With a wall of water at our backs, we stood facing Herne and his hounds. Owls flew ominously overhead, occasionally swooping down to pick off our men. Despite their size, the predator birds moved with unnatural speed. More than one man had been maimed by beak and talon. That’s why I’d wanted to delay our attack.
I’d last seen our pooka allies harassing Herne’s owls hours ago. I’d been scanning the sky, but there’d been no sign of the diminutive fae. Master Janus assumed that the pooka had either fled in fear, or been eaten. Judging from his exasperation each time I asked if any pooka had been seen by his lookouts, the man didn’t hold much stock in their abilities to tip the battle against the Wild Hunt in our favor.
He obviously didn’t know the pooka like I did. The pooka were resilient and clever. They were low on the supernatural food chain and yet they managed to live in style and reproduce like bunnies. Okay that last might be due to their love of orgies, but the point was that pooka are survivors.
So I was the only one unsurprised when the air filled with the happy hum of tiny wings, and the colorful glow of pooka caps.
“Oberon’s eyes, I’m glad to see you, Red,” I said, smiling at the pooka’s leader.
I’m not sure what the little man’s real name was. Like most fae, he was loathe to reveal his true name, but I’d taken to naming him after the color of the glow-in-the-dark condom he wore on his head. Whether it was coincidence or a sign of respect, none of the other pooka ever wore a cap that color.
He squinted at me, and I could tell he was trying to figure out if I was being sincere. Since most people treated pooka like vermin, I couldn’t blame the guy. Heck, I’d met him and his clan while trying to roust him out of an old woman’s attic.
“It’s true,” Forneus said with a sigh. “She made us delay in the hope you would come to our aid.”
Not that the demon had minded the delay. It had given him and Jinx some serious smootching time.
Jinx was back in our small camp, watching over Ceff. It was the best excuse I could think of to keep her off the front lines. If she’d come with us, neither me or Forneus would be able to concentrate on the battle. No matter how skilled with a crossbow, the battlefield was no place for Jinx.
The pooka nodded, hands on his hips.
“We have returned, My Lady,” Red said.
“Good,” I said, lips tilting in a grin. “I have a special task for you.”
“Kill the feathered evil?” he asked.
The pooka at his back nodded, and picked up the chant, a murmur of “feathered evil, death to the feathered evil” filling my ears.
“Yes,” I said. “Do what you can against Herne’s owls. But I have one more task for your bravest soul. But I must warn you, it’s a dangerous mission and requires the best thieving skills.”
The pooka went quiet, leaning forward with wide eyes to hang on every word.
“And what would you have us steal?” Red asked.
“Herne’s horn,” I said.
Chapter 50
The pooka were more than willing to accept a mission to steal Herne’s shiny, magic horn. Their enthusiasm caused more than one raised brow, but there was no time to explain my actions to every faerie and Hunter ally who stood with me. Let them talk.
Those leading the fight, my closest friends and allies, knew my plan. It was, admittedly, a long shot. I wasn’t sending the pooka to retrieve Herne’s horn for Kaye, who even now was being led to a Circle prison. The horn wouldn’t be a component in a binding spell, and I wasn’t trying to gain control of the Hunt. I’d been looking at this all wrong.
The Wild Hunt existed because Mab gave Herne his powers. She’d crammed a forest spirit inside his body, made him nearly invincible in battle, and gave him a pack of hounds that created more of their kind with a bite. That was major magic, even for a faerie queen.
That kind of magic usually needed a focus object, like a pendant, ring, or sword. I couldn’t see beneath Herne’s cloak. Maybe the focus item was hanging around his neck. Or maybe Mab really was powerful enough to create the Wild Hunt with the snap of her fingers. But I’d latched onto the hope that I’d found our enemy’s Achilles heel.
It was possible that Herne’s horn, the one that called his hounds to battle, was the item that held his power. If that were true, then it gave me a target. If the horn was destroyed, the members of the Wild Hunt might return to normal. Herne might once again become a mortal man. The barghests might return to their former selves.
Ceff might become free.
