Talon thought about that, and finally shook his head. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t look like anyone I remember, but I guess it’s possible. I’ve been gone a while.”
Carl reappeared at the top of the hill and held out his hands in the universal I didn’t see anything gesture. Then he trotted down the hill, resuming his search for the kid.
I shared a look with Talon, who shrugged. “If he didn’t see anything, there was nothing to see. But I can go have a look if you want,” he offered.
I growled. “No, don’t worry about it. We need to get the kid. That’s all that matters. Leave the Fingering Ginger to the Wild Hunt.” Talon chuckled before rejoining the sprites.
Several times so far, different pixies had returned to report to me. Each one of them had still looked tired and drained, but beneath that weariness had been a spark of hope. It had tempered my frustration. I had done something good, at least.
Hope…
I realized I was fingering my necklace and slowly lowered my hand. Tory was approaching, leaving Ashley to scout alone. I watched her approach, glancing at the stilettos affixed to her horse’s bridle. She had been sure to tie them so that they rested on leather, not the horse’s flank. They shifted as the horse navigated a large rock, lifting away from the leather. I saw that the material was darker where the shoes had rested, as if burned.
I waited for her, maintaining the cool detached nature of Wylde.
She walked beside me, not speaking, but I could tell something was on her mind. Something to do with Ashley, I bet. Once it became obvious she wasn’t going to speak, I leaned over my saddle, checking a strap, and spoke casually.
“I wonder what the Reds have been up to…” I tugged the strap, patted the horse, and clucked at him in a soothing tone. I ignored Tory’s flinch.
“How…” she whispered, glancing at me out of the corner of an eye. “That was a dream. You heard me sleep talking.”
I snarled at her, a warning for her to watch her tone, and her shoulders slouched instinctively.
Then, unexpectedly, she began to straighten, and turned to glare at me. “You think that a beard is going to make me listen to you, Nate?” she snapped.
I didn’t respond, merely let my face smile as I continued to walk.
But she wasn’t beside me any longer. I held up a hand and motioned her to rejoin me. Because she had stopped right after saying my real name. I waited patiently.
A full minute later, she slowly clopped up beside me, studying me anxiously. Her eyes darted about, verifying we were alone. “What is going on? Why do I keep imagining these things, Wylde? Why did I call you Nate? And why is Ash—” Her words cut off for a second. “Why is Wulfra speaking of a man named Gunnar. What have you done to us?”
“I did nothing,” I said, not looking at her.
She chewed over that. “Is this Oberon’s doing?”
“You could say that,” I said after a short pause. Then I nodded. “Yes, you could say that he has made you think you are someone you are not. Someone strong enough to survive this place.”
She went very still atop her saddle. “You mean he has given us visions of weak creatures. To distract us.”
“I think I spoke clearly, Tory. Use your cop skills.”
She flinched as if struck. And then left, muttering under her breath about cops. She chose to watch our rear rather than return to Ashley.
Ashley gave me a very thoughtful look, but I pretended not to notice.
I really had to play a fine line here. I couldn’t abandon Wylde. He had something to teach me. And that meant it was more than likely that the others had something to learn from their darker sides. Forcing them to abandon it would defeat the purpose, and those savage tendencies had kept us alive so far.
And Oberon had called this an Invitation, me coming here. Something that used to be common practice. I kind of believed him. As big of a dick as Oberon seemed to be, he and Pan were the same guy, and Pan never would have convinced us to come here if it was a frivolous trip. Or a trap. Especially not during a pending war.
I was missing something.
But what?
Oberon had told us to get the kid – forgetting to mention that the child was to be hunted down and killed by his own Wild Hunt.
He had told us to get the shoes from the Queens. Then a bunch of cryptic statements with words that made me shiver, because I didn’t know if they related to the Land of the Fae, or the war back home, or me, specifically. Hope, love, fire, savagery, and a handful of others.
