Is Declan in the second book at all?

For a short while.  Since apparently we all are okay with the snippets, here you go:

“Wow.”  Gaston gaped at the two story mansion, situated on a perfectly manicured lawn.  “Wow.  Is that all one house?”

William grumbled.  Gaston never set foot out of the swamp.  The entire way through the Broken and the Weird, the kid would stare at things in amazement, get embarrassed, and then try to be smart ass about it.  It was getting old.

“Who lives here?”

“Earl Declan Camarine, Marshal of the Southern Provinces.”

“Are we going to get arrested?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

William growled at him.

A window on the second floor burst in an explosion of glittering shards.  A body hurled through it and a boy dropped into a half-crouch onto the balcony rail, his crazy brown hair standing straight up like hackles on a pissed off cat.  Wild yellow eyes stared at William from a narrow face.  The kid looked at least eight inches taller than he remembered.

“Jack!” Rose’s voice called.

Jack’s eyes flared with feral fire.  He hissed and leaped off the balcony, changing in mid-jump, shredding his clothes.  A spotted adolescent lynx landed into the green grass and took off at a dead run, heading toward the trees.

Wouldn’t be able to pull it off in the Edge, William reflected.  In the Edge, changing shapes took time, but in the Weird with magic full force, you could go furry with no pain on the fly.

“Jack!”  Rose ran out onto the balcony.  She wore a peach colored gown and her hair was up.  “Jack, wait!  Damn it.”

She saw them below.  Her eyes widened.

“I’m here to see Declan,” William told her.

Two minutes later he sat in Declan’s study.  He’d left Gaston with Rose who took him to the kitchen.  The kid ate like a horse.

Declan looked at him from behind the desk.  He hadn’t changed a bit: same hard eyes, same blond hair.  Except he was growing it out again.  He grew it long every few years to use as a power resource in case he had sacrifice a part of himself to magic.

Declan surveyed him.  “Doing well?”

“Yeah.”

“Looking kind of thin there.  My mother’s always looking for a new diet.  Maybe you can share some tips?”

William bared his teeth.  “Yeah.  Shouldn’t you be all fat by now?  Is that some flab on your sides?”

“Fuck you.”

They looked at each other.

“Two fucking years.”  Declan spread his hands.  “You were gone for two fucking years.  So.  What can the office of Marshall do for you?”

William unclenched his teeth.  It killed him to say it.  “I need help.”

I really don’t understand the prejudice against Dobermans.  They’re extremely smart dogs, very, very sweet.  To automatically disqualify the owner as a prospective renter because of the Doberman is shortsighted.  Because you know, I would drop a couple of grand on the pet deposit, if not more.

Don’t get me started on Luka either.  Tub-o’-love weighs over 100 lbs, closer to 120.  One, rather surly, rental agent told me yesterday that since the only dos they allow are under 45 pounds, Luka is three dogs by himself.

Dear Oregon, I hope you know this means war.  If I have to stay in the house and have the carpet put in, I will do it.  And then I’ll go out there and buy a damn house.  I wasn’t that serious before, but I am now, by God. I’ll rent a stupid POD, load nonessential furniture into it, pair everyone down to one week’s worth of clothes, and we’ll get the new carpet in here pronto. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

###

Did you know Jeaniene Frost’s fans call themselves “frosties”?  :snickers:  The question is how much fun-making mileage can I get out of this when I call her later.  And the best thing is – Magic books’  fans don’t have any cute names so she can’t get me back.

Cool and frosty.  That’s just how J rolls.

Teeeheee.

###

I have a lot of doubts about my ability as a writer.  So occasionally I go back and look over the finished manuscripts written under duress to reassure myself that even if it’s not flowing when written, it still flows when read.

So here is a snippet from BAYOU MOON.  I remember having a really hard time with the scene and just forcing the words out.  Doesn’t read that way though.

I might be a touch scarce the next few days as I try to get the words done before the move, so this is my bribe.    Warning: this was written in a hurry so it’s not that clean.

Context: William is hiding that he is a changeling.  The Mire, where Cerise lives, is heavily influenced by Louisiana and the Edgers there think of the changelings as monsters.  William thinks nobody knows.  But Cerise just figured it out in the previous scene.

