by Jenn Bennett
Candlelight illuminated a sculpture sitting at the back of the altar, as tall as a person: a clay tree whose trunk was being strangled by a massive snake with arms and the head of a man biting an apple. Crude renditions of what could only be Adam and Eve cowered below the branches.
“But the woman was curious,” Payne continued. “And she came to the Serpent in secret and willingly offered herself to him. And from her womb was born Sophia, the essence of wisdom. Mediatrix between the two worlds. A gift to all humans. But when Sophia grew to be an adult and started giving her knowledge to the people in this world, the man saw that she wasn’t blood of his blood. He saw the Serpent’s light in her, and he knew what the woman had done.
“In his petty jealousy, he tried to snuff out Sophia’s light. So the Serpent hid her inside a copy of himself, a green snake in the grass. And he told that snake to go out into the world in secret, carrying Sophia’s light in its flesh. And the Serpent gave the snake venom, to protect itself from the evil man.”
I’m not sure if Lon thought Payne might be referring to him in an abstract sense, but he immediately stuck his hand inside his jacket and quietly thumbed open the strap on his holster. Not good. If I was going to get any information, it had to be now.
“Aren’t you an evil man?” I asked Payne.
“I am a being of light trapped inside a human body. Therefore, I am filled with sin. But I partake in the Serpent’s gift regularly to cleanse myself.” Payne waved his hand to the snake skins hanging above us. “When I consume their bodies, I gain the essence of Sophia’s wisdom. The more I consume, the closer I am to home.”
He was eating them.
Eating the snakes.
“Is that what Enola wanted from you?” Lon asked, recovering more quickly from that gruesome information than I could. “To find a way to bring Sophia back to life in a human body?”
He spun around to face me. “Enola feigned interest in Sophia, but what she really wanted was Sophia’s gift of knowledge.” He opened a box on the altar and removed something, then turned around to show it to me: a ripped fragment of parchment framed in gilded glass, a little bigger than his hand. I was too far away to read the writing on it, but the calligraphy looked old.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Take a look,” he said, holding it up for me.
My heart sped. I glanced at Lon. He quietly took out his gun and disengaged the safety. I took a step closer. Just a step. Just so I could see better.
“This is all that’s left, this small piece. For hundreds of years, my family has kept this. Hundreds of years, and Enola stole it from me within a few months of knowing her.”
“What is it?” I repeated.
“It is the Invocation of the Great Serpent.”
All of my muscles tightened. “A summoning ritual?”
“To call down the Lord of the Æthyr onto this plane. The Father of Wisdom. Eve’s lover.”
I’d never heard of such a thing, and surely this, much like Payne’s religious fervor, was overstated. But if it had a rare magical seal or some bit of wisdom that might help my mother tweak the Moonchild ritual, I could see why she’d want to steal it.
“It’s not the only written record of the Invocation,” he expounded. “There are older copies scattered around the world, but this was the only one in the States. And it is sacred knowledge that the Serpent gave to Sophia, so that she could call him back to this plane in secret. But this time, it wasn’t an evil man who wanted to erase the Serpent’s gift—this time, it was an evil woman who wanted to abuse it.”
“Enola, you mean.”
After pocketing the gilded frame inside his jacket, he turned to face me again while tugging at the fingertips of his gloves. “The Moonchild experiment. That’s all she wanted to talk about, her precious child of the moon, and how the ritual was wrong—how she could give me untold wealth if I’d only let her borrow the parchment. I refused. She stole it from me. And then she cursed me.”
Agitated, he threw his gloves onto the altar and held up his hands. They were a horrific sight, mangled and covered in scar tissue. It looked as if fire had melted off all the flesh and his body had barely been able to regrow enough skin to cover his finger bones.
His voice was low and filled with bitterness. “If I get within a mile of Enola, I burn from the inside out. The pain is the worst torture you could imagine. My extremities go first.” He yanked up his pants leg to reveal the top of a prosthetic foot inside his boot. “I lost this one the last time I tried to see her, about a year before the Black Lodge slayings started. I’ve tried to have her murdered, have hired other people to do the deed. They never came back, so I eventually gave up.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “There’s no such magick.”
