Serpent Moon

by C. T. Adams

  Everything hinged on this. If Nasil didn’t answer just right, everything would be lost and the illusion would shatter. He flipped through the possible intonations. Angry? Defensive? Confident? What would Paolo be expecting from him? He settled for offhand and casual. “Naturally. And you were brilliant to set it up that way. The first words out of my mouth must be ‘serpent moon.’ Then I greet the head priest and tell him you sent me. Isn’t that what you said? Because otherwise one priest will attack me while the other runs with the egg to take it to the secondary location.” That part was supposition, but it sounded like something Paolo would plan.

  Nasil waited on pins and needles. If he’d guessed wrong, Paolo would likely hang up and immediately start making calls to stop him from arriving at the site—wherever it was.

  Paolo’s answer sounded relieved but slightly confused. “Precisely. But I must admit that I’m still amazed you came around to my way of thinking on this. I was so certain you were against me fulfilling Sargon’s plan.”

  And now the biggest lie of all. Nasil had to swallow down the bile that threatened to rise in his throat. “Eventually I saw the truth in your vision, my friend. And I can’t deny you have a way of convincing a man in less . . . vocal ways. I hope your bruises are healing. Mine might take days.”

  Coy and coquettish. How disgusting. But how like a new sexual conquest. Likely Paolo was touching his face now. Nasil didn’t doubt he’d been wondering why he was battered and burned. But he hadn’t been lying. Paolo did like his foreplay rough. And to tell him that an alpha of Nasil’s caliber would take days to heal—well, that was icing on the cake.

  Paolo puffed and preened at the supposed compliment. “Yes . . . well, you aren’t the first to compliment my . . . technique. I hope you heal quickly and are ready for another session. Even now I’m touching myself in anticipation.”

  Nasil shuddered and tried not to think about silver chain burns being a turn-on to anyone. He forced himself to chuckle, and hoped it didn’t sound like the gagging it felt like. “Unfortunately, I’m in a public place, so I can’t play phone games with you now. I’m about to board a plane to take me south. Do you still want to meet at—” He paused to look at the faded receipt he’d pulled from Paolo’s wallet before he unchained him. “La Cocina Restaurant in Cortez when we’re ready to start the ritual?” It had been the only clue, but it made perfect sense. Green table must mean Mesa Verde . . . the Four Corners area. It was one of the original homes of the Sazi—powerfully magical and still nearly as deserted as it had been a thousand years ago.

  The last barrier fell at the mention of the familiar name. Paolo’s voice relaxed completely. “I would enjoy eating there again. They have very good tortillas—hand thrown on a stone hearth. And they know how to make proper green chile.”

  Actually, that did sound good, and it reminded Nasil that he hadn’t eaten for the entire flight. While he hadn’t had any reason to believe the food on the plane was tainted, he also wasn’t confident enough to try it. “It’s a date . . . amigo.”

  “Now, what is your favor? Will it involve blood and pain?”

  Nasil pursed his lips. “Not at this precise moment, but there is a strong chance it could.”

  Paolo laughed heartily and it made the phone vibrate lightly in Nasil’s hand. “Then I am your man. What would you have me do?”

  “There is a woman who lives in Coober Pedy named Rose Barry. I need her collected and kept for a time. She’s human of Sazi descent—wolf by blood, but she will damage very easily, so no torture. I need her locked up and kept healthy and unharmed. I require her sister’s cooperation on another matter, and I fear she might be tempted to go to the Council without some persuasion. Yet not so much persuasion . . .”

  “That she’s tempted to call Wolven instead. Ah! Sí, sí. I understand. Yes, of course. That’s a simple matter. I will call you when it’s done. I will have her kept by one of the local nests. That way she’ll recognize the accent, and not have any way to identify why she was taken. I’ve found with humans if you simply deprive them of sight with a blindfold, they’re often completely disoriented and very easy to manage. Is hers a powerful Sazi family?”

  Nasil shrugged. “Not especially. But she’s well connected—born to the Omega of the Boulder pack.”

