The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) (6 page)

“Where are we going?” I asked Merlin. Did he have a plan? I needed him to have a plan.

“Almost there, lass,” Merlin said.

He stopped with a lurching motion and stood cradling me like some fabled princess in need of saving. I knew I should tell him to put me down, that we must get ready for what was surely coming right behind us, but I clung to him. Less than a minute had passed since we'd been at the palace. Since I was named the prey for a host of monsters to hunt down. Merlin kicked off his boots, lest any small motion propel us far away, and turned around in a small circle to survey our surroundings from all directions.

We stood in a clearing edged by trees, and every one of my senses, magical and otherwise, told me there was nothing and no one nearby. A good spot, where innocents wouldn't randomly get hurt due to their proximity. I approved. Merlin set me carefully down, and I felt, as surely he must too, the thrum of natural magic that pooled at our feet.

“A former faerie glen?” I whispered.

Merlin nodded, hawk-eyed and frowning. “A pixy hollow, before they moved on to LaConner. Tell me why they’re after you,” he said. “Quickly.”

“Why me?” I swallowed and shook my head. “I have no idea.”

He scowled. “Tell me why, Morgan.”

8

A Thing of Nightmares

“I… I don't know.” I met his fierce gaze. “I know you have no reason to trust any of my words. Ever. But I have no idea what Agnes Stonehouse is after.”

He shook his head. “And yet you know the name of this witch?”

“From the fifteen hundreds, the burning times. I sought to free her, and she sought to hurt others. I have not seen her since, have not crossed paths with her that I know of, ever since—” I swallowed. “I don’t know, but I have two guesses why.” I’d had no time to fully think about any of this. “First, perhaps she had some business with Guinevere and is angry about her being gone. It is easy enough for me to imagine the two of them were up to some kind of nastiness. The video where I fought Guinevere is rather public, so she would know about that. Second, she may have been after the Grail.” I stuttered on the last word as the endless ache for it pulsed through me. Just the mention of it filled me with desire.

“She’s immortal,” Merlin said. “She’s lived centuries. She doesn’t need the Grail.”

“Yes, there are a dozen tricks a magic user can use to extend their lives, but it is tedious. The Grail is… easy.” Easy, and yet it could also easily steal your whole life away.

Merlin shook his head and sighed. “I have, perhaps, a third theory.” He sighed and looked… embarrassed? “I have had a past run in with Agnes Stonehouse myself. There are few enough of us in the world who are true wielders of magic and also happen to be long lived. Which means,” he cleared his throat a couple of times. “There are very few eligible women for me to um, date, especially as I sort have a… gods. It’s not like you expected me to stay monkish when you disappeared. I have a type. That is to say—” He coughed.

“You like your ladies long lived and witchy?” I guessed. “So you had an affair with that vile witch who has ice in place of her heart? Who uses her craft for self-gain and malice? Who—”

“After you left I had many dark days. I have told you that.”

I had no reason to be angry. And yet. And yet. “So you slept with her once? Perhaps a couple of times?”

He studied the forest around us. “We lived together for three years. And then had a nasty break up, which you’ll be glad to know was caused by the fact that she grew utterly and rightly disgusted with my inability to refrain from talking about you all the time. She came damn close to turning me into a toad.” He smiled. “She’s a feisty one, that Agnes.”

“And she maims manticores, murders ogres, and hunts your dear friend Morgan,” I added.

Merlin looked at me. “Do I detect a note of jealousy? Tis nice, though seeing as we are merely and always friends, I am not sure why you would feel that.”

It was my turn to redden. I glanced away and down. My eyes rested on the seven-league boots sitting in the grass. They looked like any scuffed brown boots with my normal vision, but shone with a deep magic to my witch's eyes. “Speaking of. You can leave now, Merlin. You should. We aren't what we once were. The hunters after me will not fight fair. For every wrong I’ve done to you, you owe me less than nothing. Leave now, before they find me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I am going nowhere. If you can imagine for one moment that I could ever leave you then—”

“Thank you,” I said, interrupting him as I noticed something high up and far away, something magical, come closer. “Quickly, wizard. Before anyone finds us. Will you look at a thing on my back? Some kind of tracker. I expect I will have no luck today unless it comes off.”

He nodded. “I saw something fly at you before we left. It looked like a giant tarantula.”

“Well then, that doesn’t seem so bad.” I turned away from him and pulled down the back of my dress so he could see it clearly.

He sucked in a deep breath. “Gods and monsters.”

“It looks easy to pull off, I expect?” I said lightly.

“No bigger than a flea,” he said. “Not a thing of nightmares, not at all. This may sting a bit, love.” He spoke lightly, but when I looked back at him his face had turned chalk white. I looked away and widened my stance, bracing for what came next.

His pointer finger drew a hot, magical circle around the wound, and then I felt him pull on a
…
leg? It felt like a leg as it scrambled and fought against his touch. The whole thing wriggled and bit inward, digging into soft parts I did not know could cause me such hot and hard pain. I moaned. I panted. I longed to run forward and away from the exquisite torture of Merlin yanking on the thing, but I used all my will to hold still.

“
Kindness and love
,” Merlin growled. The words activated a spell that turned my back hot and made it feel oily. The scrambling thing on my back stopped moving. “That should hold it still for a moment.”

I sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded.

Merlin knelt and opened his black satchel, grumbling under his breath and pulling out one of his wizard wands. This one was made of elm and madrone, short and stout. Merlin waved it through the air for practice a couple of times. “
Keep evil in check
,” he murmured. The wand turned a flaming scarlet.

While all my spells were activated by words in my mother-tongue, Merlin currently used the words of a modern and fictional wizard named Gandalf. Or so Lila and Adam had told me. Lila… No. I couldn’t think of her. Not here. Not now.

