by C. E. Murphy
“I’m sorry, my lord master of the Hunt.” My own voice sounded bewilderingly distant and hollow, as if it had been filtered through light and come out the other side stronger for its journey. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not going to happen. Tell me something. This thing you saw. Where was it?”
For the second time I wished I knew the god’s true name. The land was almost dead now, blackened and raw. All the trees were shadows of themselves, and the Hunt itself, dogs and Riders and rooks, stood amongst the thin stick forms, waiting on a changing of the guard. “Cernunnos, answer me!”
He caught a slow breath, the kind that spoke of unwelcome wakenings, then murmured, “Buried. Buried behind a wall of stone, and still a glance was enough to strip me down to this. I’m weary, little shaman. Let me rest.”
I dug my fingernails into the ground until dirt pushed back, making the quick hurt, and grated, “Not on my watch.”
All that lovely fresh revitalized power pulsed out of me in a heartbeat burst of oil-slick color. Once, then again, and again, every thump inside my chest pressing life back into dying soil. I didn’t know how big this world was, if it disappeared into the mist a few yards away and melted into nothing, or if it hung between the stars like another earth. I could never pour enough into a planet to ensure its survival, so I didn’t let myself think about it. My heartbeats started coming slower after a while, but the grass around my fingers grew deep, and the earth softened again.
I might very well have killed myself trying to rescue a world, if exhaustion hadn’t put me to sleep first.
I woke up with a blade of grass tickling the inside of my nose and the green-eyed god of the Hunt standing above me with an expression of bemusement. “A patch,” he said, while I tried twitching my nose enough to dislodge the grass and go back to sleep. “A patch of earth, this courtyard and nothing more, but vitality begets vitality, shaman. Tir na nOg is healing, and from perhaps more than the maker’s pull.”
I said, “Yay me,” without really hearing him, and pulled the offending blade of grass out of the ground, throwing it away before rolling on my stomach. A new piece of grass stuck itself in my nose. I whimpered and rolled over further, rubbing my face like a tired baby. Cernunnos kept looking at me with bemusement. I could feel it. After a while what he’d said started to sink home, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to sort it out. “You mean it worked. You’re okay now.”
“I am,” Cernunnos said dryly, “as you say, ‘okay.’ And the mists are parting, shaman. The time to ride approaches.”
I’d gotten an upgrade. I was no longer a little shaman. Bully for me. Grown-up or not, I sat up still feeling like a sullen three-year-old, and scrubbed my hands through my hair. “Time to ride where? Oh. My world.”
Cernunnos nodded. “All Hallow’s Eve approaches, and we have souls to collect.”
“Well, I can’t go with you. I’ve got to…well, I mean, I guess I have to go with you to get home, but I can’t ride with you. I have to, like—” I waved a hand “—save the world.”
It had to be a godly knack, the ability to do something as mundane as offer a hand up and make the entire gesture ironic. Cernunnos did just that, pulling me to my feet. The bone crown was finally beginning to distort his temples, and I forgot about whining in favor of smiling at the oncoming change. “You really are getting better.”
“I am, and I owe thee a—”
I put my fingers over his mouth. “Stop that. The theeing and thouing. You’re right. It gets right under my skin.” And in a good way, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. “Stick with being normal. As normal as you can be, anyway.”
His lips curved under my touch and he took my hand away, folding my fingers over his own. “As you wish. I owe you a debt of thanks, a greater debt than can be easily repaid.” He examined my hand over his, then lifted his gaze again with a flick of his ashy eyebrows. “You made a choice in riding with us to this place.”
I’d already managed to forget that. Now, reminded, I pulled back, but the god held my hand more tightly. “That choice is unmade, for what you’ve done here. It will come again at the end of all your days, but you have no bargain to settle with me. Your soul is your own, gwyld, and I leave no marks on it.”
“Oh.” I managed to keep my feet, but I also managed, in one two-letter word, to stagger with relief. Amusement lit Cernunnos’s eyes, and I dragged a crooked nervous smile up. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” He passed me back my belongings—including the rapier—and tipped his head. The Hunt drifted out of the mists, once more at full strength and beauty. “Now, Siobhán Walkingstick, shall we ride?”
