Tangled Web

by Gail Z. Martin

  Carmen went down in a heap with Sorren pinning her. Temporarily stripped of her magic by the Weaver’s blanket, she was no match for his vampire strength. I grinned, happy that we’d battled two foes—Carmen and the land sprites—and kept them at bay. Then I felt the energy shift around me yet again and knew we weren’t done yet.

  “You should not have returned, Secona.” A dark figure with a black cloak and a head like a raven appeared out of nowhere. He carried a long staff in one hand.

  “I have a claim on this world,” Secona replied, drawing Teag’s body up in a regal posture, back straight, head high, and chin lifted. “You do not. I will give you one warning. Leave now.”

  Holmgang’s cold laughter carried across the dark lawn. “This time, Secona, I will win. And you will be the one banished.”

  Those of us in Team Secona stood within a warded circle reinforced with spells, salt, and holy water. That barrier didn’t prevent a physical attack, but it afforded some protection against low-level magical assault. Sorren and Carmen—who was now bound in iron chains and still covered with the spelled blanket—were outside the warding, but the woven fabric’s null spell limited what Holmgang might send their way. Sorren had also used spelled fabric as gag and blindfold, effectively stopping Carmen from working even the mildest incantation. Sorren and Holmgang regarded each other with mutual loathing neither one tried to disguise.

  “You wretched witch!” Holmgang thundered at Carmen. “You promised me a vessel, and you failed me!”

  He turned, looking at Secona and the other Weaver witches, and beneath his raven headdress, his grin spread cold and wicked. “Join me. With the Hunt at our command, we can rule this sordid little world, have the power of the ages flowing through our blood.”

  “Go to the Devil,” Secona spat.

  Holmgang chuckled. “He is a myth. I am real—and I do not forgive.” He thrust out his hand, sending a torrent of darkness toward our warded circle that grew and spread like a noxious cloud of smoke. Secona gestured, and a thin, iridescent scrim of power rose from within the spelled rope barrier, blocking his attack. I lent the glistening energy wall all the power I could send, drawing on my protective charms and the resonance of the potent objects I carried.

  He shifted his stance, and his magic changed as well, this time a bright white fire that burned the grass around the perimeter of our circle but could not pass the shimmering curtain of magic that kept us safe. In the next breath, he leveled his staff and pointed it toward Carmen and Sorren. A fierce wind tore across the ground, straining our warding and ripping at Carmen and Sorren.

  The gust forced Sorren to dig in his heels to keep from being tossed aside. He wrapped his arms around Carmen, securing the blanket that kept her powers at bay, holding on with all of his enhanced strength.

  With one hand, Holmgang kept up the assault against our position, requiring us to sustain the barrier that protected us but also kept us from retaliating. With the other, he sent hurricane-force gales against Sorren, intending to rip him away from Carmen and strip away the blanket that neutralized her magic. The wind howled, coursing through the trees at the edge of the lawn with enough force to bend them like saplings. I heard the crack of a tree as it snapped, and felt the winds batter the pearlescent scrim of power that protected us from flames hot enough to reduce our bodies to ash.

  With a final surge, the wind shrieked like a mad thing, and sent Sorren and Carmen sprawling, overwhelming even Sorren’s exceptional strength.

  Carmen screamed Holmgang’s name and rose from the shadows, still bound by iron but freed of both Sorren and the null-cloth.

  “Fill me, and finish them!” Carmen shouted. Holmgang gestured, and the chains fell away. She flung her arms out, threw back her head, and called out the words of power that would allow Holmgang to possess her body. Holmgang’s look of triumph terrified me as he saw his victory in sight.

  The ancient Norse sorcerer sent a final blast of energy toward us, and then he took up Carmen’s chant. Their voices rose, at first clearly separate, but then in unison, as the soul-shift began. Holmgang’s dark spirit-form wavered, blurring as the power of the spell caught his life force in its pull and sent what remained of his essence into his willing host.

  At that instant, with Holmgang distracted, Secona pushed both her hands, palm out, toward the wall of energy. The shimmering curtain thickened, absorbing the fire and then folding in on itself to smother the flames.

  As soon as the fiery onslaught stopped, we struck.

