Briar Queen (42 page)

Lily stopped moving. Anna reached out and drew Lily back.

Seth Lot lifted one hand and laid it against Finn's face. She felt the rings on his fingers bite into her skin. “Think of what you could do as a queen. You could
change
me. You could make me a
good
man.”

She said, her voice cracking, “I think it's too late for you.”

“Then see,” he breathed, “what
I
shall make
you
.”

Her body shuddered against his as she slid toward darkness.

She stood in a forest, perhaps the first forest ever, branches arching above and before her in massive tangles over emerald gloom. Dusk stained the sky a nuclear crimson. Leaves of a red and orange so bright they seemed toxic fell around her. Her bare feet, jeweled with rings and tiny gems, crushed trilobites and prehistoric ferns. She saw her reflection in a pool of silver water suspended between two trees—she was a white-skinned creature in a black gown that trailed ribbons shimmering with spiderwebs, her brown hair dusted with pollen, braided with acorns and berries. She was crowned with briars and antlers. Her eyes were silvered, framed by black spirals, her smile a curve of malice. She felt strong, fearless. She could see every detail of the dark, fairy-tale forest around her: a striped spider in its web, its poison sac luminous; a cluster of crimson toadstools in the roots of an alder; the bones of what had once been a beautiful boy beneath her feet.

She could
rule
the dark.

Lot was walking toward her, his fur coat billowing, the wolf headdress a savage crown. His fingers, strong enough to crush bone, drifted like an electrical current across her collarbones, curved against one breast, over her heart. He began to unknot the ribbons on her gown. His autumn hair was tangled with thin braids and he smelled of sun-warmed fur, musk, and green things. A sleepy desire coursed through her.

He raised his head, his eyes radiant. “Why do you think you were drawn to those grand, ruined mansions, Serafina? To
our
places?” He leaned close, a darkness blotting out the world, and whispered in her ear, “Because you've always been seeking us.”

And his mask slipped a little, revealing, for an instant, something shadowy and ancient and grinning. Smashing down her terror, Finn curled her fingers in the fur of his coat. “
Show me
.”

He kissed her as if intent on killing the mortal girl who remained. Biting and ruthless, it was not a sweet kiss; it was a devouring one, of lust and pain and power. Her blood began to ice, stinging her insides. An expanse of empty tundra filled her.

When Seth Lot snapped back from her, she tasted blood. He raised the edge of one hand to his mouth. He shook his head, once, like an animal trying to orient itself. When he lifted his blue gaze to her, the Wolf moved behind his eyes. “
What did you do to me?
”

“
Tamasgi'po,
” she whispered. “Spirit in a kiss. Second death.”

The true world returned as he lunged at her, his nails curved claws meant for her eyes.

A knife arrowed through the clawed hand reaching for her.

The Wolf twisted around, pulling out the knife, staring at Lily. He still gripped Jill Scarlet's sword in his other hand. He pointed the sword at Lily and lovingly said, “I'm done with
you
.”

“You're dying.” Finn's voice was faint. He turned on her and she thought she saw a flicker there, of horror, of someone trapped who had witnessed things that should never be.
It's a trick,
she told herself.

Then the Wolf smiled before whirling and lunging at Lily Rose, the sword's point aimed at her throat.

Another sword, the silvery-blue of new steel and engraved with runes, deflected
his blade from Lily with an earsplitting shriek . . . and Jack, lithe and deadly, drove Lot back, moving as if the mistletoe hadn't done him any harm. He attacked Lot with quicksilver ferocity, his blade scything at the Wolf's neck, his torso, his legs. Seth Lot dodged, on the defensive.

Finn edged along the wall, toward Lily and Anna.

She saw Jack stagger—the wound in his chest dripped rose petals. Lot drove forward, effortlessly, relentlessly, bashing him into a defensive position, the ringing and clanging of their blades echoing from the stone walls.

“Finn!” Lily, shielding Anna from the whirlwind of Jack and Lot's battle, was edging with the young girl toward the exit.

Lot suddenly spun and lunged toward Finn, stabbing the point of his blade toward Finn's left eye.

Jack slid between them.

Lot twisted the blade to plunge it through Jack's chest.

As Lot dragged the sword out of Jack, who crumpled to the floor, hemorrhaging rose petals and blood, Finn dropped to her knees. The world went still.

“Jack . . .” Clutching one hand over the wound in his chest, she pushed the hair back from his face as he coughed blood and closed his eyes. Angrily, irrationally, she said, “Jack, don't you
dare
leave me now . . .”

Seth Lot crouched beside her. Gently, he said, “You see how this sort of thing concludes? This childish belief in happy endings?”

Jack's hand moved beneath hers. His fingers clasped hers around the hilt of the sword—she recognized the jackal hilt. She couldn't do it. She
couldn't . . .

Jack took her hand from his chest and smiled. His lips moved:
You can
.

She rose and slammed back against the wall, gripping the sword's hilt with both hands. Her broken wrist still
hurt
.

