The Nicholson mansion sat dark and silent. Teag confirmed that the Rod and Gun Club did indeed have a gala that night at the old estate, but no lights blazed from the windows, and nothing but silence met our approach. It looked like the power was out. I glimpsed what might have been candlelight flickering at a few windows, and imagined a frightened group of partygoers huddled next to decorative lamps and lanterns pressed into emergency service.
Tumultuous energy roiled from the surrounding land, thick and filthy like a sewage spill. I closed my hand around my agate necklace to keep from being tainted, but it felt like walking through existential muck. If this was the psychic field that accompanied Holmgang, then he was loathsome as well as dangerous.
“Mrs. Morrissey confirmed the event attendance at twenty-five,” Anthony’s voice came over the earpiece. Kell had shown up along with Father Anne, Chuck Pettis, Lucinda, and Niella Teller, ready to do whatever he could to help. As the “civilians” in the group, Kell and Anthony stayed at my house—under protest—until Sorren pointed out that they could be used as hostages against Teag and me. That ended the argument, and they took over the command center. Several of us wore earpieces, and Kell gave me some remote sensors and small action cams that would help him monitor the situation via his laptop so he and Anthony could relay information and find any details we might require.
“So we’ve got twenty-five people trapped in the house, surrounded by land sprites,” Chuck echoed. “Can the sprites get inside?”
“No idea,” Sorren replied. “When we faced the sprites before, it was at our store in Antwerp. They couldn’t get through the wardings.”
“I think we’d hear a lot more screaming if they could get into the house,” I said. “Maybe the whole point is to hold them hostage?” I frowned as I remembered how Carmen had drained the magical items at the Museum and the Archive and used the cursed cloth in the storm tunnels to create discord. “Or could Carmen use their fear to power her magic?”
“Maybe,” Mrs. Teller replied, staring at the house as she thought. “If she got into the house ahead of time and left cloth inside that she’d spelled to tune in on emotions, she might have worked out a kind of relay.”
“We can’t get rid of the sprites until the challenge is fought, right?” Father Anne asked, hands on her hips as she surveyed the manor’s grounds like a general. Our vantage point kept us well beyond where the sprites had gathered, but with a good view of the estate. “But nothing says we can’t distract them.”
Despite the clerical collar around her throat, she gave us a wicked grin. “If Chuck and I come up with a way to distract the sprites and get the guests out safely, then Carmen loses her ‘battery back-up.’”
“Don’t underestimate the sprites,” Sorren warned. “They’re not like in the children’s stories.”
Father Anne gave the mansion an appraising look. “There’s a boxwood hedge all around the house except for the doorways, and an iron fence as well. The doors have iron hinges and decoration. That might be keeping the sprites out. Chuck and I can create a corridor to get the guests out to the cars, if we put some of the natural protections to good use.”
She turned to Secona. “Any idea what the range is for that niding horse?”
Secona gave a wan smile. “I don’t know that it’s been measured, exactly. But old curses are particular. It affects what the skull of the horse points at, which is the house. No way to know if it includes the most recent Nicholson or the members of the club. They might not be able to leave, no matter what you do. But you might get other guests to safety.”
Father Anne turned to assess the ornate grounds, and I had no doubt that she searched for anything usable as a weapon. She glanced at Rowan. “Could you strip that boxwood hedge behind us and drop the leaves on the driveway?”
Rowan grinned. “That’s easy.”
Chuck withdrew a grenade launcher from his pack. “You bring the leaves; I’ve got the iron filings.”
Father Anne raised an eyebrow. “A grenade launcher?”
Chuck shrugged. “Got the idea from a friend in Pennsylvania. It’ll work.”
Father Anne nodded. “All right. We’ve got this.”
Donnelly and Lucinda were our best bets against the Wild Hunt. That meant the rest of us—me, Teag, Sorren, Secona, Rowan, Mrs. Teller, and Niella—needed to keep Carmen and Holmgang busy and destroy them if we could.
I used night vision goggles to watch Chuck and Father Anne make their way down the slope toward the mansion, staying wide of the strange shadow that marked the territory claimed by the land sprites.
