Snake Eyes

by Hillary Monahan

  I have to get out from under this thing or I’m going to die.

  She reached over her shoulder, getting a fistful of oily, furry scruff, the texture unlike anything she’d encountered before. Solid shadows were dense and slick—all she could think of was the gooey, pasty leavings in a fry pan after making hamburgers. Her fingers sunk in, past the skin and into the actual body until she encountered something firm inside, a spine of sorts, and she looped her fingers around it. She heaved it forward, using the strength that let her bend metal and pick up dumpsters. She threw the thing as hard as she could. The teeth slid from her flesh, the sensation a singular agony she never wanted to repeat again, the mongoose screeching when it landed some feet away.

  Tanis eyed it, gasping, wounds burning. She crawled toward the pipe to see if it’d all been for nothing, but somehow, magically, the damned thing was still capped. She stole a peek, relieved to see the water safe inside, and refastened it with careful fingers. Back on her feet, back to her escape. The scent of her blood was ripe in her nose, coming off her shoulder in waves.

  How the hell was she supposed to pick up a few drops in the grass?

  Still she ran, past another tree that looked familiar-ish. The mongoose shrieked behind her, undoubtedly readying itself for another charge. She made as much distance on it as she could, pushing her body to its limits. Her chest hurt from exertion, her back ached from the gouges. Her T-shirt was glued to her body with blood. Her eyes swept the fields looking for the familiar, her path home lost to her, thanks to the attack. She could hear the mongoose coming for her, and she put her head down to focus on staying ahead of it for as long as she could. Feet became yards, yards became miles, Tanis lost in a sea of dead grass with no idea if she was going toward her starting point or away from it.

  I’m going to die in here.

  Oh, Naree. I’m so sorry.

  Her jaw set, her eyes narrowed. The mongoose behind her hissed and chittered, with an eerie, hyena-ish quality that suggested it knew she was stuck there, and it would relish what it did to her when her body finally gave out. Tanis kept moving, pushing past the pain, pushing past the point where she wheezed for breath. The grass went on forever and one tree looked like all trees. How many had she passed? How many were ahead?

  It’s pointless. This is all so pointless.

  A rooster crowed.

  In the weirdness of her day, in the vast scheme of talking to lwa, fucking lwa, making deals with Death, crossing into the deadlands, looking into the River Styx, and being mauled by giant shadow weasels, a chicken was pretty banal by comparison. A chicken in Tartarus, however, was noteworthy, especially as all Tanis could think of was Maman Brigitte and her black feathers.

  Another crow.

  She’s calling me.

  She could have been wrong—it could have been a four-foot-tall rooster waiting to peck her face off—but she was willing to take a chance. She followed the call, shadow in tow, burning the last of her reserves. Another caw and she saw it, thirty feet off and standing on a rock surrounded by grass. It was black and glossy and as shadowy as anything else in the deadlands. As she neared it, daring to hope and dreading the worst, the rooster fluffed itself up. Tanis watched it grow, tall first, then wider. Legs stretching, comb smoothing over to become braided hair, tail feathers curving inward to form an ass. Maman was there, not articulated as she was at Poul Mwen’s—there were no pretty dresses or lips as red as a cherry popsicle—but it was her form with golden eyes, and she pointed at the mongoose, chopping her hand down as Tanis collapsed at her feet.

  “Kanpe la!”

  The creature shrieked and sniveled, rearing back and away from the lwa, becoming less ferocious and more wheedling. Maman looked unimpressed. She shooed it off and crouched before Tanis, cupping her chin in her oily hands, her thumbs brushing over Tanis’s cheeks. There was a break in the shadows of her face, revealing white, straight teeth, and then she was leaning in, kissing Tanis full on the mouth, that same shadowy greasiness translating to Tanis’s lips.

  “Close your eyes, koulèv. Close your eyes.”

  Tanis did, swallowing back a sob, as she was splashed on the upper chest with cold, frigid water.

