Snake Eyes

by Hillary Monahan

  “Well, aren’t you sweet. That’s a fine name, doll. Just fine.” Bernie never opened her eyes, resting against the headrest of the chair, shoulders slumping as she dozed off. Tanis studied her profile, studied the slow rise and fall of her chest and the angry, pulsing veins in her neck. In that moment, sandwiched between her newborn daughter and a dying woman, she realized what a gift a life was.

  ESTHER CHECKED THE baby over; not only was she a skilled vodou healer, she was a nurse in an intensive care unit by day. While she still recommended getting the baby looked at in a hospital or a pediatrician’s office for blood screens, she was confident saying she was healthy and hardy and had all the proper functioning baby parts.

  “Her vitals are perfect,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll thrive. Congratulations.” She handed her back to Tanis, careful to adjust her in her arms before packing up her medical bag. She eyed Bernie in her chair, frowning as she slid the stethoscope from her neck. “Old woman. You should come see Maman. She might be able to do something about that curse. Or if she doesn’t, she’ll know someone who can, yeah?”

  Bernie smiled faintly, rolling her head but not lifting it from the back of the chair. She cracked one eye to peer at her. “You’re real sweet to say so, but I’m not sure I want to keep going. There’s too much of me gone. It’s more’n an arm. I won’t go into detail, but unless she can grow a new me, I’m... I’ll pass. Thank you, though. You’re a doll for offering.”

  “You’re sure?” Esther pressed, her hand hovering over the doorknob. “She deals fair.”

  “I’m sure, doll. Sure as sure can be.”

  Tanis offered Esther money, but she refused, saying she was grateful for her service to Maman. Considering the only service Tanis had provided was a few sweaty, regrettable tumbles, she was quick to see her out, doing her best to ward off the guilt so it didn’t ruin the one truly good thing that had happened to any of them over the last few days.

  She shut the door and drew a deep breath.

  You had to. It’s in the past. This is the future.

  “So I was thinking about the two moms thing,” Naree said, the baby on her breast. They were lucky—she’d latched easily and Naree’s milk had come quick. “What if she calls me Umma, which is ‘mama’ in Korean? You can be Mom. Figured that’d keep us straight?”

  “Yes, keep us straight. Straight’s a word I think of when I think of us.” Tanis smirked her way, and Naree burst into giggles, utterly delighted.

  “Touché, my big dyke-y love. Give me a kiss.”

  Tanis readily complied, her fingers sweeping over both Naree and Bee’s brows. “I love that, though. Umma and Mama. It’s great.” Tanis watched Bee working at Naree’s nipple, her rosy lips pursed, her eyes closed.

  “When did you go into labor?” she asked. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  “Six-thirty?” Naree narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and nodded. “About, anyway. I got upset when we didn’t hear anything from you and my water broke. It was quick after that. Esther showed up, told us you were fine, told us you’d sent her to help. She actually knows the lady who owns this place—she said the Tremé is a close neighborhood. Anyway, she talked to her, told her what was going on with me, and then helped me deliver. And here we are.”

  “And here we are.” Tanis nuzzled Bee’s fuzzy head.

  Everything was, by all appearances, going well. Well enough that Tanis dared to dart off to the grocery store, buying pads for Naree, diapers, powder, formula, bottles, and a pacifier. She was wary of leaving her family alone yet again, but what could she do? They needed stuff, and Bernie was in no condition to go in her stead, stiff and uncomfortable and sleepy. She’d insisted she was alert enough to shoot a gun if needed, hefting one of her shotguns as proof, and after a quick shower, Tanis had ventured out, exhausted but happy, especially when, in her travels, she passed a baby store. She stopped to pick up a car seat, a blue one with cartoon elephant print all over the interior.

  As she parked the Caddy at the boarding house, she had the creeping worry that they should move again. Not far—just enough any scrying would be too late to catch up with them. But Esther had said to keep Naree planted for a day or two. Naree looked okay, but after they’d put her in the bathtub post-delivery, the water was full of blood and floating tissue. She wasn’t outright hemorrhaging, but it did look like something from Friday the 13th.

  They couldn’t risk it. And yet.

  Those fuckers are coming. I know they are.

  I’ll need to be alert.

  ...after I get some sleep.