William padded through the night, following Cerise’s scent trail.  He’d always paid close attention to female scents.  Some were smothered with perfume, some were tinted with whatever the woman had eaten last,  Some fragrances tantalized, others shouted, and a few cringed and proclaimed, “Easy prey.”

Cerise smelled the way he imagined his woman would smell.  Clean, with a slight trace of shampoo from her hair, a touch of sweat, and a hint of something he couldn’t quite describe, something healthy, dangerous, and exciting that primed his nerves.

Mmmm, Cerise.

He chased her scent down the balcony, around the house, separating it from Murid’s trail.  The two women stopped here for a while, the Murid left, but Cerise remained, resting her hands on the rail and looking at something…  He leaned over the rail.  Down below him Mire pines scratched at the night sky.  Pale blossoms of maiden-bells bloomed between the roots, delicate like cups made of frosted glass.  Cerise stood here looking at the flowers.   Maybe if he brought her some, she’d talk to him.

He leaped over the balcony’s rail, landing into soft dirt.  Five minutes later, he climbed back up, with a handful of flowers in his hand, and followed Cerise’s trail.  It led him to the back of the house.  He turned the corner and ran into Kaldar, carrying a bottle of green wine and two glasses.

Kaldar looked at his flowers.  “Nice touch.  Here.”  He thrust the bottle and glasses at him.  William took it on reflex.  Kaldar pointed behind him.  “Now you’re all set.  Small door, up the staircase.”

He turned the corner and went off the way William came.

William looked at the bottle.  Why the hell not?

The door led him to a narrow staircase.  He jogged up the steps into a large room.  The floor was wood.  Bare rafters crossed over his head – the room must’ve been sectioned off from the rest of the attic.  To the left, the wall opened into a narrow balcony.  Two soft chairs waited on the right.  Cerise curled in the left one, by a floor lamp.

I found you.

She blinked, startled.

He knocked on the stair rail with the bottle and looked at her.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s me.  Can I come in?”

“It depends.  If I don’t let you in, will you huff and puff and blow my house down?”

She had no idea.  “I’m more of a kick the door open and cut everyone inside to ribbons kind of wolf.”

“I better let you in then,” she said.  “Is that wine for me?”

“Yes.”

He crossed the floor and handed her the thick bottle.  The light of the lamp caught the wine inside and it sparkled with deep emerald green.

“Greenberry.”  Cerise checked the label.  “My favorite year, too.  How did you know?”

He decided not to lie.  “Kaldar gave it to me.”

She smiled and he had to hold himself back to keep from kissing her.  “My cousin is trying so hard.  It’s not his fault – he’s been trying to marry me off for years.”

“Why?”

“It’s his job.  He arranges the marriages for the family: haggles over the dowry, makes preparations for the weddings, that sort of thing.”  Cerise looked at the flowers in his hand.  “Are those from Kaldar, too?”

“No.  I picked those.”

Her eyes shone.  “For me?”

“For you.”  He offered her the flowers.

She reached for them. He caught her hand in his.  His whole body strummed, like he awoke from a deep sleep because someone fired a gun by his head.

What the hell was he doing?  William let go.

She took the flowers and smelled them.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He watched her pull the stems apart on her lap.  She took three flowers, added a fourth and wrapped its stem around the first three.

Want.  Want the woman.  Want.

“Will you pour us some wine?” she asked.

Yeah, because wine was exactly what he needed right now.  William opened the bottle and poured the shimmering green into the two glasses.  It smelled nice enough.  He sipped it.  Nice, a bit sweet, but nice.  “Good.”

“It’s home made.”  Cerise kept weaving flowers together.  “It’s a family tradition.  Every fall we go to Fisherman’s Tree to pick the berries and then we make wine.”

She sipped her wine, he drank his, and for a while they sat quietly next to each other.  He wanted to reach over and touch her.  She made him feel like a child made to sit on his hands.  What would she do if he just kissed her?  William drank more wine, feeling the warmth spread through him.  She’d try to cut off his head right there.

“Why are you smiling?” she asked.

“Because I thought of something funny.”

Cerise wove the last flower into her tangle.  It looked like a large circle now.  She picked it up and put it on her head.

Oh yeah.

He’d have to stalk her, he decided.  Carefully and patiently.  He would bring her flowers and wine and whatever else she liked, until he was sure that when he pounced, she wouldn’t want to run away.

