“Fuck. It’s the Wild Hunt.” I stared at the laptop and ran my hand back through my hair.
It made sense. A once a year reaping, in an area the original inhabitants considered to be cursed, with strange lights and monsters that hunted in a pack and “swooped” down from the sky.
I re-read the lore around the Wild Hunt. People all over Europe had told stories for hundreds of years about a frightening cavalcade of spirits that rode the night skies during winter and harvested unlucky souls who would be doomed to ride with them forever. The baying of ghostly hounds and the clatter of spectral hoof beats went right along with the legend.
Some of the stories blamed the fey, while others said Odin himself led the hunt. Still more named the Erlking or Perchta as the leaders, frightening creatures known for a taste for blood. No matter who was in charge, the Hunt looked like an invincible foe.
I’d need to think about how to defeat the Wild Hunt, and no good ideas came to mind. So, in the meantime, I figured it might help to learn a little more about the men who vanished.
“Hey Steve,” I said, calling up my cop friend. “I need a favor.”
Two hours later, Steve Louden and I had holed up in the back booth at Patterson’s Diner with a slew of folders spread across the table plus my laptop and two bottomless cups of coffee. Unlike Sheriff Sumbitch, I trusted Steve, who had been one of the guys who hauled my ass out of the woods when the wendigo attacked. Lucky for me, he also knew about the kind of creatures I hunted.
“Thirty guys vanished, one at a time, over five years, and no one blinks?” I asked.
Steve looked a little offended. “We investigated,” he replied tartly. “We just didn’t find anything to go on. Look at the reports.”
I sighed. “Didn’t mean it the way it sounded,” I said, trying to smooth things over. “One at a time, it probably didn’t seem connected.”
“Oh, we tried to find connections,” Steve corrected me. “We looked at serial killer profiles, tried to see if there were aggressive bears, or maybe a cougar. Nothing.”
“And you’re sure the men actually were out hunting when they vanished?” I had to ask. “They didn’t just pull a runner?”
Steve passed a hand over his face. “We thought of that, too. Believe me, we would have preferred to find out that they were alive and living with a stripper in Vegas than just gone—poof—off the face of the Earth. But nothing.” He took a swig of coffee and smiled as the server came by with a refill.
“And here’s the thing—most people who decide to chuck it all and disappear slip up sooner or later. They use a credit card or access an ATM or get pulled over for speeding. Something from their past trips them up, and they show up on the radar. But these guys? Nada.”
I flipped the nearest folder open. Marvin Keller had been forty-five years old. Divorced. No kids. Lost his job when a local factory shut down and ended up working as a janitor. Huh. I reached for the next folder. Rick Vernon had a similar story. Lost a nasty enough custody battle with his ex-wife that the cops thought she might have offed him. On probation at work for coming in late and hungover. The third file told the sad tale of Burt Walker, recently widowed, retired, with no close family and few friends. One of the notes said that witnesses claimed he took long walks at all hours and had seemed depressed.
“What?” Steve asked. “You’ve got that look.”
I smirked. “Who, me?” I put down the file and looked at the rest of the folders. “Can you tell me if all of the men who vanished could have been considered depressed, maybe even suicidal?”
Steve frowned. “You think they killed themselves? We would have found bodies.”
I shook my head. “No. But some supernatural entities are attracted to negative emotions. The three files I read had the blues written all over them. You said the victims were all different ages, incomes, professions, hell, even ethnicity. So there has to be something in common because other guys went hunting around the same time and walked back out.”
It only took us a few minutes to comb through the rest of the files and confirm my theory. Steve slid down into his seat and drained his coffee. “Shit. You’re right. They all had good reasons to be depressed.” He looked up at me, confusion clear on his face. “But still, there are probably hundreds of people around here who are having a rough time of it. They don’t disappear into thin air. Why these guys?”
I shrugged. “Wrong place at the wrong time. They didn’t vanish walking down the sidewalk. They were out in the ass end of nowhere in an area that scared the crap out of the tribes that used to live here. That stretch of forest has probably belonged to the Wild Hunt for a lot longer than there’s been a town.”
“What did it do for victims before then?” Steve challenged. “Or when the area was closed to hunting for about a hundred years. Long time to go without a meal.”
I nursed my coffee, thinking. “The Wild Hunt doesn’t eat the people it takes. At least, not according to most legends. It kinda shanghais them to ride along forever. But maybe some people are more willing than others.”
“So you think maybe even when the forest was off limits, it, what, called people to the hunt?”
“Maybe. There are cliffs with a reputation for enticing suicidal people to their deaths,” I replied. “All those lovers’ leap places.”
