“Twenty-seven? No. Maybe twenty-nine?” I said. I could hear people breathing in the silence that followed. Maybe I could even hear their heartbeats. “More have been killed since the Basilisk called them than in the whole of the previous Cycle.” I looked around. “They’re not all here, of course; some are in the Lands.”
“But if the Horn blows, they will all come,” Wolf said. “That is what Ice Tor told us.”
Crap. I’d forgotten that. Master of space and time. Great.
“How can there be so many?” Alejandro wondered. “The Songs speak of single Hounds.” He looked at Wolf. “Fives of five, you said.”
“There have been more,” Wolf said. “But even a Five of Hounds is not always together. Perhaps that gives the impression of smaller numbers.”
“People who have met the Hunt and lived have only met the one they killed,” I said. “Anyone who meets more than one generally doesn’t survive.” I thought about Nighthawk and shivered.
“So, the only Songs that tell of the Hunt convey the idea that there were not so very many,” Wolf said.
“But it is too many. Twenty-nine?” Alejandro was shaking his head, upper lip between his teeth. “Even if the others arrive in time, we will be only four. Three swords, a wrist knife, and a dagger? Even if we have killed Hounds before? Even with the Outsiders to distract and injure them?” I could hear the despair in his voice. Then he looked up. “We must approach the High Prince. We would not be asking for a long-term commitment of Riders, but a short, surgical strike. I am sorry.” Wolf had flinched at Alejandro’s words. “Wild Riders,” he continued, slightly less animated. “They all bear gra’if, and even a few would make all the difference.”
“Isn’t it their job?” I asked.
“It is not so simple,” Wolf said. “It is not the way it was before the Cycle turned, and the Wild Riders were exactly as their name describes them. They are pledged to the High Prince now.”
“Then she must give her permission,” Alejandro got to his feet. “Come. We will find the precise spot to take our stand, and I will go for reinforcements.”
Walks Under the Moon brought her left wrist up just in time to jam her gra’if armguard into the mouth of the Hound pushing her to the ground. It yelped, and for a moment Moon thought it would change to something from which an armguard—gra’if or not—could not protect her, but the female grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck and pulled it away.
Moon was not fooled. She already knew that the ones shaped like Riders—such as the one holding on to her right wrist—were no different from the others, the doglike ones, the twisted ones. There were three holding her, two that looked Moonward and one Starward. They were all too thin, the sinews standing out in their hands, and they all smelled wrong somehow, of dust, dried blood, and putrefaction.
The chair was set upright once again, and Moon grimaced as she was pulled back to her feet and shoved into it. The Starward one holding her wrist—Rider-shaped or no—pushed its nose into the curve where her neck met her shoulder and inhaled noisily.
“You can’t blame Hook,” it said, clearly speaking to the female. “She absolutely reeks of dra’aj. It’s like she’s been dipped in friggin’ chocolate.”
“Keep a civil tongue,” the female said. This one appeared to be in charge; at least, the other three obeyed her.
“I wish I could understand you,” Moon said. “It seems you are speaking to one another, but all I hear are growls and barks.”
Moon’s head was yanked back by the hair, as the female was suddenly beside her. “Don’t think you can make us angry enough to kill you, Rider bitch. You wouldn’t even know how to begin insulting us.” The female grinned, showing pointed teeth. “I can see from your eyes that you understand me.”
Moon pressed her lips together, tight. Her eyes might give her away, but she had no intention of saying another word.
Something licked the inside of her ankle and despite herself she stiffened and tried to pull away. She already knew that with them clinging to her, she could not Move away from her captors. She would have taken the chance, but once they knew that she would try it, they kept distracting her—licking her, sniffing her, pinching her limbs–till she lacked the necessary concentration to Move at all. If she had been at home, in the Lands, where there were so many places she knew better than the inside of her own head, she could have managed it. But here? What would be the point in Moving to Elaine’s home, or Wolf’s, if it meant the Hunt would come with her?