“Is this your place?” he asked to say something.

“Yes.  That’s where I hide, when I have a fight with someone.”

He didn’t remember her fighting with anyone.  She sat at the table for a while and then just left.

“Who are you fighting with now?”

Cerise got up and walked over to the wall. He followed her.  Pictures hung on the wall behind the glass.  Cerise touched one of the frames.  A man and a woman stood by the pond, both young, almost kids.  The man was a Mar: lean, dark, tan.  The woman was blonde, soft, and slender.  Fragile.  If she was his, William thought, he’d be worried about breaking her every time they touched.

“My parents,” Cerise murmured.  “Gustave and Genevieve.”

“Your mother looks like a blueblood.”

She glanced at him.  “What makes you say that?”

“Her hair is curled and her eyebrows are plucked down to nothing.”

Cerise laughed softly.  “I pluck my eyebrows.  Does that make me look like a blueblood?”

“”Yours still looks natural.  Hers look odd.” He grimaced.  “She looks very well taken care off.  Like she never saw the sun.”

“It’s their wedding.  My dad was eighteen, my mother was sixteen.  She’d only been in the Mire for a year.  Here look at this one.  You’ll like this one better.”

He looked at the next picture.  In it a young woman about Cerise’s age sat on top of a huge dead croc, leaning on its head with her elbow.  Her grin cut through the mud caked on her face.

He nodded.  “I do like this one better.”

“She caused my grandmother no end of misery.  That’s her over there.  Grandma Ive and Grandpa Vernard.”

She reached to a fist-sized glass box with a small crystal at the bottom and pushed a button.  A tiny spark ignited within the crystal and a three-dimensional portrait of a couple sprung into life above the box.  One of the Weird’s keepsakes and not a cheap one either, since it survived the trip to the Edge and lasted all these years.

William scrutinized the couple.  The woman resembled Genevieve in her wedding picture.  Same brittle quality, like a she was made with fine crystal.  A man sat in the chair next to her, leaning back and looking awkward.  Long skinny legs, long skinny arms.  Even sitting, he was very tall.

They were bluebloods, no question, and the ones with long pedigrees.  And money.  The clothes looked expensive and the emeralds on the woman’s neck had to have cost a small fortune.

“My Grandpa and I were very close.  He was brilliant.  So, so smart.  He always made time for me.  We used to garden together.  And tomorrow we’ll have to go and cut the Sheeriles out of his house.”

Cerise’s shoulders went rigid.  “My grandparents were from an old Weird family.  My grandfather did medical research.  He was famous, actually.  They had status and money.  My mother used to tell me about their castle.  It was somewhere north.  They had dogwood trees and they would bloom white in the spring.  She said they would host balls, and people would gather from all over and dance…  Have you ever been to a ball, William?”

He’d been to too many of them.  Casshorn, Declan’s uncle, had adopted him to get him out of jail in hopes that he and Declan would kill each other.  The adoption came with etiquette lessons.  “I have.”

Cerise glanced at him.  “Is it fun?”

“I was bored.  Too many people, too many colors.  Everything is too bright and too vivid.  Everyone is talking, but nobody is listening, because they’re too concerned with being seen.  After a while it all just blends.”

“I’d like to go to one,” she said.  “It might not be my thing even, but I’d like to go at least once to say I’ve done it.  Sometimes I feel cheated.  I know it’s selfish, but sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if my Grandfather didn’t get himself exiled.  Who knows, I might have been a lady.”

He didn’t have much use for ladies.  A lady was someone else’s wife, or daughter, or sister.  They were not real, almost like trophies forever out of his reach.  She was real.  And strong.

She looked about to cry.

“Would you like to dance?”

Her eyes opened wide.  “Are you serious?”

Once he learned something, he never forgot it.  William took a step forward and executed a perfect deep bow, his left arm out.  “Would you do me the honor of dancing with me, Lady Cerise?”

She cleared her throat and curtsied, holding imaginary skirts. “Certainly, Lord Bill.  But we have no music.”

“That’s fine.”  He stepped to her, sliding one arm around her waist.  She put her hand on his shoulder.  Her body touched his and he spun with her around the attic, light on his feet, leading her.  It took her a moment and then she caught his rhythm and followed him.  She was flexible and quick and he kept picturing her naked.

