The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 49: The Mariner's Daughter and Doomed Knight

"That's it," Aurelius heard Clarinda shout as the floor started to rupture and the world dissolved into screams and chaos, "everything's a joke to him! I know who he he is. Servius, Old Nick's—"

"—Loki," the knight murmured, stunned as the Codex Lacrimae raised an Abwehr Sphäreto protect him from the onslaught of Youdic's arrival. "Jesu, even the letters are part of the name he took for himself ... how did I miss that?"

He is the master of lies and the great shape-changer,the Codex Lacrimae said.

"I only figured it out when I heard her ... your voice," Aurelius said. He began maneuvering around the disintegrating floor to reach Clarinda.

What is she doing? he wondered, then smiled as he saw Clarinda slam a heel onto Sister Nikola's outstretched hand. Oh, she'll let this Youdic creature take him.

That won't work, the Codex said. He'll shape-change the instant he falls and fly away to safety.

Then, what's she ... oh, no. He realized that she intended to make sure that Sister Nikola didn't make any kind of escape. Clarinda, don't. Please, wait for me. We'll take him together.

Your Norn witch has betrayed us all! the Codex cried. That's the wail of Youdic the Damned—we must flee, lest we get sucked into the Ban-Sidhe tunnel to Annen Verden!

"We go nowhere, but toward her!" he insisted, stepping forward against the resistance of both the Codex Lacrimae and Arngrim.

The winds increased. Great chunks of flooring fell away as the eye sockets, nasal cavities, and tooth-filled grin of the demon continued to form in the flowing and reshaping stones of the hospital ward. Aurelius tried to maintain balance on an increasingly unstable surface. The growing vortex in the center of Youdic's maw sucked in all the dead combatants, and Aurelius grimaced as he watched the corpses of former friends and physicians disappear into the darkness of the Ginnungagap.

Clarinda and Dietrich were shouting now, but even their thought-speech couldn't be heard above the growing shrieks emanating from Youdic's portal.

How is Loki here, Codex? I thought Odin bound him deep in the earth beneath Mount Glittertind.

The Codex didn't answer, and not for the first time Aurelius wondered what would happen if its loyalties were ever tested between its current master and one of its creators.

We're going to find out, he thought, daring the Codex to abandon him as he gave it the order to imitate Clarinda's levitation above Old Nick. Bring me to her—NO!

Clarinda had glanced at him, and then tackled Sister Nikola, casting them both into the opened skeletal jaws of Youdic the Damned. In the far distance, he saw Dietrich falling into the pit, following a rapidly descending Rebecca and Alexander.

Stop her, stop time so I can reach her ...he began to think, and then suddenly he felt Arngrim being pulled toward the plunging Sister Nikola and the forearm braces beginning to tear themselves from his forearms.

Aurelius grunted, pain flaring from his damaged arms, then throughout his entire body.

He heard Nikola's voice in his mind—or was it the Codex's? TO ME, CODICES LACRIMAE AND VINDICTA!

Nikola had twisted in Clarinda's grasp, her right hand extending toward Aurelius as the shape-changer sought to take control of the Books of Tears and Vengeance.

In that moment, Aurelius saw a desperation in Clarinda's face that decided everything, and it all occurred within the space of a breath!

Buon Dio, I'm going to lose you, Clare.