Rowan called to the wind, and it answered her magic, racing through the high boxwood hedge behind us, and sweeping over our heads, carrying with it a dark green tide. I saw Chuck take aim at the horse skull on its carved post, heard the ping of rock against bone, and saw the head turn so that its nose pointed toward a stacked stone shed in the opposite direction of the driveway.
The shadow that followed the sprites shifted, swarming over the shed. As soon as the darkness massed around the small structure, Chuck lobbed something, and an instant later the shed erupted in flames and a spray of dust.
Seconds later, we heard the blast of a grenade launcher. Chuck and Father Anne ran toward the driveway, and in the distance, we heard them shouting to the hostages inside the mansion, then the roar of engines.
“There goes Step One,” I said.
I turned away from the mansion and scanned the lawns for two figures, Donnelly and Lucinda. We didn’t know where the Wild Hunt would manifest, but a necromancer and a Voudon mambo were our best chance of holding it at bay.
Now for Carmen.
Spoiling her surprise with the niding horse flushed her out from her bolt hole. Carmen rose from her hiding place amid the topiary, shrieking spells at the top of her lungs. I didn’t need Weaver magic to know that the clothing she wore was redolent with power. My gift picked up a jumble of disquieting visions from the land beneath my feet: the discontent and acquisitiveness of the Nicholsons, the shadow of the long-ago bargain with Perchta, the jagged edge of Carmen’s madness, and the fear that permeated and poisoned the land ever since the curse claimed the family bloodline.
Rowan struck first, raising her hands with fingers splayed wide. Sparks crackled around her, making her hair rise with static electricity, as lightning arced from her palms. Her power touched down all around Carmen, a warning for the other witch to stand down. Carmen laughed as the fiery blasts burned the grass and kicked up dirt, filling the air with the smell of ozone.
Mrs. Teller and Niella had already laid out long braids of spelled rope that bought us a temporary haven, but I knew it wouldn’t last for long. Sorren slipped through the darkness, using his vampire speed and stealth to circle around, looking for a weak point. All of us wore extra charms and protective amulets drawn from a variety of traditions and beliefs. Secona/Teag, Rowan, Father Anne, and both of the Tellers had been up late into the night blessing the talismans we already owned and making some special protections of their own design. Considering the foe we battled, even Sorren consented to protections.
I let my athame fall into my right hand, and jangled Bo’s collar on my left. His ghost appeared beside me, and he fixed immediately on Carmen, giving a low growl. I had Alard’s walking stick holstered in my belt, and I drew it, taking comfort from its heft and age, and the weight of the centuries of memories it held. My weapons felt woefully inadequate, but they would have to do.
The most significant change was that Alicia stayed back at my house to recover, with our assurances that she had gone above and beyond the call of duty. Now, Secona’s spirit possessed Teag, simultaneously augmenting their combined power and frustrating Holmgang’s desire for an easily snatched victim.
Secona held the Galdrastafur, the Viking wand Rowan had “borrowed” from the mansion. None of us knew for sure what power it held, but channeling Secona’s substantial magic made it our most likely weapon of massive destruction.
Carmen reached out amid the lightning strikes and plucked the bolts of power from the air, hurling them back at us like the god of thunder. Mrs. Teller threw a weighted silver net into the air, and its glowing strands trapped the arcing power as if they were shining birds, bearing them harmlessly to the ground.
Carmen strode toward us, and her flowing garments shimmered with energy. Threads laced through the cloth, glowing like embers in sigil patterns and Norse runes. She threw back her head and laughed, drunk with magic, mad with vengeance, and sure of her victory.
Secona and Niella chanted, their voices rising above the din. They wove threads between their fingers, then as I watched, the fine webs glowed bright and turned to ash. Each time, Carmen stumbled as if invisible fetters tugged at her, hobbling her ankles or dragging her backward.
Carmen screamed in fury and jerked to break free from the magical bonds, but Secona and Niella kept up their attack, slowing her approach. Overhead, clouds parted across the moon, and on the hilltop by the stables, I saw a tree hung with the bodies of large, dark birds, a blood sacrifice like in Teag’s visions.
I shook off my fear and closed my fingers around the ancient spindle whorl that grounded me with echoes of Secona’s magic. Pulling on that power, I leveled my athame and sent a blast of cold white force at Carmen, driving her back and interrupting her chant. She turned her attention to me and made a weaving gesture with her fingers, cutting off my air as if she tightened a rope around my neck.