“You dance really well, Lord Bill.”

“Especially if I have a knife.”

She laughed.  They circled the attic, once, twice, and he brought them to the center of the room, shifting from a quick dance to a smooth swaying.

“Why are we slowing down?” she asked.

“It’s a slow song.”

“Ah.”

She leaned against him.  They were almost hugging.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked.

“I’m scared to death.”  Her voice was barely above whisper.  “And mad.  I’m so mad, I can’t even breathe. I have to save my parents.  I love them so much, William.  I miss them so bad, it hurts.  I have to rescue them, even if they were horrible people, because if I don’t, our reputation will plummet.  People will think we’re weak, and they will peck us apart little by little.  But to save my parents, I have to sacrifice some of my family.  Tomorrow they will die, their seats at the table will be empty, and for what?  So we can keep living in this mud and squabbling over it.  Gods, there has to be something more to life than this…”

She closed her eyes.

He held her close.  “You’ll do fine.  You’re a natural.”

“A natural what?” she asked.

“A killer.  I’ve known people who were better swordsmen than me, but they didn’t have that thing that made them kill.  They hesitated, they thought about it, and I killed them.  You have it.  You’re good and you’re fast.  I’ll be there to keep you safe.”

“I don’t want to be a killer, William.”

“You don’t get to pick.”

She pulled away from him.  He didn’t want to let her go, but he did.

Cerise hugged herself.  “On the wall to your left.”

He turned.  Two photographs waited at eye level.  The first showed three men standing close.  The middle one was Peva Sheerile.  He had one arm around an adolescent kid with the  face of a spoiled child and the other around a tall blond man with mournful grey eyes.

“The Sheeriles.  That’s who we’re killing tomorrow.” Cerise sounded bitter.

He looked at the second photo and stopped.  Cerise and Lagar danced silhouetted against a bonfire.

She was dancing with her enemy.

Why? Was he better than me?  Did she like him? Did she want to dance with him again? “Did you think of him while we were dancing?”

“What?”

He wanted to rip Lagar’s head off his shoulders.  Instead he turned and went down the stairs.

SCORE!!!!

William sat  at the bow, as far away from the corpse of the hunter as the length of the boat would allow.  Why she insisted on dragging it with them was beyond him.  He’d asked her about it and she smiled and told him it was a present for her aunt.

Maybe her aunt was a cannibal.

The rolpie pulled with steady force.  There was a serene, almost severe beauty to the fog-smothered swamp, a kind of somber, primeval elegance.  The haze obscured the chaotic vegetation, filtering it to individual congregations of plants.  Isolated groups of cypresses adorned with maiden hair moss loomed out of the fog and sank back into it as the boat passed them.  The water resembled quick-silver, a glossy mirror that betrayed pitch-black depth.

“Is it deep here?” William wondered.

“No.  Looks that way because of the peat in the bottom.”

Magic brushed against him, like a gentle feather.  “What’s that?”

Cerise smiled.  “A marker.  We’re on my family’s land.  We’ve got the house and some outlying land warded.  Good wards, old, rooted into the soil.”

He squinted at the shore.  A large grey rock sat at the edge of the water, about two feet tall and a foot wide.  A identical pale stone sat half way in the water.  Ward stones.  He’d seen them before: magic connected them like mushrooms in a mushroom ring, creating a barrier.  Even Rose had used them to protect the house and the boys. Rose’s ward stones were tiny, but they grew with time.  These looked centuries old.

“What about the river?” he asked.

“The river too.  There are ward stones crossing the bottom.  You can’t get to Rathole unless we want you there.”

That explained why Spider didn’t just raid the house.  A safe base was good.

The fog retreated.  They turned into a smaller stream.  Cold drizzle sifted from the sky.  William ground his teeth. Did it ever stop raining in the fucked up place?

Being back at his trailer would’ve been very nice right now.  He’d make himself a cup of good strong coffee and watch some TV.  He’d bought a new season of CSI that begged to be cracked open.  He liked CSI.  It was like magic.  If he felt in need of some comedy, he could always find COPS.  He’d started watching the show to find out how good the Broken police was in case he had to have a run in with them, but the shirtless drunken idiots proved too hilarious and stole the show.  The only thing he’d learned about the cops was that they had to run a lot.

