Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (48 page)

Anger at listening to his aunt and trying that Shohari blood.

Anger at stabbing his chance of going home through the heart.

Anger at disappointing Calidae.

Anger at disappointing his father yet again.

‘Steady, Merion!’ Lurker broke him from his reverie.

Merion held his hands out straight and squeezed all of his power into one singular point. The air cracked like a whip between his rigid fingers. Sparks popped and snapped in his palms. Fingers of lightning crawled across his forearms, dancing between the saluting hairs and pimpled skin. Merion pushed harder. The lightning pooled in his cradled fingers, bent and crooked like claws. In each palm, a blue-white orb began to spit and crackle. Even in the late afternoon light, it was blinding. Merion closed his fingers around them, the veins and muscles straining in each of his arms. His eyes had become bloodshot, but still he pushed his fingers closer, compressing the orbs into piercing, burning stars.

When at last his fingers touched, the orbs vanished with another whip-crack. Merion was suddenly and violently bent double as a pulse exploded from him, breaking like a wave from every inch of his body. The wave swept outwards. Lightning crackled across the dust, throwing rocks aside and snapping the dead shrubs from their roots. Lurker cried out as he was sent tottering. He would have fallen had he not found a boulder to hold himself against.

‘Fuck me,’ he gasped, twitching involuntarily.

‘I would rather not,’ Merion replied, equally breathless. He fell to his knees and tried to shake the tingling from his arms and chest. His heart had either stopped or was beating so fast it had become a dull drone.

‘You’re a natural-born crackler if I ever saw one,’ Lurker said as he brushed himself off.

‘A crackler?’ Merion panted.

Lurker tipped his hat. ‘That’s what they call rushers who put the red of an electric eel in their belly. Met a couple in the south, back in the old days, ’fore the war. Though I ain’t ever seen one do that.’

Merion grinned, and Lurker took a step back. ‘And it looks like that ain’t the only thing you can do,’ he said, grimacing and pointing at his own teeth.

Merion raised his tingling hands and gingerly probed his mouth. His teeth were razor sharp, filed to points. That took the edge off the rage; that was for sure. It took a full minute for the shade to fade, and for his teeth to return to their normal selves. Merion was relieved to say the least. He did not take his fingers off his teeth for a long while.

‘Rhin would have loved to have seen that,’ the boy muttered.

‘Where is that faerie anyway?’

‘Hiding underneath my bed, refusing to come out. Something’s spooked him, but he won’t tell me what it is. Another problem to add to the pile.’

Lurker sighed. ‘Look, boy, so you ain’t the Serpeds’ favourite flavour at the moment. That ain’t to say you ruined this forever, Merion. You need to calm down, or you’ll end up burning yourself out. I’m talking about you, mopin’ around, glarin’ at everything, fists clenched all the time. You’re angry. We get it. Do something about it instead of tryin’ to boil away to nothin’,’ Lurker said.

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Oh,’ Lurker wagged a finger. ‘Being shackled in a place you don’t want to be? I know all about that, boy.’

Merion had forgotten himself. A trickle of ice-cold guilt ran through his hot veins. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That you are,’ Lurker nodded, before raising his head to the western sky, where the burning sun was busy sinking. ‘And look who decides to finally show up. Lazy corvid.’

Merion felt a wing brush his ear as a piebald shape flew past him. He flinched, and as he did so a spark flashed across the back of his hand. Merion winced and rubbed his skin. Jake croaked as Lurker stroked the obsidian feathers under his beak.

‘This is why you can’t get too angry. Don’t do no good, boiling blood when you’re rushing. Soaks deeper into your heart.’

Merion hadn’t a clue what that meant, but he agreed that it did not sound like the best idea in the world. For the first time in a day and a half, he took a deep breath and tried to push his anger back for a while.

‘Come,’ Lurker waved a hand, ‘let’s try another shade, before that sun sets.’

But Jake was having none of that. He hopped from Lurker’s shoulder to his arm and squawked long and loud before jabbering away. Merion got nothing from the cackled words, but Lurker was listening intently, and as he did, his face began to fall, and the muscles along his jaw began to clench.