  Tanis helped settle Naree into bed, the baby propped on her chest. Bernie was drinking beer and watching a baseball game on the television. Tanis climbed into bed beside her girls, allowing herself to doze, only waking a few times when the baby chirped because she was hungry or cried because she’d peed herself. Naree had to show Tanis how to change a diaper, which was considerably more unpleasant when you had a super-nose, but she muddled through, managing to not tape her kid’s eyes shut or powder her armpits. The whole family settled down for nap together after that, only waking when Bernie reached out to shake Tanis’s shoulder.

  “Tanis,” she hissed, head cocked to the side. She inhaled deeply and shook Tanis’s shoulder again. “Tanis!”

  “What?”

  Bernie said nothing more, but she didn’t have to. Tanis saw her sniffing the air, and she did the same, searching for whatever it was that had her friend reaching for her shotgun by her seat. She moved to the window, pulling the drape back. Tanis did the same, quiet as she reloaded her Glock. She inhaled again and was met with a familiar sour, lemony scent. Not pheromones, but sweat. A particular type of sweat that was more pungent than most and unmistakable, especially so far from home.

  Lamias.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  RHEA AND PRISKA didn’t bother breaking into the boarding house. They walked through the front door, up the stairs, and knocked. Tanis looked calm as she shook Naree from her sleep, pressing a finger to Naree’s lips when she started awake. She motioned at the bathroom. Naree’s eyes widened, but she said nothing as she climbed out of bed, the sheet draped over her shoulders to protect both her and the baby’s bareness. Tanis cupped her elbow and led her inside, pointing at the bath. She even went so far as to provide her with two pillows so she’d have something to rest against, settling the girls into the tub and pressing the Glock into Naree’s hand. Bee slept against Naree’s chest, undisturbed, her little fist curled over.

  They’ll smell them both, but maybe they’ll assume it’s another guest next door.

  Unlikely. But maybe.

  Tanis closed them in and surveyed her surroundings. Directly across from the bedroom door was the bed, flanked by end tables, double windows beyond it. To the left, the bathroom entryway, a bureau and, in the corner, the overstuffed chair, with Bernie dust all over it. To the right, a second bureau and a pullout couch where Bernie had supposedly slept. In the far corner was a flat-screen television and a short book shelf full of inspirational Christian novels.

  No cover. Nothing to hide behind.

  Balls.

  She went to her stash. Luke’s Colt, a Desert Eagle magnum she’d gotten from Nicholas Pope before Lamia had fucked him to death last month. Bernie had backed herself into the corner of the room with the TV, shotgun at the ready. Tanis couldn’t keep her hands steady as she put one gun in her back waistband and held the other behind her. She crossed to the door, sucked in a breath, and opened it, the weapon nestled into the small of her back.

  “What?”

  “You know what,” Priska replied.

  Priska sounded and looked annoyed. She was a humanoid daughter born in the same clutch as Tanis and, in some ways, similar to Tanis: no scales, no claws or protruding fangs, no visible snakiness to her at all. That was where the similarities ended, though. She was on the short side at five-two, unusual for a lamia, with a riot of brown curls and big brown eyes. Tanis figured she more resembled their myster
y father than their mother—Priska was fairer and slighter in stature than she was. She was wont to dress better, too. Whereas Tanis wore a Rolling Stones tank top with the giant tongue lolling out and jeans, Priska wore black slacks, a white top, and sensible black flats.

  To what was, at its core, a kidnapping. Which said a lot about Priska.

  Rhea was taller than Priska by a foot, and heavy. She wasn’t fat per se, but she was padded, with thick hips, thick arms, thick neck, and a belly roll. It was deceptive; beneath that squishiness was a lot of muscle. Tanis once saw Rhea deadlift a pickup truck for fun on a dare. She was one of the few blondes in the lamia den, and she wore it short, cropped around her ears, and slicked back. Her face was all broad features and moles with big green eyes—another standout feature among Lamia’s brood. She had huge feet and hands the size of oven mitts. Unlike Priska, she dressed casual: a black T-shirt, a short-sleeved red checkered shirt hanging open, jeans, sneakers. She was more Tanis’s ilk, all salt-of-the-earth and comfortable, but that wouldn’t matter. She was on a retrieval mission.

