DEATH BY HELL-BIRD

“I think she likes you,” Ricky said, moving up beside Gabriel as the raven swooped past him twice, cawing.

Gabriel barely gave a distracted “Hmm,” his gaze fixed on the bird.

“Trouble?” Ricky whispered as he patted Lloergan’s head.

Gabriel gave his head a sharp shake and pulled his attention from the raven. “That’s theirs, I presume.”

Ricky was about to answer, but Meic—one of their Huntsman escorts—beat him to it, saying, “She is.”

“Can we ask what she’s seen?” Ricky said.

“She’s roaming free. Ioan will be linked with Brenin. I cannot communicate directly with her, but she seems calm, and she’s suggesting we walk down that passage. I’ll take her word for it.”

Ricky glanced at Gabriel, who was trying to hide his impatience and doing a shitty job of it. They’d been scouting for the last hour now, finding absolutely nothing.

At one point, Gabriel had said, “Is this necessary?” and Ricky knew he wasn’t just asking about the surveillance. He meant the whole expedition. If Walter had taken Seanna to kill her, she was almost certainly dead. And if she wasn’t? Well, Gabriel wasn’t particularly concerned about that, and only mildly more concerned about the dryads. But Liv was concerned, and that’s why Gabriel was here, keeping his mouth shut as well as he could manage, letting out only that one complaint before setting his jaw and resuming the search.

They walked into the passage between two brick buildings. It was a densely overgrown passage, and they had to pick their way through the undergrowth as Gabriel watched the raven, perched on a tree, watching him back.

Gabriel turned to Meic. “Do we know where Ioan is? I’m familiar with the area, and I really don’t feel I’m assisting here at all. I would prefer to find Ioan and see what his hound has found. I accept all responsibility for any danger incurred in doing so.”

“Olivia is fine,” Meic said.

Gabriel made a noise under his breath, a soft growl of annoyance, not at the answer but at how transparent his true motive had been. Then Gabriel checked his cell phone.

“They haven’t started working again in the last sixty seconds,” Ricky murmured.

He got a glower for that, but it was true—the phones had lost service shortly after Liv left, and Gabriel had been doing sixty-second checks ever since.

“Satellite radios,” Ricky said. “We need to invest in satellite radios.”

“Or we could just not split up. Wasn’t that the plan? Stick together no matter—” Gabriel broke off and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t like this. Which I realize is stating the obvious.”

“Kinda, yeah. Are you getting a sense she’s in danger?”

A pause.

“That’s a no,” Ricky said. “If you did, you’d have said something.”

“There was a moment, roughly ten minutes ago, where I did have the sense something was wrong.”

“Which passed too quickly for you to even remark—”

“Ricky,” a woman’s voice said.

There was that split second where he thought it was Liv, which only proved how much he too was hoping to hear her. This voice, light and girlish, sounded nothing like Liv’s. When Ricky looked around, seeing nothing, Lloergan sighed. Deeply. Then an old tree beside him rippled, the trunk seeming to separate.

Ricky gave a start, but Gabriel only said, “Helia. Good. We’ve found you.”

The dryad stepped from the tree, her skin still brown bark. Alexios followed from the other side.

“Are you all right?” Ricky asked. “Liv was worried.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “She was very worried. But you are apparently fine, so we may leave.” He turned to Meic. “Could you tell that raven to fetch Ioan? We have the dryads. It’s time to go.”

“I think Liv still wants to find out what happened to your mother,” Ricky said.

“With any luck, the dryads can tell us. Yes?”

Helia nodded. “She’s alive. They—”

“Excellent. Now fetch Ioan. Or, better yet, if that raven can lead me to him, I’ll tell him myself and we’ll be off.”

“Your mother is alive,” Meic said.

“And he really doesn’t give a shit,” Ricky said. “But, yeah, Gabriel, let’s slow down a little here. Alexios? Tell us what’s going on. Helia. Sit and rest.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and promptly slumped at the base of the tree, her skin starting to meld with it.

Alexios watched her, frowning.

“I’m obeying orders,” she said.

“Yes, that’s why I’m concerned.”

She stuck out her tongue, and Alexios smiled for her, but Ricky sensed genuine worry strumming from the dryad. When Helia moved her arm, she found it fused to the tree and seemed surprised. Alexios glanced over sharply, and Helia pulled away fast—Ricky had a feeling that spontaneously merging with flora wasn’t a good sign for a dryad.

“Just tell us what you know,” Ricky said. “And then you can go back to Cainsville. In fact, we’ll insist on it. We have the Cŵn Annwn, as you can see. Hounds, ravens, horses—the full Hunt. Not to be rude, but…”

“We don’t need you,” Gabriel said. “Ricky is right. Tell us what you know and then leave. That is an order. From me.” He paused, then added, “From Gwynn.”

