Authors: Ilona Andrews
Bayou Moon (36 page)
“Looking is as far as it gets,” Cerise murmured. William was rinsing blood off his side, presenting her with a view of carved chest and lean stomach, and she had trouble concentrating on the conversation. You’d think a man washing off his blood would be the least attractive thing ever. Yeah.
It wasn’t his body, she reflected. It was in his eyes. In the way he looked at her.
“Have you tried dropping hints?” Ignata asked.
“I dropped boulders of hints,” Cerise said. “He pulls himself back every time. It’s not working.”
“I don’t see how it couldn’t.” Ignata bit her lips. “He’s obviously all about getting with you.”
“Maybe he doesn’t get it,” Aunt Pete said. “Some men—”
“Have to be hit over the head with it. Yes, Mother, we know.” Ignata rolled her eyes.
“I don’t want to just throw myself at him.” Cerise grimaced.
“No, that would be bad.” Aunt Pete frowned. “You said he was a soldier. You don’t suppose . . . ?”
“Oh, Gods.” Ignata blinked. “You think something could be wrong down there?”
All of them looked at William, who chose this precise moment to slide the wet shirt back on his back, which required him to flex, raising his arms.
“That would be a shame,” Cerise murmured. Maybe he was impotent. That would explain the frustration she saw on his face.
“Such a waste,” Aunt Pete said mournfully.
“There is nothing wrong with his body,” Grandma Az said. “It’s in his head.”
William turned. He walked past them to where Kaldar and Gaston haggled over a rock, pausing for a moment to look at her. Something hungry and sick with longing glared at her through his eyes, and then he turned away.
Like being burned.
“Oh, boy,” Ignata murmured.
“Now isn’t a good time for this sort of thing anyway.” Cerise sat up straighter.
“Are you crazy?” Aunt Pete stared at her. “Both of you could die tomorrow. Now is the perfect time for this. Live while you can, child.”
A hand rested on Cerise’s shoulder. She looked back. Aunt Murid nodded to her and walked away on her long legs, heading straight for William.
She said something, William nodded, and the two of them took off, Gaston at their heels. Kaldar stood there for a second, looking at a rock in his hands, shrugged, and followed them.
“What do you suppose all that was about?” Ignata asked.
“Who knows?” Aunt Pete shrugged.
TWENTY
SPIDER opened his eyes. He lay submerged on the bottom of the pool, in the cool shadowy depths. Above him, a wet sky glistened where the water kissed the air. He felt neither hot nor cold. Nothing troubled the water. He was utterly alone, floating weightless, watching from the shadows as the sunrays filtered through the water, setting it aglow.
If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that he was diving in the translucent waters far to the south, where a chain of the New Egypt islands stretched from the eastern tip of the continent far into the ocean. Swimming there, gliding above the coral reefs, surrounded by life but blissfully free of humanity, brought him a sense of peace and the simple thrilling exhilaration of being alive.
Alas, he wasn’t diving in the ocean now. Spider allowed himself one last moment of regret and surfaced with a single kick, emerging without a sound.
The air was unpleasantly cool. The skin flaps on his sides closed, hiding the pink feathery fans of his gills. Among his many alterations, this was the least useful but the most enjoyable.
Spider grasped the edge of the well and pulled himself up. Above him the sun shone bright. The sky was a clear crystalline blue, but despite the rare sunshine, the swamp still looked the same, a primeval mess of rot and mud. To the left, the manor where he’d made their base rose among the trees, struggling for stately elegance and failing.
Veisan’s peacock blue eyes greeted him. The contrast between those turquoise irises and her red skin never failed to surprise him. She looked at him with earnest expectation. Like a puppy, Spider thought. A murderous, lethal, psychotic puppy.
“Hello, m’lord,” Veisan whispered.
“Hello, Veisan.”
“Your skin has healed remarkably well, m’lord.”
Considering the amount of catalyst he’d dumped into the well water, the rapid progress was expected. “Veisan, why are you whispering?”
Her eyebrows crept up, making her look pitiful. “I’m not sure, m’lord,” she said in a slightly louder voice. “It seemed appropriate.”
She offered him a fuzzy towel. He gripped the stone rim of the pool, pulled himself out, and dried off. The liquid left light pink smudges on the yellow towel. It had been a few months since he’d sustained an injury severe enough to require underwater restoration. Spider touched his face, pleased with the smoothness of the skin on his cheek, where the burn blisters had been.
Veisan traded a meticulously folded stack of clothing for his towel. He began to dress. “Anything vital happen while I was under?”
“Judge Dobe ruled in the Mars’ favor. The Sheeriles have been given one day to clear the Sene Manor. Their reprieve expires tomorrow morning. Advocate Malina Williams sent the Sheeriles a letter detailing her apologies. She intends to appeal.”
Spider shrugged. “She’ll get nowhere with it. They should’ve gone with one of the local hacks. The Edgers prize familiarity more than skill.”
“We’ve received a message from Lagar Sheerile.”
