About halfway up the trail, we came to what looked like a kind of tunnel but it was blocked with a bunch of rocks—some of them almost boulders.
“Stop,” Michael said when I would have followed the path past it. “I think this is it.”
“This?” I said frowning at the pile of rocks. “How? It’s completely blocked.”
“Not for long.” He started heaving rocks out of the way in a way that made his muscles flex deliciously under his t-shirt. Again, I would have been more interested if I hadn’t been fearing for my life. Every minute we didn’t find snake-lady’s sister was another moment closer to death as far as I was concerned.
Death…or damnation. Because what happened if those lines reached my heart? Would they stop it…or turn it dark and cold like the Monsignor’s? Would I become what I had been fighting from the age of sixteen? Would I—
“Okay, here we go.” Michael’s deep voice pulled me out of my miserable and frightening thoughts and I looked up to see he had cleared all the rubble and stones out of the way.
But despite my fear about my arm, I found I was reluctant to go into that dark mouth in the side of the mountain. The tunnel was actually quite deep and very dark, as though it held shadows that had never seen the light of day. Nevertheless, I took a good grip on my Glock and prepared to dive in—no point in procrastinating, right?
Before I could go in, though, Michael stepped in front of me.
“Same rules apply as before, Kate,” he said, frowning. “I’m the one who can see in the dark—I’m going first.”
I started to argue with him but the words froze in my throat.
Right behind him, poking out of the dark mouth of the tunnel, was the hugest snake I’d ever seen.
“Michael, get back!” I managed to gasp, grabbing his arm to pull him out of the way as I took aim.
But then the snake spoke.
“Who daress invade my domain? Who comess to my back sstep and thinkss to ssneak inside?” it demanded.
Or no, not it—she—because I saw, as more of it came into view, that only the head of the person in the tunnel was a snake. The rest was a naked woman from the shoulders down. Well, mostly a naked woman. The scales of the snake head seemed to extend down her torso and over her full breasts though she did have normal, human looking arms and legs.
There was no doubt about it—this had to be the snake-lady’s sister. Michael realized it at the same time I did because he spoke quickly in a low, soothing tone.
“Are you Cassandara? I’m Michael Moran and this is Katherine Consenza. We know your sister Wellesandra—we come from across the sea and bring you her greetings,” he told snake-lady number two.
“Ahhh…” Her tongue flickered and her hood relaxed. Did I mention the snake head was a King Cobra? Because it was and it was freaking terrifying to see a cobra head that big. Anyway, when the hood relaxed, I hoped it meant we were in the clear. “What did she ssay, my ssister?” she asked at last after her slitted snakes eyes had taken in Michael and myself thoroughly.
“She misses you very much,” Michael said. “And she sent us to you for information and, we hope, for healing.”
“Healing?” Her tongue flickered between her nonexistent reptilian lips. “I do not heal. But come into my cave before we attract attention. I do not need humanss prying into my affairss.”
We followed her—Michael going first because he insisted on it—into the long, dark tunnel which reminded me a lot of her sister’s lair back in Virginia. The only difference was that this one was a lot damper—moisture beaded the walls and dripped from the ceiling. I supposed being that close to the sea must make it hard to keep things dry but still—it was nasty.
The damp tunnel took a few twists and turns and ended in a wide, mostly circular room lit by a single oil lamp. There was nothing like the first snake-lady’s blood-red chaise lounge—in fact, there was nowhere to sit at all. Looking around, I saw a pile of what I hoped were dry animal bones in one corner and that was it. Maybe snake-lady two didn’t care as much for human comforts as her sister since she had the brain of a snake? Whatever the reason, I was even less comfortable here than I had been in the first snake-lady’s cave.
“Now tell me what you sseek,” snake-lady two said, turning to face us. “And be quick—it iss my feeding time and I hunger.” Her golden, slitted snakes eyes contracted in a kind of reptilian wink that made my grip on my Glock tighten.
