Haven's Blight (29 page)

Not far from town, but not easy to find, a farmhouse waited. He and Elizabeth would be safe and comfortable there until the pirate threat, like a hurricane, inevitably blew over. During which time a hand as masterful as St. Vincent’s could surely cultivate the seeds of gratitude into most delicious blooms.

He opened the door. “Elizabeth—”

The honeyed flow of words stopped in his throat as if they’d turned to stone and stuck there. There were hints of Elizabeth Blackwood visible in the grotesque elongated shape that crouched on the cratered ruins of the bed. The skin was the same pallid ivory. The perfect features were drawn forward into something resembling a snout, but the structure of those fine cheekbones remained the same. The mane of black hair that hung down her back seemed little changed, if perhaps somehow coarser.

The shriveled dugs and skinny, wiry haunches certainly didn’t suggest the form of his long-time and secret beloved, which in his official capacity he had contrived to glimpse nude on sundry delightful occasions. And when the eyes, those distinctive violet eyes, turned and briefly locked on his, there was nothing remotely human about them.

“Elizabeth,” he said, “wait—”

The creature sprang. As opened jaws and outspread talons flashed toward him, he cried out the last coherent utterance of his life.
“Not the face!”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Sorry, boys,” said the captain of the
Pocket Rocket.
The dumpy forty-foot wooden riverboat had picked up Ryan and friends not long after their swampie captors had removed their blindfolds. “That smoke there’s rising from the Haven docks. Means trouble.”

Mock Murphy had a shock of light brown hair and a face that seemed to consist entirely of seams. As it had throughout their brief relationship, a corncob pipe protruded from a corner of his razor-slit mouth.

“You can bring us down to the ville without going all the way to the main docks, if you’re worried about the fire,” Ryan said.

A boom hard-edged with high-frequency harmonics rolled up the river toward them. A flight of startled cormorants rose squawking from a sandbar.

Murphy shook his head. “That there’s artillery. I’m not goin’ nowhere near that.”

Ryan winced. The reluctant river captain was right, and the one-eyed man had an uncomfortable feeling as to who sported artillery like that along this stretch of coast.

Frustration boiled his guts. He had thought Maman Fucton’s prediction of how long it would take the party to return to Haven was either a poor joke or delusion. But no sooner had he returned to Papa Dough’s ville, none too steady on his pins, than the swampies marched the outlanders to their own boats, which had apparently been brought to Dough’s ville by water, blindfolded them once more, and set out. Shortcuts braiding the waterways of the river and bayou system had to have allowed them to make their way to Blackwood Bayou in half a day.

When the blindfolds had been removed their pirogues were already tied to a trio of cypress trees on the banks of the main channel, and the sun was getting low in the western sky. Jon Dough and a few companions bade them farewell and melted into the dense brush. The companions and their two surviving Havenites were left none the wiser how the boats had been propelled.

Within fifteen minutes they heard a horn, and
Pocket Rocket
’s sharply raked prow chugged around the river bend. They’d flagged it down and quickly negotiated passage to Haven dockside. Which turned out not to be all that far, for a powered craft riding with the current.

Despite the travelers’ impatience, Murphy followed his standard practice of anchoring for the night, far enough out in the channel that nothing could leap aboard from an overhanging bough. The party slept on deck, crowding for shelter under a tattered canvas awning when a rain squall passed through sometime after midnight. When the sky had just begun to lighten predawn, Murphy and his two silent black crewmen cast off and got under way again.

Now Haven lay no more than a mile away. Krysty was scarcely farther. Ryan could feel her presence burning like a beacon.

“What’s going on?” Mildred asked. She had gone back to sleep curled up on a coil of rope astern when the little wood-plank vessel resumed the trip. Now she padded forward, stretching and yawning.

“It appears the Black Gang has found a way to bypass Tobias’s defenses, and fall upon Haven by water,” Doc said.

Ryan stifled a groan. “Thanks for helping make our case for us, Doc.”

“Don’t rag on the old wrinklie,” Murphy said. “Worked that out on my lonesome.”

He looked Ryan in the eye. “End of the line, folks. I can set you and your boats loose on the stream here. Me, I’d recommend you stay aboard as I put about and chug back up Blackwood Bayou as fast as
Rocket
’s mill will carry her out of harm’s way.”

