Shadow Hunt

by Melissa F. Olson

  Owen looked through a stack of notes and pulled out the one he wanted. “In Germany it was the Furious Host, in England it was Woden’s Hunt, Mesnée d’Hellequin in France, and so on.”

  “We think,” Kirsten added, looking at Will, “the Luparii got ahold of the scroll shortly after Charlemagne asked them to kill werewolves. The Wild Hunt may have been how the Luparii originally cleared Europe. They used it to kill werewolves for around three hundred years.

  “Then, in the early twentieth century, one of the Luparii witches decided that the Wild Hunt magic was too powerful and destructive, and they hid it away,” she went on. “I can’t find any evidence of it having been used since then.”

  “So how did your grandfather find it?” Will asked Owen, reasonably.

  Owen puffed his cheeks full of air, then blew it out. “He . . . okay, well, during World War II, a bunch of the Luparii men signed up to fight for the Nazis—”

  “Of course they did,” I muttered.

  “And as they traveled around Europe, they kept finding signs of werewolves. They were pissed. When the war ended, all any of them could think about was how to cleanse Europe of the werewolves again.”

  Owen was fidgeting, and I realized he’d skipped this part of the story earlier, when he’d talked to Jesse and me. Or maybe we just hadn’t had enough time for him to get to it. We had kind of rushed off to save Noah. “Just tell us,” I commanded.

  “You asked me why I never bugged my grandpa about the scroll,” Owen said in a rush. “It’s because he was so obviously ashamed of belonging to a family that had willingly joined up with the Nazis. His own father—my great-grandfather, I guess—was a soldier. My grandpa was still a kid when his dad got back, maybe thirteen or fourteen, but he was really smart. Grandpa wanted to impress his dad, this badass soldier, so he threw himself into research. And he found the scroll. It had been hidden in some German library for almost forty years.”

  Kirsten rested a hand lightly on Owen’s shoulder, which surprised me for a second. But then again, Kirsten’s whole job was taking care of wayward witches. I felt a little spark of hope. Maybe if we all survived this, Owen could actually join her group, if that was what he wanted.

  The touch seemed to give Owen courage. “Grandpa didn’t tell me what the spell was about, but he did say he showed it to Werner—that was his father’s name. Werner was super happy. He told Grandpa how proud he was.

  “But then, later, Grandpa overheard the Luparii discussing what they were going to do with the spell, and he realized what a terrible mistake he’d made. That night, he stole the scroll and ran, all the way to Los Angeles, where no one would ever think to look for him.”

  “He didn’t give you any details about this part?” Will asked, looking frustrated. “What they were going to do with the spell?”

  Owen shook his head, looking miserable. Kirsten took over the story. “But from what we’ve been able to find, it looks like Werner didn’t just drop the matter, even when Karl couldn’t be found,” she said. “Werner was an active Luparii witch, and although he couldn’t replicate the full Wild Hunt spell without the scroll, he was able to re-create one small part of it. They already had plenty of dogs, because even after the scroll was lost, they kept training dogs to hunt werewolves.”

  “Wait, you lost me. Which part of the spell?” I said, like an idiot. Because it was so obvious.

  Kirsten gave me a pitying look. “The hounds,” she said softly, her eyes dropping down to Shadow. “Werner used his knowledge of the scroll to re-create the bargest spell.”

  Chapter 35

  I completely tuned out the conversation then, as the size of this whole thing threatened to overwhelm me. You know that feeling, when you’re watching a TV show and they air a flashback that suddenly makes the last five episodes fit together in a new way, and it’s so obvious that you’re mad at yourself . . . and simultaneously impressed with the people who made the show? That’s exactly how I felt in that moment.

