Husk: A Maresman Tale (26 page)

“Lord have mer—” Marlec gave a long, anguished cry that tailed off into sobbing.

As Jeb reached the door to room seven, there was a rustle of movement from within, and then Marlec screamed.

Jeb slung his weight against the door. It was so flimsy, he fell straight through it in a shower of splinters and crashed into the bed.

Marlec was naked atop the sheets, the torn pages of his holy book strewn all over the room. Maisie was astride him, her pert breasts and lean thighs just as Jeb had imagined them. For a split second, he was lost in desire for her, but then he remembered who she was. He lifted his gaze from her breasts and almost choked. The body was Maisie’s, right enough, but the hands were hooked claws, and the head was black and covered in scales.

It twisted round to glare at him with ember eyes. Ram’s horns curled away from the temples, and a forked tongue flicked out from between dagger-sharp teeth.

With a screech, the husk flung herself from the bed and streaked through the door. Jeb barreled out into the corridor after her. As she reached the top of the stairs, he lunged and caught hold of her ankle. She twisted in his grip and swiped him off with a solid blow from a three-clawed hand. He threw himself onto her back and she bashed him against the banister in her mad charge down the stairs. At the bottom, she snarled and rolled over and over, crushing him against the floor. Jeb let go, and she sprang past a bog-eyed Carey on her way outside.

She pulled up sharp at the entrance, flicked those ghastly eyes at Jeb as he climbed to his feet. They lingered on him for a moment, and then the head and hands became once more Maisie’s as she backed out onto the verandah, naked as the day she was born.

“You came to kill me,” she said. There was moisture in her eyes, and Jeb felt the stirrings of guilt in his guts. “You, my son. My only child.”

Jeb looked beyond her to where Sweet and Boss stood gawping at her nudity, along with a dozen of the men from the posse. Maisie turned and half-stumbled toward them, sobbing and shaking.

“Terabin,” she wailed. “Oh, Terabin. They’ve… They’ve…” She covered up best she could with her arms and walked to Sweet.

“No!” Jeb said, waving the men back. The rest of the posse were returning from where they’d been stationed around the hostelry.

Sweet appeared to wrestle with himself, then opened his arms to accept Maisie into his embrace.

“They hurt me, Terabin,” she said. “Hurt me so bad.”

Sweet glanced at Jeb. It was a look of pleading; a look that said, “Tell me what to do!”

Boss put his hands on his hips. “Don’t look like no husk to me, Maresman. Looks like you got yourself some explaining to do.”

Marlec came shambling down the stairs behind Jeb. He had his robe on, and clutched a wad of pages from his holy book in one hand. He looked ashen, and he couldn’t meet Jeb’s eyes.

“Husk,” he said in a grating voice. “Lord forgive me. Husk.”

“It was him!” Maisie screamed. “He… he touched me… tried to…” She buried her head in Sweet’s chest.

Sweet stroked her hair and muttered reassurances, but he still kept shooting Jeb that look of utter helplessness.

“Shogging Wayist,” the man with the harpoon said.

One of the rogues elbowed him in the side. “More like ‘rapist’, eh? Get it? Wayist, rapist?”

There were mutters of agreement from the swelling crowd. More people were gathering at the fringes, drawn by the commotion. Tizzy Graybank was among them, and Jeb didn’t miss the black look she gave him as she hawked and spat. He wanted to say something, explain he’d been as dismayed as she had at what Mortis had done to Davy.

“I am beginning to wonder,” Boss said, taking a step toward Jeb. “Till you and the Wayist showed up, Portis was a quiet town. Least since the wolf pack, that is.”

“Aye” after “aye” sounded throughout the crowd.

“Any way you look at it,” Boss said, “strangers always seem to bring trouble.”

“Aye!”

“First a proselytizing Wayist.” He speared Marlec with a look and raised an eyebrow. “I got that right, did I? Proselytizing’s a word, ain’t it?”

Marlec lowered his head and said nothing.

“And then a Maresman rides into town on the pretext of apprehending a husk. All I know for sure is that he came a trespassing on my land and killed a lot of good people. Now, would it be stretching it to imagine he’s got something to do with all them other killings, too?”

“Saw him speaking with Tharn,” one of the rogues said, “afore they found him dead.”

“I was there!” It was the thug that had been with Tharn that night. Jeb could tell from his voice. He knew he should have killed the shogger. “I saw him do it.”

