Mercury Retrograde (14 page)

“Look underneath,” the heron insisted.

She peered at the base of the cluster, where it sat on the floor. Something was moving around it, not just a trick of the light.

She scuttled back. A snake had curled around the base of the rock and was regarding her with luminous eyes. It hissed, opening a hood.

Oh, fuck. It wasn't just a snake, a cute one, like a garter snake or a DeKay's snake. It was a cobra. She slowly backed away on her hands and feet, crablike. If she'd snatched that rock up, the snake would surely have struck her.

The heron walked up to the stone, looking right and left at the reflections of the asp in the quartz. The giant bird ducked right, snatched up the snake in its beak, and swallowed it. It was a bizarre process . . . the snake's tail flipped and lashed at the edge of the heron's mouth, and the heron struggled to swallow it. It was visible, undulating and alive, as it descended down the heron's thin throat. Petra watched in fascination until the swallow was complete, and the snake had disappeared somewhere deep within the heron's gullet.

“Tasty.” The heron nodded at himself, then at the quartz. “Are you sure you still want that?”

“Mmmm yeah . . . maybe not.”

“Good choice. Gotta get back topside. Maria's making spaghetti for dinner. Which will be weird, after snake, but . . .” The heron burped and took wing into the shadows above.

“Thanks, Frankie!” she called.

She looked at the quartz cluster at her feet, then traded glances with Sig.

“I think I'll pass.”

Sig was the first to turn and leave.

The second tunnel she picked was much the same as the first, except she could hear air moving through it—­there had to be an opening to the surface world here, somewhere. She lifted the lantern as high as she could, but couldn't discern exactly where the sound was coming from. It sounded like an exhalation over a bottle, and she could feel the change in barometric pressure. She popped her ears three times before she reached a cylindrical chamber at the end. It was empty, except for a peacock feather lying on the stone floor.

That looked like something suitably magical that the Umbilicus would approve of.

She reached for the feather, but a breeze pushed it away.

She held her lantern aloft. She couldn't see the ceiling of this chamber, but the sound of the exhalation had increased above her.

No matter. She set the lantern down and went to pick up the feather.

The feather scuttled up, away, as the wind rose.

“Damn it.” Petra tried to catch it by cupping her hands, but the air pushed it away. It was like trying to catch a plastic bag in a rainstorm. She lunged over her head to try to snag it, leaping like a circus performer. If she could just get one sticky finger on it, she'd have it caught.

But the soughing wind sucked it up, out of reach, over her head and into the darkness above. Petra waited, thinking:
What comes up must come down.

But it didn't. It had been carried away, likely sucked to the surface or jammed into a crevice somewhere.

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, fuck.” She was reminded of a myth she'd read about in school about the Egyptian goddess of justice, Ma'at, who weighed the hearts of the dead against a feather. If the heart was lighter than the feather, the soul would ascend to the sky and not get gobbled by the crocodile-­headed god, Sobek.

She had apparently failed this test.

She squinted upward. There was air there. Maybe a way out. Who said she had to play by the stupid rules, anyway? Her dad. But clearly, he didn't have a handle on the underworld, anyway.

She found a bit of a ledge and put her foot on it. That seemed easy enough. She found a handhold and started to haul herself up the wall, hand over hand.

Sig barked at her.

“Yes, I know that this is cheating. But nobody asked me if I wanted to play.”

She jammed her hand into a fissure in the rock, hauled herself up, and planted her feet in footholds. She was doing a good job, she thought—­ten feet from the ground, now. Maybe . . .

A gust of wind hit her, and she pressed herself to the wall. She thought it would pass, but it didn't. It just got stronger, pushing her from her footholds. Surely she was sticky enough to cling to the wall, to wait it out?

But, no. The wind intensified, and she was forced to back down. She slid the last three feet to the floor, leaving an oily smear on the wall.

The wind dropped back, and she made a face at it.

Damn. She guessed she'd have to play by the rules and find something else to bring back to the umbilicus. Three more tries.

The third path felt warmer, as if there might be an inviting fire at the end of the path. This path was lined with coal and soot. It reminded her of the one time she'd been in a crematorium, the way the heat shimmered in the air. She sure hoped her new sticky form wasn't flammable.

