Snake in the Playground

Julie had seen the school's playground from the windows of Connor's apartment and had begged the man to let her go play until he finally relented, extracting a promise that she would come in when she got hungry or it got dark out.

For an adult, he wasn't so bad, he'd gotten her some nice clothes and seemed to really be trying to find her family. Julie still had no idea how she'd gotten in Searchlight, but the little girl had settled in for however long it took her caretaker to find her family. It was kind of weird that she was stayinig in the room of his friend who had the same name as her and somehow had her grandma's locket, though, but the six year old had quit worrying about it.

Once she'd made it out to the playground the little girl sat in the swing set and started to rock back and forth, working on swinging higher and higher with each pass between the metal bars. There weren't any other children there at the moment, so Julie had to entertain herself. and it was always fun to get swinging really high and then see how far you could jump. The little girl let go of the chains and leaped off, giggling as she soared through the air to land in the sand a few feet away from the swing set.

Las Vegas had a lot of things this town did not. For the most part, that was scale, entertainment and far more people. What made the resort most attractive to Erato was its combination of luxury and extremes. Its proximity to the source of a great many supernatural events made it the ideal location to reside in, but that was not to say she was averse to exploring elsewhere.

Lake Mojave, for instance, was a fine watery dwelling. Searchlight, however, was closer to those enigmatic mines and the snake-maiden had chosen to visit in bipedal guise.

The laughter of a young girl could travel far, especially in an area largely devoid of much vehicular traffic. To the right predator, her scent could travel further still.

Attracted by such youthful temptation, Erato moved cautiously in little Julia's direction.

She had not yet eaten, that day...

Julie had resumed swinging, letting herself climb higher and higher, trying to do a complete loop around the top of the swing. Her small legs pumped as hard as they could, working to gain speed. She remembered Rodrigo boasting just the other day that he'd done the loop at school and wanted to see if it was really true.

The little girl kept trying, but as hard as she worked she couldn't get higher than the top of the bar and was having trouble keeping hold of the chains. Her enjoyment was turning to fear and Julie clutched tightly to the chains as she quit pumping her legs to try and slow down. She just hoped she didn't fall off and rip the new coveralls Connor was nice enough to buy her.

Excitement... Anxiety...

Innocence.

Ingredients as potent as any aphrodisiac, to the right observer. Erato might look like any human being, but was far from it. Closer and closer she drifted to the child, apparently harmless and yet...

Such an energetic young morsel. Erato ventured closer still, alighting hand on nearby climbing frame.

"You travel fast, little one."

Julie jumped in her seat, startled, and nearly fell of the swing. "Woa!" The little girl ended up looking at the woman upside down as she tried to untangle herself from the chains, the momentum gone from the swing.

"Hi!" she told the pretty woman. "I'm not as fast as my brother, nobody can beat him." Even when they bickered, that didn't mean she didn't love him. She just wished sometimes she had a sister instead of two brothers and another one on the way.

She sat upright in the swing, still looking at her new friend. "You're very pretty."

Erato's casual smile widened for a fleeting moment, registering the pleasant behavior with a sound of amusement. Now she moved beside child, hand brushing debris from hair.

Beautiful. Like a lamb. Children always did squirm pleasantly.

"And you are-"

Having brought fingers down to caress one side of face, the physical contact with skin gave an altogether more enlightened perception, as to the child's reason for being.

Blinking, the elder brunette tilted head in curiosity. This was most unusual.

"You are not of your age," she finally said, changing the earlier intended meaning.

Julie smiled as the pretty woman touched her, there was something about her that made Julie trust her and want to be near her. It was almost like having mommy with her again, and Julie hoped that Connor would find her parents soon.

"Huh?" Julie cocked her head in confusion at the pretty woman when she said that she wasn't of her age. What was that supposed to mean? "I am too!" She insisted, thinking that the woman was saying that she was younger than she looked. "I'm six, I'll be in first grade next year. I know my ABC's and everything!" She was a big girl, not a baby.

Vaguely puzzled, Erato's smile was now one of kind amusement. "Yes," she complimented. "I am sure that you do... A young lady must be well-learned. However else would you best all those nasty boys?"

There were no lycanthropic hints, not in this Julia's incarnation. Erato had none to detect. The girl had reverted, fully and true, to her natural, human state.

But she might yet attract the bite of serpent, not wolf, for she was young, vulnerable and appealingly healthy.

The question was, would predatory temptation win out over wise curiosity?

"Do you know how you came to be in this place?"

Julie frowned and made a face. "Ick, boys." She was surrounded by boys at home, with two older brothers and soon to be a little brother. "Why would anyone like boys? My brothers are ok, but they're still weird."

Erato's second question caused her to scrunch her forehead in concentration, and a little bit of worry. "No. The last thing I remembered before waking up in Connor's friend's bed was Mommy tucking me in at home." She looked up at the nice woman with big brown eyes full of worry. "Do you know where Mommy and Daddy went? Connor's trying to find them but he hasn't found them yet."

The little girl had no idea that she was litearly in the clutches of a predator. The pretty lady didn't look like a threat and her parents had always told her to stay away from strange men, not pretty ladies. The werewolf senses that the adult version had come to rely on weren't present in the pint sized version.

