The Iron Hunt (23 page)

I
caught my reflection in a car window, and saw a mask of scales shaped like
wings flaring across my cheeks. Above my eyebrows, Zee, staring with a gaze
like rubies, the tips of his long fingers curled around my jaw. Not a glimpse
of my own skin remained, not even on my eyelids. I could have been in the
circus.
National Geographic
maybe. I hardly recognized myself.

But I
was alive. Unbroken. I caught up to the stranger and felt sharp, tangled. My
mother’s coat had new scars. I watched for dark auras, and thought about time,
slipping away. My hour to Grant.

“Who
are you?” I asked.

His
smile was cold. “I’m hurt you don’t remember.”

It
was not Ahsen, no matter how well she could shift her shape. “We’ve never met.”

“You’re
all the same. That look in your eye. It never changes.”

His
aura was clean, but that meant nothing. “Who
are
you?”

The
man looked at me, his gaze blistering. “I am your fool, Hunter.”

He
grabbed my arm. The world disappeared.

I did
not lose consciousness. Merely, sight and sound. I was in a place of absolute
darkness; unremitting, hollow, until I felt a shift inside my body, my innards
sloshing into bone; and though I found myself still in darkness, there was a
moon in the sky, illuminating an endless field of snow and ice; and the air was
bitter, and it was night.

Night.
The boys woke up.

The
pain was worse than usual, but I did not flinch or make a sound. I watched the
man, who stood upon the snow with a look of cruel amusement on his face. And
when the boys pulled free, swirling around my body like quicksilver ghosts, his
expression never changed; only the corner of his mouth hitched higher, and I
felt in him a satisfaction that cut me with fury.

No
time to act, though. The moment the boys peeled off my skin, I was hit with a
cold that stabbed me as surely as if I had slammed myself onto a bed of nails.
The bitter chill stole my breath, and I wheezed, folding my arms over my
stomach, fighting the urge to drop to my knees. The cold was unbelievable,
horrifying; like being swallowed by winter and slowly digested by ice.

Then,
Zee. A glimpse of red eyes, the bars of his sharp teeth, just before he wrapped
himself around me, arms tight. Dek and Mal wound across my throat and head,
while Raw took my back. My legs were harder to protect, but Aaz did his best,
all of them clinging like monkeys. Heat seeped through my clothing into the
core of my body. Hearts thundered. I could think again.

“The
flesh is weak,” said the man, seemingly unconcerned by the cold. “Even yours,
Hunter.”

“Where
are we?” My voice was hoarse, broken.

“North
Pole.” The man stepped closer, and the boys snarled. He laughed, quietly. “Zee.
You haven’t aged a bit, I see.”

Zee
snapped at the air, hissing, then rattled off a stream of words that were as
melodic and wild as the stiff wind cutting across the ice. Until, finally, his
tirade slowed, and he rasped, “Enkidu. You cutter slut.”

The
man’s smile faded. The moon cast daggers upon his black hair until he was
nothing more than a block of darkness, striated with moonlight. His body, so
still. His voice rough. “Never use that name, Zee. Never again. You owe me that
much.”

Zee
spat, his saliva burning through the snow like acid. The man took another step.
I tensed, ready to fight. He stopped, though, and looked up. I saw a shadow
slice stars, and a demon fell from the sky.

Oturu.
He slammed into the ice like an arrow made of night, and the crack of his
impact made me shake. I forgot to breathe. His cloak suffocated light. The
lower half of his pale face shone like diamond dust glittering across the snow.

I
reached inside my jacket, fingers grazing my mother’s knives. My heart thudded
against my ribs. “Zee.”

“Yes,
Maxine,” he whispered.

“Are
you going to help me this time?”

He
said nothing. The demon laughed, husky and warm. His feet, those dagger toes,
perched on the surface of the snow as though he were lighter than air.

“Zee
can do nothing to break his binding word,” said the demon. A tendril of hair
snaked from beneath his hat, reaching for the man standing quiet as death
beside him. I could not look away as the demon’s hair stroked the human’s
cheek, and I glimpsed in those dark eyes a moment of pure hate.

“Tracker,”
said the demon. “You did well.”

“It
was my honor,” replied the man, with a deference I knew was a lie. The demon
seemed to know it, too. That tendril of hair, delicate as a long finger, snaked
beneath the man’s collar. I saw the band of iron around his throat; a
protruding link. A hook. The demon’s hair knotted itself through the small
opening and jerked, once. The man fell to his knees.

“Tracker,”
murmured the demon, again. “Learn to kneel before our Lady.”

The
man said nothing. He tried to stand, and the leash snapped tight, making him
fall, legs encased in snow. His breath puffed, lips turning blue. Cold. He
could feel the cold now.

The
demon’s cloak flared, snapping at stars. “Kneel. In your heart, kneel.”

“No,”
I rasped. “Stop.”