If she tried anything, anything at all, I was going to blow her to Kingdom Come.
“First tell us your price,” I said. “Your sister wanted to see Michael bite me—what is it you want in return for this information.”
“The greetings you bring me from Wellesandra are ssufficient,” she hissed. “It has been millennia since I have heard from her. It iss good to know she sstill livess and thrivess.”
Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Snake-lady one ought to take a lesson from her much nicer sister, snake-lady two. Either that or the two of them needed to get some cell phones so they didn’t have to rely on complete strangers to send messages between the two of them.
“Thank you,” I said. “Okay, we’re looking for a completed version of this.” With my free hand, I drew out the crumpled and creased family tree and passed it over to her. “It’s my family tree. Your sister said we needed to find out who the son of Nicollo was to understand a prophesy about Michael, here.”
“A prophesssy?” She drew the word out into a hiss.
“It has to do with his blood,” I said. “The, uh, Monsignor is after him because of it for some reason.”
“The Monsignor?” The name caused her hood to raise again and for a minute I was afraid she would strike. When she opened her mouth to hiss, her fangs were as long as my middle finger—not a pretty sight.
“Don’t worry, he doesn’t know where we are,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying. After all, how had he found me in the safe house? But surely now that we had an ocean between us we were safe from him.
I hoped.
“He had better not come to me sseeking for you,” she said with a menacing hiss.
“Yeah, your sister said the same thing,” I muttered. “So does this mean anything to you?” I held up the creased paper.
She frowned and took the genealogy from me, turning her head this way and that in quick little snake-like jerks as she examined it. “Ah-ha, I ssee—this document is incomplete.”
“Yes, that’s what I told you,” I said, trying and probably failing not to sound impatient. “We need to know the missing lines under Niccolo Morretti’s name. The first snake-lady…er, your sister told us if we found his missing son, we would find our answers.”
“But Nicollo had no ssons…none that were not born to him from darkness, anyway.” Her tongue flickered out and I swear she licked her own eyeball. Disgusting.
“But your sister, Wellesandra told us he did have at least one son with Catarina Consenza .” Michael sounded much more patient that I had. “She said he, uh, raped her and she conceived a son.”
“Yes, but that child died aborning. He never even drew breath,” snake-lady two said. “My ssister was misstaken. There is a missing sson upon thiss document but it is not the son of Nicollo or of his brother Vittore.”
“What? Who is it then?” I asked, feeling thoroughly confused by now.
“This document is missing the lineage of Catarina’s third lover—Salvatore Moreno. He married her when Vittore returned to the priesthood after fathering a child on her.” She studied the family tree again and I swear she would have been frowning, if snakes could frown. “In fact, thiss document is missing his entire lineage.”
“Was this, uh, Salvatore Moreno something special somehow?” Michael asked. “I mean, I know Nicollo and Vittore were both priests but—”
“Ssalvatore wass a no priest but a physician,” snake-lady two interrupted. “But he had goodnesss of heart and a healing touch to match Catarina’s. The ssons and daughterss they had together went on to bec
ome great healerss in their own right. All of that line have the healing touch and the pure blood which cannot be completely corrupted by darkness.”
“So they have immunity to vampire bites?” I asked. “Like my family? Like the slayers?”
“In a manner of sspeaking,” snake-lady two said. “Their bodies may be corrupted but their seed and blood will still heal and they cannot be completely brought over to darkness.”
I looked at Michael, frowning.
“Sounds like you.”
Snake-lady two looked at him sharply.
“I perceive you are a child of darkness but you were able to walk unburned in the daylight. Have you been bitten?”
He nodded. “Yes but I don’t seem to be completely, uh, turned. I drink blood but I can control myself. Silver burns me but sunlight doesn’t. I have superhuman strength too, which is nice although it would be nicer to be able to eat human food again.”
