Trueheart (Portland After Dark Book 1) (27 page)

"Oh, God," Tess said. Her fingers laced with Thomas's, more for her own comfort than through any faith that he could defend them from the hunter and his shadowy, yelping hounds. "They're coming for us, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Thomas. "You should go. Take that bag and run." But his fingers were tight on hers, and she knew he didn't want her to leave him. Fear warred with the deep burden of responsibility within her.

"The kelpie—"

"The iron nail. Use it. He'll let you pass if you stab deep. In the neck would be best. Leave the nail in the flesh, and keep running."

She stared at him, horror rising. It was a shock to realize afresh Thomas understood these creatures, knew best how to hurt them, skills only obtained through experience. But what else could he do, if this was what his world was like? And how clean and safe had her own world been, despite her job working with addicts and damaged people?

"Come with me, then."

He shook his head, and she could see the weariness and the despairing resignation in his eyes. "They will never stop, and I cannot outrun them while I am weakened by iron like this. But maybe you could get away, if I let them take me."

"I already told you no."

"Tess, it could mean your life."

"And if what you say is true, it
will
mean yours. No. I'm not leaving you." She let go of Thomas long enough to thread the long strap of her purse through the handles of the grocery tote, and sling the whole contraption across her body once more. She had to have at least one hand free, but with the other, she took Thomas's hand and squeezed with all her might.

The Wild Hunt came, slowly, reluctantly, with renewed ear-splitting shrieking from the pixies they crushed under foot.

But come they did, shimmering in and out of their glamour, until the influence of the bridge—despite the pixie coating—and the Willamette's strong current at mid-span stripped it all away at last, and there was only the other-worldly brutality of bone and skin and bare-toothed grimaces remaining.

T
HOMAS
KNEW HE WAS RELYING
on Tess's strength for much of his support, and Hunter would correctly see that as weakness. He stood a little straighter, locking his knees, and hoped his sick looks could be misinterpreted as menace, at least by Hunter's hounds, if not the Queen's Huntsman himself.

What good was a trow's body if it could be made so vulnerable? He'd lived in his bridge hole for years, fooled into thinking his human body enabled him to stay there, unsickened by the iron, when in reality he was insulated by concrete and layers of his own magic and glamours. He should have known from the rides in Tess's Jeep that iron had become more and more toxic to him.

Even his brain felt weak and sick. Tess would not run, and he could not make her. She was a human who had looked upon—was still looking upon—the Wild Hunt. How did she not turn away? What gave her the strength? He didn't think it was entirely due to the eerie emanations he could feel coming from the things in the grocery tote. Some of it was surely due to Tess's spirit and heart. He'd never met anyone like her among the fae and had only glancing acquaintances with strong women before he became the Queen's lover as a young man.

She caught him looking at her and gave him a smile that didn't quite erase the fear in her eyes.

"You could still run, Tess."

"How many times are you going to say that?" She leaned in for a brief kiss and he obliged, liking the way her hand tightened on his.

"Until you're safe."

"We. Until
we're
safe." She reached in her pocket for the nail he had put there and gripped it in her fist.

Hunter and his pack drew closer. It was slow going over the bridge, despite the thousands of pixies destroyed or enslaved to protect the Hunt from the iron. Hunter continually forced his mount forward, with savage kicks to its skeletal belly and flogging with the butt of his staff. The hounds of his pack cringed and groaned at every step. Thomas could see their breath on the chill air as they panted.

Each step the Wild Hunt took brought him and Tess closer to disaster. There was nowhere to run, and chancing the river was not really an option. His mind circled like a rat in a trap. Their one hope, now, was the very thing he had most wanted to abandon: the bag of the Queen's trinkets. If it came down to it, Thomas thought perhaps he would throw one of the things at the Wild Hunt and see what happened. Maybe it would bring the Queen down upon them, though he doubted even she would interfere with Hunter's choice of prey. The Wild Hunt was governed by laws deeper and older than the Unseelie court's contorted bureaucracy, laws set forth in the time when all magic was wild and only the unstoppable forces of nature held sway. Prey was prey, when it was chosen for the right reasons. The Wild Hunt might be only a vestige of that wild magic, but its rules were immutable.