His absence at my side was like an amputation, and more than once I turned to share a pre-battle confidence only to be reminded that he wasn’t there. Ceff was locked back in his watery prison with his most loyal guards and Jinx watching over him, but I wasn’t alone.
Torn and Forneus flanked my position. Master Janus and his Hunters were fanned out to my left and the water fae stood along the embankment to my right. Gaius and his vampires lingered in the warehouse shadows at our backs, a silent and deadly secret force waiting to be unleashed.
I stood at the edge of the embankment looking out over the muddy riverbed below and Herne and his hounds beyond. The hounds howled and paced, sometimes snarling and nipping at each other in their eagerness for a hunt.
Herne held his horn, but didn’t call for the attack. My guess was that he already had our undivided attention, which fulfilled his mission for Mab to keep the defenders of the city busy while Yue Fei’s vampires attacked an unprotected human population. He was probably just waiting for those same vampires to tear their way through to our position, where they could attack our flank while the Wild Hunt decimated our front lines. It was the logical course of action from a brilliant military mind, even one so deranged by dark magic.
What Herne didn’t know was that the dwarf leader Benmore had led the vampire master of the city to safety while Forneus had burnt out the nest of rogue vampires. Gaius and the Vampire Council had sustained heavy losses, but the attempt to take them out had been thwarted.
We had our pooka friends to thank for keeping all knowledge of the rogue vampire faction’s defeat from Herne. The pookas had taken their job seriously before the battle, and had held an aerial perimeter against Herne’s feathered spies. According to Red, not one owl made it outside the industrial park.
It was that tenacious streak and flawless track record that led me to bark out an order of my own mere seconds after Master Janus signaled us all to attack.
“Defeat the feathered evil!” I shouted, as I ran down to the muddy riverbed. “Bring me the horn!”
Squeals of delight and a chant of “defeat the feathered evil!” filled my ears as a gaggle of pookas took to the air. I winced at the high pitch of the pooka war cry, but a smile drew my lips from my teeth. Herne’s owls were in for one Hell of a fight.
They weren’t the only ones.
The Hunters, water fae, and vampires had all lost friends and comrades to the Wild Hunt. It was time for payback. Swords swung and arrows flew. Rain lashed out and lightening struck. We fought on with a ferocity that would have terrified the old me.
Blood and mud mixed to form a Hellish quagmire that even the barghest’s couldn’t easily navigate, and my friends fell on them like a plague of hungry locusts on a field of juicy corn.
I’d fought alongside a blood-crazed Torn dozens of times and I’d seen Forneus turn all cloven-hoofed and fiery in defense of Jinx’s life, but nothing prepared me for the fury those two unleashed on the Wild Hunt. Torn took the cat sidhe art of playing with his food to the next level, and Forneus earned his accolades as the Grand Marquis of Hell.
My friends sought revenge, and they weren’t the only ones. Water fae of every color, shape, and size entered the fray, hungry for retribution. The Wild Hunt had sought to entrap Ceffyl Dwr with its foul corruption, and that was a big mistake. The each uisge had tried something similar last year, and those wounds were still raw in the minds of the long-lived fae.
The Wild Hunt had signed it
s own death warrant.
Selkie javelins stopped barghests in their tracks, while their kelpie mounts kicked with bone crushing hooves. More than one mermaid sat atop a barghest’s vulnerable underbelly, her shark-like teeth tearing and feasting on the hound’s flesh.
Through it all, I remained focused on my target. I threw, slashed, and stabbed with my blades and plunged more than one iron nail into a barghest’s tough hide. Unlike my friends, I didn’t relish the beast’s pain. I couldn’t look into the glowing red eyes of those hounds without being reminded of how they never asked for this fate. The barghests were unwilling participants in this fight. I would bring them down, but theirs was not the death I stalked with unholy focus.
I wanted Herne’s antler bedecked head on an iron platter.
Herne was no fool. Despite his godlike strength and virtual invulnerability to injury, he issued orders from behind his barghest army. The cloaked figure rode back and forth, commanding his forces from the back of a limping but speedily healing horse with little risk of harm. Not even the Hunters’ Guild’s skilled archers could touch him.
