Page 111 of The Dagger and the Flame
But when he curled his fingers around her throat, his Shade melted away. ‘What the hell?’ he hissed, stumbling backwards.
‘It’s that cloak.’ Nadia stepped back. ‘Get it off her.’
Ransom jerked away from Lark. ‘If you touch her, I will fucking kill you.’
‘Calm down, lover boy,’ said Nadia, with a sigh. ‘We’re trying to help you.’ She struck his shoulder with a whip ofshadow. It was just enough to knock him off kilter, allowing Lark to dart in and rip the cloak off. It fluttered to the floor between them.
‘Please don’t make us hurt you to get to her,’ she said, as more shadows gathered at her fingertips. ‘Just… let me finish it. For all our sakes.’
Ransom met Nadia’s glare with his own and knew she would go through him to get to Seraphine. She clearly thought she was doing the right thing, saving him from himself, from the thrall of the siren who had dragged a swarm of monsters into Old Haven with her.
With Shade at her fingertips, he couldn’t fight Nadia off.
It was words, or nothing.
‘If we kill her in this alley, her monsters will revolt,’ he said quickly. ‘And in case you haven’t noticed, there are over a hundred of them less than twenty feet away from us, and I’m not looking to die tonight. With that Shade in your system, you can get back up on that roof but who says they can’t climb up there after you? And if they go after either one of us, Lark and I are shit out of luck.’
Lark and Nadia exchanged a glance. In the loaded silence, a monster growled. Another pawed at the ground, its hackles raised. They were growing impatient. Whatever spell Seraphine had cast would not hold them much longer. Without her cloak, her command was wearing off.
‘He’s right,’ said Lark, plucking the cloak off the ground. ‘It’s not worth the risk.’
‘Let’s go somewhere safe,’ said Ransom. ‘We can talk. I’ll explain everything.’
‘Fine,’ said Nadia, her eyes darting back to where the creatures were waiting just beyond the alley mouth.
Ransom took off before they could reconsider, but the second they left the alleyway, the monsters began to lurch around. A ragged howl cut through the night, followed quickly by another.
‘Do you hear that?’ Nadia jerked her head at the growing thunder of footsteps.
‘Hell’s teeth,’ hissed Lark, whirling on his heel. ‘They’re coming right at us!’
‘Head for the catacombs!’ yelled Nadia.
They broke into a run. Ransom glanced over his shoulder and released a litany of swears. He doubled his pace, his gaze darting. There was nowhere to hide here, nowhere to run but down into the darkness. And he had no choice but to take Seraphine with him.
Up ahead, the statue of Saint Lucille loomed through the mist.
Monsters spilled out across Old Haven, flooding the graveyards.
‘Faster!’ yelled Lark, but Nadia was already ahead of them, yanking a shadow off a streetlamp and making a lasso of it. She tossed it over Lucille’s head and tugged. The entrance to Hugo’s Passage groaned open and they raced down the stone steps.
Behind them, cobbles cracked under the stampede of monsters. Old Haven was trembling at its foundations, the force of their pursuit making skulls fall and shatter from the entryway. Ransom leaped across the threshold, twistingthe skull to bring the door down as Lark and Nadia slid underneath it.
As the first monster reached the stairwell, the door thundered to a close, cutting off a gnarled hand wreathed in shadow. It flopped about on the ground before going still.
Nadia winced as she kicked it away. It hit the wall as the rest of the monsters pounded against the door. Bones fell from the ceiling, sending a shower of dust cascading over them.
‘They’re still after us,’ said Nadia.
‘Not us,’ said Ransom, just now noticing the cloak glowing in Lark’s hand. ‘They’re afterthat.’
Lark looked down at it. ‘Well, shit.’
As the pounding worsened, the walls trembled. Daggers spilled out into the hallways to investigate the commotion. Nadia shoved Ransom headlong down the north passage, Lark coming round to his other side so he couldn’t run away. ‘Take your mark to the Cavern before tonight gets any worse,’ said Nadia.
‘It’s already a horror show,’ muttered Lark.
But as Ransom made his way to the Cavern, with Seraphine curled tightly in his arms, he had a terrible sinking feeling that the horror of this night had only just begun.
