Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles 4)

Obidias held up his right hand, which had been hidden behind the door. “I’m sure you’ll understand if we don’t shake.” His hand was severed at the wrist, a black line marking the place where it had been cut. Above the mark, his wrist was severely scarred, as if it had been punctured over and over again.

Which it had.

Five writhing black snakes extended from his wrist to the point where his fingers would normally have reached. They were hissing and striking at the air, curling around one another.

“Don’t worry,” Obidias said. “They won’t hurt you. It’s me they enjoy tormenting.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to run.

The Harlon Jameses growled even more loudly, and the snakes hissed back. Aunt Prue scowled at all of them. “Puh-lease. Not you, too.”

I stared at the snake hand. Something about it was familiar. How many guys with snakes for fingers could there be? Why did I feel like I knew him?

It hit me, and I realized who Obidias was—the guy Macon had sent Link to see in the Tunnels. Last summer, right after the Seventeenth Moon. The guy who’d died right in front of Link after Hunting bit him, in his house, this house—at least the Otherworld version of it. Back then I thought Link was exaggerating, but he wasn’t.

Not even Link could have made this up.

The snake that replaced Obidias’ thumb wrapped itself around his wrist, stretching its head toward me. Its tongue flicked in and out, the little fork flying.

Aunt Prue pushed me across the threshold, and I went stumbling, only inches from the snakes. “Go on in. You aren’t afraid of a few itty-bitty little garden snakes, are you?”

Was she kidding? They looked like pit vipers.

I turned awkwardly toward Obidias. “I’m sorry, sir. It—they just caught me off guard.”

“Don’t give it another thought.” He waved off the apology with a twist of the wrist on his good hand. “It’s not something you see every day.”

Aunt Prue sniffed. “I’ve seen a stranger thing or two.” I stared at my aunt, who looked as smug as if she shook a new snake hand every day of her life.

Obidias closed the door behind us, but not before checking the horizon in every direction. “You came alone? You weren’t followed?”

Aunt Prue shook her head. “Me? Nobody can follow me.” She wasn’t kidding.

I looked back to Obidias. “Can I ask you something, sir?” I had to know for sure if he’d met Link, if he was the same guy.

“Of course.”

I cleared my throat. “I think you met a friend of mine. When you were alive, I mean. He told me about someone who looked like you.”

Obidias held out his hand. “You mean a man with five snakes for a hand? There probably aren’t many of us.”

I wasn’t sure how to say the next part. “If it was my friend, he was there when you—you know. Died. I’m not sure it matters, but if it does, I’d like to know.”

Aunt Prue looked at me, confused. She didn’t know any of this. Link had never told anyone but me, as far as I knew.

Obidias was watching me, too. “Did this friend of yours happen to know Macon Ravenwood?”

I nodded. “He did, sir.”

“Then I remember him well.” He smiled. “I saw him deliver my message to Macon after I passed. You can see a great deal from this side.”

“I guess so.” He was right. Because we were dead, we could see everything. And because we were dead, it didn’t matter what we could see. So the whole seeing-things-from-the-grave concept? Majorly overrated. All you ended up seeing was more than you wanted to in the first place.

I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the first guy who would’ve traded seeing a little less for living a little more. I didn’t say that to Edward Snakehands, though. I didn’t want to think about how much I had in common with a guy whose fingers had fangs.

“Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable? We have a lot to talk about.” Obidias ushered us further into the living room—really the only room I could see, except for a small kitchen and a lone door at the end of the hall, which must have led to the bedroom.

It was basically one gigantic library. Shelves extended from the floor to the ceiling, a battered brass library ladder attached to the highest shelf. A polished wooden stand held a huge leather volume, like the diction