The Talon & the Blade

by Jasmine Silvera

  Murder. Desertion. The words struck the air from his chest. Wanted. Deserters were lashed and imprisoned. Murder? And the shame to his family. Knowing his father’s head would hang at the mention of his name. His mother unable to grieve because instead of just dying in war, he’d been executed for crimes committed against his own. Lark had more than saved his life. She’d kept him safe, hidden among her folk. There were punishments for that as well. Harboring a fugitive. Instead, she’d given him a bed and a full belly for whatever labor he could provide. No questions asked.

  Although it might have helped if she had warned him.

  Davy aimed the gun at him. “You just put down your rifle easy there.”

  Gregor was profoundly glad he’d been caught alone. He hoped the others kept going, Lark’s anger at him driving them home. When he didn’t catch up, she might wonder, but she wouldn’t go back. Not for him. Not after what he’d said.

  He set down the rifle, sliding the bird off his other shoulder as he kept an eye on the barrel pointed his direction. Before he could rise, the bearded man’s rifle butt caught him in the solar plexus. The air left his lungs, and the stunned muscles refused to draw more. He staggered, going to one knee. At the corner of his eye, the rifle butt rose for his face.

  “Stop right there, Andrew Fell.” A familiar voice rang through the trees. Lark.

  Gregor, voiceless, lifted a hand to warn her off. His jaw worked as his throat closed.

  Lark stepped into the clearing alone, gun trained on the horseman. “Davy. Didn’t plan on seeing you again so soon.”

  “Miz McAvoy.” Davy brought his free hand up in a mocking salute but spit on the ground her direction.

  Gregor wanted to punch the remainder of his teeth out as the craggy blond looked her up and down. His senses returned as his lung function did.

  Iain came from the other direction, rifle trained on the bearded giant making a slow move for the gun tucked into his waistband. “Hold right there, Andy, my boy.”

  The bearded man lifted his hands. He smiled, gaping black holes where teeth should have been. He stepped back toward the mule, Gregor’s rifle in one hand.

  “Sheltering outlaws and worn-out slaves is one thing,” Andrew Fell said. “But this one’s got crown money on his head.”

  “Way I see it, the redcoats are far too busy with the war to worry about one lost Hessian,” she said, flexing her finger on the trigger. “Now be on your way and we’ll be on ours.”

  “Don’t stand about, you great gilly gaupus,” Iain barked at Gregor, tension thickening his brogue. “Up, man.”

  Gregor moved, but not toward the others. He stepped right up to Andrew. The reek of onions and rotted teeth made him hold his breath. He gripped the barrel of his rifle over the man’s hand. Andrew resisted.

  “Now, soldier,” Lark ordered.

  Andrew released the gun so suddenly Gregor lost his balance. The big man lunged after him, reaching for the knife in his belt. They wrestled, the shouts of the others a frantic chorus. The horseman’s gun went off, then an answering crack of a rifle from the trees.

  Gregor got control of the knife and struck upward, burying it to the hilt under the giant’s rib cage. Andrew’s weight crushed him. The reek almost undid him. He went down, cracking his head on the soil so hard he bit his own tongue. He heaved Andrew off, retching as he rolled to his hands and knees, his only thought of Lark, exposed in the clearing, and the shots. Davy slumped over his saddle, a blossom of red growing from his chest. His horse shied, dumping the body on the ground. Talking House caught the animal before it could run or slip off the narrow track to its death.

  “Are you all right?” Lark crouched beside Gregor, dropping her smoking rifle to pat him down. She rocked back on her heels with an exhale. “Iain?”

  “Still breathing,” Iain called, yelping. “Provided this damned mule don’t kick me to death.”

  He looked down at his hands, covered in blood where the knife had opened up Andrew as they fell. There was so much of it, stinking of iron and salt and shit. He nodded. Or he thought he did. The blood held him rapt. He tried to rise and tangled in his own limbs.

  “Just sit still a minute,” Lark murmured at Gregor, surveying the scene. “You arrogant fool, don’t go whooping and calling in these woods. We’re on trapper trade routes. We’re all wanted for something.”

