I had taken a chance on that. I wasn't certain which brother it was, but I'd guessed based on the fact that Holly had the worse attitude of the two. He bowed his head in acknowledgment. "The princess sees well in the dark."
"She merely has good ears," his brother said. "You complain more."
Ash started down the side of the road, ignoring my plea, and some of the others followed. Most stayed in the shadows along the road's edge. There had to be nearly twenty of them. It was enough to make a difference, enough, maybe, to save…my men.
I heard a car door open behind me. Frost crawled out and fell into the snow and ice of the road. I went to him but kept my gaze on the goblins.
"This is not our fight," Holly said.
"I need your help as my allies; that makes it your fight," I said. "Or have the goblins lost their taste for battle?"
"You do not battle the wild hunt, Princess. You run from it, you join it, you hide from it. But you don't fight it," Ash said. I could see his green eyes now. His hood framed a face as handsome as any at the Unseelie Court, golden-haired; only the pure, pupil-less green of his eyes and a bulkier body under the cloak betrayed his mixed heritage.
"Will you be forsworn?" I asked. I clung to Frost's hand in the snow.
"No," Ash said. But he was not happy about it.
"We came out to see what the fuss was," one of the other goblins said, "not get ourselves killed for a bunch of sidhe." The goblin was almost twice as broad as any sidhe. He turned into the light a face that was covered in hard, round bumps. "Get a good look, Princess." He threw back his cloak so I could see more of him. His arms were as covered as his face in bumps and growths, marks of beauty among the goblins. But these bumps were pastel colors—pink, lavender, mint green—not a skin tone that the goblins could boast.
"That's right, I'm half sidhe," he said. "Just like them, but I'm not so pretty, am I?"
"By goblin standards you are the more handsome," I said.
He blinked eyes that bulged slightly from his face. "But you don't judge by goblin standards, do you, Princess?"
"I ask as your ally for your aid. I ask as a blood-oathed ally to your king that the goblins aid me. Call Kurag and summon more goblins."
"Why don't you call the sidhe?" the bumpy goblin asked.
Truth was, I wasn't certain there was anyone left who would risk themselves against the great hunt for me. Nor was I sure whether the queen would let them. She had been so unhappy with me when last we met.
"Are you saying that a goblin is a lesser warrior than a sidhe?" I asked, avoiding the question.
"No one is a greater warrior than the goblins," he said.
Ash said, "You don't know if the sidhe will come."
I was out of time to prevaricate further. "No, I don't," I admitted. "Aid me, Ash, help me, as my ally, help us."
"Beg," Holly said, "beg for our aid."
"The goblins seek to delay," Frost said, voice hoarse, "they seek to delay until the fight is over. Cowards!"
I gazed up at the three tall goblins, and the others waiting in the shadows. I did the only thing I could think of. I searched Frost until I found a gun. I pulled it free of the holster and got to my feet.
Bancroft had finally handcuffed his partner to the steering wheel, though Agent Charlie was still trying to get free and get to me. Bancroft joined us in the snow. "What are you going to do, Princess?"
"I'm going to go back and fight." I hoped that in the face of my determination, the goblins could do naught but join.
"No," Bancroft said, and started to reach across Frost toward me.
I pointed the gun at him and clicked off the safety. "I have no quarrel with you, Agent Bancroft."
He had gone very still. "Glad to hear it. Now give me the gun."
I started to back away from him. "I'm going back to help my men."
"She's bluffing," the warty goblin said.
"No," Frost said, "she's not." He struggled to his feet, then fell back into the snow. "Merry!"
"Bancroft, get him to the hospital." I aimed the gun skyward and started running back the way we'd come. I tried to think of summer's heat. Tried to bring the idea of warmth to my shields, but all I could feel was the ice under my feet. If I was human enough to get frostbite, I'd lose feeling soon.
Ash and Holly came up beside me, one on either side. They loped along while I ran my fastest. They could have outdistanced me and gotten to the fight sooner, but they'd only obey the letter of our agreement. If I fought and asked for help, then they had to help me, but they didn't have to get to the fight one second before I did.
