Return of the Hunters (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 4)

by Sonya Bateman

“How the hell’s that going to help?” I said. “Time is slower there, so wouldn’t it take even longer if we did that? Besides, it’s Arcadia. Everything there exists to kill something. And it doesn’t seem to care what.”

  Denei gave an uneasy glance. “Sounds like handsome has a point.”

  “Yes, time is slower. But distance is…fluid,” Reun said. “Once we’ve crossed the Veil from here, we can cross back from Arcadia directly into New Orleans. It would require a bit of travel through the Fae realm. But not nearly as far as we’ve yet to go here.”

  “Hold on.” Denei slid her arms under Zoba’s shoulders and nodded to Rex and Senobia, who helped her lift him and carry him the short distance to the bed. Once they had him settled, she turned and nearly glared at him. “You sayin’ you can basically fold space? Take a shortcut through this Fae realm or whatever, and just step into the city like snappin’ your fingers?” She bared her teeth in a snarl. “Why the fuck we ain’t done that in the first place?”

  Reun shook his head. “Because Gideon is right,” he said. “There is great risk in entering Arcadia, particularly for those who are not Fae.”

  “Yeah. We barely made it through that place, and we had a Fae prince helping us out.” I’d always be beyond grateful to Uriskel for risking his life to save a bunch of strangers. Without him, we’d have died ten minutes in. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Reun isn’t all that eager to go back, after what happened…before,” I added softly.

  Denei’s face relaxed instantly, and she started across the room toward him. “Oh, Lord. I’m so sorry,” she said. “Course you don’t wanna go back there. And I don’t blame you, not one bit.”

  “I will, a’stohr. For you, and your family.” He put an arm around her and kissed her gently. “My only concern is for your safety,” he said. “Arcadia is not particularly welcoming to humans. Even those with…talents such as yours.”

  She gave a weak laugh. “Are you flattering me, Mister Seelie Noble?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Seriously, guys?” I said.

  “Denei,” Senobia called from the side of the bed, where she’d sat next to Zoba. “He’s tryin’ to get up.”

  She frowned and walked toward them. “Relax. Ain’t nothin’ you can do right now, brother,” she said, kneeling beside him to take his hand. “Rex, honey. Fetch me a damp cloth?”

  “You got it.” He headed for the bathroom.

  I wandered closer to Reun, staring at the window and the thick whorls of snow blowing past the glass. The train hadn’t shown any signs of life since that jarring stop, and I had the same bad feeling as Denei. We weren’t going anywhere for a while. “Reun,” I said. “How far would we have to travel in Arcadia to make this work?”

  He shrugged carefully. “I cannot say for certain. The greater the distance from our arrival point, the more likely we’d be able to cross the Veil close to our intended destination,” he said. “If we can make at least a full league, that may be sufficient.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “And how far is that in human?”

  “I’d forgotten. You humans no longer measure in leagues,” he said with a smirk. “I believe it’s roughly three and a half of your miles.”

  Well, that was still a lot more mights and maybes than I was comfortable with. At normal walking speed, without having to stop for things that wanted to eat us, murder us, or both, we could make that distance in an hour. But with Zoba in the shape he was, we’d have to figure a little slower than normal. So maybe an hour and a half. If we were lucky.

  I could probably figure out around how much time that would be here. With a calculator—I wasn’t smart enough to do it all in my head. My hand was already in the pocket of the new jeans Bastien and Isalie got for me when I remembered I didn’t have my phone.

  “Hey. Anybody here have a phone?” I said just as Rex came out of the bathroom with a wet towel.

  Senobia stood. “I do,” she said, pulling one from her front pocket. She woke it up and unlocked the screen. “You makin’ a call?”

  “No. I need a calculator.”

  “Okay.” With a slight frown, she tapped the screen a few times and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.”

  We’d been in Arcadia for two days, and ten days had passed here. But now, we were working with a matter of hours. I figured out the number of hours for both time frames—at least I could do that much in my head—and then divided the bigger number by the smaller one.

