Renegade Read online

  The lynching party.

  “Welcome to my world,” the magic man said behind him.

  Billos twisted back.

  But Black was gone.

  arsal could see the mob over Billos’s shoulder, and she knew that her worst fears were about to come to pass. She glanced back with Billos and was surprised to see that the man dressed in the black trench coat was gone. He’d simply vanished.

  She spun back to Billos, who was staring outside again. He stood with his back toward her and Karas, weapon pointed at the floor.

  He was a handsome seventeen-year-old with dark hair and bright eyes, muscled from neck to heel, able to swing a sword through the chests of five Horde in one terrible swoop. A man of seventeen, ready to take a wife. To take Darsal as his wife.

  Yet here in this crazy land of the white room where DELL played with their minds, he was a child swept away with the promise of power at whatever cost—it hardly mattered.

  “Billos.”

  He didn’t turn.

  “Billos!” Karas snapped. “You big thug, listen to her!”

  He whirled, angry. “It’s a test, you fools!”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Karas demanded.

  But Billos wasn’t listening, “Hey!” he called out to the mob.

  “Send her out,” a large blond-headed one at the mob’s center said. The skin on his lace was peeling, revealing black flesh beneath.

  A thin, wiry warrior, who looked like he might be quicker than a snake, stepped up beside the large blond, “Let me take ‘em all. I can take ‘em; you know I can.”

  “Shut up, Pete.”

  Another man stepped up, hands spread by his hips, as if he expected suhupow to fill them at the slightest movement. The look in his narrowed eyes put a chill in Darsal’s neck. She knew their kind—warriors who lived for the love of blood more than any cause. In the Forest Guard they were called throaters: fighters who counted their value by the number of Scab throats they’d cut.

  Scanning the gathering mob, Darsal saw that at least half of them looked to be throaters. They were here for vengeance, and they would not go home without their fill of blood.

  “Who are you?” Billos demanded.

  The leader hesitated. “Claude.”

  “What will you do with them?”

  “We’re going to string them up,” the man called Claude said matter-of-factly. “By their necks. We want to watch them twitch in the air.”

  The wind gusted past the door.

  “What if I give you one of them?” Billos asked. “The young one.”

  Darsal wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. This was Billos, for the sake of Elyon!

  “Three is better,” Claude said, stepping forward, “Father, son, and all.”

  Darsal had no clue what he was talking about.

  “The last time we just went with the one, the son, and it cost us,” Claude said.

  “I hear you,” Billos said. “So you want to string them both up?”

  “Are you deaf?” asked Claude.

  Darsal had crossed the desert, traded her soul to Alucard, betrayed Thomas, all for Billos’s sake. But she knew that if she didn’t make a move now, they would all die. And since Billos wasn’t moving with her, she would have to work alone.

  She caught Karas’s eye and looked to the rear exit. The young girl nodded. Darsal eased back toward the door, moving to her right as she did so, until the door frame blocked the view of the mob.

  “I hear you.” Billos shoved his gun into its holster. He snapped his fingers, and a glass goblet magically appeared in his hand. “I hear you, and I’ll drink to that.”

  Amazing. Darsal briefly wondered what it felt like to have that kind of power. She bumped into the door behind her, and the questions fled. Reaching for the knob, she cracked the door soundlessly, then slipped outside, followed by Karas.

  She had the presence of mind to shut the door in the face of the blowing wind before running across the back alley and into the forest behind. She rounded a crowded bunch of trees and pulled up hard.

  “He’s gone mad!” Karas whispered, sliding in beside her.

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “Just because you love him doesn’t mean he isn’t mad. Now what?”

  “We have to get the books.” Darsal paced, frantic.

  “Get the books and leave him?”

  “If you think I would ever leave Billos, you’re as mad as he is.”

  “So you admit he’s mad? But the fact that you risked your neck to get this far is clouding your judgment.”

  “Was Johnis’s judgment clouded when he went back for you?”

