If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve sworn she had cut Thibauld in half. Shell and all. How did she manage that? Swords couldn’t do that.
Her eyes were huge and dark on her mud-splattered face. He peered into their depths and missed her fist until it was too late. A sharp punch hammered his gut. He didn’t even have time to flex. Pain exploded in his solar plexus.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Cerise ground out.
He caught her hand. “I was protecting you, you dumb-ass.”
“I don’t need protecting!”
Behind her a bat crawled down the trunk of a cypress. William grabbed Cerise, pulling her out of the way, and hurled his knife. The blade spun and sliced into the small body, pinning it to the tree. Cerise jerked away from him.
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s a deader,” he told her.
Purplish, translucent tentacles of magic stretched from the bat, clutching at the knife, trying to pull it out.
“What the hell is that?”
“A scout. Bats hide during rain.” A “deader” meant a scout master who reported straight to Spider. He was pretty sure the bat hadn’t seen them, but he couldn’t be certain.
Cerise stumbled. Her legs folded; she swayed and half fell, half sat into the mud.
He crouched by her. “What is it?”
“Dots …” she whispered.
William scooped her from the mud and dashed through the rain to the boundary, swiping their bags on the way.
THE pressure of the boundary caught William in its jaws, grinding his bones. He tore through the pain, carrying Cerise. The changelings didn’t have magic. They
He paused on the other side, catching his breath. Cerise lay in a small clump in his arms.
Oh, hell. He might have taken the boundary too fast for her to cope.
William lifted her higher so he could peer at her. “Talk to me.”
Her bloodless face was like a white stain in the rain. He shook her a little and saw the long dark eyelashes tremble.
“It’s gone,” she whispered. She had pretty eyes, he realized, big and dark brown, and at that moment luminescent with relief. “The bugs are gone. The dots, too.”
“Good.” He strode to the house.
“Put me down.”
That was a hell of a sword strike. A good punch, too. He was dying to see what she looked like under all that grime and mud. “If I put you down, you’ll fall, and I don’t want to pick you up again after your roll in the muck. I’m muddy enough as is.”
“You’re a thug and an ass,” she told him, baring small, even teeth.
If she had energy to snap, she was coming out of it. Good. “You say the sweetest things. And that spaghetti perfume you’re wearing is to die for. No hobo could resist.”
She snarled. Heh.
“You sound like a pissed-off rabbit.” He held her tighter in case she decided to punch him again, and he jogged to the house, up the porch steps, and to the door. The door looked good and solid.
“Wait.”
The alarm in her voice stopped him cold. “What?”
Cerise raised her muddy hand to a small mark burned into the doorframe, holding on to him with the other hand for support. A letter
Her bottomless eyes got bigger. “We need to leave,” Cerise whispered.
“What does the letter mean?”
“Alphas.”
He waited for more explanation.
“They’re not from the Edge or from the Weird. They’re their own thing in the Broken, and they’re dangerous as hell. We see them sometimes, but they leave us alone if we leave them alone. This house belongs to them. If we break in and they find us here, we’ll be dead.”
William shrugged. “It will be fine. The house has been empty for months.”
“How do you know?”
There were too many things to explain: the layer of grime settled on the edge of the door, the absence of human odors, the scents of small animals, some weeks, some days old, crossing over what they now considered their territory … “I just know. Whoever these alphas are, they’re not around. We need a dry place to stay.”
Cerise’s face clenched in alarm. “Listen to me. We have to go. It’s a bad—”
William kicked the door. It burst open. “Too late.”
She froze in his arms.
The house looked dark and empty. No alarm broke the silence. Nobody emerged to fight them.
“Damn it, William.”
He liked the way she said his name. “Don’t worry, Your Hobo Highness. I’ll keep you safe.”
She cursed at him.
William stepped across the threshold and carefully set her down. She swayed and caught herself on the wall.
“Where are you going?”
“To check the house. Where else?” She pushed away from the wall and headed deeper down the hallway.
William inhaled. The scent signatures were old and his ears caught no noises. She was wasting her time.
Someone with military experience had drilled the basics of conduct in enemy territory into her. After everything they’d been through, a civilian woman should’ve landed on the first available soft surface. This one went to clear the house. She’d probably run out of steam and collapse in a minute.
The Edgers were an undisciplined, uneducated lot. They half-assed shit and got along on dumb luck and a prayer. Cerise didn’t. He didn’t know of any Edgers who could cut a body in half that way either. A very concentrated flash could have done that, but he didn’t see the telltale glowing ribbon. Besides, most Edgers couldn’t flash white, and to deliver that sort of damage, nothing less than a white flash would do.
He’d have to be careful not to underestimate the hobo queen, or it would cost him.
His ears caught a mechanical purr. The lightbulbs blinked and ignited with yellow light. She must’ve found a generator. He circled the living room, lowering the blinds.
Cerise appeared from the depths of the house. “Empty.”
He gave her an elaborate bow. “I told you.”
“I found the generator. There is a bathroom, too. The water is lukewarm but clean.”
A vision of a shower and fluffy towels presented itself to William. He nodded. “Go. The sooner you bathe, the better it is for both of us.”
The look she gave him was sharp enough to kill. She spun on her foot, picked up her bag, and headed to the bathroom. Smart. He wanted to see what was in the bag.
William searched the house, going from room to room. The place looked like someone’s vacation getaway: relatively new and full of silly crap like model boats and sea-shells. Lots of knickknacks, no signs of the wear and tear that cropped up in a place where someone actually lived. The pantry was well stocked with cans. Food was good.
William returned to the living room, dimmed the main lights, turned on a couple of smaller lamps, just enough soft light to see, and waited.
His clothes sagged on him, clammy against his skin. His wet socks chafed his feet. William pulled off his
