Hunt: An Urban Faery Tale (The Faery Chronicles Book 1)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  “He hasn’t.”

  “But say he does.”

  “He might not survive it,” Simone said, with a lilt in her voice that slammed Kevin back into that night at Phantom when her voice had carried him through a waking dream, a fantasy so real and so powerful he’d gone into shock.

  If that’s what sex with Simone would be like, she was right. It would kill him.

  Amy’s eyes took on that flinty cast he’d seen before. “Then don’t play with him.”

  “Because he’s yours,” Simone said.

  Amy moved closer to Simone, nose to nose. “Because I care about him and I don’t want him to die. And, yeah, he’s mine. I’m not giving up on him that easy.”

  Simone didn’t agree. But she backed up. One step. She ceded the battlefield. And looked at Kevin. It was his choice what happened next. If something needed saying, it was his to say.

  No matter how cool—and how weird—it felt for Amy and Simone to fight over him, in the end it felt creepy. Play with him? He wasn’t somebody’s toy.

  And Amy, she’d come down here to prove a point. She’d done it, and they had a lot to talk about some other time. But what about now?

  He cleared his throat. “Amy, are you in this with us? With me?”

  Amy turned to him. “The rest of what you said, it’s as real as she is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s crazy, Kev. I don’t know how to handle it all.”

  “I’ve told myself the same thing a million times. But that’s over from here on out. There’s no halfway, no room for questioning whether what you see and touch and taste and smell is real. Every minute that ticks by is one less I’ve got to find a way out. I need to make the most of them. You understand?”

  “That’s crazy, too,” Amy said. “But pretending it’s not real is worse.”

  She got it, all right. He blew out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.

  “Touching.” Simone let her arms fall to her sides. “If we’re done being understanding, let’s get to work.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  KEVIN HAD NO IDEA what Simone had in mind.

  “Amy, you’ve made the costumes for the party tomorrow night?” she said.

  Amy knitted her brow. “Mine. His is almost done.”

  “What did you use for a model?”

  “The picture in our counselor’s office. The oil painting of the Wild Hunt.”

  Simone’s painting.

  “I want you to sew tonight, Amy,” she said. “As fast as you can, as well as you can.”

  “Why?”

  “What if Kevin didn’t dress up like the King? What if we could disguise him to actually look like one of the members of the Hunt? If we could make him so believable that no one would question whether he belongs?”

  “But the King has a body of light,” Kevin said. “I guess I assumed the rest of the Hunt does, too.”

  “And you don’t,” Simone said. “There’s a way around it. I could glamour you. Whammy you to resemble him in every way, including making your human body appear to be made of light. I can make you a horse of mist. A proud beast to ride across the sky.”

  Amy narrowed her eyes. “But it wouldn’t really change him?”

  “No. He’d be exactly the same underneath the spell. I could cast it before midnight—just before the Hunt takes to the skies. With my magic and the costume to aid it, the glamour should last until dawn, when the Hunt returns to the realm of Faery.”

  Which meant he could slip in and take his father back. And if he timed it right, he could escape the Hunt. The King couldn’t steal him away for another year.

  But what about freeing his dad with the tear from the real, live King? What about freeing himself from the King and his thugs? Sneaking in, disguised or not, wouldn’t save either of them. If any of this worked at all. A thousand things could go wrong. Probably would. But he had to try something, didn’t he? He didn’t have any better ideas.

  “That’s cool,” he said to Simone. “But it’s not enough.”

  “I know, Kevin.” She went to hug him—and pulled back, because of Amy. “That’s the best I can do. The rest is up to you.”

  “I need to think,” he said.

  Amy took his hand. “And we need to get me home. My car is back behind where y’all parked.”

  Her saying that made him remember that he’d come to Simone’s on a mission.

  “There’s something else going on tonight,” he said to Simone. “I need you to come with me.”

