Bad Habit's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The crocodile was dead, but the trail died with him. Somebody had waited to hear that reptile talk. Now that voice knew trouble was coming and had vanished. Bad Habit stood in the cooling steam and understood the problem. He could not burn a boss he could not find. Bingo scraped mud off his shoe and read his face. "You're chasing smoke," Bingo said. "The one who waited won't come to you. He'll hide." His dark eyes flicked to the dead crocodile in the water. "But he had a brother. Big snake. Wears a black turtleneck and thinks he's a gentleman. King Slither." Smoke leaked from Bingo's lip. "Slither loved that crocodile. Blood pulls him out where fear keeps him down." Bad Habit understood at once. He could not track King Slither. So he would make King Slither come to the body. He dragged the crocodile from the water and propped it against a mud bank, deep in shadow. From the dark, the shape looked whole. Alive. Waiting. Bingo sent word through the low channels that the crocodile had surfaced here. Then the two of them climbed the trench wall and hid behind a slope of wet earth. Bad Habit sent his gremlins down first. The little scouts scattered along the drain mouths, wiry bodies clinging to the pipes, watching every angle. They waited. An hour passed. Then a gremlin chittered a warning. A wall of vines shivered near the trench floor. Bad Habit had not seen the hole hidden behind them. The green curtain pulled back, and King Slither poured out. He was huge, longer than a man is tall, coiled muscle under a black turtleneck. His yellow eyes swept the shadows and found the crocodile's silhouette. "Brother," King Slither said. His voice was smooth, almost kind. He glided closer. "They told me you were dead." Bad Habit felt Bingo tense beside him. "He's out," Bingo whispered. "That's your window." Bad Habit watched the snake reach the body. King Slither touched the cold snout and went still. The kindness drained from his face. He knew. "You're not sleeping," King Slither hissed. His head snapped up, scanning the walls. "Who did this? Show yourself!" Bad Habit did not answer. He would not kill Slither blind, not yet. He wanted the snake to lead him to the rest. He signaled the gremlins. They swarmed the drain pipes and screeched, driving King Slither back from the hole. The snake reared, furious, then bolted into a channel Bad Habit had not known existed. Bad Habit teleported to the mouth of that channel and marked it in his mind. He had lost the boss's hiding place before. Now he had found the door to the snake gang itself. "You wanted a trail," Bingo said, climbing down. "You just made one." Bad Habit stared into the dark tunnel where King Slither had fled. The dead crocodile had one more use. It had pulled a living boss out of the ground. Now Bad Habit knew exactly where to burn next.