We collected Hunter from the waiting room and decided to go back to Paint Rock. There was nothing Sal could do for Valentino in his current situation, and it was too dark still to go out in high water to look for a snake.
The whole thing felt hopeless. I knew we needed to find whatever had bitten him, but let’s face it. I was no wildlife wrangler and I didn’t know the first thing about tracking snakes. The Concho River flowed in and out of the reservation through a big grate, meaning that the snake might have even moved on.
Logan’s lead had started to look promising. Even if Zara wasn’t the snake we were looking for, at least I could do something about an escaped criminal.
“He seems pretty worn out.”
I turned my attention away from the desert passing in the dark to look at Sal. He gestured to Hunter, who had slumped over and fallen asleep with his head on my arm.
“Yeah, he’s got his heart set on Halloween. Spent all day after school putting all those decorations out.” I sighed. “The storm probably washed them all away.”
“It’s because of his dad, isn’t it?” Sal glanced over at me before turning back to the road.
Headlights from a passing car washed over the cab, lighting everything up for a brief beat before passing by.
“Where I grew up in Montana, they had this fireworks display for the Fourth of July called Thunder in the Valley. Everyone came out for miles around. There was a carnival, vendors, live music... Anyway, going was a tradition. Some of my best memories with my mom are at that thing. After she died, I...” Sal trailed off and left the unfinished sentence hang for a moment. “It’s strange. Every time I heard fireworks for a long time after that, I thought about her.” He heaved a heavy sigh that moved his shoulders. “Now, all I think about is gunfire and explosives. Fucking Iraq war.”
I shifted my arm to brush my fingers through Hunter’s hair. “Alex loved Halloween for some reason. Hunter never knew his dad, but maybe this is his way of being close to him. It really would mean the world to him if you could help throw something together. I just don’t know if it’s going to work out. With Valentino dying, Leo hurt, Chanter’s cancer and the flood—”
“Hey,” Sal said and reached across the cab to grab my hand and he squeezed. “If it means that much to him, you know I’ll find some way to make it happen. You guys are important to me.”
“Um.” I stared at his fingers tangled in mine and fought to keep the heat from rising in my face. I didn’t know if werewolf hearing was good enough to hear heartbeats, but if it was, he’d probably registered the uptick in mine.
“Oh.” He pulled his hand away and put it firmly back on the steering wheel. “Sorry, I meant... That was too much, right? Too far?”
I brushed a hand through my hair and shook my head. “No. I mean, not unless it was supposed to be.”
“No. I mean, not unless you want it to be.”
I sighed and pressed my lips together. I wished we’d just move past this awkward stage into something else. Sal and I spent a lot of time together, partly due to the fact that he was Hunter’s pack mentor, partly because he was a hard guy not to like. Not hard to look at, either.
In three short months, we’d gotten closer than I’d been with anyone since Alex, but I didn’t know if we were supposed to be friends or something more. I think he wanted something more, but a recent bad divorce kept him at arm’s length.
On my side of things, there was the job. I wasn’t supposed to fraternize with my constituents, but there was no denying that he made my heart beat faster and my head cloudy sometimes. There was something there, just the timing was bad.
Sal cleared his throat, trying to break the sudden uncomfortable silence that had settled in the cab.
I should say something, I realized, and stumbled over beginning a conversation about the flood. At the same time, he said something. I didn’t catch most of it, but I did hear my name. Both of us stopped talking. Talk about awkward.
“Go on,” he said. “What were you saying?”
“You first. Sounded like what you had to say was more important than my thing.”
Sal shook his head. “No, it’s nothing. Go ahead.”
“I was just going to ask if Paint Rock has ever flooded before.” I let a deep breath out through my nose and tried to sink into the seat and disappear. Smooth, Judah. Natural disasters are always great small talk.
“I mean, we get flash flood warnings and watches all the time, but never anything like this. Not since I’ve lived here, but I haven’t been here as long as Chanter. He’s lived in Concho County since before the Revelation. Why?” He turned to glance at me, the look on his face one of worry.
“It makes me wonder if maybe the storm itself has something to do with what’s going on.” I leaned on my elbow. “Why, what were you going to say?”
He turned his attention forward and cleared his throat. “Nothin’.”
“Nothin’?” I quirked an eyebrow. Sal didn’t often drop the g‘s from his words, not unless he was really trying to dial up the charm. He might not have been a native Texan, but he’d been in the Lonestar State long enough to have picked up a bit of the drawl. I think he thought he was being cute.
He flashed me a grin and a wink. “Nothin’, darlin’.”