I prayed, "Goddess, help me and my allies to arrive in time to save my people." I felt someone pounding up behind us, but did not glance back—it was just one of the larger goblins.
Then hands, silver-grey in the moonlight. Before I knew it I was cradled against a chest almost as wide as I was tall. Jonty, the Red Cap, was ten feet of goblin muscle. He glanced down at me with eyes that in good light would be as red as if he looked at the world through a spill of fresh blood. His eyes were a match for Holly's. It had made me wonder if the goblin half of the twins was a Red Cap. The blood that dripped continuously from the cap on his head shone in the light. Little drops of it were flung behind him as he picked up speed and raced toward the fight. The Red Caps had earned their name by dipping their caps in the blood of enemies. Once, to be warlord among them you had to have enough magic to keep the blood dripping indefinitely. Jonty was the only Red Cap I'd ever met who could do the trick, though he wasn't a warlord, because the Red Caps were no longer a kingdom unto themselves.
Ash and Holly were forced to stretch to keep up with the much bigger man; Jonty was a small giant even among them. They had been in charge of this expedition, but goblins are a tough lot. If they let Jonty reach the fight first—if they showed themselves weaker, slower, than him—then they might not be in charge at the end of the night. Goblin society is survival of the fittest.
I cradled the gun carefully, pointing it away from Jonty. No one got ahead of us—no one else had the length of leg—and the others were fighting just to keep pace. Such a big creature, but he ran with the grace and speed of something lithe and beautiful.
I asked him, "Why help me?"
In his deep voice, like gravel, he said, "I swore a personal oath to protect you. I will not be forsworn." He leaned over me, so that a drop of that magical blood fell upon my face. He whispered, "The Goddess and God still speak to me."
I whispered back, "You heard my prayer."
He gave a small nod. I touched his face, and my hand came away covered in blood, warm blood. I cuddled closer into the warmth of him. He raised his eyes again, and ran faster.
CHAPTER 20
THE SKY BOILED WITH STORM CLOUDS OVER THE SMALL WOODS that bordered the parking lot. The wild hunt wasn't a tentacled nightmare anymore. It looked like a storm, if storms could hover against the tops of trees and drape like black silk dripping between the trunks.
Lightning flashed from the ground into the clouds—Mistral was still alive and fighting back. Who else? Green flame flickered through the trees, and something hard and tight in my chest eased—that flame was Doyle's hand of power. He was alive as well. In that moment nothing else really mattered to me. Not crown, not kingdom, not faerie itself; nothing mattered except that Doyle was alive and not so hurt he could not fight.
Ash and Holly put on a burst of speed so that they were ahead of Jonty and me as we neared the open area closest the trees. There wasn't enough cover to hide anything in the open field, until from thin shadows, goblins appeared. They didn't materialize, but emerged like a sniper hidden in his gillie suit in the field—except that the only camouflage the goblins had was their own skin and clothes.
Ash had called Kurag, Goblin King, as we ran to this place. To do so, he had bared his sword and put a hand on my shoulder to come away with blood to smear upon the blade. Blood and blade: old magic that worked long before cell phones were a dream in a h
uman's mind. Personally I wouldn't have wanted to run on the icy road with a bared blade. But Ash wasn't human, and he made it all look easy.
Ash and his brother ran ahead of Jonty—whoever got to the rendezvous first would lead the goblins without argument. But I didn't care—as long as we saved my men, I didn't care who led. I would have followed anyone in that moment to save them.
One of the brothers fell to talking with the waiting force. It wasn't until the other brother got close enough for his eyes to flash crimson that I knew it was Holly come back to Jonty and me. Holly was struggling to breathe normally. Outrunning someone whose legs were almost as tall as he was took more effort than was pretty, even for a warrior as formidable as he. His voice held only a hint of the breathlessness that made his shoulders and chest rise and fall so rapidly. "The archers will be ready in moments. We need the princess."
"I am not much of an archer," I said, still cradled in the heat of Jonty's body, and the blood. The blood that flowed from his cap down to my body was warm. Warm as if it spilled from a freshly opened wound.