Bo’s ghost bounded toward her, snapping and snarling, and he leaped for her throat, forcing her to refocus her attention and shift the target of her magic. Bo’s teeth sank deep into one arm, and she shook free, tearing him loose at the cost of a bloody gash. Bo landed on all fours so hard his claws dug into the ground, and then he sprang at her again, diving onto her from behind and knocking Carmen off balance. The attack broke her concentration, and I could breathe again.
Gasping, I loosed a stream of fire from the silver tip of Alard’s cane. Carmen threw her hands up, holding a swath of fabric that glowed with runes, deflecting the fire.
“This is none of your business!” Carmen screamed. “It’s a family matter. You have no right to be here.”
“It stopped being a family matter when you brought the rest of the city—and the old families—into your vendetta,” Secona replied in Teag’s voice. “Do you really think you can command the Wild Hunt? Whatever Holmgang promised you, know this. He lies.”
Carmen’s laughter sent a chill through me. “Holmgang’s spirit came to me. He chose me to be the instrument of his vengeance. And he would be my champion.”
That’s it. Keep her monologuing.
“You think Holmgang cares for your family squabble?” Secona countered. “What does he need from you, once he has a vessel and commands the Wild Hunt? You think that Vincente’s death means anything to him? He’s using you.”
Somewhere in the darkness, I knew Sorren closed in on Carmen, waiting for an opportunity. Niella and Mrs. Teller had stepped back into the shadows, forgotten by Carmen as she vented her fury on Secona.
“They cast me out. Turned their backs on us when we needed the most,” Carmen raged. “Diego was a much better man than my father ever was, and they let him die.”
“So you want to call down the Hunt and Holmgang on the whole world to avenge him?” Secona challenged. “Is that what a good man would want? What Diego would want?”
“Diego wanted to live!” Carmen roared. “They stole that from him. And I swore I’d make them pay.”
Movement closer to the mansion caught my attention. I saw Father Anne battling the land sprites that had survived the blast and figured she was putting her blessed boline knife to good use. Chuck’s shotgun unloaded blast after blast of shells filled with iron pellets, helping them drive the land sprites back to keep them pinned close to the mansion and away from us.
Mrs. Teller and Niella kept up the invisible Woven fetters, making Carmen fight to free her arms and legs. I sent a blast of cold force against her, and Carmen stumbled backward, nearly falling into Sorren’s arms as he closed the distance and threw a spelled blanket over her, one that Mrs. Teller assured could nullify magic—at least for a little while.
Carmen went down in a heap with Sorren pinning her. Temporarily stripped of her magic by the Weaver’s blanket, she was no match for his vampire strength. I grinned, happy that we’d battled two foes—Carmen and the land sprites—and kept them at bay. Then I felt the energy shift around me yet again and knew we weren’t done yet.
“You should not have returned, Secona.” A dark figure with a black cloak and a head like a raven appeared out of nowhere. He carried a long staff in one hand.
“I have a claim on this world,” Secona replied, drawing Teag’s body up in a regal posture, back straight, head high, and chin lifted. “You do not. I will give you one warning. Leave now.”
Holmgang’s cold laughter carried across the dark lawn. “This time, Secona, I will win. And you will be the one banished.”
Those of us in Team Secona stood within a warded circle reinforced with spells, salt, and holy water. That barrier didn’t prevent a physical attack, but it afforded some protection against low-level magical assault. Sorren and Carmen—who was now bound in iron chains and still covered with the spelled blanket—were outside the warding, but the woven fabric’s null spell limited what Holmgang might send their way. Sorren had also used spelled fabric as gag and blindfold, effectively stopping Carmen from working even the mildest incantation. Sorren and Holmgang regarded each other with mutual loathing neither one tried to disguise.
“You wretched witch!” Holmgang thundered at Carmen. “You promised me a vessel, and you failed me!”
He turned, looking at Secona and the other Weaver witches, and beneath his raven headdress, his grin spread cold and wicked. “Join me. With the Hunt at our command, we can rule this sordid little world, have the power of the ages flowing through our blood.”
“Go to the Devil,” Secona spat.
