“How do you know he wasn’t shifting your energy to feel things about him, your trust of him, when you saw him?” I asked.
“Because.” Marcus pulled a Hunter’s dagger from a sheath tucked beneath his pant leg. I cringed at the sight “He gave me this as a show of good faith.” Marcus tapped the red stone in the dagger’s hilt. “And this right here weakens the abilities of supernaturals, just as much as it enhances mine.”
“How did he get that?” I said on an inhale.
Marcus grew serious again. “I told you Aleksander’s powerful, Faline. Too powerful to be underestimated.”
Twenty-Two
The thought of Aleksander pursuing me certainly wasn’t what turned me on, I swear. But something about embracing Marcus, his words forcing me to see his heart behind them, his intention to stay with me at any cost and his place in all of this at the same time, turned me on like a light switch. The nap earlier did a lot to help, too.
Marcus kissed his way from my mouth to my jaw and down my neck. My breath hitched when he pulled my shirt over my head so that his lips could more easily reach their destination. I arched my back giving his hands more room to unbutton my jeans. When his mouth found mine again I stood in front of him while he sat on the iron chair and shimmied my jeans to the wooden slats of the deck to step out of them. There was no way I’d give Marcus the show of my nakedness without getting one from him in return. Our kisses paused enough for me to pull his shirt over his head and expose his swollen muscles, art-filled chest, back, shoulders, and arms.
He reached for me with need and intensity, his supernatural strength meeting its match in mine. I straddled him, positioning myself just right when…my pants pocket vibrated along the deck.
We reluctantly paused.
It vibrated again, the muffled noise distinct against the otherwise silent night.
“Goddam it,” Marcus growled. He released his firm hold on me. I climbed off of him and the chair, grumbling my own obscenities at the phone and its fabulous timing.
One day the Wilds wouldn’t be fighting for their lives and freedoms and maybe then Marcus and I would be free to ignore late-at-night phone calls from unknown numbers. Unfortunately, we still fought for those things and tonight was not that night.
“The phone number isn’t American,” I said to Marcus before swiping to answer.
He sat up taller.
“This is Janice,” I answered. Since we’d taken down the Hunter complex I’d used burner phones, but as an added precaution I’d also answered the phone with another name if an unrecognizable number popped up. My coterie and Marcus had grown used to my extra step of precaution, making a joke about which name I’d pick next. This caller, however, did not find my precaution so endearing.
“Faline Frey?” the woman asked in a British accent.
“This is Janice,” I corrected, waiting for more information before the charade led to honesty.
“The rusalka told me you’d give a false name,” she stated curtly.
How did the rusalki know I’d been doing this? It wasn’t like they’d called me since everything went down. Then again, when it came to the rusalki, after seeing what I saw under their lake, nothing out of the ordinary should shock me.
“Faline,” the woman stated. “This is Anwen of the nagin group. We understand our distant sisters are in trouble and we’d like to help.”
I gave Marcus a quizzical look before returning to the phone call. “Thank you, Anwen.” My mouth caught up to my brain and the next part of the conversation finally presented itself. “Yes, uh, the succubi galere led by—” I stopped abruptly. I’d assumed the woman at the other end of this phone call was who she said she was. How stupid of me.
“Which rusalka told you to call me? What was her name and what did she look like?” I asked, knowing the Hunters probably knew our names by now. Still, I hoped they didn’t know them well enough to spot one from a particular group within a second’s notice.
“The rusalka, Drosera,” she answered without hesitation. “She has green eyes and auburn hair. Her voice reminds me of a mix between a breeze and a fairy.”
Well, she’d passed the test and her explanation of Drosera’s voice was spot on.
“Thank you,” I said. “We can’t be too careful right now, with everything going on.”
“I’ve heard rumors that America still had its Hunters, but I had no idea the Wild Women still answered to them. We were absolutely shocked to hear about Marie and her people.”
So many questions bloomed from those two sentences, but I let them grow while she finished her spiel.
“We didn’t know Marie,” Anwen continued. “Hadn’t heard of her or her sisters until today, really. But no snake daughter should be forced into confinement; like she who created us, we must be free to grow, to stretch, and to shed.” Her words made no sense to me, at least not the shedding part.
“So are you offering to come help us?” I asked.
I thought back to my mother’s stories. She’d told of the daughters of Lilith, of course, but also the scaled ones, and once she’d even mentioned a great and ancient cobra goddess and her many daughters from all over the world, some of which appointed the pharaohs themselves. I’d never heard mention of the nagin group, though. Now I wished I’d taken my mother’s stories seriously as a kid. I wished I’d read up on these women of folklore, these goddesses of old. If I’d spent hours in my local library, scouring the books, I’d actually be prepared to meet these strange Wilds. As it was, I planned to do enough googling the moment we ended the call to put a nervous, end-of-the-quarter college student to shame.
“We are offering to help the succubi,” she clarified. “Once we make contact with their leader, Marie, and learn their agendas, then we will know more.”