Steve straightened as a thought hit him. “How are you going to stop it?”
“Haven’t figured it out yet, but I’ll come up with something.”
“Can you shoot them? You know, silver bullets and all?”
“No idea, but probably not. And if there’s a whole group plus a pack of hounds, I’d need an AK.”
“We tend to discourage those for deer hunting,” Steve remarked.
“At least, if you want anything left of the deer.”
“Do you need backup?” he offered. “I have a couple of friends who are retired from the force, and they’d come out with us, no questions asked.”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t want to put anyone else in danger since it’s not like we can ambush them. I’m going to go back and look over the lore again. There’s got to be a way around this without going in full metal jacket.”
“If we don’t close the area off, it’ll keep happening.”
“Yeah. Can’t tell the Park Service the truth, but maybe there’s something dangerous to blame the disappearances on that gets that area blocked as a hazard.”
“I’ll work on it,” Steve promised, finishing the last of his coffee. “I’ve got some friends who might be able to pull some strings. Just, be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” I said with a laugh. “Sara has already warned me that she’ll haul my sorry soul back from Purgatory and rip me a new one if I let anything happen.”
Steve grinned. “Good. She’s a fearsome woman, and a damned good catch if you can hang onto her,” he added.
“I intend to do my best,” I replied. And to my surprise, I realized that I meant it.
The afternoon passed quickly as I poured over all the information I could find about the Wild Hunt, not just on the regular internet, but on the Occulatum’s Dark Web hunter information sites and some other, more dodgy sources that catered to customers working both sides of the supernatural street.
Now and again, I heard Sara singing to herself as she and the housekeeper made up the rooms, cleaned, and went through their daily routine. I hadn’t really thought about what it took to keep the place running. Sara seemed to enjoy the work, as well as the constant stream of new people and returning guests who came through the inn and who became instant friends.
Doubt stabbed at me again. Sara and I were tiptoeing into…something. We had barely gotten past a kiss goodnight, but I felt a stronger attraction to her than I’d felt to anyone since Lara and I broke up. I wondered if she felt the same, and what that would eventually lead to. We both had baggage, but mine seemed heavier, and whether or not I was much of a catch seemed highly debatable. Still, she hadn’t kicked me to the curb, so maybe all wasn’t lost quite yet.
Reluctantly, I turned back to my research. Depending on the version of the story I read, there were a few loopholes for dealing with the Wild Hunt. Running away and covering your ears was the most popular. I couldn’t blame anyone for that, but it wasn’t going to accomplish my goal.
A few of the legends involved tricking the leader of the Hunt with a riddle. I sucked at knock-knock jokes and was worse at riddles, even the ones that came in fortune cookies and inside gum wrappers.
Some stories said that the leader gave each man a choice before conscripting him into his ghostly posse, while others made it sound more like a raid for hostages. But one or two tales involved a bargain, either a promise to be kept or some kind of barter. That sounded more promising than anything else I’d read, but I had no idea what to get for a dead guy who had everything.
As I debated the possibilities, I heard a knock at the door. “Come in,” I called.
Sara poked her head inside. “Is coffee too much of an interruption?”
I smiled. “Never. Especially not if you brought two cups.”
She returned the smile. “Just one cup, but there’s a whole pot so you can have refills.” She set the tray with the coffee on the other side of the table and perched on the edge of the second chair. “Find anything useful?”
I didn’t want to worry her more than necessary, so I withheld the insights gained from going over the missing men’s files. “I think I’ve got a lead or two. Still trying to come up with a plan.”
“Is that how it works for you? Run in first, make it up as you go?”
I couldn’t quite get a fix on her tone, but I figured it for a mix of worry and warning.
“Problem is, you can make all the pretty plans you want, and it all goes to hell once you’re in the thick of things,” I said, pouring a cup of coffee and taking a gulp that burned the whole way down. “I try to be prepared,” I nodded toward the laptop, “and have a couple of game plans in mind. But when it all comes down to the wire, that’s when you’ve got to improvise.” I paused. “And it’s not just me. I’ve heard it from all the hunters I know.”
Sara sighed. “I understand. Truly. My brother was in the army, and he said the same thing about battles. Lots of nice plans and maps, and then it all goes ass-side upwards when the shooting starts.”
“Steve’s going to see if he can get the wheels turning to put that part of the forest out of bounds again.”
“In case you can’t kill whatever it is?”
I sucked down the rest of the coffee and poured more. “I’m pretty sure I can’t kill it. But I might be able to make some kind of deal with it.”
