The River of Souls (29 page)

Magnus Muldoon knew it was coming. All this blood…the smell of it…the Soul Cryer was coming. 

Out of the smoke it skulked, at first a shadow and then a substance, moving with the strange irregular rhythm Magnus had already seen, but this time it crept slowly forward across the mud until it reached Barrows’ body. Then its misshapen snout sniffed at the blood, and the slitted yellow eyes stared at Magnus as if trying to determine what this huge muddied beast was…a challenger to its territory, or a fellow monster best left alone. 

It was not a ghost nor a witch-created demon but it was surely the biggest panther Magnus had ever seen. Except the dark blotches and streaks across its muscular brown body were burn scars, and its head showed what could happen to an animal caught in a raging forest fire. Both ears had been burned away, its skull hairless and nearly covered with scaly black scars, its muzzle malformed and twisted to expose on the left side the fangs as if in a grotesque grin, one foreleg withered by fire and its tail a blackened stub. It moved in such a manner, Magnus realized, because under the damaged skin some of the muscles had contracted and stiffened, and if this creature had been nearly burned to death seven years ago it must have suffered all the torments of agony. Even now, it must be still in pain…and maybe driven to its own kind of insanity, a thirst for blood and killing not for food but for domination. It could not growl and proclaim itself like an ordinary panther, it could only cry. 

Its eyes still fixed upon Magnus, it snapped at the falling embers as if in memory of what had deformed it. Bovie clung onto Magnus’ legs, as Magnus awaited the Soul Cryer’s decision to attack or not. 

With a
whuff
of breath the Soul Cryer suddenly lifted itself up onto its hind legs and balanced there. Bovie gave a strangled noise of terror, but Magnus remained silent and resolute though his heart hammered in his chest. Magnus thought the beast had learned this action possibly to overcome the weakness of the burned foreleg, or maybe as a way to scare off other younger and healthier male panthers. He prepared himself for the Soul Cryer to leap forward from its hind legs, and he aimed the pistol at its heart and the sword’s wicked edge at its throat.

Nineteen

As Abram started for Griffin Royce’s hiding place with a knife in his hand, Matthew scrambled up from the ground and with two desperate strides crashed into Abram, knocking him aside just as the musket fired. He had not come this far to watch Abram be shot down. The ball passed somewhere behind Matthew’s head and into the trees. Abram fell to the ground, and Matthew realized he had no choice but to charge into the smoke-filled thicket with his sword ready to slash flesh from bone because Royce would already be pouring the powder into another weapon. 

He leaped into the churning gunsmoke and through vines and thorny weeds that clutched at him like little claws. And there about ten feet to his left and crouched against an oak tree was the figure of Royce, frantically ramrodding a ball and cloth patch down into a second musket’s muzzle. Matthew rushed the man, even as Royce turned the musket on him and cocked it with a grimy thumb. As the musket’s barrel came at him, Matthew swung out with the sword and deflected it, the musket firing with a noise that shocked Matthew’s eardrums but the shot going wide. Then Royce became a truly wild animal, and with clenched teeth and a growling in his throat he struck at Matthew with the musket’s barrel but again Matthew’s sword knocked it aside. 

Royce launched himself at Matthew, the man’s right shoulder hitting him in the chest with bone-jarring force. The musket was dropped and forgotten as Royce fought Matthew for the sword, and Matthew was swung around and slammed so hard against the oak’s trunk the breath burst from him and he and nearly lost his grip. Royce punched a fist into the arrow wound on Matthew’s shoulder, breaking it open and causing a fresh blossoming of blood. Matthew fought back as hard as he could, catching Royce on the jaw with his left fist and striking him a blow on the throat that caused his opponent to gag and falter for a few seconds, but the man was powerful and adept at close-in fighting. A knee rammed into Matthew’s stomach and a fist struck him on the back of the neck, but still Matthew clung to the sword, for to lose that was certain death. Royce gripped Matthew’s hair and tried to knee him in the face. Matthew stopped the knee with his free arm and struck into the pit of Royce’s stomach. The stocky killer let out a pained gasp of breath, but he would not let go of Matthew’s right wrist and began to brutally twist it to weaken the fingers and free the sword. With his other hand he drew his knife from its sheath, but before it could find flesh Matthew saw it coming. He was able to grasp the killer’s knife hand and for the moment hold the blade at bay with the strength of desperation. 

Matthew gritted his teeth and would not open his fingers. He thought his wrist was about to snap, but let it break; he wasn’t giving up to this animal, and letting him kill—

“Stop that, Cap’n Royce,” said Abram. “Drop the knife. I don’t want to have to cut you.” 

The pressure on Matthew’s wrist went away. He was released. Matthew staggered a few paces, then took in the scene. Abram had come up behind Royce and was gripping the back of the man’s shirt. More importantly, Abram’s blade was right up under Royce’s chin. Royce’s knife fell from his hand. 

“You all right?” Abram asked Matthew, and Matthew nodded but he was lying; he eased himself down to the ground, and was met there by Quinn. She put her arms around him and held him tightly and might have said to him
Daniel, my sweet Daniel
but Matthew was nearly beyond hearing. 

