“Get away!” he shouted, scrambling back over the arm of the sofa, fumbling, then falling onto the wood floor with a thump. His elbow thwacked the ground and pain shot up his arm as he tried to crab-walk backward.
The cloaked shadow sprang through the air. Oliver opened his mouth to scream again, chest thundering with his racing heartbeat, but a powerful hand clamped over his mouth to silence him. Its weight bore down on him and he stared up . . .
Into jade eyes.
“You must be silent,” Kitsune said, and then she tossed her head, throwing back her hood, and her raven hair glinted in what little light filtered into the cottage from outside.
Oliver shook with relief and then nodded, pressing his eyes tightly closed a moment.
Kitsune removed her hand.
“I was . . . it was a nightmare,” he whispered. “But it seemed like more.”
Even as he spoke, it occurred to him that there were other things to fear than his nightmares. Kitsune was poised and alert, head cocked as she listened for something he knew he did not want to hear. Oliver extricated himself from beneath her and climbed to his knees, reluctantly glancing around the darkened cottage.
“What is it?” he asked, voice barely audible.
A shiver ran up his back and gooseflesh rose on his arms. A breeze had rippled through the room, and without turning he knew that Frost had joined them. When he did look, he found the winter man holding out to him a pile of neatly folded clothing.
“Quickly, Oliver.”
He took the shirt and pants, only then really aware that he wore only a T-shirt and underwear. In the dreadful tension of that moment, however, there was no room for the indulgence of embarrassment. The pants were some kind of wool-blended trousers and he stepped into them even as he glanced around at his companions again.
“Would one of you tell me what’s up? What time is it? How long have we—”
“Hush!” Kitsune growled quietly, baring fangs at him. There was a hint of pique in her eyes that confused him, but he was used to being puzzled by her.
As he slipped on the thick white cotton shirt and began to button it as quickly as his sleepy fingers would allow, he turned pleading eyes upon Frost.
The winter man gestured for him to hurry. “You slept only a few hours. Not enough, but it will have to be. The Kirata are here, in the village. Even now they will be searching for our scent, checking every home and business.”
Oliver swore softly as he reached for his own boots. They had rubber soles, and he could only hope they would not be so modern as to draw attention. Certainly many of the Lost Ones had modern clothing that they would have been wearing when they pierced the Veil. The boots would have to do.
As he bent to tie them he caught motion in the periphery of his vision, near the door, and he jerked back, ready to fight. It was Larch, who had been standing in the darkness, peering out a front window throughout their exchange. In the dim glow from outside his eyes looked desperate.
“Please, hurry!” he said, the words almost a whine. “You can’t be found here. I tried to help you, now you’ve got to help me by getting out of—”
“We’re doing our best, Mr. Larch,” Kitsune growled, the words darting across the darkened room.
Oliver fumbled his way through the near-dark to the darkened fireplace— shards of his dream returning— and grabbed the shotgun case where it rested on the mantel. He spun around, narrowing his eyes to get a better look at Larch.
“A coat. You said you had something for me.”
Larch raced into his bedroom and came out almost instantly with a long, thick gray woolen coat. “Take this. But you can’t leave the other here. Nor your clothes. Get rid of them somewhere else.”
“Kitsune, the back,” Frost whispered.
The fox-woman slid through the shadows to the back door and opened it quietly, slipping out into the night, disappearing beyond the gleam of moon and starlight. Oliver stared at that open door, holding his breath as he pulled on Larch’s coat and slipped the shotgun case over his shoulder. Frost grabbed up his parka and discarded clothes and went to the front of the house, glancing quickly out the window before rushing toward the back . . . following Kitsune.
“No sign of them yet. But they will be prowling. Could be anywhere.”
The winter man hesitated only a moment before following Kitsune into the dark. Oliver paused and looked at Larch, and he wished he could stay. In a way he had found all he’d ever really wanted when he and Frost had tumbled out over the ocean and through the Veil. Magic. Freedom from the expectations of the life he’d known. Part of him wished he could just sit awhile, get to know this village, explore.
He cast a yearning glance at the shelves and shelves of books in Larch’s cottage and felt another pang of envy. At last he took a deep breath and nodded to the Englishman, then stepped out the door.
The chill was bracing. The fire in Larch’s hearth had died hours earlier but the cottage had held much of its warmth. Outside, the wind whipped along behind the little house and made his whole body feel brittle. He buttoned the wool coat and turned up the collar, and that helped.
Frost was off to his left, Kitsune to the right, both of them on watch. When he emerged, the winter man rushed to him, an arctic breeze accompanying him, and together they hurried to where Kitsune waited. Frost still carried Oliver’s cast-off clothes. After what Larch had done for them, they wouldn’t leave the clothes so close to the house, even though Oliver was certain that if they entered his home the Kirata would smell the presence of their prey. He hoped it didn’t come to that.
