“What did I say?”
She arched her eyebrows. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t do this. What did I say to piss you off?” He had to fix it. It gnawed at him now and wouldn’t let go.
Cerise shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
He clenched his teeth to keep from pulling her off the horse and shaking her until it spilled out of her. “Tell me what I did.”
She turned in her saddle and looked at him over her shoulder, hair spilling down, eyes on fire.
“What?” he growled.
“Think about it. You’ll figure it out.”
William ran through the conversation in his head, recalling her reactions. He couldn’t for the life of him find anything offensive in what he said. Military, orphanage … She seemed upset by what he told of his life, but it wasn’t directed at him. It was directed at people who made his life hell. Blah, blah, blah … “It’s much easier to just pay the woman for her time. That way you can do what you need to do and be on your way. That’s the way I prefer it.” “Well, if you’re hoping for a roll in the hay with me, you’re out of luck, William. I’m not for sale.”
She was pissed off, because she thought he’d lumped her in with whores. Why the hell would she think that? He never called her a whore …
“William, you’re kind and strong and handsome. There are tons of women who’d climb over razor wire for a chance to make you happy. They’d be insane not to.”
Understanding dawned in his head. She liked him.
She liked him. She thought of herself as one of those women, and she was pissed off because he told her that he preferred to pay for his sex and leave. She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to stay. With her.
William searched his memory, trying to find some indication of flirting. He’d watched countless women flirt with Declan, everyone from random passersby at the market to blueblood ladies at the formal balls.
“I bet the women from the Weird tell you that you have great hair all the time, Lord Bill.”
“I jumped in to rescue you, you fool!”
“You demolished them.”
“What would happen if you caught me?”
She liked him. The beautiful girl with eyes like black fire wanted him. William almost laughed, except she would have killed him on the spot. You tripped, hobo queen. She should have never let him know, but now he’d figured it out and it was too late. He’d have to stalk her, he decided. Carefully and patiently. He would bring her flowers, swords, and whatever else she liked, until he was sure when he pounced, she wouldn’t want to run away.
He looked at her, showing her the edge of his teeth.
“Look, I didn’t mean to imply that you were a slut,” he told her. “I know nothing about you. And just if there is any question, I never hurt a woman, never forced anyone to do things with me. It was always a clear-cut deal, half the money up front, half when we were done. You and I agreed to work together. Whatever I did or didn’t do in the past doesn’t matter. My private life doesn’t matter. It only matters what I do from this point on.”
She shrugged.
“Are you done being mad?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Insane woman.
They rode into the yard. He hopped off the horse and caught a thick scent of wet fur and the sharp piss signature marking the territory. Dogs. Shit.
A loud hoarse baying erupted from a dozen furry throats. William tensed. Some dogs didn’t mind his scent, but most reacted as they should when a wolf walked into their territory. They fought him for dominance and lost.
Hi, Cerise, sorry your dogs attacked me and I slaughtered the lot of them, but good news, now you have lots of nice pelts …
A dog pack burst from around the corner. Big dogs, too, a hundred pounds at least, some black, some tan, all with the square heads of a mastiff breed and docked tails. Damn it all to hell.
The dogs charged him, running at full speed.
The knife jumped into his hand, almost on its own.
The first dog, an enormous pale male, lunged at him and went down on his front paws, ass in the air, tail wiggling.
What the hell?
The mob swirled around him, paws scraping dirt, noses poking him, tongues licking, drool flying in long sticky gobs. A smaller dog squealed—someone stepped on her paw.
“All right, down! Calm the hell down!” Cerise barked. “What has gotten into you?”
He reached over and petted the alpha’s giant head. Sad brown eyes looked at him with canine adoration. Dogs were simple creatures, and this one seemed to love his scent.
“That’s Cough,” Cerise told him. “He’s the idiot in charge.”
The dog sniffed his hand and licked it, depositing muddy slobber on his skin. Ugh.
