Return of the Hunters (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 4) (16 page)

A startled shout tore itself from my throat. “Don’t touch me,” I gasped. Christ, I sounded like a drowning duck. I managed to open the eye that wasn’t a skin balloon filled with lava, and it immediately started watering in pure sympathy for the other one.

The girl standing in front of me was my age, maybe a year or two older. She had a small white tube, and she was squeezing gunk from it onto her fingertips. There was a big metal bucket at her feet. The kind the Valentines used to slop entrails.

It took me a minute to place her. “Jerilee,” I croaked out. She was one of Brutal’s three kids—Brutal being Orville’s brother. The others were Bodean and Angel. In relative terms within the whole fucked-up family, Jerilee was the nice one.

“I can’t talk to you,” she said hastily, and reached for my other wrist.

While I tried not to scream, I made out the words on the tube she was holding. “Burn cream,” I muttered. “You’re kidding me. That’s not going to do anything.”

She ignored me, reached into the bucket and pulled out a sopping, stained rag.

“Neither is that,” I gasped, instinctively trying to move away. The motion made my broken bones feel like grinding glass, and I let out a hoarse cry. “Jerilee.
Please.
”

She froze. “I’m supposed to clean you up.”

“Why?”

I could practically see the gears turning in her brain. “So they can—” She stopped before the rest slipped out, but I knew she’d gotten it.

Hurt you more.

“Look, you don’t have to do this,” I said hoarsely. “They won’t know. And you’re only making it worse.”

Her lip quivered a bit. “But you’re a monster,” she whispered.

Okay. I wasn’t expecting that. “
I’m
a monster? Look at me,” I said. “Look at me, and tell me who’s the monster.”

She shook her head slowly. “We caught a…thing like you, a few years back. He killed Angel. All he did was say a word, and her neck broke.” Her shoulders straightened, and she looked directly at me. “I cleaned him up too, so they could hurt him more.”

Jesus. If I was her, I’d probably think I was a monster, too.

“Listen, I’m not that guy,” I said. “You
know
me. I’m—”

“Jerilee!”

The roaring voice made her jump. I focused on the figure striding toward us, and let out an involuntary groan.

Oh, good. Bodean.

“What the hell’s going on?” Bodean said, stopping beside his sister. The one who apparently didn’t get murdered by a Fae. “You’re supposed to be patching him up.”

“Nothing,” she muttered. “I was just going to now.”

“Did he talk to you?”

She didn’t reply. And he took that as a yes.

A fist made of stone plowed into my gut and drove the breath out of me. “Don’t you fucking speak to my sister, freak,” Bodean said. “Not one word. You get me?”

I wouldn’t have answered, even if I could.

“Good. Jerilee, you shout out if he says anything else.” He grabbed my hair and jerked my head up roughly. “Open that mouth of yours again, and I’m gonna pop all your teeth out with a boning knife. Freak.”

He spat in my face for good measure before he stalked away.

Jerilee released a shuddering breath and wrung out the rag. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I couldn’t do anything but close my good eye and wait for the pain to start.

C
HAPTER 27

A
t least the moonlight was doing its work. I couldn’t cast a single spell with the cold iron and the mandrake oil poisoning me, but I’d healed enough that I could open one and a half eyes now. And I could mostly breathe without sobbing.

That probably meant they’d start in on me again soon.

I wouldn’t have much healing time left. The moon hung low on the horizon to my left, and the sky to the right was starting to gray. Just about bedtime for the Valentines. In fact, some of them had already turned in for the day. But it was way too much to hope they’d all go to sleep and leave me alone.

The Duchenes and Reun must’ve figured out something was wrong by now. So I had to assume they were out looking for me, and pray the Valentines didn’t find them first. These bastards might actually have a shot at taking all five of them down. They’d gotten more ruthless than I thought possible over the past decade—and they had Milus Dei backing them up.

Unfortunately, I had no idea whether they’d even be able to find me. There was a lot of swamp, and the Valentines had spent a lifetime not being found.

It wasn’t long before I realized there was a downside to feeling things other than pain. Jerilee had ripped my shirt to shreds and taken my boots and socks so she could “treat” me, and December was not a warm month. Even in the southern swamps. The pre-dawn temperature was probably somewhere in the forties, but to me it was starting to feel like winter in Siberia. I was already shivering almost constantly.

The shivering made the pain worse. At least that meant I’d stop feeling the cold eventually.

I’d almost managed to make myself black out again when a rough kick to my shin jolted me back. The sight of Hodge and Morris didn’t surprise me. “You look like hell, pretty-boy,” Hodge said. “I gotta say, that makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.”

“Great,” I managed. “We aim to please.”

He didn’t laugh. “Think I like you better when you’re pissing yourself and running away.”

“Yeah, well I’m not sixteen anymore.” Sure as hell felt like it, though. More than anything about this whole living nightmare, it was killing me that I’d fought so hard to escape all this, to make sure I’d never be at their mercy again—and here I was. Helpless. “Did you want something, Hodge?” I said. “Or did you just want to see my pretty face?”

He looked like he’d hit me again. But then he smiled, and that was worse. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We’ve still got time, though. How about a little road-haul before we turn in? For old time’s sake.”

I glared at him. “Oh, gee. Could we?”

“You hear that? I knew he missed us.” Hodge grinned as he nudged Morris. “Unhook those chains, and let’s get him over to the truck.”

