Waking the Serpent

by Jane Kindred

* * *

  Though the rain hadn’t let up by the time they’d eaten, Rafe had to admit that spending a relaxing evening with Phoebe Carlisle wasn’t exactly a horrible time. She’d managed to dig up an old Scrabble board with real wooden tiles, and the two of them played on the coffee table where he’d inadvisably conjured their problematic shades two nights ago. Remnants of wax still remained, making the surface slightly bumpy under the board. He had to consciously avoid thinking about how that ritual had ended.

  “What do you think it means that your tattoo is moving?” Phoebe laid down her tiles to spell “parabola” on his meager ten-point “sip” for ninety-five points.

  Rafe rearranged the tiles in his tray. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Jacob said it was the source of your power.”

  He tried not to picture the moment Jacob had said that with Rafe’s own lips, luring Phoebe to the bed. “I don’t know what power he meant.” Jacob had spoken of the Diamante legacy and Rafe didn’t have a clue what that meant, either. He’d never heard of any family legacy, other than having a place of power in the Covent.

  “But it’s something the necromancer wants.”

  Rafe nodded. “And is willing to frame me for murder to get. Though I have no idea how that’s supposed to work.”

  “Jacob and Lila seem to have a different agenda.” Though she spoke casually, her voice was carefully controlled. “And who knows what Ernesto wants.” She glanced up. “We could try to conjure him again. Might be more likely to get information from Ernesto alone than with the other two. And certainly less of a chance of something...unpleasant happening.”

  Rafe heard the hurt in her tone. It was time he addressed it. “You know it hasn’t been entirely unpleasant for me.”

  Phoebe’s smile was thin. “Not entirely?”

  “What’s unpleasant is not being in control. Not to mention the possibility of harming you.” He set his tiles aside. “It’s not that I’m not attracted to you.” It was, in fact, the furthest thing from not being attracted to her.

  “We don’t have to do this, Rafe.”

  “I think we do. I need to say something to you, anyway. I’ve been with a lot of women.”

  “We really don’t need to do this.”

  “But never anyone more than once.”

  Phoebe scrunched up her nose as if trying to figure out where he was going with this. He might as well get it over with.

  “I have...intimacy issues. I’ve seen therapists about it off and on since I was a teenager.” He skipped over the reason, hoping she wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t ask. “Basically, I don’t get physically involved with a woman unless I never want to see her again.”

  Phoebe fidgeted with her tiles. “I see.”

  “I just ended up sounding like a creep, didn’t I?”

  She still wasn’t looking at him. “Well... I don’t know.” When she glanced up, the periwinkle eyes were almost playful. “I guess maybe I’m trying to decide whether I should be flattered—or whether I should be wishing you never wanted to see me again.” Her sly smile said she was cutting him some slack, after all.

  Rafe grinned. “I’m kind of wishing I never wanted to see you again, too.”

  “That could be arranged.” Phoebe winked and hopped up from the floor to refill their drinks.

  He watched her as she moved about the kitchen, that ever-present ponytail swinging behind her. Rafe wondered how her dark chestnut hair would look down—tumbled about her bare shoulders. Dammit. He really needed to not go there.

  “Maybe we could try to raise Ernesto.”

  Phoebe glanced across the breakfast bar. “You sure? I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

  Which was what made her so comfortable to be around, he realized. “Yeah, let’s do it. I’m good.”

  * * *

  They cleared off the coffee table and gathered the tools for the ritual once again—both of them skipping the sky-clad symbolism without discussing it. The tattoos, after all, were still there, visible or not.

  Rafe was careful to call the usual guardians of the directions, not wanting any unpredictable elements this time. He wasn’t certain what had provided the opening for Jacob to step into him earlier—though the ritual bloodletting probably had something to do with it—but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  The magic tingled in the ink at his back as before; as though the guardians he called upon were animating it, amplifying some power in his blood he’d never been aware of. For the moment it seemed benign enough, but he needed to talk to his father and find out what this legacy was. Of course, he needed to talk to his father about a number of things.

