The Hunt: A Custodes Noctis Book Page 13

  “I'm doing okay. My eyes are tired.”

  “That might be a hangover. Why didn't you do something about healing that?”

  “I guess I always figured using the Gift to get rid of a hangover is kind of cheating. I've only done it once or twice.”

  “Really?” Rob raised his eyebrows.

  “Really.” The fog was starting to move over the road, it looked like a wall of gray was slowly pushing itself over the landscape. It reminded him of the mists of his dream. “Huh.”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  “You said huh.”

  “I did? I was thinking out loud.”

  “Grunting out loud,” Rob corrected. “What were you grunting about?”

  “The call of the Hunt. It hasn't bothered me at all this whole drive.”

  “Maybe it's because you were concentrating on driving?” Rob looked away, tension flowing off of him.

  “That might be it, I wasn't as aware of it during the gig last night.”

  “Must be.”

  “Yeah, must be,” Galen echoed. He swallowed, now that they were getting close, fear was coiling in his chest. “I'm scared as hell about this, Rob.”

  “I know. We're doing the right thing.”

  “What if Stephen lied about the founding? About the feorhbealu rising again?”

  “He's not.”

  “How can you be so sure? He's one of the Fae. They aren't exactly known as trustworthy creatures. We're walking right into this. What if he's working with the Hunt?” Galen said.

  “He said if the feorhbealu rise, they'll come looking for him. He might be telling the truth about that.”

  “About that? You think he's hiding something?”

  “I think he's Fae, Galen, but if he wanted to deceive us, he wouldn't have told us two Keepers rode at the head of the Hunt.”

  “What if they take me as king, but you can't join?” Galen voiced the fear that had been lurking in his heart since Blake had told them the story of the founding. “What if I'm lost?”

  “You won't be,” Rob said firmly. “We'll meet the ritual as it once was. They'll honor that.”

  “How can you be sure? What if they don't want to serve as they once did, if they don't want to be reclaimed to do what the Hunt was founded to do?”

  “You are worried.” Rob laughed softly. “That was the most convoluted sentence I've heard from you in a long time. It'll be okay, Galen. If they don't want to serve, we'll make them.”

  “Just like that?” Galen said, slowing down, the fog was thick enough that he could barely see the stripes on the road.

  “Just like that.” Rob finished the coffee and turned to drop the cup into the garbage bag in the backseat. “How much further?”

  “Just a few minutes—well it would be at highway speed, I have no idea how long it's going to take at,” he glanced down at the speedometer.

  “Galen!” Rob shouted.

  He looked up in time to see a horse looming in the fog. He slammed on the brakes, the car fishtailing on the slick road, sliding to a stop in front of the large animal. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah. Oh, shit.” Rob whispered, staring out the window at the shape in the fog. Galen followed his brother's look. The horse was moving towards the car rather than away from it as Galen had expected. As it got closer, he could see it more clearly. Gray flesh and visible bone made up the head—it wasn't a horse at all.

  Rob started singing.

  Cold mist swirled through the car as the each uisge peered in the window. Galen's heart was pounding, drowning out the music on the stereo. The creature had stopped, its head swinging from one side of the car to the other. It nodded and turned towards the driver's side. Suddenly the call of the Hunt rang through his head, the pounding of hooves racing in time with his heart. Galen barely noticed Rob's song, wasn't even aware of his brother until Rob touched his arm. The world filled with fog, his head dropped back against the seat and everything faded away.

  “Galen?” Rob's shaky voice pulled him back to awareness.

  “Rob?” Galen opened his eyes. The each uisge was gone—and with it the sound of the Hunt. The horses, the horn—even the bells that had been a constant background noise for weeks. All gone, just the silence of his own thoughts and the soft hum of the bond. He looked over at Rob, his brother was white, his hands trembling. The sense of foreboding that Galen had exploded into panic. “What did you do?” he demanded. “Rob? What did you do?”

  Chapter Nine

  Rob

  Fog covered the landscape, a thick wall obscuring the road, the trunks of the stunted trees rising like black ghosts at the edge of the highway. Rob could make out the skeletal flank of the each uisge as it moved away from the Jeep and drifted into the plants lining the road. He tried to take a breath, it felt like the fog was moving into his lungs. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on getting his breathing under control, focusing on each breath the way Galen had shown him when he was a child. He heard Galen demanding to know what happened, but Rob couldn't focus well enough to answer.