Thomas was about to die.

There was no changing that, not now.

The Hunt had only another few yards to go, but it was over the Willamette's primary channel, and the current was deep and strong. He saw its pull affecting the pack. The kelpies drifted toward the sides of the roadway, looking longingly into the darkly glimmering water below without touching the bridge railing. The bogles bared their teeth in angry denial of the river's force. Hunter's mount spun in place until he drove it forward once more.

There was really only one thing left to do. He leaned to his left, where Tess's shoulder still pressed firmly against him, providing as much strength and support as she could, and spoke quietly into her ear.

"I'm sorry, Tess. Forgive me."

Her breasts rose and fell on a long, harsh breath. She had heard him, but her gaze did not leave the Hunt, and she brought up the hand holding the iron nail so that it rested near her collarbone, her arm pressed close as if she were cold, or as if something inside her ached.

A moment later, as the Hunt took the last strides on the pixie carpet, she pulled free of Thomas's hand and stepped in front of him, her palm out for all the world as if she were stopping traffic on a neighborhood street.

"No!" he shouted, but she took a step forward, the tips of her boots not quite touching the twitching, leafy bodies of the pixies.

"I command you to stop," Tess said. Thomas heard the tremor in her voice.

Hunter reined in his mount. Its head tossed, and bloody froth dripped at Tess's feet. Maybe Thomas was imagining things, but did it seem as if Hunter's antlered mask was not held as firmly aloft as it had been? The iron had to be affecting him as well. Thomas tried to step forward and instead went to one knee. Without looking Tess stepped back again, staying in front of him. A part of him wanted to laugh; Tess clearly thought her command had stayed Hunter, when it was the edge of the blanket of pixies that had halted him. Hunter was merely gathering his force for the final strike. The greater part of Thomas wondered at Tess's determination and bravery in the face of what was probably the most frightening moment of her life.

"Out of my way, human woman." Hunter urged his mount forward once more. Tess faded back a half step, then squared her shoulders.

"No. You will not take him."

"He is the prey of the Hunt. Mine by right, by law and custom and might."

"You talk like a crazy person. He's not your prey, not yours to take or kill or—whatever you think you're going to do to him. Take your...your
creatures
..." Tess's lip curled in distaste as she scanned the pack. "Take them and leave us in peace."

Thomas swallowed. Tess had no idea what she was saying. He struggled to his feet again, fighting the need to grasp her shoulder to help him upright. The iron felt heavy in his lungs now, leaving no room for air. He heard himself wheeze.

Hunter's laugh was the sound of stone rubbed on stone, the deep rumble of an earthquake. His staff leveled at Tess, a prismatic tangle of the hunt magic blooming at its tip like an unnatural torch. Tess quailed, coming into contact with Thomas's chest. Hunter's red eyes looked around at his pack. "Circle them," he said, gesturing with his staff.

The pack ranged themselves at the hem of pixie bodies, but went no further. The bogles hissed and twisted in terror and fear. Circling their prey meant stepping out onto the iron of the bridge, and Thomas saw the wisdom of Tess's inspired idea. The combination of iron and running water was having an impact.

There were reasons the fae hated the humans, and reasons the humans had crowded out the fae in so many parts of the world. Human means, indeed. She had taken his own concepts a step farther, learning from him, and adding her own ingenuity.

Yet he didn't dare hope, at least not for himself.

Hunter remained facing them as the pack slowly edged onto the iron of the bridge to obey his command. Thomas coughed, then he cleared his throat.

"I'll come with you, Hunter, but let her go free."

"Still trying to bargain, Thomas? You have nothing left that I want."

"He may not, but I do." Tess interjected, and Thomas felt his heart burst in terror.

"T—" he stopped himself before he spoke her truename in their hearing. "Silence!"

Hunter's red eyes were intent on Tess. "Let her speak." His voice had lost that sharp, stony edge, and instead transmitted all the seductive power of any kelpie intent upon its victim.

Thomas tried again. "This is Allantide. If the Hunt returns without its prey, our Queen will be angered."

