But no matter how many souldrakes Kaiden kills, others replace them in the blink of an eye. They keep coming. And coming. Ravengers and voidstalkers soon join them on the ground, charging at us.
“Heads up! Kaiden can’t strike down here because he’ll incinerate us,” Malik bellows over the shrill cries. He opens his palms wide to send a blast of dark magic that takes the form of a giant, atramentous boomerang. More than half of their beastly heads fall.
Sam glows a bright green from beside me. A hedge wall shoots up at the flick of her fingers. The remaining demons tear through it one by one. Still, it served its purpose of slowing their momentum. My head swivels from Sam to the incoming beasts. I feel as though I’m trapped between a rock and a hard place because I don’t want to leave her side, but I can’t let the demons get closer, either.
“I got her,” Malik tells me, stepping in front of Sam.
I nod. Noah and I throw ourselves into the fray, our moves mirroring each other’s as if we’re dancing to the same tune.
“I don’t need your protection,” she snaps at him as she shacklesten voidstalkers with stocky vines that are full of thorns.
“You’re using a lot of power. How much longer until you run out?” I ask Kaiden through our mental link as I whirl on the balls of my feet to slice the horned head of the ravenger I trapped in my whip.
“Worried about me, angel?”
I careen to the side, avoiding the spray of ichor, then trace a wide arc to decapitate another. “Answer the damn question!”
“To your right!”Kaiden booms, voice steeped in panic.
I feint just in time to dodge a voidstalker’s poisonous scorpion tail aimed at my chest. Its hideous heads, made of two gaping maws lined by razor-sharp teeth, smack the ground after I thrust my blade through the beast’s necks. “Thanks,” I shoot back.
“Concentrate on the fight!” He pushes me out of our connection.
“How much longer until Kaiden runs out of power?” I yell at Malik, since I didn’t get an answer from Kaiden.
“I’m not sure. But he’s probably going to burn out soon,” he answers.
Shit.
Even though we keep fighting with everything we’ve got, we’ve barely made a dent in their numbers. They obliterated every wall Sam put up while pushing us back. We’re almost at the maze’s entrance. I can’t help but notice how differently these demons act compared to the ones that came for me the night Adrianna died. Sweat plasters my dress to my body as I slash and maim. I chance a glance up. Kaiden’s strikes have become less and less frequent, but there’s only a handful of souldrakes left. Hurried footfalls resound. Hellseekers have joined the fight. Thank God.
My relief is short-lived, though, because a sulking figure stalks out of the mansion.
Adramelech.
One hand’s holding a crossbow, the other a chain. He pointsthe crossbow skyward.
Nonononononononononononono.
“KAIDEN! DUCK!” I shout through our mental link.
He veers to the side. Too late. The arrow pierces his right wing. Adramelech shoots another. It impales the left wing. Kaiden yells, then starts freefalling.
My heart stops.
Time slows to a crawl.
I forge ahead, tapping into every ounce of speed I possess to get to him. In the next second, though, white-hot pain obliterates my nerve endings, making me double over—not mine, but Kaiden’s. He crashes to the ground. Abject terror drags its icy claw down the ladder of my spine.
“KAIDEN!”
Nothing.
I try again and again.
There’s only silence.
“Malik! Do something!” I scream.