She frowned. “Don’t sell your soul. I kinda like you the way you are.”
Despite her joking tone, I felt a strange warmth in my chest at her words. “Thanks. Me too—I mean, I like you—”
“I know,” she chuckled and patted my knee. “But seriously, don’t put yourself in a corner. Aren’t supernatural creatures supposed to be greedy? Maybe there’s a way to bribe it—”
My eyes widened. I leaned forward and gave her a big kiss. “That’s it! You’re a genius!”
She kissed me back, and the warmth over my heart went south quickly. I shifted, hoping she didn’t notice, but kind of happy that apparently, the rest of my body liked her just fine, too.
“Don’t tell me now. I’ll just worry. But when you come back,” she added, “I want to hear all about it. Maybe we can celebrate.” Her eyes promised mischief, and perhaps more.
“That sounds like the kind of plan I can stick to.”
Every hunt feels different. Sometimes, the adrenaline buzz is like good whiskey, only it doesn’t dull the senses, it sharpens them until it feels like I could see like a hawk, hear like a wolf, react like a cheetah. Other times, there’s ice in my belly, and time seems to slow down like in one of those movies where people hover in midair when they kick someone. That doesn’t actually happen, but it feels like it could.
Tonight, I thought I might throw up.
I had my gear bag over my shoulder and my shotgun in hand, for all the good it would do me. I couldn’t fire salt rounds fast enough to take on an entire hunting party of ghosts, and I didn’t figure that just shooting the leader would make the rest of them leave. Ditto for the iron crowbar and the silver knives—they worked great one-on-one, but I was wading into one of those big fox hunts like on TV, only everybody but me was dead. Well, me and any foxes that might be dumb enough to get close.
Sara hadn’t been around when I left, and I figured it spared both of us an awkward parting. I planned to come back, more or less in one piece, but no hunt is a sure thing, and this one certainly wasn’t going to be a milk run. Slipping out had been easier, and we could save the talking for later. If there was a later.
Stars shone brightly in a clear night sky. The lack of clouds contributed to the bitter cold, although Kane had a reputation for being the “ice box” of Pennsylvania, and in my experience, the nickname was well-deserved. We weren’t far from the New York border, and the higher elevation meant colder temperatures and more snow. My heavy parka, scarf, and gloves kept the worst of the chill away, but nobody in his right mind went deep into the woods at night alone in this kind of weather.
I’d always been just a little crazy.
Gus materialized near where I’d left the six pack, and when I passed his tree, I noticed that the cans were open and crushed. That made me happy, thinking the guy could still enjoy a brewski on the other side of the Veil. Next time, I vowed to bring him a bottle of Jack to refill the flask I’d seen him pull from his jacket.
Gus fell into step beside me, and I knew what he meant by the quizzical tilt of his head. “Yeah, I think I’ve got something figured out,” I said, watching as my breath froze and trying not to breathe in too quickly and make my lungs seize up from the cold. “Don’t know if it’ll work or not.”
He made a gesture that I took to mean he was coming with me, and I shook my head. “No,” I said.
Gus looked at me in exasperation, and his hand swept from his head to his feet. I guessed that he meant he was already dead, so what the hell was my problem.
“I don’t know if they could make you come with them,” I said. “These Wild Hunt ghosts are badass. Ancient. They might not give you a choice.” I paused. “Unless…you’re tired of being here.”
Gus shrugged. I knew he helped out deer hunters and guys like me when we came through, and he’d probably saved more than a couple lost kids and hikers over the years. But the woods could be awfully quiet and empty, and maybe that got lonely. He looked like he considered the options. Then he frowned and shook his head.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Because it’s not just the hunting. I mean, that could be fun, swooping around on ghost horses, with ghost dogs baying at the moon. Kinda cool, huh? But not the taking people part,” I said, sobering. “That’s not right.”
Gus nodded. Then he pointed to his eyes and back to me. We were back to charades with the dead. “You’re watching me? You’re going to keep an eye on me?”
He looked disgusted. Great. I could even annoy the dead.
“Oh—you’ll keep a lookout?”
He touched his finger to the tip of his nose. “Okay. Thanks. I could use a good lookout.”
A full moon reflected off the snow, making the woods surprisingly bright. A few more inches had fallen since my last trek this way, wiping out my footprints. Gus led the way, although I had the coordinates. If tonight went rough, I’d be glad for his help getting back to the car. I hoped to have that problem, given all the ways this could go south.
Gus stopped at the old fence. I knew from the look on his face he didn’t want to, but I couldn’t risk having him get shanghaied, and I didn’t want the distraction of worrying about him.
