The Serpent Read online

  “I was thinking of him more as a casino pit boss, but okay.”

  Gabe snorted. Then he held up his deck and whispered something to it. A card slipped from the deck and twirled into his hand, where it instantly turned into a horn-handled hunting knife.

  Ernie jerked back. “What the heck?”

  Gabe held up the blade. “She’s being naughty. I could have used something much smaller.” He said the last part loudly, then looked down at his arm. “Don’t get any ideas, now.”

  “Are you telling me the bird chose your weapon?”

  “She has some say, though my intentions and plans are just as strong. I needed a knife, and she gave me something . . . big.”

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “I’m going to cut you.”

  “Holy crap.” Ernie scooted to the far end of the settee. “I am not comfortable with this.”

  “You have to call him to you. Any other way of calling the Forger to you—and there are other ways—involve owing him a favor.” Gabe considered the hunting knife in his hand. “Trust me when I say that’s not something you want.”

  “Okay, but . . . I’m not sure I can deal with anemia on top of everything else.”

  “Just a few drops. Like I said, Caera got a little bit saucy.”

  “She doesn’t like me, does she?” Ernie gave the bird tattoo an anxious glance. The thing had really sharp talons.

  “Well . . . she doesn’t like it when I step into others’ fights, she doesn’t like it when I get hurt, and she doesn’t like to be messed with.”

  “So she’s mad that I made her elephant sized?”

  “Focus, Ernie. This isn’t about Caera.”

  She let out a heavy breath. “So I bleed and concentrate. This sounds fun.”

  Gabe knelt in front of her and tipped her chin up with his fingertips. “You can do this.”

  “You don’t know that I can.”

  He gave her a half smile. “I didn’t know you could do any of the things you’ve already done, so I think I look like less of a fool if I just have faith in you.”

  His fingertips were still on her face, the touch light and warm, and Ernie felt it in her core. She took a shuddery breath. “Have you ever done it? Asked the Forger for a favor?”

  Gabe’s hand fell away. “Once.”

  “Any advice?”

  “Don’t be afraid of him.”

  Somehow, that made Ernie more nervous. “What’s going to happen? How will we know this worked?”

  “We’ll know when it happens.”

  “This feels like that one slumber party I went to where we cracked out the Ouija board.”

  “Look down at the plate, and hold out your hand.”

  Ernie did both and then whimpered as Gabe sliced the knife along her palm. The cut wasn’t deep, but blood welled and dripped, and Gabe moved her hand over the Mark as he whispered to her to focus on the center, on what she needed. Her thoughts rippled in anxious rings, and her head was swimming again, whether from the sight of blood or her weakened state, she didn’t know. A few crimson drops slipped from her palm and fell with little taps onto the mark, and the third one landed right in the center of the circle. Ernie felt a surge of need, a kind of silent pleading, as she watched the drop disappear into the metal. This was real. She could get the help she needed from this being, whatever he was, who made the Dealers, the decks.

  She focused so hard on the spot where her blood had disappeared that her sight blurred and swirled. Would he appear to her in a vision? Would he appear in the room, right there with them?

  She flinched at the sound of her phone ringing. Blinking, dazed, she looked down at her purse.

  Gabe rifled through her bag and handed the phone to her. Unknown number. She accepted the call and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Meet me at Wedge, seven sharp,” said a deep male voice. “And come alone.”

  “Wait—who’s calling?” Her heart was pounding, wondering if Duncan had—

  “You called me, Dealer.” There was a strange crackle and then silence.

  Ernie looked up at Gabe, who was staring at her phone. He tore his eyes from it to meet her gaze. “Well,” she said weakly. “I guess it worked.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  At five to seven, Ernie was already sitting at a table in the parking lot beer garden behind Wedge Studios. It was a cool Tuesday evening, not too crowded, and the stars were hanging bright enough overhead to be seen despite the lights strung between poles to illuminate the space. She gazed up at the Haywood overpass, which ran over the railroad tracks that bounded the parking lot and the river just beyond them. Her Iron Rail IPA was frosty and delicious, but she could barely drink it. Her nerves were making her hands shake.

