With nothing on it to identify him, she tossed the phone aside and slipped her arms around his middle, dragging him away from the scene, her nose on alert for approaching problems. Twenty feet down the concrete alley, over broken beer bottles and crumpled cellophane, and she swung left, behind the vacant business. She propped up the body and patted him down, looking for cash or guns or anything that’d make him useful to her. While there was nothing material, she did discover something quasi-noteworthy—a mark on his shoulder, a tattoo. It hadn’t been done long ago, if the saturation of the ink was any indication: a circle with what looked like a menorah attached to the top. If she used her imagination, it formed a crude Gorgon head, leading her to believe that her suicidal friend may have been in the habit of wearing white robes and a green belt in his spare time.
Tanis snagged her own phone from her pocket and took a picture of it. She headed back up the alley after that, leaving the mystery man to rot behind the business for however long it’d take for someone to find him. Considering the building was vacant and the dry cleaner had their own alley on the other side, he’d cook a while in the humidity.
They’ll smell him before they’ll see ’im.
She jogged back to the car, more intent than ever to get home. An elderly man had stopped behind the Caddy, was looking at the running car with the open door, but seeing her approach, he eased himself back into his own car.
“Everything alright miss?” he asked, lifting a white boat hat from his nearly bald head. “I was about to call the triple-A.”
Tanis slid the gun behind her back. “Sorry about that. I felt sick. I’m alright now.”
If you’re a Gorgon cocksucker, I will put an extra pair of nostrils in your head, grandpa.
He smiled and settled back into his compact Japanese car, hand up in a neighborly wave. “Feel better. God bless.”
Okay, so not a Gorgon cocksucker.
She got behind the wheel and slammed the door, taking off for home as fast as her old wheels would carry her. She dialed Naree’s cell, counting the five rings out loud before she was dropped to voicemail. While it was likely Naree was asleep, her ringer off, Tanis’s stomach sank with the possibilities.
If they scried for Cassandra’s heart, they’d have found her first...
Or if Ma found out I don’t shoot blanks, she might have sent someone...
Stop borrowing problems. Just stop.
“Sweetheart. It’s me. I’m on my way. Pack some clothes, the money, the guns. That’s about it. We need to get the hell out of Percy’s Pass. I’ll explain in the car, okay? I love you. See you soon.” She hung up and redialed, twice. Each call ended the same way. After the third attempt, her phone rang, and her breath caught, thinking it was Naree, but no such luck.
She answered it anyway.
“Bernie. Bad timing. I’m being followed.”
“Shit. Me, too,” Bernie said, shouting to be heard over whipping wind. “Been driving for an hour to lose ’em. Went out to get some bandages, and a yellow Volvo followed me across three towns. I’m circling back now. I think I’m alright, but I’m afraid of leading anyone to the Den. If they don’t kill me, Ma would.”
There wasn’t a lot of time to consider the options, and with Naree down for the count—please be sleeping, baby, please—there wasn’t opportunity to consult her, so Tanis had to choose her path.
It wasn’t a difficult decision.
“Meet me at the Walmart in the Pass. Go inside. Stay safe in the crowd. I’ll be there in... fuck. Twenty minutes.”
“You got it. What do we need?”
“Nonperishable foods. Medical supplies. You got a gun?”
“I live in Florida, what do you think?”
Despite feeling like she’d been kicked in the face with steel-toed boots, she found a smile. “Twenty, Bernie. Stay safe.”
“Twenty, doll. You got it.”
SEEING NAREE’S SWEET profile against the pillow, her mouth open, snores rumbling forth like she was a drunken hobo and not a brilliant programmer, was the biggest relief of Tanis’s life. She stared at her girlfriend, reassuring herself that she and the baby were safe. Happy, even. It quelled some of the panic that had been suffocating her since she left Goodwill. She ran her hand down her face and closed her eyes. Deep breaths to ease her pulse, in through the nose, out through the mouth, reacquainting herself with her zen before she reached out to shake Naree’s foot.