  “My soul and my reputation is lily-white,” Iain objected, securing the mule.

  “Like his ass,” Talking House said. He dumped Davy’s body from the horse.

  Coming out of the trees with the barrel of his rifle still smoking, Gray Rabbit wheezed a laugh. Lark took them all in with her legendary glare, but a smile tugged the corner of her mouth.

  “I have no idea how to be an outlaw,” Gregor admitted, teetering on hysteria as he again contemplated the wetness growing sticky on his hands.

  “Lesson number one.” Iain held up a finger. “Assume everyone is out to catch you.”

  Talking House rummaged through the horse’s pack.

  Gregor’s vision spun again as the words tumbled out of him. “I was just excited I caught up to you. I understand if you don’t forgive me, but I hope… then I hoped you wouldn’t come to my aid and endanger yourselves. But here it looks like I owe you my life. Again. I have no idea how to repay two lives.”

  “Not a bad likeness,” Iain said when Talking House handed him a tattered page. “Rule number two. Acquire a disguise. Lark dresses like a man. You… you’re too tall and ugly to make a passable woman. Gonna need to cut all that hair. Maybe break that fine aristocratic nose of yours.” He reached for his dagger. “A scar. That’ll throw them off.”

  “Be quiet, Iain,” Lark ordered.

  She took Gregor’s chin in her hand and dragged his gaze into her eyes. “You’ve never killed a man up close before, have you?”

  “The two in the woods.”

  “Suppose those were different,” she said. “Half dead yourself. Instinct takes over.”

  “It seems,” he said, feeling as if she were speaking to him from far away.

  “Soldier,” she snapped. “This was a mistake. Andrew and Davy were bad men but probably didn’t deserve to die today.”

  Iain snorted. Talking House grunted. “Had it coming.”

  “Done is done.” Lark settled an iron grip on Gregor’s shoulder. “No going back. You have to decide right now if you’re going to live with it or not. Want to go turn yourself in and add to your body count? The redcoats will be happy to help you find the end of a hanging rope. But come with us—you leave this behind and keep living. Understand?”

  “That’s two ultimatums in one day,” he said, dazed.

  She almost smiled. “That kind of day, I suppose. Now get up, help us clean up this mess, and walk on, or stay here and God help you whatever comes next.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The car chimed with an incoming call. Ana glanced at him but he shrugged, so she tapped the screen to accept.

  “Auntie,” Jamie shouted. “It’s Granny—”

  Between the broken connection and the man’s agitation, Gregor caught every third or fourth word.

  Ana did no better. “Slow down, James.”

  “We just got the report on the comm,” he said. “There’s been an attack at the old village. Something come up out of the sea. Federation police are en route, but I can’t get ahold of Mom or anyone—”

  “I’m almost there,” Ana said. “I’ll call you as soon as I can. Mind your post, Jamie.”

  Ana whipped the car into a higher gear when the call disconnected. The car clung to the wet pavement, leaving the towns behind in a blur.

  “This place didn’t come up as one of the potential targets,” Gregor said, scrolling through his tablet. “Should it have?”

  She hit the steering wheel with the heel of one hand. The car shuddered but kept to the road. It was the first time he’d seen her control crack.

  “It came out of the sea,” he repeated. “And the wo
lves in the bar, they were getting testy waiting for orders.”

  “I expected it to hit Seattle.”

  Now she told him.

  “So why out here?” he asked. “Why go from large, obvious targets to this smaller, isolated place? Even the town we passed would have made a better choice.”

  Her hands flexed on the wheel. “We’re to meet Jamie’s grandmother here. Amelia’s an elder in the nation.”

  “The one who might have our answers.”

  “The same.” She frowned. “How did it know we were coming.”

  “The other night, before the bar, in the parking lot by the water.” He sighed, feeling absurd for even saying it aloud. “There was this otter. It was curious and unafraid to get close.”

  She held her silence as a burst of rain pelted the car, triggering the wipers for a few long strokes before it cleared and the crisp, wet sunlight lit the interior. The realization settled on her face. “Orcas never come that far into the sound. I thought we were just lucky, seeing them.”

