Page 134 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Harlan blinked his vision clear, and at first he saw nothing but the dark rectangle of the canal, as dark and fathomless as space. But then he clocked the movement. The edges of that movement.

His bladder turned loose with a sudden hot rush.

Mercy said, “Fillette.”

Harlan heard movement, footsteps. Ava murmured, “Stay here with Uncle Colin, okay? Stay right here.”

The shape in the water came closer, and closer, the size of a Buick.

“Hey.”

When Harlan didn’t turn his head, slender fingers gripped his jaw, andyankedhis head around.

Ava Lécuyer stood before him, thoroughly bedraggled, mud-smeared, jaw set, and her eyes were not the eyes of a human woman.

She said, “I want to make something very clear to you. I want it to be the last thing you ever hear.” Her head cocked, and nothing about that movement was human either. “There has never been, nor will there ever be, anyone on this earth more obsessed with Felix Lécuyer than me. You spent, what, twenty years chasing him? He’s mine. Always has been, always will be. You learned that tonight.”

She lifted her right hand, and the lamplight winked off the deceptively small, sharp, hooked blade of a linoleum knife.

Yes, he thought,cut my throat.

But then her hand darted, struck downward, and lingered, and dragged, and awful, bright, bloody pain opened up across his belly.

He looked down, and saw the flesh part, saw the blood well, black in the blue lantern glow.

“Go to hell,” Ava said. “And stay there.”

Mercy’s hands gripped tight on his shoulders, and shoved him.

The world spun, black sky, black water.

And then the water took him, like the cold, soft arms of a corpse bride.

~*~

“Oh my God – look at the – fuck, that’s a dinosaur,” Alex breathed, safely back on land.

Relief washed over Mercy as elation, and with it came the ugly dizziness of blood loss. He turned, and carefully lowered himself to sit on the edge of the dock, boots dangling over theedge. He lifted his arm – lead-heavy, no longer painful, only dragging, which wasn’t a good sign, he knew – so that Ava could sit down beside him, and tuck herself beneath it. She was shivering as though cold, despite the hot, sweaty feel of her cheek when she pressed it down on his shoulder.

“Good job, Mama.” He tried to pat her waist, but his hand didn’t want to cooperate.

In the water, Big Son had begun his death roll.

“You, too.” She turned her head and pressed her lips to his shoulder before resettling, her warm, familiar weight better than any drug against his side.

Mercy’s head felt cotton-stuffed, dry, and floaty, like he’d taken morphine. But it was pleasant. Dreamy. “He really is beautiful, isn’t he?”

“He is, baby,” Ava agreed. “Like you.”

“Guys,” Colin said, gently. “We need to go. We need to get Mercy to the hospital.”

“Yeah,” Mercy agreed.

Small footsteps moved down the dock, and a small hand landed on his other shoulder, Remy’s grip strong and sure. “Daddy?”

“In a minute. Just a minute.”

Ava took his half-numb hand in hers, and dragged it into her lap, laced their fingers together, right up close to their new baby. The second one who’d come to the swamp in the womb.

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