He got clear of the nest, staggering down the open path, aiming for the space of trees and praying under his breath: Please let there be water.
The ants pursued him in a flying cloud of torment.
As he grew closer to the trees, a thick reek pressed against him, overpowering the smell of burning with a stench of stale water and rotting weeds. What he had hoped was a pond turned out to be a slough stretched between the trees, with a puddle of muddy water at the center. Brown algae floated on top. All around the edges sickly vegetation—grass, leaves, and weeds—fermented in various stages of decay. Something white and dead floated on the surface, a fish, its pale belly turned up to the sky.
Zee did not turn or slow his pace. When it came to flying fire ants, water was water. He reached the edge of the slough. It sucked his feet down into deep muck, slowing his pace. Ants whirred and clicked and burned. The world swam in front of his eyes; the stench of the rotten water overpowered him.
His feet were mired and he couldn’t get them free.
The hem of his shirt burst into flame.
With a last burst of strength he managed a few more steps, which took him to the edge of the filthy water. He flung himself forward, throwing Jared clear as he did so. Zee closed his eyes and held his breath as the water closed over his head.
Cool liquid surrounded him, shutting out the ants, easing his burns. But his body was starving for air and he needed to get Jared’s head above water, so he surfaced, preparing to face the cloud of insects.
The air he sucked in as he broke the surface was cool and sweet. All around him blue water sparkled clear and limpid, reflecting sky and trees fractured by the ripples on the surface. No slough. No algae. No smell of rotting. Just a round, perfect pool with water bubbling up at one side, spilling away into a crystal-clear stream on the other. Dead ants littered the surface, and Zee felt immense relief that the things could be killed. All around lay a space of soft green grass, dotted with wildflowers and overhung with green branches. A bird warbled high above.
A soft breeze touched his dripping face.
He didn’t see Jared and was about to dive down looking for him, when the wounded man surfaced on his own, spouting water and coughing. Zee gave him an arm to support him at the surface. Jared coughed and spewed, eyes streaming. When the paroxysms finally stopped, he gasped, “Are you trying to drown me?”
“Right. That would be why I’m holding you up and letting you get your breath.”
Despite the fact that his eyes were open and he was talking, Jared looked bad. The swellings on his face had turned from green to black, and there were more of the blisters now on his hands and arms.
“We were attacked by fire ants,” Zee explained after a long space.
“The little biting kind?”
“No, the big, flying, light-you-on-fire-if-they-land-on-you kind. You have some burns. The water will be good for that.”
Jared looked down at the swellings on his arm. “Looks like the burns are a minor concern.”
Zee towed him to the edge and settled him with his arms and head resting on the bank, his body still immersed. Then he stripped out of the soaking backpack and his own clothes, noticing a network of burn holes in the clothing, and marks on his skin, as if someone had held him down and pressed lit cigarettes against his flesh. The clothes were near ruined but better than nothing, and he laid them flat on the grass for the sun to dry. As for the backpack, he’d see what could be salvaged later. Taking a deep breath, he ducked beneath the water and stayed as long as his lungs would let him before bursting back up to the surface.
Sunlight touched his upturned face. Already the fountain was clearing, the dirty water spilling over the edge of the basin and away in a small stream. No more floating ants. He could see to the flat stones at the bottom, and his own feet, distorted and ghostly through the water.
It was cold, though, and he had begun to shiver.
Jared was able to help a little when Zee dragged him out. They staggered out of the water and collapsed on the sun-warmed grass.
The wounded man propped himself up to look at his leg. In the course of the mad dash from the ants and the time in the water, Zee’s rough bandage had come off. “That is revolting and disgusting,” Jared said, shuddering. “What a way to die.”
The wound had turned green, not any color that flesh should ever be, and even after the long soak in the spring it stank.
Jared sank down onto his back, eyes closed, asleep or unconscious or pretending to be. Zee knew he needed to do something—about those blisters, about the wounded leg. But he was exhausted and it felt good to just lie still, letting the sun dry the water droplets from his skin. The light was too bright and he let his eyelids close, his body relaxing into the softness of grass. In the distance he heard the low hum of bees. The sun warmed his aching muscles, eased the pain in his wounds. He would allow himself just one more minute. Just. One.
Twenty
The cemetery gate was locked and chained, and Weston pulled the pickup off the road onto the grassy verge, deep into shadow and partly concealed behind a tree. They’d passed the time before sunset with preparations: buying tools, grabbing something to eat at a drive-through. Although Vivian was uneasy about leaving Poe to his own devices, the idea of him running loose in the graveyard at night had been considerably more alarming, so she’d stopped by the bookstore and run him a bath, where she’d left him looking reasonably content. As for the raven, the minute the truck door opened, it hopped out and vanished into the night.
Vivian was grateful that it was not only dark, but a deep black night. No moon to give them away, only the cold stars, which did nothing to pick up a glint of light on a shovel or a pick. They dared not even use the flashlight Weston had dug from behind the seat of his pickup, not out here by the road. People in Krebston were as likely to come in guns a-blazing as to call the police, and neither option was acceptable.
Weston climbed over the gate first, packing his shotgun, and she passed the shovels to him, one by one, and then the pick, reserving the flashlight for herself. Her depth perception was off in the pitch-blackness and she miscalculated the ground on the other side of the gate, falling the last few feet with an oomph of expelled breath. Weston loomed over her, little more than a shadow; she could hear his breathing, smell wood smoke and singed hair.
She expected a hand up, but instead he pushed her down and pinned her shoulders to the ground.
“I’ve been thinking. I need some answers before I go through with this.”
“Weston, I explained—”
“I’m not a stupid man, if I am a little slow on the uptake. Last I remember Old George was still in business. If you’re the last, as you say, what happened to him? Dragon? Pestilence?”
“Sorceress.” She said it flippantly, not wanting to get into the whole saga.
It was a mistake. The cold barrel of a shotgun dug into her chest. “Maybe you’re the sorceress. And if you try that voice trick on me again, I might just have enough gumption to pull this trigger.”
“Oh for God’s sake. I told you—I can do the voice thing, that’s it. Think—why would I kill him and set myself up for this nightmare?”
“So some sorceress—not you—killed him. She after you next then? Going to show up here?”
“She’s dead.”
“A sorceress is mighty hard to kill.”
“Trust me, this one’s dead. She turned into dust and blew away.”
She’d hoped this would relax him, but the pressure of the barrel intensified into a deep round ache between her ribs. “How did you manage that? Seeing as you can’t do sorcery and all.”