Waking the Serpent Read online

  Hamilton managed to look convincingly baffled. “We do?”

  “You think you’re going to take what’s mine.”

  “Yours? Rafael, if this is about Phoebe, I have no intention of coming between you two. I still don’t think your association with her is wise, but once the charges against you have been dropped—which they will be, I assure you, as soon as we make this deal—the point will be moot.”

  “You know tha’s not what I mean.” Rafe swallowed. Had he just slurred? His throat felt numb. His gaze went to the ceramic creamer. If his father had kept cream in the house, it would have gone bad by now. Hamilton had brought this.

  He fumbled in his pocket for his phone, thinking he could dial Phoebe and leave it connected without Hamilton knowing, but he’d left it in his coat in the kitchen.

  “Looking for this?” Hamilton smiled and patted the rectangle shape in his shirt pocket. “I’ve turned off the ringer so we won’t be disturbed.” He sat back in Rafe’s father’s favorite chair and laid his arms on the rests. “Rafael, the key to being successful in this business is being smarter than everyone around you. And I don’t doubt you’re an intelligent man. But a shrewd lawyer studies his opponents long before he enters the courtroom, learns their weaknesses. And he comes prepared.”

  Rafe’s head fell back against the cushion of his chair and he couldn’t seem to lift it. Hamilton was right. He’d gone off half-cocked, so eager to take Hamilton down he hadn’t made any kind of a plan. He’d been extraordinarily stupid.

  “What I’ve given you is a kind of concentrated pulque, but with my own special adaptations.”

  Pulque—according to Aztec legend it was what Tezcatlipoca had given Quetzalcoatl to destroy him, getting him so intoxicated on the fermented sap of the century plant that Quetzalcoatl committed incest with his sister. Or saw his reflection distorted into an image of his own imperfection and cruelty, depending on which version you subscribed to.

  “I’m sure you know the story.” Hamilton smiled. “I thought it would be particularly fitting. But don’t worry. It won’t kill you. I need you alive—at least to perform the ritual.”

  “What...richal?”

  Hamilton rose and came around the table, bending over Rafe to unbutton his shirt. Rafe’s heart raced, his PTSD triggered by the unwanted touch. But whatever Hamilton had put in his pulque, it had rendered Rafe powerless to move of his own accord.

  “I need to prepare you.” Hamilton worked through the buttons. “It’s nothing prurient. A ritual bath must be performed before we can begin. And, as you know, with any ritual, clothing dampens the body’s energy.” He began to draw Rafe’s arms from the sleeves, easing Rafe forward to slump against him so he could remove the shirt.

  “Fuh...cue.” Rafe’s cheek smashed against Hamilton’s chest.

  Hamilton laughed as he eased Rafe back into the chair and started removing Rafe’s boots. “I admire your spirit, Rafael. If you were the weak, ineffectual man your father believed you to be, you could never have fulfilled the promise of your family legacy. And, as I said, I did my homework on you long before I arrived in this cozy if slightly pretentious little burg.

  “It was sheer luck, of course, that Ione’s sister, a bona fide scion from one of the most ancient and powerful bloodlines, happened to be a talented evocator, as well. All I had to do was drop a little hint to Ione that Phoebe might be able to provide you with the unorthodox assistance you needed to clear your name.”

  Was he really going to stand here and give Rafe the “villain” speech? The fucker was a walking cliché.

  Hamilton paused to admire the wind jewel tattoo on Rafe’s chest. “Nice work.” He placed his palm against it and Rafe’s skin rippled with a flinch though his muscles wouldn’t respond further. “Very well placed. It will do nicely.”

  He finished undressing Rafe before stepping back and invoking Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, Lord and Lady of the Underworld. The air around them seemed heavy with energy, as though a host of shades was trying to manifest.

  Hamilton spoke in a casual tone. “Ernesto.”

  The shade of a middle-aged man appeared, looking almost solid. He bowed before the necromancer who’d conjured him, his gaze going to Rafe with surprise—evidently at being seen—as he raised his head.

