I shout, running forward, my palms raised, ready to ignite the thing, but I can’t do that without setting Kat on fire too.
“Ichabod Crane!”Leona yells at me now, having defeated the Hessian soldier who lies in an electrocuted heap beside her, his body twitching.She comes at me, hands out, flying through the air toward me until Brom takes his sword back behind his head and whips it forward at her.
The sword goes flying through the air, doing several rotations, until it strikes her in the back and she lets out a blood-curdling screech as it pins her to the ground.
Get Kat, Brom says to me, running over to Leona to finish the job.
I’m already sprinting toward the opposite wall, staring up at the rafters where that beast has Kat in its grasp, wondering how I’m going to get up there.
Then I notice the thick string of a spiderweb dangling in front of me, leading up the way the spider went.
I take in a deep breath and put my hands around the sticky string and shudder profusely.
Hold on, sweet witch, I project into her head.I’m coming for you.
I start climbing up the sticky silk strand, the disgust turning into anger the farther up I go.
They won’t take her from me, no one is taking her from me.
Almost there, Kat, I cry out, hoping she’s still alive.From the quick glances up above, her feet are dangling, seemingly lifeless in the spider’s bloody grasp.
Finally, I reach the bottom of the spider, a disgusting hole where the silk web comes out, and I reach out for Kat’s foot to let her know it’s me.She jerks it from my grasp involuntarily and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Until the spider throws back one of its legs, spearing me through my shoulder with a burst of blinding pain, pinning me against the wall.
The air leaves my lungs, the agony immense, and I’m trapped.
Who goes there?the spider without a head says in an inhuman voice.Who disturbs Goruun?
Jesus.This thing is Goruun?
But the thought starts to fade as pain begins to overtake me,blood running from the hole in my shoulder and dripping down, down into the cathedral below with sickening splats.
Hold on, Crane, Brom’s voice comes from somewhere, and I’m starting to feel delirious.Where is he?
Save Kat, I plead with him tiredly.Forget about me.
Like I ever could, he says.
Suddenly there’s a thump from the roof above, and I look up to see fragments of it falling on top of us, and then the edge of an ax breaks through.Another swing and then Brom’s face appears above us.
“Remember me?”Brom says to the demon.
Then he crawls through the hole and lands on one of the wooden rafters, brandishing the ax and coming toward Goruun.Because the spider can’t see him, it flails around trying to face its attacker, and for a moment Kat comes closer to me.
She meets my eyes, looking dazed but all right otherwise.
Kat, I tell her.On the count of three we’ll light him up.He’ll let go of you before you catch fire.
She nods.
You hear that too, pretty boy?I say to Brom.
Loud and clear, sir, he says, and I can’t help but smile.
One, I count down.
Two.
