Shadowspell (8 page)

Finn put a hand on my arm, and the prickling increased. At a guess, I’d say he’d extended his shield spell over my body. Lachlan stood motionless on my other side. The street and sidewalks around us had emptied as if by magic.

The Erlking twisted the handlebars of his bike, making it growl even more fiercely. Flames shot out from the exhaust pipes, reminding me of how his horse had seemed to breathe fire. I couldn’t help cringing at the sound as he revved the engine again. I might have embarrassed myself by covering my ears if Finn hadn’t had such a firm grip on my arm. I could hear the Erlking laughing even over the roar of the bikes.

Then suddenly, all the Huntsmen came to a stop at the same moment, the roar of their bikes subsiding to a growling idle.

My heart beating in my throat, I glanced around at these nightmares of Faerie. Each of the Huntsmen was dressed identically in unadorned black riding leathers. Black helmets with reflective visors hid their faces, and black gloves—or maybe I should call them gauntlets—hid their hands so that not a hint of skin or hair was visible. Only the fact that their builds were slightly different from one another stopped them from looking like a bunch of clones.

The Erlking was another story. His black leather was heavily adorned with silver studs and spikes, and he actually had silver spurs attached to his heavy motorcycle boots. The spurs might have made him look silly if he weren’t so terrifying.

He, too, wore gauntlets, though his had wicked silver spikes across the knuckles. Yikes! His helmet was oddly shaped, coming to a point in front of his face like it was the helmet from a suit of armor, and silver antlers were painted on each side of his head, reminding me of the grotesque mask he’d been wearing when I first saw him. More frightening still, he wore a familiar scabbard draped over his back, though at least he didn’t draw the sword.

When I’d seen him from a distance, I’d known immediately that he was a big guy. Up close and personal like he was now, I saw that he was huge. He had to be at least six foot five, and though his body was well hidden behind all that black leather, I could tell from the way he filled out the outfit that he was solidly muscled. As if he weren’t intimidating enough otherwise.

I don’t know how long our silent standoff lasted. It felt like forever, but was probably only a few minutes at most. My mouth was dry with fear, even though I knew he couldn’t hurt me, and if my heart raced any faster, I’d die of a heart attack.

And then the Erlking reached up and removed his helmet.

I felt like my racing heart had suddenly stopped beating as I watched him shake out his hair and hook his helmet on the handlebars of his bike.

There’s no such thing as an ugly Fae. At least not among the Sidhe, the aristocracy of Faerie. Their faces are always perfectly proportioned, their skin always completely devoid of blemishes or wrinkles or freckles. Even so, not all Fae are created equal. Up until this moment, Finn had topped my list of most gorgeous creatures I’d ever laid eyes on. The Erlking set a new standard.

The Fae are usually blond, with a few redheads thrown in for variety, but the Erlking’s hair was a deep, glossy black and reached halfway down his back. His eyes were of deepest blue, framed by thick black lashes, and his mouth should be in the dictionary beside the word
sensual
. A striking blue tattoo in the shape of a leaping stag curved around the side of his face from just above his eyebrow down to his cheekbone.

Like all the Fae, the Erlking was ageless, his face belonging to someone in his mid-twenties, but there was something about his eyes that made him look … ancient. There were depths of knowledge in those eyes that made me feel like I could drown in them.

I forced myself to remember the sight of him raising his sword to kill an unarmed, fleeing man. The memory didn’t make him any less gorgeous, but it did stop me from staring at him in what I suspect was an embarrassing state of awe.

“Dana, daughter of Seamus,” the Erlking said in a voice that blended with the rumble of the bikes. “Well met.”

He put his hand over his heart, then bowed from the waist. The gesture should have looked awkward while he was straddling his bike, but it didn’t.

I figured keeping my mouth shut was the best option when facing malevolent creatures of Faerie. The Erlking’s eyes twinkled with humor for a moment before he turned his attention to Finn.

“And Finn, of the Daoine Sidhe.” He didn’t bow this time, but he did nod his head with what looked almost like respect. “A worthy guardian for Avalon’s most precious jewel.”

I wasn’t surprised that Finn also chose to keep quiet. Like I said, he’s the strong, silent type.

