But trying to stand on a moving boat after you’d been head-butted by a two-hundred-pound asshole with a lead skull was like trying to ride a bike blindfolded through six inches of mud.
The boat hit a patch of calm water and slowed, coasting. I knew I’d have only a second before he checked on me. I pushed myself to my feet and lunged just as he turned.
The boat dipped in the front as it came to a stop. The force sent me barreling straight into his open arms, which wrapped around my torso as the boat glided to a small dock. Over his shoulder, the setting sun blinded me for a second as it sank down into the black horizon of the shimmering river and the swamp, which surrounded the river on both sides.
I’m going to miss dinner with Sebastian and the kids. Funny, the bizarre thoughts that go through your mind in times of crisis. Besides the voodoo ritual gone bad, the migraine, and meeting Josephine, today had been one of the best days of my life because of Sebastian. Until some idiot on steroids came along and ruined things.
The guy shoved me as though the idea of holding me that close was some horrifying ordeal. I landed hard on the blue turf, scratching my elbows, the back of my head hitting the rim of the boat.
“Asshole,” I muttered through gritted teeth, rubbing the back of my head.
He frowned and said something probably equally as impressive and then tossed my backpack onto the dock, tied the boat, and reached for me.
Once we were on steady ground, I said a prayer of thanks, wanting nothing more than to just be still until my body adjusted to the solid surface, but Leadhead was already pulling me down the dock and giving me the first glimpse of our destination.
I stumbled.
Set back from the river, nestled in a grove of old live oaks wearing Spanish moss like the tattered clothes of long-dead ghosts, was a massive plantation house. All alone. In the middle of the swamp, set on a manicured lawn like some stubborn island that refused to sink into the sludge. The scent of river and coastal mud was thick, but tempered by the breeze off the water and the chill that came with the disappearing sun. Already frogs croaked and katydids sang.
The house had a long second-story balcony and thick white columns that seemed as stout as the oak trees on the grounds.
A few dim lights lit the tall, shutter-framed windows.
As we crossed onto the lawn, my feet sank into the soft grass as though I was stepping in sand. My mind raced with escape plans and questions, but there was no point in asking my captor anything, since he didn’t seem to speak a word of English. And as we drew closer to the house, I wasn’t sure if I could speak. The house took my breath away. Yes, it was enormous and graceful, but it seemed to bleed emotions. Sadness. Loneliness. Like a beautiful lady left alone in a sea of gray, green, and black, protected only by oak matrons in their skeleton shawls.
We crossed the first-floor porch to the front door. Inside, the area was lit by a large chandelier that hung in the foyer.
Deserted and dim. An interior designer’s dream. Our wet, muddy footsteps thudded over the plank floors, straight past a grand curving staircase and toward the back of the house. He nudged me to the right, to a door that led beneath the staircase.
He spoke a few whispered words, shoving me down the rank-smelling stairwell lit with old iron lanterns. Something was very wrong with this picture. We were going down. Impossible in this swampy area. Granted, the house might have been built on a patch of solid ground, but even that was sinking, like everything in and around New 2.
My pulse hiked as I saw the walls, made of tightly stacked blocks of stone. Black trails of sludge leaked from the seams in places, making it look as though the stones wept black tears. The place gave me the notion that at any minute, the blocks might give way and the dark water and swamp creatures would come in and reclaim what was theirs.
I swallowed hard as we came to a long corridor. We had to be two stories under now, and the weight above us, the idea that everything around us existed on soft mud and swamp, made my blood pressure skyrocket and my palms sweat. I had to get out of here. Now. Before the claustrophobia made me panic and do something stupid.
My captor shoved me down the corridor. Lanterns lit on their own as we went, as if by magic. Then I realized in horror that we were passing cells. Cells. Cells with fronts of thick iron bars covered in crust and cobwebs. The interiors were black. And the smell had become suffocating. Far beyond human stench and waste to unbreathable.
My stomach turned, and I stumbled just as the guy gave a hard push to keep me moving. I fell to my knees and gagged, retching three times before he jerked me to my feet. A fine sheen of cold sweat covered my skin, and my throat burned with bile.
Four cells in, he stopped and opened one.
“No,” I started in a small voice, leaning back against him, turning in his arms and clinging to him like a child. “No, please.” He pulled at my fingers. Tears ran down my cheeks as we struggled, body to body, me holding on for dear life and him doing everything he could to pull me off. I was far beyond panic, mumbling words fast and shaky and desperate.
