Not for long, though. As he ran, Puck’s brown fingers dipped, and the pipes were in his hand, a familiar weight carrying secret delight. He put on a burst of speed—the knight veered, a sharp turn and plunging into a section of run-down warehouses.
Puck slowed, skipping diagonally across a rooftop and blinking through the Veil once again. What was this? Something else trembled in the air, a different scent than he had expected.
Where is she going? What does my tricky girl have up her sleeve, eh?
So changeful, just like a woman. The sidhe had their own fickleness, but a female was something else. With that voice of hers, dangerous in her own right, too. The Ragged needed careful care and grooming before she would fall from the tree at precisely the right angle, and into the waiting—
The knight veered again, penetrating a tangle of indifferently paved streets. The mortal world decayed far less gracefully than Summer. Unwinter, of course, never decomposed further than its lord’s mood would permit. Puck’s own realm held thorn-tangles and bogs as well as sunlit glades, except for those areas bordering Unwinter. The Low Counties, the broad part of his kingdom between Summer and Unwinter, were plague-ravaged, but could be rebuilt. A necessary sacrifice, but still one Puck disliked.
Aha. There.
The breakaway glimmered, bouncing happily away. Some few of the hounds bolted after it, doubling back on themselves when the rider, indifferent, plunged after the fleeing girl. Puck’s frown deepened, and he quickened his pace. The breakaway should have worked. Why had it not?
Look closer, look again. He tried, but the Unseelie, scenting his prey closer and closer, spurred his beast with silver rowels. Puck blinked, catlike, as he leapt from one roof to another, and skidded to a stop cat-quickly, as well, a-tiptoe and quivering as a plucked string.
Black spots writhed over the knight’s armor, and his glow was not the pale fire of Unwinter’s Court. Instead, the green tinge was sickening, not an attractive pallor but the corpse beginning to decay in liquid runnels against bleached, worm-eaten bones.
A plagued rider. Strong and quick, and one even the Ragged’s voice might have a difficult time dissuading.
He needed the Ragged, but to risk his precious self against a carrier of that sickness… well. Hesitation, one glove-soled foot in empty air, perched on the crumbling edge of a warehouse’s tarpapered roof, the entire city wheeling around him as the Veil trembled, responding to his uncertainty. The sickness was virulent. He had cause to know, did he not? The mortal had wrought well.
As Puck hung there, betwixt and between, a new clamor intruded. Hooves lashing, bell-like, against pavement, and a short, sharp cry.
Was it her? All his plans a-tumble, and he would have to dance a different path to his goal.
Cursing inwardly, Puck decided, and plummeted to earth, landing lightly and running silent as a will o’wisp. If the rider had, against all expectation, robbed him of pretty Ragged’s fine voice, Goodfellow would play a tune or two on his pipes, and that would be vengeance enough. Plagued or not, they could still die when he breathed across the tubes.
Any sidhe could.
A MORTAL QUOTIENT
8
The bouncer stared over the swinging door, jaw dropping. Jeremiah hit the wooden panels at a run; one smacked solidly against the mortal and sent him flying. Gallow was already past, a fine evening mist just beginning to solidify into rain kissing his sweating face and hands. The scent was sharper to the right, but he jagged left on instinct. A sidhe who could craft a quirpiece could also craft—or barter for—a breakaway, and if the huntwhistles were so close he could hear them through a mortal brawl, it was time for her to use every trick she could beg or borrow, not to mention steal.
He was rewarded with a shadow slipping down the street, a flicker whose flying hair caught a stray red gleam from a streetlamp. She was flagging, stumbling, and that changed the equation somewhat. Perhaps she didn’t have the endurance—and running in heels, even if you were sidhe, was probably enough to slow down even the fleetest.
The hunter’s whistle came again, to the north, probably over on Colchis Avenue. He marked it and continued, running lightly as he hadn’t done for years, skipping every few steps to avoid the crazyquilt of cracks—break your mother’s back, though his nameless mother was long dead—in the sidewalk and keeping as far as he could to the shadows. The rain would help, and there was no ribbon of scent on the cold, iron-tainted breeze. The breakaway lay glittering on the pavement, sucking in traces of her presence, its other half bouncing merrily away to distract and mislead.
