Hunter's Oath

by Glynn Stewart

  He didn’t even bother with his gun this time, just conjuring the same glamor-blades Gráinne had used against me as he waded into the redcaps.

  They had enough time to realize what the hell was going on and then he was in the middle of them. One redcap went down in pieces—and then Kelly and I opened fire.

  We each took down one of them and Robert tore the last one in half.

  “Some of these people may live,” Kelly said as she dropped to her knees among the wounded. “What do we do?”

  I traded looks with Robert. Three of us…and Robert was the most powerful, but also the only one with any Healing gift.

  “We owe them,” I said quietly. “Your family owes them.”

  “And you?” he asked. “Against Chernenkov?”

  I smiled thinly, holstered my gun and drew the Wizard’s gift. The whip handle was warm in my hand, its power flickering against my skin.

  “I beat her once,” I replied. “I can fight her. I can’t heal these people.”

  “Kelly, go with Jason,” he ordered. The silver plate dissolved from his skin as he knelt down next to her amongst the wounded, summoning the white glow of his Healing Gift around his hands. “Save my father. Do what you must.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Kilkenny?”

  Fire flickered around the tip of the whip handle and I smiled grimly.

  “I swore an oath,” I told her. “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t know where we would find Talus on the top floor office, but there was an easy solution to that: following the screaming and the sound of gunfire. Unfortunately for us, a second fire team of redcaps was using the same logic and checking in on their missing friends.

  We came around a corner and found ourselves face to face. Kelly fired first and I stepped as the assault rifles opened up.

  Bullets flashed through where I’d been standing as I emerged behind the redcaps, a whip of green-white faerie fire slashing across the hallway at neck height. A redcap went down to gunfire, a second to my flame, and the survivors tried to focus on both me and Kelly at the same time.

  It didn’t end well for them.

  Kelly charged over their bodies to join me, then stumbled backward as a new player entered the fight. The nightmare I’d run into in the safehouse was here, the ash-skinned woman blurring into Kelly in a full-body blow that probably would have thrown me out the side of the building.

  The Gentry merely stumbled, then returned the blow. The two women swerved around each other, bullets and fire flashing at a pace even I could barely follow.

  “I’ve got her,” Kelly barked. “Go.”

  The nightmare took advantage of her distraction to break her arm, a sickening cracking sound that echoed in the hallway. For a moment, I hesitated.

  Then Kelly snapped her arm back into place, healing it in time to smash her fist into the other fae’s face. The nightmare went flying into the plaster wall and crashed into the office next to us.

  “Go!” the Gentry repeated.

  I went. Gentry versus Greater Fae like the nightmare was a roughly even fight, one that Kelly would probably win—but one my involvement might not change the tide of. Or at least, not fast enough to be worth the effort.

  Not when Talus’s life was still at stake.

  Through the corridor the nightmare had emerged from was what had been a solid steel security shutter. It had slammed shut, probably as soon as the first wave of mercenaries had entered the building. Since then, someone had half-melted, half-torn it from its hinges.

  I charged over the wreckage of the shutter into what had clearly been Talus’s inner sanctum. There appeared to be a couple of offices inside the reinforced security shell, but mostly it was a wide-open area that looked like it belonged in a museum.

  There was everything from golden artifacts that looked like they predated the Pyramids to a carefully maintained but half-burnt-out multi-barreled rocket launcher from the Second World War. Some of the artifacts in the room radiated Power, but most were just…historical. Or gold. Or otherwise valuable.

  It was a trophy chamber that was probably worth more than the building it was inside…and half of the display cases were wrecked. A business-suited woman—not, I was glad to realize, Shelly—was sprawled against one of the office doors, her throat torn out.

  Another half dozen redcaps were in the room, setting up a drill of some kind against the security shutters that had dropped down around the main office. That office was up against the wall of the building, almost certainly the one Talus had called me from.

  Presumably, he was inside. Behind the redcaps, the familiar form of a black, pony-sized horse with vicious fangs stalked. A pair of black-dressed Gentry, one man and one woman, stood next to her.

  Both Gentry paused and turned to face me as I entered. So did the Pouka.

  “You’re dead,” she hissed. “I saw your corpse. Gráinne killed you!”

  “Like you, it seems I take more killing than that,” I told her—and snapped my faerie-flame whip out to its full extension. “I’ll be sure to try harder this time.”

  Unfortunately for me, Chernenkov apparently didn’t care about little me that much.

  “Deal with him,” she hissed to her Gentry minions. “The rest of you—crack this damn shell!”

  Both of the black-clad Gentry promptly produced long-bladed knives. Silver-handled knives with cold iron blades.

  The damn things were almost a stereotype…but they were a stereotype for a reason, and the Gentry blurred toward me with a speed I could never match.

  I wasn’t there when they arrived, stepping Between across the room to emerge behind them as they came to a confused halt. I slashed out with the whip, trying to disarm the woman. She felt the whip coming, however, and dodged, twisting out of the way of the blow as her lover charged me again.

  He caught air as I stepped Between again, curses filling the air as I emerged next to the woman.

  This time, she didn’t quite dodge the whip. She managed to twist so I missed the knife…and I managed to twist so I caught her wrist.

