The Serpent Read online

  Awesome.

  She was trapped in this car, without her phone or keys, and even if her mom called the police right now instead of playing with a box of freaking kosher salt, the cops wouldn’t get here before the psycho shattered the window and grabbed her.

  “Give them back, or I’ll tear your heart out,” the guy shouted, his face aglow with rage.

  Tears stung in her eyes. Her fingers curled over the stack of cards against her chest as she became aware of them again. “You want these, asshole?” she screamed. “Step back.”

  The guy immediately stopped kicking the window. “Come out and give them all to me,” he said, breathing hard. “Every. Single. One. Now.”

  She looked down at the cards, her thumb brushing over the one on top. There was a symbol on the card face, like an X, but the top part formed a diamond shape. It had been drawn over some kind of image that was too dark to see. She held it closer to her face.

  “No!” shouted the guy. “Stop!”

  The window cracked in a sudden spiderweb as the guy slammed his foot into it. Ernie screamed. A tear was jarred loose from her eye and landed on the card. The image swirled and took on a crazy depth, like a bottomless pool, and Ernie had the sensation of falling.

  Her world went black, and it felt like a giant hand had snatched her up and was squeezing the life out of her. He’d gotten her. He was strangling her. Except she felt it in her entire body, not just her throat. Her bones were about to splinter. Her skull was about to crater.

  Her last conscious thought was to wonder whether this was what Jules had felt when this bastard had predicted her death.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The first thing Ernie was aware of was the taste of dirt in her mouth, the grit of it between her teeth. She was facedown, clutching the cards tightly in her left hand. She was also soaked, and a cold rain was pelting from the sky, making her shiver. Teeth chattering, she pushed herself up. It was dark, no moon, no stars, but she could feel grass and mud squishing beneath her. She was . . . in a field, apparently.

  A distant “baaah” supported this theory.

  “Something tells me this isn’t heaven,” Ernie said with a groan as she slowly got to her feet. Her limbs were stiff with cold, and her thoughts were rigid with fear and confusion. She spat, trying to get rid of the grit in her mouth. How hard had she hit the ground? Had she fallen out of the sky?

  She went still and scanned the area around her. Now that logic and reason were slowly returning to her, the most likely scenario seemed that she’d been kidnapped—that the card-playing psycho had choked her out and brought her here. She put her fingers to her throat. Nothing felt tender or sore, but maybe she was in shock. Had he thought she was dead and tossed her body?

  A glow in the distance turned into a set of headlights, which revealed a curving road. She was about to run toward the passing car when she noticed something that stopped her cold: the car was driving on the left side of the road.

  Was this a dream?

  She was still holding a thin bundle of cards. She looked down, and as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she saw that the one she’d been looking at in the car was on top. As she watched raindrops hit its surface, she gaped. The water wasn’t rolling over the surface of the card and dripping off; instead, the card was absorbing the water. She touched the card, which was dry beneath her wet fingertips, and when she drew her hand away, those fingertips were also dry, as if the card had sucked the moisture right off them.

  With a hard shiver, she shoved the cards into her pocket.

  It was tempting to sit down right here and have a hissy fit of apocalyptic proportions. She didn’t know whether she was dead, dying, dreaming, or really . . . here? She didn’t know where “here” was. She didn’t know how long she had been unconscious. She didn’t know what to do or how to understand what had happened to her.

  Only one thought kept her from indulging the pull of hysteria—Mom. Whatever had happened to her, Ernie had left her mother at the shop with that monster, and she didn’t see how a box of salt was going to keep her safe. So even if Ernie was really in a coma and dreaming all this, she couldn’t just give up. She needed to at least try to get back to Mom, to find a way to protect her from that psycho.

  Ernie didn’t have it in her to do any less. The only failure was the failure to try.

