His jaw tensed, a small muscle jumping there. “Leeches. Incoming.”
Only seconds later a black cloud appeared, darkening the street across from us. Then the air cracked and Raymond and some of his rebels, including Romaric manifested in front of us.
Once again he was dressed in a suit, gray this time, and a long, black coat fluttered around his legs. Everything about him screamed high and mighty vampire. Thin lips curled into a smile as he inhaled deeply. “Hmmm…I knew there was something sweet on the air.”
“Don’t you dare let him get another bite of you,” Kylian growled beside me, preparing to fight. Long, lethal claws now tipping of his fingers. He was the first and only shapeshifter I’d had ever seen doing this. Changing just some small part of him. It was impressive.
“Didn’t plan to.” I pulled Cutter out of its sheath.
Raymond tsked and shook his head at me. “Do you have any idea how many women would love to be in your place? Would be honored by the offer to be my queen?”
What? The guy had nearly raped me vampire style and was talking about me having to feel honored at his offer. He really needed someone to set his head straight, namely on the ground beside him, separated from the rest of his body. Putting a lid on the rage that had erupted inside of me at seeing him again and that would only blind me, I smirked. “Since you’re so awfully persistent, I’d guess…None?”
For a brief flicker his self-assured and arrogant mask cracked showing the anger he felt before being restored. Raymond sighed dramatically. “I thought Viviane would do a better job of raising you. Instead of a lady she created a wench that sleeps with animals.”
Kylian didn’t even bother with a reaction.
I frowned. “Actually she created neither lady nor wench, but a patroness. I’m the Patroness of Paris, and since you have some trouble remembering it, I’ll gladly remind you.”
The next instant Kylian and I were on Raymond and his men. Fighting side by side. Cutter singing, claws slicing through flesh and bone. They were prepared and fought back. I concentrated on Raymond, blocking out the emotions, relishing in the movements. Cutter was not just an extension of my arm, not just my weapon, together we became one. Raymond pulled two short daggers from the inside folds of his coat. Nice choice, he wasn’t defenseless and would be able to get close to me. I would have to watch out, in case he made a move for my skin. This was really not the time to get bitten again. I attacked and we clashed. I pushed him backwards, careful to leave no opening for his daggers, though I had the better reach. My arms and legs were fluid, my head clear watching for obstacles in form of traffic lights and innocent humans or vamps flying by thanks to Kylian. He’d obviously found a new purpose for them: first sweep the ground, then let the wind blow off the dust. From the corner of my eye I saw the fog coming from the east, crawling along the ground, flooding the streets in opaque waves. My attention snapped back on the vampire, who thought he could do whatever the hell he wanted to in my city and who had just succeeded in cutting my arm. At least he was leaking from several wounds himself, on his legs and arms. I parried another attack, swiftly on my feet. I was a dancer, my body moving and bending to my will. When Raymond spun away from me after another attack, his coat swirled around him on the ground and in a swift movement I stepped on it. Stop dead got a whole new meaning for me. Oh, the picture he made. Hilarious.
Oh, now he was angry. His cold eyes and daggers glinted in the light of the street lamps, lethal, and came for me. I brought Cutter up and swiftly moved my wrist blocking his every strike.
When the mist swirled around our feet and I could hear the drums, the air vibrating with their power around us, Raymond and the vampires finally stopped to take a look around.
Kylian stepped to my side, our stances nevertheless watchful and prepared so that we were slightly back to back. Then I saw the first hound gunning for us and sheathed my sword. Taking a sweeping bow, I smiled. “We’ll meet again. To the death, then.”
The vampire frowned at us and then at the fog curling in the air around us as a hound he couldn’t see snarled at Kylian and me.
The creature was red and black, its skin like leather. It nearly reached my hip, and the fangs were set in a double row. They looked rather sharp and clean, well-used I guess. Eyes, like glowing embers in the dark face, locked with mine, grabbing me, pulling me. They were old and seemed to probe my very soul. Evil laughter and screams rang out, and sent a cold shiver down my spine. The hound’s eyes were mocking me now for daring the Wild Hunt. I heard the metallic jangle of chains, and for a brief moment I wondered whether this really wasn’t a suicide mission after all.