There was no fucking way I could go in there. No way. Please, God, no!
Finally he succeeded as my strength failed, shoving me into the cell. I fell onto my rear. The door slammed shut. There was slime on my palms, and my knees slipped in something as I crawled to the door and grabbed on to the bars, screaming after him.
“Don’t leave me! Please!”
As he left, each lantern blinked out.
My nose grew stuffy. The tears continued hot and fast down my face, which I pressed against the bars, desperate to hold on to the light, to see the light. “Please.”
And then there was nothing but velvet blackness and silence.
I cried for a long time, until there were no more tears left. My grip on the bars relaxed, and I slumped next to them, still holding on, still trying to be as close to the exit as I could, afraid of what lurked or had lurked in the cell.
Eventually I became as silent as the space around me. My mind settled and began to refocus. It was clear that the guy who’d brought me here was the same type of guy as the one who’d attacked me in Covington. And by killing him, I hadn’t stopped the curse. A light wave of nausea rolled through my gut. Was that why I was here, to be beheaded like my grandmother? No. No, that was not going to happen. I squeezed my eyes closed, concentrating on the faint drip, drip, drip of water and the steady rhythm of breathing, which might’ve been from the cell next to mine or the one across the corridor.
There was a small shuffling sound. A grunt. I straightened. A shiver went down my spine and lifted the hairs on my arms and legs. There were others in these cells. I was not alone. A relief, but also another reason to worry. Friend or foe? Kidnapped like me or dangerous? I sat against the bars for what seemed like hours, thinking of Sebastian and the kids back at the house on First Street. Were they looking for me? Giving up? Turning in for the night?
A small light began to grow in the cell diagonal from mine. I rubbed my dry eyes with the back of my hand. The light reached capacity, which was only a faint glow, no brighter than a candle on its last breath.
A shadow appeared on the wall inside the cell, and it looked as though the person making it was sitting against the wall I couldn’t see. “Hello?” The voice that came out of me was hoarse from screaming and almost too soft to hear. I tried again. “Hello?”
“Hello, she says,” a sharp, high-pitched voice cawed from down the corridor, laughing and mimicking. “Poor baby. Poor, poor baby.” Gleeful laughter followed, grating on my spine like nails on a chalkboard, as though a bird had been given voice. A mean bird. “Get used to it, girlie. Get used to it. Hello, she says. Hello, hello, hello . . .” More laughter, which finally subsided when another voice, also down the hall, told it to “shut the fuck up.”
A few more cells began to glow. The occupants in them obviously had some source of light that I didn’t.
The shadow in the diagonal cell moved and a black form, backlit by the glow, appeared at the bars. “What did you do?” said a gruff, masculine voice. Very deep, but very quiet.
“Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”
Voices laughed. Tears pricked my eyes again, but I blinked them back.
“You might not think so, but to Her you have.”
“Her?”
He chuckled, an echoing rumble. “You must be a Beauty, then.”
“A what?”
“It’s the Beauties who have no idea why they’re here. The ones who attracted the wrong kind of attention, took attention off Her.” He sighed. “The Beauties all die so quickly. …”
“I’m not a Beauty.” And I’d never believe I was. I saw it in the face in the mirror, the possibility of beauty, if not for the freakish hair and the teal eyes that were too light. Too weird to be beautiful. “And I’m sure as hell not going to die here.”
The man moved, sitting down next to the bars. “Why are you here, then?”
“I wish I knew. One minute I’m minding my own business in the French Market, and the next I’m attacked by some weirdo foreign guy who likes to carry daggers and shields.”
A hiss sounded. “The French Market? In the city? New 2?”
“Yeah,” I answered slowly. “What’s New 2 have to do with it?”
“The Sons of Perseus,” the guy said. “τερας hunters. They are forbidden within the city. Damn it,” he swore under his breath. “She has broken the compact.”
“Excuse me if I’m a little lost here, but what the hell is a τερας hunter? And what do you mean by ‘compact’?”
“The compact is—was—an agreement between the Novem and Herself after the hurricanes struck. We turned over a τερας hunter who had betrayed her in return for her promise to never breach the city again. τερας means ‘monster’ in Greek. Any creature that is not human. The Sons of Perseus, they hunt them. They hunt the poor, unfortunate souls that were Made by The Bitch herself.”
The bird voice laughed, and I could picture the person jumping up and down. “The Bitch! The Bitch, The Bitch, The Bitch!”