  Because it had been practically staring me in the face. Three years earlier, when the Luparii had first come to Los Angeles and I had learned about their anti-werewolf efforts, I’d wondered how they had managed to clear all the wolves out of mainland Europe. Our best source, Sashi’s mother, Dr. Noring, had known a little about the history—how the ancient Luparii had spent hundreds of years using bargests to control the werewolf population, meaning they used a bargest to hunt and kill any werewolves who tried to enter their territory. That made sense, once I’d met Shadow, but I’d never understood the logistics of getting all the werewolves out of Europe to begin with. You wouldn’t be able to control more than a few bargests at a time, and even with a handful of them, how could one group cover enough ground to clear that much area?

  But if they’d initially used the bargests as a part of the Wild Hunt, a massive hunting party of legend that would keep supernatural creatures away by fear alone . . . it made so much more sense. I’d just never made the connection between the bargest and the Wild Hunt, mostly because the folklore I’d found didn’t necessarily reflect it.

  But I should have realized that at some point, the legends must have gotten twisted up—after all, it wasn’t exactly the first time that had happened. Just as the Wild Hunt had different names, so did the bargests: I’d seen Shadow’s kind referred to as devil dogs, black shucks, hellhounds, and about half a dozen more. The only reason I used bargest was because it carried the least amount of negative connotation.

  Then it sank in how screwed we now were. This was about more than an evil witch clan, or even the bargest spell. The frickin’ Wild Hunt was real, and it could be used to hunt and kill the people of the Old World. Right here in Los Angeles.

  No wonder Rhys had told me to leave town.

  I felt panic clawing at my chest—and then Shadow reached over and took my hand in her mouth, biting down just a tiny bit.

  I jumped, looking down at her. She wagged her clubbed-off tail at me, then lay down on her back and put her paws in the air, asking for a belly rub. I blinked.

  She’d only ever done this when the two of us were alone, because showing your belly is a sign of weakness. But she wanted to remind me that, at the end of the day, she was real. A creature of legend, maybe, but real. I smiled and leaned over in my chair so I could scratch her tummy.

  I tuned back into the conversation. Owen was saying, “It wasn’t famous until Jakob Grimm wrote about it in 1835, but most scholars believe that it predates Christianity.”

  “Rhys thinks it predates nulls,” I put in.

  “Does that mean you can’t stop it?” Will asked.

  I shrugged. “The Luparii seem to think that I can—hence their deep and thorough commitment to killing me. But I don’t really know.”

  “You’ve dealt with magical objects before,” Kirsten reminded me. “The Transruah was powerful, and you zapped that.”

  “True,” I conceded. “But the Transruah was a witch spell; it came from a conduit. What if the Wild Hunt spell comes from a time before conduits? From creatures that came before?”

  Will stared at me. “Are you talking about fairies? Actual fairies?”

  “It’s not impossible,” Kirsten said thoughtfully. “We’ve all seen enough of the Wild Hunt stories to know it was usually connected to the fae, and there have always been rumors that conduits weren’t the first magical creatures. So . . . why not?”

  I had kind of hoped the others would contradict me. “Well . . . shit,” I said, which seemed to sum up the feelings of pretty much all of us.

  “So we don’t know if Scarlett can stop it,” Will concluded. “But what do we know? What actually happens?”

  “According to Rhys, a group of witches, their horses, and their hounds—or bargests—turn into spectral warriors,” I informed him. “Who can kill supernaturals. But he says the spell doesn’t affect humans. They can’t even see what’s going on without a special ointment on their eyes. Which we don’t have.”

  “How do the r
iders make the distinction?” Will said doubtfully. “When I run as a wolf, I can only tell people apart by smell.”

  “The riders only see witches, vampires, and werewolves, like they’re wearing special heat-imaging goggles,” Kirsten explained. I pictured a cat in a whole roomful of mice. “And they kill everything they see. When the Luparii first used the spell, I’m guessing they called and warned the vampires and friendly witches about their route beforehand.”

  “How do we stop it?” I asked.

  Kirsten shook her head. “According to all of this”—she gestured at the table—“you can’t. You can only run, or hide, and hope they pick someone else instead. If you hear the oliphant blow, you’re already too close.”

