Waking the Serpent

by Jane Kindred

  “He’s a Covent member.” Rhea had interrupted before Phoebe could stop her. “And don’t tell us we don’t understand how magic works just because we aren’t ordained into the secret society. We may not know spell work, but I know enough about it to know the Covent can bind one of their own. Which is why we need your help.”

  Ione’s silence was full of outrage. When she finally spoke, her words were carefully controlled. “What Covent member?”

  Phoebe shook her head at Rhea but Theia answered. “Carter Hamilton.”

  Unexpectedly, Ione burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you guys prank-called me at one in the morning. You’re awful. Now go to bed and we’ll get together tomorrow.”

  Phoebe frowned. “It’s not a joke.” Laughter was a peculiar response for Ione. Why would she think they’d prank her about something like this?

  Ione still sounded amused. “You three call me in the middle of the night—after you’ve obviously been drinking—to tell me my boyfriend is a necromancer. That’s a good one, but, come on. Admit defeat.”

  Theia fumbled the phone and Phoebe grabbed it, almost hitting End Call on accident, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t think. She and Theia stared wide-eyed at each other, trying to figure out if they’d both heard the same thing or they were losing their minds.

  Only Rhea retained the ability to form a coherent sentence. “I don’t know who you’re seeing, Di, but Theia said Carter Hamilton. Rafe’s lawyer.”

  “Yes, ha, ha, you caught me and decided to teach me a lesson for not telling you I was involved with someone new. You’re hilarious, all of you, now go to bed.” With a little click, the phone’s screen informed them the call had ended.

  They were stunned speechless, staring at the black screen, until Rhea broke the silence. “Did that just happen? Is she punking us?”

  “Call her back,” said Phoebe. “One of you call her back on your phone. She won’t answer if I call.”

  Theia pulled hers out of her pocket and hit Ione’s number. Three rings again. Four. “You’ve reached Ione Carlisle. Speak your piece.”

  Phoebe grabbed the phone. “Ione, this isn’t a joke. If you’re really seeing Carter Hamilton, you’re in danger. Please pick up.” Ione was the only person Phoebe knew who still used her landline. “Carter is part of an organized sex trade ring that’s been abusing living sex workers as well as shades. Ione...he sexually assaulted me.”

  The machine cut off. Whether because of a time limit on the recording or because Ione had disconnected the phone, Phoebe couldn’t be sure. But she was sure she shouldn’t have left that message on an answering machine anyone in the apartment might be able to hear. What if Carter was there with her? Or showed up later and played the message?

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said to no one in particular.

  Theia and Rhea answered together in true twin synchrony. “We’ll drive over there.”

  Rhea got to her feet. “You stay here in case Rafe shows up. Keep your phone charged. We’ll call you once we’ve talked to Di.”

  Phoebe had no reasonable argument. “You call the cops if Carter’s there. Don’t try to get between the two of them. There’s no telling what he’d do.”

  She watched them through the screen door as they backed out of the drive, shivering as it invoked the memory of her parents driving away from Immaculate Conception. As they turned onto the road, she felt something watching her. A lone coyote sat at the property line. It made no sound and didn’t look menacing, but the hair rose on the back of Phoebe’s neck. The coyote stood and trotted toward her. Her hand clutched the door, but there was no way it could get inside. The screen door was heavy-duty. It had to be to keep Puddleglum in. She’d learned that the hard way.

  The animal sat in front of her door, not two feet away from her, and stared at her knowingly. As it opened its mouth in a pant, Phoebe pressed her fingers to her temples against a sudden change in air pressure. A shade was stepping out of the coyote—and into her. The animal loped away.

  She knew him by now. “Jacob.”

  “Just wanted to see if I could do that. Brain feels weird inside a dog. Feels like I’m still half dog-minded.” Jacob shook her head to rid himself of the sensation.

  “What do you want?”

  “That’s not a very nice greeting for someone who’s come to help you.”