  Under better circumstances, they may have had something worthwhile to say to one another.

  “Can we do this easy, please?” Priska said. “For all of us?”

  “No, doll. We can’t. There’re circumstances.”

  Priska and Rhea looked over at Bernie in the corner; neither could hide their shock. She was a gargoyle version of herself: haggard, tired, far more gray than fleshy. Spidery veins crossing every inch of visible skin. Her hair looked like silver straw, and her fingernails were putrid green on black fingertips.

  Priska jerked her face away, but Rhea was not so polite. “What happened to you?”

  “Gorgons,” Bernie spit. “They’re the priority, not Tanis. Sending you here was stupid. It’s not getting Ma moved, not getting the Den safe. Daphne was petrified outright, one stare. Ariadne they tortured to death by turning her to stone piece by piece. Me? Their priests carry the venom. One nick is all it takes. I can feel myself going to stone. I’ve lost an arm, a toe, part of my ear. My lady junk is falling out. It’s painful, y’all. Like lava in your veins. Every movement burns, so maybe we can look at the bigger picture and stop this nonsense?”

  “Jesus Christ.” Rhea glanced at Priska, eyes wide. “You hearing this?”

  “Shut up. Just shut up. It doesn’t matter.” Priska jabbed Tanis in the chest with a manicured finger. “You have to come home or it’s our asses. You know no one gets to run. Doesn’t matter if the world is on fire, you come home.”

  “No,” Tanis said. “Leave.”

  “We can’t,” Priska insisted.

  “Yeah, you can. You can run. What’s Ma gonna do if we all just up and take off?” Bernie waved the shotgun around. “She’ll run out of helpers. You can go be somewhere else. Be free.”

  “No, we can’t.” Priska shook her head and sucked in a breath, her chin rising, her jaw grinding. “I can’t.”

  Ma’s got something on her. It’s all over her face.

  “Who’s she holding?” Tanis asked quietly.

  “She took Zoe.” Zoe was a younger snake, ten maybe, who Priska had taken under her wing at hatching. She was different from most of the lamias; she had one human leg and one that was was, for all intents and purposes, a snake tail without scales. No foot, no toes—a long, prehensile, fleshy extension she’d wrap around your wrist or wiggle into your pockets to steal your pens. Lamia wanted to drown her like the runt of the litter, but Priska had insisted she could care for her. Lamia agreed so long as it didn’t interfere with Priska’s service to the Den, and so Priska stole Zoe away, to her house somewhere on the outskirts of Adder’s Den. It wasn’t Percy’s Pass, but close by. She’d hired one of the other lamias to act as nanny while she worked her day job, fitting in among the humans like one of their own with her fancy clothes and articulate speech.

  Priska wasn’t a bad sort, really. She was generous to Zoe and a hard worker. It was unfortunate that she’d been given such a shitty mission.

  Tanis shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve got my reasons.”

  “Yeah, what are they?” Rhea demanded. “You always did your duty. You were never a deserter. Now this? What’s going on?”

  Lamia didn’t tell them. She’s keeping it to herself.

  They probably assume she’s going to devour me, but I’m willing to bet she won’t. Wouldn’t.

  I’m not going back. They’ll have to kill me first.

  “I have a gift she wants and she can’t have it,” Tanis replied, careful with her words. She swung the Colt around and pressed the fat barrel to the middle of Priska’s forehead. “Leave.”

  “Don’t make us do this,” Priska said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, fuck this.” Bernie raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Rhea and Priska dropped, as fast as Tanis, diving to either side of the doorway The boom echoed through the house and there were screams down the hall. Naree yelped. Bee cried from the bathroom. Tanis spun around to fire at Rhea, but Rhea lunged at her legs, tackling her and wrestling her to the ground. Tanis was strong, but Rhea was stronger, and she grabbed Tanis’s wrist and pinned it above her head. Tanis’s knee came up, catching Rhea hard between the legs.

  She oomphed, but wasn’t crippled.

  No dick. Well, shit.

