Dead on the Delta

by Stacey Jay

  But despite my good intentions, I’m failing. And Hitch is watching. The knowledge makes me tuck my borrowed gun into the back of my waistband, flick on my flashlight, and keep going.

  I step into the water, wincing as the gritty, oily bayou soaks through my thin cotton pants. I’ve barely made it five feet when something slithers against my leg, churning through the water with a muscular thrust of its long, thick body. I freeze, heart racing, tongue pressing against the roof of my mouth as I fight the urge to scream. Even when the snake is gone, gliding away, tracing elegant S-shapes in the water, the need to turn and race back to the shore is almost more than I can handle.

  “Crap,” I hiss, shaking one hand at my side in a vain attempt to release some of the adrenaline coursing through my system.

  I’m immune to fairy bite, not snakebite. There’s a reason I wear thick, rubber waders and search the ground very fucking carefully before I reach my hand near a place that could hide a snake. This is insane. I should go back to the car, see if Cane has a pair of waders in his trunk. I could even ask Hitch to loan me his suit. If he isn’t going to wear it, I might as well. It’d be pretty damned hard for a snake to bite through iron.

  Now a gator, on the other hand …

  Panic dumps into my bloodstream. The black water with its dancing fairy lights isn’t pretty anymore. It’s deadly, filled with things I have good reason to fear. This isn’t groundless anxiety; it’s my body’s attempt at self-preservation.

  I turn, but stop before I take a step toward the shore. It’s still light enough for me to see that Hitch’s head is tilted down, as if he’s reading something in his lap. He isn’t even watching. If I go back to the car I might get the comfort of his suit, but I’ll also get more of the “Annabelle is a loser “ show.

  I don’t like that show. I don’t like Hitch much, either. Unfortunately, growing to loathe him isn’t making it any easier to be in his company. The only remedy for the nasty way he makes me feel is to get rid of him, to make sure he has no reason to be here.

  Hand strangling my flashlight, I wade forward, one foot after another, until the water reaches my waist and begins to recede, inch by merciful inch. By the time I reach the low limb where I busted my head earlier in the day, the bayou barely tickles the tops of my thighs. A few more feet and I slog—dripping, pants clinging to my skin—onto dry land.

  Several fairies prowl the air beneath the trees, but they give me a wide berth, flitting on to other hunting grounds as I draw near. At this point I’ve been sweating onto my clothes for nearly eight hours. No matter how non-stinky Marcy insists I am, the Fey are obviously catching my scent. They’re so averse to contact that I’m alone in the glow-free shadows by the time I reach the place where I tied up my Breeze-head friend.

  Or where I thought I tied her up.

  Shit. The ground where I left her is empty. I stalk forward, tennis shoes squishing, sweeping my flashlight back and forth, eyes straining as I search for some sign of where she’s gone. But there’s nothing. Nothing.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I follow the gentle slope of the land downhill, thinking maybe she’s rolled somewhere nearby. Like into the water … where she’s drowned or been eaten by gators or sucked dry by fairies or something equally horrible. My head spins with all the possibilities, my gut certain I’m going to find a body floating in the shallows. A body I’ll have to drag back to the police car, a gruesome trophy to my shame. I’ll have to live with her blood on my hands for the rest of my life, I’ll probably do jail time, I’ll—

  “Ohthankgod.” My breath rushes out, half sigh of relief, half hysterical laugh, as I pluck the twisted scrap of leather from the ground. The belt! She untied herself and got away!

  Not usually something I’d celebrate, but I know Cane’s right: far better for her to escape than be found dead. I stuff the cheap accessory down the front of my pants, and draw Hitch’s gun from the back. Juggling my flashlight, I remove the safety, and load the chamber with a quick snap of the slide back and forth, glad Hitch gave me the semi-automatic. He has a revolver, as well, but I prefer the added heft of the semi. It makes me feel … safer.