Spider grimaced. “He wants reinforcements before the Mars attack him tomorrow.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“He’s on his own. I don’t need him anymore.” Let the mud rats fight it out between themselves. It saved him the trouble of wiping them out to cover his trail, and this way none of his people risked injury. There was always a chance that Lagar would kill Cerise, but considering how well her mother was progressing, it was unlikely they would need her. Spider flung the water off his hair in a vigorous shake. He’d spare a few moments of regret for her death, the way one would mourn the destruction of a prized painting—the girl represented a forgotten martial art, and it was a shame to lose her. But in the grand scheme of things, she was of little use to him.
“Send a Scout Master out there. I want to know about the crossbowman.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
Veisan handed him a brush, and he dragged it through his wet hair.
“Lagar also reported an attack by a feline of unusual size.”
He looked at her.
“There are two attacks to date. The first was a sentry on duty. The second was a man returning from the settlement with purchases. In both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims. Lagar Sheerile estimates it to be about four yards long and seven hundred pounds heavy. The circumference of the paw prints—”
“Back up. The bit about the weapons.”
“In both cases the animal took the weapons belonging to its victims.” Veisan repeated the sentence exactly, reproducing the same intonation and pauses she had used the first time.
“Does Lagar have an opinion as to why it’s attacking his men?”
“No, m’lord.”
Odd. Spider dismissed the rest of it with a flick of his fingers. “Any news of Embelys and Vur?”
“They are still in hiding at the perimeter of Mar territory.”
He didn’t really expect them to capture Cerise. But one could always hope . . . Spider ran his hand across his cheek. Stubble. He’d have to shave.
Veisan produced a shaving kit, the soap already whipped into thick foam. He took it.
“What else?”
“John reports that the subject has regained consciousness. He says that in two days she will either be ready for instruction or her brains will ooze out of her ears, m’lord.”
“I take it he’s still frustrated with the rushed schedule.”
“I believe so.”
Prima donna. “He’ll get over it.”
“And if he doesn’t, m’lord?”
“Then you can have him. Assuming you can limit yourself to one death.”
Veisan licked her lips nervously. “I’ll try. It’s been . . . a long time.”
He put his hand on her shoulder, feeling steel cables of muscle tense under his fingers. “I understand, Gabrielle. I apologize for keeping you idle.”
She sniffled and a slow purple blush spread through her red skin. Like all agents, she had taken a different name when joining the Hand. He only used her birth name on special occasions. Spider made it a point to know the birth names of all agents under his command. Funny how a single word could have a devastating effect.
“Thank you, m’lord.”
Spider strode to the manor, Veisan following at his heels.
“My lord?”
“Yes?”
“What’s in that diary?”
He grinned at her. “A weapon, Veisan. A means to win the war.”
“But we’re not at war.”
He shook his head. “When we obtain the diary, we will be.”
WILLIAM raised his head from the rifle he’d finished cleaning and handed it to Gaston. Murid, Cerise’s aunt with the sniper eyes, had asked for his help. He’d spent the last three hours cleaning the rifles and checking the crossbows with her at the range behind the house.
Murid didn’t say more than two words to him, which suited him just fine, but she watched him. She wasn’t too subtle about it, and the constant scrutiny put him in a foul mood. At first William had guessed she was keeping him away from Cerise, but now he decided she had something else in mind.
Murid had empty eyes, the kind of eyes a man got after he’d been through some rough shit and redlined. Lost his brakes, lost himself. It made her unpredictable, and so William didn’t try to guess what she would do. He simply waited for the moment she would do it and prepared to react.
Murid test-fired a crossbow. The bolt bit into the target. She was good. Not as good as he, but then he was a changeling and his coordination was better. If she’d turned and fired at him instead, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
His ears caught the sound of light steps coming. He glanced back. Lark, running from the house, Wasp in her hand. She saw him looking and slowed down, a scowl on her face. Upset at being caught. She sauntered over and stood on his left next to Gaston.
William picked up the last crossbow from his stack, raised it, and fired without aiming, purely on muscle memory. The bolt sliced into his target next to the other ten or so he’d put into the bull’s-eye in the past hour.
Lark snapped her crossbow, imitating him, and fired. The bolt went wide.
“It won’t work,” Gaston told her with an expression of complete gloom on his face. “I’ve been trying to shoot like he does for the last hour.”
He’d been picking up the bolts out of the grass for the last hour, too, William reflected. The kid shot well enough. Good hand-to-eye coordination, good perception. With proper training, he would be an excellent shot.
Lark jerked her crossbow up, fired another bolt, and missed. “How come you can do it?”
“Practice,” William said. That and a changeling’s reflexes. “I’ve been a soldier for a long time. I can’t flash, so I had to use the crossbows a lot.”
Lark hesitated. “I can flash.”
“Show me.”
She grasped a bolt in her fist. Pale lightning sparked from her eyes down to her hand, clutched the bolt, and vanished. Another white flasher. Figured. Flash usually ran in the family.
“Nice!” he told her.
Lark offered him a narrow smile. It was there and gone almost as fast as her flash, but he saw it.
William turned to Gaston. “You?”
“None of the thoas can flash.” The boy shook his head, sending his black mane flying. The damn hair reached nearly to his waist. On the one hand, it was too long. If you grabbed the hair, you could control the kid’s head in a fight. On the other hand, the hair hid his face. He looked human enough in passing, but he’d fail close scrutiny. His jaw was too heavy, his eyes were too deep set under the wide black eyebrows, and his irises luminesced with pale silver when they caught the light.
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