Chapter 3 #2
He dodged back, but all the days of walking through treacherous terrain had taken its toll. Not quite fast enough. The creature’s teeth caught his sleeve, shredding fabric and skin alike. Blood welled from the wounds—not deep, but they burned with an unfamiliar fire.
Fuck.
Nadi struck from the side, driving the bolt cutters into the creature’s flank with all the strength she had. It shrieked, that metal-on-metal sound that made ears ache, and whipped around to face her. She danced back, but her movements were sluggish, exhausted.
“The underbelly!” she shouted. “It’s softer there!”
Easier said than done. The creature kept its vulnerable stomach pressed close to the ground, those hundreds of legs providing constant defense. Raziel circled it, looking for an opening, but the thing tracked him perfectly.
Eyes. Of course. He sneered. “The eyes, Nadi!”
She was a smart little creature. Thinking fast, she scrambled to her bag, picking up the can of half-eaten fruit. Waiting for her chance, she timed her shot, before hurling its contents into the eyes of the monster.
It screamed, flipping its head to the side as it tried to clear the sugary glop from its vision.
Raziel didn’t waste the opportunity. He dove under the creature’s snapping jaws, wrapping the chain around its lower jaw. He planted his feet and pulled.
The creature thrashed, its tail striking his shoulder and sending him spinning.
Pain exploded across his back as several of the barbed quills pierced his skin through his already-torn shirt.
But he held on, using every ounce of vampiric strength he had left to wrench the creature’s head back, exposing its throat.
Nadi was there in an instant, driving the bolt cutters deep into the soft flesh under its jaw. The creature made a sound like breaking glass, its legs spasming.
But it wasn’t dead. Not yet.
With a final surge of desperate strength born from fury, Raziel grabbed the creature’s lower jaw with both hands, silver chain still wrapped around it, and tore.
There was a wet, ripping sound, and suddenly he was holding a piece of the creature’s jaw while black ichor sprayed across the cave floor.
The thing collapsed, twitching once, twice, then going still.
Raziel dropped the piece of jaw, his hands shaking. The adrenaline was fading, and with it came the pain. His back felt like it was on fire, and when he reached behind him, his fingers came away covered in his own blood mixed with something else—something that glowed faintly purple.
“Raz.” Nadi was at his side immediately, her face tight with concern. She was swaying on her feet, but her focus was entirely on him. “Hebek quills—they’re poisonous. Fatally.”
“Of course they are.” His voice came out rougher than intended. “Why wouldn’t they be?” Already, he could feel the toxin spreading through his system, a cold burn that radiated from each puncture wound. His vision swam, the bioluminescent vines suddenly too bright, too vivid.
“We need to move.” Nadi slung his arm over her shoulders, taking some of his weight despite barely being able to stand herself. “The caravan you heard can’t be far. Hebeks don’t stray far from prey. Maybe a half-day’s walk. They’ll have antidotes.”
“Half a day.” He laughed weakly. “We will not make it.”
“We have to.” There was steel in her voice now, the kind that reminded him she was an assassin. A killer. She narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t drag you through all this to lose you to some oversized cave pest.”
“Cave pest?” He huffed. “That thing was more than a cave pest. At least let me die with some dignity.”
“No. I will drag your naked corpse behind me if I have to. If you want dignity? You will live.” She took his hand and pulled him away from the corpse behind them.
He opted to ignore the threat. His head was already swimming too much to come up with a good retort.
Especially since each step sent new waves of pain through his body, and the poison was doing something to his senses.
The walls seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting like living tissue.
The sounds were becoming strange and twisted—every drip of water became a symphony, each drop a crystal note in some alien composition.
Tripping over his own feet for no reason, he staggered.
“Stay with me, Nostrom.” Nadi’s voice seemed to come from very far away, though she was right beside him. “Don’t you dare die on me now.”
His vampire healing was fighting it, but slowly, too slowly. “Why?” The word escaped before he could stop it. “Answer me. Why come back?”
“Not now, Raz.”
“There won’t be a later. Why save me?” His steps were becoming more unsteady, and she was bearing more of his weight now. “You could have left me in that coffin. Should have. Would have saved you this trek through hell.”
She was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn’t answer. Then, so softly he almost missed it, “Because I’m an idiot, remember? And apparently, I prefer my demons alive and complaining rather than dead and silent.”
He laughed, or tried to. It came out as more of a wheeze. “The biggest idiot I’ve ever met.”
“Shut up and keep walking. We’ve survived everything the Mother and Father have thrown at us so far. We can survive another few hours.”
They pressed on into the purple-lit darkness. Behind them, things stirred in the shadows, drawn by the scent of blood and death.
But those were problems for later. For now, Raziel focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on staying conscious despite the poison trying to drag him under.
He’d survived his mother’s cruelty as a boy, survived countless attempts on his life, survived drowning in a silver coffin at the bottom of the ocean, survived a march through hell itself.
He’d be damned if he was going to let some insect in the Wild be the thing that finally killed him.
Even if, at this particular moment, death was looking increasingly attractive.
The tunnel ahead split into three passages. Nadi chose without hesitation, pulling him along. “Almost there,” she said, though he suspected she was lying. “Just a little farther.”
She was making that up. He almost appreciated it.
The poison pulsed through his veins in time with the glowing vines around them. Each pulse brought new hallucinations—faces in the walls, whispers in languages that had never existed, the sensation of drowning even though he could breathe.
No. That last one wasn’t a hallucination. That was a memory. The coffin, the water, the endless cycle of death and resurrection as his vampire nature refused to let him die properly.
“Raz!” Nadi’s voice cut through the nightmare. “Stay with me!”
He realized he’d stopped walking, was standing frozen in the middle of the passage. How long had he been standing there? Seconds? Minutes? Time was becoming fluid, unreliable.
“I’m fine.” He forced his legs to move again.
“You’re a terrible liar when you’re dying.”
They continued on, deeper into the Wild, toward a salvation that might be worse than the poison itself. But that was tomorrow’s problem.
For now, he just had to survive the next step.
And the next.
And the next.