In fact one of her green snakes was snapping at one of Euryale’s brown snakes. It was darkly fascinating. But Tanis was there to betray her mother, not watch serpent Olympics on a couple of Gorgon heads.
“I’ll give you the Den,” she announced as her opener, loudly, so everyone gathered could hear her. “They’re getting ready to leave, but not yet. They can’t go without me.”
“Why not?” Stheno. She spoke in the home tongue, her voice crisp and deep and blasting from the porch with impressive volume.
“I’m my mother’s consort. Or, well, she wants me to be.” Tanis frowned.
“And you do not wish this thing?” Euryale this time, leaning into her sister’s side. Stheno put an arm around her waist. Tanis tried to ignore how the snakes atop their heads intertwined, biting one another, tearing pieces away from one another, but it was hard not to watch.
She jerked her gaze down. “No. I have a mate. Which brings me to my first condition. I get out alive, my human girlfriend and her family are left alone. You’ll swear on it. Swear on Dumballah.” She lifted the statuette from her neck and wiggled it around. “The snake father.”
The Gorgons turning on her was not such a farfetched notion. If they were after true genocide, identifying Bee as part-lamia put the baby at risk. Putting her under the umbrella of Naree’s family, though—why would they care about humans?
It’s not a lie. Not really.
Even if I don’t get out, my kid does.
“Snake father? I do not know of this god. He is new?” Stheno demanded.
“No. He’s a lwa.”
Stheno snorted derisively. Euryale smiled, an ugly, awkward thing on her snake mouth and protruding fangs. “Yes, fine. We will swear on this... what did you call it? Lwa? Yes, that. Little god. I have not heard of him either.”
Little god. Okay, sure, whatever. I guess immortality makes you arrogant?
Tanis relaxed her grip on the shotgun. She hadn’t realized she’d been clenching it, but the moment she heard that they’d make the vow, her muscles unfurled and the gun tilted toward the ground. Anything else she got out of the negotiation, from that point on, was gravy.
“What else do you want? And how do you propose to do this?”
No question about whether or not it was a trap, but again, immortality and arrogance went hand in hand. There wasn’t a lot to worry about when almost nothing could kill you. Hell, even Tanis’s Styx plan wouldn’t kill them. It might put them away awhile, but they’d end up as someone else’s shitty problem down the line.
If all goes well.
And Papa didn’t lie to me.
...shit. Why didn’t that occur to me sooner?
She frowned.
“I want time to get the little kids out,” she said, trying to shove her misgivings aside. “Lamia’s yours; the lamias that fight you, yours; but the kids deserve a chance. They’re not immortal. We’ll die off, be out of your hair sooner rather than later, with Lamia gone. None of them can breed and Lamia treated them—all of us, really—like shit. I can see—”
Tanis flinched, because she didn’t want to praise them, what with Bernie’s pained end, but an agreeable pair of Gorgons made it easier. “—I can see your people are happy, devoted. The lamias don’t have that. We never did. We were victims of circumstance. Any daughter you spare is a mercy. Maybe they’ll get a life worth living after our mother is gone.”
“Ooor...” Stheno disengaged from Euryale’s side, one of her green snakes struggling to swallow a brown snake torn off Euryale’s head. She navigated the porch steps, through the throng, her priests parting as much to avoid her spitting, gnashing head of serpent death as to let her pass. “Maybe putting them out of their misery and sending them to Tartarus is a kindness?”
“If that’s your call, so be it. All I’ll say is I understand hating our mother, but the rest of us aren’t your problem. We’re all just sad sacks looking for a better day.”
Tanis should have felt guiltier about the prospect of handing over the Den and her sisters. Another person—a better person—would have, she knew. But she couldn’t muster it. The people she’d truly known, even remotely cared about, were gone. Bernie, Fi. Barbara would get out with the children, but the rest? Pitiable, yes, but pitiable strangers. Tanis had to worry about herself, her girlfriend, and her daughter. She’d do what she could to warn the others before the Gorgons came, but she couldn’t start a mass exodus or her mother would be clued in.