“Up. We have to go,” she announced, turning for the closet and grabbing their duffel bags from the floor. Hers was plain black, Naree’s was pink with white checkers and an N-shaped keychain attached to the zipper.
“Huh?” Naree grumbled and hunkered deeper into their bed, her arms wrapped around Tanis’s pillow in protest.
“You said we should take the risk and move, and you’re right. We’re getting out. I was followed.”
That got Naree’s attention, and she darted up, her palms digging into her eyes to rub the sleep away. “When? Where? By who?”
“Gorgon priests, I think. First at the second-hand store, second at the intersection downtown. Bernie’s being followed, too. I told her to wait for us at Walmart. I can’t leave her behind. Maybe I should, but...”
“No, you can’t,” Naree said, which was what Tanis suspected she’d say, because Naree was elementally a good person and leaving Bernie to languish while they hit the highway was a death sentence for her. It still could be if Lamia lost her shit about them leaving and sent one of her brute squads, but their chances were better together than apart.
Bernie’s strong. She knows how to fight.
Naree rolled from bed to pull on her pajama pants. Tanis tossed her the pink duffel bag, and Naree crammed as much of their overflowing laundry basket into it as she could, not paying too much attention to ratios of her clothes to Tanis’s or pants to underwear and bras. Tanis worked on the other essentials: the pistols, the ammunition, the cash, the jewelry they could pawn, the cigarettes. If she couldn’t smoke with all the mounting stress she’d probably have an aneurism, if lamias could even have those. She’d never heard of it before, just like she’d never heard of lamias getting cancer or having heart attacks, but hey, as of one day ago she also believed lamias couldn’t impregnate their girlfriends.
Anything was possible.
Naree darted into the bathroom for their toiletries, storing them in a Ziploc and throwing them into her bag. Her laptop came next, along with their phone charger cords. Lastly, she collected the heart from the freezer, walking back to the bedroom to offer it to Tanis.
Tanis looked at it like she was giving her a vial of Ebola.
“You think?”
“Prophet tells you to keep her heart, you keep it. Your words,” Naree said. “I’m assuming you believed at least part of what she told you, otherwise you’re a really screwed-up person for ripping it out of her in the first place.”
Good point.
Still, she hesitated. “I’m afraid they could track us through it.”
“Maybe, but they found you when you didn’t have it on you, so maybe not.”
Naree tucked it into Tanis’s supply bag, along with the guns. Looking at it there, realizing it’d stink sooner than not, Tanis texted Bernie and told her to get a small cooler and ice at Walmart, too. It wouldn’t last long, but maybe long enough to get them to a motel and a mini-fridge.
Naree zipped up the duffel bag and tried to haul it. Tanis waved her off, carrying it and her own bag out to the living room. There, Naree rifled through her papers, retrieving her birth certificate and credit card and stuffing them into her purse.
Tanis glanced at the clock. Ten minutes. She’d get to Bernie on time.
“Do you have your insurance card still?” she asked.
Because you’re probably going to give birth really soon and you’re going to need it.
“Yeah, in my wallet. Which I should grab.” Naree stopped to slide her feet into a pair of flip-flops and collected her glasses case from the coffee
table. Tanis headed out of the apartment to wait at the top of the stairs while Naree performed a final sweep. Seemingly satisfied, she looped her purse over her shoulder and jangled her house keys. “Bye, TV. I’ll miss you. Maybe I’ll see you again one day. Shit. I better be able to stream Game of Thrones on my laptop. I’m in Season Four now.”
“You’re taking this fairly well,” Tanis remarked, watching Naree lock both locks. It wouldn’t do any good against snake women, but it was the principle of the thing, she supposed.
Naree shrugged. “I’m trying to look at the positives.”
“Which are?”
“If we survive, we’ll be free of your bitch mother.”
They hurried downstairs. Tanis threw their stuff into the back of the Caddy and closed the trunk. Naree climbed into the passenger’s side. Before joining her, Tanis walked around to the front bumper. An ’86 Cadillac would be easy to spot on the road no matter what, but every advantage counted, and if the priest had used the dealership plate to identify them, it was better to lose it. Her fingers curled beneath the rusted metal. She pulled, and it bent at the middle before the screws popped from the holes.
