by Linsey Hall
A crafty gleam entered Willy’s eye. “I thought you looked familiar.”
“That means he’s here, then?” I asked.
Willy nodded. “Sure does. But that information will cost you.”
Roarke dug into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He passed them over to Willy. “Will that do?”
Willy rifled through the stack with fingers so grimy I hoped he didn’t serve food at his establishment. He tucked them into his back pocket and looked up, grinning. “Sure will. You’ll find your guy at the far end of town to the east. Last building on the left as you exit town.”
“You know anything else about him?” Roarke asked.
“Nope. Keeps to himself mostly. Moved in a while ago.”
“Thanks.” Roarke held out his arm for me. “Let’s go, honey.”
I took his arm, nodded goodbye to Willy, and followed Roarke down the boardwalk toward our boat.
“Honey?” I muttered.
“Keeping in character. But I think I like it.”
“I suppose it’s not the worst. Are we at cute-nickname phase, though?”
“I’d like to be.”
I grinned. “Good enough for me. BooBear.”
“Oh, I’m not sure about that one.”
I laughed. “Okay, I’ll think of something better.”
“Less ridiculous, at least.”
We reached our boat and hopped in. After untying the lines, we picked up the oars and pushed ourselves away from the boardwalk. Roarke steered us east, which was no easy feat, considering the boat lacked both rudder and keel.
The night was silent as we drifted through the darkened town, the sound of the swamp band fading as we reached the edge of the settlement. Crickets and frogs were loud enough out here to cover the noise of our paddles cutting through the water.
We drifted up to the last house on the left. Roarke grabbed the house’s boardwalk and stopped our boat’s forward trajectory. Quickly, I adopted my Phantom form, letting the cold magic flow through me. When I was fully transparent, I gestured between myself and the house, trying to indicate that I would sneak in and chuck the potion bomb at Caden.
Surprise was essential, and we didn’t want him hearing our physical bodies climbing up onto the walkway.
Roarke nodded, and I climbed up onto the boardwalk, my Phantom form completely silent. I retrieved the potion bomb from my pocket and drifted toward the house wall. Though I wanted to peek in the windows, Caden might see my glow if I did that.
Instead, I knocked on my head, then drifted straight through the wall, my gaze darting around as I appeared on the inside of the sparsely decorated home. A figure lay asleep on the bed. Caden.
As if alerted by my presence, his eyes snapped open. He lunged for me, faster than anything I’d ever seen. One second he was on the bed, the next, he was on me.
Chapter Three
I shuddered hard at the feel of his arms wrapped around me. Though he couldn’t hurt me while I was in my Phantom form—in fact, he couldn’t even make true contact—I felt his touch like I’d never felt anything before. I shouldn’t have been able to feel anything at all in my Phantom form, but I did.
Bile rose in my throat at the slimy sensation that pulled at my soul. It coated me, giving my transparent blue skin a grayish cast. Panic beat in my chest, making my heart race. Somehow, he was hurting me. I didn’t understand it, only that it felt wrong and disgusting.
I called upon my ice power, hurtling an icicle through his upper shoulder. It threw him back from me, pinning him to the wall. He shouted in pain, his dark eyes flaring with rage as he struggled to pull free.
Before he could, I hurled the potion bomb at him. It exploded in a flash of green against his chest. A moment later, he sagged against the wall, collapsing to the ground as the icicle snapped.
Roarke burst into the room as I hurried to Caden. I dug Cass’s magic-dampening cuff out of my pocket and shoved it over his wrist. I squeezed the cuff so that the two ends almost met and then called on my new gift over metal. It flowed through me, hot and strong, and I pushed it into the metal. The ends of the cuff glowed bright orange before fusing together. It was tight enough that it would be impossible to remove without cutting it off, and it should work to dampen Caden’s magic so he couldn’t turn to mist and escape.
“What’s wrong?” Roarke dropped to his knees at my side. “Your blue glow…”
“I don’t know.” It was still screwed up, slightly gray as well as blue. “But we need to stop this bleeding.”