He chuckled. “Having been a victim of it, I must politely disagree. Enola was a master at finding lost magicks and doing what other magicians could not, which is what drew her to my work. I found that out later. You see, we didn’t meet by chance—she’d had someone invite me to her book signing. She’d arranged everything, all so she could get her hands on the parchment.”
“For her Moonchild experiment,” I said, thinking aloud. “She used your invocation to alter her own ritual, so that she could call down a demon into her womb.”
“Not a demon. She wanted to create something new.”
“Like Sophia?” I asked.
He violently shook his head. “Sophia was the sun. Mother of Wisdom. She was made of golden light, like her father, the Light Bringer. What Enola wanted was a spirit of darkness. The essence of the moon. A creature of silver.”
He paused at the edge of the dais and pointed a scarred, bony finger at me. “You, wicked child, are not anything like Sophia.”
He knew. Of course he did. He knew the minute he set eyes on my halo. And although Mr. Rooke had been wrong when he told me in the gardens that Payne was a friend of my mother’s—Payne might have hated my mother as much as I did—he wasn’t wrong to warn us that we were treading dark waters in seeking his temple.
Payne was a threat. And we were in grave danger. Every cell in my body screamed this, even before Lon’s gun rose in the air to aim at the snake handler.
But I was closer to uncovering my mother’s secrets than I’d ever been. And a strange sort of fog was descending inside my sleep-deprived head, like the calm rhythm of a silent lullaby.
“What am I?” I demanded, swaying on my feet.
Lamplight chased shadows over his gaunt figure. “You are an abomination.”
Lon’s gun clattered to the tile floor. I spun around to see him collapse. He didn’t make a noise when his body dropped.
Was he unconscious? Dead? I couldn’t see any blood, and I heard no gunshot. Was he drugged? I felt drugged. But we hadn’t eaten anything.
I fell to my knees at Lon’s side. And as I reached for him, I slipped into darkness.
We’d underestimated the potential peril of Payne’s knack.
In complete darkness, I smelled the snake skins drying in the rafters. That’s how I knew where I was when I woke. The temple was as black as coal, except for a soft rectangle of light falling over my shoulder. I groaned and pushed myself up to sit, wincing at soreness in my cheek and jaw. I must have landed on my face when I fell.
Right after Lon fell.
“Lon?” I patted the floor around me, searching for him as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. But he wasn’t there. Panic flooded my veins. “Lon!”
No response. Where was he?
And where was Payne?
The blackness slowly gained texture, and I could make out gray shapes in the dark: the edge of the dais, the clay statue of the serpent with Adam and Eve, the fire pit to my side.
I was alone.
Swinging around to search the shadows, I glanced up to find the source of the light. It was the stained-glass window I’d noticed earlier. I could see the image now. It was a beautiful woman with flaxen hair standing in front of an apple tr
ee. Sophia. She was nude, and her body was covered with golden snake scales.
Like my body.
My other body.
Only mine was black and silver.
“Lon!” I shouted in desperation, pushing myself off the floor. What had Payne done with him? I stumbled around in the dark, looking for a door or a closet or a secret entrance into the cliffs, any place I’d missed before. But there was nothing, not even up on the balcony. I shuffled to the entry and tried the door, but I supposed I’d already known I was locked inside.
Do not panic. Do not. Just think. How long had I been out? Was it still storming outside? I listened for howling wind but heard nothing. Phone. Okay, good, yes. I’d check my phone. I usually kept in in the right pocket of my jeans, but those were getting tighter by the day, so I’d moved it into my jacket . . .
Not there. Not in any pocket.
Gone.
The bastard had taken my phone and locked me in this godforsaken temple. Maybe my mother hadn’t been so wrong in hexing him; when I got a hold on his scrawny snake-eating neck, I might just burn him from the inside out, too. But I had to get out of here first. And if the door was locked, I’d get out the hard way.