“Got you now,” said Abram to Royce, who managed for all his rage and ferocity to remain very still. “Takin’ you back to the Green Sea, cap’n. You’re my prisoner.” And then, because he was yet a slave and Royce a white man, however low, he added by force of habit the respectful, “
Suh
.” 

The Soul Cryer remained upright on its hind legs, as the yellow eyes in its burn-scarred head threw their own fire at Magnus. 

“Shoot it!” Bovie croaked. “Christ’s sake…
shoot it
!” 

But Magnus did not pull the trigger, nor did he slash with the sword. 

The Soul Cryer wavered, about to lose its tentative balance. Magnus recognized in the beast the cruelty of this wilderness and perhaps the cruelty of the world itself. He thought it was a tortured thing, a creature forsaken and maybe feared by its own breed. It prowled alone out here, hunted alone and wept alone. He knew solitude, and what it could do to a man. He wondered if years of it could do the same thing to a scarred and tormented panther, and maybe in the slitted eyes there was a death wish, if indeed the creature could think beyond the green walls of its prison. 

Embers rained down. The smoke swirled and the fire gave a dull roar as it jumped from tree to tree. 

Go home
, Magnus thought.
Go
—

The Soul Cryer trembled as its muscles tensed. It took a staggered step forward, its malformed mouth opening at a sideways angle to expose the vicious fangs. Saliva drooled from the jaws and down upon the black-streaked chest. 

—home
, Magnus thought, and he pulled the pistol’s trigger. 

The ball hit the Soul Cryer as near to the heart as Magnus could aim. The creature gave a grunt of pain and fell backwards but quickly it righted itself again, now on all fours, and crouched staring at Magnus through the banners of gray smoke that moved between them. Magnus knew that one ball was surely not enough to kill it, unless it had indeed damaged the heart. The Soul Cryer was breathing heavily and blood bubbled at the blackened nostrils, but it showed no other sign of weakness or injury. 

He had no time to reload. He stood with the sword ready. His hand was trembling. 

The Soul Cryer suddenly turned toward Barrows’ body, moving with its pained rhythm. With its eyes still on Magnus, the beast angled its head and gripped its jaws around the dead man’s skull. It shook the body like a strawman in a display of tremendous power, and the jaws crunched around the skull and the fangs broke bone and the Soul Cryer ate Barrows’ brains with the determination of an eager child eating sugar candy. 

Magnus noted blood pooling under the panther’s chest. The Soul Cryer fed on Barrows’ essence, its eyes never leaving Magnus, and in their yellow glare Magnus saw the message
Get
away from here
.
Get away…and never, ever come back
. 

When Barrows’ broken head was emptied, the Soul Cryer’s eyes blinked, releasing Magnus from their spell. The beast backed away, favoring its ruined foreleg. Giving a noise so near to a human sob that Magnus thought he might hear it in his nightmares, the panther turned with its stiffened motion and leaped into the thicket it claimed as home, and then nothing was left of it but a streak of bright red blood upon the swamp’s ancient mud. 

“Oh Jesus,” Bovie gasped. “Jesus help us…” 

It occured to Magnus that, though Caleb Bovie had been bitten on the balls by a cottonmouth, the man might be too tough to succumb to snake poison. Either that, or the snake hadn’t gotten both fangs to the task, or the venom had not been delivered in an amount to kill, or it was simply not time for Bovie to go. In any case, though Bovie’s face was still tinged with blue and his lips caked with dried foam, Magnus thought that if the lout was going to die he would’ve been dead already. 

“Can you stand up and walk?” Magnus asked. 

“Give it a try,” Bovie answered, still in a weak voice, but it was a moment before he did. The roar of the oncoming fire gave him the will to get to his knees, and then the mud-covered mountain hauled him up the rest of the way. Bovie staggered and almost went down again, but Magnus held him steady. 

“My head’s spinnin’,” Bovie complained. “Legs feel like much a’nothin’.” 

“I’m not carryin’ you out of here, that’s for sure.” 

Bovie took in the bodies on the ground. “Did Royce…” He looked at Magnus with his red-rimmed eyes. “Did Royce kill that girl?” 

“Yes,” was the answer. 

“But
why
would’ve he have done such a thing?” 

“Because,” Magnus said, and he’d already spent time thinking on this subject, “some men want what they can’t have, some men want to kill
for
what they can’t have…and I reckon some men want to kill
what
they can’t have. It’s that angel and devil fightin’, just like you said…and when the devil wins, sometimes an angel dies.” 

“Reckon so,” said Bovie. “Damn…am I gonna
live
?” 

“I believe you are.” 

“Told you it was just a black snake.” 

“So you did,” Magnus said. He glanced back through the smoke at the oncoming flames. It looked to be a solid wall of fire. He wondered if somewhere the Soul Cryer was not watching it as well, and if the creature might lie down exhausted and ready to die, and this time let the flames finish their job of destruction and rebirth. Magnus, however, was not ready to do the same. Royce was still out there, going after Matthew and the runaways. Magnus retrieved Stamper’s musket and gave Barrows’ musket to Bovie. Both, he saw, were primed and ready to be cocked and fired. He saw also that, regrettably, neither dead man had boots big enough to fit his feet. “Let’s get our tails to the river,” he said, and he started off with Bovie following, limping and rubbing his snake-bit balls.