“She wasn't a monster,” insisted Cressida, “she was very pretty. In fact, she looked a bit like Beyoncé, but she wasn't like the mermaids in books or films, or the one on my night-light.”
“Beyoncé?” asked Paul, showing genuine interest in his daughter's conversation for the first time in days.
Cressida, sensing a more receptive audience, turned to her dad.
“Yes, she was pretty with long hair. And she had nothing on so I could see her boobies.”
The little girl had a voice that carried extremely well. There was a lull in the general hum of conversation in the dining room. A man at the next table spat soup, spluttered, and quickly wiped his face with a napkin. Paul said nothing but tried to catch his wife's eye. She avoided looking at him, trying to suppress a giggle.
“Now, dear,” she said to Cressida, “don't be so loud. And if it was a lady having a swim with no clothes on she'll just get into trouble with the police.”
“Where did you see this mermaid, petal?” asked Paul, with an air of detached curiosity that did not fool Julie.
“On the little shingle beach this afternoon,” said Cressida. “You were asleep and Mummy had taken Will for a poo in the forest.”
“We don't use that word at the table if we want some sticky toffee pudding!” said Julie sharply. “Finish your food, dear, we're all waiting for you.”
Cressida shoveled another mouthful in with a sulky abruptness.
“I did see her,” she added. “And I took a picture of her with daddy's phone.”
“Of course, dear,” said Julie, glad to have defused the incident. Other diners were returning to their meals and conversations, now that there was no prospect of Cressida having a meltdown.
Later, when he and Julie were undressing for bed, Paul complained that his wife over-indulged their daughter's mermaid fantasies.
“It's just a harmless phase,” said Julie. “Anyway, you're obsessed with Will playing for Manchester United, even though he hates football. I'm not living out my dreams through my children.”
“Now that's totally unfair–” began Paul, but then stopped as his phone beeped.
“We made a solemn vow to answer no work emails,” warned Julie, climbing into bed. She patted the covers next to her. “We promised to have some together time. Extra special time. Make the most of it, big boy.”
“Okay,” sighed Paul, “I'll just turn it off after I've made sure it's not an emergency, because remember what happened last … Good grief!”
“What is it?” asked Julie.
Without speaking, he handed his phone to her. Julie looked at the photo, then at Paul.
“Did someone from work send you this? You should report them. It's that Alan, isn't it? He's a sexist dinosaur, that bloke. Talking to him is like meeting a grubby time traveler from the Seventies.”
Paul shook his head.
“It's not from Alan, it's not an email at all,” he said. “Look at the time stamp. That's a photo taken this afternoon. Don't you recognize the beach? Not to mention the mountains in the background.”
Julie stared at the beach and the mountains. They did look very familiar, but she found it hard to concentrate on the background. The figure in the foreground drew the eye.
“Well, she has got undeniably big boobies,” she admitted. “Not sure about the Beyoncé thing, though. Rather a hard face. Calculating. Not a good look on a mermaid.”
“Topless bathing's strictly forbidden,” Paul said, taking the phone back. “I'll keep this as evidence.”
“Oh yeah, it's evidence of something,” mocked Julie. “Just delete it.”
Her husband paused, sitting on the bed staring at the cell screen.
“Paul? Are you perving over another woman rather than getting into bed with me?”
He held up the screen to her.
“What do you make of that behind her?” he asked. “That curved thing in the water?”
Julie laughed.
“Are you suggesting she's actually got a tail? It's just a wave or something. Delete the pic and come to bed.”
“Okay,” he said. “Your wish is my command.”
***
Lisa Valentine, she thought, studying herself in the mirror of the hotel bathroom. I was Olga Volkova. Then the very clever, very stupid, very bad men made me The Insane One. And then a good man gave me so much of his humanity that I became a person again. And so I chose to become his only child.
“I am someone again,” she said to herself, and smiled. “I am moving among people, doing human things. I wear nice clothes, and shoes, and make up. I have a nice daddy, who's been very ill, so I go and visit him. I even take him fruit and puzzles! And I even have a handsome boyfriend who loves me. I am living the dream!”
