“Maybe the stories about LaFitte are true, then.”
Gray can taste Caleb’s distress. But there is nothing to be done; the fifolet cannot be exorcised, and if they do not kill it, it will continue to lure mortals to their deaths.
But first they have to find it.
There is no point to stealth, not with the water sloshing about inside the waders. Perhaps Caleb was right, and he should take them off.
Gray removes their heavy coat, then slips one of the rubber straps off their shoulder. He is reaching for the second when something moves in their peripheral vision.
He turns—but he is slowed by the half-shed waders. The fifolet’s teeth sink deep into their exposed shoulder. Then it leaps back, scrambling partway up a tree, its eyes fixed on them.
Numbness spreads out from the bite, carried on their blood, pushed through their body by their pounding heart. Their lips go numb, then their tongue. Gray tries to take a step forward, but their legs do not obey him, and they crash to the ground.
“What’s happening?” Caleb demands, his fear causing their heart to beat even faster, the poison to spread that much quicker. “Can’t you get rid of it? Heal us!”
Gray is healing them, but it takes time to clear the poison from their veins, their flesh. And in the meantime, the fifolet is climbing down from its perch.
It is tall and agonizingly thin, with fingers like sharpened twigs. Its legs are cartoonishly long, the toes it walks on equally exaggerated in length. Like the feet of a wading bird, its toes keep it from sinking into the mud of the swamp. The blue light on its forehead glows like a third eye as it bends down over them.
Caleb tries to take control and flail at it, but their body isn’t yet responsive. Some feeling comes back into their fingers, their face, but not fast enough.
The fifolet grabs their left arm and stretches it out to the side. Then it sinks its knife-like fingers deep into the flesh.
“Oh fuck, it’s going to pry our arm bones out! Hurry! Shit, where the fuck is Night?”
The pain is blinding as it continues to slice, from shoulder to elbow, from elbow to wrist. Their blood soaks the ground, and now Gray is having to heal on two fronts. One leg twitches, the poison cleared. He shoves against the ground, pushing their body a few feet away from the fifolet, but it isn’t enough. He closes the wound in their arm—if they can force it to repeat its actions, buy just a little more time—
Night materializes out of the darkness, leaping toward the fifolet. One arm dangles by a mere strip of flesh, nearly ripped from his body by the fifolet’s initial attack.
The fifolet avoids Night’s fangs, though only by a hair. It stabs him with its long fingers—then bites him in turn, before leaping back to await his collapse.
But Night doesn’t have a beating heart. Instead of collapsing, he seizes one of the fifolet’s elongated feet, yanking it down from the tree it was trying to retreat to.
And now, finally, the last dregs of the poison are out. Gray rolls over, vomits up something sickly and green, then lurches to their feet. With a snarl of rage, he grabs the fifolet’s flailing arms.
Between the two of them, they wrestle the demon to the ground and fall upon it. Gray’s teeth sink into the join of neck and shoulder, and Night bites down on the great artery running into the leg. Energy surges into Gray, the pleasure of feeding overwhelming all other senses. He closes his eyes and drinks and drinks, until nothing is left.
It is over all too soon. Within moments, the fifolet begins to rot, as though it had died long ago.
“Whoever they were, they’re at peace now,” Caleb says. “No one is suffering anymore.”
Gray stands up, as does Night. Night’s dangling arm is completely useless.
“You will have to retrieve the canoe,” Night says. “And row back.”
Caleb sighs. “And once we get back to the apartment, I’ll have to try and lash him back together. If this goes on much longer, I’m investing in duct tape.”
Eight
To John’s shock, he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow and slept through straight until dawn. He woke groggily as Ryan pulled open the shades, blinking in surprise at the light. For a moment, he was aware only of the clean smell of the sheets and the foul taste in his mouth.
Then he remembered. SPECTR had done this to him.
It turned him sluggish and cold, like poison in his veins. Even a hot shower failed to warm him. He honestly had no idea what to do with the knowledge Walsh had given him. Should he try to find out more? Confront Kaniyar and demand answers?
That would have been a given, except for two problems. The obvious was that two people had—probably—already been murdered to keep the secret.
The second was that John was free to roam at Kaniyar’s pleasure. She needed him for the simple reason that, without John, she had no way to control Gray and Caleb. John was their tether to SPECTR, the only reason they’d agreed to go on a road trip across the south with her sanction, rather than simply take off after what went down in Charleston.
If he made himself too much of a problem, and Kaniyar decided he was more of a liability than a resource…ending up in jail was one possibility, just for starters. And then what would happen to Caleb and Gray?
Caleb had texted at some point overnight, though John had apparently slept through the alert. Fifolet taken care of. I hope your trip is going well. Text me when you can. v<3v
John couldn’t begin to explain things in a text message. I’ll tell you about it when I get home, he typed. See you soon.
He and Ryan met Zahira in the lobby for the hotel’s continental breakfast. John forced himself to eat eggs, bacon, and toast, even though he didn’t feel particularly hungry. As they ate, he found himself staring at the Christmas tree in the lobby. Had he ever celebrated the holiday, outside of his borrowed memories? And if so, did he have any chance of regaining the real memories, or would he always have only the false ones the telepath had apparently given him?
He’d barely even thought about that part of Walsh’s story, so consumed by the knowledge SPECTR had been behind the Center and the experiments. “At least I know I wasn’t brainwashed,” he said out loud. “At least, not involuntarily.”
Zahira paused, her spoon hovering above her cold cereal. “Why do you think it happened? Why ask someone to overwrite your memories?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Ryan volunteered. “I think it was an accident.”
John swallowed a dry piece of toast. “An accident? It seems like it was on purpose, unless Walsh was lying.”
“I mean, the telepath overwriting your memories with his own was an accident.” Ryan leaned forward, brown eyes intent. “Think about it—you’re a bunch of kids who’ve been more or less discarded by your own families. The fact no one is going to come looking for you is part of the reason you were chosen. You’ve been part of an ultra-secret government-sponsored experiment—an experiment that has to stay secret.”
The fine hairs rose on the back of John’s neck. “No. They can’t have meant to kill them. Us. Walsh is a monster, but murder…”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Ryan shrugged. “But if you’re a fifteen-year-old who’s been tortured for months, I doubt being silenced the permanent way would seem much of a leap.”