Hellhound (A Deadtown Novel) (27 page)

And maybe the Night Hag would show up, kiss me on the cheek, and offer to adopt me.

My doubt must have shown in my face, because Mab put her hand on my arm. “Remember, child,” she said, “I’ll be here to protect you, and I can do that in two ways. The first is to defend you physically. If there’s an attack while I’m still in falcon form, rest assured the falcon will not let anyone near you. But of course I’ll shift back to this form as soon as possible so I can wield my sword.”

“Thanks, Mab.” There was no one I’d rather have on my side in a fight.

“Physical defense is merely one sort of protection, and it’s the weaker of the two. I want you to wear this.” She grasped her pendant and lifted its chain over her head, then held it out to me.

I watched it swing from her hand. “But that’s your bloodstone.” The source of Mab’s power and longevity. She always wore it, even when she changed her shape.

“Not mine alone. Your blood has become part of it, too.”

“Just a drop or two.” Over the centuries, Mab had infused the stone with her own blood many times. The pendant was an essential part of my aunt, and I didn’t like the thought of her being without it. A few months ago, when the stone was stolen, Mab had grown feeble and old with terrifying speed. Her vitality had returned only with the bloodstone.

“Take it,” she urged. “You may return it to me after we’ve dealt with Mallt-y-Nos.” I didn’t flinch or pull away as she lifted the necklace over my head. The bloodstone rested in the center of my chest. The stone was warm and pulsed slightly, as though it had its own beating heart.

“Good.” Mab’s crisp tone conveyed her satisfaction. “Now, here is the gauntlet. It was crafted by Mr. Kane’s witch friend, Roxana, and her circle working overtime.” I wondered how much that had cost. “When you give it to the Night Hag, tell her to put it on, raise her arm, and thrice shout,
‘Hebog, tyrd!’
”

Falcon, come!
The same Welsh command Mab had used to call Dad. The gauntlet I held was a good copy. The leather, worn smooth, was darker on the fingertips, suggesting age. It even smelled old. I couldn’t tell whether the silver embroidery matched the original exactly, but if I didn’t know better, I’d swear this was Mab’s glove. Roxana and her witches had given Kane his money’s worth.

“I’ll be waiting close by,” Mab said. “When I hear the call, I’ll fly in.”

I thought of my time as a cat the night before, the taking over of the feline brain, the kaleidoscope of images, instinct, and sensation. I didn’t ask whether Mab would have the presence of mind to stick with the plan once she shifted. Her centuries of experience gave her control far beyond that of any other shapeshifter. Like me, for instance. Last night, with the waxing moon almost full, the cat had taken over entirely. Yet even on the first night of a full moon, Mab would stay in control.

“Pob lwc.”
She touched her papery lips to my forehead. “Good luck, child.”

Mab backed away a few paces. Closing her eyes, she raised her face toward the sky. Energy shimmered around her, beginning at the top of her head and cascading down her body. The energy flared, and from the light a falcon shot skyward.

Beautiful. It was the cleanest shift I’d ever seen. No pain, no contortion, no agonizing in-between stage. Just intention, energy, change. I wished I could shift half that well.

Time to create my circle of protection. For a moment, I wished Kane’s expensive witches were here to build a professional-strength circle. Of course, they’d refused to do the job, what with me being a fugitive from justice and all. We were lucky they’d made the gauntlet. Still, as I stood in the pitch-dark field all alone, I wouldn’t have minded some backup.

You have backup. Trust in it.

“Mab?” If anyone could figure out how to replicate Dad’s talking-falcon trick, it would be my aunt. Yet the voice had seemed to emanate from inside my head.

No answer.

Could the voice be the Destroyer’s? Instinctively, I checked my demon mark. It was cool and slightly itchy, but as soon as my attention was on it, I felt a flare of heat. I willed it down, and it subsided back to an itch.

Focus, Vicky.
It was almost midnight. The Night Hag would be here soon. If she came upon me with a half-cast circle, she’d snatch the glove and order her hounds to attack. No question.

I faced east and called the first quarter. Immediately, I felt a change in the air, an electricity that seemed pulled from the ground, the sky, even past games played on this field. Sparkles of energy that lingered after Mab’s shift were taken up and spun into the bubble of protection I wove. I turned to the south, then the west, then the north, calling each quarter in turn. Energy illuminated the field. Over my heart, the bloodstone glowed and pulsed.