  Gabe had gotten her ready for the evening. He’d taken her home on his motorcycle, stood guard as she napped and showered, drawn out a detailed list of the cards she needed, and then turned the Coin card from his deck into a credit card and taken her out to White Duck, where she’d eaten three jerk chicken tacos and washed them down with a bottle of Cheerwine. At first, the consumption of the sugary red beverage from her childhood had made her fizz with hope and optimism, especially as she watched Gabe’s eyes light up as he tried it for the first time, but now her stomach was churning. Wishing she didn’t have to do this alone, she’d said goodbye to Gabe at the roundabout on Haywood and watched him ride away from her. She was supposed to call him using her cards when the meeting was over. When she’d asked how to do that, he’d promised her the deck would know, even if the snake wasn’t hanging around. Whatever. A cell phone seemed easier.

  Ernie glanced at said phone, noting the time, and then peered at the patrons around her. The tables out here were spread out, some of the umbrellas raised, but Ernie liked the sky; it reminded her how big the world actually was. She could hear one couple talking quietly about their relationship—the girl was pressing the poor dude to talk more about his feelings—and another, middle-aged couple had to be tourists, but she appreciated that they looked like they’d hit the lottery by finding the place, down a staircase from the road, behind and below a big warehouse. There was a group of friends, maybe college kids, closer to the evening’s designated food truck, which was El Querubin tonight, empanadas and burritos and yet more tacos. She might have just eaten, but man. It smelled good.

  Ernie took another sip of her beer. No one here looked like a god or a devil or whatever the hell the Forger was. She hoped she hadn’t gone to the wrong Wedge—there was another taproom down the road, now that she thought about it, and it was edging toward ten past. Dang.

  “Nice night, huh?” a guy said as he sat down across from her with a pint in his hand. He was slight of build, late twenties, maybe, with a hipster beard and an untucked button-down that was just a little worn, a few paint smears on the front—his type was a dime a dozen in this town.

  “I’m waiting for someone,” Ernie said.

  “When was he—she?—supposed to show up?”

  “He was supposed to arrive a few minutes ago.” Ernie didn’t have to deal with guys hitting on her nearly as often as Dia and Jules did, but honestly, this guy was cute enough that she might have given flirting a try, under other circumstances. His eyes were intensely blue, like Gabe’s, but in a face that was altogether different, more refined, fewer scars.

  “I can keep you company until he arrives,” the stranger offered. He wiped his palm on his pant leg and stuck out his hand. “Andy.”

  “I really . . .” She sighed and reached out to shake his hand. The moment their palms touched, the cards in her pocket flashed so hot that Ernie yelped and jumped up, hitting her knee on the bottom of the tabletop. “Ow!”

  “Whoops,” said Andy, offering a napkin to sop up the beer that had splashed over the rim of her pint glass. “I guess I should come with a warning label.”

  “What the heck?” Ernie muttered, taking the napkin with one hand and rubbing her poor knee with the other. “Yo
u could have just told me who you were.”

  “I assumed we were playing a game. Also, I don’t get out much.” Andy sipped his beer and took in the scene around him. “You have good taste in hangouts.”

  “Did you know I liked it here?”

  Andy smiled. She couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. “I know things,” he said. “For example, I know that you are in physically excellent condition, exercising as often as you do, with obstacles! Fascinating. Trying to connect with the primitive, trying not to be a gerbil on a wheel.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “You gave me some of your blood. Blood says a lot. I know you enjoy good beer, that you resent your father and worry about your mother, that you miss your friend who has recently died, and that you stole one of my Dealers’ cards and split his deck.” His voice had gone from friendly to flinty in an instant, and his eyes darkened like a storm cloud. “Give me one reason, Ernestine Philomena Dixon Terwilliger, why I shouldn’t rip those cards right out of your pocket and watch you die before I hand them over to the true Diamondback.”