  Secona held the Galdrastafur staff in one hand drew the bone wand with the other. Holmgang was as vulnerable as he would ever be, caught mid-shift as he began his possession of Carmen. Secona slammed the staff’s end down into the ground, sending out a shockwave of power that rocked us, and struck against Holmgang’s twisted magic. Bo’s ghost sprang at Holmgang, only to be sent sprawling with a wave of the dark sorcerer’s hand. Angry, I leveled Alard’s cane and delivered a blast of fire that Holmgang barely managed to deflect.

  Mrs. Teller and Niella focused on Carmen, working the air with their fingers as nimbly as they wove sweetgrass into their baskets, crafting a loose net of pure energy and flinging it at Carmen. Rowan alternated between firing off attacks, first at Carmen and then at Holmgang. But the energy of their soul-transfer seemed impervious to her assaults as if the transference spell carried its own protections.

  From the shadows, I heard the savage barks and growls of something that sounded far too big to be a dog, and way too vicious to be natural. I suspected Holmgang had found a way to keep Sorren occupied with a grim to prevent him from rejoining the fight, at least for long enough so Holmgang could claim his borrowed body.

  Magic might not be able to touch them as their souls fused, but iron might be another matter. Carmen’s body was still human, at least until Holmgang fully possessed her, and so if we were going to strike, it had to be now.

  I jumped the warding rope and ran at Carmen, drawing an iron blade from a sheath on my belt. Secona ran beside me, outpacing me, and swung the Galdrastafur two-handed, striking Carmen in the head with enough force that it should have split open her skull. She reeled but remained standing as Holmgang’s dark essence poured into her. I launched myself at her, iron knife raised, and sank the blade deep into her chest. Secona’s magic flung the bone wand like a dart, and its point caught Carmen in the throat. Her body jolted, and I knew that something had struck her from behind.

  “Clear!” Secona yelled, charging forward with the Galdrastafur like it was a lance, and slammed into her abdomen, taking her to the ground like a jouster unhorsed. We had hit Carmen at all of the main chakra points, the places in the body where energy gathered. Striking with spelled weapons or iron disrupted those chakras.

  A bloodied form broke from the shadows, and before I could even recognize Sorren, he dove for Carmen, covering her once again with the null-blanket, sprawling across her to keep her from rising, and assuring that Holmgang’s weakened spirit remained trapped inside her failing body.

  Secona walked toward us with Rowan beside her. I frowned, trying to make out the weapon in Secona’s hand, then realized it was the dagger we had reclaimed from Carmen, the one she had stolen from the Museum.

  The two witches stopped when they reached where Sorren pinned Carmen to the ground. Secona gestured for him to move out of the way.

  Rowan and Secona fell to their knees beside Carmen, and they folded their hands around the hilt of the Norse-runed dagger. They chanted under their breath as they brought the blade up, then fell together, driving the sharp point through the blanket and into the body beneath, right to the heart.

  The form beneath the blanket bucked and trembled. Holmgang fought death, but we had caught him at his moment of true vulnerability—not in the shift between bodies, but when he had not yet fully occupied his willing host. Trapped by the blanket and the hurried magic of the chants Secona and the Tellers raised, drained by the blows from our spelled weapons, and unable to flee his vessel be
cause of the null blanket, Holmgang had nowhere to run.

  “We need to burn the body.” Sorren stood, feet braced wide as if standing took all his remaining strength.

  The moonlight made it difficult to fully assess Sorren’s injuries, but his clothes were soaked in blood, and one sleeve hung in tatters over deep gashes. He moved as if everything hurt, and I knew that his immortality was not absolute. Sorren was hard to destroy, but severe enough damage could exceed even his ability to heal. I’d seen him at that threshold once and hoped never to see it again. From what I could make out, and the curt nod he gave as if he guessed my thoughts, Sorren judged himself still ready for duty.

  “Then let’s get to it,” Secona replied, mouth in a grim line, voice cold. Hearing another person speak through Teag gave me chills, because I could tell it wasn’t him. I missed the spark in the eyes that was truly Teag.

