The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Settle down, Mrs. Latchman.”
“I will not settle down! This man is not of God, and if we let him ply his magic on our behalf, the Lord will judge us all!”
Francine Lockhart, sitting on the other side of the room, stood up. “Caden is a man of God, Alli. He may have lost his way a bit, but the Good Lord is calling him home. It’s God’s will that he be here for us today.”
“Aaaaaand that’s my cue to leave,” I said, moving through the crowd. “Remember. Silver weapons. Stay indoors. Keep your heads down.” The people argued amongst themselves while I departed.
Ethel was still sitting by the fire when I got back to the bed and breakfast. I took away the toast and tea, both cold, neither touched, and brought her a sandwich and some milk. I didn’t expect her to eat those, either, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
Public Works had done a good job of clearing most of the main streets, though they were still working on the roads that led into and out of Mirrormont, so I got back into my Jeep and just drove.
There was going to be a big battle in just a few hours, and a lot of innocent lives were at stake. Miranda’s life was at stake. Her face haunted me, her face and the creepy green fire that emanated from her eyes. I was going to get her back, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe anything else, but to do that I needed to be at my absolute best. If I let myself sit and stew, thinking about all the things that could go wrong and what would be lost if they did, I would defeat myself before Holda even took the field. I drove aimlessly, stopping at a bookstore and using the Thieves’ Key to let myself in and browse through their spy novels. When the sky started to turn red, I headed back to town.
I set up camp near the entrance to Tiger Mountain state park. This was the area closest to Holda’s mountain, the place her Hunters would hit first. The sheriff showed up a few minutes later, several men in tow. I would have preferred to be on my own, of course, but the sheriff was a tough old bastard who took duty seriously, and there wasn’t a whole lot I could have done to dissuade him. Not that I didn’t try.
“You know you don’t have to be here,” I said.
Skerrit scowled without looking at me. “See this badge I’m wearing? That means this is where I belong.”
“I’m not sure ‘rampaging Norse hell bitch’ is part of the job description.”
“Neither was arranging to kill an ice troll with a fire truck, but I worked that out.”
“Fair enough. Guys?” The sheriff’s men, ten of them, were arrayed behind us. “What are you carrying?”
The deputy took a step forward. “AR-15s from the county armory, sir.”
“And the bullets?”
He ejected his clip and turned it so I could see the top round. “Silver, sir, just like you said. It was tricky getting ‘em, but a bunch of us hand-load, and Billy’s wife has a smelter, for makin’ jewelry, so we managed.”
“Good.”
“Sir?” the deputy asked. “What’s coming down that mountain?”
I stared off into the darkness, toward the forest. “I really don’t know.”
Ten minutes later, a horn blast echoed through the night. The sound sent a chill down my spine, and based on the nervous shuffling and muttering behind me, I wasn’t alone.
The sheriff adjusted his rifle. “Stay steady, boys. Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.”
“Their eyes are actually green. And on fire,” I said.
Sheriff Skerrit turned his head almost imperceptibly and spat on the ground. “It’s a figure of speech.”
A blast of arctic wind hit us, rushing down from the mountain and out from the forest. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant. It was the kind of cold that makes it hurt to breathe, the kind of cold that cuts right to your bones and makes you want to be anywhere else. The men around me turned aside and fastened the face guards on their coats. I poured a bit of will into my armor, blocking the chill.
Lightning flashed, revealing a torrent of snow rolling down from the mountain, so thick it was almost an avalanche. One of the bolts struck a nearby tree, splitting in nearly in half and setting it ablaze. Thunder rumbled and roared, but the sound was continuous, unabating. I realized that the sound was actually that of animal feet striking the earth.
The sheriff raised his rifle. “Steady, boys.”
I took a step forward and gathered the Æther around my hands. The ground trembled beneath our feet as Holda’s horde, still masked by the shadows of the woods, barreled toward us. The trees shook, the wind howled, and thick snow cut through the air like frozen razor blades. The men behind me fell back a step. I took another step forward.