The wound in Caden’s shoulder was weeping blood. He had information we needed—hell, he was Roarke’s brother—so I couldn’t let him die.
I scrambled to the bed and pulled off the covers, thrusting it at Roarke. “Tear off strips.”
He rent the fabric. “Should we remove the icicle?”
I examined it, pushing back the fabric of Caden’s ragged black shirt. It looked like the skin was already starting to mend at the edges. I lifted his shoulder and peered at the exit wound where the icicle had broken off. The skin had almost mended over the broken end of the ice.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got some kind of advanced healing. Pull out the icicle.”
“That’s a new talent,” Roarke said as he pulled the icicle free, then wrapped the bandage around his brother’s shoulder.
I sagged back, gasping. For fate’s sake, this job was stressful. Give me a monster over long-lost family drama any day.
Roarke’s face was unreadable as it traced his brother’s sleeping form. I thought I saw sorrow there, but I couldn’t be sure. Too many emotions flickered across his face.
“He should be okay now. Let’s get him out of here and—”
Caden gasped and jerked upright, his gaze flying to Roarke.
What the hell? He was supposed to be out for hours. With that injury, he should definitely still be unconscious.
“Roarke,” Caden growled.
“Brother.”
Caden swung at Roarke, catching him in the side.
Roarke didn’t flinch, instead reaching for Caden. But his brother was too fast. He scrambled up and darted away.
Panicked, I threw a blast of ice at Caden’s feet. He skidded, arms flailing, and crashed to the floor. Roarke was on him a second later, trying to get him into a submission hold. But Caden slithered out, fast and strong despite his smaller size and injury.
They grappled on the floor, each trying to get the better of the other. Though Caden threw more mean shots—aiming for Roarke’s groin and eyes—I kinda thought he wasn’t going for the kill.
At least, I hoped he wasn’t. Not that I thought he could get one over on Roarke, but that would just be too cruel, learning that your brother wanted to kill you.
Roarke could handle this, but we’d need a way to subdue Caden once he did. I turned in a circle, searching the room for weapons or any metal that I could make into shackles. If he was anywhere close to as strong as Roarke, rope certainly wouldn’t do.
A quick inspection of the room revealed that there were no swords or daggers. What did Caden use for weapons, then?
In the kitchen, I found two heavy iron skillets. They weighed about ten pounds each, so they should do just fine.
The sound of a fist hitting flesh made me wince. I turned to see Roarke on top of his brother. He’d landed a blow to Caden’s ribs, but Caden socked him in the face. Fortunately, Roarke recovered quickly.
I turned back to my task, leaving them to it, and put one of the skillets on top of the other. I didn’t want molten metal dripping through the wooden floor.
As Roarke and Caden fought behind me, I touched a fingertip to the top skillet and forced my magic into it, envisioning a pair of shackles. The metal glowed red hot and melted, forming a puddle in the bottom skillet.
Shit.
This was hard.
I sucked in a ragged breath and tried to force the metal into a pair of joined circles. Slowly, it coalesced to form something like what I’d im
agined. It was rough and terrible, but we’d probably be able to get Caden’s wrists through them and then I could tighten them.
I did the same with the other skillet, creating a pair for his ankles. I had to work more quickly so the molten metal didn’t melt through the wooden floor, but the practice with the wrist shackles helped. By the time the ankle cuffs were done, they’d only melted half into the floorboards.
Once they’d cooled enough to touch, I pried them out of the floor and spun around. Roarke had Caden on his front with his arms behind his back.
“Those are cuffs?” Roarke asked.
“Sorta.”
I hurried over and knelt beside them. Caden thrashed and cursed. The scent of dark magic wafted from him, turning my stomach with the smell of rotten eggs. I shoved the metal circles over Caden’s wrists, no easy task since they were joined together.
When his hands had slipped through, I fed my magic into the metal, tightening it. The only problem was that it turned red hot. Caden yelled as it burned him.
