"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him … until the thousand years were ended." 

Revelation 20:1-6

 

"The female of Samael is called Serpent, Woman of Harlotry, End of All Flesh, End of Days."

The demon Lilith, as described by Rashi, a medieval commentator on the Talmud and the Hebrew Scriptures

 

 

Prologue

Two weeks ago. Ruins of Babylon, Iraq.

It was dark when Massoud went back to the tomb. The moon was high and silver light glinted on the sands of Babylon, like the edge of a knife before it lodged in the heart of its prey. The sound of the camp filtered across the dunes, the crackling of fire and the voices of men trying to forget what they had seen in the light of day. Their tales of bravado steeled them to face another dawn.

But Massoud could not forget.

He clutched his tool bag tighter and scrambled across the ruins towards the edge of the excavations. Before the war, Saddam Hussein had been rebuilding the ancient city and much had been renewed. The tyrant had remounted the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture over 2600 years old, and carved his own name into bricks alongside that of the ancient king, Nebuchadnezzar. For the glory of Iraq, he had said.

But now Saddam was dead and gone. Iraq was broken by war and crushed under the feet of fundamentalists, fighting for the scraps of what remained. This ancient city had been pounded by mortar and bulldozed by western soldiers, grinding what was left of proud Babylon into the dust of the desert. Massoud shook his head. It was all madness, but for now at least, there was good money to be made digging for archaeologists who wanted to make their names in the desert once more.

And there was a way to make more than just the daily cash in hand.

It was dangerous but it was worth the risk. There were those who would pay handsomely for a piece of ancient Babylon if it could be smuggled out, and he had glimpsed something earlier today at the very edge of his patch. If he could just get it out then his family would not go hungry this winter and his daughter would have her medicine.

A sound came from up ahead. A scuff of boots on stone and the hacking cough of a night watchman.

Massoud froze and ducked down behind a rock. If he was found here at this time of night, he could be beaten … or worse. His heart pounded and his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth.

But then the clouds shifted over the moon and darkness hid him as the guard passed only meters away. Massoud scurried to the tomb, clambering over the remains of the military base. He reached the very edge of the dig where they excavated part of the city that had not been explored before, revealing treasures unseen for millennia, a glimpse of its great past. Babylon had once been the largest city in the world, a hub of commerce and art and the pinnacle of civilization. Massoud smiled and shook his head. How the mighty had fallen indeed. A lesson that the Americans would learn some day, as the British and every other empire learned before them. Man was not built to last and days of glory passed quickly in the blink of history. All that mattered were the people you loved in this lifetime, and that was why he was here now.

He made it to the tomb and crouched at the edge of the pit that led to the entrance. His fingers dug into the red dirt and he hesitated as he felt a shadow at his back. He turned his head quickly.

There was no one there.

He shivered, then took a deep breath, steeling himself before clambering down into the pit. He pushed aside the wooden barrier and crawled within. He couldn't risk the torch yet, not this close to the entrance so he scrabbled in the dark, feeling his way.

Massoud breathed in the air of the tomb. He had dug at many ruins in the deserts of Iraq and he knew the smell of a ruined city. This one was not like the others. Where before he had smelled only the dust of the long dead, here he could smell the earth, freshly turned, as if something was alive down here.

As if the city could spring awake again.

He crawled into the darkness and felt the shadow of a presence, slipping along behind him in the dirt. A whisper in the dark.

The crackle of dry skin rasping across sand.

Sweat broke out on his brow but he kept going. He couldn't turn his head in the narrow tunnel and he knew he would see nothing anyway. Perhaps it was a djinn of the desert, a demon of this cursed city. But there were so many demons in Iraq now and Massoud was more afraid of the human kind than the ethereal. The extremists had taken his cousin away one night and his body had never been found. They had beaten his old father in the market when all he had done was play music at his stall. Yes, the demons in human form that stalked the country now were surely worse than anything under the sands. Massoud crawled on.