He just wanted to be dry.  Just for a few minutes.  And to wash his hair.  The pelt had to be kept clean or it would itch and get bugs in it.  He didn’t spend money on expensive toys, like pricy cars or phones, but he did buy decent shampoo and he went to a salon to have his hair cut.  Salons smelled good and pretty women who cut his hair flirted with him and leaned close.

The constant dampness drove him crazy.  At this rate, he’d sprout water weeds on his head before the week was out.  The next time he had to have a haircut, they’d have to trim the mushrooms from his scalp.

The stream opened into a cove, framed by pines and stout picturesque trees with round yellow leaves.  William leaned to get a better look.  Pretty.

A small dock protruded into the water, a natural extension of the dirt path that led up a hill.  To the left heavy wooden gate barred what was probably another stream.  He smelled rolpies.  His ear caught the distant grunting squeals beyond the gate.  The Edgers must’ve kept them penned up like cows.

A man stepped out onto the dock and looked at them.  Dark hair, lean, tall, about thirty.  If they were in the Weird, William would’ve sworn he was looking at a blueblood.  The man held himself very straight, taking up more space than his lean body needed and radiating enough of the icy, stuck up elegance to give Declan’s relatives a run for their money. William growled in his mind and pulled Declan out of the recesses of his memory.  If this guy was a blueblood, he’d have to concentrate not to give himself away.

“That’s Richard.  My cousin,” Cerise said.

A small mud-slathered creature sat by Richard’s feet.  He was lecturing it.  William couldn’t quite catch the words but it looked like a serious chewing out.  William focused on the little beast.  A kid.  Looked like a girl, sitting with her knees clasped to her chest, long hair a mess of mud and leaves.

Cerise drew a deep breath.  He glanced at her.  She was looking at the little girl.  Her black eyebrows knitted together.  Her mouth quivered once, wanting to droop at the corners.  He glimpsed sadness in her eyes.  Then she hid it in and pulled the smile on like a mask.

Richard’s words floated down to them.  “…absolutely not appropriate, especially hitting him in the head with a rock…”

The little girl saw them.  She shoved past Richard and dove into the water.  Richard stopped in mid-word.

“Oh Lark,” Cerise whispered.

The little girl swam through the water, limbs flashing.  Cerise slowed the rolpie.   The kid dove and scrambled onto the boat, wet and dripping mud.  She lunged at Cerise and clutched at her, burying her face in Cerise’s stomach.  Cerise put her arms around the child and looked like she was about to cry.  Her smile broke.  She bit her lip.

“Don’t leave,” the girl whispered, her arms locked around Cerise.

“I won’t,” Cerise said softly.  “I’m home now.  It will be okay.  You’re safe.”

“Don’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

The kid looked like a small animal backed into a corner and clasping onto Cerise, as if she were her mother.  Lark smelled of fear.

Cerise looked at him as if she wanted him to do something.  He reached over and took the reins from her hands and slapped them on water the way she’d done.  The rolpie pulled and he guided the boat to the dock.  The boat bumped against the support beams, shuddering.  Richard leaned over and William handed him the mooring line.

“Hello,” Cerise’s cousin said.

“Hi.”

“Lark, you have to let go now,” Cerise murmured gently.

The kid didn’t move.

“I can’t carry you to the house.  You’re too big.  And if I did, the other kids would make fun of you.  You have to be strong now.  You must let go and stand on your own feet.  Here, hold my hand.”

Lark pulled away.  Cerise took her hand.  “Shoulders back.  Look at the house.  You own this house and this land.  Walk like you mean it.”

Lark straightened her spine.

“That’s it.  Show no weakness.” Cerise gripped her hand and they stepped onto the dock in unison.

William swiped their bags and followed.  Richard strode next to him on long legs.  He walked light, good balance.  A sword fighter, William decided.

“My name is Richard Mar.  A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

It’s like someone plucked the man out of the Weird and dropped him into the Edge, with all his manners intact.  Except bluebloods didn’t wear black jeans.

William raised his chin a slight fraction, channeling Declan.  “William Sandine.”

“Lord Sandine?” Richard asked.

He must be doing better than he thought.  “Occasionally.  When it suits me.”