The Four Horsemen had once joked about me being the Horseman of Hope. I wasn’t really a Horseman, even though they had repeatedly tried to recruit me. Sure, I had a Mask – currently disguised as the wooden disc on my necklace – but I hadn’t actually accepted the mantle of the Fifth Horseman – if it was even possible to have such a mantle.
And there was a glaring lack of love in this shithole world.
The shoes…
I reached out to Wylde, preparing to give him a summary.
Talk, talk, talk. That’s all you do in your head. Feel, don’t talk. Experience, don’t ask, he muttered, sounding grouchy, not even giving me a chance to speak. I blinked, not having thought that he had the Nate radio station playing the whole time.
What are the shoes? I asked him.
The most important thing in this world.
If he had been corporeal, I would have grabbed him by the shirt, demanding him to explain. Sensing this, he chuckled in amusement. What do you mean, the most important thing in this world? I asked.
He didn’t respond in words. He simply sent me mental images. A baby looking up at his mother. A child staring back at his dad before jumping off a cliff. A rabbit fleeing a fox, diving into a hole at the last possible instant. A young girl crying into her father’s shoulder. A boy kneeling in the grass, bloody, and a wooden practice sword lying at his feet while the father looked on with an encouraging look. A silhouette staring at a hut from the shadows of night, smiling at the light inside. An injured man returning from war, beaten, bloody, and staring at a poor wooden hut with a woman standing outside, smiling at the man as she held out her arms, crying.
More visions flew by in a blink. A montage of life. Then Wylde laughed triumphantly as he ran back to his cave, leaving me in confusion. The bastard was insatiable, having to go club a new woman every five minutes before dragging her back to his cave to do as he would.
I pondered the message, wondering what it could mean. Family? Love? Protection?
“We should rest the horses. Eat. Wash. And the sparkly mosquitos need a break.”
I flinched, shocked to see Carl staring at me from a few feet away. I had been so lost in my conversation with Wylde that I hadn’t noticed him approach. I quickly replaced my mask of authority, and grunted, flashing a few hand motions at him to signify agreement. He cocked his head, watching me curiously, and then turned away without a word.
I had to stop myself from panting in relief that he hadn’t stayed a moment longer.
Because I realized that I had used a few gestures that I didn’t know.
Not consciously, anyway.
Wylde cackled in the caverns of my mind as I heard Carl announce a quick break in our search.
What was happening to us, and why had Carl looked at me so oddly? Had I messed up the gestures? I drew a strict rein on my connection with Wylde, deciding that I needed to keep him on a close leash moving forward. I couldn’t risk the bleed over becoming so easy, even though I feared that I needed to do just that.
I might just lose myself in this place.
Chapter 32
The naked pixies lay in an exhausted pile, sleeping. As I approached, I heard Ashley and Tory arguing with each other. A combination of words, gestures, and guttural sounds, as if switching from their darker natures to their human natures.
I watched, to make sure they didn’t kill each other, but otherwise left them alone, pretending it wasn’t happening.
Carl st
rolled up to me, grinning wide. “This is fun.”
The two women heard him, and immediately turned their anger on him, snapping, snarling, and shouting. The last thing I heard from them – that I could decipher, anyway – was, “too good to use your body to talk. Want to act like a sniveling Manling to feel high and mighty?”
Carl calmly turned to them, eyes narrowing.
“Elder Carl,” I began in a warning tone.
He didn’t even look, holding out a claw to stall me. “This will only take a moment,” he hissed under his breath.
Then he began a Shaman rain dance. Well, it looked that way to me, but it was more the sudden passion that went into his flurry of emotions. I watched as an explosion of snarls, claps, growls, snarls, hisses, and wild hand motions assaulted the two women. And he spun, squatted, stomped, and jumped at the same time.
The anger drained from their faces, and they fell to their knees, slowly curling up on themselves until they finally sat bunched in a protective ball, hands over their heads, and whimpering submissively.