  They wrestled like cats. Tanis couldn’t see anything other than Rhea, but she heard Bernie fire another shot, followed by the sound of furniture crashing and breaking. The baby wailed from the bathroom. It was all so hectic and chaotic, especially as a blur of woman raced by—Priska, undoubtedly. A chair flew through Tanis’s peripheral vision as she struggled against Rhea’s hold. Rhea reached up, prying her fingers away from the gun and shoving it away. She punched Tanis in the face, and Tanis’s nose exploded, her eyes rolling up into her head at the pain as Rhea’s other, huge hand grabbed her hair and lifted her head up, smashing it down against the floor.

  And again.

  And again.

  It vaguely occurred to her, as Rhea beat the shit out of her, that Rhea could have grabbed the Colt at any time and put a bullet in her. But she didn’t. She’d been told to bring Tanis in alive.

  Which gave Tanis a very strange advantage.

  “Stop, stop,” Tanis mumbled.

  Rhea paused above her, fist drawn back and ready to strike again. “You going to come nice?”

  Another shotgun blast and a howl. Tanis’ world whirled around her. She couldn’t tell who screamed or why, but there was a thud, followed by a groan. She tasted blood in the back of her throat, and Rhea’s visage swam above her. It was odd to be so helpless; even with the Gorgon priests, she’d had a speed advantage, a strength advantage. Against another lamia, though, it was blessing against blessing.

  Lamia sent a superior fighter to take down her favored hunter.

  Formerly favored hunter.

  I’m in the shit now.

  “Come nicely, please,” Rhea pleaded. A plaintive whine and a gasp sounded from the corner. Rhea looked over. Tanis would have liked to follow her gaze, but she was still chained to the bottom of a tornado, and she was pretty sure turning her head would make her puke. “Priska? PRISKA!” Rhea’s brows knit together into one long, golden strip of fur.

  “She’s hurting, doll. Could use some help.” Bernie. She sounded tired, weak. Like she had gravel in her throat, which was a possibility, considering her ailment.

  Rhea reached for the Colt and pushed herself to her feet. Tanis had the vague notion that she might not shoot Tanis, but Bernie was probably fair game, especially if she’d gutted Priska. Tanis rolled Rhea’s way and looped her arms around her knees, getting a solid hold and jerking back. The nausea hit full throttle and her lunch tickled the back of her throat, but it was worth it. Rhea went down hard, felled like a high tree. She struck the floor like a rock and Tanis was on her, a hand bunching in her hair and shoving her face down. She whacked the Colt away, the gun sliding under one of the bureaus and striking the wall. Tanis reached in
to her waistband and pulled the magnum, pressing it to the base of Rhea’s skull, the barrel parting that fine, curly brown hair.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Tanis spat. “But so help me, I will kill myself before you take me back to the Den, and then what? What’ll you have to show? You’re in the shit either way. There are three options as far as I can tell. One, I blow you away. Two, I blow myself away. Three, I let you walk out of here with Priska. Pick one.” She jabbed the gun into the base of Rhea’s skull. “Pick one!”

  Instead of begging or fighting or doing any number of things Tanis expected, Rhea went to pudding beneath her, her big hand pointed at the corner. “Priska,” she said. “She needs help.”

  Tanis blinked the world into better focus and swung her gaze over. There on the floor, curled into a ball, was the slight lamia. There was blood, and a lot of it, but it was hard to tell where it was coming from, the way she’d huddled in on herself.

  Bernie filled in the blank, the shotgun still in her hand, bits of smashed TV littering the floor by her feet. She leaned against the wall and sucked in a ragged breath. “Got her in the chest. Right side. Lung’s probably collapsed.” Bernie wheezed again, rasping in a way that suggested she might be laughing. “Interesting thing. Hitting a statue hurts you more than it hurts the statue.”

  She cast Tanis a wan smile and winked.

  Looking between her sisters, all four of them fucked up in some way—Tanis’s face a mess, Bernie nearly petrified, Priska rocking a hole in her chest, and Rhea pinned at gunpoint—Tanis’s revulsion for her mother roared to the surface. None of them were bad people. Rhea and Priska weren’t bad. Rhea was worried about Priska; Priska was worried about Zoe; Bernie and Tanis worried about each other. In Lamia’s mission to satisfy her needs, she’d pitted good women against other good women, and none of them really wanted to be fighting. It was all so pointless.

  It was all in service to a woman none of them loved, but all of them feared.