  “Prepare a bath for the quetzal. You’ll find the necessary implements in the bathroom upstairs and to the right.”

  Rafe gasped as the shade rushed into him with his breath. Despite his drugged, immobilized state, he found himself on his feet, walking toward the steps.

  Ernesto didn’t speak through him as he ran the bath and poured in the vial of fragrant oil that sat on the counter, moving like a silent, unobtrusive servant—but using Rafe’s body to do it.

  “’Nesto,” he croaked, watching his own hands sprinkle dried hibiscus petals and a pinch of salt into the bath, as if he were having an out-of-body experience. “Why...?” He couldn’t get anything else out, but Ernesto seemed to understand him.

  “Why do I help Tezcatlipoca?” It was unnerving to hear himself speak without being conscious of forming the words, the shade unaffected by the pulque. “I told you before. We are his slaves.” He stepped into the bath as it filled, and sank into it, the water almost scalding. The tub was as luxurious and overdesigned as everything in this house, a round, sunken marble bath with faucets on both ends to heat the water evenly, and big enough to stretch out in and submerge himself to his shoulders.

  Rafe couldn’t form any more words on his own. His tongue felt like lead. But what if we protected your family from him? As he suspected, Ernesto could hear the thought.

  “There is no protection from the Night Wind. Yohualli Ehecatl sees and hears all. He is everywhere.”

  I protected Phoebe from his nagual with a perimeter spell. And Phoebe was able to cast the shades out and send them packing, without my help. But you were there. You know that.

  “It doesn’t matter.” The words were uttered in a monotone, as though the conversation were boring Ernesto. Or perhaps it was hopelessness. “He has my bones.”

  Rafe had an instant picture in his head of what the shade meant: a shrine Hamilton had set up somewhere with a pile of bones jumbled in a large clay bowl. They were finger bones from the look of them, but the sizes were inconsistent. These were from several individuals. The necromancer had somehow taken a bone from each of the corpses of the shades he controlled—perhaps he’d even murdered all of them. The bones of his victims. That’s how he controlled them so completely. Rafe should have guessed.

  So even if Ernesto’s family was safe, the necromancer owned Ernesto’s shade. As he’d said, they were his slaves. Unless the bones were burned or returned to their graves, the shades were chained to the earthly plane, unable to cross over. It was as hateful and vicious a thing as Rafe had ever heard of—as cruel as crossing shades against their will.

  The necromancer appeared in the doorway. “I’m ready for you.” In true creep fashion, he was naked for the ritual, except for a ceremonial wind jewel pectoral made of gold and jadeite. Rafe wished he could vomit, but Ernesto was suppressing his voluntary functions. He stepped out of the tub, taking the towel Hamilton held out. Hamilton placed a short string of beads of something like shell around his neck.

  Under Ernesto’s volition, Rafe followed the necromancer back downstairs and into the foyer. Was he going to march Rafe outside like this, with both of them naked? Instead, Hamilton opened the door to the rain-collecting pool. Rain was currently pouring into it. A kind of St. Andrew’s Cross stood in the center, a frame with two beams forming an X, complete with bondage restraints.

  Screw you, pervert. I am not going in there. He tried to resist, but he was only along for the ride at this point. Ernesto led him straight to it, turning him around to face Hamilton, who stepped into the rain with them and brought Rafe’s arms to
the restraints at the tips of each beam of the cross to secure him, doing the same at the bottom with his ankles.

  Rafe’s body shuddered and Ernesto left him.

  Hamilton observed him. “I imagine you’re probably quite numb at this point. But it should wear off in an hour or so. You’ll have your voice back near the end of the ritual, which I don’t mind telling you will enhance the experience for me. By the end of the ritual, of course, I’ll be in possession of all your energy. But I expect you’ll still be able to scream.”

  Rafe could only stare daggers at him while he cursed Hamilton in his head with every swearword in his vocabulary.