You can’t make an omelet...
Stheno stopped ten feet in front of Tanis. Tanis could smell her strange body chemistry, the weirdness of her sweat and that signature scent that was vaguely reptilian but also Other. Euryale drifted to her side, the two of them joining hands. They looked nothing alike, and yet the way they peered at Tanis, the tilts of their heads, the dead blackness of their eyes, gave Tanis a come-play-with-us-Danny vibe.
“And how do you propose to get us in?” Euryale asked.
“Give me one of your followers’ cell phones. I’ll text you from it once the kids are out. We’ll use a tracker through GPS.”
“And why not your own device?”
“Because I don’t want you finding me later,” she said simply. “One of your followers’ phones works better. They can have it back when you bring the party.”
The Gorgons shared a look, one of Stheno’s longest snakes inching across Euryale’s shoulder and questing lazily down the front of her dress like a docile pet. Euryale stroked its head as she gazed into her sister’s eyes.
“Fine,” they said at the same time, turning their heads to look at Tanis, doing nothing to dispel the creepiness.
“Jefferson!” Stheno barked. Mr. BMW stepped forward, but didn’t get too near, his attention fixed on the nest of snakes stretching to reach him with gaping maws.
“Yes, ma’ams?”
“Give the lamia your phone.”
He cut the Gorgons and their hair a wide berth so he could do as he was told. Seeing it was password protected, she tapped the screen. “Code?” He provided it, she committed it to memory, and promptly pulled up his contacts list. “Who on here can I text once I’m in the Den?”
“Muriel,” he said. “She’s our head priestess.” He motioned behind him, to the blind woman at the top of the stairs. Tanis nodded and turned off his GPS before sliding the phone into her back pocket, right beside Maman’s feather.
“Then we have a deal,” Euryale said. “We will be waiting for you.”
Tanis caught Jefferson/BMW’s eye and handed him the statue. She motioned at Stheno. “Take it over.”
He did, his upper half bent away from the Gorgons, one of the green snakes dangerously close to his face and snapping. Eventually he dropped to his knees, crawling across the ground and through the dirt to bring the statue to his mistresses. It looked wrong, such a finely-tailored man so obsequious before them. Worse, Euryale put her hand on his head, careful with her toxic nails so she didn’t prick him as she stroked over his forehead and along the shell of his ear.
He’s like a labradoodle in Dockers. Maybe if she scritches, his foot will start thumping.
It wasn’t an ideal time to crack jokes, but chalk it up to gallows humor.
He lifted the statue. Neither Gorgon looked particularly interested in the bottle, which was good, because opening it and smelling the water inside would tip them off. Both sisters looked at Tanis expectantly.
“What do you want us to do?” Stheno asked.
Papa didn’t actually say, so...
“Both of you touch it, say, ‘I swear no harm will come to you, your girlfriend, or her family.’ That should suffice.” She pulled the cigarette from behind her ear and tucked it into her mouth. With her focus elsewhere, she might not betray exactly how tense she was to see them with her water in their possession. She watched the flame pop up from the lighter, the tip of the cigarette go red, the first puff of smoke erupt. From the corner of her eye she spied two hands, one human-looking, the other bronze w
ith green nails, encircling the statue.
Both made the oath, verbatim, giggling all the while. That part didn’t bother her—she knew it was a ridiculous request, she knew she’d react similarly in their position. No, what bothered her was when Stheno tugged the statue from BMW’s hand and let it swing on its cord before her boar snout. She tossed her head, her tusks gleaming, and with a snort, threw the fetish to the ground and shattered it, the water inside pooling on the ground. An ant, poorly placed, poorly timed, walked through it before the dusty ground swallowed it up and promptly dropped, legs twitching a few times before going still. Tanis stared, her nose assaulted by the putrid stench of decaying river, and she braced for the inevitable deluge of questions and accusations.
...but there were none. Not from the Gorgons, not from the human a few feet away.
They can’t smell that?
Are their noses that bad? Or did Maman doctor it somehow?