  TANIS’S EYES FLUTTERED, but she couldn’t keep them open, not yet. She was too spent, too pained. Too... everything. She heard the singsong prayers, and felt a cool cloth dabbing at her brow. Another swept over her shoulder. A warm breeze brushed her body, bringing with it the smell of rum and incense. She was bare from the waist up, that she knew, even as warm hands pushed her up onto her hip. Another cloth pressed against her back, putting pressure on her still-tender skin where the mongoose had raked her. She hissed, but didn’t pull away, vaguely understanding that these were helping hands, not hurting ones.

  They’re tending my wounds.

  A new herb scent, something fresh and good, filled her nose. It was everything that the deadlands hadn’t been, and it was all over her, overriding the tang of blood. Dispelling the stench of the River Styx.

  “Easy, koulèv. Let the pipe go. If you squeeze much harder you’ll break it and all Maman’s work will be for naught. Give to me. Give. Good. Good, girl.” Tanis’s fingers relaxed on the pipe, her palm dented from the carved sides of the bowl. Someone took it away. She opened her mouth to protest, but no words came. Her body was there, present, but unwilling to cooperate with her mind, which was telling her to sit up, get up, get moving, go home.

  Soon. I can’t yet. Soon.

  “You are pushing too hard. I have closed all the nasty wounds and if you tear them open again, I will be irritated. Cock-blessed or not, I will not have my time wasted,” Maman chastised. Tanis immediately stilled, mostly because she was too damned tired to do anything other than sprawl limply anyway. They worked on her awhile, Tanis fading in and out of consciousness until finally, after what could have been days, Maman leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  “Wake.”

  And she was awake. Her eyes popped open, her vision swimming into focus. Her body ached, but in a way that suggested old hurts, not new ones. The sky was clear and blue above with nary a cloud in sight. Birds chirped in the nearby trees, oblivious to anything but the spring sunshine.

  “What time is it?” she rasped, pushing herself up into sitting position. Her back screeched in protest, but when she ran her fingers over a sore spot on her shoulder, where the mongoose had torn her open, there was fresh, slick skin. She looked down at herself. No shirt, just her sports bra stained brown with old blood, but she was clean otherwise. The bite mark, where the shadow thing had gnawed on her, had scarred over to a tender patch of pink against her skin.

  “Early still. I gave you an hour to sleep. You barely made it out on time.” Maman loomed over her, smiling. They were alone in the courtyard with only the chaise lounge, the altar with burned-down candles, and the art on the walls. Tanis pushed herself up, looking at a hand-sewn flag showing a saint, complete with a halo.

  Tanis motioned at it. “That looks Catholic.”

  Maman followed her gaze. “When my people were brought to Haiti as slaves, the French king demanded that they only worship the Roman Catholic God. They would not lose their lwa, and so they depicted us as saints, to appease their oppressors.” Maman collapsed into her chair, using her red scarf from the night before to dab the sweat from her forehead. “We are resourceful people.”

  “Clever.”

  “Mmmm. Indeed.”

  “Thanks, by the way.” Tanis ran her fingers through her hair, cringing at the oiliness there. “For everything. I need to—Naree. My girlfriend.” She slapped at her pockets, looking for her phone or the pipe but discovered neither, nor her gun. Maman chuckled behind her.

  “Here, koulèv. Here.” Maman motioned to her left, at a wrought-iron garden table with a mosaic top. She pushed forth gun, phone, and a small, olive-green bottle shaped like a snake with a cord around the narrowed top. It was simple enough, with its red eyes and glazed exterior, but if it could hold water from the Ri
ver Styx, it was obviously blessed or magical in some way. “Papa will want his pipe back. I took the liberty of moving the waters into a proper vessel. Dumballah the snake. He would not mind being used thus, considering what you are.”

  “Right. Thanks again.” It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate what Maman had done, but she was cautious by nature and she had too much at stake to not check her hard-won prize. She uncapped the bottle, muttering, “I don’t mean to be rude, but...” and sniffed the contents. The concentrated foulness of the River Styx assaulted her senses, and she closed up the statue, rubbing her nose like a dog who’d been blasted in the face by a skunk.

  “Serves you right for not believing Maman,” the lwa said, grinning. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her lounge chair, pretty face tilted toward the sun, arms stretched over her head. “Renaud is out front. He will take you home if you like.”

