in front of them, facing the Forum. It set its metallic bronze paws and roared with such volume, it nearly deafened Jess.
When he raised his head, the entire incident was over.
The Forum was deserted—a suddenly blank stretch of old stone littered with belongings and packages that people had abandoned in their haste to be gone. The Greek fire behind Jupiter burned brilliantly, stretching halfway up his legs, and in the flickering, sickly light, it looked as if the god might be melting, but no, it was a trick of shadows. Jupiter was made of hardy stuff.
There were eight bodies near the feet of Mercury across the way, crushed and lifeless. Jess swept the area with a long, straight look, but he didn’t see anyone else who’d been hurt or killed.
“Nine dead,” he said to Glain. “For what?”
“For what it always is,” she said. “A statement.” She was already on her feet and offered him a hand up, which he was happy to take. Strange; he seemed weak and a little shaky now, where he’d been ice-cold and focused before. “They knew the Artifex was coming. This message is meant for him.”
“Thrown right at us, though. Seems more personal than that,” their squad leader remarked, coming up to them. He looked them over. “Good job, new dogs. Didn’t have a chance to acquaint ourselves earlier. I’m Tom Rollison, but most call me Troll.”
“Glain Wathen, sir. Jess Brightwell.” Glain answered for both of them.
“I know who you are. Wolfe’s puppies. Word was you’d be trouble.” He looked beyond them at the blaze of fire behind the statue. “Word was wrong. That was well done.”
“Brightwell’s a better shot than most,” Glain said.
“Not bad,” Troll agreed. He glanced over Jess’s shoulder and frowned just a bit. “Seems you’ve made a new friend.”
Jess turned.
The Roman lion, standing taller than his head while on all four paws, was right behind him, staring at him with unholy red eyes. It lowered its bronze-maned head and seemed to smell him, and a low rumble of a growl rattled deep inside the thing.
“Jess?” Glain said, and took a step backward. “Step away. Slowly.”
When he tried, the lion took a step forward.
“What the hell did you do to them?” Troll asked from behind him. Their squad leader sounded unnerved. Jess didn’t blame him. He didn’t dare look away from the lion’s set metallic face, from the sickening red eyes. “Wathen! Get out of the way if it’s malfunctioning!”
She didn’t want to go, Jess realized; she was standing next to him even though every instinct told her to retreat. “Get away,” he told her. “This is my trouble. Move!”
She backed away and down five steps to join their squad leader. If I follow them, I put them in danger, he thought, though it took everything he had not to seek the comfort of a group. Every cell of his body remembered running from the London lions outside of St. Paul’s. Those had a stone look to them, more muscular and brutal; these Roman lions had a leaner, sleeker build, and a bronze gleam that made their manes shimmer in the sun. Beautiful . . . and deadly.
I could turn it off. If the switch is in the same place.
He desperately didn’t want to have to try.
“More coming up!” called someone from below, and Jess risked a glance to see that the pride of lions that had been down in the square was returning to the steps, flowing up in leaps and bounds past the other soldiers.