River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(78)

I spread my body out, trying to create as much drag as I could, even as I fumbled with Adam's shirt, trying to get it open enough to get at the knives. I knew what she was doing; I'd seen her do it to others. I had no intention of being her meal, but I wasn't sure if I'd have time to do anything to stop it.

I had to try. If I died first, the whole enterprise was at risk.

So I concentrated on the advice Sensei Johanson had once told me was the first and most important way to win a sparring match: "Be ready."

The river devil had pulled me deep under the surface, and it was dark. I was watching for her, and I saw nothing--but I felt the change in the currents of the water as she opened her mouth.

You, I shall consume with much pleasure, the river devil told me. And then I shall know how you defy me when no other mortal thing has. I shall learn and learning grow stronger.

Mercy! It was Adam, his voice a roar in my head overwhelming her words so I could move again.

More by luck than by skill, though I was trying to feel for anything I could grab, my free foot caught the outside of a tooth that was longer than my shinbone, and I grabbed another upper tooth with my left hand and stopped myself, arching my body away from her.

Mercedes. His voice was a howl of grief that I couldn't answer, not if I wanted to save myself.

I remembered, from seeing her head above the water, that the teeth in the front of her mouth were spiky and stuck out almost like the quills of a porcupine. They were also long, and I hoped that she couldn't open her mouth wide enough to engulf me as long as I kept my feet braced on the outside of her lower jaw and my grip on the upper tooth.

You make things harder than they should be, she told me. You are caught and cannot get away.

She snapped her teeth together with wicked speed--but I am wicked fast, too. I bent and straightened with her. The water helped as well. When she snapped her mouth closed, the water pushed out.

She changed tactics and tried to use her tentacle to shake me loose. I noticed that this close to her, the tentacle seemed to be operating a little less efficiently, like a rubber band that was too loose. It could hold on to me, it could pull me --but it couldn't push me.

I didn't know why she didn't try to grab me with another tentacle. Maybe she was just too angry right now. But when she did, I was dead. If this stalemate lasted much longer, I was dead anyway. My abilities didn't extend to breathing water, and I'd been underwater for a while.

On a particularly hard jerk, I took a chance and stopped resisting with my legs. She was pulling so hard that she yanked my legs up past her upper teeth. She quit pulling as soon as she realized what she had done, but too late. She'd already given me enough slack to twist my tentacle-caught leg around one of the long spikelike teeth at the front of her mouth. The next time she pulled her tentacle, she'd be pulling on her own tooth instead of my leg.

All well and good, but if I didn't get air soon, all the cleverness in the world wouldn't help me. I wiggled until I was on top of her muzzle instead of in front of it. I'd managed to pull open Adam's shirt while she was hauling me to her, and now I slipped a knife out of the bandoleer and sliced the tentacle just around my ankle.

Her tentacles must have been extremely sensitive. Just as she had when Adam freed me, she jerked her head up out of the water. Since I was on top, the motion catapulted me out of the river, off her head, and into the air. I landed about fifteen feet from where I'd started and plunged back into the water. She'd thrown me upstream, so the current would bring me right back to her. I broke surface again just about the time she let loose with a shriek that hurt my ears.

She saw me and dropped back into the water, disappearing under the surface. I swam as fast as I could, but, not being a fish, I was pretty sure I was going to be food.

Something grabbed my shoulders and I screamed, reaching up to grab whatever it was as it yanked me out of the water. I quit screaming as the river devil's open mouth appeared on the surface of the water below my toes, which were now about five feet in the air. My hands closed around two leather-covered steel-strong bones that could only be the legs of a very, very big predatory bird.

My food, my food. Thief! The river devil's voice in my head made me tighten my grip on the great bird's legs and draw my feet up as far as I could.

He shouldn't have been able to bear my weight, even as big as he was--and with his wings outspread, he was huge. But he wasn't just a thunderbird--he was Thunderbird--and I supposed that made a difference.

The river devil broke the surface but had misjudged her strike because Thunderbird swooped sideways at the last moment. She hung where she was a moment before toppling sideways and crashing into the river like a whale breaching. Thunderbird carried me to the river's edge and dropped me, gently, next to where Adam should have been waiting.

And wasn't.

"Adam," I shrieked, wiping the water out of my eyes. She couldn't have him. He was mine. I staggered into a run toward the river about the time Adam emerged, knocking me over and drenching me further with the water held by his fur.

I swore at him. "You have got to stay out of the water," I told him through gritted, chattering teeth. "If she gets you, she won't have to bother killing me--she can make you do it."

It scared me. I understood why he'd done it, understood it viscerally, but he had to stay out of the river. I tried to roll out from under him, but a big paw on my shoulder held me down and he snarled at me.