Now the crowd burst into angry muttering.

“Cut the crap, Cawlison,” Jeb said. “You know what’s going on here. How’d you think these people would feel if they knew you’d been harboring a husk and using it to grow somnificus?”

Boss tensed, but one of the rogues slapped him on the back, and the crowd laughed approvingly.

“Oh, I was meaning to ask you,” Boss said, instantly recovering his poise. “What have you done with Sheriff Tanner and his deputy? To my mind, no one’s seen either of them since yesterday, and that ain’t normal.”

All eyes were on Jeb, and for a moment it was so quiet, all he could hear was the muffled roll of the surf from the other side of town.

Finally, Jeb said, “Why don’t you ask her?”

Maisie snuggled deeper into Sweet’s chest. Unseen by anyone but Jeb, her fingers found their way to the big man’s crotch.

Marlec lifted his head, and some of the color returned to his cheeks. “I followed the husk here, saw what it did in the Outlands before it took possession of Maisie.”

“Took what?” Boss said. He scoffed and fished a weedstick from his robe pocket.

“Look at her,” Marlec said. “Is that the Maisie you remember?”

Shrugs and whispers ran through the crowd.

“Don’t look no different to me,” Boss said.

Farly sidled up closer to take a better look. Bit too close, far as Jeb was concerned. Seemed too old to be ogling her like that.

“You saying this ain’t really Maisie?” Farly said.

“That’s right,” Jeb and Marlec said at the same time.

Farly studied each of them separately then gave the slightest of nods.

“Course they’d say that,” Boss said, patting down his robe for something to light his weedstick with. “They’re trying to cover their arses. The Maresman’s a killer, I tell you; and this bloody Wayist is a rapist, if I ain’t very much mistook. Now, who’s seen my shogging matches?”

“Is he?” Farly asked Marlec. “Is he mistook?”

Marlec nodded.

“Good enough for me,” Farly said. “Ain’t the only thing you been mistook about, Bernid, not since I’ve known you.”

Boss tightened his lips around his unlit weedstick and turned so red it looked like his head was going to burst.

“You was mistook about that rent you said I didn’t pay. Mistook about the fishing tax hike, too.”

There were grumbles of agreement from the crowd, and Boss growled at the back of his throat. Jeb half-expected him to stamp his foot.

“Now,” Farley went on, “no one here needs me to tell them you’re a lying toad, but folks turn a blind eye, seeing as you pay their wages. Most of the time, at least. Question is,”—Farly used his finger to tilt Maisie’s head up from Sweet’s chest—“are you really Maisie?”

A hush settled over the crowd. Jeb caught himself holding his breath. Everyone knew Farly had the gift for telling truth from a lie. Everyone, he assumed, save his mother the husk.

“Course I am,” Maisie said.

Farly swiftly stepped away and made a sign with his fingers behind his back.

“She’s lying,” Buttershy said.

Faster than Jeb could blink, Maisie’s face sprouted scales, and curled horns erupted from above her ears. Her maw opened impossibly wide and clamped down over Farly’s head. Gore sprayed across the verandah, and as the old man’s body dropped, blood gushing from the neck, the husk spat his head into the crowd, and people scattered in every direction, screaming and cursing.

A gunshot boomed, and one of the husk’s horns exploded in a shower of bone shards.

Mortis strode through the chaos and fired again. Maisie’s body slumped to the ground, a crimson rosette blossoming beneath her breast.

The demon-head detached itself and floated up, a sinuous tail of black smoke trailing from it like the body of a spectral wyrm.

For a moment, Jeb could only stare at Maisie’s corpse: it was intact; even the head was her own. Somehow, his mother had merged with it, animated it, and yet now her true form was revealed.

“Mortis!” the husk screeched in a voice full of loathing. “Mortis!” She darted at him faster than an arrow and butted him with her horns.

Mortis crashed to the ground on his back. His gun spun into the air and discharged as it landed. He rolled to his feet fluid as water, whipping both blades from their scabbards and slashing about with controlled frenzy. One clipped the husk’s head; the other passed straight through her gaseous body.

The husk coiled about Mortis’s legs and gnashed at his mask with her teeth. He swayed aside and crashed a sword pommel into her skull. She reared her snakish neck back and came at him again, zigzagging through the air. Mortis belched, and a green miasma smothered her face, forced her to uncoil and retreat.

