Nightmares in Paradise, page 15
Silence came from above. Even the sound of my own footsteps as I headed down the tunnel sounded subdued.
True, Sandra and Ash had told me to stay there, but one root punched through the ceiling as I stepped aside, and another burrowed itself into the opposite wall. If I stayed put much longer, I’d end up stuck worse than a rat in a mousetrap.
I needed to keep moving and find Naomi.
This lower tunnel was even narrower and more twisted than the one above, and thick roots had wormed their way through the ceiling in places. The tubers were as thick around as my own waist, forcing me to crawl through the gaps to reach the other side.
Suddenly, a roar came from behind me. Swiveling around, I barely managed to stumble out of the way as the ceiling of the passageway I’d left collapsed, burying the route in a downpour of soil and stone.
I swallowed hard. Until now, it’d been easy to forget that thousands upon thousands of pounds of dirt loomed above my head.
But as I kept going, that thought was constantly on my mind. I swore I could feel the weight of the earth bearing down on me inch by inch.
Deeper in, the floor was littered with a white scatter of nuggets that reminded me of packing peanuts, even making the same sound when they crunched beneath my feet. I leaned down to examine them closer and grimaced.
Dead shamir worms.
The roots were ridged and holey from their gnawing. Ropes of black sap oozed from the wounds and the roots. And even at a distance, the stench made my mouth pucker.
It smelled like a zombie with indigestion. If Naomi had come down here, she would’ve left by now. Except if she couldn’t.
Just the thought made my chest ache with fear.
Please don’t let her be down here. Please let her be somewhere safe.
Pinching my nose, I headed deeper into the tunnel. The fungus didn’t grow here either, at least not the glowing kind—the blaze of my sword revealed streaks of glistening mold veining from where the roots touched, creeping across the dirt.
I came to a fork in the tunnel, each one leading into an even darker passage. I called out to my friends, but my own voice was the only one to echo back at me, hollow and distorted, sounding muffled as if buried.
Palms clammy and arms trembling, I clenched my fingers even tighter around the sword’s handle, kept my gaze straight ahead, and kept going step by step.
The smooth earthen walls of the tunnel were soon replaced by a hard, glistening black stone as smooth and shiny as a mirror. I traced my fingertips over the rock. It reminded me of the family vacation we’d gone on back when Naomi was just a baby. On our way to the Grand Canyon, we’d taken a detour to check out some lava tubes, and I’d collected a few pieces of the same shiny obsidian from the roadside.
Strange to realize the laws of nature still applied even here. That beneath the soil of Eden, there were forces at work I couldn’t see.
As I continued deeper, I felt like I was becoming smaller and smaller, shrinking down, shoulders drawing tighter. The tunnel’s walls grew wider with each step, emptying into natural caverns beneath the earth.
The sword’s hissing flames created a circle of radiance around me.
“Naomi?” My voice cracked in my throat. I took another step into the darkness. “Naomi, are you here?”
Silence.
There was nowhere to go now but down.
And somewhere in the darkness, there lurked a monster.
28
Flames spit up the edge of my sword. Cast in their crimson glow, I caught fractured glimpses of my face in the walls of sheer obsidian that entrapped me—features blanched in fear, my mouth pressed into a bloodless line, eyes bugging out.
I had thought fighting the Leviathan was scary enough, being on open water in the middle of a thunderstorm, but this was even more terrifying. Months from now, assuming I survived, I’d probably wake up screaming about giant worms and wheels covered in eyeballs.
But first—find the serpent, save Naomi, save the tree. That was all I needed to worry about. The here and now, focus on what I could change.
One thing was for sure. Naomi owed me for this. Once we made it out of here, she was gonna have to do my chores until she hit fifty.
“You’ve got this, Zach,” I whispered.
“Zach,” a voice called from the darkness, my name drawn out into one long whisper, so faint I could barely hear it, and yet so loud that it seemed to echo all around me.
