The Dead Page 16

  “I’ve never met another wizard,” I said.

  “Exactly my point.” He seemed to find what he was looking for as he picked up a corked bottle. “Your stuff came from a living thing, something your people call a Dark Walker.”

  “But what is it?”

  “I think, I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s their flesh.”

  “I thought you knew?” Dax asked.

  “I do. Mostly. You’ll just have to double-check, is all, and as it happens, I know one personally. Poor thing came to me for help. I couldn’t do much. What’s wrong with him was way beyond what I could fix, but that’s where you’ll get your answers.”

  “None of them talk.” I leaned a hand against the wall of his shack as I tried to remain patient. I thought I was so close, and now I had to go and track down another Dark Walker for answers? Standing there, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t a quitter.

  “This one will,” Bitters insisted.

  “Why would this one after so many others haven’t?” I looked over at Dax and shook my head, already doubting a reason I hadn’t gotten yet.

  Dax remained quiet, waiting to hear Bitters out.

  “Because of this,” Bitters said, holding up his bottle.

  “What is that?” Dax asked.

  “Now that’s between me and my client. He’s going to be mad enough you’re delivering it, but my old bones don’t feel like hiking out to anyone. I don’t care what I’m paid.” He walked over to the table, and with a swipe of his hand, papers and spices all fell to the ground. He fetched one paper from the scattered ones on the ground and started drawing on the sheet. “Here. This will get you in the general area, and then you’ll have to dig around a bit.”

  Dax took the sheet and we both looked over the crude map.

  “Why doesn’t this person come to you?” I asked.

  “He did initially, until it became nearly impossible. The rest you’ll have to discover on your own because it’s not an easy picture to paint.

  “Don’t forget this,” he said, handing me the bottle. “And I wouldn’t sample that if I were you.”

  * * *

  It took us about three hours to get there on foot after a fight over stealing a horse. He cursed my code. I told him he needed to have a code. He responded to get back to him in fifty years and we’d see how shiny my code was then. All in all, we were almost back to normal.

  Neither of us talked about last night’s discussion. He didn’t take any verbal jabs at me, and I returned the favor. By time we got to our destination, it made me wonder how many reset buttons we had in this relationship.

  “This?” I asked as we stood in front of a seaside cave. I took the directions from Dax’s hand and glanced down at the crude drawing.

  “This is it.”

  I walked up to the opening and stopped. “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead?” he repeated, as if he doubted the words he’d heard. “You aren’t going to argue to go first? Tell me how you have this covered and you can handle anything and everything?”

  The opening looked dark and small, and gave me the general sense of a black hole. “Nope. Not after the last couple of months and not today. You see the hole we’re about to walk into? I’m claustrophobic. And if I’m going to lay all my cards out on the table, I’m not particularly fond of the dark, either. I think I’d rather risk death by starvation than walk into this thing first. I’m taking the day off from being my normal kick-ass self, so if you have some overwhelming urge to take charge, like you usually do, today is your free pass.” I waved a hand toward the cave. “Have at it.”

  Dax walked into the dark, small cave laughing. In my mind, this was simply building the case that he was insane. Only a crazy man would walk into a place like this laughing.

  The cave opening wasn’t so small that I had to bend over to enter, but Dax did. I couldn’t see a thing in front of me, and I reached forward to feel for where I was going and felt Dax’s hand wrap around mine instead, leading me forward. It was a sure grip, like he wouldn’t let go no matter what happened, but not so tight I felt like I couldn’t pull away.

  “I hear someone back there,” he said as we progressed down what seemed more like a tunnel than a cave.

  “Who is that?” The gravelly voice came from deep in the cave. I couldn’t see anything, as my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness.

  Another few feet and the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern. There was a single chair beside a flat rock, which looked like it was being used as a table of sorts. A single candle lit the place and revealed some clothes folded and piled on a natural ledge, along with some unlit candles. I heard a dragging noise coming from another opening at the back of the cave, and I wondered if that served as a bedroom, since I didn’t see any kind of bedding.

  “We’re friends of Bitters. We’ve brought your bottle.” Dax squeezed my hand before he whispered, “Prepare yourself. This is a rough one.”

  I waited to see what was coming toward us that Dax had already seen.

  “He shouldn’t have sent you here.”

  My eyes slowly focused on where the voice was coming from, and I felt the bile start to rise in my throat. Bitters had said this was a Dark Walker, but it didn’t look like any of the ones I’d ever seen.

  In my entire experience, the only discernable difference between a Dark Walker and human was the dark haze that surrounded them and the sickly sweet smell. The thing standing at the back of the cave, fifteen feet in the distance, had no resemblance to a human beyond having similar proportions.

  Every inch of flesh not concealed by the loose pants and tunic it wore was wrinkled, red, and raw looking, with occasional patches of black spots that looked more like tar than skin. Its eyes were yellow and reminded me of a reptile. Was this what they really looked like? Or was there something wrong with this one?

  “Here is your potion from Bitters,” Dax said. He placed the bottle on the rock table and then stepped in front of it. The message couldn’t have been clearer if he’d carved it into the stone wall.