At last he made it to the dogleg in the tunnel, out of direct sight of the entrance. He turned on his head-torch. The dull yellow light drove away the shadows and finally he crawled into the tomb itself. Lamplight flickered across rough-hewn walls, revealing a mosaic in bright colors, undimmed by buried years. It was both magnificent and terrible, the image searing itself on his memory. A massive serpent undulated across a map of the known world, its mouth gaping to swallow a bound woman. Its hooked fangs pierced the body of a screaming sacrifice while its huge coils wrapped around countless other dead. Massoud couldn't read the cuneiform text below the serpent, but he had been in enough tombs to know that it was a warning.

When the archaeologists had opened the tomb a few days ago, they had found myriad skeletons of long-dead snakes amongst human bones, evidence of sacrifice to this demon serpent. Massoud shivered to think of being left down here in the dark with hissing death. A primeval terror, especially for a desert people.

Suddenly, he heard a slither in the dark. Something moved at the edge of the torchlight, just outside the warm glow.

Massoud jerked his head around.

Were there still snakes down here?

Stop being a fool, he chastised himself. The faster this is done, the faster you can get out of here and turn this old stone into a fortune.

He turned back to the wall. A black stone slab lay at the corner of the mosaic, carved with the giant serpent on a smaller scale against an inlaid pattern of stars. Cuneiform text wound around it, disappearing into the rock beyond. He couldn't excise the whole slab, but it was still a priceless piece of art that was also small enough for him to smuggle out.

He pulled his mason's hammer and chisel from his tool belt and bent to place the blade carefully behind the stone slab. The metallic tapping obscured the rustle of snake skin from behind him in the shadows. The sound echoed down into the depths of the earth, calling to the darkness to rise again.

 

 

Chapter 1

Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky, USA.

Lilith stepped over the threshold into the tiny church. The white walls were duller than she remembered, marred by time and stained by the breath of believers, reeking of tobacco and the residue of communion wine. It had been years since she had visited, but the smell of the place instantly took her back to her childhood. Back then, the Appalachian Pentecostal church had been her home, her escape, the only place where she felt part of something bigger in a miserable life of poverty.

She had come a long way since then.

Lilith wore a shapeless dress of muted color, the traditional style for women in these parts, having left her smart tailored clothes behind in the city. Her face was bare of makeup and her titian curls hung loose about her shoulders. Her work colleagues at Viperex Pharmaceuticals wouldn't even recognize her.

But she needed this. She had been away too long. There was something only this place could give her and today, she was coming home.

Orphaned as a toddler, Lilith had passed from foster family to foster family around the poor neighborhoods on the border of Kentucky and Virginia. She had a propensity for silence and shied away when people tried to hug her. These things kept her apart and made even the most loving mothers think she was touched in some way. Then one day, here in this church, she had discovered that which brought her alive. She had never been drawn to people, but here she had found her true passion.

In the last month, the serpents had called her back, haunting her sleep. She woke most nights with her hands in the air, reaching for the weight of them, wanting to dance. Perhaps today …

"Hello dear." Lilith jumped as a woman touched her arm. "Are you visiting with us today?"

Lilith turned and looked down at her. There was something familiar in the hunched frame, the faint smell of lavender and the woman's pattern of missing teeth.

"Are you sister Beatrice?" Lilith narrowed her eyes a little, trying to remember.

"Why, yes, child. I am. How would you know?" The woman looked more closely at her. Then a smile lit up her face, making her blue eyes crinkle and the gaps in her teeth protrude even more. "You're Lily. Well my goodness, it's been many years since we've seen you here, sweetie. Since that day …" Her words trailed off as her eyes dimmed at the memory. Then she patted Lilith on the arm. "Well now, you're welcome back. I'm sure Pastor John will be pleased to see you."

The woman bustled away as the small community filled the church and the sound of greetings filled the air. Lilith stood at the back in a white wooden pew, eyes down and demure. She clutched a hymn sheet in shaking hands, anticipating the service to come. She didn't want to draw attention to herself – not yet, anyway.