Alexios mouthed a silent thanks. Then he explained that the sluagh were here. A group of lesser sluagh in service to one elder—the one who took the form of Imogen Seale.

Ricky suspected this was a base camp, which would explain why Liv kept being drawn back. That suggested that Tristan hadn’t been acting quite as independently as he’d claimed. Or not as independently as he’d believed.

According to the dryads, Walter had brought Seanna here to the sluagh, who were, frankly, pissed about that. He’d had one job: make sure Seanna died. If the plot with Pamela failed—which they were also kinda pissed about—then the very least he could have done was kill her and frame Pamela.

Walter’s excuse? He wasn’t a murderer, and he hadn’t signed up for any actual killing. So he’d brought Seanna to them.

“And inadvertently brought us to them,” Ricky said.

“Do they realize that?” Gabriel asked the dryads. “Walter knows you’re here. He must presume that’s a link directly back to us.”

“Actually, he didn’t know we came along.”

“We were tricksy,” Helia piped up.

“Very tricksy,” Alexios said, with an affectionate smile for his mate. “We played spy to find out what he was up to. Then we planned to call and see what Liv wanted us to do. But the phone?” He took it from his pocket. “As useful as a rock.”

“Technology,” Helia said. “Humans are so fascinated by it, but when you need it, what happens? Beep-beep-beep. Your call cannot be completed.”

“It was working well enough to get us here,” Ricky said. “If the sluagh don’t know Walter was followed, then I’m going to agree with Gabriel—it’s time to grab Liv and retreat. I’m sorry about Seanna, but I’m guessing she’s not going to survive long enough to be rescued.”

“Was she still alive when you left?” Meic asked.

Helia nodded. “They’d put her in a room. She hasn’t woken.”

“Instead of simply killing her.” Gabriel turned to Ricky. “The sluagh may not know the dryads followed Walter, but they know we’ll come. That means Seanna is useful again. We need to get Liv out of there. Now.”

The raven, now huddled in the tree above, croaked as if in agreement. It launched from the tree and began circling back toward the main building as Meic called after it, in rapid-fire Welsh.

“She’ll find Ioan,” he said as the raven winged off. “He’ll understand the message. We should retreat and wait…”

Meic trailed off and Ricky followed his gaze to a dark dot, dropping from the sky. Then another one fell, and another, a line of them falling, plummeting toward—

“Down!” Gabriel shouted.

The first melltithiwyd hit the raven. Then the flock enveloped the bird, which let out one terrible shriek. And then blood. A burst of blood, and the melltithiwyd winged away, leaving nothing but blood raining down and Gabriel lunging, shouting, “No!”

Ricky grabbed his arm, but Gabriel had already recovered, with a snarl and a shake of his head, as if not knowing why he’d care about a bird, terrible though its death had been.

Then he wheeled, grabbing Ricky by the shoulders and yelling, “Down,” while not giving him even a second to actually get down, pitching him to the ground and dropping over him as Lloergan did the same.

Ricky appreciated the sentiment. Really did. He’d have figured Gabriel’s idea of thoughtfulness would be not throwing Ricky to the melltithiwyd as he ran. But—not to sound ungrateful—the combined weight of Gabriel and Lloergan’s bodies threatened to trade death by hell-bird for death by suffocation.

Before he could say anything, though, Gabriel rose off him. The melltithiwyd had only swooped past and continued on. As Ricky got up, he saw that Gabriel’s attention was focused on a blob of viscera, presumably from the raven.

“You okay?” Ricky whispered.

Gabriel shook it off. “Yes, of course.”

“We should take shelter,” Meic said. “In case they come again.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “We need to get to Ioan and Olivia.”

“They won’t hurt Liv,” Ricky said. “Counterproductive.”

“And Ioan? Would that not be a coup—killing the leader of the Cŵn Annwn?”

Ricky recognized this for what it was—manipulation rather than an actual display of concern—but it worked. The other Huntsman—Wmffre—said, “I’d hope they wouldn’t dare, but yes, perhaps we ought not take that chance.”

Wmffre scanned the sky, looking ready to hit the ground himself. Ricky presumed they’d never encountered melltithiwyd, and he was about to give a couple of pointers when he caught a blur of dark red against the gray night.

“Incoming!” he shouted.

Gabriel hit him. Ricky supposed it was meant to be a protective blow, but it felt more like a Shut the fuck up…in the most productive way.

“Everyone take cover against the wall,” Helia said. “We know how to fight them.”

