Dreams and Shadows (10 page)

He looked up, saw Dithers dangling from the tree with an arrow driven all the way through his chest, the searing tip flickering a blue-green flame out a hole in his back. Dithers twitched a bit. Ewan closed his eyes tight, clenching his fists, rocking gently back and forth, unsure of what to do.

“
W
HAT'S THAT SOUND?”
shrieked Mallaidh.

Knocks quivered in place, too frightened to move. “I . . . I don't know.” What at first had sounded like distant thunder now nearly deafened them. It was clear that, though they could not see it, something was tearing through the forest around them, kicking up a terrible fuss. The earth trembled like a pounding kettle-drum, the whole world falling apart just beyond the trees.

Then from out of the woods sprang a grim shape, dripping wet, its teeth bared, green skin slick with algae.

“Mama!” he shouted, recognizing her. She threw her arms around Knocks.

Laila the nixie looked down at the little boy in her arms. “Oh, child, I'm so happy to see you.”

Knocks looked up. “Mama, what are you doing here?”

“Child, this is the Wild Hunt. These things will kill you. What are you doing out here?” Knocks stammered for a moment. He knew he wasn't supposed to be out. More important, he knew he shouldn't be anywhere near the scene of a hunt. He was in trouble. Big trouble.

“Mama, I—”

“He was with me,” interrupted Mallaidh, the full brunt of her charms brought to bear for Knocks's sake. “I wanted to see the hunt.”

Laila looked askance at her adopted son's escort. “You're as much trouble as your mother, you know that? You could have gotten my boy killed.”

Mallaidh shook her head. “No. We were just—”

“You were just leaving,” interrupted Laila. “You will not seduce my boy with your wicked ways, slut. Get out of my sight.” Laila stroked Knocks's bulbous, balding head with one hand, pointing away fiercely with the other.

Mallaidh stood there, humiliated, her eyes narrow and bitter. Her ears rang with the sound of thunder, no longer able to tell where it was coming from. She had no sense of the rider galloping straight at her. Laila stared wide-eyed at the form riding up behind the young fairy, stood up, her son gripped tightly in her arms, and took off into a full run. Knocks reached back over his mother's shoulder, trying to grab Mallaidh—despite her distance—screaming at the top of his lungs, “Mallaidh!”

Mallaidh turned around, only then spying the looming rider about to trample her. She shrieked, but just a little, a slight, scared yip escaping her delicate mouth as she completely seized up in fear. Something slammed into her from the side, tackling her to the ground mere inches from passing hooves. She looked up, the ground exploding around her, to find the kind eyes of the boy who had just saved her life.

Knocks watched helplessly as Ewan emerged from the darkness of a nearby bramble patch to save Mallaidh, Ewan standing in the place where he should have been. Even as scared as he was, he felt his stewing hatred of Ewan simmering stronger still.

Back in the grove, Ewan and Mallaidh gripped each other as firmly as they could, the sound of hooves growing closer by the second. The rider trotted slowly up behind them, its goat bleating, grunting against the reins, the goat wanting little more than to stomp these creatures underfoot. Flanking it on each side sat drooling, snarling, muscular piles of awfulness—hounds beset with razor-sharp fangs and shaggy fur matted with blood and ichor.

The children looked up at the mount and its rider, the beast's nostrils choking the air with sulfur. The rider leaned over, its face emerging from shadow into the dim light. Pale, sickly, rotting from the inside out, Tiffany Thatcher looked nothing like she had the last time they had met; the only mercy in this moment was that Ewan had no idea he was looking upon his own mother.

Tiffany had trouble finding words. She could feel the minutes ticking away, her time on earth drawing to a close. She had a toll to pay; this was not it. Her eyes darkened and she cast a single finger at Mallaidh. “She will be the death of you!” she spat at Ewan. “She and her kind will kill you to spare their own. I have seen it!”

Shuddering, Ewan looked up, shaking his head. “Go away!”

His mother looked down at him, feeling only the slightest, fleeting pangs of motherhood. Then she nodded. “You'll die for her,” she growled bitterly. She tugged at the reins, urging her steed into the woods. With a sharp whistle she called off both her hounds. Mallaidh and Ewan looked on as the creatures bounded into the forest after her, leaving them alone.