Holly gave me a look that appeared irritated even in the forgiving glow of moonlight. "You carry the hand of blood," he said. He let that anger that was always just below the surface for him fall into his voice.
I nearly asked what that had to do with archers. But the moment before I said it, I did know. "Oh," I said.
"Unless Kitto exaggerated what you did in Los Angeles to the Nameless," Holly added.
I shook my head, the warm blood creeping down my neck between my skin and the borrowed trench coat. The blood should have been disturbing, but it wasn't—it felt like a warm blanket on a cold night: comforting. "No, Kitto didn't exaggerate," I said. I didn't like that Kitto had borne tales to the goblins, but forced myself to accept that he was half theirs and still had to answer to their king. He'd probably had little choice in what he told them.
"The full hand of blood," Holly said, and his voice wasn't so much angry as skeptical. "Hard to believe it lies in such a fragile creature."
"Look at my cap, if you doubt her power," Jonty rumbled.
Holly gazed upward, but his eyes didn't stay on the cap long. His gaze slid down to me, and something in that look was both sexual and predatory. I could feel the blood plastering the back of my hair, my shoulders, arms; I must have looked like an accident victim. Most men would have found it frightening, but Holly looked at me as if I'd covered myself with perfume and lingerie. One man's nightmare, another's fantasy.
He reached a hand up, tentatively, as if he thought either Jonty or I would protest. When we didn't, he touched my shoulder. I think he meant to merely get a touch of blood on his fingers, but the moment his fingers brushed me, a look of wonder came over his face. He leaned in toward me, the wonder being eaten by something that was part desire, and part violence. "What have you been doing, Princess, to feel like this?"
"I don't know what you're feeling, so I don't know how to answer." My voice was small. Of all the men I'd agreed to have sex with, Holly and his brother were the ones who gave me the most pause.
Jonty's arms tightened around me, almost possessively. That was both good and bad. If all of Jonty was in proportion, then I could not satisfy him and live to tell the tale. But it was hard to tell with the Red Cap; his possessiveness might have had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with the blood magic.
Holly drew his hand from my shoulder. He began to lick the blood from his hand like a cat that has dipped its paw in your glass of milk. His eyes fluttered closed as he licked. "She calls your blood," he said, in a low voice better suited for a bedroom than a battlefield.
"Yes," Jonty said, and that one word from him had the same overly intimate tone.
I was missing something, but did not want to admit that I didn't know what was happening, or why they were so fascinated with the fact that touching me made the Red Cap bleed more. At a loss, I changed the subject. "If you want me to call blood from our enemies, we need to get closer to the archers." I fought to keep my voice matter-of-fact, as if I knew exactly what was happening and either didn't care or took it completely in stride.
"And who will hold you while you call blood, so those dainty feet do not touch the cold ground?" Holly said.
"I will stand on my own."
"I will hold you," Jonty said.
"You are a goblin, Jonty. Goblins fight among themselves as sport, which means it is likely there is at least a nick somewhere on your body. If you have a wound, even a small one, when I call blood, I will bleed you, too."
"I am no Red Cap to brawl for the sake of brawling. I save my flesh for other things," Holly said. He licked the last of the blood from his hand in a long smooth movement that should have been sensual, but managed to be mostly just unnerving.
"I will stand on my own," I repeated.
"Your brother waves to get our attention," Jonty said then to Holly, and moved forward.
Holly hesitated, as if he would block our way, but then moved aside, speaking as Jonty passed him. "I will see you survive this night, Princess, for I mean to have you."
"I remember our bargain, Holly," I called back.
The smaller goblin hurried to keep up with Jonty's longer strides. It was like a child running after an adult, though Holly wouldn't have thanked me for the comparison. "I hear reluctance in your voice, Princess, and the sex will be all the sweeter for it."
"Do not torment her on the edge of battle, Holly," Jonty said.
Holly didn't argue; he just abandoned the topic for the time being. "The archers will cut them for you, but you have to weaken them enough to bring them down," he said to me.
