“Ahhhh!”
“Stop that caterwauling, you ridiculous creature!” she snapped at me.
But how could she do that?! She’s a snake!
“I’m hardly the first snake you’ve come across, and although I’m tempted, I will not harm you.”
“How are you doing that?” I shrieked. “You’re talking! Snakes don’t— This isn’t real—” I tossed my head, backing away. “This isn’t happening.”
“Wrong on both counts.” She rose up. Turning her head, she beheld me with her strange, slitted eye. “Snakes do communicate, just not in a way you humans can translate. Lord Lucifer fixed that.”
“Lord... Lucifer.”
She dipped her scaly, triangular-shaped head. “Because you saw fit to bind my lord to you with those impertinent, blasphemous terms, he was required to provide you with everything you need to succeed in your goal. And one such thing you need is someone to explain to you how things work in hell.
“That is my unfortunate duty.”
My mind was spinning trying to make sense of this. “You? A snake?”
“Me,” she shot back. “A snake. And this is your first lesson: do not scream. Ever. Screaming is what prey does. If you actlike prey in this world, you will be treated like prey. The second lesson is that a disguise only works on the ignorant,” she explained. “The same goes for glamour magic. You know you’re a woman, so you see yourself as you are. Everyone else will see a man.”
I just stared at her. I was too deep in my shock to skip to the part where I was speaking merrily and normally with my new snake guide.
She wasn’t interested in waiting for me to catch up. “Let’s go. The sooner you find your nestmate, the sooner I return home.” Slithering over, she slipped under my pant’s hem, and climbed right up.
“What are you doing!”
“What do you think? Do you expect me to chase after you all day and night? Do you not see the least you can do is carry me?”
I swallowed another scream as her scales glided over my skin. I wasn’t afraid of snakes, but then, I’d never had one in my pants before!
She hissed at me. “Why do you recoil? Are you inconssssiderate as well as insolent? No wonder you’re sixty years old and have never mated.”
“Excuse me?” My tied tongue loosened quickly. “I’m twenty-two and—and I’m not a virgin!”
She sniffed. I don’t know how, but the tiny black snake sniffed at me. “Well, you look sixty. You’re clearly aging horribly.”
I bit off a hot retort. If this was really happening, and I wasn’t one hundred percent it was, I wasn’t about to get into a roasting match with my delusion. “Can you at least hang around my shoulders?”
Wrapping tight around my torso, she replied, “No.”
“Straight out of charm school, you are.”
“Shut up and get moving. We have a long way to go if we’re going to make it to the academy in time for the trials,” emerged from my shirt. “Any late arrivals are denied entry and can’t apply again for another month.” A shiver crawled up my spine as she squeezed me tighter. “I suspect you don’t want to keep your nestmate waiting any longer than you have.”
“How long a ways do we have to go?” I asked. “And which way?”
Her tail poked out from under my shirt. “That way. Ten miles.”
“Ten?!”
A strange, whispery, hissing noise bled through my fabric. It took me a second to realize it was her laugh.
“You made a fool of my lord with that contract. You should expect him to return the favor as often as he can.” She laughed again. “By the way, the trials start in an hour.”
“What!”
“Better get moving.”