"Connor?"

There were certain psychological clues any human being was guaranteed to give out. The direction of a blink of eyes, for one and Erato followed the girl's own to where the lad was likely to be.

But the name... It was familiar, somehow. Perhaps not intimately so, but there was... Something.

What was it about that name? Had it been foretold somewhere? Written? Spoken of in hushed tones? Perhaps all three?

Looking back to the girl, Erato crouched down to her level. That was the visual impression she gave, at least. There was no telling whether those legs were merely the product of some optical illusion.

"You're very bright," Erato teased with a touch of fingertip to button nose. "Like starlight!"

To some observers, the way in which she used the motion as an excuse to brush the little girl's hair away from one side of neck, might have seemed distasteful, no matter how casual the movement was. It had something to do with the way the elder brunette washed eyes down to that exposed space of young skin, admiring it.

But Erato's urges were unlikely to be of the overtly sexual kind. Their situation was far more like some playfully curious antelope who was trying to make friends with the local python, only to think the behavior of its restricting coils as little more than acting to keep it warm.

To her, the child was food. Delicious, satisfying, writhing prey, from which she could both take and provide with exquisite pleasure, as with anyone else.

Julia could not have known how inviting her sweet, young neck was to the Lamia's deadly, hidden fangs. Fingertips trailing over that place where the pulse of youthful heart could be felt.

It was like watching a mouse walking into the burrow of some vast tarantula, completely unaware of what its presence might yet provoke.

Death hovered over her now.

"My name is Erato, little one... What might I call you?"

"Erato..." Julie tried it out, trying to get the pronunciation right. She'd heard plenty of exotic names before, what with her Hispanic heritage and some pretty strange sounding names from kids in her kindergarten class. After thinking about it for a moment, Julie decided she liked it. "That's a neat name...I'm Julie...Julia Katherine Sanchez, but nobody calls me that unless they're mad at me." Her parents would call her Julia, but would never use her full name unless she'd done something wrong.

There was just something about the pretty woman that put Julie at ease. If she were still in possession of the werewolf's senses the little girl would be scrambling to get away from the Laima, but instead she leaned into the creature's touch, completely comfortable and without fear. She trusted Erato, and if questioned she wouldn't be able to explain why.

"Julie..."

Erato settled for the informal, rather than formal. Titles could be used to put someone on edge or at ease. This was a time for the latter, without question.

Teeth against warm, tanned skin...

But no.

As much of a proverbial walking chocolate cake as the youngster was, she also provided questions in need of an answer. Being stripped to the bone could wait for another time.

"Tell me of this 'Connor', Julie... Who are they to you?"

"Ummm...." Julie scrunched up her forehead again, thinking hard. What was it he had called himself? "He's my...guardian, until he finds my family. He's really nice but he scared me at first, he ripped the sheets off the bed I was hiding in and wanted to know where his friend was," she leaned in closer to Erato's ear and whispered, "her name's Julie too, and she had my grandma's locket somehow."

The little girl still was confused about that, but Connor promised she'd understand later and so far he hadn't lied to her. "Connor's really tall, but not as tall as Daddy," her world still revolved around her parents, siblings, and their ranch. Being from such a rural area, little Julie's exposure to the outside world somewhat limited compared to a child growing up in an urban setting surrounded by throngs of people.

Erato made a slow nod of understanding. The puzzle was slowly coming together. The beginnings of it, at least. There was a metaphysical conundrum at play and it was one in need of solving.

Of course, this changed things. The lass had obviously been cursed in some way. To feast from such a meal could bring detrimental effects upon whatever predator might decide to do so. To that end, Erato was thinking better of it.

Reaching around behind Julia's head, Erato secured a miniature, silver necklace, just the right size to fit around a child's neck. Upon it hung a pendant in the form of a flat, metal oval. An engraving would be found there, etched upon its surface, in the form of a pictogram. One involving serpentine symbology and the phrase 'LAMIAE' written across it in an alphabet quite different to English.

"There... A gift, from me to you," the elder brunette said with an affectionate smile. "Let your guardian know I would like to help, Julie. Some questions are better answered, lest their riddle causes harm."

Julie picked up the necklace with her small hands and looked it over curiously. It was very pretty, but it looked expensive and the little girl hesitated. She knew her parents would be upset if she came home with something like that, even if she didn't understand why. Julie looked up at Erato with troubled eyes. "Miss Erato, are you sure this is ok? It looks like it cost a lot of money."

She would definitely tell Connor about the pretty lady with the funny name, for some reason it was very important to her that she tell him.

"Am I not allowed to thank you for such a delightful conversation, Julie?"

It was maternal teasing. Erato seemed to often be looked upon, by the rest of her sisters, as the one most young at heart. The psychology of little boys and girls had not changed throughout the whole of human history. It was only as people matured that the cultural alterations began to manifest.

"Run along and tell him," Erato urged with an upwards nod of the head. Torso raising in height, as she stood tall, once again, on apparent feet. "He'll find me, should he wish hard enough..."