“You know, this is a little cliché,” Naree said, eyeballing the house. “If I was a kid, and walked by this house, I’d totally say a witch lives here.”
“Right? I told Astrid that, the last time we had coffee. That’s her name: Astrid. She’s a völva, a Norse witch.” Bernie bummed a cigarette from Tanis and leaned against the Caddy, eyeballing the house façade while she puffed. “Expect a lot of runes and blood and bird bones. Oh, and cats. She has like nine of them.”
“How’d you meet a völva in Florida?” Tanis demanded. “How is this even a thing?”
Bernie snickered. “Yoga.”
Tanis was incredulous, but she probably shouldn’t have been. For all that Bernie and she had been friendly, they hadn’t really ever been friends. It was more a passing “Atta girl” and a few swapped stories before they went their separate ways.
Bernie winked at her. “I gotta keep these old bones in shape! I guess she thought the same thing. Old dame trying to stay nimble. Anyway, we did the class together. She sensed I was different from the other old bags in there. Asked what I was, we got talking. Not exactly BFFs, but friendly enough. She’ll probably do you a solid. For a price.”
Tanis wasn’t happy about the thought of a ‘price,’ but she wasn’t getting anywhere standing on the overgrown walkway getting dive bombed by black flies either. She headed up the steps, avoiding rusty nails and broken boards to knock on the front door. She half-expected Cousin It to answer, and turned out not to be too far off her guess. The door cracked open a couple of inches, only as far as the chain lock would allow it to go. A green eye. A tangle of curls that spilled over one half of her face, most of it more white than blond. Dark circles and deep lines spoke to her age—sixties, maybe; possibly seventies. A small nose, a small mouth, a pointed chin. Her dress was royal blue and hung to the floor, the spaghetti straps showing off toned, freckled arms. She smelled like herbs and old blood. And meatloaf. Meatballs, maybe.
The witch let her gaze drift over Tanis, from the sneakers up to her head and back down again. “What, snake thing?”
Thing? Well fuck you, too.
“Astrid? I’m Tanis. Bernie’s here. You know her from yoga?”
Because yoga is a happening place where snake women and Norse witches like to hang out, I guess. Maybe Starbucks was closed that day.
Astrid craned her neck, and seeing Bernie waving at her from the Caddy, grunted. “Fine. Come in. Wipe your feet. Mind the cats.”
The chain on the lock jingled and the door was cast wide. For all that the outside of the house looked like it’d been shot at and missed (and shit at and hit), the inside was beautiful. The living room was tufted leather furniture with brass buttons, with a couch against the far wall, two chairs angled toward the fireplace. Wooden bookshelves occupied the corners. A glass-fronted cabinet held strange statues and scrolls that spoke to old magic. Tapestries covered the walls, hung on wrought-iron rods, the designs capturing famous scenes of Norse mythology, specifically Ragnarök. On one piece, woven in blues, grays, black, and white, Fenrir devoured Odin’s prone corpse. In another, a golden Thor with his hammer held aloft was wrapped in the emerald coils of Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent. The red fire giant Surt cast Freyr’s broken body into orange and yellow flames; and in the last tapestry, above the mantel, a purple-clad Loki thrust a spear through Heimdallr’s middle while the mounted god, on his trusty steed Gjallarhorn, pierced Loki’s heart with a sword.
The rug on the hardwood floors was teals and purples and golds, with ornate diamond medallions from one end to the other. It was also home to two cats, an orange tabby and a fat black-and-white one with no tail.
Tanis turned back to the front steps, offering a hand up to Naree. Naree picked her way around the weakest boards and hopped up to the porch, cringing when she felt the wood beneath her feet bow. She leaped into the house and paused on the threshold to admire the living room, peering through into the kitchen, with its clusters of dried herbs and baskets full of exotic roots.
“It’s beautiful in here,” she said.
“Thank you. Sit, please.”
Naree moved to the couch and Tanis followed, Bernie pulling up the rear and closing the door behind her.
“Lock it, please,” Astrid said. “My wards are good, but an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure.”
“’Course. Good to see you, doll.”
“You as well. Are you still going to class?”
“Nah. Whole place went to shit a couple months after you left. Bunch of moms who’d sit around bitching about their kids in daycare took over. I didn’t last long after that.”
