Rituals

by Kelley Armstrong

  "That's what...?" I prompted as he started walking away.

  He shook his head. "I was about to start what would sound like a sales pitch, and this really isn't the time."

  "That's what Matilda does," I said. "If she chooses the Cwn Annwn. She rides with you. Like in the legend."

  "Yes." He paused. "Which does not mean you couldn't if you chose the fae. But I suppose I shouldn't say that." A shake of his head. "I'll change. That will make it easier to get close. But it's still me. Don't be alarmed."

  I didn't quite know what he meant by that until he led his horse behind an outbuilding, and when he returned, I didn't see Ioan--I truly saw the Hunt.

  I'd seen Ioan as a Huntsman in Todd's memory. Ioan would have been the one who talked to him, but even if I'd logically made the connection, I hadn't viscerally made it. Now Ioan rode from behind that building and I took a step back, an ancient fear igniting in my gut, one I hadn't felt seeing Huntsmen in visions. There, I'd known they were visions. I'd known I was safe.

  The beautiful roan stallion was gone. Instead, Ioan rode a creature woven from dream and nightmare, jet-black, with flame licking through its fetlocks and mane. Its eyes were red-hot coals.

  Ioan himself was a hooded figure atop that creature, his polished boots gleaming in the moonlight, dark jodhpurs blending with the black of his horse. A dark green cape concealed the rest of him, even his face lost in the darkness of the hood, leaving only the glow of red eyes.

  When I stepped away, he leaned over the horse's back and reached out one gloved hand.

  "It's still me, Liv," he said, yet his voice had changed, too, a sonorous tone that came from impossibly deep within his hood.

  As I took another slow step back, I tried to stop myself, knowing I was being foolish, but everything in my gut said to run, run now--the Hunt was here, and if you saw it, you would die.

  "What have you done?" he asked.

  That gave me pause. "What?"

  "Exactly. What? You only need fear the Hunt if you've done something that deserves judgment. What have you done?"

  I wanted to say, "Nothing," but it was like when I was a kid and my father would say, "Livy, I need to speak to you," and every bad thing I'd ever done flashed to mind. That was exactly what happened now.

  "No," Ioan said. "No, and no, and no and..." He sputtered a laugh. "Definitely not."

  I stopped mentally chronicling my past transgressions--fast--and Ioan chuckled.

  "That's my point, Liv. You have done nothing to remotely deserve your fear. It's ingrained. That's all. Now climb up behind me. If you enjoyed the ride before..." His eyes glittered and I swore I saw his teeth glitter, deep in that darkness. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  As unnerving at it was to have the leader of the Wild Hunt quote rock lyrics--even classic rock lyrics--Ioan was right. When the horse took off again, we flew. Not actual flight--that would have been almost disappointing. This was rocketing at speeds so fast we seemed to burst out of our world entirely, flashing through other dimensions like an old-time casino dealer shuffling cards too fast for the eye to follow.

  I saw lights unlike any I'd seen before. I heard sounds I shouldn't hear, sounds I couldn't recognize, sounds that made me strain for more, and sounds that made me burrow against Ioan's back, my shoulders hunching as if they could stopper my ears. I caught the smell of fire and then fire-that-was-not-fire, if that makes any sense. Smells I wanted to hold on to forever and smells I wanted to cast out in a sneeze.

  Then the horse stopped, and I clung to Ioan's cape, part of me wanting him to keep going, to please keep going, and yet part of me saying that was enough, thank you very much. Enough for now. Not enough for forever. Sensory overload that my brain needed to detangle or I might find myself in a place very much like the one towering in front of me.

  The abandoned asylum.

  Hello, my old friend.

  My old enemy.

  We dismounted in the overgrown cemetery. A hidden cemetery, a convenient burial ground for inconvenient patients, those who died without family to pay for a proper gravestone. Tucked away in this plot, markers nestled into the earth, allowed to submerge beneath the weeds and vines, probably before the place even shut down.

  Shut down...

  I flashed to a memory of Pamela's, of being brought here to see the woman I now realized was my great-great-aunt, a figure who'd haunted my visions and nightmares. Unable to deal with her own fae powers, she'd wound up incarcerated here, clawing out her own eyes and cutting out her own tongue.