  “Rob!” The door beside him was wrenched open, cold air filled the cab. “Rob!” Galen shook him, gently at first—that didn't last long when Rob failed to answer. “Answer me.” Cold mists swirled through his mind, in the distance he thought he could hear the soft chiming of bells. “Rob!”

  A tiny sliver of the healing slid into his body, warming him enough to fight his way back from the cold fog filling his mind. He opened his eyes. “Galen?”

  “Are you okay?” Galen asked.

  “Yeah.” Rob realized his voice was shaking. “Yes,” he said firmly, sitting up straighter in the seat.

  Galen sighed in relief. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Galen slammed the door closed and walked back around the car, stopping to stare into the fog on either side of the road before climbing in. Rob glanced over at his brother, Galen's lips were set in a tight line, almost like pain, his hands trembling where they rested on the steering wheel. He put the Jeep into gear and pulled out.

  “How far until we're there?” Rob looked out the window, except for the dark trees along the road; nothing was visible in the blanketing fog. The reality of what he'd done was beginning to soak into his brain, chilling him.

  “We turn at the light,” Galen said in a clipped voice.

  “Light? There's a light out here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?” As Rob spoke, he noticed a series of yellow reflectors in the fog line, and slowly out of the thick fog, a stoplight became visible. “How far from here?”

  “Three and a half miles.”

  The buildings of the small resort town passed by ghost-like in the fog, appearing and then drifting out of view, never in focus, just shapes in the soft gray blanket. Rob kept his eye on Galen. His brother's hands were still shaking and his anger was beginning to fill the air with sparks of red. He was used to Galen losing his temper, his brother didn't let things simmer, he got it out of his system quickly for the most part. This was different, the bright sparkles he associated with Galen's anger were growing until they became a single writhing mass, flowing around Galen, filling the car.

  Galen was furious.

  “Galen?”

  “This is the turn.” Galen turned onto the one lane road. Houses rose on either side of the pavement, some obviously new construction, others older, with Widow's Walks on the roof. The buildings on the left gave way to a open area, filled with long golden grass and small pine trees. Up ahead, Rob could see the glow of the motel's sign. Galen pulled up at the office and got out. “Wait here,” he snapped and walked into the building.

  Rob looked into the office, a fire was burning in a large, stone-fronted fireplace, silver candlesticks stood on the mantle and a wreath of mistletoe was hanging above the candlesticks. There was a large tree in one corner, silver ornaments and cranberry chains adorning its branches. The desk was a large slab of black stone, a woman stood b
ehind it. Rob sat up, staring at her. A cloud of mist swirled around her, dark colors marking a place over her heart. She smiled at Galen and handed him a key. He looked at it and said something, she shook her head and put her hand on his arm, Rob saw him jerk back from the touch.

  “Corner suite,” Galen said, getting into the car.

  “Suite?”

  “I think they were expecting us,” he continued in the clipped voice. His fury hadn't dissipated during his brief conversation with the woman in the office. “Our meals are all comped too, and there's a welcome basket in the suite.” He pulled into a parking place at the corner of the building and got out, grabbing his bags and weapons and waiting for Rob to follow him. They took the elevator to the third floor and Galen led the way to the last door on the floor and opened it, pushing it open.

  The main room of the suite was large, Rob could see a balcony overlooking the fields and the beach beyond. There was a gas fireplace by the doors to the balcony, a table with two chairs in front of it. A gleaming silver basket sat on the table, a bottle protruding from the top. He stepped into the room. The bathroom was immediately to the left of the door, to the right was a door with frosted glass. Rob could see the outline of two beds in the room.

  “Galen?”

  His brother ignored him, paced through the room, opened the doors to the balcony and pulled his phone out. “We're here. Is the shop still standing?” Galen said into the phone. “You broke what? No, that's okay, I was planning on getting rid of it anyway. Flash! It's okay. Relax.” He paused. “Yeah.” He glanced in at Rob, then looked away. “We're okay. I'll check in tomorrow night. Try not to break anything else, okay? Yeah.” He slid the phone closed and turned to look out towards the beach.

  “The shop still there?” Rob walked onto the balcony to stand beside him. He could hear the irritated quacking of a duck out somewhere in the mists. Crows were cawing and there was another bird, it sounded a little like a crow but deeper, with a gravely tone in its voice. “Raven,” Rob said quietly. “Nice view of the fog.”

