Bayou Moon te-2

by Ilona Andrews

  The library lay at the end of the hallway. The largest room in the house, with the exception of the kitchen, it often served as the gathering place for the family. By now, the news of her parents having gone missing would have spread throughout the Rathole. The library would be full. Her aunts, uncles, cousins. All listening to her as she came down the hall.

  Cerise took a deep breath and strode down the hallway, not caring about tracking mud.

  She walked into the library, cataloging the familiar faces. Aunt Emma, Aunt Petunia—Aunt Pete for short—Uncle Rufus, in the chairs; Erian to the left, his slender blond body draped over a chair; Kaldar, his dark hair in wild disarray, leaning against the wall; half a dozen others; and finally Richard, the oldest of her cousins, tall, dark, with the poise of a blueblood, waiting by the table.

  They all looked at her.

  Cerise kept her voice flat. “The Sheerile brothers have taken Grandfather’s house.”

  The room went quiet like the inside of a grave.

  “Lagar Sheerile showed me a deed of sale to Sene Manor signed by my father.”

  “It’s a forgery,” Aunt Pete said. “Gustave would never sell Sene.”

  Cerise held up her hand. “My father and mother are missing. Lagar said they were taken by the Hand.”

  Richard’s face paled.

  “The Louisiana spies?” Kaldar, slim, his hair dark like Richard’s, peeled himself from the wall. Where Richard radiated icy dignity, his brother lived to have fun. He had wild eyes the color of honey, a silver hoop in one ear, and a mouth that either said something funny or was about to break into a grin, sometimes just as he sank his blade into someone’s gut. Richard thought like a general, while Kaldar thought like a criminal, and she desperately needed both of them on her side.

  Kaldar leaned forward, a hard, vicious light sparking in his eyes. “What the hell does the Hand want with us?”

  “Lagar didn’t say. As of now, the feud is officially on. I need riders sent to Uncle Peter, Emily, and Antoine. We’re pulling everyone into the Rathole. Someone needs to warn Urow, too.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Uncle Rufus said.

  “Thank you.” Cerise wished she knew exactly what to say, but whatever words she had would have to do. Here we go. “We must take back Grandfather’s house. First, my parents disappeared there. If any clues exist, they would be at Sene. Second, I don’t have to tell you that the Mire runs on reputation. We’re only as strong as others think we are. If we allow the Sheeriles to bite off a chunk of our land, we might as well pack it in.”

  No arguments. So far so good.

  “Kaldar, how much time do we have to dispute the deed?”

  Her cousin shrugged. “We have to file the petition with the Mire court by tomorrow evening. The court date could be anywhere from ten days to two weeks from then.”

  “Can you stall?”

  “I can get us a day, maybe two.”

  Richard’s narrow lips bent into a frown. “If we go through legal channels, we’ll lose. To dispute the Sheeriles’ deed, we have to have the original document granting the Sene Manor to Grandfather. We need his exile order. We don’t have it.”

  Cerise nodded. That document and many others had perished four years ago in a flood that had nearly demolished the storage buildings. She’d thought about that on her ride over as well.

  “Can we get a replacement?” one of the younger boys asked.

  “No.” Kaldar shook his head. “When Louisianans sentence someone to exile, three copies of the orders are cut. One goes straight to Royal Archives, the second is carried by the marshals who transport the exile and is surrendered to the Border Guard when they reach the Edge, and the third is given to the exile. The Border Guard isn’t going to fall over themselves to find that order for us. We’ll never get close enough to ask. They’ll shoot us and string our corpses on the trees along the border.”

  “Every exile carries the order?” Cerise asked.

  “Every adult,” Kaldar said. “What are you getting at?”

  “There were two adult exiles, Grandfather and Grandmother,” Richard said. “Grandmother’s order wasn’t among the papers ruined in the flood. I know, I sorted through them. Where is it?”

  “Hugh,” Aunt Murid said.

