The Hunt: A Custodes Noctis Book Page 19

  “Shut up, Flash,” Galen said. There was a long moment of silence. “He did? And?”

  “And what?” Flash demanded.

  “Shut up. You sure, Hugh? No, I understand. Call me if you find anything more.” Galen laughed. “Yes, joint publication rights, you freak.”

  Rob got up, leaning against the wall for a moment before heading out into the main room. Flash was sprawled on the couch and Galen was sitting at the table, a pad of paper in front of him. “What's up?” Rob asked as he sat down in one of the easy chairs.

  “Research,” Flash muttered. “It's a barrel of laughs.”

  “Oh?” Rob tried to hide his distress, the Sight was almost completely gone. He stared at Galen, letting down the restraints, and still there were only the softest of colors swirling around his brother.

  “It's the spell, Rob,” Galen said gently. “As it moves through your system, the Gift should come back.”

  “Until I have to take the next dose,” Rob heard the resignation in his own voice.

  “Maybe not.” Galen frowned at the paper in front of him. “According to Hugh...”

  “Hugh?” Rob leaned forward to get a better look at Galen's notes. It was a lost cause. His brother's handwriting was attractive to look at, impossible to read. Galen joked it was because he'd considered being a doctor for awhile.

  “Hugh Frampton.”

  “Hugh Frampton? From Oxford? Author of Mystic Rites: Native Mystery Cults in Roman Britain?”

  “That's the one,” Galen said.

  “You know him?”

  “Do I detect a little hero-worship there, Brat?”

  “A little.” Rob chuckled. “His research is amazing, I read the article he wrote for last month's Old Europe Review, discussing the spread of the concept...” He trailed off when he realized Galen was grinning at him. “How do you know him?”

  “He attended a convention on Dark Ages medicine that I was a speaker at, he came up after I finished to ask about a point I'd made. We ended up heading to the bar and discussing the transition between Roman and Saxon medical practices in England.”

  “You have so much fun without me,” Flash piped up.

  “Why did you call him?” Rob reached for the notes. He caught a word here and there, one stood out, mostly because Galen had underlined it several times, the strokes hard enough to cut through the paper. “What about the Fae?” Rob inquired, trying to figure out the words around that one.

  “According to Hugh's research, a man named Theodoris Valerius claimed to have witnessed a ritual...”

  “His writings were lost in a fire during the Battle of Britain, I was looking for a copy of his Travels for a paper,” Rob said, frowning.

  “A copy was recently found in a collection excavated in the 1960s, but never properly evaluated.”

  “I'd give my eye teeth to see it,” Rob said, scholarly greed momentarily getting the upper hand.

  “Talk to Hugh, I'm sure he'd let you have a peek. He's scanned it to go with a publication about it.”

  “Good, I wanted to follow up on an idea I had about the later Sagas of...”

  “Can we get back to the 'what he found' part of the conversation? Before you two start discussing something completely fucking unrelated?” Flash interrupted him.

  “Sorry, Flash.” Galen grinned. “Valerius claimed to have witnessed a ritual that sounds a lot like something to do with the Hunt. He noted that one of the people gathered there was a member of the Fae. Of course, scholars have dismissed that as nonsense, believing the man to have been a priest or other official in the guise of the Fae, playing the part for the ritual.”

  “But he wasn't,” Rob said with certainty.

  “No.” Galen hesitated, Rob felt it through their bond.

  “And?” Flash prompted.

  “Valerius recorded some of the ritual, some of what happened to the man destined to ride as king. Of course, we're assuming that this was the Hunt he witnessed. It would've been before the Hunt was lost.”

  “I thought you knew what was going to happen? That's what you told me at breakfast,” Flash said, alarmed.

  “We do know what's going to happen, there are just details here and there that are missing,” Galen said patiently.

  “And Valerius has some?” Rob looked at Galen's scribbles on the page.

  “Maybe, at least according to what Hugh said.”

  “And?”

  “And from what he said, the bond was active for the Custodes Noctis who experienced the Ritual of the King.”

  “No, the Sagas say very clearly that the bond is lost.”

  “Yeah, I know, Rob, but those were after the Hunt had changed. And it makes sense, if only one Keeper is going to be taken, of course the bonds with his brother—and this world—would be severed.”

  “You aren't telling me something.” Rob's Gift was returning, achingly slow, but coming back and he could see the colors that in anyone else would be an outright lie, shining around his brother. Galen looked away, out the window at the gathering fog. “What?” Rob demanded.

