paused, glancing up at where the trapdoor was. A resounding crack made me gasp in shock, then a slither of light streamed through the wood.
'Shit,' I said, and turned back to the dirt, moving as fast as I could on my hands and knees, my glowing vine close to the ground. 'Come on, come on, come on,' I muttered frantically, trying to ignore the thought that was repeating itself over and over in my head.
Even if I found the damned gem, I had no fucking idea how to get back out of the trapdoor and past the hound.
By the time the time I found the green stone, embedded in a ring barely big enough to fit on my finger, most of the trapdoor was in shreds. I staggered to my feet as I shoved the ring on my pointer finger, my ankle wobbly and sore, but not agonizing. Sweat was rolling down my back, and my mind racing with bad ideas. I had no way of getting past Fonax and out of this space. Claustrophobia added to my growing panic, the low ceiling and dark gloom closing in on me.
A crack louder than any of the previous drew my attention to the trapdoor, and my heart almost stopped in my chest as a large piece of wood dropped into the space, followed immediately by Fonax.
He was glowing, the same red as his eyes and teeth. His ears were back, his shoulders hunched, and his lethal gaze fixed on me.
'H-h-h-hello,' I stuttered, holding my hands out. 'Who's a good boy?' I said. He snarled, dark liquid dripping from his teeth. I tried to reach out with my mind, like I did to talk to Skop, but there was nothing there. 'You don't want to eat me, Fonax. Your master will be super pissed with you if you do that,' I whispered, as the hound stalked closer. My gold vines were turning black as they swirled about me, preparing for a fight.
Fonax pounced. Fortunately for me he couldn't get much height in the cramped space, and my vines hit him square in the chest. I wasn't filled with enough hatred or anger for them to go through him, like they had Eurynomos, but they knocked him off course, and began to coil around his front legs and chest. He snarled and growled as he fought to get free of them, his powerful body pushing me backward in the dirt as I fought to cling on. He stopped fighting for a split second, then seemed to throw everything he had into lunging for me. My vines only just held him back as his teeth snapped at my midriff.
'Oh no you don't,' I said, and felt his power start to flow down the vines, into me. Dark black tattoos began to spread across his fur, and he yelped and struggled. Unlike before, when I'd used my black vines, I seemed to have more control over the flow of power. I wasn't immediately rushed by the hell-hound's dark energy. 'I'm sorry, Fonax, but I have to win this,' I told him, edging my way around him, toward the trapdoor. 'I'm just going to take enough of your power that I can escape.'
But as the dog’s bloodthirsty energy flowed into me, the more I felt like taking all of it. I would need it after all, to get past Cerberus. More power couldn't be a bad thing, could it? I felt Fonax stop fighting, and looked into his angry red eyes.
No. That was the Underworld talking, not me. I didn't need his dark, vicious power. I had my own.
Slowly, I released one vine, whipping it back to me and sending it up, out of the trapdoor. I felt it coil round something solid, a rock, I guessed, and tugged on it. It held. 'I'm going to leave now,' I said, feeling powerful. I felt like I could conquer the world, let alone one dog.
Kill. Blood, death, kill.
The words ricocheted through my skull, and I shook my head. That's Fonax, the bloodthirsty hell-hound, not you, I told myself firmly.
'Stay there,' I said aloud, and let the other vine disintegrate. He didn't have enough power to come after me, I was sure.
I was wrong. The second my vine vanished, he went for me, closing the gap between us in a heartbeat. His jaws clamped onto my thigh and I screamed, the same white-hot pain I'd felt from Olethros searing through me. I yanked on the vine, and my