The Witch and the Huntsman (14 page)

But nobody was that into Snow White, I guess. Not that I was any mood to dance, but at least it would have been nice to make Eric jealous.

“
Stop
simmering
, Allison—you’re scaring everybody away.”

“
Hell hath no fury like a witchy-woman scorned,” I said. “Besides, you realize that half the people in this room are freaking
cannibals
, right?” For all I knew, Eric was, too. I shuddered.

Eric. Just an hour ago, I’d been so happy, looking forward to my night with him so much. I’d even managed to convince myself that the age gap between us didn’t matter—and that everything really could work out. That I was the beautiful princess, and my Prince Charming really loved me, and we would live happily ever after.

And now, it was like everything was turning to ashes in my mouth.

Suddenly, I felt a surge of righteous fury so great, it made me want to conjure up a blast of raw, white-hot psychic energy that would turn all the flesh-eaters here into pillars of salt, just like in the Bible. I wanted to smite the wicked! I could actually feel my mind crawling with the desire, rearranging the wispy aural tendrils that radiated out in every direction from my fleshly mantle and assembling them into a terrible weapon of dark destruction...

“
No, dear, you must not think like that
.” Millicent’s voice spoke soothingly in my mind. “
I
know you feel hurt, but here are many innocents here tonight—the vast majority, in fact. It is not ours to punish evil on that scale, Allison; that right is reserved for a higher power
.”

She was right. I took a deep breath. I also took a fluted goblet of champagne from Kev’s tray. It looked like it was going to be a long evening, and I was damned if I was going to face it sober. Not as long as Eric and Ivy kept waltzing, spinning across the marble floor like the little magnetic ballerina I used to have on the mirrored top of a music box when I was a little girl...

The chamber music rose and swelled, and, draining my glass, I took another. Was it my imagination—or was Eric holding Ivy tightly, too intimately, the way a lover would; leaning in to whisper sweet nothings into her ear as they danced and pirouetted? Had they already fallen in love—
made love—
out there on the slopes while I was busy working my shift?

Half-blinded by jealousy, it took me all this time to notice the obvious. The way the cat’s head mask fit on Ivy’s head required her mane of golden hair to be tightly drawn up inside, so it was invisible. Ivy was taller than me, sure, but she was wearing flats, and we were built just enough alike, so that Eric might actually be confused enough to think she
was
me, especially if her voice was muffled by the part of the mask where the whiskers were embedded.

Was that it?
Did he think he was dancing with me
? But if so, why was Ivy leading him on?

“
To save
you
, Allison
,” said Millicent in my mind.

“
WHAT
?”

“
It was Ivy’s idea. We both knew you would be the target of the Hunt tonight—your Mr. Schreich’s warning alerted us. But Ivy will present them with a false target, and dilute their malevolent energies while we concentrate on shielding her. Ivy isn’t trying to steal your young man, Allison. She is attempting to save your life. She loves you, just as I do.”

Tears sprang to my eyes—again.

“
That is why you must remain sober tonight. You know what alcohol does to your powers.” She removed the second champagne glass from my grasp, then took my hand.

“
Do I actually have any magical powers left?” I asked bitterly.

“
Of course you do! You are by far the most naturally strong of the three of us. That is why Ivy is leading the chase tonight — so that you will not be distracted or weakened by fear. Or by love. Love for a man, anyway. But we need you to be your true self again, Allison, to act as our furnace, our generator. Otherwise all three of us will be utterly destroyed…”

We were interrupted by noises from outside. First one long blast, then a second.
Hunting horns
. I heard the sounds of animals neighing—something bigger and deeper-voiced than horses—and the ground vibrated with the impatient stamping of their hooves.

“
The Wild Hunt!
” I heard several people call out—but even those who appeared to be excited by the idea also sounded fearful.

“
None of them knows who the prey will be,” Millicent told me. “It might be them. So, yes, they are filled with blood-lust—but at the same time, they are terrified.”