Naree nestled into Tanis’s side, and Tanis slung an arm across her shoulder, rubbing at her bicep. The witch motioned Bernie into one armchair while she claimed the other. Her hair swung away from her face, catching on her ear, revealing not a second eye, but a crisscross of black stitches sewing the socket closed. Tanis tried not to stare, but must have failed, as Astrid snorted and tapped at her cheek.
“I traded it for a set of ancient runes. To gain one sight, I gave up the other. I wasn’t expecting company, so I didn’t bother with my patch.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
“You weren’t. But you wore your question on your face.” Her eye narrowed and she craned her face toward Naree. “She grows fast, the child. Eager to be born.”
Naree nodded and hesitated, looking from Tanis to Bernie. Bernie nodded encouragingly, and Naree sat up straighter in her seat, her hands running over the thighs of her pajama pants. “That’s why we’re here. I want to know about her. If you can tell when she’ll come? Or anything, really. Doctors aren’t really useful for my particular situation.”
“No, they wouldn’t be. I can help, but my labor is not free. What do you have of value?”
Tanis leaned to the side to reach for her wallet, but the völva tutted and waved her off, her nails short and efficient and clean, her fingers adorned with stacks of silver rings, some with gems, others with sigils Tanis couldn’t identify. “I don’t need money. What do you have of value?”
“What do you want?” Tanis asked.
“It,” the witch replied, grinning. Her teeth were stained yellow from too much coffee, but they were straight, and in that moment, seemingly endless, filling her mouth and then some. She was equal parts Cheshire Cat and shark. “What is it? I sense it, but it’s not clear. Powerful, though. It’s very powerful.” She leaned forward, her elbows dropping to her knees, her fingers lacing together and making her palms kiss. Her expression grew sly. “What do you bring to my doorstep, snakes, to tantalize me so?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ASTRID REMOVED THE heart from the Tupperware. She bare-palmed it, twisting it this way and that beneath the kitchen light to get a better look. She seemed in awe of the thing, her expression so reverent, Tanis thought maybe the mysteries of the cosmos rested somewhere within that single lump of flesh. The old adage about one man’s trash being another man’s treasure came to mind; to the völva, it was a mystical something-something to be studied and appreciated. To Tanis, it was a stinky inconvenience she wanted out of her trunk.
“Old. So old,” Astrid crooned, one of her fingers coursing over the rubbery nub at the top. Rusty snow rained upon the table, some parts ice, more parts blood. A meaty tendril dangled from the bottom to twine around her wrist like a slimy red worm.
Tanis could have mentioned Cassandra, or the Gorgons, or any number of things at that point, but she didn’t. Astrid asked no questions, Tanis volunteered no answers. It was simpler that way, for all parties. Body parts in Walmart coolers were surreptitious affairs that painted no one in a good light, and really, it was safer for Astrid.
Well, safe-ish. If the Gorgons are eating Cassandra’s dead body and searching for the heart, they’ll come here.
Do I care?
...no, not really.
Astrid sniffed at the heart, and then licked at it. She shuddered with rapture, her eye closing, her breath quick
ening to short, fast pants. Her nipples pebbled beneath her dress, her free hand coursed down over her stomach and meandered straight for witch parts unknown, and Tanis wondered if they should leave her alone with her new favorite organ. Naree jerked her face away from the sordid scene, and Tanis couldn’t blame her; it wasn’t pleasant to behold, especially when Astrid rubbed the heart all over herself, smearing the thin fabric with gore from breast to crotch. Tanis eyed Bernie, Bernie shrugged, but no one dared say anything. It was a fundamental truth that witches were fairly disgusting. You didn’t bargain in flesh and blood and come out smelling like a rose.
You might, however, come out smelling like day-old sirloin.
“It has so much power. Yes. I... it’s a good barter. Good.” The witch’s eye opened and she reached above her head for some dried herbs, snatching three very specific clusters and laying them on the counter. She never loosed her grip on the heart, not as she went to the cabinet to retrieve a big box of kosher salt. Not as she washed out the Tupperware and wiped it dry. Not as she arranged her supplies on the counter in neat order. It was all a bit too Gollum and Precious for Tanis’s comfort, but at least the damned thing had found a good home.
