Free Snake Handlin' Man by D. J. Butler Page A

trailer disappearing with the mob of snakes. When Mike swung the van around in a quick turn where the road was a little wider, Twitch flashed in through the open door, hitting the grease-stained seat beside Eddie in his leather-clad drummer shape.
    “That was amusing,” the fairy said.
    “It was unexpected, that’s for sure,” Eddie muttered. “Hey, Irving, what happened back there?”
    Irving shook his bristly blond head and shrugged. “You mean with the Nehushtan?”
    “Yeah,” Eddie said, feeling irritated, “I mean when the Nehushtan turned into a live snake and went and ate all the other snakes.”
    “That’s in the Bible, too,” Irving said. “I think.”
    “Yeah, but not the Nehushtan. That was Moses’s staff when he fought the magicians of Pharaoh—unless maybe those are the same thing.” Eddie looked back to be sure the pursuit was out of range, and then slammed shut the side door of the van. “Hey, what do I know? But what I mean is, did you know the Nehushtan was going to get down off its cross and start taking names?”
    Irving laughed, nervous. “No. I only knew that it kept snakes out of the tent, better than my hexes.”
    “Maybe the big red snake will heal Adrian after all,” Mike suggested, looking at Eddie in the rear view mirror. “Maybe we should go pick him up and heal him and get outta this town.”
    Eddie looked at Irving and saw the fear in the man’s eyes. “Nah,” he said. “Faith don’t work that way. We gotta go get the lamia. Still, the Nehushtan will probably come in very handy.” The snake was dormant again, dimly red under its furred coat of dust.
    “I’m going to guess Mike will volunteer for the milking job,” Twitch sparkled.
    “Hey,” Mike objected.
    Jim reached past Eddie and pointed forward.
    Eddie had been resolutely not looking ahead, afraid of what he’d see, but he looked now. There again was the frozen field of ice and the wind-gnawed heads protruded from it, groaning soundlessly and staring at Eddie.
    “What?” Eddie mumbled.
    “I think he means the cars,” Mike said. “Look how full the lot is. It was totally empty before.”
    “Maybe there’s a sale,” Twitch chirped.
    Eddie grunted. He tried to shake away the vision of ice, failed, and then tried to squint past it. The parking lot around the three-story building was full of cars. Also, ahead of them, the sun inched into late afternoon.
    “I would have preferred an emptier house,” Eddie said. He felt tired. His burns hurt. There were two hours left on his watch’s timer. “You up for this, preacher?”
    Phineas Irving shook, but he gripped the Nehushtan with both hands and nodded. “I want to help your friend,” he agreed. “And I want to stop Apep.”
    “Load up,” Eddie told them all. He reached over the shotgun seat for the ammo boxes he kept in the glove compartment.
    ***

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