  Phoebe found that doubtful. “How are you going to help me?”

  “I can take you to where your quetzal is being drained of his power.”

  Chapter 29

  Rafe found his voice, just when it came in handy. Hamilton had decided to bleed him again, freshening the ceremonial cuts. Rafe roared with pain as he reached the fourth.

  “Get that fu’ing athame ’way from me.” Blood dripped from his tongue. The cut there had gone deep.

  “You’re taking longer than I expected. I need fresh blood to hasten the process. Traditionally, one would also disembowel the quetzal, the entrails spilling into the water like a litter of snakes to mix with the blood.”

  As Hamilton spoke the words, Rafe thought he’d actually done it. He stared in horror at his insides unraveling in a puddle at his feet. But then they slithered away, serpentine hallucinations.

  Hamilton smiled. “That was just what we needed. You’ve become receptive to suggestion.” He set the maguey athame aside and put his palm flat against Rafe’s ehecacozcatl tattoo, the spiral conch shell design echoed in Hamilton’s own ceremonial pectoral. “Do you feel the wind blowing?”

  Rafe didn’t at first, but a spiral of rain-fresh air spun down into the enclosure, lifting his hair and fluttering the feathers at the tops of his wings. He supposed the wind wasn’t really there, another of the necromancer’s “suggestions,” but it felt real enough.

  “It flows into you, increasing the oxygen in your blood.”

  Rafe took an involuntary breath, feeling it surge into his lungs, feeling his heart beat faster beneath Hamilton’s hand.

  “And now it flows out through your heart, pumped through the jewel.” Blood began to seep through Hamilton’s fingers. Rafe’s blood, coming from the spiraling whorls of the tattoo beneath them. He was fascinated by the darkness of it. “Your blood contains the power of the quetzal. Which you are giving to me.”

  “No.” Rafe strained against his bonds. If he had power, he needed to use it to free himself.

  “You must think I’m an idiot.” Hamilton dropped his hand and the illusion of blood—if it was an illusion—continued to flow from Rafe’s tattoo. The necromancer tugged at the strap that held Rafe’s left wrist to the arm of the cross. “These are custom made, etched with the sigils of Tezcatlipoca. You can’t break them, not even—or especially, I should say—as quetzal. I took every precaution to be certain I could contain your power while I drained it from you. Which I’ve been doing for the past eight hours.”

  Eight hours? It hadn’t seemed like eight hours. His arms were aching and his fingers were numb, but nothing like they ought to be after such an extended suspension. He hoped to hell Jacob was upholding his end of the bargain—even if Rafe’s end of the bargain hadn’t been his to make. Phoebe might not forgive him for that, but if the necromancer was dead, at least he’d have accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’d have to learn how to live without Phoebe.

  Hamilton turned about. The tattoo of Quetzalcoatl was writhing, as Rafe’s own had at his back...since Phoebe.

  “We’re halfway there.” Hamilton turned to face him once more.

  Halfway? Son of a bitch. “But you don’t have the blood.” Rafe’s tongue was easier to manipulate now, if bloodier. “You’re not a Diamante. What makes you think you can contain the quetzal even if you manage to take it from me?”

  “I have something better than Diamante blood.” Hamilton came close to him again, crossing over
the stepping stones that bisected the pool. He lifted the choker he’d placed around Rafe’s neck and fingered one of the pieces of shell. Rafe hadn’t been able to look at it closely when he’d put it on, but he had a sinking feeling it wasn’t shell, after all. “Gabriel is bound to me.”

  The name punched Rafe in the gut. “Bullshit. I crossed Gabriel over. You can’t touch him.”

  Hamilton dropped the choker with a laugh. “I’ve been studying the art of necromancy since before you were born.”

  The claim seemed highly doubtful. Hamilton looked no older than thirty. Perhaps a well-preserved forty—he had the perfect amber hue of an artificial tan, and he wasn’t a smoker or a heavy drinker; a careful regimen might have kept his skin youthful—but there was no way he was older than that.