"There is no law specifying what we must hunt." The antlered head tilted, as if scenting the air around Tess. Thomas put an arm around her middle, and felt the writhing of the mossy bag of trinkets even through his coat. The bag was weighty against his arm, with an electric pulsing that concerned him. He wondered how much longer the bag would contain its contents, and what would happen when the Queen's markers spilled out onto the iron deck.

"But once the prey has been chosen, the Hunt cannot change its mind. You cannot take her, you must take me."

Hunter snarled. It was the law, and they both knew it.

"If you can," Tess said boldly. Thomas groaned to himself. "But I warn you, you must go through me to get to Thomas." She broke free of the circle of his arm and held up the bag with one hand. "This is what you want, not him. And...and..." Thomas could feel her casting about for the right words to make her human bargain. "You will have to wait until dawn to find out what's in here. I promise you, it will mean more to you than killing Thomas ever will."

Hunter laughed again, returning to the honey-sweet tones. "You little know what a thorn in my side he has been, and how much pleasure I will take in carving his flesh to feed my pack and my Queen."

"And yourself, no doubt." Tess sidled closer. "Let me give you a hint of what's in this sack."

"I will have more than a hint," Hunter said, and Thomas would have sworn the mask was smiling. "I will have the bag itself." Hunter's staff tilted down and the hunt magic unfurled over Tess and the bag like a seining net cast by a fisherman in a Willamette slough, but this fish was far more valuable. Thomas stretched out a hand too late to pull her out of its reach, but he needn't have bothered. The snare blazed like dry summer grass alongside the highway. A moment later it drifted harmlessly, brittle and smoking, to the bridge deck.

Hunter's snare hadn't worked amidst the iron of the Hawthorne Bridge.

Tess looked startled, but only momentarily, and then the hand with the iron nail was out, stabbing down, glancing off Hunter's silver-armored thigh and burying deep into the mutable flesh of his mount.

"Shit," Tess hissed. "Missed."

But the beast's flesh sizzled like bacon on a hot pan where the nail entered its flesh.

While Hunter was staring, astonished, at Tess's treachery and the failure of his magic, Thomas caught the back of her coat and dragged her away from Hunter and his jerking, thrashing mount. Hunter sprang away from the beast. Crazed, it bolted forward, coming into contact with the iron deck and spinning a savage dance of pain and destruction. The horse bared its teeth, biting at the smoking nail in its side, missing, rearing, neighing with a noise like a locomotive whistle.

"Now you have angered me." Hunter yanked a stone knife from a sheath at his boot and came toward them, ignoring his horse, which had staggered back onto the carpet of pixie corpses and was sinking to its knees, its neck stretched far in distress. "I will have that bag, and I will have you!"

"I call you to Court, by the will of our Queen and the Law of the ages!" Thomas summoned all the air he could take into his lungs and roared. "You have declared your intention to abandon the Rule of the Hunt."

For a moment there was nothing but silence and the slow, muscular voice of the Willamette, heedless of the deadly drama playing out on the bridge above the current. Everyone stood poised, waiting.

A bogle was the first to flinch, stepping back from the naked iron to the blanketed deck of the bridge, its querulous gaze twitching from Hunter's fury as it moved, signaling its intention. Hunter leveled his staff at the bogle and a bolt of smeary magic, distorted by the iron around it, flew like slow fire toward the bogle. The snare was easily sidestepped.

Hunter's rage at this fresh failure was spectacular, but when Tess's mocking laughter sounded, the red eyes behind the mask became incandescent with fury. Thomas's first impulse was to beg her to be silent, but with rage came opportunity: sooner or later, Hunter would make another mistake, and perhaps it would be the opening they needed to get them safely to dawn, and a chance to live another day.

"Kill him," Hunter said to his pack. His gauntleted hands went to a coil of cording slung at his hip and made a loop in its end.

"He has claimed the protection of the Court," objected a redcap, licking its lips.

"He is our rightful prey, and we are the Wild Hunt. Kill him!"

The pack began creeping back the way they had come. Only Hunter's red glare and the habit of long obedience halted them.

"The Queen...the Law..." whined a bogle, and the rest of the hounds took up the refrain.