William focused, judging the distance to the agent. His crossbow was in the pack on his back. A second to drop the pack, two to pull the crossbow, another second to load … too long. He’d have to rely on his knife.
The Hand’s agent raised his arms. The long scimitar claws pointed at Cerise. His mouth gaped open, revealing rows of short triangular teeth. They would shred flesh like a cheese grater, and the jaws looked strong enough to bite through bone. Great.
A dull, deep voice issued from Thibauld’s mouth, pronouncing each word with agonizing slowness. “It … is … mine.”
“No,” William told him.
The claws pointed at him. “You … die,” the agent promised.
“Not today.”
Cerise lunged. William sensed her move and thrust his arm out, knocking her down, before she got a taste of the claws. “Stay behind me!”
Cerise crashed into the mud and stayed there.
The muscle on Thibauld’s frame expanded, snapping the loose skin tight. William eased the backpack off his shoulders.
An odd, warbling sound rolled in Thibauld’s grotesque throat. The Hand’s agent charged.
William dodged left. Claws fanned his face. He thrust under the tree-trunk arm and sliced at the exposed strip of skin over the ribs. The knife cut hard muscle. He sliced again, feeling the knife slide harmlessly across the bone plate. Damn armor-plated turkey. What wasn’t covered by plates was shielded by thick muscle. His knife wasn’t doing enough damage.
Thibauld spun, arms wide, aiming to backhand him. William jerked back. Thibauld missed but kept spinning like a windmill, claws rending. William ducked the first blow, dodged the second, and then Thibauld’s arm smashed into his shoulder.
The blow took him off his feet. William flew, curling into a ball, hit the mud with his back, and rolled to his feet. His left arm had gone numb. Strong bastard. William couldn’t afford to take another hit.
Ten feet away Thibauld blinked his bloodshot eyes, swiveling his head from side to side. Looking for Cerise. No, you don’t.
“Over here, dimwit! Pay attention!”
The agent stared at him.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Do you need a special invitation?”
Thibauld stomped forward. That’s right, come to me, come closer, away from the girl.
Thibauld was only six feet away. William lunged forward, obviously aiming for the agent’s chest. Thibauld moved to counter, claws raised for the kill. Fell for it. William reversed his stroke. His blade carved at the inside of the agent’s arm, slicing deep into the flesh just below the biceps. He ducked under the claws and pulled back.
Nothing. A cut like that should’ve disabled the arm, but Thibauld seemed no worse for wear.
No blood, no sound of pain, no wince. Nothing.
Thibauld raised his arms, shifting his stance. The agent couldn’t catch him with his claws, so he decided to grapple. William bared his teeth. If he was by himself, he’d cut and run. The more Thibauld ran around, the faster he’d bleed out. But the moment he ran, Thibauld would lumber over to Cerise, who was still sprawled in the mud. In retrospect, he may have pushed her a bit too hard. Or the Hand’s magic had battered her more than she showed.
A narrow line of red swelled across Thibauld’s arm. Woo-hoo, he’d managed a scratch. Great. Now about a hundred of those and he would be set.
Thibauld stretched his neck and looked at his arm. “Is … that … all?”
“Don’t worry, that’s just a little foreplay.” William waddled from foot to foot. “That’s what you look like when you move.”
Thibauld bellowed and charged.
William dashed, cutting, slicing, stabbing, turning his knife into a lethal metal blur. Thibauld struck back, huge arms swinging faster and faster. Claws raked William’s side, ripping through the leather. Pain scorched him. He ignored it and kept slashing, carving at exposed flesh with precise savagery. Left, right, left, left, down, cut, cut, cut … Blood slicked Thibauld’s massive frame.
Not enough. William drove the knife in to the hilt under the armored scales, aiming for the heart. The agent roared and swung. William jerked back, pulling the blade free. Not far enough. The fist caught him, spinning him around. The world turned fuzzy for a fraction of a second. William leaped straight up, knife in hand, aiming to slice Thibauld’s neck, and … landed in the mud as the agent staggered back, a puzzled expression on his face.
Thibauld’s huge legs trembled. He sucked in a hoarse breath.
The top half of him slid to the side and toppled in the mud, revealing Cerise holding a bare sword. The stump of the agent’s torso remained upright for a long second and then fell, spilling blood onto the wet mud.
What the hell?
Cerise passed her sword to her left hand and walked over to him, sidestepping the corpse.
If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve sworn she had cut Thibauld in half. Shell and all. How did she manage that? Swords couldn’t do that.
Her eyes were huge and dark on her mud-splattered face. He peered into their depths and missed her fist until it was too late. A sharp punch hammered his gut. He didn’t even have time to flex. Pain exploded in his solar plexus.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Cerise ground out.
He caught her hand. “I was protecting you, you dumb-ass.”
“I don’t need protecting!”
Behind her a bat crawled down the trunk of a cypress. William grabbed Cerise, pulling her out of the way, and hurled his knife. The blade spun and sliced into the small body, pinning it to the tree. Cerise jerked away from him.
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s a deader,” he told her.
Purplish, translucent tentacles of magic stretched from the bat, clutching at the knife, trying to pull it out.