  Pamela had somehow understood what had happened to her great-aunt. That was my mother's gift--her curse. She could recognize fae, even when she hadn't understood what they were. All she'd known was that they were not human and that her aunt had done these horrible things to herself, and it had something to do with these creatures.

  Can I blame my mother for hating the fae? For growing up harboring a hatred so deep it poisoned everything?

  I can blame her for what she did to Gabriel. That was a choice. But can I blame her for seeing him--the living representative of their legendary king--and being unable to overcome her loathing?

  My mother is, in her way, not unlike Seanna Walsh. We can hold them accountable for the choices they ultimately made, while still understanding that something inside them made those choices far easier than they should have been.

  I walked to the gravestone I'd cleared the last time. My great-great-aunt's. Vines had already wriggled across it, and I was pushing them away when Ioan walked over, back to his usual self now, with Brenin at his side.

  "It's a relative," I said. "My great-great-aunt..."

  I trailed off as I read the name. Charles L. Manners.

  "Interesting name for an aunt," Ioan said.

  "The last time I was here, I cleared it and saw her name, and then fell through into a vision."

  "Then I would suggest her name was part of your vision. This appears to be what we would have called a pauper's grave, for those without family. I can hardly imagine your people would have abandoned her here."

  "You're right."

  I kept looking at the stone, and in my mind I did see her name. Then I saw her again, my last vision of her, following me through the halls of the asylum, urging me to kill myself, telling me it was the only way out.

  That image still haunts me. I'd like to think it was a projection of whatever dark magic worked in this place, but part of me fears it really was her, that she really did think that was the only solution.

  "Liv?" Ioan said softly.

  I straightened. "Okay, so this is the part where you send the beast-spies in to see what the sluagh have in mind. How does it work?"

  "Well, first, I need your hand."

  I started to reach out. Then I stopped. Since the moment his horse first took flight, I'd forgotten what I'd really come with him for: to see what Ioan was up to.

  When I hesitated, he arched his brows. Then he nodded and said, "You think I have a trick up my sleeve. I do. But you're going to have to give me your hand to see it."

  A smile played on his lips. Naturally charming. Naturally charismatic. That's what Cwn Annwn were. Yet I saw his smile and it was like being back on the horse, all my doubts melting. I gave Ioan my hand, and he laid it on Brenin's head.

  "Close your eyes," he said.

  I did.

  "Now I'm going to take your other hand. Feel it?"

  I nodded as his fingers encircled mine.

  "All right, then." Brenin, go!

  Ioan's last two words resounded in my head, and I flew off my feet. I hit the ground, knees and feet and hands smacking against it, and all I could see was the black blur of Brenin's fur as he dragged me through the cemetery.

  I tried to let go, screamed for Brenin to stop, but the hound ignored me. My hand seemed grafted to him, as if he were a kelpie, dragging me to my doom.

  I'd been tricked.

  Of course I'd been tricked. Fae lied. The Cwn
Annwn were just better at hiding it.

  Ioan claimed he didn't know he'd been dealing with the sluagh. More lies. He'd set me up from the start, and I'd been stupid enough--

  A wall loomed up in my path. A solid brick wall. Brenin swerved around it, and I headed right for it and...

  And nothing. I passed through the wall without even a bump.

  That's when I realized I really wasn't feeling anything. I was apparently being dragged by a hound running full out, and I felt the speed and the turns and the leaps as he bounded over obstacles, but it was like riding a sleek new steel roller coaster, without so much as a jerked neck, much less the skin-peeling I'd have gotten if I really was being dragged over the ground.

  I managed to look back and caught a very distant glimpse of...myself. Crouched beside Ioan, our hands extended, as if resting on a hound that was no longer there.

  Brenin leapt again. I felt the jerk of it and twisted and saw another wall coming straight for my head. I shut my eyes and--

  I slammed into the wall. I felt the blow this time, yet it wasn't the blow of physically hitting a brick wall, but a jolt, like being thrown against my seat belt, and with that jolt, the wild ride smoothed out even more.

