Serpentine

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  We kissed and I said, "I'm sorry."

  "But not so sorry you won't go save the day," he said.

  I didn't know what to say to that, so I just looked at him as he drew back from the kiss.

  "I'm sorry you're mad."

  He nodded. "I know. Now, go and help Micah."

  I wanted to say more, to apologize, or to make things all right between us before we left, but I didn't have any words to make this okay. I'd learned that sometimes when words can't make it better, just stop talking and do something, so I did.

  "Hand up my equipment bags," I said.

  "I'll just take Bram with me."

  "No, you'll take Anita with you. She's got a badge and you don't. If the worst happens and you're there with him, you'll get dragged in for questioning at the least," Nathaniel said.

  "He's right," Nicky said. "They're small towns. They don't get a lot of lycanthrope-related crime."

  Bernardo handed a bag up to Nicky. "Where are you going with all your gear?"

  "No time to explain, just got to grab and go," I said.

  Bernardo stepped from the boat back to the wharf. "Okay, let's go."

  "No, Bernardo," Micah said.

  "I heard Nathaniel say that Anita is coming because she has a badge; well, two badges are better than one." He lifted the hem of his oversize tank top to flash the badge tucked into his belt.

  "There isn't time to argue. Let's go," Micah said, heading back down the wharf. Bram fell into step behind him. Bernardo went with them. I turned back to Nathaniel. He kissed me and then turned me around. "Go with him. I'll be fine with R and R."

  Micah yelled, "Anita, are you coming?"

  "Coming!" Nicky and I got our equipment bags and started moving with purpose toward the SUV. The others were already getting into the vehicle. We heard the engine start. Nicky started running toward them; if my big equipment bag bothered him, it didn't show. Within a few steps, I was cursing the bag I was carrying, but it was the purse on my other shoulder that really made me curse. If I could have remembered everything in it, I'd have left it with Nathaniel. The purse slipped down my arm until it was damn near tangling in my legs. I shifted it so I was carrying the strap balled up in my free hand, because it wouldn't stay on my shoulder with the other bag already taking up most of my back. I'd packed for airport travel, not for running to the rescue. Silly me.

  22

  THE BAR HAD a cheerful sign that read Herbie's Chowder House, complete with a cartoon fish that seemed to be fishing for itself. Herbie's looked cheerful, but the location looked as if it was in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road, maybe because of the overgrown vacant lot beside it. It wasn't overgrown with just weeds either, but with tropical-looking trees and underbrush, as if it had been vacant a long time. The bar sat right beside Highway 1, the main road through the Keys, so it wasn't as middle of nowhere as it seemed. I guess in the Keys there wasn't a lot of choice about where to put things, but the building managed to seem convenient for drive-by customers and isolated all at the same time. The gravel parking lot out front was so full we had trouble finding a place to park.

  "It's just past noon; isn't that too early for a full bar?" I said.

  "Some people use their vacations as an excuse to drink," Bernardo said.

  "Some people travel to paradise to fall into a bottle," Bram said.

  "That, too," Bernardo agreed.

  We'd all talked ourselves out of putting on body armor, but I had put on a loose T-shirt over my tank top so that I could put on the custom-made knife sheath that went down along my spine and then attached with straps to my belt. The original had been part of a shoulder rig for guns, but I'd finally had a second made so I could carry my largest knife more regularly, and my regular carry for guns had become a waist holster or inner pants holster, depending on how concealed I wanted to carry.

  "I'm still amazed you can carry a blade longer than your forearm and no one ever sees it," Bernardo said.

  "As long as my hair is down it hides the hilt."

  We all made small adjustments to our weapons, or at least touched some of them, before we got out of the car. It becomes automatic to flex your body or lightly touch to make sure that none of your weapons has shifted out of place. The trick is never to do it where people can see you, because nothing gives away the fact that you're carrying a gun like touching it to adjust it. We got out of the car with everything settled in place and threaded our way through the cars.

  "Remember that thanks to Jean-Claude's vampire marks, I'm poison-proof, so if anyone has to wade into the snakes, it has to be me."