  Hamilton had set up one of the hutches from his father’s liquor collection beside the cross as an altar, with a set of gold-trimmed hurricane lamps for the candles positioned inside. He cast the circle, calling the corners using the four “Tezcatlipocas”—which, in addition to Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec, included Quetzalcoatl as “White Tezcatlipoca.” This highlighted Hamilton’s spectacular arrogance, calling upon the very god whose avatar he now sought to subjugate.

  When Hamilton picked up the dried maguey spine standing in as an athame, Rafe realized the necromancer intended to follow the legend, piercing Rafe in the ceremonial manner to let his blood. His breath quickened as he fought to move something—anything—but his body was unresponsive. If only it were also numb to sensation, but from his experience with the scalding bathwater, Rafe knew that wouldn’t be the case.

  Hamilton began. They were only ceremonial cuts, just enough to draw blood—from his earlobes, calves and tongue...and a jagged line down the shaft of his cock. This last cut brought out the quetzal, the wings trapped between the beams of the cross until Hamilton drew him forward to let them stretch across the width of the glass enclosure.

  Rafe managed to gnash his teeth and hiss.

  “Magnificent.” Hamilton stroked his hand along the top of one wing. “I think these will look rather fine on me, don’t you?” He turned to show Rafe his back, revealing an almost identical tattoo to Rafe’s Quetzalcoatl.

  That was taking the creep factor a little too far. How long had this nut-bag been stalking him? Even his father hadn’t known about Rafe’s tattoo. He’d gotten it after high school when he’d begun studying to apply to the Covent, a way of putting the past behind him and marking his body as his own.

  Hamilton turned to face him. “When I’ve fully absorbed your power, the quetzal will take up residence in me. The pity is you’ll never have the chance to learn to use it. But I’ll give you a glimpse of what I can do before I send you to Mictlan.”

  Chapter 27

  Rafe wasn’t answering his phone. Phoebe’s texts had gone unanswered all afternoon and calls went straight to voice mail.

  She’d tried to tell herself she was just being paranoid. He’d probably forgotten to charge his phone before leaving the house. But the yipping howl of a coyote bold enough to come out before nightfall in the pouring rain had set her nerves on edge.

  When Rafe hadn’t arrived before they’d finished making dinner, they started without him. Phoebe pushed steak around her plate, listening to the baying of what were once again multiple coyotes off in the distance, while the twins kept insisting Rafe would be along any minute. But by the time they’d eaten, darkness had fallen, and they were starting to share her suspicions.

  Theia cleared the dishes. “It doesn’t make sense he’d be gone this long and not at least call.”

  Rhea nodded, chin in her hands as she rested her elbows on the countertop. “And the fact that his phone is going straight to voice mail means either the battery died and he hasn’t managed to charge it since he left five hours ago, or it’s off.”

  Phoebe handed Theia her barely touched plate. “So what do we do?”

  After a quick twin glance of silent communication, Rhea spoke. “There’s a little something I’ve been practicing that might come in handy.”

  “Practicing?” Phoebe glanced from one to the other. “Practicing how?”

  Theia set the dishes in the sink. With her back to Phoebe, she lifted the hem of her shirt. At her sacrum was a tattoo Phoebe hadn’t seen before—as far as she’d known, she and Rhea were the only inked ones in the family.

  “When did you get that?” She rose and went into the kitchen to take a closer look. It was a beautifully stylized rising sun, the horizon and rays done in thin black outline with the look of fancy ironwork, an airbrushed wash of color behind it that changed in hue from a deep gold in the disk of the sun to brilliant oranges and reds as it blended into the “sky” of Theia’s back. “Wow. That is gorgeous.” Phoebe turned her head toward Rhea at the bar. “Did you design this?”

  Rhea nodded almost bashfully, not a look she was used to seeing on her little sister.

  “I tattooed it.”

  Phoebe gaped, taking a closer look at the tattoo. “Oh, my God. You tattooed it? When did you learn to tattoo like this?” Not that Phoebe was any kind of an expert, but it was the finest work she’d ever seen.

  “Like I said, I’ve been practicing.” Rhea got up and came around the breakfast bar to where they were. “But that’s not what we wanted to show you.” She put the tips of her fingers on the image. “I discovered I can sort of...well, do a ‘reading’ from my tattoos.”

