Serpent Moon Read online

  Then what are my other options? Paolo was easily as cruel as Sargon himself, just without the finesse. He considered rape the only truly satisfying liaison, and believed those beneath him to be expendable, no matter the situation. He’d always been shortsighted and petty. Nasil had been forced to clean up after his frequent explosions of anger, and the insatiable, perverted lust that often ended with the broken, ruined bodies of young women snatched from surrounding villages. Yet Nasil had no desire to rape him in return. He doubted he could get hard, much less climax with the man.

  No, there wasn’t an ounce of charity in Paolo, nor sympathy, so he wouldn’t be expecting any. The taste of cold metal determination on the air said as much.

  While torturing him just on principle could be entertaining, it wouldn’t solve the immediate problem. Nasil had to break Paolo to get the information. Give him something to fear that he couldn’t put a name to—something that would make him crawl into bed each night wondering when the next attack might come. Nasil put down the knife and reached out to grab the lone chair in the empty room, formerly an underground bunker of some sort, reinforced with steel and dug deep into the earth. He spun it and sat down, straddling it so he could prop his nearly useless right arm on the back. It annoyed him when it flopped about like a dead eel. “Perhaps I should start this conversation by telling you what I know first. You may not mind telling me what I need to know.”

  “Pah. You just know you can’t break me, amigo. You’re afraid to even try, because you know you’ll fail and when I track you down later, I’ll teach you what real torture is.” The English was flavored with a thick Honduran accent. Nasil could speak most of the Spanish dialects Paolo used, but he favored American English simply because there were more words in the language. So much easier to express oneself.

  Again with the ego. It was barely worth a reply. And he was truly sick of being called amigo by a man who didn’t even know the meaning of the word. “Hardly.” He smiled and could taste the truth of his own words. “No, I know exactly how to make you talk . . . and we’ll get to that soon enough.” Another pause, and Nasil could almost see another chink in Paolo’s armor appear. Sargon had offered scant praise for anyone in his circle, but he did praise Nasil often for his ability to know just the right method to extract information. It was impossible for Paolo not to wonder what lay in store.

  “No, I just want you to know how futile it is to withhold anything from me. There’s very little I don’t know already. Mostly I captured you because I could and because you annoyed me. You got cocky, deciding just because Sargon was dead, that somehow you were in charge of the priests of the order and the mission to raise Marduc.” He paused for effect. “You were wrong. You aren’t bright enough to complete the plan.”

  Nasil allowed disdain to creep into his scent, which wasn’t hard to do.

  Paolo opened his mouth at the goading. He couldn’t help himself, and that would be his undoing. “I was bright enough to realize that Sargon was not coming back, despite your assurances. I was bright enough to find another location for the Goddess to be born, which you couldn’t find without help from Lord Sargon’s worthless child. And, I was bright enough to ensure that, even now, you can’t find the Goddess’s resting place. So, you’ll not be there for her birth so that She can imprint on you. No, she will imprint on me, and I will be the one to sit at Her right hand, as Sargon would have done if you hadn’t betrayed him.”

  Nasil felt his mouth nearly open in disbelief and only just managed to keep it shut. Instead, he shook his head wearily.

  “You’re a fool, Paolo. I already know where she is, right down to the quiet, cool cliff cave. I know she’s about to be born, and I know where you’ve been getting the meat you plan to feed her as her first meal. The only thing I need you alive for is to tell me the name of the healer you’re using, to make sure you’ve placed her in the right location. I need to talk to him or her to make sure all the details are accounted for. I don’t really care who Marduc imprints on. I just want to be sure she isn’t born feral.”

  It was a bluff, of course. While he did need the name of the healer, he also hadn’t been able to find the egg. All he’d been able to get from the priests he’d captured was a general impression of the area, but not how to get there, nor the name of the nearest town. Unfortunately, Paolo had a certain right to his cockiness. He’d managed to hide it well enough that all of Nasil’s best efforts couldn’t find the egg. But Paolo couldn’t know that.

