Limitless Evolution As a Snake

I look at the badge, then I look at her.

”My voice came out as a low, gravelly rasp. ”Fen.”

”Yeah,” Lyra answers, voice clipped.

”You think she’s still alive?”

Lyra picks the badge back up, turns it over once, and puts it back in the bag.

”I think someone knows where she went,” she says. ”That’s enough to keep going.”

She reaches past me for the Pop-Tart box, and just like that the conversation closes itself, neat and deliberate, the way she does everything. But her shoulder stays pressed against my body, and she doesn’t move away.

---

”That’s fucked,” I confirmed.

She shrugs again, ”Welcome to the city; it’s all fucked.”

I want to say something that’ll make it better, but I’m not that guy. I don’t do ’supportive;’ I do sarcasm, biting commentary, and—apparently—feral loyalty to the first person who’s ever actually wanted me around and let me fuck them.

Instead I move up close, wrap her in my coil, just one, not the full burrito, that’s for special occasions, and rest my chin on top of her head.

I rested my head on hers, the words a low rumble. ”I’m not going to let anything eat you.”

She laughs, but it’s shaky. ”You’re the only thing that can eat me, Matt.”

I try to smile, but it comes out weird.

She buries her face in my chest, inhaling like she wants to drink me in. ”I mean it, I don’t want to lose this, us.”

Her voice is soft, scared in a way she never lets herself sound when anyone else is listening.

I squeeze her tighter. ”You’re not going to lose me, ever. If anything, I’m going to get more annoying.”

It’s corny, but fuck it. If I’m going to be a mafia prince, I might as well act like one.

She sniffs, wipes her face, and then looks up at me with the biggest, dopiest, most dangerous smile I’ve ever seen.

”Her smile was huge, dopey, and dangerous. ”So what now? We take on the whole Undercity?”

[System: Oi, see, I knew she would be a good fit!]

I grin back. ”We could, but first, you’re going to need a better breakfast.”

She elbows me, hard, right in the scales. ”Nice try, chef.”

We sit there for a second, just breathing, letting the world not end.

[System: there’s a few hundred cunts outside looking for you guys. Oopsie daisy, I think we pissed off the wrong tossers.]

I’m not going to listen to you right now; I’m busy with Lyra.

Lyra nuzzles closer. ”I don’t want to be a cop anymore,” she purred. ”I just want to be yours.”

My hood flares out, all instinct. I want to tell her that’s enough. That she’s enough, that I’m not going to run, even if it means getting eaten alive by this city.

”Let’s run this place together,” she declared.

I nod, once, the decision was made before she even asks. Outside, someone’s coming. Inside, everything’s finally quiet.

We’ll deal with the city when it gets here. If this is what collecting girlfriends feels like, I could get used to it.

Turns out ”let’s run this place together” lasts about two minutes before half the Undercity decides they’re done letting us have nice things.

We don’t even make it out of the kitchen before the first warning sign: heavy boots on the stairwell, the clink of real gunmetal, someone yelling ”SHUT THAT DOOR, YOU CLOWN” in an accent so pure it makes me homesick for old-world security guards.

Lyra and I exchange a look; hers says ”we should run,” mine says let’s see who they brought, and suddenly I’m right back in my element.

[System: oh im so excited, if you win and my bets are on you by the way, ill give you 2,000 exp and 20 IP.]

Bet.

The door bursts in with a bang. Three of them, all in sewer-patrol jackets, the kind that says ”I get paid to look the other way.” The uniforms don’t fit, but their guns do.

The first guy in the stack is a bear hybrid—big arms, bigger stomach—all of it straining against city-issue body armour two sizes too small. He’s sweating like a side of ham in a microwave, gun at the ready but eyes not really focused on anything.

The next two are both cat girls, classic breed, with the blonde tabby stripes painted on like someone in HR thought it was a nice touch. They look hungover and angry and exactly as done with this shit as you’d expect from a Friday night raid.

They spot us instantly. My bright-red scales and Lyra’s just-fucked hair are hard to miss.

”Don’t move,” Ham says, and I can’t help it. I move just a little, enough that his brain short-circuits and for a half-second he’s stuck between shouting again or just firing.

I’m betting on shout, but it’s always nice to be surprised.

He fires.

The bullet sounds like a car crash in a parking garage. It slams right into my coil, dead centre mass, and for a split second I feel nothing except the urge to sneeze.

PING.

The slug bounces off my scales. I mean, it actually pings, like a fork off a ceramic plate. I’m not dead. Hell, I’m not even bruised.

The ham cop looks at the gun, then at me, like maybe he loaded it wrong.

I flare my hood, just to fuck with him. ”Nice pea-shooter, piggy.”

He gawks. The cat girls both take a step back, one raising her phone like maybe she can Google ”How to arrest demon snake” before shit gets out of hand.

Lyra recovers first. She’s already ducked behind the pipe outcropping, her hand tightening on my tail. ”Matt, please don’t antagonise the entire precinct.”

But I can’t help myself. I want them to try again, I want to see if it still pings.

”Do it again,” I smirked. ”I dare you.”

Ham’s lips curl. He squints at the gun, as if checking for a pea shooter. He grips harder; his sweaty brow glistens.

He fires a second time.

{{PLEASE READ THIS ON NovelPhoenix. I WROTE THIS WITH A MIGRAINE.}}