Ricky got to the side, Lloergan pressing against his legs, shielding his lower half. Gabriel stayed where he was, watching that dark streak.

“Gabriel…” Ricky said.

The melltithiwyd swooped, and Gabriel shouted, not a warning this time, but a string of booming Welsh. The hell-birds changed course, shrieking.

Ricky grabbed Gabriel’s arm. “Great, but you can do the shouting thing from over here.”

He yanked Gabriel closer to the wall. Gabriel didn’t fight. Didn’t seem to notice, either, his gaze fixed on the swarm, which was coming around again.

“Let them come, Gwynn,” Alexios said. “We have this.”

“We really do,” Helia said.

The melltithiwyd swooped toward the alley again, and Ricky gripped Gabriel’s arm tighter. He felt the other man tense, his gaze riveted to the swarm, and for a split second Ricky caught a glimpse of an older man, blond hair and beard streaked with gray, bright blue eyes the only part that said, This is Gabriel, in a way.

The two forms shimmered, Gabriel and Gwynn, both of them focused on those hell-birds as he moved back against Ricky, shielding him along with the hound.

The melltithiwyd swooped, and Gabriel went board-stiff, and Ricky could feel the shout build, held in by only the greatest of effort, ready to explode as soon as whatever the dryads planned failed.

Then the ground erupted beneath his feet, toppling Ricky off balance. The dryads had betrayed them. Ricky lunged, but now Gabriel was the one grabbing his arm, holding him steady. He looked down to see that the ground had erupted…in a way.

Every tiny shoot of undergrowth shot up, every tendril of ivy burst from the brick, like something out of a time-lapse video. The flora exploded, filling the passage, leaving only empty pockets where they stood.

The melltithiwyd hit the impenetrable mass of greenery and soared up again, screaming in frustration. Ricky squinted to see their red-black bodies through the vines as they took off into the night.

“They’ll be back,” Meic said from deep in the foliage.

“They will indeed,” Alexios called. “And we’ll be waiting.”

“With an even bigger surprise,” Helia said.

“Are you all right?” Ricky called to the dryads.

“We’re fine,” she said.

“Hold on,” Alexios said. “They’re coming back.”

“And trust us,” Helia said. “We do have this, however unlikely it may seem.”

The melltithiwyd struck again. This time, they didn’t just hit the green barrier and fly off. They landed on it and began wriggling through gaps.

“Wait for it,” Helia shouted.

Beside him, Gabriel pulsed between himself and Gwynn, drawing in breath, ready for that shout. The melltithiwyd wriggled into the barrier, snipping off vines and burrowing through as Helia urged patience.

Ricky tensed, Lloergan, too, all of them beginning to suspect that whatever the dryads were doing, it wasn’t working.

“And…” Alexios called.

“Now!” Helia shouted.

The greenery rustled. That’s all it seemed to do. It gave a shiver and a shake, and Ricky was ready to grab a melltithiwyd that had appeared right in front of them. Then the vines snapped like bowstrings, drawing tight.

The melltithiwyd shrieked, and a burst of black blood hit Ricky’s face. He wiped it away to see the melltithiwyd impaled on long thorns. Off to the left, another had been boa-constricted with thick vine. Yet another had been neatly guillotined by a thinner one.

“Torn between kinda gross and totally cool,” he called to the dryads.

“We’ll take both!” Helia called back.

The vines retracted, slowly, having not caught every hell-bird in their deadly trap. Lloergan and the other two cŵns chomped the ones that came free. Gabriel looked off to the side just as one bird beelined for his head. Ricky grabbed and crushed it, black blood running down his arm.

“More gross than cool?” he said as Gabriel glanced over.

Gabriel shook his head. When another came at him, he swatted it and brought down one big shoe on its dazed body, not a stomp but a simple step, as if it just happened to be underfoot.

“Not nearly as cool,” Ricky said.

“Not nearly as messy.”

Ricky wiped off the melltithiwyd’s blood on nearby leaves, as the plant life retreated. They walked to the dryads, camouflaged again against the twisted tree.

“Thank you,” Ricky said to the dryads as they pulled from the tree. “Now, I don’t suppose you have any idea where Liv is?”

“I can find her,” Gabriel said. The confidence in that twisted at Ricky, just a little. There was no arrogance in the declaration, no one-upmanship, but Ricky still felt the knife-sharp reminder that he’d lost her. That he’d tried his best and lost her to someone who understood her better, connected to her better. Which should have made it easier. But his ego still felt the bruise—the sense that he’d done his best and it hadn’t been enough.

Gabriel knew where to find Liv; Ricky did not, and that proved, yet again, where she belonged.