“I hate to pry, but how did you and Cerise meet?”

“Something tells me you love to pry.”

Richard permitted himself a small spare smile.

Cerise turned around.  “We got stranded together coming in from the Broken.  He’s here to hunt the Hand.”

Richard’s expression remained polite but impassive.  “Oh?”

“He saved Urow,” she said.

No change.  “What happened?”

“The Hand shot him with a copper harpoon.”

A flicker of fury shot through Richard’s eyes.  William filed it away.  The man had a temper.

“I see,”  Richard said.  “So you’re our guest and ally then, Lord Sandine?”

“Just William will do and yes.”

“Welcome to the Rathole.  A word of caution, William.  If you betray us, we will murder you.”

Ha!  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“A couple of days in our company and you may view it as the better option.”  Richard regarded him with his dark eyes and turned to Cerise.  “The papers?”

“I have them.”

An adolescent boy came riding down the road, leading three horses.

Cerise wrinkled her nose.  “What for?  We’re just going to the house to wash.”

“You don’t have the time,” Richard said.

“I’m covered in mud and blood.”

“It will have to wait, cousin. Dobe moved the court date.”

Cerise blinked a couple of times.  “How much time do we have?”

Richard glanced at his wrist.  He wore a G-Shock.  “Fifty two minutes.”

Cerise raised her head to the sky and swore.

My characters were flat.

It was a fair criticism.  My characters were flat.  Even now the character work is probably my weakest point and I spend a lot of time on it.

Here is a bit of Cerise.  (I have looked at the counter some more.  Aaaa!)

They won the first round.  …. was dead.  The court ruled in favor of the family.  They had the right to retrieve grandfather’s house.  Now they just had to do it.

She should’ve been happy. Instead, she felt empty and worn-out to the core, as if her body had become a threadbare rag hanging off her bones.  She was so weary.  She wanted off her horse.  She wanted to curl up somewhere, dark and quiet.  And most of all she wanted her mother.

Cerise sighed.  It was a ridiculous urge.  She was twenty four years old.  A grown adult by all means.  If things had gone differently, she would’ve been married and had children of her own by now.   But no matter how she tried to rationalize herself away from it, she wanted her mother with a desperation of a child left alone in the dark.  The need was so basic and strong, she almost cried.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried.  It had to be years.

The logical part of her knew that winning the hearing was only the first step on a long road.  For the past ten days she had a clear goal: find uncle Hugh, get documents, return in time for the hearing.  She lived and breathed it and now it was done.  She had accomplished it and inside, in the same place she wanted her mother, she felt deeply cheated because her parents failed to magically appear.

Must keep it entertaining.

Oh and here is some Vitas for you. 

Inside the air proved colder than on the street.  A fresh pine scent floated on the draft.  Several pine sapplings grew from barrels set in the corners.  Opaque lamps hung from the ceiling on long chains.  As they made their way through the crowded isle, the lights came on in yellow electric glory.

William looked at Cerise.

“We have a power plant,” she said.  “It runs on peat.”

This had to be some sort of human joke he didn’t get.

She looked at his face and grinned.  “Seriously.  It burns really well once you dry it.  We heat the house with it.”

That had to be the craziest thing he’d heard.  It’s like they looked around and said, “Hey what do we have a shitload of?”

“Mud!  It’s cold and wet.  I know, let’s burn it!”

“Well, it ain’t good for nothing else.”

What the hell?  He supposed if fish could have legs, than mud could burn.  Spider or no Spider, if their cats started flying, he would be out of here like a rocket.

#

“Let me explain something to you,” Spider said, slowly, with gravity, making sure every word was understood.  “I hate the swamp.  I hate the way it looks.  I hate the way it smells.  It repulses me.  I’m forced into inactivity until John finishes fusing Genevieve, and I sit here, restless and bored, while my best slayer is compulsively braiding rush baskets on my doorstep, because unless she occupies herself with something intricate, she might snap and slaughter the lot of us.”

Spider smiled, baring his teeth.  “And you, whether by ignorance, ineptitude, or design, seem determined to keep me here longer than necessary through botching up tasks I give you.  Don’t give me an excuse to take an interest in you, Karmash.  Don’t make yourself the thing I choose to shrug off my boredom.  You won’t like it.”

