“Where are the girls? Farmer Goth and Farmer Emo?”
“Went to get Sam.” Orc grunted.
“Sam? Why didn’t you tell me, dude?” Howard glanced around for a place to hide his backpack. He was on a delivery run. And while Sam didn’t go out of his way to try to shut down Howard’s business, he could get it into his head to confiscate Howard’s product.
“I think ‘inherit’ means take over, like,” Orc said.
Howard slung his pack behind a bush and stepped back to see if it was still visible. “Yep. Take over. The meek. Just like rabbits take over from coyotes. Don’t be an idiot, Orc.”
Howard would never have insulted Orc back in the old days. Back when Orc was Orc. Even now he saw Orc’s eyes narrow—they were one of the few remaining human parts of him. Orc was a slag heap of living gravel with a patch of human skin where his mouth and part of one cheek were.
Howard almost wished Orc would get up and pound him. At least he’d be Orc again. Instead Orc narrowed his eyes and said, “You know, there’s a lot more rabbits than there are coyotes.”
“Why are the girls getting Sam?” Howard glanced back toward the marina, the center of life at the lake. Sure enough, Sam, Jezzie, and Sinder were coming along at a quick walk.
“‘Blessed are they who hunger and thirst f
or justice,’” Orc read in his slow, laborious way.
“You want to ask me what that means, Orc?” Howard snapped. “Because I think justice may not be something you want to see so much.”
Orc’s face wasn’t capable of showing much emotion. But Howard could see that the shot had hit home. In a drunken rage Orc had accidentally killed a kid back in Perdido Beach. No one but Howard knew about it.
“What’s that?” Howard asked, pointing. He had just noticed a discoloration of the dome behind Orc.
“That’s why they went for Sam.”
At that moment Sam and the girls came up. Sam nodded to Howard and said, “Orc, how’s it going?”
Sam went straight to the barrier and stood looking at the black peak thrusting up behind Orc’s rock.
“Have you seen this anywhere else?” Sam asked Sinder.
“We never go anywhere else,” Sinder said.
“I appreciate the time you put in,” Sam said. But he wasn’t paying any attention to Sinder or Jezzie. He walked along the barrier toward the lake.
Howard fell in beside him, relieved that Sam hadn’t spotted his backpack.
“What do you think it is?” Howard asked.
“There. Another one.” Sam pointed at a much smaller dark bump rising from the dirt. He marched on and they reached the lake’s edge. Here again was a low, undulating ridge of black stain.
“What the…,” Sam muttered. “You see anything like this, Howard?”
Howard shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t notice it. Anyway, I don’t walk by the barrier that much.”
“No,” Sam agreed. “You just go back and forth to your still at Coates.”
Howard felt a sudden chill.
“Of course I know about your still,” Sam said. “You know it’s on the other side of the line. It’s Caine’s territory. He catches you over there, you won’t like it, unless you’re sharing your profits with him.”
Howard winced and decided to say nothing.
Sam stood looking at the stain. “It’s growing. I just saw it grow. Just now.”
“I saw it, too,” Sinder said. She looked to Sam for reassurance. Weird, Howard realized: he, too, was looking to Sam for reassurance. As much as he and Sam had been enemies at times, and still were, more or less, he wanted Sam to have some quick answer to this stain thing.