He could still hear hoofbeats plucking at the night; the shadows communicated them over his skin. Silvershod, slender hooves. A rider whose eyes would be cold moonlight, whose laugh would be chill, and whose armor would be chased with sharp, hurtful runes, either blazing with sick white or bloodred.
The hounds commenced belling again, howls and yaps made of sharpsilver ice, and Jeremiah cursed internally.
He could have stopped there. Drawn aside into the shadows and let the hunter pass him by. But the girl had stopped, too, her hair dewed with jewels of rain. She nipped into an alley, her steps slowing.
It was the worst possible choice. Running until your heart gave out was preferable to halting and hoping they would ride past. Sometimes they did find new prey when one proved too quick and determined. Not often, but more often than you could successfully hide.
It was a simple choice. Halt and conceal himself, because he heard the hoofbeats drawing closer and there was a chance the horseman would break through all deception? Or involve himself, again?
The whistle sounded again, savage delight in its trilling. The mortals wouldn’t hear it unless they’d already been touched or hooked; they would simply feel a chill.
Mortal-Tainted and sidhe alike would hear, know, understand.
And fear.
He was already moving. The alley was raw with the smell of garbage, greasy crud sliding under his workboots. A good choice to go to ground, perhaps, if she had been eluding one of the Lesser, not one of either Court.
The Lesser, of any allegiance, did not ride silvershod. They had other means, from a kelpie’s dragging to a boggle’s ghostcold fingerings.
Gallow halted just inside the alley’s mouth. His breath was coming fast but not hard. Not like the woman with her back to the brick wall, fingers spread against it, chin lifted and the skirt of her dress draggled around her knees as if she’d fallen into a puddle. How far had she run tonight?
Pointed chin, high cheekbones, wide-spaced blue eyes. Pale. An aristocratic nose. There was an echo of Daisy, but it was filtered through the hurtful beauty of the sidhe. Her spice-fruit smell carried a tang of iron.
She was mortal-Tainted, quite possibly a full Half. Like him. If she was less than that most salubrious of mixtures, of course a horseman would run her down without even this attempt at escape.
She clutched at the brick wall, her pale hands starfish-spread as if she intended to splinter her fingernails scratching her way through. Ribs flickered under her dress as she panted, and her hair was now weighed down with dampness. The gold hoops dangling from her ears peeped at him, and the first hounds skidded behind him on the street and sent up a racket. The cry of prey cornered filled the night, turned the mist-rain drops to diamonds.
He turned. Groundfog rose in the middle of the street, luminescent fingers sprouting precisely between double yellow lines. The hounds took shape, sliding through Veil into the visible. Fogbodies, reptilian heads on short but flexible necks, and eyes like tilted silver coins. The quirpiece twitched in his palm. He stuffed it in his pocket, and felt the familiar tingle racing up his arms.
Too late to ignore it now. His off-duty jacket—leather, and studded with shiny but false-metal mortal rivets—creaked as his arms moved, the markings on his skin mortals would mistake for tribal tattoos writhing madly. The air hardened between his hands, and his calluses rasped against sudden solidity.
Summoning a dw
arven-inked lance was easy. Mastering its hunger was the difficult part, but he’d had the best of teachers, between the former Armormaster’s fire-whip and Jeremiah’s own innate stubbornness. He had sometimes even left Daisy sleeping in their bed and gone out on moonlit nights to practice, sweating-cold in a flood of sterile light behind their trailer.
Now, like riding a bicycle, the control never went away.
Fog cringed and thickened, birthing more dogbodies. One darted forward, and Jeremiah’s body moved without thought, the not-quite-physical weight of the lance leaping of its own volition, playing through the arc that would end in a strike home in insubstantial flesh. The fog-hound cowered back, flushing red for a moment as the leaf-shaped spearhead quivered into being, a metallic fiery gleam flooding back along the shaft until it jolted home in Jeremiah’s hands. It finished through the tasseled end, streaming dripping moonglow that vanished before it hit the ground.
“Show yourself.” The words burned his throat, hard with command. “Come forth, I bid thee.”
