The Drowned Cities (8 page)

“
We
don’t know what it is.”

“So we just feed it to him. We can call it goat, or something. Or make up some of his Latin talk for it.
Deadus pondus
, right? Mahfouz’d eat that right up. He loves those big words.”

Mahlia laughed. “You try that, he’ll definitely know you’re up to something.”

“Come on, Mahlia. If we don’t carve it up, coywolv will.”

Something about the dead thing made her uneasy. She scanned the swampy pools, the jungle all around. Nothing but trees, green leaves, and kudzu draping over everything. Deep mossy pools. And then in the middle of it, this bloody leaking thing.

Mouse was smirking at her.

Grind it. She couldn’t be paranoid forever. Mahlia waded in, feeling stupid for her fear. The warm waters of the swamp eased up around her thighs, hot as blood.

“You’ll eat anything,” she said.

“It’s why I’m still alive.”

Mosquitoes buzzed around her as she waded through cattails and algae slime. Together, they grabbed the floating mass. Clouds of flies rose up again, a choking tornado.

Mouse caught Mahlia’s eye. “On three, right?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

“One. Two.
Three!
”

They hauled, straining and grunting, dragging with all their strength. The thing moved sluggishly.

“Come
on
!”

Mahlia set her feet and pulled. Her feet scrabbled in the mud, heaving, pulling—

The thing ripped apart.

Unbalanced, Mahlia and Mouse toppled back into the water. Mahlia came up sputtering, expecting to find herself in a sea of guts and blood. Instead, one half of the dead thing had rolled up, revealing a face, scarred and terrible.

“Kali-Mary Mother of God!” Mahlia gave a startled yelp and scrambled back.

“Damn!” Mouse crowed. “I should’ve seen it before! Should’ve known!”

It wasn’t one creature, but two. Monsters intertwined. A big king of an alligator, and another creature—a thing that Mahlia hadn’t seen since the cease-fire died and the last of the peacekeepers cleared out, all of them running for the docks as the Drowned Cities returned to war.

A half-man. A war creature that only the richest
corporations, the Chinese peacekeepers, and the armies in the North could afford to grow and use.

“A dog-face!” Mouse was practically hooting with excitement. “Must’ve been epic ring!” He splashed over for a closer look. “Must’ve killed each other! Dog-face killed the gator, gator killed the dog-face.”

He shook his head with admiration as he ran a hand down the monster’s flank. “Check out those teeth marks. Gator practically tore its shoulder off. Had to be epic ring.”

“Mouse…”

“What?” He looked up from his inspection of the battle wounds. “Ain’t gonna bite. We’ll take the gator. Good eating, for sure. Even old Mahfouz likes gator.”

Mouse was right. The monsters were dead. She was being stupid.

After the initial shock of the half-man’s face, Mahlia could think through her reaction. It had just seemed too human, that was all. One minute it had been a beast; the next, a person.

“You coming?” Mouse asked. He was looking at her like she was some kind of baby war maggot who’d never rolled a dead body.

“You didn’t see its face,” she said.

It was submerged again, but it had been terrifying—beast and human welded together in an unholy mix. Her skin crawled at the memory of that visage.

“If you got no spine…”

“Go grind, Mouse. I ain’t afraid of the dead.”

Still, Mahlia avoided the floating half-man and went straight for the alligator, ignoring the boy’s smirk. Together, they grabbed hold of the massive reptile and started hauling it toward shore.

They paused to rest. Mouse leaned his elbows on the floating corpse. Wiped sweat out of his eyes. “Must’ve been epic fighting,” he said. “They got ring fights in the Drowned Cities. Use their deserters and the other warlord soldiers. Panthers. Coywolv. Anything that’ll fight. Bet that old monster would’ve done good in the ring.”

“Sure, Mouse. Let’s carve up the lizard and get gone.”

“Fight like this one, people’d pay Red Chinese cash to see it. Soldier boys would’ve loved it. Battle to the death. Epic ring.”