  “Someone broke their vow of silence? Who? I demand to know their name.”

  Nasil gave a little laugh and leaned forward against the chair rungs until they squeaked in protest. “There’s little left of them to punish, I’m afraid. I only need the name of the healer and I’ll be on my way back to the Old West.”

  Technically speaking, America was west of Australia as the planes flew. He’d been able to pinpoint the location that much, along with the fact that there was a cave. He studied Paolo’s reaction closely.

  Surprise, followed by studious blankness. So the egg is in the American West. I thought as much. Excellent. Unfortunately, there were a lot of caves in the western states. Many of the indigenous tribes had used them as homes, just as they did on this continent. “Somehow you must have found a healer that’s not known to the Sazi council. I’ve been keeping track of the movements of the others, and nobody has traveled in that direction.”

  The blankness continued and now Nasil was starting to wonder whether it was intentional, or whether he just didn’t understand what was being asked. “You are using a healer for the birth, aren’t you? You know that part is an absolute necessity—whether it is Sargon, me, or you who is attending the hatching?” Ye gods, surely he didn’t believe he could remove the healers from the process? It would be like removing egg whites from a soufflé, leaving a gooey egg custard behind. Except that egg custards don’t fill the night sky with terror, wreak havoc with the world’s weather, and kill every living thing in sight.

  Paolo’s eyes flicked away for the briefest second and then they were back again, glaring defiance. “Sargon was not concerned about it, so I am not.”

  Sargon was not concerned about it? Not concerned? Rage poured through Nasil. He might consider the winged snake of legend that his lord had been fixated on to be a foolish and dangerous endeavor, but at least Sargon recognized that danger and had tried to minimize it. It was clear Paolo did not. And now, instead of a sentient being of immense power that merely needed guidance to become queen of the Sazi—to lead the snakes to their rightful place as leaders of the other shapeshifters, there was the potential for the complete destruction of the Earth. “You fool! Sargon and I spent the better part of a thousand years searching for just the right healer to hatch the egg. Not concerned? We plotted and planned and even tried to breed them to fit the requirements of the ritual. And now you’re going to leave it to be born alone in the wild? There will be no guidance to make sure it comes into power with a mind?”

  Nasil couldn’t remember a time when he was this angry, and the rage added speed to his muscles. Even with his new disabilities he was still more than a match for any Sazi. When he stood and landed a vicious punch to Paolo’s face, it was in the blink of an eye. Paolo’s head whipped with the force, the chains raking along newly exposed skin, and it was only the fact that the concrete bench had been bolted to the floor that prevented the entire apparatus from sailing across the room into a wall. Blood appeared on Paolo’s face, trickling from his nose in a slow line, accompanied by the taste of burned flesh on the air.

  At last there was the tiniest glimmer of fear in the man’s eyes and the sweet, spicy taste of panic began to bleed through his pores to surround him like a cloud. He hadn’t seen the blow coming, probably couldn’t even imagine that Nasil was still capable of such speed and force.

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure of it myself.

  But the black mamba genes in his mother’s blood still served him well, and even though it tingled from the s
train, his left arm finally felt nearly normal for the first time in months.

  “Now,” Nasil said with the cold darkness of old filling his voice, a sound he hadn’t heard since he was Ea-Nasil, the new enforcer of a new king, before there was an old world and a new world, but only one world. “You are going to tell me what I want to know. And while I’m quite certain I’ll enjoy the process, I’m also quite certain you will not.”

  He reached toward the counter, noting that Paolo’s eyes were following his every movement. Instead of reaching for a knife or other weapon, he grabbed a simple sports bottle filled with water. Well, mostly with water, anyway. He raised it slowly to his lips as though considering his options. The relaxed, casual movement was meant to distract, so when the attack came it was a surprise. The nozzle was between Paolo’s lips before the breeze from the movement even rustled his hair. Nasil pushed forward in the same motion, causing Paolo’s head to tip back almost violently. One hard squeeze was enough to empty the majority of the contents directly down his throat.

