Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [27]
Something bad waited for them around the river bend.
A familiar revulsion clamped William’s throat and squeezed. His stomach lurched. Invisible magic sparked off his skin.
The Hand. Strong magic, coming fast. Ahead the river bent to the left. Someone from Spider’s crew had to be just around the turn. Could be one man or could be fifteen. No way to tell.
Cerise froze at the stern. Her body trembled.
“Hide,” he said. “Now.”
She maneuvered the boat into the clump of reeds, sank the pole into the river’s bottom, and crouched, keeping them put. He pulled a white coin from his pocket, locked his arms around her, and squeezed the metal. Here’s hoping the Mirror’s gadgets work.
The coin grew hot in his fingers. A faint sheen of magic flowed from his hand, dripping onto Cerise’s arm, over her jacket and jeans, over his arms, swallowing the whole boat.
Cerise tensed. Her hands gripped the pole, until her knuckles went completely white. The pupils in her irises grew into dark pools.
A reaction to the Hand’s magic. At least the hobo queen wasn’t working for Spider.
Cerise shivered. The first exposure was always the hardest. He had built up tolerance, chasing Spider, but she had none. If he didn’t contain her fast, she’d lose it and break the spell.
William pulled her tighter against him, clamping the pole in case she let go, and whispered into her ear. “Don’t move.”
A large boat rounded the river’s bend.
Cerise shuddered. He clenched her to him, willing the spell to hold.
The magic sheen around them swirled with a dozen hues and snapped, matching the green of reeds and gray of the water with a mirror’s precision.
The boat sliced its way against the current, drawn by a single rolpie. Men waited aboard, holding rifles. Not the Hand’s regulars—the gear was too varied. Probably the local talent. He counted the rifles. Seven. Too many to kill easily. Someone in that crowd had to be from Spider’s crew . . .
A man stood up at the stern. A long gray cloak hung off his shoulders.
The man raised his hand, and the boat drew to a stop. The rolpie’s head poked through the water. The man at the stern pulled off his cloak. He wore baggy pants and no shirt. Too skinny, like someone had wrapped a skeleton in tight muscle and poured a skin of red wax over it.
William ran through Spider’s crew in his head. A couple of male operatives were skeletally thin, but only one had brick red skin. Ruh. Spider’s tracker. According to the Mirror’s intel, he and Spider were joined at the hip. So the sonovabitch was in the swamp after all.
The skin between William’s knuckles itched, wanting to release the claws. One bite on that toothpick neck and Spider would be out a tracker. Seven rifles and fifty yards of water meant he wouldn’t get a chance. Fine, he would get his shot later. Ruh probably tasted vile anyway.
William breathed in deep and even. Hard to kill seven men and the tracker. In cramped quarters on solid ground, maybe. Especially if it was dark. He’d go through them with knife or teeth, and they’d never know what hit them. But out here, if the spell collapsed, they were sitting ducks.
If Ruh saw them, he’d flip the boat in the air, use it as a shield, and make a run for it. The girl would slow him down, but if they got to the cypresses in one piece, he could pick Ruh’s crew off one by one.
Getting to the cypresses would be a bitch.
An older, stocky Edger pulled a line from a wheel bolted to the boat’s bow and caught the rolpie’s long fragile neck in a slip knot. Keeping one hand on the line, he turned the wheel, winding it down. The rolpie jerked, startled, and fought back like a fish on a wire, but the line gripped its neck and dragged it against the side of the boat. With no room to dive and its head trapped above the water, the beast went limp.
Ruh anchored himself on the bow, his bare feet gripping the deck with toes like bird talons.