“Soldier boys do all kinds of dumb stuff.”

They started hauling on the gator again, but suddenly the going got slow. Mahlia leaned into the weight, annoyed. Mouse liked to bait her into doing the work and then slack off. Typical.

“Grind it, Mouse! Quit lazing off.” She glanced back. “Hey! What you doing?”

Mouse wasn’t even helping. He’d pulled out his knife and was wading back toward the floating half-man.

“Got an idea,” he said.

“Come on, Mouse! I don’t want to be out here in the dark with raw meat. Last time that happened, we ended up sleeping in the trees with a bunch of coywolv down below. Let’s get gone.”

“We can sell its teeth,” Mouse said. “Lucky teeth, off a real dog-face. How many soldier boys got real dog-face teeth? They’d buy ’em for sure. Bet I can find one of these soldier boys who’d pay me all kinds of Red Chinese cash. Good luck, right? Better than a Fates Eye or one of those necklaces the Army of God thinks makes the bullets bounce off. If we take these down to Moss Landing when Mahfouz trades for meds, we can sell ’em quick to the R-and-R boys.”

“You’re sliding. Soldiers will just take ’em from you. Pay you with a bullet, most likely. Or else just recruit your ass.”

“I’ll get a nailshed girl to do the deal. They won’t even see me. No worries.”

He reached the floating monster and leaned on the body until its face came out of the water. He pried open its mouth and hefted his knife.

“Damn, these dog-faces got a lot of teeth.”

The monster’s eye snapped open.

“
M
OUSE!
” M
AHLIA SHOUTED,
but it was too late. The monster exploded from the water. Mahlia watched, stunned, as Mouse flew through the air and hit the bank with a wet thud.

Fates, it’s fast.

Mahlia turned to run, but the half-man lunged. He covered distance in a blur, seizing her before she even took a step. Her head snapped and the world spun. She was flying, she realized. The half-man had flung her high in the air, the way a dog tossed a rat.

Swamp waters flashed far below. She glimpsed the half-man, teeth bared, waiting for her to come down. Water rushed up.

“Ugh!”

She slammed flat against the water. Swamp swallowed her. Stunned, Mahlia tried to swim for the surface. The dog-face was coming for her.
No time no time no time.
She surfaced, gasping. The monster was fifteen feet away.

Mahlia thrashed through the weeds, fleeing, but it was like fighting through molasses. The monster leaped and crashed down beside her. A wave of swamp water threw her off her feet. Coughing and retching, she tried to stand. The dog-face loomed. She was surprised to see that it already had Mouse, one huge fist wrapped in the red tangles of his hair.

With an easy swipe, the monster collected her as well. Mahlia tried to scream but the half-man shoved her down into the swamp. Mahlia fought, but it was like a mountain was sitting on her.

I’m going to drown.

With a tooth-rattling jerk, the half-man yanked her up again. Air and sunlight. The flash of tree leaves. She tried to get a breath but the monster sank her again. Slime and hot muddy water jammed down her throat, up her nose. Her face hit mud.

Mahlia flailed at the dog-face’s fist, trying to pry free. It was like fighting concrete. The monster didn’t care what she did.

Unbidden, Mahlia remembered seeing a squad of soldier boys drown a puppy. They’d taken turns holding it down with one hand as it fought and shook. Then they’d let it up to breathe, so they could laugh at it, before sinking it again. She was a toy, she realized. A kill toy for a monster.

The half-man jerked her out of the water again. Mahlia sucked air, coughing and retching. Mouse was still underwater. His hands poked up from the depths, waving like desperate reeds.

The creature’s massive pit-bull skull loomed close. Scars and torn flesh. Animal and human, crushed together in one nightmare beast. Ropy gray scar tissue covered one eye, but the other eye was wide open, rabid and yellow, big as an egg. The monster growled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. A gust of blood and carrion washed over her.

“I am not meat,” it snarled. “
You
are meat.”

