Tremors shook the ground, creating more of the cracks that already covered it. A few more seconds passed, and then all went still.
“An earthquake?” I asked uncertainly.
“No,” said Volusian. He was in his solid, two-legged form, staring around with narrowed eyes. It was a little disconcerting that he didn’t seem to know precisely what the problem was.
“Then what are we—”
The ground below us suddenly split open. With only the light of the fire, my vision was bad, but I thought I saw what looked kind of like a serpentine shape emerge from the earth. No, it was exactly like a serpentine shape because a moment later, a giant snake shot up and landed neatly in a perfect coil. Its head towered over Kiyo and me as it regarded us with glowing green eyes. The light from them illuminated a flicking, forked tongue, and the loud hissing that followed was kind of a given.
Beside me, Kiyo was shifting into fox form, and I decided a gun was probably going to get me farther here than the athame’s small blade. A drop of venom fell from the snake’s mouth and sizzled when it hit the ground in front of me….