A Snake in the Grass Read online

  My throat and nose burning with my own stomach bile, I finally managed to force myself to my feet. Meeting a demon on my knees seemed like a shitty first impression, especially given the deal I intended to offer him.

  The first thing I noticed, aside from the fact that Cole was still crouched down, trying to regain control of himself, was that the night had gone absolutely still. The birds that had been serenading us just moments ago had fallen silent, and the insects that were feasting on us had found somewhere else to be. Even the breeze had stopped, and the late spring air felt heavy with the night’s dew still settling onto the foliage around us.

  If it hadn’t been so still, I’m not sure I’d have noticed the faint movement across the clearing, and I murmured “Incoming” to Cole as something stepped from the trees. It looked like a man, at first, dressed in nondescript green hospital scrubs. But as the thing drew closer, the scrubs melted away, first into a suit and tie combo, and then into faded jeans and a black T-shirt, and I realized that it was trying to look like me. Trying to set me at ease. ’Cause yeah, magical melting morphing clothes was normal.

  The thing stopped a good ten yards away, giving me a slow smile for a moment before turning his eyes on my brother. “Cole Younger Dawson. I have come to your call.”

  Ew. Ew ew ew! Cole was right, there was something in the voice, something that tasted like rancid lard at the back of my throat and felt like an oil slick over my skin. No human sounded like that. I wanted to spit until that taste was erased from my mouth, but I didn’t have time for such nonsense.

  Cole, on his feet again, visibly flinched when the thing said his name, his shoulders up like he was sheltering from an incoming blow. I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t let this thing beat him down without even raising a finger.

  “Hey, tall-dark-and-devilish. Over here.” I snapped my fingers to get the thing to look at me, which it did with a raised brow. “You’re here to talk to me, not him.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Oh I just bet you are. Well listen up good, Sparky, ’cause it’s time to play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’.”

  The thing grinned at me, showing pretty much more teeth than a human head holds. “I will hear you.”

  “You have his soul, yes?” I nodded toward Cole. “You possess the soul of one Cole Younger Dawson.” The thing had said Cole’s full name. That seemed important.

  “Yes. I am in possession of such.”

  “I want it back.”

  The demon – I was still having trouble thinking of it like that – chuckled, and its eyes flashed a bright red, lighting up the night for a moment. Okaaaay. That was…weird. “And what do you offer in exchange?”

  “I will fight you for it.” I brought my other hand out from behind my back, displaying my sheathed sword. “If I win, you will return his soul to him.”

  “And if you lose? What is my prize?”

  He knew the answer already, he just wanted – maybe needed – me to say it. “You can have my soul, if I lose the fight.”

  It hissed in displeasure, the human-ish face wrinkling up in a way that no real human could. “Your name! You must give your name, fool!”

  Oh. Oops. “Jesse. Jesse James Dawson.”

  “Jesse James Dawson…” My name from that thing’s lips just made me want to cringe like a kicked puppy. There were things inside me trying to crawl out and away to safety at the sound of that voice caressing the syllables of my name. No wonder Cole had cowered away from it. “This is your wager, then. A soul against a soul, on a challenge of combat.”

  “Yeah, I can’t play the fiddle for shit.” It gave me a slightly puzzled look, and I sighed. Nobody gets my jokes.

  “Accepted.” The thing’s eyes flashed red again, and I felt something hot slice down the back of my right hand, a sharp line between the first two knuckles.

  With a startled cry, I looked down to find a scorched black mark there, the edges glowing faintly like embers in the darkness. The smell of smoke reached my nostrils, my own skin cooking as the glow died out. Oh, that was just nasty.

  “Name your next term, champion.”

  Terms? Oh hell, we got to set terms? This could either be really good, or really bad. “I’m guessing that every time we agree on a term, I’m gonna get another line branded into my skin?”

  “This is how the contract is sealed, yes.”

  “Great.”

  “Unless you wish to withdraw. I am willing cease this now and depart, if you have…doubts.”

