Magic Tides (Kate Daniels: Wilmington Years #1)(14)

The steady hum of the engine gently tapered off.

I stepped closer to the cabin, hanging to the left. I still wanted him to think he had a shot.

The engine died. I dipped my hand into the pouch on my belt and pulled out a handful of the contents in my fist.

Three, two, one…

Scully leveled a crossbow at me. A compact Ten-Point, good brand, designed to bring down medium-sized game. He’d drop a human with one shot.

“Alright, boys and girls, here’s what’s gonna happen. You bring me the wisp, pass it through this window, and hop on into the water. I’ll let your horses out on the shore.”

Thomas lunged for the cabin door, grabbed the handle, and yanked. The door remained shut. Scully had locked it.

“Go on!” Scully waved the bow at me from inside the cabin.

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or I’ll shoot you or your horse, you dumb bitch.”

“She’s not a horse. She’s a donkey.”

“What the hell do I care? Get to it.”

“You’ve thought this through?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I threw a handful of wolfsbane powder into the cabin. Wolfsbane was a shapeshifter deterrent. A shapeshifter caught in it would collapse into sneezing and coughing fits and go scent-blind for a couple of hours. It didn’t work as well on humans, but any person suddenly inhaling a cloud of talcum-fine dust would react.

A bright yellow cloud bloomed inside the cabin. Scully choked, staggered back, and sneezed. His head went forward, his crossbow dipped down, and the telltale twang announced a shot fired.

“Aaaaaaa!”

I leaned to look down. Yep. The crossbow bolt pinned his left foot to the deck of the cabin. Captain Scully, Supergenius.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“Unlock the door,” I told him.

Thomas smiled.

I glanced at him.

A little light sparkled in Thomas’ eyes. “He shot himself in the foot trying to rob us. Literally.”

“Yes. Scully, unlock the door. That red puddle by your foot isn’t strawberry syrup.”

“Fuuuuck!”

“Less cursing, more unlocking, unless you want to keep bleeding.”

Scully eyed me like a cornered dog. I unsheathed Sarrat and put it to his throat through the window. “Unlock. The. Door.”

He reached over and popped the lock on Thomas’ side. Thomas got into the cabin, confiscated the crossbow, tossed it onto the deck, and unlocked my door. I came around and looked at Scully’s impaled foot. Judging by what I could see of the shaft, the head had gone clean through his foot and about two inches through the deck. Good crossbow. He was lucky the bolt was wood and not metal.

I sheathed my saber, got my knife out, grabbed the bolt just above the boot, and sliced the shaft with my knife.

Scully yowled.

“Grab him,” I told Thomas.

Thomas grabbed Scully by the shoulders.

“You’re going to lift your foot off the bolt. I’ll help you.”

I clasped his boot, and Scully jerked back. “It hurts, you dumb bitch!”

“That’s the second time you called me that. I’m going to let it slide, since you’re in pain. Don’t say it again.”

“Why don’t we leave him like this until he gets us to the other side?” Thomas suggested.

“I doubt he sterilizes his bolt heads. Who knows what nastiness rode into his foot on that bolt and is now eating him from the inside? We’re not complete savages, Thomas.”

Scully got a wild look in his eyes and grit his teeth.

“Relax your leg and count to three,” I told him.

“One…”

I yanked his foot up. The foot came free. Scully screeched. Thomas muscled him out of the cabin and onto the deck.

“Can you drive the boat?” I asked Thomas.

“Yes. My dad had one.”

“You drive, and I’ll go watch our sharpshooter friend.”

I checked the passenger bench. The storage space under it yielded a first-aid kit that might have been older than me. I took it and walked out onto the deck. Scully had managed to pick himself up and was now leaning against the rail. His foot was bleeding, and a small puddle pooled by him on the deck.

The horse ignored him, while Cuddles gave him her “kicking” eye. If she wasn’t tied at the nose of the boat, she would’ve wandered over toward the cabin and stomped on his injured foot a few times for funsies. I’d seen her take that initiative before a few times.

The boat motor started slowly.

Scully did his best to stare a hole through my face. Sadly, his eyes lacked the lasers he required.

“You ain’t shit,” he finally spat out.

“You’re right, Simo H?yh?.” He wouldn’t recognize the name. My best friend had named a rifle after him, because he was the deadliest sniper in modern history. “I’m definitely not shit. But you might be. Also, I don’t have a hole in my foot. How about you work on that wound before your blood drips into the water?”

I tossed the first-aid kit at him. He caught it and bared his teeth at me. “Fu—”

A green tentacle as thick as my thigh shot out of the river, wrapped around Scully, and yanked him toward the water. Scully dropped the medkit and grabbed onto the railing, clinging to it for dear life.