The heart was rolled in salt—covered like a big slab of steak—before being placed back into the container. Layers of herbs came next, followed by more salt, like she planned to sauté the damned thing. Maybe she was; eating the heart was the secret to magical prowess, if Cassandra was to be believed. Tanis watched the preservation process with morbid fascination, reaching for Naree’s hand and clinging as Astrid replaced the lid on the box and wrapped two big rubber bands around it. She then carried it back to the living room to the locked cabinet of miscellaneous fuckery, where she displayed it between a ram’s horn and a dagger in a jeweled sheath.
Astrid’s fingers caressed the glass, a faraway look on her face. Another shiver, another inappropriate self-fondle, and she returned to the kitchen to clear the table of refuse. She stayed silent, disappearing from the kitchen to go into a room with a closed door. Rummaging sounds, clamor, a rattle, a squeal. She returned with a black cloth stitched with golden symbols along the edges and a great green tree at the middle. She laid it out before Naree, placing a flat, tin pan over the tree symbol.
“Spit,” she said.
“What?”
“Spit. Blood’s better, but spit is often more tolerable. People are squeamish.” This declaration was followed by Astrid presenting a small checkered bag with a drawstring top. She opened it and upended twenty-four runes into the pan, the sigils hand-painted in white on black tiles. She motioned at them. “Well? Don’t be shy, girl. No one’s delicate in this house.”
Naree cast Tanis a look before doing as she was told, spitting as politely as possible.
“No loogies?” Bernie asked.
Naree wrinkled her nose. “Ewww, no!”
Bernie winked at her and Naree went rosy in the cheeks, her ample ass shifting in the kitchen chair and birthing a squeal. Astrid ignored the banter, intent on her preparations, most particularly the butcher’s block on the kitchen counter behind her. She never batted an eye as she pulled out the big butcher’s knife and closed her hand around the blade, the steel sliding across her palm and bisecting its meatiest part. Blood pooled quick, and she drizzled it into the pan, curling her fingers into a fist. She waved it back and forth like she was dressing a salad, covering the runes, Naree’s spit wad, the bottom of the pan, with slow, deliberate movements and a steady drip.
“Shake the pan,” she instructed, jerking her hand away and holding it up, above her head, to force the clot. “Close your eyes, breathe, and shake it. Don’t stop until you feel ready.” Naree picked up the edges of the pan, her thumb slithering through a dollop of Astrid’s blood as she tossed the runes around, rearing back when blood splashed up and nearly struck her chin. She cringed, but kept going for another twenty seconds before putting it back down on the embroidered tree on the table. Astrid, meanwhile, rinsed off her hand in the sink and wrapped it with some medical tape she kept on the nearby window sill.
Astrid sat at the table across from Naree, leaning forward to eye the placement of the runes, some upended, some on their sides, some double stacked and leaning. Tanis knew it all meant something, just not what, but Astrid looked totally comfortable with her gooey, nasty pile of painted rocks. Her finger came out to stroke the tiles, hovering over foreign, blood-splashed shapes. She hummed quietly to herself, a tune Tanis didn’t recognize, and rolled her head around on her shoulders. “It’s a girl child. Healthy.” She paused. “Days. Three to her birth? Maybe, but that is all. It comes soon. As does...” Astrid peered at the runes and then back up to Tanis. “Who is this that comes for you? Who are the seekers?”
Tanis could have played coy, but even she knew a witch was not a thing to be trifled with, and she wasn’t big on wasting anyone’s time. “It could be my mother’s people. It could be the Gorgons.”
Astrid glanced back down at the pan, her expression darkening. “Gorgons. Monsters. They are angry with you?”
“Pissed.”
“Why?”
“Partly because I’m a lamia and they hate my kind. Partly because I spied on them and stole the heart.” Tanis motioned at the living room. “Belonged to a prophet they had chained in the basement. She begged me to kill her and said Naree would die if I didn’t take her heart. She said I’d need it for trade. I’m guessing she meant to you, but I can’t be sure.”
“Mmmngh. No. No, no, no.” Astrid pushed herself away from the runes. She stalked out to the living room, opening the cabinet and retrieving the heart from inside. Her hand pressed to the closed lid, her head forward until her chin touched her chest. “I want it to be mine. It should be mine,” Astrid insisted.
