Hound of Night (Veil Knights Book 2)

by Rowan Casey

  I went up. Always up. It felt like it took hours and my legs were heavy and burning with lactic pain by the end of it. But finally, after an age, I dragged myself over a rise and stood in front of a tower and keep that looked so familiar I almost thought I must have gotten turned around somewhere and come back to what the rat guard had called Nornland.

  That would have been fine by me at that moment if it meant more soup and more beer. But there was no wooden gateway door here. There had been once but it had long since been torn forcibly from great hinges on the wall and its old timbers lay, rotting, just outside the entrance. I stood there for a long moment, looking around, listening for movement. The air felt still inside the keep, shielded from the breeze, and I tasted it again—dead ash, but this time I didn't think it was from trees. Bodies lay strewn on the ground. They were Norn, wingless, bodies—men, women and children, little more than decayed skeletons that were already more ash than bone. Despite the long years since their passing, the cause of death was pretty plain. I didn't have to look hard to see that they'd been torn to pieces and many of the bones showed teeth marks. Not big teeth, not hound, but smaller, more rat-like. I could have called out, just to check I was indeed alone, but there was no need. The stillness told me all I needed to know.

  There was a bar here, too, in the same equivalent spot. The door was open so I didn't even need to enter to see that it too was a place of the dead. Soup had not been the primary food served here. The busted, broken remains of a small hand-harp lay strewn in a corner. It had been a while since this place had any songs, any joy.

  I had to wipe tears from my eyes as I stepped away. The tower loomed high over me, but suddenly I didn't even want to look at it. I wanted to be in the Twa Dugs, having a beer, singing the old songs with folks that wanted to hear them, wanted to remember what they'd meant to somebody, once upon a time.

  I was almost so lost in my own fugue, gone in grief, I didn’t notice a massive figure appear in the dark doorway of the tower until if stepped out into the courtyard and unfurled huge wings that spread from keep wall to keep wall. Its head turned and it looked down at me from almost two feet higher than my hairline.

  "Should have gone to the beach," it said, swished a long, pink, bald tail with a crack like a whip, and launched straight at me.

  I considered standing firm, but this one was bigger, heavier, and faster than the other, and it had plenty of space in which to maneuver in the courtyard. If I was to best it, I had to keep moving myself, for it would overwhelm me in a one to one grapple.

  I rolled to my left and tried the same move I had with the other on the bridge, but this one saw it coming, and its wings lifted it high enough away from me that I barely touched it.

  "If you wanted to tickle my balls, you only had to ask," it said, turning to face me as it landed.

  "I'm more of a foot man myself," I replied, stepped inside the wings and slammed the staff down with all my strength on the top of its left big toe. It hopped and squealed, and I took advantage by stepping in close and slamming the staff between its legs, and this time it worked as well as it had earlier.

  "How's that? Nice enough for you?" I said.

  It roared its pain at me until I smacked it in the belly—the same move that had worked with Black worked with this beast, too. It gave out a whoof as all its breath left it in a rush, and doubled it over in pain. That just served to bring its head into range and I obliged by smacking the staff with all my strength into its skull.

  The beast went down like a stone, raising a puff of ash as it hit the ground, very noticeably dead. But its head had been harder than the other. The staff hung in my hand—almost in two pieces, having cracked two thirds of the way through with the force of the blow.

  There was a rustling in the tower doorway, wings, a great many wings, and chittering, high yells and shrieks, coming down an interior stairwell from higher up, getting closer fast. I was about to be attacked from the doorway and I had no weapon.

  A voice I knew only too well shouted at me. It came from somewhere even higher up above my head.

  "Seton, catch," it said.

  I looked up just in time to avoid being smacked on the head by a falling staff, my own staff. Reflexes took over and I put up a hand and pulled it out of the air before it hit ground. It was indeed my weapon, and it had the hound's leash wrapped around it tight. The old leather made for a good handgrip as I took guard.

  Winged rodents started to fill the tower doorway as the voice shouted again from above.

  "Now do your bloody job and rescue the maiden."

  18

  I spent most of my life not wanting to disappoint Face, and even with our current problem, I wasn't about to start now. The first winged beast came out of the doorway in a rush, wings unfurling. It was smaller, this one, no taller than I am, but it didn't really matter. The quarter-staff met its head and it was dead of surprise more than anything else as I stepped over it.

  Its brethren cowered in the doorway, suddenly fearful. From the sound of their chittering and the flutter of wings I guessed they filled the stairwell, maybe even all the way to the top, a hundred yards or so above us. It was of no matter, I was headed up, and where I gripped the staff and the leash that was wrapped around it, the power of the hound poured into me, through me, filling me with something that felt like music and tasted of joy. I howled in delight as I walked into the tower, the quarter-staff swinging in a blur of movement and dance.

  I went up and the beasts died trying to stop me. They had little with which to hurt me but their talons, and they had no room in which to take flight. I struck and they fell. I was the hound and the hound was me and the hunt was on us.

