The Serpent Read online

  ALSO BY SARAH FINE

  Adult Fiction

  The Reliquary Series

  Reliquary

  Splinter

  Mosaic

  Mayhem and Magic (graphic novel)

  Servants of Fate Series

  Marked

  Claimed

  Fated

  Young Adult Fiction

  Guards of the Shadowlands Series

  Sanctum

  Fractured

  Chaos

  Captive: A Guard’s Tale from Malachi’s Perspective

  Vigilante: A Guard’s Tale from Ana’s Perspective

  Stories from the Shadowlands

  Of Metal and Wishes Series

  Of Metal and Wishes

  Of Dreams and Rust

  Of Shadows and Obsession: A Short Story Prequel to Of Metal and Wishes

  The Impostor Queen Series

  The Impostor Queen

  The Cursed Queen

  The True Queen

  Other Series

  Scan (with Walter Jury)

  Burn (with Walter Jury)

  Beneath the Shine

  Uncanny

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Sarah Fine

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503903043

  ISBN-10: 1503903044

  Cover design and photography by Blake Morrow

  To my mother, Julia Fine, from whom I inherited my love of urban fantasy. Thank you for taking me seriously when I sent you that first, terrible manuscript and for cheering me on ever since.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  On some evenings, happiness was just one hard workout away, but on others, the only way to avoid what Ernie’s nana used to call an “unbecoming fit of hysterics” was with willful detachment from reality and the careful application of alcohol.

  It was the latter kind of night.

  Ernie leaned over her empty pint glass, then scowled as she scanned the dark speakeasy, usually a haven for Asheville locals but jammed with a few too many leaf-peeping tourists on this autumn night. She finally spotted the tattooed waitress, who was shaking her hips over by the jazz quartet in the corner, and waved a hand in an attempt to summon her. The oblivious waitress turned her back and kept dancing.

  “Group selfie! Get over here,” Dia yelled from just across the table, her fingers flexing as if she were grabbing for Ernie’s face.

  “But . . .” Ernie was glaring at the waitress now, hoping the woman could feel her gaze like two prongs in her backside. “Beer?”

  “That’s your priority tonight?” snapped Dia.

  Ernie turned her head to find Dia and Jules staring at her. Dia’s brown eyes were narrowed, and Jules’s baby blues were downcast. “Crap,” said Ernie. “No. Sorry.” She hoisted a big smile onto her face and scraped her hand through her dark, unruly mane, which fell just past her shoulders. Tonight she’d let it free from the ponytail, and she was beginning to regret it. “Am I ready for my close-up?”

  Jules smiled, still looking a little wilted. “Of course.”

  Dia snorted, which was better than snarling. She tossed her immaculate ebony curls over her bare shoulder and examined her long red-shellacked fingernails in the dim mood lighting. “You look like you just staggered into town after days lost in the wilderness.”

  “So, better than usual,” Ernie said.

  Jules laughed, and it lifted a few pounds of guilt off Ernie’s shoulders. “I’m gonna miss you, roomie.”

  Something stung in Ernie’s chest, and it wasn’t heartburn. “You won’t miss the way I shed all over the bathroom tiles like a nervous collie.”

  “I actually find the shedding endearing.” Jules’s pin-straight blond hair fluttered in a gust of cool wind brought in by a few more newcomers, who eyed their surroundings nervously as the door guy explained the need for a membership—bars that didn’t serve food weren’t allowed in North Carolina, only “private clubs,” so you had to sign your name in the ledger and fork over a dollar to get in. Ernie had watched the same scene play out a dozen times already tonight, including with a few distractingly hot men whom she wouldn’t otherwise have pegged for tourists. “I’ll miss so many things about this place,” Jules continued, pulling Ernie’s attention back to her, “but I’ll miss you guys the most.”

  Ernie chuckled and looked down at her feet. “Yeah, but you’ll be having the time of your life in sunny LA, so I’m guessing that’ll dull the ache.”

  She’d meant to say it lightly, but she found herself reaching for Dia’s water, eager to wash the bitterness off her tongue. “And I’ll be here, having the time of my life,” she added after a few gulps, wishing she were better at hiding her feelings, at saying what people needed to hear in the way they needed to hear it.

  Words were probably a thing to avoid at the moment. Ernie scooted around the table and smooshed in for the pic with her friends. She smiled for all she was worth, thinking about kittens and waterfalls and lemon chess pie and definitely not the fact that her best friend was moving across the country. Tomorrow, Ernie would mope about being left behind.

  Not for the first time, either.

  Tomorrow, she reminded herself. While Dia summoned the waitress, Ernie asked about Jules’s new apartment in Redondo Beach (a shoebox, but only four blocks from the ocean!), her new commute (probably an hour, but you can’t get anywhere in LA in less than an hour—also, beach!), and her new job (she’d be dealing with city poverty, which wasn’t the same kind of poor they saw here at the edge of the mountains, but need was need, and helping people was just what Jules did). Within a few minutes, Ernie’s jealousy was creeping up behind her good intentions, gripping a baseball bat and planning to strike.

