The Witch and the Huntsman

by Rod Kierkegaard Jr J. R. Rain

  I spotted a limousine pulling up to the entrance and knew I needed to get back to work. “I just don’t know why you wrote this warning in German. And on a Post-it note. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “But I didn’t write that note, Allison. Someone else did.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A funny thing happened on the way to the Hunt Ball that night. Funny, as in strange and super annoying. After I ended my shift, I went back to my bedroom—or love hut, as I’d started thinking of it—to get changed. And found my cat costume gone...

  As in vanished. As in totally not hanging there in my little closet. As in stolen...

  And there was only one candidate I could think of who’d been wearing my clothes lately.

  “MILLICENT!!!” My psychic shriek was so loud it probably could be heard on all seven planes of the spirit world—and sure enough, a millisecond or two later, the girl in question appeared, dressed exactly like Rose Red from the other fairy tale. You know, wearing red from head to foot, with a little hood.

  “What happened to my costume?”

  She shrugged, looking guilty—and when I tried to peer into her mind, I found...the Death Star.

  “Okay,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Her tone was guilty as hell. God, I felt so weak. Normally, I could just blow right through her defenses, but tonight—nothing. Nada.

  “I know something’s up. We’re linked almost like we’re one person now—I can tell when you’re lying to me.”

  “I’ll explain later. Don’t you have the keys to the uniform wardrobe? Well, I’ll meet you back there, and we can pick a new costume out for you.”

  “But I don’t want a new costume! I want mine! It’s sexy and, besides, Eric gave it to me to wear.” A terrible suspicion was forming in my mind. “It’s Ivy, isn’t it? She wanted to wear it, and you snuck it over to her.”

  “Oh, don’t be so immature, Allison. This isn’t elementary school. We’ll find you something even nicer to wear, I promise. Hurry—Eric is waiting!” And she disappeared.

  Just like my catsuit. Grrr.

  For the second time that day, I burst into tears. What was up with that? Witches weren’t supposed to fall in love—and they weren’t supposed to cry, either! I really was losing my powers. At this rate, I wouldn’t even be able to go back to my job at the psychic hotline. I’d be a muggle again...

  Of course, if Eric and I worked out, who cared? Millicent was right—I needed to get back to him. Before he mistook Ivy for me and took her into some dark corner and...my fevered imagination supplied the rest. I bailed out of there like a bat out of hell. Or like Samantha Moon taking flight...

  ***

  I wasn’t the only bat, so to speak.

  Darkness had just fallen, and flights of dark shapes flapped and skittered through the fir trees. So when I first noticed I was being shadowed through the woods, I guess I assumed it was one more bat.

  It wasn’t. It was a heavier animal, and earthbound; it flitted behind me from trunk to trunk, until I stopped and kneeling, reached into my crossbow carrying bag. I’d left the Tenpoint strung with the broadhead in the bolt groove, but hadn’t cocked it—I totally didn’t want any lethal accidents at the hotel—but now I cranked it up and aimed it into the night.

  “Okay, I know you’re out there!” I called out. “I’m pretty good with this thing, so I suggest you either stop following me or come out where I can see you.”

  Sharp little pricks of cold kept stinging my face, and I realized it had begun to snow. There was a sound like the rustling of cicadas and slowly, very slowly, a pale figure emerged from behind one of the trees and advanced tentatively toward me, hands fluttering. I recognized the Yves St. Laurent silk cravat first, then the deathly pale features above it. It was Mr. Schreich.

  “I have seen what you are, Allison Lopez,” he hissed at me in the night. “You are eine Hexe—a witch!”

  At the sound of his words, a chill went down my spine. Millicent had been right; I’d had that accusation hurled at me before. Many times before in a dozen different lives—and it never ended well.

  “Don’t come any closer,” I said, but he ignored me.

  “You don’t understand,” he whimpered. As he moved toward me, I saw that tears of pinkish blood were streaming down his gaunt face. “She has betrayed me. She has found another to take my place—Conrad!” He spat the name, along with a gout of bloody sputum, into the snow. “Now she longer uses me; I will surely die, unless you take me for your own Hexenvertraut.”

  What Schreich did next was really gross. He sank to his knees, and then fell forward and started kissing my shoes. Major ewwwww! I tried pulling back, but he sort of clung to them. “Please, Allison Lopez. Accept me for your creature, I beg of you! I vill tell you everything, all her secrets. I haff nowhere other to turn...”

  Okay, put yourself in my place. You’re on your way to a fancy-dress party with absolutely nothing to wear because your so-called best friend has stolen your costume—and very possibly, your dream guy—and you’re in a freakin’ hurry. And for all of his creepiness, Mr. Schreich has always treated you pretty decently, plus he’s an excellent maître d’ and has an amazing dress sense. I mean, why not? Anything to get out of this awkward situation. What if somebody comes along and sees this dude weeping and wailing and slobbering all over your shoes and totally gets the wrong idea?

  Somebody like Eric, for instance.

  Besides, I realized, I was actually no better than poor Schreich. If I kept on letting Millicent drain me, I’d end up being him—sure, I might live for centuries, but just as a dried up old husk like he was, a kind of a cross between a vampire and a locust.