“She smells so ripe.” This was the one who’d been sniffing her neck. “Are you sure we can’t eat her?”
Moon swallowed, trying not to show any reaction—not because she was pretending not to understand, but because she knew she would lose by it if she showed them any fear.
Let them not guess about the child.
“Pack Leader says we keep her safe,” the female said. There was a little growl in her voice, but she sounded as though she were laughing.
The Moonward Hound holding Moon’s left ankle tickled her foot. “Pack Leader’s not here,” he said.
The female cuffed him across the back of the head, but again, Moon had the feeling it was done almost affectionately. “Good thing, too, or you’d have paid for that remark.”
“What we mean is,” this was the one holding her right ankle, the one who’d tried to bite her, and whom she’d beaten with her gra’if armguard. “We’re your Five, River. You decide for us.”
“And Fox decides for me, Hook,” the one called River said.
“But you’re his favorite, everyone knows that. He listens to you.”
“Make your point, Hook.”
Moon jumped as the one holding her left hand twisted her thumb enough to make her squeak.
“She’s got so much dra’aj, like as much as three or four Fives of humans. And while we’re here, guarding her, we can’t feed.”
“Go on.”
“So just a little taste,” the Moonward one said. “Just, like, a human’s worth.”
“Each,” cut in the other Moonward.
“Yeah, each. That still leaves her more than half, so she’d still be safe.” He grinned and, leaning in, licked Moon on the cheek—and pulled away howling when she struck him on the ear with her gra’if.
Very likely she would be safe, if they actually could control themselves enough to take only some of her dra’aj—something Moon very much doubted—but she would lose the child, and what would become of Lightborn’s dra’aj then?
River leaned her hip against the Hound on the left and trailed her fingers through Moon’s hair. “Well, it’s true we can’t hunt.”
You could go out one at a time. Moon was very proud she had not said that aloud. The temptation to save herself, to buy time for herself and Lightborn’s child, time with the lives of others, was so very great. But she could not save herself at the risk of others, not even humans. Not if she expected to face her sister again.
Stop it, she thought. So long as she thought she might live through this, her hope gave the Hunt leverage over her. She took that advantage away from them if she was not afraid to die. What was it Max and her sister had said once? “The way of the warrior is death.” It was some old human philosophy. The idea was that you knew you were going to die, so you stopped being afraid of it, and once you had stopped being afraid, no one could use that fear against you. No one could make you do something you would despise yourself for, merely to live.
But the child. Moon flexed her right hand. The Hounds were still talking.
“We don’t know how long this is going to take,” one of them was saying. “I know Pack Leader said sunset, but what if there’s negotiations? What if there’s bargaining?”
“He can’t mean us to starve, that’s for sure,” the one called River said.
Moon licked her lips, her hands forming fists despite her intention to relax them.
“We can’t Fade her,” River said. “That’s all. We need her as a hostage. We have
to give her back when the agreement’s made.”
“What if the agreement’s not made?” The Moonward one on the right almost sounded hopeful.
“Well, then it won’t matter,” River said. “We can have her for sure then.” Her brow furrowed as she thought. “No, the thing is this, she’s so tricky, that if we’re not strong enough to hold her, she could still Move, and we’d lose her entirely. So we’ve got to stay strong and alert, to keep her.” She smiled around at her followers, who all smiled back at her. “Get it? If we damaged her a little, just a little, like you said, Hook, she’d be less likely to escape as well. So, damaged is okay, so long as we don’t Fade her. We’ll take just enough to stay alert ourselves—not even as much as a whole human.”
“Dibs!” The Starward Hound sank its teeth into Moon’s left arm. Even through the pain, Moon could feel a slight vibration, as though the beast was howling, or humming as it bit down. Almost immediately, Moon’s wrist and hand turned cold, until she could not feel her fingers. She tried to pull away, but it was like trying to move a Tree.