  Of course, given that she had no idea where she was, Ernie had no idea where she should go. The road seemed like the best option, though. Clenching her teeth, she shuffled her way across the field, mud seeping into her work shoes—beige flats. She kept trudging as she pulled a hair tie from the pocket of her khakis and wrestled her thick, uncooperative hair into a ponytail. Her legs trembled as she walked, but she kept moving, staying alert in case the snake charmer turned up to rip her heart out like he’d promised. “Please don’t let him hurt Mom,” she whispered to no one in particular.

  After a few minutes, she reached a line of trees and nearly tumbled into a wide ditch, throwing her arms around a trunk to stop her forward momentum. Somewhere up in the branches, a bird screeched, and it didn’t exactly sound like a sparrow. “Great,” she mumbled. “Raptors. Just what I need.” She scowled up at the dark canopy, and the bird went silent.

  Ernie adjusted her balance and jumped across the ditch, landing with a splat on the opposite bank. As she scrambled up its muddy lip, she could feel sludge seeping through the front of her sensible—for the office—twinset and tan pants. The mud seemed to be grabbing at her palms, at the bottoms of her feet, trying to suck her down. Her heart sped as she slid backward into the bog, which was deeper than it looked and cold enough to send jolts of numbness up her legs. For a moment, it was tempting to give up and let go, but instead Ernie clawed upward, pushing past the pain and discomfort, until she’d gotten her legs out of the water again. Some vine or root had wrapped itself all the way around one of her ankles. It yanked her down every time she managed to climb a few inches, and with a growl, Ernie reached down and wrenched her foot free, losing a shoe and a decent bit of skin in the process. A chill went through her as the slimy plant reached for her again—literally reached—snaking up her leg and sliding a woody tendril into her pocket.

  The vine emerged wrapped around the cards. Without a moment’s thought, Ernie lunged for them, but more tendrils emerged from the dark water, wrapping around her calves, her waist, sliding up her back toward her neck. Frantic squeaks came from her throat as she tore at the vines. Even as she was fighting for breath, she kept reaching for the cards, though she wasn’t quite sure why.

  This had to be a crazy dream. Had to be.

  But it felt desperately real.

  With a sudden jerk, she got the cards loose, her muddy fingers spasming over their dark faces, her eyes alighting on a symbol that looked like a sideways hourglass. It glimmered dully in a shaft of moonlight, and beneath the symbol, the card face was a kind of mirror. Ernie saw herself—and a mesh of vines creeping up behind her. With a burst of panic-fueled speed, she heaved herself upward, reaching for dry land with her right hand as she clutched the cards in her left, their inexplicable warmth pulsing against her chest.

  And with that, the vines receded into the boggy waters.

  Ernie lay on the soft grass of the bank for a minute, catching her breath, thinking about how she was definitely going to need some new work clothes. Then she rolled over, shoved the cards into the left front pocket of her sodden khakis, and pushed herself up from the ground.

  The road was only a dozen or so yards away now. The next time a car came by, she would hitch a ride. She might not know where in the heck she was, but she was determined to find a way back to her mother, assuming all this was real.

  Ernie couldn’t remember ever having a dream that had hurt this much.

  Sticky blood trickled from her ankle and across the top of her bare right foot. Her muscles ached from the strain and effort of the last few minutes. She was covered in scratches and scrapes, she was freezing, and she was struggling to wr
ap her head around the fact that she had just been attacked by a plant.

  She hissed and stepped back as she bumped into something hard and pointy, staggering as her sweater snagged and ripped. Squinting in the dark, she saw posts, regularly spaced. She reached forward, slowly, and felt . . .

  A barbed-wire fence.

  Her spirits lifted.

  Barbed wire was a challenge she had endured—many times—in Spartan Races.

  “No problem,” she said, wanting to hear some encouragement out loud, even if it was coming from herself.

  Then she paused, remembering the vines.

  The barbed wire didn’t seem to be moving of its own volition. Yet. She poked a section of the fence. It did not respond.