  Rafe sighed and began the invocation. “I call on Xolotl, brother of Quetzalcoatl, protector of the sun in its journey through the underworld and its return from Mictlan.” He wasn’t about to give Jacob and Lila an opening by mentioning the rulers of the underworld again, so that would have to do. “Allow the shade of Ernesto to join us here that we may communicate with him. Speak through Phoebe, Ernesto, and tell us what you would have us know.” He wasn’t leaving room for any misunderstandings here. The shade was welcome to enter Phoebe, who knew how to handle it. Entering Rafe was off the menu.

  Phoebe closed her eyes and breathed in, expectant, but after a few moments of silence except for the rain pelting the roof, she opened them again. “I don’t feel anything.”

  Rafe tried again, calling once more on Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl. The tattoo made a definite undulating motion through his skin when he spoke the latter’s name. He found himself rising to his feet, agitated by the movement. “Ernesto,” he began, but Phoebe clutched the edges of the coffee table, chest rising and falling with deep, rapid breaths beneath her soft cotton shirt.

  She looked up with a start, the gray undertone in her eyes shifting to brown as though they were no longer her own. “I am bound by the quetzal.” The voice and accent clearly weren’t her own. “What do you want of me?”

  Rafe studied her face. “Ernesto?”

  “I have come as you commanded.”

  Commanded? He’d never commanded any sort of spirit before and certainly not a shade. “Why do you say ‘commanded’? I called you, but I have no authority over you. I merely asked to communicate.”

  “You are the quetzal.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You walk between Teteocan and Mictlan, the abode of the gods and the abode of the dead. I serve Tezcatlipoca, but I am bound by the quetzal.”

  Rafe decided to take another tack. “You say you serve Tezcatlipoca. You mean the necromancer who calls himself by the god’s name. Who is he? How does he compel you to serve him?”

  “Rafe.” Phoebe’s eyes looked normal again and her voice was her own. “Why don’t you let me talk to him? It’s a little unnerving being questioned by you and having someone else answer. Plus, he seems to be afraid of you.”

  Rafe sat on the couch, taken aback. “Okay.”

  “I fear only Tezcatlipoca,” Phoebe’s guest insisted.

  “Why? What does he hold over you?” If she thought it was unnerving to have someone question a shade occupying her, she ought to watch herself have a conversation with herself sometime. Ernesto didn’t answer. “Lila told me he kept her from Jacob. Has the necromancer threatened someone close to you?”

  Rafe could see Ernesto hesitating with Phoebe’s features. “He means to send me from this plane. My family—I won’t be able to protect them.”

  “Maybe we can protect them,” Rafe offered. “If you tell us who they are, give us some details about yourself so we can find them and keep them safe for you.”

  “No!” Phoebe lunged across the coffee table at him, arms braced against it in a threatening posture, as though the person wielding them was accustomed to having more substant
ial musculature. “You leave my family alone, quetzal.”

  “I don’t mean them any harm—”

  “Titlacauan will have your power. And he will use it for harm.”

  Rafe didn’t care for the conviction the shades seemed to have of his inevitable defeat. He opened his mouth to say, “Over my dead body,” but thought better of it. Words had power, after all. But the necromancer wasn’t coming anywhere near Rafe’s power—whatever it was—if Rafe had anything to say about it.

  “We won’t let anyone harm your family.” Phoebe’s voice was soothing and her threatening pose relaxed. “We just want to know what power the necromancer has over you so we can weaken him.”

  A spiteful laugh followed this declaration. “You will not weaken him. He will weaken you.”

  There were questions Rafe couldn’t leave to Phoebe. “Ernesto, why did you and Lila ‘attach’ yourselves to me, as Barbara Fisher said, if you thought I couldn’t do anything to help?”