A red glow emanated at the end of the tunnel. On a slab of stone lay a sword, just pulled from a blacksmith's forge glowing in the wall. The sword was bright orange, not yet thrust into a bucket to cool it.

A sword. Perhaps that was the tool she needed to separate herself from the spirit world, to move forward. That would be the most tangible way to do it. But how to grasp it without getting burned?

A figure in black, wearing a blacksmith's apron, turned.

Her breath snagged in her throat, and Sig growled.

It was Stroud, the Alchemist of Temperance.

“Shit,” she hissed.

 

T
he Sisters of Serpens were going to kill him. Cal was convinced of it. Or worse. They could come up with much worse things to do to him. They seemed to have no issues with killing, and they liked to be creative about it. That was a bad combination, in Cal's experience.

Cal clung to the back of Bel's motorcycle like a flea on a wolf. Wind tore through his hair, and he buried his face against her back. He didn't want to look. He didn't want to see the trees zinging past at crazy speeds and close angles—­this off-­roading was worse than the land speeder chases in
The Return of the Jedi
. Cal had had a dirt bike once upon a time, and he thought that he was kind of cool because of it. Now, he realized that he'd been riding like someone who actually treasured his existence. A June bug hit him in the throat, and it felt like he'd been shot. Branches and leaves whipped past his face and slashed through his clothes.

Well, they weren't the clothes that he'd ripped off from the uniform truck. They'd re-­dressed him in one of the dead guy's clothes. He was wearing the dead dude's boots and his leather jacket that smelled like bad aftershave, and Cal wanted to vomit. He was acutely aware that the clothes' original owner and his friends were currently crumpled up like broken dolls in the Sisters' luggage.

If that didn't make him want to barf, the ride sure did. But Cal wasn't sure what would happen if he hurled the entirety of his four-­course chuck wagon meal down Bel's neck. If he did that, he was pretty darn sure that the hour of his demise would hasten to . . .
immediately
.

Not that any of this shit mattered. Bel had made it clear that he was on her magical leash. If he was beyond the reach of her pacifying power, this hypnosis, whatever the fuck she did to him, he was as good as dead.

Bel seemed to be guiding them by her own woo-­woo internal compass. She would stop without warning, sit on the ground and meditate for what felt like hours, then get back up again to lead. She sure acted like she knew where they were going, and where they were going had run out of road. She led them into the wilderness, across dry creek gullies, through valleys, and among the pine trees of the deep forest of the backcountry. The park was crawling with rangers; more than once, she'd double back and take a different route to avoid the law. When they stopped to rest or eat, she'd be watching the horizon with a thousand-­yard stare. Wherever they were going to meet the snake, only she knew.

Bel finally stopped at the edges of a forest, dismounting, and seeming as if she were listening to some supersonic sound that only bats and certain comic book heroes could hear. Probably just her and Aquaman. Cal was relieved to stop; the inside of his thighs and his ass ached from being on the bike, and he was grateful to have the chance to stop and stretch and settle his stomach.

“She's close,” she murmured, her gaze distant.

Fuck.
Cal squinched his eyes shut. “Is it like . . . a big snake? Like the anacondas on the Nature Channel?”

“Yes, Cal,” she said with infinite patience, as if he were in kindergarten. “She's a very big snake.”

He wondered what very big snakes typically ate, but decided that he didn't really want to know. He kept close to the bike.

Bel walked into the woods, her hands open at her sides, holding no weapons.

Maybe it wouldn't go well for Bel. And that was the only possible way that Cal could imagine that things could go worse for him.

He sat on the ground, slapping at mosquitoes, as he waited with a handful of the others. The Sisters had built a fire, anticipating Bel's return. Edging close to the flames, he tried to force some warmth into his body. He had nothing to distract him but the dead guy's wallet, which had kindly been left behind in his jacket pocket. The guy's name, according to his driver's license, was Lewis Wayne Stewart. He was twenty years old and was from Idaho. Lewis had about five hundred dollars cash on him. Likely, he and his friends had been on vacation when they'd hit the wrong place at the wrong time.