I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes. Marcus stood and placed his hand on my back, watching my every expression as though each bite to my inner cheek and each scowl I gave were part of a coded message.
“Do you mind if I ask the size of your group?” I said.
“I’ve met your kind, huldra,” the nagin said. “And I was impressed, so please don’t take this poorly, but a captive Wild Woman may pose risks that we’d rather assess in person. You understand.”
I didn’t, but it wasn’t like I had much of a choice.
“Fair enough,” I said, deciding a general response was better than my true thoughts and more preferable to a lie that yes, I did understand her concern. I had no clue what a nagin was, or if they could detect lies. I didn’t want to start what could become an allied friendship off on a lie. “So then you will be flying here? Are other groups joining you?” I needed to know which other types of Wilds I should research.
“Yes, we will be flying into the Portland International Airport,” she said. “If you’ll please send the location of the succubi’s building to the number I called from?”
“We aren’t there,” I said. “We’re currently staying at a safer location, but I’ll send you the address.”
“And as far as other groups joining us…” She let that last part ease from her mouth as though she considered her next words. “The echidnas and the shés will be meeting us there as well. That’s why I’ll need your address, because I don’t expect you have a vehicle that can fit all of us.” She added just in case I hadn’t caught her drift, “A vehicle to pick us up with.”
“No, I don’t expect we do,” I confirmed, repeating in my mind the Wild groups she’d just listed, hoping I could find information about them online, with at least a little portion that was semi-accurate.
“Fabulous,” Anwen said. “We’ll see you tomorrow then.”
She ended the call and I lowered the phone from my cheek, my mind spinning.
“What is it?” Marcus finally allowed himself to ask.
“Three Wild groups are on their way, all connected to a snake goddess, I think.” I peered around the deck and down below to the back yard. “We’re going to need to find enough computers
in this building, one for each of us. We’ve got until tomorrow to figure out what kind of Wilds we’re dealing with.”
Twenty-Three
Freyja, known by her Nordic name, is not an old Goddess compared to the many who came before her. The story of the creation of Wild Women speaks of Goddesses breathing their life force into their highest priestesses as patriarchy ravaged their temples and their people’s way of life. But some Goddesses, like Freyja, weren’t known to dwell in temples made from human hands. And others were worshipped, and their temples destroyed, far before Freyja’s name entered the mouths of humans.
But is a deity ever born? Or have they always existed, serving different societies, receiving different names according to which ways they’ve best helped the people who’ve named them?
I pondered these questions as I searched the internet for information on the snake goddesses of the world. Olivia and Celeste looked for nagin facts in particular, and the rest of us scoured the digital highways for any nuggets of truth we could extract from the pile of unknowns and speculation we found ourselves dealing with.
As it turned out, the quilter’s haven we holed up in was fairly connected to the digital times. We found one laptop on top of the dressers in each room, all connected to strong Wi-Fi signal throughout the building; more than enough to aid in our search. We congregated in the large living room, using the couch and the coffee table, and at the dining table in the adjoining kitchen.
Our main goal was to find out about the Wild Women connected to snake Goddesses. The major snag we knew we’d hit before we even powered up the laptops was the lack of public knowledge concerning Wilds. We could easily find folkloric tales of the nagin, but to really know what these women were capable of, we’d have to learn which Goddess had created them and what her role was in the society in which she was said to have created them from.
For instance, Freyja is a Nordic Goddess. If one was to only go by what the humans said about huldra, that our backs were hollowed out bark and tails grew from our tailbone—they’d be highly misled. But to research the Norse stories of Freyja, her connection to nature, her protectiveness of her people, then one could begin to put the pieces together to create a more actualized idea of the huldra. We are connected to nature, we once protected the forests, and our ability to see in the dark, to grow bark and vines, are displayed in these attributes.
Connected dots like those weren’t an exact science, but they were better than getting caught up in things over our heads.
“Okay, so the nagin,” Olivia spoke from the dark-wood kitchen table. She and Celeste sat at the oval table, discussing websites and possible matches. “Are from India mostly. The word is Sanskrit for deity or entity in the form of a very great snake. Think cobra.”
Shawna, who sat across from me at the coffee table, paused and shared a look with me. Goddess, I hoped these women didn’t turn into cobras. Well, if they were on our side against the Hunters, then yes, that’d be fabulous. If they weren’t, then no cobras, please.
“Does it mention what form they take?” Shawna asked while I pictured a cobra slithering into my bed at night and wrapping itself around my neck.
“Yeah. According to this, they can look human, half human and half snake, or full snake,” Olivia answered as though she were reading directly from the website.
Full snake. Lovely. I shivered at the thought.
“They’re mentioned in the myths of neighboring countries too,” Olivia continued. “So they seem to travel.”
“Well, she had a British accent,” I reminded.
“About that,” Celeste added. “I looked up Anwen’s name. It’s Welsh for beauty.” Wow, my sisters were digging deep. I hadn’t thought to look up name meanings. But it made sense. In naming me Faline, my mother gave a nod to felines, which were known favorites of Freyja.