  Paolo lurched forward coughing and spewing, realizing almost immediately what had just happened from the lingering taste of the drug. He tried to spit out the fluid still remaining in his mouth. He coughed and spit frantically, to no avail. The drug was in his system now.

  “Congratulations. You’re the very first test subject of the final batch of the compliance drug you used on so many. I believe you were in the meeting with Syed when he unveiled Batch 32.” Nasil felt a smile twist his mouth, because Paolo had indeed been in the meeting . . . and heard the rather interesting details of the new version of the drug.

  Now his eyes were wild, nearly crazed with fear, and Nasil knew he had him. Paolo’s greatest pride was in his control. He had to control others, and he had to have absolute control of himself.

  That had just ended.

  “That batch wasn’t stable!” Paolo nearly screamed the words, and again tried to make his body reject the fluid. “Bastard! Puta! I will kill you!”

  “No, I don’t think so. What you’ll do is be oh, so compliant, amigo. And after all, wasn’t that most important? Isn’t that what you told Syed when he asked whether he should destroy the batch and try a new formula?” Of course it was what he’d said. After all, mere human lives, or more precisely, human minds, didn’t matter. Even lesser Sazi lives didn’t matter. “In a few short minutes, you’ll tell me everything I want to know. You’ll do anything I ask. You’d suck my dick if I had any desire to have your filthy lips touch me, and you’d enjoy swallowing every bit you sucked out. You’d scramble and beg for more and weep if I refused. Hmm . . . maybe I’ll instruct you to remember that part, but not remember you were forced. Will you lust for me forevermore . . . maybe even fall in love, and have no idea why?” There was a certain torment to unrequited love that made the potential delicious. Nasil couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle.

  Paolo knew full well that one of Nasil’s unique gifts was the ability to make people forget periods of time and details of events. It was invaluable for coming and going with ease in places where he shouldn’t be able to gain access.

  Paolo had no love of men, and a shudder overtook him without warning. How many times had he lashed out at those under him for even making a joke about being gay? How many times had he made rude comments or gestures toward Nasil because he had a male lover? Yes, even the thought that he might voluntarily offer himself to a man cut another chink in his armor. Things were about to happen to him that he would have no control over and now he was truly beginning to feel the fear that he’d so often instilled in others. Paolo tried his last strategy then, one that should have worked. A wave of power poured out of him, and Nasil watched as his body tried to shift to snake form.

  And failed.

  Another wave of power, and another failure. Nasil waited until the third attempt was met with nothing more than a slight ozone scent that mingled nicely with fear. “Didn’t I mention the other drug I gave you?” He reached forward to roll up Paolo’s sleeve to reveal the tiny red mark on one vein. “It’s something very exciting I heard about down here and had to come see for myself. The inventor called it RSA17. The problem is it’s unpredictable. You might wind up with more power, or less. But for the time being, you’re stuck in human form. No slithering into the bushes to escape, amigo. It’s just you and me . . . until I tire of toying with you.”

  “You’re bluffing. There is no such drug. You’re just using your magic in a way I haven’t seen before. But eventually, you’ll grow weary and then I will escape and kill you. I will kill you.”

  Nasil wiped the spray of spittle from his face. He knew that Paolo would do just that if he escaped, so it would be best to gather what information he could—just in case the shifting-receptor inhibitor drug the man named Roy had called “the cure” didn’t work as promised.

  He turned to the counter to survey his tools, listening to the jingling of the chains as Paolo struggled and fought, scorching his skin with every movement. The smell of burned flesh wasn’t particularly enticing, but the fear that accompanied it was an old favorite. It reminded Nasil that the full moon was near and he’d have to go hunt soon. But that was for later. For now—

  “I want to make sure there are a few things you’ll remember—things that will make you wake up screaming in the night. So, we’ll skip all the mundane tools of torture, and move you right up to the head of the class.” He reached for another glove at the very edge of the counter, made of leather and heavy with plates of solid lead sewed into the fingers. It was the only thing he could find that would allow him to safely handle the weapon he was about to use.