He looked for a cell phone, but didn't find one. There was no reason to believe that the Sisters hadn't gone through Lewis's stuff before they turned it over to him. Maybe they thought he could use the driver's license as a base for a fake ID, but the whole thing was really squicking him out. Cal had no intention of taking on the name of a murdered dude. And he wanted out of this guy's clothes as soon as possible. It was all just bad karma.

“Are you doing all right?”

The girl with the purple hair sat down beside him and offered him her canteen.

“Thanks.” He took a long draught and handed it back to her.

“Do you want a candy bar?” She fished a ­couple of chocolate bars out of her jacket pocket. They were the kind you got for two bucks when you donated to some kid's sports team.

Cal still felt queasy, but he didn't want to offend any of the Sisters. “Thanks.” He fiddled with the wrapper and watched her sidelong as she nibbled her bar. “I, uh, usually don't take candy from strangers.”

She extended her hand to him, which was covered in a fingerless glove crocheted from silver yarn. “I'm Dallas.”

“I'm Cal. Is, uh, Dallas where you're from? Or is that your real name?” Cal didn't want to insult her by asking:
Is that your stripper name or something?

“It's the place that I met Bel. Everyone changes her name when she becomes a Sister.”

“So it's kind of like being a nun?”

“Kind of.” She looked younger than the other women. Maybe it was the pale lavender hair. She had dark eyes and tawny skin. If he had met her on the street or in the Compostela, Cal would have been too bashful to speak to her—­she was really hot. But it wasn't like he could do anything about that.

“How did you, uh, join up? Is it like joining the military or something?”

“Bel says that everyone comes to the Sisters on their own path. I had run away from my parents. My stepdad was kind of an ass.”

“I can relate.”

“Dallas was the nearest big city, and I figured that if I could survive my mom beating the shit out of me as much as she did, I could make it there. It didn't work out so well.” She looked at the chipped blue fingernail polish on her hands.

“Yeah. When I left my family, I tried to go to Billings. It wasn't so good.” Cal wrapped his arms around his knees.

“I wound up with a pimp who took all my money. I didn't have enough left over to eat and buy basic stuff. Like food and soap and things. It was pretty bad. One night, I saw Bel and the Sisters driving down the street. I thought they looked strong. Powerful. I really admired that.” She picked at a loose bit of yarn on her glove. “They parked their bikes and went to a diner to get some food. I was watching them. One of my regulars tried to steal a bike. I went into the diner and stopped by her table. My heart was going ninety miles an hour, and my knees were knocking. I told her that this guy was trying to steal the bike and pointed him out through the window.”

“Wow. That was really brave.” Cal understood that life. If she snitched on a regular, and the regular told her pimp—­that was at least a hospital-­worthy beating, and could have wound up with her dead in a ditch, depending on the pimp's mood.

“I just wanted to do the right thing,” she said. “For once.”

“I get that.”

“It was probably the one best thing I've ever done. Bel thanked me. She sent the Sisters out to watch the bikes, and she fed me. She asked me where I was from and where I was going. And she told me that I was coming with her, that she'd never leave me behind. And I've been with Bel ever since.” She smiled. “I've always had a full belly and never had to turn a single trick. So . . . I feel safe.”

Cal felt queasy. The Sisters were capable of unmistakable brutality. But also a weird kind of compassion. He didn't know what end of the spectrum he fell on, but he figured that being alive put him on Bel's good side. For now.

Dallas stretched out beside him on the ground, offering him part of a blanket. Shyly, Cal accepted it. They stared up at the stars, and he began to feel a little more normal. He began to relax, and dozed. Every light sound disturbed him, whether it was a crackle of fire or a voice at too high of a pitch. He curled up in a ball and wanted to melt into the earth.

“What's the most terrible thing you've ever done?”

Cal turned over, startled. Dallas was lying on her back and with her fingers behind her head. She wasn't looking at him, just up at the darkness.

“Wow. Most . . . terrible?”

“Yeah. What's the one thing you've done that you can't forgive yourself for?”

