Free Husk: A Maresman Tale by D.P. Prior

Reason told him that couldn’t have been the case, though. What he’d heard, everyone bitten back then had been slaughtered, whether they showed symptoms or not. That left only two options: either he was a shifter, or he was just plain scared. Had to go with the latter; a shifter would give off a blood trail—more than the trace of husk Davy had about him—and he’d seen no dampening amulet on the lad. No, Davy was pure frightened out of his wits.
    Jeb let the saber drop back into its scabbard and held his breath so he could peer through the gap.
    “Davy—”
    A rock hit the wood beside Jeb’s head. He fell back away from the boat and landed heavily on his arse. Pain reawakened in every spot Sweet had hit him, and he cried out. Then Davy Fana was on him like a terrier, biting, clawing, spitting. Jeb shifted his weight under the lad and cuffed him on the cheek. Davy went down with a thud, and Jeb took hold of him by the collar and yanked him real close. The lad’s eyes were wild, his limbs taut, body coiled like a spring. He hissed through his teeth, gathered himself to strike, but Jeb got in first with a clean punch to the jaw. Davy grunted, spittle flew, and he pitched to the ground, rubbing his head and yawning, like he’d just woken from sleep.
    “I’m looking for the sheriff, boy,” Jeb said. “That’s all I want with you.”
    Davy tuned a blank gaze on him, shook his head vigorously, and blinked his eyes into focus.
    “Ain’t no sheriff here.” He indicated the boat.
    “I know that,” Jeb said. “Why’s his office locked up? Ain’t he got no deputies?”
    Davy sat up and started to rock back and forth, arms wrapped about his chest. “Just the sheriff, normally.”
    “What you mean ‘normally’?”
    Davy’s eyes widened, the pupils swelling to black pits. “Don’t mean nothing by it, no, sir. Just that things ain’t normal now. Not since you came, sir, that’s what’s being said.”
    “Who by? The sheriff?”
    “That’s all I know.” Davy covered his mouth with a hand. The dirt beneath the nails was so thick, you could’ve grown turnips in it.
    Jeb rubbed his jaw, thinking, but his mind refused to focus. All he got was flashes of Sweet punching and snarling, and the surge of blood that accompanied the images was like fire in his veins. He knew he was glaring murder at the lad; he could see it in Davy’s eyes. The realization made him clamp down on his roiling emotions, wrench his eyes away to look off over the shacks piled up round the cove. When he spoke, it was to the foaming waters breaking on the rocks that studded the shoreline.
    “Tell him I got news. I’m staying at the Sea Bed.”
    Davy’s expression was a mix of awe and trepidation. “Sea Bed, sir. I’ll tell him, if I see him.”
    With that, he got onto his hands and knees and crawled back inside the hull.

14
    J EB TOOK THE long way back to the Sea Bed on the off-chance of running into the sheriff. The suns were already doing their erratic dance, rising and falling, rising and falling, till they found the window of stability that marked mid-morning. It was shaping up to be a clear day, and the heat was likely to be relentless away from the shade of the buildings. There was a strange hush over the streets, though, and the few people he passed looked the other way and kept to themselves. Even the high street was subdued. Tizzy Graybank was standing outside her store with a bag of pastries in each hand, as if she were wondering where her customers had gone. Jeb caught her eye, but she merely spat in the gutter and went back inside.
    It was a different thing at the Sea Bed, mind. The lounge bar was buzzing with talk of a couple of killings, and it was livelier than he’d have expected for a respectable establishment so early in the day. Course, there was no evidence it was respectable, save for the facade, the suggestion of a once grand interior, and the porcelain.
    The bar was a lot more revealing of the Sea Bed’s true