“When d-d-does it wear off?”
“Depends.”
What sort of answer was that? “How long d-d-did yours last?”
There was a tiny pause before he answered. “Eighteen hours.”
“How d-d-did you k-k-keep from scratching?”
“I didn’t. They chained me in a cell by the neck and let me go at it.”
“That’s h-h-horrible.” What kind of army was he in exactly that they would let him claw himself bloody? “Couldn’t they sedate you or s-s-s-something?”
His voice was matter of fact. “They didn’t bother with it.”
“That’s not right.” Her teeth danced, and Cerise bit down, sending her knees into an uncontrollable shiver. “It’s going to g-g-get worse, isn’t it?”
He leaned to her and peered into her eyes. “Do you see small red dots floating?”
“No.”
He grimaced. “Then it’s going to get worse.”
Awesome. “W-w-w ... w-w-w ... w-w-w ...”
“Take your time,” he told her.
“W-w-w-weird assholes.”
He barked a short laugh.
The bugs continued their mad jig. If only she could get warm . . .
“Is there another way to Sicktree?”
Her mind took a few long moments to digest his question. At last Cerise understood. “The tracker will d-d-double back eventually. We m-m-must leave the river.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
The bugs on her arms began gnawing at her skin, burrowing into it, trying to chew their way through muscles to her veins and the blood within. She clenched her fists to keep from scratching.
Her nose was running. She had an absurd feeling that if only she could get ahold of something sharp like a knife blade and scrape it against her skin, the bugs would disappear.
William turned the boat with a sharp stab of the pole. The punt rammed the shore. “Don’t even think about it.”
Cerise realized she was holding her short sword in her hand. She sniffled.
William held out his hand.
“It’s m-m-mine,” she said.
“You don’t need it right this second.”
Cerise took a deep breath, pronouncing each word with crisp exactness. “If you try to take my sword, I will kill you with it.”
His eyes studied her. “Fine,” he said. “I won’t fight you for your knife if you tell me how we can get to Sicktree.”
Cerise forced her mind to work. It started slowly, like a rusty water mill. “Small stream. Three miles up the river on the right side, between two pines, one of them lightning-scorched. It will take us to Mozer Lake, but we’ll have to drag the boat for the last two miles.”
Once she started scratching, she wouldn’t stop.
There are no bugs, there are no bugs . . .
“Hobo queen!”
“What?”
“Mozer Lake.”
Mozer Lake. What about the damn Mozer Lake? She pictured the waterways. Sicktree. They were going to Sicktree, to that piss-and-shit sewer hole of a town. There was something vital about Sicktree.
Urow.
Urow was in Sicktree. She had to get to her cousin, so he could bring her home, fast, so she would make the court date, so they could take back the house, and kill the Sheeriles and the Hand, and get her parents back.
Save parents. Get to Sicktree. Right.
“Mozer Lake opens into Tinybear Creek,” she said. “Tinybear will become Bigbear. We can abandon the boat before the Bigbear joins the main river and cross the swamp on foot to Sicktree.”
Cerise ran through the course in her mind. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.” She paused, not sure if she’d said it correctly. “Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path.”
“Thank you, Dora. Put the sword back into Backpack and we’ll go.” He nodded at the river.
“Who is Dora?”
“You are. Dora the Explorer.
Vamanos.
Put the sword away or I will take it from you.”
Arrogant prick. “Touch me and d-d-die,” she told him.
He chuckled. It was a raspy deep sound. Wolves laughed like that.
Cerise sheathed the sword and hugged the scabbard. The bugs dug harder, tiny steel mandibles chewing on her ligaments, turning the muscle under her skin into bloody soft mush . . . Cerise locked her jaws, remembering the grotesque web of tentacles slick with crimson hair as it left the muddy water.
Damn freak. The next time we meet, I’ll make your arms even. I’ll keep mincing you into pieces until you tell me where my parents are.
“It’s g-g-going to rain,” she said, pointing at the thick gray clouds.
William glanced at the clouds. “Rain’s good for us. Covers our trail.” He paused and leaned over to her. “It’s all in your head. Don’t let it push you around. I’ll keep you safe until you’re back on your feet.”
Keep her safe, ha. She would keep herself safe. Huddled on the bench, Cerise pulled her jacket tighter around herself and tried not to scratch.
CERISE’S shortcut stream turned out to be mud slicked over with a foot and a half of water. Too shallow for the boat carrying the full load. William shifted his grip and waded on, dragging the boat and their bags in it. Cerise walked in front of him, sword out.
She hadn’t taken it to her skin. She hadn’t scratched either, but the Hand’s magic took its toll: she stooped, as if carrying a heavy load, and hadn’t said a word to him in the last hour. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or if he missed her needling.
The swamp had grown dark. Shadows disappeared. Storm clouds churned overhead, gray, thick, and heavy. A gust of wind ripped through the reeds and bushes, rustling the undergrowth. Rain was imminent.
Cerise kept trudging ahead. She was beginning to drag her feet. The more sensitive you were to magic, the harder the Hand hit. Ruh was altered enough to make even William gag, and he’d been exposed to the Hand’s magic before.
Ultimately it came down to willpower. She had guts and endurance—William gave her that—but the worst was yet to come. When the aftereffects really hit, and eventually they would, she could go into convulsions. If she died, his shot at Spider could die with her. He had to keep her alive and safe.
Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled, shaking the leaves. The air smelled of scorched sky. Heavy, cold drops drummed on the cypresses, at first a few, then more and more, until finally the clouds burst and a torrent showered the swamp, so dense even he could barely see beyond a few feet.
