Serpent's Kiss

by Thea Harrison

  After she said that, she and Rune had to tell the story from the beginning. Seremela listened intently to everything they told her. She looked shaken at the thought of history being changed, interrupting only to ask for clarification at certain points in the dialogue until she heard of Carling’s early sketches of Python. “You sketched Python?” the medusa breathed.

  “No, I never met Python,” Carling corrected, smiling. “I sketched the illustrations of her that were on the cavern wall.”

  “What I wouldn’t give to see those,” Seremela said, eyes shining. “Did you know we call ourselves Python’s children?”

  Carling and Rune looked at each other. She had taken a seat beside him on the couch, and he rested his arm along the back, from time to time fingering the hair at the back of her head. Carling shook her head, and Rune said, “I had no idea either.”

  The medusa shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s any historical accuracy in that. If the medusas really are Python’s children, that would have happened so long ago it would have predated your Egyptian cavern by thousands of years.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Rune said. He was watching Seremela, his expression intent. “All I heard was that she died.”

  “She traveled to Greece and was killed at Delphi,” Seremela said. “Some versions of the story say she was murdered. In Greek mythology the god Apollo killed her, but Greek mythology is a lot like Egyptian or any other mythology—the myths are mostly strange stories that hold a few kernels of truth. I’ve heard other stories that simply say she was killed when she fell down a fissure in the earth. She lived in Greece long enough to establish the Oracle at Delphi, though.”

  “I thought the Oracle was a genetic inheritance, and the Oracle’s ability to prophesy was passed down from generation to generation within a human family,” Carling said. “At least that’s what previous Oracles have told me when we’ve talked.”

  The Oracle from Delphi had long since relocated to the States to join the demesne of human witches in Louisville. In each generation of the Oracle’s family, there was always a single woman who inherited the title, along with the oracular abilities, whenever the previous Oracle died. She was separate from the main ruling structure of the witches’ demesne, which was governed by an elected Head, yet the Oracle was a dignitary in her own right. Carling had not met the newest Oracle. The transfer of Power had taken place just some months before when the previous Oracle and her husband had been killed in a car crash.

  Carling had to struggle to hide how bitterly she was disappointed in hearing someone else confirm Python’s death. She thought she had control over her expression, but Rune’s hand dropped to her shoulder in a bracing grip.

  “Well, the ability to prophesy is now passed down from generation to generation,” said Seremela. “Just as Vampyrism is now passed from human to human. Where the ability of the Oracle originated is another question entirely.”

  “Have you consulted an Oracle before?” Rune asked Seremela curiously. He had talked with Oracles just as Carling had, when socializing at inter-demesne functions, but he had never before been interested in talking to one while she was channeling the Power of prophesy. Cryptic ramblings drove him crazy. As he had said to Carling earlier, talking to Python had been like tripping on a bad dose of LSD.

  “I consulted an Oracle when I was much younger,” said Seremela. “I was barely fifty at the time, and curious. I found it to be a Powerful and disturbing experience. The prophesying is never a controlled thing, either for the petitioner or the Oracle.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what she told you?” Rune asked.

  “I don’t mind you asking,” Seremela replied quietly. “But it isn’t relevant to this conversation, and I would rather not discuss it.”

  “Time,” Carling murmured. Past, present and future. It would seem the Oracle’s ability to prophesy was immersed with it. She rubbed her forehead and tried to focus. She looked up to find Rune studying her.

  His face was grave, his eyes concerned. When she looked at him, he squeezed her shoulder. He said to Seremela, “What would you say about the properties of venom to someone who is nonmedical—namely, me?”

