The first head came out of the dark slowly.
It had to duck to fit through the doorway. It was long and flat and scaled, the color of wet slate, with a jaw like a crocodile's and a crest of black spines running back from its brow. Its gold eyes were each the size of a car tire. When it opened its mouth, Jin saw teeth like broken spearheads, rows of them, going back into a throat he couldn't see the end of.
It looked at them. Then a second head pushed out beside it, and a third came through underneath, all on long thick necks that twisted around each other like snakes in a basket. Behind them, in the darkness of the doorway, there were more gold eyes, still waiting their turn.
Jin counted the eyes, and then counted again, and came up with eighteen. That meant nine heads.