  "Lycanthropes are poison-proof, too," Nicky said.

  "Since this may be some ancient type of snake, let's not test how proof you and Micah are, okay?"

  "I'm your bodyguard, remember."

  "I remember, and I'm in love with you. I'd really rather not lose you over some macho bit of grandstanding, okay?"

  Nicky gave a small smile and said, "You're the boss."

  Micah said, "Bernardo stays completely away from the snakes."

  Bernardo raised his hands in a sort of push-away gesture. "As the token human, I'll let you guys wrestle the deadly snakes."

  Bram opened the door first like a good bodyguard, so that if the noon drunks got out of hand, they'd attack him first. I figured since no one was screaming or saying what the fuck that Andy hadn't changed into snakes yet. It was good to be in time to prevent tragedy, rather than just cleaning up after it.

  The bar surprised me by being brightly lit and painted white, with the bar against the left-side wall and small, high tables against the right. Small family groups were having lunch at the tables. Either the licensing laws were different in Florida than in St. Louis, or everyone was ignoring them. I guessed if the kiddies weren't drinking the liquor from Dad's and Mom's glasses, we were good.

  "Cheerful," I said.

  "Food smells good, too," Bernardo said.

  He was right. If I hadn't eaten on the plane, I'd have been more interested. Micah said, "There he is." We followed him and Bram farther into the room, starting toward the bar proper. I couldn't tell which of the hunched figures was our guy yet. One person drinking looks a lot like another.

  A woman wearing the bar's logo on her T-shirt came toward us smiling. "We have bigger tables in the other dining room, or did you want to sit at the bar? I think we can just fit you all in."

  "Sorry, we're here to give a friend a ride home, but we'll definitely keep your place in mind for later," Micah said, smiling.

  She did an eye slide toward the bar. "Are you here for Andy?"

  "I take it he's a regular," Micah said.

  "Getting to be," she said. She looked back at the bar with her hostess smile fading around the edges. This wasn't a bar bar; it was a restaurant that had a bar in it, which meant that they would be even less happy with serious drinkers than a normal bar. I wondered if Andy had gotten thrown out of his usual bar, since he was only "getting to be" a regular here.

  "He's the dark-haired one on the end," Micah said.

  Bram moved ahead of Micah. There really wasn't a lot of room between the middle tables and the bar, so I went between the two rows of tables to come into the bar area from the other side, with Nicky trailing behind me. Bernardo stayed at the door. We were getting glances from some of the restaurant patrons because we weren't acting like normal tourists; we were acting like potential trouble.

  Micah was talking softly to the man by the time Nicky and I were on his other side. Two of the men at the bar got up with their drinks in hand, looking more at Nicky than at anybody else. People who didn't know how to fight and were just impressed with size always looked at him first. He was like camouflage for the rest of us, unless people were trained enough to know what they were looking at.

  The man we were trying to save just sat there as if nothing had changed. He was darkly tanned, with short black hair that looked coarse even from a distance. He huddled over his drink like it was the most impo
rtant thing in the world, and maybe it was to him. His wife was on bed rest with their unborn baby in her body, and he was here drinking. Addicts only love their addiction. If you believe anything else, you're lying to yourself.

  I was on the other side of Andy now. I could see the bloodshot eyes, the unshaven face that could pretend it was a beard, but he'd just stopped shaving. At least he didn't smell as unkempt as he looked; since we were going to be in a car with him, I appreciated that.

  I could hear Micah's voice now. "Do you really want Christy to get out of bed and lose your baby?"

  "No," the man said in a voice that sounded like he had gravel in his throat. I didn't know if he wasn't used to talking or if he'd screamed himself hoarse. He looked up at me as if he'd just noticed I was there. "Who's this?"

  "My fiancee," Micah said.

  "Congratulations," he said, and that seemed to get him up on his feet, as if just the social niceties made him think to be nicer. Hey, if social conditioning works in our favor, I'm all for it.

