Snake Handlin' Man (4 page)

Eddie was calm, and normally he trusted his own judgment and coolness. He still felt a bit shaken by his vision of the backcountry Sears, though. He worried he might see frozen heads sticking out the ground and feel like he had to shoot them.

Instead, he heard a hiss and a rattle off to his right. He turned, brought up the stubby nose of the shotgun and almost fired, anyway.

But Jim got there first. With a loud
snick!
his sword jumped from its scabbard and the head of the rattlesnake snapped off and went flying into the brush. The snake’s body, scaly yellow-brown and surprisingly long, danced spastically before collapsing into the dust.

And then suddenly there were two more snakes lifting their heads from the dust to threaten Jim. The big singer kicked one incoming with his boot, sending it sailing into the back of the church’s plywood sign with a loud, meaty
thud
. The second lost its head like its companion.

“
Huevos!
”

And then there were a dozen.

“Twitch!” Eddie yelled.

So much for the quiet approach. Eddie pumped the shotgun and waded into the hissing curtain of rattlesnakes.

Boom!
went Eddie’s shotgun.
Snick!
followed Jim’s sword. And then Mike finally got his gun out of his pants and joined in,
bang! bang! bang!

“I don’t like this!” Eddie shouted, stepping over spattered snake meat to take aim at another serpent, blasting it to oblivion.

Jim nodded and pointed up at the trailer by way of answer. He skewered two rattlesnakes with a single deft stab of his blade and then scraped them off with the instep of his heavy boot.

Mike saw Jim’s gesture and led the way, jogging up the track towards the trailer. He got ahead of Eddie, who took a couple of seconds to turn around and follow, but Eddie could tell by Mike’s continued shots, and the plumes of dirt that exploded into the air around the bass player, that he was still threatened by attacking snakes.

Jim brought up the rear. Eddie didn’t worry much about him, and worried even less when Twitch swooped down suddenly from the blue sky to snatch up a pair of snakes, one in each claw.

Mike, though, looked like he was in trouble. Snakes closed in on him from behind, and on both right and left, as he staggered over a cattle guard and between two driftwood fence posts. He fired again and then dug into his pocket for his second clip.

The big guy stumbled—

Eddie whipped up his shotgun and broke into a run as snakes swarmed out of the tall dry grass and sage, slithering towards the bass player on the ground—

and then a wave of gray-brown fur washed over Mike. Something like a dog—several things that looked like dogs, or maybe foxes, it was hard to tell at this distance—scurried over Mike’s back and legs and threw themselves at the snakes.

Something was helping Mike. That gave Eddie the breathing room he needed to blast a couple of rattlers out of his own way, and then he was on top of the bass player, grabbing Mike by his elbow and dragging him to his feet.

“
Cojón!
” Mike shouted. Jim caught up with them and they raced for the double-wide. Bouncing blue and yellow in his jogging vision, the little building didn’t look cheerful at all—it looked ominous and false, like a clown’s greasepaint smile. The trailer sat on blocks, Eddie saw, and was hugged by a rough wraparound plank porch. Under the trailer was darkness, and he wondered if there were more snakes lurking. And if there weren’t, what was lurking inside? Was Phineas Irving, preacher, some kind of snake-summoning warlock, sending his minions at them by mind control?

But zigzagging lines were chopped into the planks of the porch, and though Eddie saw snakes coiling and sliding on the ground right up to the edge of the wood, he noticed that none of them actually so much as touched the planks.

“What are those things, badgers?” Mike shot at another snake. “Ferrets?”

“You’d have been a great farmer, Mike,” Eddie laughed. Jim swiped with his sword and swept three snakes out of the way, clearing a path to the porch. Eddie and Mike charged through, with the singer on their heels, and then they spun to look at the field of snakes behind them.

Twitch the falcon snatched another snake from the ground, tearing it in half with his talons and shattering its skull with his beak. The gray-brown things, whatever they were, played havoc with the snakes. They had long faces and bodies and tails but stubby little ears, and they were quick as bullets, slipping out under every rattler’s strike and then biting snakes through their windpipes, killing them instantly.

“Weasels?” Eddie guessed. It had been a long time since he’d earned his Mammals merit badge. Whatever these things were, he hadn’t seen any in Chicago. Or Iraq. He kept the Remington trained on the snakes nearest him—just because they hadn’t come on the porch yet didn’t mean they couldn’t or wouldn’t do so now. But the rattlers hissed, shook their tails at him, showed him their long, curving fangs, and stayed back.

Twitch alighted beside the three of them, melting into his human form. He chose his female shape, which Eddie assumed was for Mike’s benefit and the amusement it gave the fairy, because Mike saw Twitch and did a double-take. “Whatever it is,” Twitch hazarded, “it isn’t cats.”