Half the guests were now crowding around the high windows; someone had flung one, then two of them open, and their velvet curtains were flapping in a stiff cold wind from outside, swirling with white snowflakes that spilled into the ballroom. I shivered, then looked around for Eric and Ivy.

I could no longer see either of them...

I tore free from Millicent to push and shove my way through the crowd, stomping on one woman’s foot and knocking someone else’s mask askew. It was moments like this when I really envied Sam Moon. What I would have given right now to be able to transform myself into a big, supernatural, powerfully winged monster; to toss the foolish, perfumed, costumed mob out my path like rag dolls and launch myself out into the night at the figure I glimpsed mounting a huge horse in the snow outside. The shape was booted and heavily cloaked in black, but as she sat back in the saddle, her hood fell away, and by the flickering torchlight I saw it was Regina Jaeger.

She looked up at the window in that instant and laughed. Not at me—she couldn’t possibly have glimpsed me among the faces pressing forward to peer at her, and besides, I was masked. No, she was just laughing with contempt. Beside her, another dark rider spurred forward, crossbow cocked and at the ready. With a sickening lurch in my belly, I recognized his face under the horned slouch hat. It was
Eric!
My Eric. Her Huntsman. But this was an Eric I’d never seen before; one I barely knew. His face was slack and vacant, more like an expressionless zombie than the man I loved.
He was under her control
.

He was her creature now, just as surely as Schreich had been...

“
Come, Allison,” came Millicent’s urgent whisper. I felt her tugging from behind at my iridescent blue Disney bodice. “We must go now,
at once
, if we’re to save Ivy—and ourselves. Time is running out!”

She took my hand again, and we ran back across the ballroom toward the main doors to the hall. Bumping into people, knocking them aside, slithering and slipping on dropped canapés on the slick floor.

“
But what about
Eric
?” I cried out to her plaintively as we ran. “Can’t we save him, too?” I sounded like a child, even to myself.

She stopped in the doorway and faced me, squeezing both my hands until they ached and staring furiously into my eyes. “We can do anything, Allison—just as long as we believe in the power of three!
Do you
?”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do, Millicent. Thank you for bringing me back to that place. But we need to stop off in the cloakroom before we go out after them, okay?”

“
Why?”

This time, it was me dragging her into a dead run down the corridor. “Because I also believe in the power of my crossbow. You know, just in case the other thing doesn’t work out...”

Chapter Twenty

From some frozen somewhere—in the middle of the hottest summer the Pacific West had ever seen—Regina Jaeger had summoned a blizzard. Yeah, she had mad skills.

Snow swirled around our heads, stinging our cheeks and eyes as we stumbled after the bobbing torches and thunderous hooves of the Wild Hunt. Schreich had already proven himself useful, producing boots and cloaks for both of us to wear, so at least we were halfway warm. Even if we looked exactly like the pathetic little orphans in the book illustrations.

“
Is that her special power?” I asked Millicent. “To control the weather?”

“
There is nothing special in that—we can do that with practice.” This was news to me; exciting news actually. “No, Regina has a unique talent for controlling the minds of others. This is what I could not tell you before and why I warned you against coming here. Because she had already tainted your thoughts and memories.”

“
You mean she’s been controlling me all this time
?
” I was so shocked that I forgot to speak the words aloud, although we were communicating directly, mind to mind.

“
Not entirely, dear. But she had already been altering your memories. Marisa was
your
client, not Bernice’s—that was how I knew Regina had gotten to you, when you forgot your relationship with Marisa and believed in another reality. I knew that if I told you too much, Regina would use you to destroy our triad. I had to rely on your inner strength of will and purpose. It was when she realized that you were too strong for her to control that she decided to kill you tonight. Now we must save Ivy—
can you feel her fear
?
”

For the first time since last night in my room, I allowed my mind to touch Ivy’s. I’d been too mad at her to try to do it before—honestly, I’d been too afraid that my furious jealousy might mash her brains into Jell-O. Now I felt so sorry about that. I’d been a total dumbass.