  My flame on its own was hot enough to burn. I could hurt supernaturals with it, damage them, distract them…but on its own, I could never sever flesh and bone. Especially not Gentry flesh and bone, known for standing up to everything up to anti-tank rounds.

  With the Wizard’s gift, however, my whip of flame burned white-hot, and even flesh that would have punched through steel gave way. My whip wrapped around the Gentry’s wrist and seared clean through her. The cold iron knife fell to the ground with her hand still attached, and a scream of agony echoed through the museum-like trophy room.

  The boyfriend came for me with his knife—and the now one-handed woman pulled a gun. Gunfire echoed again in the exposed space, but I had already stepped Between. She’d chosen her angle poorly and her bullets slammed into one of the redcaps, sending him careening away from the drill as cold iron rounds tore through flesh and magic alike.

  “You. Will. Burn. For. That.”

  Yeah. She was angry.

  Gunfire echoed again and again as she tracked the pistol after me. I flickered in and out of reality she could see, trying to taunt her into wasting ammunition, into spending her bullets on me.

  Unfortunately, the other Gentry caught what I was doing, and I missed him changing course. I stepped out of Between into a clotheslining arm. I’d at least had him enough off balance to avoid getting knifed, but I stumbled backward as his arm hammered into my throat.

  Bullets barely missed me…and then the woman finally ran out, the automatic clicking on empty as she howled at me and charged.

  She didn’t reach me.

  The metal shell around Talus’s office exploded perfectly. The debris blasted outward in a pattern that was clearly controlled, clearly guided by the will of the powerful supernatural being these idiots had dared attack.

  Gentry flesh could withstand tank rounds—but tank rounds didn’t move as fast as those chunks of steel. Talus’s attack ripped
the charging Unseelie into a dozen pieces.

  The boyfriend got off lighter, thrown backward as several chunks of steel hammered into him. Unfortunately for him, I was right there—and my whip of faerie flame sliced as easily through his neck as it had through the woman’s wrist.

  The redcaps didn’t even have time to realize how severe their mistake had been before the scything debris cut them down.

  Chernenkov, however, flickered into shadow before the steel hit her. Debris smashed display cases and walls, revealing the heavy metal of the outer security walls, but it missed her.

  And me. It all missed me. If I hadn’t guessed the nature of the explosion by how perfectly it had shredded my opponents, the complete lack of even a scratch on myself would have given it away.

  The figure emerging from the wreckage was the final clue, however. Silver plate of glamor wrapped itself around Talus as one of the swords in the trophy cases flipped across the room to him.

  This was the grown-up version of the knives the Gentry had come at me with. A massive bastard sword with a silver hilt gnome-forged onto a cold-hammered iron blade, with orichalcum runes inlaid onto both handle and blade.

  “You wanted me out of my shell,” he told Chernenkov as the sword lit up with the power forged into its runes. “Here I am.”

  He smiled thinly as the Pouka Noble re-formed from the shadows she’d hidden in.

  “Bitch.”

  If there was one thing Chernenkov didn’t lack, it was courage. The clawed horse snarled and charged at him. She was fast, too. Faster than I remembered her being—which tied into the logic of the Stampede attack being a setup.

  While she probably hadn’t planned on being blown up as part of it, she’d been holding back, intending to lose. Now…now she wasn’t, and even Talus was hard pressed to get his sword in place to parry as she was on top of him, claws and teeth and flaming breath everywhere.

  All I could do was watch for a few seconds, unable to follow the fight well enough to risk interjecting my own abilities. Then, finally, there was a pulse of telekinetic energy and Talus flung her backward.

  Along with everything else within five or six feet of him. A display case shattered and a wall was stripped bare, exposing the armor beneath.

  She snarled—and I hit her with my best shot, focusing all of my Power into a telekinetic blow that would have snapped a car in half. It picked her up and tossed her across the trophy room, but she skittered to a halt with her claws embedded in the floor.

  Then Chernenkov shifted, moving from the black horse into the dark-haired woman I’d become frustratingly familiar with. She responded to my kinetic strike in kind, a wave of Force flashing across the room that picked me up and flung me backward.

  To my surprise, I managed to slow my flight, controlling my motion with my own Gift and landing upright as she snarled at me. Fire flashed toward me, but I stepped Between to avoid it.

  Her moment of distraction hadn’t helped her. Talus was on her, the cold iron sword lashing out in a series of blows that would have overcome any defense I could muster.

  The Pouka, however, was a shapeshifter. Her body flowed like a shadowy liquid, dodging around the sword and Talus’s glamor-strikes as she closed with the Fae Noble again.

  This time, though, I was certain enough of where she was to strike. A whip of Fire lashed out, wrapping around her torso and yanking her backward, away from my friend.

  She snarled—and Talus struck, a lightning-fast decapitating blow that should have ended the fight then and there.

  Something…happened instead. My whip collapsed, holding nothing as she turned to shadow, diving forward and into Talus. Claws of shadow tore through his glamored armor, ripping out chunks of his flesh, and the black horse took shape again.