Tanis frowned. “Okay? I already gave it to you?”
“It’s not for me!” Astrid barked, stomping back in to slap it down on the table. “It’s not for me. They say it’s not for me, so you will take it with you when you go, and you’ll go now. Before they come.”
“They who?” Bernie asked.
“The Gorgons. Your lamias are too busy slithering about inside their dens in a panic to be a concern for now, but the Gorgons come. I’ll not be involved in your war. I’ll not be your collateral damage.” Astrid pointed at the pan of runes and then at Naree. “Her fate is good. You, snake things, not good. I see grief and pain and death and blood. Out, out. Out of my house before you bring folly to my door.”
“Well, shit.” Bernie pushed herself away from the wall she’d been leaning on. “I’m sorry about that, doll. I didn’t realize... nothing we can do about the Gorgons?”
The witch snorted. “Can you kill an immortal? No, you can’t. They are that which cannot die.”
Tanis raked her fingers through her hair. “Fine, can we outrun them, or hide from them, or stop them in any way? I don’t care if they die. I just want to live with my girlfriend and my kid, and see my friend safe. Death would be handy, but it’s not a requirement.”
The witch’s eyes narrowed as she fingered the bloody patches on her dress, the fabric dried stiff where the heart flesh had been ground in. “Sleep, perhaps. Like Cronus. He swore upon the River Styx and broke his bond, and was banished to Tartarus for a long sleep. It is not death, but it might as well be.”
“How the hell are we supposed to get a Gorgon to swear on shit?” Bernie asked. “Or for that matter, on the River Styx?”
“That is not my problem. You are not my problem. Don’t seek me out again, Berenike. You brought danger here.” To emphasize the point, she collected the Tupperware with the salted heart from the table and jabbed it against Tanis’s chest, whacking her with it until she accepted it back. “Damn you for having this, snake. It’s worthless in your hands.”
Tanis scowled. “You’re telling me.”
“Yeah. I... yeah. Sorry about this. Thanks for the help. You take care, okay?” Bernie put her hand on Naree’s back and guided her toward the door. Nar
ee looked Tanis’s way, her brow furrowed.
“Go ahead,” Tanis said. “I’ll be right out.” She eyed the tin pan on the table. She wanted the secrets of its contents. She’d have done anything for clarity regarding Astrid’s ill tidings, but divination—hearing the gods’ voices—was not her gift. To Astrid, the runes were harbingers. To Tanis, they were blood-spattered dominoes.
“You’re walking a thin line,” Astrid said from behind her. “There’s death all around you. Eihwaz. He’s waiting for you. You’ll have to be quick, little snake. Quicker than the shadows to survive this.”
“What does that even mean?” Tanis said, whirling on her, but Astrid shook her head and walked to the living room, standing beside her open door and motioning outside.
“Go. Please. They’re coming, Tanis. You need to go now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT HAPPENED AT a gas station off of Seventy-Five at six o’clock, when the sun broke the horizon and the mosquitoes swarmed in black clouds. They’d driven for hours, until the empty light came on in the Caddy and they couldn’t avoid a stop. There’d been little chatter; Astrid’s decrees were a pall upon an already shittastic day. It was better not to talk about it and to let the radio fill the awkward silence.
Naree was in the front seat, chomping on her second cheeseburger, a vanilla shake clasped in hand. She was hungrier than usual—ravenous, she said—which made a certain amount of sense. There was a reason Lamia devoured a whole man after her breedings. Yes, it neutralized the threat of a crazed snake-man crawling around the Den, but more than that, it was a hundred and seventy-five pounds of protein. Fast gestation took a tremendous amount of energy and food was energy.
A heck of a lot of cows were about to die to feed Tanis’s insistent offspring.
Naree swallowed and groaned, her head flopping back against the headrest. “Is Bernie getting more Ritz crackers?”
Tanis was fueling the car, leaning against the big fat trunk with the nozzle notched into the gas tank. She desperately wanted a cigarette, and would indulge when she wasn’t quite so flammable. She craned her head to the side. Bernie was inside the convenience store, standing in line behind three old men holding scratch tickets. She could be there the rest of her life; for some reason, old guys took six years to play their lottery.
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