Merlin circled around me, holding the flaming wand out in front of him.

I looked away, at the quiet expanse of evergreens. At a yellow butterfly that flitted through the air. Merlin circled back around and placed the tip of that flaming wand at the center of the thing on my back.

A hissing scream filled the air as the creature began to move again. Something bit down hard into the center of my back as dozens of legs scrambled to push and dig deeper into me. I growled and gritted my teeth. I locked my knees to keep from falling as Merlin cursed and used both of his hands to grab onto the thing and pull with all of his might.

The high hissing grew louder and more frantic and the pain, a thousand knives stabbing and clawing into me, began to overwhelm me. I felt my consciousness begin to slip as the thing would not let go.

Then a popping sound filled the air and I fell forward onto the soft ground. I turned to see Merlin had fallen backward as well. With both hands he held above him a thick and wriggling spider with a hundred legs and a snapping mouth that tried to bite him. A wave of nausea rolled through me as I searched my pocket. I found a small stone.

“
Lladd.
” Kill, I said and threw the stone in the air. It flew straight and true to the hellish insect. It hit it and made a silver ball around the thing, trapping it inside before it fell to the ground.

Merlin sat up and pushed himself away from the inert silver ball that lay on the grass. “That,” he said, “was disgusting. And it need hardly be said, Morgan, but stay away from spiders, will you? From even the tiniest ones, please. You know I would not be all right if anything ever happened to you. I need you in this world, whatever our relationship.”

I swallowed as the pain upon my back began to fade. I wished with all my heart that the words he uttered were not true, but they simply were, and if all the terrible things I’d done to him hadn’t turned him off from me yet, then nothing would. And here we sat in a forest glen, while hundreds of murderous monsters searched for me. He had to know, as well as I, that today was not going to end well for me.

“I thank you for your spider-slaying services, good wizard,” I said lightly, and for a moment the relief that it was gone was enough to chase away my melancholic thoughts.

Then I felt something small wriggle deeper into me. It pushed wild and hard, a pebble pummeling into my center. Some detached part of the spider, still alive. I managed not to scream as I felt it bite into the thick muscle of my heart.

Merlin’s sharp gaze watched me. “What's happening? What's wrong?”

I shrugged and stood up on shaky legs. “Give a woman a moment to recover from such a thing,” I said. I carefully pulled the back of my dress up and over the oozing wound on my spine. There would be no getting the rest of the tracker out. Not here and now, for it would take a careful spell, and time was quickly running out. What a clever and wicked thing, I thought, and then put it out of my mind. There were more and pressing concerns.

For the skies darkened overhead.

A throaty rumble of thunder filled the air. Black clouds formed and billowed, doubling and then tripling as they erupted out of the clear blue sky. The air chilled as a gloomy twilight descended.

“Tis ominous. Whither be the monsters?” Merlin whispered and came to stand beside me. He took my hand. It was shaking. He looked ready to scoop me up and run again. “The boots, then? Or we could go realm jumping, and hide within the multiverse.”

“There were plenty of realm shifters in that palace,” I said quietly. “And this is a nice glen you’ve found. Well protected and strong with magic that a witch and a wizard can use,” I said. “As for the monsters?” I pointed at a dark V zooming across the sky. Surely they were geese, any and every normal human would think if they were spotted. Large geese, they would think, and ignore the clot of dread in their throat at the sight of them. The men flew with wide-legged stances.

We watched them near. There were seven of them.

Merlin murmured, “It doesn’t seem quite fair that they can fly.”

I nodded. “Must have stolen that magic from somewhere.”

“We could still run,” Merlin said.

“They are seven old brothers.” I emphasized the word old. I had noticed them at the hunter gathering. “We might learn something from them.”

Merlin squeezed my hand. “Careful, lass. Remember your mortality,” he whispered. “Remember you are precious. In all the world, there is only one you.”

“One me, and that’s a mercy,” I said and stepped away from him. For if I let myself fall into his sad gaze, if I let myself feel all the things coursing through my blood—fear, the dread, and the spider-thing shivering—then I might not be up to the task at hand. “And you, Merlin, remember you are fully mortal as well. Be tough,” I said.

“Like a rock. Surprise will be our ally,” Merlin said, and my crafty wizard muttered a couple of words under his breath and vanished. In his place stood a fine granite rock about the size of a crouching man.

I took a dozen steps away from the Merlin rock, took in a deep and shuddery breath, and stood with both feet rooted in the rich and loamy magic of this green faerie glen. I dug into my many pockets and pulled out handfuls of spells as all around me seven ancient and lovely vampires landed, catching me in their center and closing off any option of escape.

9

The Brothers Romanoff

Vampires are strange creatures. Strangest, first and foremost, for how they have somehow been able to trick humans into believing that they are elegant, charming, and sexy. How the vampires convinced girls and women that sucking out their life blood was a romantic and devilish pursuit was beyond me. The truth of it was obviously a more revolting and murderous affair.

The stories human told about vampires had some of it, but not all of it, right. They could indeed turn a human into a vampire if they wanted, though it was a rare occurrence. They did have an aversion to sunlight, though it was more similar to albinism than anything else. And vampires were lovely: when they transformed they took their best physical human attributes and amplified them. Every vampire always looked young and vital, but here the truth of vampires veered from their legends. Though vampires grew in strength as they aged, their minds had all the troubles of aging humans: forgetfulness, curmudgeonliness, trouble with new ideas, and dementia. So even though vampires were functionally immortal, in truth few lived more than a couple of decades beyond the lifetime of the average human. A predator who dawdled and grew easily distracted tended to starve. Not that any vampire would ever admit to this. Like aging humans, they had trouble coming to terms with the idea that any such thing could possibly happen to them.