Lisa went back into the bedroom and leaped onto the bed next to Pavel. He was staring at a movie on the television. She watched along with him for a few minutes, but found much of the dialogue baffling, the plot incomprehensible. Besides, the movie was about men with guns fighting monsters in some kind of labyrinth. She had had quite enough of that sort of thing. She picked up the remote and switched channels until she found a cartoon about a family of amiable pigs.
“Are you happy, darling?” she asked in Polish, snuggling up beside Pavel.
“Yes, darling,” he replied. “I am the luckiest man in the world.”
Lisa gave a slight frown. His voice was flat, expressionless. He said whatever she wanted, as a real lover should. But his robotic delivery was off-putting.
“Oh, honey,” Lisa said, sighing, “perhaps a bit too deeply when I made you my slave. If only you had more – more, what's that word?”
She looked up into Pavel's blank face, not expecting him to reply.
“Freedom,” he said, surprising her.
“Yes,” she said, “freedom. Just enough to think for yourself, while remaining true to me of course. But when I was insane, I tended to overdo things, didn't I? Oh well.”
She watched the animated pigs have a cozy adventure for a few more minutes, then the show ended and the evening news began. Lisa found news almost as distasteful as the film about men with guns, and for similar reasons. But she forced herself to keep up with current affairs, just in case bulletins offered some clue as to the location of her enemies.
“Why are people so stupid?” she asked, as reports of a man-made disaster followed an update on a terrorist atrocity. “They have a wonderful world, and they spoil it in so many ways. Why don't they all just wake up and …”
She groped for a suitable phrase. Again, Pavel surprised her.
“Wake up and smell the coffee.”
“Yes!” she cried. “Wake up and smell the coffee, hear the birds, feel the heat of the sun. Laugh and love and leave out lying, cheating, killing.”
“I think you'll find this world a bit more complicated than that,” said Pavel, in the same robotic voice.
Lisa laughed.
“Maybe you have got enough freedom, to think at least,” she said, approvingly. “Or maybe my bite is wearing off?”
She was pondering whether she would have to renew her influence over Pavel, when suddenly an image flashed onto the screen. The announcer adopted an arch tone, one Lisa had learned that people use when they are feeling clever and superior.
'And finally, is this Nessie or the Not-So-Little Mermaid? As you can see, we've had to pixilate this photo. An Australian tourist claims he took it from the passenger seat of a car driving along the shores of Loch Ness this morning. The image, which has been viewed millions of times online, seems to show a half-woman, half something else. The prevailing view is that it's a hoax, possibly created as a viral marketing campaign for a new superhero movie. And now a look at tomorrow’s weather for us mere mortals …'
Lisa sat bolt upright.
“It's her! The bitch who would have killed me.”
Pavel gave a stifled yelp and she realized she was almost crushing his hand in hers.
“I'm sorry, my darli
ng,” she said, patting his shoulder. “I'll kiss it better. Then we will find out where this place is, and we will go there, and I will slaughter our enemies and possibly bathe in their blood and entrails. If circumstances permit, of course.”
She smiled up at Pavel's impassive face.
“After all,” she added, “we've got a world to save.”
***
“You were seen!” said Jonathan Clay. “You attracted attention! We were supposed to be laying low.”
Cleo stretched her naked body luxuriously, hands and feet pushing against the walls of the small cabin. She was over six feet tall, and the old pleasure boat they had hired felt cramped even for Clay, who was shorter than average.
“I had to get out, take the air,” she said languorously. “And nobody believes I'm real when I'm half-transformed.”
She's becoming reckless, unpredictable, Clay thought. Ever since Steiger shot her, she's been acting erratically.
Cleo smiled, and sat up on her makeshift bed. Reaching up, she cupped Clay's face in one elegant, strong hand.
