2019-05-13 - be the serpent under it

"Thank you. We look forward to seeing you then."

Keene ended the call and looked around the small, dark space. His eyes glittered like moonlight on seawater, faintly blue, faintly green, washed out, as if the color wasn't fully manifested, was waiting for a sunrise that would never come. "You three."

They sat up attentively from their listless slump, ink-black hair pushed off of pale foreheads by spidery fingers. They were like marionettes rising on unseen strings, suddenly imbued with impetus by their puppetmaster.

"Go to Gray Harbor, Washington. See what there is to see."

They rustled into the beginnings of motion, smiling their silent smiles at each other.

"And me?"

Those green-blue eyes of his shifted to the woman with her exquisite features, the long fall of golden hair, the eyes of impossibly wide blueness. She stood in the doorway, as if hesitant to enter but equally unwilling to be entirely excluded. His brow quirked upward. "And you?"

"What am I to do?"

Behind her, a shadow moved against the frosted window. A footstep sounded against the gravel outside, muffled in an effort not to be heard, but not truly soundless.

"You two." Keene raised his voice slightly and was gratified when a sharp inhale meant his words carried out into the hallway. "Will wait."

He heard the fair woman exhale through her nose, frustrated but trying not to show it, trying to keep anyone from feeling it. And Keene permitted the slithering of the three, dark-haired women toward the door to pretend to cover that irritated exhalation.

The three of them asked no questions. They did as they were told. And they were told to go to Gray Harbor.