  The calculator came back with 5.

  I cleared it and handed the phone back. “All right. One hour there is around five hours here,” I said. “It’s almost seven now, and we’ve got until noon tomorrow. So…seventeen hours. That means if we’re in Arcadia more than three hours, we’re screwed.”

  Reun raised an eyebrow. “How did you figure that out so quickly?” he said. “You’ve been to Arcadia only once. Even I’ve not determined such a precise comparison of the time difference.”

  “Er. Two days there, ten days here. Plus math,” I said.

  “Ah, yes. Math.” He smirked. “The Fae have little use for equations.”

  “Good thing I’m only half Fae, then.”

  “Indeed.”

  The door to the suite opened, and Bastien strode in with Isalie right behind him. “They hit a downed tree,” he said. “Cracked a rail, so that’s why there ain’t no power. They gettin’ the backup power going. But this train’s grounded, and they sendin’ another one to transfer folk.” He looked grimly at Denei. “It goan be four, five hours ’til the new one get here, on account of the storm.”

  Her jaw clenched, and she stood abruptly. “Y’all go pack our things,” she said. “We gonna travel the hard way.”

  “What way’s that?” Isalie said.

  I held back a groan. “Through Arcadia.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Even though I’d never been to this part of Arcadia, I knew right away that we were in the land of the Summer Court. All the trees had leaves.

  We were right at the edge of a forest, looking out over a vast field of knee-high grass. I’d come through first and waited as the rest of them stepped from the shimmering portal Reun had opened, with alternating whispered shock and awed silence. The Fae realm might’ve been similar to ours in a basic sense, but it was an alien landscape. Everything was just a little wrong—except for the things that were a lot wrong.

  Eternal night, but not dark. Grass and leaves shading from green to blue to purple to red. And the massive, steel-blue moon, hung in a starless velvet sky.

  At least this exciting little adventure had one advantage. I could already feel my spark recharging, building in me like a hungry flame.

  And part of me felt right at home.

  When I finally managed to stop staring, I turned to find the portal closing. Denei and Bastien stood on either side of Zoba, who could barely stand. The other four, including Reun, carried the bags. Isalie had given me a small backpack for the stuff they’d bought me. I’d already swapped my sneakers for the boots before we crossed over.

  I remembered the marshes.

  “Hoo-ee,” Rex said. “This some crazy shit. Look like Mardi Gras threw up all over this here field, no?”

  “Hush.” Senobia shivered and crossed her arms, panning her gaze across the horizon. Then she looked to the left and froze wide-eyed. “What the hell’s that?”

  I looked, hoping that wasn’t sprites. And I failed to be relieved when it turned out to be something else—something I’d never seen before.

  But I could guess what it was.

  “The Mists.” There was a rough catch in Reun’s voice. “I’d no idea they were so close,” he said. “We must move quickly. This way.”

  I barely noticed them start across the field without me. I was transfixed.

  I’d heard about the Mists. From Taeral first, and then from Nyantha, the ancient Fae who’d known the DeathSpeaker before me and taught me how to speak to the dead without causing myself crippling pain. She called
them agents of change. Said they took things—like people or cottages, or entire forests or villages—that never came back. And anyone who got caught in them died. Kelwyyn, the previous DeathSpeaker, had ended his life by walking into the Mists.

  I’d pictured lots of really dense fog, like a scene from a horror movie or something. But this was…more.

  The Mists were vibrant green. A thick, roiling wall of emerald cloud, cutting across the landscape and rising to blot the sky. It didn’t advance, but there was constant movement, swelling and spilling over, an impossibly huge tidal wave in slow motion. Almost like it was breathing. Occasional jagged, silent bolts of green light flashed intricate pathways just beneath the surface.

  DeathSpeaker. Come to me…

  The whisper pounded through my head like ocean surf. And despite every bit of sanity in me screaming to stop, I found myself taking a step toward that wall of green. Then another, and another.

  Because the Mists had something important to tell me.