  My finger hovers over the trigger, not touching, but ready to squeeze—light and steady—if the need arises. Unlike some people, I’m not certain my former captive has the sense to get out of town. She could still be close by, sniffing Breeze, picking at her scabs, lying in wait for round two of our own personal WWE smackdown. It pays to be prepared. I don’t want to shoot her, but I will if I have to.

  No sooner has the thought pinged through my mind when something much harder—a meaty fist backed by some major muscle—crashes against the side of my head.

  My entire body clenches as I fall, including the finger lingering above the trigger. A shot goes wild into the trees. My flashlight falls to the ground and my gun nearly joins it, but at the last minute I curl my finger, hanging on to the trigger guard as my hip and shoulder hit the ground. I make the most of my small good fortune, spinning the gun back into position as I roll onto my back, aiming at where I guess my attacker will be standing. I twitch my arm back and forth, but find … nothing. Nothing at all. The air is quiet but for the rasping of my desperate breath.

  Here I am, the heavy breather. Come and get me.

  I swallow, blink, fight for a clear thought. Tree limbs dance a creepy mambo against the dark-blue sky and my head pounds out an accompanying rhythm. I scramble into a crouched position, low to the ground. I can’t stand up; I can barely sit. The world spins and tilts like every carnival ride that ever made me puke when I was a kid.

  I turn, searching the shadows, trying not to tip over. Halfway around my circle, my right wrist cramps and the gun wavers, but I prop it up with my left, squinting for a flash of skin, the shine of an open eye, the slightest sign of the man who hit me. It has to be a man. I don’t know many women who can pack a punch like that. My head feels like it’s about to explode; my eyes pulse with their own unhealthy heartbeats. Everything is blurry, but I can see well enough to know that there’s no one, not even—

  Sudden warmth at my neck, and rough fingertips tease over my racing pulse.

  I throw an elbow into a mass of flesh and dive back to the ground. I hit the earth and roll as a howling sound fills the air, making me flinch and scream. The gun fires again—though I can’t remember squeezing the trigger—and a bullet bolts into the sky. Blue and white lights pulse through the night, helping my brain make sense of the howling. It’s the siren on the police car. Hitch must have heard the gunshot.

  Now, if only he can get suited up in time. Even the gun in my hand doesn’t make me feel safe. That gut I jabbed was ridiculously immense, a brick wall of an abdomen belonging to someone large enough to wring my neck with a single hand. Someone who also has the agility to move scary fast. He’s gone again, the space where he stood is empty and …

  No. Not empty. The light sweeps through the trees, casting racing, writhing shadows everywhere. Everywhere, but for a patch of pitch black at forty-five degrees. A shadow. A man’s shadow … with no man attached.

  What the …

  The flashlight a few feet away snaps off of its own accord. A second later, the gun flies from my hand, and a man’s voice growls in the darkness. “Where is it? We know you have it.” He’s close, close enough to touch, more than close enough to see. My eyes flick up and down, back and forth, desperate to find what my brain assures them they should. “Where is it!”

  “Wha-wha-wha—”

  “Where did you hide it?”

  “Annabelle! Annabelle, answer me!” Hitch’s yell booms through the night, louder for the sudden absence of the sirens, sounding closer than the door of the police car. I hear a splash and then another. He’s in the water; he’s coming for me.

  “I’m over here! In the trees!” Now it will be two against one.

  My attacker must have had the same realization and decided he doesn’t care for the odds. The leaves crunch and whisper as he hurries away.
He has a soft tread for a big person and is distancing himself quickly, fleeing the scene of the crime.

  Crime. Has there been a crime? Assault is certainly against the law, but how do you press charges against someone you can’t see? I don’t know. I don’t want to think about the impossibility of what just happened. I just want out of here.

  I snatch Hitch’s gun from the ground, decide I can buy another flashlight, and make a run for it. My eyes search the darkness as I crash into the bayou, aiming my body toward Hitch’s splashes, wondering how I’m going to explain to him—or anyone else—that I was attacked by an invisible man.

  Eleven

  When I see Hitch fighting his way through the water, my first thought is that he’s as handsome as I remember. The old Hitch was a smooth, Southern sex god of epic proportions. Despite the slightly crooked teeth and too-thin lips, his sleepy blue eyes and lean boyishness made women crazy.

