Blood Kiss Read online

  About halfway up the trail, we came to what looked like a kind of tunnel but it was blocked with a bunch of rocks—some of them almost boulders.

  “Stop,” Michael said when I would have followed the path past it. “I think this is it.”

  “This?” I said frowning at the pile of rocks. “How? It’s completely blocked.”

  “Not for long.” He started heaving rocks out of the way in a way that made his muscles flex deliciously under his t-shirt. Again, I would have been more interested if I hadn’t been fearing for my life. Every minute we didn’t find snake-lady’s sister was another moment closer to death as far as I was concerned.

  Death…or damnation. Because what happened if those lines reached my heart? Would they stop it…or turn it dark and cold like the Monsignor’s? Would I become what I had been fighting from the age of sixteen? Would I—

  “Okay, here we go.” Michael’s deep voice pulled me out of my miserable and frightening thoughts and I looked up to see he had cleared all the rubble and stones out of the way.

  But despite my fear about my arm, I found I was reluctant to go into that dark mouth in the side of the mountain. The tunnel was actually quite deep and very dark, as though it held shadows that had never seen the light of day. Nevertheless, I took a good grip on my Glock and prepared to dive in—no point in procrastinating, right?

  Before I could go in, though, Michael stepped in front of me.

  “Same rules apply as before, Kate,” he said, frowning. “I’m the one who can see in the dark—I’m going first.”

  I started to argue with him but the words froze in my throat.

  Right behind him, poking out of the dark mouth of the tunnel, was the hugest snake I’d ever seen.

  “Michael, get back!” I managed to gasp, grabbing his arm to pull him out of the way as I took aim.

  But then the snake spoke.

  “Who daress invade my domain? Who comess to my back sstep and thinkss to ssneak inside?” it demanded.

  Or no, not it—she—because I saw, as more of it came into view, that only the head of the person in the tunnel was a snake. The rest was a naked woman from the shoulders down. Well, mostly a naked woman. The scales of the snake head seemed to extend down her torso and over her full breasts though she did have normal, human looking arms and legs.

  There was no doubt about it—this had to be the snake-lady’s sister. Michael realized it at the same time I did because he spoke quickly in a low, soothing tone.

  “Are you Cassandara? I’m Michael Moran and this is Katherine Consenza. We know your sister Wellesandra—we come from across the sea and bring you her greetings,” he told snake-lady number two.

  “Ahhh…” Her tongue flickered and her hood relaxed. Did I mention the snake head was a King Cobra? Because it was and it was freaking terrifying to see a cobra head that big. Anyway, when the hood relaxed, I hoped it meant we were in the clear. “What did she ssay, my ssister?” she asked at last after her slitted snakes eyes had taken in Michael and myself thoroughly.

  “She misses you very much,” Michael said. “And she sent us to you for information and, we hope, for healing.”

  “Healing?” Her tongue flickered between her nonexistent reptilian lips. “I do not heal. But come into my cave before we attract attention. I do not need humanss prying into my affairss.”

  We followed her—Michael going first because he insisted on it—into the long, dark tunnel which reminded me a lot of her sister’s lair back in Virginia. The only difference was that this one was a lot damper—moisture beaded the walls and dripped from the ceiling. I supposed being that close to the sea must make it hard to keep things dry but still—it was nasty.

  The damp tunnel took a few twists and turns and ended in a wide, mostly circular room lit by a single oil lamp. There was nothing like the first snake-lady’s blood-red chaise lounge—in fact, there was nowhere to sit at all. Looking around, I saw a pile of what I hoped were dry animal bones in one corner and that was it. Maybe snake-lady two didn’t care as much for human comforts as her sister since she had the brain of a snake? Whatever the reason, I was even less comfortable here than I had been in the first snake-lady’s cave.

  “Now tell me what you sseek,” snake-lady two said, turning to face us. “And be quick—it iss my feeding time and I hunger.” Her golden, slitted snakes eyes contracted in a kind of reptilian wink that made my grip on my Glock tighten.

  If she tried anything, anything at all, I was going to blow her to Kingdom Come.

  “First tell us your price,” I said. “Your sister wanted to see Michael bite me—what is it you want in return for this information.”

  “The greetings you bring me from Wellesandra are ssufficient,” she hissed. “It has been millennia since I have heard from her. It iss good to know she sstill livess and thrivess.”

  Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Snake-lady one ought to take a lesson from her much nicer sister, snake-lady two. Either that or the two of them needed to get some cell phones so they didn’t have to rely on complete strangers to send messages between the two of them.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Okay, we’re looking for a completed version of this.” With my free hand, I drew out the crumpled and creased family tree and passed it over to her. “It’s my family tree. Your sister said we needed to find out who the son of Nicollo was to understand a prophesy about Michael, here.”

  “A prophesssy?” She drew the word out into a hiss.

  “It has to do with his blood,” I said. “The, uh, Monsignor is after him because of it for some reason.”

  “The Monsignor?” The name caused her hood to raise again and for a minute I was afraid she would strike. When she opened her mouth to hiss, her fangs were as long as my middle finger—not a pretty sight.

  “Don’t worry, he doesn’t know where we are,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying. After all, how had he found me in the safe house? But surely now that we had an ocean between us we were safe from him.

  I hoped.

  “He had better not come to me sseeking for you,” she said with a menacing hiss.

  “Yeah, your sister said the same thing,” I muttered. “So does this mean anything to you?” I held up the creased paper.

  She frowned and took the genealogy from me, turning her head this way and that in quick little snake-like jerks as she examined it. “Ah-ha, I ssee—this document is incomplete.”

  “Yes, that’s what I told you,” I said, trying and probably failing not to sound impatient. “We need to know the missing lines under Niccolo Morretti’s name. The first snake-lady…er, your sister told us if we found his missing son, we would find our answers.”

  “But Nicollo had no ssons…none that were not born to him from darkness, anyway.” Her tongue flickered out and I swear she licked her own eyeball. Disgusting.

  “But your sister, Wellesandra told us he did have at least one son with Catarina Consenza .” Michael sounded much more patient that I had. “She said he, uh, raped her and she conceived a son.”

  “Yes, but that child died aborning. He never even drew breath,” snake-lady two said. “My ssister was misstaken. There is a missing sson upon thiss document but it is not the son of Nicollo or of his brother Vittore.”

  “What? Who is it then?” I asked, feeling thoroughly confused by now.

  “This document is missing the lineage of Catarina’s third lover—Salvatore Moreno. He married her when Vittore returned to the priesthood after fathering a child on her.” She studied the family tree again and I swear she would have been frowning, if snakes could frown. “In fact, thiss document is missing his entire lineage.”

  “Was this, uh, Salvatore Moreno something special somehow?” Michael asked. “I mean, I know Nicollo and Vittore were both priests but—”

  “Ssalvatore wass a no priest but a physician,” snake-lady two interrupted. “But he had goodnesss of heart and a healing touch to match Catarina’s. The ssons and daughterss they had together went on to bec