Slip Song (Devany Miller Series) (19 page)

That night I heard the screams. They woke me from a dead sleep and I leaned over Jasper to peer out the window into the black.

“Is everything all right?” If he was disconcerted by waking with me draped over him, he didn’t show it.

“
Did you hear that?”

Another scream. I moved and Jasper took my place at the window. “No one is running.”

“I'm going to check it out.”

“
Devany, that may not be wise.”

I didn’t care. Someone, some girl was screaming and I wasn’t going to sit around and ignore it. I pulled on my jeans and slipped my feet into my shoes, sans socks. The night air was warm and rich with sweet floral smells. I slipped between the wagons, listening, moving cautiously, not sure what I might encounter in the darkness. “Come on,” I whispered. “Scream again.”

She did and I corrected my direction and aimed for the large tent in the middle of the circled wagons. I slipped between the canvas and squinted into the gloom. A woman sagged in the center by the main pole, and a smaller form crouched beside her. The remains of an animal steamed in the cool night air, its guts strewn from its belly with a blood trail that led to the woman.

I discarded several things I could’ve asked, “Is everything okay?” one of those gems. It was obvious everything was not okay. I opted for walking in with heavy footsteps, my hands held away from my body to show them I didn’t have a weapon. “Can I help?”

The girl jerked her head up, her eyes narrowing. To the woman, she said, “See Tam? She heard your screams and she’s across camp.”

“
I can’t stop it this time,” the woman moaned, her voice more whine than pain.

“
You have to. You know what he’ll do if you change.”

I stopped a few yards from the duo. Said, “What can I do?”

“Can you keep her from changing?” She sounded so much like Bethy when my daughter was annoyed with me that I had to tamp down on a sudden, fierce bout of homesickness.

I opted for curiosity, figuring snark would only give her what she wanted. “What change?”

The young woman huffed, yanking her hair back to stuff under her hat. “Why don’t you go back to your stupid friends and stay out of things that don’t concern you. Okay?”

Lucky her, I dealt with people under stress all the time and was used to the snippiness that came from tough situations. “Is she in danger if she changes? Do we need to get her out of here?”

Another huff. Then a slower breath. “It’s no use. She can’t go back home, the witch-folk won’t allow her back in town, now that the wild magic has caught her. Best thing she could hope for is being sold.”

Best thing was to be sold? Lord. “Okay. What’s she changing into? Can we hide her?”

She rubbed the sobbing woman’s back. “No. Where?” To the shivering, sobbing woman, she said, “Tam, you have to fight it. He left the cat to force the change.”

“
I know. I can’t. I can’t fight it. I want to eat. I’m so hungry.”

“
So, food?” I glanced at the dead thing. Looked like something had already been eating it. She raised her head and the blood streaked down her chin told me who.

She whined again. “I can’t get full.”

“I know that feeling.” I ignored little sister’s look and said to Tam, “You are going to have to work harder to feed yourself. That will help.”

She swiped her chin, smearing blood and making her face a worse mess. “They give us rations when we’re in the Anwar.” Her face was pulled down, her body language screaming that she didn’t want reason or comfort. She wanted raw meat.

I took a breath, realizing I’d gotten caught up in solving her problem instead of supporting her. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. That will help.” To little sister, I said, “What’s your name?”

She made a face. “Lynessa. Everyone but my brother calls me Sharps.”

Tam gasped and doubled over. Her skin shivered and rippled as if it were in a high wind. Sharps yanked me back, her feet slipping in the dirt. “She’s losing it. We need to get away from her.”

“
She’s changing? Tam. Do you want to change?”

“
No, you thick cunt. I don’t want to be,” she gasped, “a monster. Ow!” She fell to the ground, writhing in the dirt.

“
Tam!”

I shook my head. “It’s all right. I’ve heard worse.” And said worse, honestly. Of insults, it was a silly one. What’s the shame in a thick cunt, I ask you? “I think you deserve whatever happens to you,” I said.

Panting, she twisted until she was on her back. Fur had sprouted on her legs and claws were pushing from the tips of her fingers. “What did you say?”

“
Big whiner like you. Why not? World would probably be better off without you in human form.” I fought back a grin as I watched the fur retreat some. The claws shortened. She struggled to sit up.

The girl hit my arm. “What are you doing?”

“Standing on my two feet, unlike this chick who seems to think it’s better to roll around like a dog. Why are you fighting it so hard, anyway? I think it’d be just a normal day for you to be a dog.”

She snarled and lunged at me but I jumped back without much worry. She’d have to stop wallowing long enough to chase me if she really wanted to do some damage. I didn’t know if she had it in her, steeped as she was in self-pity. No, it wasn’t something I could do at work, which might explain why I was having so much fun with it now. Her skin rippled and absorbed more of the fur until there was only a faint line where it had been. “Tell her to leave me alone, Sharps.”

Sharps looked at Tam then me. “She’s right. You are a whiner, Tam.”

The woman gasped then shoved herself to her feet. She sagged as if her muscles weren’t firing correctly and had to hold onto the pole to keep from falling again. “How could you? It hurts and you’re mocking me?” Tears slid down her cheeks as she fought to stay upright.

“No. I’m challenging you. Look at yourself.”

Tam did, staring at her feet for a long time. Then she sniffed, straightened her legs. “Oh.” Her bloodshot eyes met mine. “That wasn’t nice.”

“No it wasn’t. Sometimes nice doesn’t work for shit. Sometimes you have to get angry.”

She nodded and let go of the pole. She wobbled but managed to stay upright. “I need to wash up.”

“I’ll help you.” Sharps slipped under Tam’s arm and walked her to the tent flap. “Thanks,” she said.

“
Sure. You can count on me to be an asshole any ole time.”

