I feel another sharp pull on the cable, twice, three times, and my blood runs cold with dread. Three times means she’s taken flight.
It’s now or never. I have to hurry. And I’m going to be sitting mere feet away when it happens.
“I’m going for your left hand, Christian.”
“She’s … on her way.”
“I hear her.” She has no wings, who knows how the hell she flies? But she makes a sharp whining sound as she displaces air. She’ll be on us in ten seconds if she comes straight for him. I kick out—why not, she’s already coming?—and drop to rest below his left hand. I pull the spear out, wedge the tip beneath the pylon and get ready to pry it free. “Grab my arm with your fingers. You must hold on when I pry it out.”
“I’ll … pull you … down.”
“You won’t. I ate Unseelie.”
“You … never … learn.” His fingers close around my wrist.
I establish the most secure toeholds available, which is virtually nothing, as sheer as the rock is where she hung him, and pry with one swift, hard jerk.
The rivet shoots out, goes flying off into the air behind me, and begins the long plunge to the canyon below. Christian’s grip on me tightens, and my feet slip off the nearly nonexistent ledges.
I plummet like a stone, in full free fall.
I grab the cable with both hands and squeeze as tight as I can, jerk it too hard, bounce upward and crash into the rocky bluff.
Wiping blood from my face, I glance up. Christian is a good thirty feet above me, hanging by a single arm at a telltale slant.
I look down. The Hag is gone, apparently chasing the sound of the rivet hitting stone.
It’s a darn good thing I ate Unseelie flesh. Without it I’m not sure I would have been able to stop myself from plunging down to join the rivet. Dark energy pounds in my head, my heart, giving me many times my normal strength and energy.
I hang there a second, looking up, studying the cliff, picking out my toeholds, plotting my climb back up before beginning the steep ascent.
When I’m even with Christian, I see his body for the first time and gasp. He’s sliced from breastbone to groin, skin flapping, parts of flesh hanging out, regrowing.
How the hell has he even been talking?
“She sees me … hanging by one arm, she’ll lance … me from a … distance.”
“I’m going to ease your hand onto a piece of rock. Hold like your life depends on it.”
He groans. “Mere minutes, lass … no more … pain immense.”
I hear the familiar, dreaded whine of the Hag’s flight and scramble to get his fingers fastened onto a rocky ledge. “You got it?”
“Aye. Need … spear.”
If she sees it, she’ll never come near him. “I’m crouching on the wall, just above your hand. When she gets here, I’ll wrap your fingers around it. It won’t become visible until I let go of it.”
“You’ll … be.… lanced.”
“I won’t,” I say flatly. “Shut up and focus.” I use the cable to raise myself a few feet, praying he can hold on.
After a moment, he growls, “Where … is … she?”
Suddenly I hear shouting above us, and Jada screaming at someone to take cover.
“Fuck this,” I snarl. I take my spear and slam the hard steel against the face of the cliff, to distract her, lure her to us.
It works.
She suddenly shoots out above us and hangs in the air, gut gown snaking over the edge, peering down.
“Right here, bitch,” Christian snarls.
She draws back like a cobra about to strike.
And does.
With one of her insectile lancelike legs, she severs my cable.
Time suspends and everything seems to unfold in slow motion. I’m staring up, watching the cable snake in coils over the edge for what feels like a full minute, excruciatingly aware I’m a thousand feet above a deadly rocky canyon floor, crunching thoughts furiously: How fast will I fall? Will I die? Will I bounce off an outcropping and break every bone before I even hit bottom? How bad is this going to hurt? Have I been good? Was my life worth anything? What did I accomplish in twenty-three years? I haven’t had nearly enough sex with Barrons.
I know a mere instant passes, but I understand what people mean when they say their life flashes before their eyes. In vivid detail I see the finest moments I’ve experienced, the ones I regret, my bravest times and my most cowardly, followed by the many experiences I’d hoped to have and now perhaps never will.
All of it crashes into my brain as I take that horrific first moment of free fall, and in spite of myself, my mouth stretches wide on a scream as I try desperately to brace myself for whatever’s to come: a brutally painful recovery or a happy reunion with Alina in heaven, because if I go to Hell, I’m breaking out. I will not be separated from my sister forever. I haven’t been that bad. Besides, I just ate Unseelie, which means I can kick some serious demon ass busting loose.
I slam into what feels like a seesaw between my legs and suddenly I’m choking and sputtering, trying to breathe.
“Good … fucking thing you … screamed,” he rasps. “I’ve … got you … but can’t hold … long.” I realize he let go of the rock, kicked his leg in the general direction of where he heard me (my pelvic bone is going to be sporting one heck of a bruise) and grabbed blindly for any part of me, ending up with the front of my jacket. He’s hanging by one hand. Strangling me with my coat with the other.
He murmurs, “And that’s … what … Dageus meant.”
“What?” I ask as I flail wildly, finally get my legs wrapped around him and clamber up his body, trying hard not to clutch at any torn flesh in the process. It’s a messy, slippery business.
“About my opportunity. Bloody hell, she’s … coming!”
I can’t let go of him or I’ll fall. If I don’t let go of him, I’ll get lanced when she stabs him. I sincerely doubt she’s going to get close enough to us, with all the intruders she’s spotted on her mountain, for either of us to stab her.
I’m not leaving without what I came for. We’ll finish the Hag later.
I hiss, “Can you sift?”
“Iron. Manacles. Can’t. Too … wounded … anyway.”
Terrific. I can pry the rivets out but my spear is useless for cutting the manacles off his arms. I’d wondered how she was preventing an Unseelie Prince from sifting. With iron, the same way Inspector Jayne does with the Unseelie he captures and keeps until someone slays them. Speaking of which, his cages must be crammed to overflowing.
I’m not dying on this cliff.
I wrap one arm tightly around Christian’s neck, force myself up and to the left, dig my spear beneath the rivet holding his right hand. It won’t budge. There’s too much weight hanging on it. I dig the tip of the spear in deeper, start rocking it back and forth beneath the rivet, using my Unseelie-flesh-enhanced strength.
He looks up, growls, “What … the … fuck … Mac! No!”
The rivet suddenly shoots from the cliff like a missile being launched, and for the second time I go into a full free fall.
I hold on to him tightly and scream, “Fly, Christian! Fucking fly!”