CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
We had to pass through the gathering to get to the cars. Things were quiet. The music had died down during our confrontation.
The magic felt suffocating in the night, heady and electrifying, building the anticipation in the air and fanning its flames.
“There are our guests of honor,” a tinkling voice said as we stepped through the trees. Niamh approached, her eyes glittering as she took in our small group.
Bit by bit, the people in the clearing fell silent, obeying some unspoken signal as they turned to face us.
I caught sight of Jerry and several of his couriers. Shame and fear were on some of my former coworkers faces. Harry had his arm around Ruth, both doing their best not to see me, while Catriona lifted her chin in defiance and anger.
The faces of the High Fae were guarded as we came to a stop. Tension rose in the air, curling around the magic. The clearing felt like a powder keg.
I shifted uneasily. I recognized this. Oh, not the hunt or the Fae in particular. Both of those were new. But that feeling you get when something is about to happen, something big and momentous and potentially life-ending.
I’d felt this before. Another time, another country where mountains stabbed the sky’s belly and it sometimes felt like the people had never made it all the way to this century.
That same feeling was here, like the universe was holding its breath while you teetered on a precipice. Just waiting to meet the bullet with your name on it.
Niall and Cadell stood in the crowd along with several other Fae I knew. I saw the flicker of purple wings in the trees above. Inara and Lowen were probably somewhere out there, waiting, watching.
Liam’s enforcers stirred uneasily. The hostility in the air was impossible to ignore. It warned of danger long before the first blow was ever struck. How I wished we could listen for it.
Thomas stepped forward, his expression calm, congenial. He gave no indication of uneasiness or fear, which was impressive, given my stomach was trying to crawl its way out of my throat.
I felt hyper-aware, cognizant of every stray brush of the wind, the slightest shift of movement in those facing us.
I wasn’t the only one. Liam was tense behind me, prepared to act should violence erupt. The same for Anton and Daniel, both had a hand on the weapons at their waist as they observed those around us with a soldier’s heightened awareness.
“My lady, how kind of you to wait, but it wasn’t necessary,” Thomas said, stepping forward.
Niamh’s attention remained centered on us. “Are you intending to leave? So soon?”
Thomas gave her a small smile. “One of our number is overcome from the magic. You understand.”
She cocked her head, her expression turning coy. “Yes, not everyone can withstand the hunt. Those who are weak will forever fall prey to it.”
Arlan stepped from the crowd with the same arrogant expression from the previous night. He looked over our small group with little interest. He didn’t seem to care about our presence one way or another, directing his attention towards Niamh.
“The hunt draws near. All those who wish to cast their fate to its whim must prepare,” he announced.
Niamh’s lips curled up. “You must stay. All of you. The Wild Hunt is not an experience to be missed.”
It wasn’t a request. She expected to be obeyed. Getting out of here was going to be difficult.
“They cannot,” Thomas said, his voice implacable. The glib diplomat was gone, leaving behind the autocratic master vampire. “Liam, get her to the car.”
Liam didn’t delay, grabbing my arm and hustling me away. All the while, the magic continued to build, the pressure threatening to crack my head.
“What about the others?” I asked as he tugged me behind him.
“They can take care of themselves,” he said. He jerked his head at Eric who made his way to our side.
“Don’t go, my dark knight,” Niamh called after our backs. “You’re going to miss the best part.”
The crowd had suddenly turned thick and resistant, not moving aside when we approached. Liam and Eric had to force them out of the way. It was like moving through a bunch of silent, unmoving zombies. They didn’t offer us violence, but they also didn’t give way easily, simply staring as we forced our way through them.
I looked back, Thomas and the others followed behind at a much slower pace. Niamh’s bright gaze met mine, her eyes feverish and anticipatory.
She didn’t look like a woman used to being thwarted. Things were going to get ugly. Again, I wished I was a little better armed.
Liam halted abruptly. I twisted to see what had caught his attention.
A white stag stood between us and the path to the cars. His coat gleamed in the moonlight, his antlers lifted proudly to the sky. There was more than one human hunter out there who would have sold his first-born child for a chance to mount the stag’s rack on their walls.
