Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [136]
“Hey, buddy,” she murmured. Hal licked her hand without lifting his head.
With the rumble of battle going on above her, and even inside the pit as demons leaped in but were dispatched by Wraith before they landed, she worked the collar. Her vision blurred with tears, and her fingers shook, all of which made for painfully slow progress as she manipulated the mechanisms on the series of tiny pins that held the collar in place. Removal had to be excruciating, but Hal took it like a trouper. When the last one popped free, the collar fell to the ground.
Hal didn’t move. His chest rose and fell in uneven fits and starts, and Cara realized that her own breathing had become shallow and raspy. The world spun and tilted as she wrapped herself around Hal and gave in to the exhaustion that rode her hard.
She was going to die in a pit of evil, wasn’t she? This… sucked.
“Wraith.” Her mouth was as dry as the hot air here, and she had to pause to work up some saliva so she could talk. “Help the others. Need the dagger.”
“Not without you two.” Palming a bone from some long-dead creature, he scratched out the markings on the walls. When every one of them was gone, the spikes at the top of the pit retracted.
“Let’s get topside before demons make a run on this place.”
Fear was a spike right in her heart. Wraith’s scenario would be a disaster. He might be untouchable, but he’d be overrun, and it would only take one demon to slip past him for Cara and Hal to be toast.
Wraith scooped them both up, grunting under their combined weight, and then he leaped, landing once again in a smooth crouch. Even though her energy and thought processes were flagging, she assessed the situation in a heartbeat.
With the exception of Kynan, everyone who had come to fight for the home team was bathed in blood, and a lot of it was their own. Their clothes—or armor—were torn, bashed, or broken.
The fighting raged, but as Wraith placed Cara and Hal on the ground, Ares was right there, and everyone else closed ranks, forming a protective circle around Hal and Cara even as they continued to fight. The demon horde, despite all the bloody, broken bodies on the ground, didn’t seem to have thinned at all.
“Cease!” The demons all froze as Pestilence rode through the masses, smashing demons who weren’t quick enough to get out of his way. “I call a five-minute truce.” He inclined his head at Ares. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.” He gestured in the direction of the Harrowgate.
“Hey there, Horsemen!”
Cara folded her legs under her and cradled Hal’s head in her lap as she squinted into the smoky darkness. A massive man with a dark blue mohawk broke through the ocean of creatures. He might have been handsome, if not for the extreme paleness of his skin, which revealed a pattern of black veins beneath. Protruding from his bare back were a set of black, leathery wings, which extended to his calves. She had no idea what kind of pants he was wearing, but they were silvery, form-fitting, and they kept shifting, as though they were constantly rearranging themselves on his body.
Demons bowed and fell to their knees as he passed, and the ones in front of him knocked into each other and fell all over themselves to get out of his way. If his smile was any indication, he was getting a kick out of it.
Thanatos’s split lips stretched into a big grin. “Hades. It’s about fucking time.”
Hades? The Hades?
“Fuck off.” Hades ran his palm up his hairless chest. “Try negotiating with Azagoth to stop the flood of souls into Sheoul-gra so you can take a break, and see how long it takes you.”
Wraith bent over and whispered in her ear, “Azagoth is the Grim Reaper. I’m kind of related to him. How cool is that?”
Kynan shoved his stang into a holster. “You’re such a name-dropper.”
“Why are you here?” Ares wiped blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Tell me you’re not working with Pestilence.”
“That’s the thanks I get?” He spun around. “Guess you don’t need me.”
“Hades, stop being a baby.” Limos leveled a grave look at Ares, one that