But the Ivy whose thoughts I found now in the darkness was too terrified, too frantic for escape, to hear or acknowledge my apology. Almost against my will, I found my consciousness leaving my own body and slipping into hers as she ran for her life from the Wild Hunt. Her feet pounded on the snowy ground; her breath came in ragged gasps. Like all young actresses, she kept in tip-top shape, but my physical trainer’s instincts told me she couldn’t keep this pace up for long.

“
I must go to her
...
” Millicent’s words rang in my mind, and I realized that Millicent had disappeared from my side and was now running beside Ivy, effortlessly keeping pace with her. Well, it was easy for Millicent, wasn’t it? She was a ghost. I think.

I noticed that she had changed her appearance, too; instead of wearing her Rose Red costume, she was now dressed to match Ivy in a black catsuit, her flaming hair hidden by the cap. To the howling hunters behind, it must have seemed like they were suddenly seeing double.

“
I’ll try to divert them—you must save Ivy
,
Allison
,” came Millicent’s whisper. “
Once you are united with her, then the three of us will be whole. It will take our combined force to defeat Regina
.”

The two Ivys split apart in the night, one continuing to run up the Inner West Run toward the Palmer Glacier, the other racing toward the timberline. Confused, the Wild Hunt came to a stop, and their half-horse, half-monstrous mounts tossed their long necks from side to side, snorting and stamping the ground.

This gave me a chance to catch up to them. “
Ivy
?
”

“
I’m here, Allison
!” She was the Ivy headed into the fir trees; I saw that she intended to loop back downhill again toward the hunting blinds.

Where Marisa had gone to ground.

“
Right behind you, hon. About a hundred yards. Don’t give up
!
” Now I was out of breath and lagging. Suddenly the weight of the Tenpoint crossbow was like lead. “
I’ve got your back
.”

I could see most of the riders turn to follow black cat #2, Millicent. I grinned at the sight; with her ability to wink in and out of material form and reappear anywhere she wanted, like a will o’ the wisp, they’d never catch her. But I saw that several continued to chase the real Ivy, guiding their beasts into the trees and ducking to avoid the branches.

Still peering through the swirling flakes at the sight, I suddenly tripped and fell on my face, sliding and skidding in the snow. When I came to a stop, I felt my stupid, fluffy, yellow silk Snow White skirt bunched up around my hips. I’d tripped over something—a wire—and now it felt like I had a broken ankle.

One of the hunters galloped up behind me, and I turned over quickly and groped around for my crossbow. A dark shape dismounted and walked toward me, looming larger and larger over me against the night sky. Moonlight glinted on the tip of a broadhead crossbow bolt. The figure was totally cloaked, and wore a horned slouch hat. There was something horribly familiar about it.

Was it Eric
? I couldn’t tell.

The huntsman stopped. “Let’s see what we’ve caught in our little snare,” said a man’s voice, filled with amusement. He leaned down to look at me, then gave a gasp of surprise. “
Allison
? What are you doing here? And why are you dressed as Snow White? You’re supposed to be the quarry!”

It wasn’t Eric—it was
Sergeant Doberman...
 

In the fairytale, the Huntsman is sent into the forest by the queen to kill Snow White. But naturally, he falls in love with her instead, so he goes back to the queen with the liver and heart of a possum or badger or something. You know, to prove he’d killed her.

The problem was, tonight Sergeant Doberman wasn’t following the script.

I could see his face all distorted by bloodlust—in fact, he was actually drooling at the sight of my exposed thighs. I guess in the absence of any kind of sex life, he’d developed a taste for
Langenschweinefleisch
. It hadn’t been a broadhead I’d seen under his cloak; it was a big wicked-looking hunting knife. And now he leaned closer to carve me up with it. His aura crawled with murderous evil.

So I screamed and shot him. Actually, I didn’t entirely mean to—it was pretty much reflex. I just jerked the crossbow up from the ground one-handed and pulled the trigger. At that range, even I couldn’t miss. The bolt buried itself in his forehead with a sickening smack. He crossed his eyes and just swayed over me for a few seconds before he fell on top of me, pinning me down and thrashing and convulsing in his death throes. Then he was just dead weight.