Page 9 of Hell on Earth
The idea of Randy being dead tore at my heart until I found myself struggling to breathe. The possibility of Randy turning on me unnerved me more than the giant snake probably making its way toward us right now. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if he came to despise me, but I’d done what I believed was best to keep the Wilders alive, and if there was one thing Randy understood, it was keeping his people alive and being loyal to those who were loyaltohim.
I never would have extended the offer to work with the demons if the other Wilders hadn’t agreed to it beforehand. After witnessing what escaped the gateway, and with what we’d come to learn of the demons, we decided that working with them was our best, and maybe only, chance for continuedsurvival.
No, not survival, our best chance forhope. We’d spent the past fourteen years doing everything we could to live until the next minute. Working with the demons offered us the first promise of a future that we’d had in years—a promise none of us had dared to hope forbefore.
Even now, trapped in this hole withCorson, and with the possibility that I might end up being snake shit by the end of the day, I still wouldn’t have changed anything. The Wilders above had a chance at a better life because we were working with the demons. My death was worthoneof them having an opportunity to age enough to wrinkle andgogray.
But I wasn’t dead yet, and I didn’t plan to go down easy if my end wascomingsoon.
“How do you intend to get out of here?” I askedCorson.
Lifting his hand, Corson pointed down the tunnel he’d been inspecting. My gaze followed his talons to the nothingness beyond him. I resisted gulping. The tunnel was twenty-plus feet in diameter. I didnotwant to be anywhere near the thing capable ofcreatingthat.
“Are you nuts?” Iasked.
“I’ve been told it’s apossibility.”
“We’ll be walking straight into that thing’shome. It opened its door for us”—I waved a hand at the hole above us—“but I don’t think it’s going to offer us coffeeandcake.”
Corson grinned at me.Yep, he’s nuts,Idecided.
“Probably not coffee, but maybe it has some snake cake,” he replied with a wink, and I glared at him. “There are going to be more side tunnels in there. The ouro wouldn’t have only one way in and out. We have to make it into one of those side tunnels and soon. This is a trap, and the ouro most likely sensed when itsprang.”
“What if it’s in one of those sidetunnels?”
“Then we have to face it,” Corsonreplied.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait here, in this bigger room tokillit?”
“It has more space to maneuver in here, which will make it a lot hardertokill.”
My hands fisted as I realized he was right. Why was I so stupid right now, while he was calmly pointing out all the facts I should have seen on my own? Was it just that I was standing in the pit of a gigantic snake, or because I was stuck here withhim? When I thought about it, the idea of being alone with Corson scared me more than theourodid.
I resolvednotto thinkaboutit.
Taking a deep breath, I gazed longingly at the faint source of light over my head. Once we moved away from it, there would be nothing to guide us, no proof the world existed beyond this undergroundcavern.
“We have to go,” Corsonurged. “Now.”
I tore my eyes away from the distant hole and back to the most infuriating demon in existence. Long ago, I’d resolved not to let others know how I was really feeling. There were those who would use any fear or hesitance they saw in me against me. I didn’t think Corson would, but years of ingrained habit rushed to theforefrontnow.
With a confidence I didn’t feel, I thrust my shoulders back and grinned at him. “Well, all right then. Let’s go do some snake hunting. I’ve always wanted a pair of snakeskinboots.”
The look Corson gave me said he wasn’t buying it, but he refrained from commenting before he started into the hole. I stepped away from the wall and followed him into the ouro’s den. I only made it three feet into the ouro’s tunnel before it became so dark I couldn’t see Corson’s back in frontofme.
There was nothing like blindly winding deeper into the home of a giant, self-eatingsnake.
ChapterSeven
Corson
With no light piercing this deep into the bowels of the earth, it was impossible to see what lay before me, even with my enhanced demon senses. I kept my right hand raised; my talons extended straight ahead as we wound deeper and deeper into the labyrinth the ouro hadcreated.
My left hand ran over the cool dirt wall. The ouro had traveled through here enough times that the earth and stone beneath my fingers had been smoothed by its passing. I kept my hearing attuned to any hint of danger as my hand fell into the open air of anothertunnel.
We’d already slipped into two different passageways since leaving the main pit behind. I had no doubt the ouro was coming for us, but if we kept taking turns, there was a chance we might be able to avoid it. Atinychance.
Fifteen minutes ago, a vibration beneath my feet alerted me the ouro was traveling toward the trap it had created and we’d fallen into, but I hadn’t felt any vibrations since then. If I’d been Shax, I would have been able to detect the faintest movement of earth, would have known the ouro was coming long before it arrived, but Shax remained above with theothers.