  Ernie quailed as she gazed into his eyes, which were so dark now that they were almost black. The phrase “true Diamondback” hit her hard—if this guy didn’t believe she could be a Dealer, she was as good as dead. Though it wasn’t really in her nature, for a moment she considered begging him to help, to separate her from the deck without killing her, to let Duncan have those cards back so she could resume her normal life. Then she remembered a few things: First, it wasn’t that easy, because Duncan wasn’t after only the cards, and though she didn’t know exactly what would happen if he got the Marks, she did believe Gabe when he said it would be bad, given what Duncan had done so far. And second, Gabe had told her not to be afraid, and that suited her just fine.

  “Hey,” she snapped, summoning her courage. “Duncan wasn’t true enough to hang on to his deck, seeing how little old me was able to snatch half before he knew what was happening. So maybe it’s time for a change in staffing.”

  Andy’s eyebrows rose, and then he started to laugh. His voice was deep, and his laugh was deeper. People at nearby tables were starting to stare. Ernie wished she could pull a Conceal card and hide them like Gabe had the night before in Ireland—but apparently she didn’t have that one.

  “I expected you to whine,” said the Forger.

  “I know.” She’d learned from her Spartan training that there were times when whining could get you crushed—and lose you the respect of people who could have been allies. “And you know why I’m here.”

  “I do,” Andy said, his eyes still dark, more of a navy color. “And I know it would be easier to destroy you than to help you. She’s hurting, you know. She suffers. Every moment she’s not whole, she feels it keenly. She knows full well that she’s dying.”

  “Who? The snake?”

  “The diamondback,” Andy snapped. “You have no reverence for what you’ve stolen. No sense of how magnificent she is.”

  “Duncan isn’t doing magnificent stuff with her. He’s hurting people and trying to steal things. From my mom. Including my mom, actually.”

  Andy sat back and took a long draft of his beer. “I don’t control my Dealers. Well.” He gave her a smug smile. “Maybe sometimes. Maybe just a little. But I have considerable affection for randomness and chaos. It’s my job to fan it a bit, in fact.”

  Rage sizzled across Ernie’s chest. “So I should blame you for what’s happened?”

  “Oh, there’s the whine. I knew it was in there somewhere.”

  “Dude. Seriously. Duncan is trying to get the Forger’s Marks. And you know better than I what he could do with them.” Which was sort of frustrating, actually. She made a note to press Gabe on that point.

  “I wonder why Mama Terwilliger had them,” Andy mused, though it looked like he might have some idea.

  She decided not to complicate things by mentioning her dad. “It might be smarter to wonder why Duncan is so desperate to get ahold of them.”

  “All Dealers are desperate to get ahold of them, and I look forward to the day when the last one is used up, because the things are damn annoying,” Andy said. He drained his glass. “So ask for your favor, and I pledge not to ask one in return. This time.” He almost sounded bored, but Ernie had a feeling that everything this guy showed on the surface was just a cover for his scheming underneath. She didn’t trust him at all.

  But he was right. She did need a favor. “I want to play with a full deck,” she said. “And I wondered if you could make replacement cards for me. To make the diamondback whole. To end her suffering and make her strong again.”

  “You didn’t seem to care too much about ‘the snake’ a moment ago.”

  Ernie closed her eyes and took a calming breath. “Duncan is using some kind of magic tile to bind her to him.”

  “Ah,” he said, looking pleased. “Now those barrier tiles are my invention. Genius, am I right?”

  Ernie stared. “Um . . . sure? Sure.” She didn’t want to offend him, not when he held her life in his hands. “But is using a barrier tile to hold your animal hostage the move of a Dealer who has a good relationship with the spirit of his deck? If you care so much for the diamondback, like you seemed to a moment ago, seems like you’d step up and help a lady snake out.”

  He gave her an amused look. “What do you know about the Immortal Dealers, Ernie? And how do you know it? You didn’t call to me in the usual way, though you’re in as much trouble as the others were before I saved them.”