  Cerise nodded. “Exactly. Before Uncle Hugh went into the Broken, he took certified copies of all archival documents with him for safekeeping, including the original copy of Grandmother’s order. I remember this because Mother cried when she gave it to him.”

  Richard narrowed his eyes. He was the most cautious of all of them, the most reasonable, and the one who always kept his calm. You might just as well try to rattle a granite rock. The family respected him. If she convinced him to buy her plan, the rest would follow.

  “Hugh is in the Broken,” Richard said. “You can’t go after him, Cerise. Not now.” “I’m the one who makes runs

  “I’ll do it,” Kaldar said. “I’m the one who makes runs there anyway.”

  “No.” She loaded enough steel into her voice to make the lot of them blink.

  Erian looked ready to say something but clamped his mouth shut.

  “The Hand took …” Cerise wanted to say my parents but checked herself. She had to remove the personal part out of the equation, or they would just decide she was hysterical. “Gustave and Genevieve for a reason. They must want something from them or from us. They will be watching us. That’s why we must pull everyone into the main house now, before they pick us off one by one.

  “It takes three days to get to the Broken, and that’s with shortcuts and a good rolpie to pull the boat. The person who leaves runs the risk of walking right into the Hand’s spies.” Cerise looked at Kaldar. “You’re a thief, not a fighter. Erian is too hotheaded, Aunt Murid doesn’t know the way, Mikita has no survival skills, and you, Richard, can’t pass through the boundary into the Broken. You have too much magic. The crossing will kill you.”

  She surveyed them. “That leaves me. I went with Kaldar the last few times, I know the way, and of all of us, I have the best chance of surviving a fight with the Hand.”

  Richard was on the fence; she could see the hesitation in his eyes. “We just lost Gustave. If we lose you, we’ll lose our strongest flash-trained fighter.”

  “Then I’ll just have to survive,” she said. “We have no choice, Richard. Tomorrow, as soon as Kaldar files the dispute and we have a court date, I have to leave. If you or anyone else can find a different way around it, I’ll be happy to hear it.”

  For a long moment silence held, and then everyone spoke at once. Richard said nothing. Cerise looked into his somber eyes and knew she had won.

  FOUR

  THE Great Bayou Swap Meet met at a giant plastic cow wearing a straw hat. At some point the cow must’ve been black and white, William reflected, but years of rain and wind had bleached it to a uniform pale gray. He surveyed the gathering of stalls and makeshift booths, selling everything from cloth dolls and old baseball cards sealed in plastic, to dinner sets and tactical knifes. To the right, some guy screamed himself hoarse, trying to find a buyer for his Corvette. To the left, a skinny woman in a booth decorated with a velvet painting of Elvis muttered non-stop to a pair of macaws in a cage. The birds, wet from the damp air, huddled together and probably plotted to kill her if the cage was ever opened.

  This was the Mirror’s brilliant strategy. William shook his head to himself. Getting into the Mire from the Weird was near impossible: the boundary was thick with traps and heavily patrolled by the Louisiana Guard. Instead, the Mirror had arranged for him to sneak in through the back door, through the Broken. His instructions were simple: travel to the small town of Verite, located in the lovely state of Louisiana. Attend the Great Bayou Swap Meet. Wait by the cow at precisely seven o’clock. A guide would come and take him into the Edge. Great plan. What could go wrong?

  If there was one thing he’d learned in his years of military service, it was that everything that could go wrong, wo
uld. Especially considering that the guide was a free-lancer.

  A homeless woman wandered over and took up a post by the cow’s hind legs. A layer of grime obscured her features. She wore a dirt-smudged tattered field jacket that once must’ve belonged to some soldier in the Broken. A black ski cap hid her hair. Filthy jeans stuck out from under the jacket, tucked into what looked like a surprisingly solid pair of boots. Her scent washed over him. She smelled sour, like she’d rolled in a batch of old spaghetti. For all he knew, she was going into the Edge as well, and he’d have to smell that rotten tomato sauce for the whole trip. Last Sunday he’d watched a documentary about the Great Depression on the History Channel, and she would give any of those hobos a run for their money.