The
demon turned, and though his eyes were hidden behind the brim of his hat, I
knew he looked straight into my eyes. Stark against the ice, standing on his
toes with that wicked, living cloak breathing against the direction of the
wind. Graceful. Dangerous.

The
hard mouth curved. “You admire us.”

“I
admire your grace,” I admitted, hoarsely. “But I’ll kill you anyway.”

“You
will kill us all,” said the demon. “But not today.”

Not
if I stayed out here much longer. The boys could only do so much in these
temperatures. I supposed that was the point. Strip me of my armor, make me
vulnerable. Easy to scare.

My
teeth were close to chattering. “What do you want?”

“You,”
he said, and against my body, the boys stirred, red eyes blinking, hearts
pounding. I glanced at the man in the snow. He watched me, shoulders
shuddering, hands hidden in the broken icy drift.

“To
kill me,” I replied.

The
demon smiled. “To
follow
you.”

I
stared, and he danced toward me, floating upon the flat drifts, pricking the
ice and snow with the toes of his feet. He dragged the man behind me, his long
tendrils of hair still knotted in the iron collar—and though he had pushed me
under a bus, I felt a moment of pity as the man tried to stand, again, and
fell.

The
demon loomed, blending with the night sky, his mouth a hard, dark line,
straight and cold as the distant moonlit horizon. I could not see his eyes
beneath the hat, but his cloak flared like wings, and I glimpsed movement, deep
within: faces and hands, bodies roiling in the abyss. Eating moonlight,
starlight, the cold reflection of snow. The boys tightened their hands around
my body. I shook, but not from the cold.

“You
are frightened of us,” whispered the demon. “Your heart is lost, but we are
here now. All of us, born again, for each other.”

“Then
tell me,” I croaked, my voice frozen in my throat. “Tell me what I should
know.”

“What
you should know,” he murmured. “What you should know is the world at your feet.
You, Mistress, with your hounds and the Hunt at hand. Goddess, eternal. But you
have forgotten. You have become a mystery.” The demon hesitated. “What has been
done to you, Hunter?”

I
thought of my mother. A tendril of hair snapped toward my head. Zee grabbed it,
holding tight, but not before the very tip grazed my brow. Incredible heat
washed through my bones. Golden as sunrise, blinding. Through my jeans, against
my skin, the stone circle burned.

The
demon went perfectly still. All of us, staring, caught in the dark arctic hush,
in a river of stars and moonlight. I would have been breathless with its beauty
if I was not breathless with fear and dying.

“You
have been tampered with,” said the demon.

“Oturu,
no,” rasped Zee. “No bargain broken. Just shifts. Been a long time. Old mothers
had new ways.”

“And
new alliances,” he said ominously. “I smell the wolf. I can taste the unicorn.”

My
knees buckled. I fell into the snow and could not pick myself up. My muscles
were too cold. Aaz crawled down to my numb feet, curling himself around them.
The demon flowed into a crouch, his cloak spreading across the snow like a
splash of ink. The man was behind him, lost from sight. I stared at the brim of
that black hat, trembling.

“We
forget time,” he whispered. “We forget, always, that you are a mortal creature.
You, Hunter, who should bear eternity upon your shoulders. We see you, we see
them all, and we remember
her
. Always her.”

“Her,”
I breathed, shuddering from the cold. “One of my ancestors.”

“The
greatest of them. The most terrible.” The demon made a hissing sound, a quiet
draw of breath. “You are like her, Hunter. We can taste her inside you. It is
why we gave you the mark of our clan. Our mark, that we have given no other
since her death. It is a prophecy of wonder.”

My
hand shook, but I managed to touch my face. Just below my ear, I felt those
lines. I could see them inside my head. The demon leaned in, the brim of his
hat close enough to touch. “You think we are so different, but we are the same,
Hunter. We are the raging hosts and the masters of the dead, and when we
command men to follow, they obey. And so it is the men of the earth who kill
and maim, like a flock of birds copper red with blood, while we dance upon this
world as great and mighty shadows. But we are merely the sword, Hunter, and
only the sword. We must have a heart to wield us. Those are the terms, and we
keep our bargains.”

“What
bargain?” I watched his hair dip into the snow and begin carving designs, knots
and tangles that reminded me of the stone engraving, the labyrinth.

“The
terms of our survival,” he whispered. “Our dispensation for a favor done.
Allowed to survive and hunt, but only at the command of your bloodline, or one
of your choosing. It was her last request. She feared. She grieved.” A tendril
of hair tapped Zee’s shoulder. “Your Hunter should have been told.”

Zee
shook his head. “Made a promise.”

“Your
oath conflicts.”

“No,”
he rasped. “It saves.”

I
shook my head, shuddering. “I don’t believe it. I don’t. N-not with you.”

“Because
we are demon. And you hate us.”

“You’ll
d-destroy the humans.”

“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.”