  “Show mercy, dear.” I heard Millicent’s thought.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I accept. You can be my...creature, or whatever. This doesn’t involve anything too yucky, though, right?” It seemed to me I’d read something in the Book of Wicca about familiars suckling at witches’ teats, but there was totally going to be none of that. Like, ever. In fact, any physical contact at all was a deal-breaker.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, Allison Lopez.”

  I swear he actually started tonguing my hiking boots in gratitude.

  Now it was my turn to hiss. “Get up, Mr. Schreich! And for Chrissakes, get a grip! That’s an Armani suit you’re getting all filthy, isn’t it?”

  He hung his head. “Forgive me.”

  I couldn’t help it—I took pity on him. “Look, I could use your fashion sense right now. I need to go back to the uniform wardrobe and find a costume to wear tonight. Wanna help me?”

  He brightened immediately. “Ach, may I?” But then as I walked off, he began wringing his hands. “But, no, no, Allison Lopez, you must not go to the ball tonight. It is very dangerous for you! That is why I sent to you that yellow Post-it note! If you go there you will be the one who is hunted.”

  Schreich followed me the whole way back to the lodge, pleading and plucking timidly at my arms. “You must not go inside, please, I beg of you, Allison Lopez. You see...the Langenschweinefleisch we serve our clients in the hall, this means in German ‘long pig.’ It is a word that from the South Seas sailors have brought back with them—it means human flesh. It is people! Last night we served for dinner your friend, the woman Ivana. Before that, it was your friend, the woman Marisa. Oh yes, the Archduchess—Regina—she knows very well these young women are your concern for coming here. Also, she does not want you making the love any longer with her lover, young Master Eric. So tonight, you vill be her prey! Ve must escape now, while there is still time!”

  “Wait, what?” I came to a dead stop. “Just hold on a big minute there, dude. You said Eric was her lover?” Actually, he’d made it sound like ‘loafer,’ but I knew what he meant. Way too well.

  “Whenever she wishes it, yes, he would come to her bed at night. She likes to feed on his energies, as well as from those of all young people. That is why she chose that Conrad; I am
too old now, she says. But I am less than five hundred years!”

  “Mr. Schreich, you need to get over yourself and tell me about Eric!”

  “Ja, ja, okay. But Master Eric, every time he does not remember that he has come to her the next morning, because she is a mesmerist and commands him to forget. She is very powerful to be able to make this hypnotism with her eyes.” He tingled, I guess at the memory. “That is how she first knew you were a witch—because she could not bend your will to hers. Master Eric is her slave—just as I was. But that is the past; you will use me now, Allison Lopez, and protect me from her. But first you must live! So please do not go inside there tonight.”

  Costume or no costume, I certainly wasn’t going to abandon Ivy to these...cannibals. Or Eric, either.

  Or worst of all, leave the two of them alone together.

  “There is no way I’m not going to that ball,” I told him, sounding a lot firmer than I felt. “Even if I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

  “It is not the pumpkin that they vill garnish you with,” I heard Mr. Schreich muttering to himself as he followed me into the front hall.

  Chapter Nineteen

  If Mr. Schreich was surprised by Millicent materializing suddenly inside the wardrobe, he didn’t show it, though I’m pretty sure I saw him turn up his beak and sniff in disdain at the sight of her Rose Red outfit. To make matters worse, she’d fallen in love with the full-on, Disney Snow White rig that she found in a rack of Halloween costumes and made me wear it.

  “That way, we’ll be sisters—just like in the fairy tale.”

  “Snow White had a sister?”

  “It is a different fairy tale, Allison Lopez,” said Schreich. “Schneeweisschen und Rosenrot. Snow White and Rose Red. A much older tale.” The words ‘much older’ seemed to make him gloomy, and he looked like he might start streaming tears of blood from his eyes again.

  I knew how he felt when I got to the ball and saw Eric, dressed as the Huntsman, dancing with Ivy. At least I assumed it was Ivy; whoever it was, she was wearing my black cat costume. “Let the young people enjoy themselves,” said a voice in my head—and I couldn’t tell if it was my voice or Millicent’s.

  Which was when the third possibility struck me.

  “You know that night when an inner voice led me out into the snow, and I thought it was you?” I asked Millicent in our private thoughts. “I suddenly just realized who it must have been—Regina. And I think she’s taunting me again now.”

  I’d been staring so hard at Eric and Ivy that I hadn’t even noticed the scene around me. The Krystal Ballroom had been cleared of tables and the chairs lined against the walls. All the chandeliers were brightly lit, and a chamber orchestra was playing waltzes.

  The theme of the night was ‘Fairy Tale.’ Servers were dressed like servants in silk frocks, knickerbockers and hose and powdered white wigs. Brittany even had a pair of beauty spots, though she might have just spilled something on her chin. The guests were costumed either like wild beasts, with animal heads and furry tails, or else like fairy tale characters. Like me. And Millicent, who totally would not leave me alone, even when like half a dozen guys asked her to dance. We were both masked, but they could see her bright red hair and curvy figure.

  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, stomp
ing 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?”