Immortals After Dark 03 - No Rest for the Wicked

its tail and head rising above. The lash of fire actually had been part of its long tail, and it struck again just as Sebastian traced.
    Kaderin twisted and lunged forward. Untouched.
    He yelled, “ Stay fucking still! ”
    But the fire wanted its due.
    When it roared spitting balls of flame, it rocked the entire cavern. Boulders toppled over, plummeting everywhere. Fighting to reach her, Sebastian dodged and traced, but the ceiling rained them. One dropped onto his right arm, crushing it almost all the way up to his shoulder; he bellowed with pain and fury. She was barely staying balanced in the shaking chamber—
    A boulder hit the center of the cable, and it snapped with a deafening twang. She dove backward, twisting in the air for the swinging line. He couldn’t see from where he was... had no idea if she caught it.
    He traced. Nothing. Body straining with effort. He was trapped, but almost close enough to reach the side of the pit. He lunged forward, tearing sinew and skin. Another frantic lunge, with a good, rewarding rip.
    He finally reached it, and was able to see down. She had a hold on the cable with both hands and was deftly climbing up. With a groan of relief, he wound it around his left wrist for a better grip.
    “Hold on, Katja! I’ve got you—”
    The serpent slithered its tail up around her leg. She bit back a scream as the fire hissed against her skin, branding it. The thing was dragging her down.
    Trapped as he was, he couldn’t use his legs to pull. Couldn’t put his back into the effort.
    Her sweating body writhed in pain. She still clung to the filament, now red with blood from her ruined palms slipping down.
    If he could just lose his arm, he might have a chance...
    As he wrenched back with the cable and away from the boulder, he saw her studying the situation, her gaze darting over his trapped arm, then down at the fire. When she turned back, her eyes were glinting. She swallowed, gazing up at him.
    A calm seemed to wash over her.
    His gut tightened with dread. She couldn’t be considering... He tore every muscle in his body to wrest her from its grip, bellowing with the effort.
    “Bastian.” He heard her perfectly over the wails of the serpent, the bubbling, popping lava, and his own heart thundering.
    “ No... no! ” he roared. “Don’t you even think it, goddamn you—”
    “I’m going to let go now,” she murmured. Her eyes were clear, lucid.
    “Just give me fucking time! The prediction doesn’t have to be!” He somehow pulled harder, snatching the cable up with his left arm and then catching it lower down, but the serpent hissed and seized her higher on her torso. Kaderin gritted her teeth against the pain.
    Can’t beat it like this. In a frenzy, he lunged sideways, fighting to separate his arm from his body.
    “I know where the blade is,” Kaderin said. “Below the cable bolt on that wall. Fifteen feet down, forty degrees to the left.” Tears tracked from her eyes. “There’s a cave under an overhang—I could only see it from here.”
    “Don’t do this! Ah, God, please!... Don’t—”
    “Come back for me. So I can go back for them. ”
    Eyes riveted to his, she let go. The serpent snatched her down.
    The fire consumed her.

38
    T he lights of Val Hall flared sharply, then guttered out.
    Lightning slashed the sky, and thunder rattled the darkened manor so hard the old house groaned violently. Myst dropped to her knees just as Nïx’s eyes went wild and her hands fisted in her hair. Emma wept.
    When Regin shrieked, the windows burst, spewing shards, until even the wraiths fled. As though a bomb had hit, glass shattered in a radius outward from the manor, again and again, in successive waves for miles.
    The Lore creatures in the city and swamps trembled in fear and knew of only one thing that could provoke the Valkyrie like this.
    They’d felt the death of one of their own.

    Dead. Sebastian knew she was dead, felt it in his entire body.
    He loved her. Not compulsion. Love so strong it humbled him.
    He stared down into the pit long after. How long could an immortal live in that flame? How much pain did she suffer?
    What did she mean, “go back for them?”
    A sudden dream washed over him. Kaderin was sprinting down a hill that was covered in bodies. He heard her ragged breaths and the warning shrieks from other Valkyrie. He experienced her roiling panic.
    She fought past vampires, with dirty red eyes and grotesque snarls, desperate to get to... her