The Hand’s agent raised his arms. The long scimitar claws pointed at Cerise. His mouth gaped open, revealing rows of short triangular teeth. They would shred flesh like a cheese grater, and the jaws looked strong enough to bite through bone. Great.
A dull, deep voice issued from Thibauld’s mouth, pronouncing each word with agonizing slowness. “It … is … mine.”
“No,” William told him.
The claws pointed at him. “You … die,” the agent promised.
“Not today.”
Cerise lunged. William sensed her move and thrust his arm out, knocking her down, before she got a taste of the claws. “Stay behind me!”
Cerise crashed into the mud and stayed there.
The muscle on Thibauld’s frame expanded, snapping the loose skin tight. William eased the backpack off his shoulders.
An odd, warbling sound rolled in Thibauld’s grotesque throat. The Hand’s agent charged.
William dodged left. Claws fanned his face. He thrust under the tree-trunk arm and sliced at the exposed strip of skin over the ribs. The knife cut hard muscle. He sliced again, feeling the knife slide harmlessly across the bone plate. Damn armor-plated turkey. What wasn’t covered by plates was shielded by thick muscle. His knife wasn’t doing enough damage.
Thibauld spun, arms wide, aiming to backhand him. William jerked back. Thibauld missed but kept spinning like a windmill, claws rending. William ducked the first blow, dodged the second, and then Thibauld’s arm smashed into his shoulder.
The blow took him off his feet. William flew, curling into a ball, hit the mud with his back, and rolled to his feet. His left arm had gone numb. Strong bastard. William couldn’t afford to take another hit.
Ten feet away Thibauld blinked his bloodshot eyes, swiveling his head from side to side. Looking for Cerise. No, you don’t.
“Over here, dimwit! Pay attention!”
The agent stared at him.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Do you need a special invitation?”
Thibauld stomped forward. That’s right, come to me, come closer, away from the girl.
Thibauld was only six feet away. William lunged forward, obviously aiming for the agent’s chest. Thibauld moved to counter, claws raised for the kill. Fell for it. William reversed his stroke. His blade carved at the inside of the agent’s arm, slicing deep into the flesh just below the biceps. He ducked under the claws and pulled back.
Nothing. A cut like that should’ve disabled the arm, but Thibauld seemed no worse for wear.
No blood, no sound of pain, no wince. Nothing.
Thibauld raised his arms, shifting his stance. The agent couldn’t catch him with his claws, so he decided to grapple. William bared his teeth. If he was by himself, he’d cut and run. The more Thibauld ran around, the faster he’d bleed out. But the moment he ran, Thibauld would lumber over to Cerise, who was still sprawled in the mud. In retrospect, he may have pushed her a bit too hard. Or the Hand’s magic had battered her more than she showed.
A narrow line of red swelled across Thibauld’s arm. Woo-hoo, he’d managed a scratch. Great. Now about a hundred of those and he would be set.
Thibauld stretched his neck and looked at his arm. “Is … that … all?”
“Don’t worry, that’s just a little foreplay.” William waddled from foot to foot. “That’s what you look like when you move.”
Thibauld bellowed and charged.
William dashed, cutting, slicing, stabbing, turning his knife into a lethal metal blur. Thibauld struck back, huge arms swinging faster and faster. Claws raked William’s side, ripping through the leather. Pain scorched him. He ignored it and kept slashing, carving at exposed flesh with precise savagery. Left, right, left, left, down, cut, cut, cut … Blood slicked Thibauld’s massive frame.
Not enough. William drove the knife in to the hilt under the armored scales, aiming for the heart. The agent roared and swung. William jerked back, pulling the blade free. Not far enough. The fist caught him, spinning him around. The world turned fuzzy for a fraction of a second. William leaped straight up, knife in hand, aiming to slice Thibauld’s neck, and … landed in the mud as the agent staggered back, a puzzled expression on his face.
Thibauld’s huge legs trembled. He sucked in a hoarse breath.
The top half of him slid to the side and toppled in the mud, revealing Cerise holding a bare sword. The stump of the agent’s torso remained upright for a long second and then fell, spilling blood onto the wet mud.
What the hell?
Cerise passed her sword to her left hand and walked over to him, sidestepping the corpse.
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 were magic, and while crossing hurt, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
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 A with the horizontal bar leaning at an angle.