So that was what he kept chained inside.
"He's insane," Richard said next to her.
"I know," she told him. "He held it in all this time. He's unbelievable, isn't he?"
Richard stared at her for a long moment and raised his eyes to the sky. "What are all of you doing up there? You've lost your minds."
"WILLIAM?"
The girl. Her voice, floating into his mind. Her scent swirling about him, filtering through the scents of hot blood
Cerise. Calling him.
William clawed through the blood-soaked fog.
Her hand touched him. He grabbed her and pulled her to him. His vision snapped into crystal clarity, and he saw her and his hands, gripping her shoulders. His fingers were covered with blood.
Cerise smiled at him. "Hey."
"Hey."
Her fingers stroked his cheek. "Are you back with us?"
"I never left."
He noticed her family now. They had surrounded him in a ragged circle, clutching crossbows and rifles. The field was strewn with corpses. He'd run out of people to kill.
The pressure inside him had eased. He needed more, more blood, more enemies to drain the heated strain in his muscles, but Cerise needed him and what he had done would have to be enough for now.
"I'm going to fight Lagar now," she told him. "Will you watch?"
He let her go and nodded.
Cerise walked to the porch. The sun glinted from the sword in her hand.
William sat in the grass.
Richard sat on one side of him, Kaldar landed on the other.
"Murid has her rifle trained on your head. If you interfere, she'll splatter your brains right on these nice weeds over here," Kaldar said. "Just thought you should know."
"It's good to know," William said. His body cooled slowly. Fatigue mugged him. They were fools. It was her fight. If he interfered, she would never forgive him.
If Cerise faltered, he would end up watching her die. The thought made the wild inside him howl, but one didn't stand between a wolf and her prey.
"How often can you do that?" Richard indicated the corpses with a sweep of his hand.
"Not often."
"It's over, Lagar," Cerise called. "Come out. Let's finish this."
A quiet descended on the clearing.
The screen door banged. A man stepped out into the sunshine. He wore a blue robe that reached to his knees. The left sleeve hung in tatters. Lagar shrugged off the other sleeve, letting the robe hang at his waist. He swung his sword. Cords of muscle rolled on his bare chest and arms.
What did she see in him? He was tall, well-built. Handsome enough. Pale hair, blue eyes. They were enemies, but he got Cerise to dance with him. Was he charming? Did he know the right things to say?
They paced from side to side, stretching, keeping their distance. Lagar flexed. Veins bulged on his arms. "How come we never got together, Cerise?"
She looked small compared to him. That made for a smaller target, and she was fast, but Lagar was stronger. He'd muscle her and she didn't have the weight to counter. "I don't know, Lagar. Killing my relatives and kidnapping my parents might have something to do with it."
Lagar stopped. Cerise stopped also.
His flash burst from Lagar's eyes in a torrent of brilliant white. It ran down his hand onto his sword.
Shit.
"Too bad it turned out this way," Lagar said.
Cerise's magic slid along her sword. "We both knew it would," she replied.
Lagar charged, fast like a changeling. Cerise parried, her movements flowing as if her joints were liquid. The two blades crashed against each other, sparking with magic. They danced across the clearing, flashing and thrusting. Steel rang, magic shone.
Cerise pulled back and so did Lagar. For a long breath they stood still, poised like two cats before a fight, and then Lagar moved, stalking Cerise across the grass, his sword pointing straight up. Cerise followed, her blade loose in her fingers, stepping on her toes.
Lagar ran. She matched him. He leapt and struck from above in an overhead blow, banking on his superior strength. They clashed in a blinding burst of magic and broke apart, facing each other.
The scent of blood lashed William's nostrils.
A long cut sliced through Cerise's shirt, swelling with red across her shoulder over her breast. A narrow smile bent Lagar's lips.
If Lagar won, William would kill him.
The Sheerile took a step forward and fell, as if his legs were cut out from under him. Slowly Cerise slumped next to him in the grass. Lagar gasped, sucking in the air in small shallow bites.
A dark stain, deep red, almost black, spread through Lagar's robe. Liver blood, tainted with the stench of bile.
"Gods, it hurts," Lagar whispered.
Cerise picked up his hand and held it. She touched him. William choked back a snarl.
Lagar's gut distended, growing like an inflating water balloon. A cut to the aorta or an iliac vessel. Lagar's stomach was filling with his own blood.
"We . . . would've been good ..." Lagar coughed out blood.
Cerise rubbed his hand. "In another time in another life maybe. You hated my father more than you could ever love me."
"Lucky for you," Lagar said softly. A convulsion rocked him and he clenched her hand.
"You should've left," she told him. "You always wanted to."
"False diamonds," Lagar whispered. "Like swamp lights."
Another convulsion shook him. He screamed. His eyes rolled back in his skull. Blood poured from his mouth.
His pulse stopped.
Cerise untangled her hand from his. Her face turned flat and cold. "String him up."
"You're bleeding," Richard said. "And grandmother isn't here to help you."
"She's right," Ignata walked up to them. "Tomorrow will be too late. String him up, Richard."
He shook his head and walked off.
"What's going on?" William glanced at Kaldar.
Kaldar grimaced and spat into the grass. "Magic. Old swamp magic."
Chapter Twenty-Two
CERISE sat in the grass. The cut on her breast had stopped bleeding. Strangely, it didn't hurt, not as much as she thought it would have. Her blood always clotted quickly, and she usually got away with a bandage where other people needed stitches.
A few yards away Erian dragged a corpse by its feet onto the growing pile of the dead. He should've nursed his wounds, instead of pulling corpses around. Erian turned toward her, flipping the corpse. Excitement lit his eyes, his teeth bared in a rigid grin. He looked deranged, lost in a maniacal glee.
Blood poured from the corpse's mouth. Erian laughed, his voice bubbling up from his throat.