He was majestic and proud as he watched us. There was an intelligence there, at odds with what should have been present in an animal.
Liam stilled.
Thomas made an inarticulate sound, coming to Liam’s side, his gaze fastened on the stag, rage and yearning there.
Niall stepped from the trees, caught my eyes and jerked his head.
“Run,” he mouthed.
I slipped my hand out of Liam’s grip. I didn’t know why he’d stopped or why he stared at the stag with horror, but the magic was still building. If we didn’t get out of here soon, things would go very poorly for us.
“Liam, we need to go,” I said softly.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Sarah said.
She glided out of the forest, her companions by her side. They shone with power, their skin looking even younger and smoother than earlier tonight. There was seduction in their movements, a promise of pain and other things in their gazes.
Sarah tossed her hair over her shoulder as she focused on Thomas.
“What is this?” he asked sharply.
The crowd parted easily for Niamh as she walked toward us. She didn’t have to push and shove as we had, the Fae stepped aside as if she was royalty.
She only had eyes for Liam, her gaze possessive, as if she already owned him. The rest of us might as well have been window dressing for all the attention she paid us. She didn’t even look at Nathan where he stood with his hands bound behind his back.
Either she was the best actress I’d ever seen or it really didn’t bother her to know one of her pawns had been taken off the board. It never seemed to occur to her that she might face any consequences for her actions.
Her lips twisted up in an indulgent smile. “My handsome knight, how you’ve grown soft in the intervening centuries. Time was you wouldn’t have let such a trespass as he intended go unpunished.”
There was no doubt who she meant as she glanced at Nathan.
I couldn’t hide my shock. She’d as good as admitted she was the one responsible for Nathan’s current state. If that didn’t give Thomas reason to bring this farce to an end, I didn’t know what did.
He seemed to realize it too, his expression turning stormy as power curled around him. “You admit to acting against one us?”
Niamh shrugged creamy shoulders, the gesture negligent. “I broke no treaty.”
Her head turned toward the stag and she smiled. “I see you recognize our prey. We can never quite catch him, but it is such fun trying.”
Thomas choked, the sound inhuman. Rage was too small a word to describe it. There was a depth of feeling there that shook me, and it should have shaken Niamh.
Liam didn’t make a sound, didn’t move, his gaze fastened on the stag as he seemed to withdraw even more, becoming cold and unyielding.
Niamh lifted her head, her gaze turning inward. The sigh she gave was almost orgasmic. “The time is nigh.”
The Fae hemming us in lost interest, moving off, their gazes fixed and anticipatory.
The magic all around us gave a thrum, changing, twisting.
Everyone shivered. It was hard not to, with the magic whispering to us, coaxing us to join the hunt as either predator or prey. It didn’t care which.
Out here, with the night surrounding us and the moon turning Niamh’s hair a silvery white, her strange alienness was highlighted. She seemed straight out of a fairy tale, but instead of being the good fairy she was all dark cruelty.
“I’d hoped to give you my gift in private but here will do just as well. Won’t it, pet?” Niamh said.
Right then, several things happened at once.
Thomas roared and charged Sarah. There was no fear on her face as she watched him advance, her sister witches spreading out as they raised their hands and started to chant. Their eyes rolled into the backs of their heads as power ripped through the air.
Golems boiled out of the ground, their bodies made of dirt and rock and years of decayed leaves.
Nathan screamed, his back bowing as he writhed so hard Anton and Daniel had no choice but to let him go.
Power shot from Nathan to Liam, wrapping around him like a boa constrictor.
Then the enforcers had their hands full, beating back the golems as the clearing descended into chaos.
Liam sank to his knees, his face pale.
I started for him when strong arms closed around me from behind.
“Easy lass,” Jerry rumbled in my ear as I erupted into violence, biting and growling as I thrashed. “There’s nothing you can do for him now. She’s already got him in her grasp. The enforcer’s bite ensured that.”
Sure enough, I watched as Liam stilled, slumping to the ground. I didn’t know what her poison had done to him; I didn’t care. All I wanted at that moment was vengeance.
“You need to run,” Jerry rumbled.
