Stranger

by Zoë Archer

  Yells and screeches in the streets. Catullus, with Gemma and Astrid right behind him, dashed out of the stable yard and into the road to investigate.

  “Someone please tell me I’m drunk,” Gemma muttered.

  “We are all, unfortunately, sober,” Catullus said.

  Glastonbury swarmed with pixies. Everywhere Catullus looked resembled bedlam. The tiny fairy creatures ran amok, torturing anyone unlucky enough to be out in the street. Just as they did with the stablemaster, the pixies pinched, pulled, and bedeviled whomever they could get their minuscule, tormenting hands on. They tugged on hair, compelling men to run up and down the streets like wild horses. They scratched faces and shredded clothes. Even dogs snapped at pixies clinging to their tails.

  Those inside had no reprieve. Women and children fled their homes as pixies scrabbled up their clothes or chased them outside.

  Pixies smashed lamps and windows, threw rocks, broke furniture. Some swung from shop signs, dropping onto anyone unfortunate enough to pass below. The constabulary offered no help, since they were suffering just as much as the civilians, and one poor constable was chased through the streets by pixies wielding his own club.

  It was the worst scene of chaos Catullus had ever witnessed. And he’d been to university.

  “Where did these things come from?” Gemma swatted at pixies trying to climb up her skirts.

  “My guess? Arthur.” Catullus flicked away pixies leaping onto the hem of his coat. He managed to grab one, but it slipped from his fist with a laughing squeal. The damned creatures were harder to hold than wet butter.

  Gemma pried loose a pixie trying to wriggle between the buttons of her bodice. “Get out of there, little bastard!” Flinging the creature aside, she said, “When Arthur was summoned, he brought other magic with him?”

  “Or it was roused by his appearance, and the Primal Source.” Astrid glared at a clot of pixies swarming toward her, and the fairies shrieked in fear before scampering off.

  “You have to teach me how to do that,” Catullus said. He plucked a pixie from Gemma’s hair. “We must leave. Now.”

  Gemma stared. “Abandon everyone here to these … things?.”

  “Short of spraying the whole of Glastonbury with pixie repellant—which, alas, I don’t happen to have on me—there isn’t much we can do. And I’ve a suspicion that, wherever Arthur goes, more magical outbreaks like this will follow.” He kicked out, sending pixies clinging to his boots flying in all directions, then strode toward the saddled horses. Methodically, he scoured each animal, finding and tossing away handfuls of the tiny fairies. The horrible creatures giggled as they flew through the air.

  Gemma and Astrid assisted, though Gemma stopped her work for a moment to help the stablemaster rid himself of some of the more aggressive pixies. As soon as he could, the man sprinted off, abandoning his business.

  Once the horses had been reasonably cleared, Catullus, Astrid, and Gemma mounted up. All three of them trotted out of the stable yard and surveyed the anarchic streets, where pixies had turned what had once been a perfectly respectable, rather pretty English town into a nightmarish scene out of a Brueghel painting.

  The clang of a bell summoned the fire brigade to some part of town. Catullus wondered how long it would take before the pixies burnt the whole of Glastonbury to the ground.

  “Laugh or scream, can’t decide which,” Gemma said, looking about at the literal pandemonium. Homes and businesses were being destroyed all around. Townsfolk crowded the street as they ran in fear, their shouts and screams echoing down the lanes. Incredible what the diminutive pixies could accomplish. Mayhem embodied in creatures no bigger than an apple.

  Catullus tried to imagine what might happen if the totality of Britain was overrun with pixies. “Amusing, perhaps, for about fifteen minutes. And then” —he ducked as a heavy porcelain basin went flying overhead— “hellish.”

  He wheeled his horse around, pointing in the direction which Arthur had disappeared. At his signal, he, Gemma, and Astrid all kicked their horses into a run, weaving through the throngs as they sped out of town. And into the dark countryside.

  “The damned Heirs of Albion,” Astrid growled. “They had no idea that when they unlocked the Primal Source, they also released hell on Earth.”

