Jack Daniels and Associates: Snake Wine (16 page)

He laid there wondering what the light was for when something directly beneath him started to splash violently, like an alligator thrown into a bathtub. Phin scrambled to his feet, a distinct animal odor assailing his nostrils, making him think that in this place, an alligator was a definite possibility. He leaned slowly over the side of the catwalk and looked down at the swollen, colossal form of Herb Benedict swinging by his arms inside a tank filled with what could only be described as piss-colored water. Herb looked up at Phin and sputtered, "Help."

Li Xiao's wrapped her fingers around the snake's throat and squeezed firmly, making its mouth open wide and its fangs extend, showing them both the small holes at their tips where the venom would squirt out. "Its reflexes are instantaneous," she said. "Any sudden movement. The slightest threat, and it will release poison into your eyes to blind you and then strike for your throat."

"If we were a threat, you mean," Frank said, forcing himself to smile. They were still stuck in the doorway, the two of them trapped in the fatal funnel by a goddamn snake. He felt ridiculous. He didn't even have a gun. This is a hell of a way to go out, he thought.

"Of course," the woman said, laughing. Her eyes were dark and full of unspeakable cruelty, and there was little doubt she would love every second of watching him thrash around on the ground screaming while her little monster's venom ate away his eyes. Li Xiao's face darkened and she suddenly choked the snake harder, making venom drops spill out of the cobra's fangs. It hissed and squirmed as it glared at Frank, ready to strike. Li Xiao aimed the cobra's face at Frank's and said, "Now, why don't we stop this little charade, and you tell me what you really want?"

"One more question," Jack said, sliding herself back to Frank's side. Her right arm was in the doorway now too and her chrome pistol was tight to her side. "Are the snake's reflexes faster than this?"

The gun's hammer clapped the frame and bright flame spurted from the mouth of the barrel, lighting up the dark doorway for a brief instant that showed the cobra's open mouth preparing to unleash its venom and then Jack's bullet smashing the reptile into bloody black pieces. Li Xiao stood frozen. The snake's blood was spattered across her robe and the side of her face as she slowly turned to look at the clump of ruined, squirming snake flesh dangling from her hand. Its long tail twitched and coiled tightly, went limp, then coiled again.

"Monster," Li Xiao whispered. She looked down at the destroyed animal and started to shake, "You…monster!"

Jack lifted her pistol and cocked the hammer back, centering it on the woman's face and said, "I always heard you have to cut a snake's head off to kill it. Same goes for people. Now where the hell is my partner?"

Li Xiao hurled the clump of bloody snake at both of them with a scream and ran from the door. Frank caught a face full of pulped innards and swept them out of his eyes as he dove inside the door after her. Jack made out worse. She'd still been speaking when Li Xiao hurled the snake and some of it had flown into her mouth. "Get her..ack!" Jack spat as much as she could, feeling vomit come into her throat. She grabbed the door and bent forward, about to erupt. "Go get her!"

Frank ran blindly into the dark room and felt the wind of a heavy door slamming shut in his face, stopping him in his tracks. Li Xiao turned the first deadbolt and Frank reared back and slammed his shoulder into the center of the door so hard it bent the metal frame, but he could see cracks of light through the edge of the door. So he hit it again and again, trying to snap the lock off.

Li Xiao screamed and ran at the door, leaping high in the air to kick it from her side. The impact struck Frank in his bad knee and he collapsed instantly, crying out in pain. Li Xiao laughed and said, "My snake is going to feed on your friend first, and then I will feed both of you to him over the next six weeks! I will cut off pieces of you to give him every day! You will beg for death by the time I finish with you!"

Phin climbed down from the platform and grabbed onto the lid of the tank, lifting his head over it only to recoil and say, "What the Christ is that?"

"Wine. Piss. I dunno what else," Herb grunted. "I've been in here for days! Shut up and get me the hell out of here!"