I felt a change when I crossed over the boundary into the forbidden lands. A cold settled in my bones that had nothing to do with the frosty night. The moonlight made everything sharper, from the silhouettes of the trees to the crunch of the snow beneath my boots. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest, reassuring me that despite the cold, my blood still ran warm in my veins, reaffirming life.
The woods opened onto a clearing. I hadn’t come this far before, but now I felt drawn to the open stretch of untouched snow that glowed blue in the cold light. This was the place. I knew it in my hindbrain, in the place where collective memory lives and dreams reveal old truths.
The farther I walked from the fence, the more the shadows wound around my heart. I cared about Sara, but what could she possibly see in someone like me? I’d failed at my first marriage, and I’d let down the people who counted on me to have their back—my dad, Uncle Christoph, Greg, and Sean. If it weren’t for Pete covering for me at the garage, I’d have run that business into the ground with my obsession for vengeance. And even as a monster hunter went, I was a fuck-up, managing to get the creature only after it handed me my ass. Comedy relief, not the hero.
Despite my heavy jacket, the cold seeped into my blood, slowing my heart, stealing my breath. I’d go back to a dog and an empty cabin, back to the nightmares and the guilt, back to the whiskey that kept me company more nights than I admitted to anyone, even myself. My own sister-in-law hated my guts, for good reason. She blamed me for Sean’s death. And she was right. I had no business living when they died. No right to make it out and leave them behind. I should have ended it, right then. And instead, I’d fucked up my marriage and nearly dragged Lara down with me. God, I was pathetic.
But I could make it right. I could do what I should have done long ago. No more nightmares, no more loneliness, no more emptiness.
I set my gear bag down on the snow, worked the frozen zipper, and pulled out the troll’s horn-trumpet. It crossed my mind that the mouthpiece was probably covered in troll spit, so I picked up a handful of snow and ground it over the mouthpiece until it was clean enough. Then I put the horn to my lips and blew with all my might.
I expected a god-awful sound, like the one and only time I tried to play a saxophone and it sounded like a cow giving birth. Instead, a pure, clear note rang out over the still forest, carrying across the cold air along with the wind.
From afar, dogs bayed, a chilling, hollow sound. Deep inside, we’re all prey, and we know it. The hounds howled again, closer now.
I looked up into the clear sky and saw a dark streak across the stars. If I’d been a kid, I might have thought Santa and his reindeer flew early, but there’d be nothing jolly or generous about the riders who came to answer my summons.
As they drew nearer, the heavy thunder of galloping horses echoed from the rocks and trees. I’d heard that kind of pounding beat at the race track, but this time, I knew they were heading right for me, hard hooves shod in sharp iron that could cut me to ribbons and trample me to a pulp.
I squared my shoulders and stood up tall. A glance behind me assured that Gus stayed at his post. Whatever was coming my way, I’d face it alone.
The dark blur in the sky gained definition as it drew closer, and I could see wild black stallions, their manes and tails whipped by the wind. Not racing steeds. These were war horses, huge and powerful. Ghastly riders urged them on, the withered remains of what had once been men, the hunters snatched from this very field.
And at the fore of the Hunt rode its terrible leader. I had wondered who would lead the way, whether one-eyed Father Odin on his eight-legged horse with a raven flying ahead of him or one of the other tarnished warriors of the past said to lead the cavalcade. But the figure in front wore a black cloak and hunched over his dark steed like the Reaper himself, and my heart shuddered beneath my ribs.
The noise roared like a freight train, like the whole Kentucky Derby rode me down, but I stood my ground, gripping the troll horn until I feared it would splinter around my fingers.
The riders circled me, never touching the ground, yet I saw the steam of their mounts’ breath and felt the air stir as they rode past. Black dogs, their ribs showing through their fur, skin drawn tight over their skulls, watched me with baleful red eyes and lips drawn back to reveal sharp white teeth.
Then the master of the Hunt dismounted and glided toward me, lowering his hood. I stifled a gasp.
Perchta loomed over me, horns twisting up from a face that resembled a goat’s skull with a fang-filled mouth. I’d read about him, a dark forest spirit from ancient days, before Christ, before the Romans, maybe even before the Druids. He had the body of a man and the feet of a goat. Six horns sprouted from his skull, some curving backward, others curling around and forward. An obscenely long tongue swept over blackened lips as he regarded me.
“Why have you called to us? Would you join the Hunt?”
“I want to offer you a trade,” I managed to stammer. “To stop the deaths this year.”
