by Rhys Ford
Timing a kick away from the current, I floated to the edge, grabbing at a crevice with one hand. Breathing hard, I let my body rest for a moment and looked up. It might have only been a few feet, but it seemed like miles, especially with the tired creeping through my limbs. I set the basket’s handle between my teeth and took a short breath, inhaling pieces of wet reed.
“No problem.” I choked slightly on the feel of my tongue pressing against the back of my throat. “Can do this. Easy.”
My fingers left bloody marks behind on the rock, and I strained to pull us up. I couldn’t find a decent grip with my heels, and my feet were barely moving. It was so cold, and the wind found me, biting at the wet and leaving its sharp teeth in my muscles until I could barely pull up the rock face.
Unable to see much above me, I slapped at the rock, hoping to find something to hold onto, but my fingers suddenly met air. My back muscles clenched, locking in place, and I forced myself to lift my arms again, finding the edge of the rock face with my palm. Despite the weight of the babies pulling down my jaw, I wanted to bawl with relief. Still choking on the wet basket handles, I took another breath and heaved myself up, catching my stomach on the edge.
And stared into the roiling crimson eyes of an ainmhí dubh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE CREATURE easily outweighed me by a hundred or so pounds, and from the curled-back frill of its head, it was pissed off something fierce. Hanging onto the cliff edge by the flat of my hands, my palms abused from the river rock, it would have been easy enough to drop back into the safety of water. If only I wasn’t holding my babies’ carrier between my clenched teeth.
Guns were out, and so was the knife. I couldn’t grab either one without dropping the girls, and there was no guarantee that the Glocks would work after the bashing they took against the river’s rocks. Leaning all my weight on one hand, I lifted my arm and punched the black dog in the nose, nearly losing my grip on the ledge. I fell back down, slamming my chest on the rock, and my teeth jumped on the handle, the basket precariously close to falling from my mouth. There was a squawk from one of the girls and then a sorrowful cry when my chin jammed the basket against the rocks.
Tilting my head back, I looked up to see the dog shaking its head. A splatter of drool dripped from its mouth, striking my cheekbone, and I winced when the acid burned my skin. Tightening my jaw, I relaxed and as the basket swung back and forth, I took a quick inventory. My hand throbbed, warning me of a break in one or two of my fingers, and I felt the dig of a rib into my lung, but I’d live through that. The hardest part would be getting past that dog.
Trying to breathe through the grit falling from the edge of the cliff, I looked down, wondering if we could survive another dip, but the basket wouldn’t hold, and the cold water would probably kill them if we went back in. With no other choice but to hang on, I hoped to get another shot at the dog’s face before it bit me. Straining to hold my weight with one hand, I balled my fist and punched up again, striking the dog’s mouth and cracking one of its teeth.
Swearing, I almost lost the basket, and I bit down hard as blood poured over my knuckles. The burn along the cuts in my skin was disheartening.
The dog howled and took a step forward, rearing its head back. Mucus and blood dripped from its injured nose, and I felt a small ember of satisfaction that I’d at least pissed the thing off enough to kill me, because I’d be damned if I was going to be dragged back to my father’s playroom. I’d at least injured the thing. We all might be destined for its belly, but I was going to make it work for it. Grabbing the cliffside, I lost my grip and swung wildly, desperately windmilling until my feet found purchase and I stopped swaying.
I was waiting for the top of my head to be bitten off when a metal spear sprouted from the black dog’s head, piercing its forehead. The triangular tip dripped with blood and bits of bone. Shattered from behind, its skull wobbled under its skin and gave way, bursting out of its eye sockets. Somewhere inside its cranium, it began to lose function, synapses breaking apart, and then it tumbled, still growling and hungry to snap my head off.
Its weight carried it over the edge, and it bounced, first against my shoulder and then a couple of times on the cliff. Its body dropped, flipping in an arc before it splashed into the river, and I saw it catch on a rock. Then it was gone, carried off into the white waters.