“Call me darlin’ again and you’re going to be in trouble.” I turned to stare out the window as we pulled back into the reservation.
Sal grunted. “Trouble find Tanto even when he not go looking. Kimosabe always drag Tanto into mess.” He handed his ID out the window to the border patrol. “But Tanto not mind so much following Kimosabe into battle. Kimosabe have nice ass. Worth saving.”
I may have rolled my eyes, but I also smiled. It was always hard not to smile when I was with him, no matter what was going on.
He got his ID back and drove us back toward the house. Paint Rock wasn’t completely underwater. There was still four to six inches of water in the streets and low-lying areas. The closer we got to the rear of the reservation, though, the more water we ran into. My house was on a small rise and the water still came up to the stoop. Meanwhile, Sal’s trailer was, of course, far enough off the ground that his place was fine.
Sal pulled into my driveway and let the truck idle a minute. “Promise me something, Judah. Promise me you won’t run out there in the dark looking for this thing? That you’ll wait until the sun comes up, at least?”
I gave him a skeptical look. “You think I’m going to go running around in the dark and high water looking for some mythical snake?”
“I think you care enough about a grumpy werewolf and his boy that you’d wade out into shark-infested waters if it’d help.” He smiled, but his voice told me he was worried. “You’re a good woman, but you’re damn stubborn. I worry about you.”
“I’ll be fine.” I put my hand on the door handle, but paused when Sal’s hand touched my shoulder.
“I’m serious. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I... I do care. That’s not just something I say. You know I mean that, right?”
I didn’t turn around to meet his eyes. I knew if I did, this conversation could go places I didn’t want it to go. He might have been ready to talk about that unspoken thing between us, but I wasn’t. So, I said, “I know,” and opened the door.
Hunter woke up as I hopped down out of the truck and I held the door for my son as he shambled out, griping about the water.
“Night, Sal,” I said.
“Night, Judah.”
I guided my half-asleep son through the yard and into the house, not turning around to watch Sal drive away.
Once Hunter was in bed, I struck a match and lit the storm lanterns I kept on a shelf. They were antiques, one of the few things I’d kept from my life before, from when I was someone other than Judah Black. I thought about those days less and less now, but it’s hard to forget twenty years of your life. When I’d joined BSI, I gave up more than just my name. I had a whole identity, a life with friends, family and experiences that I could never talk about. There’s no feeling in the world so lonely as starting over.
I pulled one of the lanterns down and went to the closet at the end of the hall where I kept my boxes of books. With the internet out, there was no way to do research on the computer, so I resigned myself to the old-fashioned way. I was pretty sure I had a book on Native American monsters and demons. Maybe it had something in it about the giant snake.
I found the book I was looking for in the bottom box, along with another on Aztec myths that I dragged back to the living room. There, with pen and pencil, in the flickering light of a storm lantern, I flipped through both books, looking for any mention of giant, venomous snakes. I found snakes aplenty, but not much talk about venom. There were some mentions, but more in a general sense. Some groups seemed to believe the venom had healing properties rather than being harmful. Whatever was happening to Valentino, it didn’t look like it was healing anything.
Exhausted, I leaned back after several hours and rubbed my aching eyes. The sun still wasn’t up, but judging by the spreading pale brightness in the sky, it wouldn’t be long before it was. Maybe I should get a little sleep before I went out snake hunting.
A knock came at my door as soon as I stretched out on my sofa. I seriously considered not answering, especially given the hour. Whoever had bothered to come to my door before dawn should be shot, drawn and quartered. Unless it was Sal. But no, he would have called me. Even with the power still out, our cells still worked. In fact, anyone who knew me well enough to come knocking at this hour would have had my cell number.
I sat up, my back stiff, and narrowed my eyes at the door when the knock came again. Then, I grabbed my gun from the table and walked cautiously to the door. Fingers wrapped around the doorknob, I positioned the gun with my other hand, barrel flesh with the door. “Who is it?”
There was no answer.
Guess I’m opening it, then.
I turned the knob and jerked open the door, ready to shoot whoever was on the other side. When I saw who was there, however, I hesitated.
She had dark hair, straight and silky looking. Her eyes too were dark, as if she were wearing eyeliner, but not quite. The woman on my doorstep was all curves and strange, natural beauty, the kind I’d only seen in the faeries I’d met. She was also completely nude except for the many bright red chevrons tattooed over her face and arms and two silver studs in her lower lip.
The naked woman lunged forward and gripped my shirt in weak desperation. Her wild eyes searched mine, as if we somehow knew each other. “Save me,” she breathed and then collapsed.