She gave him a grim look. “Potter’s field in Albuquerque,” She said. “He tried to shoot one of the arresting officers. He missed.” She let out a breath. “And after that, you know how it goes. The operations of Justice have a way of reverberating through things. Mrs. Eldridge, hermurder solved, took herself off somewhere else—and the only one who had to be brought home, secondary to that case, was you.”
“You waited for me,” he said softly, awed.
“I wait for everyone,” She said. “Come on, Rob. I can always use a steady worker at my end of things, and we’ve got a lot of work to do yet…”
From the sofa, She picked up the newly polished brassware, which Rob was now wryly amused not to have recognized immediately as a set of scales. From under the newspapers that had been protecting the sofa from the brass polish, She slipped out a sword, two-edged and bright. Then, together, She and Rob DiFalco went off into the day, into the realms of uncertainty again, where Justice and those who serve Her are needed the most.
Snake in the Grass
Susan R. Matthews
Susan R. Matthews’s fiction is informed by her military background and her professional experience as an officer, a janitor, an auditor, and an accountant. Her favorite recreational reading is history and adventure literature, both of which she mines shamelessly for plot mechanics; she has published six science fiction novels (the seventh is on its way, in October) and has very recently taken the anthology route into the short-story market.
She and her partner, Maggie, have been keeping house for nearly twenty-five years. They have two Pomeranian companion animals and live in Seattle.
Sitting cross-legged on the bare earth of the ritual space out in the backyard underneath the willow tree, Galen sorted through the abandoned altar-set slowly, wondering. The brazier, the embroidered cloth for the altar, the ritual dishes were as beautiful as any she had ever seen—but they were all wrong.
Austin had never used the Taber rite in all of the years that Galen had known her. Taber rite was powerful but dangerous; and Austin had never been one to respond to the allure of the forbidden powers. Yet it had been a Taber rite that killed her, Galen’s friend Austin.
The startling details of Austins death had yet to sink in past the shock of the phone call, the sight of Austin’s body in the morgue, her face contorted with agony and her extremities turning black.
The story looked simple enough on the surface: the Taber rite required a Kinsey snake, and Kinsey snakes were poisonous and notoriously willing to share their venom. That was one of the reasons that Kinseys couldn’t be legally imported: they were too dangerous to be kept outside of strictly controlled environments like zoos and research programs. The other reason was that they were endangered in the equatorial zone to which they were native and had never been successfully persuaded to reproduce in captivity.
It was true that Kinsey snakes and Folliet snakes looked alike. It took an expert to distinguish them; and a Kinsey snake was not beneath attending the Merris rite, though the Folliet snake had no such compunction. Austin had had a Folliet snake for years, an old wise patient soul whose bite was no more noxious than that of a horsefly. Austin was a priestess of the King-snake. Her pet was an important part of her ritual relationship with the god; but Austin had never stepped across the line from service into sorcery.
Until the night before last, when the Kinsey snake killed her.
Galen heard the subtle hissing of scales coming across the short brown grass that separated the ritual space from the house behind her, and stiffened. She knew that sound. She hadn’t heard it for years; she and the King-snake had fallen out decades ago, when she was still a very young priestess, and the god had let her go. He had touched her once, though. She knew that it was him.
You slander her memory,the King-snake said, the words reproving and patient in her mind. You should have more respect, after everything that she has done for you.
Galen had to pause in her cataloging, closing her eyes in frustration. This was just the kind of nonsense that she and the King-snake had fallen out over, years ago. I didn’t ask for this, she thought; but she knew better than to think it very hard. Instead, she focused her mind on her friend Austin and the debt she owed Austin for kindness and friendship. Austin hadn’t meant to saddle her with this kind of confusion when she’d made Galen her executrix and heir.
“What am I to think, then?” Galen said aloud to the quiet of Austin’s half-wild back acre, so that the King-snake would know that she meant for him to answer her. “Found dead of the bite of a Kinsey snake, surrounded by Taber furniture. I’d have sworn that she wouldn’t even have let Taber into her house. What had she done to you?”
