“Well then,” said the Saint, and relaxed his hands at his side. “Well then.”
Branwyn didn’t have the optimism to smile. “We have an agreement? The children who wish to will be released? Charlie can leave now?”
The Saint didn’t rush his answer. “In a moment. There’s a few things left to resolve, don’t you think? For example, yonder beastie. It can’t stay here.”
“It won’t,” said Severin, his voice still rough. “It has an unfinished task and fun in the snow can only distract it so long.”
“All the same, I don’t want it here when it runs out of joy,” said the Saint evenly.
Severin’s look of irritation intensified. He shook off Charlie’s grip. “I’ll be back in a moment, mouse. Go pack anything you want to bring out of fairyland.” Without waiting for a response, he darted out into the snowfield toward the distant beast.
Charlie blinked, her brows lowering, but the Saint said, “Do as you’re bid, child. He’ll be back for you.” She hesitated, then nodded and ran to a cottage.
Taking advantage of her absence, Branwyn said, “Will she be able to eat mortal food?”
“Probably not,” said the Saint matter-of-factly. “That angel seemed to believe he could handle it. I’ll give him twelve hours to sort that out before I come get her again.”
Branwyn’s breath hissed between her teeth. “Ergh.”
“Yes, you do have some excitement ahead of you,” the Saint agreed. “But now that Charlie’s well beyond earshot, I have another warning for you: Be wary of easy answers. Do you really think the mother will be soothed to sleep by the child? In my experience, it’s usually the other way around, if it happens at all.”
Branwyn clenched a fist. “I don’t know. I had to do something. If this doesn’t redeem Imani, at least it…” She glanced in the direction Severin had gone, and didn’t know what she wanted to say.
“Be wary of easy answers,” repeated the Saint gently.
Suddenly Branwyn’s eyes flooded with tears again. “What part of this has been easy?” she demanded.
“Well,” said the Saint, as if he intended to be comforting, “It could have been much, much harder. As it might be for Charlie if she can’t save her mother from the Hunt. That’s quite a burden to put on a child.”
“Why… why do you think it won’t work?” Branwyn finally asked, very quietly.
The Saint scratched his chin. “Well, I’m not an expert on the realm of ghosts, of course, but I seem to recall that the lady was clinging to the mortal world even before that blasted faerie began his grand gesture. She was very angry, even then.”
“Oh,” said Branwyn. “And she might still be angry about her death… even though her lover punished them all for her?”
“Well, you’d know better than I on that front. I only glimpsed her at the beginning. Did you have a sense she was willing to let her murderers go free when you saw her?”
Branwyn thought of a town-sized hell, full of lost souls. She took a deep breath. “I’ll come up with something.”
The Saint quirked a smile. “If you do… and you survive the next few hours… I’ll be in touch, little sister. You’ve done well here, and I appreciate that.” His gaze shifted beyond her. “And here comes your boogieman, having banished the beast. Walking, I see. Well. Once Charlie gets here, you can be on your way.”
Severin was walking back to them, his hands in his pockets and his head low. Branwyn picked her way through the remaining chattering children, too slowly, and met Severin at the corner of one of the cottages.
“What did you do?” she asked. He didn’t appear injured, nor were his clothes damaged.
He raised his eyes and gave her a dark look. “I evicted it from Faerie. Can we go now?”
A chill ran through Branwyn, although she was already so cold that it was mostly in her head. “How?” If he’d somehow damaged her chance to get Rhianna back alive—
His mouth twisted and suddenly he was pulling her against his overheated chest and wrapping his arms completely around her. “You’re too cold dressed like that. The beast will show up at the haunt again soon enough, dragging your precious Rhianna with it. I don’t know what you’ll do then, but I’m sure it will be stupidly dangerous.” He brushed his lips over her ear and whispered, “But you won’t be killing yourself for her, or anyone, while I’m around.” It was a threat, not a reassurance.
“You’re really warm,” said Branwyn, deciding, with the emotional freedom granted by her earlier epiphany in the dark, to ignore what he’d said. “Thank you. I was cold.” And then, because he deserved all her pettiness, she slid her icy hands under his shirt, pressing them against his deliciously warm stomach.