Lightning ripped through the air and struck the ground just inches in front of me. Dirt and rocks exploded upward, showering me in debris. My armor rippled, protecting me. One of the sheriff’s men screamed. The ground shook. The cacophony became almost unbearable.
“Ready!” the sheriff called out, his voice almost drowned out by the wind.
Holda broke through the trees.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Holda rode forth, sitting astride her white wolf. She was still wearing her gossamer dress, but she had added armor to her ensemble. Her shoulders, forearms, and shins were all guarded with intricately detailed golden plate, and a wide golden belt girded her stomach. She held a long, golden broadsword in her right hand and a ram’s horn trumpet in her left. She lifted the horn to her mouth and sounded a deafening blast.
Behind her, the girls of Mirrormont emerged from the darkness. Each of them was dressed as Holda herself, in gossamer and gold, and each one rode a wolf the size of a bear and the color of night. They wielded a variety of weapons, swords and spears and bows. Their eyes glowed like jade Jack O’ Lanterns.
Girls. Young, innocent girls. Girls drawn into this through no fault of their own, taken prisoner because I hadn’t managed to beat the monsters hiding in their closets. I opened my vision to the Æther and confirmed my worst fears. The girls had cat’s eyes and needle teeth; they had been possessed, and while I could try to save them–while I would try to save them–the chances of bringing them back alive were damn near zero.
The Valkyries shrieked and howled, a frenzied, awful noise, and bore down on us. Miranda was nowhere to be seen.
“Aim for the wolves!” I shouted. “Don’t hit the girls unless you have to!”
Thunder roared behind me, this time man-made. Tiny silver missiles whizzed through the air and hissed past my ear. One of the lead wolves was struck, and blood burst from its shoulder. The creature howled and went down, sending its rider toppling. Smoke rose up from the creature’s wound as the silver poisoned it. The snow beneath it was stained brilliant crimson.
The girl who had been riding the beast tucked and rolled like some kind of white-clad teenybopper ninja and came back to her feet snarling. She rushed forward, ignoring the hail of silver flying past her, and raised her sword, aiming for my neck. I threw a ward at her, knocking the weapon from her hand, then hit her with blue-white light. The assault wasn’t enough to kill her, but it knocked her back into the oncoming horde.
Holda screamed and dug her heels into her wolf’s sides, turning it toward me and urging it to move faster. The men opened up again, filling the air with argent hail. Holda kicked her animal and it leapt into the air, passing ten feet over our heads.
She landed in the midst of the sheriff’s men. Her sword slashed downward, cutting the deputy from right shoulder to left hip. His body was nearly cleaved in two, and everything around him was suddenly swimming in red. He didn’t even have time to scream. At the same time the wolf’s jaws snapped closed, snaring a man’s entire head. The wolf shook, whipping him around like a rag doll. I heard the man’s neck snap.
The men panicked, backing up and turning in toward Holda. They raised their rifles and fired wildly.
“No, you sons of bitches, you’re shooting at yourselves!” the sheriff screamed.
It didn’t mat
ter. They were small town cops, not trained military personnel. Panic had taken over and they were going to do anything possible to protect themselves. There was no group instinct, no coordination, just mindless self-preservation. They fired until their guns were empty. It was a miracle that only three of them were hit.
The next wave of Valkyries hit while my back was turned. One of them slashed across my shoulders, but my armor protected me and the Valkyrie’s sword snapped in two. “That’s what you get for using a discount dwarf to smith your weapons!” I shouted after her. And then, because I should have been paying attention to the battle instead of my laugh track, I took a cudgel to the back of the skull.
I ate dirt, or at least dirty snow. The Valkyrie whipped her wolf around and charged me. The creature’s claws bit into the ice, propelling it forward, and I really didn’t want to know what it would feel like to have them bite into me, armor or no.
