01_-_The_Alchemyst

“We’ll apologize if we ever see them again,” Josh said. He privately
thought he would be happy never to see either of them again. Playing video
games was all fine and well. When you were killed in a game, you just
started again. In this Shadowrealm, though, there were no second chances,
and a lot more ways to die.
“Do you know how we get out of here?” Sophie asked.
“Sure.” Her brother grinned, his teeth white in the moonlight. “We
reverse. And we don’t stop for anything.”
Josh turned the key in the ignition. There was a metallic click and a
whining sound, which quickly descended into silence. He turned the key
again. This time there was only the click.
“Josh…?” Sophie began.
It took him just a moment to figure out what had happened. “The
battery’s dead. Probably drained by the same force that drained our phones,”
Josh murmured. He swiveled around in the seat to stare through the scarred
rear window. “Look, we came down that path behind us; we didn’t turn left
or right. Let’s make a run for it. What do you think?” He turned back to look
at his sister, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was staring through the
windshield in front of her. “You’re not even listening to me.”
Sophie reached over, took her twin’s face in her hand and turned his
head toward the windshield. He looked, blinked, swallowed hard, then
reached over to push down the locks on the doors. “What now?” he asked.
Crouching directly in front of them was a creature that was neither bird
nor serpent, but something caught in between. It stood about the size of a tall
child. Moonlight dappled its snakelike body and shone weakly through
outstretched batlike wings, the tiny bones and veins etched in black. Clawed
feet dug deeply into the soft ground, and a long tail lashed to and fro behind
it. But it was the head that held their attention. The skull was long and
narrow, eyes huge and round, the gaping mouth filled with hundreds of tiny
white teeth. The head tilted first to one side and then the other, and then the
mouth snapped open and closed. The creature took a hop closer to the car.