  This was gonna hurt like a mother fucker. I could tell that already. I glanced once toward Cole, his eyes large and glassy even in the darkness. He looked back at me, and the emptiness behind his eyes was like a kick in the gut. No. There was no withdrawing.

  “Okay, my first term. You don’t get to use any magic. No spells, no hocus pocus, no blipping in and out of existence. Just stand there and have a physical fight.”

  The thing paused, like it was thinking it over, then nodded. “I require the same of you. No spells of protection or enhancement, no blessings upon your person or your weapon.”

  Shit, I didn’t have any of that stuff anyway. Joke was on him. “Done.” Another black line burned its way across my hand, this one ending in a cute little curlicue. My breath hissed between my teeth, but I bit back the cry that wanted to escape.

  Every time it hurt, every time I wanted to gag on the smell of my own scorched flesh, I would look at Cole, and I kept going.

  This is what you do for family.

  Chapter 2

  Now…

  The sound of glass crashing at around five o’dark in the morning was followed by several other distinct sounds. The first was a woman’s voice snarling in Ukrainian from the living room, the second was the slide on a semi-automatic racking, and the third was the gallop of large, guilty puppy feet.

  “Do not shoot the dog, Sveta!” My feet hit the floor a second after that, and I didn’t even bother to pull on my pajama pants. Everyone in the house had seen my boxers by now.

  Chunk, our canine midnight vandal, was disappearing into my daughter’s room as I padded down the hallway, and the door slammed shut behind him. I heard the scraping sound of Anna’s toybox being shoved against the door, and nodded to myself. We’d practiced, for just this occasion.

  At the end of the hallway, I paused, pressed against the wall for safety’s sake. “Sveta? Can I come around?”

  There was a long moment of silence before a woman’s heavily accented voice answered. “Slowly.”

  With both hands raised, I stepped into the kitchen, turning to face the living room door with supreme caution. “It was just the dog. You can stand down.”

  The barrel end of a gun, no matter what kind of gun it is, looks goddamn big when you’re staring down it. Add to that the pre-dawn darkness and the fact that I was the next best thing to buck-ass naked and “vulnerable” didn’t even begin to describe my situation. But I was sure she wouldn’t actually shoot me. Pretty sure. Eighty-five percent sure. Maybe.

  There was no wavering of the weapon as I looked past the dangerous end to the woman holding it. Her dark hair was back in a loose ponytail for sleep, and she was dressed only in a light tank top and panties, but there was no hint of sleepiness in her pale blue eyes. She focused on me, calm, cool, and entirely capable of blowing my brains out if she thought it necessary. “You are certain? Only the dog?” Her lilting Ukrainian accent even managed to sound menacing.

  “You can sweep the house if you want, but stay out of my bedroom, and give me the gun. Deal?” I held my hand out expectantly, but kept my voice level. We’d done this dance before in the few months since Sveta had come to live with us. Nothing like having a paranoid, trigger-happy demon slayer sleeping on your couch.

  After a moment, she flicked the safety back on the gun and spun it in her hand, handing it to me grip first. The knots in my shoulders relaxed. “I will get my sword.” Turning on her heel, she disappeared back into the living room to retrieve one of h
er other weapons.

  “Oh damn…” Mira’s voice behind me was sad, and I turned to see her crouch down near the stove, looking at the shards of purple glass all over the linoleum. “That was my mother’s vase.” She picked up a few of the bigger pieces, cradling them gently in her palm. With her head down, her dark curls hung all around her face, and I think she thought it would hide the tears.

  “Sorry, baby.” Stepping gingerly through the remnants of the beautiful vase – Mira had thought to put shoes on, I hadn’t. – I bent down to wrap my arms around her. “I’ll clean it up for you, why don’t you go back to bed?”

  She almost succeeded in hiding the sniffle. “No. No, I’m up now. I’ll get it. Here, help me up so I can get the broom.”