  “It’s been tracking us.”

  She jerked the car into a slide off the highway and along a narrow track winding down to the water. It ended in a cove framed by tree-lined cliffs. The parking lot opened to a driftwood- and sea-boulder-littered beach. She pulled in overlooking what had been a traditional longhouse. The front half of the overlapping-board structure had been smashed and splintered. A long track of churned-up wet sand and rocks led from the surf to the destruction.

  In the flashing lights of the local law enforcement, he spotted armed civilians closing in on the wreckage. On a nasty piece of driftwood, a man’s body hung impaled on a branch.

  Gregor leaped out as the Audi skidded to a stop. The sword on his back grew heavy with anticipation. At the sight of Ana, the faces of the mortals took on a look of universal relief. Everyone spoke at once. Something had come up out of the sea, with many arms and a terrible beak and the face of a woman. Ana froze at the sound coming from inside the wreckage of the once-beautiful building.

  “Still in there,” Gregor said as Ana drew her long blade.

  “Old Amelia’s in there,” one of the badged men cried.

  Ana started down the beach, and Gregor fell in step. “I’ll draw her, you flank her.”

  He considered arguing, but Ana’s face hardened to something almost feral. The wolves had gotten off easy. This was personal.

  They moved together, past the wary ring of armed men. He slipped down the beach. She headed for the longhouse doors. Beach sand crunched under his feet, the grains big enough to give a slippery, pebbly feel. He adjusted to the terrain. Running would be shit in this, and whatever it was still managed to maneuver fast up the strand.

  A crash came from inside. Ana yelled. Gregor charged. He’d seen a lot in two hundred years, but the thing shifting from a murky gray to anemone red in the smoky darkness of the wreckage defied classification. The vast turgid body was coated in a textured skin like an octopus, but it was the wrong shape and far too large to be anything natural.

  He tried to make sense of it, looking for a head or feet. And then one of the long tentacles snaked out and slapped him across the room. It spun on him, revealing the face and the beak. The remnants of its humanity lay in the vague semblance of features surrounded by tentacles as thick as his torso. It had no interest in him now, focused on the small cluster of humanity behind Ana. Even with two walls reduced to timber and rubble, the building stank of rotten seaweed and a drowned fire.

  Ana stood guard, her blades making quick work of one rope of muscled flesh that snaked her direction. It screamed in pain and thwarted rage. The enormous body shone with sea water and a slime of its own, sliding left and right. Ana couldn’t hold it off forever, and not on her own. And she wasn’t going to leave the people under her protection.

  Time to play bait.

  Gregor’s sword became a halberd with the thought. He thrust in and sliced, demanding the creature’s attention. It struck out with tentacles, grabbing for the blade, but he moved fast, darting away from the attempts catch him. When one locked around the shaft of his weapon, he changed intention and length disappeared from the grip to become a sword again. He drew his gun, firing into the thick, pulpy hide. The creature turned to him with a roar.

  “Go!” he called to Ana as he headed for the doors with the creature in pursuit.

  It moved faster than he expected. The big tentacles worked in concert: those not attacking propelled the creature. He tumbled out the doors and slipped in the sand. When he emptied a magazine, he reached for the second gun and kept firing.

  One tentacle hooked his ankle and he went down. Instead of away, he rolled into it, changing the sword into two and thrusting up. His blade sank into hide surprisingly tough for its liquid appearance. The creature shrieked and retreated, whipping tentacles in its wake.

  A metallic weight attached to one snapped the bones in his forearm when it hit him. He rolled to his feet, switching his sword hand. The tentacle slipped away, but not before he spied a thick band of rusted iron inscribed with characters he couldn’t make out.

  He stepped back, drawing her nearer, careful to keep his balance in the sand. Two of the tentacles looked eerily like arms, ending in long, misshapen hands and fingers. He kept a few steps out of reach, moving away from the building, down the sand, and contemplating his next move now that he had its full attention.

  “Get down!” Ana’s voice.