  “I'm not sure, Hugh's following it up.”

  “When you ride with the Hunt, you become one of them, you lose yourself completely, that might be what they meant,” Rob offered, trying to get a sense of his own words, it felt like he was skating dangerously close to a lie, he just wasn't sure what it was. Something didn't feel right, and he couldn't put his finger on it.

  “And all that's assuming this guy saw the right fucking ritual, right?” Flash said, frowning at them both.

  “The description fits,” Galen insisted.

  “And no one noticed it before now 'cause why?” Flash raised his eyebrows in query, but before Rob or Galen could answer, he cocked his head to the side. “No one was looking close enough to see it, there was no reason. Like a murder mystery where everyone overlooks the who done it.”

  “Actually,” Rob said, trying to hide the surprise in his voice, “that's exactly what it's like.”

  “So just don't do it, don't join,” Flash said.

  “We told you, we don't have a choice. If the feorhbealu are rising, the Hunt is our only hope.”

  “Because that guy told you? The one you said was Fae? Who appeared out of nowhere with some fucking story about it all?” Flash was agitated. He got up and paced across the room, Rob watched the muted colors swirling around him as their friend worked himself into a temper.

  “It's not just that, Flash, those things we fought in the park were related to this, too,” Galen explained.

  “Are you sure? You fight shit like that all the time.”

  “Not like that, the Veil is weakening,” Rob said quietly. “We've both seen it, so something's going on.”

  “But what does that have to do with this Hunt thing?” Flash demanded, obviously not willing to back down.

  “We need the Hunt to stop the feorhbealu, that's why it was founded.”

  “You're both missing something,” Flash snapped. “I don't know what it is, but there's something you're missing. You were caught in it first, Galen, and now Rob, I don't think either one of you is thinking clearly.”

  “Flash,” Galen began.

  “No! You're not! You can't see it, but I can! Something weird is going on, and you are completely missing it!” Flash took a breath to keep going but stopped when the phone rang, he watched through narrowed eyes as Rob answered it.

  “Yes?”

  “Your dinner is ready, sir,” a soft female voice said. “We have a place for your servant tonight.”

  “Thank you.” Rob hung up the phone but couldn't stop the chuckle. “Dinner's ready, they have a place for our servant, too.”

  “Yeah? They do?” Flash was winding up. “Well, they can just bite my...”

  “Let's go eat,” Galen said, holding up a hand to stop Flash.

  “Galen,” Flash growled.

  “Flash?” Galen growled back.

  “Are they going to poison me again?” Flash looked from Galen to
Rob.

  “I don't think so.”

  “You don't think so?” Flash grabbed Galen and shook him, Rob watched pain register on his brother's face before Galen put his hand on Flash's shoulder. Rob saw the light of Galen's Gift glow and Flash sighed. “Sorry,” Flash said a little calmer. “Let's go eat. Your servant is starving.”

  It was quiet in the restaurant, most of the diners clustered in the far corner away from their table. They were all human, although several had odd colors swirling around them, a combination of fog and shadow. By the time the waitress brought them their dinner, the restaurant was nearly empty. Flash sniffed the food suspiciously and refused to drink anything at all. Galen took a tiny bite of everything, the liquid silver around him changing color as he used the Gift to test the food. Rob sighed and just ate his, accepting the inevitable. He couldn't see anything in the food, and the mead looked okay. But of course it had the night before, too.

  Flash kept up a running commentary through dinner, growling at the waitress, complaining about the cook, and at one point flipping off another diner who'd been staring at them for most of their meal. He grumbled when they were served fruit for dessert, muttering about the hot fudge sundae he'd seen listed on the menu outside the door. He'd finally went quiet after Galen kicked him in the shin for the fourth time. After that, he ate a pear, glaring at both of them.

  The soft tug of the Hunt was beginning to pull at Rob. The sound of bells, of the horses, was getting insistent, and the need for a dose of the iridescent liquid was fast becoming obsession. He shifted in his chair and felt Galen's eyes on him. Looking up, he met his brother's gaze. “We need to go.”

  “About damn time,” Flash said, standing up.

  The waitress appeared in the door, carrying the bottle from their room and a golden cup on a tray. Rob watched it, fascinated by the way it looked when viewed with the Sight. The colors swirled around it like an oil-slick in sunshine. “Wait,” Rob whispered.

  “What?” Galen followed his look with a frown. “We're putting a chair under the door and going out the balcony from now on.”

