by C. E. Murphy
Except insteada falling, she rose into the sky an’ came back down at us, hands clawed like she was one of her own ravens. Blood was turning brown on her armor already, and ran in a purple streak down her blue robes, but she wasn’t half as dead as I figured she oughta be. Cernunnos laughed, so I guessed it wasn’t a surprise ta him, but me, I wished she’d stayed dead. Especially as she was comin’ after me, even though Horns had been the one to stick a sword through her. ‘course, I’d distracted her so he could do it, and—
—and she didn’t have a sword of her own anymore, having dropped it on the battlefield when she got stuck. Jo’s rapier had a four-foot reach. The Morrígan came at me, an’ I stood in Imelda’s stirrups and thrust.
The rapier flared as it smashed into the same hole Cernunnos had made. A bright flash of silver shot up her body and connected to the necklace she wore. Outlined it in blue, so I could see real clear that it was the same one Joanne wore, silver links with a quartered cross sittin’ in the hollow of her throat.
Blue splashed into her skin and lit her up from inside, movie-like, so her bones shone through for a split second. All of sudden I saw Joanne between me an’ the Morrígan Her eyes were wide and scared as she yelled, “Gary!” but then she was gone again, an’ Cernunnos was knockin’ the Morrígan off my blade like Mickey Mantle at the bat. This time she fell, limp and bloody, all the damned way to the ground. My sword hand was tingling, power itching through it while I tried to remember what Jo had said about that necklace. It and the sword were both made by the elf king Nuada, I knew that. That coulda meant there was just some kinda interference between one piece of magic silver and another, but the burst of blue had seemed like more than that. I was gonna hafta ask Jo about that later.
Assumin’ there was a later. Cernunnos shouted something and I looked up to see the Devourer coming straight at me.
Funny thing was, I knew I oughta be scared, but all the fear flooded right outta me. I was old enough to die well, even if I didn’t much want to. I’d stopped being afraid of it when my wife died. For a long time I’d just been counting the hours ‘til I went with my Annie, but Joanne had changed alla that. I’d have been a better target for him before Joanne, but today I was ready to look him in the eye.
For such big guns, he wasn’t much to see. Just an old man on that pale horse, just about as skinny as a skeleton. His hair was thin an’ long, and his teeth were yellow, and he carried a staff instead of a sword. He wore robes kinda like the Morrígan’s, and like hers, they showed off blue knotwork tattoos around his upper arms. His were faded where hers still looked bright and new, but they were the same pattern, binding them together. He lifted his staff and pointed it at me, black magic gathering in the thing so strong I could see it whether the Sight was still working or not. Feeling way too calm for good sense, I shook my sword hand and waited.
Most of a year ago, Jo had found me a spirit animal. A tortoise, a real protective kinda spirit, good for armoring up and hunkering down. Maybe not so good for quick draw fights like this was gonna turn out to be, but I had to figure a spirit animal that could protect itself could fight, even if that didn’t necessarily follow in the real world. Either way, I drew the idea of that big mottled shell around me and felt the tortoise come to life at the back of my mind, ready and willing to take the hits that were comin’ my way.
A tar ball of black magic blew outta the Devourer’s walkin’ stick and tore across the sky at me. I snapped Jo’s rapier up, deflecting it as best I could. Her gunmetal blue healing power turned the blade electric, slicing through the worst of the blast and still leaving me reeling in the saddle. The air sucked right outta my lungs and stars spun in my eyes. The rapier got hot, like it’d been filled up with hate and the only way it could release it was by burning. I danced it in my fingers, but there was no way I was dropping the thing. It was my one link back to Jo. I hated ta think what might happen if it and me got separated.
The Devourer’s host of riders swept around him and crashed against the Hunt. They were all kindsa amazing, awful things, not fallen angels at all. They were shimmering blues and blacks, light falling through ‘em like they’d left their bodies behind a long time ago. A lot of them passed right through the Hunt and rushed for the field below, where Brigid’s army was gathering again. I had to think they were going to fight, not to take up new bodies from the dead, ‘cause that was a kind of sick I didn’t want to know about.