“Cough, you dufus. Sorry, usually they’re more reserved. They must like you.”
“They do,” a calm female voice said from above.
A woman stood on the balcony, next to Kaldar. Tall and lean, she looked like Cerise if Cerise were twenty years older and had spent those decades in the Red Legion doing shit that kept her awake with nightmares. Where Cerise was muscle, this one was made mostly of sinew and bone. Her gaze fastened on him, focusing, measuring the distance, as if she were a raptor sizing up her prey. A sniper.
If the eyes didn’t give her away, her rifle would have. He’d seen it only once in an obscure catalog. A Remington 700 SS 5-R. A sniper rifle. Remington produced only about five hundred of those a year. The Edge was the last place William expected to see one.
“My aunt Murid,” Cerise told him.
“The man with Peva’s crossbow,” Murid said, nodding at Peva’s weapon. “The enemy of our enemy is our friend. Welcome.”
“What she said.” Kaldar swung the door open. A whiff of cooked beef floated through, reducing William’s world to a simple thought.
Food.
Cerise was already moving. William heaved the crossbow up, pushed his way through the sea of dogs, and headed up the stairs. He made it through the door in time to see her turn into a side room on the left.
“You and I are going straight.” Kaldar popped up at his side with the buttery grace of a magician. “Keep the pace now, that’s it. I think I’ll take you to the library. My sister is in there, and she’ll keep an eye on you while I go scrounge us some food. The kitchen is a madhouse this time of day, and if you go down there, there will be no end of questions. Who are you? Are you a blueblood? Are you rich? Are you, by the way?”
“No,” William said.
“Married?”
“No.”
Kaldar moved his head from side to side. “Well, one out of two isn’t bad. Rich and unmarried would be perfect, married and poor would be two strikes out, nothing good there. Poor and unmarried, I can work with that. Library it is. Besides, you’ll get to meet my sister.”
William tried to imagine a female version of Kaldar and got a mud-splattered woman with Kaldar’s face and blue stubble on her cheeks. Clearly he needed food and some shut-eye.
“This way. And we turn here through that door, and here we are.” Kaldar held the door open for him. “This way, Lord … What is your name, I don’t think I ever got it.”
He could not strangle Kaldar because he was Cerise’s cousin and she was fond of him. But he really wanted to. “William.”
“William it is. Please. Into the library.”
William stepped through the door. A large room stretched before him, the walls covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves and crammed with books. Soft chairs stood in the corners, a large table waited to the left, and at the opposite wall by a window, a woman sat in a chair working yarn into some sort of lacy thing with a metal hook.
She sat in a rectangle of afternoon light spilling through the window. Her hair was soft and almost gold, and the sunlight played on it, making it shine. She looked up with a small smile, the glowing hair around her head like a nimbus, and William decided s
he looked like an icon from one of the Broken’s cathedrals.
“Catherine! I bring you Lord Blueblood William. Cerise found him in the swamp. He must be fed and I need to go get him some food, so can you please babysit him while I’m gone? I can’t have him wandering through the house. We don’t know what he’s made of, and he might snap and devour the children.”
Catherine smiled again. She had a soft gentle smile. “My brother has the tact of a rhino. Please come sit by me, Lord William.”
Anything was better than Kaldar. William walked over and sat down in a chair next to her. “Just William.”
“Nice to meet you.” Her voice was calm and soothing. Her hands kept moving, weaving the yarn with the hook, completely independent of her. She wore rubber gloves, the kind he’d seen on CSI, except it looked like she wore two pairs, one on top of the other. Her lacy thing rested on a rubber apron, and her yarn came from a bucket filled with liquid.
Odd.
“How did the hearing go?” she asked.
“We won, sort of,” Kaldar said. “We die at dawn.”
“The court gave the Sheeriles twenty-four hours,” William corrected.
“Yes, but ‘we die at dawn the day after tomorrow’ doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic.”
