“Oh, sure,” Colin said. “That’s a great idea. Let’s get the monster snake to attack us again.”

I giggled, once more despite myself. “You actually sound like it is a good idea.”

Colin gave me a surprisingly rakish grin and staggered away from my support, leaning heavily on the tree we’d hidden behind. “Oooh Mr. Snake!” he yelled. “Over here!” Then he turned and ran pell-mell, elbows and heels flying every which way, for the far side of the front yard. I yelled something panicked and incoherent and went after him. There was a tremendous tearing sound behind us and we both turned to look.

The last of the serpent’s spires had torn a foot-wide slice through the front of Billy’s house. It began over the front door and reached more than halfway to the roof, not quite splitting the building entirely. Staring at it, all I could think was, insurance companies don’t cover acts of gods, and then the serpent struck at us again.

I don’t know if it missed or if its brief acquaintance with solidity came to an end. There was crashing and banging and someone who sounded suspiciously like me yelling, “Begone, foul beast!”, after which there was a bout of semihysterical giggles. When I dared open my eyes, the serpent loomed over us, black sunshine streaming through the silver tentacles that danced around its head.

“Are we dead?” Colin whispered. I shook my head.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I’ve done dead before, or at least mostly. It doesn’t look like this.”

“Oh.” Colin was quiet a few seconds. “Was that supposed to be reassuring?”

“Yeah,” I said again. Colin nodded.

“It wasn’t.” He looked up at the thing. “What’s it doing?”

“I have no idea.”

It coiled itself taller above us, its head pointed up into the sky. Its gills flared, making a wide silver hood. Air screeched through them, a high, lonely howl. Colin and I both shivered and hung on to one another harder. “That wasn’t a mating call, was it?” Colin asked nervously.

“Christ, I hope not. Okay.” I closed my eyes, hoping not being able to see the thing would help me think. It didn’t, but at least I got to sit there for a moment in the blissful darkness without worrying about the world on the other side of my eyelids. “Okay, it’s not in the house anymore, which is a huge improvement. We can do the ritual now without destroying everything.” I opened my eyes and looked around the garden. “Without destroying the house, anyway. Wanna run for it?”

“To where?”

“Back inside. Where everybody else is.”

Colin held his breath, then nodded. I got his arm around my shoulders and pushed us to our feet. The serpent didn’t move, still fixated on the sky. “Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”

We took one step. The serpent snapped its gaze back down to us, glaring. Hypnotizing, even. I suddenly understood the compulsion some people had with watching snakes. Except I was afraid this thing could actually hypnotize us. “Um…”

Colin straightened up, shrugging out from under my shoulder. The serpent’s head moved a fraction of a foot, watching him instead of me. “I think it wants me,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think you can go.”

“Are you nuts?”

He flicked a smile at me without turning his gaze away from the hulking serpent. “Yeah, but I’m cute. Go on, move, see what happens.”

I took a reluctant two steps away. The serpent’s silver gaze followed my movement, but it didn’t move. I took one more step. It was interested in Colin. “This,” I hissed, “is not really convincing me I should leave. What if it eats you?”

“Hey.” Colin shrugged. “It beats the cancer ward, Amazon. Go on, go get everybody. Maybe it won’t eat me.”

“Shit,” I said, and went.

CHAPTER 29

Maybe it was just me, but personally, if I’d just watched a couple of people playing Pied Piper with a seventy-foot serpent, I’d have followed the leader outside to see what happened. I’d want to know if the rats had all jumped in the river and drowned, or if they’d decided en masse to attack the Piper and have him for lunch.

The coven apparently didn’t share my curiosity. Maybe that was what too much exposure to the magical world got you. There was an animated discussion going on when I snuck back into the living room, most of it about how to best translocate the serpent and whether or not such an action would entirely disrupt the remainder of the ritual. Faye’d come down from Mel’s room to join the argument, her voice rising and falling over the general hubbub.

“Guys,” I said into the wall of noise. No one noticed. “Guys! Guys!”

Everyone fell silent, looking at me in surprise. “Okay, look, guys. Not getting rid of this thing? Not an option. This is my friends’ house and whatever the hell else we’ve done, however good our intentions, we’re responsible for that thing being in their front yard right now. We’re going to make it go somewhere else. Comprende?”

My vision reverted to normal so abruptly a headache stabbed through my right eye. I winced and stretched my face, trying to get rid of it, then blinked around in confusion. Normal colors looked garish and wrong. The sunlight was too bright and made knots of discomfort in my stomach.

“Joanne is right, of course,” Marcia said. Faye, in all her golden retriever-colored glory, looked exasperated.

“I wasn’t saying she wasn’t. I was only saying that I thought we’d have more luck if Melinda helped us—”

“What are you, crazy?” I demanded. “She has to stay in bed!”

Faye’s eyes narrowed. “Hear me out. This is her home. She’s got more natural power here than any of us, even you, Joanne. Her participation would make a big difference in establishing the territory as unfriendly.”

I twisted my mouth, looking at Marcia. She sighed and spread her hands. “Faye’s right. It could make all the difference.”

“Couldn’t one of the kids do it?” I was grasping at straws.

The Elder looked apologetic. “As an adult. Mrs. Holliday’s presence is more forceful. Also, the land belongs to her and her husband, not to the children.”

I set my teeth together. “All right. All right. But she can’t walk around, you guys. If she’s willing to do this—”

“She is,” Faye interrupted. I looked at the ceiling and ran through a silent litany of words nice girls shouldn’t say, then pressed my lips together and looked back at Faye.

“You already discussed this with her.”

“Of course. It’s her house.”

She had a point. I might not like it, but she had a point. “…okay. Look, we’re going to have to—”

“I’ll get Colin’s wheelchair,” Garth offered. “Duane and I can just carry her right down the stairs. Um. Joanne?” He looked around. “Where’s Colin?”

“Outside,” I said brightly. “Staring down a serpent.”

They were a little slow on the uptake, but I had to give them this: once I said that, they all went running for the front door. I shook my head and went upstairs to talk to Melinda.

She looked better in natural color than she had inverted, although she was still pale. The shirt turned out to be blue, which helped a lot. The kids were settled around her bed, all wide-eyed except Erik, the littlest, who was sacked out on a hand-woven throw rug in front of the dresser. “Joanne,” Melinda said. From the tone of her voice, I knew my arguments were already lost. I held up my hands.

“Okay. You win. The only thing is, I’m not sure we can put this off until Billy gets home to watch the kids. The Thing in the kitchen—”

“In the front yard,” Robert corrected. I eyed him.

“Right. In the front yard. It seems to be getting more real of its own accord. It made a mess of the front of the house.”

“I heard,” Melinda said grimly. “Robert, can I trust you to take care of your little brother and sisters while I’m busy?”