It was a good thing then that I had a few aces up my mud-spattered sleeves.
Chapter 51
When I reached halfway across the mud and cracked pavement of our battlefield, shadows broke free from the warehouses at our backs. Whether to conserve energy or to put fear into the hearts of their enemies, the vampires didn’t bother with their typical glamour. I could tell by the way the Hunters and faeries avoided the silent, creeping bloodsuckers that it wasn’t just my second sight cutting through the vampire’s glamour. For once, the people around me saw Gaius and his men for what they really were—butt ugly, shriveled corpses that brought death and exsanguination wherever they tread.
Our fanged allies hardly made a dry whisper as they glided over fallen men to their barghest targets, their alien movements a deceptively graceful dance that bellied their ferocity. The empty eye sockets and beef jerky bodies weren’t the only things that vampires hid with their glamour. They might tempt and tease teen fangirls with tiny, sparkling white, pointy teeth, but the fangs of these ancient vamps were yellowed weapons nearly as long as my forearm.
In the blink of an eye, Gaius and his men were across the field and sinking those fangs into barghest groins and jugulars. I ignored the vampires, especially the way their raisin bodies began to flesh out, bloating like overgrown ticks. I clenched my jaw, and ran.
I was nearing Herne, but that meant the density of barghests was increasing. The damn things were so thick they formed a bristling fur wall around their leader. Being this close to that many teeth and claws was suicide, but I tamped down the cold pit of fear in my belly and soldiered on.
The nearest barghest lunged at me, and I spun. A claw caught the edge of my leather jacket, and I had to dive onto the ground and roll to avoid its snapping jaws. That was too close for comfort. One bite and I’d be barking mad, literally. I’m not sure what would destroy me first, a vision splintering my mind or the magic transforming me into one of the Wild Hunt’s hounds. Better not to find out.
I drew my machete as I came to my feet, thankful for its long blade. I nearly missed the glowing red object as it buzzed by my ear, but the pooka’s cry of “steal the horn!” was unmistakable. Red and his men had made it past the owls, and were moving in to steal the horn from Herne.
I barely had time to pray he succeeded before the barghest and one of its pals were on me. If it hadn’t been for a mermaid and vampire tag team, I probably would have died then and there. Thankfully, the two had an effective routine of suck and maul. With their help, I got my machete between me and the smaller of the barghests, and slit its throat.
I was once again rolling away when Herne’s angry roar echoed across the field of battle and vibrated in my skull.
“WREND THE INSECT’S SPINE THROUGH ITS MOUTH AND BRING ME BACK THE HORN!” Herne yelled.
Herne’s booming voice had one favorable effect. Every barghest turned their full attention to their leader. It was an opportunity we didn’t pass up.
We took down more barghests than I could count. I was smiling, enjoying a momentary lull in the battle, when I caught sight of Red flying to me, the horn clutched in his tiny hands.
Except for the glowing red cap on his head, the pooka leader was bedecked in black, ninja garb and wore a look of sheer delight on his face. The pooka prized thievery, the shinier the prize and the more dangerous the mission the better. The little man was in his glory.
He never saw the winged predator hunting him.
The owl swooped in, talons aimed at the pooka’s head. Talons slid into Red’s eye and through his skull, his small body hanging bloody and lifeless.
“Nooooo!” I screamed.
A second pooka, tears streaming down his face, flew past his leader. I held my breath, too far away to be of any help. The owl shrieked in frustration, but it couldn’t shake Red’s body from its grip. In striking and killing the pooka, the owl’s talons had pierced through the colorful condom that the man had come to wearing as a hat. Now that fashion statement was tangled in the creature’s claws, giving the young pooka the additional seconds needed to conduct the heist of a lifetime.
Even in death the pooka leader had managed to save one of his people, and aided in the theft of Herne’s most valuable possession. The pooka would sing about his exploits, perhaps even have an orgy in his name. For the pooka, that would be one of the greatest honors of all.
I nodded, and pulled my gaze from the small, lifeless body that hung from the desperate owl’s talons. There was nothing I could do for the pooka leader, but I would not waste his sacrifice.