  All kinds of women. Old, young, married, single, straight, gay—heads turned when he walked down the street. But I was never jealous of the attention Hitch received when we were together. I understood it was impossible not to look. I was just grateful that I was the one who woke up beside him, who watched his lips move while he sang and his eyes light up when my clothes came off. The new Hitch, though physically the same, and admittedly better dressed, lacks that ineffable irresistibility.

  Or he has until now.

  Now, his eyes spark with that old … something, that quality that makes you certain there’s a brilliant man with an amazing heart and a hell of a sense of humor lurking beneath the handsome exterior. A man enchanted by love and life, a man who will make you believe in magic when his skin is hot against yours. Making love to Hitch is a soul-deep experience, like stepping through a secret door into a world of pleasure, where powerful forces are at work healing the universe one orgasm at a time.

  The memory of those orgasms might be to blame for how long it takes me to realize what’s wrong with the picture before me. Or maybe it’s the blow to the head or the white specks still flickering at the edge of my vision.

  It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Hitch is waist-deep in swamp water, wearing nothing but his dress suit and an “oh shit” expression. He has a gun, but that isn’t going to help him now; he’s too far from the flashing lights spinning atop Cane’s car. He might be able to take down one or two—maybe even ten—of the itty-bitty targets flying his way, but not a swarm of a hundred or more.

  There really are hundreds of them. Hundreds.

  They surge from every corner of the bayou, drawn by the smell of unprotected flesh. The reflection of fairy glow turns the water into rivers of molten lava that stream through the night from the north, south, east, and west, racing each other for the first bite.

  It’s that afternoon with Cane all over again, but so much worse. There’s nothing I can do, no way I can get through the water fast enough, no way to reach Hitch before—

  “Look for my gun!” Hitch sucks in a breath and plunges under the water seconds before the swarms collide above his head in a mess of battered wings.

  The screech of so many small voices raised in one combined wail of frustration brings home the threat humanity faces in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. After a few years, you learn to live with the terror of knowing there’s no safe place in your world. You push it aside and ignore it, blunt the sharp edge of reality with comforting lies. Or God. Or sleeping pills and alcohol—whatever it takes to get through the day and the long, fearsome nights.

  Even as one of the immune, the Delta is terrifying. Sometimes it’s more terrifying to know you might be left alone, to realize the people you love are perpetually on the verge of losing everything. Their freedom, their minds, their lives …

  Hitch. I have to get to him. Now. Ten seconds ago.

  I jolt into motion, churning through the water, using my hands to help me move faster, faster. Above my head, tiny bodies knock against each other, wings bending and bruising. Dozens of fairies fall into the water with the delicate plops of skipping stones. They break the surface and sink, but bob quickly back up. Fairies can’t hold their breath for more than a second or two. They won’t be able to dive down into the swamp to feed on Hitch.

  He’s bought himself a few precious moments. Now it’s up to me. How fast can I make it through the heavy swamp that sucks at my legs and feet? Will I be able to spot the tip of Hitch’s gun poking up from the water in the maddening flash of white and blue light? Do I have the—

  “Shit!” Pain, sharp and fierce, cuts away at my right ring finger, making every nerve ending from my hand to my shoulder scream.

  I pull my fingers from the water and shake my wrist, trying to dislodge the fairy that clings to me, without dropping my gun. The thing is pink and green, a young female with tiny breasts and only the slightest hint of golden hair between her legs. From the glassy look in her eyes, she’s already dying, but her damned teeth are sunk too deep for my frenzied shaking to do much good.

  Finally, I reach over and squeeze the place where her detachable jaw connects to her face, shivering at the feel of her skin. It’s unbearably soft and hot, like a newborn baby born in a rush of blood. Our contact is brief—her jaw pops wide and she falls into the dark water a second later—but it leaves me shaking. I’ve never touched a live one before. I didn’t realize they felt so different, so … human.

