“If the princess is in danger, I can, by your own laws,” said Doyle.
The older one said, “Special Agent Bancroft, what’s happening? That’s not geese I’m hearing.”
A uniform that was St. Louis city, one Illinois state trooper, and a local precinct cop joined us. Apparently, when the rest of the police went away after we’d last dealt with them here, they’d left a little bit of everybody behind. No one wanted to be left out, I guess.
“If you all stay in your cars, you will be safe,” Doyle repeated.
One of the younger uniforms said, “We’re cops. We’re not paid to be safe.”
“Spoken like someone who is not even close to his pension,” another officer said, one with more weight around his middle.
“Jesus,” one of them said. I didn’t have to glance back, for now Frost had caught up with us. He’d bled all over Rhys, so that it looked like Rhys was hurt worse. Abe was still bleeding from falling among the bones.
One of the uniforms touched his shoulder radio and started requesting an ambulance. Doyle yelled above the growing sound of wind and birds, “There is no time. They will be upon us in moments.”
“Who?” Bancroft asked.
Doyle shook his head and moved around the agent. He laid me in the passenger seat of the car, then opened the backseat door, saying, “Put Frost inside, Rhys.”
“I will not leave you,” Frost said. The men laid him in the seat even as he protested.
Doyle grabbed Frost’s shoulder and said, “If I die, if all of us die, if the others are gone into the ground for good, then you must survive. You must take her back to Los Angeles and not return.”
I started to get out of the car then. “I won’t leave you.”
Doyle pushed me back into the seat. He knelt down and gave me the full weight of his dark eyes. “Meredith, Merry, we cannot win this fight. Unless help arrives, we will all die. You have never seen this wild hunt, but I have. We will give them sidhe to hunt, and they will ignore this car. You and Frost will be safe.”
I gripped his arms, so smooth, so muscled, so solid. “I won’t leave you.”
“Nor I,” Frost said, struggling to sit up in the backseat.
“Frost,” Doyle almost yelled it, “I do not trust anyone but you and me to keep her safe. If it is not to be me, then it must be you.”
Bancroft said, “Get in and drive, Charlie.”
The younger agent didn’t argue this time; he got behind the wheel. I was still holding on to Doyle, shaking my head over and over. One of the other cops had gotten a first-aid kit out of the car. Bancroft took it and crawled into the back with Frost.
“No,” I said to Doyle. “I am princess here, not you.”
“Your duty is to live,” Doyle said.
I shook my head. “If you die, I’m not sure I want to.”
He kissed me then, hard and fierce. I tried to melt into that kiss, but he tore himself away and slammed the door in my face.
The doors locked. I glanced at the agent, who said, “We have to get you to safety, Princess.”
“Unlock the door,” I demanded.
He ignored me and started the engine, hit the gas. Just then wind slammed into the car, so hard that it skidded the vehicle to the side. Charlie fought to keep the car in the parking lot and out of the trees.
“Drive,” Bancroft yelled, “drive like a son of a bitch!”
I looked then, because I had to. The wild hunt had broken through, and it was like the moment in the cave—as if the darkness had split open and was spilling out nightmares. But the nightmares were even more solid now. Or maybe, now that I’d seen them, I couldn’t unsee them.
A coat flew over my face, and I was left scrambling at it. “Don’t look, Merry,” Frost said, his voice choked, “don’t look.”
“Put on the coat, Princess,” Bancroft said. “We’ll get you to the hospital.”
I held the coat in my arms, but turned to look back.
The police were shooting at the hunt. Mistral lit the sky with lightning, and one of the police crumbled to the ground. Was he screaming? The horror spilled over Sholto, and he was lost to it. Doyle leapt toward the tentacles and teeth, the sword glittering in the moonlight. I screamed his name, but the last thing I saw before we drove into the dark was Doyle lost under a weight of nightmares.
CHAPTER 19
FROST’S HAND GRABBED MY SHOULDER, PRESSING ME AGAINST the seat. “Merry, please, don’t make Doyle’s sacrifice in vain.”
I touched his hand, pressed it against me, and there was more blood on it. “How can I let them drive us to safety and not fight it?”
“You must. I am too hurt to help, and you are too fragile. I would willingly die with them, but you must not die.”
Agent Charlie had us on the narrow road, driving a little too fast for the darkness and the snow. He hit ice and skidded.
“Slow down or you’re going to put us in a ditch,” Bancroft said. “And you, Frost, right, you need to lie back and let me finish putting pressure on this wound. You bleed to death and you can’t keep the princess safe.”
“Did you see it?” Charlie said as he slowed down. “Did you see it?”
“I saw it,” Bancroft said in a strained voice. He pulled on Frost. “Let me take care of the wound like your captain ordered.”
Frost let go of me, slowly, his hand pulling away. I started drawing the trench coat over me. I didn’t know whose coat it was, but I was cold. Cold in a way that the coat wouldn’t help, yet it was all I had.
Agent Charlie slowed at a sharp turn, and I caught a glimpse of something in the trees. It wasn’t the wild hunt, and it wasn’t our men.
“Stop,” I said.
He slowed further, almost stopped. “What? What is it?”
I saw them in the trees: goblins. Goblins walking in single file, cloaked for the cold, bristling with weapons in the cold light of the moon. They were walking away from the fight, though some of them glanced back. That was enough to tell me they knew what was happening, and they were leaving my men to die.
“Drive,” Bancroft said.
“Stop,” I ordered.
Agent Charlie ignored me. The car picked up speed.
“Stop,” I repeated. “There are goblins out there. They can tip the balance. They can save my men.”
“We’re doing what your guard demanded,” Bancroft said. “We’re going to a hospital.”
I had to stop the car. I had to talk to the goblins—they were my allies. They had to help, if I asked it, or be forsworn.
I reached over, touched the agent’s face, and thought about sex. I’d never done this to a human before, never used that part of my heritage for evil. And it was evil—I didn’t know him, didn’t want him, but I made him want me.
The agent slammed on the brakes, throwing me into the dash, and throwing the men in the back into the floorboards. Bancroft yelled, “What the hell are you doing?”
Agent Charlie threw the car into park, skewing halfway across the road. He unbuckled his seat belt, pulled me toward him, and started trying to kiss me, his hands everywhere. I didn’t care, as long as the car was stopped.
Bancroft came over the seat. “Charlie, for God’s sake, Charlie. Stop!”
I took advantage of the fight to reach across and unlock the door while the men fought almost on top of me. I opened the door and fell backward into the road. Charlie tried to crawl after me. Bancroft slid over the seat and on top of his partner.
I got to my feet on the icy road, huddling under the coat.
The goblins were there in the dark, just outside the headlight beams. Two faces looked at me, two nearly identical faces: Ash and Holly. The wind blew their yellow hair from their hoods. I couldn’t tell which twin was which in the uncertain light—the only difference was eye color.
“Hail, goblins,” I called.
One of them touched the other and nodded toward the dark. They began to turn and leave. I yelled, “I call on you as allies. To deny me is to b
e forsworn. The wild hunt is abroad, and oathbreakers are sweet meat to them.”
The twins turned back to us, and the goblins who were only dark shapes behind them shifted in the dimness. “We did not make this oath,” one of them called.
“Kurag, Goblin King, did, and you are his people. Do you call your king a liar? Are you king now among the goblins, Holly?”
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 t
hat 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 human’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.
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