by Tim Waggoner
“Then what of my father?” Devona said in her best haughty-regal voice. “I am not just his daughter; I am also the keeper of his Collection. He would be furious if any harm were to come to me or my companion.”
She sounded convincing enough, but I could tell by the uncertain look in her eyes that she wasn’t sure that Lord Galm would be all that upset if his half-breed daughter died in the Wyldwood. I felt sorry for her then. What would it be like to have known a father for over seventy years, to have taken care of his Collection for nearly thirty, to have worked hard for him in hope of some simple recognition and still not know whether he cared if you lived or died?
Maybe Amon sensed her uncertainty as well, for after a moment’s thought, he said, “You have aided in an assault on one of my subjects and trespassed on my Dominion. Galm cannot gainsay my right to justice.”
Amon shimmered and was now a beer-gutted, flannel-shirted, John Deere-capped, shotgun-toting hunter, complete with chewing tobacco juice dribbling down his stubbled chin.
“But as it’s the anniversary of the Descension and we are in the middle of the Wild Hunt, I shall make you a proposition.” He turned his head and spit a brown stream into the grass. “Several miles from here is a small glen. You will be taken there and set free. All you need do is reach the other side, and I shall let you continue on your way to the Sprawl and will seek no further action against you for what happened to Honani and Thokk.”
“And the catch is?” I asked.
Amon smiled, displaying tobacco-stained fangs. “I shall be hunting you.”
“You have been given a great honor,” Rolf said. He and his feral siblings escorted us through the forest, Rolf leading, the others enclosing us in a circle.
“Yeah, it’s a dream come true,” I replied.
He snarled and his clawed hands tensed. I’m sure he would’ve taken my head off if we hadn’t been his father’s prey. Before we’d set out, Rolf had taken my gun from me and now carried it in his left hand. Lykes are highly allergic to silver, but my bullets were safely encased within the gun, allowing him to hold it without harm. Still, I thought I could detect a slight swelling of his hand. I was surprised and puzzled that the lykes hadn’t gotten rid of my gun as soon as they’d taken it from me. But when we reached the glen, I understood why.
“The hunt shall begin as soon as we depart,” Rolf said solemnly. “My father, in deference to your weakness, shall give you a head start.” His sharp-toothed smile reminded me of Amon. “How much of a head start, however, you shall not know.” He pointed a clawed finger toward the other side of the glen. “The rules are simple. Reach the other side and your lives will be spared. Fail to do so, and you die.”
He dropped my gun to the ground. “Once we are gone, you may pick up your weapon and begin.” Before we could ask any questions, Rolf and the others bounded away into the forest, moving through the underbrush with silent, liquid grace.
I retrieved my gun and checked the clip. The five silver bullets were still there.
“It seems Lord Amon doesn’t believe in hunting defenseless prey,” Devona said.
“Or that he isn’t as vulnerable to silver as an ordinary lyke. Let’s get moving; the clock’s ticking.”
As soon as we stepped into the glen, it became night. I don’t mean the perpetual dusk created by the diffuse shadowlight of Umbriel; I mean honest-to-God night, with stars and everything. Despite our situation, I was so surprised that I stopped and stared overhead. They were the first stars I had seen in two years, and they were beautiful.
For an instant I had the dizzying sensation that we had somehow stepped through an unseen door between Nekropolis and Earth-that I was home.
“Are those stars?” Devona asked, her voice soft with wonder. “I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never actually seen any before. They’re lovely-and so far away. They make me feel small, and yet somehow big at the same time. Does that make any sense?”
“It makes perfect sense. But they can’t be real stars. What we’re looking at is most likely an illusion, a distraction designed to slow us down.”
“You’re right, of course. I’ll lead the way; my night vision is better than yours.” She took my hand and pulled me forward.
“And keep a nose out for Amon. We don’t know what form he’ll be wearing when he attacks, but it has to have a scent.”