The plinky-plonk of piano keys filled the room and the congregation stood to sing a rousing folk song with clapping and shouts of praise interspersing the notes. Some shook tambourines, the rattle of tin beating time. The energy in the room stepped up a notch and Lilith felt the rise of a smile on her lips, buoyed by the faithful who came here to escape their miserable lives every Sunday.

"I'm going to tell you children, do you know what Jesus Christ said?" Pastor John began in his singsong voice, the final words rising to a high note. He stepped forward, his hands raised towards heaven.

And at his feet, a locked box.

Lilith couldn't stop looking at it. She knew what was in there even though she couldn't hear the rattle from this far away. Her eyes stayed fixed on it as Pastor John continued, his tone rising and falling as his flock thrust their hands high.

"And the gospel of Saint Mark says that these signs shall follow them that believe. IN MY NAME they will cast out devils, and speak with new tongues. IN MY NAME they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. IN MY NAME, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."

"Hallelujah!"

"Praise Jesus!"

A man a few meters in front of Lilith began to shake in place, his whole body wracked with convulsions. Those around him calmly laid hands upon him and prayed. Another woman fell to her knees in the aisle, crying and speaking in tongues.

Lilith watched, waiting for the atmosphere to rise even further, for the spirit-fueled hysteria to grow. Back in her university days, when she had trained as a scientist, she had researched mass hysteria and tried to explain away what happened in this little corner of the world. Some would say these people were caught up in the Spirit, others would think they were crazy. Lilith was still unsure what she believed, but her own truth lay inside that locked box.

As the piano thumped into another tune, Pastor John bent and opened the lid.

"When God anoints you, when the Spirit prompts you, you can take up serpents IN HIS NAME!"

Lilith's heart raced as she caught a glimpse of the snakes within. Three timber rattlesnakes, deep brown chevron markings on their muscled bodies. She ached to touch them, to feel their cool skin against hers. She licked her lips, hardly able to stay in place. 

Pastor John lifted out one of the snakes and held it high. It wrapped itself around his wrist, tongue flickering as it tasted the air. He bounced to the music, shuffling around and singing loud as it wound around his hands.

The man who had been convulsing just a few minutes ago stepped into the aisle. His forehead gleamed with sweat and patches of it formed under his armpits, staining his shirt. He fixed his eyes on the snake as songs of praise swelled and filled the little church.

Those who spoke in tongues shouted their guttural praise to the Lord as the man walked to the front of the church.

Pastor John nodded at him and held out the rattlesnake. From behind, Lilith could see cords of muscle on his back standing out through his sweat-drenched shirt. His fear was palpable and she knew the snakes would sense it.

He reached out for the rattlesnake.

Lilith clutched the edge of the pew, her heart hammering at what could happen if the rattler struck him. But the snake seemed merely bemused by its handling, curious to taste the skin of the man. Its flickering tongue tasted his salt, head wavering over his arm.

She relaxed a little at the snake's behavior, confident that it wouldn't bite him for now. Lilith was a herpetologist by day, working with snakes in a lab where they were specimens to be tested, farmed and milked to make anti-venom. She understood snakes' body language but in the lab, she was a scientist, clinically detached.

Whereas here the serpents were primal beings, and she craved their touch.

More in the congregation were shaking and crying now, the frenzy growing. The pianist just kept playing as people stamped and prayed, some falling down.

"Getting high on Jesus is better than cocaine," a man next to Lilith said with a toothy grin, as he joined the growing number of dancers in the aisle.

A woman brought her baby up to Pastor John. With one hand he cradled the child and with the other, he picked up another rattlesnake from the box.

"IN MY NAME they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. And we claim this now for your child, Lord."

Lilith felt an echo of her once-strong faith. She had been the youngest child in the congregation to handle snakes at aged seven, considered a blessing on the church, a miracle of sorts. Until that day …

It was time to face them again.

She stepped into the aisle, her green eyes fixed on Pastor John, who held the baby in the crook of one arm, the snake in his other hand.

He looked up and saw her approach. His eyes narrowed and then recognition sparked.

"Praise Jesus," he called aloud. "A daughter returned."

