Hollows 11 - Ever After (48 page)

“I am not an animal!” Ku’Sox cried out, his voice high as the demons cheered their approval.

“Yes, you are, dear boy,” Newt said, her cheeks wet as she came forward to help him find his balance. “I say that the elf, ah, that Trenton, has an excellent idea. Let Ku’Sox go.”

Ku’Sox tensed to jump up and away, and he was mobbed, beaten down. I backed up into Trent, and he held me in front of him, his grip warm and his breath coming over my shoulder as they dragged Ku’Sox up and spread his wings wide so he couldn’t move.

“Say you we hunt?” Dali shouted, and I winced at their shouts, fisted hands in the air.

Ku’Sox struggled, blood running in little rivulets from where they gripped too hard. “You can’t do this to me!” he rasped, his black eyes wide in fear. “I am a god!”

Newt came forward. “But we can, love,” she said, giving him a small kiss on his furry face. “Fly fast.”

“No!” he shouted, his word whistling in fear, and they let him go.

I ducked as he was away, his wings beating the ground as he surged into the air. Sounding like a dove, he whistled into the night sky. My heart thudded as I watched him go, his gray shadow quickly going faint.

“He’s getting away!” someone shouted, and Bis flapped his wings for their attention.

“I can find him,” the little gargoyle said as he took to the air, and I was proud of him for having lost his fear.

Al sidled up to me, leaning to mutter, “I hope you know what you’re doing. He’s going to be the devil to catch again.”

Ku’Sox’s shadow dwindled and vanished into moonlight. Clusters of demons were watching as well, discussing the best way to follow—giving him a generous head start but clearly eager to be away. “He was impossible to catch before only because you didn’t stand up to him,” I said softly, my gaze lingering upon Bis, sporting in the air over them, spiraling in his joy of flight.
The gargoyles . . .

At my other side, Trent was frowning, still watching the sky. “We need mounts for a hunt. I’m not going to run after him.”

I turned to Al, seeing he had the same idea I had. “Winged mounts,” the demon said, and I nodded as he took a huge breath, and shouted, “Tre-e-e-ebl-l-l-le!”

Trent drew back in awe as Al’s gargoyle popped into existence right before us, looking as large as Etude, but thinner. She lashed her black-tipped tail and winked at Bis wheeling above her. “I’ll thank you for getting your demon to fix his holy-ass’s line,” she said brightly to Bis, her ears flat to her skull and making Al scowl. “How about the rest of them? It still sounds like hell out there.”

“Working on it,” Bis said breathlessly as he landed on my shoulder, and I sealed my thoughts off so I wouldn’t have to deal with the screaming line just yet.

Demons had noticed, and like a fantasy flick gone wild, dragonlike shapes were popping in everywhere, enthusiastic gargoyles eager for a chance to pay back some of the misery they had endured for the last week. I backed up into Trent as Al swung atop Treble, the gargoyle shivering as she rose easily up into the air before dropping back down. Wings were unfolding everywhere, yellow and red eyes swirling with an eagerness to be away. Shouts echoed, and I paled. Ku’Sox didn’t have a chance.

“Go! Go!” Newt cried atop a gray-faced, wrinkled gargoyle, and the behemoth rose up on two legs, wings stretching to show a patchwork of scars. His expression savage, he gnashed his black teeth and vaulted into the night.

Others followed, and I hid my face as the dust flew. The noise peaked and dwindled, and I looked up as they rose in a great spiral, cutting between me and the stars.

“They will find him,” Trent said, and I turned, my scuff sounding loud in the sudden hush. Behind him, Al waited with Treble, hungry to be gone. Trent’s face held resolute emptiness. He had wanted to go, needed to see an end, needed to be a part of it. And he had been excluded. We needed one more mount.

“Bis?” I said, and the little gargoyle’s eyes blinked.

“I’ll get my dad,” he said and vanished before I could tell him his father was likely lying broken next to the Loveland ley line. My shoulders sagged with guilt, and I thought of Ivy and Jenks. Why did I always leave such a huge amount of collateral damage? Maybe I should have taken the shame of simply killing Ku’Sox in his sleep.

“Having second thoughts, itchy witch?” Al said as Treble dug her claws into the earth to leave great gouging divots.

I took a breath to answer, my head jerking up along with Al’s as a great shape sprang into existence above us in the empty night sky. “Etude!” I cried out, and he waved, great gaping holes in his wings looking painful as he spiraled down, Bis darting energetically around him.