Lot stood at the same time, gazing searchingly at her. Kindly, he said, “No. You're not a killer.” He hefted the blade he held and looked at Jack. “So, now,
he
dies, and if he is in pieces, he won't be brought back again.”

“Don't.” Her voice scraped out of her. She still gripped the sword.

Lot stepped forward. He set a booted foot on one of Jack's hands, to hold him in place.

Jack's eyes opened. He twisted from beneath Lot, shouted, “
Now!
”

Moth slid from the shadows. Finn flung the sword to him. As Moth caught the
sword by its hilt, Lot met Finn's gaze. And it came into his eyes, then, the soul with which the
Tamasgi'po
had begun to poison him.

He lunged toward her, his form as jittery as an old film as he sought to ride the shadow—

Moth swung the iron blade with two-handed strength. She wanted to look away, but she needed to see the monster end.

Before the flash of metal sliced through Lot's neck, the Wolf's eyes turned summer blue, the memories surging back, a
human
soul, long dead, waking up.

She closed her eyes, heard a whisper of breath, then silence.

“It's over, Finn.” Jack spoke. “It's done.”

She opened her eyes to see Moth standing above the body of a man, the head at his feet, the hair mercifully flung over its face. There was blood. She could hear Anna sobbing softly and Lily's hushed words of comfort. She lifted her gaze to her sister's and decided never to tell Lily what she'd seen at the last moment in Lot's eyes—the gratefulness of someone released from hell.

Jack rose from his false death to draw Finn into his arms. She was shaking, with anger, fear, and an immense relief.

“He died as a man,” Lily whispered. “
How?
”

“
Tamasgi'po
.” Finn watched Moth, his face shadowed by the hood of his jacket, his hands blood spattered. “Spirit in a kiss. Memories. A soul sealed him into that body.”

Moth said, his voice hoarse, “When you kissed me, Finn, when I was in pieces, you had the
Tamasgi'po
on your lips.”

“Yes, Moth.”

Moth walked to Jill Scarlet's body, crouched beside her, and laid one hand over her face. Without looking up, he said, “I'm remembering things. Do you recall the girl I told you about? The one in France? This was her. Rose Govannon, who wed a man named Sullivan. She was your ancestor, Finn. And Micah Govannon is of your blood.”

Finn took a step forward, staring at Jill Scarlet's body, but Jack clasped her hand and said quietly, “Moth.”

“Go,” Moth said without looking up. “I barricaded the wolves in their atrocious banquet hall. Go before they get out.”

“Moth—”

“
Go
.” Moth laid the jackal-hilted sword across his knees. “I'll take care of the Wolf's bloody house. I'll send it and his pack to hell.”

“No, you will not.” Finn pulled away from Jack.

Distant howling came from within the ruins.

“Finn,” Lily said urgently as Anna glanced around in alarm.

“Finn, he's right, we need to go.” Jack wrapped his coat close. “Moth—we'll see you again.”

Moth didn't move. “Maybe you will. Finn, take your sister home.”

“
Moth,
” Finn pleaded. Then Jack was pulling her away and she was running with him and Lily and Anna, down the hall, toward the stairs, as the Wolf's house began to shudder.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place
.

                
—
G
REAT
E
XPECTATIONS
,
C
HARLES
D
ICKENS

T
hey staggered into a rainy night where Phouka Banríon and a small gathering of Fatas armed with beautifully crafted weapons had just arrived. Micah Govannon was with them, a silver crossbow shaped like a mermaid in one hand. Phouka, in her aviator's leather, looked ferocious.

“We followed you, but there was a glamour on that limo.” Phouka lifted her gaze to the Gothic ruin. The air vibrated as if after a sonic boom.

The Wolf's house vanished. Finn whispered Moth's name.

“You did it,” Phouka said, as her Fatas backed away toward a gypsy assortment of cars on the dirt road. “You killed the Wolf.”

“Jack.” Finn reached for him, pushing back his coat, revealing the bloody holes from Lot's sword.

“I'll stop bleeding, eventually.” He smiled, but his voice was ragged with pain.

“But the mistletoe. Lot said it was on his blade—”

“Don't worry about it. You knew he'd find Lily at Anna's. And did you tell Anna to bring that umbrella? How did you know it was made of winter wood?”

“It was just a guess,” Finn murmured. “I figured Absalom would know where Lily was because he seemed to be guarding Anna—he'd see you take Lily there, And he'd given Anna that weird umbrella . . . It was Absalom's chance to bargain for Anna's safety by handing my sister over to Lot. I don't know that he
expected Lot to take Anna too. I thought Lot would just take Lily. I told her to bring Anna's umbrella.” Putting her sister in danger again had made Finn a raw nerve, but it had been their last chance to be free of the Wolf. “I knew Absalom had made that umbrella as a weapon of some sort. And I knew Lot would get hold of us somehow.”

“I'm a bit scared of you now.” Jack swayed a little and Finn put an arm around him. Phouka slid a shoulder beneath Jack's other arm.

“
Help him
.” Her voice savage, Lily moved forward. “He nearly died fighting a monster
you
people wouldn't.”