He sounded so wistful I felt bad for him. It made me realize that through our whole adventure together, I’d never really asked him how he felt about being turned into a vampire. A good girlfriend—if that was what I was—would have tried to draw him out and get him to talk about his feelings.
Of course, I think I’ve already explained I don’t do feelings very well. But maybe we should try to talk about it later…
“And you ssaid your last name iss Moran. Not sso very far from Moreno…”
“Wait—you think Michael is a descendant of the missing son—of Salvatore?” I asked her.
She hissed thoughtfully.
“It iss possible.”
Michael raised an eyebrow at me. “So we’re related?”
“Ha-ha,” I said dryly. “We might have the same great-great-great-great-great grandmother but that hardly counts as being ‘related’.”
“Actually, even a drop of shared blood would deepen your connection immeasurably,” snake-lady said. “But one cannot be ssure if it is sso. A completed genealogy would tell the truth for ssure.”
“Wait—don’t you have a completed one here?” Michael asked.
She shook her snakey head.
“I cannot sstore such old and valuable recordss here. The damp ssea air would ruin them.”
“Where are they then?” I asked, beginning to get exasperated. Was there a third snake-lady sister hiding somewhere in another part of the world? Were we going to have to go to China or Australia or—
“Within Cardiff castle there is a sspecial room, known only to me,” she answered, making me sigh in relief. Cardiff was just the next town over from Swansea, where the Gower was located.
“Good, great—how do we get into it?” I asked. “Will it give us more information about this, uh, prophesy?”
“As to that, I cannot ssay. But I would think yess, it must.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I access the record room, as I call it, by a seriess of passagess that lead beneath the rocks. However…they are many kilometerss long and many are filled with freezing water this time of year. Are you able to hold your breath for many minutess at a time?”
“How many is many?” Michael asked warily. “I suppose we could try…”
“What about just getting into the room the regular way?” I asked. “Don’t they do tours of the castle?” I was pretty sure I had seen a sign advertising that on the drive up here.
“As to that, yess, I am ssure you could,” snake-lady two said, sounding thoughtful. “I only use the back passages myself because humanss get upset if they ssee me. The world hass become so narrow minded.” She shot out her forked tongue and licked her eyeball again. Ugh.
“Good, then it’s settled,” I said. “You tell us where the record room is and we’ll sneak in there during a tour of the castle. We’ll get the genealogy, figure out if Michael is related to Salvatore somehow and hopefully get some answers about the prophesy and why The Monsignor wants him.” I shrugged my shoulders. “So I guess that’s that.”
“No it isn’t,” Michael said, frowning. “We still don’t know what to do about your arm.”
“Ah yess, you did sspeak of healing,” snake-lady two said. “What wound do you have that you cannot tend yourselves?”
“This,” I said. Pushing up the sleeve of my cheap black jacket, I exposed my arm and shoved it under her snakey nose. “It’s the result of a bite from the Monsignor.”
“Ahh—the ssign of eevil,” she said, pronouncing it the same way her sister had. “The corruption is in your blood and soon it will poison your soul.”
“I was afraid of that,” I said grimly.
“Can you help us?” Michael asked earnestly. “I’m a doctor but I don’t think conventional Western medicine is going to cure this.” He pointed to the crooked black lines that looked like tattoos on my pale flesh.
“In thiss you are correct,” the snake-lady hissed. “The one you sspeak of, his bite is death to a sslayer.”
“What? But that can’t be—surely there must be something you can do!” Michael exclaimed.
“There iss nothing I can do,” snake-lady two said. She cocked her head to one side and looked at Michael. “But there iss, perhapss something you can do—if you truly are one of the sons of Salvatore.”
“What? What is it? We’ll try anything,” Michael said quickly.
“You must ssuck the venom of the eevil one from her veinss.” She nodded at my arm. “And then you must finish the bond which I perceive is sstarted between you.”
“Finish the bond? What do you mean?” I demanded, although I thought I had an idea.
