by Cathy Clamp
Looking puzzled, he stared back at the now-closed apartment door. “Have I hurt him? He burns this incense all the time.”
She didn’t know. She just knew she needed to get Bobby. His tongue was as sensitive as her nose and his brain knew more than hers. “I do not know. Please. Just do it.” She ran down the stairs, nearly tripping at the corner.
The washer was still pulled back from the wall when she entered the laundry room, and Bobby’s and Ris’s clothing was folded and stacked on the closed lid. She inspected the hole in the wall, looking more carefully at the construction. It was definitely intentionally built. Concrete had been poured around the entrance and back inside for the first few yards. Then it turned rocky and sloped up, probably toward the forest floor. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called softly, “Bobby? Ris? Can you come back, please?”
There was no answer, and she couldn’t hear any sound from the tunnel. Perhaps using her mind would be better.
Ris? No response. She couldn’t even feel him in her head and wasn’t certain when he’d broken contact. The door between them had been closed, from his side. When she tried to get into his mind, a flash of intense pain made her cry out and drop to her knees, pressing her hands to her temples. A second flash made her see stars and then she saw nothing at all.
CHAPTER 23
“That’s a tunnel, all right. Why do you suppose there’s no cover over it?”
Ris crouched down next to Bobby and stared down into the black hole. “I suppose the washer is sort of a cover, but yeah, I would have expected something a little more permanent. There’s not even a frame for a cover. I wonder how often they have to bug bomb down here?”
Bobby chuckled. “Half of the complex is birds. Who says they bother? Maybe it’s sort of a free vending machine for the residents.”
Ris couldn’t help but smile. “You’ve gotten a really dark sense of humor from mating with Asri. You didn’t used to be this sarcastic. I sort of like it.”
“Not Asri. Too much time undercover working on the fringes of the Mafia. It’s sort of contagious. Blame Tony and his crew.”
“I haven’t met many of them. I try to avoid conflicts of interest.” Meeting people might mean he would like them and it was harder to kill people he liked.
“Yeah. It’s sort of screwed me a few times. Thankfully, I only have to investigate, not enforce. One of these days, I’m going to have to make that choice. Now that things are starting to normalize more, maybe we can get back to just regular enforcement, instead of this cold-war standoff.”
“It’s tough to close the lid to that particular box, old friend. Even in humankind, prejudice runs deep. For our kind, it’s even harder. The human mind has to overcome the natural prey instincts and natural enemies built into our animals.” His emotions in a turmoil, he shut the connection with Anica. It would be hard for her to understand what it was like to grow up as a snake. “For all his faults, Sargon was a unifier. While I don’t agree with his goals, it’s tough to have always been the fall guy for every wrong committed in the world. Snakes have always gotten a bad rap as inherently evil. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Bobby let out a slow hiss of annoyance. “No, it doesn’t, Ris. It’s just a lazy man’s excuse to give in to base instincts. Anyone can want to do bad things. But no animal on this earth is evil by nature. Only the supposedly superior men can lay claim to true evil. It’s why Sargon had to be stopped, and why Lagash has to be. They say all the pretty things that people want to hear that make them feel special, while making them believe that bad acts and the pain they cause are some sort of demented prize.”
He was right, and Ris knew it. Rather than argue, he started to pull off his clothes to explore the tunnel. “It’s just hard to be a guardian of good, y’know? That’s why I dropped out of the rat race altogether. Back on my island, time goes by and nothing changes. But Anica has big dreams. She wants to rid the world of evil. In a way, it’s sort of funny. You’re the do-gooder, and Asri always wanted to leave the world to its own devices. Anica and I are the reverse. Has Asri corrupted you with her world view, or have you infected her to want to be a savior?”
“I think the kids infected her more than I could,” Bobby said with a small smile as he kicked off his shoes and started to pull off the socks underneath. “She’s given up on wanting to escape the world. Now she wants a safe world for them. Both of our kinds were nearly extinct, mostly because we ignored the evil around us for too long. I wouldn’t want to get in her way of keeping our kids safe.”