  When a fresh pint arrived, Ernie was so grateful that she complimented the waitress on her dance moves, meaning it to sound friendly, though judging from the waitress’s expression, it probably came out barbed.

  Dia flashed a pitying look at Ernie, waggled her eyebrows at Jules, and changed the subject. “You told me to find you a no-regrets farewell hookup, and I think your man is right over there.”

  Dia inclined her head toward the long bar staffed by a bartender with full-sleeve tattoos and a handlebar mustache. There was an assortment of dudes lined up at the bar, but her target was
easy to spot—he was one of the hot guys Ernie had watched come through the door earlier.

  In profile, the guy was a study in sexy. He looked like he was in his midtwenties, maybe. All in black, of course. The guy had on a leather jacket, which she guessed wasn’t totally out of place now that fall was creeping in, pulling cold air off the Blue Ridge peaks and turning the nights crisp. The mystery man also had dark stubble and effortlessly disheveled hair that was a shade too long, brushing his jaw. He was sipping a whiskey as he looked down at the bar, sliding his fingers over its surface, unhurried and deliberate.

  “He looks depressed,” said Ernie, not exactly eager to lose any of her last few hours with Jules to a complete stranger. “What if he’s contemplating suicide?”

  “Morbid much?” asked Jules.

  “Jules is a social worker,” said Dia. “She can save his life.”

  Jules bit her lip. “What if he doesn’t want to talk?”

  Dia laughed, low and purring. “How about a little CPR, then? Nothing like a bit of mouth-to-mouth when you run out of things to say. This is pretty low stakes, Jules. Just go over and say hi. Order yourself a drink, and see if you can pull his attention from his phone or whatever he’s staring at. Ask him if he wants to dance.” She motioned toward the tiny dance floor in front of the quartet, where three couples were swaying: one middle-aged pair who were likely tourists, one goth pair who looked like they were considering drinking each other’s blood, and one pair of neo-hippies who looked like they weren’t old enough to even be in the bar in the first place.

  “We’ve got your back,” Ernie blurted out after Dia kicked her under the table. “You can do this.” She offered a brave smile. “You can do anything, Jules.”

  Jules beamed. “What have I got to lose?” She stood up and smoothed her miniskirt across her thighs. “Here I go.”

  Dia slapped her butt. “Attagirl.”

  Ernie watched as Jules slid onto a seat next to the cute broody guy. As her friend offered him her glowing smile, Ernie checked her phone. Just after midnight. Jules was leaving today. “Potty break,” she announced as her throat tightened. “Wanna join?”

  “You go ahead.” Dia waved her hand without taking her eyes off Jules. She and the cute guy were already talking.

  Ernie wound her way toward a cobwebby piano on which a crooked sign was propped, pointing down a narrow hallway to the bathroom. If Jules wanted to spend her last few hours in Asheville kissing a random dude, that was her right—she’d earned this, all of it, and despite being a tall, stunning blond, she only just seemed to be finding her confidence when it came to men. Ernie resolved to cheer her friend on instead of sulking.

  Ernie waited for her turn in the single all-gender washroom, pressing herself against the wall as smokers came in from the back alley and headed up into the bar again. Then the bathroom door opened, a woman edged out, and it was Ernie’s turn. She made for it and immediately bounced off a brick wall that turned out to have a pulse.

  “Oh, lord. Sorry about that,” the wall said in a slight Irish accent as it took her by the arms and leaned over her. “Are you all right?”

  Ernie winced and rubbed her forehead. “Yeah. I only use that lobe of my brain occasionally.” She looked up at the man standing between her and her destination. He was several inches taller than she was and had long dirty-blond hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She realized that he had also been one of the hotties she’d noticed as he came through the front door. Up close, his face was a study in flaws, but somehow they came together in just the right way—scar over his right eyebrow, nose a shade too long, forehead a bit too prominent. Ernie bowed her head, noting the tattoo on his taut, tanned forearm—some kind of bird, a hawk, maybe—and then said the first thing that came to her mind. “I have to pee.”

  “I never stand between a lady and her toilet.” He stepped aside and gestured toward the bathroom. “Enjoy your evening, now.” He looked her right in the eyes. His were blue, blue, blue. He winked, and those eyes reflected the light for a second, revealing a yellow-brown streak through his right iris.

  Ernie blinked and tried to say some words. She wanted to introduce herself. To ask his name. To ask him to marry her and take her far from here, maybe to his castle on the Irish coast, with waves crashing against the bluffs. “Uh,” she said, but he was already walking away, disappearing into the crowd.