  This was just getting better and better. He had nobody but himself to blame, William thought. He could be back in his trailer right now, drinking good coffee. But nooo, he had to be a hero.

  The Mirror had given him a four-day crash course on the Mire, Spider’s crew, and the operation of about a thousand gadgets they had stuffed into his rucksack. His memory was near perfect. All changeling children going through Hawk’s were trained in memorization. They were meant to become soldiers, who were expected to remember mission maps and objectives. His memory was exceptional even among changelings.

  William had practiced in the Broken out of habit, memorizing random things he read and watched, everything from gun catalogs to cartoons. He could recite the first hundred or so pages of an average paperback after having read it once. But the amount of information the Mirror had crammed into him strained even his brain, and now it hummed as if some phantom bees had made a hive in his skull. Eventually his mind would come to terms with the information, and he’d either learn it permanently or allow himself to forget it, but for now it was giving him a hell of a headache.

  A man walked out of the crowd, heading for the cow. About forty, with gray hair cut in what would’ve been a mullet if he wasn’t balding, the man walked with a slight limp, dragging his left leg. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt, a gray flannel shirt, and a Remington rifle. Looked like a 7400 from where William was standing, but he’d have to see it closer to be sure.

  The man stopped a couple of feet away and looked him over. William raised his chin and gave him a flat stare. The newcomer struck him as an enterprising sort of man. The kind that would slit your throat for a box of tissues in your bag while you slept.

  The man turned to the woman, gave her a long once-over, and spat into the grass. “Here for the Edge?”

  “Yes,” William said.

  The woman nodded.

  Yep, he would be spending the next few days in the company of that enchanting stench. Could be worse. At least she didn’t reek like vomit.

  “Name’s Vern. Follow me.”

  Vern limped his way from the swap meet into the brush. The hobo followed. William shouldered his rucksack and went after them.

  They hiked through the brush for about twenty minutes when he sensed the boundary. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  Vern turned around. “Here’s the deal. We cross into the Edge here. You die in the crossing, that’s your problem. Don’t count on any CPR and shit. If you make it through, we’ve got a two-day trip up through the swamps. Both of you paid half. The second half is due when we land in Sicktree. If you give me any trouble, I’ll shoot your ass and won’t worry twice about it. You change your mind and want off the boat, you get off in the swamp. I ain’t turning back, and I ain’t issuing no refunds. We clear?”

  “Clear enough,” William said.

  The woman nodded.

  Vern grimaced at her. “You mute or something? Never mind, none of my business.”

  He turned and stepped into the boundary. Here we go. William tensed against the incoming pain and followed.

  Thirty seconds of agony later, the three of them were bent double on the other side, trying to catch their breath.

  William straightened first, then Vern. The woman stayed bent, sucking in the air in small pained gulps. Vern headed down through the brush to where sounds of running water announced a stream.

  The hobo woman didn’t move. Too much magic in her blood.

  “You got it?” William asked.

  She jerked upright with a groan, pushed past him, and followed Vern.

  You’re welcome. Next time he’d mind his own damn business.

  He pushed through the brush and almost ran straight into the water. A narrow stream lay before him, its placid water the color of dark tea but still translucent. Giant cypresses with thick, bloated stems flanked the stream. They stood densely, as if on guard, their knobby roots anchoring them to the mud. At the nearest tree, Vern waited in a large boat, a wide, shallow vessel with peeling paint and dented sides. A wooden cabin took up most of it, more a shelter from the sun than a cabin really: the front and back walls were missing. Two ropes hung from the nose of the boat, dipping into the water.

  “No motor?” William asked, stepping aboard.