  The medusa regarded him for a few moments. Her head snakes had slipped over her shoulders to pool in her lap in a coiled mass. Most seemed to have gone asleep, although a few still watched Rune and Carling. Seremela ran her fingers lightly over them. “The very first thing I would say to anyone is, this area of toxicology was not my focus of study in med school, so I can’t speak as any kind of expert. Given that, the properties of venom are extremely complex and can contain different toxins for different cells and tissues of the body. It can also have some surprisingly beneficial properties, such as bee venom treatments for MS patients, or a derivative of a Malaysian pit viper venom to treat stroke victims. Preliminary studies have also indicated that snake venom can slow the growth of some cancerous tumors. It’s a fascinating field of study. So much depends on the venomous species and of course their species of prey.”

  “Let’s focus on snakes,” Rune said.

  Seremela said, “Mundane snake venoms essentially fall into two categories: the hemotoxic, which is poisonous to the circulatory system, and the neurotoxic, which is poisonous to the nervous system. At the risk of oversimplifying, the snake or serpent species usually intends to subdue its prey.”

  Carling looked up. “Your head snakes are poisonous.”

  “Yes,” Seremela said. “My snakes carry venom that induces paralysis, although if you take a dose from a single bite, the poison isn’t terribly toxic. A human would experience some numbness and lethargy, along with pain and swelling around the area of the bite. Some might get nauseated as well. Generally there would be no need for a dose of antivenin, unless the victim was a child or went into anaphylactic shock. If I was attacked and my snakes were badly frightened, however, they might bite repeatedly, and that could lead to someone dying. Wyr are more immune than humans. If Rune would consent to hold still and let himself be bitten for a couple of days, the venom from my head snakes could eventually stop his heart.” She looked at Carling. “And a medusa’s snake venom has no apparent effect on Vampyres.”

  “What about other serpent creatures in the Elder Races?” Carling asked.

  “Well, then you add in the extremely unpredictable element of Power,” Seremela said. “The venom from my snakes is mundane; the snakes are just attached to my head, that’s all. We share a sort of symbiotic connection that has some empathy, a very crude kind of telepathy but no real exchange of language, and the poison is just poison. I really hesitate to speculate about another creature, especially one as Powerful an immortal as Python would have been.”

  “The Egyptian priestess you spoke to indicated there was some kind of social contract with the serpent goddess,” Rune said to Carling. “So Python must have interacted with the group. It sounded like there was some level of caring involved, or at least worship.”

  “Venom, paralysis, time. Some general themes are coming together,” Carling muttered. “As I recall, the priestess talked about Python caring for her children, giving them the kiss of life that was also death. Maybe Python knew her bite would halt the progression of their mortality. Whatever the motivation or reality, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why do you say that?” Rune asked. His eyes were narrowed.

  Carling leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. She had studied both poisons and sorcery. No wonder her healing spells had only worked to stave off the episodes for a time. The healing spells she had given herself were “cure-alls.” In order to create anything more targeted or specific, she would have needed to know the original properties of what she tried to heal. She said dully, “What exists in Vampyres’ veins mutated a very long time ago. It’s a product of the original source as it interacted with the human immune system. We don’t have any of Python’s original venom, so we can’t create any antivenin.”

 
; “What about a more generalized antivenin?” Rune asked, his voice tense.

  Carling was shaking her head even as Seremela said, gently, “For something that Powerful and specific, and for the amount of time you indicated you might have left, I’m afraid that would be an exercise in futility. It would take years of experimentation and drug trials. Don’t waste your time.”

  Rune’s tension increased. The force of his emotion blasted along Carling’s nerve endings. She said to him, “I know what you’re thinking. Going back again won’t work. I never met Python, and the episodes are too short for you to go looking for her on your own.”

  He said roughly, “I can keep going through until I learn how to go back on my own.”

  She shook her head. “And risk further changes to this timeline? That’s too dangerous. We said we would stop. We’ve got to stop.”

  As Rune opened his mouth to argue, he took note of how her shoulders slumped in discouragement. The line of reasoning in their conversation was a bitter blow to him. How much harder was it for her to hear, after she had borne the brunt of so many disappointments for so long? He bit back what he had been about to say. “Let’s set that aside for now. I think our next step is to go to Louisville and talk to the new Oracle. We need to hear what she has to say, especially if she’s another one of Python’s children.”

