Bayou Moon te-2

by Ilona Andrews

  If Ruh saw them, he’d flip the boat in the air, use it as a shield, and make a run for it. The girl would slow him down, but if they got to the cypresses in one piece, he could pick Ruh’s crew off one by one.

  Getting to the cypresses would be a bitch.

  An older, stocky Edger pulled a line from a wheel bolted to the boat’s bow and caught the rolpie’s long fragile neck in a slip knot. Keeping one hand on the line, he turned the wheel, winding it down. The rolpie jerked, startled, and fought back like a fish on a wire, but the line gripped its neck and dragged it against the side of the boat. With no room to dive and its head trapped above the water, the beast went limp.

  Ruh anchored himself on the bow, his bare feet gripping the deck with toes like bird talons. He leaned forward over the water, his body bent to a degree that would’ve pitched a normal human into the river, and stretched his right arm to the water’s surface.

  A bulge of flesh grew on Ruh’s shoulder. It squeezed and relaxed slowly, growing thicker with each contraction. What the hell …

  Ruh moaned. A huge drop of yellow ichor swelled over the tracker’s right deltoid and burst, releasing a tentacle.

  Acid burned William’s mouth. Right, if he ever fought Ruh, stabbing him in the back from above, right between the shoulder blades, would be good.

  The tentacle shivered above the tracker’s shoulder, like a worm the color of raw muscle, and clung to Ruh’s red skin. Lubricated by the ichor, the tentacle slid, winding its way down the arm. Another followed it, twisting about the first, then another.

  Cerise gagged. He clamped her tighter. If she vomited, the body fluid would break the spell.

  The tentacles plunged into the water. The rolpie moaned and screamed, trying to get away.

  A sickening magic swept over them like an avalanche. If it was wind, it would’ve rocked the boat.

  Cerise shuddered in his grip.

  Don’t panic. Just don’t panic. “I’ve got you,” he whispered into her ear.

  Thin tendrils of magic stretched from the boat. Colorless, shimmering like hot air rising from the ground, they snaked their way along the surface of the river, through the reeds, toward them.

  If the spell broke, they were fucked.

  The magic hovered, waiting, probing. The colorless tendrils lapped at the edges of the mirror spell.

  Hold. Hold, damn you, hold.

  The coin burned William’s hand. A spasm rocked Cerise. “Almost over,” he whispered. “Almost done.”

  On the boat, Ruh peered straight at them.

  William held his breath.

  The magic tendrils swelled and split, flowing around the boat. They tasted the shore, slithered over the mud, and retreated.

  Ruh turned to the Edgers. William strained. His ears picked up the faint sound of Ruh’s voice.

  “Girl didn’t … this way. Moving on …”

  They were looking for a girl. The girl? This girl?

  The tracker pulled his tentacles out of the river. William caught a flash of a complex web, covered with long red eyelash-thin hairs dripping with water, and then the net folded in on itself. The cilia slid into the tentacles; the tentacles rolled into the shoulder like elastic rubber cords, and the skin sealed over it. Ruh massaged the viscous ichor into his arm, rubbing it into the skin like a lotion, and reached for his cloak.

  The older Edger released the rope, and the rolpie shot down the river, fleeing for its life and dragging the boat with it.

  William waited. A minute passed. Another. Long enough. He let go of the coin. It lay useless and cold on his palm, all of its charge spent. He had to give it to the Mirror. They made neat toys.

  Cerise slumped forward, curling into a ball. The parts of her that weren’t covered with dirt had turned so pale, they looked green. The aftereffect of exposure to the Hand’s magic should be hitting her full force now.

  If Spider wanted her, then William had to keep her for himself. Sooner or later Spider would come looking for her, and then they would finish the dance they’d started four years ago.

  Cerise coughed.

  The wild in him bared its teeth. She was weak and scared. Almost pitiful. Easy prey for anybody. He had to guard her or she’d get herself killed.

  “They’re looking for you.” He kept his voice brisk.

  She clutched at her stomach. Her words came out strained. “No personal questions.”

  “That’s the Hand. Louisiana spies. Why do they want you?”

  She shook her head.