  In my head, I tried to remind myself of all the horrible things these creatures had done to me, and yet when it started moving forward, each step causing a contortion of pain, I felt bad for it.

  “What do you want?” it asked, eyeing up the bottle.

  “Answers,” I said.

  It nodded. I wasn’t sure I believed it would be willing. Dax must have seen some truth there I hadn’t, because he stepped out of the way.

  “So you know what I am?” it asked, slowly making its way to the table and grasping for the bottle Dax had left there, then uncorking it and taking a deep swallow. I could see some of the tension leave its form as it did. A painkiller, then?

  It slumped into its seat, hand still wrapped around the bottle.

  I inched forward, close enough to catch the sweet scent of him. “Why don’t you look like the others?”

  “This is a bad day, even for one of my kind. My skin is almost completely worn out.”

  “Your skin?”

  “The hide I wore. I had a good set.” His eyes landed on the bare skin of my arms. “A Plaguer hide. They last longer than regular humans, but nothing lasts forever.”

  I clenched my hand, imagining a knife in my grip as I sank it into his chest. I couldn’t believe I’d felt bad for this thing, even for a minute. Ever since I’d heard the Skinners had collected hides for the Dark Walkers, I knew what it meant on some level that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. But to stand here in front of one that might have slain someone I knew in order to steal their skin?

  “Is that why they hunt me? For my skin?”

  “No. They hunt you because they’re fools and think you aren’t a regular Plaguer.” Its eyelids sagged as it answered, and I was afraid that if it took too many more swigs from that bottle, it would fall over.

  “What do you mean, not a regular Plaguer?”

  “Those tests they ran on you when you first got to the compound, do you remember
them?” His yellow eyes stared at me as he waited for a response.

  I should’ve taken a step back, but I moved closer. “How do you know about that?” I asked.

  “Because I was there. You wouldn’t recognize me now, of course. At the time, I appeared to be a grey-haired man in my fifties. Wasn’t my favorite set of skin, but it worked for what I needed at the moment. My name’s Croq, but I went by Mr. Edward when you knew me.”

  He said it all so calmly, as if he wasn’t the monster I remembered. If I didn’t want the cure so badly, I would kill him right now in the most agonizing way I could come up with.

  Dax’s eyes were on me. I could feel him but didn’t turn to look. It was something I didn’t speak of, ever. There was nothing about that first year at the Cement Giant I ever wanted to talk about. I didn’t want questions from him, either.

  Dax moved closer, standing only a foot from my side. I hoped his attention would shift back to the Dark Walker soon. If he didn’t stop looking at me like I was a china doll that was sitting too close the shelf ledge, I was going to have to punch him in the face to remind him of exactly who I was.

  “Should I kill him, long and slow?” Dax asked, and I saw the anger burning there, as if this monster had wronged him.

  “No. Even if I want you to… No. Not unless he can’t help us, and then I’ll do it myself.” If anyone would be killing him, it was going to be me.

  Croq tilted the bottle to his lips again and Dax kicked his chair. “Tell her why they hunt her.”

  “They think you can get them our cure.” Croq’s eyes started to glaze, and his speech wasn’t as clear as it had been.

  “Why would they think that?”

  “I don’t know, but I never believed it anyway. There’s only one thing that can fix me, and you aren’t it.” He waved his hand toward me and then leaned on his table, his head falling to the side as if it suddenly weighed too much for his neck. “I’d tell you everything if you could get the Wood Mist to fix me.”

  “They can fix this?” I asked, not doubting for a minute that there was something wrong. I had trouble even looking at him.

  “Thousands of years ago, we walked the Earth like gods. Until the things you call the Wood Mist cursed us,” he said, nearly babbling in a stupor now.

  “Why did they curse you?” I asked, my voice getting louder as his lids drooped lower and lower.

  “To get rid of us.” He looked at me, then took another swig of Bitters’ concoction.

  As much as I wanted my own answers, I knew our time just got cut down to a few minutes. Unless I took the bottle, but then he might stop speaking completely. “Where does the cure for the Bloody Death come from? Is it your flesh?”

  There was the slightest shifting of his head. “Healthy flesh, not like mine.”

  “If you were healthy, could you cure people?” I asked.

  “But I’m not.” Croq’s eyes widened slightly, as if I’d said something that made him want to stay alert. “Can you get the Wood Mist to fix me?”

  Dax’s eyes narrowed but I kept my attention on Croq. “I don’t know. What’s it worth to you?”

  “If you help me, you won’t need a cure.”

  He took another swig of his potion and I didn’t try to stop him. “We’ll be back.”

  24

  We walked out of the cave and down the beach a ways, as the little bits and pieces of information started to glue themselves together. There weren’t as many Dark Walkers in the Wilds because maybe they feared the Wood Mist. The Wood Mist feared the oceans, or more accurately, the salt in them that was deadly to most plant life.

