Authors: Ilona Andrews
Bayou Moon (34 page)
NINETEEN
THE morning came way too fast, William decided as he finished shaving. He’d slipped back into the house and caught a few hours in bed, but most of him still felt like he had been run through one of the Broken’s dryers with some rocks added for the extra tumble.
At least his room had a bathroom attached to it, so he could clean up in relative privacy. His shoulder had gone from blue to sickly yellow-green. The yellow would be gone by the evening—changelings did heal fast. But then, healing fast often just invited more punishment, he reflected.
Something had happened early in the morning. He remembered waking up to some sort of commotion, but his door had stayed locked, so he went back to sleep.
William dressed and tried the door handle again. Open. Good. It had taken all of his will not to bust it last night. Being locked up had never been his favorite.
He slipped into the hallway. The house was quiet and sunlit; the air smelled of cooked bacon. He decided he liked the Rathole. With its clean wooden floors and tall windows, it was an open, uncluttered place, welcoming, comfortable, but not overwhelming. He caught a faint hint of Cerise’s scent and followed it down the stairs and into a huge kitchen. A massive table, old and scarred, dominated the room. Behind it an enormous wood-burning oven sat next to an old electric one. Erian sat at the table doing his best to empty his very full plate. Kaldar leaned against the wall. No Cerise. Great.
“Here you are.” Kaldar saluted him with a wave of his hand. “You missed breakfast, friend.”
“I thought you were supposed to watch me,” William said. “What the hell?”
Kaldar grimaced. “Things happened. Anyway, I figured you’d find your way here sooner or later. Besides, we all watch you. Can’t have a stranger in the house unsupervised. No offense.”
“None taken. Urow’s wife explained to me where I stand.”
Kaldar’s eyes narrowed. He glanced away.
Something had happened to Clara or Urow. Something that made Kaldar wince.
“That’s Clara for you,” Kaldar said. “Anyway, you’ve met my younger brother before, yes, no?”
“Yes. Erian.”
Erian waved at him with his fork. He ate slowly, cutting his food into small pieces. His face was smart but slightly melancholy—the man worried a lot.
“Usually we have to introduce everyone three or four times before guests start remembering names.” Kaldar picked up a metal platter covered by a hood and took the lid off. William took in a pile of fried sausage, chunks of battered fried fish, scrambled eggs, and two stacks of golden pancakes glowing with butter, and tried not to drool.
“Leftovers,” Kaldar said. “Sorry about the fish. We don’t get much meat here. The plates are in the cabinet behind you.”
William retrieved two plates and traded one of them with Kaldar for a fork and a knife. They sat down on opposite sides of Erian. William attacked the pancakes. They were sweet and fluffy and perfect.
Kaldar passed him a small jar of green jam. “Try this.”
William slathered a small bit on his pancake and put it in his mouth. The jam was sweet and slightly sour, but mild. It tasted like strawberry and kiwi and some odd fruit he once tried . . . persimmon, that was it.
“Good, yes?” Kaldar winked at him. “Cerise makes it. She’s a great cook.”
Erian stopped chewing. “Did you just try to broker Cerise to him?”
Kaldar waved at him. “Shut up, I’m working here.”
“No,” Erian said. “For one, we barely know the man.”
William loaded his plate with sausage. Rabbit. Mmm. If Kaldar thought Cerise would let him sell her, he was deeply mistaken. That much he knew.
“And I’m practically her brother, and I’m sitting right here,” Erian said.
Kaldar regarded him. “And that concerns me how?”
“You don’t try to sell a man’s sister right in front of him, Kaldar.”
“Why not?”
“That’s just not right.” Erian looked at William. “Tell him.”
“You’ve got to be careful about that,” William said. He’d learned very early on that there is a fine line between joking among men and pissing a soldier off by saying something bad about his sister. He never could tell the difference, so he stayed away from the subject altogether. “People take offense. You might get your throat slit.”
“Well, I don’t see a problem with it,” Kaldar said.
“That’s because you’re a scoundrel,” Erian said dryly.
Kaldar put his hand to his chest. “Oh, Erian. From you, that hurts.”
Erian shook his head. “I don’t know about a slit throat, but Ceri will cut your balls off if you keep meddling.”
Now that was something William could believe. “Where is she?”
Both men took a bit too long to chew their food before Erian answered. “She’s in the small yard. Cutting things.”
“So,” Kaldar leaned back. “You’re a blueblood, and you said you aren’t rich.”
“He isn’t?” Erian glanced at him.
“No,” William said.
“So how do you earn your cash?” Kaldar asked.
I lay floors in the Broken.
“I hunt.”
“I hunt.”
“Men or beasts?” Kaldar asked.
“Men.”
Erian nodded. “Any money in that?”
William washed his pancake down with a gulp of water. “Some. If you’re good.”
Erian’s eyes fixed him. “Are you?”
Keep pushing and you’ll find out.
William stretched his lips, showing his teeth to Erian. “How badly do you want to know?”
William stretched his lips, showing his teeth to Erian. “How badly do you want to know?”
“Oh, now that’s not nice ...” Kaldar clicked his tongue.
Footsteps approached the stairs. William turned to the door. “Company.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Kaldar said.
“Perhaps if you shut up?” Erian wondered.
The stairs creaked. The door swung open and a massive form dwarfed the doorway. Urow pushed his way into the room. Haggard, his gray skin pale, he staggered to the table, his right arm in a sling. Kaldar got up and pulled a chair from the table. Urow sat.
All the strength seemed to have gone out of him, as if he’d grown too heavy for his muscle.