“Right.”
We ran. The grass was slick with dew, and the sound of crickets chirping filled the air. I knew it was all just special effects supplied courtesy of Amon, but a wave of homesickness hit me hard, and I thought that if I had to die for good, I could pick far worse places in Nekropolis.
We continued forward, Devona’s gaze fixed unwaveringly on the opposite treeline, her heightened senses alive and alert; I held my gun at the ready, my comparatively weak vision and hearing working overtime, cop instincts on full.
Moments that felt more like hours passed, without any sign of the master of the Wyldwood.
“Why is Amon even bothering to stalk us?” Devona said in frustration. “He’s a Darklord, one of the six most powerful beings in the city, including Father Dis. How can we possibly provide him with a real challenge?”
“I don’t know much about Amon, but I’ve heard it said he gets as much pleasure from swatting flies as he does from stalking big game. To him, the hunt is everything.”
Devona started to reply, but then she suddenly squatted down, yanking me along with her so hard I felt something pull in my arm. I heard rather than felt something large pass through the air above us, approximately where our heads had been. A shrill cry of frustration sounded, followed by the flapping of wings as whatever it was began gaining altitude for another run.
“Looks like our head start’s over,” I muttered, scanning the night sky for Amon. I looked for a black patch against the stars, but whichever shape Amon was wearing, he was moving too fast for me to locate him. And then I heard something large whistling through the air and Devona screamed.
The starlight didn’t provide much illumination, but it was enough for me to see that Devona was struggling with a large bird-an eagle or maybe a condor; it was difficult to tell in the dark. Whichever the particular avian, I knew it really was Amon. I raised my gun, but didn’t dare fire for fear of hitting Devona.
“Throw him off you so I can get a shot!” I shouted.
Devona grabbed the bird by the wings and hurled him forward. It was dark, the bird was moving fast, and my reflexes are not nearly as good as they were when I was alive. But I didn’t worry about any of that. I squinted my left eye, aimed, and squeezed off a shot.
The bird shrieked and hit the ground with a heavy thump. I held my gun on it, waiting for it to stir, but it didn’t move. Without taking my eyes off it, I asked Devona if she was all right.
“A few cuts on my face, a couple fairly deep. Messy, but otherwise I’m unharmed. I should heal before too long.”
The bird remained motionless, but I didn’t lower my gun an inch; I knew better. “He was probably going for your eyes. Makes sense, since you’re the only one of us who can see in the dark.”
“Is he dead?” she asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think a Darklord doesn’t die this easily.”
“I think you’re right.” I moved toward the bird slowly, keeping my gun trained on it the entire time. It didn’t so much as move a feather as I approached and stood over it.
“What kind is it?” I asked.
“An eagle, I think,” Devona answered. “I’ve only seen them in books, though.”
I carefully toed the eagle and its body collapsed into dust. I bent down, intending to get a closer look, but within seconds, the dust too was gone.
“Perhaps we got lucky,” Devona suggested.
“I don’t believe in luck.” I stood. “We’d better-” My sentence was cut off as a snarling piece of darkness detached itself from the night and slammed into me, knocking me to the ground, spitting and clawing. Ivo
ry fangs glinted in the starlight as the panther buried its teeth in the undead flesh of my neck.
But as sudden and hard as the impact had been, I still had hold of my gun. As the big cat worried my neck, I calmly raised my pistol to its head, pressed the muzzle against its black fur, and fired.
The panther let out a cry and fell limp.
“Devona, could you help haul this thing off me?” I asked. “It’s pretty heavy. Oh, and be careful. Its teeth are still lodged in my neck.”
Together we got the panther off without much additional damage to my already ravaged neck. Devona then helped me to my feet, and I noticed that my head was canted to the left. I tried to hold it upright, but it wouldn’t stay. One more repair to add to the list for Papa Chatha-if I found a way to survive past the next couple days.