  She sighed and said, “Yes, we need to go.”

  Seremela said quietly, “Would you like for me to examine you while I’m here? I don’t know that I can add any more to what you already know, but this is such a serious issue I really would feel better if we pursued every avenue we have open to us.”

  Carling nodded. She let her hands drop away from her face. “It makes sense.”

  Rune looked at his iPhone. He asked, “Do you need me for this? Because if you don’t, I’ve got something I need to do.”

  Carling turned to him. “No, of course not. What are you going to do?”

  “I need to make that phone call,” he said.

  Carling scooped up her leather bag and led Seremela into one of the bedrooms. Rune listened to the soft sound of their voices as they talked before he picked up his cell. He hit Dragos on speed dial.

  Dragos picked up on the first ring, “There you are. What took you so long?”

  “This is the first chance I’ve had to call you,” Rune said. “It’s been a long day. In fact it’s been a long day for a while, and a lot has happened. Carling and I just returned earlier today from an Other land.”

  Dragos said, “Can she overhear you right now?”

  Rune glanced at the closed bedroom door. “No,” he replied. “Look I have some things I have to tell you.”

  Dragos said, “Later. Has she bound you with that favor you owed her, or restricted your ability to act in any way?”

  The pointed question threw Rune off track. “No,” he said again. “Forget about that, it’s no longer important. Listen—”

  “All right,” Dragos interrupted. “Here’s what has been happening in the rest of the world. I’ve been consulting with the Nightkind King, and also with other members of the Elder tribunal. Julian had quite a tale to tell. Apparently Carling’s been blanking out and affecting the physical landscape around her. Have you seen any of this for yourself?”

  Rune set his teeth. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what we’re dealing with right now. What else did that bastard say?”

  “He petitioned the tribunal to remove Carling as Councillor for the Nightkind demesne. He claimed she’s no longer fit to hold office. They agreed with him. I talked with Jaggar and Councillor Soren. Carling’s been removed from the Elder tribunal.”

  Jaggar was the Wyr Councillor on the Elder tribunal. Soren was the Demonkind Councillor and head of the tribunal. If Carling was no longer a tribunal Councillor, she no longer had the authority or the weight of the Elder tribunal behind her. If anything happened to her, the Elder tribunal would no longer act in retaliation. She was now completely isolated, without anyone backing her. Julian had just set her up to take her out. Rune’s hand tightened on the phone. He heard something crack.

  He said evenly, “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” Dragos said. “The other gryphons are weirded out. They’ve insisted three times now that something has changed, twice over the weekend and once today. Only they can’t verbalize what that is, they just know something has happened. Graydon said it was like reality had shifted, only he couldn’t tell what might have changed. Have you experienced anything like that?”

  “Look, you’re going to have to let me get a word in edge-wise here,” Rune said between his teeth. “Yes, Carling and I have caused some things to happen—”

  “Three times?” Dragos said. “You and she caused something to happen—you caused reality to shift three times?”

  “Let me fucking explain what we did,” Rune bit out.

  But the dragon’s anger was roused. He growled, “When Carling blanks out, she affects the landscape around her. Then you and she do something that Bayne, Constantine and Graydon felt all the way from here in New York, and you did it not once but three times? What the fuck did you do?”

  Rune looked out the window at the spray of stars and electric lights. We changed history, he thought. We changed each other. We changed the world.

  “Tell the other gryphons not to worry,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “It better by-gods be all right,” Dragos said grimly. “Tell me about the rest of it later. I want you out of there, immediately.”

  “I can’t do that, Dragos,” Rune said quietly. He stared out the window as he watched the end of his life approach.

  “You said Carling had not restricted your movements,” Dragos said.

  “She hasn’t.”