I’d ridden with the Hunt quite a few times by now, what with dashing here and there and back again to Tir na nOg and Babylon, and being chased down highways, which may not have strictly been riding with them, but which I counted for effect’s sake. Name dropper and drama queen, that was me: Oh, I’d say someday, all light and insignificant-like. Oh, Cernunnos and the Wild Hunt? I rode with them, back in the day. And then I’d give a brittle laugh to show what I thought of my careless youth, and how I was better and wiser now than I’d been when I’d done such foolish things. No one would believe me, of course; I wouldn’t even believe myself, but by that time I’d be far too late to live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.
It was just barely possible I’d been watching too many rockumentaries on MTV. I needed to get out more. Anyway, none of that mattered, because I couldn’t imagine sipping bitter dredges at the memory of this thing lost. If I ever looked back on that last ride with Cernunnos with anything other than exhilaration, the truth was, I was already dead and just hadn’t noticed yet.
The goddamn sky split open under our horses’ hooves. There was nothing for their feet to impact against, but I felt every step like a bolt through my body, the air itself breaking and rumbling under the Hunt’s weight. Wind tore tears from my eyes and froze in icy streaks along my temples. Speed flattened my hair against my head, and my ears, my face, my teeth ached with cold. I wore a grin I recognized from the inside, even though I’d only ever seen it from the outside. Drummers in rock bands got that grin: musicians given over completely to abandon and the beat and the spirit-bursting excess of joy that came from finding the edge of life and leaning way the hell over to see what was on the other side.
My throat ached from howls of joy, and I could barely hear myself in the cacophony. Everyone and everything around me let loose the same cries; hounds, Riders and rooks alike, warbling raw calls mixed with long baying tones and the deeper shouts of men. The same feral grins split everyone’s faces, from the lord of the Hunt to the bearded king and the blond archer. As the youngest, as the Rider of the pale mare, I was meant to have the lead, but we jostled and crashed against one another, a mob of enthusiasm all trying to reach my world and three months of freedom first. There was a solemn duty to be done during those months, yes, but in the moment, that was unimportant. For now, it was about the first breath of earthy air, the first glimpse of a sky studded with familiar starlight. It was chaos made manifest, that factor of the universe which could never be predicted, and it was, without any question, how the Hunt was meant to make the journey from their world to mine.
We burst through the cloud cover, thundering down toward the cemetery from which Cernunnos had taken me. For an instant I saw it as an immortal might, patches of green grass and gray granite memorializing the dead. It was both fascinating and meaningless to one who wouldn’t die: gods might understand ritual, but the connotation of permanent loss gave it all an unfathomable air.
Suzanne Quinley and the boy Rider sat together on a stone bench, two distant points of life bound together by blood. Matilda no longer haunted them, nor could I see any sign of her in the graveyard; Cernunnos had delivered on his promise.
The boy stood as we roared down toward them. Suzanne followed suit more slowly, and for all that I was certain my vision wasn’t clear enough to see it, I still saw the
boy offer her a sympathetic smile. He murmured something I didn’t catch under the pounding hooves, then turned away and locked gazes with me.
I bent low over the mare’s mane, thrusting my arm out as we approached the two children. With absolute flawless grace and even more perfect timing, the boy reached for me in turn.
Our arms slammed together, fingers gripping with every ounce of strength we had available. I clenched my stomach and heaved, guiding the boy onto the mare’s back behind me. In very nearly the same motion, I dove off her other side, flinging myself under racing hooves and paws.
The Hunt angled skyward and careened over me, never breaking stride. I rolled through dirt and grass and came up against a gravestone, hooting with laughter. Suzy tore over to me, attention ricocheting between me and the disappearing Hunt. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done!” I scrambled to my feet, feeling like a superhero and in search of a handsome man to kiss. There weren’t any around, so I snatched Suzy up and swung her around in circles until I stumbled from dizziness. Her legs tangled with mine at the sudden cessation of momentum, and we went down in a heap of elbows and knees and laughter.