Mahlia pissed herself. Urine streamed down her legs. She didn’t feel shame. Didn’t feel anything except terror. She wasn’t a person anymore. Just prey. It was as if the monster had cut her open and spilled out her guts. She was nothing. Dead already, even if her heart still pounded. Prey for other bigger, stronger animals. Just like all the civvies she’d seen gunned down as she’d fled the Drowned Cities. Mouse was still thrashing underwater, but he was dead, too. He just didn’t know it.

Do something.

A joke. They were no match for this monster. Grown soldiers with guns and machetes died like flies before half-men.

The monster stared at her malevolently. The stench of its killing breath overwhelmed her. Mahlia closed her eyes, waiting to be ripped apart.

Go on. Just do it.

But nothing happened. Instead, she heard Mouse come up, gasping. And then she felt herself being lowered into the swamp. Mahlia opened her eyes.

The monster was staring at her with…

Was that
fear
?

The creature dropped to one knee. Sank lower. Swamp waters rose around them. Mahlia tried to pry away, but the monster’s fist still held her like a vise. The half-man tried to rise. It took a staggering step toward the bank, dragging them both with it, then toppled. They slammed into the mud. The monster’s breath gusted out in a dull huff.

Mouse was coughing and choking, still trying to fight his way free of the monster’s grip. The creature bared its teeth and growled, a sound like boulders crushing bones.

“Hold still, boy.”

Mouse froze.

The monster’s breath came in short gasps. Mahlia realized that they were surrounded by blood. A sea of red, all through the water. The half-man’s.

The monster slumped against the muddy bank, half in and half out of the water, its chest working like a bellows, gasping for air. Its yellow dog eye slowly closed, a membrane nictitating over the iris. The lid lowered.

“It’s dying,” Mouse whispered.

The creature’s eye flared wide. Mouse gasped as the monster tightened its grip. “I do not die. You are dying. Not I…” Another pained exhalation, and a gathering of energy.

“I. Do. Not.
Die.
”

But Mouse was right. Now that Mahlia could breathe, she could see that the monster’s wounds were extensive. Teeth marks. Slashes. Festering torn skin. Blood ran freely from where the king alligator had torn deep into the half-man’s shoulder, and those were just the wounds that she could easily see.

The monster’s grip was loosening again. Mahlia waited… In one sharp jerk she twisted free. The half-man tried to resnare her, but it was slower now. She danced out of range.

The half-man fell back, but its eye still burned with predatory viciousness.

“So,” it growled.

It drew Mouse into a bear hug, keeping him close. Mahlia wondered if she could find their machete, if she could stab the beast somehow. Kill it before it snapped Mouse’s neck.

Where was that machete? Lost in the swamp. But she had her own knife.

Maybe if she stabbed it in the eye…

As if sensing her murderous thoughts, the monster said, “Your friend is mine.” Its muscles flexed and it began to push Mouse down under the water.

“Mahlia?” Mouse began to struggle, but he was no match. The half-man pushed him lower. Water lapped around Mouse’s chin.

Mahlia started forward, barely stopping short of the half-man’s reach. “Don’t hurt him!”

“Do not test me, then.” The monster allowed Mouse to surface, sputtering.

Mahlia paced the shore, still hoping to catch sight of the machete. “Let him go.”

The half-man smiled, showing the sharp teeth Mouse had wanted to harvest. “Come a little closer, girl.”

Mahlia tried to make her voice reasonable. “Let him go.”

“No.”

She hesitated. “I can help you.”

“No.” The monster shook its head. “As your little friend says, I am dying.”

“What if we could get you medicine?”

“There is no medicine.”

“I know a doctor. In town. He could fix you. Me and Mouse could get him. I know how to doctor, too.”

“Ah.” The monster regarded her. “You have a doctor, and you will fetch him and he will give the half-man the medicines and care that will save its life, and all will be well.”

Mahlia nodded eagerly.

“A pretty fairy tale from the mouth of a pretty child.”