“Cats?” Mike asked.

“Mongoose,” said a voice Eddie didn’t know, and he realized the colossal screw-up he’d just committed. “Hands up.”

Eddie relaxed his grip on the shotgun, letting it dangle by its strap from his right shoulder. He raised his hands over his head, his companions doing the same, and they turned to look at the source of the voice.

The man was tall and wiry, the kind of wiriness you got by living in the desert and not taking in enough water or calories. The skin of his face and his big knuckles was sunburned and rubbed raw by the wind, and a shock of bristly yellow hair made his head look like a scrub brush. A once-nice gray wool suit jacket hung off him like a trench coat off a scarecrow. He squinted down the barrel of an M1917 Enfield into Eddie’s chest. That would be a .30-06 cartridge, Eddie knew, and it would blow a hole in him the size of a pineapple.

“You Phineas Irving, by any chance?” Eddie asked.

***

Chapter Four

“I’m the owner of this land,” the scarecrow spat out. “And you’re trespassers.” His elbow was a little jittery, but his aim didn’t waver.

“Mierda.”

“Easy,” Eddie said. “We didn’t come looking for a fight.” Jim looked poised to stab the guy; that he hadn’t done it yet probably meant he took seriously the threat that the homeowner would kill Eddie.

“You have guns out,” the blond man pointed out. “You’re shooting.”

“At snakes!” Eddie snapped, exasperated. “Didn’t you notice you’re surrounded?”

The gunman dropped his elbows to his sides and seemed to relax, just a little. The gray-brown animals bounded up onto the porch and cuddled around his ankles. “Yeah,” he said, “but the fact that you’re carrying them at all makes me nervous. And your friend has a sword.”

Jim’s nostrils flared menacingly.

“He’s old-fashioned,” Eddie said. “And this is Oklahoma. Aren’t we required by law to carry guns?”

The man grunted and considered. “I’m Irving,” he admitted. “What do you want?”

“Can we talk?” Eddie suggested. Irving hadn’t shot him when he had the chance, which made him think the preacher might not be a bad guy. “We’re just looking for a little information.”

“Put down the guns,” Irving countered. “And the sword. And if the fairy talks, I start shooting.”

Eddie was a little unsettled that Phineas Irving had spotted Twitch for a fairy. It probably meant that he had seen Twitch transform himself from falcon form. And it definitely meant that he knew enough about the real nature of the world not to be freaked out at the thought of fairies. And he knew that if Twitch talked, he might pull out the Glamour.

But he unslung the shotgun and laid it on the planks, and Mike and Jim followed his lead.

Eddie didn’t mention the Glock.

“You preach under the sign of the serpent,” Eddie observed. “But it’s the raised serpent, the one that heals snakebite.”

“Oh?”

“The Nehushtan.”

“You know your Old Testament,” Irving conceded. He kept the rifle pointed at Eddie’s chest. “Or you read the signboard. Good for you. How did you find me and what’s the information you want?”

“If I could just reach into my pocket?” Eddie waited for the preacher’s slight nod, and he pulled out the church brochure. He unfolded it and showed it to Irving.

“You friends of Sami’s?” There was a note of concern in the man’s voice. “How is she?”

“How did you know that was Sami’s?” Mike sounded impressed. “What, did you only print one of them?”

“I only
wrote on
one of them.” Irving nodded at the squiggle and the name
APEP
.

“You got the drop on us,” Eddie noted calmly, “and either way we need your help. Maybe you’d better tell us whose side you’re on.”

Phineas Irving chuckled bitterly. “Choose you this day,” he quoted.

“Joshua,” Eddie said. “Moses half,” he added, for Mike’s benefit.

“As for me and my house,” Irving nodded at the plywood sign of the Nehushtan, “we will serve the Lord.”

“And Apep?” Eddie asked.

“Sami had a … a problem,” Irving said. “She came to me, and I tried to help her.”

“I think she gave birth to her problem,” Mike grunted. “And it ate her. Not to mention a lot of other people, almost including us.”

“Dammit.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “Flying poisonous snakes.
Dammit
is right.”

“And you?” Irving asked. “The snakes wanted to bite you, so you’re not one of theirs. Whose side are
you
on?”

“Mostly,” Eddie told him, “we’re on our own side. But we have a problem, and I think we need your help.”

Irving looked at the four of them, his inspection lingering on Twitch. “Are you telling me the fairy’s pregnant?” he asked.

“Ew!” Twitch snorted.

Irving failed to make good his threat, and shot no one. Eddie noticed the omission, and relaxed a few degrees.

“I’m telling you that our buddy … our organ player, actually, got bitten by one of … one of Sami’s problems.”

“When?”