“Does it have to be dramatic all the time?” Catherine murmured.
“Of course. Everyone has a talent. Yours is crocheting and mine is making melodramatic statements.”
Catherine shook her head and glanced at her work. The yarn thing was a complicated mess of waves, spiked wheels, and some odd mesh.
“What is that?” William asked.
“It’s a shawl,” Catherine said.
“Why is the yarn wet?”
“It’s a special type of crochet.” Catherine smiled. “For a very special person.”
Kaldar snorted. “Kaitlin will love it, I’m sure.”
He’d heard the name before … Kaitlin Sheerile. Lagar and Peva’s mother.
Why the hell would they be crocheting a shawl for Kaitlin? Maybe there was a message on it.
William leaned forward and caught a trace of an odor, bitter and very weak. It nipped at his nostrils and his instincts screeched.
Bad! Bad, bad, bad.
Poison. He’d never smelled it before, but he knew with simple lupine certainty that it was poisonous and he had to stay away from it.
He made himself reach over for the shawl.
“No!” Kaldar clamped his hand on William’s wrist.
“You mustn’t touch,” Catherine said. “It’s very delicate and it will stain your fingers. That’s why I’m wearing gloves. See?” She wiggled her fingers at him.
She lied. This pretty icon woman with a nice smile lied and didn’t blink an eye.
He had to say something human here. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right.” Kaldar’s fingers slipped off his wrist. “She isn’t offended, are you, Cath?”
“Not at all.” Catherine offered him a nice warm smile. Her hands kept crocheting poisoned yarn.
Hell of a family.
“Right, well, I’m off to procure some vittles.” Kaldar turned on his toes and sauntered off.
Catherine leaned to him. “Drove you crazy, yes?”
“He talks.” A lot. Too much. He jabbers like a teenage girl on a cell phone. He stands too close to me, and I might snap his neck if he keeps breathing on me.
“That he does,” Catherine agreed. “But he’s not a bad sort. As brothers go, I could’ve done much worse. Are you and Cerise together? Like together-together?”
William froze. Human manners were clear as mud, but he was pretty sure that’s something you weren’t supposed to ask.
Catherine blinked her long eyelashes at him, the same serene smile on her face.
“No,” he said.
A faint grimace touched Catherine’s face. “That’s a shame. Are there any plans for the two of you to be together?”
“No.”
“I see. Don’t tell her I asked. She doesn’t like it when we pry.”
“I won’t.”
“Thank you.” Catherine exhaled.
This family was like a minefield. He needed to sit still and keep his mouth shut, before he got into any more trouble. And if someone offered him a handmade sweater, he’d snap their neck and take off for the woods.
Lark came into the library carrying a basket that smelled of freshly baked bread and rabbit meat with cooked mushrooms. William’s mouth filled with drool. He was starving. Almost enough to not care if the food was poisoned.
The kid knelt by him. She was clean and her hair was brushed. She looked like a smaller version of Cerise. Lark pulled the cloth off the basket and pulled out a pocket of baked dough. “Pirogi,” she said. “Are you the one who killed Peva?”
“Yes.”
Lark reached over and touched the tiller of Peva’s crossbow.
“Okay, then. You can eat our food.” She tore the pocket in two, handed him half, and bit into the remaining piece. “Uncle Kaldar said to do that. So you would know it’s not poisoned.”
William bit into his half. It tasted like heaven. “Can you shoot a crossbow?”
Lark nodded.
He picked up Peva’s crossbow and offered it to her. “Take it.”
She hesitated.
“It’s yours,” he said. “I already have one and mine is better.” The Mirror’s crossbow was lighter and more accurate.
Lark looked at him, looked at the bow, grabbed it out of his hands like a feral puppy stealing a bone, and took off, bare feet flashing. She whipped about in the doorway. Black eyes glared at him. “Don’t go in the woods. There is a monster there.” She whirled and ran down the hallway.