  Quickly! There is little time…

  “Gideon!”

  That voice was outside my head. It was enough to tear my gaze away, just in time for Reun to tackle me to the ground.

  He was a lot heavier than he looked.

  “Ow,” I mumble-wheezed into the grass. “Really unnecessary, Reun. Get off.”

  “Was it?” The crushing weight eased, and I coughed out a few unsteady breaths while Reun stood. “You were about to walk into the Mists.”

  I frowned as I pushed to my feet. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Really. Then what in the name of the gods were you doing?”

  Good question. I had no idea what I would’ve done, but for some reason, I’d sensed that I wasn’t in any danger. I also knew there was no chance of explaining that in a way that made sense—because it seemed crazy even to me. “Nothing,” I finally said. “Guess I just wanted a closer look.”

  “At the Mists?” Reun made a horrified face, like I’d just announced I was going to slaughter a dozen puppies. “Are you not aware of what they do? Your predecessor, Mad Kelwyyn—”

  “Yeah. I know.” Nyantha told me about him, too. He had a damned good reason for being mad. He’d somehow figured out a way to destroy souls with a single word, which he’d done exactly once, to save Arcadia from an evil sorcerer. Then the Fae in charge decided he was too powerful, so they killed his daughter. That was when he went crazy.

  Apparently, the Fae were physically unable to commit suicide. Kelwyyn walked into the Mists because it was the only way to end himself, after a few dozen mighty Fae warriors tried and failed to kill him.

  “Look. Let’s just go, okay?” I said. “Sorry about the delay.”

  Reun’s brow furrowed. “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He nodded, and I followed him toward the Duchenes gathered ahead in the field. I only glanced back at the Mists once, when a final message whispered through my brain.

  Find me, DeathSpeaker. Soon.

  We’d been walking for almost an hour when the scenery started to change. Tall grass and patches of forest gave way to flat ground strewn with stone, rolling swells of land patchworked with swaths of heather and bluebell—or whatever the Fae equivalent was—and green-sown cliffs bathed in fog. The normal kind.

  Zoba seemed to be regaining some of his strength, too. Maybe it was the magic of Arcadia, or just being in another realm and hopefully away from Legba’s influence, but he’d started walking on his own about fifteen minutes in. Now he was up to almost regular speed.

  So far, nothing had tried to kill us. But I figured our luck would run out eventually. The sooner we got back to the human realm, the better.

  Not that facing Legba would be any easier than traveling through Arcadia.

  I caught up with Reun, who was leading our grim little procession up a slow-rising hill. “So, where are we headed?” I said.

  “Toward the Seelie palace,” he said. “It is safer on royal ground.”

  “Uh. Safer for who, exactly? I’m Unseelie.”

  “And I am high nobility.” He smirked without looking at me. “Not that I’ve been particularly proud of that lately. But I do know the Seelie King.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t met him, but I knew of him. Uriskel and Cobalt had mentioned him—Braelan, their other brother. They said he hadn’t been king for long, but in Fae terms, ‘not long’ could be fifty or a hundred years, since they could live for thousands. “Hey, while we’re here, can you show me how to do that portal thing?” I said. “Cross the Veil, I mean.”

  Reun glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “I suppose I could try,” he said. “It may be difficult to explain. I’ve never attempted to understand the process.”

  “So it’s just a thing you do, like healing.”

  “More or less.”

  Before he could say anything more, Denei stepped up her pace and tapped his arm. “We gonna head back to the real world soon?” she said. “Not that this ain’t…nice and all, but I wanna make sure we got plenty of time to get to Boko.”

  “Boko?” I said.

  “Boite Boko. Legba’s club.” Her eyes flashed briefly. “He only shows up there when he’s makin’ a deal. Or ending one.”

  The idea that he wanted to make a deal with me made my skin crawl. Especially since I got the impression from Zoba’s vision that he didn’t play fair with the Duchenes when they made theirs. He’d taken the younger ones by force and refused to let them go.