  Chapter 9

  The Silent Village

  The madness of Glastonbury faded behind them, but Catullus could not forget what he’d seen. He wished there was something he might do to help the townspeople. Perhaps later—if there was a later—he could return and help rebuild. For now, his duty lay in tracking Arthur, and safeguarding Gemma.

  He could only imagine what kind of story she’d write, if she’d expose the existence of the Blades in her pursuit of the truth. He discovered he didn’t care. So long as she survived, she could write whatever she damn well pleased.

  The thought shook him. Always, always, his loyalty to the Blades came first. He’d learned that when still mucking about with scraps of wire from his mother’s workshop.

  “Blades before all, Catullus,” his mother often admonished him. “The Graves family has a great responsibility, and we cannot shirk it for our own selfish purposes.”

  In the whole of his twenty-three years of service to the Blades, he’d never chafed against this imperative, never had a reason to. Now his reason rode beside him, bent low over her horse’s neck, eyes bright with amazement at the wonders she’d seen. She wore her spirit like a golden mantle. Across the width and breadth of this world he had traveled, and not once seen her equal.

  God help him if he ever had to choose between her and the Blades.

  But it hadn’t come to that. Not yet, anyway.

  As he, Gemma, and Astrid galloped into the night, Astrid stayed at the head of their group. Astrid’s connection to the Primal Source, and by extension, to Arthur, still ran strong. She served as their compass, guiding them through fields and down roads in their pursuit. Wherever Arthur was heading, it lay somewhere to the east. Catullus wondered if the legendary monarch meant to stride across the English Channel and lead a one-king invasion of France—England’s old enemy.

  The road he, Gemma, and Astrid now followed took them through open country. Stone walls banded the road. All around rose the low backs of gently rounded hills, empty at this hour even of sheep.

  A crossroads emerged ahead.

  “This way,” Astrid called over her shoulder. She took the road to the left, and Catullus and Gemma did the same.

  “I hear something,” Gemma said.

  Catullus strained to listen above the pounding of the horses’ hooves.

  “Behind us.” Her voice was flat, a reluctant admission.

  He turned in the saddle. Then promptly grabbed his shotgun, swearing.

  A pack of dogs ran after them. Not ordinary dogs, but beasts nearly as large as the horses they pursued. More magic brought forth by Arthur’s summoning. Their black coats soaked up the moonlight, obliterating it, and their feet churned up the hard-packed road with thick, jet-colored claws. And their eyes …

  Catullus prayed that the horses did not catch a glimpse of the hounds. Horses were skittish animals, and not inclined to react favorably to giant dogs with burning eyes and gaping mouths full of long, tearing, yellow teeth. Catullus himself wasn’t feeling very sanguine about the fiery saliva dripping from the dogs’ mouths. It hissed and smoked where it dripped.

  “Not a local breed, then,” Gemma said. She pulled her derringer.

  “They go by many names in Britain.” He checked, as he rode, to be sure that his shotgun was loaded. “Wisht hounds, yeth hounds, black dogs, padfoot. They follow and,” he gritted, “devour travelers.”

  “Oh,” said Gemma. “Wonderful.”

  “Though I’ve only read about them,” he cautioned. “The truth may be altogether different.”

  “Let’s not put it to the test.”

  The hounds snarled as they drew closer. A smell of sulfur clung to their huge bodies and gusted from th
eir mouths. Growling, they snapped at the air.

  “We can shoot them, though,” Gemma offered.

  “We can try.”

  Both he and Gemma aimed—no easy feat when facing backward on a galloping horse.

  “On my count,” said Catullus. “One … two … three … now.”

  “Wait!” Astrid shouted.

  But he and Gemma had already fired. Her shot went a fraction too wide, ricocheting off a stone wall. His, however, hit. The shell slammed into the lead dog’s chest, sending the monster tumbling to the ground. Its packmates simply ran around the toppling hound. Not much honor among demon dogs.

  Catullus soon understood why they were so little concerned about their comrade. As the shot dog rolled on the ground, it split straight down the middle as neatly as a walnut. Both halves continued to tumble, and, as they did so, they reshaped in a blur of black fur and yellow teeth. Then regained their footing and continued to give chase.

  “Sons of bitches.”

