Embers rained down. The smoke swirled and the fire gave a dull roar as it jumped from tree to tree.
Go home, Magnus thought. Go—
The Soul Cryer trembled as its muscles tensed. It took a staggered step forward, its malformed mouth opening at a sideways angle to expose the vicious fangs. Saliva drooled from the jaws and down upon the black-streaked chest.
—home, Magnus thought, and he pulled the pistol’s trigger.
The ball hit the Soul Cryer as near to the heart as Magnus could aim. The creature gave a grunt of pain and fell backwards but quickly it righted itself again, now on all fours, and crouched staring at Magnus through the banners of gray smoke that moved between them. Magnus knew that one ball was surely not enough to kill it, unless it had indeed damaged the heart. The Soul Cryer was breathing heavily and blood bubbled at the blackened nostrils, but it showed no other sign of weakness or injury.
He had no time to reload. He stood with the sword ready. His hand was trembling.
The Soul Cryer suddenly turned toward Barrows’ body, moving with its pained rhythm. With its eyes still on Magnus, the beast angled its head and gripped its jaws around the dead man’s skull. It shook the body like a strawman in a display of tremendous power, and the jaws crunched around the skull and the fangs broke bone and the Soul Cryer ate Barrows’ brains with the determination of an eager child eating sugar candy.
Magnus noted blood pooling under the panther’s chest. The Soul Cryer fed on Barrows’ essence, its eyes never leaving Magnus, and in their yellow glare Magnus saw the message Get away from here. Get away…and never, ever come back.
When Barrows’ broken head was emptied, the Soul Cryer’s eyes blinked, releasing Magnus from their spell. The beast backed away, favoring its ruined foreleg. Giving a noise so near to a human sob that Magnus thought he might hear it in his nightmares, the panther turned with its stiffened motion and leaped into the thicket it claimed as home, and then nothing was left of it but a streak of bright red blood upon the swamp’s ancient mud.
“Oh Jesus,” Bovie gasped. “Jesus help us…”
It occured to Magnus that, though Caleb Bovie had been bitten on the balls by a cottonmouth, the man might be too tough to succumb to snake poison. Either that, or the snake hadn’t gotten both fangs to the task, or the venom had not been delivered in an amount to kill, or it was simply not time for Bovie to go. In any case, though Bovie’s face was still tinged with blue and his lips caked with dried foam, Magnus thought that if the lout was going to die he would’ve been dead already.
“Can you stand up and walk?” Magnus asked.
“Give it a try,” Bovie answered, still in a weak voice, but it was a moment before he did. The roar of the oncoming fire gave him the will to get to his knees, and then the mud-covered mountain hauled him up the rest of the way. Bovie staggered and almost went down again, but Magnus held him steady.
“My head’s spinnin’,” Bovie complained. “Legs feel like much a’nothin’.”
“I’m not carryin’ you out of here, that’s for sure.”
Bovie took in the bodies on the ground. “Did Royce…” He looked at Magnus with his red-rimmed eyes. “Did Royce kill that girl?”
“Yes,” was the answer.
“But why would’ve he have done such a thing?”
“Because,” Magnus said, and he’d already spent time thinking on this subject, “some men want what they can’t have, some men want to kill for what they can’t have…and I reckon some men want to kill what they can’t have. It’s that angel and devil fightin’, just like you said…and when the devil wins, sometimes an angel dies.”
“Reckon so,” said Bovie. “Damn…am I gonna live?”
“I believe you are.”
“Told you it was just a black snake.”
“So you did,” Magnus said. He glanced back through the smoke at the oncoming flames. It looked to be a solid wall of fire. He wondered if somewhere the Soul Cryer was not watching it as well, and if the creature might lie down exhausted and ready to die, and this time let the flames finish their job of destruction and rebirth. Magnus, however, was not ready to do the same. Royce was still out there, going after Matthew and the runaways. Magnus retrieved Stamper’s musket and gave Barrows’ musket to Bovie. Both, he saw, were primed and ready to be cocked and fired. He saw also that, regrettably, neither dead man had boots big enough to fit his feet. “Let’s get our tails to the river,” he said, and he started off with Bovie following, limping and rubbing his snake-bit balls.
They had reached the Solstice River and, following its course, came upon the rowboat the slaves had stolen from the Green Sea. It had been pulled up onto shore through the mud and inexpertly covered with tree branches and foliage. Only a few yards from it was the boat that had brought Royce and Gunn. Overhead the lightning flared and the thunder spoke, and the sky to the northeast glowed red above the burning forest. Matthew could see the flames spearing up into the air and orange sparks flying like swarms of locusts. He was in a dazed state, clutching at his raw shoulder wound and being supported by Quinn. Mars had been limping along as best he could, using a broken branch as a walking-stick. Tobey was still on his feet, but barely; his eyes were half-closed, he was stumbling from side to side and the blood from his wound had reddened his shirt and the left leg of his breeches. He was in a bad way, Matthew thought; Tobey had to be gotten back to the Green Sea as quickly as possible, or he would die.
Abram had guided Griffin Royce forward by grasping the back of the man’s shirt and holding the reloaded pistol to Royce’s spine. Matthew had Royce’s knife tucked in the waistband of his breeches, and Quinn carried the short-bladed sword.
As weak as he was, Matthew knew he needed to make some decisions regarding the boats. All of them could not travel in only one. “That one,” he said to Abram, motioning toward the boat that had brought Royce and Gunn, “should carry you, Mars and Tobey. Give me the pistol.”
“I ought to travel with Royce,” Abram said. “Get him in faster that way, suh.”
“You need to row your brother in,” Matthew answered. “Royce can row for Quinn and myself.”
“I ain’t rowin’ for nobody,” Royce sneered. “What am I goin’ back to, a hangin’ party?”
“Well, suh,” said Abram, who released Royce’s shirt and brought up his own knife to place against the front of Royce’s throat, “seein’ as how Miss Sarah was a kind friend to me, and you took her life, there would be nothin’ to stop me from killin’ you right here…and when we get back, sayin’ you was likely lost on the River of Souls. Who would there be to say any different?” He pressed the pistol’s barrel into Royce’s backbone. “Ball or blade, suh. You got a choosin’?”
“Corbett won’t let you do that! Would you?” The hard green eyes glared at Matthew.
“Seems you killed a friend of mine, too,” said Matthew, returning the glare. “I don’t know how you did it and maybe I don’t want to know.” He reached back and took the pistol from Abram’s hand. He placed the barrel between Royce’s eyes and cocked the weapon. “You were asked a question. If you won’t row, then…ball or blade?”
“You won’t kill me! You don’t have the guts for it!”