  Shaking her head, Ernie stumbled into the bathroom and shut the door, grateful for a few minutes of privacy. After relieving herself, she spent a moment looking into the mirror, chuckling about her rapid-fire fantasies. Because a dude like that? He’d never be interested in her. He looked like he might want someone like Dia or maybe the tattooed waitress: edgy but still a bombshell, cool accessories, wickedly manicured nails, perfect cat eyes. Ernie was more like a sporty fashion-don’t, wearing her workout gear whenever she wasn’t in the boring clothes she wore to her clerk job at the hospital. She liked to be able to get ready quickly and just go, which meant only a little makeup and lots of ponytails. She always seemed to strike men as more of a friend than anything else, sadly. The guys on her Spartan Race team respected her, cheered and shouted for her as she finished a Herc hoist or wall jump, and were happy to share a beer with her after, but none of them had ever shown any interest in more.

  Which was fine. All fine. It took the pressure off. She’d find someone someday. Someone who understood her. Someone who wouldn’t just walk away. She’d wait for that guy . . . He had to be out there somewhere. She stared at herself for a few more moments, rubbed a smudge of mascara from under her eye, and headed back out into the bar.

  Before she even crossed the dance floor, she could tell something was wrong. Dia was standing over Jules, who was back at their table, her face ashen.

  “What the heck?” Ernie frowned as she squatted in front of Jules. “Did your no-frills hookup pull a Mr. Hyde?”

  Jules sniffled and shook her head. Dia’s dark eyes slid over to where the cute broody guy still sat, whiskey in front of him. He was now shuffling a deck of cards. “I was watching the whole time. They were just talking while he played with those stupid cards. He said something to her,” Dia told Ernie. “But she won’t tell me what.”

  Jules stood up abruptly and lurched through the crowd toward the bathroom. Dia followed, pushing in front of Jules to force the crowd to make way, while throwing a few glares in the direction of the broody guy.

  Ernie remained by the now empty table, her head spinning. But as the broody guy tossed a few bills onto the bar and stood up, the indecision and confusion melted, leaving determination and anger in their place. She shoved between a few tables and reached him just as he plucked the deck of cards from the bar. He turned and paused as she stepped between him and the door, his eyebrow arching in apparent amusement, as if he was expecting Ernie to ask for his number—and looking forward to icing her out.

  “You really upset my friend, guy,” she said. “What did you say to her?”

  “That’s private, I think,” he said, his tone flat, almost a drawl, but he definitely didn’t have a local accent. His grin revealed a slight gap between his two front teeth. “And now I am on my way to another engagement.”

  Ernie stood her ground. “Did you threaten her?”

  “What?” He waved toward the bar. “She approached me. I was busy—”

  “Playing solitaire in a bar?”

  “I’ve been informed that it’s a private club.” He was smirking, but his grip on his cards tightened. “And yet I was courteous. I answered her questions. It’s not my fault she didn’t like the answers.”

  “So, basically, instead of politely telling her you weren’t interested, you decided to be a scary jerk? What kind of stupid game is that?”

  “Maybe one you’d like to play?” With quick, practiced movements, he fanned the cards. One of them slid upward, seemingly on its own, and the guy plucked it from the fan and waved it over the others before putting it back. Then he held the fan in front o
f her face. “Choose a card, and it will tell you your future.”

  Caught off guard, Ernie stared at the cards. The backs had an elaborate design. It looked like a snake—its tail ending in a rattle, its back crisscrossed with a diamond pattern—coiled around a globe, its mouth stretched wide to take a bite, fangs out. She shoved the cards toward the man’s chest, needing that creepy image as far from her as possible. She freaking hated snakes. “If I was interested in cheap tricks and whiskey breath, I’d go hang out with Morris the homeless magician over in Pritchard Park. Just tell me what you said to my friend that scared her so badly.”

  “Maybe she’s easily scared,” he said, leaning forward and deliberately blowing his boozy breath at her face. “Peeking at the future is hardly for the faint of heart. Now if you will excuse me.” He took Ernie by the shoulders, but she threw his hands off.

  “’S there a problem?” asked the bartender, pausing with a cocktail shaker in each hand.

  “Not at all,” said the card guy. “I was just leaving.” Taking advantage of the distraction, he brushed past Ernie and was out the door before she could stop him.

  “Ugh,” said Ernie before realizing the bartender was still watching her. “Hey—did you hear that guy talking to my friend? She has long blond hair, really pretty?”

  The bartender poured the drinks into two glasses and handed them to waiting patrons with a curt nod. “’S been busy tonight. He seemed to be minding his own business.”

  “Playing solitaire, riiiight,” said Ernie, rolling her eyes.

  “Nah, that wasn’t solitaire. I think it was—tarot, maybe? Symbols and pictures on the cards. He had your friend pick one. I did see that.”

  He’d said something similar to Ernie. “Thanks,” she said to the bartender, then made her way to the bathroom. There was a long line of drunk dudes and irritated women waiting, and none of them were her friends, so Ernie banged on the door. “Guys? It’s me.”

  The door opened, and Dia’s long-fingernailed hand shot out, wrapped around Ernie’s arm, and pulled her inside. Jules was sitting on the floor. Her cheeks were pink, and she had mascara caked on her bottom lashes and running in black streaks down her face.