A little belatedly, it occurred to me that running from a hunt was probably the very last thing I wanted to do.
Somehow, I didn’t find any comfort in the thought that it was probably
I knew foxes went to ground when they were hunted. I couldn’t think of a single damned place that I could go to ground. I didn’t know how, but Cernunnos had found me toodling down the freeway. That didn’t bode well for losing myself in a crowd, and besides, it was already clear the Hunt didn’t mind a little property damage. I hardly wanted to give them the opportunity to start killing people. Other people, at least. They already seemed pretty fixed on the idea of making me dead.
Petite’s speedometer climbed past ninety before the Hunt showed any sign of losing ground. Cernunnos fell back, distantly reflected expression furious, and all the host but one slowed with him.
The riderless horse came on, eating great lengths of distance with each stride. It was impossibly fast, and so clear in its motions that even watching in the mirror I could see the play of muscle under pale golden fur, bunching and releasing as it closed the distance between us. I glanced at the speedometer; I was still adding speed, heading toward a hundred now.
And the riderless horse was gaining on me.
A knot of certainty tied itself in my stomach. If Cernunnos were uninjured, all the Hunt would be gaining on me now. I pressed on the gas pedal and Petite responded with an urgent hum of power as she accelerated. I wasn’t surprised that the riderless horse still gained on me. I topped out at one-fifteen, more out of respect for my poor abused car than being unable to push her faster, and watched the pale horse put on a surge of speed that brought it to my side.
It—she—was huge, as tall as Cernunnos’s stallion, and there was nothing wasted in her. Admiration and envy stung through me. Sparks flew where the mare’s feet made solid connection with the ground she ran on, though I’d seen the Hunt ride and I knew she wasn’t constrained by having to run on the unwieldy concrete. She ran effortlessly, stretched out long and lean, so low that her head was nearly on a level with mine.
She turned her head to look at me, the almost-full-on gaze that horses do, and the weight of her body followed the lead of her head. For the second time in under an hour I braced for the impact, and for the second time the horse avoided it, this time with a tiny burst of speed. She leaped ahead of me, one hoof denting Petite’s hood as she sprang into the sky and wheeled, galloping back to the Hunt, leaving me careening down the freeway alone.
CHAPTER 18
I woke up on my feet, my heart pounding wildly in response to a mysterious sound that I couldn’t hear anymore. The lights were very bright and my glasses were smashed against my face in a telltale fashion that suggested I’d gone to sleep on my face while wearing them. It took a few seconds to recognize my own living room and the indentation in the couch pillows as where I’d been sleeping. The details of getting home were sketchy, but since I was here, apparently I’d made it. The distressing noise sounded again. After another several seconds I recognized it as the doorbell. I staggered to the door, adjusting my glasses as I pulled it open. Gary stood there, looking unfairly awake. He laughed at me.
“Morning, sweetheart. Thought you said you’d be awake.”
“Did I say that?” My voice was hoarse. I waved him in and staggered to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Gary followed, brandishing Cernunnos’s sword, and dropped into what looked to me like a pretty good en guarde position. Of course, what I didn’t know about fencing would fill a library.
“You did.” He made a little feint at me. I batted at the sword before I remembered it was sharp, and was glad I hadn’t made contact with it. Gary straightened up. Old guys weren’t supposed to look that solid. I examined that idea while I drank my water. It wasn’t like I knew that many old people, but the ones I saw usually seemed to look fragile.
“I want to look like you when I grow up,” I told Gary blearily. He laughed again.
“When you’re old, you mean. I tell you what, lady, if you don’t quit doing whatever it is you did to your car, you’re not gonna get old. What happened?”
“Cernunnos and I had a race down the freeway. I got away, but they chopped up Petite. I think it was a draw. D’you want some water?” I admired how matter-of-fact I sounded. I was trying hard not to let myself think about the damage to my beautiful car. If I started crying, I didn’t think I was ever going to stop.
Gary wrinkled his eyebrows and looked at me for a while. When I didn’t find anything else to say, he asked, “You gonna be all right here alone, Jo?”
“Oh, sure. I was right. Today’s the day. So I just gotta live through it.” My words were slurred. I turned around and poured the rest of my water into the coffeemaker and dug around for fresh grounds and a filter. My coffee cup was already sitting under the drip. I didn’t remember putting it there.
“You’re sure today’s it?”
“Herne said so. No.” I shook my head, frowning as I tried to form enough coherent thoughts to elaborate. Gary scowled at me expectantly. “Verified it. Marie told me. Us. She was right. Herne was all upset I knew, so she had to have been right.” Gary didn’t look like I was clearing matters up any. I groaned.
“I’ll tell you on…” I looked at my fingers vacantly, like I had the date written on them. “It’s Wednesday? I’ll tell you Saturday.” That sounded like enough time for me to catch up on my sleep.
“It’s Thursday,” Gary said.
“Saturday,” I said firmly. Gary grinned.
“No, Thursday.”
I glared wearily at him. He laughed and held up his hands, Cernunnos’s sword dangling from his fingertips. “All right, I’ll stop giving you grief. Kids these days. No sense of humor.” He waggled the sword at me. “What should I do with this?”
I discarded the first two suggestions that leaped to mind as being unnecessarily rude. Gary grinned like he knew what I was thinking, and put the sword on the kitchen table. “I’ll just leave it there,” he suggested.
I nodded. “Good idea.” Gary stood by the table a moment, still looking expectant, and I dredged up a sleepy scowl. “I hate morning people,” I told him. He laughed and held up his hands again.
“Okay, okay, I know a hint when I hear one. Stay alive, why doncha?”
“I’m trying,” I promised, and let him find his own way to the door. It was only ten feet. I figured he could make it. The water turned slowly into coffee, dripping steadily into the coffee cup. It was a pink cup. I didn’t consider myself a very pink person, but it had my name on it, so I’d bought it. When it was three quarters full I stuck the usual pot under the drip, filled what was left of the cup with milk and sugar, and went to turn on the computer screen.
The Wild Hunt rode out of the screen at me, in such fine detail my first thought was that I wouldn’t put artwork that good up on the Net without degrading it some, to make it harder to copy. Then my hands began to shake and I had to put the coffee cup down as I stared at the painting.
It was good, maybe of professional caliber, but it was also terrifyingly accurate. Cernunnos’s eyes were filled with the unholy green light that would haunt my nightmares if I ever again got enough sleep to dream. The elegant bone horns swept back along his skull and he smiled as he urged his stallion onward. The silver animal’s broad chest so well rendered I half expected it to pull in its next deep breath as I watched.
Beside Cernunnos, almost in front of him, ran the pale gold mare who’d kept pace with me only an hour or two earlier. She wasn’t riderless, though: a feral-eyed child with hair as wheat-pale as Cernunnos’s rode high in the saddle, mouth open in a shout of joy at the speed his horse ran at.
Others of the Hunt poured down out of the fog, riding down from the sky, the dark shadows of rooks around their heads and the sleek white bodies of the hellhounds running at their heels. Even rendered indistinct by fog, I could pick out the shape of the thick-shouldered man, and the archer. I leaned back and picked up my coffee cup just to give my shaking hands something to do, and took a sip. Not enough sugar. I took another sip, staring at the painting. It was titled