  Fine. The aftereffects of the Hand’s magic became worse with time. He simply had to wait her out, the way a wolf pack waited out a bleeding deer. Sooner or later the deer would run himself into the ground and then it was dinnertime.

  William took the pole from her and sank it into the water, propelling the boat upstream.

  SIX

  CERISE shivered. Icy needles pricked her spine and stabbed into the muscles of her back. Her neck grew stiff. Her mouth had gone dry and bitter.

  Something on many furry legs crawled up her arm. She brushed at it but her fingers closed over nothing. Her skin was clean. She rubbed her arm just to be sure, felt the touch of the little legs on her elbow, rubbed there, and then dozens of invisible bugs scattered up her shoulders and back. Stiff insect bristles and tiny chitinous claws scratched her, skittering down her neck. She jerked, raking at herself.

  William leaned over to her and slapped her hand.

  “Keep your hands off me.”

  “I will, if you keep them off yourself.”

  “What’s it to you?” she clenched her jacket to herself, feeling the papers in the smooth plastic. Still there.

  “That red freak you saw is a tracker. He needs very little, some spit, a few drops of blood in the river, and he’ll know where you are. We’re paddling upstream. If you claw yourself bloody, the current will drag it down, and at his next stop he’ll find out what you taste like. Then they’ll turn the boat around and come back this way with their seven rifles.”

  “How do you know?”

  He touched his hand to her forehead, and she pulled back—his skin was burning hot. He showed her his palm, damp with her sweat.

  “Right now you think there are ghost bugs crawling on your skin. Your heart is hammering. Your tongue’s dried up, and your mouth tastes like cotton; your hands and feet are freezing, but your body is hot. I know this because I’ve experienced it.” He kept pushing the boat.

  Don’t scratch. She hugged herself to keep warm. Her teeth chattered. Don’t scratch. “How did you m-m-manage?”

  William grimaced. “I was a soldier in Adrianglia. We’ve run into the Hand’s freaks before.” He leaned into the pole. “The Adrianglian Mirror and the Louisianan Hand have been fighting a cold war for years. Adrianglia and Louisiana are too well matched. If a real war broke out, it would drag on for years, so instead they keep throwing spies at each other, looking for a back door to a victory. Adrianglian spies use magic, in their gadgets and their weapons. Louisianan spies are magic. They’re so altered some of them aren’t human anymore.”

  She knew all that already. “W-w-why does it make you sick?”

  “Eventually the Hand’s freaks get so fucked-up they start emanating their twisted magic. That magic is poison to us. It’s like finding a rotten corpse—the stench makes you vomit, so you have no doubt that it’s bad to eat. Same thing here. The more screwed up they are, the worse their magic is. They know it, too. They use it to weaken their prey. Eventually your body will adjust, but until then you’ll be vulnerable.”

  “When d-d-does it wear off?”

  “Depends.”

  What sort of answer was that? “How long d-d-did yours last?”

  There was a tiny pause before he answered. “Eighteen hours.”

  “How d-d-did you k-k-keep from scratching?”

  “I didn’t. They chained me in a cell by the neck and let me go at it.”

  “That’s h-h-horrible.” What kind of army was he in exactl
y that they would let him claw himself bloody? “Couldn’t they sedate you or s-s-s-something?”

  His voice was matter of fact. “They didn’t bother with it.”

  “That’s not right.” Her teeth danced, and Cerise bit down, sending her knees into an uncontrollable shiver. “It’s going to g-g-get worse, isn’t it?”

  He leaned to her and peered into her eyes. “Do you see small red dots floating?”

  “No.”

  He grimaced. “Then it’s going to get worse.”

  Awesome. “W-w-w … w-w-w … w-w-w …”

  “Take your time,” he told her.

  “W-w-w-weird assholes.”

  He barked a short laugh.

  The bugs continued their mad jig. If only she could get warm …

  “Is there another way to Sicktree?”

  Her mind took a few long moments to digest his question. At last Cerise understood. “The tracker will d-d-double back eventually. We m-m-must leave the river.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  The bugs on her arms began gnawing at her skin, burrowing into it, trying to chew their way through muscles to her veins and the blood within. She clenched her fists to keep from scratching.

