Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(51)

Rune watched Carling kneel on the floor and run her fingers along the bottom row of cubbyholes. He found every aspect of her scholarship fascinating, from her scientific research to the neat notations she had made on the labels over each cubbyhole. More than fascinating, he found it endearingly nerdy, refreshingly efficient and sexy as hell.

He rubbed his mouth. Of course he found everything about her as sexy as hell.

She murmured something to herself and pulled out a scroll. “Here it is. We have to be careful. I haven’t bothered to renew the protection spells on these in a long time. It looks like the humidity is starting to get to them.”

He knelt in front of her. “I’m just amazed so many of these have lasted as long as they have. It must be your penchant for keeping your libraries and workshops in quiet, out-of-the-way places.”

“I’m sure that has helped.”

He gently took hold of the corners of the scroll she indicated, watching as she eased it open with slender fingers.

Then he stared down at the faded lines that had been drawn in some unknown ink, at a face and form he had not seen in a very, very long time. It had four short muscular legs with powerful, gripping claws and an elongated, serpentine body. Its tail wound in coils, and its neck rose up from the two legs into a cobra-like hood that framed a distinctly humanlike, female face.

“Hello, Python,” he said softly. “You crazy old whack-job, you.”

TEN

It was Carling’s turn to stare at him. “This is someone real?”

He corrected her. “This was someone real. Our paths crossed a couple of times. She disappeared a very long time ago. Last I heard, she was rumored to have died. She was one of the between creatures.”

“What do you mean?”

Rune released the ancient sketch, letting it curl back into a scroll. “There are a few creatures who came to form, not on Earth or in Other lands but in a between place, like in a crossover passage,” he explained.

In her crouch, the angle of Carling’s eyes and cheekbones were pronounced, giving her a feline look. The urge to pounce on her pulsed through him like a drug, but he held himself in check, just barely.

She asked, “Like you?”

“Yes. Python was another one.” He stood, the urge still clawing through his system and making him antsy. “She was one of those strange, hard-to-categorize creatures. She wasn’t Wyr. As far as I know, she never developed a human form, so in modern terms I suppose we would have classified her as Demonkind.”

Carling picked up the scroll and stood as well. “I sketched the cavern walls several times and after I transitioned, I tried to find out as much as I could about her. But there were so many Egyptian gods and goddesses, and the truth was often so mangled it was impossible to pinpoint their origins. Many of them were just folktales. I was never convinced she actually existed outside of the priestess’s imagination and in the end I gave up searching for her.” She studied Rune’s face curiously. “What was she like?”

He shook his head. “Being around her was like tripping on a bad dose of LSD. Not that I would know what that was like.” He offered her a bland smile. Carling gave a ghost of a laugh, and he paused to savor the quiet, husky sound before continuing. “She was filled with as many riddles and psychoses as the Sphinx. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me the legend of the Sphinx was modeled after her. She was always getting her tenses . . .”

Rune’s voice trailed away. Carling waited, watching his arrested expression. She prompted, “What?”

He came back from where he had gone with an internal click that brought his sharp, focused gaze in contact with hers. “She was always getting her tenses mixed up,” he said. “The past, the present and the future.”

“Getting her tenses mixed up?” Carling sucked in a breath. Her hand quested out, and he gripped it with his. She whispered, “What if the beginning of Vampyrism really did start with her? She might have suffered from the same kinds of episodes.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” he murmured gently.

“Her brain might have just been on permanent scramble, and anyway, she’s most likely gone now.”

She nodded, although he wasn’t sure how much she was actually paying attention. “We need to try to find out what happened to her.”

“Yes,” he said. She withdrew her hand and he stepped back, allowing her the space to move. She strode back to the cottage’s main room and he followed, watching the graceful sway of Carling’s hips moving in front of him as he explored the strange terrain they found themselves in. “About that second opinion I mentioned. There’s someone I would like to consult on all this, if you don’t mind.”

Carling set the scroll on the table and collected a few things from a nearby shelf, a couple of candlesticks, along with an empty marble mortar and pestle. She opened the scroll again and anchored it flat by using the pieces. Then she settled in her chair to study the ancient drawing in the encroaching shadows of early evening as curiously as if someone else had sketched it.

“I don’t mind, if you think it will help,” she said. “As long as whoever it is can be discreet.”

“She’s a pathologist and a medusa,” Rune said. He settled into his former position, leaning back against the table beside her. “So she has a certain point of view that I think might be useful.”