  That put her back on her heels. She stared into the forest for a moment, then looked up at Darsal. “I wanted to be saved. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help.”

  “You’re assuming his desires won’t change,” Darsal snapped.

  “What do you see in him? He’s not the lovable kind.”

  “Zip it! What does a child know about love? There’s no way this side of Teeleh’s breath that I’m leaving Billos. Don’t say another word of it!”

  “Nice,” Karas quipped. “And dangerous too.”

  “What is?”

  “Love,” Karas said.

  A loud boom ripped through the air. They both started and faced the village.

  “Billos?”

  BILLOS RELEASED THE GOBLET, LETTING IT CRASH ON THE floorboards. He stared at the broken glass shards at his feet. The feeling of raw power that accompanied every snap of his fingers was positively intoxicating. A small part of his mind knew that he was stalling, but the greater part of his heart was so wrapped up in ambition that he couldn’t bring his thoughts to focus on that corner of his thinking.

  “Okay,” he said, looking up. “If you—”

  The words caught in his throat. Claude had lifted his long-barreled weapon and was staring at him as if he were the enemy.

  “Cut them off behind,” Claude ordered.

  Four villagers broke from the mob and jogged two to each side of the building, watching Billos as they disappeared into the alley behind.

  At any other time, in any battle with any of the Horde, Billos wouldn’t have mistaken the move as anything but a clear threat. At the moment, however, he wasn’t thinking clearly, and worse, he knew it. He couldn’t make his mind work fast enough.

  They were throaters. Any fool could see that much. But what direct threat these particular throaters posed to him wasn’t clear, at least not to him.

  Black’s order drummed through his mind. Kill them all, every last one of them. Baby. His guns were still in his hip holsters. But he wasn’t in the business of killing them all right at this moment. He was in the business of giving them what they wanted.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Saw the room was empty.

  Gone? Darsal had betrayed him?

  The rear door crashed open and filled with two of the four snakes who’d covered the alley. A quick glance told the story.

  “They’re gone!” the one on the right called. He was dressed in a blue shirt stained with something black, maybe blood from the long cut on his cheek, maybe Horde sap for all Billos knew.

  But his mind was working well enough now to know that things were turning bad.

  The two snakes spread out and made room for the other two. All four drilled him with piercing glares, hands spread above the butts of their weapons.

  “You’ll do,” Claude growled.

  Billos faced him, every instinct now on razor’s edge. This was it, then. He’d failed in this one simple test because Darsal had betrayed him, and now instead of being the aggressor in an offensive posture, he was hopelessly surrounded by an enemy too overwhelming to even consider engaging directly.

  But you are the chosen one, Billos. And you were chosen for a reason.

  He spread his hands in a gesture of reconciliation and slowly stepped onto the boardwalk. “Okay, settle down. You want to lynch me? Fine. You can string me u
p and watch me twitch in the air,”

  Billos walked directly toward them, ignoring the trembling in his legs. He didn’t know how much power waited between his fingers, or how much power Claude and the company of snakes who were poised to string him up had between theirs.

  But he was about to find out.

  “Why not make a sport of it, though?” he said.

  The dark sky hung low overhead. Sand blew across the ground.

  “Pete seems pretty eager to take me on. Let him. One-on-one. Better yet, I’ll take two of you on,”

  Claude stared at him, no doubt taken off guard by such a bold suggestion. But he wasn’t agreeing.

  “Five, then,” Billos said, halting ten feet from the man. “Put me in a circle with five men.”

  “Let’s do him,” one of the throaters said, stepping up. He held a sharpened stake, roughly three feet in length, in each hand. “Let’s stick him.”

  “Back off, Roland. He’s a trickster.”

  “But only one trickster,” Billos said.

  “We can take him, Dad,” Pete said.

  Billos glanced behind the men and calmly took in the specifics of his predicament. His fingers tingled with anticipation. Oddly enough, he felt his fear slip away, replaced only with a thirst to see just how much power Black had lit in his hands.