  “Saved them?”

  “I appear to potential Dealers when it suits me. They have to be particular types, you see. Not everyone is up to the job. A certain . . . moral flexibility is required, but it takes more than that to get my attention. It takes desperation.” With that, he gave her a once-over that made her squirm. “These candidates are usually begging for something specific, and their pleas and prayers are powerful enough to reach me in the center of everything. Most people’s psyches don’t even make a blip.” Now he was staring at her coldly, as if he found her psyche wholly inadequate.

  She stared steadily back. No fear. “Cool. So you have some special supernatural radar that helps you pick up these vibrations?”

  He gave her a condescending smile and continued as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “The people who interest me want revenge or healing or the restoration of something that’s been lost. And I offer them eternity and power.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  That smug smile again. “Favors, when I need them. Assignments, when I see fit.” He hunched over with his elbows on the table and stuck his jaw out. “I make them an offer they can’t refuse,” he said in a bad imitation of Marlon Brando. “Are you sure you want this?”

  “Is my only other choice to die?”

  He leaned forward on his elbows. “You should have learned by now that some actions cannot be undone.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered. Whether her father came back or not, the damage he’d done was permanent.

  “Tell me what you know about what you’re getting into, then.”

  Ernie looked into her half-empty pint glass as she tried to recall everything Gabe had told her. “Some Dealers get their decks because you come to them and offer to deal them into the game—I knew that already. But some walk through a different door. They become Dealers by stealing the cards. And I know Dealers resolve conflicts, or start them, I guess, and that they either get hired by humans to do that or sent by you.”

  “There’s much more to the Immortal Dealers than that.” He rubbed his chest, his fingernails black, and looked up at the sky. “We are the engine of the universe, Ms. Terwilliger. Our decisions ripple through galaxies and dimensions. We expand them every day with a flick of the cards.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “We don’t influence every decision, obviously, nor are we involved in every war, every feud, every treaty, every brilliant idea, or every terrible one. But the Dealers play thei
r part every moment of every day. They alter the course of human events, both epic and petty, and each of those plays is like a bow over a violin string, each note touching another and making a beautiful song, and I am the conductor.” He waved his arms as if he were facing a full orchestra.

  “What do you mean—are you talking about fate? Dealers make what’s meant to be happen?”

  He had his eyes closed now, and there was a small smile on his face. “Fate is a silly, simplistic concept, and there is no such thing as ‘meant to be.’ There is no one path for anyone—the paths are infinite, and every decision, every play, splits the path again and creates a completely new tone, a new dimension, a new note in the symphony of the universe. As long as the music goes on, so does humanity, in all its realms and forms. But if that lovely, complex, chaotic music stops?” He flared his fingers and made a little exploding sound.

  Ernie was squinting now, trying to follow the tangled thread of his words. “Are you saying that if the Dealers didn’t exist, the universe would just . . . stop?”

  “I guess that’s the toddler version.”

  Ernie looked around. “How many of them are there?”

  The Forger smiled. “Only I know the full measure of them. So tell me—which one of my creatures is helping you?”

  “Ga—the Kestrel,” Ernie replied, remembering how Gabe had first addressed Akela.

  “And how is the Kestrel?” he asked, sounding casual, sipping his beer, which had somehow refilled itself. “Looking a bit gray at the temples these days? A bit tuckered out, as folks around here say?”

  Huh? “No . . .” Though he had actually seemed kind of worn out. “He’s saved my life more than once, and it hasn’t been easy.”

  “He’s always had a noble streak.” He stared at her as if he expected her to say more, but for some reason, Ernie felt as if her tongue were glued to the roof of her mouth. “And he showed you how to use one of the Marks to ask me for a favor,” Andy added, impatiently gesturing at her to get on with it.

  Ernie shook her head like she’d been released from a trance, and fished the list of cards from her pocket. “Here it is.” She offered it to the Forger, who took it.