Eddie checked his watch. “About half an hour ago.”

“Then your friend is dead.”

“He might be,” Eddie agreed, “but he might not. He’s a wizard, and he put himself into some kind of magical coma right after he was bitten. I think he meant to slow down the poison, and I’m hoping it worked. But it won’t mean anything if we don’t find a cure.”

“You’re hoping that because I have the Nehushtan raised over my church that I can cure your friend,” Irving finished the thought. He didn’t bat an eye at the word
wizard
.

“Yeah,” Mike said.

“Pick up your weapons,” Phineas Irving said, “and come inside.”

“Can I talk now?” Twitch asked impishly.

“Depends on what you say,” Irving answered. He patted the stock of his rifle affectionately, like he was patting a baby’s bum. “I’m still armed.”

The inside of the trailer was an unholy mess, but not the kind of mess Eddie expected. There was no sign of drugs or booze or personal filth, and it smelled okay, but the trailer was full of books and papers in total disarray. It was like a library-meteorite had hit inside and exploded, scattering handwritten notes and diagrams all over the place. The linoleum countertop and the plastic coffee table and the sunken-centered couches fraying at the shoulders were all barely visible under snowdrifts of paper.

“Read much?” Mike asked.

“Not enough,” Irving said grimly. He gestured at the couches. “Shove that stuff onto the table. Coffee?”

“Please.” Eddie meant it. He and Jim shoveled papers aside so the band could sit down. He sat on the nearest couch and sank deeply into it—the couch was ugly, but worn to the perfect point of comfort. But for the scorched skin of his backside, the couch might have put him to sleep.

“I’ll put on a fresh pot.”

“Screw that,” Eddie said. “Gimme the coffee. Black.”

“I’ll take sugar, cream, whatever you got,” Mike added.

“When my brother and I fell out,” the preacher recounted, pouring coffee into chipped mugs, “it was over a woman.”

“Isn’t it always?” Mike grunted.

“I totally wanna hear your life story,” Eddie said. “It sounds like country music, and I am definitely a fan of Nashville. First, can you tell me how to help my friend?”

“I’m telling you now,” Irving said, shuffling slowly across the scabby shag floor with mugs in his fists. He was a little shaky, but he managed not to spill. It didn’t escape Eddie’s notice that he’d left the rifle in the kitchenette. “It’s the woman. And
fell out
is something of an understatement.”

Eddie took the coffee. It smelled bitter and the warm mug stung his burned hands at the touch. He took a sip and felt strengthened. “Ah,” he sighed, “acid for the battery. Go on.”

“Her name was Miriam,” the preacher said. He drew up a three-legged stool and settled his lanky frame onto it. His pets flopped down on the floor next to him and wrestled each other. “Maybe it still is. I loved her very much.”

Jim snorted. It was a cynical sound.

“Don’t talk much, do you?” Irving asked the singer.

“He’s cursed,” Eddie said. It was sort of a lie, but it was much simpler than trying to explain the whole story. “So this woman of yours, Miriam, she can heal snakebite?”

“Jeez,” Mike muttered, “you don’t know how to tell a story. Get to the part where something happens already.”

Irving ignored both of them. “I was an Egyptologist,” he said, and then he chuckled wryly. “Who am I kidding? I was a grad student at Penn, studying to be an Egyptologist. I was going to be to the next Flinders Petrie. I was doing physical archaeology, potsherds and garbage heaps. Miriam was in my program. She was doing the sexier stuff, the Coffin Texts and Old Kingdom demonology. She was young and beautiful and I fell in love. I thought we both did. We got engaged.”

Eddie saw a man and a woman, naked, standing behind the preacher. They were emaciated, their hair falling out. Each held a jagged saw to the other’s abdomen and yanked back and forth on the handle. Blood gushed down, drenching their legs. He resisted the urge to make fun of the man for the romance in his story. “Go on.”

“My brother Aaron was studying theology,” Irving continued. “He became obsessed with old gnostic documents about apotheosis, the divinization of man. Crazy stuff, all about men becoming like the gods, or becoming angels.”

“Yeah, crazy,” Mike muttered.

“And it was all in Coptic, so he and Miriam spent a lot of time together.”

“But in these gnostic books,” Eddie probed, “in the Coffin Texts or whatever, Miriam learned how to deal with these flying snakes? Where is she? Is she in town here?”

“She’s close,” Irving said dryly. “While we were engaged, she and Aaron became lovers. When I … found out about it, when she told me about it, you know, she said it had nothing to do with love, and nothing to do with me, it had to do with the ritual.”

“So you called it off,” Mike concluded. “Sent the skank packing.”

“What ritual?” Eddie asked.