  We stood around Carmen and Holmgang like a funeral escort and raised our magic. Secona held out Galdrastafur, willing the power through it, into a stream of fire that hit the body like a blowtorch. I lifted Alard’s cane, and my fire joined theirs, a fitting tribute to Sorren’s maker. Rowan’s blue-white bolt added to the flames, as did the golden glow of the fiery net of woven energy Mrs. Teller and Niella formed over the corpse. Carmen and Holmgang burned on a pyre of magic flame, and as the body disintegrated, Holmgang’s trapped spirit screamed impotent curses until the fire rose so hot we had to look away.

  Dimly, I realized that Donnelly and Lucinda had begun to chant. I saw dark shapes coming toward us from the mansion and wondered if Chuck and Father Anne had lost their fight against the sprites. We’d come so far, but it wasn’t over yet.

  That’s when we heard the baying of the hounds and the thunder of ghostly hooves. Holmgang was gone, but the Wild Hunt had answered his final summons.

  Holy shit. Nothing prepares you to face off against creatures from ancient legend. The wind rattled through the trees like dried bones, sweeping across the lawn and bowing the branches. In the distance, I saw the Hunt against the clouds, a long black undulating cavalcade. The howls of phantom dogs and the rhythm of spectral hoof beats grew louder as the Wild Hunt approached, and the most primal wiring in my brain screamed for me to hide.

  Another glance toward the house told me that Father Anne and Chuck still battled the sprites, but the rest of us stepped up to face this new foe, uncertain that anything we could do might avert a threat older than humankind. The Hunt gyred through the night sky like a drunken wagon train, and as it grew closer, I heard the snap of reins, the whinny of long-dead mounts, and the exultant shouts of hunters closing in on their prey.

  Now the fearful revenants loomed close enough that I could make out their features in the moonlight. The riders had once been men, members of the Nicholson family or of the Rod and Gun Club that cared so much about winning that they would barter their eternal rest and immortal souls in exchange for fame and trophies.

  I had seen old woodcuts and medieval paintings of the Wild Hunt and chalked them up to fanciful tales or an artist’s dark dreams. But now that I stood before the legendary host, I knew that the pictures did not come close to conveying the true terror.

  The riders wore the attire of the times in which they lived, but their fine riding jackets were faded and their breeches tattered like shrouds. Time made them animated mummies; skin pulled tight over prominent bone, teeth bared in a rictus grin, eyes wild and mad. The horses, too, were skeletal, eyes red, hooves sharp, and stained with blood, teeth champing. Cadaverous dogs ran alongside, howling and baying at the moon.

  The Hunt settled to the ground, horses pawing impatiently and dogs shuffling. One horseman edged to the front, a fearsome figure with a horned skull for a head and the emaciated body of a reaper. Perchta, the Master of the Hunt, looked down at us from his seat atop a giant steed more war horse than hunting mount. Six horns twisted from Perchta’s skull, bending in all directions, and his hideous face was the stuff of nightmares. Glowing yellow eyes peered balefully from the dark sockets of the skull, taking our measure. In one hand he held the reins for his wraith mount, and in the other, a sharp-edged flail for a riding crop.

  Seven of us stood against the power of the storm.

  “Where is my tribute?” Perchta’s voice sounded like boulders falling and wind howling, and I could not be certain whether I heard it aloud or in my mind.

  “This is the final reaping.” Archibald Donnelly stepped forward, and if he felt fear in the presence of Perchta and his horde, it did not show in his grim expression or confident stance. That’s when I realized he had an army at his back, a ghostly phalanx of men, horses, and dogs. “Your agreement ends tonight, and it will not be renewed.”

  One of those spirits moved to the forefront, an old man whose straight spine and truculent expression suggested that he expected to get his way in the hereafter as much as he had commandeered what he desired in life. “We are your tribute,” he said, “the men of the Nicholson family you have not claimed. We offer ourselves as payment for a debt that never should have been incurred. Take us, and spare the living from our greed and folly.”

  Lucinda remained in the background. I saw her in the moonlight, clad all in white, her hair tied up with bright cloth, drumming and chanting. Power coalesced around her, as heavy as the smoke from her candles and the incense she burned to woo the Loas, the Voudon gods whose favor she sought with the offerings that lay beside the makeshift altar. Lucinda moved fluidly to the beat of the drum, and I’d seen her trance enough times to know she called out to powers far beyond this world, more than the equal of Perchta and his hunters.