  Her nose was running. She had an absurd feeling that if only she could get ahold of something sharp like a knife blade and scrape it against her skin, the bugs would disappear.

  William turned the boat with a sharp stab of the pole. The punt rammed the shore. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Cerise realized she was holding her short sword in her hand. She sniffled.

  William held out his hand.

  “It’s m-m-mine,” she said.

  “You don’t need it right this second.”

  Cerise took a deep breath, pronouncing each word with crisp exactness. “If you try to take my sword, I will kill you with it.”

  His eyes studied her. “Fine,” he said. “I won’t fight you for your knife if you tell me how we can get to Sicktree.”

  Cerise forced her mind to work. It started slowly, like a rusty water mill. “Small stream. Three miles up the river on the right side, between two pines, one of them lightning-scorched. It will take us to Mozer Lake, but we’ll have to drag the boat for the last two miles.”

  Once she started scratching, she wouldn’t stop. There are no bugs, there are no bugs …

  “Hobo queen!”

  “What?”

  “Mozer Lake.”

  Mozer Lake. What about the damn Mozer Lake? She pictured the waterways. Sicktree. They were going to Sicktree, to that piss-and-shit sewer hole of a town. There was something vital about Sicktree.

  Urow.

  Urow was in Sicktree. She had to get to her cousin, so he could bring her home, fast, so she would make the court date, so they could take back the house, and kill the Sheeriles and the Hand, and get her parents back. Save parents. Get to Sicktree. Right.

  “Mozer Lake opens into Tinybear Creek,” she said. “Tinybear will become Bigbear. We can abandon the boat before the Bigbear joins the main river and cross the swamp on foot to Sicktree.”

  Cerise ran through the course in her mind. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.” She paused, not sure if she’d said it correctly. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.”

  “Thank you, Dora. Put the sword back into Backpack and we’ll go.” He nodded at the river.

  “Who is Dora?”

  “You are. Dora the Explorer. Vamanos. Put the sword away or I will take it from you.”

  Arrogant prick. “Touch me and d-d-die,” she told him.

  He chuckled. It was a raspy deep sound. Wolves laughed like that.

  Cerise sheathed the sword and hugged the scabbard. The bugs dug harder, tiny steel mandibles chewing on her ligaments, turning the muscle under her skin into bloody soft mush … Cerise locked her jaws, remembering the grotesque web of tentacles slick with crimson hair as it left the muddy water. Damn freak. The next time we meet, I’ll make your arms even. I’ll keep mincing you into pieces until you tell me where my parents are.

  “It’s g-g-going to rain,” she said, pointing at the thick gray clouds.

  William glanced at the clouds. “Rain’s good for us. Covers our trail.” He paused and leaned over to her. “It’s all in your head. Don’t let it push you around. I’ll keep you safe until you’re back on your feet.”

  Keep her safe, ha. She would keep herself safe. Huddled on the bench, Cerise pulled her jacket tighter around herself and tried not to scratch.

  CERISE’S shortcut stream turned out to be mud slicked over with a foot and a half of water. Too shallow for the boat carrying the full load. William shifted his grip and waded on, dragging the boat and their bags in it. Cerise walked in front of him, sword out.

  She hadn’t taken it to her skin. She hadn’t scratched either, but the Hand’s magic took its toll: she stooped, as if carrying a heavy load, and hadn’t said a word to him in the last hour. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or if he missed her needling.

  The swamp had grown dark. Shadows disappeared. Storm clouds churned overhead, gray, thick, and heavy. A gust of wind ripped through the reeds and bushes, rustling the undergrowth. Rain was imminent.

  Cerise kept trudging ahead. She was beginning to drag her feet. The more sensitive you were to magic, the harder the Hand hit. Ruh was altered enough to make even William gag, and he’d been exposed to the Hand’s magic before.

  Ultimately it came down to willpower. She had guts and endurance—William gave her that—but the worst was yet to come. When the aftereffects really hit, and eventually they would, she could go into convulsions. If she died, his shot at Spider could die with her. He had to keep her alive and safe.

  Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled, shaking the leaves. The air smelled of scorched sky. Heavy, cold drops drummed on the cypresses, at first a few, then more and more, until finally the clouds burst and a torrent showered the swamp, so dense even he could barely see beyond a few feet.

  William raised his face to the dark sky and swore.

  Cerise turned to him. The rain had soaked her, turning her clothes into a single dark mass and mixing with the mud on her face. She looked like she had sprouted from the Mire itself, like some shrub from a mud bank. Bloodshot eyes stared at him. She was running on fumes.

  Cerise opened her mouth. The words came out slowly. “Don’t worry, you won’t melt. Not sweet enough.”

  “You see those dots I mentioned, you tell me.”

  “Will do.”

  They kept going. The boat scraped the ground and became wedged.

  “We’ll have to c-c-carry it,” Cerise said, swiping her bag.

  William shouldered his rucksack. She lifted the nose of the boat.

  “I’ve got it,” he told her.

  “It’s heavy.”

  “I’ll manage.” He flipped the boat over and hoisted it on his shoulders. He could carry her and the boat for several miles, but she didn’t need to know that. His field of vision shrank to the small space directly beneath his feet, the rest taken up by dark boat and Cerise’s jacket and legs. They moved on.

  Water and mud soaked William to the bone. It was under his leathers and in his boots. His socks formed soggy clumps that bunched against his feet. He would give a year of his life to shed the wet clothes and run on all fours. But the girl and his load kept him in human skin.

  He missed his trailer. His small, shabby trailer, which was dry and had a flat-screen TV and beer in the fridge. And dry socks. That was one of the things he loved most about the Broken. He could buy all the socks he ever wanted.

  Cerise stopped and he nearly rammed her with the damn boat. “What is it?”

  “We missed the turnoff!” she yelled over the storm. “The stream must’ve changed course because of the rain. We’re too far to the left. We need to go that way, to the lake!”

  She waved her hand to the right, at
the gloom between the trees.

  Everything that could go wrong did. Never failed.

  William turned and followed her through the brush. A familiar ghostly pressure brushed his skin. They were near the boundary. For a furious second he thought she’d led him back to it in a circle.

  She stopped again. He jerked back. Impossible woman.

  Cerise pointed. “Look!”

  He shifted the boat to see. In front of them the wide expanse of the lake stretched like a pane of muddy glass. On their left a dock protruded into the water and at the base of the dock sat a house.

  Dark windows. No trace of smoke or human scents in the air. Nobody home.

  The road by it looked too smooth—paved. William focused and made out the outlines of a satellite dish on the roof. A Broken house. He was right—they were near the boundary.

  Cerise leaned closer. “Sometimes the Mire makes pockets that lead to the Broken. They’re usually tiny and disappear after a while.”

  He bent to her. “We hit that pocket, the Broken will strip you of your magic. A cure for all your ills.”

  A tiny light flared in her eyes.

  Lightning struck, the world’s heart skipping a beat.

  A dark object broke the surface of the lake, rising out of the water.

  William hurled the boat aside and shoved Cerise back, behind him.

  The dark thing stood upright. William stared, his eyes amplifying the low light.

  Seven feet tall, the creature rose on thick columnar legs. Two eight-inch-long bone claws thrust from its wrists, protruding past its fingers. Its head looked human enough, but the rough bumps distorted the outline of its body, as if it had been carved out of rough stone by someone in a hurry.

  Lightning flashed again and he saw it, clear as day in the split second of light. Mad bloodshot eyes stared at him from a human face ending in an oversized jaw. Its skin, the color of watery yellow mud, wrinkled on the creature’s neck and limbs, as if it were too big for its body. Thick bony plates slabbed its back, stomach, and thighs.

  Thibauld, his memory told him. One of Spider’s crew. Severely altered, ambusher class. Shit.

  Thibauld peered at them, looking from William’s face to the girl and back. He blocked the way to the boundary. To get to the house, they would have to get past him. According to the Mirror’s intel, Thibauld had a superior sense of smell. A bad opponent on land, he was hell in the water. Spider must’ve parked him in the lake on the off chance Cerise would come this way. He probably had most major waterways blocked.