But Lilith could see hesitation in his eyes. He remembered. She had taken up serpents nearly every week until her fifteenth year, when she had been struck.

Pastor John had handed her the snake that day.

She remembered the initial sting, the shock of the hit, and then burning physical pain as the venom had raced through her blood. Her arm had begun to swell immediately and the world had swayed and then collapsed into colors and sounds.

Lilith remembered a curious jealousy in the eyes of those who had watched her fall to the ground. She had been given a chance to test her faith. Would the Lord take her? Was it her time? Or would she demonstrate faith by not succumbing to the poison?

They had laid her in the Pastor's office on a blanket and prayed for her and over her and with her. Whispered words of faith in the hallucinations of the night, but nothing for the pain.

No hospital treatment. No anti-venom.

Just the rustle of snake skin in the dark.

Then she had recovered just as the Lord had promised. A sign to the faithful. But fear had crept in and she had never handled in church again. She had stolen money and run to the city. Over time, she had been drawn back to snakes, training as a herpetologist and working for one of the foremost producers of anti-venom.

Now years later, she was back here again.

Lilith held out her hands, her eyes fixed on Pastor John.

"I take up serpents because the Bible says I will not be harmed," she said calmly, loud enough for him to hear over the music. "It is the confirmed word of God."

She knew he couldn't deny her the chance. He nodded and handed her the rattler.

Lilith took hold of it. The heaviness of its body, the smooth scales, so cool to her touch. She raised it to her face, let its tongue flicker over her features, let it taste her. It felt like coming home and she wanted more.

She bent and picked the final snake from the box, letting it wrap around her other arm. Then she reached out to the sweating man and lightly took the rattler from his shaking hands. The relief in his eyes was palpable and he fell to his knees in prayer.

Now Lilith had three rattlesnakes winding around her, two in one hand and one in the other. She raised her arms high, standing still and silent while the congregation whirled and stamped around her. Tambourines rattled. The faithful cried out to their God. She closed her eyes and felt the power of the serpent running through her, like a current into the ground beneath. Its ancient power rising and channeling through her blood.

Then she felt it. A whisper like that in her dreams.

The heartbeat of the Serpent of Serpents.

He was coming.

 

 

Chapter 2

London, England.

"Morgan, Jake. Wait." The deep voice boomed through the corridor of the ARKANE headquarters, deep under Trafalgar Square in central London.

Dr Morgan Sierra turned to see Director Marietti at the entrance to one of the labs. He held a cane and rested against the door frame. His body was still weak from the injuries he had sustained in India during the hunt for the Brahmastra weapon, but his eyes were steel hard. Morgan knew that he would not back down in the face of danger, whether inside ARKANE or out in the world. She was part of that fight now and even though they had just returned from a mission, she was ready for whatever came next.

Jake went to Marietti and embraced his mentor, then stepped back, aware that he might have overstepped the mark. But Marietti smiled.

"It's good to see you back safely." He looked at Morgan. "Both of you."

Marietti's eyes met hers. They had almost come to blows over her actions in India, when she had made a decision against his orders, but it seemed that was now forgotten. His words were as close to an apology as she was likely to get.

And that was OK.

"I know you've just returned," Marietti continued, "but there's something we need to work on urgently. Something that may threaten us all."

He beckoned them into the lab. Morgan followed Jake into the room, one of the sterile environments used for examining ancient artifacts, down in the hidden chambers that few knew about. The public-facing side of the Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience Institute consisted of funding academic discourse on religious topics, but ARKANE was actually a secret agency investigating supernatural mysteries around the world. There were secrets down in the vault below that Morgan had almost died to protect and many more left to uncover.

Like the artifact Marietti pointed at now.

Spotlights illuminated a black marble tablet mounted on its side. Even with the bright lights in the room, the temperature felt cooler around the slab, as if the stone sucked in the light and warmth around it.

Morgan shivered a little as she bent to look at the tablet more closely. It was roughly cut around the edges, as if excavated in a hurry and one end was missing. A huge serpent curled across the face of a map of the known earth as it was millennia ago. Its jaws gaped wide and its fangs dripped poison as it pierced the body of a sacrifice heaped upon a pile of corpses. People cowered around it, some rapt in worship, others with faces contorted by terror. The precise chisel marks of cuneiform text ran around the tableau.

