The mixed sound of human scream and big-cat roar booms off the canyon walls as gigantic bat-like wings hold a nine-hundred-pound lion body above the edge of the cliff. Its grotesque human face is surrounded by a mane of matted, gore-encrusted hair, and the creature’s tail resembles that of a lion but ends in a thick cluster of sharp, iron-hard spines. Suddenly, it snaps its tail forward, cracking it like a whip and sending a volley of three-foot metallic spikes raining down on you.