“Silly snake god.” Stheno turned her back on Tanis and headed for the porch, her followers bowing their heads as she ascended the stairs to reclaim her place by the front door.
Euryale toed one of the shards on the ground, her snake mouth tilting into a frown. At least, Tanis thought it was a frown; it was hard to tell.
“You put your faith in false gods, lamia, when there are real gods before you.”
And then she, too, drifted away, leaving Tanis gawking at the broken Dumballah in their driveway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DOES IT MATTER if the water spilled? And how do I know if it worked in the first place? Were there special words they were supposed to say?
Hell, does it really matter so long as they can’t find Naree? I didn’t mention Bee, but if they scry for her...
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She drove to Adder’s Den, thoughts spiralling, hands sweaty on the steering wheel. Naree, for the time being, was safe. They had no reason to go after her so long as they didn’t know the baby was Tanis’s. They likely assumed Tanis was sterile, like the rest of the lamia, which worked in Bee’s favor. It was possible they’d scried Tanis and Naree’s conversations about the baby’s parentage, but there was no way to know for sure, and the Gorgons certainly wouldn’t be forthcoming with that information, no matter how civil they’d been during negotiation.
Tanis parked a quarter mile from Adder’s Den and pulled out her phone, eyeballing Naree’s name on her contacts list before typing. It was far too long of a message at first, with details about the deal she’d struck, why she’d struck it, the vow Stheno and Euryale had made, and every other thing that had set her on her suicidal course, but before she pressed Send, she erased all of it.
The less Naree knew, the better. Tanis hated lying to her by omission—hated that she didn’t have any sure way to protect Naree and Bee—but neither of them could be held responsible for information they didn’t have.
But if she could help them at all...
Hey sweetheart. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, call Poul Mwen in New Orleans. Ask for Renaud and tell him I sent you. Say you want to hide from a scrying. They’ll tell you what to do. I love you. Kiss Bee for me.
And, before Naree stabbed her in the gut with a monsoon of texted feelings, Tanis turned off the phone and pocketed it. She looked through the windshield at the overgrowth before her. The world was a wash of green until the trees met blue sky, the fat, white clouds on the horizon edged with gray and promising later rains. She breathed in deeply, inviting calm, but there was no calm to be found in the face of the decay.
Pungent. Cloyingly sweet rot laced with smoke and charred meat, like a barbecue where all the raw hamburgers had been left out on the counter for a week.
She climbed from the car, her shotguns at the ready, the Colt and the Glock tucked into her jeans. Her head tilted back, nose leading her toward the rankness, over familiar paths, her boots crunching sticks and twigs, the tall grass hissing and rustling as she walked through it. Soon, she saw the shorts on the flagpole that told her she was home, by some vague, awful definition of ‘home.’ The smell was stronger there, wafting from the entry shed, thick and sour and terrible and making her wish she didn’t have such a sensitive nose.
Did the Gorgons get here first? Is this some fucked-up trap?
Tanis approached the shack right as Kallie and another sister Tanis only somewhat knew walked out. They carried corpses of humanoid daughters over their shoulders, the dead wrapped in sheets, the sheets drenched red. An arm had fallen out of one of the make-do shrouds, revealing a bloodied stump with no hand attached.
Kallie’s lip curled.
“She took your leaving poorly,” she snapped. “Too many gone because of you. Too many for her to eat, so we’re building a pyre. Maybe next time you’ll think about someone else before you abandon us.”
“Is that what I smell?”
Tanis looked to the wetlands beyond the Den’s borders. An oily pillar of smoke twisted in the eastern sky. She’d missed it walking in; the trees had shielded it from view.
“We’re gathering the last of the bodies now.” Kallie’s hand clenched around the corpse on her shoulder. “We’re almost done. You should be doing this. It’s your fau—”
“No, it’s not.” Tanis swung the shotgun up and away from them, so it was pointed at the sky. She didn’t want to look threatening, though she supposed approaching with that much ammo slung over her body didn’t exactly speak to a warm and fuzzy homecoming. “It’s Lamia’s fault, taking out her shit on people who don’t deserve it. I had my reasons to run. Good ones, too. I’m not shouldering her anymore. And if you’re smart, you won’t either. Go, run. Get out of here. How’s she going to send sisters after you to drag you home if they’re all too dead or gone to come get you?”