  Andy swayed enough that Micah and I each caught an arm. Micah kept Andy's arm on the way to the door, so he didn't bump into things like the ball in a drunken pinball game. Bram came next and Nicky and I brought up the rear. Bernardo held the door and out we went.

  Bernardo drove, and after some discussion Micah took the passenger seat, because if the two bodyguards were going to have to risk one of their primaries, they didn't want to risk both of us. Since I was doubly protected from venom with lycanthropy and vampire marks, I got to sit beside Andy. The fact that Micah let me win the argument was one of the reasons I loved him. It was logical that I sit beside the potential danger, but a lot of men would have rather risked their lives than concede it. Bram and Nicky had their own moment of who would sit on the other side of Andy. Bram finally won by saying, "My shoulder span is smaller; we just fit better with you against the door."

  Andy let Bram buckle him in for safety, but then he slumped forward, and I thought he'd passed out, which was fine with me. I didn't think he was going to be a great conversationalist. Most drunks aren't. They think they are, but they aren't.

  We were almost back to the turnoff to the wharf when Andy startled awake. He looked at Bram and at me and he didn't know where he was, or remember how he'd gotten here. "Who are you? Why am I here? No! No! Let me out!"

  He reached past me for the door handle; I pushed his hand away from it. He seemed to think we'd kidnapped him. He lashed out with big fists, but we were trained, he wasn't, and he was drunk; no one is good drunk. Bram pinned his arm and I got the other arm in an elbow lock, putting just enough pressure to make him tap out and stop fighting. I felt the skin change texture and had time to let go of his arm, and then it was a nest of snakes that just happened to come out of his shirtsleeve. The pictures hadn't done it justice. I was sitting next to a bouquet of green-scaled, hissing, fang-baring snakes. I went from zero to terrified. Even if you like snakes, you don't want surprise snakes that close to you. I screamed. Micah yelled, "Anita!"

  "I will kill you!" Andy screamed. "I will kill you all!"

  Some of the heads were hissing in different directions like they were covering us all. Two of them reared back to strike at me, and I punched Andy in the face from inches away with as much force as I'd used against anyone in a long time.

  He slumped forward, unconscious, and the snakes vanished into just his arm again. "Fuck," Bram said softly. I don't think I'd ever heard him use that word before.

  "Did anyone get bit?" Micah asked.

  "No. I mean, not me," I said.

  "I'm good," Bram said.

  "Is Andy alive?" Micah asked.

  I looked at the unconscious man and was suddenly afraid for a different reason. I started searching for the big pulse in his neck. Nicky said, "I can hear his heart; he's still alive."

  "Is his neck broken?" Micah asked.

  I stopped fishing for a pulse and said, "I didn't hit him that hard."

  "You hit him pretty hard."

  "It was a good punch," Bram said.

  "He startled me," I said.

  "He startled us all," Bernardo said. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The rest of us looked at the unconscious man.

  "Did I really hit him hard enough to worry about spinal injuries?"

  "If he was human, you'd have snapped his neck," Nicky said.

  "I didn't mean to do that."

  "We need to find more humans for you to work out with, so you can modify your strength better," Bram said.

  I stared at the slumped man between us. "Is their kind of lycanthrope harder to hurt, just like us?"

  "Not just like us, but, yes, they're tougher than human-normal," Micah said.

  "Good to know," I said.

  Andy groaned and moved enough to let us know everything still worked. I was so relieved that I was almost nauseous. I hadn't meant to hurt him, just to protect us. Andy didn't wake up or come to, though, which was probably just as well. Bram and Nicky carried him on board the boat after we'd stowed all our gear. Roberto--the boat driver, captain, or whatever--said, "Thanks for getting Andy, Mr. Callahan."

  "He changed in the car. If he'd done that at the bar, people could have gotten hurt."

  "There were kids in the restaurant," I said.

  Roberto looked at the unconscious man. "Andy's burned his bridges with all of us, except for Christy. She still thinks he's going to sober up and be a great dad."

  "Loving an addict won't fix them," Bernardo said.

  "I know that and you know that," Roberto said, "but she's his wife and about to have his kid. I guess she's got to have hope."