I started when a thick-fingered hand gripped my nerveless wrist, and I stared up at Dempsey’s rough face, a scrabble of beard darkening his jaw and a sneer twisting his mouth.
“Good to see your ugly face, boy,” Dempsey spat. “Jonas told me you probably needed some help.”
I took the bassinet from my teeth, closed my stiff fingers around the handle, then lifted it up. My arm protested, creaking and straining, but I forced it up, shivering in the wind.
“Basket,” I stammered, cold down to my spine. I stretched to pass the bassinet up to Dempsey, and my shoulders shook with the effort to hold it aloft. “Heavy.”
“Drop it and give me your hand,” he replied, clenching my wrist tighter. “I can’t hold onto you much longer, boy.”
“Take the damned basket!” I croaked out. The numbness in my hands began to travel up to my elbows.
“I’m going to kick your ass if you fall.” He looked disgusted and grabbed the carrier. I lost sight of him for too long a moment. Then he returned and grabbed me by the wrists. “Bad enough the rest of those idiots that came with you are wandering around like they’ve lost their dicks. Worst trackers ever and you left a fucking trail a blind slug could follow. Where’d you be if Cari hadn’t called me down to save your scrawny butt?”
Straining, he heaved, dragging me up over the edge. Stones dug into my belly, and I scraped along, leaving a layer of skin behind, but he eventually managed to lift me up, dropping onto one knee to leverage me over the edge. He tossed me onto the ground, then left me there to pant as he looked down the river and swore loudly.
“Forget you can’t swim good, boy? Or that you hate water deeper than a few feet?” Giving me a stern look, Dempsey grunted and stood, lighting a cigar stump with his ancient Zippo. “That was a damned big dog too. Could have gotten a lot of money for that hide. Almost had wings too. You could see the stumps starting. Don’t see many of those.”
“You should have tried harder to kill it so it fell down on the ledge instead of over the side,” I groaned, stretching out fully onto the mossy flat. I needed to get up and check on the babies, but I was too tired, and my brain was overloaded. “Thanks for grabbing me.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. You still have to walk out. I’ll be damned if I’m carrying you out of here. You’re like a drunk giraffe to carry, flailing and all legs.” Dempsey kicked at my ribs with the steel toe of his boot and tossed my jacket over my face. “You left that upstream. You know better about taking care of your gear, and you could have ruined your damned guns too.”
“What was I going to do? Let them drown?” I grumbled and got to my feet, pulling my guns out and giving them a quick glance. The Glocks looked okay considering the bath they’d taken, but I’d have to check them over to see if they’d taken any damage from the rocks. The knife would be okay in the rig’s wet leather. Its coating would protect it until I could wipe off the water. “I’ve got to get the girls warm.”
“Wouldn’t have screwed up your guns if you didn’t go in after them.” He exhaled up, the cigar smoke fouling the air, and grabbed my arm. “And I’ve helped all the elfin I’m ever going to help when I took you in. Don’t even know why I did that.”
“Leave off.” I shook him off and took an unsteady step. My teeth chattered as I spoke, but I was more concerned with the girls. “They’ll freeze. We’ve got to get them out of the basket. We can use my jacket to wrap them up.”
I looked into the basket, relieved when both girls responded to my touch. Choosing spinal injuries over hypothermia, I lifted them out carefully, then handed one to Dempsey. He balked for a second, then took her a
fter I glared at him. When the second one squirmed in my hands, my heart flipped over, and I found myself finally breathing.
I peeled apart the blankets to check on the babies, and they mewled and kicked, grateful to be out of the soaked fabric. The one bleeding would have a scar on her forehead, or not, depending on how well it healed. It was probably Kayak, already burdened with bad luck from my name.
Dempsey made quick work of undressing the infants and swaddling them both in the flannel shirt he wore over his T-shirt. My leather jacket went over them next, giving them another warm layer. They pinked up quickly, and I swiped at the cut on the girl’s forehead, watching it clot and start to seal.
“You ain’t getting cash for this run, are you?” Dempsey asked, chewing around his cigar. He’d slung his crossbow across his back and picked up a sawed-off shotgun from the ground.