  Thanks to Catullus’s shotgun, one hell dog was now two. And both of them had taken his gunfire personally. They growled, furious, as they stretched out their long legs, coming nearer.

  “That’s why you don’t shoot those things!” Astrid yelled over her shoulder.

  “I’ll keep that under advisement.” Catullus slung his shotgun again onto his back.

  The horses finally became aware of the dogs. Catullus considered it a minor miracle that none of the mounts reared back in panic. They ran all the harder, but the hounds caught the scent of fear and lunged. The teeth of one dog grazed the pastern of Catullus’s horse, and the monster received a kick in the face for its attempt. It yelped, but didn’t fall back.

  Damn, damn. No matter how frightened the horses were, they’d been going for hours, and would weary long before the dogs abandoned their pursuit. Catullus couldn’t shoot the bloody beasts. And even if he’d kept his luggage, he had nothing in his arsenal of inventions that could be used against demonic canines. What the hell could he do?

  “There!” Gemma pointed off to the right.

  He squinted into the darkness, his night vision never particularly robust. Then he saw it.

  A small stone bridge, about a half mile ahead, crossed a fast-moving river.

  “Head for that,” she shouted to both Catullus and Astrid.

  But Catullus wasn’t certain. He did not think the dogs would tire and give up their chase before they reached the bridge. And the bridge wasn’t where he and the others were headed. They might lose valuable time with a detour.

  Gemma, seeing him busily deliberating, yelled, “Stop thinking and just do it!” Seeing the stone wall give way to a low hedge, she turned her horse and jumped over.

  Astrid followed immediately after.

  Catullus glanced back at the nearing hounds, then over to where Gemma and Astrid sped over a field toward the bridge.

  “Sod it,” he muttered, and followed, as well.

  Heavy, rasping breaths sawed behind him as he pushed his horse faster and faster. The choking smell of sulfur told him the demon hounds were closing fast.

  Nearer to the bridge. Gemma galloped across, Astrid just after her. Alternately swearing at and encouraging his horse, Catullus urged the animal to the limits of its ability.

  The bridge clattered beneath the horse’s hooves. Catullus breached the other side.

  Howls rent the air.

  All three travelers wheeled their horses around in time to see the hounds erupt into flame as they crossed the bridge. Flares of noxious light burst. The dogs exploded into sticky ash. Flakes wafted down to the water, only to be carried away by the swift current. Nothing remained of the foul beasts but a lingering, sulfurous smell.

  Catullus turned to Gemma. “How did you know?”

  “Tales my granda told me. In Ireland, such creatures are called coin iotair, and can’t cross running water.” He didn’t mind that she looked a little smug. In fact, she could go on gloating until next Michaelmas Term.

  He forgot to be reserved.

  Slowly, he brought his steaming horse nearer to hers. She watched him steadily. When he was alongside her, he leaned over, threaded his fingers into her hair, and brought her close for a potent, thorough kiss. She didn’t resist, but met his passion with her own.

  Soft. Silky wet. Delectable.

  When they finally separated, she opened glazed eyes and said breathlessly, “Glad to see you don’t mind.”

  “Mind what?” His own brain blurred at the edges from a combination of many things—a night full of danger, magic running unchecked through the countryside, but mostly her.

  “That I knew something you didn’t.” She gave him a cheeky grin.

  “On the contrary,” he answered, “I look forward to furthering my education.”

  “There’s a rampaging mythological monarch on the loose,” Astrid’s diamond-sharp voice announced. “Save the seduction for a less desperate time.” Before either Catullus or Gemma could answer, Astrid brought her horse around and urged the tired animal into a trot.

  Gemma gave Catullus a wry glance, then, looking slightly surly, guided her horse after Astrid.

  For a moment, Catullus stared at the bridge, where a pack of demonic hounds had, moments ago, exploded into flame. But, to his mind, the real marvel of the evening was that he’d been seducing—and kissing—Gemma. Rather well, too.

  Catullus Graves, acclaimed inventor, inveterate outsider, now successful wooer of women. If that didn’t convince him that the world was about to end, nothing would.