  Phoebe sat back on her heels, rubbing her eyes as if the step-in tired her. Rafe wondered if there was a limit to the time she ought to give the shade.

  “The Fisher woman was a weak evocator,” Ernesto replied. “We meant to warn you, not to ask for your help. We saw you and we recognized the quetzal. And what we see, Titlacauan sees.”

  “What is this ‘quetzal’? I don’t know anything about this power or why you call me that. Jacob said the tattoo of Quetzalcoatl on my back was the source of the power. What did he mean?”

  Phoebe shuddered and drooped against the table. For a moment Rafe thought she’d passed out.

  “Phoebe?” He moved toward her in concern, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “He’s gone.” She braced her head in her hands and groaned. “And he left me with a residual migraine.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “A cup of lavender chamomile would be awesome.” She massaged her temples. “And maybe tell Ernesto to shove it.”

  Rafe couldn’t help but smile. She couldn’t be too bad off if she was cursing shades. “You got it. Tea’s in the pantry?”

  The rain had stopped at some point during Ernesto’s visit. As Rafe stood and glanced out the window behind Phoebe at the spectacular sunset, his smile died on his lips. In the shadows across the dirt road leading to the house, a coyote stared in at him, eyes glittering as they met his without hesitation. Before the coyote loped away into the brush, he could swear it opened its mouth, tongue lolling to one side, and grinned.

  Chapter 11

  After Phoebe was situated with her cup of tea, Rafe made an excuse about having things to do and took his leave. The coyote had disappeared into the brush, but its presence, following the appearance of the owl and combined with Jacob’s claims about the Diamante legacy and this “quetzal” power, was too troubling to ignore.

  He’d taken the Escalade when he’d left the house to make sure the reporters wouldn’t spot him on his way out. Coming back was another story. News vans were parked on either side of the gate at Stone Canyon, and stopping to punch in his code would put him in plain view of their camera crews. He kept driving, heading north toward the pine forests and stunning heights that hid the exclusive enclave where his father’s estate nestled. It was time Rafe got some answers.

  They hadn’t spoken directly since the death of his father’s business partner over a year ago. Rafael Sr. hadn’t cared for what Rafe had said about Ford Langley after the funeral. Rafe had waited to say it until Langley was in the ground. As far as he was concerned, he’d exercised considerable restraint.

  He drove up the curving red-dirt drive over rain-deepened tire-tread ruts. Someone had come this way not long before him. No other car occupied the circular loop before the house, so whoever it was had already gone. Rafe had always thought this place should be a boutique hotel. It had rooms enough to be at least a bustling bed-and-breakfast, and everything was so overly designed it was hard to imagine the architect hadn’t intended for it to be on constant display.

  He rang the bell, an oddly uncomfortable thing to do at the door of the home one had once lived in, but he and his father weren’t exactly on “dropping by” terms.

  Instead of the housekeeper, Rafael himself opened the door. Rafe hadn’t quite been prepared.

  “Rafa.” His father hated the Anglicized “Rafe” he preferred. “What are you doing here?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Dad.”

  Rafael’s eyes were drawn to Rafe’s bare feet. “Why are you wandering around like a vagabond?”

  “They took my only pair of shoes from me in jail.”

  “Very funny.” Rafael didn’t crack a smile. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come inside.”

  Rafe wiped his feet on the monogrammed coir mat and stepped into the foyer. The stunning fountain in the atrium with its glass walls and open ceiling, like an impluvium from an ancient Roman villa, never failed to bring him up short. Rainwater bubbled up against the stepping stones.

  Ice tinkled in the highball Rafael jiggled in his hand. “Glenlivet and ginger. You want one?”

  Rafe nodded and followed him to the bar in the family room that had never lived up to its name. Without speaking, Rafael plunked two ice cubes into a glass from the icemaker under the bar—heaven forbid anyone should have to bring an ice bucket from the kitchen—and poured the Scotch, with just a splash of ginger ale. Rafe accepted it and sipped the drink, savoring the woody bite, still standing while his father sat heavily in one of the lounge chairs and stared up at him.

