without air? Not much longer. And then, with a final terrible effort, a million stars explode over my head and I’m staring at the night sky, and breathing, breathing deeply, painfully, like a baby who breathes for the first time.
“Sean! Sean!” Elodie’s hands are brushing the soil away from my eyes.
I splutter and cough, and turn my head to throw up soil and bile. I gulp in fresh air at once, then spit some more and inhale some more, until my head stops splitting and my lungs stop screaming.
“Are you OK? Sean, are you OK?” Elodie says over and over again – she’s terrified, I can hear it in her voice. So much to lose. So much more than when there were hundreds of us hunting – now every loss is a disaster to humanity.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. I’m covered in mud, and wriggling little creatures fall out of my hair as I sit up.
“That was close,” she whispers.
“Did you see someone? Did someone see us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw a red light. I thought maybe a car.”
Elodie shakes her head. “There was no car. It was you. Your runes. There was a red light.” She waves her slender fingers in the air. “Like a ribbon.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, and no time to ponder. “The soil demons?”
“One is dead.” She points to a lifeless bundle lying not far from us – it’s curled up in a ball, its white skin gleaming feebly. Its lips are blue. Elodie has poisoned it. Black liquid is pouring from where I’d stabbed it with my runes.
“The other?”
“I don’t—”
A hand spurts out of the soil like a monstrous root, and another, fumbling at her legs – and then a head, growling and sniffing the air for flesh. But this time I’m ready – I slip my sgian-dubh out of its strap and start tracing the runes once more.
The Surari lifts itself up in fury and leaps at me – I raise my dagger, placing an invisible barrier between us. The creature growls and holds its throat where I have slashed it open, black liquid spurting from the severed flesh.
“You buried me alive, you bastard!” I scream. What am I doing? Speaking to the Surari, like Sarah?
“Back soil … Me … back soil.”
“Niryana!” yells Elodie again.
“Elodie! No!” But it’s too late. She’s thrown herself on the demon, as agile as a cat. But she is no match for it. The Surari grabs her hair, its mouth is open.
I have no choice. I launch myself towards the creature to stop it biting Elodie.
But there’s no need. Before I can reach it I see Elodie’s lips, black as the night, touch the Surari’s rotten, pale ones. Its arms, posed to claw the flesh off her bones, flail and fall to its sides. The demon clutches at its throat as its mouth darkens, a blue-black tinge slowly spreading over its face. It collapses, squirming on the ground, and I’m shocked, I’m speechless as I see something on its face.
A single tear, rolling down its cheek.
“It’s OK,” says Elodie. “I can handle this.”
Makara
The seventh wave
Is the one that carries my heart
The Atlantic Ocean
Niall was clutching the rusty metal rail so that the wind wouldn’t sweep him into the ocean. He wished he could jump off the cargo ship into the water and swim all the way back to Ireland, back home. But he knew that wasn’t an option. He knew he had to save his own life. Going home was simply impossible. Not yet, anyway. Since the Enemy had risen and started the slaughter of the Secret heirs all over the world, all Niall was allowed to think of was survival.
“Planning a swim?” Mike was beside him suddenly, shivering in his bright red jacket, his arms wrapped around himself. He hated the cold. They could barely hear each other over the roar of the wind.
“Hopefully soon,” Niall replied. There was a gust of wind so hard that he thought it might blow him into the sea – and he would have loved that, he would have loved to feel the seawater on his face, around his body. But the cargo ship was too fast – he would lose them. It was only that thought that stopped him from jumping. It didn’t worry him that the Atlantic is cold and deep and vast and that they were in the middle of it, because Niall didn’t have reason to fear the