"The cuneiform words tell of an ancient evil."

A man stepped from the shadows in the corner of the room. He wore a black amaranth-piped cassock with pellegrina, a purple fascia and a gold pectoral cross. A scarlet skullcap topped his white close-cropped hair. His eyebrows were bushy above piercing blue eyes and he moved with the silent, lithe grace of an athlete.

"This is Cardinal Eric Krotalia," Marietti said. "He's an expert on eschatology, the End Times. I've been consulting with him about the tablet. He's one of our ARKANE advocates in Rome."

"Good to meet you, sir." Jake held out his hand and Krotalia shook it firmly.

Morgan thought Marietti's tone was just a little reserved, but if he trusted the Cardinal then she should respect his opinion. She nodded a greeting but kept her distance at the other end of the table. The man was just a little too good looking for a Cardinal, more like Sean Connery playing the aged hero than a crusty Vatican scholar.

Cardinal Krotalia walked up to the table and pointed at the carving.

"According to legend, the serpent will appear at the End of Days to devour the earth. The language is close to some of the biblical prophecies, although of course this tablet is much older than extant texts."

Marietti's dark eyes were haunted as he gazed at the marble. "It was smuggled out of Iraq as part of a network of archaeologists trying to save what's left of ancient civilizations. After the destruction of Palmyra, there are many who worry what else may be lost in the darkness of religious extremism."

Morgan reached out a finger to touch the edge of the slab. It was exciting to be this close to a piece of that iconic civilization and one of the reasons she loved working for ARKANE. "The mythology of the snake is in every culture," she said. "Why is this tablet so important?"

"Because of the timing." Marietti pointed to one part of the marble slab. "This references a particular pattern of rarely seen star constellations. We've cross-referenced with data from multiple sources and this particular stellar alignment only occurs once every four thousand years. This one coincides with a series of blood moon eclipses that intersect with Serpens, part of the constellation Ophiuchus, believed to represent Laocoon –"

"– who was killed by sea serpents," Morgan finished for him.

"Let me guess," Jake said, raising an eyebrow. "It's happening soon."

As he spoke, Martin Klein entered the lab. ARKANE's brilliant archivist bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet and brushed his ragged blonde hair back from his face. He pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles further up the ridge of his nose as he spoke with excitement, his words tumbling over one another.

"You're right, Jake! The alignment will happen in only ten days and we will be here to witness it." Martin grinned and clapped his hands a little, bouncing in place like a child delighted with a new toy. "What was prophesied so many thousand years ago will now come to pass."

Marietti held his hand up and Martin stopped bouncing, his smile fading at the Director's grim face. "While this is academically exciting on the one hand, it's also worrying. The text tells of a serpent who will destroy the earth, a warning of apocalypse at a time when too many already seek oblivion for humankind."

The Cardinal raised his hands as he intoned the words from the book of Revelation. "He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him … until the thousand years were ended."

"But the serpent is a representation of many things," Morgan said, resisting the pronunciation of doom. "Renewal in the shedding of skin, rebirth and eternity in the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. Why are you so worried about this in particular?"

Marietti sat down heavily on a chair by the marble tablet. The penumbra of the spotlight caught the side of his craggy face, deepening the shadows under his eyes. His skin was sallow, his shoulders drooped. Morgan saw a broken man on the edge of what he could handle. Marietti sighed and shook his head.

"I haven't told you what's been going on at ARKANE these last few months. The hierarchy and politics are generally kept hidden from field agents, so you can concentrate on your jobs. But you know ARKANE has teams all over the world, across many faiths and cultural divides. Up until recently, we all agreed that the supernatural world we face should be kept away from the public."

He shook his head and the Cardinal continued for him.