  Vern gave him a look reserved for the mentally challenged. “Not from the Edge, are you? One, a motor makes noise, so the whole swamp will know where you are, and two, you’ve got a motor boat, that’s some valuable shit. The Edgers will shoot you for it.”

  Vern picked up the ropes. Two twin heads poked from the water on long sinuous necks, like two Loch Ness monsters that somehow grew otter heads.

  “Rolpie power,” Vern said. “Keep your damn hands inside the vehicle and stay away from the sides. The Mire’s full of gators, most bigger than this boat. They see your shadow on the water, they’ll lunge into the boat to get you. And I ain’t jumping in to rescue your ass.”

  He slapped the reins, smacking his lips. The rolpies dove, and the boat took off, gliding across the dark water into the swamp.

  WILLIAM leaned against the cabin wall and watched the swamp slide by. If someone had asked him yesterday morning what hell looked like, he would’ve said he didn’t know. He’d spent twenty-four hours in the swamp, and now he had an answer. Hell looked like the Mire.

  The boat crawled down the river, framed by dense clumps of vegetation and reeds. In the distance, cypresses rose, their bloated trunks grotesquely fat, like old men with beer guts squatting in the mud. Sunrise was due in half an hour, and the sky and the water glowed the pale gray of a worn-out dime.

  William inhaled deeply, sampling the scents on his tongue. The feeble stirring of the air that passed for wind in this place smelled of algae, fish, and mud. His senses regained their sharpness in the Edge, and the stench rising from the mess of muck, rot, and water combined with the heat made him want to bite someone just to let out some frustration.

  The constant movement of the boat grated on his nerves. Wolves were meant to walk on firm ground, not on this shell of fiberglass, or whatever the hell it was, that insisted on swaying and rocking every time one of the rolpies gulped some air. Unfortunately firm ground was in short supply: the shore was a soup of mud and water. When they had stopped for the night and he’d stepped onto what seemed like solid ground, his boots had sunk in up to the ankle.

  He’d spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen.

  William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the dampness. Another night like the last one, and he might snap and dunk her into that river just to clear the air.

  She saw him looking. Dark eyes regarded him with slight scorn.

  William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.”

  She stuck her tongue out.

  “Maybe after you’re clean,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead.

  Now w
hat?

  The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face.

  “No,” William said. “Bad hobo.”

  The finger kept coming closer.

  “You touch me, I’ll break it off.”

  Something splashed ahead. Both of them looked at the river.

  A wave wrinkled the surface a few hundred yards out.

  The girl squinted at it.

  Here it was again, a shallow ripple. It bopped up and down. Something sped to the boat.

  “Sharks!” The girl lunged at Vern.

  He gaped at her.

  “Sharks, you moron!” She pointed at the water.

  Ripples sliced through the surface. A huge fin emerged. A second followed.

  Vern grabbed for his bag and jerked out a grenade. William grabbed the girl and threw her to the bottom of the boat, shielding her.

  The grenade plunked into the water. Thunder slapped William’s ears, the blast wave rolling against his skin. The boat careened.

  He whipped about, just in time to see Vern dive into the river, aiming for the shore.

  The sharks streaked toward the boat, no worse for wear. The leading fish darted up to the surface, flashing the ridge of thick bony plates armoring its back. The damn thing was bigger than the boat.

  The rolpies sensed the sharks and flailed, whipping the river into froth. The twin guidelines that secured the animals to the boat went taut, jerking at the metal cleats bolted to the nose. The boat danced up and down.

  The girl dropped to the ropes. A small knife flashed.

  William jerked his heavy tactical blade from its sheath. “Stop.”

  She pulled back, and he chopped through the line in a single cut.

  The rolpie leaped out of the water and dove deep. Go, William urged. Go.

  He chopped the second line. The severed rope flew, and the second rolpie surfaced in a foamy fountain. Huge jaws pierced the foam. Triangular shark teeth flashed and tore into the rolpie’s side. The creature screamed. The girl screamed, too, pounding her fist on the rail. William ground his teeth.