A different sensation made her look at her right wrist, where she saw her gra’if armguard glowing bright, like a flame of metal, hot, almost too hot to bear. But that heat suffused her, rushing through all her limbs, burning away the cold that had claimed her left hand, burning away even the smell of the Hound, and the feel of his teeth.
And he was not biting her any longer. He had fallen away from her as if thrown by a Troll, and even before hitting the ground he began changing, flickering through so many shapes—and so quickly—that it was too fast to follow. Once Moon thought she saw a unicorn’s horn, and once claws that could have belonged to many a Guidebeast, but nothing more. A horrible keening sound began, like the highest note of a damaged flute, and the Hound settled into its Rider shape once more, its lips burned black and peeling away, skin flaking, bones collapsing in on themselves until there was only a small pile of dog-shaped dirt on the floor, and even that Faded completely away.
Only those who bore gra’if could kill a Hound, Moon realized. Or at least that was what so many of the old Songs told. Moon’s heart thundered within her. She had not thought of her armguard as a weapon in that sense, she had not known gra’if would stop the Hunt from feeding, no Song spoke of it as a defensive weapon. Would she live long enough to tell anyone else?
Suddenly Moon realized she was free. In the confusion, her captors had released her. She closed her eyes, subtracted the floor with its oil stains, the hardness of the chair under her, the smell of dust, and dried blood and putrefaction. Added the silk and linen upholstery of Elaine’s couch, added the sea mist scent of her air freshener, added—
Searing pain in her left arm as her elbow seemed to explode. She was cheek down in the dirt of the floor, skin abraded on the concrete.
“Oh, no, you don’t, prey. No. You. Don’t.” River was kneeling on Moon’s shoulders, grinding her face into the concrete, her left arm with its broken elbow hauled up behind her back.
“Okay, okay. Settle down, you two!” Whimpers in the background faded almost to silence. “Get her feet, again. Now!” Moon felt long, hard fingers take hold of each ankle.
“All right. Okay. We can’t drain you. Fine. But that only buys you time, prey. And not much of it. We can still kill you, you know. We could tear your arm off.”
Maybe it was the new knowledge she had. Maybe it was the note of annoyed fear in the female’s voice. Maybe it was only hysteria. But Moon began to laugh.
Chapter Twenty-three
I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE FOUND the shell of Maple Leaf Gardens impressive if I hadn’t just been to the Lands, and in the halls of Ice Tor—if they really were halls. After that, even the grand scale of deconstruction inside this downtown landmark couldn’t move me much. It was cold inside the building, all that stone and concrete insulating us from the warm summer afternoon outside. It smelled of wet cement, and dust. I was careful to keep my elbows and hands tucked in, especially around the machinery. I didn’t want to be picking up on any of the workmen.
Alejandro had already gotten as far as the spot Nik had described as the cleared central space when he turned around, looking at Wolf, eyebrows raised. Wolf nodded, his head up, his nostrils spread wide. “They have indeed been denning here, though they are not here now.”
This cleared spot in the center of the construction didn’t look very large to my eye, but like I said, my perspective had become a little distorted. Alejandro walked a little farther away from us, his steps sharp and precise, chin up, left hand in a fist propped on his hip as he looked around. It took me a minute to remember where I’d seen that particular posture before. In the bullring. That was how Alejandro Martín must have stood, many hundreds of times, looking up at the cheering crowds.
“What’s he looking at?” I hadn’t realized that Nik was standing so close to me.
“The crowds,” I said. “The crowds in the stands of the Plaza de Toros.”
“He was a bullfighter?”
I shook my head, my eyes still on Alejandro, and the invisible corrida. “A matador.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?”
I blinked and turned to face Nik. “No. A bullfighter is a toreador. Matador means killer, the one who actually kills the bull. Un matador de toros. A killer of bulls. Un matador de hombres. A killer of men.”
“He’s done both, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he has.”
