Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski Read Free Book Online

lurched again. The soldier and cloaked man grasped one of the stone coffins. I clung to the arms of my chair and waited for it all to end.
    With a thunderous crash the entrance to the basement exploded. Dust and rubble filled my mouth, my lungs. My vision blurred — I felt weak. Beyond the dust I could make out the outline of a ten-foot-tall earthen beast. Its coal eyes blazed red as it barged through the exploded doorway. With a howl it shoved away the cloaked man and the soldier as if they were nothing more than toys.
    The priest’s face flashed red as he scrambled to his feet. “Don’t think you’ve won, lukmani!” he screamed. “The Malleus Maleficarum doesn’t sleep! We will find you, lukmani! We will find you!”
    In answer the rocky monster let loose another primal roar. Lifting both arms above his head it ran at my interrogator. But I didn’t get to see any more — the beast’s last monstrous step sent another tremor surging through the ground. My chair and I crashed and tumbled past the stone coffins. Then pain smashed into my shoulders, my knees, and my head as they collided with the floor. I lay sideways, trying to hang onto consciousness, but my last bits of energy drained out of me with every breath.
    It was then that I realized this might be the last thing I ever thought. But my last thought wasn’t about the pain or my family or even Amir al-Katib. No, my last thought was a plain and simple one, full of a plain and simple wonder.
    I don’t know how I did it, but somehow, I’ve created a golem.

I dreamed the golem heaved me onto his shoulder and bounded from hill to hill over the Spanish countryside. Or maybe that’s what really happened — I’m not sure. The next thing I remember was my uncle’s voice: “Say you release him, Baltasar. Quickly.”
    “I release him,” I think I mumbled.
    When next I awoke it was around dawn, and I was stunned to find myself in my own bed. My uncle was sitting next to me, poring over my bruises with an expression of dire worry etched into his face. “I’m sorry to wake you again, Bali. But they will be here soon. Can you sit?”
    This man who looked like my uncle but spoke with such heartache was unknown to me, but I did as he asked. Were those tears in his eyes? No. No, they couldn’t be.
    “So a golem, Baltasar? And here I thought you’d had enough of my ‘boring old stories.’”
    Oh, right. That. “Uncle, I am so sorry. I was such an ass. I just —”
    My uncle put up a hand. “As much as I appreciate your groveling, there isn’t time. And I expect you’ll have plenty of questions to ask about this.”
    To my surprise my uncle raised the priest’s parchment, the one with all of those dreadful questions in it. The document crackled as my uncle flattened it against my covers, revealing hundreds of lines of script flowing crisply across its surface.
    “Where did you . . . ?”
    “The golem brought it along when he dropped you here. Quite a smart one you made there. I’d always thought they were all fools with heads full of clay and dirt, but life would be no fun if nothing could surprise you.”
    I swear I almost leaped through the ceiling. “You mean you knew that golems were real?”
    Twining his fingers together my uncle said, “‘Real’ is a relative term, Baltasar. Quite the tricky word you have there.”
    I opened my mouth and shut it again. “You’re mad.”
    “That’s another relative term, Nephew.”
    My gaze trailed across the parchment lying in front of me. Amir al-Katib . . . last known sighting near Alhambra Palace, Granada . . . known accomplices currently operating under the aliases Diego and Serena Infante. . .
    “‘Relative’?” I said, breathing heavily. “All right: let’s talk about that word, ‘relative.’ Question three: ‘What are the names of your closest relatives?’ Sounds like an easy question, doesn’t it, Uncle?”
    “Baltasar.”
    “That’s what I thought, but it’s not so