"Now it seems there are some who want to hasten the End Times, those who believe the Great Battle should come soon, and who believe that in trying to keep the supernatural away from the world, ARKANE somehow blocks the cosmic plan. We are concerned that this serpent will be used somehow to hasten the End of Days. When Director Marietti told me of the tablet, I knew we had to act."

"Sounds just as crazy as what we usually face out there," Jake said. "So what can we do?"

"The cuneiform script tells of a great pit where the serpent lies bound," Marietti said. "An echo of the Revelation verse, so I give it some credence. I want you both to find the pit, because others search for it too."

Martin picked up his tablet computer, fingers flashing across the screen. "The group we suspect to be involved wears this symbol." He turned it round to show Morgan and Jake a tattoo of a coiled snake poised to strike, inked in emerald green. "They call themselves Roshites."

"From the Hebrew word rosh, meaning poison or venom," Morgan said, recalling the Hebrew. Although she hadn't lived in Israel for a number of years now, she had been brought up there by her father, murdered as one of the Remnant, and Hebrew was her second, fluent language. She felt a fleeting need to speak it again as the word formed on her lips. She thought differently when she spoke the ancient language, even dreamed different dreams.

"Indeed," Martin continued. "The Roshites are devotees of the Great Serpent, an ancient sect that can be tracked through history. The snake goddess sculptures at Knossos depict women holding writhing serpents aloft. Then there's the prophetess Pythia of the Delphic oracle in ancient Greece. Wadjet, the snake goddess of the uraeus crown in Egypt. And then of course, the biblical history –"

"The brazen serpent on Moses' staff," Morgan interrupted. "So that when anyone was bitten by a snake, they could look at the bronze idol and be healed. From the book of Numbers, chapter twenty-one."

Jake had been quiet but now he spoke. "And let's not forget this ancient serpent of Revelation, bound and cast into a pit, until the thousand years are ended. That seems to be the most important aspect right now."

Marietti put his hand on Jake's shoulder. "That's what I fear. It seems that the serpent was buried to keep it from the world, so at least our ancestors were able to vanquish it once before. But this prophecy suggests it is coming again."

"Perhaps it's just allegory," Morgan said. "The sin of the world, the knowledge of good and evil, that's what is destroying the earth. The Anthropocene era, as they call it now, demonstrates how man has brought this destruction upon himself."

Marietti looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow. "I wish it were so, Morgan. But you've seen the other side of allegory as an ARKANE agent. You know what we have to keep from those outside." He gestured down towards the vault beneath them. "You know the secrets we keep. You saw the demon in the bone church, the creatures from the Gates of Hell, the power of the Brahmastra. How can you now doubt that this could also be real?"

Morgan smiled. "You can't take the scientist out of the girl. But I take your point." She ran a finger over the curls of the snake, following its path across the slab. "This isn't uniform," she said. "Perhaps it's some kind of map?"

"My thoughts exactly." Martin tapped on the tablet again and spun it around. "This is a map of ancient Iraq and I've indicated the possible route of the snake based on the undulations on the slab. It heads directly east through Asia and out into the Western Pacific. Beyond the boundaries of what they would have known as the earth at the time, right out into the ocean."

"Whatever it was, it looks like they went to a lot of effort to get rid of it." Jake pinched the screen and zoomed in on the map. "That's near the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth."

"Not somewhere we can just rock up and search then," Morgan noted.

"There is something else." Marietti took the tablet from Martin and pulled up an image of the Ishtar Gate, a massive arch with bright blue bricks decorated with images of dragons and aurochs bulls. "The tablet was found at the back of where the Ishtar Gate was originally excavated. But there's information missing so perhaps there is a more detailed clue at the gate."

"Guess we're heading to Iraq then." Jake smiled. "It's been a while."

Actually, it's closer than that," Marietti said. "The Ishtar Gate is in Berlin at the Pergamon Museum."

"I'll make the arrangements." Martin tapped on his device. "By the time you've swapped your gear over from the India trip, you'll be good to go back out."

Morgan and Jake walked out into the corridor, heading for the weapons room. It was a short turnaround but they could kit up and be on their way again later tonight. Morgan loved the adrenalin of the mission and was keen to get going.

