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A demon that looked like a wolf dove for Darien’s throat.

He swept the blade up. Unable to balance himself properly, he carved its arm off instead of its head, pulpy blood showering his face.

Roman fired a second round. Missedagain.

“Come on, man—I thought you were a good shot!”

“I AM!”

He pulled the trigger again. The bullet hit the side of the vine, its insides wriggling like maggots.

The cavern shook with another howl, shards of rock clacking down and bursting into dust. One struck Darien between the brows, splitting his skin open. Blood trickled between his eyes, streaming down the bridge of his nose, his lips. Monsters yelped as they, too, were struck with bits of rock. A few fled the scene, while others were so disoriented they banged into each other and tumbled into the pit.

The vine began to thrash. Back and forth, back and forth, dragging them from side to side. Darien squeezed Roman’s hand as tightly as he could, biting back the pain as he was whipped about like a rag doll, boots thumping and sliding. More vines reared up and dove for him, but the moment he swung the sword they screamed and cowered away from it, as if afraid.

“Hold on!” Darien shouted, his grip slippery with blood. The few remaining monsters chomped at the air, leaping for Roman’s sides. “Hold on, don’t let go?—”

Brutal claws caught Roman in the hip. The Shadowmaster barked a profanity.

Darien kicked the thing in the skull, sending it sprawling with a yelp.

His hold on Roman began to slip, the pain in his hand getting worse?—

“Fuck—myhand, Roman!”His vision went white. His boots slid another meter as the vine gave up thrashing, pulling again toward the tunnel.

Darien feared he was going to let go. He was going to let go, and if he did, he’d lose Roman forever.

“My hand!”

“I know, I know!Just hold on?—”

He was going to faint. Throw up. Stop breathing.

Roman kept firing, shots popping through the cavern.

A bullet hit stone—bursting a chunk into dust.

Another sliced through a monster’s neck, ripping through an artery with a squirt of blood.

“Let,” Roman spat, firing another shot, “the fuck,”another,“GO!”

One shot—he hadoneround left.

Roman squeezed the trigger—POP. Darien held his breath as the bullet sped out of the muzzle in a silver blur.

It sliced into the vine, spraying brown sticky liquid.

Another mind-rattling scream.

Darien let out a mighty roar of his own, of triumph and rage, pulling as hard as he could?—

The vine let go, retreating toward the tunnel with an eldritch screech.

Roman fell—crashing right into Darien.

Their limbs tangled as they were launched backward, Darien taking an elbow to the jaw, feet tripping over creatures that hissed and scattered.

He felt the heel of his boot teeter on an edge. But he didn’t have time to shout out a warning before gravity was sucking him backward.