The vine threw more tentacles out, the greenish-black stems writhing hideously, looking for a target. The teeth sank deeper into Terry's ankle, sawing at flesh and bone in an effort to keep their prey.

Lara flung herself forward, lifting her face to the sky as she muttered the words she found in her mind.

I call forth the power of the sky. Bring down lightning to my mind's eye. Shaping, shifting, bend to my will. Forging a scythe to sharpened steel. Hot and bright the fire be, guide my hand with accuracy.

Lightning zigzagged across the sky, lighting the edges of the clouds. The air around them charged so that the hair on their bodies and heads stood out. Lara felt electricity snapping and sizzling in her fingertips and focused on the thinner space between the long, thick bodies and the bulbous heads of the snake vines.

White light streaked across the short distance and pierced the necks of the creatures. The smell of rotting flesh burst from the vine. Both severed tentacles dropped limply to the ground leaving the teeth, with the heads attached, still sunk deep into Terry's ankle. The rest of the tentacles reared back in shock and then burrowed beneath the dirt and snow.

Terry grasped one of the heads to pull it out.

«No!» Lara protested. «Leave it. We have to get out of here right now.»

«It burns like acid,» Terry complained. His face was pale, nearly as white as the covering of snow, but beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

Lara shook her head. «We have to get off this mountain now. And you can't take chances until I can look at it.»

She took his arm and signaled to Gerald to grab his other one. They steadied Terry between them and began to hurry from the slope to the well-traveled path off to their right.

«What was that?» Gerald hissed, his eyes meeting hers over Terry's head. «Have you ever seen a snake like that before?»