“Sorry!” I said.
Finally, they were tight enough. No matter how he strained—and boy, did he try— he couldn’t get free of them.
“Good job,” Roarke said.
“Bitch,” Caden hissed.
Roarke shook him by the shoulder. “Manners, brother mine.”
“Dick,” Caden spat.
“Fair enough.” Roarke shifted on Caden, and we locked his ankles into the shackles. He wouldn’t be going anywhere fast in this getup.
“Now let’s get out of here.” Roarke hauled Caden upright.
As we were heading toward the door, it burst open. Four figures flooded into the room, all supernaturals of indiscernible demon species. Their magic was distinctly dark, a variety of putrid scents that made me gag.
“We thought you was suspicious,” the biggest one rumbled. He wore a battered leather vest and was covered in a scattering of tattoos that looked to be three dimensional. His eyes flickered with a weird light.
“Just paying a visit to a friend.” Roarke wrapped an arm around Caden, looking massive and scary. His dark eyes glinted with threat.
“That guy?” Tattoo-dude asked.
“Is that not obvious?” Roarke asked.
Tattoo-dude shrugged.
“We’ll be on our way, then.” Roarke nodded to the door, the gleam in his eyes clear. Get out or I’ll put you out.
“We can’t let you take one of our own,” Tattoo-dude said.
“You didn’t even recognize him a moment ago,” I said. “I bet you don’t even know his name.”
“Don’t need to know his name to know he’s one of us.”
They should probably have a talk with Willy about selling out their own, then. But I didn’t want to rat out Willy.
Until the rat himself walked through the door.
“Jeez, Willy,” I muttered. “You sell us info then sic your dogs on us?”
“Just sold you the info.” Willy chewed on whatever was in his cheek. “Don’t want you running off with one of our own.”
“Too bad.” Roarke let go of Caden, who toppled to the ground.
I took that as my cue, loading up with an icicle and shooting the nearest figure in the thigh. He howled and went down hard, thrashing. Roarke knocked out the demon closest to him while I sent an icicle through Tattoo-guy’s thigh.
Since they were just trying to protect someone, I didn’t necessarily want to kill them if I didn’t have to. And it didn’t take long to clear out our opponents. They were now sprawled on the ground, howling and bleeding.
Unable to help myself, I watched one, avarice growing in the pit of my belly. I didn’t know what his power was, but I wanted it. More than anything, I wanted to sink to my knees at his side and pull his magic from him. Not necessarily for the magic itself, but to relive that sense of controlling my fate that I’d felt when I’d killed the Telenec demon back in the alley in Darklane. In the middle of all this craziness, that moment of control had felt good. Really good.
“Come on, Del. We’ve got to move.” Roarke’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
I shook my head, clearing the haze, and nodded. I really didn’t want to kill any of these demons, no matter how good it might make me feel in the moment to be in control.
Roarke slung Caden over his shoulder, and we raced out the door. Only to stop abruptly at the sight of the entire crowd from Willy’s staring right at us. Dozens of swamp boats surrounded Caden’s house, each laden with enemies whose eyes were glued to us.
They didn’t have pitchforks, but they really should have.
“What’d you do to Willy?” the nearest one called. He had the deep southern drawl of a true Florida boy, but he looked like a giant demon with massive black horns. It was disconcerting.
Behind them, our own airboat floated away from the house. Someone had cut the lines, and it was now twenty feet off and slowly migrating away.
Great.
“Can you fly us out of here?” I whispered.
“Can only carry one. Caden’s a dense bastard.”
Shit. We’d have to fight our way out. And the odds weren’t awesome.
A great roar rent the night air from somewhere to the east. Tension sizzled through the crowd. My own hair stood on end. It was so loud and full of rage.
And familiar.
“The Skunk Ape!” cried a high-pitched voice.
Skunk Ape?
“Run!” cried another.
Airboat engines roared to life, the din cutting out the sound of the Swamp Ape’s roar. Our opponents peeled out, airboats bumping into each other in their haste to head west.
