Ilona Andrews - Bayou Moon

William leaned forward, pulling his bowl closer as if she was about to take it from him. He needed a shave, but then he didn’t look bad with the stubble. Quite the opposite, in fact. He kept his expression calm, but she knew with some sort of inborn female intuition that he was thinking about her and about doing things with her. She felt like a fifteen-year-old dancing with a boy for the first time, nervous, and shaky, and trying not to say or do the wrong thing but thrilled deep inside every moment.

Great. She couldn’t decide which one of them was the bigger idiot.

“The food is crap. Sorry. But it’s hot,” she said, keeping her tone calm.

“I’ve had worse.” His voice was flat, too.

“This stove is great.”

William looked up from his bowl. “What do you cook on?”

“The main house has a huge woodstove and a small electric one. It’s not nearly as nice.” Cerise sighed, glancing at the glass-top stove with a small GE logo. “I want to steal this one.”

“Good luck getting it past that damn eel.” He dug into his stew.

“If we bring it along, you can always drop it on him.”

He paused, as if he was actually considering dragging the stove through the swamp.

“I’m joking,” she told him.

William shrugged and went back to his food.

A thin red stain spread through the side of his shirt.

“You’re bleeding.”

He raised his arm and looked at his side. “Must’ve reopened it. That asshole clawed me.”

Those claws were half a foot long. “How deep?”

He shrugged again. More red seeped through.

“Stop shrugging.” She jumped off her chair and walked over to him. “Lift your shirt.”

He peeled the shirt up, exposing his side. Two deep gashes crossed his ribs. Nothing life threatening but nothing that would do him any good untreated either.

“Why didn’t you bandage this?”

“No need. I heal fast.”

Yeah. “Don’t move.” She grabbed her bag and pulled out a Ziploc bag with gauze and tape and a tube of Neosporin. “Did you at least wash it out?”

He nodded.

“Good. Because I’m not dragging you across the swamp if you pass out from an infection.” She washed her hands with soap and squeezed Neosporin on the cuts. “This is medicine from the Broken. It kills infection in the wound.”

“I know what it does,” he said.

“And how would a blueblood know that?”

“No personal questions.”

Ha. Walked into her own rule face-first. Cerise applied dressing and taped up the cuts. “Oh, look. You survived unscathed.”

“Your Neosporin stinks.”

“Get over it.”

He pulled his shirt down, and she caught a glimpse of blue on his biceps. Cerise reached over and pulled his sleeve up. A large bruise covered most of his shoulder.

“You have ointment for that, too?” William asked.

“No, but now if I have to punch you, I know where it will hurt the most.” She let go of the sleeve and went to put her supplies up. That was some biceps. His back was well muscled, and you could probably bounce a quarter off his abs. Either he still was a soldier or he did something nasty for a living. Men didn’t stay in that kind of shape unless they had to.

She came back to the table.

“Thanks,” he told her.

Now was her chance, Cerise decided. She had to get as much information out of him as she could. Who knew what would happen tomorrow. “I take it that turtle thing was one of the Hand’s agents.”

He nodded.

Come on, Lord Bill, don’t keep it all to yourself. She tried again. “What about that bat? When we ran past it, it looked like it had been dead for a while. There was a hole in its side, and you could see its innards even before you put the knife into it. It stank like carrion, too.”

He nodded again.

Maybe she was being too subtle. “Tell me about the Hand. Please.”

“No questions. You made the rule, remember?” William hooked a piece of meat with the fork and chewed quickly. He ate fast—she had barely finished half, while he was almost done.

“I’m willing to trade.”

William glanced at her from above the rim of his bowl. “An answer for an answer.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll answer me honestly?”

Cerise gave him her best sincere smile. She had two stories ready to go, depending on which way he was leaning. “Of course.”

He barked a short laugh. “You’re an Edger. You’d lie, rob me blind, and leave me naked in the swamp if you thought you’d get something from it.”

Smart bastard. “I thought you said it was your first time in the Edge?”

“And now you’re trying to sneak a question in. You think I was born yesterday.”

If he was born yesterday, he sure matured fast. “I’ll give you my word.”

He choked on the stew, coughed, tossed his head back, and laughed.

For a blueblood, he was damn hilarious. Cerise rolled her eyes, trying her best not to laugh herself. “Oh, please.”

William pointed up at the sky with his spoon. “Swear to them.”

She raised her eyebrows. “How do you know my grandparents would be upset if I lied?”

“How do you know they wouldn’t?”

Good point. She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I promise to play fair.”

William leaned back, watching her through half-closed eyes. “You want to know about the bat?”

“For starters.”

“They’re called deaders. I’m Adrianglian. I told you—we’re all about gadgets and toys that amplify our magic. Some people have implants; some use military-grade magic amplifiers. Louisiana went the other way. They undergo permanent, irreparable body modification that makes them into freaks. Some of them sprout tentacles from their asses. Some spit poisoned barbs. From what I’ve heard, the kind of shit they do to their bodies is banned in other countries. The tracker you saw on the river—he wasn’t born that way. The ambusher didn’t grow all that armor by himself either. They cooked them up somewhere.”

The armored freak was ugly, but the tracker deeply disturbed her. Something about watching those tentacles slither awoke a primal, deep-seated revulsion. She would never manage to scrub that image out of her mind, and she couldn’t wait to pay him back. “I’ll kill that tracker one day.”

“Get in line.”

The two of them grimaced at each other.

“The Hand uses a kind of necromancer, a scout master,” William said. “You said your cousin was a necromancer. You know how the natural necromancers operate?”

They twisted the head off your favorite doll, stuffed a dead bird into it, and made it walk around. And then they were puzzled why you got upset. “More than I ever want to.”

“Well, this one takes it to a whole new level. A scout master sheds chunks of himself and stuffs them into corpses, turning them into deaders.”

Ew. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

He shook his head. “These deaders become a part of him. He sees what they see. Then he finds himself a nice quiet spot, sends them out, and waits for the reports to roll in.”

“That is incredibly disgusting.”

“My turn.” William leaned in, his hazel eyes fixing her with a direct stare. It was an odd gaze, magnetic and powerful, but betraying nothing. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, and Cerise leaned closer to hear it. She could’ve stared into those eyes for a thousand years and never noticed the time passing by.

“Why does the Hand want you?”

“That’s a neat trick you do with your eyes, Lord William,” she murmured. “Very scary.”

“Answer the question.”

“They have my parents.”

“Why?”

She smiled at him. He actually thought he’d get an equal trade. “That’s a second question. What are you doing in the Mire?”