Turning back to the east, I completed the circle. It closed with a
pop!
The cool night air grew comfortably warm, like bathwater.

I was ready.

Bring it on, hag.

I listened. The protective sphere muffled outside noises, but soon a frenzied baying sounded in the distance. As the pack approached, the pain that drove the hellhounds became audible, twined into each howl and cry.
Kane.
Kane was among them, feeling that frantic need to outrun the inescapable pain. Willing to do anything to make it stop.

But not for long, if all went well. If our plan worked, only minutes remained before he was free of his promise and back in my arms.

If all went well.

Fiery eyes gleamed as the pack bounded toward me. I tensed, reinforcing the circle with my will. Hounds charged, fangs bared as they came closer. Closer. A yelp sounded. Five feet away, the pack leader crumpled as though he’d hit a brick wall. Others clambered over him, only to come to the same abrupt halt. They prowled along my circle’s barrier, growling.

From behind them came the slow, steady
clop clop
of a horse’s hooves. Mallt-y-Nos may have sent her hounds speeding toward me, but now she made it clear that she kept our appointment at her leisure. She emerged gradually from the darkness, moonlight glinting off the glossy hair of her youthful aspect. Slowly, she steered her horse around the perimeter of the circle that protected me. As she made her circuit, she grew plumper, older, more wrinkled. She aged more, losing flesh, becoming skin and bones. When she halted before me, a dried-out corpse stared down at me from her mount. The horse shot fire from its nostrils and pawed the ground.

“I’m told you have something for me.” Coming from that horrible face, rotting flesh hanging off its skull, her demand made me shudder.

My fingers tightened on my sword’s grip. I had something for her, all right. A sharp blade to sever her ever-changing head from her body. It would serve her right, with all the misery she’d caused. To Kane, and also to countless frightened, lost souls.

But especially to Kane.

Yet attacking the Night Hag wouldn’t do Kane or me any good. The hag was a spirit, not a demon; the bronze of my blade wouldn’t harm her. I held up the gauntlet. “Here is what you need to call the falcon,” I said. I didn’t say
which
falcon.

The hag’s eyes fixed greedily on the glove. “Give it to me.” She reached forward. A sharp, sizzling noise crackled from my protective sphere. She drew back as though she’d touched fire. “Let me into your circle,” she said, blowing on her fingertips, “and we’ll conclude our bargain.”

“Not so fast. If I give you this gauntlet, will you release Kane from his promise to serve as your hellhound?”

Her gaze, youthful again with sparkling eyes, never left the glove as she nodded. “If the gauntlet calls and holds the white falcon of Hellsmoor, I will.”

There was no way she’d get the white falcon of Hellsmoor. But if Mab fooled her until she released Kane from his bargain, that wouldn’t matter. “All right,” I said. “I’ll let you in—but alone. No horse, no hounds.”

The young woman’s elegant eyebrows came together in a fierce scowl, but Mallt-y-Nos dismounted. The horse reared up and exhaled a blast of flame from its nostrils, shrieking out a whinny to make the dead tremble in their deep-buried coffins. The hag raised her hand, and the horse stilled. She turned to me, her face plump, her hair graying. She looked least threatening in her middle-aged aspect—not that it fooled me for a second. “Let me in,” she said.

As I watched, her flesh drooped and wrinkled; her cheeks sagged into jowls.

“Now!” she demanded. “Or our deal is void.”

Whispering an incantation, I gestured with the athame, cutting a doorway in the sphere of protection. Mallt-y-Nos, a scowling old woman now, hobbled through.

I resealed the circle behind her. Gnarled, clawlike hands reached for the gauntlet. “Give it to me,” she repeated.

I passed the gauntlet into the skeletal hands of death.

The Night Hag didn’t even glance at my face as she took the glove. She turned it in her hands, inspecting it, reading the spells embroidered on the leather. I prayed the copy was accurate, because Mallt-y-Nos knew what she was looking at.

She slid her bony hand into the glove. As she flexed her fingers, testing the leather, her face and body grew young again. She smiled, dimpling her cheeks, and held her arm out in front of her, eyes scanning the night sky.

“You have to call it,” I explained. “Shout,
‘Hebog, tyrd!’
three times, and the falcon will come to you.”

Narrowed eyes regarded me suspiciously.

“Hebog, tyrd,”
she said.