Holmgang chuckled. “He is a myth. I am real—and I do not forgive.” He thrust out his hand, sending a torrent of darkness toward our warded circle that grew and spread like a noxious cloud of smoke. Secona gestured, and a thin, iridescent scrim of power rose from within the spelled rope barrier, blocking his attack. I lent the glistening energy wall all the power I could send, drawing on my protective charms and the resonance of the potent objects I carried.
He shifted his stance, and his magic changed as well, this time a bright white fire that burned the grass around the perimeter of our circle but could not pass the shimmering curtain of magic that kept us safe. In the next breath, he leveled his staff and pointed it toward Carmen and Sorren. A fierce wind tore across the ground, straining our warding and ripping at Carmen and Sorren.
The gust forced Sorren to dig in his heels to keep from being tossed aside. He wrapped his arms around Carmen, securing the blanket that kept her powers at bay, holding on with all of his enhanced strength.
With one hand, Holmgang kept up the assault against our position, requiring us to sustain the barrier that protected us but also kept us from retaliating. With the other, he sent hurricane-force gales against Sorren, intending to rip him away from Carmen and strip away the blanket that neutralized her magic. The wind howled, coursing through the trees at the edge of the lawn with enough force to bend them like saplings. I heard the crack of a tree as it snapped, and felt the winds batter the pearlescent scrim of power that protected us from flames hot enough to reduce our bodies to ash.
With a final surge, the wind shrieked like a mad thing, and sent Sorren and Carmen sprawling, overwhelming even Sorren’s exceptional strength.
Carmen screamed Holmgang’s name and rose from the shadows, still bound by iron but freed of both Sorren and the null-cloth.
“Fill me, and finish them!” Carmen shouted. Holmgang gestured, and the chains fell away. She flung her arms out, threw back her head, and called out the words of power that would allow Holmgang to possess her body. Holmgang’s look of triumph terrified me as he saw his victory in sight.
The ancient Norse sorcerer sent a final blast of energy toward us, and then he took up Carmen’s chant. Their voices rose, at first clearly separate, but then in unison, as the soul-shift began. Holmgang’s dark spirit-form wavered, blurring as the power of the spell caught his life force in its pull and sent what remained of his essence into his willing host.
At that instant, with Holmgang distracted, Secona pushed both her hands, palm out, toward the wall of energy. The shimmering curtain thickened, absorbing the fire and then folding in on itself to smother the flames.
As soon as the fiery onslaught stopped, we struck.
Secona held the Galdrastafur staff in one hand drew the bone wand with the other. Holmgang was as vulnerable as he would ever be, caught mid-shift as he began his possession of Carmen. Secona slammed the staff’s end down into the ground, sending out a shockwave of power that rocked us, and struck against Holmgang’s twisted magic. Bo’s ghost sprang at Holmgang, only to be sent sprawling with a wave of the dark sorcerer’s hand. Angry, I leveled Alard’s cane and delivered a blast of fire that Holmgang barely managed to deflect.
Mrs. Teller and Niella focused on Carmen, working the air with their fingers as nimbly as they wove sweetgrass into their baskets, crafting a loose net of pure energy and flinging it at Carmen. Rowan alternated between firing off attacks, first at Carmen and then at Holmgang. But the energy of their soul-transfer seemed impervious to her assaults as if the transference spell carried its own protections.
From the shadows, I heard the savage barks and growls of something that sounded far too big to be a dog, and way too vicious to be natural. I suspected Holmgang had found a way to keep Sorren occupied with a grim to prevent him from rejoining the fight, at least for long enough so Holmgang could claim his borrowed body.
Magic might not be able to touch them as their souls fused, but iron might be another matter. Carmen’s body was still human, at least until Holmgang fully possessed her, and so if we were going to strike, it had to be now.
I jumped the warding rope and ran at Carmen, drawing an iron blade from a sheath on my belt. Secona ran beside me, outpacing me, and swung the Galdrastafur two-handed, striking Carmen in the head with enough force that it should have split open her skull. She reeled but remained standing as Holmgang’s dark essence poured into her. I launched myself at her, iron knife raised, and sank the blade deep into her chest. Secona’s magic flung the bone wand like a dart, and its point caught Carmen in the throat. Her body jolted, and I knew that something had struck her from behind.