‘What’s the bird saying?’ Merion asked.

‘Let’s get back to the house. Now,’ Lurker ordered as he reached for that cannon he called a pistol, letting it dangle by his side. Jake croaked once more and fell silent.

Merion did as he was told. He got the most distinct impression that this was not a time for discussion.

*

Darkness fell like a sheet over a corpse. Merion jogged alongside Lurker, weaving through stables and outhouses to avoid the main streets. Merion listened to the music spilling from the taverns, the yells from a dozen fights in the workers’ camp, even the shrieks of fun from the windows of a nearby whorehouse. He shot a glance at the bruising sky. No matter how hard he squinted, he could not spy a single star, not one glimmer. Even the moon was absent tonight. Something about that was terribly ominous.

There was a breeze too, one that made Lurker look over his shoulder when it first blew. Merion turned as well, but all he saw was an empty row of fenced-off gardens, and a pair of scrawny pigs licking at a trough. The breeze tasted sweet, as though it had come straight from a meadow. But there was a bitterness mingled with it, as if that meadow hid a pride of starving lions, waiting to rip you to shreds.

‘There aren’t any stars,’ Merion mumbled. ‘You can normally see stars.’

Lurker did not reply. He just quickened his pace.

The house was dead and dark save for one tiny candle on the porch, fluttering its last breaths. Its orange fingers barely illuminated the figure standing in the doorway, arms crossed and slouching. She must have noted something in their pace, Merion thought, for his aunt was already halfway down the steps before they had a chance to take a ragged breath and shout. The air was still hot, despite the bitter breeze. Merion’s brow was heavy with sweat. The growing sense of fear did not help.

‘What is it?’ she asked, skidding to a halt in front of them. Lurker tipped his hat despite the urgency of the situation. Merion had to hand it to him. Manners came first. Death and destruction could wait.

‘Shohari war party,’ Lurker rumbled, ‘Jake saw them to the west, just over that scraggy pair of hills. Their shamans must have calmed the wraiths,’ He cocked a thumb back towards the town.

‘How far away?’ Merion piped up, not sure whether to be terrified or excited. His thoughts instantly turned to Rhin, even despite the faerie’s recent behaviour.

‘Not far enough,’ Lurker hissed. Jake cawed sharply twice and Lurker nodded. ‘Mayut said this day would come. We got an hour, maybe less. They’ll wait until the night’s good and dark before comin’ in, like a trident.’ Lurker jabbed the air with three fingers.

‘A what?’

‘Like a big fork, Merion,’ Lilain told him.

‘Worker’s camp in the middle, town either side.’

Lilain shook her head. ‘How do you know?’

Lurker grunted. ‘It’s what they always do. Why change something if it works?’

That seemed to throw a shiver down Lilain’s spine. Merion felt it too.

‘In the house, now,’ Lilain beckoned to them. Her voice betrayed just the faintest hint of fear, as if her mouth had been pulled tight at the corners. ‘I want you inside and the door locked, and no arguments.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ Lurker bobbed his head. Merion said nothing.

Only once the key had rattled in the lock did Lilain scratch her head. ‘We’ll be safe, if you’re here, right?’ Lilain asked of Lurker.

Lurker shrugged. ‘Maybe, but there ain’t no guarantee. They might just shoot or fry us on sight. Or set the house afire without even knockin’,’ he muttered.

‘
Fry
us?’ Merion whispered, his face aghast. He had quickly ducked into his room to warn Rhin, but the faerie had just shrugged and patted his sword. Merion shut the door tight behind him, and Lurker gave him a knowing look.

‘Figure of speech, Merion,’ his aunt interjected.

‘Magick, boy. The most dangerous kind.’

‘Lurker! Will you stop it?’

Merion narrowed his eyes. ‘I’m not scared,’ he asserted.

‘We’ll get on the roof,’ Lilain said. ‘They won’t look up there, if they come looking at all. We’re on the opposite side of town, thank the Maker. I knew there was a reason I bought a house in the Runnels,’ Lilain rambled.

‘Get Long Tom,’ Lurker said in a low voice.

