“You’re alive!” I cried out, elated as he landed.
Bis alighted on his dad’s shoulder, looking proud. “My dad fought Ku’Sox!” he crowed. “They’re singing about him already!”
Etude snuck a glance at Treble, his gaze lingering on Al perched on her back. “I’m glad you’re alive as well,” he said, a heavy hand touching my shoulder to make me feel small. “My boy is safe. If you ever need anything —”
“She needs a mount,” Al said, interrupting him. “We are hunting the breaker of the lines. Interested?”
Etude stiffened, his eyes flicking to the sky. “Is that what I hear? Yes, I’d gladly take a pound of flesh for the pain we’ve endured. Rachel? Don’t mind my wings, I can still fly. We can be on them in moments. They are blazing a trail even humans can see and tremble at.”
Trent’s jaw clenched, and he looked at the sky.
“Not me,” I said, looking at Trent. “Take him.”
Shocked, Trent turned. “Me?”
I shrugged, ignoring Al’s heavy sigh to get on with it. “This is your kind of thing,” I said, remembering the baying of dogs and the fear. Maybe I was with my kin after all. “I’ve got stuff to do. Lines to fix.”
Etude nodded, looking disappointed as Trent seemed to grow three inches taller, eagerly accepting Etude’s helping hand to sit astride him. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned back down and extended a hand for me.
“This is your kind of thing, too,” he said, his eyes glowing with his need to ride, to chase, to hunt. “You can fix the lines later.”
“No,” I said, then slapped at Treble’s hands as she grabbed me about the waist and plopped me behind Trent. “Hey! Wait!” I shouted, then screamed as Etude jumped into the air, his wings beating fiercely. My arms flashed around Trent, and I could have smacked him for his laugh. A wash of ever-after coated us, an echo of a healing spell ringing in my head as Al mended Etude’s wings. Etude rumbled his thanks, then stole Treble’s wind, earning a screech and a mock dive from her.
“They went this way, Rachel!” Bis said, his words ripped away with the black, gritty wind beating against me. My hands were about Trent’s waist, the warmth of his body blocking most of the wind as I peered around him, looking for a red smear of magic. I could smell the ringing of an iron bell, and the warm scent of cinnamon, all washing over me in a cascading sensation of heat.
With a tweak on my awareness, Treble winked out of existence, diving into a line on the wing. My breath caught, and feeling Bis enfold us, the force of the wind vanished, replaced with the howling energy of a line.
And then reality was back, and we were diving into Cincinnati. Lights of buses and cars flashed as the chill air of the coming dawn pulled through my hair. Exalting in it, I spread my arms and held on with my legs to let the air brush the stink of burnt amber from me.
I felt Al’s sudden emotion flair, feeling it echoed in Trent. He stiffened before me, and I looked, first at Al and Treble flying close by, and then to the city we were approaching. Cincinnati was beautiful with lights, green with spring, the sounds from her muted as the dawn approached and nightwalkers looked to the sky and stared at the weaving magic of red racing through the city buildings.
We had found them, and Treble cried out. The warbling call for battle was answered, and I shivered, remembering hearing the dogs bay for me. Still distant but closing, a red ribbon of magic iced the pack of demons on their winged mounts, chasing a fleeting shadow of gray, running for his life. Darting between buildings, rising and falling wildly, he flew, the demons tight behind, glorying in the chase.
“Look!” I called as the glowing Hunt flowed through the center of the city and Ku’Sox vanished into a ley line. But instead of following as they had through Al’s line, the demons rose up in a huge arc like leaves in the wind coming up against a wall, scattering into chaos.
“They don’t know where he went!” Bis shouted, his red eyes catching the streetlight as he swooped at my elbow. “Follow me!”
He dove toward the ground, and I shrieked as Etude followed, Al tight behind.
We slammed into the ley line, vanishing into chaos. Bis found me, throwing a resonance into my thoughts. Through the rings, Al watched and Trent marveled as I wove a circle around it, capturing the imbalance and tuning it to the university’s ley line.
We burst into existence in the ever-after, a stream of howling demons following us as we fought for altitude, dodging broken shells of buildings. Ku’Sox was just ahead, and the demons surged after him, screaming their vengeance, red magic streaming behind them. It was truly the Wild Hunt, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t scare the crap out of me.
On Ku’Sox fled, and on we followed, hounding him, following him through line after line as he tried to shake us like a fox traveling down a river. We sped through reality, causing fear and awe among those who saw us, a red smear of magic howling against the stars, rising in the heat from the buildings and dropping over the cool woods. Over the ever-after we tore, sending up gouts of red dust as we followed dead rivers and empty lakes, scoured by the gritty wind. We followed until Bis grew exhausted from mending the lines and rode in his father’s arms and I slumped behind Trent, weary and heartsick. This was not me. I didn’t thirst for vengeance, even vengeance justly earned. I did not demand blood for blood. I did this to live without fear. I wanted an end to it.
Still, each line we mended gave the gargoyles strength until they were reaching for Ku’Sox’s wings, the purity of the lines a harsh contrast to the demons’ base desire for death. Then Etude’s weight shifted, and I realized we were landing.
“What?” I said, pulling my head up from Trent’s back where I’d been hiding, wishing it was over.
“He’s gone to ground!” Trent shouted, pointing, and I looked at the dusty red earth, brightening in the coming sunrise. Demons were sliding from the backs of their gargoyles, clustered about a small pile of rock. Slowly Etude spiraled down. The noise of the earth strengthened, and my stomach twisted. This was the end.
Etude found a place, his wings closing the instant his feet lightly touched the ground. Trent slid from him easily, and I slowly followed. My hand on Trent’s shoulder, I stumbled after him, pushing through the demons and gargoyles to find Ku’Sox’s hole.
“We’ll never get him out of there,” I said, looking at the brightening sky. Already the black of the hazy sky was turning to a faint pink, and the gritty wind was picking up. I didn’t know where we were—all places were the same in the ever-after.
“Or maybe we will,” I said again as I realized the gargoyles, though weary from flight, were tearing great gaping holes in the earth. Like organized terriers, they dug great chunks of dirt, tossing them to the side as if they were pillows to shatter into smaller chunks.
I blanched at Trent’s anticipation. He stood waiting, elated and riding the high of the chase and looking forward to the grisly end. He felt my eyes on him, and he looked up. “It was a good Hunt,” he said, and the demons who heard him agreed, their gaze holding a new respect.
A call went up, and the stones quit falling upward from the hole. A muffled boom shifted the earth, and a handful of demons dropped into the craggy entrance. I leaned forward, Trent beside me. Something oily slid through my thoughts, and I shuddered. Al was the only one not looking down into the hole. He was looking at me, and I quailed.
“We have him!” came up a call, and those of us at the edge backed up. “We have him! And his familiar, too!”
“Nick?” I said, and the man’s eyes found mine, widening.
“Rachel!” he said, then fell back when someone shoved him down. He hit the dead body of Ku’Sox and recoiled, horrified as he tried to move away from the alien-looking shape. Ku’Sox’s wings were broken in several places, and his head was tilted at a sickening angle, his neck snapped through. He was dead, but I felt nothing, numb.
“We found them grappling,” a demon I didn’t recognize said. “I don’t know if we killed Ku’Sox or his familiar.”
My eyes widened and my knees wobbled as I realized what had happened. Was that Ku’Sox dead before me, or Nick—Ku’Sox changing their forms in order to survive?
“Rachel, it’s me!” he said, rising up only to get shoved down again. “Tell them it’s me! I never meant to hurt