William raised his face to the dark sky and swore.
Cerise turned to him. The rain had soaked her, turning her clothes into a single dark mass and mixing with the mud on her face. She looked like she had sprouted from the Mire itself, like some shrub from a mud bank. Bloodshot eyes stared at him. She was running on fumes.
Cerise opened her mouth. The words came out slowly. “Don’t worry, you won’t melt. Not sweet enough.”
“You see those dots I mentioned, you tell me.”
“Will do.”
They kept going. The boat scraped the ground and became wedged.
“We’ll have to c-c-carry it,” Cerise said, swiping her bag.
William shouldered his rucksack. She lifted the nose of the boat.
“I’ve got it,” he told her.
“It’s heavy.”
“I’ll manage.” He flipped the boat over and hoisted it on his shoulders. He could carry her and the boat for several miles, but she didn’t need to know that. His field of vision shrank to the small space directly beneath his feet, the rest taken up by dark boat and Cerise’s jacket and legs. They moved on.
Water and mud soaked William to the bone. It was under his leathers and in his boots. His socks formed soggy clumps that bunched against his feet. He would give a year of his life to shed the wet clothes and run on all fours. But the girl and his load kept him in human skin.
He missed his trailer. His small, shabby trailer, which was dry and had a flat-screen TV and beer in the fridge. And dry socks. That was one of the things he loved most about the Broken. He could buy all the socks he ever wanted.
Cerise stopped and he nearly rammed her with the damn boat. “What is it?”
“We missed the turnoff!” she yelled over the storm. “The stream must’ve changed course because of the rain. We’re too far to the left. We need to go that way, to the lake!”
She waved her hand to the right, at the gloom between the trees.
Everything that could go wrong did. Never failed.
William turned and followed her through the brush. A familiar ghostly pressure brushed his skin. They were near the boundary. For a furious second he thought she’d led him back to it in a circle.
She stopped again. He jerked back. Impossible woman.
Cerise pointed. “Look!”
He shifted the boat to see. In front of them the wide expanse of the lake stretched like a pane of muddy glass. On their left a dock protruded into the water and at the base of the dock sat a house.
Dark windows. No trace of smoke or human scents in the air. Nobody home.
The road by it looked too smooth—paved. William focused and made out the outlines of a satellite dish on the roof. A Broken house. He was right—they were near the boundary.
Cerise leaned closer. “Sometimes the Mire makes pockets that lead to the Broken. They’re usually tiny and disappear after a while.”
He bent to her. “We hit that pocket, the Broken will strip you of your magic. A cure for all your ills.”
A tiny light flared in her eyes.
Lightning struck, the world’s heart skipping a beat.
A dark object broke the surface of the lake, rising out of the water.
William hurled the boat aside and shoved Cerise back, behind him.
The dark thing stood upright. William stared, his eyes amplifying the low light.
Seven feet tall, the creature rose on thick columnar legs. Two eight-inch-long bone claws thrust from its wrists, protruding past its fingers. Its head looked human enough, but the rough bumps distorted the outline of its body, as if it had been carved out of rough stone by someone in a hurry.
Lightning flashed again and he saw it, clear as day in the split second of light. Mad bloodshot eyes stared at him from a human face ending in an oversized jaw. Its skin, the color of watery yellow mud, wrinkled on the creature’s neck and limbs, as if it were too big for its body. Thick bony plates slabbed its back, stomach, and thighs.
Thibauld, his memory told him. One of Spider’s crew. Severely altered, ambusher class. Shit.
Thibauld peered at them, looking from William’s face to the girl and back. He blocked the way to the boundary. To get to the house, they would have to get past him. According to the Mirror’s intel, Thibauld had a superior sense of smell. A bad opponent on land, he was hell in the water. Spider must’ve parked him in the lake on the off chance Cerise would come this way. He probably had most major waterways blocked.
William focused, judging the distance to the agent. His crossbow was in the pack on his back. A second to drop the pack, two to pull the crossbow, another second to load . . . too long. He’d have to rely on his knife.
The Hand’s agent raised his arms. The long scimitar claws pointed at Cerise. His mouth gaped open, revealing rows of short triangular teeth. They would shred flesh like a cheese grater, and the jaws looked strong enough to bite through bone. Great.
A dull, deep voice issued from Thibauld’s mouth, pronouncing each word with agonizing slowness. “It . . . is . . . mine.”
“No,” William told him.
The claws pointed at him. “You . . . die,” the agent promised.
“Not today.”
Cerise lunged. William sensed her move and thrust his arm out, knocking her down, before she got a taste of the claws. “Stay behind me!”
Cerise crashed into the mud and stayed there.
The muscle on Thibauld’s frame expanded, snapping the loose skin tight. William eased the backpack off his shoulders.
An odd, warbling sound rolled in Thibauld’s grotesque throat. The Hand’s agent charged.
William dodged left. Claws fanned his face. He thrust under the tree-trunk arm and sliced at the exposed strip of skin over the ribs. The knife cut hard muscle. He sliced again, feeling the knife slide harmlessly across the bone plate. Damn armor-plated turkey. What wasn’t covered by plates was shielded by thick muscle. His knife wasn’t doing enough damage.
Thibauld spun, arms wide, aiming to backhand him. William jerked back. Thibauld missed but kept spinning like a windmill, claws rending. William ducked the first blow, dodged the second, and then Thibauld’s arm smashed into his shoulder.
The blow took him off his feet. William flew, curling into a ball, hit the mud with his back, and rolled to his feet. His left arm had gone numb. Strong bastard. William couldn’t afford to take another hit.