“You saved me,” whispered Mallaidh into his ear.

Ewan released her, and jumped to his feet, brushing himself off nervously. “No, I . . . I'm sorry . . . I mean . . . I . . . was on the other side of the bushes.” He hadn't realized in the moment how tightly he'd held her or, more important, how tightly she'd held him back. In the most ladylike fashion possible, she too rose to her feet, took Ewan by the hand, kissing him gently on the cheek.

“My hero,” she said softly. Then she looked down at her small hand held in his and quietly begged, “Don't let go. Don't ever let go.”

“I won't,” he said.

“I know.”

T
IFFANY ENTERED THE
small clearing where the two stood, slowing her lurching beast. Her hounds hurdled over hedges, flanking her quarry, preventing their escape.

It had been nearly seven years but Knocks recognized the demon on horseback. The face of his first adopted mother was something he could never purge. She was dead, of that he was certain. He'd watched her tie the rope around her neck, cheered her on as she wobbled, toppling the chair beneath her. From the looks of it, she too had not forgotten their time together.

“Knocks,” whispered Laila into her son's ear, “I'm going to put you down and I want you to run as fast as you can. Can you do that for Mommy?”

“No, Mama,” he whimpered back. “I can't.”

“Yes. Yes you can. And you will,” she said sternly. “Mama has something she has to do.” Slowly, she put Knocks down on the ground, giving him a shove. But he was only able to take a few steps before the two hellhounds brayed a deep bellow that stopped him in his tracks. He wasn't going anywhere. Laila took a few steps, putting herself squarely between Tiffany and Knocks.

Tiffany Thatcher sat atop her uneasy beast, her eyes steeled upon Laila. Laila, naked, dripping with mossy lake water, didn't let her nakedness or stature disadvantage her. She held firm, unwilling to give up an inch of ground.

Tiffany's goat paced back and forth, its powerful muscles impatient to charge—ready to surge forward and run this creature down. It bleated once more, sounding its restlessness. But Tiffany Thatcher stayed her mount. Cold and unrelenting she stared at Laila, then opened her mouth, letting out a shrill shriek in some pained language spoken only in the deepest, darkest parts of Hell. The trill formed words that came out in a deathly warble sounding eerily like a chorus played backward.

“He was not yours to take.”

Laila looked around, a little confused. “He was not yours to begin with,” she replied.

“No!” Tiffany shouted, her anger whipping up a hot wind that rustled the trees and kicked up a cloud of dry dust. “He. Was not. Yours. To take.” The goat was having a hard time keeping itself in check. With a jerk of the reins and a firm hand on its horns, Tiffany dug spiked barbs into the fiend, managing to stay it a bit longer. “He was mine,” she hissed.

“I didn't take your son. I only took what was left for the lake. Your quarrel is
not
with me. And it is
not
with my boy.”

“No, you took him! You took him and you drowned him! And you kept his soul! He was mine!”

“Your son isn't dead. He's . . .” Laila fell silent, her heart breaking. Tiffany Thatcher had not pierced the veil of Hell and ridden across time itself to kill the doppelganger that had driven her to suicide. This wasn't about that at all. This was about Laila and the man she had drowned beneath the waves of Ladybird Lake half a dozen or so years ago. Until then, Laila was ready to die—she had something to die for,
something
that actually meant
something
. But this wasn't sacrifice; this was revenge. Laila wasn't going to die for her son; she was going to die for her sins. For her nature. And that wasn't a very good reason at all to die.

“I loved him. I love him still,” said Tiffany of her husband. With that, she let loose her hellbeast and rode it full bore into the waiting nixie, whose eyes stayed locked upon Tiffany's.

This fate was unavoidable. The only thing Laila had left in this world was one last lesson to offer her son. She turned, looking at Knocks—who cowered crying behind her—and mouthed “I love you.” Then she turned back to see the smoldering blackness of her own death.

The huge infernal goat ran her down like a cardboard placard, its hooves tearing off limbs as it passed over her. Knocks leapt to his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Mama!” He stopped in his place, his arm outstretched, as if he were capable of stopping time in its tracks. But the goat still lunged, dragging limp pieces of his mother along with it, meat smeared and tangled in its long black fur.