His withered skin drew back in a rictus grin. “And what would you offer, mortal? Your soul?” Perchta sniffed the air, scenting me. “You stink of fear and guilt—and grief. Come with us and leave that behind. Ride the winds with us, join the Hunt, and you will be like the gods.”
“I don’t think I’d make a very good god.” Fuck, even facing down the Grim Reaper, I managed to be a smart ass.
“You haven’t been a very good man,” Perchta replied. “A failure. You cower in your bed at night, drinking yourself blind so that you don’t wake weeping from your dreams. Who would miss you if you vanished? You’re nobody. Nothing important. But in the Hunt, there is no pain, no sorrow, no regret. We are the thunder and the night wind. Immortal. Invincible.”
Who would miss me? For a moment, Perchta’s words hit deep. All my failures crowded my memory, accusing and remorseless. One of the dogs howled, and in that instant, I saw Demon’s goofy grin, my Doberman watchdog who loved belly rubs and pizza, and played with squirrels instead of chasing them.
Demon would miss me. Chiara and Blair, too. Pete at the garage, and Father Leo. Nikki, despite what her mother thought of me. Other friends, like Louie, Steve, Dave Ellison with his tow truck, and the guys at the Drunk Monk. My poker buddies. Sandy and Vince at the diner. And Sara. I might be a failure in a lot of ways, but they were still my friends. They liked me anyhow. They cared. And if I couldn’t hold out for my own sake, I owed it to them to hold out for theirs.
I lifted my chin and faced the monster. “I bring you a great treasure,” I said and held up the troll horn.
Here’s where I hoped to hell the internet had its shit together, because what little I could find out online said that troll-worked artifacts were rare and in the right hands, might even have magic. I didn’t have a plan B, so if they were wrong and it was just an old cow horn, I’d be saddled up before you could say “yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.”
“How did you get that?” Perchta’s raspy voice sent shivers down my spine, but I gritted my teeth, damned if he’d see my fear.
“I killed the troll that made it and took it for my own,” I said. “You won’t find another like this.”
Perchta stretched out a skeletal hand, and I drew back. Terror made me a cocky bastard. “I want your word,” I said, uncomfortably aware that I was small and mortal facing down a force of nature. “Your word that you will take no hunters from here this season. And that I can leave these woods alive.”
The ghostly horses nickered and chuffed, stamping their hooves in the air, steam rising from their flanks and clouding from their breath. The dogs slunk in and around the huge hooves, eyeing me and growling low in their throats. Perchta regarded me in icy silence, and I knew the truth of being weighed in the balance. I prepared myself to be found wanting.
“You amuse me, hunter,” the gravely voice said after an interminable pause. “You would make this bargain, even if I told you that the men who joined my hunt did so freely, to leave behind their pain?”
“Yes. Because they can never leave. Pain fades, eventually.”
Perchta nodded. “True, though time alone heals nothing. I should know.” He held out his bony hand once more. “You have my word, mortal. And I am bound to keep it. No more men taken here this season and safe passage for you from these woods. I swear it.”
Resisting the urge to spit in my palm and shake on it, I handed over the horn. Perchta looked it over with a collector’s eye. “A good trade. Now go, and do not try my patience a second time.”
With that, he turned to the restless huntsmen and their massive steeds. Perchta raised the horn to his lips and sounded its otherworldly note.
I grabbed my bag and ran.
Gus caught up with me at the fence, but my feet didn’t stop until we were back by the truck in the parking lot. The ghost stayed close to me, staring worriedly as I bent over and heaved for breath, my lungs nearly frozen from running through the frigid air.
“It’s done,” I wheezed, righting myself with effort and leaning hard on the truck, hoping my skin didn’t stick to the metal. “No more missing hunters this year. Thanks for your help.”
Gus grinned, doffed his gimme cap as if cheering my success, and then disappeared.
The ride back to the B&B gave me too much time to think, even as my numb fingers struggled to grip the steering wheel. I’d felt the pull of the Hunt, and the utter desolation that had settled over me when I crossed into the cursed forest hadn’t been anything new, just the same old shit pegging the meter. For a few seconds, Perchta’s offer sounded good, better than I wanted to admit. No more pain. No more guilt. Freedom to ride the wind forever. Even now, part of me longed to go. But more of me wanted to stay.
Sara waited for me in the parlor, although it was well after midnight. She pulled me inside and shut the door, then pushed back my hood and kissed me soundly. “I was worried,” she murmured. “I was afraid maybe something had gone wrong.”
I held her close so I didn’t have to meet her eyes. “Worked like a charm,” I said. “Never doubted it for a moment.”
The End
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