Bayou Moon (The Edge #2)(26)
Author: Ilona Andrews

"There is a man. He sometimes stuffs fish." She held out her hand.

"Not until we get there."

"Fine." She turned away, but William caught a ghost of a smile on her lips.

He had done something right. He didn’t know what it was, but he hoped he would keep doing it.

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 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. He was feeling a bit frustrated, and he always made it a point to vent his frustration.

"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."

"If you try knocking me out of the way again, I will cut your arm off. Stay back, William. You’ll get hurt."

"Don’t worry, I’ll share this time."

"Don’t do it."

Time to pick a fight. He jerked his fish head at the men barring the road and raised his voice. "Move."

"Lunatic," Cerise said under her breath.

The rifle’s barrel sighted Cerise instead of him. Ah. So they knew about her sword tricks, too.

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. Now you’re all alone out here and your family can’t help you."

Cerise’s grin got wider. "You’re looking at it the wrong way. I’m not all alone with you. You’re alone with me. You should’ve brought more people. Six won’t do it."

The Machete shrugged. "We got enough. 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 oversized blade cut at 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 her 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 anywhere."

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.

"You’re an outsider. Your kind exiled our kind into this swamp. We hate bluebloods. Right now Baxter is out there telling wild stories about the blueblood who came to kill the Edgers. By nightfall, it will be you and some friends, who attacked defenseless locals. By morning, the whole town will be out looking for the mysterious army unit of bluebloods Louisiana sent in to exterminate us. They will hunt you down with torches, like a dog. Stay here, hero, while I fix this."

She strode over to Machete and crouched by him, the tip of her sword resting on the ground. "You’re alive, Kent?"

Kent moaned something.

"Tell Lagar that he isn’t the only one who can hire mercenaries. When we hire someone, we get the best. He would do well to remember that."

She rose from the crouch and nodded at William. He took his fish and followed her down the road.

Cerise’s face was dark. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that six against one wasn’t a fair fight. I evened the odds a bit."

"You call that evening the odds? You demolished them."

Demolished. He liked that. "I left you one."

"I noticed."

"I promised to share," he told her. "Manners are very important in the Weird. Lying would be quite impolite."

Her mouth trembled and she hid a smile. It played on her lips for a second, lighting up her face, and vanished.

Want.

"I just told them that my family hired you," Cerise said. "Now instead of thinking you’re some blueblood hell-bent on causing destruction, the locals will view you as a mercenary. That makes your presence a private matter between my family and the Sheeriles. Either way, you signed your death sentence – Lagar Sheerile will turn himself inside out to kill you now. Lagar isn’t a pushover like those clowns. His brother Peva once shot the hearts off a card at a hundred feet with a crossbow."

"I’m very scared," William told her. "Are playing cards a real nuisance in your part of the Edge?"

She snickered.

"Shooting cards is dumb," he told her. "What is he, five? Or is he doing it to get women?"