Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [149]
“What is he doing?” Kaldar murmured.
“He’s breaking down the garden.”
William swung off the branch, leaped down to the lower one, and swung himself down, dropping to the ground.
“Where are you going?” Kaldar hissed.
“Inside. Spider and most of his people are gone. There are only a few agents guarding the place.”
“We’re supposed to wait for Cerise.”
William activated his crossbow and headed to the house. Behind him Kaldar swore under his breath and hopped onto the soft ground. William padded through the cypress grove to the edge of the clearing and halted. The ground smelled odd.
Kaldar caught up. “Trapped?”
“Yes.”
Kaldar picked up a rock and tossed it into the clearing. It landed between two wards. A green stem shot out of the ground, and a hail of needle-thin thorns peppered the soil, striking sparks off the rock.
“You got any money on you?”
“No.”
Kaldar grimaced. “What do you have?”
William made a mental inventory of some twenty-odd items he’d pulled out of the Mirror’s bag of tricks and hid in his clothes this morning. Not much he could part with. “A knife,” he said.
“Fine. I’ll bet my knife against your knife that I can walk through there unharmed.”
William glanced at the eighty-yard clearing separating them from the house. It would be suicide. “No.”
Kaldar rolled his eyes. “It’s not the same without a bet.”
Cerise would skin him alive if he got her cousin blown up. It would be very entertaining. Therapeutic even. But it would make her cry. “No.”
“William, I need a bet; otherwise, it won’t work. You have nothing to lose. Just bet me the damn knife.”
William took out his backup knife and thrust it into the ground at his feet. “Knock yourself out.”
Kaldar dropped his own blade to the ground and picked up the knife. His fingers ran along the blade, caressing the metal. He closed his eyes and walked into the field.
His foot hovered over a spot; he turned, his eyes still closed, and veered left, then right. The toe of his right boot almost touched a patch of suspicious ground, then Kaldar swayed and spun away. He kept moving forward, lurching like he was drunk, jumped with liquid grace, froze, poised on the ball of his left foot, and conquered the last ten feet at a straight run.
He spun around, hands raised, self-indulgent smile stretching his lips. “Ah?”
A shadow flickered behind him. William leapt to his feet and fired twice. The first shot caught the agent’s eye, punching him off his feet. The second bolt went wide as a smooth, spotted tangle of a body clutched Kaldar about his shoulders and pulled him up to the second-floor window.
Embelys, William’s memory told him. The serpent. No time to waste.
William tossed a handful of the Mirror’s bombs into the clearing. The tiny spheres detonated with an ear-shattering boom. Geysers of dirt and plant roots blossomed, hurling debris into the air. Guided by his instinct, William dashed forward as the dirt rained on his shoulders, pulling his favorite knife as he ran.
He sensed the enemy ahead and thrust through the dirt with his knife. The agent whipped around, her hair a whirlwind of tiny braids above her muscled shoulders. A tide of red from the severed femoral vein drenched her leg. She gasped and went down. He didn’t wait for her death.
Shapes broke free of the brush behind the clearing savaged by his bombs. He caught a glimpse of Cerise out of the corner of his eye but kept moving.
The house loomed before him. William jumped, caught the edge of the balcony, and pulled himself up, to where Kaldar’s body had broken the wooden rail. A shattered window lay on the balcony’s floorboards in a spray of glittering glass. He leaped over the razor-sharp dew, dived into the room, rolling as he hit the floor, and came to his feet, the blade poised for a strike.
The faint sounds of a choked struggle tagged his hearing. They came from the room to his left. His kick broke the wall. He lunged inside. An agent spun at him from the right. William ducked the kick, thrust into the man’s armpit, cut the throat of the second attacker and paused