  As requested, I laid Sveta’s gun on the counter and gave my wife an arm to lean on so she could heave herself back to her feet. Only six-ish months pregnant, but she was carrying differently with this one than she had with Anna, and her hips were hurting her already. Watching my wife go through everything that pregnancy requires always makes me marvel that our species has survived. If it were up to men, we’d be extinct by now.

  Like a ghost, Sveta padded through the kitchen behind us and down the hallway, her shaska blade bared like most of the rest of her. I knew she wouldn’t be happy until she’d done a sweep and clear of the house, the yard, and possibly the entire neighborhood block. I just hoped she’d put clothes on before going outside this time. We’d had to call Cole to get her out of jail, last go around. Having a cop in the family comes in handy from time to time.

  “Jess?” I glanced back to Mira. “You’re glowing.” She nodded toward my bared back.

  Dammit. I wasn’t actually glowing, not to normal eyes, but the unexpected noise in the night had brought me up battle-ready too, and now that Sveta was under control, I could feel the souls just under my skin writhing in agitation. Two hundred and seventy-five of them, ready to spring to my defense if needed. I knew they were willing, though I couldn’t have told you how. We’d gotten to know each other fairly well since January, and they were as attuned to my moods as I was to theirs. It was a very odd, very unwelcome symbiotic relationship.

  It should have been a dream come true for someone like me. Almost unlimited power to destroy pretty much anything I wanted. For a champion who had never had magic before, you’d think I’d be doing a jig on a daily basis and slaughtering demons left and right. But I knew that if I cast one spell, even one tiny bit of conjuring, one of those souls would cease to exist. Poof, burned up, ashes, gone. And the person connected to that soul would drop dead on the spot. The souls might be willing to make that sacrifice. I wasn’t.

  While my wife flipped the light on and went about cleaning up the broken glass, I stood in the kitchen and did a few deep breathing exercises. Slowly, my adrenaline faded and the riot of movement under my skin died down. “There we go…”

  “Five bloody o’clock in the morning, and everyone’s up traipsing around in their skivvies.” A large grumpy form shuffled out of the hallway, already reeking of gin and pipe tobacco. With gray hair sticking out at wild angles, a scruffy coat of more-salt-than-pepper whiskers, and a heavily patched bathrobe over possibly moldy house slippers, it looked like something out of that movie with the puppets and the glam rocker in the tight pants. You know the one I mean. “Can’t get a solid night’s sleep for all this bloody noise!”

  “Want me to put the kettle on, Terrence?” Mira was nicer than I was at this hour of the morning.

  “Yes, missus, if you would please.” The curmudgeon shuffled his way over to my kitchen table and plopped down, producing a hip flask from somewhere in his moth-eaten robe and taking a swig. “The crazy bint clearing the house?”

  “Yeah, Sveta’s taking a look around, but it was just Chunk being a pest.”

  Terrence snorted. “And the one time you think it’s ‘just’, it’ll be something worse. You let her do her job.” He eyed me up and down from under his bushy gray eyebrows. “And go put some pants on, for the love a God and wee fishes.”

  “Yessir.” With a sigh, I retreated toward the back of the house, brushing past Sveta in the hallway as she returned. “You, too. Pants.” She only grunted at me.

  I pounded my fist on one of the closed doors as I passed. I knew if Terrence was up, he’d roused the kid too. They made such lovely roommates. “Up! Work!” If I was going to see the sunrise, then Estéban could see it with me. The kid had been slacking on his workouts lately anyway. We all had. Hazard of this new, totally bizarre, living arrangement.

  I understood, on a theoretical level, why Ivan believed I needed bodyguards. One person had already died over the souls I was now carrying under my skin, and there was no lack of evil creatures and nefarious doers who would be happy to make me casualty number two. But I would forever question the old man’s choice in who he had assigned me.

  Sveta I understood, in a “I’m actually kind of scared of her” way. She was good with every weapon I’d ever seen her pick up, alert bordering on paranoid, and practical in the cold way that mercenaries grow to be. She was the only female fighter I knew of in an occupation that typically chewed up the men and spit them out if they stepped wrong by an inch. I’d seen her fight once, years ago, and even then, I knew that I’d never hold my own against her. It was just a good thing she was on my side.

