The White Assassin (2 page)

Victor nudged Vincent. “I thought snakes couldn’t hear,” he whispered.

“That’s a myth,” answered Vincent. “They hear—just in a different way. They feel the vibrations from our voices and translate them into speech.”

“He’s right,” said the other snake in a throaty voice. “Why, I heard you just fine, young rat!” The snake laughed, causing his buttery skin to pulsate. His black, forked tongue, flanked by glowing white fangs, sputtered wildly from his mouth. Victor twisted uncomfortably, wincing at the sight of shiny, sharp teeth. “I am Wicker, leader of the rat snakes. Ironic, I know.” He slowly coiled his long body around itself. “We wish you no harm. As you are well aware, snakes have long preyed on your kind—rats, bats, any meat we can safely digest. But now we must cease this practice. We must join forces with you against a common enemy.” The snake’s eyes narrowed. “Over the last three
years, the white rat has killed vast numbers of our kind, slipping into our nests under cover of night. We’ve found many of our brothers’ and sisters’ bodies in the woods, gutted, his stench all over them. He is the only rat who has ever had the power and cunning to kill us. Never have we seen a rat so fast, so sly, so strong. We have tried to catch him, but he is a shrewd one. He has no business in this swamp. His tactics are dissolute—unnatural.” Wicker glanced at the wall, snorting at the painted snake that glared back at him. “He is as unnatural as this chapel.”

Silt twisted toward Dresden. “Is this the one your sentinels speak of? The one who knows the white rat well?” she asked, sticking out her blood-red tongue at Juniper.

“Yes,” answered Dresden. “I’d say he knows him better than most. Juniper …”

“I won’t waste your time,” said Juniper to the snakes. “Billycan is everything you say and more. Thanks to Dresden’s intelligence reports, we know Billycan is planning a grand-scale attack, using his brutal horde of swamp rats to invade Nightshade, to slaughter us and any rat who stands in the way of what he wants—and what he wants is our city.” He looked at his Council and then back to the bats and snakes, his voice filling the chapel. “With your help, we can save our city. With our help, you can save yourselves. If we work together, we can capture him and stop his bloody reign forever.”

Cocking her head, Silt stared fixedly at Juniper. “
Capture
him? Why not
kill
him?”

“We Nightshade rats have sworn an oath not to kill another creature unless absolutely necessary, not even Billycan. In our investigations we have discovered a serum created by human scientists, military scientists—one that forces their enemies to reveal the truth.”

“And how will this
truth
serum help us?” asked Silt skeptically.

“Soon after we’ve injected him, Billycan will reveal all. We can find out if he’s planning a major attack on the swamp snakes. Are there other proposed targets? Has he spies hidden in Nightshade, other allies with troops ready to attack even without Billycan? So you see, this cure will not only neutralize him, it will give us information vital to our safety, to our peace.”

“Peace,” said Silt with a sigh. “Something we haven’t felt in three wearing years. Chief Citizen, how do you intend to capture the White Assassin and bring us such peace?”

Juniper put a paw on Carn’s shoulder. “This one knows Billycan better than anyone in Nightshade.” Vincent and Victor watched hopelessly, knowing there was nothing they could say to change their friend’s mind. “Carn was a Kill Army soldier, working directly under Billycan’s command for eleven years. He knows his ways, his habits—his malice—firsthand. Carn will go undercover to infiltrate the horde.”

An unnatural sound erupted from the bowels of the rusty phonograph, forcing out the old human’s theatrical sermon, his grainy voice
sounding through the halls of the manor. “We come here tonight to celebrate de snake, under whose help gather all who share dis faith.”

The cat fell to the floor. Billycan lifted its limp orange chin. The white rat cocked his head, examining the dead animal. The thing didn’t appear to have much flesh on it, but it would do. Other than fish, turtles, and frogs, the swamp didn’t have much to offer in the way of food. Poachers had killed off the gator population decades ago. He was told there were packs of wild boars that roamed the swamp, but he had yet to see one. Billycan was sick to death of turtles, and loathed the briny taste of frogs. After so many meals of oily fish, the thought of them was beyond stomach-turning. Cat meat was a welcome reprieve, no matter how meager.

Three years he’d been in the swamp now. After escaping the Nightshade rats, Billycan hadn’t planned to end up here, but here he was, lord of the swamp rats, who found him so intriguing with his snow-white fur and neon-red eyes. They hailed him as a mystic sent to guide them. He grinned devilishly at the thought—him a sage, a spiritual leader. How pitifully funny!

The swamp rats were slow-witted and simple, making them easy to control, at least when they weren’t acting like spoiled children. They had nowhere near the intellect of Trillium-born rats.

Slapping his ivory tail against the rotting floor of the manor, Billycan yelled to Cobweb and Montague to light the fire pit in the back of the plantation.

The fervor in the priest’s voice grew louder, and the phonograph trembled as if terrified by his words. “Papa Twilight say don’t fear the fiend that come to kill ya. Look him in those red devil eyes and let him know
you
gonna win!”

Dragging the cat by the tail, Billycan smiled broadly as he made his way to the back door of the manor. That was his favorite part of the sermon.

The flames licked the skinned cat as Cobweb and Montague turned the spit. The swamp rats sat in a crooked circle around the bonfire, staring at the searing carcass like tongue-wagging jackals. Billycan sat above them in a crude throne that Cobweb had carved for him out of a fallen bald cypress.

