“Or will you?” He smiled, faintly. “We are forbidden to take the first blow, unless offered. But we are always offered, Hunter. The temptation is too great.”
Chills wracked me, shaking my teeth. The boys held me more tightly. Zee pressed his mouth to my ear, whispering, “No lies, Maxine. Believe.”
My vision blurred; so did my thoughts. The demon murmured, “We are summoned by your heart, when your heart has need. Can you not trust yourself, Hunter?”
“The v-veil,” I chattered. “You c-came b-because it opened.”
“Because it opened, and you felt it, and what you felt, we felt.”
“Why? W-why w-would my ancestor m-make this b-bargain?”
“Your bloodline needed help. We needed you.” The demon’s cloak flared, and warmth poured over me, melting through my muscles into bone. Delicious and smooth, sinking from the tips of my toes to the crown of my head. My teeth stopped chattering; my mind felt clearer. I wanted to tell the demon to stop, but I could not. I wanted to survive more than I wanted my pride.
But the rest . . . that was wrong. I was missing something. A catch. There was always a catch, and my mother . . . my mother would not have gone to so much trouble to keep things secret from me without good reason.
She was afraid for you, Sarai had said. Of what would happen if the veil opened.
“My mother knew about this,” I said to Zee. “She knew about him.”
Zee held me tighter, pressing his face against my neck. All the boys refused to look me in the eyes. The demon leaned in, hair still weaving designs in the snow—more tangles locked in circles, bound in chains.
“My mother,” I snapped. “Why would she hide this from me?”
“There have been many Hunters,” said the demon, as though it was only us, together, in all the world. “Many of your blood. We have met them. We have helped them, as promised. But you are different from the others. In your heart. We can taste it. We can see it. You are like her. Closer to the darkness. And the Hunt is . . . dark. In the past, it . . . roused things.”
I looked down at the boys, who stared at the demon like they wanted to stick a sock in his mouth. “What kinds of things?”
“Things,” he said slowly, “that make a mother fear her child.”
Zee said a sharp word. He sounded angry. Behind, the man in the snow finally climbed to his feet. He took a step toward us. His lips were no longer blue, and the ice crystals had melted from his face. The leash of hair was gone, but his movements were rough, as though compelled.
Zee continued to rattle off a vicious litany, chittering with all the ire of some demonic squirrel. Raw and the others were silent, but quivering; eyes blazing, low-throated growls rumbling. The demon’s words burned.
He rose to his feet, balanced effortlessly on the pointed tips of his long sharp toes. “We hurt you.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Ah,” he breathed, then, softly: “The Hunt has begun. Our promise fulfilled, again. You must lead us.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not doing anything just because you say so.”
“You do not trust us.”
“Never.”
The demon went very still. “We have a bargain made in blood, Hunter. Your blood. My blood. The blood of your wards.”
“I don’t understand any of this, least of all some bargain. ”
His mouth twisted with displeasure. “And if you never understand? Will you break your word with us? The word of your ancestor?”
I felt the boys tense. “No. But I need more.”
The demon turned away. I struggled for my voice. “You can give me answers.”
He looked back, the brim of his hat sharp, like a scythe. “The answers you want are in your blood, and those we cannot give you. All we can do is leave you with time. A little time.” His head tilted sharply toward the man. “Protect her, Tracker.”
“No,” said the man, and a thread of darkness lashed from the demon’s cloak, striking the man’s face. He stumbled, holding his cheek. Blood seeped between his fingers.
“Protect her,” hissed the demon. “Whatever it takes.”
I stepped toward the demon, the boys still clinging, bodies warm as coals, old fires in an old hearth, seeping into my body. I held a hand toward him, not meaning to touch, but desperate, determined.
A hush fell over the demon, stillness heavy and rich as the weight of the starry sky bearing down upon our heads. He swayed, slow and delicate, and inside my heart I felt a dark squirm, a shadow behind my ribs, fluttering. Memory, déjà vu, something old, cold, and hard; and I thought of wolves and swords, bells ringing and women dying. I heard my blood. I heard my heart. Music, in my veins.