A point of brilliance coalesced above the fog, then spread. The smell of rotting apples and salt accompanied it. First came the eyes—green with a silvery overtone, their pupils hourglass-shaped. Then the crown of the high-peaked helm, a narrow head set on broad shoulders. Plate armor, heavy shoulders, chestplate ribboned with moonglow in the shape of a tree that didn’t grow on this side of the Veil. Plated thighs, greaves, spurred boots. The horse took shape, too, dappled-gray smoke bearing weight. Silver-eyed, the horse stamped. Its mane ran with greenblack, and that was wrong.
Still, things could change with the greater sidhe sometimes. They just liked to pretend alteration was a mortal quotient.
The lance resolved itself into complete solidity and hummed between his hands. As usual, it felt right. Too right. His palms moved, everything coming from the hip, and the lance’s end hit the ground in salute. The point jutted an accusing finger at the drizzling rain, hungry moonglow from its tassels threading into the pavement.
The helmed rider simply stared for a few moments. Jeremiah waited. The woman let out a sharp breath, and he could hear her frantic pulse. A bird’s wings, fluttering inside an iron cage.
The horseman pointed one long, gauntleted hand, his extended finger one of five opposed by a quadruple-jointed thumb, all too slender and tapering to be anything but inhuman. A highblood wight, one of Unwinter’s lords, and he pointed not at Jeremiah but past him. The message was clear.
Move aside, and I will let you be.
Which told him this was no ordinary hunt. He had another chance now, to step aside. Except there was no guarantee. If he had injured the horseman’s pride, he might be the next quarry. Within that mailed glove, there was a hand that might not keep its promises.
Seelie or Unseelie, there was always that risk.
“Don’t,” the girl said breathlessly behind him. “Oh, please don’t.”
What, don’t get yourself involved? Or don’t get hurt? Probably too late for either, but he appreciated the thought.
She looked like Daisy; he wanted at least to hear why she was being chased before consigning her to the huntsman’s problematic mercy. That was an acceptable reason to get himself involved, wasn’t it?
The horse neighed, a ringing sound, queerly flat, a misshapen crystal wineglass stroked by a rotting finger. That was wrong, too. It should have been a crystal bell, tightening every nerve. Spots of greenblack on its mane shifted, spreading.
“What the fu—” He never got to finish, for the horse lunged forward, hooves clattering. The lance jerked, pulling his body behind it; the street chimed as the lance’s end braced itself against concrete and its head darkened, the silver-dripping ruddiness changing to a dull gray.
Cold, deadly iron.
His feet were pushed forward, boots skidding. Caught, planted solidly just like the lance’s tasseled end, and he recognized the motion, a pikeman’s defense against the greater weight of cavalry.
He had been a knight once, too, but the truth of life was you couldn’t count on having a horse when you fought. Or anything else. Except the weapon tattooed into your flesh, carried everywhere with you. You couldn’t lose a dwarven-inked weapon, no matter how hard you tried.
Even if you wanted to.
Crunch. The horse hit, turned to leprous greenish mist as the iron broke its smoky hold on this side of the Veil. The lance flashed all along its length, and Jeremiah was ready. Knees dropped, body twisting back and to the side as the iron head tangled in the net of glamour and vapor, striking the solid heart—the knot that kept the horse on the mortal side of the sideways realms. The lance-shaft rang, a high, hard sound as it extended and flicked, a lizard’s tongue, shearing through half-physical strings.
The horse went down in a thrashing pile of mist and crunching bone. Jeremiah stepped aside, flicking the lance; it popped and black blood flew steaming. He took two quick, almost-skipping steps back, which placed him deeper in the throat of the alley. For better or worse, he’d chosen his ground; if there were any flying units—harpies, or even blackbird moraghs—he would be bottled. On the other hand, he could defend here against both flying and foot, Seelie or Unwinter, for a long time. Should he care to do so.
The horseman rose from the mess, his helm smoking with fury now. Definitely a highblood wight. Jeremiah set himself, the lance’s endcap clicking as if on parade. The girl heaved out a small retching sound behind him.