“Jonathan, I may not be able to read your thoughts precisely, but I don't need telepathy to know you're pissed off. But you're a clever man. You should know there's a method to my madness. Stop questioning me.”
“What's going on?” asked Kelly, climbing down into the cabin via a metal ladder. “You two bickering again? That's gotten really old.”
Cleo released Clay and got up, crouching to avoid hitting her head on the low roof.
“Why do you think I gave a few tourists a thrill, Kelly?” she asked the American girl.
Kelly shrugged. “To attract attention, but not from the authorities. If you Brits have some kind of government department that deals with the paranormal they'd have come at us before now. So, logically, you wanted to get someone else's attention, right?”
“Bingo!” said Cleo. “But who?”
“Not my dad, I'm guessing,” replied Kelly. “Not since he shot you.”
Cleo's smile faded. She ran her fingers over the scars left by bullet wounds on her body.
“If he wasn't your father, I'd have killed him for that,” she said. “And if he interferes again I won't hesitate to finish him. This is too important for any kind of family loyalty. But as it happens, I have a distraction in mind for daddy dearest. Chances are, you won't see him again. How do you feel about that?”
Kelly shrugged.
“I see the big picture,” said the girl. “What I don't understand is why you want the Insane One to come here.”
Clay gasped.
“What good would it serve, bringing that monster to us? She killed poor Helga.”
Cleo leaned forward until her face was close to his. A pink tongue flicked around her full lips.
“She is a rogue, an unknown quantity. While she lives, Ouroboros is divided, its spirit weakened. I sense it, I sense her. She's not far away. She wants a showdown as much as I do. Remember, she killed one of us. A reckoning is due.”
“Does it have to be about blood and revenge?” pleaded Clay. “Can't we just go ahead and complete the device? Once we activate it, all this hatred and spite will be irrelevant.”
Cleo gave a snort of laughter.
“Easy to say if you're a world-weary old man,” she sneered. Then, in a kindlier tone, “Jonathan, without you, none of this would be possible. You rediscovered Ouroboros. Without you, I would have led a miserable, short life. But you fail to see the big picture that Kelly grasps so firmly. Random elements like the Insane One cannot be permitted to exist in our new order.”
She's almost talking like a politician, now, thought Clay, then hastily tried to suppress the idea. But Cleo was not focused on him, he realized. She had lain back down and was starting to writhe on her worn mattress. Her mocha-colored skin began to grow scaly, and her legs started to merge into a great muscular tail. She moaned and they heard sickening cracks as bones and cartilages re-configured.
“Again?” whispered Kelly to Clay. “It's getting more frequent.”
Clay shook his head, unable to offer an opinion. This was something new. Cleo was barely able to retain fully human form for more than a few hours a day. Even Olivia, the first lamia created in centuries and former leader of the cult, had been in control of her metamorphosis right to the end. In Cleo, the human element had been almost overwhelmed by the serpent-goddess.
“Send Andreas down,” lisped Cleo. The tongue that flicked over her lips was black, now, and forked.
Clay looked into the lamia's golden-yellow eyes and saw fathomless, inhuman lust. This, too, was new and disturbing. But he dared not demur. He followed Kelly up onto the deck of the Talisman and spoke to the young German at the wheel.
“She wants to see you.”
Andreas looked at Clay, then at Kelly, who smiled and nodded.
“It'll be okay,” she said. “She just needs to take the edge off.”
Andreas made a familiar, unconscious gesture, running his fingers over the now nearly invisible scars on his neck. Cleo's bite had made him her slave.
Part of him must be revolted by this, thought Clay. Some locked away fragment of the ordinary man he was.
Andreas let go of the wheel and went down the cabin ladder. The young man closed the hatchway behind him. But not before Clay had heard a moan of anticipation from below that turned into a spine-chilling hiss of anticipation.