  They had to take the underground route from inside the bus. Less chance they’d be followed that way, which was important. But Kevin felt awkward holding tight to Simone. And he hated the way the breath whooshed out of his lungs, and the taste of road dirt and packed earth and insects and water. He tried not to pass out when his lungs began to burn.

  His reward? Gulps of fresh air and the street underfoot when they arrived back at the Caddy. And Amy glued to his side, coughing her head off, while Simone hugged her dad.

  Better not to leave her resonance in the car, Simone said. So she and Nance took a walk. Which left Rude and Amy and Kevin to lean against the car and turn the idea over and over again.

  “There’s got to be another option,” Rude said finally. “Something final.”

  “As long as it’s not about getting dead,” Kevin said.

  Amy socked him in the arm. It didn’t hurt—much.

  He held up his hands. “It’s a joke.”

  “Not funny,” she said.

  No, it wasn’t. It was a real possibility. And not the kind you accepted just by waking up every day and walking out into the world. You could step off a curb and get hit by a bus or be struck by lightning or have a heart attack or any number of other things that could just happen.

  Or you could kiss your husband and son goodbye and go out with your girlfriends and on your way home a drunk driver could plow into the driver’s side of your car and you could die instantly.

  The kind of death they were talking about here? That kind was like what cops (real cops, not Faery agents) and firefighters faced every day. Or soldiers fighting in a war. Or the guy at the corner store who stepped into the middle of a fight to break it up, knowing he could get stabbed or shot.

  He was sixteen. Joe Normal until last weekend. He had no special bravery qualifications.

  Still, he’d already made his choice. He could face death like that.

  But could he embrace it?

  “Hell,” he said, so softly he didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud.

  Rude pushed off the car and leaned down to look Kevin in the eye. “Dude, what are you thinking?”

  “This whole time I’ve been assuming either the King would come and take me by force or I’d have to hide,” Kevin said. “What if I join the Hunt willingly?”

  “You can’t do that, dude. The Hunt is made up of the King and a bunch of dead and magically spelled people. They’re the only ones who can ride.”

  “Yeah, but what if Simone’s magic can get me through?” Kevin asked.

  “It’s an awful risk, dude.”

  “But if I take it, then at least I’m going in under my own free will. I’m not the King’s prisoner.”

  Amy frowned. “That’s just semantics.”

  “Maybe so,” Kevin said. “But I think it means something. It means I’m Sir Orfeo bargaining for his wife, not Tam Lin trying keep from getting sacrificed.”

  “What?” Amy asked.

  “It’s the difference between going into Faery as a free man who has something to bargain with and going in as a prisoner with no leverage at all. You’ll still be in his home, dude. His place. He could order you killed like that.” Rude snapped his fingers.

  It could happen, but Kevin didn’t think so. “Not if he wants something from me. Because that would make all the bullshit he went through to snag me a big fat waste, wouldn’t it?”

  Rude whistled. “You’re gonna play chicken with the King of
Faery. If I were in your shoes, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that.”

  “Then it’s good you’re not in my shoes,” Kevin said. “Besides, I’m not going it alone.”

  “Dude, is this where you get all sappy and tell us you couldn’t have gotten this far without us?”

  Kevin laughed. It felt good, even if every single one of his nerves showed through. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  He heard the thunk against the side of the car just in time to throw an arm around Amy, to catch her fall.

  She’d fainted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  AFTER AMY CAME AROUND, Rude drove her home. Simone went back to her bus, and Kevin rode in the Caddy to Mr. Nance’s.

  His small house bore a striking resemblance to his office, with stacks of mail and papers on every available surface, lots of books, and cozy furniture. All the plants appeared to be in the backyard, where the sky could take care of the watering.

  “I don’t have a guest area, I’m afraid,” Nance said, tossing his keys atop a stack of bills on the entry hall table. “You’re welcome to the sofa, or to Beth’s place.”