“This isn’t good,” I muttered.
“We need to get to the boat,” Roarke said.
I eyed the water. Gators were popping up here and there, their dark eyes riveted to the east. Loud splashing sounded, growing closer and closer. The gators were interested in the Skunk Ape. They were also creating a nice, and terrifying, bridge between me and the boat.
“Fly Caden over!” I cried. “I’ll follow.”
“I’ll come back for you,” Roarke said.
“Sure.” I couldn’t tell him my plan, because it was stupid. But we were also running out of time.
The black mist of Roarke’s tornado swirled around him, and he took on his demon shape. He grabbed Caden and took off into the air, huge wings carrying them away.
As soon as they were airborne, I sucked in a deep breath. The rotten cabbage scent of oncoming Skunk Ape only solidified my commitment. We were out of time.
“Hey, gators!” I called. “Could you help me out? Just… Please don’t eat me!”
A couple of them glanced my way, but they were more interested in the oncoming Skunk Ape. I didn’t feel any menace coming off them, at least, so maybe they were down with my request.
I adopted my Phantom form, trying to ignore the fact that I was still slightly gray, and leaped off the wooden dock. I landed on the back of the first gator, but he hardly moved. Thank magic my Phantom form was weightless.
This was so nuts.
I jumped across their backs, occasionally getting a curious glance. But like the hellhounds, these scary beasts seemed to like me. Or at least tolerate me. They were just too damned interested in the Skunk Ape to pay me much mind.
“You idiot!” Roarke yelled.
“They can’t bite me!” I cried as I jumped.
I was almost to the boat when I realized that there was a gap too big to cross. Crap!
But then, one of the gators swam around, filling in the space. I swore I saw a toothy grin on his face.
“Thanks!” I jumped onto him, then over to the boat, making it in by an inch. Caden lay in the hull of the boat, still bound and spitting mad.
“You’re crazy,” Roarke said.
“Start the engine.” I turned and waved at the gators. A few glanced at me, and their expressions were definitely friendly, but they quickly looked back toward the east.
As the giant
fan roared to life, the Skunk Ape broke through the darkness. The stench was even stronger than before, and bile rose in my throat.
Roarke peeled away, the boat skidding as we turned. I looked back toward the Skunk Ape. The gators had surrounded him, snapping and biting, almost like they were protecting the town.
The monster roared, trying to break through, but the gators held him back, snapping at his legs. Some of the reptiles were over fifteen feet long. I wouldn’t want to trifle with them either.
The Skunk Ape’s dark gaze met mine. I liked to imagine there was longing there, but I was probably just being ridiculous. Skunk Ape didn’t want me for his bride. And I sure as heck didn’t want to be his bride.
Either way, I needed to stop watching so many old horror movies.
We couldn’t go through town or risk being followed by the locals, so Roarke steered us around the edge of the settlement and back toward safety. I kept an eye on Caden as we powered along, though he didn’t look like he was going to make a run for it. Even with the grass, the whole swamp was basically water. Without the use of his limbs, he’d sink to the bottom and become gator food. And no one would want that fate.
It took us a couple hours to reach the bank where we’d left Jim Bob, but fortunately we didn’t run into any more problems. The Skunk Ape had been too occupied by the gators to follow, and the townsfolk had given up.
Halfway there, Roarke called Jim Bob, who met us as we pulled up alongside the bank.
“That’s a mighty disappointing prize you got there.” He nodded to Caden.
“I’d have to agree,” Roarke said, though I could tell in his tone that he didn’t really mean it.
“Stinks something fierce too,” Jim Bob said. “Black magic.”
I nodded. “I thought I’d smelled that back at his place.”
Caden’s clothes weren’t in great shape and he looked like it’d been a while since his last shower—a dunk in the swamp didn’t count—but that wasn’t enough to account for the smell. Jim Bob was right. It had to be black magic.
“Shut the fuck up, you fucking fuckwits,” Caden growled.