"All right, give me a second. I have to figure out how to raise this damn hoist. Where are the controls?"

"I don't…I don't know," Herb said. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open. His heart was beating too rapidly to let him focus, flooding his body with just enough blood and oxygen to remind him how badly he was hurting. In the semi-comatose state where he was barely getting enough oxygen to breathe, he'd found a quiet place to exist. A place close to death that was detached and peaceful. Now, Phin had dragged him back into the moment, back into the tank where every inch of him wanted to scream. His shoulders were both separated and the muscles and tendons surrounding his arm sockets were torn. It felt like only loose skin was keeping his body intact, and he might tear away from it at any moment. He might have lost one or both of his hands, he couldn't tell. They both felt dead.

His lower body was limp and he could do little more than flail around by turning his hips either way. From what he could see, the pool of filth he'd been sitting in had leeched the color and moisture from the skin and tissue of everything below his thighs. "I never saw the controls," Herb said, grimacing. 

Phin dropped down from the tank and spun in every direction, searching for a control panel or some kind of button to raise the hook that held Herb inside the tank. He inspected the hook itself, seeing it was attached to some sort of platform and anchored to the wall just beneath the catwalk. There were cables attached to it that had to be used to power the hoist and Phin jogged around the room, trying to see where each of them lead. He circled around the back of the tank and found a small metal box connected to one of the loose wires with a red button on it. "Here goes nothing," Phin said, picking up the box and jamming the button with the palm of his hand.

There was a loud grinding of steel cable dragging across a series of pulleys as the hoist activated, and the platform, hook, and Herb Benedict all began to rise.

"That's it!" Herb shouted. "You did it!"

"Hang on," Phin called out over the noise of the machine. "It looks like this thing has a swing arm. It should lift you out and drop you down automatically. I can't say how hard you're going to fall though."

"I don't care!" Herb cried out. "Just get me the hell out of this goddamn tank!"

Phin watched Herb ascend from the lid of the tank, yellow slime dripping off of his naked body like egg yolk. Herb's legs crashed into the top of the glass as the hoist swiveled, crashing Herb into the top of the glass. Herb groaned in pain as he tried to swing himself up high enough to get free. He finally rolled over the top of the threshold and wept with relief as the hoist began to lower him toward the floor.

"You're almost down," Phin said.

Herb Benedict could hardly contain his relief as the hydraulic arm descended, taking him down to the floor. He wasn't sure how he was going to land but he didn't care. Even if he broke both his legs, he didn't care. He was out of the tank and free of the…

Snake.

The massive cobra was coiled on the floor directly beneath him, its muscular head raised high in the air, waiting for him. The snake's hood was flared out wider than his forearm, staring at him menacingly with its hard, obsidian eyes. "No!" Herb shouted. "Stop!"

Phin looked up from behind the tank, barely able to see Herb through the blurry glass and said, "What?"

"Stop the winch!"

"What?" Phin shouted.

Herb kicked wildly at the snake, telling it to "Get back! Get the hell back in your cage!" but it did not move. He was about to be delivered directly into the thing's mouth. It was going to eat him while Phinneas Trout held the button down, and then when Phin came out to check on him, the snake was going to eat him too.

Out of the snake tank into the snake's mouth, Herb thought bitterly. Of all the rotten luck.

He was only a few feet from the floor now, and already within Naja's striking distance. It was patient, though. It was waiting, doing little more than flicking its tongue in the air at him, tasting his scent.

The winch dropped him the next six inches and slammed to a halt, leaving Herb Benedict low enough that his legs dangled uselessly on the floor, doing nothing to help him stand. The cobra watched him impassively as Herb laughed bitterly and said, "Go ahead, you filth. Get it over with."

It was all some enormous joke. The time in the tank, the terror he'd felt about being eaten, the unbelievable relief that had washed over him at being rescued, and all of it was for nothing. He was still going to die at the mouth of this horrific, useless monster of a creature. Herb's only wish was that Phin heard him screaming and was able to kill the thing in time. "Turn it into a pair of boots for me, buddy," he thought. Maybe a purse for my wife.