  Satisfied, she dropped to her belly and started to commando crawl. It was helpful to think of this situation—the mud, the rain, the obstacles—as a race, a test of physical endurance. She didn’t have to know where she was or what was going on. She just had to keep moving.

  She was almost smiling, when she felt one of the barbs snag her sweater and drag its iron claw along her back.

  “Ow,” she said through gritted teeth. While she had trained for barbed-wire crawls, she hadn’t trained for barbed-wire crawls while wearing office-friendly knits. Reaching back to free herself, she scratched her hand along another barb, making her yelp with pain.

  She flinched as the sound of an engine reached her ears and the road lit up with light. That could be a ride, if only she could free herself and flag the driver down. Grimacing, she jerked at the wire, trying to rip it loose, and succeeded only in snagging another barb on the leg of her pants, then on her butt. “Argh!”

  The engine became louder. She didn’t have much time. “Help,” she cried out, right before a wave of fear crashed over her. What if the psycho was coming back for her? What if he found her here, helpless like this? Terror glued her mouth shut.

  The engine went silent. Footsteps crunched toward her. Ernie froze like a prey animal, not even breathing.

  A low whistle came from a few feet away. “You’ve gotten yourself into a right jam, haven’t you?”

  She was sure that she recognized the voice. “Gabe?”

  Ernie carefully pushed herself up on her elbows and craned her neck.

  He was lit from the side, standing in the headlight beam coming from his motorcycle. As he walked toward her, she did her best to think clearly.

  Her body tensed as he knelt beside her. “This is not quite what I expected,” he said.

  “Not what you expected?” she said with a groan. “God, this is so weird. Has to be a dream.”

  “If this is what your dreams are like, darlin’, I’d hate to witness a nightmare.”

  “If it’s not a dream, are you working with him?” she snapped. It made sense. Both men had been in the bar that night, both had been in the shop threatening her mom, and now she’d escaped from one of them and been found by the other—it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, and she was too spent and frazzled to be strategic or careful. “Are you here to finish what he started?”

  “All I want is to take back what you stole,” he said somberly. And then, without so much as a warning, he shoved his hands into her back pockets and drew them out again, frowning. “And I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

  “Feeling up my ass? Try it again, and I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Yammer me to death?”

  As he moved forward on his hands and knees, his palm sliding under her body, Ernie drew up her elbow and slammed it down, clipping him hard in the temple.

  He grunted and cursed. “You don’t have to make this difficult.”

  She was wiggling again, furiously trying to get free. “I don’t have any money,” she shouted as she fought the barbed wire, which seemed to cling to her like it, too, had come to life. “And I’ve already called a few of my friends and asked them to pick me up. They’ll be here any minute, so—”

  Gabe laughed. “That would be a nice trick, love. I’ll tell you what: I’ll help you up, and you’ll give me the cards, hmm?”

  The cards. They were in her left front pocket, pulsing warm against her leg, almost as if they were trying to caution her against trusting him. She hardly needed the warning. She wasn’t giving up the cards until her mother was safe. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Away on! I can tell by the look on your face.”

  Ernie had never been a great liar. “Then give me a second to consider your offer.”

  “It’s a fairly straightforward one.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t really find you that trustworthy. The last time I saw you, you were threatening my mom.”

  “Fair, but the last time I saw you, you were grossly misinterpreting every word that came out of my mouth.”

  “Uh-huh.” She tried wriggling again, but she was trapped. “Dang it,” she whispered.

  “Welcome to Ireland, by the way,” said Gabe. “I see that you’re already enjoying our fair countryside.”

  “I’m in Ireland?”

  “Indeed. Town of Donard. Though if you want to be really precise, you are currently reclining in the lovely little townland of Doodys Bottoms.”

  “Doodys Bottoms.” Her laugh was high pitched, hysterical. “Oh, god. What is happening to me?”

  “Barb in your arse, from what I can see. You want that help . . . ?”

  “Okay, yes, please,” she said irritably. She could figure out what was going on and how to get away from him once she was actually able to move.