Morris didn’t exactly jump at the idea. “If we kill him, Pa’s gonna kill
us
,” he said. “He’s worth a million. Maybe more.”

I wasn’t going to think about how much I was worth to Milus Dei. And I wouldn’t do anything to suggest that the cult would probably pay a lot more. The Valentines might know about the Fae, but they didn’t know about the DeathSpeaker.

If they did, they would’ve turned me in already.

“He won’t die.” Hodge waved a hand at him. “You said it yourself, remember? He’s Fae.”

“Yeah, I guess. But…” Morris furrowed his brow. “How can he be Fae, if he’s our brother? I mean, we’re not Fae.”

I’d wondered if anyone was going to pick up on that.

Unfortunately, the revelation didn’t slow Hodge down. “Who goddamn cares,” he said. “We’re gonna have to turn him over for the money soon, and I want to put a real hurting on him first. Gimme the keys.”

Damn. I didn’t think I could take much more punishment, especially road-hauling. It was one of Hodge’s favorite pastimes—he’d chain me to the trailer hitch on the back of his pickup, and then drive around dragging me over the roughest terrain he could find. That might actually kill me at this point.

They didn’t know I was only half Fae. I probably wasn’t as immortal as they thought.

And I didn’t want to learn just how mortal I was the hard way.

Hodge circled behind me and unlocked the chains holding my ankles, and then my wrists. My legs didn’t even try to hold me up. I slid abruptly down the drying frame and landed on my ass, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. A blinding white flash of pain erased my vision for long seconds.

Of course he’d left the cold iron cuffs on, and the chains connecting them.

When the dazzling white faded, Hodge was standing at my feet. “Come on, little brother,” he said with a sickening grin. “Let’s go for a ride.”

I’m not your brother, you son of a bitch.
I didn’t say it out loud, because I had a feeling that would lead to a creatively painful interrogation. No way would I let these bastards hunt down my actual brother, or my friends.

The idea brought me on a train of thought that left me cold. If I really wanted to protect the people I cared about, I couldn’t let Milus Dei get their hands on me. I knew exactly what their plans for me were—the global extinction of Others. But there was no way out of this. I’d escaped the Valentines once, and they’d make damned sure I couldn’t manage it again.

So I’d have to die.

Hodge seized the chain between my ankles and started dragging me on my back. He was actually whistling—some inane, cheerful little tune I half-recognized. “Get the truck warmed up, Morris,” he said. “We’ll have ourselves a grand old time. Then we’ll get some sleep, and do it all over again.”

As I tried to focus on anything but the prospect of being hauled to new heights of agony behind a truck, I heard a thought that wasn’t mine.

Gideon? What…oh God, cher, what happened to you?

Senobia. “Not a great time,” I mumbled. The tattered remnants of my shirt rode up and tried to choke me while Hodge continued dragging. “Busy wishing I was dead.”

I can feel it. All this pain.
Her voice trembled in my head.
Where you at?

“Hell. And I don’t mean the one in Texas.” At least I didn’t have to worry about her hurting me when she talked. That sensation barely registered. But while she was here, there was something I should say. “I’m…sorry,” I rasped. “I’m so sorry. I can’t save you.”

Don’t you worry ’bout me, cher. Let’s worry ’bout you.

I almost laughed. “Yeah. I can’t save me, either.”

Hodge slowed down and glanced over his shoulder at me. “Who the fuck are you talking to, boy?” he said. “You got some invisible fairy friends around here or something?”

I declined to answer him. So he kicked me, and kept going.

Gideon, listen to me.
Senobia sounded right on the edge of panic, but I sensed that all her worry was for me.
I got no clue what’s happenin’ to you right now, but I know you gonna make it. You remember what I said to you, back on the train?

“Sort of.” I couldn’t manage more than a whisper.

I said there ain’t no keepin’ you where you don’t want to be. And I believe that with everythin’ I ever was,
she said.
You done got away from Milus Dei more times’n anybody can count. Hell, you slipped the Unseelie Queen.

“You know about that?”

We all know. You oughta hear Reun talkin’ you up like you’s the Second Coming.
Her tone took on a smile.
Now wherever you at, you gonna get out of there, hear?

For a second I almost believed her. But then, hopelessness sunk back in. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I’ve got nothing. No magic, no strength. Hell, I’m even about to lose my…shirt.”

Holy shit. I
did
have something. I had my scars—and my tattoos.

The enchanted tattoos Cobalt had given me, the ones on my back, scared off people who intended to harm me. He’d done that because of the scars. The Valentines’ visible legacy of horror had brought me to him in the first place, a scared kid looking for coverups. I hadn’t known that I was half-Fae at the time, but Cobalt did—and he wanted to protect me from whoever did all that damage.

The magic activated when I was critically injured. I was pretty sure this counted as critical.

All I had to do was get Hodge and Morris to look at them.

“Okay,” I said for Senobia’s benefit. “You’re right.”

Course I’m right, cher. You get clear, now. We checkin’ on you later, jes’ to make sure.

And she was gone.

C
HAPTER 28

I
t wasn’t easy lifting my head, but I managed an inch or so. Just enough to see the idling pickup not far ahead, parked in a grass clearing with a dirt road leading away from it, and Morris standing near the tarp-covered bed.