Marked Fur Murder (38 page)

“She's right,” said Ben. “As usual. Fear isn't a great tool. Has a tendency to backfire on you, for one thing.”

inspire
fear, I'm trying to fight it. Successfully, I might add—did you see how I took on that boa? Wham, pow, wham again!>

[Yes, truly courageous. Perhaps you could work your way up to battling dead iguanas, or possibly live worms.]

“Yes?” I said. “When he shows up, what then?”

Whiskey made a gruff little noise that I knew from prior experience was the equivalent of him clearing his throat. [If I may? There are two major flaws with your “strategy,” as you refer to it. First, snakes are not known for their strong family ties, so it's unlikely any of them will “go running to Daddy.” Second…]

[I can't. I thought it was possible to sum up the many, many problems involved with luring an immensely powerful supernatural entity via unprovoked assault on other members of its species in a single, pithy statement, but I find the task is beyond me. I shall be forced to wait until the disastrous aftermath of the inevitable apocalypse, and then say: “My second point?
This
.”]

[It is not “all good.” Very few parts are even somewhat good—]

KRAKKABOOOOM!

Thunder. Very close, very loud. Ben's head snapped in the direction of the explosion, and then he was sprinting toward it. Whiskey, Tango, and I were right behind him.

We crested a rise and skidded to a stop. Below us, in a shallow valley between two gentle, grave-studded hills, were Teresa Firstcharger and the Rainbow Serpent. It was rearing up like a cobra, and she was standing her ground and hurling lightning bolts at it.

The lightning didn't seem to be doing much more than bouncing off the thing's brilliantly colored scales. In fact, the snake didn't seem to be all that upset, though it's hard (unless said snake comes with a rattle on its tail or a spreadable hood) to read a snake's emotional state.

Mostly it was just staring down at Teresa, its tongue flickering out of its mouth in her direction. Maybe it was trying to figure out how tasty she'd be.

I glanced over at Ben, who looked like he was about to leap into the fray but had no idea what to do. “Lightning's not working,” I said. “Cold might be a better approach.”

He grinned at me. “Cold-blooded opponent, right. Let's just turn down the thermostat…”

He reached toward the sky with one hand, his fingers outstretched like he was trying to grab on to something, and a frigid wind blew in from nowhere. The clouds overhead turned slate gray, and within seconds heavy white flakes were tumbling through the air.

I looked around. Where was Eli? One misbehaving kitty and he was on my back, but a huge carnivorous snake appears and he's nowhere to be found? I really hoped the serpent hadn't started with a little crow appetizer before the main course …

The snow seemed to be confusing it, at least. It lowered its head and studied Teresa face-to-face. It was close enough now that one swift strike would put her down its gullet, and that combined with the complete ineffectiveness of her lightning was enough to unnerve her.

She transformed.

I've seen Whiskey shift into other forms and even seen Teresa change from bird to human, so I should have been prepared—but there's something very different about watching someone go from human to not. It was deeply disturbing, bothering me on some atavistic level; as feathers sprouted from her skin and her face reshaped itself into a huge, cruel beak, I wasn't so much fascinated as transfixed.
That's what your boyfriend can do,
a part of my brain was yelling at me.
That! Right there!

Except he couldn't, not yet. Maybe that was one of the very first lessons she'd planned to teach him—Metamorphosis 101—but since he hadn't actually attended any classes yet and the teacher was in danger of being eaten, it was sort of up in the air as to whether or not Ben would ever get to be—well, up in the air.

She launched herself skyward with a tremendous beat of her enormous wings. The serpent had more than enough time to snatch her in mid-flight.

But it didn't. In seconds she was out of its reach, and it barely seemed to notice. Its head swiveled around as it tasted the air, looking almost like a kid trying to catch snowflakes on its flickering tongue.

When it spotted Ben, it froze.

But only for an instant. It lunged in his direction, and all I had time to do was scream. (I didn't, though. Not really much of a screamer.)

It stopped directly in front of him, face-to-face like it had with Teresa, its tongue flicking in and out even faster. Oh, this wasn't good—

And then something large and hairy launched itself past Ben and at the serpent: Whiskey, in his natural (well, pre-death, anyway) form. It looked a bit like a cross between a bear, a wolf, and a wolverine, weighed in the neighborhood of three hundred pounds, and had jaws that would make a hydraulic press weep with envy. Those jaws fastened themselves on the snake's throat—to be fair, a snake is mostly throat—and held on while Whiskey emitted a combination snarl-and-growl that reminded me of a chain saw having a hissy fit.

It provoked a reaction, anyway: The snake reared up, its mouth opening in surprise or anger, while Whiskey hung on grimly and tried to worry it like a rat.

His attempt fell far short of worrying though, barely reaching mild concern. Whiskey himself fell considerably farther, as the creature whipped its body around and sent him flying through the air at a height of thirty feet off the ground. He disappeared over the crest of the hill, one of the snake's iridescent scales still clamped in his jaws.

Ben took advantage of the respite to whip the freezing wind into a frenzy—a spinning, funnel-cloud frenzy. I didn't know if even a tornado would be strong enough to stop this thing, but it was probably his best idea so far—

And that's when it ate him.

*   *   *

No, you didn't read that wrong.

It ate Ben. Whole.

That massive, rainbow-hued head darted down, jaws wide open, and snapped shut around Ben's body. The head tilted skyward again, Ben's feet sticking out from between its scaly lips, and then the snake gulped them inside its maw, too. It reminded me of a duck eating a grasshopper. It was probably my imagination, but I thought I saw the serpent's throat bulge as it swallowed.