The snake hissed then, a low, guttural hiss, while its forked tongue flicked out again and again, searching the air all around it. It turned slightly away from Herb, intrigued by something in the rear of the warehouse.

The winch stopped as Phin took his hand off the button and shouted, "Are you down, Herb?"

Herb didn't respond. He looked through his weakened eyes at the door set at the far end of the warehouse and saw a woman crouched in front of it. Her back was turned to him and she was using both arms to brace the door shut. People were pounding on it from the other side, trying to break it down, and she was screaming, "Naja will gnaw the flesh from your bones!"

The cobra turned and looked back at Herb, lowering its jaw to show him the wicked curves of its fangs. The hood around its neck was still flared, showing him it was ready to strike at a moment's notice. Herb swallowed and said, "She's right back there. The one you want. The one you've been waiting on for years, the one you've been searching for."

The snake did not move, keeping its eyes locked on Herb. The man was the trophy. The man was the prize the snake had been craving for so long, but the woman far behind it screamed again and the snake found itself turning, confused yet drawn by some ungovernable instinct that needed to be obeyed. The hood collapsed around Naja's neck, and the monster slithered away, heading for the commotion at the doorway, knowing there was something there that needed to be seen.

There was another violent crash against the door that nearly buckled the frame, and Li Xiao kicked it in response, doing all that she could to keep it from opening. There were two more locks that would hold it no matter what the man on the other side did, if only she could get it shut just enough to turn them. Even one would do. That was all the time she needed to release Naja and escape. Those two fools would come barging into the warehouse to find their friend dead and the snake hidden in the corner, waiting to feed on them next. It was a perfect plan, if only she could get the one lock set. And then, only a few feet behind her, she heard a growling hiss.

She laughed and turned her head, seeing Naja at her heel, staring up at her. "You let yourself free! Good boy!" she said.

The snake did not move other than to lick the air several times, all while staring hard and deep into Li Xiao's eyes.

Li Xiao felt the cobra searching her, peering into her, and scowled at the snake and said, "What's wrong with you?"

She heard her own voice then. Her true voice, without the modulator and without the mask she'd worn for so long, ever since the day she'd captured Naja in the jungle. She realized it with sudden, debilitating horror. King cobras never forget. They always remember the one who trapped them.

Naja's hood flared wide and it leapt up from the ground with terrifying speed, its jaws opening wide enough to devour a rabbit whole, and it struck her face harder than a heavyweight boxer's jab. It punched four holes on either side of her nose and mouth, four holes that filled with venom as the snake bit down hard, tearing into her flesh.

Li Xiao screamed and grabbed the creature around the neck, trying desperately to pull it off, but it was too strong. Its bite was too deep. Then it bit her again and again, eating her face in chunks as she flailed and screeched, begging it to stop. Her screams echoed through the large warehouse, high-pitched shrieks that scar the mind and cannot be forgotten.

The venom poured into her face, deadening her skin until she could no longer force her mouth to move, and travelling down and through her throat until she could no longer work her vocal cords. The pain and horror was as hot and bright as ever, and she could see the snake eating her skin, tearing away chunks of her nose and lips and cheeks but she could not even force herself to gasp. Li Xiao died silently, listening to the sound of her pet swallowing pieces of her.

Frank braced himself against Jack and gave one final shove, sending the door crashing into the warehouse and both of them flying through it. They landed two feet in front Li Xiao's body and Naja instantly leapt up in the air, blood and meat dripping from its fangs, ready to strike.

Jack raised her pistol and fired a bullet directly in the center of the damned thing's face. The cobra sailed backwards, it's long, black body flopping wildly, slapping the dirty floor like a wet hose. She looked past the snake and the dead body and saw Herb Benedict dangling from a hook, his arms handcuffed high above his head.