The Serpent Waits

by Bill Hiatt

  His nearly finished portal collapsed, but he was not ready to concede defeat. He shoved me back and bent to retrieve the sword. I grabbed him, and we wrestled. Ceridwen’s faerie ancestry made her body faster than mine, but once I had a grip on it, I could tell my strength was greater.

  Hafez lashed out at me with magic. The patua should not have shielded me from that, but the venomous blast didn’t connect. Ghosts had come between us and disrupted his aim. They didn’t look substantial enough to hurt him physically, but their wailing and swirling distracted him.

  This was going to be the best chance I had. Sooner or later, Hafez would either get off another magical attack or pick up the sword and put himself beyond the reach of my magic.

  I scanned him as best I could in the middle of our struggle. He did indeed seem to be an exact copy of Ceridwen, except for a tiny flicker of himself when he used his own magic instead of hers.

  Evidently, the blood double spell replicated everything. In this case, that included the spell Hafez had placed in Ceridwen so that he could kill her instantly.

  Reaching into the false Ceridwen, I tried to remove the spell. I didn’t know how to do that, but that was not my true purpose.

  Hafez sensed what I was doing, but he was too late to expel me or remove his own spell. The serpent buried deep within him sprung to life as my bungling efforts triggered the spell. He fought against it, but venom coursed through every vein.

  His trembling hands clawed at me one more time. His face frozen in a mask of absolute fear, he crashed to the floor, writhed frantically, and then was still.

  He reddened and blurred as the blood double spell dissolved with his death. It was Hafez who lay before me on the floor, his face as warped by fear as the false Ceridwen’s had been.

  “What…what happened?” asked Jimmie.

  “Hafez was destroyed by his own evil ingenuity. He will trouble this world no more.”

  Coming to Terms

  “I will be all right,” said Jimmie as the ghosts swirled around him, twitching with concern. “There are three healers downstairs who will fix me right up.

  “You have been imprisoned so long. It’s time for you to free yourselves from this place and move on.”

  The ghosts showed no sign of moving on—or even moving a couple of inches farther from Jimmie. They covered him like a body-length veil.

  “Uh, well, come downstairs with me, then. Maybe if you see me healed, it will be easier for you to go.”

  He took a couple of steps toward the door, and they flowed with him.

  I was about to follow him when I heard a thud in the closet. Opening the door, I saw a frightened Creirwy was locked in the coils of a serpent.

  “Jimmie, before we go downstairs, can your ghosts perform another rescue?” They must have been listening, because they flocked over Creirwy. The serpent spell, convinced she was dead, dissipated.

  “That seems too easy,” said Jimmie. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  “In ancient Egypt, the dead seldom wandered. Hafez could have removed that flaw in his spells if he’d thought his dead captives could escape. Something else we have to thank Sophia for. Are you all right, Creirwy?” Though free, the girl had not moved from where the snake had held her.

  “I’m so…ashamed. I betrayed you all.”

  “Hafez said he’d kill your mother if you didn’t comply, right?” I asked. Creirwy nodded.

  “Then don’t worry about it,” said Jimmie. “You didn’t have a choice. I’d have done the same if it was my mom. Uh, I’ve got to get downstairs—I’m starting to drip blood again, and the ghosts are getting agitated.”

  Jimmie headed for the stairs, still enveloped in his ghostly entourage. I took Creirwy’s hand, which trembled, and led her to the stairway.

  By the time we returned to our friends, they were all conscious again, and the healers were hard to work.

  “I can’t work on your hand if the ghosts are all around you like that,” Carla told Jimmie. Reluctantly, the dead veil raised enough to allow her to work.

  “So Hafez is dead?” asked Tal. He was working on Magnus and looked much less pale and shaky than he had the last time I saw him.

  I explained how we had brought him down.

  “Jimmie, you ran right at a man with a gun?” asked Tal. “What were you thinking?” The tone of his voice caused the ghosts to rear into the air as if they wanted to strike him.

