CERISE raised her head and squinted at the morning sky. It was a beautiful, intense shade of turquoise that promised a gorgeous day. Except today, the family rode out to kill and die, and she was at the head of the column.
Behind her two dozen Mars rode on horseback. She had already sent the kids out to scout the road ahead. She'd glanced over her shoulder. Everyone was here. Richard, Kaldar, Erian, Aunt Murid, Uncle Ben . . . Her gaze snagged on William riding at the edge of the column on the left, next to Adriana. He scowled at her. Yes, yes, I see you scowling, Lord Bill the Jealous.
If something happened to her today, Richard would assume command of the family and Aunt Pete would take care of Lark. Cerise's heart lurched. Lark wouldn't do well with Aunt Pete, but she didn't know where else to turn.
Grandma Az would help, but Grandmother and Gaston had their own fight to fight. The Sheerile family was a hydra: the two brothers would be at Sene, but the clan wouldn't die until Kaitlin, their mother, breathed her last. Grandmother had decided today was the day for it, and none of them were stupid enough to stand in her way.
They rounded the bend in the road. It would've been so much easier if Grandpa's house sat somewhere off a main road. They'd ram it with a truck, throw a stinker into it, and sit back and shoot whatever came out. But no, the manor perched deep in the swamp. No truck would make it through the narrow, half-flooded trails. That meant they would have to lay siege to the house. Even with the Sheeriles alone, the odds wouldn't be good. But with the Sheeriles and the Hand together . . . Who knew what sort of insane monsters the Hand would stuff into it?
Whichever way you looked at it, they'd have to get the stinker into the house somehow. They had to get the Sheeriles out of the house with the least damage, or they risked destroying whatever clues the manor held.
It had been sixteen days since her parents were taken. Cerise stared straight ahead. Tearing up in front of the whole family wouldn't do. Sixteen days since the Hand took her mom and dad, and just about eighty years to the day since the feud between the family and the Sheeriles had started. A hell of a day.
A bolt sliced past her shoulder and thudded into the bark of a tree ahead. A squirrel writhed, pierced by the shaft.
William rode up to the tree and sliced with his knife, cutting the small furry body in two. A swirling mass of tentacles spilled out and fell into the dirt with a wet plop. She'd seen these tentacles before, inside the bat guided by the Hand's necromancer.
"A deader?" Cerise asked.
William nodded. "You don't have to worry about the Hand today."
"Why not?" Erian asked from the back.
William glanced at him. "If Spider had his people helping the Sheeriles, he wouldn't need a scout to keep an eye on things. He must have cut the Sheeriles off, but he still wants a report from the fight."
That meant Lagar and Arig were on their own. Just the two brothers and whatever hired muscle they brought with them. Cerise raised her eyes to the sky. "Thank you."
"I can kill the necromancer," William said.
"How many people do you need?"
He grinned, flashing white teeth, his face feral. "None."
"I'll see you at the house, then. Happy hunting."
William hopped off his horse and vanished into the brush.
She turned her horse. "The Sheeriles are alone. Let's go pry them out of that damn house."
A ragged chorus answered her. Worry stabbed her, and she crushed it before it had a chance to show on her face.
WILLIAM pulled himself up onto the pine branch at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the scene. The soles of his boots were slick with the Scout Master's blood, and he took an extra second to climb.
The old house sat on a very gentle incline. The Sheeriles must've gotten ahold of a lawnmower, because the grass around the house was freshly mowed. A sixty-yard stretch of rocky ground, dotted with stumps of severed weeds, separated the house from the trees. The Mars lay at the perimeter in a ragged line. They were looking at the house.
He looked, too. It was a two-story dilapidated-looking place, the kind he saw often in the Broken. Everything was peeling, sagging, or rotting, except for the iron grates on the windows. Those looked brand new. The gaps between the bars bristled with rifles. The place was a damn fortress. If it was him, he'd set it on fire and pick the enemy off as they jumped out.
At the tree line Richard saw him and touched Cerise's shoulder. She turned to look in his direction. William raised the Scout Master's head by the hair and dangled it for her. The Hand's necromancer had died with an ugly grimace on his face. Maybe bringing the head wasn't the best idea, but then how would she know he killed the man?
Cerise gave him a thumbs-up. Ha!
He set the head in the bend of the branch and glanced back at the Mars. At the far end, Lark sat in a tree, hidden from the house by the bark. She waved at him. He waved back.
A woman rose from a crouch at the tree line, clutching a familiar bronze-colored ball in her hand. A stinker grenade, the Weird military's favorite nonlethal weapon of crowd control. Throw one of those into an enclosed space and watch people trample each other trying to get out. That must've cost Cerise an arm and a leg. How were they going to get it past the bars? He glanced at the house. Ah, there. A rectangular window, a foot long, six inches wide, too small to bother barring.
The woman took a deep breath. A flash of pale green flared from her in a short burst. A defensive flasher. Not very strong either. Chances were, she couldn't keep it up for long.
She ran into the open, her magic flaring like a glowing wall around her. Bullets whistled and bounced off, deflected by the green flash. She didn't have a lot of juice, just enough to bounce off a bullet.
The woman sprinted, in a straight line, shuddering under the hail of bullets. Good plan. Go, William cheered her on. Go, go!
Thirty yards to the house. Twenty-five, twenty-two . . .
The ground under her left foot gave. Metal teeth flashed. The woman screamed, her foot caught in a huge metal trap. Her flash faltered and vanished.
The first bullet took her in the chest as she was falling. It tore a chunk of flesh from her back in a crimson spray. The second, third, and fourth punched her stomach. The bronze ball rolled from her fingers and fell into the green grass.
A small body burst from the brush and dashed across the clearing, dark hair flying. Lark.
At the tree line Cerise screamed.
The kid zigged and zagged like a scared rabbit. Bullets tore the turf on both sides of her. A bolt screeched through the air and sprouted from her chest. It caught the girl in mid-leap, and for a moment Lark flew, weightless, eyes opened wide, mouth opened in a horrified O, face chalk pale, just like the child in a meadow full of dandelions years ago . . .