  “Oliphant?” I said, confused. “I swear that’s the name of an unreasonably attractive actor.”

  “It means a horn,” Owen said, miming blowing on his closed fist. “It was a medieval instrument made from elephant tusks. The Wild Hunt uses at least one. When you hear it, it’s a harbinger.”

  “What kind of damage are we talking about here?” I asked. “How many people can they kill?”

  “Theoretically?” Kirsten said. “Hundreds each night.”

  Great. Just fucking great. “Can we evacuate?” I looked back and forth between her and Will. “I mean, I know Will’s already been getting the pack out of town, but what if we just sent everybody out of LA County? No victims, no Wild Hunt.” I kind of liked the idea of the Hunt riding around LA all frustrated because there was no one to kill. It would be like Spiderman stuck in a meadow.

  Kirsten and Will exchanged a look. “For how long?” Kirsten said to me. “And how will it look?”

  “Seriously?” I said, surprised. That was the kind of question I expected from Dashiell, but I’d thought Kirsten cared more about her people than that. “You’re worried about optics?”

  “I have to be, because they obviously are,” she countered. “The Luparii could have come to Long Beach, quietly killed Karl Schmidt, and returned to Europe with the scroll. No offense,” she added to Owen, who shrugged. “Instead, they are making this as big and splashy as they can. They want to look like they’re putting us in our place. Have you thought about what happens if they succeed?”

  Oh. “No, I hadn’t,” I admitted.

  “The Luparii have been collecting power in Europe,” Will said quietly. “They’re expanding with terrifying speed. I can think of only one reason why they’d come here now.”

  “Because we embarrassed them,” I said, understanding. I thought of what I’d said to Jesse, about how the Old World saw peace as weak.

  “You did?” Owen asked, looking between me and the others. “When?”

  “Three years ago,” I answered. “They sent a scout on a mission to check out the nova wolf, and we bitch-slapped her and stole the bargest. No offense,” I added to Shadow, who gave me a not amused look.

  “Yes, we embarrassed them. And if they want to keep collecting power, they have to get a foothold in the United States,” Will put in. “Taking us down is the perfect way to do it. If we run and hide, we’re giving them what they need.”

  “But what do they want with all that territory, all that power?”

  Kirsten pointed at me. “Great question.”

  “One we should be asking Dashiell,” Will reminded us.

  “I don’t disagree,” Kirsten said. “But I can’t shake the feeling that waking up Dashiell and taking him out during the day might be exactly what they want.”

  She was right. Unless there was imminent death on the line, I wasn’t going to pull Dashiell out of the safety of his mansion. I checked my watch and groaned. How was it only noon? “We’ve got seven hours until sunset. What do you guys want to do?”

  Will looked at Kirsten, and they exchanged some kind of complicated leadership look that I was glad I didn’t have to interpret.

  “We evacuate the weakest among us,” Will said finally, “and prepare the strong to fight.”

  Chapter 36

  That sounded suitably dramatic and all, but contacting all the city’s witches and werewolves wasn’t really something I could help with.

  What we needed to know was where the Luparii were now, although I’d settle for where they intended to start the Wild Hunt. Owen would keep doing his best with the book research.

  I had a different idea for how to spend my afternoon.

  Jesse wasn’t going to like it much, but I had Shadow for backup. And the bargest seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

  Will agreed to contact Astrid and make sure I could keep using her truck, promising to provide her with a spare vehicle if she needed it. While Shadow and I walked out to the parking lot, I called Jesse’s cell phone, but there was no answer. He was probably talking to the doctor, or maybe Noah was out of surgery and had been moved to intensive care. I left him a voice mail, not sure if that was making it easier or harder for either of us.

  When people from other places talk about Los Angeles, they’re really referring to the greater LA area, a massive territory that includes incorporated towns like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena. It’s all LA to someone from Michigan, but residents might actually take offense if you accuse them of living in LA when their actual home is within the Beverly Hills limits, and vice versa.