Ris tried to imagine Anica as a mother. Whether they wound up being his own children, or someone else’s, she would be one fierce mama bear. “I’ve never thought about being a father. Not sure I want to think about it.”
Bobby shifted to snake form, wider and taller than Ris’s own animal body. He slithered into the opening of the tunnel. “Don’t try. No matter what you expect, it won’t be. It’s been amazing and horrible in turns. But I wouldn’t go back and change anything, even if I could.”
There wasn’t much more to say than that. Ris had met Bobby and Asri’s children. They had great potential, if taught good morals now, to be the next generation to fill Wolven and the Council. His oldest son, Joseph, might someday challenge Ahmad himself to become head of the snakes. Provided the world survived long enough to see him become an adult.
The tunnel was wide and tall enough that it could be navigated in either human or animal form. Animal form would be easier, though, since the sharp rocks under his scales would be tough on knees. They moved quickly and silently up the slope until they reached a wooden roof that smelled smoky. “How far do you think we are from the building?”
Bobby kept his voice down, turning his head so they were inches apart. “Maybe fifty yards. But I don’t recall seeing anything that might be a hatch from the surface. So I’ll be interested to see what happens when we open this.”
“Okay, I’m skinnier. How about you shift back and lift the top just a bit and I’ll slither through.”
Bobby nodded and changed position so that when he shifted he was lying on his back under the roof. He pushed up lightly and Ris watched as his muscles tensed, stopped by something. “It’s heavy. Maybe we didn’t see it because it’s buried or covered by something.” He pushed again, this time using his considerable strength, and Ris felt him add magic to the pressure. The lid started to move. Dirt and leaves, then ash, began to rain down on them, As soon as Ris saw a large enough opening, he slithered through.
Into a trap.
The first set of fangs entered square in the top of his head, causing his warning to Bobby to be half of the word: “Tra—!”
It was a rattlesnake, by the feel of the venom. Fortunately, Ris’s skin was tough enough that barely a tenth of what a normal strike would inject actually hit his system and the snake’s fangs bounced off the edge of the rocks covering the escape tunnel. It hurt, though, enough that he felt the pain blast open the door between him and Anica. She screamed and he closed the door more tightly. But not before a second strike hit him in the opposite side. He heard Lagash’s voice, from a distance: “Did you really believe I thought you were dead? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No,” he replied. “But do you think I am?” He slammed his own fangs into his two attackers, pumping venom from the back of his jaws. His fangs were small, his bite likely not even noticed by the two snakes, who didn’t even register his movements. But that was his strength, because at the regular dose his venom wouldn’t begin to affect them for a few minutes. They would simply die and not even know why.
He put his shields up as tight as they would go and moved more quickly after the first two attacks, becoming a blur along the ash. His coloring wasn’t to his advantage in the ash, but rolling and swirling to raise a cloud of ash would hide his movements for a few seconds and, he hoped, cover his distinctive bands.
Most rattlesnakes didn’t climb trees, but as a krait Ris regularly climbed the underwater co
rals. He slithered up one of the trees, the pain in his head and side making it a challenge. But he needed to be able to look down, to count how many followers Lagash had brought with him. He looked across the small clearing to see Bobby had done the same. The enemy snakes kept moving, the diamond patterns of their scales blending into the scenery so well that he couldn’t find them under the layer of smoke. Some enforcers had second sight and could see the blaze of magic rise from their prey, knowing their position no matter what their cover.
But what fun would that be?
Seeing a spot of movement, he launched himself out of the tree and landed right on a cobra. It wasn’t Lagash, but it was male. He wrapped himself tightly around the other snake. They swayed and dipped in an almost elegant dance, each looking for an opening. But Ris’s magic was stronger and he forced the snake to the ground before slamming his fangs right into the snake’s brain with as much venom as he could spare. The effect was immediate. The cobra tensed, letting out a hissing scream, and then lay silent.