I jerked, trying to get free again. I wasn’t running. I was going to kill that bitch.
She tilted her head back and laughed.
Jerry spun me around, his large hands settling on my shoulders as he thrust his face into mine. “You need to run. Can’t you feel it. The Wild Hunt has begun and you’re its prey.”
The urgency in his voice broke through and I stopped fighting long enough to pay attention.
Sure enough, the magic that had been steadily building since we got here had changed. It now had a purpose.
I felt it, all around me, crackling through the air as it coaxed and whispered, compelling those present to answer its call.
I looked at where the enforcers still fought.
“They can’t help you,” Jerry said, shaking me. “Soon they’ll be caught in its grasp too.”
I shook my head. “They’re powerful. They said they can resist.”
“Maybe the master can, but Liam has already fallen. Those with a link to him will succumb to its call too,” Jerry said impatiently.
As I watched, Liam stood, his face cold and aloof, the lines of it turning cruel. Magic circled him, on his head the faintest shadow of a crown beginning to form.
“The lord of the hunt,” I said softly.
Jerry nodded. “Yes. Tonight, he’s exactly that, and you’re his greatest obsession. His most difficult prey.”
That must be the other half of the riddle. What better way to choose a prey than to find what the hunter most wanted.
Along with choice. I could feel it on the air. If I chose to ignore the hunt’s call, I could, but Liam would be lost to me.
Niamh held out her hand, a lady of old with her knight. He walked past me as if I wasn’t even there, his gaze fixed.
“Liam,” I called.
“He can’t hear you; he won’t recognize you,” Jerry said.
Anton and Daniel turned from the golems they were fighting, following in Liam’s wake, the same fixed expression wiping out their personalities.
“What do I do?” I asked, never feeling more lost and alone than I did at that moment.
As much as I fought it, as much as I resisted, some part of me must have accepted Liam at his word. That he’d be there when I most needed him, that I’d always have a place with his people. I’d been working toward some type of relationship with the other enforcers, odd though it might have been.
To be isolated now, no recognition on their faces, struck at the heart of me, making me remember what it was like to be the only one I could count on. I’d forgotten how desolate a place that was.
“Make your choice. Then run as far and fast as you can,” Jerry said. His face showed strain and I realized for the first time that Liam and the others weren’t the only ones caught in the magic of the Wild Hunt. Jerry was resisting for now, but I could tell it wouldn’t be long before he lost the battle. “The hunt lasts until the first rays of dawn touch the horizon. Survive the night and you’ll have the chance to undo this.”
I stared at him. All I had to do was survive until dawn—my greatest nemesis. That was just hunky dory.
The magic had built to a crescendo while we talked. Jerry had been right.I’d met whatever criteria the hunt required. It had chosen me to be that night’s prey. I could feel it in my bones, twisting along my veins, the need to run, the need to evade eating at my insides.
“Good luck, Aileen,” he said.
Then I was gone, running as fast as I could, my heartbeat thundering in my ears as Thomas’s cry followed me. I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t be sure he’d resist the magic as well.
Panic and something else beat at me in time with my footsteps. The need to survive at all costs pricked me.
Trees flew by as I fled, the sound of a hunter’s bugle following me into the night.
The magic broke over the forest; the Wild Hunt had begun.
I ran as I never had before, with a single-minded focus as I dived deeper into the forest. It reminded me of another time, another forest where I’d fled for my life. During that little adventure, only two wolves had chased at my heels, not more than a dozen spooks intent on my life’s blood.
I weaved through the trees, pushing myself harder, abruptly glad both Liam and Thomas had insisted on human and vampire blood over the last week. Had I been in my former state, this hunt would have been over before it began.
Now, power coursed through me, enabling me to run faster, longer.
Still, even with the boost, it wasn’t long before I heard the baying of hounds and the crash of the underbrush as the hunt followed.
As fast as I was, there were so many creatures out there faster and stronger, with better endurance.
A flash of white darted through the trees ahead of me.
I veered away, afraid one of the hunters had gotten ahead of me. The magic caught me up in its grasp, urging me faster. It sang a terrifying song that spurred me to reach deep, my only thought escape and evasion.