  “Yeah.” Galen took a deep breath, his hands clasped together, wrists resting on the balcony rail. “Are you going to tell me what you've done? Or am I going to beat it out of you?” he inquired mildly. Judging by the sparks crackling around him, Rob was sure his normally gentle brother was completely capable of violently extracting the answers he was looking for.

  And Rob knew he should have told him, should have warned him. Before he'd come home the year before, he'd been far more cautious about things, but knowing Galen was there at his back gave him a confidence that bordered on recklessness, and he knew it.

  “You promised.” Galen still hadn't turned to look at him.

  Rob didn't bother to pretend he didn't understand that quiet comment. “I was going to tell you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I didn't mean to sleep all the way here, I was going to talk to you on the way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was! It wasn't supposed to happen like that.”

  “Like what?” Galen finally looked at him, the sparkles of anger flowing together again. “Like what, Rob?”

  “I was supposed to have more time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To tell you, to let you know what I was planning.”

  “What did you do?” Galen asked, his voice icy.

  “Galen,” he began and stopped. What had seemed like a good idea, like the only answer, was feeling more and more like a fatal mistake. He'd been so sure, and Stephen had encouraged him, but that certainty was being swallowed up in the cold mists and chiming bells.

  “I can guess a little of it, because the Gift shifted and the bond disappeared right after you touched me. It's still not back all the way, so you're going to have to tell me.” Anger simmered through the quiet words. “Rob?”

  “I called Stephen to find out about the rituals for joining the Hunt.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “He told me...” Rob paused again.

  “He told you what?”

  “You, I was, and I talked to Dad and Stephen said that and I...”

  “Slow down, Brat.” Concern flowed through the anger surrounding Galen. “One thing at a time.”

  “You were losing yourself,” Rob said, taking a deep breath.

  “Yes.”

  “Stopping that was the most important thing.” Rob leaned against the railing. “I wanted to know how the rituals worked so we could take control, not just to stop the feorhbealu, but to keep from losing you.”

  “I denied who I was, Rob.” Galen looked away, a fleeting emotion crossing his face. “It's the punishment for Keepers. I thought I'd escaped it, I was wrong.”

  “There's more going on here than the Hunt coming for a fallen Keeper, Galen, you have to know that. The feorhbealu are on the move again, and...” Rob broke off.

  “And?”

  “The bodies.”

  “Bodies?”

  “They've found bodies—or parts of bodies—out here.”

  “Sacrifices?” Galen frowned. “The Hunt requires blood sacrifices before they take a new king.”

  “Exactly. They were planning on taking a king.”

  “We came out here seven years ago because there were bodies.”

  “Right, there were, but those weren't sacrifices. I'm beginning to think those people were killed by what the Hunt is after, not the Hunt itself. But these are definitely sacrifices for the king, Stephen confirmed it.”

  “They knew I was coming, Rob, it's that simple.”

  “No!” Rob slammed his hand against the wall. “If a Keeper falls, they join, Galen, no matter what, they don't need sacrifices for that.”

  “Right, and we're back to what the hell did you do?”

  “I spoke with Stephen about the Hunt, about the founding and the times when the Keepers rode as king and champion. When they hunted the feorhbealu.” Rob took a deep breath. Galen wasn't going to like this. “He gave me a spell.” His brother remained silent, his gaze locked on Rob's face. “To stop the each uisge from choosing you.”

  “The Hunt already chose me.”

  “Not formally. According to Stephen, the each uisge makes the final choice. I, uh, I just let it think I was you long enough for it to choose me. Once the choice is made, it can't be reversed. There's a ritual when the Hunt formally chooses the member, but the each uisge has made the choice.”

  “You trusted Blake?”

  “The spell worked,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “You trusted Blake?”

  “No, yes, okay, maybe in this I did.”

  “And you just decided this was the best way? Without talking to me? How did you know this would even work?”

  “I didn't for sure. But, Galen, you were losing yourself, we have to take control of the Hunt and I thought that this way we had a chance.” He plowed on before Galen could speak. “It's not the first time the younger brother has ridden as king. Stephen told me one of the last pairs of Custodes Noctis that served with Hunt—the younger brother was king.”