She braced herself for an angry hiss; but none came, just the soundof shifting coils on the ground. Don’t put that away, the King-snake said. You’ll be wanting it soon.
He wasn’t answering her. He never did. Galen shook her head and turned back to her task; the doorbell rang. Austin had a bell on the back of the house just so she would know when someone came to the door, even if she was out in the field with her workings. The Kingsnake had gone.
Rising to her feet, Galen dusted her hands off on her denim skirt and went through the house to the front door. There were policemen there and a reporter. Three policemen; one of them very tall, very slender, with long-fingered hands and the hint of a hissing of scales in his wake as he came up the walk from the patrol cars and joined the others on the front porch.
“Miss Galen?” the oldest of the policemen said. “Sorry to trouble you. We’d like to discuss a neighborhood concern.”
Galen let them in because they were police and she had always tried to respect authority. The police in Seelie had never harassed pagan people for being pagan. So long as the applicable ordinances were observed and the peace not disturbed, the police left them alone.
“What’s the problem, Officer?” she asked once the door was closed behind them. She had an unhappy feeling in her stomach that she knew; that people were not going to tolerate a priestess in their midst any longer. But if the King-snake thought she as going to levy sanctions on decent if misguided people for the crime of being stupid, he had another think coming, Galen told herself firmly, glaring at that very tall policeman. King-snake came in many forms to many people. To her he had come as a tall white man, French she’d decided for no particular reason, with a preference for plum-colored fabric and a cynical cant that she’d found very attractive. At one time.
“It’s the snake, Miss Galen,” the senior policeman said. “We never had complaints about Miss Austin, but people trusted her. Now Miss Austin’s dead and the snake has gone missing. Nobody knew it was poisonous in all that time. And it could be anywhere.”
Austin’s backyard was a full acre of savanna scrub, with a pond she’d put in fifteen years ago and a watercourse to nourish the willow tree. There was a thick hedge there for privacy, but the neighborhoodhad gotten built up. People had children. Galen could see what the officer was getting at.
“The snake always kept to his own set of places before.” She’d known that snake. He’d been perfectly equable, very mild-spirited, personable to the extent that that could be said of a snake. She hadn’t seen him since she’d got the call to identify the body. By tradition he would have returned to the underworld to mourn the loss of his friend, but he should have shed his skin if that was what had happened, and she’d found no shed skins. She’d looked.
She still could hardly believe that he’d been a Kinsey snake all along. Cherig at the pet shop had been trying for years to get people to believe that her brightly colored, supple little Folliet was actually a Kinsey snake; and she’d gained a certain degree of influence among the more gullible members of the local snake-loving community through the deception.
Now with Austin’s sudden horrible death, Galen was willing to wonder: too late to do Cherig any good. Customs had audited Cherig’s shop not five days ago. The Folliet snake was a Folliet snake, no more, no
less. It was bound to be a terrible blow to Cherig’s prestige, but Cherig was putting a good face on things, from what little Galen had bothered to notice.
“What do you want me to do, Officer?” He’d know that she’d searched. The police wanted the snake to validate their theory about Austin’s death by misadventure, with contributory negligence. There were insurance issues, as well as public relations to consider.
“We don’t want to come with a mongoose, Miss Galen. But we’ve got to quarantine the snake. Now, I don’t mean to insult you, I’m a Presbyterian myself. But I understand that part of your religious observance is to feed the snake. And that it’s accustomed to coming when it hears drums.”
Not her observance. No, she and the King-snake had parted company. Austin had taught her other things; but Galen had indeed helped Austin with her setup, out of affection and courtesy. She was Austin’s heir, at least as far as the material estate was concerned. It was up to her, she supposed. Cherig would probably do it if she asked, but Austin had never liked Cherig; which made it all the more difficult to understand why Cherig would have been the one who discovered the body.