“You were gone forever!” She whacked my shoulder and rolled away, gasping at the sky. “They’re already gone!”
“I don’t think they’re constrained by details like the conservation of mass and energy.” I dropped my elbow over my eyes, still grinning, then peeled it away again. “How long was I gone? The sun hasn’t gone down—” I pushed up, looking for the horizon. Distant clouds were turning gold, harbinger of a perfect Halloween sunset of red and orange. “Oh, hell.” Gaiety fled, I fumbled my phone out of my jeans pocket and punched in Billy’s number. I hated cell phones, but I’d hate having to race through Seattle at rush hour to bear bad news even more.
“Yeah, Joanie, what is it? Where are you?”
“I’m at the Crown Hill Cemetery. You think you can pull off the impossible in the next half hour?”
“You’re at…” I could hear all the questions he wanted to ask and discarded as not strictly relevant just then. “Depends on the impossible. What do you need?”
“Can you call up Sonny’s friend Patrick and ask him to get some local priests to go around and bless the water in the lawn-sprinkler systems in all the graveyards in town? Before sunset? And get them all turned on,” I added, in case it wasn’t obvious.
Billy sounded like his tongue was having a throw-down with his brain over what ought to be said first. “You want the city’s irrigation system filled with holy water?” won.
I said, “Yes,” then, worried, continued, “I mean, it works that way, right? You don’t have to, like, cart in holy water from Jerusalem to mix with the rest of the water or anything, do you? It can just be blessed and be good to go, can’t it?”
Billy’s tongue was still trying to strangle him. I wished my phone had video capability so I could see what that looked like. It sure sounded awful. “Look, I’ve got this other thing to deal with, and I’m seriously not the person to coordinate a citywide holy-water brigade. You saw that black muck in the air. Even if I’m totally wrong about the cauldron disturbing the dead, getting rid of it has to be good. If I’m right, washing it away before sunset is critical. I really need you to do this.”
I also really didn’t want a man whose wife was about to give birth out chasing a death cauldron with me, but I didn’t think that was an argument that would go over well with my partner, so I left it alone. Billy spent about five more seconds choking on his tongue before saying, “What other thing?”
“The cauldron,” I said evasively. Mentioning premonitions of my death seemed like a bad idea. “If you cover the sprinkler thing, I can deal with the cauldron.” I sounded very confident. I hoped I was right.
“As soon as I’ve got this sprinkler thing under way I’m calling back and you’re telling me where to meet up. I mean it, Joanne. You’re not facing this alone.”
“You’re a big damn hero, Billy Holliday. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up, all too aware I hadn’t asked him how his interview with Sandburg had gone, but unwilling to draw the conversation out and maybe let slip that I was on a deadly timetable. For a couple of seconds I looked around, feeling a bit wild-eyed and hoping I’d find a priest or a holy hand grenade lying around waiting to be used.
Instead, I found Daniel Doherty standing at the cemetery gates, a hand to his forehead like he was staving off an ache, and a frown between his eyebrows that said he couldn’t have seen what he’d just seen, but he hadn’t yet figured out how to explain it away. I squared my shoulders, looking for a story that would suit him, and headed over to feed it to him.
Right then, the sun’s shadow slipped away from the cemetery, and the zombies rose up.
CHAPTER 20
I suppose I knew on an intellectual level that graves weren’t especially made for getting out of. I mean, you start with a hermetically sealed casket and then you dump six feet of dirt on top of it. Over time the earth gets compacted, which can’t make it any easier to dig through. So even if you’re a very angry and determined zombie, you’ve kind of got your work cut out for you just escaping from the grave.
Which was, I suppose, why we got hit with an initial wave of zombie bugs, birds and rodents. I bet some people would say if you’ve never picked undead mosquitoes out of your teeth, you’ve never lived. Under that definition, I’d be just as happy to have not lived, thanks.
