The pitchfork dropped to the ground limply, as if its bones had been removed. Then it hissed.
“A snake!” Jesus cried. “That's what Aaron's rod did. It became a snake.”
“Aaron's rod,” Luke murmured and frowned at the snake. “You charlatan! Where is my pitchfork?”
“Not here,” Azrael said grimly. He strode to the snake and grabbed it near the head. It immediately went rigid and straight,then turned into a wooden staff. “But at least we found Aaron's rod.”
“A snake and faerie chains,” I murmured. “Like the snake in the Pringle's can and the wand.” I looked at Odin. “Maybe we were giving them too much credit.”
“They weren't alluding to you calling yourself the Fairy Godmother.” Odin nodded. “They were simply more clues.”
“More games,” Kirill added. Then he frowned and looked around, peering past the Demons and the rest of our team. “Speaking of snakes, vhere's Viper?”
I looked around. “Viper?” Then I felt for him down our bond. “Viper!” I ran for the tunnel.
No one tried to hold me back, they just chased after me. But I didn't know where I was going. Because I couldn't feel Viper. Our link should have told me where he was and what he was feeling. If he was in trouble, I would have known it. My husbands would have as well, thanks to the wedding bands we wear. But those weren't working either.
I reached the entrance to the mountain and stopped to stare across Hell. Viper wasn't in Hell. He couldn't be. The only way to cut him off so completely from me would be to take him behind some serious wards.
My men settled to either side of me.
“I didn't feel his panic,” Odin said, looking down at the gold band on his finger.
“No,” I said. “And I don't feel him at all.”
“Now this trickster has taken it too far,” Azrael declared, his Death guise peering through his skin, the bones of his skull showing and his eyes flashing blue.
“But where have they taken Viper?” I whispered.
“Maybe these are a clue,” Satan said as he came up beside us. He lifted the magic-suppressing fey chains and shook them.
“Faerie,” I whispered. “We never considered that this person might be Fey.”
“Faerie's wards would be strong enough to hide Viper from you, La-la,” Re said.
“Where are you on your schedule?” Odin asked.
“I'll have to check the calendar, but I think I'm okay to go,” I said. “It will mean scaring Arach and missing a week or so with them, but I don't think I'm there right now.”
Ah, the headaches that come with time travel.
“Why don't you go back and warn Arach that you'll be gone for a little while, then return to the God Realm and go to Faerie with us?” Odin suggested.
“Okay.”
“Go now, Vervain,” Odin said. “We'll meet you at Pride Palace.”
“All right.” I glanced around at my men and took courage from them. Viper would be all right. We'd get him back. But as I asked the Ring of Remembrance to take me to the Faerie Realm, a minute after I last left it, an image filled my head.
One of a pink snake popping out of a Pringle's can.
Chapter Fourteen
Of course, the first words out of Arach's mouth after I explained the situation were, “You don't have to go back.”
“But I'm worried about Viper!”
“I understand, A Thaisce,” Arach said, his hands sliding up and down my arms before one found its way past the torn fabric on my back. Skin-to-skin, he rubbed up and down my spine as if I were that monster book from Harry Potter.