The lord of the swamp rats stared vacantly at the flames, his red eyes lightening to a cool orange. Lazily he scratched his snout, feeling the raised trail of blackened skin that traveled across his face—a souvenir of his clash with Juniper, who had anchored his claw at the corner of Billycan’s eye, snagging it like a fishhook and creating a deep scar across his muzzle. He watched the cat meat brown. What a grisly way to die burning must be, he thought. How merciful of me to have killed the thing first.

Despite the fact that Billycan had managed to inflict more damage on Juniper—gouging out his eye—he vowed revenge on his mortal enemy. He would exact his pound of flesh. Juniper had done more than scar Billycan. He’d taken everything from him. Soon Billycan would take it all back.

Ravenously hungry, Billycan rapped four hard claws against the side of his crude wooden throne. The swamp rat horde could sit still no longer. He watched with little interest as a young female hurled a rock at the head of another. Her victim, a male, went down instantly, smacking the ground, blood trickling from his temple. The rat eventually pulled himself to his feet, wobbled a bit, and then laughed hysterically. Still dizzy from the blow, he fell back to the earth and lost consciousness. A gaggle of young females, including his attacker, gathered around him, giggling wildly and jumping up and down with glee.

“Imbeciles,” muttered Billycan to himself. He knew if he didn’t get back to Trillium soon he would surely lose all patience, taking out his rage on the swamp rats, tearing the lot to shreds. He was not meant
to stay in this wretched swamp, with its swarms of insects and unrelenting heat, king to a mob of mindless fools.

At least he had Cobweb and Montague, his seconds-in-command. They were smart and they, too, were transplants. The two brothers had come by train when they were small boys—possibly from Trillium, for all they knew. Soon after they arrived, their entire family had been eaten by a pack of corn snakes. Cobweb and Montague were the only ones who’d escaped, finding sanctuary with the swamp rat horde.

When Billycan arrived in the swamp, they immediately took to him. He understood them. The brothers found that living with the horde was like dealing with children who never grew up. One after another they’d wander off, getting themselves eaten by snakes.

Snakes had always been a huge threat to the swamp rats. Billycan quickly put a stop to it. One night he crept into a nest of twenty rat snakes and slashed the family to pieces. He left just one of them alive, telling her that he spared her so she could warn the other snakes of the vicious White Assassin.

Billycan issued an ultimatum: the plantation and its grounds were now off-limits to the snakes. If a snake was caught on the premises, Billycan would kill it and then a dozen more of its kind as punishment. If a swamp rat was foolish enough to leave the plantation, the snakes could have at it. After seeing the carnage left by the oversized white rat, the snakes grudgingly agreed.

A week after the truce, an indigo snake slinked in, ignoring the warning and unconvinced of Billycan’s lethal skills. No indigo has ever been seen since.

When it was finally ready, Cobweb and Montague ripped off a huge serving of cat meat and set it before Billycan. Drool gathered in his jaws as the scent hit his snout. He addressed his dim subjects, all slobbering, fiendish with hunger. “You may eat!” he called from his throne.

The swamp rats swiftly engulfed the cat, tearing at its smoked flesh, climbing on top of one another, a frenzy of teeth, claws, and tails. The horde was just as fanatical in its loyalty to him. Grinning at the spectacle, Billycan picked a string of meat from his yellowed incisors. Soon his horde would be in Nightshade.

The swamp rats had slept in a pile, snoring and snorting, lying limply on top of each other like dirty socks in a basket. Billycan had slept outside with the horde, too full from the late-night feast to drag himself inside the manor house. He rubbed the crust from his eyes and looked down from his throne, having been awakened by jeers and scuffling below him.

The horde had circled around two of their kind who were fighting it out in a makeshift arena. The swamp rats were all shades of toast, varying levels of brown. There were a few brutes, but for the most part everyone was roughly the same size. It was as if one brainless rat had been duplicated over and over again, forming a massive army of identical creatures.

Billycan watched the fight. It was Stono, one of the bigger males, and Thicket, a young but rough female who loved to pick on everyone. The mass of rats snorted and cheered as Thicket seized Stono by the scruff of his neck and pushed his snout into the mud.

Dizzily, Stono pulled himself up. He teetered to the left and then to the right, trying in vain to catch his balance. Everyone laughed riotously as he stumbled into Thicket, grabbing her by the middle, forcing them both to the ground.

Straddling him, Thicket pulled his ears. Using his hind legs against her chest, Stono flung her through the air and into the crowd. The onlookers giggled wildly as she crashed into them, landing on another rat, who fell to the ground unconscious—or maybe dead, it
was hard to tell. The laughing grew almost psychotic when Thicket kicked the lifeless rat in the side.

Billycan leaped to his feet, slapping his tail against his throne. He looked down at the horde scornfully. “Enough!” he hollered. “What new stupidity is this? Stono, Thicket, you’re my best fighters. I will not have you dead or knocked senseless for no good reason!” He pointed to the motionless rat lying on the ground. “If that one does not wake up by sunset, toss him over the border. Let the snakes eat him. I will not have him rotting in my midst!”

He looked at Stono, still panting from the fight, his tongue hanging from his mouth. “Where are Cobweb and Montague?”

Stono pushed his lolling tongue back into his mouth and wiped the mud from his muzzle. “Not sure, said they going on patrol—back in an hour,” he answered.

“How long ago was that?”

Stono looked confounded. He gnawed on a claw, trying to think of when he saw them.

Billycan snarled in frustration. “Thicket, how long?” he demanded.

Picking gnats from her coat, Thicket shrugged.

“Oh, never mind!” snapped Billycan. “I’ll find them myself!” Seething, he bounded off his throne and tramped into the manor, reminding himself that such idiocy ensured blind devotion.