“Things can’t always be about money, Dempsey,” I replied. I hurt, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to walk out on my own two feet, especially in front of Dempsey.
“Sure it is, boy. It’s always about the money,” he said, resting the shotgun against his shoulder. The cigar worked from one side of his mouth to the other, a sure sign he was thinking up numbers in his head. “Take your gear up, and let’s see about getting paid.”
“Perhaps you should rethink that. Those children are mine, and so is the monster standing next to you.” The voice was familiar, and even in accented Singlish I knew who he was. His words stopped me cold, and fear prickled a path up my spine when Valin stepped out of the forest line, smiling wickedly as his eyes roamed over my body. “Hello, little brother. Are you ready to come home?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
IT HAD seemed like I rode the river for miles, but I’d only been carried a few hundred yards. I saw the old towers rising above the canopy, and the forest barely hid a stone arch, faded pre-Merge letters blackening the curve. Standing beneath the crumbling archway was a man wearing my face.
Now that I knew what I looked like, I knew we had the same face. I didn’t back…then.
It was odd to see what I only saw in a mirror. Even stranger to see it with metallic brandy eyes and gold-streaked black hair. He stood taller than me, broader in the shoulder, although our legs were the same length. Dressed in durable black cotton pants and a pale shirt, he could blend into a crowd of humans, except for the liquid feline grace of his movements and the pair of long daggers he had sheathed at his hips.
I was not happy to see my brother, Valin. Even less happy to see the Hunt with him.
The shadows moved around Valin, their eyes opening to gleam crimson at me. Rising, the mature black dogs dwarfed me from their position on the steps, massive shoulders settling and flexing before they shook, opening their enormous wings. Watching them, my back itched with the memory of the lengths of iron and hot spatulas working my skin loose to create the scar work on my back.
When Ryder believed my scars to be homage to the Dusk Court’s pearl black dragon, I hadn’t bothered to correct him. If my wings were a dragon’s, they’d at least be a tie to some legacy, some bloodline, but the scars on my back marked me as Tanic’s. More importantly, as his property. His house sigil was an ainmhí dubh wingspan, taken from the nightmares he created and ruled over. Since anyone encountering Tanic’s ancient black dogs didn’t usually live long enough to talk about it, much less describe their wings, it didn’t seem important at the time.
I couldn’t explain the pang of regret I had for not telling Ryder I liked his kiss or that my wings were something I sometimes wished I could scrape off. It felt like something I could have given him, something he could have kept once Valin took me.
My brother moved closer, looming over me. Four of his Hunt flanked him, skulking back and forth, their sparse fur ruffling with anxious aggression. The largest wore a thin red collar, marking her as the pack’s alpha. Her teats were tight up against her belly, probably within a day or two of her breeding season. Unless I was off, the second smaller of the males was her mate, his face nearly unmarked despite a chewed-apart ear and a grayish hair patch over a healed wound on his side. The male muscled in past the others, standing at the female’s right.
Serpentine and long, Tanic’s creatures were more lizards than dogs, their squat bodies moving with the oddly jointed locomotion of a reptile. The female’s tongue licked out, slowly tasting the air in front of it. I caught a glimpse of her fangs, ancient yellow and caked with old poison. Spittle threads strung between her jaws as she opened her mouth wider, webbing wet links between her upper and lower teeth. Any fur covering her body was patchy, as if fighting a losing battle with the scaly dry areas running over her rib cage, belly, and back.
“Give him the brats and let’s make a run for it, kid,” Dempsey muttered behind me. “If we throw them at the dogs, they’ll take the easy bait before they run us down.”
“It’s a good plan, brother.” Valin smiled, showing me his teeth. I knew he spoke in Singlish for Dempsey’s sake. He loved toying with his prey before he took small bites out of their flesh. “Perhaps you should let him throw the babies to my pets.”