  An odd noise came over the wire and it took Nasil a moment to realize it was Paolo spitting onto the ground. He did that often, as a substitute for a verbal curse. “Pah! Lucas Santiago’s nest. I’ve met him. He’s powerful, but has little common sense about the correct hierarchy of a well-run family. It would be worthwhile to keep a low profile when taking even a human under his protection.”

  He had a point. “Take her with no threats. No sound at all for her to cling to and remember. There’s a powerful seer in that pack and he knows a wolf with hindsight.”

  “A challenge, but a worthy one. I think a quick strike and then full sensory deprivation immediately. Sight, sound, and those plastic nose clips swimmers use. She can breathe from her mouth. And most definitely no torture for that one, so a female snake to guard her.”

  Nasil was frankly surprised at the thoughtful process. Perhaps Paolo was not so much a simple thug as he’d thought. “Excellent. I will leave it to you then. Now I must find a plane on which to secret myself for the trip south.”

  “Until we see each other again, amigo.”

  “Until then.” Nasil clicked off the phone, relieved that at least he wouldn’t lose his hold over Holly. He could only hope Paolo could handle an assignment that didn’t involve torture or rape. But Sargon had trusted the man to perform nearly the same level of assignment as Nasil’s own, so perhaps there was hope.

  But first things first. He needed to sneak into the control tower and find out where a certain helicopter was going. It was better to know where little Holly Sanchez had been spirited away to. So much the easier to capture her later.

  Chapter Eight

  “SO AFTER THIS Larry guy went hissing into the night, what happened?”

  Eric’s voice held astonishment, fear, and pride—all wrapped in a heady dose of angry outrage. The combination tickled Holly’s nose and she had to pause, her hand in the air. The sneeze that threatened was stuck in place. Eric waited impatiently, his fingers tapping the steering wheel while she squinted her eyes, trying to force herself to breathe again.

  “Ahhh-choo!” She snorted and then opened the window a bit. “Sorry. I hate it when that happens. Let me get a little fresh air in here. Too many scents in the car.”

  Eric let out a sigh as the chilly night air swirled through the car. “No, I’m sorry. My fault for getting emotional. I forgot you’ve got a wolf nose now. But I just can’t help getting pissed when people do stuff like that . . . and to someone like you— it just makes me want to beat his head in.”

  Holly didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Part of her wanted to smile that he was so upset. Part wondered what the hell “someone like you” meant. It was probably better to just get back to the story and not overanalyze every word. “I think I handled it pretty well—all things considered. The second I hit the airport, I called Rose, naturally. She promised to get everybody out of there right away and then take Dale away for a few days. I suggested a big city where they’d be harder to find.”

  A heavy gust of wind hit the car and tried to force it off the road. The air smelled of ozone and the rain that would follow soon. Storms often popped up when there were multiple powerful Sazi in an area, making council meetings a challenge to plan. Nothing like a meeting of alphas to end a drought. Eric’s voice had sounded surprised, but now Holly’s nose was so plugged from the cold air that she couldn’t smell his emotions.

  “Why’d you even wait for him? Why not just take off and leave him stranded?”

  Holly let out a little laugh. Yeah, that was the obvious choice, but the wrong one. “Because then he’d still be there. Rose wouldn’t have time to leave. I might not be able to fight him, but I figured I could ditch him
somewhere along the route after we were out of the country.”

  Eric shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh that sounded surprisingly like her father. She felt her hackles rise, and tried not to take it personally. Instead, she pulled a tissue from the box in the console between them and blew her nose.

  “That was a big risk. You could have gotten tortured, or thrown out of the plane for all you knew.”

  Holly looked at him askance. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? No, he needed me healthy so I could make the trip, so he could tag along and stay invisible. And he was invisible, even if I don’t know how he did it. Not a soul noticed him the whole way. That’s what kept me healthy. If he’d dumped me out over the ocean, why would the connecting flight in Germany even need to take off?” She shrugged. “And I agreed to let him ride back to the States. My word means a lot to me.” Eric’s left foot was tapping on the floor, but he was controlling his emotions enough now that she had no idea what he was thinking. “I did think this out, you know. I had a plan—with contingencies in case something went wrong. I might add that the plan worked, too. I’m here, and he’s not.” The words were a little sarcastic, but they were born of frustration so she didn’t really care. Jeez, if this was the reception everybody was going to give her, this was going to be a really sucky place to be for the few days she planned to stay.