I carried an old wooden chair across the tile and dragged it up the ladder, hefting it onto the balcony with a grunt before I followed. A few snake skins fluttered to the floor below. The balcony boards were worn and creaky. I had just enough room to walk and did my best to watch my step as I hugged the wall and headed to the stained-glass window of Sophia. I counted out loud and hoisted the chair in the air.
“One, two . . .”
The first swing only cracked the colored glass. The second busted out Sophia’s legs. By the fifth or six—I lost count and just started pounding at it—half the glass was gone. So was half the chair. I used the back of it to knock out a few more pieces before I tossed it out through the hole I’d made. Then I looked outside.
Not stormy anymore. It was night. I’d been locked up here since . . . early afternoon?
A few pieces of broken glass tinkled to the ground below. The utility cart that had been parked here earlier was gone, its tires having left trails in the damp sand. God, it was farther down than I’d thought. And jumping into broken glass wasn’t my idea of good smarts. But I forgot all about that when a distant shout ripped through the dark desert landscape.
Lon!
No more waffling. I kicked away glass with my shoe and leaped out the window. Glass smashed under my feet as I hit the ground. The impact reverberated through my calves. I lost my balance and had to throw my arms out to stop myself from face-planting. Broken glass bit into my palms. I cried out and surged to my feet, wiping my bloodied hands on my jeans.
Lights twinkled from the bungalows across the canyon. There. That was the direction of Lon’s shout. Wasn’t it? Sound did funny things in the canyon. But it was where the tire tracks led, so I took off toward the main house. Chilly night air whipped my hair behind me as I raced over the rocky land, moonlight aiding my steps. The compound seemed twice as far as when we’d walked out to the temple. Adrenaline and anger pushed me to quicken my pace.
I sprinted until I thought my lungs would burst. And when I was a few yards away, I slowed to a jog so I could better hear my environment. Where did Payne have Lon? Inside the main house? Lights shone through the breezeway out back. More lights in the carport on the far side. And inside the enclosed pool. And in one of the bungalows. Too many lights, and I couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in my temples.
Inside the main house—that seemed to be the logical place. But I needed a weapon before I stormed in there. If Payne had taken my phone, he’d certainly confiscated Lon’s gun and grabbed his own shotgun out of his Jeep. Gasping for breath, I surveyed the area, looking for something I could use. A board, a pipe, a shovel—anything at all.
Splash.
What the hell was that? I swiveled on a heel to track the source of the noise. My gaze lit on the wood fencing penning the pool. I quieted my heavy breathing and listened harder.
Splish. Plop.
The hair on my arms rose. Was Lon inside the fence? A familiar scent wafted past my face. Acrid. Funky. Gamey. And something else. Something I’d smelled once when I was a kid living in Florida. Memories of a school trip flashed inside my head. St. Augustine. The horrible musky smell of an alligator farm.
I circled the wooden fence until I spotted the pool’s entrance. Closed but not locked. Heart racing, I lifted the latch. Rusted hinges creaked as I slowly opened the gate and peered inside. A single kerosene lantern sitting on a round table lit the kidney-shaped pool. Old 1950s-looking chaise longues and patio chairs were haphazardly stacked in one corner, a tangled heap of metal legs surrounded by empty white plastic buckets. Empty beer bottles lined the fencing near the gate.
“Good of you to join us,” a voice called across the pool. Payne. I could hear him, but I couldn’t see him.
I snatched up one of the empty beer bottles and wielded it like a dagger as I searched the shadows at the other end of the pool. “Where’s Lon?”
“Right here,” Payne called out. “Would you like to say any final words? He’s got a minute or so left, I’d say.”
“Lon!” I shouted.
Payne’s dark silhouette shifted behind the diving board. “He’s lost control over his vocal cords, I’m sorry to say. The Eden boa’s venom paralyzes within a minute, so don’t feel too bad about getting here in time. He was a goner the minute you smashed my window.”
A lighter shape dragged behind Payne’s dark figure. And when he stepped out of the shadows, I saw what was happening.