  Kevin hitched up his backpacks, one slung over each shoulder. He felt weird asking his question, but morbid curiosity coupled with a genuine need to see if it would creep him out made him say the words. “Can I see her room first?”

  Nance showed him down a hall so short it hardly qualified for the name. He reached in through the door at the end and flipped on the light.

  Like her dad, Beth Nance had no use for empty spaces. The ceiling had been papered over at least once with rock-n-roll posters, the kind you could get for ten bucks each at the mall. She liked everyone from Patti Smith to Def Leppard to The White Stripes. He thought he recognized Jim Morrison’s mug peeking out from a corner.

  The walls were stacked with her paintings. The earliest he could tell because they just plain weren’t as good, or at least they didn’t touch him. He followed the progression over and up to the top. The closer to the ceiling, the more fae the work. He recognized the precursors to the Wild Hunt that hung in her father’s office.

  The desk? Cluttered with college texts, one of them open. The bedspread? Black velvet, and dusty. A diary, its lock open and a silver pen beside it, graced the nightstand.

  It felt as though Beth would be home any minute. Kevin understood that Mr. Nance hadn’t touched a thing in here. It looked exactly the same as it had seven years ago. That should squick him, but it didn’t.

  “I try to keep the cobwebs down,” the counselor said.

  “It’s fine, Mr. Nance.”

  “It won’t feel weird?”

  “No,” Kevin said. He got a distinct sense of both Beth and Simone in there. Whatever she called herself, she was his friend.

  He yawned hugely. He couldn’t have stayed up to chat to save his life, so it was fine by him that Mr. Nance showed him right away where to find fresh sheets and towels, and where to get a glass of water if he wanted one, then shooed him off to bed.

  He lost consciousness the instant his head hit the pillow and dreamed of his mother. She had no warnings for him, and she didn’t call him by his full name. He was five years old—he could tell by the way the world looked so big and by his favorite shirt, a long-sleeved tee with dark green and orange stripes. His mom made him French toast for breakfast and took him to the matinee movie and then out for ice cream that spoiled his dinner, which she firmly believed should be spoiled on special occasions. He rode his trike up and down the driveway until dusk, the cicada song so loud it drowned out the squeak of his wheels.

  It was a perfect day.

  When it ended, he woke. A tidal wave of feeling rose up inside him. He beat it down mercilessly and lay still until his breathing steadied from ragged to mostly normal. Only then did he allow himself to notice his mouth was dry. A glass of water would take care of that.

  He rolled out of bed and padded through unfamiliar territory into the kitchen. As he passed through the living room, he found Mr. Nance in his recliner without light save a reading lamp, a volume of Yeats open in his lap. The counselor acknowledged him before turning again to his poems.

  There were water spots on the page. Mr. Nance was crying. Kevin wanted to ask about that, but the counselor didn’t glance up again. His were private tears.

  On his way back to bed, Kevin couldn’t help wondering too whether Mr. Nance had stayed up on purpose, to watch over him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  KEVIN DIDN’T WANT to go to school. He didn’t want to be there among so many people who either didn’t care or thought the worst of him. He didn’t want to sit through class and fake paying attention. If he could have made the sun set and the clock fast-forward to midnight, he would have.

  Instead, he got in the car with Mr. Nance an hour and a half earlier than the counselor would normally have driven in, to make sure no one would see them together and say the wrong thing to the wrong someone. Kevin ducked down in the backseat while Nance ripped through a drive-through and came away with eggs on English muffins and large Styrofoam cups full of coffee with powdered cream.

  The sun came up as they pulled into the faculty lot, the horizon a long stretch of pink and gold. Not a cloud marred the sky. If the weather held, it would be a clear, cool night.

  Mr. Nance went to his office. That left plenty of time for Kevin to wander.

  The halls were deserted. The yard out back, too. With the exception of one Russian princess type in a long, flowing, dark blue skirt and a matching crocheted poncho.