Kallie looked horrified; the sister with her, confused. Tanis hadn’t outright warned them of what was to come, not in so many words, but she’d said her piece and offered them an escape. If they didn’t take it, that wasn’t her problem.
Is that true? You’re about to call down the fury. Every death will be your doing. Every one.
Lamia has to go. But the rest of them?
Kallie shoved by her, purposefully knocking her back with the rank, bloodied remains on her shoulder, the cold legs thwacking Tanis in the chest. Tanis stumbled to stay upright, watching her sister lamias disappear behind bushes along their border. For a moment, she reconsidered her plan. What she’d said to the Gorgons wasn’t inaccurate—the lamias’ lives were horrible. Too horrible, in most cases. Broken and battered and never knowing kindness. They were indentured to their Mother because they were too afraid not to be, or too ignorant to know there was anything else out there for them. Was sending them to Tartarus on top of it all fair?
No. No it’s not.
But life isn’t fair and anyone who says it should be is living in a Mickey Mouse dream.
She pulled out BMW’s phone and turned on the GPS, allowing it to triangulate in the middle of nowhere. Somehow, it got a signal, and she used that signal to telegraph the Den’s whereabouts to Muriel. If they were still at the manor house, they were twenty minutes away, thirty minutes tops. Tanis headed for the shack, striding past the chairs where Bernie and Fi had played cards together just a week ago. They were empty now, which was unusual, but if Mother had cleaned house as much as Kallie claimed, it was possible they were low on manpower.
She jumped down into the tunnel and immediately started breathing through her mouth, less to block the corpse stench and more to buffer needless distractions, like the True Daughters’ pheromones. None of it was ideal, not for Tanis or the people who had to live with the stink, but at least Lamia wouldn’t smell Tanis’s arrival and come for her with so much meatiness polluting the air.
Tanis looked around. Darkness ruled supreme; few of the lights had survived Mother’s tantrum. Golden eyes peered out at her from the shadows, her sisters hiding, too afraid to leave their makeshift hovels to confront her for her betrayal. She said nothi
ng as she walked, not toward Lamia’s chambers, but to the other end, where Barbara kept the hatchlings and youngest children in cribs and on soiled mattresses. She practiced what she’d say in her head all the way, outlining a plan to send Barbara and some trusted sisters to the Percy’s Pass lamia in the apartments until something more permanent could be set up for them.
Except.
Barbara sat on the edge of a mattress, a piece of broken wood clasped in her hands, a print dress hugging her thick curves all the way to her calves. The backs of her hands were the same silvery green as the scales that covered her head, her face, her neck. Her forehead, sloped like a snake, was furrowed, causing the scales to rise above her brow. Tears ran from her gold-and–black slitted eyes, making her greenness gleam all the brighter in the dim light.
There were no children.
Tanis surveyed the damage. The shattered cribs. The upended toy boxes. The changing table that had been thrown across the room and broken apart into four pieces. “What happened?”
Why bother asking? I know. It’s written all over the place.
How could you, Mother? They were babies. They’d done nothing. How could you?
“Her,” Barbara said simply. The shape of her head made her words sound different from most of the other daughters. Her voice was quieter and softer, sweeter in a way. Or maybe that was Tanis’s fondness for the nanny who’d brought her up.
Tanis eyed Barbara a while, searching for signs of resentment or anger at her, but there was none. Barbara was lost to sadness. Tanis sat beside her on the old mattresses that probably hadn’t been changed since Tanis had slept there ten years ago.
“She said they’d slow us down when we made our escape. Said she could make more. ‘True bloods,’ she called them. I don’t understand why she’d say that.” Tanis did, though, and when Barbara’s shoulders trembled, Tanis moved her shotgun sling aside to wrap her arm across Barbara’s shoulders. She held her close while Barbara quietly wept for Lamia’s most pathetic victims.
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