“He's a Jack now.” Phouka was somber. “We can't—”

“Finn!” Christie and Sylvie were running toward them and Finn felt her fear lessen as the strength inside of her became steel.

Then Anna said, in a hushed voice, “They're coming.”

Sylvie halted. “Who's coming?”

Jack said quietly, “Finn. Listen to me . . .”

She felt a breath of chill air against her skin as she gazed down at their entwined fingers, his ring with the lions and the heart glowing like a tiny sun. She was aware of the others withdrawing as he gently told her: “I've set things right.”

“No.” She was insanely calm even though she sensed a crackling in the air. “Not if you leave.” Her eyes stung. She raised a hand to brush fingers across her cheek, felt grit on her skin. When she looked at her fingertips, they shimmered as if with diamond dust.

“Tears,” Jack explained softly. “But the elixir changed them, is changing you. I can't let my world take you, Finn.”

“What did you do?”

“What should have been done a long time ago.”

The air began to rumble as if with the onset of a violent thunderstorm. The cold of a tomb, not a winter's evening, settled around them as a silvery mist curled from the forest, orbs of light dancing within it.

Finn met Jack's gaze as if they were the only two in the world and she spoke the poem they had chosen for their secret code, because, although it sounded like a love sonnet, it was really about a demon and a warrior. “‘
I am thine, and thou art mine. 'Til the ending of the world.'”

He bowed his head until his brow touched hers. “Let me go.”

“You idiot.” And, because she couldn't cry, she kissed him as if that would cast out all the dark that made him want to die. For a moment, there was nothing in her world but the scent of his damp hair, his cool skin against hers, the tang of blood, the spirit burning in him. With grief like a high-tension wire all through her, she held him as she'd done the night of the Teind, when death had nearly taken him.

They turned, hands clasped, to face what had come for him.

The rumbling sounded like dozens of hooves striking the ground at a gallop, before transforming into the roaring of engines. The glowing orbs in the mist became headlights. The headlights and the swift shadows became black motorcycles shaped into sleek, animal forms. The motorcycles were otherworldly enough, but the riders, in soot-black suede or ash-white leather, were stranger still, in helmets representing the faces of things that scavenged the dead: a coyote, a hyena, a vulture, a raven, a fly, a wasp. A jackal.

The jackal's bike glided to a halt in front of Finn and Jack. His helmet looked almost Egyptian. His pale coat billowed as a fragrance of lilies, frankincense, and earth drifted from him. The rest of the motorcycles formed a crescent behind him, becoming nothing more than silhouettes. Terror hummed in the air, the terror of the unknown, of alien things without human feeling.

Finn tightened her grip on Jack's hand. She knew what the Wild Hunt, the
Fian Fiaghi,
was—a host of the dead, spirits led by death's general, collectors of lost souls. And this . . . this seemed to be one of their less horrifying aspects.

Lily moved to Finn's other side and clutched her hand as the leader spoke in a youthful and sexless voice, “A divine law has been broken: One of the true dead has entered the world.”

It was Phouka who said angrily, “I might have known
you
were more than you seemed.”

The jackal head tilted. Behind the seven riders, a whirlwind of inky darkness and cold began to form, branching out, solidifying into an arch of black stone hewn into writhing figures wreathed in nettles and thorns. Beyond the arch was a hole in the world, the void of night and nothing. Finn felt her courage shatter. She whispered, “No.”

The jackal continued, “One must come or one be taken.”

Jack turned to Finn, rain shimmering on his lashes. He kissed her again as
the grief blinded and choked her.
The path of pins or the path of needles
. When he stepped back from her, she didn't move, as if, by keeping still, she could stop this from happening.

As Jack walked toward the leader of the Wild Hunt, the leader removed the helmet to reveal the snow-gold hair and haughty face of a Fata girl.

“
Norn?
” Lily whispered.

Jack halted.

“Jack.” Norn inclined her head.

“No!” Lily strode forward. “Take me!”

“Lily!” Finn reached for her. She looked at the Wild Hunt. “It's
me
you want!
I
broke the rules!”

Jack, without turning or breaking stride, said, “Phouka.”

When Phouka gently took hold of Lily's arm and grasped Finn's hand, Finn felt as if those nettles around the arch into the land of the dead were tearing into her. She watched Jack walk past the riders. The Wild Hunt turned their motorcycles.

“
Jack!
” Not even the elixir could tear Finn from Phouka's grip. As Lily sank to her knees, her head bowed, Christie and Sylvie moved to either side of Finn. They, too, were grimly prepared to hold her here.

Finn said, her voice raw, “
I'll find you!
”

Beneath the arch, Jack halted. He looked back at her, dark hair drifting over his face.

Then he turned and walked into the shadows with the Wild Hunt on either side of him. The nettles closed over him. The arch shrank into a black orb and winked out. The rain became snow, falling silently.

Christie and Sylvie were speaking to her. Anna was sobbing softly. She heard Phouka's voice, but she couldn't understand what anyone was saying as Lily wrapped her arms around Finn and, together, they gazed at the place where Jack had vanished.