  I went up.

  They tried to flee from me, but their sheer numbers meant they were crammed tight in the stairwell that wound around and inside an inner wall of the tower. There might have been a hollow central core of the edifice, but they had no way of reaching it. They died by the score and I howled with each one that fell, then stepped up over blood and bone and broken skull to the next one.

  I don't know how long it went. I didn't tire, the hound didn't tire, and the winged things didn't stop dying in a flurry of quarter-staff and wings, teeth and blood and pleading eyes, broken skulls and the urge to go higher.

  And then there were none.

  I stood on a landing at the top of a flight of stairs strewn with the bloody bodies of fallen beasts and when I took a hand off the quarter-staff the compulsion left me as quickly as it had come. I had a fleeting moment of sadness, like you feel at the end of a well-loved piece of music, then that too was gone and everything suddenly felt too still, too dead.

  There were no more stairs. There was also no more up. I was faced with a wall of stone ahead of me.

  "Face?" I shouted.

  "In here," came a muffled reply, from through the wall ahead of me.

  "How do I get to you?"

  "You're the hero, think of something."

  "I'll just huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down, that kind of thing?"

  I heard her laugh even through the thick stone. I remembered the power—the joy—the hound had given me as I fought my way up here. I gripped the staff two-handed again, in the same movement brought it round to strike the wall, hard.

  The hound howled, the old stone rang and trembled, the vibration running all through the tower. I felt it in the soles of my feet.

  "Harder!" Face shouted.

  I hit the wall again, and again. Whatever power the leather leash was giving me, it strengthened not only myself, but the staff as well, for the wood was proving harder than the rock, which crumbled and fell beneath my blows.

  "Little pig, little pig, let me come in," I shouted, and she laughed again. I was finding it hard to mistrust a woman who had given away her advantage, the leash itself, to me so readily to help me out of a tight spot, and her laughter gave further force to my blows. It was Face in there—my Face—the voice of my youth.

  The sta
ff felt like a sledgehammer in my hands, and I battered that old stone wall until it submitted. It fell inward with a crash and I stepped forward.

  Face's room, her prison I guessed, looked much like the one where I'd found Agnes; same circular design, same cold stone walls, a cot bed in an alcove and a cauldron over a fuel-free fire. There was no shelf of sentimental knick-knacks—and Face was most definitely no aged crone. She was Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Pocahontas, a fairytale princess straight off the drawing board. Actually, she was all of them at once, yet at the same time a shining, gleaming, larger than life maiden with golden hair, perfect teeth, a smile to melt the heart of a bishop and a flowing dress that clung to all the right places. My tower princess.

  She came into my arms at a tiny-steps run, hair flying in a mane behind her. This was the Hollywood moment.

  Or, it should have been. But the feeling of having her in my arms was awkward, like dancing in public with a maiden aunt; everything that should have been so right felt so wrong.

  I pushed her away from me.

  "John?" she said. The smile was still there full-force, but now that I was looking for it I saw the devious cast in her glance, hidden deep, but not deep enough to avoid being spotted by another grifter just as good as she was at the game. "I'm so glad you came, I knew you'd come."

  "I bet you did," I replied. "You know me so well."

  This reunion wasn't going the way she'd expected. I saw that in her eyes, too. And yet, there was part of me that just wanted to pull her close, and have her tell me everything was all right and would always be all right. But it wasn't the strongest part of me, not any more. I kept her at arm's length as she tried to hug against me again.

  "Why didn't you help me?" I asked.

  She didn't answer, but she stretched out a hand. I thought it was to motion me toward her. But she was after something else. The leather uncoiled from the quarter-staff and fell to the floor where it started to writhe and squirm. I'd seen this trick before. A hound's head began to lift itself out of the snaking coils. It snuffled, testing the air, and found what is was after. Green eyes. big as fists, opened and turned on me. The chamber filled with a deep, grumbling, growl as the hound formed out of the writhing mass of leather.

  "Stay down," I said softly. "There's a good boy."

  And to my surprise, the dance of the leather went quiet, as if it had obeyed me. And buoyed by that small success, I decided to try my luck a bit further.

  "Good pup," I said softly. "Come here."

  The leather started to move again, not toward Face, but back over toward the staff, back toward me. The head and shoulders was out of the morass now, and pulling itself, and the rest of the rapidly solidifying body behind. It was still growing, almost filling a full half of the chamber already. It howled, as if in pain, and the sound echoed around us. And still it came toward me.

  But my small triumph was short lived.

  Face put her fingers to her lips and whistled, three times, the sound piercing my skull as if a knife had been thrust through it. The hound raised its head and whimpered and the leather surged, falling away again into wriggling snakes—scores tens, then only one again. It snaked away and over the flagstones and up into Face's hand, up over her arm, and was sitting coiled there even before the echo of the whistle had died in my skull.

  "Did you think I'd just let you keep it?" Face said.