Again, the flash of white bobbing in the dark. The stag stepped out of the trees, leaping away as soon as I spotted him.
I don’t know what possessed me to follow, but I did, dodging through the trees in his wake as he led me over hills and through creeks.
He came to a stop on a pair of rusted out railroad tracks. He pawed the ground and tossed his head as I hesitated, caught between the urgency of the hunt and reason.
Until now, I’d been mindlessly running, too busy with the need to escape to think. It was a stupid mistake.
Even as I hesitated, the magic tried to grab me in its jaws again and send me thoughtlessly fleeing in any direction. It didn’t matter, as long as I ran and didn’t stop running, until I was caught or the magic was spent.
The stag stamped his foot and snorted. I struggled to focus, trying to think over the power that threatened to carry me away like a tsunami-sized wave.
Railroad tracks. What was the significance?
The stag began trotting along them—his message clear.
I wavered between answering the call of the hunt and following the stag. Could I trust this creature when he seemed so clearly in Niamh’s thrall?
Liam and Thomas had seemed to recognize him, the sight of the stag striking a chord in both men. They’d been upset to see him, but I still didn’t know why.
One thing working in his favor, and the reason I hadn’t already resumed my flight, was she’d said they’d hunted him many times before but never caught him.
Maybe he was trying to show me how to survive.
Already the sounds of the hunters were nearing. No matter how fast or far I ran I couldn’t manage to shake them.
Dawn was still a long way off. If something didn’t change, they were going to catch me. And soon.
I turned and followed the stag, trotting along the tracks after him.
The magic’s grip eased slightly, and a thought occurred to me. These tracks were old and likely made of iron. Ohio was riddled with the remains of railroads from the last century where people and progress hadn’t gotten around to ripping them back out of the ground.
And what hated iron more than anything? The Fae.
“Smart bastard,” I said, picking up the pace.
The magic seemed to loosen the longer I stayed near the iron, ebbing and flowing around us as we ran. It made it easier to think for the first time since I’d begun my mad dash.
The stag bounded in front of me, his pale coat practically glowing under the moonlight. If not for the antlers,I’d say he looked like a flippin’ unicorn with the ethereal glow he was throwing off.
It was hard to believe he’d survived so many hunts when he looked like a giant glow stick. His passage wasn’t exactly subtle.
Still, the baying of some type of dog creature in the distance said his trick had worked. At least for now.
The iron might throw off Niamh’s people, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence it would do the same for Liam or any of his enforcers.
I slowed down to a fast walk now that the danger of discovery had passed for the moment. Conserving my endurance seemed a better idea than expending all my energy at once. We had hours, and the chances of outrunning pursuit were very small.
The stag seemed of a similar mindset, matching his pace to mine as he picked his way silently over the railroad tracks.
I cast another glance at my silent companion, curious in spite of the dire circumstances. Who was he? How did he get caught up in all this? And what sort of Fae had the form of a stag but the intelligence of a human?
All questions he couldn’t answer, so I didn’t ask, just studied him closely.
Whatever his species, he was powerful. It lay over him like a mantle, boiling with a quiet ferocity.
There was something else there, gossamer-thin strands wrapped around his antlers, barely visible as they shifted in and out of sight.
I hurried over, looking closer. They weren’t just around his antlers. They were everywhere, the rest of his body as well. I’d missed it because they blended into his coat, thinner than any fishermen’s net or spiderweb.
Realization turned my insides cold. He was caught like all the rest, bound to Niamh’s bidding whether he wanted to be or not.
He looked over his shoulder at me, the odd blue eyes sorrowful as if he’d guessed exactly what I’d seen.
I stepped closer, lifting one hand to touch the strands, half-expecting the stag to shy away. He remained in place, allowing me to touch him without protest. My hand slid through the strands.
Magic, I’d learned, was formed by intent. Shaped by will and then molded by the universe. It was in everything we did, everything we were. In the big moments and the small ones.
Our perceptions influenced how we perceived it. When the sorcerer had taken my eye, it had done something, opened me up to a world that should have taken much longer to access. It left me exposed to possibilities but danger too.