“Clear!” Secona yelled, charging forward with the Galdrastafur like it was a lance, and slammed into her abdomen, taking her to the ground like a jouster unhorsed. We had hit Carmen at all of the main chakra points, the places in the body where energy gathered. Striking with spelled weapons or iron disrupted those chakras.
A bloodied form broke from the shadows, and before I could even recognize Sorren, he dove for Carmen, covering her once again with the null-blanket, sprawling across her to keep her from rising, and assuring that Holmgang’s weakened spirit remained trapped inside her failing body.
Secona walked toward us with Rowan beside her. I frowned, trying to make out the weapon in Secona’s hand, then realized it was the dagger we had reclaimed from Carmen, the one she had stolen from the Museum.
The two witches stopped when they reached where Sorren pinned Carmen to the ground. Secona gestured for him to move out of the way.
Rowan and Secona fell to their knees beside Carmen, and they folded their hands around the hilt of the Norse-runed dagger. They chanted under their breath as they brought the blade up, then fell together, driving the sharp point through the blanket and into the body beneath, right to the heart.
The form beneath the blanket bucked and trembled. Holmgang fought death, but we had caught him at his moment of true vulnerability—not in the shift between bodies, but when he had not yet fully occupied his willing host. Trapped by the blanket and the hurried magic of the chants Secona and the Tellers raised, drained by the blows from our spelled weapons, and unable to flee his vessel because of the null blanket, Holmgang had nowhere to run.
“We need to burn the body.” Sorren stood, feet braced wide as if standing took all his remaining strength.
The moonlight made it difficult to fully assess Sorren’s injuries, but his clothes were soaked in blood, and one sleeve hung in tatters over deep gashes. He moved as if everything hurt, and I knew that his immortality was not absolute. Sorren was hard to destroy, but severe enough damage could exceed even his ability to heal. I’d seen him at that threshold once and hoped never to see it again. From what I could make out, and the curt nod he gave as if he guessed my thoughts, Sorren judged himself still ready for duty.
“Then let’s get to it,” Secona replied, mouth in a grim line, voice cold. Hearing another person speak through Teag gave me chills, because I could tell it wasn’t him. I missed the spark in the eyes that was truly Teag.
We stood around Carmen and Holmgang like a funeral escort and raised our magic. Secona held out Galdrastafur, willing the power through it, into a stream of fire that hit the body like a blowtorch. I lifted Alard’s cane, and my fire joined theirs, a fitting tribute to Sorren’s maker. Rowan’s blue-white bolt added to the flames, as did the golden glow of the fiery net of woven energy Mrs. Teller and Niella formed over the corpse. Carmen and Holmgang burned on a pyre of magic flame, and as the body disintegrated, Holmgang’s trapped spirit screamed impotent curses until the fire rose so hot we had to look away.
Dimly, I realized that Donnelly and Lucinda had begun to chant. I saw dark shapes coming toward us from the mansion and wondered if Chuck and Father Anne had lost their fight against the sprites. We’d come so far, but it wasn’t over yet.
That’s when we heard the baying of the hounds and the thunder of ghostly hooves. Holmgang was gone, but the Wild Hunt had answered his final summons.
Holy shit. Nothing prepares you to face off against creatures from ancient legend. The wind rattled through the trees like dried bones, sweeping across the lawn and bowing the branches. In the distance, I saw the Hunt against the clouds, a long black undulating cavalcade. The howls of phantom dogs and the rhythm of spectral hoof beats grew louder as the Wild Hunt approached, and the most primal wiring in my brain screamed for me to hide.
Another glance toward the house told me that Father Anne and Chuck still battled the sprites, but the rest of us stepped up to face this new foe, uncertain that anything we could do might avert a threat older than humankind. The Hunt gyred through the night sky like a drunken wagon train, and as it grew closer, I heard the snap of reins, the whinny of long-dead mounts, and the exultant shouts of hunters closing in on their prey.
Now the fearful revenants loomed close enough that I could make out their features in the moonlight. The riders had once been men, members of the Nicholson family or of the Rod and Gun Club that cared so much about winning that they would barter their eternal rest and immortal souls in exchange for fame and trophies.