  I know. It’s weird. Then again, most people in LA can’t tell you the difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin, so whatever.

  But although Los Angeles is often a blanket term for places outside the city, San Pedro technically is within the LA city limits, though it’s crowded by other cities on two sides, and the ocean on a third. It’s large and independent enough to be its own town (in fact, it used to be), but now it has something that LA wants: the Port of Los Angeles, which brings like a million jobs into California. So San Pedro stays in the city limits, even if it requires some creative border-drawing to make it so.

  And at the southern tip of the southernmost part of the city lies a big chunk that fell into the water. I’d looked up Sunken City before leaving Kirsten and Will, and Jesse had been right: it was a condemned oceanfront area that had once contained a fancy new development—or however fancy developments got in the 1920s. At about forty thousand square feet, it wasn’t even that big, but it was dangerous as hell: a bunch of people had died exploring the area, sometimes as many as five in one year. And yet its location was still easily available on Google Maps and Yelp, with handy tips for parking and sneaking past the fence.

  Oh, Los Angeles. I love you.

  Even with light Saturday afternoon traffic, it took me over an hour to get down to San Pedro, shoot south on Pacific Avenue to the shoreline, and park on the corner of Pacific and Shepherd. I turned the truck off and leaned forward to peer over the dash. You couldn’t actually see Sunken City from the street; it was pretty well hidden behind a stretch of perfectly normal-looking houses. The only clue from this distance was the tall, wrought-iron fence that ran along the back of those properties to keep people away from the wreckage.

  I closed my eyes to concentrate and pushed my radius outward. Almost immediately, I felt some kind of major-league witch magic go pop. I wasn’t sensitive enough to know what kind of spell I was breaking, but it felt a lot like the one at Griffith Park, which in turn had seemed similar to Kirsten’s standard humans-go-away spell. Like the other one, though, this had a sort of sickly cast to it. I was guessing it was some kind of Luparii signature. Gross.

  I sat there for another five minutes, concentrating hard on my radius. If I felt the slightest hint of witch magic—or any magic, really—I was going to peel out of there and get help.

  But there was nothing. No active witches, no other spells.

  I looked at Shadow. “You sure you’re okay with going back there?” I asked her. She actually licked her chops, obviously hoping we would get a chance to revenge-maim someone. What a cliché. “Okay, then.”

  We got out of the truck. Shadow was on high alert, ears and nose twitching as she surveyed t
he area. “How do we get in?” I asked her. She immediately began trotting down Shepherd Street, along the row of houses. I started following her, then stopped. Shadow paused, too, and turned to me inquiringly. “What happened to the people living in these houses?” I asked, gesturing at the row of buildings that faced back onto Sunken City. “They were all inside the humans-go-away spell.”

  Shadow tilted her head at me, which meant she either didn’t know or the answer was too complex for her to communicate with body language. But she made no attempt to stop me as I started up the walkway of the nearest house. I rang the doorbell, but nothing happened. I put my hand on the knob, and it turned.

  A dozen different scenes from horror movies flashed through my head, and I pictured myself opening the door on a neck-high pile of dead bodies.

  I cracked the door open a few inches. “Hello?” I called. The house smelled a little musty and closed up, but there was no hint of eau de decaying bodies, a scent I was unfortunately very familiar with. I stepped into the house, knife in hand, and Shadow barreled past my leg so she could check it for threats. I waited in the living room for her, but I didn’t expect her to find anything. It felt empty.

  When Shadow returned, wagging her tail, I wandered into the kitchen and found empty takeout trays stacked on the counters—not cheap fast food, but heavy foil or cardboard containers that bore the logos of some of LA’s nicest restaurants. I followed a hallway to the bedrooms and found that the beds were still made, but topped with sleeping bags. Each room had at least one duffel bag. I went through one of them, but it contained only clothes and a handful of toiletries: shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste.

  I held up a handful of clothes to Shadow. “Were the Luparii witches staying here?”