Mortis was on her in a flash, hacking at her head with one blade, fending off a claw with the other. She ducked beneath his strike, and tore a bloody chunk of flesh from his torso. Mortis screamed, but at the same time, the husk spat out his flesh and gagged. The meaty mass on the ground was fluffy with mold, and a thousand insects wriggled about in it.

When the husk attacked again, she was careful to use just her claws. Mortis threw a sword up to parry, but it was a feint. The other claw passed through his guard and gouged his shoulder. The arm went limp, and Mortis dropped the blade. He backed away, and then the two of them circled each other more warily.

“Jebediah,” Mortis said, “now’s your chance. Redeem yourself.”

Jeb started to draw his saber, wavered, and looked to Marlec.

The Wayist clenched his fist around the scrunched up pages from his book. “I don’t know,” he mouthed. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Darling,” the demon-head said. “Help me.”

Mortis swung for the husk, but she drifted aside.

“Flee!” Jeb suddenly shouted at her. He knew it was a death sentence, as far as Mortis was concerned, but he couldn’t make the decision at that moment; couldn’t take sides. She was a husk, a killer, and the most horrific thing he could imagine, but she was still his mother, in some kind of perverse way. “Flee back to Qlippoth!” He knew she could. She only had to float higher, take to the skies and travel on the wind.

“Skayne!” Mortis yelled. “Kill her!”

The husk hovered out of reach of Mortis’s sword. She turned her blazing eyes on Jeb, searching him, imploring him.

“I can’t,” she said. “Not while he still lives!”

She cast the last word like a javelin and sped after it.

Mortis’s blade was a blur of silver as he deflected blow after blow from her claws. They both moved so fast, the fight was impossible to follow as they twisted and turned about each other like a whirlwind. Bone met steel over and over and over.

Jeb inched toward them, willing his mother to flee; willing Mortis to stand down and see sense.

Mortis was slowing. A claw drew blood from his thigh. He responded by vomiting forth a swarm of flies. The husk twirled higher into the sky to avoid them, then arced down again. This time, when she struck, Mortis anticipated it. He dropped his sword and grabbed her by the horn. She cried out and slashed wildly at him. Each time she raked his flesh, Mortis stiffened, but he only held on tighter, struggling to close his arm as he pulled her nearer and nearer to the poisonous fumes pouring from his mouth. He almost had her.

The husk turned and twisted, cursing and spitting. Mortis tried to bring his injured arm to bear, but he couldn’t lift it.

“Jebediah!” he cried, voice hoarse with effort.

The husk hit Mortis hard in the side of the head with her other claw. The mask flew from his face, and she screamed. Mortis’s bloody eyes floated in a pool of festering pustules and wriggling maggots. Still, he held on to her horn, straining with all his might to bring her closer to his mouth.

“Jebediah!” he cried again.

The husk squealed and tried to thrash her way free, but only her claws and head were solid; her sinuous body simply passed through Mortis where it touched.

“Jeb!” she cried in a shrill voice. “Little Jeb!”

Jeb’s hand came up as if it had a mind of its own. Somehow, he’d drawn the flintlock without thinking. Fat lot it would do.
Useless piece of shogging shite
.

“Yes!” Mortis cried, seeing Jeb point the flintlock at the husk.

“No!” the husk cried.

Jeb squeezed the trigger—

—and at the last moment switched his aim.

Hot wetness splashed him in the eyes and mouth as Mortis’s face exploded in a shower of pus and gore.

The husk let out an exultant scream, and Mortis’s body crumpled to the ground. It twitched for a moment and then started to deflate, until all that was left were his clothes lying sodden in a pool of slime.

“Jeb! Oh, Jeb, you did it,” the husk said. Her demon-head swayed toward him on the coiling mist of her body.

Jeb staggered away, dropped the flintlock, and put his hands to his face. The skin was blistering. No, worse than that, the flesh beneath, the muscle and sinew—all melting, bubbling like lava. He screamed as acid burned through his veins, spreading downward to the rest of his body.

“Jeb!” A claw rested on his shoulder. “Jeb, darling, what’s wrong?”

He gritted his teeth against the pain; couldn’t bring himself to look at the husk.

He felt rather than saw Marlec on his other side.

“Jeb?” Fingers tried to pry his hands from his face but quickly withdrew. “Oh, my sweet Lord.”

“What is it?” Jeb screamed. “What’s happening to me?” He dropped his hands and looked from Marlec to his mother. They both recoiled, and even the demon eyes were wide with fear.