Behind me, the cavern lit up, and by the time the monster had chewed and torn through that last few webs, Alexa sent streaking bolts of light toward it. It reared onto its back legs and roared, its voice making the ground tremble, but when the magic struck its stomach, it staggered back and almost collapsed.
I took that as my opportunity, and I leapt into the air, twirled through a series of webs, and landed on its back. Summoning up all my strength, all my rage, I dug my claws into its hide and grabbed hold of it. The devil bucked and shook, but I didn’t let go. It tried to get up, to find its footing, but Alexa hit it again, this time sending it crashing onto its side.
It took everything I had just to keep hold of it. I could feel my claws sinking deeper into its flesh. It tried to reach for me, but its arm wouldn’t bend far enough around its own back. When it realized this, it went to roll onto its back, but the spiders had arrived—descending like horrible, black, shiny nightmare things from the ceiling.
Azlu spat arcs of webbing at the beast, joined quickly by Ezree, who did the same. I had to let go of it to avoid getting hit, so I dropped to my feet and started backing away, but it grabbed my foot and held me in place. Looking down at it, at its monstrous face, I saw nothing of the Horseman—nothing of Kaimos.
The thing that was in there was all animal, all hatred, all madness. I couldn’t let him become this. I couldn’t let him lose the fight to this monster. I threw myself onto my backside, grabbed hold of the creature’s arm, and sank my claws into its flesh. The devil groaned and squeezed my leg so tight I thought it was going to break from the pressure alone.
Lucky for me, it didn’t break. Unlucky for me, the devil had another hand it could use, and it brought it crashing down on me like a hammer. I didn’t have much room to maneuver with, so I only narrowly avoided being slammed on the head. I knew I wouldn’t have another opportunity to dodge out of its way, so I started raking at the skin on the beast’s arm, tearing into its flesh and drawing hot blood from the wounds.
It tried to attack me again, but this time Azlu caught its arm with a web and quickly attached the web to the wall, holding the beast’s arm in place. From across its snout, I saw Alexa, wreathed in green fire, her arms glowing, glittering motes of light floating all around her. When she stretched her arms, snakes of sparkling magic erupted from her fingertips and went searching for the devil, slamming into its back.
It was groaning, now, whimpering like it knew it was running out of steam.
“It’s working!” I yelled, as I pried its fingers off from around my leg. “Keep going!”
But the monster wasn’t all the way done yet. Now that I was out of its grip, one of its hands was free, and instead of attacking me, he took a swipe at Azlu. The spiderling was quick enough to anticipate the movement and skitter back up her web, but that prevented her from spinning any more, at least for a moment.
Long enough for it to rip the webs keeping its other hand anchored in place.
I backed up, watching it, carefully trying to anticipate its next move. It was pinned, almost, and the stream of magic Alexa was throwing into it had to have been working because I almost thought it was starting to shrink. Alright, maybe shrink wasn’t the right word, but it was starting to look somehow smaller, less deadly, even if that didn’t mean it was any less deadly.
Instead of letting it free its own legs, I ran up to it again and grabbed hold of one of its arms. The beast thrashed, and flailed, trying to shake me loose at first, then trying to bash me into the floor. I was running on pure adrenaline, my instincts telling my limbs where to go and what to do to keep this thing from turning me into a pancake—again.
Six!
That… that was Seline’s voice. I heard it in the space between my ears, a desperate shriek of a sound that made my chest tighten.
Six, you have to wake up, do you hear me? You can’t die!
Despite the chaos, the skittering spiders, the rampaging animal attached to my arm, it seemed like the world around me slowed to a crawl as the voice in my head started to rise in intensity. It was as if I could smell her, feel her hands on my chest. What was she—oh no…
“Wait!” I screamed, “Seline, wait!”
“What’s happening?!” Alexa yelled.
“I think Seline is trying to—” I opened my eyes and sucked in a deep breath of air. My muscles were tight, my face stung, my chest ached, and even though I still felt like I had hold of the devil in my arms, it wasn’t the devil I was holding onto.
It was Seline.
“Six,” she sobbed against my shoulder, “Oh my God… I thought we’d lost you.”
“Seline…” I said, though my voice was hoarse, and croaky.
“Don’t speak, save your strength.” She pulled away just far enough to stare at me with those large, crystal blue eyes of hers. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her nose was red from crying, but she was smiling. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
My brain was fuzzy. I was having a hard time remembering all that had happened, but the one thing I was sure of was that she’d pulled me out of the nightmare, and that meant—“Alexa!” I shrieked.
I turned to the side to find her still asleep. Crawling over to her, I shook her by the shoulders, trying to wake her. It was difficult, she was in a deep, deep sleep, but after a moment or so, I thought I could see her eyes starting to twitch. Groaning, she stirred, smacked her lips, then opened her eyes and stared at me.
“What…” she gasped, “What the hell?”
“Seline woke me up. What happened in there?”
“I don’t know. You disappeared and,” she winced as if her head hurt. “My brain is all scrambled.”
“Did we capture it?”
“I… I don’t know. Shit, Six, I don’t know.”
I turned my head to face Seline, my eyes wide, my heart hammering. “You woke us up too early…” I said, the words falling from my mouth.
“I’m… sorry,” she said, worry now mounting on her face. “But Six, you were dead, I didn’t know what else to do but try to revive you.”
“Dead?”
“For a few minutes. I don’t know how many.”
“Five and a half, by my rough count,” Sanchez said. “You were far out of even our Vivimancer’s skills to bring you back. Any longer and we would’ve had to call a Necromancer.”
Sanchez was here? What were Sanchez and a prison medic doing in my cell? “I was dead for five and a half minutes,” I said, looking around the room. I touched my face where I remembered getting bashed against a wall, and my cheek stung. I looked at Alexa again. “You really did save my life…”
“But we didn’t capture the monster,” Azlu said. She’d woken up with no fanfare, no stirring, no antics. The spiderling had simply opened her eyes and sat upright.
“Please tell me that’s not true,” I said.
“I don’t make many jokes. You disappeared first, and that gave the devil enough leverage to push Ezree and me out of his reach. Then Alexa woke up. Had we not called mother, the devil would’ve tried to kill us. I’m sorry, but, we failed.”
A moment of dreadful silence fell upon the cell like the passing of death itself.