A car horn sounded somewhere toward Lansdowne Street, but the sky remained empty.

“Louder,” I urged.

“Hebog, tyrd!”

A shadow passed over her upturned face. A white falcon soared directly above us.

“Hebog, tyrd!”
she screeched, excited now.

I readied the athame as the bird plummeted toward us.

Soon . . . soon . . . now!
I swept my arm overhead, just in time for the falcon to plunge into the protected space. The Night Hag grunted as the bird hit the gauntlet, forcing her arm down. When she raised it again, her middle-aged aspect cackled in glee.

“Oh, my pretty, pretty birdie,” she crooned, petting the falcon. “You’ve come back to me.” Suddenly, she backhanded the bird.
Mab!
The force of the blow made me cringe, but I didn’t interfere. I couldn’t. The falcon squawked but stayed where it was, its talons gripping the gauntlet. The Night Hag chuckled. “Ah, so you
are
mine. You’d like to fly away after that, wouldn’t you? But the gauntlet keeps you here.” Again she petted the bird, stroking its feathers, tickling the underside of its beak.

Enough. I wanted Kane and Mab both free of this cruel hag. “I’ve given you the gauntlet and with it the falcon,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. Release Kane from his bargain.”

“Not yet.” The hag’s middle-aged face squinted at me like a medieval housewife who suspects she’s being cheated at the market. “I have a question for you.”

“That wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Even so. Before I give up my newest hound, I must be satisfied.”

“What do you want to know?”

“The white falcon has a role to play in the coming war between the realms. According to some of the old prophecies, you cannot win without it. So why are you willing to give me this bird?”

“If what you say is true, then why do you insist on having the falcon? Pryce and the demons will win.”

She snorted. “What care I who rules this realm, so long as I have souls to hunt? But you, Victory Vaughn, you do care. So I ask again: Why give me this bird?”

In the darkness beyond the circle’s boundary, the hellhounds of Mallt-y-Nos paced and growled. They sniffed the ground, their noses outside the perimeter, yelping and whining with frustration. I watched them, wondering which one was Kane. My heart ached with not knowing.

“Why? There can be only one reason. For love.”

“Love!” The falcon had to adjust its grip as the old crone doubled over, laughing. “You would let this world be destroyed,” she said, straightening and wiping tears from her eyes, “for the love of one of my hounds?”

“He’s not your hound. You have the falcon. Release him—now.”

Her withered hand stroked the bird’s head. I could almost see Mab’s grimace at the touch. “How do I know you’re not trying to trick me? I must test this falcon on a hunt to be certain. Meet me here again at this time tomorrow. If I’m satisfied, I’ll release the hound.”

Tomorrow? Even Mab couldn’t make a shift last twenty-four hours. I pushed down the panic welling up inside me.
Careful, Vicky, don’t give anything away.

“This isn’t a used car lot. You don’t get to take the falcon for a test drive. Either fulfill your promise, or return the falcon to me.”

“And if I don’t?”

I raised my sword by the merest inch. Not to threaten her—yet—but to remind her I had it. The weapon wouldn’t kill her, but she’d feel its bite. Trapped inside the circle and unable to set her hounds on me, she couldn’t keep the falcon if I wanted to take it from her. I’d lop off her arm, yank away the gauntlet, and cast the severed limb aside. And she knew it.

“All right. A bargain is a bargain.” She shook the falcon off. The bird jumped to the ground, stretching its wings for balance. “My show of good faith,” she said. “I’ll call it to me when our deal is done.

The Night Hag turned and walked to the edge of the circle. “Let me out. I need to touch the hound to release him.”

Heart pounding, I went to the edge of the circle and made the motions to cut another door: up, across, down. I paused, waiting for the Night Hag to signal she was ready to pass through before finishing the last stroke.

Mallt-y-Nos nodded. I completed the doorway, and the Night Hag moved toward her waiting hounds. Then, one foot beyond the circle and the other still inside, she turned to me.

“Fraud!” she shrieked. “Cheat! You
are
trying to trick me!”

“I’m not—”

“The eyes! The white falcon of Hellsmoor has rainbow eyes. This bird”—she flung it away, outside the circle—“does not. Our deal is void. Kill her!”

As a single creature, the hellhounds leapt to their feet. I ran at the hag, shoving hard with both hands to push her out of the circle. But Mallt-y-Nos held her ground. She raised an arm, and a sound like ice cracking rang out.