  "Tell me why you wanted it in the first place?" I asked. "What use is the leash to you, here?"

  She smiled and pointed at the broken wall.

  "I don't have to stay here now, do I? Thanks to you. My hero."

  The sarcasm was there full blast this time, she wasn't hiding it any more.

  "You still didn't answer me, though. I know what's out there. I've walked through it. You're better off in here. So why am I here? I think I deserve an answer."

  "We could do that, or we could go and help your pal, George," she replied. "It's your call."

  I didn't know what she was on about until she motioned toward the window. Swirling fog filled the frame, then parted, and I looked through to the beach house in Malibu. The brightness almost blinded me, and the expanse of blue, shining sea was all I could see at first before the scene dimmed. My eyes got used to it, and I saw George sitting on the long sofa, flanked on either side by Black's gorillas, each of them with an automatic pistol in their lap. They looked to be waiting for something—me, at a guess.

  "Don't go anywhere," I said to Face. "I'll be back."

  I walked toward the window, thinking about George, about the view over the way blue yonder, about beer and coffee, eggs, ham and hash browns and the smell of his cigarettes. Cold fog, heavy weight—the transition was starting to feel familiar, almost natural.

  Then there was a new weight on me. Face pressed herself against my back, wrapped her arms around me and came with me as I stepped through into the beach house.

  I didn't have time to pay attention to her. I came through close to one of George's guards. It was a matter of a second to put him down, for my sudden arrival caught him completely by surprise and he didn't even try to raise his weapon. The staff cracked hard into his chest and he fell away, coughing up blood from busted ribs.

  The other one was faster. He raised his pistol even as I turned from his partner. George took care of him; an elbow in the face, a shove to put him on the floor, and a kick in the head to keep him there. I felt warm air in my face, a deep chill being lifted from me. The cold lasted longer than the action.

  "You took your time," George said as he stood from the sofa.

  "He was helping a lady out with an old problem," Face said, and laughed.

  Both George and I looked over. She had already moved away from me and stood by the door leading out onto the balcony.

  "I'll have the leash now, Face," I said. "You've got what you wanted."

  "Dream on, lover," she replied. "I didn't go to all this trouble just to hand it over to a boy. Besides, I don't think you have a scooby what somebody like me might want."

  "I don't understand," I replied, but I feared that I did.

  She waved with her fingers, and leapt, graceful as a cat, over the balcony. By the time I reached it there was no sign of her, although I looked both ways along the long stretch of the sands. Her last words as she jumped stayed with me for much longer.

  "Once a mark, always a mark."

  Part III

  Faster Than The Hound

  19

  George made sure the two gorillas were going to stay down, then headed for his phone.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "I'm going to make these buggers disappear," he replied. "Then I’m going to do something about selling yon wee book, and seeing if we can turn this situation to our favor before Black sends anybody else after us."

  "Give me a second before you do anything," I replied. I looked down to the table. The book, and the two hand mirrors were still there. One of the surfaces filled with a gossamer mist as I bent over it.

  "Agnes, are you there, darling?"

  "I'll be your huckleberry," she said.

  "At least somebody loves me. Hold this for me, please?"

  I handed her the quarter-staff, feeding it through slowly.

  "Will ye no' come back again?" she sang after it was all the way through.

  "I'll have some company for you soon," I said. "I promise."

  George raised an eyebrow at that, and raised it higher still when I stood away from the mirrors and turned to him.

  "Have you got, or can you get, Black's number? I want to talk to him. I need some info before we do anything, but I think I've got a plan."

  George, as always, knew a man who knew a man, and had Black's cell number in short order.

  "Are you sure about this?" George asked.

  I didn't answer. I didn't want him talking me out of anything, not when I was just about to do something rash. As I dialed the number, I was hoping I hadn't hit Black too hard. If he had bee
n hospitalized, my plan was dead in the water already. But it wasn't one of his gorillas that answered, it was the man himself, although he didn't sound his usual, almost urbane self He sounded groggy, as if he was doped up to the eyeballs. I know I would have been after a crack on the head like that.

  The call was as fraught as I might have expected. Actually, that's an understatement, as he threatened to kill me, my family, my friends, my pets and anybody I'd ever smiled at since I was born. He didn't calm down when I asked him how his headache was doing, either. He was unconcerned about the two unconscious men we had on the floor, one of whom definitely needed a hospital; blood bubbled at his lips as he breathed. I doubt Black would even have blinked if George made good on his plan to make them disappear, so I appealed to his baser nature, I knew it was the stronger. He went quiet when I told him he could have his book back—and both mirrors—and the leash—if he would help me.

  "I know Setons are generally men of their word," he said softly. "But if you think you can trick me on this one I'll…"

  "I know, disembowel the first born of every Seton on the planet, I get it, I really do. But I also really need your help. Or rather, I need info that's probably in your library."

  "What is it precisely that you're after?"

  "Anything you have on Norn, three sisters, and how to imprison them."

  He went very quiet at that.