“Mother pus bucket, he’s a big one,” Al said, making Treble blush a deep black.

“You’re alive!” I cried out, elated as he landed.

Bis alighted on his dad’s shoulder, looking proud. “My dad fought Ku’Sox!” he crowed. “They’re singing about him already!”

Etude snuck a glance at Treble, his gaze lingering on Al perched on her back. “I’m glad you’re alive as well,” he said, a heavy hand touching my shoulder to make me feel small. “My boy is safe. If you ever need anything—”

“She needs a mount,” Al said, interrupting him. “We are hunting the breaker of the lines. Interested?”

Etude stiffened, his eyes flicking to the sky. “Is that what I hear? Yes, I’d gladly take a pound of flesh for the pain we’ve endured. Rachel? Don’t mind my wings, I can still fly. We can be on them in moments. They are blazing a trail even humans can see and tremble at.”

Trent’s jaw clenched, and he looked at the sky.

“Not me,” I said, looking at Trent. “Take him.”

Shocked, Trent turned. “Me?”

I shrugged, ignoring Al’s heavy sigh to get on with it. “This is your kind of thing,” I said, remembering the baying of dogs and the fear. Maybe I was with my kin after all. “I’ve got stuff to do. Lines to fix.”

Etude nodded, looking disappointed as Trent seemed to grow three inches taller, eagerly accepting Etude’s helping hand to sit astride him. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned back down and extended a hand for me.

“This is your kind of thing, too,” he said, his eyes glowing with his need to ride, to chase, to hunt. “You can fix the lines later.”

“No,” I said, then slapped at Treble’s hands as she grabbed me about the waist and plopped me behind Trent. “Hey! Wait!” I shouted, then screamed as Etude jumped into the air, his wings beating fiercely. My arms flashed around Trent, and I could have smacked him for his laugh. A wash of ever-after coated us, an echo of a healing spell ringing in my head as Al mended Etude’s wings. Etude rumbled his thanks, then stole Treble’s wind, earning a screech and a mock dive from her.

“They went this way, Rachel!” Bis said, his words ripped away with the black, gritty wind beating against me. My hands were about Trent’s waist, the warmth of his body blocking most of the wind as I peered around him, looking for a red smear of magic. I could smell the ringing of an iron bell, and the warm scent of cinnamon, all washing over me in a cascading sensation of heat.

With a tweak on my awareness, Treble winked out of existence, diving into a line on the wing. My breath caught, and feeling Bis enfold us, the force of the wind vanished, replaced with the howling energy of a line.

And then reality was back, and we were diving into Cincinnati. Lights of buses and cars flashed as the chill air of the coming dawn pulled through my hair. Exalting in it, I spread my arms and held on with my legs to let the air brush the stink of burnt amber from me.

I felt Al’s sudden emotion flair, feeling it echoed in Trent. He stiffened before me, and I looked, first at Al and Treble flying close by, and then to the city we were approaching. Cincinnati was beautiful with lights, green with spring, the sounds from her muted as the dawn approached and nightwalkers looked to the sky and stared at the weaving magic of red racing through the city buildings.

We had found them, and Treble cried out. The warbling call for battle was answered, and I shivered, remembering hearing the dogs bay for me. Still distant but closing, a red ribbon of magic iced the pack of demons on their winged mounts, chasing a fleeting shadow of gray, running for his life. Darting between buildings, rising and falling wildly, he flew, the demons tight behind, glorying in the chase.

“Look!” I called as the glowing Hunt flowed through the center of the city and Ku’Sox vanished into a ley line. But instead of following as they had through Al’s line, the demons rose up in a huge arc like leaves in the wind coming up against a wall, scattering into chaos.

“They don’t know where he went!” Bis shouted, his red eyes catching the streetlight as he swooped at my elbow. “Follow me!”

He dove toward the ground, and I shrieked as Etude followed, Al tight behind.

We slammed into the ley line, vanishing into chaos. Bis found me, throwing a resonance into my thoughts. Through the rings, Al watched and Trent marveled as I wove a circle around it, capturing the imbalance and tuning it to the university’s ley line.

We burst into existence in the ever-after, a stream of howling demons following us as we fought for altitude, dodging broken shells of buildings. Ku’Sox was just ahead, and the demons surged after him, screaming their vengeance, red magic streaming behind them. It was truly the Wild Hunt, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t scare the crap out of me.