“What the hell is that?”
“A scout. Bats hide during rain.” A “deader” meant a scout master who reported straight to Spider. He was pretty sure the bat hadn’t seen them, but he couldn’t be certain.
Cerise stumbled. Her legs folded; she swayed and half fell, half sat into the mud.
He crouched by her. “What is it?”
“Dots …” she whispered.
William scooped her from the mud and dashed through the rain to the boundary, swiping their bags on the way.
THE pressure of the boundary caught William in its jaws, grinding his bones. He tore through the pain, carrying Cerise. The changelings didn’t have magic. They were magic, and while crossing hurt, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
He paused on the other side, catching his breath. Cerise lay in a small clump in his arms.
Oh, hell. He might have taken the boundary too fast for her to cope.
William lifted her higher so he could peer at her. “Talk to me.”
Her bloodless face was like a white stain in the rain. He shook her a little and saw the long dark eyelashes tremble.
“It’s gone,” she whispered. She had pretty eyes, he realized, big and dark brown, and at that moment luminescent with relief. “The bugs are gone. The dots, too.”
“Good.” He strode to the house.
“Put me down.”
That was a hell of a sword strike. A good punch, too. He was dying to see what she looked like under all that grime and mud. “If I put you down, you’ll fall, and I don’t want to pick you up again after your roll in the muck. I’m muddy enough as is.”
“You’re a thug and an ass,” she told him, baring small, even teeth.
If she had energy to snap, she was coming out of it. Good. “You say the sweetest things. And that spaghetti perfume you’re wearing is to die for. No hobo could resist.”
She snarled. Heh.
“You sound like a pissed-off rabbit.” He held her tighter in case she decided to punch him again, and he jogged to the house, up the porch steps, and to the door. The door looked good and solid.
“Wait.”
The alarm in her voice stopped him cold. “W
hat?”
Cerise raised her muddy hand to a small mark burned into the doorframe, holding on to him with the other hand for support. A letter A with the horizontal bar leaning at an angle.
Her bottomless eyes got bigger. “We need to leave,” Cerise whispered.
“What does the letter mean?”
“Alphas.”
He waited for more explanation.
“They’re not from the Edge or from the Weird. They’re their own thing in the Broken, and they’re dangerous as hell. We see them sometimes, but they leave us alone if we leave them alone. This house belongs to them. If we break in and they find us here, we’ll be dead.”
William shrugged. “It will be fine. The house has been empty for months.”
“How do you know?”
There were too many things to explain: the layer of grime settled on the edge of the door, the absence of human odors, the scents of small animals, some weeks, some days old, crossing over what they now considered their territory … “I just know. Whoever these alphas are, they’re not around. We need a dry place to stay.”
Cerise’s face clenched in alarm. “Listen to me. We have to go. It’s a bad—”
William kicked the door. It burst open. “Too late.”
She froze in his arms.
The house looked dark and empty. No alarm broke the silence. Nobody emerged to fight them.
“Damn it, William.”
He liked the way she said his name. “Don’t worry, Your Hobo Highness. I’ll keep you safe.”
She cursed at him.
William stepped across the threshold and carefully set her down. She swayed and caught herself on the wall.
“Where are you going?”
“To check the house. Where else?” She pushed away from the wall and headed deeper down the hallway.
William inhaled. The scent signatures were old and his ears caught no noises. She was wasting her time.
Someone with military experience had drilled the basics of conduct in enemy territory into her. After everything they’d been through, a civilian woman should’ve landed on the first available soft surface. This one went to clear the house. She’d probably run out of steam and collapse in a minute.
The Edgers were an undisciplined, uneducated lot. They half-assed shit and got along on dumb luck and a prayer. Cerise didn’t. He didn’t know of any Edgers who could cut a body in half that way either. A very concentrated flash could have done that, but he didn’t see the telltale glowing ribbon. Besides, most Edgers couldn’t flash white, and to deliver that sort of damage, nothing less than a white flash would do.
He’d have to be careful not to underestimate the hobo queen, or it would cost him.
His ears caught a mechanical purr. The lightbulbs blinked and ignited with yellow light. She must’ve found a generator. He circled the living room, lowering the blinds.
Cerise appeared from the depths of the house. “Empty.”
He gave her an elaborate bow. “I told you.”
“I found the generator. There is a bathroom, too. The water is lukewarm but clean.”
A vision of a shower and fluffy towels presented itself to William. He nodded. “Go. The sooner you bathe, the better it is for both of us.”
The look she gave him was sharp enough to kill. She spun on her foot, picked up her bag, and headed to the bathroom. Smart. He wanted to see what was in the bag.
William searched the house, going from room to room. The place looked like someone’s vacation getaway: relatively new and full of silly crap like model boats and sea-shells. Lots of knickknacks, no signs of the wear and tear that cropped up in a place where someone actually lived. The pantry was well stocked with cans. Food was good.
William returned to the living room, dimmed the main lights, turned on a couple of smaller lamps, just enough soft light to see, and waited.