But there was one thing she had to know before they left. One thing that could put them both in grave danger.

 

 

Chapter 3

Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky, USA. 10:12pm.

Lilith's eyes flicked open, suddenly wide with the knowledge of what was coming. As she gasped with the rush, she saw a man at the back of the church. His dark eyes were fixed on her. His close-cropped hair receded over a broad forehead, green eyes so like her own staring back at her. He wore a black shirt open two buttons and she could see a tattoo winding up his neck. The coils of a serpent in green and yellow.

He beckoned to her, then turned and walked out of the church.

Lilith felt the serpents shift in her hands. She had lost control and they would soon grow restless. As the faithful continued to sing, she bent and placed the three snakes back into their box at the feet of Pastor John.

Then she ran from the church out into the night. 

The man leaned against the bonnet of a weathered SUV, his features shrouded in darkness. He was tall and powerfully muscled, with the scuffed boots and latent power of a ranger in the mountains.

"I know you felt it," the man said, his voice sensual, languid. "Do you want to know more?"

Lilith took a step towards him.

"Know more about what?" Her voice sounded fragile out here in the night, drowned out by the singing still audible in the church behind her.

The man went to the door of the car and opened it. The light from inside lit his face from beneath, his eyes dark hollows. He pulled his shirt away from his neck to reveal more of the snake tattoo. Lilith found herself walking towards him until she could see the detail of each scale. She stood so close she could feel the heat from his body and smell the musk from his skin. She wanted to lick his flesh with an outstretched tongue like the rattlers would.

"The time of the Great Serpent is close," he whispered. "Those of us who practice mithridatism know it."

Lilith inhaled sharply and stepped back. How did he know of her secret addiction? The practice involved injecting small amounts of venom regularly, in order to build up immunity to the poison.

That's how it started anyway.

Deep down, Lilith knew she chased the high she felt in the depths of poisoning, the hallucinations that took her out of her body into another realm. The small amounts she self-administered took the edge off the craving, but she always wanted more. The toxins were building up in her blood – they could kill her at any time.

But she couldn't stop.

"There's a venom you haven't tried," the man whispered. "One that will take you into the realms of what I know you crave." He bent close to her ear. His breath made her shiver. "Because I crave it too."

Lilith's heart hammered in her chest. He was hypnotic, dominant. She wanted what he offered, in so many ways.

"Who are you?"

"My chosen name is Samael." He smiled, and Lilith heard a dark humor under his intensity. "Call me Sam. And you, Lilith …" He stepped closer to her, cupping her chin and lifting her face. "You were born to be part of this."

His lips brushed hers with the gentlest of touches and something in her blood called to him. But the coils of the Great Serpent lay heavy in her mind.

"Part of what?" she said, putting her hand on his chest and pushing him back.

Sam stepped away and reached into the car. He pulled out a tablet computer and swiped the screen a few times. He brought up a picture of the night sky and zoomed into a star system.

"This is Serpens, part of the constellation of Ophiuchus. The picture was taken two nights ago." He was all business now, speaking with authority as he swiped the screen again to display an image of a black marble tablet inlaid with the coils of a great snake. "This is a tablet from ancient Babylon, a prophecy that tells of the rising of the Great Serpent at the End Times." His eyes flashed with sudden anger. "That piece is lost to me now, but we have detailed photos. The pattern of the stars on the tablet match the constellation for the first time in four thousand years. My men are heading to Berlin to get the final piece of the puzzle, so we will soon know where the Great Serpent lies."

It sounded crazy and one part of Lilith, the scientist, wanted to mock his words. She would expect talk of the End Times and the Great Serpent from the fanatics inside the church. And yet, his words captivated her. Venom ran through her veins and his words made her blood sing.

"And then what?" she asked.

"Then we bring him back," Sam said, his eyes flashing with fire. "You felt the power of those tiny snakes here, so imagine how powerful the Serpent of Serpents will be. We will serve him and reign in a new world order. But I need your help."

The thought of this powerful man needing her brought a smile to Lilith's lips.