Karmash’s eyes widened.

“That’s not an order,” Spider said.  “Just a bit of friendly advice.  You may go.”

Karmash shifted from foot to foot.  “Do you wish me to send a retrieval team to find Lavern’s body?”

“No.  I’ll go myself.  I think fresh air would do me good.”

Karmash fled.

Spider sighed.  Perhaps the girl would make a mistake.   He hoped so.  He wanted to sit her down and try to figure how her mind worked.  She would make a fascinating conversationalist.

Spider walked over to the door and opened it.  Gabrielle dropped a load of baskets she was carrying and stood at attention, her collection of rolled blue-grey locks spilling on her shoulders like a nest of thin snakes.

“Have the wall repaired.  I’ll need a new table too.” A pang of regret stung him – it had been a very nice table.

“Yes, m’lord.” Her lapis lazuli eyes watched him from the face the color of raw meat.

“And I am sorry about the baskets.  You can continue weaving.  I was tired and under a lot of stress.”

“Thank you, m’lord.”

Gordon

Ahead the road bent.  The wind brought the smell of gun oil and a hint of human sweat.  He stopped.  “There are people ahead.”

“How many?” Cerise asked.

“A few.”

She pulled her sword out and kept walking.

“If they’re waiting for you, we need to get off the road.”

“They would just track us down,” she said.  “The road is better.  Gives me space to work.”

Crazy woman.

They turned.  Six men waited across the lane.  Five had blades, the sixth held a rifle.  They wanted to take her alive, William decided.   The more guns you had, the higher was the likelihood that someone would lose his shit and pull the trigger, so they gave the coolest head a gun as an insurance and brought lots of manpower.

A bright smile painted Cerise’s face.  “Remember my family’s feud?  This is their hired muscle.  Stay back.”

“Very funny.”  He kept walking.

“It’s not your fight.”

“Six of them, one of you.  I don’t know what you think you’ll do with your pretty little sword.  I know they aren’t playing.”

“William, you’ll get hurt.”

Time to pick a fight.  He jerked his fish head at them and raised his voice. “Move.”

The rifle’s barrel sighted Cerise instead of him.  Odd.

The Edgers looked him over.  A tall balding guy with a machete smiled.  “Where did you find the blueblood, Cerise?”

“In the swamp,” she told him.

“That’s nice.  You shouldn’t have gone off your land.  Lagar says to bring you in one piece, so come along before anybody gets shot.  You know Baxter.  He doesn’t miss much.”

Baxter winked at them from behind the rifle.

“We’re going to Sicktree,” William said.  “You’re in the way.”

The Edgers chuckled.  “This ain’t the Weird.  We don’t care for bluebloods here,” the man on the left called out.

“You’ll get killed,” Cerise murmured.

William thrust the stick into dirt.  “I don’t have time for this stupid shit.  Move or I will move you.”

Machete shrugged.  “You heard the man.  Baxter, move him.”

The rifle barrel swung to William.  He shied left.  The bullet grazed his shoulder, burning across his flesh.

“That’s it.”

The rifle shot again, but he was already moving.  He smashed the knuckles of his right hand into Machete’s throat, hooking his foot with his right as the man fell, swiped the weapon from his fingers, rammed his elbow into the Edger to his left, and hurled the machete at Baxter.   The knife hit the shooter between the eyes.  The blow wasn’t hard enough to kill but the over-sized blade cut  the man’s scalp.  Blood poured into Baxter’s eyes.  He screamed.  As William broke the arm of the Edger to his right, he saw the rifleman take off into the brush.

William lost himself to the flurry of punches and kicks.  Bones crunched, people howled, someone’s blood wet his knuckles.  It went fast and was over too quickly.  He tossed the last man at Cerise, just for the fun of it.  She reached out and very carefully popped the Edger on the head with the hilt of his sword.  He went down.

William strode to her.  That’s how it’s done.   Drink it in.

She surveyed the carnage behind him. “Did you have fun?”

He showed her his teeth.  “Yes.  Now they won’t take you.”

Cerise stepped closer to him, so close he only needed to lean in and dip his head and he would kiss her.  Since he saved her, maybe he could just grab her and-

“That was the stupidest thing you have done since I’ve met you,” she ground out through her teeth.

Belay the grabbing.