The demon leaned near, hair and cloak fanning around me—not touching, but embracing the air above my body. Swallowed by the abyss, close to death. Kissed by death.
Coarse fingers grabbed my hand. The man. Tracker. A dark, bleeding cut in his face. I looked back at Oturu, the hard line of his mouth. “We’re not done.”
“Never,” he murmured, and with a flourish that had more in common with Errol Flynn than Freddy Krueger, leapt into the air. I craned my neck, startled, and watched him fly into the light of the moon, gone like a whistle shot. Embraced by night. Dek and Mal whispered in my ears. Zee and the others closed their eyes, shoulders sagging.
My heart felt strange. Tracker squeezed my hand. I looked up into his hard gaze and felt stones gather in my chest, in the pit of my stomach. I was suddenly so damned cold I could die, but I would not blink first. I refused.
His jaw tightened. “This should be interesting.”
He yanked hard. I slipped into darkness.
And reemerged into the light.
CHAPTER 13
SUNLIGHT. Home. Four familiar walls, bricks and books; and windows the size of my car. I had no idea how I had gotten here, but the boys were soft against my skin. I was warm.
I rolled over. Tracker stood by the motorcycle, a large sinewy hand poised over the cherry red finish. His long, dark hair shimmered against his hawkish features. He was a difficult man to place, with an exotic sophistication that defied ethnicity. He could have fit in anywhere—and at the same time, no place at all. Like Grant, like me. Outsiders.
He glanced at me, and his gaze was dark, furious. I saw iron around his throat. I expected him to say something, but he seemed content to murder me with his eyes, in grim silence. I rubbed my hand over my face and turned away, staggering to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. I hesitated, then tossed one at him. He let it fall and hit the floor.
I ignored that, opened another, and took a long drink. My lips were cracked and bleeding. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Tracker watched me, unmoving. I finished the bottle, threw it in the garbage, then checked my watch. Almost two hours late. My life, this treasured life, just might be over.
I fumbled for my cell phone and tried calling Grant. I was transferred directly to his voice mail. I did not leave a message. I tried calling again, but the same thing happened. I was already on edge. I walked fast to the apartment door. No car. I was going to have to catch a cab.
Tracker appeared in front of me. Literally. I heard a puff of displaced air as he manifested, and it was like watching the boys pour from shadows, except it was broad daylight and there was not a shred of darkness in the apartment. “Where are you going, Hunter?”
“None of your business.”
Tracker stabbed the band of iron around his throat. “You are my business.”
I could not look away from that collar. I hated it with an intensity that startled me; hated, too, the memory of this man on his knees. Felt familiar, like déjà vu, but that was impossible, wrong—and not my fault.
I hardened my heart. “You go tell Oturu that he can take his protection and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I don’t want you here. I don’t need you.”
Tracker grabbed my arm and I broke his grip, punching his gut. I could shatter brick w
ith my fist—I should have been able to make him wheeze, at the very least. But he did not budge. Just stood there, looking down at me, like my fist was light as air. “Had enough?”
“Haven’t gotten started,” I muttered, then: “I couldn’t have hurt you. I don’t know you.”
“You’re all the same. All of you.”
“Last I checked, there’s just one of me.”
“Just one,” he said coldly. “But the culmination of countless ones. And your blood, your nature, never changes, Hunter.”
He was full of shit. Men with grudges were like men with rocks for brains: knock, hit, scream all you wanted. Nothing but a wasted effort, and I had no energy to argue. I felt like pieces of my heart were flopping around my chest, bleeding and useless, and if Tracker had not been standing in front of me, I might have been able to convince myself that it had never happened, that I had imagined sitting in the snows of the North Pole, faced by a demon who wanted to be my hand, my deadly sword.
“Fine,” I said. “Stick around. But you start being a little less angry, then maybe I’ll cooperate. Maybe I’ll give a damn.”
