With her departure went the tangled remains of Herne’s pain. I realized with a shock that we were tearing down even the links that held soul to body, and drew back, alarmed.
“Let it go.” As with Cernunnos, I wasn’t sure if the words were spoken aloud or inside my head, but they were said with tired confidence. I hesitated, and Herne repeated himself more insistently: “Let it go.”
He stood in front of me, hands spread a little. The pale-skinned half god was gone. In his place was a woodling god, skin dark and gnarled as an oak tree, fingers knotty and a little too long. Looking at his face was difficult, like finding faces in tree trunks. The pale brown hair had thickened, darkened, flowing back from his face in knots and tangles. Even his colors, the otherworldly light from within, had deepened, into rich browns and dark greens, the color of good soil and summer leaves. In the half-light, only his eyes were the same, brilliant emerald- green. The betrayal in those eyes had been replaced by loss and an ancient sadness.
“Did you have the right to do this?” he asked, and his voice scraped, like rough bark being torn.
“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I couldn’t have if you hadn’t agreed. Hadn’t helped me. All I did was make you see.”
“I feel no peace,” the Green Man said. I tilted my head.
“I don’t think it comes that easily. Still, you’ve got all the time in the world.”
Herne laughed, wind through leaves. “Sever the last bonds, gwyld. Let me go.”
I looked down at the shallowly breathing body. Only a few threads still held the tree spirit to the phys ical form. I put my hand on Herne’s chest and looked up at the godling one more time to be certain. He nodded.
I drew the rapier and swung it in a low phantom loop just above Kevin Sadler’s body. The threads leaped free, coiling up into Herne as fast as released springs.
A ball of pure light erupted, expanded beyond the carousel in a flare of shocking brilliance, as white as a nuclear bomb. It collapsed back in on itself in the same instant, and the Green Man was gone.
I woke up a little while later with Gary crouching over me. The Center was dark, the lights on the Space Needle blacked out. I wasn’t seeing in two worlds anymore, but the Wild Hunt still milled around, bearing with them their own unearthly light. “You’re dying,” I accused. Gary grinned.
“Not anymore.”
“Oh, good,” I said faintly. “How’d that happen?” I shifted a shoulder tentatively. The line of fire in my back had disappeared. “I missed something, didn’t I? What happened to the lights?”
“They went out when you grabbed Suzanne,” Gary answered, taking the questions in the opposite order. “All over the place.”
Oh. That maybe explained how I’d kept on my feet, metaphysically speaking. I’d borrowed the whole city’s power. I hoped I hadn’t hurt anybody. “And you’re not dead because…?”
“Big ball of light,” Gary reported. “Weirdest damned thing I ever saw. I could see you lying down on the job over here and standing nose to nose with Herne at the same time. You swung the sword and he lit up and you faded away. Thought you were dead. Then the light faded and everybody was patched up. Was that you or him?”
“I dunno.” I sat up carefully. Suzanne Quinley was kneeling by the extraordinarily ordinary body of Kevin Sadler, sightlessly rocking forward and back. I glanced at Gary, then climbed to my feet and walked to the girl in an almost straight line. “Suzanne?”
“My parents are dead, aren’t they,” she said in the same thin soprano I remembered from the theatre.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“He killed them. My sperm dad killed them.”
“Yeah,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Why?”
God. What a question. “Someone hurt him a long time ago,” I said slowly. “I think maybe it drove him insane. He was trying to protect himself from being hurt again.”
Suzanne swallowed and looked up at me, then climbed to her feet. “He was trying to steal my soul, wasn’t he? Could he do that? What was he?”
I rubbed my breastbone. “Do you really want the answer to that?”
She gave me a scornful look. “I saw what happened. He turned into a…spirit-thing. What was he?”
“A demigod,” Cernunnos said from a few yards away. His stallion stood stone still, radiating impatience to be off. “His name was Herne, and he was my son.”
“He still is your son,” I mumbled. “Just a little less corporeal.”
“So you’re my grandfather.” Suzanne ignored me. Cernunnos blinked, taken aback.
“We must go, Father,” the youngest Rider said quietly. Cernunnos glanced at the boy, then back at Suzanne.
“I am,” he agreed, and shot me a look of venom. “But I am bound to another world, granddaughter, and I cannot stay.”
“Will I ever see you again?” Suzanne sounded very young and alone. I bit my lower lip. Cernunnos looked back at the young Rider, who smiled.
“At the hour of your birth, each and every year until your mortal life ends, we will greet you, if only for a moment, niece. I will lead the Hunt to you. Only do not fear us, and all will be well.”
Suzanne lifted her chin and nodded, green eyes wide. “I’ll see you next year, then,” she whispered, and looked down at the body at her feet. Anger set her jaw, and she drew one foot back and kicked Kevin Sadler’s body in the ribs, hard. Then, chin lifted again, she stepped over the body with immense dignity and walked away from the carousel, pausing for one moment to put her hand on the nose of the pale horse she’d ridden. Then she stepped down and began walking across the Center grounds back toward the parking lot. It was only then that I noticed red-and-blue flashes of light and the approaching sound of sirens, and closed my eyes. It was all over but the yelling.
“Not quite yet, gwyld, ” Cernunnos murmured.
“Oh, no,” I said out loud, and opened my eyes again. Standing on the carousel, I wasn’t at eye level with the god, but at least I didn’t have to crane my neck too badly to meet his eye. “Go away,” I said, and flapped a hand. “I won. Go ride. You don’t have a lot of time.”
“More than you think,” the young Rider said. “We count the days from dusk to dusk. Still, waste no more time than you must, Father.” He shifted his weight to the side, not using the reins at all. The pale mare turned and walked away with the rest of the Hunt following after.
“I will see thee again, Siobhan Walkingstick,” the horned god said to me. I ducked my head and smiled.
“Will you visit me like you’ll visit Suzanne? I may be marked for you, Cernunnos, but not yet. I’ve got a few things to do, first.”
He reached down and slid gloved fingers under my chin, tilting it up so I met his eye again. “Not yet,” he agreed, emerald eyes full of things unfamiliar: respect, admiration, even affection. “Thou art a worthy opponent, gwyld. I think I will leave you a gift. It amuses me.”
He bent with all his customary grace, and even though I knew what was coming, the compulsion of his brilliant eyes held me where I was. Or maybe I just didn’t really want to move. In the distance, Morrison bellowed, “Walker!”, and Cernunnos kissed me, a horrifyingly good kiss that would have weakened the knees of a lesser woman.
Oh, all right, a horrifyingly good kiss that weakened my knees. Gary, the helpful son of a bitch, let out a piercing wolf whistle, and I colored from my collarbones to my hairline. Cernunnos released me, chuckling. “Until later, Siobhan Walkingstick.”
I had just enough presence of mind to sketch a half bow, and reply, “Until later, my lord master of the Hunt.”
Cernunnos returned the bow, then whirled the stallion about and, with a shout, led the Wild Hunt in a gallop up over the heads of the arriving cops. Even Morrison ducked, then glared at me through the distance like it was my fault. The lights were coming back on, slowly.
“Consorting with the enemy, Walker?” he demanded as soon as he was close enough to speak.
“That’s not the enemy. The enemy’s over there.” I jerked my head toward the carousel, still watching the Hunt disappear up into the stars. Morrison climbed up onto the carousel and went to look at the body, eyebrows drawn down.
