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ends together, making a loop like a snakeskin belt. She pressed the snakeskin against
her face, letting the scales touch her open eyes, and whispered an incantation. Then she
tasted the snakeskin with the tip of her tongue, leaving a generous dollop of saliva on
the skin. She slipped the loop of snakeskin over her arms and her head, twisting
awkwardly in the low space at the back of the van, until it rested around her waist like a
belt. Marla pulled up her shirt and let the snakeskin touch the skin of her belly and hips,
then put her shirt back down over it. “There,” she said. “Now I’ve got nothing to fear
from frogs.”
“Not little poison ones anyway,” Cole said from the front seat. “Giant monstrous frogs
from Aztec mythology might still prove difficult.”
“I’m not worried,” Marla said, climbing back to the driver’s seat, feeling the snakeskin
shift against her body as she moved. “I’ve got a lot of rage I need to work off, and I’ve
got the help of the greatest sorcerer since Merlin, right?”
“Hmm,” Cole said. “As to that, I have been sleeping for the better part of a century,
Marla. And while I am not wholly defenseless, do not expect much from me in the way
of offensive capability. I have always been a cautious sorcerer, and while I will admit
without false modesty that I have achieved great things, those feats always required
careful preparations. I have never been much good in the heat of battle—at least, not
unless I had ample time to lay a suitably ingenious ambush first. I am at your service,
but there is a good reason that I sought you out, rather than going to dispose of Mutex
myself.”
“Oh,” Marla said, feeling her furious courage abate slightly. She’d expected this to be
an easy op, with Cole giving her support, but if he didn’t have much to offer in the way
of firepower…She looked at Ch’ang Hao. “So, big guy. Any chance you’d be willing to
help me in the havoc to come?”
“I do not shy away from battle,” Ch’ang Hao said, “but I have had my fill of fighting for
others. My former masters often used me so.”
“And let’s not forget who liberated you from your former masters,” Marla said. She
regretted it as soon as the words were spoken. It was a stupid, insulting thing to say, and
she never would have slipped like that if she’d been well rested, if she’d been back
home, if she wasn’t thinking about B and Rondeau dead at the Celestial’s hands, if…
“That debt has been discharged,” Ch’ang Hao said coldly. “I fulfilled my duty. Do not
think to—”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, it was a shitty thing to say,” Marla said, holding up her hands.
“Mea culpa. Look, if I cut your harness now…will you forget about killing me? Call it
even?”
“You would cut me free now only to save yourself. I am disgusted by the suggestion,
and I am finished making bargains with you. I reject your offer.” He looked briefly
upward, then back down at her. “Nevertheless, I will fight by your side.”
“Why?”