Mistake, mistake, misstep.

            Crap and damn! He was frozen in place, caught mid-crouch.

            Brain snagged on entry…

            Not birds. Not sunlight.

            The light here was natural, but it wasn't solar. Bright inclusions, that glowed with an inner fire, dotted the walls. This was a constantly shifting radiance, as though the light within were gaseous like neon, rather than any conductive metal. Nudge's brain ticked on, doing the business of classification. Focus on what you can tolerate.

            And Nudge already knew he had a low tolerance for monsters.

            He might as well have been standing naked, stripped of all his twenty-first century know-how. Vulnerable. And he reacted the way his ape breed had always reacted…going for the weapon. There was a stalagmite to the right. His boot foot was itching…

            Kick, jab, gouge, dent. That was how he'd do it.

            And it was his out, just in case. In case It decides to eat me. Something big was in here with him.

            The dark reaches of the cavern shifted and came alive. There…and there. His peripheral vision caught a sift and blend of darkness on the far side. There, too. Crap!

            A herd—pack—pride… Cougars? Bloody hell!

            In case They decide to eat me.

            Whatever was here preferred the dark. While I stand here like an idiot, where everyone can see me. The quivery limb thing was good, too.

            Like a worm wriggle to a bird.

            I'm cursed. It hit him hard. Disaster all the way. The curse, the promise, the claim.

            Vihraoxz mroanvy idntr hro.

            Those who enter shed flesh. Words he should never have been able to translate. Words which had lured him in.

            Real. Feral. And the heat of living flesh beyond his vision mocked him.

            As did the stink, the scent of death. This was the source of the smell, then—the rancid whiff he'd caught in the tunnel.

            The click clack intensified, underscored by the clatter of scraped stone. Nudge's limbs were no longer answering his brain. He crouched awkwardly, stiffly, while It moved into the light.

            The distance from his eye to brain suddenly telescoped. He saw, and with a mental thunk the image clunked and jarred into place.

            Holy mother of God—!

            The Skeles—those demons of his childhood—were real.

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