Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

“The Weaver is too busy to stop a little hole like this,” the demon told her, his jagged teeth blacker than midnight in the pure white light that spilled through the hole in the air. “It pains me to treat you this way, my child, but if you won’t stand with me, then you leave me no choice. After all”—the black grin widened—“I can’t kill you.”

Nico lashed at him with her claws, but his long arms held her well out of reach. With a sickening lurch, the demon hopped up through the sundered veil, taking her into a world of blinding white. The moment they were inside, the demon raised her up and slammed her against a wall she hadn’t even seen.

The impact sent an explosion of pain through her body, and Nico screamed as the wall cracked behind her, bowing out with the force of the demon’s blow. When he pulled her back, her body was too limp to fight him, too stunned even to struggle as he dug his claws into the white floor and slammed her a second time. This time, the wall shattered.

Nico’s body shrank as freezing cold, colder even than the world inside the shadows, surrounded her. The demon had broken the shell with her body. Even as Nico realized what had happened, she felt the demon’s claws leave her throat, and then she began to fall.

She couldn’t even flap her wings anymore. The hole in the shell shrank above her, the light growing farther and dimmer, leaving only endless, hungry blackness. For one long breath, Nico fell into the dark, and then, with a deafening cry, the hands grabbed her.

They wrapped around her body, large and small, clawed and spindly, all pulling her into the dark. Black mouths bit down on her flesh only to roar in impotent fury when they realized she was not food. She was like them.

After that, they thrust her aside, trampling her as they scrambled madly for the hole the demon had punched in the shell of the world with her body. Far, far overhead, Nico could still see the outline of the demon against the light, his grotesque face split in an enormous smile. And with that, rage took over where strength could not.

With a roar that made the hands on her snatch away, Nico surged forward. She could not let it end like this, could not let him win. She tore through the other demons, ripping them to shreds as she clawed her way up. Starving and mad, they barely noticed, moving their limbs out of her way only when she took a piece off. Ahead of her, the hole in the shell was closing, cutting off the light. Nico screamed and climbed faster, clawing her way up the endless demons until, at last, her hand closed on the hole’s jagged edge.

The Demon of the Dead Mountain’s claws were on her at once, prying her grip free. Nico slammed her other hand up in answer, her claws biting deep into the Demon of the Dead Mountain’s arm. As he screamed in pain, Nico yanked herself forward, tearing her other hand off the shell’s edge only to plant it in the demon’s chest. Her claws cut through the shiny, protective carapace and dug into his core, locking in place. At the same time, she brought her head forward, jaws flung wide as she latched herself onto his shoulder.

“You’re right,” she hissed against his flesh while he flailed beneath her, screaming in pain. “There’s no place for our kind here.” And with that, she pushed off the shell, using her weight as an anchor to drag them both into the dark.

The demon’s roar rattled her teeth, but Nico didn’t let go. As he locked his limbs against the closing shell, she clung to him like a lead weight. If they had been inside the shell, it never would have worked. He was too large now, and she too small. But here, on the edge, things were different. Nico’s body buffeted as the demon hands shot past her, scrambling for purchase on the shell’s broken edge. They grabbed the Demon of the Dead Mountain as well, pulling him down in their rush to clear the hole and get inside, using his bulk as leverage to pull themselves up.

The demon screamed again, and this time there was real fear in his roar. He tore at Nico with his claws, digging into the shell with his feet as he tried to free himself. But the broken shell was too fragile to hold him, the thousands of hands too much even for his strength. Even so, he might have worked himself free had Nico not been latched to him, her weight an anchor on his own, dragging him inch by painful inch into the dark. When he finally toppled, Nico went with him, her claws and teeth buried in his flesh as the hands dragged them both into the dark.

It was a good end, she thought as they started to fall. Even if she lived forever out here in the dark, she was still herself, and she had used the last of her strength to take the Demon of the Dead Mountain with her. For a creature who could no longer die, she’d earned herself a death to be proud of. A warrior’s death. She smiled against the Demon of the Dead Mountain’s flesh, still straining under her teeth. She only wished Josef could have seen it.

But even as she thought his name, a shadow appeared against the white light of the closing hole. It was a small shadow, man-sized, and Nico slumped in relief. Good, the Weaver was here to seal the breach. But the figure didn’t try to close the hole. Instead, he leaned out, one arm holding onto something behind him, the other reaching into the dark. And as he reached, he screamed.

“Nico!”

Josef cursed and slammed his sword into the strange white floor. It cracked under the Heart’s blunt point like an eggshell, but the blade held. Grabbing the hilt as his anchor, Josef leaned out beyond the edge of the world. Hands clawed at him, but he beat them away, slamming them against the sharp cracks of the shell without looking. Even as he fought, his eyes never left the spot where he had seen Nico vanish.

His chest burned as he reached out. He’d barely let the gash close before going after Nico, barely made it through the hole the demon had ripped in the veil. He’d pulled himself on his elbows the last few feet even after he saw both demons tumble out of the shell into the dark, even when he knew it was too late.

It didn’t matter. Josef couldn’t stop. The idea of losing her now, after everything they’d gone through, after all they’d fought, was simply unacceptable. He wouldn’t give up, and he wouldn’t let her go. He would stand here reaching into the freezing dark until the healing shell took his arm off if there was so much as a chance that her fingers would close on his.

Josef leaned out farther still, looking frantically through the dark for a pair of golden eyes, but there was nothing outside except blackness and hungry hands. “Nico!” he screamed again, cringing in pain as his wounded lungs expanded.

As the name left him, Josef couldn’t shake the horrid, creeping feeling that, even if she could hear him, Nico wouldn’t answer. He’d seen her shoving her claws into the demon when he’d climbed in. She’d dragged the creature into the dark with her on purpose, and now he may have lost her forever.

Josef swore loudly. Whatever form she took, Nico was Nico. Demon, human, or anything in between, she would sacrifice anything to keep him and Eli safe. It drove him crazy. She didn’t seem to understand that she had value, too, that she was worth saving.

“Dammit, Nico!” he roared into the dark. “I will not let you go like this! I will chase you out of this hole if you don’t come back!”

His words vanished into the blackness, eaten like everything else. Josef didn’t care. “You told me you wanted to live!” he screamed. “The demon ate your childhood. He ate everything you had. Don’t give him this, too! Don’t let him take you from me!”

He threw himself forward until his fingertips on the Heart’s pommel were the only things anchoring him to the world. His legs were braced on the closing edge of the shell, his hand thrust out so far his joints were screaming. Josef didn’t care. He pushed out farther, the scream wrenching out of him. “Take my hand!”