I expected the Erlking to greet Lachlan in some way, as he had me and Finn, but he dismissed the troll with no more than a cursory glance and a curl of his lip. As I’d discovered from my father, the Sidhe were notoriously classist, and trolls were considered lesser beings. It pissed me off, but I wasn’t going to try to teach the Erlking manners.

The Erlking fixed me with a stare that felt like an icicle piercing my heart. My breath froze in my lungs, and my fight-or-flight instincts urged me to run. My whole body was trembling with the need to flee for my life, sweat breaking out on my forehead and under my arms as my blood turned to pure adrenaline. When I managed to drag in a breath, my lungs wheezed with the effort. I think if Finn hadn’t been holding my arm, I might not have been able to resist my body’s desperate instinct to get away. Not that I could have gone anywhere with the Huntsmen surrounding me.

“Leave her alone!” Finn barked.

The Erlking smiled and looked away from me. The need to run faded instantly, and I knew that he had used some kind of magic against me to upgrade my general fear to full-out terror. I fought to keep myself from shivering as I tried to calm my frantic heart rate. Whatever magic he’d used, I hadn’t sensed it in the air.

The Erlking met my eyes again, but this time he didn’t try any tricks. “It is rare for a person with mortal blood to be able to withstand my gaze. Even a full-blooded Fae can be made to feel the effects, though only under the right circumstances. It seems there is more to you than meets the eye.”

Nightmare Man then proceeded to wink at me, like he and I were in on some great joke together. I swallowed hard. I don’t know how, but I was sure he knew about my affinity with magic. Perhaps it was the magic that had prevented me from surrendering to panic. He was dangerous enough without him knowing my secret.

The Erlking smiled at me. On someone else’s face, that smile probably would have looked friendly. But not on his.

“I am not your enemy, Faeriewalker,” he said. “I can’t in all fairness claim to be your friend, either. However, I will offer you a token of…” He tapped his chin and furrowed his brow as if thinking hard, though I got the feeling he was just putting on a show. “… good will.”

He looked at me expectantly. I still thought keeping my mouth shut around this guy was the smartest move. However, I didn’t want to leave him with the impression that I was a frightened little rabbit, quivering with terror and hoping the big bad wolf wouldn’t eat me.

“Thanks,” I said, and I managed to get some sarcasm in my tone, though I sounded scared even to my own ears. “But no thanks. Somehow, I don’t think accepting tokens from you would be such a hot idea.”

The Erlking laughed, and his Huntsmen echoed him in eerie unison. The Erlking was terrifying, but his Huntsmen were just plain creepy.

I had no clue why what I’d said was so funny, but despite my resolve to appear unaffected, I knew blood was rising to my cheeks. Mockery is something I’ve never taken well.

The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had started. The Erlking picked up his helmet. I hoped that meant he and his buddies were about to leave.

“I’ll give you the token whether you wish it or not,” he said. For the first time, he turned his full attention to Lachlan, who had been so still and quiet I’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Things aren’t always what they seem, now, are they?” the Erlking asked Lachlan with a grin.

To my surprise, Lachlan paled and took a step backward, as if he was thinking of running. The Erlking had suggested that his power of terror didn’t work so well on Fae unless they had some mortal blood in them, which I was sure Lachlan did not. I didn’t even know if trolls were
capable
of breeding with humans.

Finn was giving Lachlan a funny look, too. “Lachlan?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

I practically jumped out of my skin when the Erlking suddenly revved his bike again. The Huntsmen broke their circle, freeing us as they lined up in formation behind their leader.

“Remove his glamour, Finn of the Daoine Sidhe,” the Erlking said. “Then you will understand why my gaze affected him as it did.”

With another laugh, he put his helmet back on. The roar of the Wild Hunt’s bikes was deafening as they rode away.

*   *   *

I didn’t exactly feel safe now that the Hunt had left, but I did at least feel capable of turning my attention elsewhere. I looked at Lachlan, who was holding his hands up in front of him in what looked like a defensive gesture as he backed away from Finn.

Magic built in the air, pouring off Finn in waves, and the look on his face was not promising. I had a good guess what was going to happen when Finn cast whatever spell he was about to cast, and it made my stomach do a flip-flop.