“Come, sslayer…do not plead ignorance.” Her forked tongue flickered. “The bond began when you allowed thiss child of darknesss to pierce your flesh and feed from you. But to complete it and tie the knot that bindss you together, he must pierce you in a different way.”
“Uh…what way is that?” I could feel my cheeks heating in a blush.
“Do you sstill pretend ignorance?” Snakes can’t frown, as I mentioned before, but snake-lady two was giving it her best shot. “His sseed, sslayer—he must fill you with his sseed.”
“So we have to make love,” Michael said, not sounding nearly as embarrassed as I was. “But how will that help?”
“If indeed you be of the line of Ssalvatore, your sseed planted deep in this female’s belly will ssave her—it iss the essence of your healing power,” snake-lady two told him.
“And if I’m not?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged, a slinky gesture which seemed to involve her entire body.
“Then sshe will die.”
The way she said it, so cool and disinterested, sent a cold chill down my spine. A death sentence—that was what the Monsignor had given me with his little love bite. So much for my four years of service. Of course, I had known he wanted me dead before—I had heard him give the order to have me killed. But still, knowing someone wants you dead and having them actually try to kill you are two different things.
I felt sick.
“What? She’ll die even if I can get all the poison out of her?” Michael demanded, his deep voice sounding agonized.
“Even sso,” the snake-lady hissed. “It iss not enough to remove the poison—her soul iss already infected and that infection must be healed by the sseed of a descendant of Ssalvatore. Otherwise sshe will wither and die.”
“All right,” I heard myself saying in a cold, dry voice that didn’t seem to be my own. “We’ll just have to hope Michael really is a descendant of Salvatore Moreno then.”
“Kate…” Michael was looking at me with some unreadable emotion in his eyes. “Baby—”
“Don’t start,” I said. I was barely holding myself in check—I didn’t want his pity or concern for me right then, not when I was so close to breaking down. “Let’s just, uh, find a hotel room and see if we can…can get me fixed. But before we go,” I said, turning to snake-lady two “Tell us more about the secret records room in Cardiff Castle and how to get into it.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
>
“Well this is it—the moment of truth.” I was stripped down to my bra and jeans and sitting on the side of the bed. I looked down at my right arm which looked, by now, like a roadmap to Hell. By the time Michael and I had found a room at a nice little seaside B&B, the snaking black lines had crept over my collar bone and now they were only inches from my heart. It occurred to me that if the Monsignor had bitten me on my left hand instead of my right, I would already be dead.
Thank goodness for small favors, I guess.
“Are you ready?” Michael looked at me uncertainly.
“As I’ll ever be. Are you, though? I hate to ask you to suck this nasty stuff out of me.” I nodded down to the twisted black veins filled with poison. “It looks awful. Be sure you don’t swallow any of it.”
“I won’t.” Michael went and got the old fashioned looking china pitcher circled with dusty pink rosebuds which sat on the dresser beside the canopied bed. Clearly it was only there for decoration but now it would serve a practical purpose—he could spit the venom the Monsignor had injected me with into it.
Michael knelt on the floor beside the bed, which put his mouth at the level of my wrist when I extended my arm to him. He looked up at me and I thought I saw his heart in his softly glowing green eyes.
“Kate,” he said softly, “I’m afraid this is going to hurt.”
“I know it will,” I said. “But it has to be done. I…” I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to die, Michael. I’m not ready. Not yet.”
“I’m not ready to lose you either,” he said. “But how do you feel about the, uh, other part of it?”
“You mean what comes after you suck the Monsignor’s venom out of me?” I bit my lip. “I…don’t know.” I looked at Michael. “How do you feel about it?”
“I want you in my life, Kate,” he said at once. “I’ve felt like that from the first moment I laid eyes on you. But…” He sighed. “I’m not sure you feel the same.”
“I want you too,” I said bluntly. “But snake-lady two seemed to think if we, uh, had sex it would form a lasting bond.”