by Cathy Clamp
“Now?” It was Bobby’s voice.
“Okay. But slowly.” He slithered out from under the cot and went on talking as though they hadn’t been interrupted. “How long have you been acting as ME again?”
She blinked and looked down at him. “Since the town was formed. It must be five years now.”
He let out a chuckle as the others crept down the stairs. “Probably a pretty easy gig in a town full of Sazi.” He used the tip of his nose to try to get the eyelid to open. Once again, she knelt down next to him and lifted the skin to show the red eyeball.
“Not as much as you’d think. The plague has been rough on the town. We lost four children just last fall. I never even got to see them. The family just called the mayor and he disposed of them. We have to burn them, you see. Can’t bury them because cemeteries have to be registered with the county. Controlled burns don’t. It’s hard on the families, though.”
He kept his face pointed toward her but flicked his eyes to the cat and python perched on the stairs, wide-eyed and as openmouthed as was possible in that form. “By the way, we haven’t been introduced. He wrapped his head and neck gently around her arm and squeezed, as was the proper custom to greet in his form. “Ris Tupo. I’m investigating for Wolven.”
She squeezed his chest lightly with her palm before raising her other hand in the air and shouting to the ceiling, “Hallelujah! No offense to you because I’m sure you’re busy, but it’s about damned time they sent someone here. Make sure you stop by the police station. They probably have a stack of files you need to sign off on.”
“And you are?”
“Carolyn. Dr. Carolyn Archeson. The doctorate is in organic chemistry, so don’t ask me for an exam.” He heard Bobby suck in a sharp hissing breath, which made her turn her head. “Oh. More Wolven? Wow, you guys do descend when you finally come.”
Amber smoothly lied, pretending to be her own twin sister. That was good, since she and Skew had met in human form. No telling what would set her off again. “Aspen Monier. A pleasure.”
“The famous seer? Any help is welcome, of course, but do we need a seer?”
She padded down the stairs the rest of the way, her bobcat-fluffy feet making her movements absolutely silent. “I’m thinking you do at this point. And this is Bobby Mbutu.”
Carolyn, formerly Skew, smiled and rose, dipping her head courteously. “I’m twice honored. You’re something of a legend, Professor Mbutu. I never thought I’d get a chance to meet you. Although I did attend the European Symposium in Warsaw back in ninety-five, hoping I’d run into you.”
It took a few tries for Bobby to get words out. “I’ve heard of your work in new reaction media. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Tristan forced his way into Bobby’s mind for a quick discussion. You know her?
Knew. But only by mail. I’ve never seen her in person. Word was she died during the snake attack.
That would be why nobody had been looking for her. He pushed into Amber’s mind next, which was difficult because she had shields up. Ask the man who left, Alek, to come back and announce himself. You have to see this.
I’ve linked to him before, she replied. Hang on.
Bobby was chatting with Carolyn about the Warsaw convention they’d both attended and how they’d happened to miss meeting each other when the bell dinged upstairs and the door opened. The woman paused mid-word, her lips pulled back slightly from her teeth in a half smile.
“It’s just me, Skew. Forgot my jacket.”
The falcon’s head started bobbing and it was as though none of them were there or had been talking. “Alek is back. Jacket, jacket. Cold outside. Bundle up!”
Bobby’s head tipped until it was completely sideways. He was staring at Skew’s leg. “That is freaky. Amber, are you picking up the shift in scents?”
Tristan definitely was. He was flicking his tongue as quickly as Bobby was. Amber was sniffing up and down Carolyn’s leg. It was like her scent was cooking, right on her body. “It’s subtle but very deliberate. Balsam pine to ponderosa, milk to cream. All with the ringing of the bell. She’s Pavlov’s bird.”
“How did you get her to be … normal?” Amber had shifted back to human and was twisting Skew’s head toward the light to look at her pupils.