He glanced at Catherine. Her hands had stopped moving. Her face was sad, as if at a funeral.
Something was wrong with Lark. He would figure it out, sooner or later.
Light footsteps floated from down the hall, and a man appeared in the doorway. About five-ten, slightly built, blond, but still tan like a Mar. He leaned against the doorframe and looked William over with blue eyes. “You’re the blueblood.”
William nodded.
“You know about the Sheeriles.”
William nodded again.
“I’m Erian. When I was ten, Sheerile Senior shot my father in the head in the middle of the marketplace. My mother had died years before that. My father was all I had. I was standing right there, and my father’s blood splashed all over me.”
And?
“Cerise’s parents, my aunt and uncle, took me in. They didn’t have to, but they did. Cerise is like a sister to me. If you hurt her or any of us, I will kill you.”
William bit into his pirogi, measuring the distance to the door. Mmm, about eighteen feet give or take. He’d cover that in one leap. Jump, punch Erian in the gut, ram his head into the door, and boom, he could finally get some peace and quiet. He nodded at the blond man. “Good speech.”
Erian nodded back. “Glad you liked it.”
FIFTEEN
RUH leaned forward, casting his web into the stream. Spider watched the carmine cilia that sheathed the blood vessels of Ruh’s net tremble in the dark water. A long moment passed, and then the net closed on itself, folding, retreating, and sliding back into the tracker’s shoulder.
“They passed this way.” Ruh’s grating yet sibilant voice reminded Spider of gravel being swept across stone. “Lavern’s blood is in the water. But they’re gone. I can taste two traces of the hunter’s body fluids, one more decomposed than the other. So they came this way and went back out.”
Spider looked up to where a small house sat perched on stilts, stretching a weathered dock into a cypress-cradled pond. “They came here, lingered for some reason, and left, taking Lavern’s body with them.”
“I also found that odd trace, the same as in the river. It’s blood, but it tastes of something other than man.”
Spider propped his elbow on his knee and leaned, resting his chin
against his fingers. The blood was interesting. “A wounded. They had a wounded with them, and they dropped him off here.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“Why here? Why not take him to the Mar house, behind the wards?” Spider tapped his cheek with his finger. “How much time does Lavern’s body have left?”
“Twenty-two minutes. Although I may be mistaken and it’s twenty-three.”
Spider smiled. “You’re never mistaken, Ruh. Let’s wait then and find out if we’re right.”
He touched the reins, and the rolpie obediently pulled the small boat under the cover of a gnarled tree bent over the water.
CERISE descended the small staircase hidden in the back of the kitchen. The wooden steps, worn out by four generations of feet, creaked and sagged under her weight. They would have to be repaired before too long. Of course, that would keep Aunt Petunia from the lab, and she wasn’t suicidal enough to become the object of her aunt’s wrath. And it would be wrath. No doubt about it—Aunt Pete did nothing halfway.
Fatigue filled Cerise, making her legs terribly heavy. She had to do this and then she could go upstairs, shower, and collapse into her bed for a couple of hours. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.
The staircase ended in a solid door, fitted so snugly that no light escaped along its edges. Cerise rapped her knuckles on the metal.
The door swung open, revealing the Bunker. Uncle Jean had built it for Aunt Pete following the instructions for a fallout shelter, and it looked like one, too—concrete walls and harsh lighting spilling from the cones of electric lamps in the ceiling. She never could figure out how he’d managed to keep the water out, but the Bunker never leaked. In the event something contaminated it, one pull of the chain hanging from the far wall and the water tower would empty into the bunker, flooding it with magic-treated water, neutralizing the problem. The neutralizing solution then drained into a cistern outside the house.
Mikita closed the door behind her. She walked along the wooden platform bordering the walls, jumped off to the bottom, and headed past the decontamination shower to the examination table and Aunt Pete bent over it with a scalpel.
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