Frustration welled up in me and overflowed. “What about my best friend? Will she only let him go if I die?”
Thomas tapped his finger against the empty air of the mushroom ring; it rang back at him as if it were glass. On the other side, the hound whined and pawed at his finger. “The piper? He’s too good for this world, you know. A piper that good can attract the wrong sort of attention. Worse than faeries. I’ve heard more than one faerie mutter he’d be better off dead, anyway.”
“He would not be better off dead,” I snapped. My fingers were beginning to tremble; the subconscious effort of keeping the faerie ring closed to the hounds was draining me too fast. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep them out.
Thomas’ face was sympathetic. “I’m sorry, child, but she will never let you exist while she does. You challenge her very existence, and you have a leg up with your humanity as well. One of you has to die to end this.”
I stared at him, taking it in, hugging my shivering arms around me with the effort of keeping the ring secure. It sounded so cheesy: one of you has to die. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.
I couldn’t keep the hounds out anymore. I just wasn’t strong enough without the moon above me.
“And as long as we’re telling the truth,” Thomas added earnestly, “I’d prefer it to be she.”
I only had a moment to realize what he meant before the invisible walls of the faerie ring burst open and a wave of hounds poured in, instantly blanketing Thomas’ body and pressing close to me.
The stench of thyme was overwhelming.
eighteen
It wasn’t just the press of the hounds that made the collapse of the circle unbearable. It was the frost of their fur against my skin, the suffocating scent of herbs and clover, and, above all, the howls of the mastiffs and the screams of the lithe sighthounds: our prey, our quarry, we have captured our kill.
The Hunter strode in among them, their bodies making way for him, parting like water. His progress toward me was made silent by the cacophony. I barely heard him speak: “Quiet.”
Instantly, the hounds fell silent. The hill was so quiet I could hear the roar of a car’s tires on the road below. I could have cried out, but for what purpose? To the car’s driver, I was the only one on the hill.
The Hunter stopped an arm’s length away from me. From this close, his strangeness took my breath away. His deep-set eyes were as fathomless as a hawk’s, and I could see that the gold streak in his hair was literally gold, each strand gleaming as it sat stiffly within his regular brown hair. There were strange brown marks up and down his neck—like tattooed characters, only they looked as if he had been born with them.
“Deirdre Monaghan.”
At the sound of his voice, I was immediately thrust through countless memories: Luke, looking at the bodies of his brothers in the ditch, and the Hunter bidding him to come away. The Hunter pinning Luke to the ground, face impassive, as the torc was forced onto his arm by a chanting faerie. Luke dragged from a well by the Hunter, who viewed him with no malice: “Time to work.” Playing the flute while the Hunter listened, head cocked and eyes closed. The Hunter dragging Luke’s bloodied body into a massive room, a scarlet trail leading out the door behind him.
Thomas whispered into my ear, “Only Luke can kill you with that iron on you. Be brave, child.”
The Hunter gazed at him. “Thomas Rhymer, be silent, if you can.”
He felt old. I sensed when I looked at him that I was looking at thousands of years of pursuit. I was more afraid of his strangeness than I was of Eleanor’s vicious pleasure. I was afraid to speak; there must be some sort of protocol I ought to be following so as to not offend him.
“What do you want from me, Hunter? Shouldn’t you be pursuing more challenging quarry with a pack like this?”
A strange expression flickered through the faerie’s eyes. “Indeed.” He studied me through slit lids. “Indeed, they are wasted chasing such an easy trail.”
“You cannot kill her,” Thomas said. “So why chase her at all?”
“I bid thee be silent, Rhymer.” He turned back to me and the pause dragged out for centuries. At the end of it, he reached to his hip and pulled out a long, bone dagger, the hilt all carved with the heads of animals. “Deirdre Monaghan, you are a cloverhand, and thus you must die.”
Yeah. He was scary, but not scary enough that I was just going to sit back and let him stick me with a dagger. I took a step back, stumbling a bit over one of the hounds. “I know you’re not thinking of stabbing me with that.”
Thomas winced beside me, no doubt imagining how painful getting the dagger plunged into my body would be, even if it didn’t kill me.
“Take off your iron,” the Hunter said. “I can smell it on you.”
“Like hell I will,” I told him. “Keep back.”
The Hunter’s face bore no frown; I was a little rabbit darting away from his knife, and that was to be expected. He stepped forward, lifted the dagger slightly, and said again, “Take off your iron.”
I glanced to the edge of the field. Afternoon had dragged into evening, and I could feel the looming darkness over the horizon even if I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t very close, but it was going to have to be close enough. Something in me seized that darkness, and I let it swell into me.
I held up my hand, and as neatly as if tugged by a string, the bone dagger flew into my palm. The hilt slapped my hand, and a bit of the blade as well; it parted my skin as easily as butter and I flinched, nearly dropping the knife. But I couldn’t afford to drop it, so I didn’t. I gripped it, a thin trail of blood dripping down the ivory surface, and I raised it toward the Hunter.
My voice shook. “Go back to her and tell her I want my friend back. And I want Luke.”
The Hunter’s eyes were fixed on me as if they would will the knife from my hand. “I will not leave my quarry.”
“You will,” I said, holding the knife steady with sheer force of will. “Go tell her what I said.” I held out my other hand, the palm toward him, and imagined it was a huge giant’s hand pressing into the Hunter’s chest, gripping the strange surface of his clothing. And I shoved the giant’s hand as hard as I could, pulling what force I could find in the darkness-that-was-not-yet-darkness.
The Hunter stumbled backward, pressed down the hill. I shoved some more.
“Go, or I’ll crush you,” I lied. I barely had the strength to hold the dagger, much less to threaten him. It took all that was in me to squeeze the giant hand on his chest a bit, to hopefully convince him I had the strength to do what I said.