“Matt, your neck…” Devona sounded concerned and, although she was trying to hide it, mildly disgusted. She knew intellectually that I was a zombie, but I think this was the first time she’d really understood what that meant.
“It may look bad, but believe me, I’m okay. Now let’s check out Sylvester here.” I kicked the kitty corpse as I had the eagle’s, with the same result: it collapsed into dust.
“Amon must be cheating,” Devona said indignantly, “sending other shapeshifters in his place.”
“I don’t think so. Lykes don’t disintegrate like this when they’re killed. I think we have been fighting Amon, but he’s a far different kind of shapeshifter than his subjects. When we shoot him, we kill the body he’s wearing at the time-not him.”
“You mean he discards his shape, leaves it behind?”
“Like a snake shedding his skin. He’ll keep coming at us in different forms until I’ve used up my three remaining silver bullets. And then he’ll have us.”
“Not if we can get to the other side of the glen first,” Devona said.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. We ran for a while before Amon attacked, right?”
“Yes, I’d estimate for perhaps five minutes.”
“Me too. And in that time, we should’ve been able to cover a significant amount of ground, right?”
She nodded warily.
I pointed in the direction we had come, toward the line of trees where Rolf had left us-trees that were only a few feet away. “Then how come we haven’t moved?”
EIGHTEEN
“No wonder Amon steered us to this glen,” Devona said. “It’s enchanted.”
“I hate Darklords,” I said. “I really do.”
“I don’t know if we’ve been running in place, running in circles, running in a straight line through warped space, or have been standing still and just think we’ve been running.”
As an experiment, I stepped back to the treeline-keeping an eye out for Amon’s next attack, of course. I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting there. I even reached out and touched the trunk of an elm. I looked back and saw Devona standing several feet away.
“Start walking.”
She did, and it was the oddest thing. On one hand, she appeared to be walking away from me, but on the other, she seemed to stay in place. It was as two different films were being played at once on the same screen.
“Keep walking, but look back over your shoulder,” I called. “And tell me what you see.”
“All right.” A pause. “This is strange; I appear to be moving away from you, but at the same time you seem to be almost right next to me.”
“Okay, stop walking.”
My vision lurched, and I experienced a dizzying moment of vertigo that might very well have nauseated me if I still had a working stomach. The far-off image of Devona was gone, and only the close-up Devona remained.
I returned to her side. “Well, that didn’t help any.” I scanned the sky and ground for any sign of Amon, but there was none. Maybe he had to recover, build up his strength again from having been shot twice. Or maybe he was just enjoying our confusion over the nature of his glen.
“No, it helped a great deal,” she said. “The effect we experienced is similar to that of certain wardspells which operate by making someone believe he is walking toward the object warded, when in reality he cannot approach it.”
“So how do we break the spell?”
“I said this spell is similar; I didn’t say it was the same. We’re talking about a spell laid by a Darklord. Even if I had the mystical ability to circumvent the normal version of this spell-and remember, my father made certain I was trained only in the monitoring of wardspells, not the laying or breaking of them-I couldn’t begin to touch the enchantment on this glen.”
“Just because Amon cast this spell doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. The Darklords can’t afford to waste much power on such trifles as this, can they? They have the Renewal Ceremony to think about, let alone trying to defend themselves from each other. Maybe you didn’t receive any formal training in getting around wardspells, but that doesn’t mean you can’t extrapolate from what you did learn. And if a person knows how a lock works, he stands a good chance of picking it.”
“But I’m not a magicworker,” Devona protested. “I’m a curator, and I suppose really little more than a glorified security guard.”
I sighed. “Look, I’d like to do this gently, but we don’t have time. What you are, Devona, is a half-breed vampire who gets her entire sense of sense of self-worth from basically dusting another man’s treasures. Because of the way you were brought up and the attitude of other vampires toward your mixed heritage, you feel that being the keeper of your father’s Collection is all you can do, that there isn’t any more to you.