“And the other positives?” she asked, sitting beside Naree and putting the Glock down between them. The engine roared to life and she tore out of the apartment’s dusty parking lot to go back, yet again, to America’s superstore, possibly for the last time ever.
Strange to think about, but then, so much is strange these days.
Naree settled into her seat, her head resting against the dented leather headrest. She let out a laugh as arid as a mummy’s ass crack. “Well? At least we’ve got enough guns to blow our own heads off before your mother can eat us alive. That’s a bright side, isn’t it?”
Tanis glanced over to see if Naree was joking. The small smile on her mouth and the worry lines in her brow told her nothing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“BERNIE’S FUNNY. YOU’LL like her,” Tanis said. It was the first time she’d introduced Naree to anyone from Adder’s Den, always insisting Naree was too fine a spirit to have to suffer Lamia’s lot. It wasn’t fair in a lot of ways—many of her sisters were decent—but Lamia was a stain. Everything she touched, she poisoned, and Tanis wanted to protect Naree from her reach as long as she could.
“How snaky is she? I’m assuming not very if she’s waiting for us in Walmart.” Naree frowned. “I didn’t mean that to sound... I’m a dick. Wow.”
“I know what you meant. There are scales on the back of her neck, but if she wears her hair down you can’t see them. She looks like someone’s fitness-obsessed grandma, otherwise.”
“Oh. She’s old?”
“Older, yes. Probably seventy? But don’t let that fool you. She’s tough as nails.” Tanis pulled into the fire lane in front of the store and texted Bernie. A minute later, she appeared, limping her way out through the front doors with a zillion bags in hand. Her eye was blackened still, now eggplant and sickly yellow at the edges, but the swelling on her nose had gone down and her swollen lip looked alright. Floral leggings, a fluorescent yellow tank top that fell to her hips, bright orange sneakers—she didn’t blend. That would have to change, with the whole being-followed problem.
“Tell me you bought clothes that can’t be seen from space?” Tanis asked, climbing from the car to pop the trunk. She scanned the parking lot, looking for leering eyes among the glimmering cars, but spotted none.
“Yeah, I did. Here, slap these in the back seat and I’ll change. Got your cooler and ice, and enough food to feed us for a week.” She ripped open one of the bags of ice and poured half the contents into the cooler. Tanis tucked the bag under her arm so she could fish out the Tupperware from her duffel bag. She wedged it in, and Bernie topped it off with the rest of the ice, throwing the empty plastic bag to the ground. “Need to hit my car for the guns. One second—” She jogged off, still stiff, and Tanis climbed back behind the wheel, throwing Bernie’s clothes behind her. Naree fanned her face, hot from sitting in the sun for those few minutes without a breeze.
“We’ll get you an iced tea on the way,” she said.
“Thanks.” Naree reached out to squeeze her knee. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“North,” was all Tanis said, because it was all she knew. Up north was colder, and snakes hated cold. Alaska, maybe, after they got close enough the flights wouldn’t cost all their savings. It might not be a forever deterrent, but it was another thing in their favor and they’d need all the help they could get. The prospect of being hunted for the rest of their lives—if not by the lamias, then by the Gorgons and their groupies—was terrifying. Tanis wouldn’t be able to let her guard down, ever. Not with Naree and a baby. Which...
I have to tell Bernie about the baby.
Balls.
Bernie pulled two big duffel bags from the back of her ancient hatchback, then limped over and tossed them into the back seat, the contents clicking and clunking as they settled.
“What is that, an arsenal?” Tanis asked.
Bernie climbed in behind Naree and grinned, revealing the giant gap in her bottom teeth. “Pretty much. I’m not a pistol girl. Shotguns, that’s where it’s at.” She leaned forward to slide a hand over Naree’s shoulder, offering a shake. “Berenike. Bernie, to my friends, and if you’re a friend of Tanis’s, you’re a friend of mine.”
“Naree. Nice to meet you. Tanis has said a lot of nice things about you.”
