Vanished:Brides of the Kindred 21 Read online

  Then one of them began diving straight at her. Nothing beautiful about that.

  “Oh!” Harper gasped as the slender, reptilian head plunged, coming nearer and nearer. It occurred to her that the animal had probably just seen a mouse or whatever passed for a mouse here on Juno and she was in the way of its prey. Yes, that must be it.

  Or what if it thinks you’re the prey? whispered a little voice in her head. It’s plenty big enough to eat you, Harper—it’s freaking anaconda-sized!

  It was true, flying high in the sky overhead, the flying-snakes had appeared delicate—almost fragile. Now that one was getting closer, however, she could see their true size. The one diving at her head had to be at least fifteen feet long from nose to tail and its wingspan was that of a small airplane.

  Fear stroked over her spine with an icy hand. She’d been frozen to the spot, watching the flying snake thing dive right at her but now she began to move. If she could just catch up with Shad she should be okay, she reasoned to herself. The snake-things might be big but the Kindred was huge. There was no way any of them would consider him prey.

  But when she looked ahead, she saw that she’d allowed herself to fall further behind the big Kindred than she’d realized. He was about half a football field’s length ahead of her now—much too far away to get to him before the flying snake got to her.

  Still, Harper tried.

  “Shad!” she gasped, pumping her legs, not caring anymore that the dark green cobblestones bruised and hurt her feet. “Shad, help!”

  He turned, plainly startled, and his white eyes widened. The snake things were so silent, with only the flap of their vast wings to announce them, that he’d clearly been caught off guard, just as Harper had.

  “Harper!” He began to run to her but just then Harper felt something thin and horribly strong curling around her waist. Looking down, she saw it was the flying snake’s long, whip-like tail. It was wrapping around her midsection with frightening speed. Harper tried to raise her hands to push the thing away—off of her—but it looped her four more times, the last loop curling around her upper arms and pinning them to her sides.

  There was a jerk and she was rising off the ground, almost as fast as she’d risen when they’d been riding on the V-copter. She shrieked but it came out as a breathless gasp—the snake’s tail was too tight around her for her to get much air.

  Shad was below her now, shouting and trying to reach her. With an immense vertical leap, he managed to catch at her foot and for a moment Harper thought he might yank her free. Then her shoe came off in his hand and the flying snake soared upwards, taking her with it.

  “Shad!” she managed to gasp. She got one last glimpse of his opalescent eyes—blazing with anger and fear for her—and then they went even higher and he was gone.

  This thing is going to strangle me and swallow me whole in mid-air, Harper thought dismally. It’s just like Shad said—the past resists being changed. I wonder if I’ve had a worse death than this in the other time paths we went on?

  If there was one, she couldn’t imagine what it could be. What could be worse than being eaten alive by a flying-snake?

  But the snake made no move to eat her. Instead, it joined the formation of its fellow flying-snakes, its vast wings beating steadily as they flew on and on. Its tail around her didn’t get any tighter so, while breathing was distinctly uncomfortable and Harper felt like she might black-out at any minute, she somehow retained consciousness.

  After some time, she realized they were generally following the green stone road below. Was that on purpose? Where were the flying-snakes taking her? Did they have a lair or a nest somewhere up ahead? Was the snake waiting until it got her to its own place to eat her? Or maybe feed her to its young?

  Below, she saw the road was no longer deserted. There were scattered people walking to and fro, most of them headed up the road in the direction she and Shad had been walking before she was captured. Harper’s heart began to pound. Maybe she could get some help!

  “Help! Hey, up here!” she wheezed, feeling like an old woman because she couldn’t get enough breath to cry out as loud as she wanted to.

  A few of the people looked up but none of them seemed surprised or upset to see a flock of flying-snakes, one of them with a kidnapped woman wrapped in its coils. She saw one little boy tug at his mother’s sleeve and point upward. The mother looked up, right at Harper, then shrugged and looked away again.

  Harper’s heart sank. Was this not an uncommon sight? Were these snakes all over the place and people just expected to get captured and eaten sometimes? She wondered wildly what she was going to do—no one even cared that she’d been taken but Shad and he was miles behind on the long green road.

  As she thought this, new things came into view below. A few colorful tents were set up by the side of the road. Flags and pennants waved in the wind and there were merchants outside beating drums and shaking tambourine-like instruments to get the attention of customers.

  As the flying-snake carried her further, Harper saw more and more tents appear. Soon their numbers swelled into the hundreds and the few road-side pavilions became a vast city of colorful canvas, flags and banners. A sudden thought occurred to her—this must be the Thieves' Market!

  How ironic—the flying-snakes were taking her right over the place she and Shad had been trying to get to in the first place. Harper struggled, wondering if she could get free and land on one of the tents. It might break her fall and she could wait for Shad until he could come and find her.

  But the grip of the snake’s tail got tighter—so much that gray spots started dancing in front of her eyes.

  Can’t breathe…going to die…she thought dizzily and then everything went black for a moment.

  When she came to, she found her feet were skimming the ground. The snake’s tail was still wrapped around her waist but it had dropped down into a clear space around one of the tents in the middle of the market. At least, Harper assumed it was the middle of the market. It was impossible to say since she’d lost consciousness for a time.

  Sellers and buyers were hurrying all around the cleared area, which was marked off by a long piece of blue tape like a bizarre police line. But no one crossed it and no one seemed to notice a flying-snake was coming in for a landing, dangling a girl from its tail.

  “Here now, here now—what have you brought me, Schmendrick?”

  The high, flute-like voice belonged to a tiny little woman who would hardly come up to Harper’s shoulder. She emerged from the flap of a nearby blue and yellow striped tent, holding something in her hands.

  The snake, which had been perfectly silent until now, hissed and continued to hover, its vast wings beating the air as it kept a tight hold on Harper with its tail.

  “Here now,” the little woman exclaimed. She had an incredibly wrinkled face with blue-gray skin.

  Like a blue prune, Harper thought faintly.

  The woman held up the thing in her hands to the snake and she saw it was raw meat—a huge, bloody chunk of it which oozed and dripped greenish-blue blood down the little woman’s arms.

  The snake ducked its head and struck, swallowing the raw chunk so fast the motion was almost invisible. Then it uncurled its tail from around Harper’s waist and let her drop to the dusty ground below.

  “Oof!” Harper landed hard, skinning the palms of her hands and her knees. For a moment she just stayed there, head hanging, trying to get her breath back. It seemed like hours since she’d been able to take a deep enough breath and truly fill her lungs, although it was probably more like ten minutes.

  “Now then, dearie. How are you?” The little woman came towards Harper briskly, wiping her hands on a length of stained yellow toweling. “How did you find the ride? I hope my Schmendie wasn’t too rough with you?”

  “Rough with me?” Harper looked at her in disbelief. “He snatched me right off the road and dragged me up into the sky with no warning! I thought he was going to…going to kill me and eat me