  He squatted next to her again. “What possessed you to try to get under this? There’s a stone wall you could have climbed right over there.” He inclined his head to the right. “And I’d have thought you’d be wary, after the bog.”

  “It’s dark,” she muttered. “Not to mention—Wait. How do you know about the bog?”

  “Is that so unbelievable, considering I knew where to find you in the first place?”

  Her brain was so fried that she didn’t even know how to answer, especially since most of her mind was consumed with cold and pain. Gabe plucked the barbs from her pants, then the back of her sweater, placing his large hand on the small of her back as he carefully pulled it from her skin. “That one looks deep. I could fix it, if you like.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “Not even close.”

  “I might wait for a professional opinion, no offense. At least I’m up to date on my shots.” She crawled out of the reach of the barbs as Gabe held the wire up higher to give her some space. “Thanks.” She got to her feet and swayed a little.

  Gabe grasped her elbow to steady her. He was wearing a canvas motorcycle jacket and heavy boots, and his long hair was in a ponytail that was only slightly neater than the first time she’d met him. Above them, the bird screeched again, and Gabe looked up at the tree, staring intensely at a spot high in the branches with a little smile on his face. Then he looked down at her. “Your opening gambit was a doozy. What’s your next play?”

  “My next . . . play?” She shook her head as she peered up the road. It looked like there was a little village ahead, maybe Donard. Too bad she didn’t have any money, identification, a phone, or even the scantest idea how she got here. Except . . . the cards. They were still warm in her pocket, the one part of her that felt dry, which was more comforting than creepy at the moment.

  “No idea,” she said, but she covered her pocket with her palm.

  He sighed and put his hand out. “I can’t let you keep them.”

  “Why do you want them?”

  His jaw hardened, and he wasn’t quite meeting her eyes. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  “Understatement. But the cards seem to be the only thing I have going for me right now.” She’d been thinking of the cards as leverage—with Gabe and with the psycho who might be holding her mom hostage—but the more she thought about it . . . She’d been staring at the cards when she was whisked away, just
as that freak was about to shatter her car window and grab her. And she’d been staring at the cards when those snakelike vines had let her go. Maybe her mother had been right about magic all along, because right now it was the only explanation that made sense. Ernie shoved her hand in her pocket and held on tight to the strange, warm cards. “I’ll consider your request, but until I understand exactly what’s going on, I’m keeping them.”

  He withdrew his hand and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. “Please don’t make me take them by force.”

  Holy crap, was he about to pull a weapon? Up the road, a powerful engine revved, and two large headlights illuminated the rough pavement. A truck had just turned a corner and was heading their way. Gabe still had his hand in his jacket and was looking at her with a clenched jaw and an expression somewhere between rage and regret. “Last chance,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the oncoming truck.

  “No kidding,” Ernie replied. Then she leapt into the road, attempting to get the truck between her and Gabe long enough to hitch a ride to safety. It was a brilliant plan spoiled by leaden limbs and her one remaining shoe, which slid across the rain-slick road at exactly the wrong moment, sending Ernie to the pavement right in the path of the truck. All she had time to do was turn on her side to see it coming, blinding her with its headlights. Sorry, Mom was her only thought.

  The truck’s horn blared, and the tires shrieked. A terrible metallic crunch and crash made her wince. She caught a brief view of the truck grinding to a halt and Gabe’s motorcycle tangled and destroyed against a nearby tree, but just as she was beginning to wrap her head around what must have happened, the scene blurred and changed. The stopped truck floated straight up in the air and glided sideways until it was hovering about six feet above Ernie’s body.

  “Give me the cards,” came Gabe’s ragged, hard voice, “or I am going to drop this thing on your head.” He was standing on the side of the road, and in his left hand was a deck of playing cards, their backs glowing between his spread fingers. He had three cards held in the other hand, and he was pointing them at her like a freaking magic wand. Somewhere nearby, that damn bird she’d heard earlier shrieked again.