I didn't just see that. That didn't happen. It's a trick. Any second now Ben's going to blast his way free from the thing's gullet with a lightning bolt, and—

And lightning didn't work on the Rainbow Serpent.

—and then he'll use a blizzard to freeze it into a giant ice sculpture and we'll zoom down it like one of those twisty slides and—

The wind died down. The air began to warm noticeably, creeping back toward a more seasonal temperature.

—and we'll celebrate with omelets, his omelets are so good, and I'll make bad jokes about snake eggs and Whiskey will be droll and Tango will be snarky—

The snake lowered its head. It was looking at me now, but I wasn't worried. Snakes can go a long time without eating after a big meal, so I doubted it was very hungry. Because, you know, it had just eaten my boyfriend.

A bird of prey screamed somewhere above me, and I saw the shadow of huge wings pass along the ground and over the snake's body. Teresa, circling overhead, just as helpless as I was.

Normally, in a crisis situation, I become incredibly efficient. I can make snap decisions on almost no information, I can multitask, I can be analytical and objective and maintain my concentration even while others are running around on fire. But not this time; this time was different. Part of me was in shock, locked in some kind of denial fantasy, while another part seemed completely removed from what had just happened. It's called compartmentalization, and until now I'd always been able to make it work for me.

What finally got me unstuck was that neither of those parts seemed inclined to
do
anything, and immobility is just completely contrary to who I am.

So I spoke up.

“Hey,” I said. “You. Technicolor-prehistoric-anaconda-monster. I don't know exactly what you are or what you want, but you can't just roam around
eating
people.”

“Do you have any idea what you've done? He wasn't a snack, he was a person. His name was Ben Montain, and he was an incredible chef and an amazing kisser, and he was stubborn and generous and proud and kind
and I loved him
!”

I'm not much of a screamer, but I'm a terrific shouter. I don't do it very often, because I consider it to be a failure on my part to stay in control. I was shouting now. And weeping.

“He was a
good
man! He laughed at my jokes! He
listened
to me! I don't care if he could call up hurricanes or make it rain toads or any of that!
You give him back, goddammit!
”

The snake looked at me quizzically. You know how I could tell? It tilted its head to one side, ever so slightly. According to Tango, that's pretty much universal body language for “Huh?”

A greyhound came tearing over the hill. Whiskey, of course. I hadn't even been worried about him; I knew he would have shifted into a much smaller form to minimize impact before he hit the ground, and that his ectoplasmic body would be able to take the shock. [Foxtrot! Where's—oh, no.]

Funny thing about how my mind works. It pretty much never stops; I make plans while I'm showering, think about options while I'm on the toilet, make lists in my dreams. And even now, shattered by grief and rage and despair, I was still thinking. Not only about what just happened, but what
wasn't
happening.

“Why are you still
here
?” I demanded. “You've gotten what you came for, haven't you? And it was
Ben
you came for—you didn't eat me when you had the chance, or even Teresa. If you followed Anna all the way here, you probably could have eaten her, too—but you didn't. Why not?”

I didn't really expect an answer. It hadn't replied to any of my questions yet, so why should it now? But when I heard a dry, sibilant chuckle inside my skull, there was no doubt where it came from.

{No need. Femalesss ripen on their own. Malessss need sssome help.}

Help?

A distant part of my brain was tugging at my medulla oblongata, trying to get my attention. I'd uncovered a lot of material on giant mythical snakes when I was doing my research, but I'd focused on horned serpents because I thought we were dealing with a monster. But while the Unktehila was basically a predator, the Rainbow Serpent was much, much more. It could be angry and vengeful, but it was mostly a symbol of life. And on the long list of things it was supposed to have created and events it was responsible for, there'd been something about men. Young men. And some sort of … ritual?

No. Not ritual.
Rite
. Rite of passage.

Please. Please, please please let me be right—

The Rainbow Serpent reared up once more. It looked down at me. It opened its mouth, revealing fangs that were shorter than I thought they'd be.

And then it threw up.

What landed at my feet wasn't human. It was a big brown ball of slime-covered fur.

[That's not hair, Tango.]

“No,” I said. “Those are
feathers.
”

Teresa Firstcharger came in for a landing, large wings flapping like bedsheets in the wind. She took a step closer on talons that look like they could rend steel, and tilted her head curiously at the quivering bundle of gooey feathers on the ground.

The bundle stirred, then unfolded itself into another Thunderbird. It looked a little dazed, blinking its large yellow eyes like it was unaccustomed to light.

“Ben,” I breathed.

“Foxtrot?” The voice coming out of his beak sounded exactly like Ben's normal one. “I've—I've got feathers. I'm covered in feathers.”

Tango added helpfully.

“Yeah. You know that transforming thing that Teresa does that you hadn't figured out yet? Well, turns out the Rainbow Serpent decided to give you a little assistance.”

“Assistance? It
ate
me!”

“Remember all those things I listed off that are associated with the Rainbow Serpent? Fertility was one of them. You might think that a snake would obviously be some sort of phallic metaphor, but not Down Under—they see it as more of a feminine thing. Being swallowed and then regurgitated is a symbol for rebirth, something young aboriginal males undergo as a rite of passage into manhood.”

[The passage in this case being the snake's esophagus,] Whiskey said helpfully.

“Congratulations,” I said. “You're a man! I mean bird. Bird-man. Man Bird?”

Ben extended one wing and looked at it in amazement. The slime on his feathers was evaporating in the sun, leaving a glossy shine behind.

Teresa Firstcharger studied him. “It's true,” she said. “You have matured. I can feel it.”