Page 23 of A Serpent in the Garden

I sent a hopeless glance up through the branches of the fig. Our home for the night. Perhaps we could lose ourselves in the dense foliage and what little fogs would float out this way. The leaves may have looked ill, but they grew thick along the colossal, powerful arms of the tree.

I used some of our precious remaining water to make a mud from handfuls of dirt at the trunk of the fig. We would have to smear ourselves in it to disguise our scent, maybe even apply it to our clothes to better camouflage ourselves.

“The branches look strong enough to support our weight.” Serich forced a smile to his lips as he clapped a palmful of mud to his cheekbone. “God looks down on us, even in this wretched place.”

I hadn’t the heart to tell him what It hissed through my mind: That God was not listening anymore.

Perhaps it was my terrified imagination, but I felt the tree did not appreciate our added weight; it seemed to shift its shoulders uneasily, leaves shivering despite the lack of any breeze. I had strapped the pair of us in with a length of rope, though I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I would spend the night with my heart in my throat, my hands clinging to the branch for dear life, the stench of drying dirt stuffed inside my nostrils.

Serich and I shared the same thick branch for warmth, and, though neither of us admitted it, from fear. He pressed against the tree bark; I was wedged between his open legs, my back against his chest. The figs were rotten when a hopeful Serich slit one open with a knife, the meat dead and black.

Dusk fell but silence reigned, unlike in the wood, where darkness was always met with shrieks. Nothing trilled, nothing called. If the creatures living in those graves had woken, they hadn’t ranged far enough to find us. A fat moon poured over the fields, silvering the grass, but nothing stalked toward us whenever I chanced a glance through the leaves.

“You should cover your eyes,” I breathed to Serich, drawing back against him. “Just in case. I can handle the bow.”

“And leave myself blind to whatever comes our way?” He settled his bow across my lap. He had nowhere to comfortably rest his hands, so he cupped my knees with his dirt-crusted palms. “You said you know nothing of archery.”

“I wouldn’t be blind. Nothing here can sway me, and It said these creatures need eye contact to hypnotize. I’d let you know if something was coming.” I left the archery comment alone simply because I had nothing with which to refute it. I’d never shot an arrow, but I clutched one in my hand anyway. Wood was our only weapon of use in this place.

“They’d have to be able to see me to hypnotize me.”

This one has more bravery than sense, It said. Rub yourselves in all the mud you like. Your blood will still betray you. Your heartbeat will give you away to any succubus or incubus that happens by. They don’t have to see you to know you’re there.

A few hours later, Its prediction came to pass.

If it hadn’t been for It jerking up from his slump at the back of my head, I would not have known she’d arrived. She moved noiselessly, silent as the wood we’d left.

“Does something lurk up there, hidden amongst the leaves?” a woman’s voice called, dripping with honeyed venom. “I smell something sweet.”

Serich started from his fussy doze, his arms tightening around my waist.

I knew we were dead when I felt a second heartbeat flutter in my body, as if It too was afraid. His fear increased mine a hundredfold, for I had never felt his terror before.

“I thought I’d smelled something in the fields earlier,” the voice said, melodic and conversational. “My sisters thought me mad. Said the scent must have drifted through the fogs from the wood. How could any of you make it this far through our lands?”

I looked up at Serich over my shoulder. His gaze collided with mine, but we held our petrified silence. He disentangled himself from me, lifting the bow across my lap. The fig shook loose a few leaves as something knocked against its trunk. I squinted through the foliage and spied a corpse-pale hand splayed against the bark.

Serich nocked an arrow silently beside me.

“You’re a long way from home.” The blue-white hand trailed around the thick trunk until I could see only the fingertips as she circled the tree. “And this is a very odd place to spend the night.”

I whipped my head to the left, waiting for her to reappear.

I can’t save him, It said. I could maybe save you. Us. She will rip your heart from your body before you see her twitch. The second she gets him in her sights, it’s over. She’ll take her time with him, but you she’ll kill instantly. She has no use for a woman. Not unless one of her brothers lurks around the corner.

I have an arrow. I clutched it in a clammy palm, anxious for the succubus to show herself and dreading it at the same time.

You have a pointy stick that will maybe buy you a few minutes before she heals around the wound if your aim is true. A vulnerability isn’t the same as a mortal weakness.

A head of long, golden blonde hair appeared below us as she pressed her palms flat against the trunk. I drew back before she could look up to find me peering down at her from the leaves, too afraid to even breathe.

She’s stronger than you, Des. All you can do is run, run and hope she doesn’t care enough to catch you.

You’re strong, too.

I’m hindered by your body, It said roughly, rapidly. She’s not some stupid faerie I can rip apart, she’s steel and wolfram, your hands would be left in ruins; I could do irreparable damage to you if I so much as tried—

Serich’s warm, living body tensed behind me. How tender he really was, for all his strength. How easily he could be torn to bits. He hadn’t left me on my own when he had the chance. I’m not leaving him to her.