“I was examining the body. She just spoke up, said it was strangulation, with the throat being ripped out afterward to cover the bruising. I’d already smelled that she’d touched the body, so I asked if she’d examined the woman. You heard the rest.” He slithered around her feet, staring at the twitching muscles. “Do you think it’s hypnosis or actual repetitive conditioning?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. I’m going to take her upstairs and put her in a trance sleep and see if I can unwind whatever happened to her head.” She turned her head and stared down at him. “Thank you so much for planning my overnight, Ris. Silly me—I thought I might sleep.”
He would have shrugged if he had shoulders. “She’s been this way for years. I don’t think it probably has to be fixed tonight if you don’t want to.”
Bobby nudged Amber’s leg with the top of his head. “She was a brilliant chemist, Amber. Now she’s trapped in the mind of a parakeet. Do what you can.”
“So,” Tristan said as he looked from the dead body to the brain-dead live body. “It looks like more than one person in town isn’t who they appear to be. Things are getting interesting.”
CHAPTER 13
It wasn’t quite light when Anica woke up struggling to breathe on top of the covers, still wearing the light pullover top and jeans she’d had on at dinner. The window next to the bed was cracked open, and billowing tendrils of gray were filling the room. She sat up in a fit of coughing, and shooting white lights sparkled in her vision. It felt as though she’d been beaten with sticks. Every muscle in her body hurt.
“Papa?” She couldn’t smell anything over the smoke and was getting disoriented. But she knew that Papa was a heavy sleeper. If she didn’t get him out of the house, he might never wake up. “Bojan? Everyone must wake up, please!”
She heard an answering cough. It wasn’t deep enough for Papa, so it must be Bojan. “We must get out of house quickly. The fire nearly here.”
Crawling down the hallway, she saw Bojan first, coming out of Papa’s room. He shook his head. “He didn’t sleep in his bed last night. I will check the bathroom and study. You check the kitchen and front of house.”
Anica nodded and shook her head, trying to get her head unfuzzy. She pulled her shirt up over her nose, trying to block some of the smoke. Her heart was pounding faster with each second. That was going to make her sick very fast. She could not help Papa if she passed out herself. Reaching out to put a hand on the wall to help guide her through the house, she noticed something startling. There is no heat. Could it just be smoke, but no fire? How could that be?
The kitchen and dining area were less smoky. The smoke hovered about a foot off the floor, letting her see the carpeting clearly. Papa was not in this area. “He is not in kitchen, Bojan!”
“Not in bathroom or study either!” Her brother came into view at the edge of the dining room. “I will check garage—see if ATV is in there. Maybe he did not come home last night. My phone is on charger there. I will call fire department.”
She nodded. “I will check laundry area.” She pointed at her wristwatch. “We will meet outside in five minutes. Yes?”
He held up his hands. He had on no watch. “But I will count seconds instead. If you are not outside when I am done counting, I will come back in and find you.” They clasped hands and squeezed. They were family and had been through worse together. She knew she could count on him.
“And I will do the same.” He leaned forward and kissed each cheek and then tousled her hair like when they were both small.
Just as he disappeared into the swirling smoke, she heard a noise. But it didn’t sound like a noise that Papa would make. It was too … stealthy. She exte
nded her senses in the direction of the laundry room, her eyes first, then her nose. A scent ruffled at the back of her nose, of her memory. But she couldn’t remember what it was. She did as Bobby had told her; she started to peel back the layers of scents. Discarding the smoke would be easy, as it was the heaviest scent. But her brain wouldn’t let her cast it aside. Until now, she’d presumed the smoke was like all the other smoke floating around town. This smoke wasn’t from wood, though. This smoke was heavy, metallic. It nearly cut her skin as she inhaled. A whisper of movement at the corner of her vision might have been smoke, but her nose said it wasn’t. She believed her nose more than her eyes in the predawn haze.
The laundry room was just ahead. A tension was singing through her nerves as she approached the room, her face close to the floor. Something was wrong. Then she heard a noise, close to the sound of a growling dog. She’d heard that sound before, years before. A cold washed through her that didn’t fit with the warm, humid air. It made her keep very still, and when she moved it was as silent as she could make it. She watched for any movement, kept bringing in smoke-filled air to scent with small breaths. She couldn’t keep up breathing that way for long. She’d hyperventilate. But that wasn’t her concern right now.
