with them. Cerise raised her eyes to the sky. “Thank you.”
“I can kill the necromancer,” William said.
“How many people do you need?”
He grinned, flashing white teeth, his face feral. “None.”
“I’ll see you at the house, then. Happy hunting.”
William hopped off his horse and vanished into the brush.
She turned her horse. “The Sheeriles are alone. Let’s go pry them out of that damn house.”
A ragged chorus answered her. Worry stabbed her, and she crushed it before it had a chance to show on her face.
WILLIAM pulled himself up onto the pine branch at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the scene. The soles of his boots were slick with the Scout Master’s blood, and he took an extra second to climb.
The old house sat on a very gentle incline. The Sheeriles must’ve gotten ahold of a lawnmower, because the grass around the house was freshly mowed. A sixty-yard stretch of rocky ground, dotted with stumps of severed weeds, separated the house from the trees. The Mars lay at the perimeter in a ragged line. They were looking at the house.
He looked, too. It was a two-story dilapidated-looking place, the kind he saw often in the Broken. Everything was peeling, sagging, or rotting, except for the iron grates on the windows. Those looked brand new. The gaps between the bars bristled with rifles. The place was a damn fortress. If it was him, he’d set it on fire and pick the enemy off as they jumped out.
At the tree line Richard saw him and touched Cerise’s shoulder. She turned to look in his direction. William raised the Scout Master’s head by the hair and dangled it for her. The Hand’s necromancer had died with an ugly grimace on his face. Maybe bringing the head wasn’t the best idea, but then how would she know he killed the man?
Cerise gave him a thumbs-up.
He set the head in the bend of the branch and glanced back at the Mars. At the far end, Lark sat in a tree, hidden from the house by the bark. She waved at him. He waved back.
A woman rose from a crouch at the tree line, clutching a familiar bronze-colored ball in her hand. A stinker grenade, the Weird military’s favorite nonlethal weapon of crowd control. Throw one of those into an enclosed space and watch people trample each other trying to get out. That must’ve cost Cerise an arm and a leg. How were they going to get it past the bars? He glanced at the house. Ah, there. A rectangular window, a foot long, six inches wide, too small to bother barring.
The woman took a deep breath. A flash of pale green flared from her in a short burst. A defensive flasher. Not very strong either. Chances were, she couldn’t keep it up for long.
She ran into the open, her magic flaring like a glowing wall around her. Bullets whistled and bounced off, deflected by the green flash. She didn’t have a lot of juice, just enough to bounce off a bullet.
The woman sprinted, in a straight line, shuddering under the hail of bullets. Good plan.
Thirty yards to the house. Twenty-five, twenty-two …
The ground under her left foot gave. Metal teeth flashed. The woman screamed, her foot caught in a huge metal trap. Her flash faltered and vanished.
The first bullet took her in the chest as she was falling. It tore a chunk of flesh from her back in a crimson spray. The second, third, and fourth punched her stomach. The bronze ball rolled from her fingers and fell into the green grass.
A small body burst from the brush and dashed across the clearing, dark hair flying.
At the tree line Cerise screamed.
The kid zigged and zagged like a scared rabbit. Bullets tore the turf on both sides of her. A bolt screeched through the air and sprouted from her chest. It caught the girl in mid-leap, and for a moment Lark flew, weightless, eyes opened wide, mouth opened in a horrified O, face chalk pale, just like the child in a meadow full of dandelions years ago …
The wild screamed and raked at him from the inside with its claws. He dropped off the branch and dashed to her. The grass and rocks blurred. He rushed through the world, governed only by the speed of his own heartbeat as only a wolf could run. Bullets grazed him like searing furious bees, shredding his shadow, biting through his tracks. He scooped Lark off the ground and kept running, faster and faster, too fast, to the safety of the trees.
Erian charged past him to the house. Faces jerked into his view, barring his way. William leaped over them, bouncing off the nearest trunk deep into the woods, over the fallen tree, past the bushes to the stand of cypresses, half-sunken in the water.
He realized they were far enough and landed on a dry spot. His heart hammered in his chest. His ears felt full of blood.
Lark stared at him with terrified eyes like a mouse before a cat. He jerked her up. The bolt had punched just above her clavicle, not in her chest. A flesh wound. Only a flesh wound.
“Why?” William snarled, his voice barely human. She said nothing and he shook her once. “Why?”
“I had to help. Nobody will miss a monster,” she whispered.
“Never again,” he growled in her face. “You hear me? Never again.”
She nodded, shaking.
He whipped around. People were coming through the brush. He lowered Lark to the ground. The knife was already in his hand. He smelled their breath, he heard their pulse. Their fear flooded him, filling him with a predatory glee. He bit the air. They backed away from him.
“William!” Cerise’s voice cut through his rage. “William!”
She pushed through them and splashed through the water. Her scent sent his senses into overdrive. Cerise grabbed at him, her eyes luminescent. Her lips grazed his and he tasted her for half a second. “Thank you!” she breathed and then she was gone, swiping Lark off the ground and carrying her away, and William had to shake himself, because the excitement strained his body, begging to split it open and let the wild out.
People backed away and followed her, until only one remained. William stared at the familiar face. Wild hair, earring, dark eyes … It took him a second. Kaldar.
“Hey, there,” the man said.
William growled.
“Easy now. Easy. Put the crazy away. The fight is that way.” Kaldar pointed back, over his own shoulder. “That’s where the bad guys are.”
“I know.” William stalked past him.
“Talking is good.” Kaldar followed him. “Coherent complete sentences are even better. You’re very fast, blueblood.”
William pushed through the brush. The fury boiled through him. He needed blood. He needed to rip into warm flesh.
At the house Erian, pressed flat against the wall between two windows, ripped a bolt free of his shoulder with a grimace. The Mars kept up the covering fire, their bolts and bullets clattered against the bars guarding the windows above him, mere feet away from Erian’s head. Cerise’s cousin crouched and crept to the right, his back glued to the wall. He reached the small window, shattered the glass with his fist, and tossed the stinker inside.
A wave of guttural howls echoed through the tree line.
The wind brought a whiff of an acidic stench, putrid and oily and sour, like decomposing vomit. Bile rose in William’s throat. He spat to the side. Too much. Too much excitement, too much adrenaline. He felt the familiar ice slide down his skin, raising every hair on his body. The first precursor of the rending, the battle frenzy that struck his kind when the pressure became too much.
William ground his teeth and tried to hold it back. He would need it later. He would need it for Spider.
“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.