  The waitress put the bottle on the table and poured it into the cup, holding it out to Rob with a bow of her head, her eyes fixed on the floor. He smiled and took it, glancing at his brother as he did. Rob had no idea what the dose would do, but judging from the setting he didn't think it would put him to sleep this time.

  Rob sniffed the bittersweet liquid before drinking it. As it slid down his throat, it traced a fiery path, pulling bits of his body along with it. He leaned back against the hard chair for a moment. It was difficult to believe anything taken orally could hit him so fast, but it had. And because it had, the soft chanting was growing louder, the bells calling him. He turned his eyes away from Galen, listening to what was there, what the drink brought him. “Soon,” part of him whispered. Rob felt joy bubbling in his veins with that thought. Another voice, his voice, but not his, whispered with rapture. The night was moving on, the ritual needed to begin.

  “Rob?” Galen said softly.

  “It's time,” he replied.

  “Time for what?” Flash asked.

  “To ride with the Hunt for the first time.”

  “To do what?” Flash demanded, anger bubbling around him.

  “He has to ride with the Hunt tonight, Flash, in person, not just with them in spirit. It's part of the rituals, he rides tonight and formally becomes king tomorrow.” Galen's voice was far steadier than the emotions coming through the bond.

  “Let's go.” Rob led the way out of the restaurant.

  “How? How does he ride with them?”

  “They are corporeal at the time of the rituals.”

  “He's actually going to get on an actual horse and actually ride with them?” Flash stared at them.

  “Actually, yes,” Rob answered as he walked into the parking lot. The fog had drifted in during dinner. The soft, chirping call of small frogs through the mists was a happy noise in a gray and dark landscape. The wind had dropped, the whispering echo of its voice gone, replaced by the soft chanting and the ringing of bells, far away, but there, under everything like the heartbeat throbbing in his veins.

  Moving color at the edge of the empty lot caught his eye. He stopped for a moment to look at it, letting the Gift flow to see through the dense fog. Rob took a deep breath, as promised his Gift was returning, he'd used it without thinking. He recognized what was there in the lot almost immediately. Stephen Blake was lurking at the side of the building, watching them leave the diner. He lifted a hand in salute, apparently knowing Rob could see him, then turned and disappeared. Rob wasn't sure if he went behind the motel or if he'd actually disappeared.

  “It's that thing,” Flash growled.

  “The each uisge is here Rob,” Galen said gently.

  Rob looked over, the Fae creature was standing between the lines of a parking spot, waiting to take him to the other place. “Soon, very soon. Ride to where it will begin,” the voice that was and wasn't his own said. Joy and fear fought for equal purchase in his heart. The bells were chiming. He could hear the horses gathering. “They are waiting.” The voice was sounding more and more like his own. The chanting was growing louder, a longing was beginning. A longing so deep, so profound, he felt it as a physical sensation. Pain mingled with exhilaration, knowing what would come. He was starting to lose focus, the world was falling away, the bells and the soft sound of the waiting horses pulling him away. “Galen?” he asked with what little of himself was left.

  “It's okay, Rob, we'll be right behind you, waiting for you when you return.” Galen pulled Rob against him in a tight hug, then pulled away. “Hang on to yourself as much as you can.”

  “I'll try.”

  “We will see you in the morning light, after your sleep under the stars,” Galen said, surprising Rob with the formal words from the Saga.

  “I will greet you in the light, my brother,” Rob replied.

  The each uisge stepped forward and nudged him with a partially-fleshed nose. He turned and smiled at it, running a hand along its soft gray flesh, the cold touching him. He swung himself up on the horse with the ease of millennia of practice. It moved away from the parking lot, walking into the fog, into the night.

  The trail wound through the trees. He could hear the movements of the night creatures beyond where they walked. The small things of the forest moved away from the each uisge, but other things, those beings that walked in the ever-dark, joined them, moving behind them, coming to witness the ritual to be there as it began.

  They passed by the blood-red bog, the few fruits left on the plants withered to black, the details clear to him as they moved on, the night no longer a dampening dark. His Gift was almost back to full strength, and the night was something seen and understood. The road turned towards the place of the ritual. His heart was beating wildly, joy pounding through him as they approached.

  “Welcome, welcome!” chanting voices sang, the ancient language filling the air around him.

  The clearing was before him, the altar already waiting with its gift, the blood sacrifice found and left by the each uisge before it came for him at the motel. Rob slid off the each uisge and stood beside the stone, a smile on his face. “It is good,” he said and turned to face them, the riders and the others, waiting for him. The priestess came forward, a bright smile on her face.