Bayou Moon (The Edge #2)(83)
Author: Ilona Andrews

Cerise grabbed Lark into a hug and turned, keeping Lark’s face away from the glass. William ripped off his pants. A convulsion gripped his body, jerking him, breaking his arms, twisting his shoulders. Cerise gulped. "There’s nothing there."

"There is a monster! I saw it."

William’s muscles flowed like melted wax. He crashed to all fours. Dense black fur sheathed him. He shook, and a huge black wolf sat at the window, his eyes glowing like two wild moons.

She did not just see that. Surely, she didn’t.

Every hair on the back of Cerise’s neck stood up. She swallowed. "Look, baby, it’s not a monster, it’s just a dog. See?"

Lark pulled from her and glanced at the window. "Where did it come from?"

"It’s William’s dog." The damn wolf was the size of a pony.

William pawed at the glass gently and licked it.

"William doesn’t have a dog."

"Sure he does. His dog stays in the woods so he doesn’t bother our dogs. He’s very nice. See?" Cerise rose and opened the window. William trotted in, an enormous black shadow, and put his head on the sheets next to Lark. She reached over and petted his sable fur. "He’s nice."

"Come on." Cerise adjusted the pillows. "Try to get back to sleep."

She slid under the covers next to Lark. William hopped on the bed by their legs and lay still. "Behave," she told him.

He yawned, showing her white teeth the size of her pinkies, and closed his mouth with a click.

"Ceri?"

"Mmmm . . . ?"

"You won’t let them keep Mom that way, right?"

"No, I won’t."

"You have to kill her."

"I will, Sophie. I will."

"Soon, right? I don’t want her to hurt."

"Very soon. Go to sleep now. It will hurt less in the morning."

Cerise closed her eyes, felt William shift to make room for her toes, and relaxed. Tomorrow would be a hellish day, but for now, with the giant wolf guarding her feet, she felt strangely safe.

WHEN Cerise awoke, William was nowhere to be seen. He’d stayed through most of the night – she had awakened earlier, just before sunrise, and he had still been there, a big shaggy beast sprawled on her bed. Now he was gone.

It was crazy, she reflected, as she got dressed. She knew he would eventually turn into an animal. After all, that was what changelings did. But witnessing it was like staring Raste Adir in the face. This was magic so old, so primitive, that it didn’t fit into any of the neat equations her grandfather had taught her. It roared, furious and primal, like an avalanche or a storm.

The journal she had seen in Lagar’s mind bothered her. It looked just like one of her grandfather’s journals in which he used to write out his planting schedule and research. The journal had to be the key, the last piece in this big tangled puzzle.

She found Richard in the front yard, supervising as Andre sharpened his machete.

"I need to go to Sene," she told him. "Will you come with me?"

He didn’t ask why. He just had two horses brought and they rode out.

Half an hour later Cerise stood on the rotten porch of Sene Manor. She used to be so happy in this house, back when the garden was cultivated, the path to the creek swept, and the walls were a bright cheery yellow. Yellow like the sun, her grandfather had said after he’d finished painting. Grandmother had shrugged her delicate shoulders. Congratulations, Vernard. You turned the house into a giant baby chicken.

She could still hear the muted echoes of their voices, but they were gone. Long gone, stolen by the plague. She never even saw the bodies, only the two closed coffins. By the time the bodies were found, they’d been decomposing for a few days. Father said they were in bad shape and not fit to be displayed. She had to say her good-byes to the wooden lids.

All that remained of her grandparents was the empty shell of their house, abandoned and forgotten. And the garden, once overgrown, was now barren, since Lagar had mowed it down to nothing.

A bright spot of red drew her eye. She squinted at it. Moss. Burial shroud, they called it. Short and stubby, it grew deep in the Mire, feeding on carrion. It would sprout over the corpse of a fallen animal, so dense that after a couple of days all you could see was a blanket of red and a bump underneath. Odd that it would be in the garden.

Richard nodded at a small patch of redwort growing by the porch. "Lagar’s thugs missed a spot."

"I hate that plant." Cerise sighed.

"Yes, I remember. The earache tea." Richard nodded. "Grandfather used to make us drink it every morning. It worked. I don’t recall ever getting an earache."

"I remember gagging on it. I think I’d take the earache over the tea."

"Oh, I don’t know." Richard’s narrow lips bent in a smile. "It wasn’t that bad."

"It was awful." Cerise hugged herself.

Richard nodded at the door. "The longer you put it off, the harder it will be to go in."

He was right. Cerise took a deep breath and crossed the bloodstained porch to the door, hanging crooked on its hinges. No time to waste. She stepped inside.

The house greeted her with the gloom and musty, damp smell of mildew. A sitting room lay to her right. She passed it. A brick red rug once covered the hallway, but now it lay torn and filthy, little more than an old rag. Floorboards, warped by moisture, glared through the rents.

The house felt cold. Her steps made the floor creak and quiver. Behind her Richard paused, leaning to examine the sitting room.

"No vermin," he said. "No droppings, no gnaw marks. Perhaps, the plague’s still here."

"Or maybe it’s just a dead house." Its people had died, and the house had withered away, unwilling or unable to support life. "The sooner we get out of here, the better."

A pale door loomed before her. The library. Her memory thrust an image before her: a sunny room, a plain table, walls lined with shelves crammed with books, and Grandfather complaining that sunlight would bleach the ink off the pages . . .

Cerise pushed the door with her fingertips. It swung open on creaky hinges. The oak table lay in shambles. Pieces of shelves, torn from the walls, lay in a pile of splinters here and there. The books had spilled on the floor in a calico cascade, some closed, some open, like a pile of dead butterflies. The library wasn’t just ransacked; it was smashed, as if someone of extraordinary strength had vented his rage on it.

Behind her, Richard made a small noise that sounded like one of William’s growls. Destroying Grandfather’s library was like ripping open his grave and spitting on his body. It felt like a desecration.