Days of the Python (Python Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  PROLOGUE

  THE MORNING AFTER the death of the girl, I went into the Sinai before the sun rose, taking a small knapsack with fire tools and ingredients for bread. Walking far, I came upon an ancient Bedouin hut made of stones, left there in the old manner; a place for any traveler to use. Setting my bundle inside, I set about making my breakfast.

  I found twigs and bark and carefully arranged them as my father had taught me, shredding some of the bark to give a bed to the fire, laid out larger twigs to feed it as it sparked to life, then struck the flint I carried; once, twice. Smoke rose from the shredded bark and I raised it to my lips and softly blew life into it, formed glowing embers, then set it all back to the earth and with the twigs created a small cooking fire.

  Finding a flat piece of shale, I brushed the dust of the desert from it and put the flour and salt from my knapsack into a pyramid in the middle of the stone. Removing my water skin, I used my thumb to press a pocket into the top of the flour and poured a small amount of water into it. Pouring a few drops onto my palms, I rubbed them together and began kneading the dough, first with just my fingertips and then with the fullness of my hands. In a minute or two the flour and salt and water had become a smooth ball and I put it back onto the flat shale and flattened it with the heel of my hand. With my knife, I arranged the hot ashes of the small fire into a rounded, shallow trough and laid the flattened dough into it, spreading more ashes and embers on top.

  As the bread cooked, steam rose from within the ashes and as I watched it rise and fade in the desert air, a great sadness overtook me, and the face of the young girl passed before my eyes. I cannot do this thing, I thought, I cannot have my revenge on the Jews in this manner. And it seemed to me that all I had worked for was for nothing and I felt as though my very soul was being rent in two. Despair, greater than any I’d ever known, came into me and I wanted then, more than anything, that my life should end.

  But my sight was pulled to the eastern sky, and I saw abruptly a ruby star, as large as Venus, larger even, just above the horizon, as brightly red as blood. And I was amazed; what was this thing? I watched it intently and it became clear to me that it was no creation of man; it was not a satellite, nothing mechanical. It was an object of the heavens, and I knew at once that it was a sign that the end of the world was indeed upon us. It marked the days of the Python, the coming of death. And then I wondered if this was a thing of god after all? What power could scar the heavens with an object such as this other than a god? But my mind rejected the wonder in my heart; this was not the doing of some fairy tale being, it was an omen. It was there to light my path, to mark the delivery of death. And a great elation entered my heart, all doubt fled from me and the face of the young girl faded from my mind. The red star had come. The Jews would not escape this time. Retribution was at last at hand.

  For two days, I stayed in the desert, sleeping in the Bedouin stone hut and eating bread that I made in little fires. I watched the ruby eye ascend the horizon with the sun each morning, describing a low arc across the eastern sky all day before it sank again. And I asked no questions of myself, doubted nothing in my life, regretted nothing, did not debate the rightness or wrongness of what I had worked for – it was all beyond me; I was a tool of something much larger and I was pleased.

  When I returned to the camp, the Syrians were very angry at my absence, but their words and anger meant to me what dew means to a boulder; as nothing. And I said I needed only one last thing from the Ansar Bait al-Maqdis; I needed a dozen wild ducks captured from the lowland lakes in Egypt and brought to me here in good health.

  Eight days from the day I asked, when the wild birds were brought to me, squawking and flapping their wings in cages, I went into the laboratory and took out one of the vials of Python, placed a small amount in a syringe and sprayed it up my nose, breathing deep.

  And that afternoon, I went to the ducks and took each in turn and injected the Python into them. When I was done, I opened all the cages and sent them wheeling into the sky, honking to each other as they found release, as they knew again the joy of flight. And the Python was at that moment released; the death of man was delivered. And the Syrians knew none of this, knew only what I told them; that the virus was ready.

  And the Ansar Bait al-Maqdis came the next day, dozens of them roaring into camp in their trucks firing their guns into the sky and laughing and yelling. And the leader of the Syrians himself came, the man who they said was the leader of the caliphate, and he came to me and took my hand and told me that Allah had worked his miracles through me, that the rewards I found now on Earth, as great as they were sure to be, would pale in comparison to the rewards I would find in paradise.

  And at last this leader, a wiry, dark man with a great black beard, asked me whether the vaccine might be taken now so that the virus could be released, so that Allah’s vengeance could be unleashed, destroying the Jews and all infidels, each of them the world over.

  I stood and considered his eyes, so sparkling with the image of victory that must be in his mind. I felt no fear; in truth I felt nothing.

  “Brother,” I said, “you have made a grave error.” I paused and watched the furrows come to his brow, watched the black eyes cloud.

  “There is no vaccine. The Python has already been unleashed; it is on its way and cannot be recalled any more than a bullet may be recalled from a gun. And this bullet, the Python, will find its way to everyone, believer or unbeliever, Muslim or Jew, man, woman or child.”