“So then, maybe we should search for cobra Goddesses,” Shawna suggested.
My computer must have been newer than Shawna’s because the results popped up on mine while hers was still processing the request.
“Dammit,” I said under my breath, massaging my temples. “I think I found their Goddess.”
“What?” Shawna glimpsed my screen. “Oh.”
“What is it?” Celeste yelled from the bedroom.
“The whole first page of results for a cobra Goddess is of one deity,” I said.
“And?” Celeste prodded.
I sighed. “And she’s Egyptian. Like, early Egypt.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Marcus asked, looking up from the pink laptop sitting on his knees, dwarfed by his size.
“You weren’t taught about Wild Women who came from the more ancient Goddesses?” Patricia asked the ex-Hunter.
“I was, briefly,” Marcus assured her. “But, to be fair, the harpies were created by Inanna, who comes from a more ancient civilization than Egypt, and you aren’t worried about them.”
“The Wild you know is better than the Wild you don’t know,” I said. Marcus’s comment registered in my mind. “Wait. The Hunters teach their trainees about Goddess beliefs and history?”
Marcus chuckled, peering back at the laptop, while sitting on the flower-printed chair. “Not at all. I don’t even think I heard them mutter the word ‘Goddess.’ That’d be acknowledging the possibility of a divine female.” He shook his head while his finger moved around the mousepad. “In matters of Goddess spirituality, I’m self-taught.”
If that declaration didn’t make me want to grab him right then and there…
Aunt Patricia answered Marcus’s earlier question regarding our distrust of Egyptian Wilds from the flower-print chair in the living room. “Wild Women created by Egyptian Goddesses are rumored to have been the driving force behind more than a handful of secret underground cults. At least that’s what I overheard as a child from our grandmothers.”
“Humans call them cults,” Olivia added. “Any belief system that isn’t widely held and doesn’t feature a male at the top is referred to as a cult. Gets on my last nerve.”
“Huh.” Marcus paused from working. “That’s true.” After a few moments of thought he responded to Patricia, who sat on a chair across from him in the living room. “What’s wrong with taking part in secret groups? That’s essentially what you guys are, a secret group who worships a being not widely venerated. You even claim to have received your abilities from said being.”
Patricia searched Marcus’s eyes for a moment. I wondered what exactly she saw—the man behind the Hunter or the Hunter behind the man. “When you belong to an old Wild Women group who’ve planned underground ceremonies and revolts, we can only assume you’ve been raised to believe traits such as sneakiness and rebelliousness are acceptable, honorable even. Plus,” she added in a lighter tone, “they’re more likely to have connections and alliances with unsavory types.”
The room quieted for a few breaths before everyone went back to their work. Or at least we went back to work for a few minutes.
I hadn’t noticed Aunt Renee place the black Dell laptop she’d been using on the table beside her chair until she moved toward the closed sliding glass doors separating the living room from the deck.
“I heard something,” she said when the rest of us watched her look out the window to the deck and yard below. “Someone’s snooping around the house.”
“Did the Hunters find us?” Shawna asked, slapping her laptop shut and standing in a hurry.
Patricia joined Renee beside the glass doors. “Speak of the devil. Who invited the harpies?”
“The harpies are here?” I asked, jumping up from the floor to get a look.
Sure enough, three tall, lean women made their way from the back yard and up the wooden steps to the deck in long strides. Their heads made quick, jerky movements as they took in their surroundings.
“I’ll invite them in,” Patricia said, sliding the glass door open and making her way onto the deck to meet the tall Wilds.
“I’ll join you,” Renee said, follo
wing her sister.
It didn’t take long before the two huldra and three harpies stood in the living room. “They weren’t followed, as far as we could tell,” Renee whispered into my ear as she passed by me and took a seat on the couch.
True to form for the harpies, no hugs were given or friendly salutations repeated. The three women stood in a half circle, the coffee table separating them from the couch. They craned their necks in sharp movements, their eyes following, as they took in the Airbnb home.
“What brings you here?” I asked, standing behind the couch. I leaned on the back of the furniture, mere feet above my aunt’s head.
They zeroed in on me.
“We were summoned,” Eonza answered. Golden feathers hung from her blonde ponytail.
“By whom?” I said, reliving flashbacks of the first time I met the harpy outside a golf course restaurant where she’d been trying to pick up the bartender she had no interest in. I didn’t take what appeared to be aloofness as an offense. Harpies often kept to themselves and lacked the desire to appear human. Either that or they kept to themselves because they weren’t able to appear human. I hadn’t quite figured them out. Hell, I’d spent the most time with the succubi and they still confused me to no end. I thought to add another question because Goddess knew Eonza wouldn’t offer the information without my asking. “And why’d they send you?”
Eonza cocked her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. Not being rude, just trying to gauge the meaning of my question. Huh, the fact that I knew that much meant I’d picked up a little knowledge about this flock.
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