  He opened the lead box he’d had created and removed a very old, and elaborately crafted obsidian knife. The glass blade, chipped to resemble snake scales, was mounted in a bone handle resplendent with gold and gems. It wasn’t just the sharpness of the blade that made it useful, but the hideous magic it housed inside.

  “What is that and why do you hold it so cautiously?” Apparently, Nasil had allowed Paolo to see the fear the blade instilled in him. This was what made him wake up screaming at night, after two millennia of existence with a madman who couldn’t ever manage to do the same, no matter how hard he tried.

  Nasil spoke with his back to the man, continuing to stare at the seeming innocence of the antiquity, turning it slowly with carefully protected fingers. It was a risk to even touch it with his good side. But the information was that important to gain. “This is the blade the human mate of the wolf stuck in me during the fiasco in Atlantic City last year. It has been enchanted somehow as a weapon specifically against our kind. It not only sucks our Sazi magic into it, it poisons the body as well.”

  He turned suddenly, letting Paolo be very aware of the stumbling gait, the flopping arm, and his mask of a face. “It’s responsible for what you see before you. Half of my body is paralyzed . . . from one single, amazingly painful wound in my side. My human lover is being slowly poisoned to death merely from tending my wound and continuing to lay with me at night.” He raised his shirt then, to show Paolo the still-open wound surrounded by gray, dead skin that had to be periodically cut away by his lover Bruce. “You see that it never quite healed. It’s not as bad as it once was, but it will hound me . . . remind me until the day I die.” Nasil tapped the blade against the counter, and watched a wild look fill Paolo’s eyes. His gaze flicked between the arm that Nasil was intentionally keeping flopping and the light catching on the glass. Each ting of sound made him flinch. “What part of your body should we start with, Paolo? I am fortunate in that certain parts of me still respond to stimuli. Shall we ensure you’re no longer able to breed? Will the women laugh at you when you can no longer perform? Is that what will make you wake up screaming at night?” He flicked his tongue out repeatedly, catching the tumble of emotions riding the air.

  A look of disgust filled Paolo’s face, but his scent still tasted of a panic and dread. “I will tell you what you wish to know. Just put away that . . .
thing.”

  What Paolo didn’t realize was that it wasn’t fear of the knife changing his opinion. According to his smell, the knife had merely allowed time for the drug to kick in. “Oh, you’ll tell me what I want to know anyway. This part is just for fun. For all the pain I saw in Bruce’s eyes from your taunting and petty injuries. A trip here, a shove there. Yet he bore the insults and the wounds for me, so that he could remain by my side. But it was your mistakes that allowed the human woman to gain access to the casino so that I was attacked. It was your failures that allowed the blade to go missing in the first place. Your cocky arrogance that made you believe you were the only smart person in the world . . . that every other being was stupid and less.”

  Without another word, Nasil lunged forward and made a slicing motion that came within inches of Paolo’s face. He intentionally didn’t move too fast to be seen. He wanted Paolo to register the movement and react instinctively to avoid the blade.

  He wanted Paolo to understand the nature of the weapon. The man’s initial surprise was followed shortly by the scent of pain. The scream that was ripped from his throat was fierce and penetrating. That was both the beauty and the horror of the blade. The damage could be done with no actual contact.

  The knife began to throb under the thick leather and metal. It absorbed Paolo’s power like paper absorbing water. “Now it has a taste for you. You see how it seeks you out?” He laid open his palm, the knife flat on the rawhide-covered lead. As they both watched, the blade twitched and moved of its own accord. Nasil moved his hand closer to Paolo’s face and another scream followed. Paolo thrashed his head to the side so hard it knocked the blade from Nasil’s hand. It fell and landed on Paolo’s thigh, where it caused a minor cut through his pants. The welling of blood was nothing, really—barely more than what dripped from his nose. But it was enough for the infernal poison to enter him, as he’d soon find out. And the tip of the knife was pointed directly toward his crotch.