  The chosen one. It had a haunting sound.

  “Pete’s right. This whole lynching party is a sham. I could take you all with a single sword!” Billos declared.

  “Swords don’t do the trick here. The only way you win is to turn the girl over to us; that’s the way it goes.”

  The. Chosen. One.

  “I don’t think so, Claude.” Billos held both hands out like a priest welcoming his flock. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think …” He snapped his fingers. Cold steel filled both palms. Twin guns in addition to the one on his hip.

  A bolt of adrenaline ripped down his spine, and in that single brief moment, Billos knew that he had found his calling. He regretted having ditched the black coat and hat, because in truth he was nothing less than the magic man, Marsuvees Black himself.

  The. Chosen. One.

  The thoughts crashed through his mind in the space of half a heartbeat, and then he was moving, faster than lightning. He dove to his right and sent two bullets, one from each gun, while he was in the air.

  They struck each mark in the forehead, two of the snakes with long guns next to Claude. The long guns first, then the handguns.

  Both warriors dropped like lifeless dolls, dead by Billos.

  He landed on his shoulder and was twisting back for the four throaters behind him when the first bullets smacked into the dirt near his head, spraying his cheek.

  Moving like a viper, he whipped around with both guns and sent the suhupow—the bullets—boom, boom, boom, boom!

  The four throaters had their guns out, firing, running full tilt toward him, zigzagging to spoil his aim, but Billos made the appropriate adjustments on the fly. The power from his hands smashed into their foreheads and knocked them clean off their feet.

  Watching it, Billos knew he was a god. Slayer of throaters. Chosen by Black to kick …

  Something tugged at his arm. He’d been hit?

  But this didn’t slow Billos down. He was rolling like a log, feeling the ground around his body thump with bullets from the mob. Rolling toward the corner of the building to his right. Having eliminated the throaters, Billos had no concern of a rear attack. All he had to do was reach cover and he would win this first round.

  A second tug smarted him, this one on his left leg. Then he spun past the corner, chased by the staccato beats of bullets smacking into the wood.

  Billos leapt to his feet and glanced at his leg to see a flesh wound that added no concern. They’d struck him twice, but both hits were superficial. And he’d slain six of the snakes.

  Thirty to go. Roughly.

  “Round the back!” Claude’s voice snarled. “Split up, and make sure he doesn’t—”

  Billos moved then before they could possibly expect a second attack. He jumped back into the open, firing as he cleared the corner, pulling the levers as fast as he could move his fingers. Faster than he could have imagined. The guns thundered in rapid succession, rolling bolts of lightning. Like drumsticks beating the low-hung clouds.

  Billos was aware of each volley, each hit, each thrasher thrown from his feet. Each return shot spinning past him as he rushed directly at the mob.

  There were seven long guns, and he took them out first, ending with one held by a graying woman who wore a fierce scowl. The bullet dropped her to the ground, scowl still in place.

  God has spoken. Baby.

  No sign of Claude, Billos realized as he cleared the corner of Smither’s Barbeque. The large blond-headed leader had perhaps made his way to the back without Billos noticing.

  He pulled up with his back against the side boards and glanced both directions. The street had gone quiet in the wake of his bold attack. No less than twelve of them now lay on the ground, dead by Billos.

  “Kill them all,” Black had said. And Billos intended to show him how easily he could do it. As easy as slicing through the Horde.

  An image of Darsal skipped through his mind, then was gone. In good time she would understand. He could be wrong, misguided by his own passion to seize power, deceived, as she claimed. But he didn’t want to think about that. Not now. Not when he had the rest of the village to level.

  A raspy chuckle cackled through the air, stilling Billos in his boots. It came from the street around the corner, and it sounded very much like Black.

  With the throaters?

  Then his name, long and low. “Billieeeeeeeee …”

  Not his name exactly, but the same name Black had called him once or twice.

