Page 55 of The Catacomb King
I had promised myself I wouldn’t lose my temper at the workers, but I couldn’t help it. Finally I stormed over to Mackr. I grabbed him by the furry scruff of his spider-neck. I was so hungry and scared and pissed off that I didn’t even remember to recoil from his awful fangs. “I have not seen my sick mother in three days,” I hissed into his unblinking, emotionless black spider-eyes. “I have had it up toherewith you motherfuckers. Get into that shaft and dig somefucking rockbefore I tear your head off and eat your fuckingbrains, youfreak.”
“Monarch’s balls,” said Mackr. “Fine, fine fine. Let me go. You don’t have to be so sensitive.”
“You call thissensitive?” I screamed at him and thrust him into the shaft. “I’ll show you sensitive!” I whirled on everyone else. “What the fuck are you looking at? Get in there anddig!”
For almost the first time, a bunch of godlings scuttled into the shaft.
Toward the back of the reservoir, Hades leaned over and whispered something to Elke. Elke was staring at me with a resentful frown. Even Hades looked surprised. At their expressions, I felt embarrassed — but only for a second. Then I was angry. I was still hungry! My mother was dying! Calix hadn’t even tried to come get me! I needed this whole project to gofaster! —
Behind me, in the pipe-shaft, an enormous crack sounded.
The earth juddered. I grabbed for the wall.
Hades slammed into me — my breath was snatched from my lungs; I couldn’t believe how fast he had moved, from all the way across the reservoir — just before a rockslide came crashing out of the pipe-shaft.
My heart plunged. The sheer volume of rock, piling into the reservoir, made it look like a whole building had collapsed. Fortunately the rock wasn’t blocking the shaft mouth. It had crashed too far down. And all of the workers, I thought, had been close enough to the mouth that they’d been able to scramble out of the way; yes, I counted them, they were clustered around the shaft mouth and the rock pile, dusting themselves off, clutching each other, panting, bug-eyed. Except…
“Mackr!” I screamed. “Where’s Mackr?”
Hades looked around. He blanched.
I dove upward into the pipe-shaft. Hades seized me around the waist and hauled me back, exactly the way Calix had hauled me away from the underworld border. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “The rockslide! There might be another wave.”
“This is the Monarch’s doing,” someone wailed. “It is His will that we should perish of thirst!”
“We should sacrifice the human!”
“Not obey her! Sacrifice her!”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” I howled at them. “Let mego!” I whacked at Hades. He was undaunted. I screamed, at everyone and no one, “This has nothing to do with the Monarch’s will,” meanwhile hitting Hades over and over, trying to get him to release me, because if Mackr was injured it wasmyfault, if he was dead or dying then it wasmyfault. I shouted, “This is becauseyou peopledon’t know how to dig through unstable soil! You probably dug sideways into one of those fucking catacombs! Gods, you liveunderground, how can you not get thisone thing right—”
“Persephone,” Hades warned.
I scratched at his eyes.
Hades hissed and let me go, clapping his hands over his face. He grabbed for me a second later, but it was too late. I scrambled up into the pipe-shaft, moving too fast for Hades to catch me. He dove after me, cursing to kingdom come, as I skidded and slid over bits of loose rock.
But halfway up the shaft, there was still no sign of Mackr.
“Mackr!” I called. I flinched a second later, afraid the echo of my voice would cause another rockslide.
Then I heard a groan.
Beneath my feet.
I looked down. I was standing on a flat sheet of rock. But as I shifted my weight, it wobbled slightly, like a see-saw. I jumped off it, almost tumbling straight backward into Hades, who had just caught up with me. “You unholyterror,” he breathed at me. It appeared I hadn’t scratched his eye after all, just his cheekbone. He had an angry red mark there, but his blue eyeswere clear — and mad as hell. “What is your problem? I thought you wanted to get back to your mother, not get yourself killed.”
“I have to get Mackr,” I said. “I think he’s under this sheet of rock.” I tried to heave it up, but I was too weak.
The expression on Hades’s face shifted. He crouched. He called, “Mackr?”
That groan again. “Prince…”
Fortunately, Hades was stronger than I was. Impossibly strong. He wedged his hands under the rock and heaved it up. It lifted like it was a sheet of paper, crashed on its edge on the steeply sloping shaft floor —
And began to fall.
I recoiled.
