The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker #2)(41)

You think to do what General Caroa could not? You think to own me?

17

A LOW GROWL issued from the half-man.

“I am not your dog.”

Mahlia turned with a start. The monster was sitting up. It slowly climbed to its feet, a looming shadow in the space under the banyan tree. The doctor was scrambling back, shielding Mouse as he retreated.

The monster snarled. “You do not reward me with raw meat, you do not scratch me behind the ears, and YOU DO NOT OWN ME!”

Carrion and death washed over her. Mahlia gaped up at the half-man, fighting the urge to run. Knowing instinctively that if she fled, the beast would leap on her and devour her.

Fates, what was I thinking?

She’d forgotten what a monster it was. It dominated its surroundings. Its one good eye studied her from the wreckage of a bestial face, the yellow eye of a dog, huge and malevolent. Its lips drew back, showing rows of sharp teeth.

Mahlia swallowed. Don’t run. Don’t make it think you’re prey. Oh Fates, I was stupid.

It was one thing to think that you could make a bargain with a monster when it lay dead and still, another to face it, all muscles and teeth and rippling primal hunger.

“Mahlia?” A whisper from behind. Mouse.

Mahlia tried to answer, but her voice was missing. She tried again. “I’m fine,” she croaked.

“No,” the half-man growled. “You are nothing.”

For a second Mahlia thought the monster was about to tear her apart, but then it straightened and turned away, as if it was dismissing her entirely.

Mahlia let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. The monster was shambling toward the water, stiff at first, then faster, even if it was limping. Mahlia couldn’t help but feel a prickle of awe at the sight of the wounded monster, now almost fully healed. Nothing should have been able to survive so much abuse, and yet the half-man stood strong.

It reached the water’s edge and crouched. Lowered its face to the brackish slime.

“That’s salty,” Mahlia called out, but the monster drank anyway.

Mahlia expected it to lap at the water like a dog, but it drank like a human being. When it finished, it glanced at her with a brief flash of a superior smile. “My kind tolerates impurities better than your sort,” it said. “We are better than you, in all ways.”

The half-man started to straighten, but then it sank to its knees. Its eye widened with surprise as it caught itself. It growled, and then forced its legs under it. Staggered upright once more. It was big, but still, it was weak.

Something about the moment of vulnerability pleased Mahlia. The half-man wasn’t unstoppable. It might be strong, but it had its weaknesses, too.

The monster limped around the edge of the swamp pool.

“What the—” Mouse started to ask, but Mahlia already guessed what it was doing. The corpse of the alligator still lay in the water, bloating and torn. The half-man waded slowly into the reeds and seized it. Dragged the body onto the bank, grunting and growling with the effort.

With a low snarl, the half-man tore open the alligator’s belly. It dipped into the reptile’s entrails and began to feed, unbothered by the miasma of carrion.

The half-man looked up at them and bared its teeth. “My kill,” it growled, and then it plunged an arm deep into the alligator. Came up with the heart. “Mine.” It bit into the red muscle. Gulping it down.

“Damn, that’s nasty,” Mouse said.

Mahlia’s stomach churned in agreement. Watching something that looked so nearly like a human being feed like a beast—it wasn’t natural, and it filled Mahlia with queasy dread.

What was this thing that she had persuaded them to save?

The half-man continued to feed, tearing and gulping. But there was something else there, too… the way the monster crouched over its kill, victorious, dining on the heart of its enemy…

“Ritual,” the doctor murmured.

The monster looked up, gore dripping from its muzzle. The yellow dog eye fixed on him. “We are nourished by victory, Doctor. Life’s blood, from the beating hearts of our foes. Our enemy fortifies us. The more enemies we have, the more we feed. And the stronger we become.”

“And you never stop fighting,” Mahlia whispered.

The monster smiled, all razor teeth and bloody humor. “Conquest feeds itself, girl.” It gulped down the last of the alligator’s heart. “We welcome our enemies, as we welcome life.”

The half-man seemed about to say more, but instead it froze. Its ears pricked up. The monster sniffed the air, broad nostrils flaring. Its ears spread out wider, then snapped back, close to its huge pit-bull skull.

“My name is Tool,” it said. “It seems that your enemies have found something to feed upon as well.”

18

“WHAT ENEMIES?” MAHLIA ASKED.

“I smell a great deal of smoke. Wood. Plastics.” Tool’s nostrils flared. “Flesh. A town is dying.”

“They’re burning Banyan?” the doctor demanded.

Tool was quiet, his ears twitching, listening to things beyond Mahlia’s senses. “People are fleeing—”

Gunfire echoed over the jungle, something even she could hear, despite the distance. Startled ravens and magpies filled the air. Flocks of sparrows rose and swirled overhead. More gunfire. Mahlia exchanged worried glances with Mouse and the doctor.