  He dove and the air filled with the thunder of firing guns. The creature screamed, her face a contorted mask of rage and pain. She howled into the line of fire even as bullets tore through chunks of flesh. With a liquid flip, she galloped down the beach and disappeared into the surf. For the first time he considered maybe it wasn’t a bad thing Raymond hadn’t hidden this world from his people. A lot of firepower came in handy sometimes.

  “What the fuck was that?” Gregor scrambled onto his back. The surface of the water was still again except for gentle waves.

  Ana crouched beside him, eyes on the waves. “Our quarry, I’d guess. Come on, let’s stay on her.”

  Just how the hell did she propose to do that? He strode up the beach after Ana, shaking off slime and sand. He’d torn the sleeve of his suit jacket. Bruises healed beneath as his shoulder relocated and the bones of his forearm knit together. The usual.

  The sheriff, an old man with a face like leather framed by cropped silver and black hair, joined them. His thick mustache bounced as he spoke. “We’ve got a boat for you.”

  A small elderly woman wrapped in blankets caught Ana’s arm, babbling about—of all things—helping the creature as the women around her struggled to steady her. “You don’t understand, Ana. You can’t do this thing!”

  Ana detached the older woman, easing her into the hands of her companions. She brushed a kiss on her cheek. “We’ll take care of it, Granny. Call Jamie. Let him know you’re okay.” Ana jerked her chin at Gregor. “Let’s go.”

  A Zodiac bearing official lettering and the seal of a stylized sun pulled right up to the shoreline, engine thrumming.

  Gregor hung back, shaking his head. “A boat?”

  “The Makah have been hunting the sea since the beginning of time.” She smiled, jumping aboard. “One of those rounds had a tracker. The boats will run relay to keep her in sight as best they can. The satellites will do the rest.”

  He’d never been good with boats. The ferry was one thing. The size made it stable enough for him to almost forget it was a boat. This… The water outside pitched and rolled.

  She frowned. “What?”

  “I hate boats.”

  As soon as he was aboard, the pilot pulled away from the shore. Ana swiveled the screen beside the steering wheel in her direction. A flickering symbol moved fast, headed toward the protected waters of Puget Sound. Within minutes they sped into the fast-moving Strait of Juan de Fuca. With the sun at their backs, the waters grew choppy under a strong evening wind. Gregor gripped the boat rail and did his best not
to be sick.

  “Not a fan of the water, eh?” the infuriatingly calm mortal shouted over the wind and the constant roar of the motor as it surged over the chop.

  “If men were meant for water, they’d have been born with fins,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Ana laughed, joining him at the rail. She caught his wrist. He tensed but didn’t withdraw.

  The wind rose, drowning her words, but he followed her gaze. She led him to a long bench behind the windscreen, keeping his wrist in her grip. The hand she slipped up to his ear made a good distraction. Before he could comment, she began to applying pressure along the outer edge of his ear.

  Her hand on his wrist had also settled into a pressure point. Miraculously, the waves of sickness subsided.

  “I can tolerate the calm just fine,” he said. “It’s unpleasant, but this is unbearable.”

  The ghost of a smile touched her face, lit by the artificial lights of the instrument panel. “Has it always been this way?”

  “On the way back from the war, the ship was caught in a storm,” he explained. “We survived, only to be set on by pirates. They kept me in the hold with no daylight for weeks. I thought I would never see land again.”

  When he looked away from the horizon, her eyes waited.

  “My cellmate,” he said, forcing a smile. “A nobleman who appeared young but turned out only to have aged well.”

  “Azrael,” she said. The boat bounced, sending her shoulder rocking into his.

  “The captain was also a necromancer,” he said. Perhaps she had found the pressure point for his tongue. He couldn’t seem to keep it from wagging. “Which explained the state of his crew. I’d never seen an undead before. He and Azrael had been feuding for centuries. They’d reached a stalemate. The captain had captured Azrael by luck, but since he was not strong enough to kill Azrael, he kept him out at sea where Azrael could not use his powers without risking burning down the ship and drowning himself.”