  “I trust Hamilton is handling things to your satisfaction.”

  “Oh, he’s a peach.” Rafe took another sip, letting the heat of the alcohol warm his tongue. “I’m surprised you didn’t just pay off the chief of police or a judge or something.”

  His father’s dark bushy eyebrows narrowed steeply, a stark contrast to hair that was more salt than pepper these days. Rafe supposed he might have added a few of the white strands himself.

  “You think a murder charge is amusing, Rafa? Do you have any idea what you’re putting me through? I’m probably going to lose my state senate seat—and my bid for the US senate.”

  “Yeah, that would be terrible. Much worse than life in prison or death by lethal injection. I can see how upsetting this must be for you.”

  Rafael’s empty highball clanged against the glass end table as he set it down. “Everything’s about you, isn’t it? Anything that takes attention away from you is inconsequential.”

  How did he always manage to make Rafe feel like a spoiled teenager thinking only of himself, even when it came to something unequivocally about him? “This actually is about me. I’m the one facing the charges. You should be damn glad it’s not happening to you.”

  “Charges Carter Hamilton is going to get dismissed. You’ll have your fifteen minutes in the limelight, do a few interviews—maybe even self publish some damn crap about your harrowing brush with the law—and then go back to your rough life as a bon vivant with no responsibilities.”

  “Bon vivant?” Rafe laughed out loud. “I’m out there at the job sites managing the workers who actually do the jobs for you, five days a week. When do you even set foot in the field anymore?”

  His father took his glass to the bar and filled it once more, not bothering with the soda. “That’s your problem, Rafa. You think all there is to running a successful business is standing around looking pretty.”

  “Making sure the jobs are done to specs and deadlines are met is a far cry from standing around looking pretty.”

  Rafael ignored him. “This business is about the negotiations and the deals, the networking that translates into contracts won and money in the bank. The business I operate and you benefit from. I should have had two sons to carry on my legacy, to care about what I’ve built. But you couldn’t even keep an eye on Gab
rielito.”

  Rafe clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to point out that he hadn’t even been living here at the time. It was his father who ought to have been looking out for Gabriel, but he’d been too busy with his political career.

  “And now everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built, will be irrevocably tarnished. All because you couldn’t just fuck the help like everybody else.”

  Rafe nearly choked on the sip of Scotch he’d taken while waiting out his father’s rant. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Hamilton’s been keeping me apprised—”

  “Oh, keeping you apprised. I thought he was the Covent’s bright young star.”

  “Don’t you dare interrupt me. He says this ‘psychic’ you were seeing was really a call girl. I don’t believe for a minute you killed that woman. But when this hits the papers and gets splashed all over every cable channel, that’s the one thing people are going to focus on: state senator’s son caught with a dead prostitute—and lying to the cops about what he was doing there.” He picked up his drink again and finished it in one swallow. “You’re a Diamante, goddammit. There’s no reason to be paying for it. I’ve never paid for sex in my life.”

  Rafe clutched the highball to keep from hurling it at him. “So you believe that part without question. That I’m so completely incapable of having a real relationship with a woman that I’m trolling sex websites for low-rent prostitutes. And that I’m just stupid enough to lie about it during a murder investigation.”

  His father’s eyes met his, their expression stony. “Your word doesn’t mean much to me, Rafa. I don’t know you anymore—why you do the things you do or what makes you say the things you say. Maybe you’re pathological. But you’ve lost my trust.”

  Rafe set his glass on the bar. “That’s what you’ve decided. Because you want to believe I’m a liar. Because you’d rather believe in the man who slept with your wife behind your back for twenty years than believe your own son.”

  Rafael’s chest rose and fell with deep, rapid breaths, his face almost purple with fury. “Get the hell out of my house.”