Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [118]
William rode up to the tree and sliced with his knife, cutting the small furry body in two. A swirling mass of tentacles spilled out and fell into the dirt with a wet plop. She’d seen these tentacles before, inside the bat guided by the Hand’s necromancer.
“A deader?” Cerise asked.
William nodded. “You don’t have to worry about the Hand today.”
“Why not?” Erian asked from the back.
William glanced at him. “If Spider had his people helping the Sheeriles, he wouldn’t need a scout to keep an eye on things. He must have cut the Sheeriles off, but he still wants a report from the fight.”
That meant Lagar and Arig were on their own. Just the two brothers and whatever hired muscle they brought with them. Cerise raised her eyes to the sky. “Thank you.”
“I can kill the necromancer,” William said.
“How many people do you need?”
He grinned, flashing white teeth, his face feral. “None.”
“I’ll see you at the house, then. Happy hunting.”
William hopped off his horse and vanished into the brush.
She turned her horse. “The Sheeriles are alone. Let’s go pry them out of that damn house.”
A ragged chorus answered her. Worry stabbed her, and she crushed it before it had a chance to show on her face.
WILLIAM pulled himself up onto the pine branch at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the scene. The soles of his boots were slick with the Scout Master’s blood, and he took an extra second to climb.
The old house sat on a very gentle incline. The Sheeriles must’ve gotten ahold of a lawnmower, because the grass around the house was freshly mowed. A sixty-yard stretch of rocky ground, dotted with stumps of severed weeds, separated the house from the trees. The Mars lay at the perimeter in a ragged line. They were looking at the house.
He looked, too. It was a two-story dilapidated-looking place, the kind he saw often in the Broken. Everything was peeling, sagging, or rotting, except for the iron grates on the windows. Those looked brand new. The gaps between the bars bristled with rifles. The place was a damn fortress. If it was him, he’d set it on fire and pick the enemy off as they jumped out.
At the tree line Richard saw him and touched Cerise’s shoulder. She turned to look in his direction. William raised the Scout Master’s head by the hair and dangled it for her. The Hand’s necromancer had died with an ugly grimace on his face. Maybe bringing the head wasn’t the best idea, but then how would she know he killed the man?
Cerise gave him a thumbs-up. Ha!
He set the head in the bend of the branch and glanced back at the Mars. At the far end, Lark sat in a tree, hidden from the house by the bark. She waved at him. He waved back.
A woman rose from a crouch at the tree line, clutching a familiar bronze-colored ball in her hand. A stinker grenade, the Weird military’s favorite nonlethal weapon of crowd control. Throw one of those into an enclosed space and watch people trample each other trying to get out. That must’ve cost Cerise an arm and a leg. How were they going to get it past the bars? He glanced at the house. Ah, there. A rectangular window, a foot long, six inches wide, too small to bother barring.
The woman took a deep breath. A flash of pale green flared from her in a short burst. A defensive flasher. Not very strong either. Chances were, she couldn’t keep it up for long.
She ran into the open, her magic flaring like a glowing wall around her. Bullets whistled and bounced off, deflected by the green flash. She didn’t have a lot of juice, just enough to bounce off a bullet.
The woman sprinted, in a straight line, shuddering under the hail of bullets. Good plan. Go, William cheered her on. Go, go!
Thirty yards to the house. Twenty-five, twenty-two . . .
The ground under her left foot gave. Metal teeth flashed. The woman screamed, her foot caught in a huge metal trap. Her flash faltered and vanished.
The first bullet took her in the chest as she was falling. It tore a chunk of flesh from her back in a crimson spray. The second, third, and fourth