  I sank to the ground and planted myself on the beach as I sorted through all the possibilities. Dax remained standing, but he stood nearby.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  I let out a sound that could’ve been a laugh if it had held even a drop of humor. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

  “I do. It was a test. I wanted to make sure you were of sane mind the way you were talking in there. It sounded like you wanted to make a deal to heal him and get tangled back up with the Wood Mist in the process.” His face softened in the setting sunlight, but I wasn’t fooled about what he thought of that idea.

  “I’d make a deal with the devil for a cure.” It wasn’t a bluff.

  “And that’s exactly what you might be doing.”

  “I know.”

  “At least some of the Wood Mist tried to destroy you.”

  “I am aware.” I leaned back on my arms and stared at the waves breaking, trying to keep my own nervousness under control, since I didn’t see any other options to move forward. It wasn’t like you woke one day and decided you wanted to dance with the devil. Sometimes he was the only dance partner available.

  Dax shrugged, looking out at the sea too. “They might not be willing to speak to you. Why would they undo a curse in order to help?”

  “I don’t know about the curse, but they’ll definitely speak to me,” I said.

  His gaze snapped back to me. “Will they?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  He looked as happy as I felt.

  “And how do you know that?” The question was wading knee deep in accusation. I wasn’t sure when I’d signed an agreement to share all with him, but he certainly seemed to think he had the contract in his back pocket.

  This next little tidbit wasn’t going to be appreciated either. “Because they’ve been trying to talk to me for a while.”

  “The chimes?”

  “Annoying as hell, too, when you’re trying to pretend they don’t exist.” From his expression, my bad joke didn’t lighten the mood.

  “And do you know what they want, as well?”

  If he actually had a signed contract, this was when he would’ve waved it in my face and yelled about breaches and such.

  “No. They got one message through to me, the word ‘buried,’ and that was it.”

  “Buried?”

  “No idea, but they want something from me and now I want something from them. There’s a chance this could work, and we’ve got to take it.”

  “They still might not be able to do anything for him. This is all based on one creature who was foxed out of his mind.”

  This time it was me with the expressions, and mine said clearly, I have to try.

  He crossed his arms. “Why? You owe no one—except me, that is.”

  My eyes broke with his and I let a handful of sand sift through my fingers. “If the Wood Mist can do this to the Dark Walkers, they have the knowledge to destroy them.”

  “If he’s telling the truth. We don’t know how good his information is.”

  “If there is a chance to get rid of this disease, it’s worth anything, including my life.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  I stood and brushed the sand off my pants. “I have to do this, so if you aren’t going to help, then stay out of my way.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand why you would care about a world full of people that turned their back on you, hunted you for what you are.”

  “Maybe it’s not just for them, or the ones who died. Maybe it’s for every Plaguer that will survive only to be hunted for their parts, hiding in corners. I can’t live with that.”

  “Like you’ve ever hid.” He shook his head.

  He disapproved, but it wasn’t the first time, and I’d still do what I felt I had to. I walked closer to the ocean, longing for the safety of the salt water before I threw myself into the tangled vines of the Wood Mist.

  Dax approach me and stopped close enough that I could feel his magic. “Give it another hundred years and then talk to me about what you can live with. What happens if we return this creature to its former glory? You don’t think that’ll have ramifications? You didn’t cause this disease, and it’s not your problem to fix.”

  I looked at him. “I’ve made up my mind and it’s not changing.” I could see my words shift something in him, the se
t of his eyes, the tenseness of his muscles. He was thinking about taking it out of my hands completely, or trying to. I knew him well enough to know what was coming. “Try what you’re thinking and I’ll never forgive you.”

  His face was stone. “You’ll be alive and have time to get over it.”

  “But I won’t get over it.”

  “Maybe that’s a choice I can live with.”

  I didn’t want to go to this place with him. Didn’t think I could forgive him if he managed to take this chance from me. I didn’t want to find out if we’d used our last reset button.

  “Dax, this won’t be another fight. This will be war between us.”

  He stood there looking as unmovable as me, and then all of a sudden, I saw a softening. “How much would you sacrifice to do this?”

  “Let’s put it this way: I’d like to be buried next to Bookie if it comes to that.”

  “Don’t say something you don’t mean.”

  “I’m not. You’d really stop me just for your revenge? I understand the desire, but—”

  Something flickered behind the glacier. “You still don’t get it.”

  He walked away from the coast a bit and started gathering up driftwood.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making camp. We won’t make it back to Bitters tonight. We’ll have to leave in the morning.”

  “Why are we going to Bitters?” I asked as I followed him now, wanting to know what he was up to.

  “Because there might be a solution to this we both will be able to live with, but we’re going to need him for it.”

  “You want to stay here?” I asked, and pointed to the cave.

  “He’s the least of our problems.”

  25

  My eyes fluttered open and I felt Dax’s heat underneath my hand and along my side.

  Not again! At least in the bunk, it was almost unavoidable to touch him. Here, I’d had the entire beach to roll around on.

  I could tell from the location that he hadn’t come to me—I’d moved closer to him. He was the same distance from the fire as before I’d drifted off. Why was it I couldn’t go to sleep anywhere near him and not end up cuddled into him?