The wind? No. We were so far belowground, there wasn’t even a breeze down here.
“Naomi?”
I heard it a second time, louder than the first: “Zzzaaach.”
A wave of relief washed over me, and my shoulders slumped on their own. I’d been so afraid. But she’d been safe all along. She’d been safe, and now I was coming to save her.
“Naomi, it’s me,” I called. “I’m over here!”
My voice echoed back to me, eerie and hollow, the way I imagined I would sound from beyond the grave. Except I had no intention of becoming a ghost just yet, especially if it meant haunting a place as boring as Eden. I mean, seriously, there wouldn’t even be any fun people here to scare!
“Zzzzzzzzeeeccchhh,” the voice called again, only this time the zzzzz drew out into one malevolent hiss.
All too late I realized it wasn’t my name at all.
A broad scaly face emerged from the darkness, golden eyes gleaming like fire.
My voice withered in my throat as the creature came closer, the ground shuddering beneath its powerful tread. Flames pulsated up its sides, glistening from beneath the obsidian scales that covered it from head to toe.
Not a serpent.
A dragon.
The saliva drained from my mouth. Its stomach bulged with the remnants of its last meal. The bulge quivered, shook. The outlines of limbs jerked beneath the creature’s leathery underbelly, twitching feebly.
Naomi.
Folded against the dragon’s back was a pair of withered wings that looked too small to hoist it in flight, much less keep it airborne. But this far beneath the earth, it wouldn’t need to fly. Just lunge toward me, like the way it was doing—Oh, crap!
I darted for cover as the dragon slammed into the place I’d been standing mere seconds before. The creature drove against an obsidian pillar with such force that a crack zigzagged up the stone, and needlelike fragments gouged into my exposed arm.
I hissed, crouching low. Just scratches, but the pain made me wince, and a thin thread of blood unraveled down my arm.
Where were Sandra and Ash? They couldn’t just expect me to deal with this alone! That was how heroes got killed.
There was no time to waste. As the creature turned toward me, preparing to lunge once more, I darted out from behind cover and raced to another column of basalt at the far end of the cavern. I barely reached the cover of the stone before a searing glow flared in the corner of my eye.
I ducked low as a spout of blue fire tore through the cavern, exploding against the stone I crouched behind. Even from my hiding space, the heat was so great the sweat evaporated from my brow in an instant, and my eyes watered from the intensity of the blaze.
“Naomi, hold on!” I shouted as the bulge in the serpent’s stomach bulged again, tiny fists pounding against its smooth black underbelly. “I’m going to get you out of there!”
I kept going. With a second blast of fire, cracks spread through the obsidian column. A wave of heat washed over me. I was afraid my clothing would catch on fire. I searched for another hiding spot, but the only other outcropping of stone columns was halfway across the room, and it would mean crossing within the beast’s range of sight.
I took a deep breath, preparing to go. As soon as the blaze died down, I made a run for it, just in time to see the creature turn.
It opened its mouth, sparks seething from its gullet. Then the sharp whiz of a flying object split through the air. And one glowing golden eye blew out like a birthday candle.
The dragon roared in rage and pain, thrashing and twisting away, wheeling backward into the darkness.
Across the chamber, Sandra raced from a narrow, jagged crevice in the stone. Great, an exit!
“Zach,” she shouted. “This is so like you!”
The breath hissed from between my teeth as she raced toward me, pausing only to snatch another chunk of stone from the floor. She tucked it into the sling’s pocket.
Clearly, she was more prepared than I was.
“Where’s Ash?” I croaked, my throat stinging.
From behind us came a whoop of delight and the strike of a giant body being hurled across the room. I winced as the dragon landed hard enough against the opposite wall to send stalactites raining to the floor around us. One came close to impaling me, and I decided to speak up before I ended up getting shish-kebabbed.
“Ash, be careful!” I yelled. “Are you trying to bring this cavern down around us?”