  “I—thank you.” Tanis tucked the gun into her waistband and snagged her phone to look at the time. Half past eight. Her heart sank; she’d told Bernie and Naree eight, and she’d slept right through deadline thanks to the mongoose bullshit. Her thumb hit Naree’s speed dial, hoping to catch her, but no answer. A second call, no answer.

  Out of service range?

  She tried Bernie’s cell, with the same result. Maman opened a single eye to peer at her, looking much like a contented cat as she waved Tanis off, yawning in her patch of sunlight. “Go. See Renaud. Perhaps I will see you again, koulèv. My cunt will remember you fondly.” She paused. “Do you still have your black feather, koulèv? The one I left for you on the pillow.”

  “No. Papa took it.”

  “Oh, that brat. Take another from the altar. For luck. Then get home to your girl. She needs you.”

  What does that mean?

  But Maman was not forthcoming.

  “Thanks. I—thanks.”

  Tanis snagged one of the feathers from the vase on the altar and then hauled ass to the back door of Poul Mwen. Through the stockroom, to the bar itself. Renaud was behind the counter, lining up bottles on the shelves, a pen tucked behind his ear, a notepad clenched in hand. Seeing her, he stopped and smiled, motioning at the whiskey glasses.

  “Thirsty?”

  “No. Maman said you could give me a ride home? Not home. The Tremé. We’re at a boarding house there. Or they might be. Shit.”

  They could circle back around to get you. Leave them a message. They’re not far out.

  Renaud tossed notebook and pen onto the counter, grabbed his keys and unlocked the bar’s front door, leading her out to a yellow pickup truck with too many bumper stickers. He was quiet as Tanis called Naree’s and Bernie’s cells, leaving similarly panicked messages telling them that she was fine, that she was on her way back to the Tremé, and if they’d be so kind, to turn around to pick her up. It only occurred to her as she ended the second message that maybe something had happened to them. Maybe they’d had to run. Maybe they’d gotten killed. She’d been gone all night, and if the priests had turned up...

  “Maman likes you,” Renaud said. “She said you gifted her.”

  “Gifted?”

  Oh. My dicks. Go me. I’m dicktastic.

  “That. Yeah, it’s... yeah.”

  Renaud chattered on about Maman, the bar, New Orleans. Tanis looked out the truck’s window, grunting answers when appropriate, telling him the address of where they were staying when he asked, but she couldn’t concentrate. Her brain was on fire. When Renaud pulled into the parking lot twenty minutes later, the Caddy was in the corner spot they’d been assigned when they’d accepted their rooms. Tanis mumbled a “thank you” at Renaud and ran for the door.

  She was halfway up the stairs when she heard Naree’s scream.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  IT’S ODD TO barge into a delivery room wearing a sports bra crusted with blood and holding a gun, but it wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to Tanis that week. The fact that the woman giving birth was her girlfriend, and the baby crowning was her daughter, probably moved it into the all-time top fifty, though.

  “Push. Push!”

  “I’M FUCKING PUSHING!” Naree let loose with a bellow that would have done an angry bull proud. She hunched up on the bed, body supported by her elbows, her knees splayed while she bore down. Bernie sat to her left, holding her hand. She looked rough—her skin was gray and riddled with black veins and patches of dusty-looking charcoal-colored lesions. A pile of dust pooled beneath her feet, her body flaking away bit by bit.

  Tanis frowned at her, and then at the stranger at the foot of the bed. She was a round, dark woman with a port wine birthmark on her neck—

  She’s from Maman’s. She was at the ritual.

  Did Maman send her? She must have.

  She sat on a stool, her gloved hands between Naree’s legs, cupped in wait of the coming baby. Around her neck was a stethoscope. At her feet was a bag full of medical supplies.

  “You’re doing great,” the woman said. “Almost there. Push on the next contraction.”

  Naree’s head lolled back, her brow glossed with sweat, hair plastered to her neck and upper chest as she panted. Tanis was gawking—at the sight of their daughter eagerly shoving her way into the world. At Bernie and her decay. At the helping stranger. She put the gun on the bureau and rushed to Naree’s side to take her free hand.

  “Naree. Sweetheart.”

  “Oh. Oh, hey. You made it. Keen. Fuck you for doing this to—AIEEEE!”

