but the bundle of rags inside was a man.
"Hey," she said. "I'm back."
The man sat up. His face was streaked with grime. He picked at his hair. "You again. What'd you bring me?"
Niobe nudged the bag with her toe. "There's a little more than four dollars in here. That's ten dollars, counting the six I gave you yesterday." Which meant sticking around here for an extra day, she thought. A day better spent on the move.
When he didn't say anything, she continued. "That was our agreement, remember? Ten dollars."
The homeless man hunched over the bag and picked through it rapidly with two fingers, like an inexpert typist. "Lotsa pennies. Can't do much with pennies."
"Please," she whispered. We won't last much longer without this. Every second wasted in negotiation made her nervous. Drake would come back soon and she didn't want him to know about this. He'd feel guilty about it.
The man's gaze flitted between the bag full of change and Niobe's face. She tried to angle her body to keep the worst of her acne in the shadows.
The man grunted. " 'Kay." He motioned Niobe to lie down in his nest.
"I - I can't do it that way." She playfully waggled the tip of her tail at him. The look in his eyes made her worry that he'd back out, and she regretted the vain attempt at bonhomie. But he shrugged, and relented.
After that, they worked out the mechanics quickly enough. He breathed with his mouth open, grunting in short little bursts. It smelled like he had a rotten or abscessed tooth. Niobe prayed it was his only health problem, and that if he was an addict, he wasn't using needles.
She jumped to her feet as soon as she felt the first egg forming. Her erstwhile partner rolled over, cleaned himself on his bedding, and didn't stir after that.
Trash cans rattled as she doubled over in pain. Her ovipositor widened and deposited the first egg under the fire escape. She already had the names picked out. Avender, Aubrey, and Abernathy, for boys; Agatha, Akina, and Allie for girls.
Another egg followed the first. Only two children this time around: a smaller than average clutch. Maybe they'll be twins, Niobe mused.
She felt the first tickle of consciousness, a tentative hello at the world, as the eggs hatched.
Momma? thought Avender.
Ave, my darling! Give me a kiss.
Momma, he thought, I don't feel very well.
Niobe's heart felt like it had been punctured with an icicle.
No. No, no, no no no no no. Not now.
Avender popped out of his egg. The boy was slender and beautiful, covered in fine golden hair, though missing one hand. He took a step toward his mother. "Mom," he said. "I lo - " It trailed off into a gurgle. He toppled over, clutched his stomach, then melted.
His sister Agatha also drew the Black Queen.
Niobe was still crying beside the puddles when Drake returned.
West Texas was the platonic ideal of hot, arid desolation. No people, no cars, just scrubland and dirt. It felt downright post-apocalyptic. Which, given what Niobe had seen of Pyote, wasn't so far from the truth.
They'd been walking since before midnight. A band of pink on the eastern horizon limned the gray sky; sunrise in the offing. The nascent day felt bright as noon to Niobe's dark-adapted eyes. When she stumbled over a snag of sagebrush or a dry streambed, it was from exhaustion.
They walked through a field, parallel to the highway but roughly fifty yards away, so that they wouldn't be seen. Not that it mattered - they hadn't seen a car all night.
Water sloshed in the near-empty bottle when she went to take a swig. Dawn twisted through the thin plastic, forming a little hourglass-shaped spot of light on Niobe's blouse. Two swigs left, at most.
She called ahead to where Drake trudged through the field. "Here. Finish off the water."
He didn't stop, didn't slow down.
"Hey, Drake. I'm talking to you."
The only sound from Drake was the scraping of his tennis shoes on hard-packed soil as he stepped around a creosote bush.
Niobe raised her voice. "You could have the courtesy to pretend to listen. I'm trying to help you, in case you haven't noticed."
Drake was becoming increasingly sullen. He'd withdrawn into himself again. They hadn't spoken about it, but clearly the Black Queen clutch had demolished his hopes.
Hers, too. She'd keep Drake alive as long as she could, though without help that wouldn't be long at all. In the meantime a little cooperation would have been nice.