“As dangerous as ever, I see.” Lagash’s voice came from his left and he flung himself toward the sound. Lagash was just as fast, so Ris caught only air. A loop of magic dropped over him, an attempt to freeze him in place.
The twitching in his forehead and side was enough, given how his power had been sapped by recent events, that it might just work.
* * *
“Young lady, please wake up!” Anica opened her eyes and found an elderly woman kneeling over her in the laundry room—the woman who had been holding Skew in chains! She smelled strongly of cobra. Moving as quickly as she could, Anica felt for the knife in her boot and slashed out with it, catching the woman in the thigh. The old shifter screamed and fell back. Anica scrambled to her feet and ran up the stairs.
“Wait!” the woman called after her. “I need to talk to you.”
I’ll just bet you do. “Sorry, not interested in talking.”
“But I can tell you how to defeat my husband!” Slowing, Anica ducked into a small alcove where she could watch both the staircase and the first-floor hallway. There was no window or door in the alcove, so she was as safe as she was going to get for the moment.
“Why would you do that?” She tried to remember what she knew about Betty Birch. Not much, really. She rarely went about in public. Anica had only seen her a few times, always delivering food to the jail. “What is Lagash planning?”
There was a pause, and the scent of surprise. “So,” came the disembodied voice. “You know.”
“I also know you are Ahmad’s sister. Why would you not tell him about your husband when he is here?” She kept the knife in her hand, practicing slicing the way Ris had said so it would be instinctive if she had to do it.
Anica couldn’t feel Ris in her head—he had closed the door again and she knew she would only be a distraction. But she hated not knowing what was happening to him.
“Because he’s the one who sold me into slavery to Lagash in the first place. I just want to escape.” There was deep bitterness in the words, and the scent that came with it on the breeze from the lower floor matched the tone.
Why would Ahmad do that? She didn’t believe it, but there was no lie in the air. If it was true, Enheduanna could be a valuable ally. But how could Anica believe the woman? “You’re his wife. And his mate. How can you be his slave too? I see you beside him and never in bindings.”
Enheduanna’s laugh had a hysterical edge. “He’s mated to me. He controls everything I do. He can implant thoughts in my head, make me think and do things I don’t want to do. The only reason I can think right now is because he’s in a battle. As soon as he’s done killing whoever dared challenge him, he’ll be back and I’ll be sick again. He keeps me so weak by draining my magic that all I can do is lay in bed most days.
“Everyone in town believes I have a horrible disease. Since he insists I cook for him, I always cook too much, so at least I have to give away the food. He lets me do that, maybe to tempt me with a glimpse of freedom. Maybe to let the town see how much in love we are. It’s not much, but I have a few minutes where he isn’t watching me.”
Killing whoever dared challenge him. That could be Bobby and Ris. “How do we kill him? Tell me now or I will wring the information from you.” She stepped out of the alcove, her knife at the ready, and started down the stairs.
Enheduanna sighed. “Maybe that would be easiest. Just kill me and be done with it. I’ve been alive so very long and I hate that man so much!” There was such venom in her voice that Anica had to see if her expression matched. Perhaps it was a trap, but her instincts told her it wasn’t.
She made it to the bottom of the stairs and dipped her head out just enough to see the room. Enheduanna sat on the chair, almost primly, wearing her Betty shirt. “Let me see your real self.”
The woman shrugged helplessly. “That would require energy. I don’t have any. I might as well be human for the power I have right now. He keeps me in this form so I have no strength.” She lifted one skinny arm and pushed her sleeve up. The skin underneath was floppy and hanging from her bones, like she was malnourished. “Look what he has done to me.”
“You lie,” Anica said, remembering what she’d seen from her window even though the woman’s scent was clear of the black pepper of lying. “I saw you pushing Skew, in chains. You had strength then, because she was fighting back. Where is she? Tell me that, and if she is safe, perhaps I will help you.”