The wolf reared up to trample me. I thrust my hand forward and sent a spear of blue-white light straight through it. The Valkyrie, who was barely old enough for a training bra, fell to the ground in a heap. She got back to her knees and drew a golden knife from her belt. I hit it with a ward, then hit her, too. The raw physical force wasn’t as effective as my light, but I couldn’t bring myself to burn a little girl, creepy green eyes or no.
She tumbled away, but came back to her feet with eerie grace. She advanced toward me, snarling. Her weapons were gone, but the way her fingers flexed indicated she was planning on tearing me apart with her bare hands.
One of the men dropped his rifle and drew his sidearm, a big, clunky thing that I’m not enough of a gun nut to be able to identify. He drew a bead on the girl and fired.
The back of her head exploded. Blood and brains flew through the air. The girl fell into the snow, and ichor poured out around her.
I rushed over to girl’s side. The neat hole between her eyes belied the carnage was now the back of her skull. I lifted her body, cradling her in my arms. Her eyes were still open. Jesus, she didn’t look like she was out of high school yet.
“I got one!” the man shouted. “I got one!” An arrow pierced his chest a moment later.
A scream cut through the night. I whirled around just in time to see a man disemboweled on the end of some sort of giant, golden hook. It looked like the kind of thing they used to pull bad acts off the stage in Vaudeville, except it was ferociously sharp and covered in gore.
Three of the Valkyries had cordoned off one of the cops. They rode around him in circles, cutting in, slashing at him, then jumping back before he had a chance to retaliate. The sheriff took careful aim and sniped one of the wolves, sending its rider crashing down. The cop himself had managed to reload and took out another rider. I burned the third wolf with a spear of light.
But another Valkyrie struck suddenly, ramming her gilded blade through his back and out his chest. The man’s mouth fell open and the gun dropped from his hands. The Valkyrie lifted him up into the air on the tip of her blade. She held him there a moment, his corpse slipping down toward the hilt, then hurled his body off into the darkness.
“God damn it!” the sheriff growled. He opened fire, aiming for the girl instead of the wolf.
I snarled and slapped the gun down. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m trying to save our asses!” he spat back.
“She’s just a girl!”
“That girl just killed a man, you son of a bitch!”
I understood. I really did. I’ve seen men die. I’ve seen friends die. I saw my lover die. And when something like that happens, rules tend to go out the window. Things you’d never think yourself capable of, not in a million years, suddenly seem perfectly reasonable. Things like shooting a teenage girl in the back with an assault rifle.
But that isn’t reasonable. “That girl didn’t do anything to deserve this,” I hissed.
One of the men ran past us, screaming. He dropped his gun as he came, practically throwing it behind him. A Valkyrie followed in close pursuit, training a bow and arrow on him. I shoved the sheriff aside and threw a blast of light over his shoulder, knocking the wolf out of the air and sending the arrow flying harmlessly into the darkness.
“Thanks,” the guy said.
“Look out!” I screamed, but it was too late. Another Valkyrie rushed up behind him and took his head off with a giant, golden cleaver. His decapitated body just stood there for a moment, his head laying at his feet, before gravity brought his corpse tumbling down.
Holda stopped long enough to look at me and laugh. She sounded her horn and the Valkyries formed on her, riding off into Issaquah.
The last remaining officer, a wild-eyed kid who would have gotten carded at any bar in town, ran over to us, clutching his arm. “They winged me, Sheriff, but I’m all right.”
“That makes one of ya,” the sheriff said. He pulled out his revolver and checked to make sure it was loaded. “Get on the radio. Tell ’em they’ve got company coming.”
The officer scurried off. I jumped into my Jeep. I had removed the hardtop about an hour ago, leaving nothing but the roll cage between me and the open air. I slammed on the gas and the Jeep lurched forward, pushing me back into the seat. The Wild Hunt ran down the road, headed for Issaquah.
The wolves were goddamned fast. I was pushing the Jeep as hard as I could, and the engine howled in protest, but I could barely keep up with the Otherworldly creatures.
I stretched a hand out through the roll cage and sent a blast of light tearing down the road, catching one of the wolves in its hindquarters. The beast was hobbled and its rider went skidding down the asphalt, but there were still nearly three dozen Valkyries heading toward town.
