The Deadliest Bite

and-die eyes.

They stretched down both sides of her nostrils, over her lips, down her neck, and onto Roldan’s hair. Stil stretching, wriggling from her eyes, they moved as if they knew exactly where they were going. And when they reared up, revealing two smal , three-fanged mouths, before they buried them in Roldan’s back, I believed they did.

So this was how Sthenno ate Roldan’s death. Every day she kil ed him, and then she chowed down. It made sense. She wouldn’t want him to die natural y. What if she wasn’t ready with the utensils at just the right time? Her meal could actual y cross over and then she’d be in a world of hurt.

Which was just where we needed to put her.

I whispered to Raoul, “Okay, so we need to use the Rocenz on her. But how? I don’t figure her name on the gate is going to work the same way it did on Brude, even if we could convince Roldan to do it.”

“No,” said Raoul. “We need her heartstone. Remember the one Kyphas had? It wil be locked inside her chest.”

“Oh, that’l be easy to snatch.”

Vayl spoke up. “What is that saying? I like it quite wel . Jasmine?” I wanted to stick out my bottom lip, but it seemed a little immature to pout in the middle of Satan’s playground. So I just said, “There’s no time like the present.”

“Yes,” he said with such immense satisfaction that I found myself smiling instead as I watched him blast his way in, swinging his sword right at the wormlike appendages that were just now withdrawing from Roldan’s pockmarked back. But Sthenno’s snakes had been keeping watch while she was busy, and their reach was much longer than he’d anticipated. He jumped back just as a cobra that was bigger around than and twice as long as my arm darted toward him, its jaws open so wide I could see the pink of its throat.

I lunged forward and hacked the snake’s head off, which caused Sthenno to scream with pain and rage. She tucked her little soulsuckers back into her eyes and turned them on me, trying to transform me into Jaz-granite. But I avoided her glare as I leaped in for another shot. This time I missed, but hitting hadn’t been my intention. I just wanted to distract her long enough to give Zel and Helena a chance to step up. Which they did. Zel danced past the snakes just long enough to slam his bolt-knife into Sthenno’s side while Helena threw her knife so accurately that she decapitated another snake and stil had time to rescue the blade before fal ing back to stand beside her cowboy.

We continued to hassle the gorgon, feinting, waiting for mistakes. As a result she, and Roldan, were becoming more and more infuriated. The Were, especial y, was bitching out his gorgon like they were an old married couple.

He said, “Why don’t you just kil them? It’s only my worst enemy and the woman I confessed to you that I could never live without. Right here! In hel ! Why don’t you tear them to pieces already?” he demanded.

I couldn’t get past it. Even in dotty old man form this was the Sol of the Valencian Weres. Why was he just talking? Why hadn’t he made a single attempt to wound one of us? Or better yet, why hadn’t he changed? Even in hel I had to figure he could transform pretty much at wil . So why was he stamping his feet like a three-year-old demanding a second piece of cake for dessert?

Because he wants you to win, whispered Granny May from her seat on the porch. He’s old and tired, worn to the bone from the looks of it. He’s trying to distract her, throw her off her game without seeming to, so you can dig out that heartstone and chisel her name onto it.

I stared at him thoughtful y. No, not her name, I told my Granny. I don’t think that would work. But the glyph that he was drawing in the air, the almost-number-eight that our Inner Bimbo was retracing when she was demanding her drink before. I pointed to our fast-and-loose girl, who’d leaped to the stage and was now singing along with two other karaoke stars. That, I think, will do it.

Then what are you waiting for?

The snakes, there are so many of them, and it seems like for every one we decapitate two more grow in its place. We need, I don’t know, a couple of eagles or something. They eat snakes, don’t they?

Granny May nodded at me, her eyes wandering over my shoulder to let me know my attention should be moving elsewhere pronto. Eagles I can’t do. But what about those two?

I turned my head and, though I know I should’ve been pissed, I can admit here at least that I’d never in my life been so glad to see Dave and Cole come darting through the field, taking cover wherever they could find it. Often that meant lying prone while a fence of forearms waved in front of their eyes. Or sliding into the shadow of a row of bodiless legs, their shredded connections screaming silently of chainsaw disasters and land mines.

“Geyser coming!” Astral said triumphantly.

“Oh!” Final y I understood her message. Dave and Cole had probably found a way to tap into one of her databases to message me that they were on their way. Only, given the circumstances with the durgoyles, I’d completely misunderstood.

I al owed myself a second to feel relieved that Cole had survived his solo stint in hel , and to be thankful that he’d given us the time we needed to get to the gate in the first place. Then I whispered the news on the Party Line, and Vayl and Raoul quickly let Lotus, Zel , and Helena in on it. Together we intensified our attacks, doubling up on Sthenno while Roldan screamed his frustration and did absolutely nothing to help.

Though we managed to avoid the snakes, the gorgon began to fight desperately enough that her claws became impossible to dodge, especial y once Dave and Cole left cover. Raoul took the first hit, a slash to the skul right at his hairline that brought the blood gushing so fast he had to back out of the fight to bind it before it blinded him.

Surprised at how deeply an injury to Raoul pissed me off, I rol ed under Sthenno, slicing up into her rib cage as she bent over to intercept me. I was stil rol ing back out of range when I saw one of the rattlers leap out of her hair. Fuuuuck! The angles were perfect. It would land exactly where I meant to stop. I dug my heels into the ground and reversed myself just as Vayl stepped up, holding his sword up by his ear like a big-league batter. As soon as the snake hit the sweet spot Vayl swung for the bleachers, and it dropped in two pieces by my side.