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A drop dripped in Darien’s hair. On his cheek. He wiped it off, smearing it between his thumb and forefinger. The liquid was too thick to be water.
He tipped his head back, scanning the deep, supernatural darkness way up top. It felt like gazing into a pit, except…upside down. Dizzying.
A crumbling staircase wrapped around the perimeter of the cavern, spiraling all the way up to the top. Overturned pillars of bone and obelisks of polished adamant were crisscrossed from one side of the vast chamber to the other in fortuitous bridges, all the way from floor to ceiling, the latter carved with bygone runes. The moldering bits of staircase and fallen pillars became invisible closer to the ceiling, the churning gloom at the top gulping them down like a black hole. But it wasn’t the pillars, nor the sinister darkness shifting across the ceiling that snagged Darien’s attention. It was the thing that dwelled here.
Draped across the forsaken structures was a mass of scales. A giant serpent, only parts of its limbless body peeking out of the gloom, thousands upon thousands of black scales catching the light of the bioluminescent creatures that dared to linger here.
Darien’s stomach twisted into a knot, his heart speeding up to a painful sprint. He wordlessly urged the others to move faster, all while rallying his magic. Venom sparked in his blood, waiting to be unleashed.
Good—he’d need it.
“Oh shit.” Jack’s whisper bounced through the room as he spotted the curve of the serpent’s enormous body, lying motionless in the dark, way above their heads. In a pocket between worlds, its place of origin far darker and colder than this.
A place of evil. Terror.
“Keep going,” Darien said, the words tense. “Don’t slow down. Don’t look back.” No matter what you hear, he almost said.
Because he knew what that thing was. Knew that not everyone would be making it through that doorway.
Knew the demon called the Basilisk had chosen him. He could sense it.
So he slowed his pace, and as soon as Jack, Roman, and Tanner made it through the doorway, safe on the other side, he slowed again—
Just as the massive serpent lowered part of its body down, slithering over both doors. Blocking him in. Its thick body scraped across the cold stone floor, the sound as it dragged itself leisurely across the stone reminiscent of water thrown over hot coals.
The others shouted his name. But they could no longer get through, their panicked words muffled by that ginormous body—the body that, according to legend, could swallow creatures twice its size. Whole.
Darien stood very still.
“What an absolute delight this is,” said the serpent, its voice coming from somewhere way up high—the darkness that didn’t have an end. That voice was ancient and cold, consisting mostly of whispers and hisses—very fitting for a primordial serpent. “You shall make for a delicious challenge, oh haunted one.”
According to the screen on the inside of the elevator, they were about halfway to the bottom.
It was very quiet in here, only the whir of the elevator and the tinkling of vintage music breaking the silence.
Max knew Dallas was nervous, and so was he. They had only a slight idea of where this led, knew that in a matter of minutes, they’d be walking into pitch-black tunnels that could be crawling with demons.
Scratch that—they would be crawling with demons. That was a given.
As he watched the progress of their descent tick away on the elevator screen, Max adjusted the sword strapped to his back. Arthur had only enough material for three swords, so Darien had divvied them up between each of the groups. Max carried one, Darien carried another, and Ivy had taken the third to the tar pits.
The percentage on the screen that showed their descent—no floor numbers, since the basement was the last stop to the bottom—began to slow, ticking down from three seconds passing between numbers to greater than ten.
Dallas’s silver-green eyes flicked up to his face. “Why are we slowing down?”
The elevator was jarred with a massive boom, the force as the structure came to an abrupt standstill nearly knocking them to the floor. The music cut out. The lights buzzed and flickered.
Dallas reached for his hand, and he gave it to her, holding onto her tightly as he stalked up to the control panel.
The screen said fifty-one percent.
“Max?” Dallas ventured, her breath showing in the air. It was suddenly freezing.
And they were trapped halfway down an elevator shaft.
107
The Cavern