The next thing I knew the creature bit my leg, and from above I was grabbed by my arms and pulled into darkness.
SEVENTEEN
When my senses came back to me, it was in a rush and I quickly took stock. I was riding on some sort of animal. A goat I realized, a big one. Black and white with giant horns. My hands were bound tight in front of me with a rough rope that bit into the skin at my wrists. Something heavy hung around my neck. I fingered it and recognized a metal collar, from which a rusty chain wound its way to a prisoner in front and behind of me, also on animals.
Looking around I saw more of those. Three rows all in all, each made up of six creatures, but fortunately not all of them had riders/prisoners upon them. I saw Kylian riding on a boar at the head in the row left to mine. He was awake as well but not happy at all with the chains judging by his dark face. His blue eyes had been trained on me, as if waiting for me to wake up. I nodded towards him, telling him that I was alright. Except for a man with graying hair and eyes wide from fright, the other prisoners were still unconscious. My gaze wandered and I frowned as I realized that women sat on goats and the men on boars. Was that supposed to mean something? Something along the lines of women bleated and men were pigs. Proof for some sick sense of humor maybe?
In front of us rode the Wild Hunt in a long procession lit only by a moon swimming in clouds in the distance. I couldn’t even make out the leader. Dark and barbaric they looked, as if from another time – or realm, to be correct. Demons and other animal-like or humanoid creatures, their heads and shoulders covered with pelts or even pieces of tattooed and very human-looking skin, were riding huge black horses. As far as I could tell the mounts had six legs but were breathing heavily from the mad pace, their coats shimmering with sweat. The hounds ran alongside snapping their fangs at the prisoners and snarling at everyone. Their breaths, and mine as well, clouded in front of the mouths and mingled with the fog at the thundering hooves and feet.
Around the Hunt, except for the moon, there existed only blackness and fog. It felt almost like nothingness, a feeling as if being high in the clouds and yet limited by something dark.
From time to time ahead of us or beneath the hooves of my goat the black ground would shimmer and I would look at Paris from above as if through a sheen of glass. It was incredible to look at, and made me realize that the ground was actually a gate between the realms, separating the world I grew up in from others like the one that held the Wild Hunt. And thanks to the magic leaking into my realm Paris was visible and visitable for the Hunt in some places. Better hunting grounds indeed. It explained why the missing person cases had clustered around the three hot spots Anouk and her team had found since only close to the leaks the magic was strong enough to sustain the Wild Hunt.
Once more the Hunt dipped, the front of our little procession riding through a leak in the ground. Hunters howled and sicced the hounds on humans who had no idea what was going on. Humans who tended to look at what they couldn’t comprehend instead of turning away. Curiosity killed the cat. Inwardly I groaned and prayed that there was no one walking along the streets below. Laughing, three hunters grabbed through the whole and pulled four more, unconscious humans up. Dammit. The collars snapped, chains clinked and ropes were wound tight.
The yelling and laughing gained in volume as the Hunt rode on, and suddenly horns were blazing. T
he sound like a wave crashing from the front row to the last, and announcing the end of tonight’s hunt. I sighed in relief.
Suddenly white-hot pain punched me in the gut and I moaned as I nearly doubled over with it. I felt like being dipped in burning oil, my skin crawling. Then the lights went out, again.
Somehow my mind had the answer to the repeated blackouts even before I woke up. The Wild Hunt had crossed into another realm. That was why the other prisoners, especially the humans had been unconscious as soon as they joined the Hunt. Even with some magic slowly flooding our world, our bodies were still unaccustomed to it and couldn’t endure the abrupt change that traveling from one realm to another brought. The magical waves we had experienced so far were nothing compared to the surge of magic needed for that.
I opened my eyes and took in my new surroundings. The goat was gone. To my utter disappointment the collar and rope were still there though. With an inner sigh of relief I relished in the familiar weight of Cutter strapped across my back. The sword stayed invisible and they still hadn’t found it. Thank God for small favors.
