Viper Moon (37 page)

Michael and Flynn lifted me to my feet again. I clung to them, unable to stand on my own. Some of the Mother’s light had faded, so we stood and watched as two demigods faced each other. A little tingle of common sense, never one of my strong points, said we should be running like hell. But I was her Huntress. By my own vows, I belonged to her. I had to bear witness to this world-altering event.

The Darkness laughed again. Still no true humor there. “Innana,” he said. “How wonderful to see you again.”

“Aiakós.” The Earth Mother, still robed in light, nodded her head. She stepped toward him.

He stepped back.

Innana? Was that her name? And the Darkness was called Aiakós?

This was the first time I’d ever seen the Mother’s face. She’d hidden it from me when she’d approached me ten years ago and spoken to me through Abby or directly into my mind. A goddess version of a young Abby, she matched the Darkness perfectly—and was his opposite at the same time. One incredible difference marked them. The Darkness had a physical body and the Mother shimmered like a ghostly specter.

“Beautiful Innana.” The Darkness bowed low to the Mother. “I have missed you, my love.”

The Mother’s silver grew brighter and the Darkness averted his eyes. “Your love, Aiakós? I am nothing of yours. Be assured of that. The conjunction has come and gone. You are still caged, only now you lack the power to corrupt so many minds at a distance as you did before. You’ll have to face them one at a time.” The Mother laughed, and it seemed as if flowers would suddenly bloom in the Zombie Zone, where nothing of hers had lived in over half a century. Elise and her son had tried to give him more power. Instead, the power of her selfsacrifice had brought him here in person.

Aiakós stared at her. If he was reacting to her words, I couldn’t tell it by his alien face. He suddenly turned to Michael. “I claim my son, though. I can make good use of him.”

“No!” I grabbed Michael.

“No.” The Mother echoed my words. “He is torn between us, Aiakós. You may not have him yet.” She nodded at Michael. “You have only postponed your time of choosing, Archangel. Have care. You may yet fall.”

The Mother turned to me.

“So I screwed up,” I grumbled. I wanted to stand straight, but had to cling to Flynn.

“No, Huntress. You have fulfilled your duty. I am pleased.”

“But he’s
here
.”

The Mother laughed and Aiakós snarled like a caged cat.

“And so, my dear, am I, since you so graciously brought me in. Leave Aiakós and me to discuss our affairs.” She glanced at him. “I will keep him from you until you’re gone. Go now.”

“And Nefertiti?” I nodded at my friend’s torn body.

“She served us well and will be rewarded.”

The Earth Mother dismissed my sorrow. She didn’t understand. Abby once said that, to the Mother, life and death were the same things, only a different passage through her world.

Michael stepped forward. “I want my mother.”

Aiakós studied him for a moment, then walked away from the altar. Michael approached and carefully wrapped Elise’s body in her robe. He lifted her gently in his arms.

A movement to my right caught my eye. Dacardi had torn Victor’s jacket off his body and was carefully gathering the pieces of Nefertiti’s body.

“I did not summon your mother to my world, my son,” Aiakós said to Michael. “She was once a powerful witch and made her own to me. I did not ask her to sacrifice you in my name. It would have given me nothing, and she paid a terrible price.”

Michael refused to look at him.

The monsters would take care of Vic’s body. I should have hated him, that traitor, but the only thing I could find was pity—and maybe a bit of kinship. I am the Earth Mother’s servant. He served another. We both had the dubious honor of being human pawns for powerful beings.

Flynn wrapped his arm around my shoulder and steadied me as we left the plaza. As we passed out of the circle of torches, out of the pentagram, the Darkness—Aiakós—laughed.

“I’ll see you again, Michael,” he called after us.

The three of us hurried down the empty Barrows streets to one of the Steroid Dogs parked a block away, its engine running. Men stood guard around it, shining the brilliant lights into the crumbling buildings.

“What happened to the monsters?” I asked. We’d seen a multitude of bodies, but not a living thing stirred at our passage.

“They probably sensed the disturbance when the dark moon reached its place in the conjunction,” Michael said. “Unlike us, they did the wise thing and went into hiding.”