  “Let me get him healed before you scold him,” said Carla. “This is another hand reconstruction, so it will be a while.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help at the end,” said Magnus.

  “You were shot multiple times,” said Tal. “And you did a lot beforehand. It sounds as if we couldn’t have succeeded without the ghosts you and Jimmie liberated.”

  “And now they’re his…what, pets?” asked Magnus as he watched the ghosts hover protectively over Jimmie’s head.

  “They’re grateful is all,” said Jimmie. “They’ll be ready to move on when they see I’m better.”

  “They don’t seem to have the same gratitude to me,” Magnus muttered.

  Tal looked him in the eye. “The voice they heard was Jimmie’s, that’s all. Don’t take it too personally.”

  I looked over at Lucas, who was still dancing. “How can he keep that up for so long?”

  “We aren’t quite sure,” said Tal. “Something about the combination of Encantado and Xana heritage, together with his tie to Chango, created something different from any of them—someone different.”

  “Someone should probably wake him out of that trance,” said Alex. “We don’t know what his limits are.”

  “I think we have enough power to finish the job without the extra boost,” said Viviane.

  “How do we wake him?” I asked.

  “A gentle touch or even a word usually does it,” said Tal.

  I walked over to him. When I got close, he started to dance around me, but I took his hand. “Lucas.”

  He looked at me and gradually focused. “Amenirdis? What’s happening?”

  “Rest now. The battle is won, and Hafez is no more.”

  He looked around worriedly. “But it wasn’t easy by the look of things.”

  “It was a close thing, but everyone will be all right.”

  He held me. He felt warm and sticky, like a tropical afternoon, but I didn’t care.

  “I don’t want to bring up a difficult subject—but with Hafez gone, isn’t it time to think about letting Amy have her body back?”

  “I know I must. I’ve seen enough to realize Tal was right about that. But I don’t want to. I want to stay here with you and the others. I could still be of use.”

  “Stan and David manage to share somehow. I’m…I’m willing to work out a way to do that.”

  Though I had been borrowing information from Amy almost continuously, it had been a long time since she had actually tried to speak to me. “After the way I deceived you, after all the damage I did, that is more than I deserve.”

  “You’re a different person now—and so am I. Part of me wants to just send you away, but I know I can’t. Anyway, you can still help the group. You’re right about that.”

  “I think Amy and I have come to an understanding. Something we can both live with.”

  “And that means?” Lucas looked at me as if he could pull the answer out of my head like Tal could.

  “I need to say goodbye—but not forever.” I kissed him, and my resolve almost faltered. Before he could say anything else, I slid back into the depths and let Amy rise to the surface.

  New Ties

  I stayed in Lucas’s arms as long as I could, but one question demanded to be answered.

  “Is it me you care about, or is it her?”

  Lucas laughed softly. “You are two manifestations of the same soul. Being jealous of her is like being jealous of yourself.”

  “That isn’t really an answer,” I said, pulling away slightly.

  “Amenirdis
is a brave and strong woman. I was happy to help her come to terms with reality. I was happy to provide what support I could. I consider her a friend—but it’s you I love.”

  That was more of an answer than I expected. “Love? You really don’t know me.”

  He hugged me more tightly. “I know you better than you think. You’re a woman faced with an impossible situation who nonetheless got through it in one piece. You’re someone who was willing to risk yourself for people you hardly knew. And you’re apparently someone who can find forgiveness in your heart—even for someone who hijacked your own body and meant to keep it.

  “Of course, that you’re volcanically hot doesn’t hurt, either.”

  I gave him a playful punch in the arm. “I had no idea you were so superficial.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, like the first thing you noticed about me was my personality.”

  “Get a room!” yelled Magnus.

  “The first chance we get!” Lucas yelled back.

  “Don’t move around so much,” Tal told Magnus. “I’m still working on one of your wounds.”

  “Now that everyone is on the mend, I’d suggest figuring out our next moves,” said Viviane. “Is there anything else we need to do before we head back home?”