Lilain scowled at first, but then, with a bite of her lip, her face softened, and went sliding back to well-restrained agitation. Just a twitch, here and there, to show she was human.

‘And give the boy a gun too,’ Lurker added, half-hiding behind a cough.

‘I don’t want a gun,’ Merion replied flatly, but Lurker dismissed him with a wave.

‘You need a gun, Merion. You’re ain’t fighting grade yet,’ he said, before bending a knee so he could talk up rather than down. Somehow, that was more patronising. ‘You don’t know what magick is until you seen a shaman on the loose. It ain’t pretty, but fuck me if it ain’t impressive. And loud. And hot. A leech you may be, but right now you need a gun, like a real man of the west,’ he said.

Merion was adamant. ‘I don’t want a gun,’ he repeated, chasing them up the stairs as the two of them galloped to Lilain’s study.

His aunt hissed down the stairwell. ‘Take a gun, Merion. Better to have one and not need it, than need one and not have it. That’s what my father, your grandfather, always said.’

Merion caught her at the door to her dishevelled study. He lowered his voice to a growl. ‘And it was a gun that killed my father, your brother, and I will not consort with the horrid things. They’re ugly. And evil!’

Lilain moved to put a hand on her nephew’s shoulder, but Merion shrugged himself away. He stood there, defiant, and watched her face fall, and made no apologies for it. Perhaps she was sorry, and by all rights she should be. If she wanted to pat shoulders, then maybe she shouldn’t make a habit of ruining lives.

When finally she had caught herself, she shook her head at him. ‘The gun is as evil as the person who holds it. It’s a machine, not a monster.’

But Merion was adamant. ‘No, I want some shades instead. Electric eel, or a sprite.’

‘You’re not ready for sprite.’

Merion stamped his foot. ‘Yes I am!’

‘Yes, he is,’ Lurker murmured from the study. He was busy unlocking a chest buried under a stack of books.

‘Lurker!’ Lilain snapped. ‘You just said …’

‘What? He is,’ he said, and waved his hands in surrender. ‘Better to have it and not need it, right?’

Lilain sighed. It wasn’t like her to give up so easily. ‘Alright,’ she relented. ‘Give him The Mistress. I’ll fetch some shades.’

‘The
what
?’ Merion asked.

There was a loud click as Lurker’s key found its teeth. ‘Ah,’ he said, grinning, ‘here she is.’

Some men love guns more than they love women. Lurker was one of these men. The way he held a gun was evidence of this fact: the way that at one moment he might be caressing its sides, and then the next he was hefting it onto his shoulder, or whirling it around. Certain parallels could be drawn here.

Merion scowled as Lurker held her up. The Mistress. If she had been of the female species, she would have been a tremendously ugly specimen. A revolting lady, all bolts and sharp edges, with a long grey pipe for a snout and copper teeth for a smile.

Merion held her in both hands and sneered. ‘This isn’t a mistress.’

‘Not
a
mistress, boy,
The
Mistress,’ Lurker corrected him. He was loading his own gun, Big Betsy, and Lilain’s long, twisted-barrelled rifle, Long Tom. It had some sort of skinny telescope just above the trigger.

Merion looked down at his gun and wondered why his was so special. It looked as though it had been stretched out, and instead of six barrels it had just the one, with a revolving breech near the wooden grip. A hammer-like protrusion sat just above his thumb when he held it.

‘Six shots. Every time you shoot you crank that back. Don’t put your finger on the trigger ‘til you’re sure you want to pull it, unnerstan’ me? And number one rule: keep that hammer forwards when you’re not shooting. Even if you don’t manage to shoot one of us dead, you’ll bring the whole war party down on our heads. Keep that in your mind,’ Lurker lectured him. ‘Now, on the roof, boy.’ Lurker pointed towards a window, and Merion gulped. Was this really happening? Was there really about to be a war?

Could this week get any worse?

The breeze had turned colder, taking the sting out of the hot night. Merion found himself shivering as he climbed on all fours to the apex of the roof. The gradient was hardly steep, but the wooden shingles wobbled under every step. All Merion could think of was how heavy the gun was at his hip.