“I don’t know anything about Taber rite, though, Officer.” Nor did she wish to. She’d never wanted to engage with that kind of energy; it was so easy to become beguiled by it. Seduced. The King-snake in his dark aspect was beautiful, perfumed with blood and iron. There was too much power there. People lost their way and became venomous.
“I’m sure the snake doesn’t know the difference, miss,” the tallest policeman said. Galen knew that she was the only one who could hear the hiss in his language. “We can have a licensed herpetologist standing by. It’s either bring the snake in or flush it out, Miss Galen. Your neighbors don’t want to take it against you.”
If he weren’t a policeman and she hadn’t been trying to avoid confrontation, she’d have a thing or two to say to him about that. The snake doesn’t know the difference. He could hardly have been more insulting; but he was the one with the snake in him. King-snake was being provoking. He had a vicious streak, but there had been a time she hadn’t minded.
“I’m not touching that stuff,” Galen said firmly. “Not without backup. You can come to the work, Officer.” She addressed herself to the oldest of the policemen. She had nothing to say to any snake-policeman. “Bring your herpetologist. I’ll have company. They’ll stand back.” There were rules to be obeyed, etiquette to be observed. Old gods were very precise about manners.
Whether or not the snake had killed Austin, someone had to call him in—in front of Austin’s extended family of friends and coreligionists—and announce the death of the priestess to him. Maybe he hadn’t shed his skin and gone to ground because the announcement hadn’t been made yet. “You can capture him then. Safely.”
Why had the snake killed Austin? Had she been safe with him so long as she didn’t succumb to the temptation to tap into darker energies than she had ever negotiated with before? Austin had been strictly Merris rite. Galen still couldn’t understand it. But she knew better than to ask the snake. The snake had no particular investment in telling her the truth.
“When will that be, Miss Galen? Because we do need to resolve your neighbors’ concerns as quickly as possible.”
He’d told her, too, hadn’t he?Galen reminded herself with disgust.
He’d just said that she was going to want the Taber furniture. He was so superior.
“I’m very sorry, Officer, but I can’t tell exactly. I don’t know much about the ceremony. I’ll have to write to Austin’s mother-in-rites for instructions.” Who would probably be as shocked by the very idea as Galen was. She wasn’t looking forward to it, either. Writing to Austin’s spiritual mentor for such information would have constituted an act of slander had it not been for the evidence of Austin’s death. Galen knew she had a difficult enough task in front of her as it was.
“One of the locals is an authority, though, Miss Galen. As I’ve heard, anyway,” the tallest policeman said blandly. She could have spat at him. Cherig was an authority, all right, mostly on how powerful and important she was. “Hasn’t she lectured on the same ritual? Maybe she could help.”
Now the reporter looked interested, for the first time all visit. “Pet store priestess, that one?” the reporter asked. “I’m sure she’d help. I covered her press conference day before yesterday. Strong stuff, too, federal imposition on small businesses, harassment. Her hands were clean, after all. The auditor proved it. Very impressive.”
Someone had called that audit in on Cherig, Galen was sure of it. Her sly claims to custody of a Kinsey snake would be evidence of illegal trafficking in endangered species, after all… if that were true. Cherig had always annoyed Galen with her superior attitude and her self-satisfied air of importance. The last thing Galen wanted was to have to ask Cherig for any favors; it had been hard enough to be civil to her when she’d met Cherig at Austin’s house on occasion.
If she was forced to ask for Cherig’s help, Galen swore to herself, it would be the last occasion. And Cherig could have Austin’s Taber furniture along with whatever else she’d been storing in Austin’s back room, and be damned. Galen didn’t want it in the house.
“Excellent suggestion,” Galen said, hating it. “I’ll give her a call and see what I can get scheduled, directly. And I’ll let you know. I’ll make it as soon as I can, Officer.”