  “Check and see how Other Me is doing,” said Khalid.

  “Check and see if Sophia’s been driven crazy yet,” said Tal.

  “Hafez must have imprisoned the real Ceridwen,” I said. “We should make sure she gets freed before we go, and we need to get that spell removed.”

  “If you tell me how, I can take care of that,” said Creirwy.

  “I’m sure you can,” said Tal. “We need to pick up Nancy, anyway, and we should thank Ceridwen for what she’s done.”

  “I’ll see to her release right now. You can meet me over at Awen when you’re done with Sophia.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Tal. Creirwy bowed and headed to the front door.

  He looked around the room. Anything else?

  “Burn this house down,” said Gordy.

  Tal raised an eyebrow. “In a vengeful mood?”

  “It’s seen too much evil to ever be redeemed.”

  “Vengeful and philosophical?”

  The ghosts around Jimmie swirled much faster. “My…new friends are not on board with that.”

  “I would have thought they’d want to see this old place go,” said Gordy. “They were imprisoned here for so long.”

  “Don’t forget its history. The spiritualists founded Summerland, and they didn’t just try to communicate with the dead. If they found a restless spirit, they tried to bring it peace. My friends either remember that history or learned of it through others. They want to see the place cleansed and restored.”

  “I’m not sure if Other Khalid is exactly the man for that job,” Tal said. Of course, if Sophia adopts him—”

  “He may have a fight on his hands,” said Stan, staring at his Sage Phone screen. “From what I can tell, Hafez’s estate passes to someone named Amen Hafez IV. Who could that be?”

  “Hafez is—was—immortal, remember?” said Shar. “I’d imagine he was known as Amen Hafez III because he’s been around for a while. Amen Hafez IV was going to be him, too.”

  “Well, if Sophia adopts Other Khalid, that will mean his adoptive father is this world’s version of my dad—an excellent lawyer, as you’ll recall. Once Amen Hafez IV doesn’t turn up, I’d bet he’ll be able to press Other Khalid’s claim. He was legally adopted, right?”

  “Public record says yes.”

  “Then I don’t see a problem there. I’m finished with Magnus. Is everybody else done?”

  “I’m still working on Jimmie’s hand,” said Carla.

  “And Eva is still sleeping,” said Viviane. “Tal, why don’t you go over and see Sophia and Other Khalid? The wounded could use a little rest, and the rest of us have some tidying up to do here. We need to clean up all the evidence of violence and make Hafez’s death look natural. A murder investigation might raise questions we don’t want the authorities digging into.”

  “I want to go,” said Khalid. “It’ll be my only chance to say goodbye…to me.”

  “I have a question for Sophia,” I said. Tal raised an eyebrow but nodded.

  “I’ll go along, too,” said Lucas, putting his arm around me.

  We approached the house in our usual stealth mode. “No one is there except Sophia and Other Khalid, so it should be safe to enter.”

  We landed on the front porch, and Tal rang the doorbell. Sophia answered.

  “Strangely enough, I had a feeling you’d be by,” she said, her face carefully neutral.

  “Is everything all right?” asked Tal.

  “Come and see.” She ushered us into the living room. Other Khalid was out of his leathers into more conventional jeans and a t-shirt with UC Santa Barbara printed across it. He looked itchy in it.

  “Don’t stare,” he said. “Tal went crazy when he found out about me. You’d think I didn’t have a hotel room full of clothes. He insisted on finding some of his own for me to wear. As if that leather—”

  “Isn’t suitable for school,” said Sophia. “It makes you look like a 50s biker.”

  “Other Tal actually bought that story?” asked Lucas.

  Sophia smiled. “Once he got past the shock of meeting a mother he didn’t even know was alive, yes. A teenager who had rescued his long-lost mother and was going to be adopted by her was just another piece of good news.”

  “I always wanted a brother,” said Tal wistfully. “Of course, I ended up with several, just not by blood.”