  Her long head snapped down into his chest, tearing at his chest as she tried to rip out his heart. The sword went flying as power flared around Talus, energy pulsing as he tried to throw her away again.

  It didn’t work. She was half-shadow and half-claws, tearing into his flesh, and for a moment, all I could do was watch as she killed my friend.

  And then I did what I could. I charged across the room, flicking Between to cross the distance in a fraction of a second, and I was on Chernenkov with fists and feet and flaming whip. Force augmented my blows and the whip handle smashed into her face repeatedly, flinging her away from Talus.

  The Fae Noble was collapsed on the floor, his wounds steaming with the Pouka’s venom, and the black horse hissed at me.

  I conjured a second kinetic blast…and this time, the window was behind her. Chernenkov smashed into and through the glass, the window of the fiftieth-story office shattering under her weight as she went flying into the air.

  She didn’t reach the ground. Somewhere between there and the ground I saw her turn into a shadow…but she was running.

  She was running north.

  She was running toward the airport, almost certainly to Gráinne’s hotel safehouse.

  Talus coughed up blood.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “You aren’t…supposed to be here.”

  “Nope. Complaining?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. I owe you.” He carefully shook his head. “I’ll heal…but not quickly. Where’d she go?”

  “There’s a hotel they’re using as a safehouse near the airport,” I said. “I think Inga and Mary are there.”

  Talus closed his eyes.

  “You can step Between,” he told me. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “Robert and Kelly are here, taking care of your people.”

  “That’s good to know.” He gasped again as new steam vented from one of his wounds. “Go,” he repeated.

  He was the Noble. I was merely the Hunter’s changeling.

  I went.

  29

  One of the reasons the trap Gráinne had set for me had nailed me quite thoroughly was that I wasn’t used to stepping Between being blocked anywhere. From the fiftieth story of a downtown office tower to the parking lot of an expensive airport traveler’s hotel was a five-minute walk through the Between, and there were no barriers to slow me down.

  I emerged in the shadow of the artificial hill shielding the hotels from the highway, somewhat visible from the road. I figured I could be reasonably confident no one zipping down the highway from the airport was paying close-enough attention to the hotels to see someone appear out of thin air.

  And anyone who did see me would assume they’d just missed me earlier. We put a lot of effort into the Covenants of Silence, but humanity’s own miraculous ability to self-delude was our greatest ally.

  From where I appeared, it was a ten-second scrabble up the hill and I was in the parking lot of the hotel. I spotted the dark green car Theino’s grandfather had once used to rescue me from vampires in one corner and sighed.

  Everyone was here. This…could get really ugly, really fast, and there were mortals everywhere. There was no self-delusion in the world that would save us if an Aesir, a Noble, a Hunter’s changeling and a goblin threw down in public.

  There were three restaurants attached to the hotel, and I paused in the hotel lobby, considering which one was most likely to be where my friends had ended up.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Of course. This was a nice hotel, which meant I couldn’t rely on being ignored. Plus, well, I looked like I’d just been in a fight and scrabbled up a hillside. Dirt and ash were all over my coat, and I smiled brightly at the neatly dressed young man checking in on me like it didn’t matter.

  “I’m meeting some friends in one of the restaurants,” I told him. “But I forgot to ask which one. Tall blonde woman and a redhead? Might have been accompanied by a man with a face-mask?” I shook my head jokingly. “He’s OCD about germs, the silly man.”

  “Ah, yes…” The staffer was still taken aback by my appearance, but he clearly knew who I meant. He pointed to the attached steakhouse. “I believe they went for lunch there, sir.”

  “Thank you
!”

  I gave the man another cheerful smile and strode toward the restaurant. On the way across the lobby, I realized that there was probably visible blood on my coat on top of the ash and mud. No wonder the hotel staff were being taken aback.

  “Um, sir, may I…help you?” the hostess asked as I entered the restaurant.

  I’d already spotted Mary past her, so I just smiled and pointed.

  “I see my friends over there; I’m good.”

  She looked tempted to try and argue over whether I should go into the restaurant in my dirty clothes, but I swept past her before she could try and dropped myself at the table.

  “Isn’t this a bit more public than you were planning on being?” Mary asked immediately. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Talus is hurt. She is on her way here.”

  The table went dead silent.

  “Then our conversation before you arrived will be most relevant,” Theino finally told me, pitching his voice so only his supernatural table companions could hear him. “This hotel has done their best to appear to follow the superstition of having no thirteenth floor, but I wandered up a few floors and measured the heights.

  “There may not be an elevator button for it, but there most definitely is a thirteenth floor—and it’s not the one they’ve labeled the fourteenth,” he concluded. “Which suggests, of course, that if there’s a safehouse here beyond them simply booking rooms…”

  “It’s on that floor,” Inga finished for him. “Are you ready to start a war, Kilkenny?”

  “Hell, no,” I told her. “But they already did. Are you ready to help me finish one, Ms. Strand?”

  “Since before you were born, child. Since before you were born.”

  We left cash on the table to pay for our meal—with a generous tip, I suspected, though it wasn’t like I’d seen the receipt—and headed for the stairwell. Several hotel staff half-tripped as I passed them, clearly taken aback at my rather…unusual appearance.