I stared, jaw hanging open.
I slowly turned my head to find Talon grinning openly at Carl, who was breathing heavily through his nose, his albino scales shining in the sunlight. He waited until the women peered up at him, finally moving their hands out of the way.
He slowly lifted a hand, joined his thumb and forefinger together, and began to make small circular motions with the tips of his claws. This washed the blood from their faces. He cleared his throat, halting his motion very deliberately, as if it meant something. “I will speak as I please. I am an Elder. There is no harm in using words rather than this,” he said, emphasizing the last gesture that had terrified them. “A warrior practices with all weapons available to him, and isn’t scared to learn new skills. Stupid fucking children,” he spat on the ground, and his saliva sizzled.
Everyone stared at that, even Carl.
Then, he turned on a heel, disrobing as he moved. “I’m going to bathe in the stream.” The women watched me, but I simply turned to Talon, bewildered. Carl continued to undress, leaving a trail of white leathers on the way. I saw his white, scaly ass walk into a stand of reeds before he disappeared. I continued to stare. He had done better than Talon had in convincing the women to start speaking. In private, they had both come to me, admitting their odd memories in different ways, but once joined back together, had reverted to their instincts, and had apparently gotten into an argument. Likely over these strange visions they were having.
Carl had just solved the Rubik’s cube by taking a shotgun to it. Gordian Knot style.
Talon seemed to be smirking as he licked his paws.
“That would have gone so much better with a saucer of cream,” he said between licks. “Or blood, I guess,” he added.
Chapter 33
In Carl’s absence, the women were oddly silent as they disbursed food from their packs. They didn’t act confused to be handing out small bags of trail mix in Ziploc bags.
I didn’t comment on that, just accepted the food as I sat down on a rock.
I had spent a few minutes rubbing down my horse, more for something to do than anything else. We hadn’t ridden them that long, but even such a small dose of affection would go a long way in establishing a bond between us.
I was lost in thought when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Carl standing before us, the wad of his leathers in one fist. I had a sudden idea, and acted on it without thinking.
“Snake!” I shouted, pointing at his crotch in horror.
Carl glanced down, frowning. “No, that’s just my dic—”
I interrupted hurriedly, like old times. “Yeah, I know what it is. I think I even have one,” I said drily. “Last time I checked, anyway.”
Carl studied me, looking confused, but I ignored him. It hadn’t been for his benefit. My outburst had the desired result. Tory and Ashley began to giggle. Then giggle snort. Then it became uncontrollable, and they were grasping at each other, crying and sobbing as they laughed their asses off. I found myself smiling from ear-to-ear, leaning back against my rock. “Fucking… Carl!” Tory gasped, panting. Ashley joined in, and soon they were chanting it back and forth, supporting each other as tears ran down their cheeks.
I let out a breath, and closed my eyes for a full minute, smiling. That was a win. I opened my eyes and studied my surroundings. I didn’t want to rest too long, because the kid was still in danger, even if not currently from the Wild Hunt.
A pixie suddenly flew straight at my face, stopping a millimeter from my nose, and flicked me in the eyeball.
“Ow!” I snapped, rubbing my eye.
Barbie grinned at me. “They sleep.”
It took me a few seconds to understand. “The Hunt?”
She nodded. “A wise man would take that as a compliment. They need rest in order to face a Rider.”
I grimaced, both at the long-term thoughts of them coming at us refreshed, and the title she had used for me. But I didn’t dissuade her.
“But a clever man would see this as an opportunity,” she added.
I nodded, turning to the group. They were watching me, even though the girls did shoot very studious glances at Carl and his snake while he tugged his leathers back on. “The Hunt rests. Let’s stretch our break a bit longer, but not too long. This is an advantage.”
“I’m not tired,” Tory said, frowning.