“You want to bargain.” He said it like I was asking him to clean dog poo with his bare hands.
“I’m willing to talk. But not here. I have to go.”
He was a handsome man, but there was nothing attractive about rage—and it hurt more than it should. I almost expected him to make another move against me—he seemed to be one big raw nerve—but I watched a shift of light pass through his eyes, a moment of calculation, and he inclined his head, just so.
I turned, let out my breath, and left the apartment at a run. Outside, I headed down the garden path to the front of the Coop. No cab parked out front. I started dialing through my cell-phone contacts for the number of the taxi company. Tracker matched my pace. “What are you doing? ”
“Trying to get to the hospital.”
“Which one?”
His curiosity, however acerbic, made me suspicious. “University Medical Center.”
He grabbed my arm and the world disappeared—as though swallowed, lost deep in the dark thunder of the sea. I could not struggle, could not move. My heart screamed.
And then I found myself free, returned to the world. Concrete. Cars. Voices nearby. I staggered, blinking hard, jamming my palm against my eye. Tracker stood beside me, a look of cold amusement on his face.
“You’re an asshole,” I rasped. An effective asshole. We were at the hospital. Standing in a landscaped alcove of gravel and bushes just off the small drive leading up to the emergency room. An ambulance was parked in front of the glass doors. No one seemed to have noticed our appearing act.
Ten miles covered in a heartbeat. Up to the North Pole and back in the blink of an eye. Never dreamed, never imagined. Not human. Not demon.
Something else. Something like magic.
I took a deep breath and started walking. Tracker followed. He moved with a particular grace that reminded me of a dancer—rolling, light, almost like Oturu. As though he could spin on his toes at a moment’s notice; spin and kill, with just one touch.
Dangerous man. The boys rumbled in their sleep. Dek, resting on my right arm, kept pulling toward Tracker. He was stubborn about it. I had to concentrate not to brush against the man.
I tried calling Grant again. No answer. I started running. My heart felt very small and hard. I passed through the sliding doors and entered a waiting room paneled in dark wood, lighting turned down just enough to create an atmosphere of shadowed calm, helped in part by large windows that bordered a small garden. Several flat-screen televisions hung from the walls. A major news network was on. Images of crying children and collapsed buildings flashed. Massive earthquake. Iran.
The woman behind the admitting desk glanced from me to Tracker, and her gaze stayed there, staring, open-mouthed.
“Hey,” I said, then snapped my fingers. “Ma’am.”
She blinked, a flush staining her cheeks. Flustered. I did not dare look at Tracker. Wolf in wolf’s clothing, that was him. He stayed silent as I spoke to the woman and got Byron’s room number. Grant had registered the boy under his own last name, Cooperon.
Byron had been assigned a room on the fifth floor. No one else stood in the elevator with us. I leaned against a metal bar, looked at Tracker, and said, “Why did you push me in front of the bus?”
His mouth crooked. “Because I felt like it. Because I wanted to watch.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Maybe,” he replied. “After all these years, yes, I think so.”
I pushed away from the wall. “You listen. I don’t know what kind of history you think we’ve got, but right here, right now, it doesn’t matter. Bad things are happening, and I might find another in this hospital. You get in my way, you try to hurt the people I love, and I’ll bury you.”
“Hunter,” said Tracker, as the elevator stopped, “I would expect nothing less.”
We walked into a waiting room. Grant was not there. Neither were the police, nor an army of Russian gunmen waiting to assassinate one teenage boy. The only occupant was an old woman huddled on a chair in the corner. She was watching the news. The focus was still on Iran. Big red letters that spelled QUAKE! scrolled across the bottom of the screen, cutting into disturbing video of a screaming man shaking his fists at the night sky.
The doors were locked. I picked up a phone hanging from the wall and dialed zero. Listened to two rings, then a woman answered. Crisp, no-nonsense. I asked for Byron Cooperon, and she said, “Yes, some family is already here. Room Two. Are you his uncle’s wife?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Come on in,” she replied, and the door clicked.