To her disappointment, he neither stiffened nor cried out, but he did inhale deeply, his eyes dilating before closing. She realized she was having a rather different effect on him than she’d intended when he whispered distantly Can I fuck you yet?
“Are you two dating?” said a disbelieving voice behind Branwyn. She turned sharply, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but of course Severin didn’t release her. Why would he when he was now in his favorite spot?
Charlie stood with an embroidered leather bag, while two older girls held the bags Branwyn had left in her room. Charlie’s eyes were wide with shock, but the other two girls were looking on with amused interest.
“No,” said Branwyn, a firm answer to both questions. “I’m draining his body warmth with my icicle fingers.” She waggled them.
“Are you sure?” demanded Charlie.
Branwyn pulled away from Severin completely and crouched down. “Charlie, he is way too much of a giant jerk screw-up for me to even think about dating him.”
Charlie looked between them. “There’s something weird going on between the two of you, though.”
Severin said, “I’ll explain it when you’re older, mouse. Are you ready to go?”
Enlightenment dawned on Charlie’s face. “Oh, that.” She frowned. “You promised you’d take care of me. You’d better not get distracted and forget.”
“If you want your luggage, grab it, cupcake,” Severin said, and scooped Charlie up again as Branwyn collected the bags from the two other girls. “And it’s a little more complicated than oh that, mouse, but it’s going to work out in your favor.”
Branwyn was a little surprised he hadn’t left it at the more embarrassing oh that. But it was good to know that reassuring Charlie was more important than annoying herself. Comforting. Empowering.
Be wary of easy answers, she remembered the Saint whispering. She remembered that Severin hadn’t told her how he’d evicted the beast of fire and thorns from Faerie.
She frowned.
“Can we go now, mistress?” repeated Severin, with a heavy note of sarcasm, holding out his hand.
Her frown turned into a scowl and she moved closer to him. She’d find out soon enough. She took his hand, and he yanked her into the darkness.
Part III
21
Complications
Long after they’d vanished, Brynn kept looking into the darkness that had swallowed Branwyn’s crew. It irritated Amber, so she flicked the younger girl on the back of her head. “Are we going to do this, or stand around?” She glanced around at the rest of the Wild Hunt.
Jennifer was staring at the ground, chewing on the nail of her littlest finger, while Cat looked at the notebook he’d been writing in. AT crouched and scratched Heart’s ears, which meant she was worried, and Yejun stood the farthest away, looking toward the center of town.
“Come on, already,” Amber said. “Brynn, your mom is going to guilt-trip Jen again if we don’t get this sorted out soon.”
Jen lifted her gaze to focus on Amber, but what she said was, “Cat, how much of a problem do you think that celestial will be if we don’t succeed here?”
Cat had looked up when Jen spoke because he always did. “Which one? I think as long as we make a good faith effort, Shatiel
won’t hold a grudge. I don’t much care if he does, to be honest. The other one…” His eyes tracked to Brynn. “I can imagine him taking revenge.”
“On Brynn?” Amber said incredulously, because the entire Hunt was pretty much invulnerable.
AT stood. “Her family matters to us.”
Brynn dragged her gaze away from the blackness swirling outside the town and looked at them with a furrowed brow. “Severin? He won’t hurt my family. He saved Meredith once.”
Cat gave her an exasperated glance and snapped his book closed. “He was trying to hurt far more than your family before Shatiel restrained him.”
Brynn gave him a funny look and Amber had that sense of dread she’d been getting lately, as if a fuse had been lit and she had to snuff it at once.
But before Brynn could say anything dangerous, Yejun said, “Key phrase: before Shatiel restrained him. Hey, does anybody understand what those rose petals are doing?”
AT said, “If we succeed, this isn’t an issue.” Her nose twitched, and she turned to look at Yejun. “What rose petals?”
Yejun frowned. “Those aren’t rose petals?” He gestured at something in the air and AT lifted her nose.