“Blueblood,” he said, offering William his left hand across the table.
They clamped hands. Urow’s handshake was still hard, but William sensed weakness in his grip.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Been better.” Urow’s eyes were bloodshot and dull.
“How’s your wife?”
“Hurt.”
He thought as much. Clara was hurt and Urow’s world had been split open. He could’ve taken on a lot of punishment, but failing to protect his wife broke him. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I have a favor to ask,” Urow spoke slowly, as if straining to push the words out. “You already helped me once, so I’d owe you two.”
“You owe me nothing. What’s the favor?”
“I’m leaving my youngest son here. He needs to stay busy, so if you need something done, tell him to do it for you. The harder the job, the better.”
Strange. “Fine,” William said. “I’ll do that.”
Urow reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and pushed it across the table. It was a round thing, about two inches wide, made with braided twine and human hair. A black claw stained with dried blood protruded from the circle. It smelled of human blood and looked like one of Urow’s claws, except he had all of his.
“Keep this for me, so my son minds your orders.”
Behind Urow, wide-eyed Kaldar furiously shook his head. Erian’s face was carefully neutral, while his hand was making “don’t take it” motions beside the table, out of Urow’s view.
“What is it?” William asked.
“It’s a thing. A sign.” A faint tremble laced Urow’s hoarse voice, and William realized that this was the closest the man could come to begging. The urge to get up and walk away gripped him.
“I’ve got nobody else to take it,” Urow said. “Family won’t work, and the rest of the Mire, well, there isn’t anyone I’d trust with my boy. They would use him badly.” Pain filled his eyes. His voice fell to a rough, broken whisper. “Do this for me, William. I don’t want to kill my son.”
William sat utterly still. Pieces clicked in his head. He’d read about this custom before, in a book about the tribes on the Southern Continent of the Weird. When a child committed an offense punishable by death, his family could surrender him to another guardian and keep him alive. The child would serve the guardian until maturity.
Urow’s youngest boy had done something punishable by death and Urow could no longer keep him. The only way the kid would survive would be if he belonged to someone else.
William sat very still. When he was born and his mother didn’t want him, she could’ve thrown him in the gutter and walked away. In Louisiana, he would’ve been strangled at birth. He survived because he was born in Adrianglia and because his mother cared enough to surrender him to the government instead of tossing him into a ditch like garbage. For better or worse, they took him, they fed him, they gave him shelter, and while his life had never been easy, he never regretted being born.
It didn’t matter that the kid wasn’t exactly a changeling and this was not Adrianglia, and he didn’t know Urow or what to do with his son.
It was his turn. Only a fool didn’t pay fate back, and he wasn’t that fool.
William took the amulet.
Urow exhaled slowly through his nose. Kaldar pretended to hit his face against the cabinet. Erian leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, and put his head on his fists, hiding his face.
“If you ever need anything ...” Urow pushed to his feet.
William nodded. The rest went without saying.
Urow turned and walked out of the room.
“You shouldn’t have taken that.” Erian raised his head. “It’s done now.”
Kaldar sighed. “You’re a good man, William. Stupid but good.”
William had just about enough. “You talk too much.”
“I’ve been telling him that for years,” Erian said.
A door swung open the second time and one of Urow’s kids came in. Gaston, William remembered. The kid was about sixteen or so, judging by the face, still leaner than Urow but already a couple of inches taller and on the way to his father’s massive build. Same temper, too, judging by the shallow scars on his muscular forearms. Fighting with his brothers probably. William scrutinized his face: hard jaw, flat cheekbones, deep-set eyes, startling pale gray under black bushy eyebrows. The kid could pass for human, if the light was bad enough. Bruises marked his jaw and neck. Somebody had pummeled him.
William pointed to the chair across the table. “Sit.”
The kid sat, his shoulders hunched, as if expecting to block a punch. His left hand was missing a claw. The wound had barely had time to scab over.
“Hungry?”
The kid eyed the food and shook his head.
William got another plate, loaded it, and passed it to him. “Don’t lie to me, I’ll know.”
The kid dug into the food. William let him eat for a couple of minutes. Slowly the kid’s posture relaxed.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Three years older than George, Rose’s brother.
“What’s your name?”
“Gaston.”
William touched the amulet. “What did you do?”
Gaston froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.
William said nothing.
The kid swallowed. “You left. Dad was sleeping. Ry and Mart went to herd rolpies into the shelter, because Mom was worried that if the Sheeriles showed up, they’d kill the rolpies first. I was supposed to watch the house. We have a hand crank siren up in the tree. If anything went wrong, I was supposed to crank the siren so Mart and Ry would run home. Mom was cooking carp.” Gaston stared at his plate. “Dad hates carp. Says it tastes like waterweeds. I had lines set up in a creek. I went to check my lines.”
Gaston looked at his plate. “I abandoned my family.”
“Who came to the house while you were gone?” William asked.
Gaston slid into a toneless monotone. “A man. He attacked Mom. He . . . cut off her leg. Ignata says that there is nothing she can do. My mom will be a cripple now. Because of me.”
The kid was dumping buckets of self-loathing on himself. The fault wasn’t his. Clara should have left when Cerise told her about Ruh. Gaston wasn’t pushed out of his family because he’d left his post. He was a child and likely not properly trained. Gaston was pushed out because Urow loved Clara, and now every time he looked at his youngest son, he would be reminded of her injury. Urow had injected himself into the situation, his wife failed to evacuate, and now they loaded all of their guilt and their mistakes onto their child and removed him from the family. A clean sweep.
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