feel her fingers working around the strap, but the demon pulls down again and both my feet are buried deeper. I’m slowly being buried alive.
“I lost it!” cries Elodie. Her head jerks backwards, and I realize the demon must have both her ankles again and is pulling her down too.
“Back. Soil,” says the rasping voice again. It’s coming from underground, somewhere between Elodie and me. I can sense the thing’s head just there, under a shallow layer of earth.
I dig with one hand, under the leaves, under soil, until a mop of black hair appears. I pull at its hair as hard as I can, and the creature growls in anger. I look over at Elodie, and our eyes meet – she knows at once what I’m trying to do.
I feel the ground frantically with my hands – Elodie is being wrenched further and further underground. “Sean!” she calls. It’s dark, but her face is so white it’s glowing.
Please don’t let Elodie die like this.
Rage burns through me, and with a sudden burst of strength I grab at the black hair again, yanking and ripping until the creature does what I want it to do – it comes to the surface with a jump, in a shower of leaves and earth. Elodie is free – she scrambles to her feet as quickly as she can, panting.
I have a split second to take in the Surari’s face, its sickly white skin that has never seen the light of day, the unseeing eyes, the mouth crowded with black and broken teeth – and then Elodie is on it, with a roar you wouldn’t believe could come from a woman so slight. She lands on the Surari’s stomach, sinking her knees into its chest.
Right at that moment, a second soil demon hauls me under.
Shit.
Almost immediately I’m up to my waist in wet, cold earth, kicking against the weight of the sodden soil. I can only watch as the Surari grabs Elodie by the arms and throws her off. She’s up again in a second, her arms stretched out to take hold of the Surari again, but it’s quicker than her. It has its hands on her hips and its mouth open to take a bite of her stomach.
I don’t have a blade – my fingers will have to do. I lift my hands and start tracing, whispering the secret words, hoping they won’t desert me when I need them most. I try to ignore the dragging at my heels. The exposed Surari moans and squirms for a moment, as if confused, then turns its face towards the source of the pain. I close my eyes and trace harder, whispering as fast as I can without jumbling the words. I can see a red light through my closed eyelids – it’s just for an instant, but it’s definitely red. A car’s tail-lights? A farmer’s tractor lights? I don’t allow myself to open my eyes as my movements get faster and faster – the runes have taken over, carrying me with them. The soil demon growls – I stab and stab again without touching it, and the creatures howls in pain.
All of a sudden, I can’t breathe anymore – my mouth is full of soil. Muffled sounds, my lungs exploding – there’s no air, no air. It can’t be. I can’t die like this, buried alive. I can’t.
“Elodie …” I try to say, but as I open my lips soil gets in my mouth and down my throat and I begin to suffocate. I cough. My chest is in agony.
Who’s going to look after Sarah?
There’s only darkness around me, and cold, and I can’t even move a finger. A thought hits me, as clear as ice: I’m dead. I’m dead.
But there’s another jerking movement, less hard this time – and different. Different because it pulls me up towards the surface and not down towards a wet, black tomb.
“Sean!”
The voice is muffled. Something is grabbing at my fingers, hard, and is yanking me upwards with a scream of rage and terror and a voice that belongs to Elodie.
I can make out the words. “Niryana prati Surari!” the voice is saying. “Niryana!” I recognize it as one of the battle cries of the Secret Families, in the ancient language. Whatever had been wrapped around my ankles suddenly lets go – and the blessed, blessed hand that pulls me upwards grabs my wrists – my lungs are bursting, exploding with pain – how long can a man survive