“Sorry,” he said, landing in front of us, wings spread. His eyes glowed in the darkness, and a cheerful smile spread across his lips. “I couldn’t resist.”
It freaked me out a bit, seeing how he came to life in moments like this. How he seemed to genuinely enjoy toeing the line between life and death. Except, seeing as he was the king of demons, I figured after a few thousand years of boringness, it made sense that you’d seek out adrenaline wherever you went. I was just glad he hadn’t turned out like Lilith and graduated to murder.
“I think my sister is in there.” I eyed the bulge in the creature’s belly. It’d stopped moving. But maybe the movements had just been an illusion of the firelight. Maybe...she was already gone. That thought stabbed me in the heart.
The shadows thickened at our feet as the dragon lurched onto all fours, flames wisping from the crevices beneath its scales. The darkness gathered in a swirling whirlpool as if it had actual substance, and just when I thought it was another of the monster’s tricks, Lilith and Sabine materialized from the inky depths.
“You didn’t think we’d let you have all the fun without us, did you?” Lilith asked, glancing over with a sly smirk. “I don’t know about you three, but it’s about time I give this snake a little of what he deserves.”
29
The dragon’s roars of rage echoed off the cavern’s sheer obsidian walls. The guttural shrieks were so deafening, it felt like my skull had been turned into a drum and a horde of kindergartners were taking turns pounding sticks against my temples.
Tail lashing, the dragon retreated against the far wall. Its remaining eye flared like a lantern in the dark. Flames radiated from between its teeth, and the veins on its wings glowed as if filled with magma.
“What should we do?” I asked Sandra as she slipped another stone into her sling’s pouch. I didn’t trust myself to get close to the dragon without being barbecued.
“Ashmedai and I will distract him,” Lilith said, living darkness bubbling up her arms and shoulders. Tiny lilins crawled from the shadows, their gold eyes winking from the glistening ichor. They took flight around her, swarming and chirping eagerly. “Sabine, attack it from behind!”
Cracks spread through the obsidian floor as the dragon’s claws sank into the stone. It let out a fearsome roar and surged toward us, its wings sending powerful gusts of wind scouring through the chamber. My cheeks stung as an abrasive wave of sand buffeted my skin, and I had to shield my face with one arm as I flung myself out of the way of the raging monster.
The world dissolved into a dizzying clash of gouts of fire and crumbling obsidian stalagmites, and the thrash of Ash’s wings was joined by the dragon’s wrathful roars. I nearly got knocked head over heels by the creature’s tail as I darted toward it, sliding down on one knee just as the tail spike split through the air above my head. Probably gave me a haircut, but at least it didn’t guillotine me in the process.
I drove the flaming sword into the soft pad of fat beneath the dragon’s wing, and it roared and took to the sky, dragging me upward in the process.
Not good, not good!
I gripped onto the sword as the dragon zigzagged through the chamber as erratically as a Ping-Pong ball, narrowly avoiding slamming into the stalactites that lined the ceiling.
“Ash, do something!” I shouted, squeezing my eyes shut as chunks of stone rained down on my head and shoulders, dislodged from the ceiling as the creature snarled. The heat of its body evaporated the sweat dripping down my face in an instant. It was like sitting next to a campfire, only with none of the fun parts of camping.
The sword slid free, and I plummeted toward the sharp pillars of stone below.
Okay, scratch that. It was like being by a campfire, except I was the marshmallow.
As the stalagmites rose up to greet me, I squeezed my eyes shut. Talk about horror-movie gruesome. I should’ve gotten hooked on rom-coms when I had a chance! I’d probably have a much better ending.
Instead of earning death by skewering, fingers closed around my arms. Sabine grabbed me just in the nick of time, so close to death that one of the stalagmites brushed against the side of my sneaker as she wrenched me skyward.
With the grace of a hawk, she descended to the ground, her hair wisping around us in a golden curtain. I caught a brief glimpse of sharpened incisors as she grinned at me.