About… now. He wasn’t disappointed. The sword rose up, a slender scimitar-shaped sidhe blade with the moon in its metal, and he had plenty of time to strike if he could just move quickly enough. Throwing himself sideways, against the brick wall, which cracked like a piece of wet laundry snapped by a pair of capable hands. Adrenaline ran down his nerves and muscles, golden wires pulling a puppet along.
The girl blurted a warning Jeremiah didn’t need. He’d already seen the battle in his head, options and choices narrowing to a single unavoidable conclusion.
That was the true gift of the lance, and its best-kept secret. Even the former Armormaster hadn’t mentioned its possibility to Jeremiah during the harsh training to bring metal and haft to heel. A weapon such as this did not merely help a man fight. It also showed, as far as it was able, the outcome of a battle.
Where you could see, you could change.
Brick dust shook from his jacket as he leaned into the motion, the lance splitting air and smacking aside the downsweep of the horseman’s blade. The horseman’s strike spent itself uselessly, grinding against the shaft, and the lancepoint punched through plate with an agonized scream, matched with a curlew cry of effort escaping Gallow’s lips. The shock grated home, and the blood-tinted satisfaction of performing the movement perfectly turned everything red for a moment before Jeremiah wrenched the blade free. He didn’t want to leave the iron in contact with sidhe flesh any longer than he had to.
Instead of merely going to his knees like any other defeated foe, the horseman screamed.
The deathcry pushed Jeremiah back, broken glass tinkling to the ground in sweet cascades through the retreating fog. Cracks and veins of black tore through the armor, as if the sidhe had been stabbed with a mercury blade instead of honest iron. The smell exploded—wet fur and a maggoty reek. Jeremiah skipped back nervously, suddenly aware of the twitching in his muscles. He hadn’t fought in a long time.
Not since the week before he’d let himself get truly involved with Daisy, instead of just occasionally passing the diner she worked at, seeing her coppergold head through the window, and feeling his heart wring itself dry.
That shouldn’t have killed him! We didn’t even exchange names! “Wait—” A hopeless word. There was probably no more useless word in any language. “Shit!” Just as useless, but far more gratifying.
The girl let out a sobbing breath. His stomach threatened to reject both mortal beer and peanuts, the smell was that bad.
Stranger and stranger.
He whirled, the lance coming up, and eyed her as th
e fog retreated in thick tendrils. The dogs slunk back, whining as the Veil claimed them again. He didn’t need to worry about them now. One bared its teeth and snapped, halfheartedly, before it shredded into long thin trails of steamsmoke.
The woman stared at him. Her eyes were even bluer now, matching her dress. She still looked like his dead wife, but shock had robbed her of the glare of sidhe over her features. Some would say that glare was perfected or refined.
He’d call it false. A pretty, pretty lie.
He didn’t want to talk to her after all. It was just a coincidence, and he’d saddled himself with one more death.
“You’re free now.” The words were ash against his tongue. “Go in peace.”
The lance vibrated in his hands. The last of the dogs’ lamplike eyes winked out, and he was suddenly aware his fingers didn’t want to let go. It would be easy to take a single step forward; the point that could strike home through Court-crafted armor of either kind would make short work of her flesh. The light would go out of her eyes, and maybe her body would rot the way the horseman’s had.
That thought freed his hands. The marks on his arms hurt, power returning to its home under his skin. He turned on his heel, and saw the oilslick of foulness that was the horseman. The last vestige of fog vanished. Fallen stars of broken glass littered the dark street; sirens howled in the distance. The diffuse roar of city traffic came back.
“Wait!” The girl skipped and scrambled behind him, footsteps clicking. He made a fist, shoving the feeling of the lance away. If he turned around now, she ran a good chance of feeding the weapon’s endless hunger.
That was another wrongness. There had been no shock of life ending, torn away and pulled into the lance’s thread-thin, eternally thirsting core.
“Go away.” He stepped over the stain. Down where he had run from, the streetlamps glowed and ran with the reflection of blue and red—police cars. Ambulances. A fire truck. “Christ.”
A shocked inhalation. If she was Court-raised, the mild mortal blasphemy might be a physically painful insult.