Page 56 of The Catacomb King
Hades caught it. He held it up with his shoulder, like he was leaning into a door, but I could see the strain in his neck muscles.
“We have to keep it from falling again while we get Mackr out,” I said worriedly, my mind working. Then an idea flashed into my mind. “What about spiderwebs? Like the ones in the graveyard? Could one of the godlings spin a spiderweb to keep this rock sheet at bay?”
“Monarch, no, goddess. Don’t even suggest it. That’s not something we do in polite company. That’s like asking someone to solve a problem by menstruating on it —”
He broke off and gasped. Something had crashed into the sheet of rock from the other side.
Another rockslide.
My heart began to pound. “Hades —”
“Get Mackr,” Hades gritted out. He was not looking at me. He had thrown all his weight against the sheet of rock. His muscles were already shaking from the force of keeping it from crashing down on us. Splitting all our heads like so much fruit. “You’re right. You have to get Mackr out of here.”
“But you —”
“You have to. They’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”
If I let Mackr die, the godlings would blame me. And they would be right to.
And then they would refuse to work on the reservoir.
And then I would be eaten.
And then my mother would die.
Terrified, I looked down at Mackr for the first time since Hades had lifted the rock.
His human body was nearly flattened. Greenish blood leaked out. One of his pupilless spider-eyes had burst, smearing some kind of hideous fluid all over the hairs of his flat ugly head.
But he was still groaning. He had air in his lungs, if he had lungs.
There was no time to think, no time to handle him with mercy. I hauled one of Mackr’s arms over my shoulders and wrapped my arm around his human waist. He screeched with pain, the sound like a balloon popping inside my ear. I could feel his broken ribs grinding against my hand. “Move,” I said to him.
“C… can’t.”
“Move,” Hades barked behind us. The noise punched out of him with breath he couldn’t spare.
But it was still the order of a Prince.
I kicked Mackr in the back of his legs. Mackr, moaning, began to move.
Mackr and I slid down the shaft. I didn’t dare look back at Hades. I could hear the groaning of the rock like an earthquake. Could hear Hades’s grunts and pants as he kept the rockslide at bay.
I had to trust Hades. If not to save me, at least to save himself and Mackr, who was one of his beloved people.
“Don’t die on me, Mackr,” I panted, trying to distract myself. “If you die, you’ll never have the chance to stop being such a son of a bitch.”
“Fuck you,” he croaked.
“You wish. Almost there, Mackr. Almost there…”
I fell out the bottom of the shaft with him.
The open air was glorious. I rolled my ankle as I landed on the hard, stable earth. I hissed, but I didn’t drop Mackr.
Someone grabbed me. Other godlings swarmed, took Mackr from my arms. The one who had steadied me still had me balanced between her spider-arms. It was Elke. She gazed at me in wide-eyed terror. “The Prince…”
I didn’t even stop to answer. Not even to take one more clean breath. I pivoted on my bad ankle and climbed back into the darkness.