I had seen old woodcuts and medieval paintings of the Wild Hunt and chalked them up to fanciful tales or an artist’s dark dreams. But now that I stood before the legendary host, I knew that the pictures did not come close to conveying the true terror.
The riders wore the attire of the times in which they lived, but their fine riding jackets were faded and their breeches tattered like shrouds. Time made them animated mummies; skin pulled tight over prominent bone, teeth bared in a rictus grin, eyes wild and mad. The horses, too, were skeletal, eyes red, hooves sharp, and stained with blood, teeth champing. Cadaverous dogs ran alongside, howling and baying at the moon.
The Hunt settled to the ground, horses pawing impatiently and dogs shuffling. One horseman edged to the front, a fearsome figure with a horned skull for a head and the emaciated body of a reaper. Perchta, the Master of the Hunt, looked down at us from his seat atop a giant steed more war horse than hunting mount. Six horns twisted from Perchta’s skull, bending in all directions, and his hideous face was the stuff of nightmares. Glowing yellow eyes peered balefully from the dark sockets of the skull, taking our measure. In one hand he held the reins for his wraith mount, and in the other, a sharp-edged flail for a riding crop.
Seven of us stood against the power of the storm.
“Where is my tribute?” Perchta’s voice sounded like boulders falling and wind howling, and I could not be certain whether I heard it aloud or in my mind.
“This is the final reaping.” Archibald Donnelly stepped forward, and if he felt fear in the presence of Perchta and his horde, it did not show in his grim expression or confident stance. That’s when I realized he had an army at his back, a ghostly phalanx of men, horses, and dogs. “Your agreement ends tonight, and it will not be renewed.”
One of those spirits moved to the forefront, an old man whose straight spine and truculent expression suggested that he expected to get his way in the hereafter as much as he had commandeered what he desired in life. “We are your tribute,” he said, “the men of the Nicholson family you have not claimed. We offer ourselves as payment for a debt that never should have been incurred. Take us, and spare the living from our greed and folly.”
Lucinda remained in the background. I saw her in the moonlight, clad all in white, her hair tied up with bright cloth, drumming and chanting. Power coalesced around her, as heavy as the smoke from her candles and the incense she burned to woo the Loas, the Voudon gods whose favor she sought with the offerings that lay beside the makeshift altar. Lucinda moved fluidly to the beat of the drum, and I’d seen her trance enough times to know she called out to powers far beyond this world, more than the equal of Perchta and his hunters.
“Let the dead rest.” A new and unexpected voice startled me. I turned to see Jonathan Nicholson, the latest scion of the plantation’s owners, standing at the fore of a grim-looking posse. I bet that Carmen’s curse made it impossible for them to leave when the other party guests fled to safety. Stripped of other options, I also wagered they decided to go down with a semblance of dignity rather than be dragged away screaming from their hiding place inside the mansion. “We will be the last tribute. But this bad bargain ends tonight.”
Perchta’s gaze came to rest on Teag and I wondered if he sensed Secona’s presence. “I know you, though your form is not your own,” he wheezed.
She inclined her head. “I’m honored that you remember. We have traveled some paths together, in the past.”
“A past that few recall,” the Master of the Hunt replied. Next, he regarded Sorren. “You, I also remember. I sought you, and with her help,” he added with a nod toward Secona, “you eluded me.”
“You came for someone else. I was unlucky enough to be in the way,” Sorren replied, in a gravely respectful tone as if he addressed Death himself.
“Nobody goes anywhere if I refuse to dig their grave.” We turned to see Lucinda swagger toward us, and I knew one of the Loa possessed her. How fitting that devotees referred to possession as being “ridden” and the willing spirit-host as a “horse.” When I looked at Lucinda, my vision blurred, as if another face and figure overlaid her own. I saw Lucinda, but I also saw a tall man with a skull-white face. He wore a black tuxedo and a top hat, as well as dark glasses and he carried a cigar.
“Baron Samedi, I presume?” Perchta growled. “This is not your business.”
Lucinda gestured toward our brave but woefully outgunned band of would-be heroes. “These are my people, and that makes this my business,” she replied. Lucinda long-ago learned to soften her accent for her professional persona, but Baron Samedi’s drawling cadence and thick accent spoke of bourbon and cane sugar. Behind him stood the translucent figure of a bent-legged old man puffing on a pipe with a rangy dog at his side, and I knew that Papa Legba had also answered Lucinda’s call. The air smelled vaguely of cigar and pipe smoke, and a hint of dark rum.