Dacardi had his man open a back hatch and Michael laid Elise’s body inside. Dacardi placed Nefertiti beside her.

We climbed in and the Dog slowly made its way out of the Barrows. Dacardi was on the phone again, arranging another pickup.

I wrapped my arms around Flynn and hugged him and kissed him and—

“Hey!” Michael gently elbowed me. “He wasn’t the only one there.”

“You’re right.” So I hugged him, too. He didn’t get any kisses. “I thought you were dead.”

“I would have been,” Michael said. “Flynn saved me. Vic threw something at me. It made me sick. Flynn arrived before the monsters killed me, but it took time to recover enough to tell him where you were. Or where you had to be. I know the Zombie.”

“You know the Zombie. You knew other things. Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice had a hard note in it, and Flynn stirred as if preparing for violence again.

Michael didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t want you to hate me. You already doubted my humanity. I swear, I didn’t know where the children were until yesterday. I wanted . . .”

He’d wanted to be a hero. He’d wanted me to love him.

I changed the subject. “Do you have any control over the monsters? Like Vic did? You seemed pretty confident in the sewers, facing them with only a bronze stick.”

“I have a little. I didn’t know Victor had any. That’s why I wanted you and me to go alone—aboveground.”

“Michael, I had a path to follow.”

“I know. One you didn’t create and couldn’t control.” His voice tightened. “They used us, your Mother and . . . Aiakós.”

I couldn’t disagree. Many things in this dark moon night had been suspended over a chasm of chances—a split-second decision to move to the left or right, take action or choose inaction.

Dacardi was riding shotgun again. Nefertiti’s basket sat between the seats. I reached forward and laid a hand on it. Tears came to my eyes. I’d miss her for a long time.

I turned to Michael. His eyes narrowed with weariness and sorrow. “So tell me, Michael. This Aiakós, he’s your dad?”

“Mother said he was—she described him, but she was . . . disturbed. If
he
says so, too, I won’t argue. When I would go to visit her, she told me things. Some I believed, some I did not. I don’t know what she told Victor.”

I believed pressure from the Darkness, Elise’s denial of love, and her obsession with Michael had destroyed Victor.

“I never suspected Vic,” I said.

“Neither did I,” Michael said. “He started to change about ten years ago. I knew he’d taken over the Lost Lamb. He came to curse me occasionally for being evil, the son of the Darkness. The money he took? I didn’t know he was using it to amass weapons. I thought he was stealing it and giving it away to charities. That’s what he told me. It all started to come together after he visited me that day at the hotel, but it was too late. Even then, I hoped for the best. Vanity on my part—I thought I could handle him.”

Michael’s face darkened. “I was born forty years ago on a dark moon conjunction. When I visited Mother once, she said she’d tried to sacrifice me at birth because she believed it would solidify a connection between this world and his and increase his power here. I don’t think he was actually supposed to come here in person.”

If Michael did choose to serve Aiakós in the future, he would be a far more potent enemy than Elise and Victor.

“You’re forty?”

“Yes. I don’t seem to age like others.”

I heard sadness. Sadness not necessarily because he was or was not human, but because he was something in between. I grasped his hand. “Elise made the most powerful sacrifice—the only sacrifice that would work. She offered her own life.”

“Yes.” Michael sighed. “It opened the door and dragged him through, physically.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means he’s here, he’s powerful—but no more powerful than his . . . rival.”

That didn’t sound good. “Why’d you hesitate before you said ‘rival’?”

“I received the impression he and your Earth Mother weren’t always enemies.”

“Yeah. He called her ‘my love.’ That’s scary.”

The vehicles rolled out of the Zombie and into a Barrows street where two semitrucks with ramps waited. In minutes, the Steroid Dogs, Fire Dogs, and their mercenary crews were loaded and away. We transferred to one of Dacardi’s Escalades. Again, Elise’s and Nefertiti’s bodies went in the back.

As we left the Barrows, I had to ask, “So you have your own army, Dacardi?”

“I got shit. What happened here tonight stays with us.”

“Okay.” I was relieved. “Same as always for me.”

“What about you?” Dacardi asked Flynn.

