Snake Handlin' Man by D.J. Butler

Author:D.J. Butler [Butler, D.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: pulp fiction, horror, fallen angels, urban fantasy, rock and roll, action adventure, occult
Publisher: WordFire Press
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Eddie knew that to everyone else, he looked like he was walking drunk. But the others couldn’t see the frozen heads, and he couldn’t bring himself to just walk through them. In his rational mind, he knew that the sun, dropping towards the horizon now, was still fierce, but the cool desert breeze bit into his flesh like a piranha. He shuddered under the black-eyed stares of the damned and tried to stay focused on the crumbling brick cube ahead of them, even as he stumbled from side to side through the obstacle course of frozen heads.

Jim put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie looked up, catching a quizzical look from the titan of a singer.

“Same old bullshit,” Eddie lied, shaking himself. “A little worse than usual, maybe, but nothing new.”

“What do you mean worse?” Mike asked.

“What is it, your job to ask all the dumb, irritating questions?” Eddie chomped at him, but then he felt guilty. “I don’t know,” he grumbled. “Something bad happened here, I’m guessing. Some kind of terrible sin, maybe.”

Twitch laughed lightly. From someone else, it might have sounded like mockery, but it lifted Eddie’s spirits a little. “Sin,” the fairy giggled, “is for humans.”

“Yeah, it is,” Eddie agreed.

Metal shutters had been dropped over the storefront windows of the Sears. It seemed a little extravagant for a box store in the middle of nowhere, but maybe that’s why the Apep worshippers had chosen it. As Eddie and the band stalked around the edges of the gravel parking lot, he saw a couple who looked like small ranchers, wearing boots, yoked shirts and blue jeans, walk in through the swinging glass doors. Eddie didn’t see any guards.

That made him uncomfortable.

“How trained are your mongooses?” he asked the preacher.

Phineas Irving shrugged. “Like a dog, I guess,” he said. “Not as much as that, really. They fight snakes by instinct. Fortunately, they have really good instincts.”

Eddie had hoped he might be able to send the animals in as scouts somehow. “I’d give a lot for a decent wizard right now,” he said, thinking of Adrian and wishing he could turn invisible.

“Sorry,” Irving muttered.

“Never mind.” Eddie spotted something at the side of the building. “Twitch,” he told the fairy, “I’m glad you can fly.” He pointed and then set out at a jog.

It wouldn’t pay to forget that Overalls, Lady Legs and the other mutant snake-men were somewhere out behind them, and coming their way.

The building’s shadow should have given Eddie relief from the heat as he rolled to a stop underneath a fire escape; instead, it added to his sensation that he was freezing to death. He gritted his teeth, forced himself not to shiver, and looked up. The iron ladder bolted to the side of the building as an emergency exit only ran halfway down its side, but then it had a second half on tracks, that could be unlatched and pushed down from above.

Twitch hit the top of the fire escape in falcon shape and immediately became the spiked, leather-bar-garbed drummer.

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