She laughed and even Tam chuckled. I followed them out of the tent into the fresh night air. Without any street lights, the stars popped in glorious splendor, clustering across the sky in purples, reds, and blues. I stood staring, awed, and didn’t hear him until he put a heavy hand on my shoulder. I jumped, knocking him away with a shriek. “What the hell?”

His smile flashed in the dark, leering and cold. “Don’t fuck around with my people. They don’t need saving.”

My fingers curled into fists. I reminded myself that we needed him, at least until we got through the Anwar but that didn’t stop me from wanting to spit at him. Extreme reaction, Devany. Chill yourself out. As far as pep talks went, it wasn’t a good one. “Right.” It was all I could manage. I wasn’t going to agree with him but I was physically unable to ignore what he said.

His expression didn’t change. In fact, it seemed as if he was vacant behind his golden, staring eyes and slight smile. That blank look scared me more than a glare. And then he spoke. “Have you ever watched ants kill a wounded dog? They swarm over its body and it yelps and yips and spins, biting at them but they keep coming and coming until it looks like the dog’s fur is alive. It takes a long time for it to die. Did you know that?” He wasn’t there, in his head. He was somewhere else, watching that wounded animal suffer. “A long, horrible death. The ants in the Anwar have a quick-heal venom. So as the ants are biting the dog and the dog bleeds, the poison enters its body and keeps it alive.

“
Ants like eating living meat.”

Then his eyes focused on me and his grin widened.

Acid burned my throat. He was a big guy and I was out here in the dark with him.

“
Leon?”

I didn’t look away from him and his eyes stayed on mine. A superstitious fear rose up inside me: if I looked away first or blinked, he would incapacitate me and tie me to an anthill to watch me die. And he would smile the whole while.

“Leon. I need your help. Please?” Sharps’ voice tipped upward until she sounded about five. It made me sick to my stomach but I still didn’t look away from him. It wasn’t until she put her hand on his sleeve that he finally turned away, blinking at her as if she were an apparition. “I can’t find my dolly.”

“
Why are you out after dark, Lynessa? Come. I’ll take you to bed.”

Blood drained from my face. Oh dear lord, I hoped that didn’t mean what I thought it meant. “Sharps—”

She slashed her hand down, glaring at me. “Go. Now.” She tugged at him and he went, walking with her, his head bowed as they faded into the dark.

I stared after her, unable to move.

“Devany?”

“
I think I’m going to have to kill him.”

“
Come on. Come.” Jasper slipped his hand into mine and tugged me back to our wagon. I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until he wrapped a blanket around me and helped me into bed, where he held me and whispered soft words into my hair.

“
How can there be such awful people in the world?”

His soft, slow breathing calmed me, as did his fingers gently sifting through my hair. “Some would say that you can’t appreciate the good things without the evil.”

“Some would be stupid assholes.”

“
I agree.”

He held me until I fell into uneasy dreams.

We packed up and moved out early the next day. Everyone had a job to do and did it with economy. Quorra escaped Alton and came by, pestering Nex to come with her to her tank so that she could cuddle him. When Nex declined, she sat on the steps until her minder found her and led her away, though she cast long, sad looks at Nex until she was out of sight.

Jasper and I watched Yorloff hitch up the oxen, Leon having given him permission to teach the virgies how to pull their own weight. The animals were called oxen but they didn’t look much like the oxen on Earth. These were muscled blue beasts with fat, conical horns and hammer-handed fists instead of hooves. I wondered if this was where the first stories of Babe the big blue ox had come from. The oxen stood complacently enough while Yorloff yoked them, using their hands to rip up what grass hadn’t been trampled flat and stuff it in their mouths. The part of their knuckles they walked on were callused and thick. Yorloff told me it was death to be punched by an ox. “Tougher’n bone and sharp on the top edge, they are. Slice and smash.”

I gave them a wide berth.

Jasper drove the wagon and already I could see that this would take forever. I couldn’t be away from my kids so long. “There has to be a faster way to find those Theleoni.”

“
I know not what that way would be,” Jasper said, his grey eyes on the wagon ahead of us. We were the caboose in the train of wagons and the dust was thick and awful. “Perhaps you should climb in the back and call your spawn?”

I nodded, glad for the idea since I was unwilling to waste away the days playing pioneer. I used the handle on the side and stepped from the front to the steps while the ground rolled underneath me. Inside, Nex floated in his bunk, his eyes turned toward the window.

“You all right?” He hadn’t said a word since Alton had dragged Quorra away earlier.

“
I did not think to miss my life in the swamp. But I find myself looking back on those days with sadness.”

I thought of his queen, out of her mind with madness and his body, hibernating somewhere while it grew back its head and became ... who? Nex again? Would this Nex fade away? I realized I’d never thought about his situation too much. What would a head do to pass the time? The Slip couldn’t have been much fun. “I’m sorry.”

He turned then, his large eyes contemplative. “It is a curious thing, how I feel. These emotions are foreign and quite useless. I know full well what I am and my place in life. To question it is strange.”

“
It’s hard being something so new and unusual that there isn’t any guidance from those who have gone before. I never realized how easy we have it as humans, growing up with so many role models and examples of behavior and speech, rules and rebellions.” I paused, watching him, wondering if I should say more or shut up.

“
I find myself quite adrift.”

“
Questioning things is a great way to find your way.”

He acknowledged my words with a slight nod of his head, then he turned back to the window. “I will think on it.”

I retreated to the back bunk, leaving him to his contemplation, and sat on the bed, turning my mind inward. I opened my Magic Eye and looked for the strand that tied Tytan to me and followed it to his awareness. I got slapped by a wave of hatred so strong I almost lost my grip on the strand. “Tytan?” The presence wasn’t Tytan but was attached to him. “Ty? Damn it, what’s going on?”