The young pooka grabbed the horn, and flew toward me, eyes big as saucers in his tiny face. I ran toward him, my blades in hand.
The owl finally dislodged Red’s skull from its talons and lunged toward us, but I was ready. I’d swapped my machete for my throwing knives, and now released one with a flick of my wrist. The iron and silver blade sunk deep into my target.
Pooka voices cheered as the owl fell from the sky, and seconds later the young pooka dropped Herne’s horn into my gloved hands. Magic hummed, its warmth seeping through leather and cloth, sending greed and doubt to wash over me.
Should I try to take control of the Hunt?
I shook my head, trying to fight off the horn’s magic. Would that be any better than Ceff being controlled by Herne? It was a temptation, one so great that I had to struggle not to raise the foul object to my lips and blow. My beloved wouldn’t be saved. If I became his master and the leader of the Wild Hunt, Ceff would be lost to me forever.
My choice was clear. I needed to destroy the horn, and Herne. It was a risk. There was every possibility that destroying Herne and the horn would kill every member of the Wild Hunt. But it was a risk I had to take.
It was the only hope of stopping the Wild Hunt permanently, and of setting Ceff, and the others, free. Even death would be freedom of a sort.
I grit my teeth and slid the horn into an iron-lined bag, quieting the siren song of its power. I wrapped the drawstring around my fist, cradled the bag against my chest, and ran.
Every second I ran away from Herne was like a dagger in the heart, but I’d get my revenge against the man soon enough. Right now, I needed to get the horn as far from our enemy as possible. It would do us no good if it fell back into their hands. Red’s sacrifice would be for nothing.
So I pushed myself faster, legs and lungs burning with the exertion. I had a moment to rue the injury to my wing that prevented me from flying, although there were still enough owls above our heads to make that a risk, and then a familiar horned and hooved figure stood before me.
“Forneus,” I gasped, thrusting the bag at him. “Take this. Get it behind our lines, and do whatever it takes to destroy it.”
His eyes widened, but only for a second. I hadn’t placed much trust in the demon in the past, and my prejudice had burned me in the butt. He knew it, and I knew it. Now I was
trusting him with all our lives.
He nodded, and tucked the bag somewhere inside his suit jacket.
“And Herne?” he asked.
My lip curled, baring my teeth.
“Leave that bastard to me.”
Chapter 52
It didn’t take me as long to reach Herne as it had taken to retreat. In fact, the pounding of his horse’s hooves were on me almost as soon as I handed the horn over to Forneus. I’d taken something dear from Herne, and he was out for blood.
The leader of the Wild Hunt was pissed.
My heart raced, and I palmed the last of my throwing knives as he came barreling toward me. His eyes and the eyes of his midnight black mount glowed red, and the barghests ran howling at their heels.
Adding the glowing red eyes of the barghests rushing toward me was like something out of a nightmare. Plus, an orange spectral light was on the horizon, and it wasn’t the sun. I had a bad feeling that whatever was behind that orange glow was just as scary as Herne. Its power was sizzling over me like supercharged air before a storm.
I was afraid, sure, but I was also mad as Hell. Herne wasn’t the only one who was pissed off. Luckily, I could work with that.
I focused on my fear and anger, and drew my power. Forneus was busy carrying Herne’s horn away from the front lines, but he wasn’t the only one amongst us with the ability to burn our enemies. My wisp powers might not rival the demon’s skill with hellfire, but my uncle Kade had taught me well.
I had a fireball with Herne’s name on it.
The Wild Hunt had an aversion to water, but Herne was the twisted amalgam of a man and a nature spirit. It was a hunch, but nature had a fear of fire that I hoped Herne shared.
I just hoped my powers recharged as quickly here in the human world as they did in Faerie. While in the wisp court, in the heart of Nithsdale, I’d been in the seat of my father’s power. I hadn’t had a chance to test the limits of my new powers since returning to Harborsmouth. Battling Kaye at the Emporium had exhausted my power reserves. I wasn’t sure what effect the human world, and the prevalence of iron, would have on my powers and on my newly awakened fae blood, but I was about to find out.