“But in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve seen much more. I’ve seen a woman who when faced with danger doesn’t run, doesn’t back away-she fights. I’ve seen a woman who when faced with a problem doesn’t give up-she keeps working at it until she finds a solution. I’ve seen a woman who’s intelligent and caring…and,” I said softly, “who sees the man inside me, the man I thought had died along with his body. I’ve seen a woman who, having ventured beyond her tightly circumscribed life, is starting to find out who she really is and what she’s truly capable of. Well, it’s time to find out some more, Devona. It’s time to find us a way out of here.”
I didn’t know how she’d react: tell me to go to hell, start crying, or haul off and belt me. Maybe all three. But she just looked at me for a long moment, her expression blank, eyes unreadable in the dark. And then she nodded.
“Let’s start walking again. I need to examine the spell while it’s functioning.” She headed off without waiting for my reply.
I smiled as I hurried after her. Wholly human or not, she was some woman.
While we walked and walked and got nowhere, Amon came at us again, this time in the more classic form of a large gray wolf. He managed to take a hunk out of my right leg before I dispatched him, or rather, his shape.
Two bullets left.
“I have an idea,” Devona said not long after Amon’s wolf facade had disintegrated. “I’m not sure it’ll work, though.”
“I’m rapidly running out of ammunition. Anything’s worth a try at this point.”
“I don’t have the mystical training to break the spell, but I do think I understand how it’s constructed. It’s really very simple, a mere matter of aligning psychothaumaturgic energy structures in a constantly rotating-”
“In simple English, please, for the magically challenged among us.”
She grinned. “Sorry. Basically, the spell works by constantly assaulting our minds with false sensory input. The trick to overcoming such a spell is to block out the false input so that our senses can detect reality once more.”
“Sounds like quite a trick.”
“It is. But I think I know how we might accomplish it. Remember I said that as half Bloodborn I possess a certain amount of psychic ability? While I haven’t been trained in its use, I believe I may be able to sense in which direction the Sprawl lies by focusing on the combined mental en
ergy of all the celebrants there. Ordinarily, I might not be able to accomplish such a feat, but this time of year there are so many people crowding the streets of the Sprawl and the emotional atmosphere is so charged, that even with my untutored powers I should be able to get a fix on it. And once I know where the Sprawl is-”
“You’ll be able to shut out the glen’s spell and lead us across,” I finished. Earlier, I’d been wishing for a compass. Now it looked like Devona had found us a psychic equivalent.
“There’s a problem, though,” she said.
I smiled. “Only one?”
“You’ll still be affected by the spell.”
“Why is that a problem? You can guide me.”
“And if Amon attacks and we become separated?”
“You can use your powers to locate me.”
“I don’t know if I can maintain my fix on the Sprawl and locate you at the same time. And even if I could, Amon might take the opportunity to finish one or both of us off while I’m looking for you.” She shook her head. “No, it would be better if we both were able to home in on the Sprawl.”
“That would be nice, but I’m afraid a set of psychic powers wasn’t included in my zombie membership kit.”
“You don’t need powers of your own; we can link minds. That way you’ll be able to sense what I sense.”
“Link minds?” I tried to imagine what it would be like to have my mind joined with someone else’s, but I couldn’t. The closest I could come to was some sort of psychic equivalent to a phone connection, and somehow I doubted it would be like that.
Devona must have sensed my reluctance because she hurried to add, “I really believe it’s the only way.”
It wasn’t like we had a lot of options to choose from. “Have you ever linked with anyone before?”
She looked down at the ground, and when she answered, she sounded embarrassed. “I’ve had a few Shadows of my own over the years. And I’ve linked with some of them.”
She said Shadows but the word I heard was lovers. I don’t know why it bothered me-we were both adults, and Devona was older than I, in her seventies chronologically. And for that matter, I was a zombie. I had no business being jealous-but I was.