  "Hope is a lying bitch sometimes," I said.

  "Isn't that the truth," Roberto said and started easing us away from the dock. I'd have enjoyed being out on the blue, green, turquoise sea more before I had been scared shitless by a face full of snakes and nearly broken a man's neck with one punch. Micah pulled me into his lap where he sat in one of the three chairs.

  "Look"--Bram pointed--"dolphins!"

  I looked where he pointed, and there they were, my first-ever wild dolphins. They rolled out of the water in a line like the humps of a sea serpent. I smiled because . . . dolphins! They leapt from the water and my heart leapt with them, because--wild dolphins!

  I glanced back at the small cabin where we'd put the still unconscious Andy, and then I went back to watching the dolphins, because there was nothing more I could do for Andy, but maybe if I looked out at the ocean, felt the spray on my skin and Micah's arms around me, and watched dolphins ride the waves, just maybe I could do something for me.

  23

  THERE WERE TWO burly guys that looked a lot like Andy on the dock when we got to Kirke. They turned out to be his cousins. Christy had guilted them into just meeting us at the dock and bringing her husband home to her. They thanked us for bringing him back, but not like they were happy to see him. Who could blame them?

  I texted Nathaniel that we were on the island. His reply text was, "At the pool enjoying our vacation. Have room keys. I love you both." It was a very dry message for him. I glanced at Micah. "I think our shared boy is still pissed at us."

  "Upset. If he was still pissed he wouldn't have added the I love you both," Micah said.

  "Trouble in paradise?" Bernardo asked.

  "Nathaniel is still upset, but he has the room keys at the pool."

  "Where his text says he's enjoying our vacation," Micah said dryly.

  "That sounds like a girlfriend text," Bernardo said.

  "How would you know what boyfriend texts sound like?" I asked, smiling up at him.

  He bowed his head. "Good point--I've only dated women. Are you telling me that it's not that different dating men or women?"

  "Everyone is broken," Nicky said.

  Bernardo looked at him. "Are you saying you've dated both?"

  "I had a misspent youth," Nicky said with an utterly flat delivery.

  "Am I the only one here that's never dated same sex?"


  "I didn't date, I hooked up, but yeah."

  Bernardo looked at all of us and then said, "When I met Anita she was like the untouchable virgin and I was the man whore. When did I become the more conservative one?"

  I laughed at the dismay on his face, and the men joined me. "Trust me, Bernardo, I never planned on being wilder than you."

  "So, you're all telling me, honestly, that it doesn't matter that much whether you're dating men or women? Really?"

  "Bitches be crazy, and men are stupid; it's all hard," I said.

  "What she said," Nicky said.

  Micah just nodded.

  Bernardo laughed. "I keep hearing about the women in your life, Anita, but I'm not going to believe it until I see for myself."

  "You are never going to see me making out with our girlfriends, Bernardo. Fantasize on your own time."

  He blushed, which I hadn't thought possible. "I didn't mean it that way."

  "Aww, you really didn't." I punched him lightly in the arm. "We really are friends now."

  He laughed again. "Do not put me in the friend box."

  I grinned at him. "Would it be a first for you?"

  He nodded, the laughter fading to a really nice grin, not the one he must practice in the mirror every morning, not the one that melted strange women into puddles of desire, but just a grin with no agenda attached. I felt privileged to see Bernardo when he wasn't posing.

  Nicky offered to stay in the lobby with the bags while we got the keys, but I said, "If Nathaniel is really upset, it could take a while."

  "I'm good. Go do what you need to do," he said. I knew that part of what made Nicky so easygoing in the relationship was that he was my Bride. My happiness, my peace of mind, were truly more important than his own, but it was nice to have at least one person in my life who was low maintenance, instead of high. I wanted to kiss him good-bye to show how much I appreciated it, but he shook his head. "I'm working."

  I nodded and walked hand in hand with Micah off toward the pool. Bram went ahead of us, opening the side door that led back outside through a wall that was mostly glass. "If we were looking for Nathaniel last trip, he was usually at the pool," he said.