  “Then you can do it. Julian’s preparing to take Carling out, and I don’t want you anywhere near that fallout when it hits.”

  “She was a good ally to you,” Rune said to the male who had just become his former friend.

  “Yes she was, but the Wyr can’t be involved in this problem too. We’ve still got border tensions with the Elves, and we’ve involved ourselves too deeply in the Dark Fae problems for too long. We’re overextended, understaffed and short on political tolerance. And anyway, I don’t blame Julian. If someone was that unstable and posted that kind of threat to my demesne, I would be making moves to do the same thing. So get out of there and get your ass home.”

  “No,” Rune said.

  That was when the dragon’s voice got very quiet. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

  “You heard me correctly.”

  “What do you mean, no? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “I mean no. I quit. Effective right now.”

  “You can’t quit. I won’t let you.”

  “Think I just did,” Rune said.

  “You’re making a very big mistake,” growled the Lord of the Wyr.

  “What’s that you say, Dragos? I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up,” Rune said as he crushed his iPhone.

  EIGHTEEN

  In the bedroom, Seremela tactfully looked out the window as Carling stripped. Carling had lost all vestige of modesty within her first hundred years of existence, but for the doctor’s sake, she slipped on a hotel bathrobe. Then she patiently put up with a very thorough medical examination.

  “I’m not sure what to make of this,” Seremela murmured. “But your temperature is elevated.”

  “Is it?” Her eyebrows rose. “By how much?”

  “A good five degrees. No doubt you already know that Vampyres tend to reflect the temperature of their surroundings, which in most rooms tends to be around seventy to seventy-two degrees. You’re running hot at seventy-six point five.” Seremela popped the plastic off her thermometer and tucked the thermometer away in her physician’s bag.

  Carling bit back a smile. “I have been in close contact with Rune for quite a while, and he’s like a furnace.”

  The medusa
looked down. “I imagine so. He cares for you a great deal.” There was a trace of wistfulness in Seremela’s voice, and more than a trace in her emotions.

  Carling’s impulse to smile faded. She said quietly, “I am his mate. The timing is inconvenient.”

  The medusa’s head came up. Her eyes had gone wide with a stricken compassion. “Oh gods, this is doubly difficult then.”

  “Yes.”

  Seremela sighed. “Physically you appear just fine, Councillor. Your Power is very interesting to me, but since we’ve just met, I have no way to gauge or assess it. All I know is it hasn’t fluctuated while I have been in your presence. And I wish I could take blood and do some testing, but I don’t have medical privileges at any facilities here.”

  Carling said, “At its root, Vampyrism is a blood condition, so it seems highly probable that any original venom would have been hemotoxic in nature.”

  “That’s what I think too,” said Seremela.

  Carling said, “Ingesting blood is also the only way Vampyres can take in nourishment, at least until they hit the stage I’m in.”

  “If it’s all about the blood, then my guess is that blood will also hold the key.”

  All about the blood. Carling nodded thoughtfully. She knew very well that feelings weren’t scientific, but it felt right to her, felt true.

  Seremela studied her. “And you haven’t taken in any physical nourishment in almost two hundred years?”

  “That’s correct,” Carling said. “Drinking blood began to make me violently ill. Let me tell you, throwing up gouts of blood is not a pleasant experience.”

  Seremela winced. “I imagine not. Did your succubus abilities appear before or after you lost your ability to tolerate ingesting blood?”

  “Some time afterward. I went through a couple of weeks of feeling weak and lethargic, and I ached all over,” Carling told her. She set aside the bathrobe and dressed again in the jeans and flirty T-shirt. “It reminded me a little of when I was first turned, actually. I would get hungry and try to drink, and then it would all come back up again. I finally lost the desire to try. Then some time later I realized I could sense what other living creatures were feeling. The stronger the emotion, the more revitalized I felt. By then I had heard stories of the oldest of us becoming succubi, otherwise I would have been more frightened than I was.”