“She’s probably lying to you, doll, but that’s okay. She does it ’cause she loves you best.”
Bernie slunk back into her seat to sprawl out, her head tipping back toward the ceiling. She inhaled deeply. “Ah, nothing beats the smell of Walmart in the morning. Except maybe sweaty armpits and a turd factory.”
Naree’s eyes widened. She looked over to Tanis, mouth open in delight, and giggled. Tanis managed a smile, too. “Bernie’s colorful. I think you two will get along.”
“Hell, yes, I’m colorful. Speaking of which...” Bernie pulled new, less-hideous clothes from her shopping bag. Tanis took that as her cue to get driving and pulled onto the road, heading for the highway. It’d take them awhile to get there, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. Small country roads meant tails were easier to spot—and dispatch.
“We have some news,” Tanis said, the wind whipping through the car and tousling their hair. “It’s going to shock the hell out of you.”
“I’m all ears,” Bernie said from a tangle of T-shirts.
“Naree’s pregnant.”
Bernie poked her head up through the neck hole of one T-shirt while still wearing the second underneath. “Oh. Uhh... congratulations?”
“It’s mine,” Tanis said, filling in the blank.
“...oh. Ohhh. Oh, shit. How?”
“The usual. In and out over and over again,” Naree quipped.
Bernie boggled at the back of her head before bursting into guffaws. She ducked back inside T-shirt Two to complete removal of T-shirt One, and upon divesting, tossed the DayGlo eyesore out the car window. “I wondered why you went to running so easy. Sure, the Gorgons, but we could have moved out with the group. Safety in numbers and all that shit. Makes sense now. Ma would be all over you like white on rice; you’d be the Sperminator of choice.”
“She would.” Tanis turned off the road at a drive-through to get Naree her promised drink. “Probably worth noting she’s gestating quickly. The baby is. It’s a girl. You want anything?”
“Nah, thanks.” Bernie popped back up from the back seat to put a hand on Naree’s shoulder. “How you holding in there, girlie? Knowing all this?”
“Best I can. I’ve got questions about it, like how long it’ll take and what to expect and all that, but I don’t think anyone would know how to answer them.” Naree frowned. “The doctor kept talking about five months from now and I think I’ve got more, like, five minutes, you know?”
Bernie looked thoughtful. “A witch could probably help out. They’re good with childbirth. All th
e bloody stuff.”
“Witches?” Naree accepted her iced tea from Tanis before turning in her seat to address Bernie. “Wicca stuff?”
“Nah, that’s bullshit.” Bernie held up a finger. “Well, it’s not. It’s a belief system just as valid as any other, and the goddess and Green Man are old, old druidic deities, but the magic side—those Raven MoonFucker books? All crap. I mean a real witch. Like, one who can hear the gods, sometimes bargan with them. I’m sure there are Wiccan witches who can, but most I’ve met are naked ladies who buy too much patchouli and like shiny rocks a lot.”
“Oh.” Naree smirked around her straw. “I was into that once, when I was thirteen. Enya was my homegirl until my super Catholic mother found out and threw my stuff away and made me go to confession. I had no idea any of it was for realsies.”
“Like, lamias and Gorgons, cool, but witchcraft is crazy talk?”
Naree shrugged.
“Point is, if you want to talk to a witch, I know one. Sort of. Might help on a few fronts. With this Gorgon crap, too.”
“Do we have time?” Naree’s hand slipped over her stomach, over the gently rounded dome of baby pressing against her shirt.
Tanis watched her and then glanced in the rearview mirror to look at Bernie. “Where?”
“Two towns up. Keep climbing Seventy-Five.”
THE HOUSE LOOKED like something out of The Amityville Horror. Boarded-up windows on both stories, a wraparound porch with holes peppering the boards. White paint peeled from everything—the rails on the stairs, the stairs themselves, the fence, the shutters, the house-front. Half of the roof shingles were gone. Some of the windows on the second story were lacking glass altogether, thanks to asshole kids throwing stones. There was a car parked in the driveway, but whatever it had been was hidden from view thanks to the nipple-tall grass poking up from the cracks in the pavement.
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