Nik was quiet for a few minutes, watching as Wolf joined Alejandro. The two Riders started pointing around them and gesturing at the small hills created out of the construction debris, and the hiding spots afforded by the equipment. Alejandro pulled out his mobile and started talking into it. I wondered if the Riders he was calling would get here in time.
Nik turned to face me, taking my right hand in his. It was late in the day, and his beard was coming in. It suddenly struck me that the Riders I’d seen were either bearded or not; none of them ever needed a shave.
Alejandro and Wolf turned their heads suddenly, looking behind us. I spun around, but Nik’s touch on my arm steadied me.
“It’s Poco,” he said. The thin man had brought along about a dozen other Outsiders, four of them carrying either shotguns or rifles, don’t ask me which. I recognized the guy I’d seen in the lobby of the Royal York, on the day I’d met Wolf. Yves, that was his name. He had a crossbow.
“Hey, Nik. You must be Val.” Poco gave each of us a nod before tilting his head back to stare at the space around us. “Sure is something, isn’t it? Didn’t look anywhere near so big when the Leafs were still playing here.” He brought his eyes back down to us. “You figured out where you want us?”
“We’ve got some ideas, yeah. Follow me.” Poco signaled the others, and Nik led them away.
Once they’d gone, I settled down on a chunk of concrete. It had been part of a stairwell at one time, but so many feet had used it over the years that it was the inanimate equivalent of the living city around me. Nothing but buzz and white noise. I was glad to be sitting down. My heart was pounding, my palms damp. I thought about Moon and her child. I hoped they were going to be safe, and I wished there was a way for me to know. The Horn would be blown. Right now, that was about all I could be sure of.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching Alejandro and Wolf. They were a study in contrasts, and not just because one was Moonward black and the other Sunward red. Alejandro looked like his normal human self—even when we’d been in the Lands, I now realized, he’d retained his Hector Vega suit. But now that he was distracted, Wolf’s clothing looked less human. His jacket was longer, the material was more silver-gray than blue, and it looked as though it was brocaded with some kind of animal. His gra’if glowed slightly in the dimness.
What was coming would be harder for Wolf to face than anything he’d come up against before, even his Healing. That, as he’d said several times, had been forced on him. Sure, he was happy about it now, but it wasn’t as though he’d planned it�
��he’d never even had the chance to say no. Now, on the other hand, he was deliberately planning to ambush his own brother, and he had plenty of time to think about it, to second-guess the plans—even to wonder if he could trust himself.
Alejandro still stood with his head up, eyes narrowed, thin lips pulled to one side in an ironic smile—just as if he was hearing, somewhere in the distance, a glory of trumpets. As if imagining the crowd on their feet, and their “¡olés!” echoing off the rafters far above us. Was he feeling it, too? The fire in the blood, the imminent danger, the possibility that, today, it would be the bull that walked away?
I’d seen a glimpse of this fiery being in the days after Alejandro had rescued me from the Collector. Maybe once or twice since, like when he’d come back from Granada that time, after killing the Basilisk Warrior. But more in the last few days. The spark, the glint in his eye, told me a part of him was enjoying this very much.
He seemed so alive, almost glowing. In that moment I wondered what would happen if we all lived through this. I wondered whether Alejandro would be able to find something to give him this zest for living again. Maybe living with me in our nice house in the Beaches would be too tame? Could he go back to the corridas? Turn himself into a younger man and start again from the bottom, with a new face and a new name? Or maybe he could go into the military once again.
I also wondered whether any of us would live through this. I knew what I had to do, but I still wasn’t sure why. There was so much at stake that, for the first time, it was actually hard for me to trust my ability. And there wasn’t anyone I could ask for advice.
“You are very serious.” I’d been thinking so hard I hadn’t noticed Wolf come up beside me.
“I’m thinking about what Alejandro will do when the adventure is over,” I said.
“It’s a way of distracting oneself.” I turned to him in surprise, and not only because this was the first time I’d heard him use a contraction. “To think about what one will do afterward makes the present seem less full of danger,” he added.
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