“Shut up, Dempsey.” I didn’t look back at him, letting my tone drop to tell him I was serious. Hoping my whisper was loud enough for him to hear, I said, “Run if you get the chance. Ryder’ll pay you for their return.”
Both of us running would be useless. The dogs would sniff me out and would take down Dempsey in a single bite. The children weren’t even big enough to stick in the black dogs’ teeth. They were an old Hunt, creatures forged from skilled and ancient magic. Originally one of my father’s packs, it wasn’t a surprise to see my brother commanding them now. I found my hate for him undiminished by time.
“I didn’t believe it when my spies told me they’d found you, much less that they could deliver you.” Valin walked across to stand in front of me, keeping the hounds back with a single wave of his hand. His Singlish was smooth despite his unsidhe accent, a rough suede purr. “And yet, here you are.”
I swallowed the sick rising from my belly, refusing to let the burning ember get past my throat. Schooling my face, I did my best to mask my emotions, pretending I was bluffing my way through a poker game with the Brent brothers and Jonas. I bent my head slightly, keeping my eyes fixed on his face. It was an ancient gesture of recognition, one I couldn’t be certain I performed properly, but I gave it my best go.
“Well done, little brother. You mimic your betters well.” Valin returned the formal nod.
My brother reached out to touch my face, and I flinched. Valin’s long-fingered hands were one of my worst terrors, more than the ainmhí dubh. The dogs were temporary demons, flesh I knew I could at least maim, provided I could get past the bony armor plates protecting their vital organs. Valin was different. He haunted me when I closed my eyes at night—when I blinked too long and the shadows clung to my lashes before I could shake them off. He was there in my darkness when I slept and lurking at the edge of my vision while I was awake.
He lived in the mirror every time I stared at my own reflection.
His teeth once left marks and bruises I swore I still felt under my healed skin. My right shoulder ached where he’d slipped when Tanic coached him on how to effectively separate skin from flesh. The dig of the razor spatula sliced through the muscle and severed the nerves before hitting bone.
They’d continued Valin’s training once the healer sealed my torn muscles together, patching my skin into a solid piece again. Valin took forever to learn, his hands trembling with excitement as our father’s low, purring voice coaxed him along. Now I wasn’t sure how much of his clumsiness was lack of grace or a glut of sadism.
Those fingers tightened the nut on the bolt that pierced my left shoulder blade, cracking that bone when he turned one too many times. Tanic left it as it was, taking the time to show his son the difference between the left and the right.
“The iron pin turns easier on the right,” our father said, demonstrating between the two as
I hung naked from chains set into the room’s low ceiling beams. “This is important, because we’ll need the anchor to turn with the swivel and hoop that will cap the bolt. Try once more, Valin. You’ll get it.”
And it began again.
I’d kept the iron pieces and the rebar, leaving them on the coffee table in my warehouse to remind me of my family. The iron was rusted in places, turned black where it had cut through bone. Visitors played with the pieces, picking up the curved bars and handling the iron between careless fingers, sometimes dropping them on the floor.
Ryder had no idea what he’d touched the day he came over; besides me, only Dempsey knew where those pieces came from. He’d been there when they were cut out of me. I rejected his suggestion to melt the bars down, but he thought I was sick for displaying them in my living room. For me, there was no sweeter sound in the world than the ping of bloodstained iron hitting hard cement. I’d wept the first time I heard it.
That was not the life I wanted for the girls. Not if I could help it.
“You’re looking well, deartháir,” Valin said, walking around me. The black dogs paced in time to his movements, and the female’s falling drool left smoking divots on the old stone cliff. Valin knew he could control me with a few command words. They were one of his first lessons. His choice of Singlish was nothing more than a cat playing with its prey before it snapped the rodent’s neck.
I didn’t trust myself to say anything, and Valin didn’t expect me to respond. The last time he’d seen me, my communication skills were subpar at best. I understood unsidhe but could barely speak it. Seeing him brought back floods of remembered pain and whispers of conversations my father and his companions had over my body. I was surprised at how much unsidhe I could recall, especially considering my attention was on screaming at the time.