“They wanted to summon Apep, but there were steps they had to take before that, to become his true worshippers. To get his gifts. Apep’s a snake god—well, a snake
devil
, really—and his worship is orgiastic, so they … they became involved.”

“Isn’t that your family, Jim?” Twitch asked. “I mean, aren’t you all cousins or something, according to Eddie? Family reunions must be so entertaining.”

Jim glowered at the drummer and drew his sword partly out of the sheath, exposing six inches of sharp blade.

“But why on earth would they want to summon the big snake?” Twitch asked, ignoring the bared weapon. The fairy looked more curious than shocked. “There are easier ways to commit suicide.”

“Power, I think,” Irving said wearily. “And immortality.”

“The snake sheds its skin, born anew each time,” Eddie whispered to himself. “Are they crazy? Can they possibly be right?”

“I think both,” Phineas Irving said. “I found out on our honeymoon. I woke up in the middle of the night in the hotel and she was gone, so I rang her cell phone. When I heard it in the room next door, I broke in and found them.” He stopped talking and his eyes glazed over. His face was drawn and pale.

“Orgiastic, you said.” Mike fidgeted. He stared at the mongooses, tussling and tossing each other about on the trailer’s shag carpet. “Does that mean what it sounds like?”

“What does it sound like?” Twitch winked.

Mike hesitated. “Like
orgy
plus
fantastic
.”

“You mean like
ginormous
,” Eddie snorted. “
Giant
plus
enormous
.”

“Yes,” Irving whispered, and looked down at the floor. “That’s about what it means.”

Eddie respected the other man’s pain and waited.

“There were snakes everywhere,” the Egyptologist said slowly. “And incense, a cloud of it so thick I couldn’t see or breathe. And then I saw a light … like a gap in the air, and on the other side of it was lightning. And when the hole was gone, there was a crowd of people chanting and shaking rattles. And in the middle, there they were. Only … only …” He couldn’t seem to get it out, whatever it was.

“Only they were snakes,” Twitch guessed. “Snakes and humans at the same time, all mixed up, like the Egyptians like to do.”

Eddie felt sick. “Monsters.”

Irving nodded miserably. “Aaron’s arms were gone, and instead he had snakes growing out of his shoulders. Once the incense cleared and the light was gone, I could see it clearly, because he was naked. And Miriam …”

“Miriam got what she wanted,” Twitch said. The fairy’s voice was gentle. Eddie thought that was pretty generous of him, since only a few minutes earlier Phineas Irving had threatened to shoot Twitch if he opened his mouth.

“Miriam is a lamia,” Irving told them. He couldn’t meet their eyes, and just sat staring a hole into the carpet.

Mike looked baffled.

“Lower half of a snake,” Eddie said. “Upper half of a woman. Ugh. Sorry, man. I didn’t know you could
become
one.”

“Jeez, I really gotta read the Bible one of these days.” Mike shook his head in amazement.

“Snakes for hair, too,” the preacher said. “Aaron and their … cultists … wanted to kill me, but Miriam stopped them. She told me what she’d been doing, and let me go.”

“And
then
you divorced the bitch,” Mike said. “’Cause a snake … Jeez …”

Phineas Irving shook his head. “She spared me. Besides, I was in love with her. I’m still in love with her now.” He dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a creased and folded letter envelope. He shook out its contents, and a single gold ring, heavy and dull, fell into his palm.

“Did they summon Apep, then?” Twitch asked.

“They’re still trying,” Irving said. He clenched his fists together in a big ball of knuckles around the wedding ring. “And I followed them here to try to stop them.”

“That’s why you’re penned in by snakes?” Mike asked. “They know you’re here?”

“They know I’m here,” Irving agreed. “I keep the snakes at bay with my mongooses and my jerry-rigged charms. I preach against them, but the county thinks I’m crazy, so they send deputies and social workers to harass me. Almost no one listens, anyway. I try to help people I can—people like Sami, who get involved with the cult and then want to leave—and I try to figure out how to stop the summoning. They don’t care. They sit just down the road and laugh at me.”

“Down the road?” Mike asked.

Jim sat up, suddenly alert and looking curiously at Eddie. Even the mongooses stopped wrestling, and their stubby round ears perked up.

The hair on the back of Eddie’s neck prickled. “Sears,” he said. “Tell me they’re not in that old shitbucket Sears we passed.”

Irving just nodded.

Eddie felt a thick lump at the back of his throat. “I was hoping you’d say that you can raise up the Nehushtan on a pole and Adrian would look at it and be cured,” he said. “Like in the Bible. Now you’re telling me that your … wife … is a lamia, and she knows the cure.”

Irving shook his head. “She doesn’t
know
the cure.”

Eddie scratched his head. “Then my memory’s shorting out on me, or I just don’t get it. You said
it’s the woman
.”