When the attack came, she was expecting it. But even knowing it was coming couldn’t prepare her for the speed and ferocity of the body that landed on her back. Anica tried to turn over, to face her attacker, but the woman … yes, definitely a woman from the scent of perfume, countered, kept her face from being seen. The fragrance was expensive, something from Paris that was strong with the smell of exotic flowers. But she was far more than just a woman.
She was a shifter and, much more important, a viper.
Anica dipped her shoulder and rolled fast, forcing the woman to either let her go or follow her into the roll. The woman let herself be rolled, keeping her arms around Anica’s neck, tightening with a strength that screamed alpha. Anica grabbed the arm that was throttling her throat and dug in her nails, while simultaneously turning her head to bite hard into the soft flesh in the crook of the woman’s arm. The attacker cried out in pain and slapped her on the side of the head hard enough for Anica to see stars.
But she let go enough for Anica to pull in a great gulp of air near the floor, while the attacker’s lungs had filled with smoke. She started coughing, hard enough that Anica was able to pull away. She reached back to grab on to the woman’s shirt to keep her close and then used all her strength to slam her head and shoulders up and back. Her skull connected with the woman’s face. The sound of bone meeting bone went in her ears and echoed in her head. The shirt ripped with a wet, sucking sound. A wave of dizziness swept through Anica’s head, but she pulled away sharply before the woman could recover. She dropped the scrap of yellow fabric and scrambled for purchase on the carpeting, digging in her fingernails to pull out of the woman’s reach for her.
“Bojan!” She didn’t know if he heard her, or if he was able to help, but she didn’t hear him trying to get back in to the house.
The growling hiss that sounded behind her gave her fresh incentive to get away. The skin-crawling scent of angry viper made her heart pound until the walls of the house turned to stone and the haze of smoke turned to feces-scented water vapor. She turned her head because she couldn’t help herself. Her body froze and she stared in horrid fascination as the dark-haired woman’s body narrowed, pale honeyed arms folding in and disappearing under scales that were nearly the same golden. When the hood of skin opened with a snap, the flow of magic stabbed at her, so strong it felt like venom burning her flesh.
The snake’s head lunged forward, trying to impale her with poisoned fangs. Anica screamed and scrambled to get away, her fingers and sneakers digging for purchase. She leaped forward, just barely ahead of the teeth. One fang got caught in her shoe sole, tearing the shoe off her foot. But she didn’t feel any pain in the foot, so she kept moving. She reached for the door to the garage, where Bojan had just gone through. A splat of venom landed on the wall next to her, smelling of cobra. She closed her eyes automatically. She couldn’t afford to be blinded.
The door was locked! She turned the knob over and over in a panic, while the sound of fast-moving scales made her lash out with her foot. It met empty air. She couldn’t afford to look back or search for another exit. The house, formerly the home of the police chief of the town, was intended to be a makeshift jail to imprison rogue shifters when they couldn’t get the person into the jail in time. All the doors were heavy, steel-core security doors, meant for alpha shifters to open. But she wasn’t an alpha.
The snake was close. Too close, but she had slowed down, enjoying the chase. The oranges smell from the snake was tainted, coated with thick, oily venom that corrupted everything Anica thought of as happy. She called on every ounce of strength, from deep down in her stomach, and slammed her body against the door. The shock wave made her whole body vibrate and sting. A deep dent appeared in the steel. She hit it again as the snake stopped. The tiny series of hisses, laughter at her panic with a wet and hollow sound, infuriated Anica.
“You will never have me!” She spit the words with eyes closed, like the snake had spit at her. She risked a glance back. The blob of her saliva traveled across the tiled floor of the laundry room and hit the snake in the face. The snake let out another hiss—this one high-pitched, her mouth open wide under angry eyes. But Anica didn’t care if she was angry. Even if Anica would die today, she would not give the snake the satisfaction of showing fear. “Go back to hell, where you belong!”