  When they’re dead, fairy skin is scaly and hard like an insect’s shell. Why didn’t anyone tell me they felt any other way? Did they assume I knew? Did anyone? Surely other people who have been bitten had to—

  The gun. I see it six or seven feet away, moving steadily through the water, back toward the police car. Hitch isn’t waiting for me to come save him, he’s doing his best to save himself. Unfortunately, he isn’t going to be able to hold his breath long enough to reach the shore, and the cop lights aren’t going to scare this mob away. There will be a few Fey who will brave the glaring light for fresh, human blood, just as there are a few who are stupid enough to feed on an immune woman.

  Tiny, razor-sharp teeth dig into my shoulder and another set nip at my elbow. I dispose of them the same way I did the first, but by the time I reach Hitch, I have half a dozen throbbing bites, jangled nerves, and am well on my way to full-blown hysteria.

  If my smell isn’t keeping the Fey off of me, how am I going to protect Hitch? A little sweat behind his ears isn’t going to work. The fairies are too hungry, angry, riled up and feeding off the fury and frustration of their comrades. The mob mentality has taken over. Hitch is as good as dead; there’s nothing I can do.

  Another fairy dives for my neck. I slap at it with a wild sound, sending a drop of blood flying from the wound on my hand. The dive-bombing fairy—and several others circling nearby—retreat with staccato howls different than their usual screeching. The sharp barks almost sound like language, like … a warning.

  Blood. My poison blood.

  Hitch surges from the water, gasping for air. The fairies dive, but I dive faster. My bloodied arms wrap around his neck, smearing red. I drive my fingers into his hair and around to his face, finger painting frantic trails down his cheeks before reaching for his hands. He tries to shove me away, but I hold on tight.

  “I have to go back under,” he gasps, nostrils flaring as his body seeks to pull every bit of oxygen from the air.

  “No, you’ll wash it off!”

  A confused look. More pulling away. Not good! I tug him in tight. “They don’t like my blood. I’m putting it on you,” I yell, sounding as crazy as I feel. I swipe at the wound near my elbow and reach around to his back. I dab spots across his shoulders and down his arms and pray it will be enough. “If you go under, I don’t know if I’ll have enough left to get you to the car.”

  Thankfully, my words penetrate before Hitch takes another dive. He looks up, scanning the swarm. They’re still close, but not nearly as close as they’d like to be. A few of the braver bastards buzz a foot or two above our heads, b
ut none dare get closer than that. The feeding—and dying—on Annabelle frenzy seems to have come to an end.

  The older Fey are angry with the ones who bit me. They bark threats into the darkness, spraying venomous spittle and rage. One ancient man with a wee face like a wrinkled white raisin shoves at the younger fairies, sending them spinning.

  Back, back, you stupid fools, back!

  Strange. So, so strange. To date, researchers have no evidence of a fairy language. The Fey exchange information, but their communication is primarily based in body language and scent cues used during the mating season. I’ve certainly never heard anything from a fairy’s lips but earsplitting screams.

  But now … I swear I can read the meaning of their “words,” that a part of me—

  “So this is your blood?” Hitch lifts a hand to his cheek, and his fingers come away red. There are streaks all up and down his face, painting him like some tribal warrior. Jesus. All thoughts of fairy chatter fade. He’s covered in blood, dripping with it. I didn’t realize I was gushing that much. Immune or not, I should probably seek medical attention. “Why are you bleeding? Did—”

  “They bit me,” I say, taking a slow step toward the shore that Hitch mirrors.

  “They—Are you okay?” The concern in his eyes makes me acutely aware that our faces are only a few inches apart, that his hands have found their way around my waist beneath the water, pulling me close.

  “I’m immune. I’ll be fine. We just need to get you to the car.” We take another two-step toward the shore, dancing just as Cane and I did, but nothing about our contact reminds me of my father.

  Our hips bump together, our stomachs kiss as we pull in deep breaths, and when he hugs me tighter, my breasts flatten against his chest. Despite the danger, my body reboots a million memories I was certain I deleted.