Payne had stripped to the waist. His grizzled torso was darkly tanned and covered in hundreds of tiny white scars. And held up a few feet from his body was a massive, golden yellow snake. Longer than him and fatter than my thigh, it hung from a long pole, a set of metal tongs encircling the scaly flesh behind its head. The bottom half of its length was wrapped around a second piece of piping that extended from the tongs.
Payne’s scarred stomach became sunken with every labored breath, and it looked as if his scraggly frame might collapse from the weight of it. “Eden boa,” he said in a strained voice. “Named for the bright red apple shape on the back of its head. One of the rarest snakes in the world, and terribly venomous. I’m afraid she’s taken a nip out of your friend.”
My knees weakened.
It couldn’t be true. Payne was lying. Lon was—
On the diving board. I saw the gold in his halo glinting like glitter. He’d been laid out on the board, his arms dangling limply over the pool. His body jerked once, as if he was convulsing. Then . . . nothing.
For a moment, I forgot everything else and made a move to race toward him. Then I remembered Payne’s knack. Hard to save someone when you’re hypnotized. And I had no idea how far his range extended, but from my recent years of experience facing dozens of knacks in my demon-friendly bar, I’d guess that it didn’t extend this far.
“Come closer, child,” Payne said. “How can you tell this poor man good-bye from all the way over there? Don’t worry, I won’t let her bite you, too. You can say your last words in peace. It’s clear that you must care for each other in some manner or other, because he called for you before the venom took hold.”
“You’re insane!” I shouted, pacing along my side of the pool as I tried to decide what to do. Then I looked down. The pool was half filled with dank water, the source of the musky stink. Dark shapes rippled on the surface.
“Mind the edge,” Payne said. “Cottonmouth water vipers from Florida. They’ve got a nasty bite that will cause you to lose large chunks of flesh. They say fatalities are rare, but everyone I’ve ever thrown in there has proven otherwise.”
This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t give a shit about his pool of vipers—I was too busy panicking about Lon. Could this all be a sham? Was Lon just hypnotized and Payne only screwing with me to get me closer?
But I’d
heard Lon shout. All the way across the canyon, I’d heard it. Lon doesn’t shout. Hell, Lon barely forms complete sentences some days. And was I going blind, or was his halo fading? I thought so, but I wasn’t sure. I just wasn’t sure!
And yet.
Even without those fragments of evidence, no way was I risking his life on an if.
Better to risk mine instead.
I exhaled a fast breath, calling out to the so-called abomination inside. Sound warped, and the landscape fell away. Magical current shifted under my skin as the transmutation began: the cool rush of scales, the prickly nudge of my rows of horns, and the slithering weight of my tail busting its way through the back pocket of my jeans.
No protective circle to keep my mom at bay. I paused for a moment to listen, remembering how it was back before my hospital stay, when she would tap into me. But I heard no strange whispering. No French-accented voice calling my name. At least, for the moment. Better take advantage of it while I could.
I blinked, and my surroundings returned. A sea of silver dusted the pool and the desert beyond. But it was the look on Payne’s face that held my attention. Absolute disbelief.
It wouldn’t last long, and I wasn’t immune to his knack in this form. So if I was going to get closer to Lon, I needed to take Payne down first. I knew this. But power coursed through me, from my fingertips to the agitated slap of my tail against the cement. And I didn’t know if it was the heat of the moment or if what had happened between Lon and me earlier was affecting my good sense, but I was done with being careful.
I tossed the beer bottle and heard it crash somewhere behind me as I stalked around the viper pit. What a foul fucking mess. What was the matter with people? I was sick to death of crazies who had zero respect for anything outside their own selfish motivations: Dare, my mother, the owner of the reptile shop, and now this lunatic.
But if he thought he was taking Lon away from me, he could think again.
“Get thee back!” Payne shouted, thrusting the golden snake in front of him like a shield.
“Oh, but I thought you liked serpents. You want to slice open my belly and eat me, too?”