Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [120]
William ground his teeth and tried to hold it back. He would need it later. He would need it for Spider. Not now, fuck it. Not now.
“Bet you a dollar I’ll kill more than Richard,” Kaldar yelled, his fingers clenching a wide-bladed sword.
“That’s a losing bet,” Richard said.
Inside William, the wild’s jaws had opened a crack. He caught a glimpse of its fangs, shining and white like the surface of a glacier. He was losing. The rending was coming.
Erian jerked a short, curved knife from the sheath on his belt. A moment stretched into an eternity. Another . . .
The wild opened its mouth. Bottomless blackness gaped in its maw, guarded by icy fangs. He stared straight into it.
The wild bit at him. The fangs pierced his mind. The wild swallowed. Darkness engulfed him.
The world slowed to a crawl. William walked into the field.
Behind him Kaldar screamed. William paid him no mind.
Another kick rocked the bars and the whole grate came loose and clattered to the ground. A dark-haired woman leaped out of the window. She took two steps and crashed down as a bolt sprouted from her throat.
The Sheerile mercenaries fled from the house, spilling from the window and doors, charging across the clearing. William snarled and lunged at them.
A man hurled himself at him, knife raised. Too slow. William swayed away from the glittering metal arc of the striking blade, sliced the man’s armpit, jerked him to the side, cut his throat, and kept moving. A woman lunged from the left. William disemboweled her with a precise slash, stepped over her body, and kept moving. He killed again and again, knowing that nothing short of shedding his skin and biting into living flesh would satisfy him. He had to settle for what he had. Steel rang around him, punctured by isolated shots. He glided through the air thick with metallic blood stench on soft wolf paws, removing obstacles in his path.
The world dissolved into blackness and blood.
CERISE saw William sprint across the field. Her mind took a second to comprehend it, and by the time she understood what was happening, he’d swung his knife, quicker than the eye could see. Arterial spray wet the ground, bright, vivid red. The Sheeriles’ man fell to his knees, but William had already gone on to his next victim.
He killed the woman in an instant, didn’t even pause, and when he turned to strike at the next man in his path, she saw his eyes, hot like two chunks of molten amber.
“Stay back!” she barked. “Stay away from him.”
He cut and sliced, raging across the field like a demon, killing with brutal, precise savagery. As if a mad tiger had got loose amid a herd of helpless prey. Fast, tireless, deadly.
A shot rang out. William jerked. Her heart skipped a beat.
William swiped a knife from a fallen opponent, whipped about, and hurled it. The blade sliced through the narrow space between the bars on the second-floor window. A woman sagged against the bars and tumbled down, a knife in her throat.
William grinned, baring his teeth, and kept killing.
Chill bumps marked her arms.
Around her, people stood up to get a better look. Nobody said a word. The family just stood and watched in horrified silence.
So that was what he kept chained inside.
“He’s insane,” Richard said next to her.
“I know,” she told him. “He held it in all this time. He’s unbelievable, isn’t he?”
Richard stared at her for a long moment and raised his eyes to the sky. “What are all of you doing up there? You’ve lost your minds.”
“WILLIAM?”
The girl. Her voice, floating into his mind. Her scent swirling about him, filtering through the scents of hot blood
Cerise. Calling him.
William clawed through the blood-soaked fog.
Her hand touched him. He grabbed her and pulled her to him. His vision snapped into crystal clarity, and he saw her and his hands, gripping her shoulders. His fingers were covered with blood.
Cerise smiled at him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Her fingers stroked his cheek. “Are you back with us?”
“I never left.”
He noticed her family now. They had surrounded him in a ragged circle, clutching crossbows and rifles.