The air smelled cold on the other side. Cold and thick with disinfectant, so much that the air almost felt dirty instead of clean, raw with chemical. I hated it. I had hardly ever been in a hospital, and never for myself. Only hunting. Medical professionals made frightening zombies.
Ahead, at the nurses’ station, several women stood together, leaning on the counter with charts spread in front of them.
“—it’s awful,” I heard one of the nurses say. “There were earthquakes early this morning all over the Middle East. And those people dead? You know the Red Cross is going to start asking for volunteers.”
“I did my tour with Katrina,” said another woman. “But that was in the States. I’m not going overseas, not with my kids still in school.”
“Mount St. Helens will blow next,” replied the third woman, with a hint of grim amusement. “Seattle is due for the big one.”
“Or perhaps locusts will fall from the sky,” Tracker whispered in my ear. “Or water turn to blood?”
I gave him a hard look, trying to understand what kind of man I was dealing with. “You don’t mean to say that earthquake can be blamed on demons?”
His mouth turned down. “Use your imagination.”
I stared. Behind me I heard a familiar clicking sound, faint and careful. I turned. Grant stood in the doorway of a room just down the long hall. Everything in me stilled, hungry. He was wearing jeans and a faded navy sweatshirt. His hair was rumpled. He leaned hard on his cane and stared from me to Tracker.
Everything about him went sharp when he looked at the man—sharp as teeth—and he studied the crown of Tracker’s head with an intensity that felt like a wolf before some hard kill. Both men, wolves. The nurses stopped talking and were watching us.
I walked toward Grant, fast, and his gaze flickered to the crown of my head; my aura, my heart, exposed. By the time I reached him my knees were wobbly. His arm slid around my waist, and he hauled me so tight against his chest I could not breathe. I closed my eyes, heart pounding. His lips pressed against my hair.
I only let him hold me a moment. No time, no place, not the right people watching. I met his gaze, briefly, long enough to see new lines around his eyes, and he backed up to let me into the hospital room. I entered, then turned to watch as Tracker followed. He glide
d like a shadow, passing close to Grant. I felt a moment of fear, seeing them so close together. But neither man made a move. Just stared at each other, unblinking—and the energy that poured from them made the boys stir in their sleep.
It was a private room, lights dimmed, curtains half-closed. Byron lay in the bed, seemingly asleep. His cuts had been cleaned, but the swelling was worse. I could hardly recognize his face.
Grant limped into the room and shut the door softly behind him.
“Maxine,” he rumbled, not taking his gaze off the other man. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” I lied.
“And if she wasn’t?” Tracker’s gaze was hooded, almost lost behind his long hair and nose. “Think you could fight me? With just one leg?”
The corner of Grant’s mouth curled. “I would make you sorry you were ever born.”
Tracker smiled—bitter, ugly—dazzling and awful—and gave me a look so filled with disgust, loathing, my skin crawled. Grant took a step toward him. I reached out, grabbing his arm.
“Not worth it,” I said, staring at Tracker. “Not even worth the thought.”
I saw it only because I was looking in his eyes—a flicker, a moment so brief I thought I might have imagined it.
Hurt. I had hurt him.
And then a mask fell over his face, that same old anger, and I looked away from him, to Byron. I moved close to the bed and took off my glove. Touched the boy’s hand. Raw stirred, restless. Grant moved close to my shoulder, solid and warm. His flute case hung from his shoulder, a long, narrow padded pouch of midnight velvet, a hint of his twenty-four-karat gold Muramatsu peeking from beneath the flap. His most prized instrument, custom-made. He rarely used it in public, especially at the Coop. Too flashy; too much temptation for thieves.
“They did an MRI,” Grant said. “Finished about thirty minutes ago. You just missed the doctor. No swelling. His brain looks fine. They gave him a sedative, though. He refused to sit still. Started fighting to get out of here before they cleaned even one cut.”
I leaned into his shoulder. “You didn’t answer your cell phone. I was worried.”
The Iron Hunt Page 17