  I opened one eye...and saw a darkened corridor. The scene bobbed, as it had when I'd seen the world through Lloergan's eyes. Then Brenin stopped. He let out a low growl and my field of vision swung left and then right.

  To my left, I heard distant voices. My nose lifted, nostrils flaring, and a scent wafted in, one that made my hackles rise as I stifled another growl.

  I was inside Brenin now. Seeing through his eyes. That's what Ioan had done. Not a trap, but a surprise. Showing me what the Cwn Annwn saw, watching through the eyes of their spies.

  Would have been a lot easier if he'd just said that.

  Easier, perhaps, but not nearly as entertaining. Ioan's voice, in the hound with me.

  I ignored him. I was seeing through Brenin's eyes, inside the hospital, and that was worth my full attention.

  Now that I knew what was happening, I realized it wasn't exactly like witnessing it myself, but rather like looking through narrow glasses, a sphere of perfect clear vision surrounded by a blurred perimeter. At that periphery, I kept catching glimpses of colors and flashes of motion, but even when Brenin swiveled his head in the right direction, I saw nothing but a wall.

  He padded along a corridor filled with debris, leaping over it absently as he trotted, his attention focused on senses other than sight. Tracking those voices. Every now and then one would echo in just the right way for me to catch a word or two, and he'd pause to lift his head.

  Liv?

  At Ioan's prompt, I understood Brenin was pausing to give me time to identify the voices.

  "One is Walter," I said. "I don't recognize..." I trailed off, something poking at the back of my memory, and I amended to, "I don't think I recognize the other."

  Brenin continued down the corridor. When a pile of debris blocked his path, he nosed it, pushing aside a plank to see that, beyond the blockage, the ceiling had caved in. He snorted in annoyance and headed the other way, faster now, retracing his steps. We passed where we'd come in and hit another block.

  This time, nosing aside broken wood let him wriggle through a spot that seemed improbable even for a beast half his size. Then he took a slow look around, assessing his options. Ioan spoke to him in Welsh, his voice low, seeming more to soothe the cwn's frustrations than give him directions.

  Brenin set out more slowly as he moved along the passage. He stepped into a room, his big head swinging from side to side. Something flickered in the corner, an image that wouldn't quite take hold. He ignored that and looked instead at a far door. He padded through the room for a closer look. The door was closed, knob long gone. Brenin tilted his head, listening, and I picked up voices again. Walter and...

  I recognized the second voice then. Grace's cousin, Jack, who'd been the one to refer me to Grace's building. Who'd sent me on my way to Cainsville.

  Then, from behind us, a whisper.

  "Find the darkness. Need to find the darkness."

  Brenin ignored the voice, but the phrase "the darkness" gave me a mental start. The hound seemed to sense that, and he turned, and there was the flicker I'd noticed. It was a man, crouched in the corner. He wore pajamas and there was something in his hand, moving fast, as he hunched over, almost like he was playing a violin, drawing the bow back and forth in a frantic accelerando.

  No, Brenin, Ioan said, and the hound snorted, as if he'd already come to that conclusion, and as he turned away, I saw blood dripping down the man's wrists as he sawed at them with what looked like a butter knife. I let out a soft Oh and Ioan said, Yes, you didn't need to see that.

  What am I seeing? Ghosts? Trapped spirits?

  No, simply impressions. Tragedies that have imprinted themselves on this place. Fae-related.

  I tried to look back at the man, but Brenin kept his gaze forward as he nudged at the door. I could still hear the man whispering that he needed to find the darkness.

  He has--had--fae blood? I asked.

  Yes, but that wasn't the cause of his madness. In this case, his fae blood is why you see the impression, but his madness came from other sources. Sometimes the mind simply cannot cope. In his case, the blame lay with war. When he closed his eyes, that's all he saw. He wanted to sleep.

  That was what he meant--he wanted to find sleep. Eternal sleep, if necessary. My brain was overly attuned to the word "darkness," reading something into it that wasn't there.

  Brenin snorted, and I saw the door swing open as he'd managed to get his nails under the bottom and pull. He walked through into yet another corridor. After maybe twenty feet, he stopped, and I couldn't hear or smell anything, but the hairs on his back prickled, and a growl rippled through his flanks.