  She waved him over. He sat in the grass beside her, not minding so much the dew that soaked his jeans. It should be the least of his problems.

  “You don’t have to tell me what you’re planning,” Stacy said. “In fact, you shouldn’t.”

  Fine by him. “How do you know anything at all about me?”

  “I pay attention,” she said, tapping her temple with her index finger. “Especially to the misfits.”

  “That’s vaguely insulting.”

  “Yeah, but it’s true.”

  Lately? He couldn’t argue the point.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I’m pulling for you. Also, I’m keeping an eye on you. You know, for Rude.”

  “You just happened to know I’d be out here early?”

  “You always come out here looking for him.”

  “And he put you up to this,” Kevin said.

  “He had to. He’s busy with Oscar.”

  That surprised him. “How do you know Oscar?”

  “He’s my uncle.”

  That explained a lot. “Rude called you a witch.”

  “That’s what I am,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “What’s it mean?”

  “I can make little things happen,” she said, “like with the lockers. Nothing big yet. But mostly I pay attention to the shadows I see out of the corner of my eye.”

  Faeries. Ghosts. “Do you see anything now?”

  “Just you. You have more magic than I’ve got in my little finger.”

  “I wish I didn’t,” he said. “I wish I never had to have it, that it’d never touched my family.”

  “Too late.”

  He glanced away. “You know what the Faery King wants from me, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” She showed him a smile of commiseration. “Can’t say as I would turn it down if I were you.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “What would you do with that much magic if you had it?”

  Stacy didn’t hesitate. “Use it, but on my own terms.”

  On her own terms. Meaning she wouldn’t take orders from the King, or anyone else. Meaning that regardless of how much power the King had, she would have as much in her own way, because the King would need her but she wouldn’t be beholden to him.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Her grin widened into something more genuine. “For what?”

  “Just thanks.”

  “Okay, misfit,” she
said.

  He took it in good grace.

  The first wave of people pushed into the yard, freshly dropped off by their parents or sleepy-eyed after bus rides.

  “I’ve got to study,” Stacy said. “And so should you.”

  Right. If he made it through tonight, he’d still have to pass his classes. He opened his English book. Try as he might, he couldn’t make sense of the first paragraph. Reading it over and over again so did not help.

  He was glad to hear the bell ring. And to see Rude and Amy in the hall on the way to class. He locked gazes with both of them. Their eyes seemed to say that everything was cool, they’d done everything they could, not to worry.

  Easier said than done.

  Probability and Stat proved to be a worthy distraction. But then, a pop quiz could do that. With any luck, he’d manage a C.

  He limped his way through Chemistry, most of which ended up being about the TGIF experiment of the week that the teacher did with water, vinegar, baking soda, and spaghetti. Dancing spaghetti, oh boy. A prelude to lunch.

  Kevin kept a discreet eye on Scott, who kept his distance on purpose, while he ate lunch with Rude and Amy. They commandeered a table for themselves with the big guy as insurance. Of course, no one wanted to sit with them anyhow, because of Kevin.

  He picked at his pasta with meat sauce. “We meet at the bus at ten.”

  “Ten,” Rude said.

  “Is Mr. Nance coming?” Amy asked.

  Kevin shook his head. “I think his daughter told him something that’s making him want to stay away.”

  Amy frowned. “I wonder what it was.”

  Kevin did, too. But he was glad that even without Mr. Nance he’d have plenty of back-up. Plenty of friends by his side.

  Simone would fashion that horse of mist for him to ride. And she’d touch his heart in such a way as to make him impervious to harm during the flight and the Hunt’s return to Faery. Imperviousness, check.

  The rest of them―Amy and Rude and Stacy and him―had to fill out the plan. Fast thinking, but good.

  Amy would be there because no way would she let him go without seeing him off. The subtext? That she might never lay eyes on him again. He couldn’t blame her. He wanted her there, too—he just didn’t want to see her cry. Not that he was stupid enough to tell her that last part.