“Thanks—” I began, but then her grip gave way, and I fell three feet to the ground, landing hard enough on my butt that I winced.
Ouch. She could’ve just let me down gently.
“Sorry,” Sabine said, landing down next to me. “I’m not used to flying with others.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
“You’re lucky that Sabine is here,” Lilith added, appearing beside us. She extended a hand. “If it were me, I’d just let you fall.”
“You know, I’m beginning to see why you and Ash broke up.”
Her cheeks reddened, and she gave me a disgruntled look. “Now I’m really regretting saving you.”
“Just so you know, we made it to the tree first,” I added, before she could get any ideas. “So, we won your game.”
“Yet you have no fruit,” she said. “So, after we deal with this overgrown lizard, the game continues.”
As she was about to say more, a blast of fire split the air overhead, and the dragon crashed into the opposite wall violently enough that I flinched. The monster began to rise, only for a glowing orb of light to explode over its head, slamming into the stalactites dangling from the cavern’s ceiling above.
“Sandra, are you trying to bring—” the ceiling down on us, I was about to say, except my voice was drowned out by the deafening crack of the stalactites giving way. The sharp stone points crashed to the cavern floor, raining down on the dragon with all the force of a volcanic eruption.
Dust filled the cavern, reducing Lilith and the others to blurry shadows. I visored my face, straining to make out the dragon’s shape in the dim light. Even the glow of Uriel’s sword appeared muted. Silence fell over the cavern.
Slowly, the dust began to settle. Rocks jostled and rolled across the stone floor, while the dragon remained earthbound in a cage of shattered obsidian.
“You humans,” the dragon hissed, dying embers pouring from between its jagged teeth. “I resent you humans. You sully everything around you. You don’t deserve to exist when all you bring is ruin. You wretched humans.”
As it spoke, its golden eye gleamed luminously. The words were strangely compelling, flowing through my mind like warm honey. It would be easy to believe it, to nod along. To do whatever it asked. To mistake it for a friend, a family member.
Flames spread across the dragon’s body, its hateful hiss lost beneath the fire’s crackling. Slowly, the creature’s entrancing voice lost its hold on me, and my thoughts began to clear. Scales gave way and bones crumbled inward, until all that remained was a smear of soot across the cavern floor, a scatter of half-eaten fruit, and Naomi’s unmoving form curled in the center.
30
“Naomi!” I rushed to her side, dropping to my knees beside her.
She stirred, brow wrinkling. Dust and grime caked her cheeks and darkened her flossy blond hair. As I shook her shoulder, trying to rouse her, she groaned.
“Ash, help me!” I swung my head his way. “Something’s wrong. She won’t wake up. She—”
Ash leaned down and sank his fingers into the charred scatter, retrieving a round object from the rubble.
The Fruit of Life gleamed in his palm, its translucent golden skin catching the glow of my sword. In the firelight, the fruit’s core appeared to radiate a light of its own. Unlike the rest of the fruit, it was whole.
We stared at the Fruit of Life. Lilith was the first to move, her gaze trained on the fruit as she stepped toward Ash.
The dragon had eaten them all or let them rot on the ground. Naomi must’ve picked this one from among the moldy, decaying fruit and carried it with her into the darkness. For light, maybe. And maybe it had been what had drawn the beast to her.
“You know,” Ash said, looking around at us, “only a bite or two of the fruit should be enough to heal your sister, Zach. You don’t want her to be immortal, after all, not at that age.”
I shuddered at the thought. He had a point. Having to deal with an immortal seven-year-old was the stuff of nightmares.
Ash turned to Lilith. “And to break a curse, the rest would be more than enough as well.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lilith growled, shadows already snaking up her arms and building atop her shoulders. Sabine stepped forward, her lips peeling back to expose her sharp teeth.
“Have I ever lied to you before, Lilith?” Ash grinned, seemingly undisturbed at the show of force. “What do you say? Halves?”