“You can’t do this,” Ryan said. “You made a deal.”

“Tobias will pay,” Rameau said.

Bluebottle stood unspeaking behind him. The big rawboned guide had said nothing since they had surrendered to the swampies. He only hung around looking as if he had heard and seen blasphemies.

The Havenite boss was almost back in fighting trim, thanks to swampie herbal remedies. The Gotch Eye sting still hurt, he admitted, but he no longer felt weak or feverish, and had full use of his arm, which was about to come in handy in the fight for Haven. If only they could get to Haven.

“He’ll pay if he’s still baron,” Murphy said. “But wait. I just remembered. Chills got no use for jack. Back upstream we go.”

He started to turn to give the orders, then froze as he felt something hard and cool and uncompromising touch his neck.

“Okay, he’s behind me now, isn’t he? The mutie wolf-boy with that outsize handblaster of his.”

“
Albino,
” Jak said, cocking the Python. The captain seemed to shrivel even as he raised hands over his head.

“Sorry to play it this way,” J.B. said, picking up his M-4000 scattergun from the hatch cover where he’d set it to cover Murphy’s crew. They seemed disinclined to resist. “You don’t leave us much choice. We’ve got a friend in Haven, and we need to get there triple quick.”

“The captain is certainly correct that we dare not simply steam up to the Haven docks, with the pirates there in force,” Doc said.

“Then we’ll have to get as close as we can and hustle overland bastard fast,” Ryan said.

He turned, wincing, as another sharp explosion rapped out from downriver.

“That’s
Black Joke
’s recoilless, sure enough,” J.B. said.

Ryan’s guts twisted.
Krysty!
he silently screamed.

“K
RYSTY
.” T
HE
WORD
rang in her mind.

Krysty Wroth slept. She knew that much.

At some deep layer of her mind she remembered a storm. And a snake, a sudden pain, a sense of invasion as venom suffused outward from the bite. Then instead of the expected agony, a wave of dizziness, a wave that became a spiral, and carried her with it down and down…

Now—when was now? Where was now? And was that her lover’s voice that called her name?

Krysty,
a different voice said in her dream.

“Gaia?” It wasn’t the voice of her body that spoke, but it was her voice.

I am that which you choose to personalize by that name, yes. As your subconscious is processing vast forces at work into a voice you appear to hear, and words you believe you understand.

“Why are you speaking to me?”

You are healed. Your body has long since healed itself from the Dream Snake’s bite. You have been kept unconscious through treachery. You sleep now under the influence of a drug.

It was true that Krysty could sense no lingering trace of poison or other damage in her body. Even though she had a strange sense, as if inhabiting a stranger’s house.

You must move instantly. Otherwise no power of mine can save you.

When her eyes opened, she was falling to a hardwood floor covered by a crocheted rug from a height of less than a foot.

Something landed with great violence and a muffled impact just above her on the bed. Krysty hit the rug and rolled to the left, away from the danger.

She saw a creature crouching on the four-poster. It was perhaps the size of a very large dog. Its slenderness and general shape suggested a tailless cat, but it was hairless except for a lionlike mane of midnight hair. And the muzzle suggested a wolf or dog, although it was much shorter than either’s.

The monster turned and squalled at her, then leaped. It reached with hands humanlike, but sprouting curving black claws that glistened with what Krysty thought was fresh blood.

By reflex Krysty pulled up both legs and kicked out. Her bare feet struck the creature in its pale belly, beneath washboard ribs. The pouncing horror gasped as air was forced out of it. Then it was flung clean over the bed by the force of Krysty’s kick.

Krysty realized the power of the Earth Mother had charged through her body, giving her incredible strength.

Screeching furiously, the creature launched itself over the bed at her. Frantically, Krysty dodged. Her prehensile hair wound itself into a tight scarlet cap, mirroring her own agitation.

She flung herself toward the door. The creature struck where she had lain, just beside a bedside table where a kerosene lantern burned low. Gray light streamed through the open window, providing more illumination. Neither gave much.

The monster recovered from a skid across polished hardwood and slashed at her with its talons. Krysty threw herself onto the bed and rolled across it.