Where she’d always belonged.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, a studying look that asked if Ricky was all right, even if he would never actually say the words.

Ricky squeezed his arm and said, “Let’s go get her,” and if his tone was a little too bright, he only got another searching look before Wmffre said, “We’ll head this way.”

They picked their way along the alley, past the bloodied melltithiwyd. Wmffre was talking to the cŵns, in Welsh, and when he lifted his arm, the two hounds took off to scout ahead.

Lloergan looked up at Ricky.

“Go on,” he said.

She leaned against his leg, like a kid clutching her father’s leg as the others took off to play. Ricky crouched.

“They’re your pack. Go with them. I’ll be fine.”

She still hesitated, but he gave her a gentle push, feeling like that dad, struggling between the impulse to keep her safe and knowing she had to separate, stand on her own, join her peers.

A sigh from Lloergan, one that made him smile, and then she took off, his hand skimming her back as he tried to give her a final pat.

“Be home before dark,” he called after her.

Meic chuckled. “She’ll be fine. She’s doing very well. It helps, being with you. It’s a tremendous boost to her confidence, being chosen by Arawn’s representative. You’re good to her.”

“She deserves a little good.”

The Huntsman dipped his chin. “Very true. Now, I believe if we go this way, we can keep an eye on the hounds. Let them scout and find Ioan and Olivia while—”

Meic stopped with a near-convulsive jerk, his head shooting up. Gabriel had gone still, too. “No!” Gabriel whispered, and then, “Everyone! Cover! Now!”

Ricky felt it. Felt it before he saw it, only a split second after Meic and Gabriel must have sensed the same thing.

Something’s coming.

No, not something. The darkness. The sluagh.

Gabriel was pushing him toward a door, and Ricky wanted to say no, it was just the sluagh, just that woman, and they’d dealt with her before, but even as he thought that, something in his brain screamed, Not the same. Not the same at all!

Gabriel shoved him toward the door, muttering, “Get inside. Need to get inside,” a note in his voice making the hairs on Ricky’s neck rise, as if he wasn’t hearing Gabriel, wasn’t hearing Gwynn, was hearing something older, something deeper.

Gabriel grabbed the doorknob, twisted, and yanked. When it didn’t give way, he wrenched, frantically, as if in panic.

“Here, let—” Ricky began.

Gabriel inhaled deeply, and came back with, “No, I have this,” sounding himself again as he pulled picks from his pocket.

That’s when Meic said, “No!” and Ricky turned and saw the sluagh—the true sluagh, the darkness—a black funnel cloud shooting for the hounds.

Meic shouted something in Welsh and Ricky started to run, seeing Lloergan out there, the sluagh heading straight for her, and thinking, I need to be there.

And then he was. He slammed inside his hound. There was not even a split second of darkness. Ricky was running for Lloergan and then he was Lloergan, racing behind the other cŵns, the earth pounding under her paws.

The sluagh struck. It hit the lead hound, and the poor beast somersaulted backward, and all he could hear—all Lloergan could hear—was the cracking of bone. The hound flew into the air, body limp and lifeless, and then blood, as if in afterthought, burst from the beast’s stomach, blood and viscera, as the sluagh slammed through the hound like a fist.

Lloergan saw it—saw her pack brother ripped apart, the sluagh bursting through—and she let out a stifled yelp, as if she couldn’t even find breath.

Another scene flashed through her mind. A forest. A cŵn being ripped apart by something Lloergan couldn’t see, a blur of black against a night equally dark.

In the memory, Lloergan leapt to save another pack brother, but she couldn’t find anything to grab, her jaws passing through shadow and fog. The thing hit her. Glanced across her face, barely seeming to strike it while leaving fire in its wake, red-hot pain in her eye, her ear, blood spraying as she howled in pain and rage.

She twisted, fighting half blind. The fog caught her by the leg, sending her up, flying through the air, the only thought in her head that she had to save the others, save her brothers and sister and protect her Huntsman.

She would hit the ground and bounce back. She had to bounce back, fight with everything—

She hit the ground, and the world went dark.

Lloergan snapped from the memory. Ricky knew what it was—the terrible fight that had crippled her. She’d woken in that forest to find her pack dead, and she’d slunk off in shame, to self-imposed exile, never understanding what had happened, what enemy they’d fought.

Now she knew. She saw her new pack brother ripped apart, and she understood.

This was what she had faced before. This was what had crippled her. Defeated her. And now it was here, again, doing the same thing, and terror filled her—complete and absolute terror. She saw the sluagh coming. Saw her pack sister rise up, snarling, ready to fight and…

And Lloergan ran. Turned tail and ran.