Page 57 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

“Right. Sorry. Next line.”

The hound launches off its back legs and catches me by the forearm. I do not go down. I will give the creature credit for the strength of its bite; the cold-fire of it grinds through the muscle like a vice made of old ice. My knees bend from the sheer force.

Digging my claws into the back of its neck, I drag it sideways, and we spin together until I find the edge of an alcove and slam it into the stone frame hard enough to crack the arch.

The bite releases.

I step back. Blood runs down my arm. The pain is dim compared to the adrenaline roaring through my blood. Nothing will deter me from my mission. Protect Vesper.

“I knew a three-headed dog once,” I inform the hound. “Every head had much better manners.”

It snarls and drives forward. It bites down again on the same arm, directly over the existing wound.

“Bad dog,” I scold. It bites harder. “Right. Fair criticism.”

“Val—‘quod in pectore latet inauditum’.” Vesper shouts, her voice focused, aware that she’s up against a ticking clock.

I block a swipe with my forearm—wrong choice; its claws rake directly across the bite wound. Even as the extreme torment sears through me, I process the phrase simultaneously.

I bellow through the pain, “What lives unspoken in your chest!”

“What?”

When the hound charges again, I dodge out of the way, striking its muzzle with my tail. “Something you haven’t said aloud, Ves—something you’ve been keeping⁠—”

The hound hits me low, and I go down on one knee. Both hands catch the floor. I breathe through it, recalibrate, and push back upright. Nothing about the next phase of battle will be comfortable.

“Last line,” I say. The words come out more strained than intended. “What is the last line?”

A scrambling sound. The scrape of stone on stone. “Dic in altum et—transibis? I think? Ugh!” she groans. “My seminary Latin is apparently decorative⁠—”

“Speak it aloud and pass! The truth in your heart.” Gods, it sounds ridiculous coming from my mouth.

A silence. Then, quiet and incredulous and directed at no one in particular, I hear her mutter, “Why couldn’t this man just write ‘use the stone wisely’ and call it a day⁠—”

“VESPER!”

“I know, I kno⁠—”

The hound drives into me with its full weight and takes me to the floor.

I fall hard, on my back. Its jaws open over my chest—the killing position. I lock both hands around its lower jaw, my claws driven into the calcified bone, every muscle in my arms shaking with the effort of preventing those teeth from closing around my throat. My tail is pinned beneath me. I cannot get leverage.

The hound’s eye sockets blaze down at me. Ancient. Bound. Patient, as if it has waited six centuries for this.

“The descendant of the goddess Bastet,” I tell it, the veins bulging in my neck, “loves to chase my tail. She is better behaved than you, Scooby Doo.”

It presses down another inch.

“Valefar!”

“I’m fine,” I insist. “Keep reading.”

And then her voice rings through the crypt. Not a question. Not a mutter. Full, open, unstoppable—the specific quality of truth that comes out when a person runs entirely out of room to keep it in:

“I’M IN LOVE WITH A DEMON!”

I go completely still. The hound’s jaw presses down, and I do not notice.