I looked up again an’ found myself face to face with the Master.
Cold rolled off him like he was something from between the stars. The air got thin all of a sudden. I dragged in a breath an’ didn’t let it out, kinda figuring I wouldn’t be able to suck in another one. Imelda trembled, tryin’ ta toss her head and stomp her feet, but she couldn’t move any more than I could. The Master’s eyes weren’t any kinda color, just pale, and I felt like he was looking straight into the bottom of my soul. He didn’t say a word, which was worse than talking, ‘cause it gave me room to hear everything he was seeing in me, and everything he was thinking.
He didn’t think the Morrígan was dead, not for a minute, but she was hurt bad enough that he had to come patch her up, and I was the mortal with the magic sword. I might not have put his Girl Friday down for the count, but I’d scraped her up with it, an’ I got the idea that made me interesting. Interesting meant something for him to deal with.
He went through me like a deck of cards, lifting every part of my life up, glancing at its face and casting it away. The kid I’d been, living out in White Center, Washington before Seattle grew up big enough and absorbed it. Tinkering with cars that looked simple compared to today’s machines, but at least a guy could fix ‘em. The first girl I’d ever kissed, and then standing for her groom at a wedding a couple years later. The complicated pride on my ma’s face when I joined the Army ‘cause it was the only way I’d finish the college education she wanted me to have. The first time I saw Annie Macready, and knew I was gonna marry that girl.
He hooked onta that and spun it out so fast I couldn’t follow, even after living it. Then he fell back with a death’s head grin on his bony old face, said, “She will be my vengeance,” and turned his skinny, arrogant back on me.
I never saw red before, not like they talk about doing, but I did then. Blood red misting over everything except the son of a bitch threatening my wife’s life, an’ he stood out like a lighthouse beacon, best target in a hundred miles. Imelda was moving before I even knew I’d put heels to her, and Jo’s rapier was lifted like it had a life of its own. Blazing blue, connecting me to her across the years, and for one crazy second I thought it was all gonna end right there.
The Master, casual-like, threw his staff over his shoulder. A blast of power shot at me, bigger than the last and twice as fast. I couldn’t get the rapier between me an’ it quick enough. The last thought that rolled through my mind was sorry, darlin’.
A raven came up outta nowhere and took the hit for me.
Black magic exploded around it, washing off shields of white and gold. The raven tumbled wings over tail-tip, shedding feathers as it fell. I lurched for it, tryin’ ta catch it, and Imelda stepped quick enough that I snagged it without tumbling from the sky myself. The bird lay in my hands, me gawking and it panting like a dog. Fast as it had lost ‘em, its feathers grew back in, but bleach-white. Then it turned into something like a cave painting of a raven insteada the bird itself. Just lines, representing instead of containing. That idea sank into my hands, made ‘em warm, and the warmth ran through me until it settled in the back of my mind. Settled on top of a tortoise shell, where it preened white feathers, gave me a one-eyed look, then tucked its head under a wing to rest.
It all took about half a breath. When I looked up, Jimmy crack corn, the Master’d gone away. Down to the fight, I thought, ‘cause he probably had to pick up the Morrígan before he lit out of there, assuming he was the sort of fella who ran from a fight. I was in a hurry to go find out, but Cernunnos was in front of me, s
ome of the stag gone from his face so more human curiosity could show through. “You are not her father, or her grandfather, but the ties that bind you—” He did somethin’ with his hands that made me think of a raven’s flight, then shook his head. “Be glad, Master Muldoon, that you have such affinity with Joanne. I think nothing else would have had the strength to shield you from that blow. The raven belongs to him as much as to her. It is a carrion-eater, after all.”
“And a trickster.” Sleeping or not, the bleached bird was waiting there at the back of my mind along with the tortoise. Two spirit guides, when a year ago I’d have never dreamed of having even one. Jo had told me time and again my soul was in good shape, but being backed up by a couple of spirit animals made me feel even better about it. Made me feel sharp and focused. “Reckon that’s what I need as much as anything. Tricks come in handy for old dogs.”
“And young shamans. The battle has all but ended. I must return you to Joanne.”