Magic, especially of the type riding the night, was wild and unruly, as likely to burn you up as warm your bones. Mistreat it and it’d break you in half.
Stare too long into the abyss and you might lose yourself to the wonder and terror, the chaotic order.
I’d tried ignoring it, pretending it didn’t exist, and it’d gotten me nowhere except fleeing from the people who were my friends.
Time to change the story.
The stag, as if sensing what I was considering, stamped his hoof and lifted his head. He wanted this. Needed it.
“Will freeing you help us?” I asked him.
Normally, I would never consider it, but even if I made it to dawn, I would still be vulnerable. I didn’t trust Niamh would obey the rules of her people and let me live. Once the sun crossed that horizon, I would be vulnerable. There’d be nothing and no one to save me.
He moved his head in an up and down motion.
I’d take that as a yes.
“Alright, I’ll do my best,” I told him.
The world faded around me as I sank into the magic. This left me vulnerable. One of the hunters could approach andI’d never know it. Still, I’d rather go down trying than run until my heart burst and my feet were ragged, only to be shot down like some damn deer.
Niamh’s magic had a stranglehold on him. It delved deep into his essence, an insidious web burrowing where it had no business being. It sickened me. Her hold took violation to a whole new level.
It was a wonder he had any independent thought given how deeply her roots were embedded.
His power fluttered at the heart of it all. If I ever freed him, Niamh would need to watch out. His was a bottomless ocean, deep and cool.
I stared into it, losing myself for a moment as I admired its beauty before moving on.
This was no hasty construct like what had been on Hector. It had been reinforced and retooled countless times until there was no sign of weakness, no easy chink to exploit.
I pulled hard on it, calling threads of it to me, stopping when the stag let out a low sound of pain.
“This is going to take time,” I told him, fighting dizziness and a headache.
Time we didn’t necessarily have.
He grunted.
I prepared to dive deep. A creature stumbled out of the woods just then. It ran on all fours, its nose lifted to the air.
I couldn’t say what it was, though it looked vaguely like a wolf, a coat as dark as night and vivid green eyes in a face that was a cross between canine and human.
It lifted its snout to the air and bayed. Answering cries sounded from far off in the distance.
Our time was up. For now.
The stag and I leapt down the small bank of the tracks, abandoning them in favor of the shadowy protection of the forest. Now that we’d been spotted, staying on them was impossible.
Without the iron to dilute it, the magic of the hunt rose with the force of an inexorable tide.
We ran, the sound of pursuit hard on our heels. On the rare instances where we stopped to catch a breath, I worked on the stag’s bindings, pulling and plucking any chance I could. My success was minor to say the least. The webbing gave just the slightest bit every time.
He helped as much as he could, pushing when I pulled, but even several hours later, I was still no closer to freeing him, and my reserves were at their limit.
I staggered against a tree, clutching it to keep myself upright as I panted. All around us we could hear the hunters. They were closing in. It wouldn’t be long now.
Worse, I was losing time, the magic catching me in its grip for long periods and carrying me off—the forest passing by in flashes as my world spiraled down to survival and running, terror and fear my constant companions.
“Come here,” I said.
If I was going to free him, it had to be now. I didn’t know if I’d get another shot. No reason we both should die.
He bowed his head before me, resignation in every line. He knew better than I did what our odds were. In this, we were in complete agreement, without a word having been exchanged.
This time I reached deep, summoning that rarely-used power inside, using it to grab the webbing and rip. When I ran out of power I reached deeper, ignoring the throbbing pain in my head or the parts of me that were screaming I was doing too much.
Desperation lent me strength. The bonds were looser than when I started, weaker from all my previous attempts.
From some unknown place inside me, power sparked, giving me a glimpse of what I could do, what I could be given half the chance. Suddenly, reading the magic on the stag was as easy as child’s play, a map I’d been born to decipher.
I bore down with my magic, hitting the spell with everything I had left. It crumpled, wisping away like cobwebs.
The stag reared, knocking me down as he screamed a challenge.
Before I could react, he took off, disappearing into the night without a backward glance.