  “Shades are easy to call and control. They’re practically begging for it. Even a petty witch like you can do it. Spirits of the dead who’ve left our plane of existence, on the other hand, require arcane magic you wouldn’t know how to handle. Blood sacrifice—personal sacrifice—and, as with the practice of law, a great deal of studying. But, once called, they’re bound by the one who calls them. The one who possesses their mortal coil. And their immortal souls have a surprisingly rejuvenating effect.”

  Rafe wanted to put his hands over his ears, to stop the horror of what Hamilton’s words were invoking. He forced the question out. “What ‘mortal coil’? What are you talking about?”

  The necromancer laughed and flicked his fingers against the beads of the choker. “What do you think?”

  No. Please, no.

  “Some years ago, after discovering your family’s legacy, I unearthed Gabriel and distilled what I needed to command his spirit. You’re wearing pieces of his vertebrae.”

  * * *

  Phoebe debated calling the twins to let them know she was going, but the debate only lasted a moment. They’d try to convince her to wait until they came back, and she couldn’t bear to leave Rafe at the necromancer’s mercy a moment longer. Instead she left a note on the door telling them she’d found someone to take her to Diamante Sr.’s house near Boynton Canyon. Jacob was fuzzy on the actual address. She’d have to text it to them after she got there.

  Letting Jacob drive was unnerving. He insisted giving directions would be too confusing while inhabiting her physical form. She took a back seat to him in her own head as she had with Lila, watching her body operate the vehicle. This was what it must feel like to be a ride-along. Phoebe needed to not think about that. And she needed to get more information from Jacob about what was happening at the house.

  “Tezcatlipoca has given him some kind of drug.” He answered her thought as he turned up Dry Creek Road in the darkness and switched on the high beams. “To immobilize him while he works his spell.”

  Just like Carter had done to her.

  After a few minutes Jacob took a turn onto a private road, and the wheels skittered in wet earth. In her head, Phoebe gripped the steering wheel, but she had no control right now. She’d ceded her body to Jacob. She was beginning to wonder exactly how stupid that had been.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jacob. “I’ll take good care of your body. And even better care later.”

  Before Phoebe could worry about what that meant, they’d pulled up in front of a dark, sprawling edifice that couldn’t possibly be a single-family dwelling. It looked more like the façade of a chic, exclusive hotel. Rafe had alluded to his father’s estate being ostentatious, but she hadn’t pictured anything quite like this. Dimly glowing lights designed to look like authentic luminarias—candles held in place by sand inside small paper bags—edged the walk to the entryway.

  “This is as far as I go, lovely Phoebe.” Jacob dropped her hands from the steering wheel after he’d turned off the engine. “This is all I promised him.”

  “Promised who?” The words came out audibly. She had control of her body once more.

  “Some advice? Don’t try to take on the necromancer by yourself.” A fine thing to tell her as he left her here on her own.

  Phoebe turned the lights off and slipped the keys out of the ignition and into her pocket, quietly opening the door and leaving it ajar. Her engine might have alerted him, but it seemed wisest to make as little additional announcement of her arrival as possible. She walked up the little luminaria-lit path, a good twenty yards from the circular drive, and saw candlelight flickering through the glass blocks of the windows framing the massive door. If Carter was where those candles were, she couldn’t just walk in the front door.

  She remembered to type the house number into her phone.

  Got Mr. Diamante’s address. She sent the message to both Theia and Rhea before following the brick path around the side into a secluded courtyard garden. Through a long glass wall, the candlelight was visible again.

  Phoebe ducked behind the scrub brush and squinted, trying to understand what she was seeing. Carter stood naked inside a glass room—the rain catcher Theia had spoken of. Water glistened on the bottom like a small indoor pool, with little fountainheads bubbling at the corners, and something ominously dark swirled through it. But there was some structure in front of Carter that Phoebe couldn’t make out, with something extending from either side that looked like wingtips. And then her brain made sense at last of what her eyes were seeing.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Phoebe’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Theia had gotten her message. Wait for us, Phoebes. Don’t go up there on your own.