  And the leader stared at me, unable to speak, stunned as if the sun had left the sky. And those around us sensed that something was wrong, and their celebration became silence.

  “It has come to you already brother,” I told him gently, “as it has already come to me and everyone in this camp. We will be the very first to die.”

  And then they took hold of me and many men came around me and I was struck and threatened, but it meant nothing to me. What is death to the dead?

  They were greatly frightened and screamed to Allah for mercy and cursed me to an eternity of misery and began to beat me ferociously, but the leader stopped them, saying that I would die as an infidel dies and I was taken to the place I am now, to the desert, and made to kneel in the sand.

  The leader, angry and afraid, has taken his knife and holds it over my head and is screaming, screaming as a woman screams when her child dies; why has this happened? And I am the face of his terror – whatever he does to me, he fears that I have spok
en truly; that he is already dead, that the victory he has imagined would soon be his has somehow been stolen from him; that the world will not be remade as he hoped.

  As I see the knife in his hand, I turn my head and he thinks I am fearful and sneers at me, but it is only that I seek the red star. I find it in the eastern sky and it fills my soul, as the eyes of my little sister once filled it, long ago, before the Israeli bulldozers crushed her. There is a sudden sharp burning across my neck, like a hot wire pressed into my skin, then it is gone and I cannot find my breath. My sight fades into darkness, and for one small moment I am afraid, but beyond the darkness there is a light and with all that I am, I reach for it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ONE MORNING IT was just there, a ruby planted in the middle of the sunrise, swollen and malevolent. It spent the day tracing a low path across the eastern horizon, finally sinking from sight at nightfall. But it came again the next morning, and the next and every morning thereafter; it became a fixture, an omen, an auger.

  The timing was unfortunate. Bad that it was the New Year, worse that it was the Year of the Snake. The connection was not lost on anyone; Snake’s Eye, Red Eye, Evil Eye – just the three more prominent names it acquired within hours of its appearance. Pictures and vids were everywhere; kids burnt their retinas taking cell phone pictures directly into the sun, trying for dramatic shots.

  State TV said ‘don’t worry – all easily explained’; claimed that it was a remarkable realization of an astronomical forecast made years ago. Nothing more or less than a colliding binary star – in other words, two big boys smacking into each other and making a red nova out of themselves. Enjoy, it is fascinating star watching!

  Yes, well, that is hardly possible. It is the Year of the Snake and its red eye glares from the morning sky – you think no one will worry? Worry is what the Chinese do best; if there is nothing to worry about something will be invented. You can have a perfect day and the perfection itself becomes a worry; what’s going on? When will this day turn ugly? But with a thing like this, this monster eye in the daytime sky; no need for invention. This is big.

  And so it was for Wan Xiao. She stood on the low slope behind her house and watched the detestable thing for the third morning in a row. TV warnings buzzed in her brain about eye damage; she let it leave the sun and begin its northward course before she glared at it. She felt like spitting at it but didn’t want to start a habit that’d be hard to break.

  It was really creepy; what did it mean? A thing like that – no way it doesn’t mean something. And not something good, that was for certain. You don’t get a nasty red eye showing up in Year of the Snake for fuck’s sake and not have something bad about to happen. The big question was, what?

  She sighed, and despite herself couldn’t resist a good spit. But the satisfaction was ruined by the cacophony of many wings beating – thousands of wings; Qiang was out and about, doing his chicken farmer morning thing, feeding, getting eggs, cleaning shit – all that stuff. You’d think he’d show some interest in something like a red star, right? No, not at all. What does he say?

  “Just a nova, big deal; seen one, seen ‘em all.”

  “When did you ever see a nova?”

  “Planetarium.”

  “I don’t believe it. What planetarium?”

  “Guangzhou.”

  “When?”

  “2022.”

  “That’s the year we got married!”

  “So what? Doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.”

  Impossible to argue with him; might as well argue with the wind – just keeps blowing.

  She walked to the house, went in the back door straight into the kitchen. She’ll be sitting at the table, she predicted, with the baby in her lap giving her all that old Chinese shit, despite everything I’ve told her.

  Yes, exactly so. There she sat, her old face looking like it was painted on with faux-antique finish, designed to craze and crack like mad. She was old for sure, Qiang’s grandmother, but something had to be wrong with her skin – nobody had lines like that naturally. What if it was a viral condition or something and the baby caught it and her face started looking like that? They’d be watching her on YouTube. And Qiang would think that was pretty funny, Jiao on the internet, a one-year old baby with a face that looked a hundred. Ha! Look at that! A million hits!

  The lined old face split into a yawning smile as she came in the door. There must to be no more than three teeth in her head.

  “Zaoshang hao nu’er!”

  “Morning Gran, and please, English. I can’t keep up with your Mandarin. OK?”

  “OK.”