Finn released his magic, and it hit Lachlan like a physical blow, knocking him back—and blowing away his glamour. Without his glamour, he should have looked like a monster: a massive, ugly troll with clawed fingers and a mouth full of fangs. Instead, there was a muscular man of middling height with the uptilted eyes of a Fae, but sporting a scraggly beard that said he had a good dose of human blood in him.

One thing was for sure: it was not Lachlan.

Finn reached for me—no doubt to shove me behind him—and the moment he took his eyes off the imposter, the bastard turned tail and ran.

“Stop him!” I yelled at Finn, but I knew before the words had left my mouth that he wouldn’t. His job was to protect me, so he couldn’t chase the imposter. But if the imposter got away, then we might never know who had sent him—and what he’d done with the real Lachlan.

In retrospect, what I did next was flat-out dumb. Keane might have been training me in self-defense, but I was still a beginner, at best. Usually, I’m a pretty cautious person, into the look-before-you-leap philosophy. But being in Avalon, learning to fight, and constantly being in danger was changing me in more ways than one.

Fake-Lachlan was going to get away because Finn had to babysit me, and I didn’t want Fake-Lachlan getting away. So I dropped my bag of groceries and ran after him.

My reckless charge took Finn completely by surprise, so he was a beat too slow when he tried to reach out and grab me. I heard him yell my name as I dodged out of reach, but I ignored him and kept running. The arrival of the Wild Hunt had effectively cleared the streets, so both the imposter and I were able to run full speed. I heard the sound of Finn’s feet pounding the pavement behind me, and I allowed myself a little smile of satisfaction.
I
might not be much of a match for the imposter, but the guy wouldn’t be running like his life depended on it if he thought he could handle Finn.

The smile disappeared when the imposter suddenly stopped in his tracks, whirling around to face me. I tried to put on the brakes, but I’d been running headlong and couldn’t stop in time.

I crashed into the imposter’s body, my momentum pushing him back a few steps as his breath whooshed out. But apparently, he’d been ready for me, because he recovered his balance much faster than I did, and he wrapped his arms around me, turning me around so my back was to his chest. One of his arms pinned mine to my sides, while his other arm came around my neck.

“Stay back!” he yelled at Finn. “Come any closer, and I’ll break her neck.”

Finn stopped much more gracefully than I had and glared daggers at my attacker.

But I hadn’t been taking all those self-defense lessons from Keane for no reason, and we’d practiced any number of different escapes from this particular hold, which was apparently an old standby for bad guys. Without a moment of hesitation, I did three things in quick succession. I stomped down as hard as I could on his instep. Then I lowered my head and sank my teeth into his forearm. He screamed and started to let go, and that was when I snapped my head back as hard as I could.

Whoever he was, the guy wasn’t particularly tall, and the back of my head made satisfying contact with his nose. The crunching sound made me wince, as did his howl of pain. But he let go of me in a hurry.

I was wondering if I should turn around and give him a good kick in the knee to make sure he couldn’t run away, but before I could decide, Finn yanked me away and planted his fist in the imposter’s face. Every muscle in his body went limp at once, and he collapsed to the pavement in a heap.

chapter seven

Despite my frequent complaints about how visitors from Faerie can practically get away with murder in Avalon, the city does have a justice system and a police force. By the time the Lachlan impersonator went down for the count, the Wild Hunt had been gone long enough that people were starting to poke their heads out to see if the coast was clear. Someone must have seen what happened, because before Finn had a chance to round on me and congratulate me on my brilliant performance—hey, it could happen!—we heard the sound of sirens approaching.

The look on Finn’s face said he was considering grabbing me and making a run for it, but by now there were enough witnesses that the cops would have tracked us down if we tried it, and that couldn’t be a good thing.

Finn shook his finger in my face. “You are not to speak to the police, Dana,” he said. “You’re a minor, and they can’t question you without your legal guardian’s permission, so just keep your mouth shut.”

I frowned up at him. “Why? It’s not like we did anything wrong.” At least, not as far as I knew.

Finn gave me a long-suffering look. “Will you just this once do as you’re told without the thousand and one questions?”