  Yeah, she typed. About that...

  The phone rang almost immediately and Phoebe quickly silenced it and clicked over to the call, not sure how much the noise might carry. She kept her voice low. “Thei, they’re here. Carter has him...tied to something.” She swallowed. “It looks like there’s blood in the pool.”

  “It’s Rhea. We’re at Ione’s. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Don’t put her on the phone.”

  “Why shouldn’t she put me on the phone?” Ione’s terse reply came instead of Rhea’s voice. “What are you doing going up there by yourself?”

  “You wouldn’t help. I had to do something.”

  “And what are you doing, exactly?” Her voice was thin, as though she’d been crying. Phoebe supposed she’d be crying, too, if she found out her boyfriend was a scum-sucking bag of dicks.

  “I’m sorry about Carter. I had no idea you were seeing him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I’m going to call the cops and get them up there to take care of the situation, and I don’t want them to find you there.”

  Phoebe’s blood pressure started to rise, the way it always did when she dealt with her older sister. “Don’t. He has friends in the sheriff’s department—some of them are clients of his ‘side business.’”

  “Damn him.” The sound of something crashing onto the ground came through the phone, as if Ione were throwing things. Phoebe couldn’t really blame her. With a sigh, Ione spoke again. “They found Rafe’s apprentice yesterday afternoon. At the temple. His body had been stuffed in a storage locker in the basement. He’d been strangled, just like Barbara Fisher. They think it’s been there since right after the Conclave met last week.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I let Carter deal with the sheriff because I just couldn’t go down there. I couldn’t face it. And he probably did it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ione.”

  “I guess I’ll have to make a call to some people I trust at the Covent.”

  “Do you know who you can trust?”

  “Yes.” Ione’s voice was sharp. “People I’ve known for years. Convincing them Carter’s a necromancer won’t be easy, but they trust me, too.” She paused for a moment. “Phoebe, are you one-hundred-percent positive about what happened to you at his hotel?”

  Phoebe bit her tongue on a sarcastic repl
y. “Yes. He drugged me, undressed me and took pictures of me being animated by a step-in. I can send you the photographic evidence if you need proof.”

  “No. I just...needed to ask.” Ione sighed heavily. “I’m going to gather a quorum for a binding ritual, but you need to get out of there just the same.”

  “Ione—”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him, Phoebe. If he’s still alive—”

  “Of course he’s still alive!”

  “Then Carter isn’t trying to kill him. He’s had plenty of time. Whatever ritual he’s performing apparently doesn’t require Rafe’s life. Once the quorum has bound Carter, we’ll send help for Rafe. But I want you out of there. Now.”

  She wasn’t in the mood for Ione’s parental bullshit. “Well, you know what, Ione? You can’t always get what you want.” Phoebe disconnected the call with an angry jab of her thumb while Mick Jagger’s voice repeated the refrain in her head.

  Creeping out from behind the shrubbery, she peered inside, only to find Carter no longer in the rain catcher with Rafe. Crap. Where had he gone? Warm drops of rain were beginning to fall again, pattering against the water in the infinity pool that edged the borders of the house, and she could see little ripples on the surface of the pool inside the rain catcher as it caught it. Rafe’s eyes were closed, and the quetzal’s wings that had been outstretched behind his shackled arms were no longer visible. She wasn’t sure what that meant—but she also wasn’t sure what it meant that they’d been visible in the first place. It was silly; she’d kind of gotten the idea they were her thing.

  She wondered if she should try to bang on the glass wall to get his attention, but thought better of it. If she banged loud enough to get Rafe’s attention, she’d surely have Carter’s, as well, from wherever he’d disappeared to.