  Terrence, however. Terrence Smythe was what Great Britain inflicted on us in retribution for that little revolution we had a few centuries ago. The information on him in our champion database, Grapevine, was spotty at best, despite my newly expanded access. I assumed the lack of info was because he was mostly active before computers were invented. Maybe before the invention of the abacus.

  From what I understood, he had been a champion in his younger years. He’d survived to become a retired champion, which told me that at some point, he’d been a badass in his own right. Now, though, he was pickled on gin more often than not, and hobbled around with a cane when he thought it might earn him some sympathy. For him, people fell into two categories: those with names, and those without. For example, Sveta had been “that crazy bint” since day one, but Mira was either “Missus” or “Miss Mira.” Me, I was “you.” Estéban was “boy.” Guess it could have been worse.

  His only redeeming feature, that I could see, was that as far as magic went, he had it practically oozing out his pores. I mean, I’d seen strong magic users before. My wife, when she wasn’t pregnant, was one of the strongest, most precise spell-casters I knew. I’d met a Maori native who, while completely untrained, literally had more power in one hair than I did in my entire body. But Terrence managed to combine the two, and he tossed spells around like they were water with very few ill effects. (Though I will say it’s hard to tell the difference between passed out drunk and passed out spell-sick.)

  I retrieved my sweats from the foot of my bed and paused to examine my back in the mirror. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, the pale white tattoos were almost impossible to see, and yet I could have traced each one precisely. In the right lighting, they would shine like the iridescent scales of a butterfly’s wing, and they stretched from the tops of my shoulders down to the waistband of my pants. Elaborate whorls and spirals, things that connected at impossible angles and twisted through each other like vines… I caught myself touching one of the ones at the top and made myself lower my hand. They were mesmerizing, at times, and it was best not to get caught in it.

  I kicked Estéban’s door again as I passed, and made my way out into the early morning while Terrence and my wife chatted over tea at the kitchen table. The grass on my lawn made my bare feet tingle when I stepped off my back patio, and I rolled my head on my shoulders, letting the goosebumps crawl across my skin then fade into nothing. Where once that would have been a sign of danger looming, now it just meant that the souls in my skin were reacting to the latent magic around me. The tiniest glimmer of a spell would set them clamoring, friendly magic or not. Nothing like having your adv
ance warning system completely short-circuited. The one thing I had always relied on was now completely useless to me.

  Terrence had placed formidable magical wards around the borders of my yard, something I had long threatened to do, but never done. That he’d done it with liberal application of blessed alcohol from his flask (holy gin, kid you not), was something of a sore point where Mira was concerned, but for the safety of our unborn child, there was nothing she could do about it. She was on spell-casting time out at least until the baby was born. We still had about two and a half months to go.

  The sliding glass door opened and closed, and I felt more than saw Estéban step up beside me in the grass. He stood out in my mind now, a tall, slender outline, the glimmer of magic inside him speaking to the barely contained ocean inside of me. It was eerie, to me, but I’d started to understand that this was what it was always like for them. Estéban, Mira, Sveta, Terrence, all the others. They knew each other instinctively, drawn by like talents. It explained a lot about how Ivan had started rounding up all the champions, so many years ago. Easier, when you can just pick a guy out of a crowd and go “Ah yeah, that’s the one.”

  “C’mon, kid.”

  He followed me out into the yard without questioning, silently gliding through the kata forms at my side like my darker twin. He’d come a long way in the last year or so. The angry kid that had come to me was calmer now, more thoughtful. I was pretty sure I couldn’t take credit for that, but I was really glad to see it. It gave me a little more hope that the kid would survive whatever life was going to throw at him.

  We went through every form I’d taught him, and I was pleased to see that his movements were almost perfect. He had a good head for this stuff. I was proud of the kid, but part of me felt like I had to test him one more time. Just in case it was the last time.