I drew my rapier, feeling its connection to my armor zot to life with a sound like a lightsaber. I was sure that had to be internal editing, that nobody else heard a funky zwonk! of power lighting up, but I kinda hoped they did. Even zombies ought to be smart enough not to mess with a chick wielding a lightsaber.
Well, human zombies, anyway. A half-rotted squirrel ran at my foot, chittering like mad. I let out a perfectly girlie scream and swatted it away with the tip of my sword. Some fencer I was. I skewered a rat, which was much better in fencing terms, and a lot more awful in real-world terms. It kept trying to get me, teeth clattering and scaly little feet scrabbling in the air. I let out another yell and flung it away, hoping a nice hard smash against a tree or gravestone might end its nasty little unlife.
Something bigger than my head dove at me. I shrieked yet again and ducked, not even trying to strike back. Whatever it was pulled up, rained molty feathers on me, then dived again, this time with an unearthly scree that sounded, well, like the dead crying aloud. I thought maybe it was a goshawk, but I was too busy cowering on the ground, hands over my head, to really get a good look.
Not that the ground was all that good a place to hide from the undead. Half-rotted squirmy things boiled up through the dirt, maybe drawn to my body heat, or maybe drawn to all the noise I was making. For a big tough girl like me, I sure sounded like a fifties housewife encountering a mouse. Worse, I felt like one. My heart was in palpitations and my hands were wet with sweat. I wanted to throw up, but I was afraid the doughnuts I’d been surviving on for the past two days would turn out to have an unlife of their own, too, and would turn on me in bilious disgustingness.
Mice and shrews and robins and worms and myriad other small creatures that lived in city greens all squeaked and charged toward me, dropping tiny body parts and dragging tiny guts along with them. Tears leaked down my cheeks, and my chest filled up, like all the dead cells in my body were coming back to life and trying to suffocate me. Angry gods I could handle. Murderous banshees were fine. The living dead, it seemed, even in comparatively cute and harmless forms, were not my thing. I was going to be eaten alive by rodents of usual size, and the best I could do was sob and gibber about it.
Right beside me, I heard the distinctive double-click of a shotgun cocking. I didn’t think that was fair. Zombies, particularly rat zombies, shouldn’t be able to use shotguns. A blast of rock salt, even at short range, probably wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt like hell, and make lots of little holes for th
e zombies to start nibbling at. I wailed and wrapped my arms around my head more tightly. I’d dropped my sword and didn’t even know when.
A huge blast of rock salt peppered the ground in front of me, tinging off my sword and breaking some of the tinier rodent zombies into bits. Suzanne Quinley said, “Get up,” and cocked the shotgun again. “Get up, or next time I shoot you so I have time to run.”
I peeked up through my arms to see her standing above me like a pale god, shotgun riding on one hip and her hair flying in the wind. Her gaze was implacably calm, not at all like a fourteen-year-old girl’s. She was playing the role of grown-up because the actual adult in this scenario was blubbering like a baby. I had never in my whole life been so grateful for somebody else to have her shit together.
Suzy said, “Get up,” one more time.
Stomach in knots, hands trembling, I reached for my sword and got up.
Suzy gave me a severe nod, then lifted the shotgun to indicate Daniel Doherty. “What do we do about him?”
“Let him get eaten.” I didn’t mean it, and being snarky didn’t make my hands any steadier. “We rescue him.”
“You’re the boss.” Suzy let fly another blast of rock salt, and the air cleared of small flying undead things. I watched them fall to the ground, and wondered why my feet weren’t moving. Suzy crashed her hip into mine. “Move. Move!”
“I’m trying. I really am.” A tiny panicked sliver of silver-blue magic shot down my legs, looking for roots growing up from dead trees and binding me to the earth. There weren’t any. It was good old-fashioned panic holding me in place. “Maybe you better go ahead.”
“All I do is see the future!” Suzanne Quinley, who had to weigh at least thirty-five pounds less than I did, grabbed my sweater in one fist and hauled me a step forward. “You’re the one with the save-the-world magic! You’re the one who kicks everybody’s ass! I didn’t come all the way from Olympia to get eaten by bugs! Come on! Save me!”