It would bring closure of a sort. Maybe. Cherig could walk her through the steps; Cherig had done something of the sort before, for summer programs in comparative religion. Born performer, not to say raging egoist. Cherig would be looking forward to watching Galenmake a mistake, too, because Austin’s community would be there; and with Austin gone, Cherig confidently anticipated taking Austins place and her position of influence within the community.
It didn’t matter, Galen told herself firmly. The neighborhood was worried about a poisonous snake out loose somewhere in Austins back lot. Austin wouldn’t want her neighbors to have to worry.
“Thank you, Miss Galen,” the oldest of the policemen said. “We’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
Galen let the policemen and the reporter out the front door. The tallest of the policemen nodded to her very politely on his way past. His smile was mild and inscrutable, and she might have imagined the flash of nictitating membrane blinking down over his coffee-black eyes.
Austin’s backyard was as crowded as Galen had ever seen it: Cherig had seen to that. There had to be thirty people here, Galen thought nervously, not counting the policemen with the herpetologist. That one policeman was here, but he was keeping back. After all, he hardly needed to watch to know what was going to happen.
She wanted more time to practice. Cherig insisted, though: it had only been three days, but the snake planets were in transit to the waterfall constellation, and it had to be done now. So far as Galen knew, Cherig was just making it all up, but maybe that was unfair to Cherig. Galen didn’t like the woman, but at least she seemed sincere about her religion.
If you could call Taber religion,Galen thought bitterly; and heard the annoyed shifting of coils across the grass, behind her, to her left, where the policemen were waiting for the service to begin.
It was cool twilight in the back of Austin’s house, and the coarse grass of the lawn was prickly beneath Galen’s bare feet. Austin had had feet like leather, but the snake had bitten her on the hand, in the webbing between her thumb and her forefinger. Austin’s entire arm had been swollen to grotesque proportions, but she had apparently been dead for at least twelve hours by the time Cherig found her, coming to pick up some gear she’d dropped off for temporary storage.
Cherig struck the wood blocks together sharply. The people gathered on the lawn quieted down and settled themselves to watch. There was no time like the present to be started. She wanted to get this overwith; the Taber ritual furniture in array in the worship space made her nervous. Galen clapped her hands three times and then three times twice more, and then Gal
en stepped into the ritual space. The cool earth felt soft against her bare feet after the painfully coarse grass, dry and stubbly in the late summer heat.
The half-harp was waiting on its stand on the bare earth. Galen drew her hand across the strings, letting the sound soothe her. Austin had been her friend, even though they had never agreed about the King-snake. Austin had died horribly. The snake that had done it was not at fault, but had to be removed, for everybody’s safety and peace of mind.
The silence behind her deepened as she stroked the half-harp, starting the call. Three notes, very simple; the snake wouldn’t hear at all, not as a human would understand it, but vibration was vibration whether transmitted through the air or through the ground. The snake would come to see what had been brought for his supper. He had had no milk for days now. He might be hungry.
“Up-tempo,” Cherig admonished Galen from behind. Galen had offered Cherig the chance to conduct the rite herself—to display her talents in a positive environment. Cherig had declined. No, Cherig was looking forward to a spectacular public failure on Galen’s part, to strengthen her own position; as if Galen had any ambitions in that direction.
She kept her tempo the way she liked it. Snakes liked periodicity. She could hear Cherig’s exasperated sigh at her left shoulder; she didn’t care. She heard the slithering sound of the King-snake’s approach, behind her, behind Cherig, and listened to see whether Cherig would say anything. Didn’t Cherig hear?
Come on, you bastard,Galen thought, but with a touch of genuine desperation. You always said you wanted me back. Here I am. Take me. Make it work, for Austin’s sake. She touched the strings of the half-harp, and the sound vibrated in her ears like an itch that was almost scratched but needed just a little—-just a little—just a little bit more. She started to hum with it, drumming with her feet on the cool damp earth to call the snake.
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