Amber scented the roses, too. She’d seen them around the town: the only spot of real color in the gloom of the nightmare town. Now there was a breeze where there had been none since Shatiel vanished. It blew steady and cool, lifting Amber’s hair.
“It’s like a draft,” said Brynn uncertainly.
Jen looked over Brynn’s head into the darkness and breathed, “Oh, hell.”
Yejun said, “Yeah, I don’t think we should have let them leave the way they did, after all.”
Amber felt the tickle of magic in the wind, and the cool mint-like bite of ghost essence. Since joining the Wild Hunt, she could function as a mostly ordinary mortal during daylight, but all the gifts she’d had as a monster’s spawn came back when the sun was low in the sky… or when she was in a haunt as big as this one, apparently. “The haunt is leaking?”
Everybody was quiet for a moment. Finally Cat said, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now, unless we’re going to break our word and end things the old way.”
“AT, what does it mean that the haunt is leaking?” asked Amber, going to the expert instead of the know-it-all.
AT walked closer to the darkness beyond the town, her nose still lifted to the sky. “I… don’t think a haunt can leak, exactly. Grow, yes. In this case… I think they took something away with them that belonged here. Those soul charges in Branwyn’s hammer, maybe. I can’t smell them anymore, but if I have to track them down, I could probably use the rose scent.”
Yejun said, “It’s more than a trail, though. It’s a path. I could practically walk it myself. I bet something else could too. And anything hungry for ghosts could come right in from the other side.”
Jen was biting a nail again. “This is bad. This whole situation is bad.”
Amber glanced between the other members of the Wild Hunt. “So… as I was saying, Brynn’s mom is going to guilt-trip Jen if we don’t get this done soon. Also there will be bonus fun with murder angels, invading monsters, and probably AT and Brynn will cry because we’ve flunked once again. Yes? Does that cover it?”
A melodious but unfamiliar voice spoke from above Amber. “So eloquent, Blondie! And I’ll add, ‘And so the Wild Hunt, still at the starting line, realized too late the great folly….’”
Amber stared, open-mouthed, at the beautiful woman drifting above them. She sat cross-legged in white yoga pants and a t-shirt, bending over a large book while she wrote with a quill. She had big earrings that were spinning horizontal rings, and long, wavy blond hair that carelessly tumbled over her shoulder.
Amber’s eyes narrowed. Something about this woman seemed familiar. Yes. She saw it in the mirror every day. But that reflection was a shadow compared to what she saw now. In those clinging yoga pants and that artfully casual fall of hair, Amber recognized that she was but an apprentice in the presence of a master of the unmartial art of “Fucking With You.”
“Who the hell are you?” said Jen, in the flat voice of a woman whose patience with uninvited celestials had well and truly run out.
The woman, still muttering to herself, held up one finger while she finished her sentence.
Amber glanced at her companions: AT, ready to fight or run; Yejun, looking over his sunglasses; Brynn, looking cutely puzzled; Jen, with her face like a storm-cloud, and… and Cat, who looked momentarily enraged before his face went blank. Amber had never seen Cat other than calm, so it stood out.
The beautiful woman overhead finished what she was inscribing and straightened up. “Sorry about that, Skipper. I didn’t want to lose my train of thought.” She swung her legs around so she was lying on her stomach as she looked down at Jennifer. Her hair remained perfect. “What did you need?”
“Who are you?” repeated Jennifer, making an obvious effort to enunciate.
The woman waved a hand airily. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m only here to document the lead-up to the Apocalypse. You just carry on however you intended.”
Jen stared, and then said slowly, “There’s not going to be an Apocalypse, so you need to leave.”
Pursing her lips delicately, the woman said, “Well, see, that’s the thing, Skipper. We don’t know.” She raised her elegant eyebrows and glanced at the rest of the Hunt, before adding confidingly, “And either way, we’d want a record. We’ve got quite a library of failed Apocalypses by now.”
“Haliel, Angel of Joy,” said Cat, and Amber was only surprised it had taken him so long.
