The Strange Maid (37 page)

“What does
not a leader, but a man
mean?”

He puts his book upside down against his knee. “It reminds me that when dealing with such power as turns in my chest, with the god of madness, I must be a man first before I can expect anyone to follow me. My father used to say it, and I had it added when I was made captain.”

“You must have been young.”

Darius shrugs. “Young but strong, Lady Valkyrie.”

“Strong,” I murmur.

“That isn’t something you need to worry about. I saw your strength when you charged at the herd, all alone.”

I push away from Red Stripe. “I wasn’t thinking about it. It was just what I had to do.”

He nods as if to say,
Of course.

“Darius,” I whisper.

The captain sets his book on the floor and leans his elbows onto his knees. He regards me intensely but only waits.

“The troll mother is here. Near here, at least.” I take a long, shaking breath. “I think she followed me here, and maybe even somehow was in Vinland because of me and my riddle. I can’t explain how, but the goddess Freya is involved, and I suspect she’s capable of manipulating nearly anything.”

He nods once, and slowly. “What would you have us do?”

I push my temple against the hard, smooth surface of Red Stripe’s knee until it hurts. “I want to go out tonight and see if I can find out about where she might be. Through the lesser trolls. If I can find some iron eaters, maybe I can bargain with them. There’s so much water here she could be hiding in—the Wide Water or the ocean, or any of these massive swamps. If I can’t narrow it down, we’ll have to do something to draw her out.”

“Which would be more dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

“We’ll go with you. Sharkman and I, and leave Thebes here with Red Stripe.”

“No, I should go alone.”

The long look Darius gives me makes plain his disagreement.

“You’ll scare them—especially iron wights, Captain. Probably I’ll scare them, even if I’m gentle. But I’ll fair better on my own with getting them to talk instead of run.”

“This sounds more like madness than bravery.”

I throw him a half smile. “I’m better with madness.”

“As am I,” says Sharkman as he clomps down the stairs. “You see? We belong together.”

I laugh, and it feels good.

Sharkman gives me the smile that earned him his name.

TWENTY-THREE

NEAR MIDNIGHT I
slip out the front door in jeans, boots, and my black Mad Eagles hoodie despite the warmth that lingers in the night air. Thebes is on guard duty in Red Stripe’s violently bright garage, and he whispers
good luck
as I strap Unferth’s sword over my shoulder.

I spent three hours with my berserkers going over the maps of troll sightings in Port Orleans to pinpoint the best possibility for me encountering the least dangerous iron wights. The majority of the sightings are near the river and bridges, of course, or near highway overpasses and up north by the Wide Water. Darius suggested I avoid deep water if I’m truly uninterested in danger, and we isolated a seven-block area south of here between the trolley tracks and river where there’ve been sightings of mostly iron wights. So that’s where I’m headed, and alone in order to be less of a threat to the curious little trolls. There are some cheap silver rings in my pockets to bribe them with, and a handful of colored paper clips I found in a kitchen drawer. My other pocket is full of a cell phone, at the captain’s insistence. Just in case.

The night is quiet but for the harsh-pitched cry of frogs and muffled traffic, and I jog down our dim street to an avenue with better lighting and four lanes divided by a grass median. It’s lined with scraggly oak trees and a strange blend of very nice antebellum houses and sorry ranchers on concrete foundations with sagging porches. I start at an easy gait, Unferth’s sword quietly slapping my butt as I go. I count the blocks, and after nine take a left onto Sanctus Charles, which is busy even at this time of night. I follow the trolley tracks for two blocks before heading right toward the river again, this time on a narrower street right in the center of these localized iron wight sightings. This one is quiet and dark thanks to fewer streetlamps. One side is lined with gorgeous three-story town houses, the other with short chain-linked fences and single-family homes. Even in the dark it’s like two cities crashing into one another.

I tuck into the shadow of a tree as a cluster of five men spreads out across the street, sweeping their UV flashlights up the sides of houses and into the branches of trees.

Hunters after the bounty Thor promised yesterday, on account of all the extra sightings.

Once they’ve passed, I step off the sidewalk to cross the street. On my left the houses are replaced by a two-meter-tall whitewashed brick wall that glows in the dingy streetlights. I slow my pace and hop onto my tiptoes to see over it.

Darker gray and white rooftops peer at me from the other side, some peaked and or curved, others entirely flat. They’re arched and decorated with stone flowers and urns, some with false windows or wrought-iron crowns. Mausoleums and family crypts.

I sink to my heels. It’s one of Port Orleans’ cities of the dead. An entire block of marble and stone that wasn’t marked on my map. This should be the center of that iron wight territory Darius identified. What better place for small trolls to hide under the sun?

With a running start, I leap to grab the top edge of the wall and drag myself up. I roll onto my side across the flat top and catch my breath. Right before my face is a crumbling mausoleum, tucked against the wall, stained gray by rain and weathering. A lush green fern grows from the top corner. I sit to dangle my legs down into the cemetery. No streetlamps invade the city of graves, but it looks like there’s a lane around the inner perimeter and two that cross in the middle to create four smaller blocks of crypts within the larger block. Trees grow near the center and along the lanes, casting additional shadows in the dim moonlight.

I hop down into the cemetery.