“She’s in her lab. Where Fred—sorry, Lagash—keeps her locked up and working when she’s not serving ice cream to the children. I was forced to put her in chains because she is becoming wary. We are running out of the drug. If only they knew their treats were laced with drugs. It makes me so angry! Innocent children becoming pawns to him. I am fed up.”
Anica stepped fully into the room. “I’ve eaten that ice cream. What sort of drugs? What do they do?”
“It makes people open to … suggestion. It’s just a mineral. It probably won’t hurt them if nobody uses magic on them.”
Things were clicking together in Anica’s brain. “It is the terbium, isn’t it? You were covered in it when you attacked me in my home. For that, and for hurting my brother, I should kill you.”
The pale woman nodded, her face and scent miserable. It was becoming more difficult to doubt the old woman. As much as she distrusted the words, Anica’s nose had never lied to her. “Yes. I know. I didn’t want to. Fred made me get the boxes of rocks out of the safe in your garage. He couldn’t be seen going to the house. I was just leaving when your brother surprised me. Zarko has been suspicious of him ever since he found out Fred was making false reports about you and your brother, so I haven’t been able to get into the house to retrieve them.”
Anica felt her eyes open wider. No wonder their visas were denied! Who would suspect a neutral government employee, with no history of knowing them, of lying? She wondered if the government thought she was a terrorist. “Then why go to our house at all?”
“That’s where Van used to keep the rocks he mined,” Enheduanna replied. “With all the firefighters, Fred couldn’t go out and dig in the forest, but he had promised deliveries and had to get them sent.”
Deliveries? “He was mailing terbium? I didn’t think you could mail important rocks with minerals. Isn’t that not allowed?”
The other woman nodded. “Yes. That’s why we made it into something that could be shipped and used easily.”
The last piece of the puzzle sank home. “Incense. You made it into sticks of incense.”
A burst of scent, like rotten celery, rose into the air. Anica had no idea what emotion that was.
“How did you know?”
“I can smell very good. Why are people not supposed to speak of the tunnels?”
“Betty” shook her head. “I have no idea what’s in Fred’s head about that. Maybe that’s how the snakes will get in when they come.”
If nobody was supposed to talk about the tunnels, maybe they weren�
��t supposed to think about them or check them either. Recalling Ris’s words made her shiver. I’m fine with sneaking up when they’re sleeping. In fact, I prefer it. If snakes took over the town, they would have the whole forest to mine. They would be able to make more and more of the drug to control other people. It was even worse than what she’d seen in Ris’s memory, because people would go willingly to their death, or to be turned.
“Where is Skew?” Was she being forced to help Lagash plan this? Or was she a willing participant?
“The lab is under the post office. In a hidden room under the stamp vault.”
How would she get into a vault? As though Enheduanna could read her mind, she shook her head. “Lagash has the only key. But Carolyn is safe. She just thinks she’s making medicine for children. Her mind is so muddy from the drug that she doesn’t know where she is most of the time. Fred was very angry that Ris broke through the conditioning on Skew. But he’d only instructed her to act like the Skew everyone knows to residents.
So that was why she acted very different when her family first arrived. Until they moved in and became actual residents, Skew wasn’t sure how to treat them. “How do we fight Lagash, then? I can take the key from him once he’s dead.”
Now the old woman smiled, and there was darkness at the edges of her eyes. “Please do. The problem with working with chemicals is that they can be your undoing. He had an accident a few years ago. You probably noticed he has scars on one hand. Those are real scars, not illusion. Terbium burns. Magic makes the pain flare and burn hotter. He had the mineral dust all over him, and when he slapped me for making dinner too slow the dust caught fire from the stove. Water only made it worse. He had to pour baking soda on his hand to put out the flame.”
While Anica wasn’t surprised Lagash hit his wife, the casual way she said it made her twitch. It just made her want to hurt him even more. Whether or not the Council had ordered it. “Where would I find enough terbium to use on him?”