A Snake in the Grass Read Free Page A

return his soul to him.”
    “And if you lose? What is my prize?”
    He knew the answer already, he just wanted –
maybe needed – me to say it. “You can have my soul, if I lose the
fight.”
    It hissed in displeasure, the human-ish face
wrinkling up in a way that no real human could. “Your name! You
must give your name, fool!”
    Oh. Oops. “Jesse. Jesse James Dawson.”
    “Jesse James Dawson…” My name from that
thing’s lips just made me want to cringe like a kicked puppy. There
were things inside me trying to crawl out and away to safety at the
sound of that voice caressing the syllables of my name. No wonder
Cole had cowered away from it. “This is your wager, then. A soul
against a soul, on a challenge of combat.”
    “Yeah, I can’t play the fiddle for shit.” It
gave me a slightly puzzled look, and I sighed. Nobody gets my
jokes.
    “Accepted.” The thing’s eyes flashed red
again, and I felt something hot slice down the back of my right
hand, a sharp line between the first two knuckles.
    With a startled cry, I looked down to find a
scorched black mark there, the edges glowing faintly like embers in
the darkness. The smell of smoke reached my nostrils, my own skin
cooking as the glow died out. Oh, that was just nasty.
    “Name your next term, champion.”
    Terms? Oh hell, we got to set terms? This
could either be really good, or really bad. “I’m guessing that
every time we agree on a term, I’m gonna get another line branded
into my skin?”
    “This is how the contract is sealed,
yes.”
    “Great.”
    “Unless you wish to withdraw. I am willing
cease this now and depart, if you have…doubts.”
    This was gonna hurt like a mother fucker. I
could tell that already. I glanced once toward Cole, his eyes large
and glassy even in the darkness. He looked back at me, and the
emptiness behind his eyes was like a kick in the gut. No. There was
no withdrawing.
    “Okay, my first term. You don’t get to use
any magic. No spells, no hocus pocus, no blipping in and out of
existence. Just stand there and have a physical fight.”
    The thing paused, like it was thinking it
over, then nodded. “I require the same of you. No spells of
protection or enhancement, no blessings upon your person or your
weapon.”
    Shit, I didn’t have any of that stuff anyway.
Joke was on him. “Done.” Another black line burned its way across
my hand, this one ending in a cute little curlicue. My breath
hissed between my teeth, but I bit back the cry that wanted to
escape.
    Every time it hurt, every time I wanted to
gag on the smell of my own scorched flesh, I would look at Cole,
and I kept going.
    This is what you do for family.
     

Chapter 2

    Now…
     
    The sound of glass crashing at around five
o’dark in the morning was followed by several other distinct
sounds. The first was a woman’s voice snarling in Ukrainian from
the living room, the second was the slide on a semi-automatic
racking, and the third was the gallop of large, guilty puppy
feet.
    “Do not shoot the dog, Sveta!” My feet
hit the floor a second after that, and I didn’t even bother to pull
on my pajama pants. Everyone in the house had seen my boxers by
now.
    Chunk, our canine midnight vandal, was
disappearing into my daughter’s room as I padded down the hallway,
and the door slammed shut behind him. I heard the scraping sound of
Anna’s toybox being shoved against the door, and nodded to myself.
We’d practiced, for just this occasion.
    At the end of the hallway, I paused, pressed
against the wall for safety’s sake. “Sveta? Can I come around?”
    There was a long moment of silence before a
woman’s heavily accented voice answered. “Slowly.”
    With both hands raised, I stepped into the
kitchen, turning to face the living room door with supreme caution.
“It was just the dog. You can stand down.”
    The barrel end of a gun, no matter what kind
of gun it is, looks goddamn big when you’re staring down it. Add to
that the pre-dawn