Flynn nodded in agreement, but his face was close and grim. “Tonight in the Barrows is done. Tomorrow? Walk slow and careful uptown, Dacardi.”

“Fair enough,” Dacardi said. “You want me to bury Nefertiti?”

“No, I’ll take her to Abby’s.”

Michael had Dacardi drop him at the back door of the Archangel. He carried Elise’s body inside.

We each had our own version of events to ponder. I knew more about Michael and Dacardi, but both remained a mystery. I had too many questions. I figured I’d learn more in time.

“What about the other four kids?” I asked.

“Sent ’em to my house with Richard,” Dacardi answered. “I’ll find their parents, give ’em money not to talk.” He turned to Flynn. “I’ll send you their names. I figure you’ll want to check on them. Make sure they’re okay.”

On the surface, these men seemed ready to settle back into their ordinary lives. I doubted that would happen. We’d all been changed by the last few days, even me. I had carried a powerful being inside me, and something had to come from that.

Dacardi drove Flynn to his mother’s house, where they had taken Selene. All the lights blazed. “I’ll see you soon.” He kissed me long and hard.

Special children, Selene and Richard. Both would grow powerful in their own way. I hoped for the good.

Just before we arrived at Abby’s, Dacardi said, “You did okay, bitch. I owe you.”

Abby came rushing out when we drove into her driveway. She threw her arms around me and squeezed so tight, I gasped. Didn’t think she was that strong. Dacardi went to the back and brought me Nefertiti.

“You’re hurt.” Abby touched my face.

After rolling over what seemed like a mile of pavement, being dragged by my hair, almost drowning, nearly having my throat cut, I thought I was in pretty good shape. “I’m alive, Abby. Some didn’t make it through the night.”

Dacardi handed me the jacket carrying my snake. I accepted it. She wasn’t heavy.

“What am I going to do, Abby?” I wanted to scream. “I’ve lost Nefertiti.”

“Oh, love.” Abby wrapped an arm around me and led me toward the house.

Dacardi didn’t speak as he climbed back in the Escalade and drove away. I guess he had some heavy thinking to do about his own life and future.

When we reached the back porch, Abby took Nefertiti’s body from me. “I’ll take care of her,” she said. “You go in.”

When I walked into Abby’s kitchen, Horus crouched in the middle of the table, with Nirah coiled beside him. Should I tell them I’d lost Nefertiti, or did they already know? When I sat heavily in one of the chairs, Horus came to me and patted my face with his paw. Nirah nuzzled my hand.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “She saved my life and I couldn’t do anything to help her.”

They stayed close as I put my face in my hands and sobbed. Abby came in and cried, too. I knew the Mother’s dogma. Death and rebirth, the earth’s cycle, but I wanted my snake back here and now.

“I buried Nefertiti by the spring,” Abby said through her tears. “You go clean up. We can talk later.”

I showered and she dressed my scrapes and cuts. She put me to bed, not downstairs, but in her spare bedroom. That suited me. Time would pass before this Huntress went underground again. Abby sat beside me while I told her of the evening’s events.

“She hid inside of you to enter the Barrows?”

“Yes.”

“Can she get out of the Barrows on her own?”

“She didn’t seem concerned.”

Abby’s face remained grave. “I went into the woods last week, before all this started. I accused her of using you up like a bottle of floor cleaner.” She smoothed the hair from my forehead. “She seemed confused. I told her she had my life from birth to death, and I asked if it wasn’t enough. I gave up men, marriage, children for her. I don’t regret it. Never have. You, however, were raised to look to a different life.”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew what I wanted to ask. “You’ve always been hers? How long?”

Abby smiled. “I am the descendant of a long line of priestesses. My mothers, grandmothers have served her, kept her word sacred. I can trace my direct lineage back over a thousand years. The gifts she gave me were knowledge, use of the earth’s power—” She hesitated. “And a very long life. I was born in 1765, on a prison ship. My mother had been sentenced into bondage for pagan worship. When we reached the shores of North Carolina, she ran away and joined the native tribes. They lived with the land, not perched upon it like vultures.” Sadness filled her eyes. “It’s been a good life. We have served well, you and I. We have made the sacrifice.”