As Anica threw her entire body weight into the door one last time, the frame finally gave way. Bojan was on the floor of the empty garage, his wavy black hair matted with red. A metal baseball bat lay on the concrete next to him, covered with blood. She slammed the door shut behind her, but the latch was broken, so it bounced and hung wrong on the hinges. Reaching down, she felt his heart beating erratically. Blood pooled around his head, frightening Anica until she remembered that head wounds bled much. Once, when she was a child, a bale of hay Papa and Samit were lifting into the hayloft had slipped and thrown her against one of the stall doors. She had bled horribly even though she hadn’t felt dizzy at all and Mama had sewed up the injury with only four tiny stitches.
Anica had no idea where the switch was that would open the garage door—she never went in or out this way. Even if she could escape, she wouldn’t leave her brother behind, and she couldn’t carry him. She looked for his phone but could not spot it. Had he called the fire department? Was anyone coming? Her heart was pounding, panicked.
The time for running is gone. It is time to face my fears.
Her mind cleared and her pulse calmed. She picked up the bat. It wasn’t much of a weapon for long range but could inflict a lot of damage if she charged the woman.
The side of the fangs.
The thought came into her head almost unbidden, but she realized it was exactly what she needed to do. She remembered one of the snakes from the cave when he broke a fang. He had been disoriented for several minutes. A successful blow might disable her attacker long enough for both Anica and her brother to get away. She heard the slithering of scales across the tile and then the sting of magic as the snake contemplated the door.
Holding the bat under her arm, she dragged Bojan to the far side of the big metal refrigerator, where he was protected from a fast attack. There was really nowhere to hide for long. Looking around the garage, she noticed several cans of wasp spray. Papa hated wasps from years back. They would chase him around the raspberry patch, where anyone else could pick the berries in peace. Tiny stinging insects were his only real phobia, so there were several full cans on the shelf. She quietly picked each one up until she found a full one. If the snake came in, she’d find out what it felt like to have poison spit at her!
But the snake was smart. Instead of a frontal assault, she sent her magic into the room ahead of her. Anica felt her muscles freeze in place. She couldn’t move at a
ll. The wasp spray was locked in one hand. The bat in the other. But both of them may as well have been in a different house for the good they did her.
The door began to creak open, the bent hinges struggling to work properly. She saw the tongue slide in first, flicking pale and pink into the air as her heart began to pound in her temples. As the head moved through the narrow gap, the slitted golden eyes fixed on her. The rest of the shifter’s snake body eased through the opening without hesitation. Anica was no threat; try as she might, her muscles refused to function. The snake ignored her, instead following the trail of blood to where Bojan lay in a heap behind her. He was helpless!
I must move. I must! Help me!
As the snake made a long S curve toward her brother, Anica tightened her grasp on the bat, realizing suddenly that she could tighten her fingers. Adrenaline raced through every nerve; each muscle and her skin began to tingle, the hairs standing on end so completely she could see them as an almost electric blue sheen on top of her skin.
The bindings of what felt like steel began to bend, like the door had. She took a step forward, then another. It hurt like fire. Every muscle felt like it was being rubbed raw by sandpaper. But she couldn’t just let the snake kill Bojan. Already she was raised up over his still form, hood extended.
Using every ounce of willpower she could summon, she opened her mouth and screamed, “Get away from my brother!” The snake turned like lightning and Anica’s bat hit her right in the mouth. It wasn’t hard enough to break her tooth, but it stunned her for a moment. The viper’s magic increased in response, slowing Anica even more. But she pushed through, just as she’d pushed herself to escape the cave, twelve years ago.
It felt like her chest was going to explode from the inside, and her lungs burned, just trying to catch a breath. The snake flicked her tongue rapidly and suddenly the black slits in the golden eyes narrowed like a bright light had been shown in them. Anica smelled fear for the first time, just before she brought the bat down again—this time on the tip of the snake’s tail. As with stubbing a pinky toe or getting a thorn in a paw, she’d learned that the smallest spot was the most delicate.