I looked around. This time I was in a giant, rusty cage, with other women, some awake and others, the new prisoners, lying still unconscious on the ground. The cage held no visible door or lock. Great. Had to admit it was nice thinking though.
Around us the landscape had changed, green fields, rocky hills and forest surrounding us. The sky was lead-gray, the air cold and damp. I had visited Wales once and somehow the new setting reminded me of it. Fifty yards away I found the cage holding the men. Kylian wasn’t inside of it. My gaze searched and found another cage. A big blue-gray tiger walked its confines, reminding me of cats of prey trapped in zoos. Oh, shit. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t part of the plan, and we didn’t have a good one in the first place. He growled at me, and I gave Kylian a thumbs-up. It seemed to calm him. Others were behind him, wolves, a bear and fox, his missing shifters I guessed.
The Wild Hunt had made camp another fifty yards away. Old-fashioned and simple tents snuggled up to the edge of a forest on one side and to a mound of huge, moss-covered rocks on the other. Crows sat on the barren branches of a gnarled tree rising from amongst the rocks, their occasional croaking sending a shiver down my spine. A fire was burning in the midst of the camp, a boar roasting over the pit. The wind brought the sound of laughter and conversation, the scent of smoke and ale.
I studied the women with me in the cage, and was glad to recognize some of them from the photos on my missing person files. Their clothes were dirty and torn, their eyes filled with fear and desperation. Except for one young woman with long brown hair wearing a dirty suit and pencil skirt, her eyes were sharp and observing.
I met her gaze and asked, “How are you holding up Sophie?” Her eyes widened a little and I grinned. “Yup, your husband, Monsieur Gauthier hired me to find you.”
A smile spread across her lips and with it renewed strength flooded her eyes. “How is he?”
“Worried, but fine.”
She looked at me, than at the camp and raised one brow. “Well, I guess you could say you found me, but how the hell do you want to get us out of here?”
“We’ll get to that. First tell me what you know about these lovely gentlemen.”
Sophie moved closer towards me. Her feet were bare, the only remaining high heeled shoe lying discarded on the floor beside her. “Time seems to be different here, or maybe it’s just me. But I think dusk and dawn are longer, so is the night. I haven’t seen the leader of that bunch except for when they go to take more people. When they come back they stuff all the prisoners in the cages. They camp and eat during the day, and reserve the abducting part for the night. Though they only do that after the bitch was here.”
“What bitch?”
“A woman. Beautiful but pissed. Comes out of nothing, yells a lot with the leader in his tent and disappears again. Then they go and take more people.”
Had to be Morgan, the puppet master. And there were some knots in the strings, huh? Interesting.
“When do they sleep?”
“In turns. There’s always a group standing guard.” Damn. Sophie looked at me. “Who, or rather what, are they anyway?”
“The Wild Hunt. Ever heard of it?”
“Yeah, in legends and movies.” She sighed and looked back at the creatures surrounding the fire. “But I guess we have to accept that there’s a grain of truth to everything, now.”
Then she introduced the other women. I asked for special knowledge that could be helpful in our situation. There were two witches and a faery among them. The witches couldn’t do anything inside the iron cage and probably not much out of it given their diluted bloodline. The faery might come in handy though, if we needed an illusion.
For the rest of the day I observed the Wild Hunt. Once, at what could have passed for noon, a group of three hunters brought water and threw some hard bread in the cages. How hospitable. But at least in the daylight I got a better look at the bunch. The procession had seemed endless and therefore numbered in the sky while hunting, but here on the ground I counted only thirty-seven men. Among them were horned or hoofed demons, some with body parts of animals, six-legged centaurs and humans that seemed to come from another time, all were dressed in leather and pelts against the cold. Some had long, braided hair, and others decorated their heads with skulls or the heads of a bear or wolf. Bows, swords and axes were strapped to their backs or hips. Cursed warrior souls. Now hunters.