"Why? What can I do that you can't?"

Sam sighed and shook his head. Lilith sensed a form of jealousy running beneath. "There is no other who can handle the venom levels you have already survived. Believe me, we've tried a number of subjects and there's no time to waste anymore." Lilith fleetingly wondered who those subjects had been, and whether they had died in the spasms of venom poisoning.

"I've even tried myself, but you … you're the only one who can reach him." Sam's voice was flattering, even respectful as he continued. "I know you must have heard him in your dreams and in your venom trance. Only you can find him now. Come with me, please. Help me bring him back."

Sam reached into the car and pulled out a vacuum flask. He unscrewed the lid and a plume of dry ice wafted into the air with a puff of exhalation. He pulled out a tiny vial.

"If you come with me, this is yours."

Lilith reached out a hand for it, but Sam held it out of her reach.

"What is it?"

"Inland taipan."

Lilith gasped and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled, her skin rising in goosebumps. The inland taipan had the most toxic venom of any land snake in the world, ten times as venomous as the Mojave rattlesnake. The venom was also a legendary hallucinogen, incredibly dangerous but also rumored to give the user an experience out of time.

"You'll see the other side, Lilith. You'll experience pleasure unlike any you have before. Just come with me tonight and learn more. If you choose to leave later, then of course you can go back to your old life."

Sam put the vial back into the vacuum flask and sealed the top again. He walked around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door for her.

Lilith saw a new future in his eyes. One she wanted to be a part of. She had spent too long in the labs, clinically milking the snakes, reducing them to chemistry. She was easily replaceable by any other lab technician. But Samael offered a chance to be part of something greater. She had glimpsed the Great Serpent, and now she would tear down the veil to reach him.

And she wanted that venom.

Lilith got into the car.

They headed south until they reached a private airfield. A helicopter sat waiting, the pilot ready for takeoff.

"I'll bring you back if you change your mind," Sam said.

She walked towards the chopper. "I'm ready."

* * *

Grand Canyon Snake Valley Retreat, USA

Two hours later, they landed at a private helipad and Sam helped Lilith from the helicopter onto a path that led towards a lodge. The wind blew her hair about her face as they walked up the path. Artful spotlights in cactus beds lit the lodge in a subtle manner, giving the wood and stone a mottled effect that made it almost blend into the rocky ground.

"The Colorado river winds like a snake through the very earth of the United States," Sam said, as he led her into the lodge. It was stark inside, the walls decorated with a few chosen pieces. An Aboriginal dot painting of the Creation Snake. An enlarged photo of the head of a green mamba, the brilliant color bright against the white wall.

"Come outside." Sam beckoned and Lilith followed him out to a wide wooden deck that stretched out over the edge of the Grand Canyon.

The breeze wafted the night air over them, bringing the scent of sagebrush and ocotillo, the heady aromas of the mesa. Lilith stepped closer to the edge and looked down into the darkness below. The black deepened as the valley fell away before her and Lilith held the edge of the railing to steady herself as her vision adjusted. It was a long way down.

Sam came and stood behind her, his breath tickling her neck. Lilith wanted him to touch her, craved his lips on hers, but there was a question in her mind.

"How did you find me?" she asked softly.

"Viperex is my company," Sam said. "I heard the call of the Great Serpent when I was deep undercover in Africa years ago. I was drugged and scared, tied up in a cell, under threat of execution by terrorists. But the King of Snakes calmed me and when I made it out of there, I returned to the US and started Viperex."

He put his arms around her and she could feel his arousal against her back.

"The company attracts those who feel drawn to the serpent, and I let vials of venom be released for the mithridatists. I wanted to find those who could take it. Those who could take all of it."

He brushed her hair away from her neck and kissed her softly.

Then he bit down and she shivered at the sensation of his sharp teeth on her bare skin. He lifted his head and turned her to face him, his eyes dark with longing.

"I've been watching you for so long, Lilith. When the Babylon tablet was uncovered, I knew it was time."

Her name was soothing on his lips and as he bent to her, she closed her eyes, giving herself to the serpent within.