Three of the riders broke off from the main pack and headed toward the high school. I hesitated for a moment, but the school was empty and three Valkyries weren’t as important as three dozen, so I continued to follow Holda’s horde. I heard crashing and banging behind me, and in the rear-view mirror I saw the school burst into flames. The kids in Issaquah were going to be thrilled, assuming they survived the night.
We tore down a side street. The wolves were starting to tire–or maybe they were just slowing down to choose targets–and I managed to catch up a little. I pulled next to one of the Valkyries, driving with my right hand, and firing magic with my left. I hit her in the face–accidentally, I was aiming for her torso but I ran over a bump–and sent her spiraling off into the night. The rider next to her, though, hefted a spear and threw it at my head. I ducked and swerved and the weapon missed me, but just barely. The spear shattered the rear passenger window.
“Damn it!” I screamed. “I just had this thing fixed!”
We entered the heart of Issaquah. Valkyries peeled off in twos and threes, summoning magic fire and setting shops and homes ablaze. The demons split into two groups. I slammed on the breaks and skidded to a stop, then stood up on my seat and looked to the left and the right. One group had headed left, back toward City Hall. The other, led by Holda, was barreling toward the residential part of town. I sat back down and followed Holda, picking off Valkyries whenever I could.
Holda’s minions dismounted and started going door-to-door. They couldn’t enter the houses–the thresholds denied them entry–but that didn’t stop them from hurling emerald flames at the residences. Green fire soon became hellish orange, and the sky began to turn an evil shade of red.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I had counted on the people being safe inside their homes, but the Valkyries were using the fire to drive them outside. A family rushed out of their house and into their back yard. A trio of Valkyries surrounded them, circling them, goading them with spears.
I waded into the fight, my armor shimmering as it deflected attacks I couldn’t be bothered to track, light lancing out from my hands as I moved from warrior to warrior.
The spirits inside the girls became visible when the light hit them; something that looked like an after-image or a badly exposed film reared back whenever my lum
inescent magic struck. The apparitions shrieked and dug their spectral claws into the girls, pulling themselves back into their hosts’ bodies.
I was about to cross the road when a horn blared at me. I jumped back and a red F-150 roared past. The driver had a bushy beard and a John Deer cap. The guy in the passenger seat was literally riding shotgun; he leaned out the window and fired wildly at the Valkyries. Two more men rode in the truck bed, strapped down with orange webbing. One of them had a rifle, the other a hand cannon, and they seemed to be competing for who could fire off the most rounds in a single minute.
The truck went into a sideways skid and came to a halt in front of a coffee shop. John Deer and Shotgunner rolled out of the vehicle and came up brandishing their weapons. Rifle and Hand Cannon hopped over the edge of the bed and landed on the ground beside them; Hand Cannon missed his footing and fell, knocking Shotgunner down with him. “God damn it, Wes!” Shotgunner said. He clambered back to his feet, waving his weapon around like he didn’t know which end was dangerous.
“Thank God,” I muttered. “The Redneck Revengers are here to save the day.”
I headed toward the pickup, firing magic from my hands as I moved, trying to keep the Valkyries at bay.
“Whoa!” John Deer said. “Dude! You’re like Iron Man!”
“Yeah,” I said as I fired a brilliant lance over his shoulder. “Aside from the high tech armor, multi-billion dollar defense company, harem of one-night stands, and sweet-ass goatee, we could be twins.” A storm of arrows sliced through the air at us. “Down!” I screamed and threw up a ward. The arrows slammed into it, stopped in mid-air, and clattered to the ground.
“That is so awesome!” Hand Cannon cheered.
“You should join our team!” Rifle said. “We’re defending the town!” He raised his gun and fired off three quick bursts. The Valkyries were unperturbed, but the coffee shop’s windows wouldn’t be bothering anybody again.
“Get the hell out of here before you get killed,” I snarled.
The Wild Hunt Page 25