Now and again some of them would glance with obvious interest into the direction of our cage and then with a frown at the slightly bigger tent that obviously housed the leader. But not a single man made a move towards us. Good boys, you might have regretted it anyway.
Beside me Sophie started to shiver. I settled down beside her on a patch of ground that didn’t seem to muddy, put my bounds over her head so she could huddle into my coat. “Thanks,” she murmured through her clenched teeth.
As night fell torches were lit, illuminating the camp in a golden glow, and only a group of nine men remained. Sitting around the fire and walking the camp from time to time. In our cage we huddled together against the clammy cold. In a low voice I tried to reassure them, telling them to be prepared if the slightest possibility for escape presented itself. Glad I had extinguished the desperation in at least some of their eyes I leaned against Sophie, sharing my warmth and listening to her even breath as she fell asleep.
Over their heads my eyes found Kylian. The tiger was sitting on his haunches, his eyes closed and the tail tugged around him, and looked very much like a cat. Then he slowly shifted, excruciatingly slower than was usually the case, and I realized he had been concentrating or meditating to find his human form. Naked, breathing hard and his golden skin glistening with sweat in the flickering light his blue gaze locked with mine. He winked at me, but I could see from the strain in his eyes and muscles the effort it cost him to keep his shape, and I knew he had only shifted to show me that he was able to hold it for at least a while if the need arose. I subtly nodded, as a sign of understanding. A puff of fogged breath escaped his lips, and the blue tiger was back. I hadn’t even blinked. More than anything else it hammered home the point that some strong mojo was forcing the shapeshifters to stay in their animal forms.
Dawn was slow, the world seemingly trapped for hours in a gray inbetween. Fog lay like a blanket above the forest and fields. I got up and started some stretching exercises to work out the kinks and cramps that came from sitting in the same position for hours in the cold. I had observed the group standing guard all night, taking only a short power nap here and there. One thing was clear though, they didn’t stand guard that much. Obviously the prisoners, nicely tucked away in iron cages, didn’t pose the most important threat to them – but the forest did. Maybe some nasty creatures in there? Who knew.
According to Sophie the hunters hadn’t done anything with their prisoners since she was taken, and so I wondered what kind of surprise they had in store fo
r us. Why take prisoners if you didn’t want to enslave or kill them or some such? Why bother wasting food? Those questions were foremost on my mind and making me nervous. I had a bad feeling. All our research had said that the prisoners were punished in some cruel way for the disrespect they had shown the Wild Hunt by not looking away. Where was the punishment?
The group of hunters seemed to grow restless as well. A disaccord tangible in the air. Time dragged on, only a fight or two amongst the hunters and our substantial meal were the highlights of our day. As dusk was approaching the camp quieted down, and I hadn’t seen the leader once. What the hell?
Three hunters silently separated from the group sitting around the fire. Unlike some of the others they didn’t move to stand guard somewhere along the forest line or to go on a round through camp but walked towards our cage instead. Determined. Uh oh.
From the corner of my eye I could tell that Kylian had noticed their purpose as well as he started to pace the confines of his cage, growling deep in his throat.
The women around me got nervous.
“Get up and stay close,” I softly commanded, moving to stand in front of the group. Feeling Cutter’s weight on my back my hand twitched to feel the familiar hilt, but I could only use it if absolutely necessary, as a last resort. I had planned on saving that little surprise for the leader of this terrific lot. But if those morons wanted some attention, my sword would give it to them.
Sophie stepped forward to stand beside me. Together we watched as they stopped close to the cage, but not within reach.
The three men were big, all of them nearly seven feet tall. One had skin as black as night, almost oily, and amber eyes that seemed to glow golden in the gathering darkness. He was one of those who wore the tattooed skin of others on his shoulders. I had to admit the tats looked very intricate, though I was sure they would have been even better on a warm, living, moving body. The other two looked more like the typical barbarian, clad in leather and pelts, except one of them had fangs and a bluish tint to the skin and the other was covered in scars and had several horns growing from weird places. Lovely.
The Hunt is On (The Patroness) Page 18