Haliel tipped two fingers to her brow in acknowledgement. “Nice to see you haven’t forgotten everything, Slick. I’ll just be getting back to work, shall I?”
Cat stopped looking at her, shook his head twice, then loped over to the campsite they’d started building at the rose house.
Startled, Jen said, “Cat?” When he didn’t answer, she glared up at Haliel, and moved after Cat, followed by the three other members of the Hunt. Amber lingered, staring up at Haliel in an admiration she didn’t think she could ever explain.
When Haliel noticed her, smiled and winked, Amber felt as if she’d caught the eye of an idol. Then the Angel of Joy pulled her book back in front of her and wrote, speaking slowly as she did, “Little did the Wild Hunt realize that even as their own smoldering tensions began to erupt, the pestilent demon Capricorn was feeding power back into the atrocity they’d refused to destroy.”
Amber stared up at Haliel. Then she shouted, “Guys? Is the haunt getting stronger again?”
“Yes!” shouted Yejun explosively. “It is!”
Haliel’s narration had stopped, but she continued to write without any more acknowledgement Amber was present. A moment later, Yejun joined her. “I can feel it but Cat and Jen are far too busy discussing Goldilocks up there to be interrupted by the likes of me. How did you know?”
Amber pointed with one finger up at the recording angel. Haliel kissed two fingers on her non-writing hand and flicked them at Yejun while remaining focused on her page. “You got there before me, Magic. Carry on, do.”
Yejun’s glance at Haliel was so contemptuous that Amber bristled on her behalf. But he turned away and Amber could sense the moment he tapped into the Horn that bound them together. His shout came through her spine instead of her ears. “Hey AT! Find whoever’s powering up the haunt.”
The distant figures over at the campsite jolted precisely as Amber did, but AT, loitering halfway between the two groups turned her jump into real movement as her dogs exploded away from her.
“Yejun!” snapped Amber. “Did you have to do that? Words! Use your words!”
“It got their attention, didn’t it?” Grim started his delighted ‘treed-squirrel’ bark, and Yejun shook his head. “Not hiding. Come on, you may have to help AT out.” He took off running again, and Amber chased him.
“Haliel said it was a demon. I can’t
imagine what you expect me to do against a demon.”
“Annoy him?” said Yejun. They rounded a corner in the ghost town and saw Grim barking and bouncing at two figures standing in front of a phantasmal ranch house. One was a ghost tied into the haunt, with a big cowboy hat and broad shoulders, while the other was a slim, dark-haired figure in stylish professional wear. They were clasping hands.
AT, approaching from another direction, got there first. She charged directly up to the pair, skidded to a stop within the phantasmal boundaries of the ghost and clasped the newcomer’s hand herself, then used her remaining momentum to spin the slim figure away from the ghost. The shocked ghost promptly faded away.
As Amber joined her, AT released the figure, who overbalanced and fell into a seated position on the ground. Amber seized the opportunity and dropped herself right beside the newcomer.
She hooked an elbow around their arm, pleased to note that this celestial had a far more ordinary body than that kaiju monster Severin. While Severin always smelled unappetizingly customized, this demon seemed to have used the standard human template in constructing their vessel. He, or possibly she, smelled delicious. That was great news because Amber’s monster-spawn strength depended on her hunger and she was still feeling embarrassed at how easily Severin had evaded her earlier.
“Oh wow,” said the demon. “That was fast.” Then the demon had an apparently happy thought, brightening. “Did Haliel tell you about me?”
“Capricorn?” demanded Amber.
“Oh yes, that’s me,” said the demon, and gave Amber a sweet smile. She, or possibly he, had a pixie face with a sweeping undercut black bob and animated hazel eyes. Literally animated? Amber squinted as the ring of fire around the demon’s pupils flickered intriguingly. She couldn’t decide if she was imagining it or not.
“Amber!” barked AT, and Amber jumped. “Yejun, grab Capricorn here. Amber, come here right now.” AT sounded so hostile that Amber let Yejun take her place and skittered over to the curly-haired girl.
Fury Convergence Page 27