Cal was silent, but Dallas went on: “The worst thing that I ever did was providing an alibi for my pimp. I knew that he had something to do with murdering one of the girls. She was around one day, acting squirrelly, then she wasn't. We all knew that she was stealing from him. And I guess he found out. My pimp told me that I had to say I was with him when the cops came around. And I did.” Her lip quivered. “I betrayed her because I was scared. I know that he did something to her.”

“But if you'd told, he would have killed you, too.”

“Maybe. Maybe I coulda gotten police protection or something. I know that I can't bring her back, but at least her mother would have known what happened.” Her voice dropped. “But I was too scared.”

“It wasn't on you,” Cal said. He wormed a bit closer to her under the blanket so that their shoulders touched. “It wasn't your fault.”

“Bel says that we all have darknesses thrust upon us. Many of those things are things that we have good intentions about. But we have to embrace our shadows.”

“And you're having a hard time with it?”
Nothing like murder to cause you to have a crisis of conscience.

“No. Not with any of the work I've done with Bel. Just what came before.”

There was a silence then, settling over the blanket.

It was a long time before Cal spoke: “I've done a whole lot of things. Really shitty things. But the worst thing that I ever did was covering for a friend. She'd been driving drunk and hit the guardrail on the freeway. Totaled the car, but neither one of us was hurt real bad or anything. I told the cops I was driving, because I was sober. So I got a ticket, and she got nothing. Later that weekend, she drove drunk again, wrapped her dad's car around a telephone pole, and died. If I had told the truth to the cops, she would have been in jail and not out driving that night. So . . . yeah.” He blinked. “I know that I'm responsible for her death. But I can't tell anybody.”

“You just did.” She reached under the blanket and squeezed his hand.

He blew out his breath. “Well, you're kinder than most.”

“Bel can take that memory away from you, if you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Through a course of hypnosis, she can close it right off from the rest of your brain.”

“She can?” Cal didn't like the idea of anyone putting their fingers in his head with a giant Sharpie and redacting things out.

“Sure. She took out years of memory from Irina.” She gestured with her chin to a tall, willowy woman gathering firewood. “Irina was sold as a child bride. She has peace now.”

Cal stared at the woman. A flower was braided in her hair behind her ear. There was an aura of serenity about her.

“So . . . why don't you have Bel take that memory of Dallas from you?”

“I will. I'm not ready yet. I still feel like there's something I need to do about that experience . . . maybe call up the detective on the case and give an anonymous tip. Once I work up the nerve to do that, then, yeah . . . I want Bel to close that door for me. We don't have to carry our sins with us forever, you know. It's okay to let go when it's time.”

Cal mulled that. Bel could wipe out memories. What could she take from him? Could she take any of those dozens and dozens of miserable experiences from him that made him the raging wuss he was today? Could she make him a blank slate? Would he even want that?

And he realized the extent of her power over the Sisters. She had the power to bend their wills and memories, to calm the beasts within. She was much more dangerous than Stroud had been. All Stroud had to control his garden flowers was drugs. Bel had much, much more: She had the power of reshaping how they experienced their lives, from the inside out. She could take away pain and grant absolution. She could channel violence and command loyalty. She was the most dangerous person he'd ever known.

He pulled the blanket up to his chin and pretended to sleep.

The rest of the Sisters had returned by the time the moon had sunk overhead. Tria was in front of the processional of women, grinning. There were flowers wound in her hair and the hair of the other women—­it was like they had just come from some kind of hippie love festival. Maybe this was their version of a victory march. He expected to see Bel with a snake draped over her shoulders like a boa, petting it and whispering at it. He craned his neck to see around the sparks and fire.

Fire glinted on scales and milky eyes.

Cal squealed and scuttled back.

But it was Bel. Bel was wearing the skin of a giant snake. Her gaze was distant, as if in a deep trance. The head of the snake fit over her head like a suit of armor, with the cloudy eye membranes perched on top. The silvery skin behind the head, translucent as mica, was about four feet wide. It flowed down her back like a wedding veil, where it dragged on the ground for yards.

“They killed the snake,” he gasped

“No,” Dallas said, laughing. “They found its shed skin. It's a gift to the Priestess. It means that we have been accepted by the Great Serpent.”