Free Grimoire of the Lamb by Kevin Hearne Page A

an opening, he launched off his back right, and his left fist hammered my ribs. They cracked and I went down, wondering what happened to all the air in the world.
    I didn’t know how I was ever going to get up. My left wrist wouldn’t support me. My ribs wouldn’t let me roll to my right. I couldn’t breathe. I supposed it was okay, though. This seemed the type of demon to bring the fight to you—especially if you were vulnerable.
    He had not landed gracefully, but the creature was shifting for a charge. I lifted Fragarach’s blade to make sure it couldn’t be trapped against the floor, then folded up my legs to reduce the target. That was about all I could manage without any air. I gasped for some and kept an eye on the demon.
    He let loose with a thunderous roar scented with all the joys of ass and pestilence. The faint whiff I got made me grateful that I couldn’t inhale a lungful of it. The beast’s teeth weremismatched ebony punji sticks, showcases of rot and an example to all who refuse to floss.
    One massively knuckled hand swung forward, planted itself, and then seemed to buckle at the elbow. It stopped and swayed. The loss of blood—ichor, rather—from two severed limbs was taking its toll.
    The creature spat,
“Barg rah!”
That was a “Fuck it!” if I ever heard one. His back arms churned and his damn black teeth were sunk into the side of my calf before I could move. I grunted and swung Fragarach at the top of his head, shearing off a slice like a cantaloupe. The blow rocked him back, and the teeth popped out of my leg before he fell over and dissolved into a sulfurous puddle of goo. The corporeal form of demons never lasts long once they’re unbound.
    I expelled a sigh of relief and relaxed for a moment—or at least as much as I could, considering my injuries. But the stench of the room and my pressing need to get in touch with the earth drove me to action. Despite being fully charged when I came back down, I had burned a lot of juice to boost my speed, and I didn’t have enough left to do any serious healing. I compromised by shutting off the pain so I’d be able to move and concentrate. My calf, while probably infected with something nasty from the demon’s teeth, was still capable of functioning. Getting up was a bit of a chore, with cracked ribs and a broken wrist, but the legs weren’t in terrible shape, and I could go back downstairs and retrieve the grimoire—or, better yet, destroy it along with the writings of Nebwenenef.
    Figuring I was all alone, I kind of clomped down the metal stairs when I should have kept quiet. It prevented me from hearing the noise in the next room until I reached the stone floor. I froze at the bottom of the stairwell and heard the chalky grind and thud of stone scraping against stone. The jaundiced light of yellow bulbs revealed a disturbing shadow moving on the floor. It grew as it approached the door to the chamber I thought of as the crocodile lounge. Being careful to make no sound this time, I minced behind the altar. Elkhashab’s torn and partially eaten remains littered the front, I noticed, along with his plastic grocery bags. The grimoire lay open between the candles he had lit before his death. A tiny noise of fear drew my eyes to the wall on my left, back near the door. The lamb was still alive and cowering near the boxes of untold treasures. The shadow took on a solid presence at the doorway, and I crouched down out of sight as it entered with heavy, grinding footsteps.
    Whatever it was scared the bejesus out of the lamb, for it screamed and quite probably shat where it stood. I risked a peek around the corner of the altar, figuring that whatever hadentered the room would be focused on the lamb.
    It was one of the Sobek sarcophagi—or, rather, the front of it—the lid now ambulatory, a lurching stone-and-metal horror with its backside missing and much of the paint worn away, but possessing a full complement of limestone teeth in a maw of basalt