  Eric let out a slow breath and then nodded. His scent turned to the dusty smell of embarrassment, combined with enough spice to make her eyes widen and her heart thump. “No, you’re right. You are here. I’m sorry. I just keep thinking of you as a pretty human girl, and forget one of the reasons I liked you to begin with was that you had a brain—unlike a lot of the wolves in your pack. And now you’re a wolf, but still have the brain. It’s just confusing.” He looked at her then, just a glance with a hint of a smile. It was that same smile he’d used in the restaurant all those years ago and even now, it made her blush to her toes.

  “So, I’m sorry. Go ahead with the story. How’d you ditch him?”

  Eric reached across the car and put his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. All of a sudden she felt flustered. Her stomach did flip-flops and any hint of annoyance flew out the window. And of course her nose had plugged up again, so whatever he was feeling was hidden. God only knew what she smelled like now, but he seemed to be breathing just fine, so he’d know. That was one of the benefits . . . and one of the problems with dating wolves. There was nothing hidden from them. It was all right there for everybody to smell.

  I need to change the subject pretty quick, or everybody at the site is going to know I’ve still got a thing for him. As casually as she could, she pulled her hand out from under his to grab another tissue. He didn’t seem offended. He just put his hand back on the steering wheel. She blew her nose again and tried to collect her thoughts. “It wasn’t that hard, really. I just put him into a healing trance in the back of the car and slipped out. Once I was on the helicopter, I let it go. Not terribly exciting, huh?”

  “A healing trance? You healed your attacker?”

  She shrugged. “Can’t do a trance on someone unless they do need healing, and that arm of his really did creep me out. It flopped around like a dead fish.” Eric had that annoyed smell again, and now she was embarrassed. “Yeah, I know what you’re going to say, so don’t even start. I made my attacker more dangerous. Brilliant move, Holly. But I figure it’s even odds on whether he’ll be just a little grateful, and maybe a little more willing to let things slide.”

  Eric shook his head, even though he wasn’t annoyed anymore. Now he was just . . . well, not quite sad, but more disappointed. “That would be nice, but it just doesn’t happen that way, hon. The bad guys take advantage . . . whatever advantage you give them, and just keep being bad. I know you meant well, but—”

  He was doing it again—making her sound all naïve and innocent. “No,” she interrupted firmly, because this was important and she wanted him to understand. “I didn’t mean well. I meant to get away. And I did. He’s a bigger alpha, and even hurt, he’d already proven I couldn’t win in a fair fight. But don’t get all confused about me, Eric. More than my body grew up in the past ten years. Yeah, I’m a healer, but I’m fully capable of killing someone to protect myself. I already have several times. But I didn’t have any weapons to fight with on this trip. Now, I did think about pushing him out of the plane. He fell asleep at one point and I could have popped the emergency door next to him. But he’d probably have survived. I’ve heard of alphas surviving pretty nasty plane crashes, even ones that involved fire. And if he lived, he’d be pissed. This way, he’s a little annoyed that I got away, but once he figures out I partially healed him—” She felt her shoulders rise and fall in an unconscious shrug. “Well, I’ll hope for the best. At least I’m here.”

  There was a long silence as she watched the bits of landscape she could see by headlight. She could smell again, but there was no sorting out the jumble of emotions he was bleeding. Finally he spoke and his voice sounded . . . odd. “You’ve killed a man.”

  It was a statement, rather than a question, but it deserved an answer. “Three, actually. Head and heart with a gun. They were going to kill my friend Cat, and they’d already killed my sister and broken my hip. I didn’t have much of a sense of humor at that point. I thought I did pretty well hitting moving targets while hopping on one leg.” She let that sink in so that he could smell she wasn’t lying. If he wanted to know about her, he was about to get a crash course. “I’ve taken martial arts classes and Raphael taught me teeth-and-claw fighting.” Her brow furrowed as they rounded the next corner and she pointed toward what she saw through the windshield. “Um . . . what’s with all the cars? Is that where we’re going?”