  “Let the dead rest.” A new and unexpected voice startled me. I turned to see Jonathan Nicholson, the latest scion of the plantation’s owners, standing at the fore of a grim-looking posse. I bet that Carmen’s curse made it impossible for them to leave when the other party guests fled to safety. Stripped of other options, I also wagered they decided to go down with a semblance of dignity rather than be dragged away screaming from their hiding place inside the mansion. “We will be the last tribute. But this bad bargain ends tonight.”

  Perchta’s gaze came to rest on Teag and I wondered if he sensed Secona’s presence. “I know you, though your form is not your own,” he wheezed.

  She inclined her head. “I’m honored that you remember. We have traveled some paths together, in the past.”

  “A past that few recall,” the Master of the Hunt replied. Next, he regarded Sorren. “You, I also remember. I sought you, and with her help,” he added with a nod toward Secona, “you eluded me.”

  “You came for someone else. I was unlucky enough to be in the way,” Sorren replied, in a gravely respectful tone as if he addressed Death himself.

  “Nobody goes anywhere if I refuse to dig their grave.” We turned to see Lucinda swagger toward us, and I knew one of the Loa possessed her. How fitting that devotees referred to possession as being “ridden” and the willing spirit-host as a “horse.” When I looked at Lucinda, my vision blurred, as if another face and figure overlaid her own. I saw Lucinda, but I also saw a tall man with a skull-white face. He wore a black tuxedo and a top hat, as well as dark glasses and he carried a cigar.

  “Baron Samedi, I presume?” Perchta growled. “This is not your business.”

  Lucinda gestured toward our brave but woefully outgunned band of would-be heroes. “These are my people, and that makes this my business,” she replied. Lucinda long-ago learned to soften her accent for her professional persona, but Baron Samedi’s drawling cadence and thick accent spoke of bourbon and cane sugar. Behind him stood the translucent figure of a bent-legged old man puffing on a pipe with a rangy dog at his side, and I knew that Papa Legba had also answered Lucinda’s call. The air smelled vaguely of cigar and pipe smoke, and a hint of dark rum.

  I held my breath, in awe of the primal forces that surrounded us. Compared to them, my gift at its strongest was insignificant. Even Sorren’s age and abilities meant nothing compared t
o beings that were truly immortal, and perhaps gods.

  “We made a bargain,” Nicholson spoke up, and I gave him credit for having brass balls. “You came for riders, fresh for the hunt. Our grandfathers signed with their blood, and we’re willing to pay with ours, but it all ends. Now.”

  “It’s a good bargain,” Baron Samedi replied through Lucinda. “Might be wise to take it, and be on your way.”

  We did not need old gods getting into a pissing match. I shivered as Perchta turned to regard both the Baron and Papa Legba. His gaze raked over us, and we did our best not to flinch. Donnelly’s army of Nicholson dead shifted to stand beside their living progeny, a show of solidarity in the face of a bad agreement, but commendable in its doomed honor.

  “I have enjoyed our dealings,” Perchta rumbled, turning back to Nicholson. “Surely you would like to keep your glory from fading away?”

  Nicholson’s jaw twitched. “I would not visit this curse on another generation, not for all the wreaths and trophies in the world.” The men beside him looked pale and terrified, but to their credit, they held their ground.

  “Then I accept your offer,” Perchta said, with the sweep of his arm as if he were being magnanimous. “And with your addition to the Hunt, I will trouble your house no more.”

  Then he looked at us, and I saw a glimmer of greed in his yellow eyes. “I would take all of you.”

  “These belong to me.” Lucinda’s voice had ceased to be her own, and I heard the honeyed steel tones of the Baron speaking through her. “I will not dig their graves, so they cannot pass the Veil.” She inclined her head toward where Papa Legba waited near the altar, content in the knowledge that all things alive and dead came to him in the end. “And Papa Legba will not open the threshold for them. You’ve gotten the best of the bargain. Do not force me to meddle further.”