  She walked over to them, wrinkling her nose at the sour smell rising from the old woman. She reached out with a finger to the baby; it was grabbed in a fat little fist.

  “Jiao Jiao, Jiao Jiao – big girl!” she sang, swinging her finger in a little arc. The baby smiled at her and burped. The smell - what the fuck?

  “Yew! Gran, what did you give her?”

  The face went blank. Xiao put on her best angry look. That ten thousand year old face, pretending not to understand. Bet she could say ‘Want some cake?’ and see the eyes light up. She sighed. Along with everything else, we take care of his grandmother, who just happens to be a time traveler from the eighteenth century.

  She went to the freezer and pulled out her breakfast; a frozen Egg McMuffin clone made entirely from reconstituted soy DNA, and went to the stove unit, saw the remains of actual meat cubes sitting in actual grease in the pan, and almost gagged. No wonder the old thing smelled.

  She switched the unit to Microwave and in thirty seconds had her breakfast in hand, taking it to the table against her better judgement and sitting down as far from the two of them as she could. Let me eat without smelling them, she prayed to herself.

  She ate in silence, feeling the old woman’s eyes on her from time to time, but she busied herself with her wrist phone, checking email and Twitter, but not seriously paying attention. The red eye had her good; it meant something, it had to. It was time for guidance – this thing was going nowhere fast. A name had been coming to her since the star had first appeared; every morning it popped into her brain and a little voice said, ‘do it – you know you should call her’.

  Lin. She was spooky, spookier than the star was. She knew all that stuff, all the occult stuff – and it wasn’t fake, it was real; she’d seen it. And it was powerful. Lin would know what this was, what it meant and what had to be done about it.

  However. There was the little matter of how to approach a girl you used to fuck, dumped to get married to a guy, then fucked on your wedding night - then after you probably had the last good orgasm of your life told her to get out and never come back. She sighed again. She loves me, she’ll do it if I ask. No, she’ll do it if I fuck her. And would that be so bad? Images popped into her brain, pushed the red eye out. Images of firm breasts, of silky pussy, of Lin’s mouth, her tongue. She squirmed in the seat, squeezed her thighs together. Well, it was something to consider, that’s for sure.

  Thinking was interrupted by the sound of Qiang stomping in the back door. One, Two, Three…she counted. And right on que, the sound of two giant boots hitting the floor with a thud and she closed her eyes, images of Lin’s erect nipples driven out by a picture of chicken shit splattering in the anteroom.

  In he marched, right up to her in his socks; his pants and shirt with obvious goobers on them and bent to kiss her.

  She ducked away before he could touch her.

  “Eee-ahh,” she gasped. “At least wipe that off before you touch me.” He froze, half-stooped over.

  “And please, I’m eating my breakfast.”

  He stood hesitant, stupefied as always, a half-smile on his face. And as usual, the ancient one tried to salvage him.

  “Good morning, my Xingan,” sang grandmother. “Are you hungry?”

  He nodded and straightened. Seeing Jiao, he began to reach a finger to her.

  “Qiang! Hands!”

>   He stopped, grimaced, and went to the washbasin and took soap and scrubbed himself, up to his elbows.

  She was finishing up her McMuffin when he sat down with his bowl of noodles and began to eat using his stupid chop sticks. She could only shake her head. Old habits, she supposed, and watched him idly for a moment before she sensed something not quite right about him. For one thing, he was eating quite slowly, practically toying with his food. Normally, Qiang was a human vacuum cleaner; put anything remotely edible within ten centimeters of his face and be careful not to get your fingers sucked off. And also, he ate staring at his bowl, as if it had the answer to life in it. And… nothing – not a word. From the great magpie of the world.

  What now, she wondered. But she’d not been the only one to notice.

  “Little Qiang,” said grandmother, “are you not well?”

  He glanced up, seemed to be a little confused.

  “What? Ah, sorry Gran.” He stabbed the chop sticks into the noodles like they were a ball of yarn and sat back in his seat. She saw him briefly glance her way.

  “Just a little worried,” he said.

  The old woman’s nose wrinkled in concern at the same moment Xiao felt something cold on her neck. She beat grandmother to the punch.

  “About what?” she demanded. “Worried about what?”

  “Well,” he replied deliberately, “I’m worried about the chickens.”

  She relaxed; he was always worried about the chickens. Always something. He had grown up in a city for pity’s sake, and he thought he could make them rich growing chickens? He had no idea what he was doing. If she had a goddamned yuan for every worry he had about the chickens, they would be rich.

  Gran, however, seemed to see something more.

  “Child,” she said in her paper-soft voice, “what is it?”

  He took a while to answer. “I’m… not sure.”

  Xiao snorted to herself. What a dope.

  But he went on, his voice clearly troubled, and again the cold flashed along her neck.

  “I found two dead today,” he said quietly. “And two yesterday.” He glanced again at Xiao. “And something’s wrong with some of the eggs.”