  It looked like an RV city in the distance. Dozens of travel trailers and land yachts lit the darkness. Eric reached into his pocket, extracted a cell phone, and flipped it open. She could already smell his emotion turn from curious and shocked to alert. “That’s the place, but they weren’t there when I left to pick you up.” He raised his brow and hit the gas a little harder. “I don’t know what’s up.”

  He paused to turn onto a recently graveled road. “But I think we’re about to find out.”

  Chapter Nine

  THE SCENE HAD every appearance of a refugee camp, and Eric quickly realized that was exactly what it was. There were wolves, cats, raptors, humans, and bears . . . adults and children of all ages. They were battered and bandaged and smelled of pain, anger, and fear. He recognized a few here and there in passing, but there was no getting to them through the throng. There were too many scents and too many voices to make out what was going on. He grabbed Holly’s hand once she got out of the car and started to push his way through toward the main building.

  A long burst of automatic gunfire abruptly stopped all sound so quickly that he could hear the final empty casing hit the metal roof with a ting. “Thank you for shutting up . . . finally.” The words came from a bullhorn, and were distinctly Tony’s. “The council members would like to talk now.”

  Eric moved a few more people aside and pulled Holly with him until they could see the four figures on top of the building. Tony handed the bullhorn to Ivan. The great bear’s gravelly voice filled the air. “For those who don’t already know me, I am Ivan Kruskenik, new leader of the bears. Some of you remember me as the bodyguard of the Chief Justice. Beside me . . . with the rifle, is Tony Giambrocco.” Tony raised the Uzi and waved it comfortably before inserting a new clip with a slap that made several people around Eric flinch. Steam still rose from the barrel into the cold night. “He’s a member of Wolven and will be helping to enforce the rules we set down here today.” Ivan looked out over the crowd and let out a sigh that carried over the speaker. “I know you’re all confused and frightened, and aren’t quite sure why you’re here. That’s why we wanted to tell you all at once, so there weren’t any rumors or secrets.”

  The man to his left, Ahmad al-Narmer, lea
der of the snakes, reached for the bullhorn and Ivan let him take it. There was murmuring through the crowd, and more than a little anger directed his way. “I am Ahmad. I doubt anyone here has not heard of me. I lead the snakes . . . in all things except what has happened today. For reasons that are still unclear, snakes and raptors all over the world have suddenly attacked packs and prides. Some of you have seen some spider-shifters as well.” Now Eric was hanging on his every word. The earlier attack hadn’t been the only one? “I pledge, on my honor, that I and those I control had nothing to do with this. Bobby Mbutu is a snake, as well. But you know he has always been, and still remains, a protector of all and a trusted member of Wolven. We know many of your groups lost people. The council feels your pain, as we have lost some of our best as well.”

  Crap. Had Charles and Lucas . . . Eric felt a buzzing in his head. What in the hell was happening?

  Ahmad kept talking. “We would ask that any pack, pride, or nest leader here today find your council member and relate as much as you can about what happened. As for the rest of you—” He handed the bullhorn to Antoine, leader of the cats. He began to speak like the showman he was.

  “My good friends . . . it appears my sister, Josette Cooper, contacted many of you and told you to leave your homes and travel here. I have not been able to reach her to know her reasoning. But as one of our most powerful seers, I don’t doubt she had a reason. It might be that the attack on you would have been far worse without the warning to leave. Often she doesn’t know the details, but only feels a crisis at hand. Be that as it may, we are here. But there is no way to stay low-key with this large a group, even as deserted as the area appears. This small plot of land is right next to a national park that is heavily visited by the general public. However, Tatiana Santiago has informed us that she and her husband own a great deal of land, just to the south of Mesa Verde—one of the original Sazi homesteads. Once we are organized and resupplied, we will travel there until we can determine the scope of the danger from the snakes and birds who were not killed in today’s battle. I hope you will all stand with me in supporting those snakes who are among us today—who are as frightened and confused as you.”