His clothes sagged on him, clammy against his skin. His wet socks chafed his feet. William pulled off his boots and the soggy mass of ruined socks, and curled his toes. The hardwood floor felt nice and cool under his feet.
A model of a sailing ship sat on a shelf. He took it down and played with the tiny lines. The ship needed some small sailors. There were a couple of old small GI Joes from his collection at home that could’ve fit … No, they would be too big.
How long does it take to clean up anyway?
A door swung open behind him. “Done,” Cerise announced.
He turned around and froze.
She’d lost the cap, the jacket, and the grimy jeans, and found a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt that hugged her breasts. Her hair, very long and dark, spilled down to her waist in a combed wave. William took in her tan face, full mouth, narrow nose, large almond eyes framed in sable eyelashes … The eyes laughed at him and he forgot where he was or why.
Her scent drifted down to him, her real scent mixing with the fragrance of soap. She smelled clean and soft … like a woman.
The wild in him lost its head, clawing at his insides.
Want. Want the woman.
“Lord Bill?” she asked.
His thoughts tumbled in a feverish cascade. Want … So beautiful … Standing so close and so beautiful. Want the woman.
“Earth to William?”
She was looking at him with those beautiful dark eyes. All he had to do was reach for her and he could touch her.
No. Wrong.
She hadn’t given him permission. If he touched, he would take her. Taking women without permission was wrong.
William pulled himself back, regaining control. The wild buckled and snarled and screamed, but he reeled it in, forcing it deeper and deeper. Remember the whip? Right, everybody remembered the whip. Everybody remembered being punished for kissing a girl without permission. The scars on his back itched, reminding him. Humans had rules. He had to follow the rules.
He was a changeling. And a changeling could never be sure if the woman wanted him unless he paid for her or she said so. This woman didn’t want him. She wasn’t taking her clothes off, she wasn’t trying to close the distance between them, and his instincts told him he couldn’t buy her.
She was off-limits.
“My turn for a shower,” he said. His voice sounded flat. William walked past her, giving her a wide berth, and forced himself to keep walking into the bathroom, where he closed the door and bolted it to lock himself in.
CERISE swallowed, listening to the sound of the water hitting the shower tiles. Her whole body hummed with tension, as if she’d just survived a fight for her life.
The look of total shock as he’d stared at her in stunned silence had been priceless. She’d almost laughed. And then William had turned feral. Something wild glared at her through his eyes, something crazy and violent and full of lust. For a second she thought she’d have to fight him off, and then it vanished, as if his internal shutters had slammed closed.
She’d knocked his socks off. She’d planned to—if he had called her a hobo queen one more time, she would’ve strangled him. But she didn’t expect … that.
She’d figured he might stare, maybe flirt. But he’d gone from zero to sixty in two seconds flat, as people in the Broken said. She had never seen a man do that before.
She’d never met a man who’d looked at her like that before. Like she was irresistible.
Cerise dug through her backpack, fished out a sweat-shirt, and pulled it on. He’d made himself back down. Point for him, but no need to tempt fate.
The rush of adrenaline inside her cooled down. Warmth washed over her, followed by soft fatigue. What do you know—Lord Bill almost lost his head over a Mire girl. She grinned. Hobo queen, shmobo queen, took you by surprise. “Lost his head” didn’t even begin to cover it. He’d stared at her like he was some sort of maniac.
It shouldn’t have mattered. For all she knew, William looked at every woman that way. Well, maybe not quite that way, since he did manage to make it to adulthood somehow, without being murdered.
; Still, it did matter. She sensed a sharp, dangerous edge to everything he did, and it pulled her in like a moth to a flame. She thought back to the fight. He’d pushed her out of the way. It wasn’t a hard push, but she had been barely standing and she fell badly, flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her. For about half a minute, she lay there, woozy, trying to get up, and listening to William drawing the Hand’s freak farther away.
He’d knocked her down with the best intentions, true, but she should’ve punched him harder for it. It’s good that nobody had been there to witness it, or she would be the laughing stock of the entire Mire. Cerise grimaced. She’d really wanted to hammer one right to his jaw, but hitting someone in the jaw all but guaranteed a sore hand. That was one of the first lessons her grandmother had taught her: Take care of your hands. You need them to hold your blade.
When she had finally staggered upright, that brown monstrosity was almost fifty yards away. It was huge and armored and armed with claws. And William had gone after it with a knife. She would’ve said he was insane or stupid, except by the time she got there, the Hand’s freak was bleeding like a stuck pig. She’d almost slipped on the trail of his blood. A few more minutes and William would’ve bled him dry.
The water in the shower stopped.
Cerise took off down the hallway before William stepped out and caught her staring at the door.
A pantry lay to the left. She sorted through the cans, looking for something with meat in it.
Cerise was pretty, she knew that. In the Mire, who she was and what she could do were always taken into account. She was Cerise Mar. She had the Rats at her back and her sword was famous. Her family wasn’t exactly prime in-law material and some men had a problem with how well she handled her blade, but still there were enough guys out there who would work their asses off for a chance to be with her. If she wanted to, she could have her pick, and she did, for a while, until she got bogged down in fixing the family finances.
Bayou Moon te-2 Page 8