On Ku’Sox fled, and on we followed, hounding him, following him through line after line as he tried to shake us like a fox traveling down a river. We sped through reality, causing fear and awe among those who saw us, a red smear of magic howling against the stars, rising in the heat from the buildings and dropping over the cool woods. Over the ever-after we tore, sending up gouts of red dust as we followed dead rivers and empty lakes, scoured by the gritty wind. We followed until Bis grew exhausted from mending the lines and rode in his father’s arms and I slumped behind Trent, weary and heartsick. This was not me. I didn’t thirst for vengeance, even vengeance justly earned. I did not demand blood for blood. I did this to live without fear. I wanted an end to it.

Still, each line we mended gave the gargoyles strength until they were reaching for Ku’Sox’s wings, the purity of the lines a harsh contrast to the demons’ base desire for death. Then Etude’s weight shifted, and I realized we were landing.

“What?” I said, pulling my head up from Trent’s back where I’d been hiding, wishing it was over.

“He’s gone to ground!” Trent shouted, pointing, and I looked at the dusty red earth, brightening in the coming sunrise. Demons were sliding from the backs of their gargoyles, clustered about a small pile of rock. Slowly Etude spiraled down. The noise of the earth strengthened, and my stomach twisted. This was the end.

Etude found a place, his wings closing the instant his feet lightly touched the ground. Trent slid from him easily, and I slowly followed. My hand on Trent’s shoulder, I stumbled after him, pushing through the demons and gargoyles to find Ku’Sox’s hole.

“We’ll never get him out of there,” I said, looking at the brightening sky. Already the black of the hazy sky was turning to a faint pink, and the gritty wind was picking up. I didn’t know where we were—all places were the same in the ever-after.

“Or maybe we will,” I said again as I realized the gargoyles, though weary from flight, were tearing great gaping holes in the earth. Like organized terriers, they dug great chunks of dirt, tossing them to the side as if they were pillows to shatter into smaller chunks.

I blanched at Trent’s anticipation. He stood waiting, elated and riding the high of the chase and looking forward to the grisly end. He felt my eyes on him, and he looked up. “It was a good Hunt,” he said, and the demons who heard him agreed, their gaze holding a new respect.

A call went up, and the stones quit falling upward from the hole. A muffled boom shifted the earth, and a handful of demons dropped into the craggy entrance. I leaned forward, Trent beside me. Something oily slid through my thoughts, and I shuddered. Al was the only one not looking down into the hole. He was looking at me, and I quailed.

“We have him!” came up a call, and those of us at the edge backed up. “We have him! And his familiar, too!”

Nick?
I shivered, my arms going around me as the demons crawled up from the hole, their gargoyles leading the way to help them. Two sodden thumps hit the dirt, and the watching demons went quiet. Only one of the captives breathed.

“Nick?” I said, and the man’s eyes found mine, widening.

“Rachel!” he said, then fell back when someone shoved him down. He hit the dead body of Ku’Sox and recoiled, horrified as he tried to move away from the alien-looking shape. Ku’Sox’s wings were broken in several places, and his head was tilted at a sickening angle, his neck snapped through. He was dead, but I felt nothing, numb.

“We found them grappling,” a demon I didn’t recognize said. “I don’t know if we killed Ku’Sox or his familiar.”

My eyes widened and my knees wobbled as I realized what had happened. Was that Ku’Sox dead before me, or Nick—Ku’Sox changing their forms in order to survive?

“Rachel, it’s me!” he said, rising up only to get shoved down again. “Tell them it’s me! I never meant to hurt you! Please!”

The demon holding a staff to his chest shrugged. “Well?” the demon asked me. “You know him best. Is it Ku’Sox or his familiar?”

I edged past Trent, feeling every stone under my foot, every gust of gritty wind in my snarled hair. Weary, I came to a halt before the downed figure, seeing the emotion behind his eyes, the wrinkles just starting at the corners, the stubble glinting red in the rising sun. It looked the same as when I had left Nick at midnight.

Reaching out, I touched his face, rubbing a bit of blood off his cheek, feeling it between my fingers, remembering Nick’s smile that turned into betrayal, not once, twice, but three times. Was this Nick or Ku’Sox?

“Rachel,” he whispered, begging. “Tell them it’s me.”

My heart beat, and my lungs emptied. Ceri was gone. Pierce. But what hurt the most was that two girls would grow up not knowing Ceri’s proud strength, how her compassion blended with a brutal justice, and that she had loved them with the depth of her soul.