  Do you feel that? Ioan asked.

  Feel what? I said.

  Concentrate.

  I did, but picked up nothing. What is it?

  We don't know. It's...

  Ioan trailed off and then urged Brenin forward. The hound took it slow, no longer sniffing or pricking his ears but still straining for something, his deeper senses attuned for it as he took careful step after careful step. When his paw touched down on air, he jerked back. I saw broken floorboards. Intentionally broken, it seemed, pieces lying to the side as if someone had pried them off.

  Brenin lowered his snout to the hole, his nose working, nostrils flared as he detected something that I couldn't catch. He inched closer, his muzzle dipping into the hole.

  The voices came again, from deep in the building. I strained to listen. When I couldn't make out words, I let out a mental curse, and Brenin's head jerked up, startled. His one paw slid over the edge. He scrabbled to get his balance. A crack, as a floorboard gave way. His other front paw slid and then he fell, tumbling through. He didn't flail, didn't panic, just let out a snarl of annoyance before landing on solid ground, his legs bent to absorb the impact.

  I'm sorry, I said. I'm really--

  Brenin cut me short with a grunt, further annoyance, and I whispered another apology, but Ioan said, He's fine. Angry with himself for being startled and then for tumbling. But he's all right. A hound can take more damage than your human canines. And he's quite capable of finding his way out of this predicament.

  Brenin chuffed in response. As he looked around, at first I saw only blackness. Then he blinked a few times, and with each blink the scene lightened, as if his receptors could use any pinprick of light.

  We stood in a room. Seeing rough-hewn wooden walls, I couldn't suppress a mental shiver, my mind flying back to the vision of the cabin, Gabriel and I racing to shut it up against the melltithiwyd.

  Brenin's gaze swung up to the hole in the ceiling. He circled and then hunkered down, muscles bunching, seeming to consider the likelihood he could reach the floor above.

  I kept trying to see more of the room, until Ioan said, Brenin? Pause here, please. Liv wo
uld like to take a look around before you go.

  No, I said. We aren't here to sightsee. I'm bad for that.

  You aren't sightseeing. You sense something. Brenin? Look, please.

  Brenin had already risen from his crouch and was walking to the wall. He sniffed at it. Old wood, rotting and ripe with some smell I couldn't quite catch. He did catch it, backing up quickly before turning away. Another wall zipped past as he swung his head. A wall like the first but--

  Brenin stopped. There was something on this wall. Dark marks against that dark and rotted wood. He moved closer. Sniffed. Ioan gave a low Hmmm.

  What is it? I asked.

  Brenin backed away, and those marks came clear. It was writing on the wood. Three words, written over and over.

  Beware the darkness.

  I stiffened. Brenin gave a questioning grunt, and Ioan said, No, as much as I might like to leave it at that, I don't think we can. Liv? Please prepare yourself. Brenin was attempting to shield you from something, but I'm going to ask him to turn around now.

  The hound did, and as he moved, I caught the smell he'd picked up earlier, enough that I realized what it was, and that prepared me, as he turned toward a corpse. A corpse ringed by melted candles.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The man lay in the fetal position in a circle of candles, all melted to puddles on the dirt floor. My first thought was ritual. A sacrifice of some kind. But then I saw the matches lying by his hand. Brenin gingerly stepped over the wax puddles and looked down.

  It was a matchbox, rather than a book of matches. I would expect that, given how old the body appeared to be. Leathery skin stretched over a skull topped with dark blond hair, the rest of him seeming no more than a bag of bones encased in clothing.

  Then I got a closer look at that matchbox. A perfectly preserved wooden one, with a painted logo for an adventure supply store with a website address.

  Brenin moved closer to the body and lowered his head to examine it, starting at the top. It was exactly as I'd thought from farther back--skin stretched tight over bone. But here I could see lesions, like pockmarks, dotting the cheeks.

  Definitely male, a young man with stubble and hair a little longer than Ricky's, drawn into a topknot. A modern hairstyle. Modern clothing, too, from a multi-pocketed khaki jacket to hiking boots to a T-shirt announcing that he'd survived whitewater rafting in the Devil's Gorge. He didn't survive this, though. Whatever this was.