My boots hit the dirt hard, and I crouch with my back against the cool brick wall. I’m hidden between two mausoleums. The breeze smells like wet stone and mud, and down here the city sounds are muffled.

I touch the cool marble to my right, skimming my fingers down it. This place reminds me of the death ship beach, though crowded and claustrophobic. I wish I knew who this cemetery is dedicated to. Most like it’s for Thunderers, who are often buried whole-bodied in stone graves like this, or in crypts beneath one of their rock cathedrals, waiting in peace for the day Thor Thunderer summons them to his side, to travel with him to his far mountain home. But in a city like Port Orleans, there might be shared cemeteries, with portions assigned to Freyan ashes or Biblist internment or foreigners or anything.

My neck prickles. I tug the cowl of my hoodie down over my forehead and go out into the narrow lane. Moonlight shines on the rows of thin mausoleums, exactly like a row of town houses but small and gray. The tiny death homes are worn, the poems and epitaphs faded from their marble faces. What few markings I recognize are messy and eclectic: hammers carved into the lintels, or circle snakes or crosses, lambs and flowers. Long grass squeezes out a living between them, and a few of their doors are crumbled or missing and replaced with plywood. This is no cared for graveyard like the one at the Death Hall; it’s old and forgotten even in the heart of the city.

But not everything has forgotten it.

There’s a scratching like rats in the walls. I turn slowly, see nothing but leaf shadows.

Wind brushes the edge of my hood, caresses my cheek. On my right the proper entrance appears, its iron gate locked tightly, with the name of the place arched over:
Garden Cemetery No. 1.
In cursive script, almost impossible to read backward, it promises,
All the dead are welcome here.

A modern orange sign is tied to the bars. I pull the bottom away to read it.
CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.

Putting my back to the gates, I walk directly down the overgrown lane toward the center.

Stone scrapes stone, like one of the tomb doors is opening. My lips part and I suck in a quick breath; they’re here, I was right. There the sound comes again: the scratching, the claws scrabbling across marble roofs.

I scan the black shadows between tombs, the short iron fences that mark family vaults, the sudden splashes of color from the plastic bouquets set about the place.

There’s a growl at my back; I swing around but nothing stands behind me. I hear it again, a low growl and skittering claws, followed by high-pitched giggling.

All the shadows move. There! The golden glint of reflecting eyes.

Cat wights.

Skit.
They’re less conversational and will hardly care for the paper clips and rings I brought to trade. Cat wights want to play, rather like their feline namesakes, and won’t think twice about biting off my fingers. “Good evening,” I say gently, firmly, as if I’ve nothing to fear.

For an answer, a chunk of marble the size of my fist flies out from between two mausoleums. I shift my leg and it hits the lane. Another follows. Then a hail of pebbles, and with them comes more laughter. It snickers and babbles all around me. I block my face, pummeled briefly by the hard rain.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, pulse quickening. I hold out my bare hands, spread them.

There’s a chorus of hoots in reply. Not only cat wights but also the iron eaters I was expecting. I recognize the calls from Chicagland. There must an entire troop here at least, and probably a whole pack of cat wights. This might be on the verge of going very, very badly.

“I only want to know if you’ve seen the troll mother. I’ve brought metal to trade.” I dig into my hoodie pocket and pull out a handful of rings and clips. They scatter on the gravel.

More hooting, and the cat wights hiss. A greater shadow moves suddenly away from a tomb and slinks, hyena-like with long legs and a hunched back, into the moonlight. A prairie troll. I suck in air, lift my chin against sudden fear. Saber teeth glow as it opens its mouth and hisses at me, raising onto shorter rear legs. They’re man-eaters, and where there’s one, there’s another. “Ssssnack,” it whispers.

I take a step back but glance over my shoulder so I don’t run into another.
Rag me.
I consider fumbling for the cell phone, but the Mad Eagles won’t get here for ten minutes. By then I’ll either be fine, or dead.
More like madness than bravery.

Behind me iron eaters cling to a tomb with their huge eyes and gnarled baby faces. As one, they laugh, displaying blocky teeth. I turn in a careful circle again, hands flat out from me, and back toward the iron wights: there’s more chance of surviving a flat-out run through them than past the prairie troll. How is it there are these huge prairie trolls and nobody saw them in the city? And why was this a center of iron wight activity but also full of cat wights? Though with the cemetery closed to the public, they could hulk here all day long without being discovered.

The prairie troll swings its head left; I follow the look but see only three more of its kind stalking nearer from the thin copse of trees huddled around the crossroads in the center of the graveyard. I step back toward the wights, and back again. I unsheathe my sword. There’s no use pretending this is going to end peacefully.

The prairie trolls slink nearer, their shoulders knocking and tongues lolled out more like hyenas now than ever. Cat wights hiss from the shadows, and my peripheral vision is full of laughing iron eaters clinging to the walls and roofs of the dead city.

My heel catches on a patch of gravel and I stumble back into the sharp corner of a mausoleum.

It grunts.

Horror burns through me, leaving only ice in its wake. Turning, I raise my eyes to a greater mountain troll as it shakes free of its mausoleum shape.

I bite back a whimper. That troll was shaped like a house and all right angles a moment ago! I remember with a shock Unferth saying in Montreal that the troll mothers used runework to hide their sons in plain sight.

Every tomb in this entire yard could be a massive, bone-crunching troll.