  “A reading?”

  Theia sucked in her breath and Phoebe put a hand on her arm. “What’s going on? You okay?”

  Before Theia could answer, however, Phoebe made a sharp inhalation of her own. She’d never had a vision before, but she was having one now. She watched Theia in her cap and gown accepting her diploma, while Rhea stood waiting at the steps of the platform for Theia’s name to be called. This was the scene as Phoebe remembered it from their high school graduation. While they’d still worn their hair the same, her sisters had decided to do a classic “twin swap” for the ceremony just to mess with people. They’d kept it up all night long.

  The vision dissipated and Phoebe realized Rhea had stepped away. “What just happened?”

  “I’m some kind of conduit for the reading.” Rhea shrugged sheepishly as Theia lowered her shirt and turned around. “While I’m touching my work, the person I’m ‘reading’ sees what I see—and so does anyone else who’s in physical contact with either of us at the time. I call it ‘pictomancy.’”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Only you would come up with a whole new form of divination. But why did I just see your graduation?”

  “I was thinking about the last time Rhe and I were sort of a ‘unit.’” Theia shrugged. “We were always ‘the twins,’ always together in every class, everywhere we went. That night was our last hurrah before we went out into the big, wide world to be individuals.”

  Rhea laughed. “The big, wide world of 150 miles apart.”

  “So how does this help us find Rafe?” Phoebe shivered at the sound of the coyotes calling to each other.

  Rhea put her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “Well, it might not work at all, but I was thinking since I designed your tattoo, I might be able to read it, even though I didn’t ink it.”

  Phoebe blinked at her. “And then what? I see myself in law school? How is that going to help?” She knew she was being short with Rhea, but mounting fear for Rafe had her on edge.

  “I don’t just read memories. The subject of the reading concentrates on what they want to learn about, just like a tarot reading or a palm reading. It can be a general reading about the person and where they’re going in life, or something more specific and immediate.”

  “She did one about my love life.” Theia gave Phoebe a warning frown before she could ask. “And we’re not going to talk about it.”

  Phoebe’s curiosity was piqued but she saved her needling for later. She considered what Rhea might be able to glean from a reading of the moon tattoo. Maybe
it was as simple as concentrating on Rafe’s location.

  “Okay, let’s give it a shot.” She slipped her top over her head and Rhea put her palm over Phoebe’s navel. Phoebe closed her eyes and repeated in her head, Where are you, Rafe? What’s happened? But as hard as she concentrated, no vision came.

  After a moment she opened her eyes. “Am I doing it wrong? Should I be trying to picture Rafe or just thinking a question?”

  Rhea dropped her arm. “It shouldn’t take that much work.”

  Phoebe sighed. “Maybe it only works on Theia, because of your twin connection.”

  “No, I’ve tried it on two other friends I’ve tattooed, and the reading happened just like it did with Theia. It must be the tattooing that makes the connection.” Rhea threaded her fingers through the short hair at her temples in frustration. “Sorry, Phoebes. I wasn’t sure it would work.”

  “But if you tattooed me, would it work right then or would it have to heal first?”

  Rhea paused with her fingers woven together behind her head. “Well...right away. That’s how I found out, while I was tattooing Thei.”

  “Then tattoo me.” Phoebe put her shirt back on.

  “Phoebe...” Rhea’s hands dropped to her sides. “I don’t have my kit with me.”

  “But you can go get it.”

  Rhea glanced at Theia and back, as if she thought Phoebe might be starting to lose it. “That’s going to take hours. It’s at least two each way. Maybe one and a half if I drive fast.”

  “I need to do something, Rhe. Something bad has happened. I feel it. And if there’s anything we can do to find him, I need to try. Please.”

  Theia nodded at her twin. “Do it. I’ll stay here with her and we’ll call you on your cell if anything changes, so you won’t have to drive all the way there and back if he shows up.”

  Rhea looked dubious. “Are you sure? A tattoo isn’t something to get on a whim. Especially one of mine. Have you even thought about what you might want?”