  “It was much the same with mine,” said Sophia. “At least, that’s what I gathered from my visions. He has close friends, like Stan and Dan, who are like brothers, but he still found the idea of having a legal brother fascinating. He’s out now buying Khalid soccer gear. He’s determined to teach him how to play.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen,” said Other Khalid, frowning.

  “On the contrary, it is fated,” said Sophia in a mock-mysterious tone. Other Khalid eyed her sideways, then laughed despite himself.

  “So, this is going to work out?” asked Tal.

  “There will be adjustments—like not smoking anymore, young man—but yes, it will work out.”

  “I’ll still be living in my hotel suite,” said Other Khalid.

  “You most certainly will not!” said Sophia. “You’ll be living here with your new father and me—and with this world’s Tal visiting often enough for you to get sick of him.”

  “It won’t be so bad,” said Tal. “I can give you a little preview if you want.

  “What do you mean?” Other Khalid eyed Tal suspiciously.

  “How about a quick shot of memories from when I was about your age? I know my parents are different in some ways from their counterparts, but from what I’ve seen, not that much.”

  Other Khalid looked at Tal as if he had just suggested a lobotomy. “No way!”

  “Well, if you’re afraid—”

  “I’m not afraid of anything!”

  “Then why not give it a go? What have you got to lose?”

  “Oh, OK,” said Other Khalid in a tone that suggested he was being egregiously imposed upon.

  Tal put his hand on Other Khalid’s forehead. The teenager shuddered a little. His eyes widened. He tried to suppress a smile, but his lips turned up a little, anyway.

  “Some of that was kid stuff,” he said.

  “I threw in my best childhood memories, too. The later ones are all colored by the supernatural threats in my life. Hopefully, that part of your life is over.”

  “I…I—” I couldn’t read minds like Tal, but it looked to me as if Other Khalid was trying to find something else to complain about but couldn’t with Tal’s memories of parental love so fresh in the teenager’s mind.

  “Stop being such a grump!” said Khalid. “You’re looking for reasons to dislike what’s happening. You know what, though? Having p
eople love you is never a bad thing. You already admitted Hafez didn’t really care about you. You’re going to be much better off with the Weavers.”

  “I hear a car pulling up,” said Lucas.

  “That’s my Tal,” said Sophia.

  “We’d better got out of here,” said Tal, opening a portal. “Sophia, last chance. We can still take Other Khalid with us if you don’t think this will work out.”

  “You’d have to pry him out of my dead arms to take him.” Sophia smiled at Other Khalid, whose mouth hung open.

  “Good luck,” said Tal, gesturing for us to step through the portal. I heard a car door slam in the driveway. I would have no time for a private moment with Sophia.

  Khalid paused on the way to the portal to give his counterpart a hug. “Appreciate your good luck.”

  “Hurry up!” said Tal. I heard footsteps close to the front door.

  I glanced back at Other Khalid just before I stepped through the portal. He was trying so hard to maintain a stoic façade that I worried he’d burst a blood vessel, but his lips continued to defy him.

  We emerged from the portal on Ceridwen’s front porch.

  “Do you really think that’s going to work out?” said Lucas.

  Tal nodded. “While I was downloading memories into Other Khalid, I experienced some of his feelings. He’s back into denial about how bad being with Hafez actually was, but that’s already wearing pretty thin. Sophia’s in for some grief, but she’ll win him over pretty soon.”

  “He’ll end up happy,” said Khalid. “I just know it.”

  The front door flew open, and a frantic Creirwy raced out. “I sensed your arrival. Please come quickly! Something terrible has happened!”

  Home Is Where You Hang Your Sword

  We followed Creirwy as quickly as we could. It would have been faster to portal to wherever in the house we were going, but she didn’t seem to remember that.

  My imagination was working overtime. What would have happened to the various trap spells, like the one in Ceridwen, when Hafez died? Would they trigger automatically? That was a thought we had never considered.