Bayou Moon (The Edge #2)(17)
Author: Ilona Andrews

William took the pole from her and sank it into the water, propelling the boat upstream.

Chapter Six

CERISE shivered. Icy needles pricked her spine and stabbed into the muscles of her back. Her neck grew stiff. Her mouth had gone dry and bitter.

Something on many furry legs crawled up her arm. She brushed at it but her fingers closed over nothing. Her skin was clean. She rubbed her arm just to be sure, felt the touch of the little legs on her elbow, rubbed there, and then dozens of invisible bugs scattered up her shoulders and back. Stiff insect bristles and tiny chitinous claws scratched her, skittering down her neck. She jerked, raking at herself.

William leaned over to her and slapped her hand.

"Keep your hands off me."

"I will, if you keep them off yourself."

"What’s it to you?" she clenched her jacket to herself, feeling the papers in the smooth plastic. Still there.

"That red freak you saw is a tracker. He needs very little, some spit, a few drops of blood in the river, and he’ll know where you are. We’re paddling upstream. If you claw yourself bloody, the current will drag it down, and at his next stop he’ll find out what you taste like. Then they’ll turn the boat around and come back this way with their seven rifles."

"How do you know?"

He touched his hand to her forehead, and she pulled back – his skin was burning hot. He showed her his palm, damp with her sweat.

"Right now you think there are ghost bugs crawling on your skin. Your heart is hammering. Your tongue’s dried up, and your mouth tastes like cotton; your hands and feet are freezing, but your body is hot. I know this because I’ve experienced it." He kept pushing the boat.

Don’t scratch. She hugged herself to keep warm. Her teeth chattered. Don’t scratch. "How did you m-m-manage?"

William grimaced. "I was a soldier in Adrianglia. We’ve run into the Hand’s freaks before." He leaned into the pole. "The Adrianglian Mirror and the Louisianan Hand have been fighting a cold war for years. Adrianglia and Louisiana are too well matched. If a real war broke out, it would drag on for years, so instead they keep throwing spies at each other, looking for a back door to a victory. Adrianglian spies use magic, in their gadgets and their weapons. Louisianan spies are magic. They’re so altered some of them aren’t human anymore."

She knew all that already. "W-w-why does it make you sick?"

"Eventually the Hand’s freaks get so fucked-up they start emanating their twisted magic. That magic is poison to us. It’s like finding a rotten corpse – the stench makes you vomit, so you have no doubt that it’s bad to eat. Same thing here. The more screwed up they are, the worse their magic is. They know it, too. They use it to weaken their prey. Eventually your body will adjust, but until then you’ll be vulnerable."

"When d-d-does it wear off?"

"Depends."

What sort of answer was that? "How long d-d-did yours last?"

There was a tiny pause before he answered. "Eighteen hours."

"How d-d-did you k-k-keep from scratching?"

"I didn’t. They chained me in a cell by the neck and let me go at it."

"That’s h-h-horrible." What kind of army was he in exactly that they would let him claw himself bloody? "Couldn’t they sedate you or s-s-s-something?"

His voice was matter of fact. "They didn’t bother with it."

"That’s not right." Her teeth danced, and Cerise bit down, sending her knees into an uncontrollable shiver. "It’s going to g-g-get worse, isn’t it?"

He leaned to her and peered into her eyes. "Do you see small red dots floating?"

"No."

He grimaced. "Then it’s going to get worse."

Awesome. "W-w-w … w-w-w … w-w-w …"

"Take your time," he told her.

"W-w-w-weird assholes."

He barked a short laugh.

The bugs continued their mad jig. If only she could get warm . . .

"Is there another way to Sicktree?"

Her mind took a few long moments to digest his question. At last Cerise understood. "The tracker will d-d-double back eventually. We m-m-must leave the river."

He nodded. "That’s right."

The bugs on her arms began gnawing at her skin, burrowing into it, trying to chew their way through muscles to her veins and the blood within. She clenched her fists to keep from scratching.

Her nose was running. She had an absurd feeling that if only she could get ahold of something sharp like a knife blade and scrape it against her skin, the bugs would disappear.

William turned the boat with a sharp stab of the pole. The punt rammed the shore. "Don’t even think about it."

Cerise realized she was holding her short sword in her hand. She sniffled.

William held out his hand.

"It’s m-m-mine," she said.

"You don’t need it right this second."

Cerise took a deep breath, pronouncing each word with crisp exactness. "If you try to take my sword, I will kill you with it."

His eyes studied her. "Fine," he said. "I won’t fight you for your knife if you tell me how we can get to Sicktree."

Cerise forced her mind to work. It started slowly, like a rusty water mill. "Small stream. Three miles up the river on the right side, between two pines, one of them lightning-scorched. It will take us to Mozer Lake, but we’ll have to drag the boat for the last two miles."

Once she started scratching, she wouldn’t stop. There are no bugs, there are no bugs . . .

"Hobo queen!"

"What?"

"Mozer Lake."

Mozer Lake. What about the damn Mozer Lake? She pictured the waterways. Sicktree. They were going to Sicktree, to that piss-and-shit sewer hole of a town. There was something vital about Sicktree.

Urow.

Urow was in Sicktree. She had to get to her cousin, so he could bring her home, fast, so she would make the court date, so they could take back the house, and kill the Sheeriles and the Hand, and get her parents back. Save parents. Get to Sicktree. Right.

"Mozer Lake opens into Tinybear Creek," she said. "Tinybear will become Bigbear. We can abandon the boat before the Bigbear joins the main river and cross the swamp on foot to Sicktree."

Cerise ran through the course in her mind. "Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path." She paused, not sure if she’d said it correctly. "Three miles, stream on the right, Mozer Lake, Tinybear, Bigbear, Miller’s Path."

"Thank you, Dora. Put the sword back into Backpack and we’ll go." He nodded at the river.