I put one hand in front of the other, weakly kicking my legs, digging my fingers into the slippery mud, and slowly pulling myself up the bank until I was back on semisolid ground again. Still panting, I rolled over onto my back and forced myself to sit up. The moon and stars were out in full force tonight, their pale light streaming in through the thick canopy of twisted trees that surrounded me. The silvery glow matched the starbursts erupting in my eyes.
I don't know how long it took for me to crawl over to the closest tree, wrap my hands around the rough bark, and pull myself to my feet. I stood there for several minutes, resting my forehead against the trunk and trying to keep the world from spinning around and the flashing starbursts to a minimum. Then I pushed away from the tree and forced myself to start walking.
Well, I don't know if I'd really call it walking. I stumbled from one tree trunk to the next, weaving worse than a drunken frat boy, with no idea of where I was, where I was going, and not really caring about either one at the moment. I had a much more important mission right now - stopping the rest of my blood from leaking out of my body.
Dekes had made some nasty wounds with his fangs, including one in my right shoulder that went all the way down to my collarbone. I could feel the broken edges of the bone scraping against each other and threatening to break through the tight skin that was stretched over their now awkward alignment. I could barely raise my right arm so I couldn't set the bone, not by myself, but the bite marks needed to be covered up at the very least so that what was left of my blood would have a chance to clot. It was just dumb, blind luck that the vampire hadn't hit my carotid artery when he'd launched into his feeding frenzy. Otherwise, I would have bled out back in the library.
I stooped down, dug my fingers into the mud at my feet, and plastered some of that on my wounds, but more of it seemed to slide off than actually stick to my skin. Ditto for the grass and moss that I tried next. So I got to my feet and trudged on. I don't know how long I stumbled through the swamp, teetering and tottering from one slippery step to the next, but finally, I came across something that could help me - a spider's web.
I walked right into the web, not even realizing it was there until I felt it stick to my skin. I blinked and lurched back, wondering if I'd stumbled into some sort of trap, perhaps an elemental trip wire or an elaborate snare that a hunter had made with fishing line. It took me a moment to spot the silken strands clinging to my bloody chest and realize what they were.
Despite the fact that the Spider was my assassin name and my own personal rune, I'd never really studied up on the critters themselves. I didn't know what kind of spider had made the web, but it stretched from one tree to the next like a thick hammock that had been turned on its side. The moonlight slipped in through the cracks in the leaves above, making the individual threads glimmer like spun silver and showing off the web's intricate pattern.
For a moment, the scene blurred, and I was back in the sunlit forests of Ashland, patiently listening as Fletcher explained another one of his folksy mountain remedies to me - the one I'd thought I'd never, ever use. But once again, the old man's teachings were going to save me - or at least help me save myself.
"Fletcher," I whispered.
The old man's name seemed to echo through the trees, melting the happy illusion in my head and snapping me back to the here and now and the danger that I was in. Still, for the first time all night, a smile spread across my bloody face.
It was a shame to destroy something so delicate and beautiful as the web, but I did it anyway, just as I had so many other horrible, hurtful things over the years. I grabbed gobs and gobs of the silken strands and started packing them into the wounds on my neck and shoulders as best I could, given the fact that I could really only use my left arm. The threads stuck to my skin like glue.
When I packed the wounds with the last of the web, I managed to shrug out of my suit jacket, put it over the whole sticky mess, and loop the sleeves around my neck like a scarf, since I didn't have the strength to try and actually tie them together. It wasn't the best bandage I'd ever made, but hopefully it would keep me from losing any more blood.
My mission complete, I drew in a breath and headed deeper into the marsh.
I don't know how long I walked, just plodding through the swamp. Mud, water, grass, more mud. They all merged together into a seemingly endless landscape, each one sucking at my feet and threatening to pull me down with every step I took. Half the time I would think that I'd finally found some dry land to walk on, only to find myself up to my knees in water two seconds later.
But the worst part was the mosquitoes. Drawn to the scent of my blood, the insects buzzed around my head in a thick, suffocating cloud, their high-pitched whines echoing in my ears like a hundred tiny chain saws and making me grind my teeth together. I had to squint my eyes and hold my left hand up over my nose and mouth to keep from swallowing gobs of them. Ugh.
Every once in a while, I would see the golden glow of lights through the trees from one of the mansions that backed up against the marsh, but I didn't dare try to find my way over to any of them. For all I knew, I'd been walking in circles this whole time and the lights I noticed belonged to Dekes's mansion - or one of his buddies'. Even if they didn't, I wasn't going to take that kind of chance, especially when I looked like something the Swamp Thing would be afraid of.
There would be too many awkward questions to answer and too much risk of word getting back to Dekes that a wounded woman had stumbled out of the marsh. No, the best thing to do was to keep wading through the swamp. It had to end sometime, and then I'd get my bearings and figure out where I was and how to get back to the beach house.
I only hoped that Finn, Bria, and Owen had realized the danger they were in and had managed to get away from the mansion before Dekes had sent his giants to round them up. I couldn't let myself think they hadn't or I didn't know how I'd be able to keep going. Especially now that I knew exactly what Dekes would do to Bria if he ever got his hands on her.
My stomach roiled again at the memory of the vampire sinking his teeth into me, but I swallowed down the bitter bile that rose up in my throat and kept walking. I stepped onto what looked like more solid ground, only to feel my feet slide out from under me in the hidden bog. I stumbled forward and fell to my hands and knees in the water, with even more mud and muck squishing between my fingers. I weakly thrashed around for a few seconds before managing to get to my feet. I raised up my head and peered into the darkness, wondering what was next, what other new obstacle I would have to face.