River Marked

I waded out into the river until I was knee-deep, then put on the long, bright pink fins. And then I waited, nearly in the same spot as I’d waited before.

I’d have expected that the water would keep the smell of carnage to a minimum, but I could smell blood. Something bumped my knee, and I fell over backward trying to scramble away in my clumsy fins, landing with a splash on my backside. The bandoleer jerked and I grabbed the otter with one hand andthrew him as far as I could before I stood up. I checked the sheath, but it seemed to be okay except for a bite mark on one edge. There were still eight knives.

A long, pale shape appeared on the surface about ten feet from me. It waved lazily back and forth as the current caught it. It was joined by another and another, then her head appeared—half her head anyway, the rest lurking beneath the water—one eye skyward and her mouth open wide. Finally, her body surfaced, limp and huge. Really, really huge. I was pretty sure it was longer than Coyote’s estimate of ninety-odd feet.

Showtime.

I waded out, ignoring the otterkin who were circling me. If they could have attacked me before this, they would have. Whatever the fae had done to this cove, it was serving my purposes now.

As soon as the water was thigh-deep, I dove forward and let the fins do the work of getting me to the river devil.

I’d expected that I would have to chase her downstream, but her greed for the last bit of flesh kept her in the backwater of the swimming cove. It didn’t matter for my task—but if I was successful, it might mean that I’d have a lot easier time getting back to Adam.

I noticed that there were flashing lights on the big highway—someone had seen a disturbance over here, I thought. We’d known there was a good chance that people would notice eventually. If I killed her, then it wouldn’t matter. If I didn’t, it would likely give her a whole slew of victims, but I wouldn’t care. Coyote might, justmight, come back from the dead—but I wouldn’t.

Her body floated about three feet above the river surface, the pectoral fin stuck straight up in the air. I couldn’t get to it from the underside. I swam around her head—because it was the shortest way—but I tried not to look too closely at her open mouth. Her bad eye, the eye Hawk had hit, was the one that I could see.

I don’t know how long she’ll stay somnolent, Coyote had told me on the way here.I don’t even have a best guess. All we can do is feed her everyone we can and hope it is enough. Then he’d gri

Something brushed against me, and I spun to look, expecting an otterkin. But it was just a feather. A feather as long as my forearm attached to a piece of skin and caught between her teeth. I swam faster.

Her topside was rougher than her underbelly had been. I might have been able to scale it, but I didn’t have to. A spear sunk deep into her flesh gave me an easier way up. I pulled off my fins and gave them to the river before I started to climb.

Her skin was cold and faintly mucous. She smelled like fish and magic. I’d thought she would have big scales, but they were small, even finer than a trout’s on her underbelly. On her back, they were more like a snake’s. I put my hand on the base of her pectoral fin and measured out four hand spans, then I pulled out one of my knives and made the first cut.

I held my breath as the skin parted reluctantly, but she was still as death. If it weren’t for the faint pulse beneath my knees and the fluttering of her gills about three feet in front of me, I might have thought she was already dead.

The first knife made it through the tough skin before it lost its edge. I didn’t notice at first, wasting precious time dragging the dull rock against her unyielding flesh. By the fourth knife, my cut was nearly a foot deep and twice that wide. I braced it open by tucking my knee in the fissure while watery pink blood filled the bottom. I had to stop and empty it out a couple of times so I could make sure that the knife was still cutting.

You have to get it wide enough to get to the heart, Coyote had told me, holding his hands about two feet apart.She doesn’t have ribs—she’s a fish. But she doesn’t need them. Her flesh is made of magic as much as flesh. That’s why the steel didn’t work, that’s why bullets won’t work, that’s why a grenade wouldn’t work. I’m not sure a nuclear strike would work—but it would be interesting to try. Of course, after that no one could use water from that river for a hundred years or so …

The otters swam around, tugging at her tentacles and doing something with magic—I could feel it. Fae magic felt different to me from the magic that kept the river devil alive. They were trying to wake her up.

I kept looking out on the beach, but Adam hadn’t moved.

What are you doing, Mercedes? Her voice rang in my head, and I froze, certain that I’d failed, that she was awake.

You are not strong enough for the task you were given, she said.You should have come to me this morning and let those children live. At least then your death would mean something.

The tissue under my blade was surging with the beat of her heart, a sign, Coyote had told me, that I was close. I switched to a new blade—I had three left—and kept working.

My hands were cold and numb, and I’d slipped a couple of times. There was at least one cut that would need stitches if I survived. The new blade broke. I tossed it at one of the otterkin and hit it in the head. It chittered at me, and I stuck my tongue out at it as I grabbed another knife.

Two left.

Not enough, Mercedes, she said.Not good enough. Poor Coyote died in vain and took with him the last of the spirit warriors who walk our Mother Earth. You fail, but don’t worry—you won’t have to live with your failure.

That blade dulled. And then there was only one. Had she moved underneath me?

I took it out and went to work. It would either be enough, or it wouldn’t. The ankle that she’d grabbed me by throbbed in time with the beat of her heart. The hip attached to that ankle ached dully—I must have pulled a muscle in it. The cut under my arm burned every time I moved my hand.

And the tissue parted, exposing her heart.

It didn’t look like any heart I had ever seen—it was black and veined with gray, and the magic of it was so strong it stung the tips of my fingers.

It’s no use trying to stab her heart. Coyote had chewed for a while, then swallowed.It’s too hard. You need to go for the co

So I did. There were four webs of gristle that held the heart in place. Once I took care of that, the veins and arteries were soft enough I could pull them out with my bare hand, or so Coyote had assured me.

I set my knife to the first of the webs—and right about that time, she woke up.

13

SHE DIDN’T AWAKEN ALL AT ONCE—OR ELSE I’D HURT her badly enough that she couldn’t react right away. The first thing she did was stretch. When she did, her pectoral fin fluttered and hit my hand, knocking the knife out of my hand. I watched it hit the water and disappear.

The otterkin all pulled back into a semicircle about fifteen feet from her. Under me she writhed, and the back half of her body disappeared underwater. I was going to have to jump and get swimming if I wanted a chance to live through this.

Yes, Mercedes, you should run now, she said.I like to chase my prey.

Instead, I grabbed the edges of her skin and dug my fingers in so she couldn’t knock me off. Coyote died to give me this chance, and I had failed him. MacKenzie, who would never grow older than eight years and four days old, had died to give me this chance, and I had failed her and her family. Faith Jamison had come to me, and I had failed her, too.

I had failed them all. But they were dead; they wouldn’t care. Adam would care.