Tiffany reared the creature around, passing within inches of Knocks, and wheeled about again, trotting back toward him. She stopped, looking squarely at the boy while holding Laila's agonized soul firmly by the scruff of her neck.

Tiffany's lip snarled back across jagged teeth—sharpened and fractured from trying to gnaw her way out of Hell. Her eyes went black and what little color had remained in her skin vanished entirely. She raised her arm, pointing a crooked finger at the abomination below her. “That's not my baby,” she howled on the wind. “That's
not
my baby!” Kicking its sides, Tiffany urged her lurching steed forward once more, its hulking muscles surging toward the changeling. But as its shoe touched the dirt with its step, the hoof disintegrated into ash, like the end of a lit cigarette. The immolation swept up its leg to the torso, and in that fraction of a second, both goat and rider were consumed, exploding into a cloud of cinders. Her hour was up.

Ash and embers drifted slowly to the ground, the remnants of Tiffany Thatcher coating Knocks in a fine layer of gray and black. Not entirely sure what to make of what had just happened, he staggered in a daze over to where his mother last stood, but she was gone, every last bit of her dragged off by the Wild Hunt.

Mallaidh and Ewan emerged hand in hand from the wood, scraped and shaken, but no worse for the wear. Knocks looked up, seething. Mallaidh abruptly let go of Ewan and ran to Knocks. She put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but he struck it off, shaking his head.

He looked over at Ewan. “You. You did this! This is your fault!”

Ewan had no idea what he was talking about. While Knocks possessed a memory seven years long and perfect in every detail, Ewan had no idea who that horsewoman was, what she meant, or why she had killed Knocks's mom. But Knocks knew all too well, and he hated Ewan for it.

“Nuh-uh!” denied Ewan. “It's not
my
fault.”

“I hate you!” screamed Knocks, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Mallaidh tried once more to comfort him. “Knocks, Ewan had nothing to do with this.”

“Yes, he did!” he shouted. “Yes he did! Yes he did! Yes he did!” He looked directly at Ewan. “I hate you!” he screamed again. Then his passion cooled and his eyes grew cold. “
I will see you dead.
” He straightened, stiff as a board, storming off into the forest. For a moment his choked sobs were the only reminder of his presence, but soon even they vanished.

D
ITHERS AWOKE TO
a ghostly quiet, a searing pain in his chest. He shook the cobwebs from his head, wondering just how it was that he came to find himself draped over a creaking limb in the middle of the night. Then at once it all came screaming back to him.
THE WILD HUNT!

He scanned the ground frantically for any signs of his young ward. If he returned to court without Ewan, they would have his hide. One job, he had but one job to do: protect that little boy from harm. But now he'd lost him, given him up to a pack of unruly hellspawn that had no doubt carried him back to the very pits of Hell.

He sniffed the air. The brimstone was gone. Gone too were the clouds that had obscured the moon, the entire valley awash in bright blue hues. While the scattered remnants of fallen trees and smoldering hoofprints remained, there were few other signs that the hunt had even taken place. The arrow that had pierced his chest had vanished, its flaming tip having cauterized the wound into a painful burn. The valley was empty, quiet, abandoned even by the dead.

Dithers dropped down from the tree. He looked up, held his breath, and waited.
They're gonna kill me
.

The bushes burst apart, Ewan springing from them in a full run. Dithers threw his arms open wide, his crooked mouth splayed ear to ear with a glowing, thunderstruck grin. “Don't you ever run off like that again,” he chided, swinging Ewan around.

“But I had to. You dropped me.”

Dithers paused for a moment, still holding the boy a foot off the ground, trying to recall what had happened. “I did, didn't I?” he asked, the memories fading back into place. “I'm sorry. I'll never do that again. Where did you run off to?”

Mallaidh emerged from the woods behind them. “To get her.” Ewan pointed.

Dithers smiled coyly now. “I see. You had to save the pretty girl, didn't you?”

Ewan looked away, embarrassed. “Nooooo.”

“Yes he did,” said Mallaidh. “He saved me quite well.” Ewan shrugged, words failing him.

Dithers's grin slowly drooped. “And the others?” he asked. “Did anyone else make it?”