“Like hell.”
Horns shifted in his saddle, surprised. I guessed not many folks gave him a flat-out no when he wanted somethin’. “We’re going back to the future, buddy. I ain’t letting that son of a bitch go after my wife.”
Half a dozen expressions ran over his face, but there wasn’t nothin’ except determination on my own. I knew I oughta be tired, but there was nothing but cold anger burning in me as I wiped Jo’s rapier clean and finally sheathed it. We’d done good. The cauldron was all bound up, the Morrígan was down for the count, and the Master wasn’t gonna show his face again until he was good and certain of a win.
Problem was, he was counting my wife as that win. I kept staring Horns down, waiting. He looked away, deliberately, an’ I tugged on the last bits of magical Sight Joanne had left me with. It barely flared, just enough to tell me Cernunnos was maybe doing something, but I couldn’t tell what. His face got sour, though, like something had gone wrong, an’ just then the golden mare joined us.
The boy was in the saddle again, no sign of Brigid. I grunted, curious, an’ Horns shrugged. ‘nuff said, so he changed the subject, sounding irritated: “I can no longer sense Joanne Walker. Not dead, I think, but out of place, perhaps travelling to one of the other realms. Until she returns to where she belongs I cannot bring you to her.”
“I ain’t asking you to.”
“Your wife,” he said, and waited.
“Two good women have happened to me, Horns. You know one of ‘em. The other was Annie, an’ I just brought her to that bastard’s attention. I ain’t gonna let that stand. If you can’t get me back to Jo, then get me to Annie. I’ll do the rest on my own if I gotta.”
Damned if Horns didn’t chuckle. “And what do you suppose Joanne would do to me if I told her I had abandoned you to him and your fate in some distant future? I can bring you to your wife, Master Muldoon, but the path is not a direct one. It will take time.”
“Buddy,” I said, “time is the one thing I got on my side.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Folks say history is defined by wars, by winning and losing. I thought riding through time, looking at it all from above, would show me that, especially when I was riding with the god of the Wild Hunt. Wasn’t like that at all, though. I touched down through the centuries as Cernunnos brought us closer to my time, not quite living through all of it, but getting enough sense of the god, an’ the riders, an’ the job they did to carry it with me forever.
Cernunnos came for the souls of the dead, sure enough, and plenty of ‘em were on battlefields. But a whole lot more were the ordinary folk, the ones just tryin’ ta get by, living and loving as best they could. Far as I could tell, they were the ones who really made up the fabric of the world, laying down their stories, weaving ‘em together and leaving a little bit of themselves behind when they died.
At the beginning there were thousands who called for Cernunnos or the Hunt at the end. Faces and names looking for him in specific, for the hounds and rooks to carry them to the other side. Time went on and they got fewer, old gods replaced by new. Horns diminished as his people died away, no joke about it: that crown of antlers he wore lost size, then barely began breaking free of his skull. At first he rode the whole year ‘round, an’ then got pushed back, bit by bit, season by season, solstice by solstice, until he rode from Halloween to the twelfth night, an’ that was the only Christian holiday that did Cernunnos any favors. Back at the start, the twelfth night had been counted from the winter solstice, but over the years it got pushed out, until finally they counted it from Christmas. He stole a few days out of every new year from there on out, an’ that was the peak of his power. Not even the failing faith of the people could take more than that away from him, and it got to where I kinda wished he could gather the flocks enough to make a stronger stand. I couldn’t bring myself to like the fella, but after watching him guide his believers over the great divide a few thousand times, I learned to respect the compassion he showed.
And besides, it was a hell of a thing, riding across the stars with the Hunt. It got hard to remember I still had a fight ahead of me. Never dreamed I’d be coming at it this way, not even in the worst of the war I’d seen. There were minutes where it was easy to think I’d laid down my own burden an’ was enjoying an afterlife like I’d never imagined.
An’ then we rode through a cloudburst one afternoon into a remote stretch of road in California. It was Horns who knocked a pretty girl outta the road just as a truck came thunderin’ outta nowhere and came half an inch from clipping her down. We were gone before she knew what had happened, but I was looking back, twisted in my saddle, to watch Annie Macready yelp and draw her feet back as the truck roared by. “So mundane,” Cernunnos said a couple seconds later, “but equally unquestionable.”