  Tanis cast Bernie a grateful look. Bernie winked at her, but said nothing, enduring their mutual finger-crushing with grace. Tanis looked down Naree’s body, over her swollen breasts and stomach to her knees, and to the woman positioned between them. Naree strained, her body shaking, her mouth opening to let loose with another scrotum-shriveling screech that ended with a lusty cry from a baby and Naree collapsing onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and laughing in a way that spoke to equal parts relief and trauma. She grunted a second later, tensing again for a few seconds before going completely limp, her lashes fluttering against her flushed cheeks.

  The room smelled of blood and piss and sweat.

  Life. It smells like life. Funny that death is so similar. We fall back to the place from which we rise.

  “There she is, there she is. She’s beautiful, beautiful,” the woman said. Tanis leaned down to kiss Naree’s face all over, squeezing her hand, her gaze swinging between her exhausted girlfriend and the small, thrashing, slimy creature held by the stranger

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” Tanis whispered into Naree’s ear.

  “I don’t care. You’re back. That’s all that matters. You came back.”

  Naree’s tired smile made Tanis’s breath catch.

  She’s beautiful. They’re both so beautiful.

  “Just in time, koulèv. This one got two pretty mamas, doesn’t she?” The woman cut the baby’s cord and clamped it off. The baby let loose with a primal scream that rivaled Naree’s own before being carried from the room and into the bathroom for clean up. Faucet running, another big cry, and all went still. Naree peered at Tanis, brow furrowed, but the corners of her lips were curled into a smile.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “For?”

  “Sending Esther. She’s been wonderful.”

  Tanis’s first instinct was to deny her involvement, but she didn’t want to paint anyone a liar in case that was the cover story that got Esther through the bedroom door in the first place. She kept quiet, waiting patiently for Esther and the baby to reappear. It took a few minutes, but Esther emerged shortly thereafter with a tiny, black-haired miracle swaddled in a soft towel, the baby’s eyes a murky gray-brown and barely open, her fist waving, her skin ruddy.

  “She is perfect. Perfect,” Esther crooned.

  Bernie and Tanis helped Naree prop herself up on a small mountain of pillows. Esther laid the baby across Naree’s chest, Naree’s arm circling the infant, cradling her close as her lips skimmed over the soft
head.

  “You have to support their necks,” she said. “I read that last night. They can’t hold their heads up yet.”

  Tanis smiled.

  Bernie did, too. “That’s a fine looking puppy you got there, doll. Doesn’t look a thing like Tanis, which is good; she’s uglier than a dog’s ass-end.”

  “Fuck you, Bernie.” Tanis immediately cringed, because shouldn’t she stop cursing in front of her newborn kid?

  So much has to change. If I’m around for it, I’ll do my best. Be my best.

  No butts. No swears. No leaving the bathroom door open while I piss.

  Bernie sank back into her overstuffed chair, eyes closing like she’d fought hard to stay awake for so long. “Seriously, though. Gorgeous, girls. Gorgeous.”

  “Thanks.” Tanis was grateful Bernie couldn’t see her frown; the Gorgon poison had taken a visible toll overnight. Her bad arm was completely gone, the open shoulder socket a circle of crumbled stone that reminded Tanis of Ariadne’s ruined chest. Dust littered the floor, gray particles of stone covering the end tables, the entertainment center, the desk in the corner. Her ankles were oddly swollen, her bare toes turning black, the pinky on the left gone already. Her right earlobe was missing, too, the fragile shell above chipping along the uppermost curve and giving it a strange point.

  Tanis swallowed past the lump that formed in her throat and swung her focus over to the tiny person she’d helped make. She ran her fingertip over the newborn’s chin, over the fat waddles in her neck, over her chest. She was pale, like Naree, and had a little upturn in her nose, also like Naree. Tanis struggled to see herself in her until the little hand closed around her finger and squeezed. Strong. Not too strong, not anything freakish, but firm.

  There I am.

  “She’s beautiful,” Tanis rasped, her voice thicker than she expected. “Like her mother.”

  “Mothers. I want to call her Bee. Beatrice. For Bernie.” Naree glanced Bernie’s way, smiling, oblivious to Esther wadding up the soiled sheets at the foot of the bed.