  “Soon, a’stohr,” Reun said. “Once we’ve reached the top of this rise, we’ll be in view of the Valley of Kings, and the Seelie palace. We should be able to cross over from the valley.”

  “Good, ’cause this place is kinda creepy,” she muttered.

  We were about thirty feet from the top, and I’d just allowed myself to think we could leave Arcadia without being attacked when four figures came up from the other side and stopped at the peak. They carried swords, and wore armor made of light. I’d seen armor like that before—but it was blue, and these guys sported gold.

  And they did not look happy to see us.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “That’s the Seelie Guard.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Reun stepped forward and extended his arms, motioning for everyone to stop. “I will deal with this,” he said. “They’ll not harm any of you.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. Most Fae had very little love for humans, and the Seelie definitely had issues with the Unseelie. I hoped Reun’s nobility would be enough to keep them at bay. Because they really looked ready to harm someone.

  “Lord Reun.” One of the guards broke away from the line and started toward us. He was taller than the rest, and he carried the biggest sword. “You seem to have an excessive number of humans,” he said.

  Reun lifted a hand briefly, and then let his arms fall. “Naevahn. I see you’ve been made captain. What an…interesting development.” Somehow he managed to sound surprised and condescending at the same time. “Yes, these humans are with me,” he said. “We’ll not be long in Arcadia. In fact, we are about to cross the Veil and return to the human realm.”

  “I’m afraid you won’t be doing that. Lord.” Naevahn rested a hand on his sword. “Care to tell me why you’re skulking about the Valley with this…collection? And you’ve an Unseelie among you, too.” The captain glared at me. “A young and foolish one, from the looks of him.”

  “What the hell’d he just call us?” Denei said, cutting off my own ill-considered retort. “A collection? Collection of what, Fae?”

  “Enough.” The single word from Reun boomed like thunder, and all four guards cringed. “You will stand aside and let us pass, or the King will hear of this.”

  This was not going well. As I tried to decide whether to interfere with the negotiations, and concluded that was probably a bad idea, Denei slipped back and called the rest of them into a huddle. I glanced over my shoulder and frowned. “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered harshl
y.

  “No time for this bullshit,” she murmured. Bastien and Isalie were pulling pouches and jars from bags, and Zoba had palmed a blade. Rex was chanting something, low and rapid, and Senobia held a small wooden bowl out in the center of the circle. “They won’t stand aside, we’ll knock ’em flat,” Denei said.

  Meanwhile, Naevahn had regained his composure, but he wasn’t paying any attention to the Duchenes. “Aye, the King will hear of it,” he said. “If you’d like, you can tell him yourself. Eventually. You see, we’ve orders to detain you—and we’ll take your humans along, as well.”

  “Really,” Reun said flatly. “And whose orders are those?”

  The captain offered an unpleasant smile. “The King’s.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Instead of answering, Naevahn drew his sword—just as Zoba sliced the knife across his forearm and splashed blood into the bowl to join a small heap of powder and bone fragments. Then Denei scooped the mixture out, darted past Reun, and threw the bloody dust in the Fae captain’s face.

  He screamed and fell writhing to the ground with blood streaming from his eyes.

  Reun stared at her. “That was perhaps not the best course of action, love,” he managed.

  “Like I’m gonna stand here and let these little boys with swords detain us,” she spat. “Any of ’em. Bring it, Fae,” she called to the other three guards.

  Unfortunately, they decided to take her up on the offer.

  “Goddamn it,” I said as the guards charged down the hill. “Guess I’ll take the one on the right?”

  Reun grimaced. “We’ve no choice now,” he said.

  “Yeah, lucky us. At least there’s only three more.”

  “Three.” He laughed with absolutely no humor. “I’d not depend on that.”

  The words didn’t inspire me with confidence.

  I tried to ignore it and focus on the guard coming at me. Denei and Zoba had already engaged one of them, and Reun had blown another back with a spell. The one rushing me had his sword upraised.

  Good thing I’d learned a few tricks the last time I was here.