Annie was gone already, left in the rain, but the image of her stuck in my mind. Neat white blouse tucked into a bright yellow skirt, an’ flat shoes on her feet. Blond hair hardly past her collar, but not as done-up as it’d been the night I met her. I had to swallow to get words past the tightness in my throat. “This’s the late forties, Horns. Not so many cars on the road as there are today.”
He said, “And yet,” an’ I muttered. I toldja so wasn’t any better from a god than anybody else. ‘sides, I remembered Annie tellin’ me about that near miss, one night when my car overheated an’ we ended up walking through a rainstorm to the nearest town. Headlights had washed over us a few times, but we’d kept walking insteada hitching. Back then it wasn’t dangerous. We’d just liked keeping company in the rain. I smiled at the memory, then scowled at Cernunnos, who didn’t give a damn about what happy thoughts I might be thinking.
“There was no resistance to my interference. She may not have been under attack at all, Master Muldoon. It may have only been human carelessness that nearly cost her her life today.”
“Then I owe you one.”
“More than one by now, I think.”
Hell of a time to pick a fight, but I shook my head. “I ain’t takin’ that burden on, Horns. I asked for the lift through time, but you made it plenty clear that you’re watching my back because of Jo, not ‘cause I asked you to. You saved my Annie, and I’ll repay that one if I get the chance, but I ain’t starting a tab at this bar.”
I’d seen the look he got a few times before, but usually it was Jo, not me, exasperating him. I guessed I’d made my point, though, ‘cause he went on without belaboring it. “The more effort our enemy has put into destroying her, the more difficult you’ll find it to interfere. Time is not that kind.”
“Yeah.” I thought of Jo, tryin’ ta heal the elf king Lugh and running up against the magic of a little girl from our own time. She’d said the same thing: one big change to the time line made smaller ones pretty much impossible. “So—waitaminnit. You tellin’ me I’m the goddamned Ghost a’Christmas Past? I’m gonna be stuck watching everything go to hell and not be able to fix it?”
Something happened in his expression, something that suggested that if I didn’t know
better, I might think Horns was being gentle with me. “I am telling you nothing. It’s rarely wise to predict what capricious humans might achieve. I would not have said an ordinary man, even one held so highly in Joanne Walker’s regard, might have struck the Morrígan a near-fatal blow, nor drawn the Devourer’s attention to himself. I expect this journey with you will prove enlightening.”
“That really why you’re doing it? To understand how we work?”
“I understand already,” Horns said mildly. “But understanding and predicting are not the same. Pace yourself, Master Muldoon. Watch for the things that have changed, and hold those in your memory now. They will be important, if you can hold them.”
“Changed, what the hell are you talkin’ about, Horns? I know how my life went. It ain’t gonna change.”
He shook his big heavy head, an’ I got the idea he was giving me as much as he could without hanging himself. It didn’t seem near enough, and I thought maybe Joanne felt like this a lot, like she was working with only half of what she needed to know. I started to ask another question, but Cernunnos held up his hand, stopping me. “Watch. Remember. And act only when you are certain of your outcome, and not before, or this battle for your wife is sure to be lost.”
I muttered, “I already lost it once,” as Cernunnos dropped me into a college football game an’ my whole life washed over me.
I always told the dolls it was the smell of wet leather and grass stains that kept me coming back to the field. Never failed to get a dimple or a laugh, like they saw fixating on scents as an intriguing sensibility. Wasn’t, though. I just liked the smells, the way they filled up my chest an’ got the heart pumping. They were a signal the fight was on, an’ a football field was about as much fight as I was ever looking for. Getting a sacked, knocking down a long pass, jumping high for the ball. My Pop taught me to play football, but it was Ma, a ballet teacher, who made me practice pushing all the way through my toes when I jumped. Got me a few extra inches of height every time, and I caught a lotta balls—and deflected a lotta others—that the other teams didn’t think I should, that way.