I nodded slowly. “That’s what concerns me. Neither am I, but we haven’t really slept since we came here. We should be exhausted.” It was a gamble to say it like that, but I wanted to gauge their reactions. Wylde wouldn’t have said since we came here, and if they were still savage, they would have picked up on that, sharing considering frowns with each other.
They did frown, but in a way that signified they were suddenly wary… about not being tired. Good, I thought to myself. Because the thought had recently hit me. We had been here for one night and part of one day, but it felt much longer. Which made my skin crawl.
Time was different in the Land of the Fae, or so everyone said.
Barbie sniffed, and then darted into the pile of naked pixies. None of them stirred as she sprawled over them to catch some sleep herself.
Ebony wasn’t sleeping. She stared at me from across the camp, nodded, and then drifted off to circle the camp, making sure we weren’t falling into a trap.
I couldn’t sleep either, so I sat there, resting my eyes, thinking, planning, scheming.
How did one evade the Wild Hunt?
Chapter 34
I rode beside Carl, studying a swamp ringed by more of those glowing, weeping willows to our left. The pixies seemed interested in it, but not certain, as if the stench was masking the true scent they had been following. We had rested well, if only for a short time, and had been on the move again after less than an hour. I had wanted to spend some time with Carl. Get a feel for him, because he was a different creature. Literally, and figuratively.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Carl grunted. “Bold son of a bitch, isn’t he?”
I followed his gaze to see the Fingering Ginger standing on a hill, holding up his sword again. Then he slammed it into the earth and held up seven fingers. I think. It was more than six, but it was hard to count from this distance.
Then he hauled ass away from us after grabbing his sword.
I turned to Carl, knowing we wouldn’t be fast enough to catch him, but feeling like I needed to try anyway. “He looks familiar,” Carl muttered, looking frustrated as he stared at the hill.
My breath caught. “Where have you seen him, Elder Carl?” I asked in a curious, but low tone, wanting to hide my own lack of knowledge if he was still savage.
“I don’t know. Chateau Falco, maybe?” he said, sounding unsure. He began to click his tongue somehow – because I didn’t think his reptilian tongue should have been able to do that – but I snatched his arm.
“Carl?” I whispered.
He glanced at me, fr
owning. “Yes, Master Temple?”
My heart was racing. Temple. Not Wylde. “You know me?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said, frown growing.
I let out a breath, beginning to smile. “I thought you were like the others. The girls. Forgotten your humanity…”
Carl’s frown slowly shifted to a humorless grin. “I never had any… humanity. Other than what you gave me.” He chuckled. “Now, I understand why you’ve been acting so oddly around me. You thought I was like them. My mind clouded…” he nodded to himself, connecting pieces of a puzzle. “I see. You’re playing games. Trying to taste the wild while trying to break them of it.” He somehow let out a slow whistle. “That’s… something. Seems to be working. In a way. At least for them. Any luck on yourself?” he asked, not meeting my eyes.
I started to answer, to tell him I had it under control, but at that moment, he looked up, eyes cold and demanding honesty.
“I… don’t know. I want to say yes, but I’m not sure. It’s hard. Trying to be both.”
He nodded. “Well, just pick your favorite. Not that hard. Or be both.” He shrugged.
I chuckled, opening my mouth
And heard a roar from the swamp.
I was galloping before I consciously chose to. Because immediately after the roar, I had heard a defiant shout. And a young boy screaming in terror.
My Band triangulated on the scream of their own volition, swooping in from their previous positions to meet behind me in a galloping arrow of blade, claw, hoof, and fang.
And the tip of that arrow was one Wylde son of a bitch…
Chapter 35
The pixies drifted through the weeping willows surrounding the swamp like lightning bugs, or floating glow sticks. A few more feet and the swamp began in earnest, so I jumped off my horse and hastily threw the reins over a low hanging branch that was wet with a slimy, black substance. The trunk expanded and contracted, as if breathing. I shared a look with Talon, who muttered a response to my unasked question. “It’s hibernating. Don’t worry.”
Wild Side: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 19