Chapter 2: Sketches and Charges
For a few days after the clash with Ouroboros in Poland, Brad's nightmares had eased off. At the time, he felt that the confrontation had provided some catharsis. But it had been a temporary respite, because he knew that nothing had been resolved. Brad had not persuaded Kelly to leave Ouroboros. He had not prevented them from taking the plans for Zamyatin's psychic amplification device. Above all, he had left his greatest ally, Marcus, to the mercies of a monster, and the creature had mutilated his mind.
“True,” said Kelly, as he enumerated these failures, as he did almost every night. “But nobody said life is a bowl of cherries.”
In this dream, father and daughter were sitting in a boat, a small wooden skiff. Kelly was dressed in old-fashioned ladies' clothes, all white silk and taffeta, complete with a pink-ribbon bonnet and high buttoned boots. Brad was wearing a light-colored suit, and a panama hat. He was rowing them across a lake. The problem was they seemed to get no nearer to the shore. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but the dark hills that surrounded the expanse of blue-gray water stayed remote, seemingly unattainable.
Brad was puzzled by this, but also by Kelly's comment.
“I thought that's exactly what the old song said? That life is a bowl of cherries. Isn't that how the lyrics go?”
“Well, we can easily find out!” exclaimed Kelly, with a winsome smile. She picked up an old-style record and put it onto a wind-up gramophone, then began cranking up the clockwork. The record began slowly, then sped up. The lyrics became comprehensible.
“There,” said Brad. “Life is indeed a bowl of cherries. It's in a popular song, must be true. Why aren't we moving? I'm rowing as hard as I can.”
“You're not going to the island, that's why,” said Kelly. “If you don't row us to the right place we can't smash the rotten, corrupt system. And you know how much you want to do that.”
“I don't–” he began, then realized what he was saying. Kelly laughed.
“Fooled ya! When I was little, you told me that most people are good and the world is a good place, basically. Don't you ever feel ashamed of the way you lied?”
“You were just a kid,” he protested, easing up and leaning on the oars. “Anyhow, there are lots of good people out there. And, you know how it is, I didn't want to tell you about wars and famines.”
“No, you let me find out for myself,” she retorted. “Through the one simple trick of not being there most of the time. Gee, thanks, Dad!”
Brad shook his head, was about to argue that she was being unfair. But then the boat heaved, pitched, and lift
ed almost out of the water before splashing down again.
“Oops,” said Kelly. “Don't know my own strength. Or our own strength. Sometimes it's hard to tell.”
The dark gray water parted a few yards to one side in an eruption of foam. A golden serpent appeared, magnificent and terrifying. It looked down at Brad with golden eyes, and smiled. Then it opened its mouth and descended upon him, taking his head between its vast jaws.
And that was when he woke up, as usual. He followed his customary routine, turning on the bedside lamp and reaching for pen and notepad. If he didn't write down the dream's contents at once, it tended to fade, and blur into earlier nightmares. Within minutes, all he would be left with was the familiar, depressing sensation of failing to communicate with his daughter.
Kelly. Monster. Lake. Boat. Not moving. Old song about …
He paused.
Damn. Some kind of fruit? Strawberries?
“Crap,” he said to the functional, charmless hotel room. “Missed it again.”
It was just before dawn on an August morning in London. Knowing it was pointless to try and get back to sleep, Brad got up and did a couple hours work on his laptop. He was now officially based in England for work purposes, though his assignment would only last for six months. He was supposed to be looking for rented accommodation but had made little progress. London's housing situation was even crazier than in big-city America. He was also taking more unpaid leave days than was good for his reputation in the company, but there was nothing he could do about that.
After dealing with a few emails, Brad went back to his notepad, hoping that his subconscious would dredge up some more details. Instead, he became frustrated and eventually found himself reciting the names of fruit out loud.
“Apple. Orange. Raspberry. Blueberry. Boysenberry. Roddenberry, goddamit! I sound like a crazy person.”
He stopped doodling, realizing that as he had struggled to recall the elusive fruit, his pen had traced a familiar circular pattern. It was the symbol of the ancient Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail.
Day of the Serpent (Ouroboros Book 3) Page 3