"I know what you want me to do."
"You don't sound certain."
I didn't voice my doubts, but this was a wild hunt. A true wild hunt, which meant it was the essence of faerie. The creatures could bleed, but how do you kill something that is formed of pure magic? This was ancient magic, chaos magic, primeval and horrible. How do you kill such things? Even if I bled them enough to bring them to earth, could they be truly slain by blade and ax? I had never heard of anyone fighting and winning against such a hunt.
Of course, I had never heard that the spectral hunts could bleed if cut. Sholto had called this one into being, using magic that he and I had raised as a couple. Was it my mortal blood that had made the hunt vulnerable to bleeding? Was my mortality truly contagious, as some of my enemies claimed?
Following this idea to its logical extension meant that if I sat on the throne of our court, it would condemn all of the sidhe to age and die. But at this moment if my mortal flesh had made this hunt mortal in turn, I was grateful for it. It meant they could bleed and die, and I needed them to die. We needed to win this battle. I would not spread my mortality through all of faerie, but to have shared it with these creatures—well, that would be a blessing.
CHAPTER 21
THE ARROWS CUT THE NIGHT SKY LIKE BLACK WOUNDS ACROSS the stars, vanishing into the boiling black silk of the clouds. We waited in the winter night for screams to let us know the bolts had found their mark, but there was nothing but silence.
I stood on the ground, pulling the borrowed trench coat around me. I stood on Holly's cloak, which he had thrown on the ground to keep my bare feet from the rough ground and the cold. "The cloak gets in the way of my ax," he'd said, as if he were afraid that I might think he was being gentlemanly. Then he moved forward to be with his brother and the other warriors.
Only Jonty and one other Red Cap stayed back with me, though every Red Cap who had come out tonight—a dozen of them—had touched me before they went to take their place in the ranks. They had laid their mouths, in a strange sort of kiss, against my shoulder where the coat hung heavy with blood from Jonty's cap. One had caught the coat in his pointed teeth and torn it before Jonty had slapped him away. The ones who came after had widened the hole until the lips of the last few touched my bare shoulder where the blood had begun to dry to my skin. I had neither offered the Red Caps
the familiarity, nor been asked; Jonty had called them, and spoken in a Gaelic so old that I could not follow it.
Whatever Jonty had said to them had turned their faces to me, and the look in their eyes was that odd mix of sex, hunger, and eagerness that I'd seen in Holly. I hadn't understood the look—and hadn't had time to question it—but because it cost me nothing to have their lips pressed to my shoulder, I allowed it. Then I noticed that each of the Red Caps who touched me began bleeding afresh after touching Jonty's blood on my body.
I was fighting an urge to scream my impatience at them, but the Red Caps weren't the ones delaying; the other goblins squabbled about who would go where. If Kurag, Goblin King, had come, there would have been no arguments, but Ash and Holly, though feared warriors, were not kings, and all other leadership among the goblins is a constant state of struggle. The goblin society represented the ultimate in Darwinian evolution: only the strongest survive, and only the very strongest lead.
If I had been truly queen enough to lead them, they would have done what I ordered, but I didn't have their respect yet, so I knew better than to try to lead here. It would have undermined Ash and Holly, and gained me nothing. Besides, battlefield tactics wasn't my strongest suit, and I knew that. My father had drilled into me from an early age to know my strengths and weaknesses. Find allies who complement you, he'd said. True friendship is a type of love, and all love has power.
Jonty leaned over me and said, "Call your hand of power, Princess."
"How do you know they are hurt?"
"We are goblins," he said, as if that settled it.
Another line of green flame flickered through the trees, and I was close enough now to see the black tendrils back away from it. I didn't argue again, but called the hand of blood.
I concentrated on my left hand. It didn't emit a beam of power, or anything like you see in the movies; it was simply that the mark, or key, to the hand of blood lay in the palm of my left hand. Or maybe doorway was a better term. I opened the mark in the palm of that hand, and though there was nothing to see with the naked eye, there was plenty to feel.
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