Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [164]
Loud sucking noises came from the left, as if someone was trudging his way through the mud and carrying half the Mire worth of it on his boots.
Shlop. Shlop. Shlop.
Cerise dropped back into her hole.
Karmash raised his hand and turned in the direction of the sound.
A tall gangly figure in a crimson robe strode down the hill.
Emel. Dear Gods, why?
Emel stopped, gathered the edge of his crimson vestments, already mud-soaked, and shlopped his way past the bewildered agents to face the mud where the Mars hid. “Cerise,” he called. “I really must talk to you.”
The agents stared at him.
I’m going to kill him. Cerise clenched her teeth. A dead man. He is a dead man.
“The payment still hasn’t been made,” Emel said, fiddling with the hem of his wet robe. “Usually at this point I start killing the relatives of the guilty party, but since you are my relatives, the matter is a bit more complicated.”
Next to her, Richard turned on his back, his hands behind his head. His face assumed a serene expression as he slowly sank into the mud. Apparently it was just too much for him.
Emel tucked his hem in the crook of his elbow and put the fingers of his two hands together. “Now then, I believe we’ve made an agreement for one thousand seven hundred and twenty-five U.S. dollars due yesterday. I really would like to resolve this matter here and now, before you may charge to your probable death. Not that I wish you to perish, by any means, but should you expire, our agreement would become void, and I would hate to go through negotiations again. I do hate to be crude, but I would like the money now. Please.”
Did he think she brought it with her? The Hand wouldn’t let him walk away. He was going to get himself killed. What in the world was he doing, making himself a target?
Karmash was looking past Emel, straight at her. She realized he had seen them.
The Hand would have to go through Emel to get to them.
Oh no.
The Sect didn’t want him involved, but if he was attacked, they would expect him to defend himself. Emel was trying to pick a fight.
“Kill them!” Karmash howled. “Kill the corpse buggerer and his family!”
The agents dashed for the necromancer, leaving their leader struggling to secure the rope. The monstrous muscles on his arms bulged, he gritted his teeth, and began circling the cypress, winding the rope around the bloated stem. Beyond him, Cerise glimpsed a lean blond man shout commands to the group guarding the southwestern path.
Emel turned. “Corpse buggerer?” He dropped the hem of his robe. “Nobody insults the acolyte of Gospo Adir.”
His face trembled. His hands reached out, rigid fingers raking the air like talons. Power accreted around him, compacting into a dense cocoon. The black surface of the pond gasped as a ball of foul-smelling gas erupted from its middle.
Cerise dashed to him. Behind her the Mars charged at the Hand.
Emel grunted like an animal. His hands clawed the air.
Shapes burst from the peat, huge hulking forms of skeleton and rotting flesh. Too big, too broad for human corpses. Thoas, the dead of the moon people.
The first of the Hand’s agents reached Emel. Cerise lunged, flashing across her blade, and stepped back, as the top half of the agent’s body slid from the torso and crashed into the mud.
“Thank you.” Emel brought his hands together and exhaled sharply. The dead thoas ripped into the agents.
“Thank you for helping.”
“Of course. We’re family. You go. I’m well protected now.”
She sprinted into the thick of the battle.
The thoas tore into the agents with all the wrath Emel could muster. Three of them hung on the white-haired giant. He tried to push them off, but they clung to him, taloned hands ripping, rotting teeth biting. He slammed his back against the cypress and knocked one of the corpses loose.
A grunt of pain made Cerise whirl. She turned just in time to see Mikita go down. A furry creature leaped onto his prone body with a triumphant shout. Before she knew it, Cerise was running, running desperately fast across the slick sludge. She was ten yards away when the