  “Billieeeeeeeeee … Olly Olly Oxen Free. Come to Papa, baby.”

  “You heard him.”

  Billos spun around and found himself staring into twin barrels only inches from his face. Holding the long gun was Claude, eyes fiery with anticipation.

  Billos acted out of an instinct bred from thousands of fights in the Southern Forest as a lad, most of which he’d handily won. There was good reason he’d been selected by Thomas Hunter to lead the new recruits, and he would show it now.

  He threw himself backward into a backflip, ducking beneath the weapon’s line of fire and bringing his feet up in the same smooth motion.

  Boom! The gun blast buffeted the air over his arched chest. His feet connected with Claude’s arms, and he finished the full rotation before Claude’s gun clattered to the ground. Now he faced a weaponless thug with round eyes.

  “Dead by Billos,” he said, and pulled both levers.

  Click, click.

  He blinked. The suhupow seemed to have fizzled. He jerked the levers again. Click, click.

  “Billieeeeee …” Black’s voice chuckled. “Come to Daddy, Billy-baby.”

  illos had two options: he could snap his fingers and make more suhupow, or he could trust Black and go to daddy, as the man suggested.

  He dropped the guns on the ground, spun around, and walked out into the open. Black stood in the center of the street, arms and feet spread wide, grinning wickedly, trench coat whipped to one side by the gusting wind. His head was tilted down so that Billos could just see the whites of his eyes beneath the rim of his hat.

  The throaters stood evenly on either side, staring at Billos, weapons lowered. Behind them the temple towered tall, nearly touching the black sky above.

  “Hello, Billos’ssss,” Black said. “Wanna trip? Wanna, wanna, baby?”

  It is a test, Billos quickly decided. A final test to see how he would use his suhupow in the face of terrible odds.

  “Do you want me to kill them all?” he called.

  “Yes, Billos. Kill them all. Do it now.”

  So Billos snapped his fingers to fill them with steel and continue his reign of terror, to make them all dead by Billos. But this time a
small glitch sidelined the plan.

  This time no steel filled his hands.

  He snapped again, harder.

  The snaps clicked over the whistling wind.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” Black said. “A little low on grace-juice, are we?”

  What was he saying? The suhupow was gone? Billos felt the blood drain from his face. His mind fogged. Surely … But he wasn’t sure what he should be sure about.

  Something nudged his back. Claude had retrieved his long gun and was prodding him.

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “No? No, Billos’ssssss. You really don’t know, do you? You worthless slug.”

  “What …”

  “The girl is what,” Black said. “I asked you to give me the girl. It was all so simple. You waltzed into town like you owned the place and laid four of them in the grave. Now they need a lynching to satisfy their lust. A life for a life, that’s the way it works here. I suggested the girl. Instead you’re giving them someone else. Your call, not mine.”

  “Who?”

  Black cocked his head. “Please don’t tell me this disease named idiocy has gone that far. Or are you seeing double, baby? Because I only see one of you.”

  Billos felt dizzy. He snapped his fingers, knowing nothing would happen. There was still a chance; there had to be. This was still a test of some kind.

  But for the first time the suggestions Darsal had made spoke louder than his own confidence. There was a possibility that Black’s motives were less than noble.

  He looked around quickly, searching for options. Could he dodge Claude’s gun again and make a run for it? But five others had now joined the large man. And those on either side of Black were spreading out to encircle him.

  He faced the magic man and stepped forward. “Hold on. I thought … I thought we had a deal.”

  “Didn’t your mommy tell you never to make a deal with the devil? What I give I can take. String him up!”

  Behind him, Claude grunted, and something crashed into the back of Billos’s head. He felt himself falling, but was out before he hit the ground.

  HE CAME TO SLOWLY, TO THE SOUND OF HEAVY BREATHING and the pain of twisted joints. Light filtered past his eyes, and he saw the sky above, black and boiling, just above the nearly bare branches of a large oak that hung over him like a menacing skeleton.