“How do you know for sure it’s clear? One could be taking a nap.”
“Because I don’t sense any.”
“Hmm,” I muttered. “And we’re trusting your inkling to be correct because… why?”
“Because there is no reason to doubt my sensing abilities now.” She started for the nest without looking back.
I trailed behind her, trying not to complain about our awful situation, but not quite achieving it. “When they come back, we will literally be standing in the belly of the beast.”
“I’ll have my power at the ready.” She flexed her fists as she walked purposefully toward the base of the nest. “Stop worrying.”
Most of the bones I glimpsed here were bigger than those of the largest human or demon I’d seen. I gave a futile glance around me, wondering what else lived in the Sholls. Whatever these wyverns fed on was huge.
Lily started yanking apart the nest, tossing pieces of it behind her, uncaring of where they landed or how loud of a racket she made.
“Why don’t you just zap the nest out of the way with your power? This is going to take all day,” I said.
“If I use my magic, they will come. Stop grumbling and help me.” She grunted as she tossed a large mass of what looked to be cartilage connected to a half a skeleton away from her.
I started prying bigger parts away. “You said before that other than the wyverns, we were safe in the Sholls. But they feed on something huge. This bone came from a bruiser of a beast.” I yanked a large bone out and examined it.
“They consume something that resembles a rhinoceros in your world, but is too slow to be of harm to us, and they don’t live in this area. They are called xer tottod and they gather in small groups far from here. The wyverns only venture out when they have to. Mostly they just scavenge on the small beasts, ones that cannot harm us.”
Once we cleared away more of the nest, I spotted what looked to be an outline of a door in the surface of the clock. The hole we’d made was now big enough to enter, so I ducked my head and went in. The only light from outside was putrid gray and very little of it filtered in here. It was like picking my way through a thicket when I was a kid. Only back then I was actually having fun, now I was in Hell trying not to get eaten by a dragon.
The demoness gave a shrill scream behind me, knocking into my back, sending me sailing forward into more bones and twigs. “They have come back. Hurry—”
There was a terrifying screech as the thing landed and the nest above us quaked. I risked a glance behind me and saw more than one gigantic talon blink into existence.
“Go, go!” Lily pushed me again.
I raced forward as fast as I could, yanking things out of my way and crawling over bones that lay across my path like downed trees. “Am I going for the door?”
“Yes,” she said. “Put the palm of your hand in the middle of six.”
“Six what?” I shouted, confused.
“The number six! On the clock!”
“Will that activate the portal?”
“It will open the first door, and then I’ll do the rest.”
Above us the wyvern started to dismantle its nest by ripping it apart. Pieces flew everywhere, raining down around us between the gaps. It kept shrieking its anger and two beats later the roof bounced again as several more landed.
“There’s no more time left, Lily!” I yelled. “They will be on us in a minute.”
She shouted something in Demonish and a pulse of energy shook our small tunnel, collapsing it around us. She gave a frustrated howl of anger and grabbed my back, swinging me aside in one motion.
She was a lot stronger than she looked.
She took the lead, diving for the number six, and I was right behind her. She slammed both her hands into the bottom loop of the six right as the top of the nest sheared off.
My wolf was in overdrive, howling and barking. I had my magic at the ready, but if the wyverns became incorporeal it wasn’t going to help me. “That’s it!” I yelled, encouraging her. “Give it more power.”
“I don’t have any more to give. It’s stuck!” she cried.
I reached around her and jammed my palm into the same circle and blasted my magic along with hers, trying to focus on the dark demon essence I had incorporated into my own signature and pull it forward.