I held my breath, in awe of the primal forces that surrounded us. Compared to them, my gift at its strongest was insignificant. Even Sorren’s age and abilities meant nothing compared to beings that were truly immortal, and perhaps gods.
“We made a bargain,” Nicholson spoke up, and I gave him credit for having brass balls. “You came for riders, fresh for the hunt. Our grandfathers signed with their blood, and we’re willing to pay with ours, but it all ends. Now.”
“It’s a good bargain,” Baron Samedi replied through Lucinda. “Might be wise to take it, and be on your way.”
We did not need old gods getting into a pissing match. I shivered as Perchta turned to regard both the Baron and Papa Legba. His gaze raked over us, and we did our best not to flinch. Donnelly’s army of Nicholson dead shifted to stand beside their living progeny, a show of solidarity in the face of a bad agreement, but commendable in its doomed honor.
“I have enjoyed our dealings,” Perchta rumbled, turning back to Nicholson. “Surely you would like to keep your glory from fading away?”
Nicholson’s jaw twitched. “I would not visit this curse on another generation, not for all the wreaths and trophies in the world.” The men beside him looked pale and terrified, but to their credit, they held their ground.
“Then I accept your offer,” Perchta said, with the sweep of his arm as if he were being magnanimous. “And with your addition to the Hunt, I will trouble your house no more.”
Then he looked at us, and I saw a glimmer of greed in his yellow eyes. “I would take all of you.”
“These belong to me.” Lucinda’s voice had ceased to be her own, and I heard the honeyed steel tones of the Baron speaking through her. “I will not dig their graves, so they cannot pass the Veil.” She inclined her head toward where Papa Legba waited near the altar, content in the knowledge that all things alive and dead came to him in the end. “And Papa Legba will not open the threshold for them. You’ve gotten the best of the bargain. Do not force me to meddle further.”
Perchta and Baron Samedi regarded each other in a silent dispute that held our lives and afterlife in the balance. Finally, Perchta looked away.
“I concede,” he rumbled. “Your offer is acceptable.”
Perchta gestured with his flail, swinging it toward Nicholson and his doomed cohort. “Ride with me,” he intoned, and as he spoke the living men became gray spirits, and the ghosts grew more solid. Each man appeared astride a ghastly horse. “Mount up!”
Spectral hunting horns sounded a terrifying and mournful note, carrying across the night. Dogs bayed, and horses stamped their feet. The newly taken souls fell into place amidst the cavalcade, and then in the next instant, the whole dark horde rose skyward. For a moment, their silhouette stood out against the moon, and then with a final horn blast, they were gone.
Donnelly turned toward Lucinda. “Thank you,” he said, making a deep bow to Baron Samedi and to Papa Legba. “We are in your debt.”
A deep, masculine chuckle rolled from Lucinda’s throat. “Don’t you of all people know, it’s a dangerous thing to owe someone like me, necromancer?”
Donnelly smiled a terrible smile, part challenge and part inside joke. I had the distinct feeling that he and the Baron were, if not old friends, at least well-acquainted. “And you remember that I always pay my debts,” he replied. I knew that whatever lay behind their words was a mystery I would never solve.
The Baron turned to Secona. “My lady,” he said, and Secona in Teag’s body made a courtly bow. “We meet again. It is always an honor and a privilege.”
At that, Lucinda walked back toward where the spirits of Papa Legba and his dog waited. She turned once more, gave a wink that was pure Baron, and then raised her arms to the sky. When I blinked, Lucinda was herself again, and Papa Legba was gone, though the waft of pipe and cigar smoke assured me that I had not imagined their presence.
“Did we miss it? What happened?” We all turned as Father Anne and Chuck made their way toward us. “The sprites vanished. Is it over?”
Neither Father Anne nor Chuck were prepared when the rest of us broke out laughing. Maybe they could hear the edge of hysteria and relief that tinged our humor, or perhaps they just thought us mad.
“Let’s go back to my house,” I said. “It’s been a long night. I promise, we’ll tell you everything.”