The creature seemed taken by surprise by the speed and strength that its prey’s muscles gave her. Krysty judged it was both stronger and faster than she was, although somewhat lighter. She had escaped damage at its claws or needle fangs so far because it kept underestimating her.

She feared it would learn fast.

Krysty rolled off the bed, turned, grabbed it by the wooden frame and hurled the whole several-hundred-pound mass in the creature’s face as it sprang at her again.

She hoped to crush it against the wall. Somehow it managed to push itself down in time not to get smashed by the massive frame. But the monster failed to reappear at once. It was injured or stunned.

Krysty bolted to the door. The scrape of nails on polished wood made her swerve aside.

A claw lashed out and raked Krysty’s left shoulder. The monster slammed into the door. Solid oak panels cracked on impact. The creature slid to the floor, gathered itself, then launched itself like a quarrel from a crossbow.

Krysty pulled a chest of drawers down between them. Agile as a monkey, the creature scrambled over it and leaped at her again, at her face.

The titian-haired beauty got her hands up in time to grab the monster’s upper arms. It tried to kick her and eviscerate her with its long-clawed toes. Controlling its upper body with her grip on its arms, Krysty twisted her hips. She tried to throw the creature away from her, but it got its feet on the floor and dug its claws into slick hardwood.

For a moment Krysty wrestled with the horror, strength against strength. Its breath stank of blood and ripped viscera. To Krysty’s shock, she realized the eyes, though slanted, were violet, and she thought she saw a trace of humanity there.

Shock made her concentration blink. Fangs snapped for her face, but she yanked her head back in time. The jaws clashed shut just short of the tip of her slightly snubbed nose.

The creature seemed to smile at her.

With a whoomp the pool of kerosene spreading from the lamp that had been smashed by Krysty ignited. The woman had been too preoccupied even to notice the smell of spilled fuel. Garish yellow light filled the bedroom, as yellow and blue flames chased each other up the mattress’s underside. Smoke began to pool and bubble on the ceiling.

That distracted the monster. Krysty pushed its straining arms upward. Lowering her head, she thrust her shoulder against the monster’s breastbone, above a pair of curiously shrunken dugs. She put a foot against the wall behind her to brace and pushed with all her Gaia-granted strength.

Smoke clawed at her eyes, her throat and laboring lungs. She ignored it. There was nothing but the dire need to channel every ounce of strength the Earth Mother had granted her.

Usually Gaia’s strength lasted a short time, and drained her. She would pay for this later with bone-deep aches and total weakness. But first she had to survive long enough for there to
be
a later.

Step by straining step, Krysty forced the monster back. It tried to snap at her nape, but her shoulder was locked beneath its chin. It was stronger than she was, even with her great strength. But she had gotten lower, and the simple advantage in center of gravity was making the difference.

Her hair lashed at the monster’s cheeks and blazing violet eyes to distract it.

Krysty heard the flames crackle, felt the heat on the top of her head. Smoke began to claw its way down her nasal passages and throat to her lungs. If they fought here too much longer, the smoke would incapacitate them, and then the flames would have their way.

The smoke took on a sudden acrid foulness as the monster’s mane ignited. It whipped its head around.

Krysty let go with her right hand, cocking it back in a fist. The monster’s left arm began to whip toward her. Krysty’s straight right deflected the slash in passing, her fist catching the side of the narrow thrusting face as it turned back toward her. She felt and heard bone crack.

The creature squealed, and Krysty felt the tension go out of its muscles. She had stunned it, if only momentarily.

Seizing her advantage, Krysty flexed her knees. Then with every ounce of the strength that seemed to flow up from the Earth itself, through the foundations of the big house, through its wooden planks and beams that had once been living trees, and up into her body through the bare soles of her feet, she picked up the monster and flung it hard against the door.

The back of its head struck the frame so hard the wood cracked again. The monster collapsed in a tangle at the foot of the white-painted door, as if all its joints had come apart at the same time, and left it a jumble of dissociated bones in a pale skin bag.

At once it began to change. The sharp feral features seemed to soften and spread. The muscles like bunches of wire and steel cable began to bunch and shift inside the smooth pale skin.