  Determination kept Gemma upright in the saddle. If she stopped focusing for even a second, she’d tumble right off and into a ditch. Dimly, she wondered when she’d been so exhausted, and nothing came to mind. But she wouldn’t let her weariness win. Time meant everything. And she didn’t want to get a face full of mud.

  For hours, they’d followed in the wake of Arthur. They never caught another glimpse of him—amazing, considering that the king was a giant. Astrid’s connection to the Primal Source served as their means of tracking.

  After the incident with the demon dogs, everyone kept alert for more magical creatures. Yet, as the miles and night wore on, nothing with pointy teeth leapt out from the hedgerows, no enchanted music wove over the hillsides to ensnare the unwary. Gemma had no idea what time it was, but she felt certain that it was hours after midnight. She couldn’t concentrate on anything but staying on her horse.

  Her head snapped up. Hell. She’d been nodding off again.

  Catullus, damned observant man, saw this, and frowned. Not with anger, but concern.

  “At the next village,” he said, “we stop and rest for a few hours.”

  “I’m not tired,” she answered at once.

  He sent her a glance that showed he was not at all gulled. “Perhaps you are not, but I am, and so is Astrid.”

  “I’m wide awake,” Astrid said, rubbing her eyes with her fist.

  Catullus rolled his eyes at having been burdened with not one but two obstinate females. “Forgive me, O Indefatigable Women. I meant that the horses are stumbling on their feet. If we don’t give the poor beasts some rest, they’ll drop from under us and we’ll have three dead animals and no means of transport.”

  “Then we’ll change horses at the next village,” Astrid countered, “and continue on.”

  “Absolutely not.” He turned to Astrid. “You, more than anyone, know how important it is to be at one’s utmost capability in the field. If we push on without pause, our bodies and minds are useless.”

  “But—”

  The look he gave Astrid stunned Gemma with its steel. Courteous and well spoken Catullus might be, but there was no denying that he possessed an autocratic streak. He commanded, and he was obeyed. With an internal shiver, Gemma remembered how, in the dark of their shared room at the inn, Catullus had touched her, urged her to rapture without compromise.

  And the kisses he’d given her this very night—those had been downright dominant. An
d wonderful.

  Yet she wasn’t easily broken.

  “A few hours,” Gemma said. “Then we’re back on Arthur’s trail.”

  He gave a slight nod, almost as if he was angry with her compromise. But a minuscule smile revealed that he liked the fact that she wouldn’t capitulate entirely. Despite the fact that her brain was cottony with fatigue, she knew with certainty that no other man she’d ever known would ever appreciate that quality in a woman.

  In silence, they rode on until rounding a bend, where the unmistakable shapes of cottages rose up. She couldn’t prevent a swell of happiness at the sight. Despite arguing for continuing on, Gemma really would appreciate a bit of sleep. There had to be an inn or maybe an accommodating townsperson with spare beds or even a hayloft somewhere around here.

  The moon had set. Everything within the village was dark. As Gemma, Catullus, and Astrid plodded their weary horses down the central thoroughfare, they saw a few shuttered shops, a public house, a quaint little church. Some smaller avenues branched off the main street, revealing more houses and shops. A square marked the center of the village, bound by a postal office and saloon. In the middle of its space stood a stone cross surrounded by a low wall, a monument to an old battle. The village was smaller than Glastonbury, yet looked large enough to support a decent-sized community. A slight, predawn breeze blew down the lanes. Shingles squeaked on their hinges.

  Something was wrong.

  Every single window was dark. Not one candle or lamp burned anywhere. Gemma strained to hear some human sound, some movement. Nothing.

  A chill plucked along her spine.

  They halted in the square.

  “This place is deserted.” Even whispering, her voice sounded loud in the unnatural quiet.

  “It may just be the lateness of the hour.” But Catullus didn’t sound convinced.

  Astrid guided her horse toward the shingle announcing the village bakery fronting the square. The sound of her mount’s hooves on the cobblestones echoed along the deserted street. “The baker would be up by now, lighting his ovens, getting ready to make the village’s bread.” She peered through the window, then frowned. “I see no one inside.”