Morning was only a few hours away and the village was silent but for the whistle of the wind through the gardens and the eaves of the larger houses. They moved swiftly to the east, past the Wayside Inn and behind a building that might have been some sort of marketplace. Just ahead, the Truce Road was intersected by another, much less impressive thoroughfare. Little more than a dirt cart path, really, it branched off the main road and was lined with houses that seemed far less well kept than their counterparts there.
As they passed silently between houses, Kitsune sniffed at the air. Her fur cloak gleamed the color of fire in the moonlight. She started to move again, slipping through shadows like water. At the corner of the large house, where a flower garden had been planted— and Oliver tried not to think about how some of these flowers could grow in such weather— Kitsune went rigid and still.
Frost seemed not to notice at first, so intent was he upon surveying their surroundings, and by reflex Oliver thrust out a hand and clutched his arm. The ice seared his flesh with cold and he hissed as he withdrew his touch.
But it was enough. The winter man turned to glare at Oliver, and in doing so caught sight of Kitsune, paralyzed as though Frost himself had frozen her there. Yet this was no attack, only caution and fear. Her eyes were wide and her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“We’re not going to make it, are we?” Oliver asked grimly.
She bared her fangs, his voice— or perhaps his words— snapping her out of whatever trance she’d been in.
“They’re close,” Kitsune whispered, focusing on Frost. “At least one just ahead. Perhaps two. And others close by. Is there no other way?”
The winter man shook his head slowly so that the icicles of his hair did not clink together. His eyes misted white-blue and the little clouds swirled around his face.
“There can be no running. Only death or survival. And our path lies ahead of us.”
She nodded solemnly and took another deep breath of the air that breezed around them— of the scent of their enemy. Then Kitsune slipped over beside Oliver and tapped the strap of his shotgun case.
“A sword in its scabbard is not weapon, but decoration.”
Oliver nodded and set the case down, opening it and removing the shotgun. It was loaded. He pulled out a handful of shells and pressed them into the pockets of his wool coat, then nodded to indicate he was ready.
Kitsune raised her hood, her jade eyes lost within. “Be careful.”
Even as she turned she changed, diminishing as she dropped to the ground. It was as a fox that she slipped out in front of the house and darted across the narrow, rutted road that led to the northern farms. The street lamps on the Truce Road were out, leaving only celestial light, pinpoint glimmers of gold in the night sky. Kitsune was a dark shape, moving low to the ground. From their cover, Frost and Oliver watched her slip into the deeper darkness between two cottages across the way.
The winter man turned to Oliver and nodded gravely. The wind picked up, dancing around them, and stole Frost away. The entire substance of him was carried away on the wind, crumbling to snow and sleet that spiraled up into the sky above Oliver’s head. In the darkness up there, above the height of any cottage or house, the winter man would storm briefly across the night and then pause to wait for him on the other side of the road.
All along he had realized that he was a burden to them, but now Oliver realized precisely how significant a burden. It’s me, he thought. I’m going to get them killed. With the cherry-tree demon, he had taken a hand in saving their lives, but now he knew that his companions would not have been in that predicament were it not for him. Kitsune had stealth and cunning, Frost the ability to disappear into the night, into the wind. Oliver had only a weapon with which he was hardly an expert.
So why bother with me? he thought. By now, Frost surely owed him nothing, no matter what he might believe. They were all fugitives, and that created a kind of kinship. But they would be better off if they left him behind.
They were allies, certainly. But were they also friends? Could it be that simple?
All right, then. We stick together. But that means not getting them killed. Not being a liability.
As these thoughts crossed his mind he slipped the strap of the shotgun case over his head so that it was across his back and would not fall or get in the way of his aim. He held the cold metal of the shotgun firmly in both hands and left the cover of the house. In the silence of the sleeping village, the noise of his footfalls seemed incredibly loud in his ears. He breathed evenly and hurried without running, scanning north and south. To the north the road continued past perhaps twenty or thirty cottages and then there was no more village, only the farms in the distance.
To the south was the Truce Road and the intersection that could only be the center of town. In the square there he could see a horse stable and a two-story building with what appeared to be a general store in the windows of the first. A sign squeaked as it swung in the breeze. Somewhere, real wind chimes sang their strange, lonely melody.
The village square was empty.
His throat had gone dry without his realizing it. Oliver ran his tongue out to wet his lips and his step faltered. The barrel of the shotgun swung in an arc in front of him as he scanned the street, the houses in plain view, and the village square.
The street was empty.
Nothing moved but the wind, that creaking sign in front of the general store, and the weathervane on top of that very same building. Some dust blew up from the road and the grit was in his eyes. He blinked it away as he swung the barrel again, blinking at the impossible. Kitsune had their scent. The Kirata were here.
Hunting them.
He made a complete circle on that very spot. As he glanced around, the collar of the wool coat rasped against his unshaven cheek and an image leaped unbidden into his mind, a tinted home movie half drained of color, little Oliver standing on top of the toilet lid watching with furious scrutiny as his father shaved, wondering what that was about. When he had been very small, his father had loved him. Had picked him up and blown raspberries on his belly and tickled him and held him tightly, and on the weekends when he would go without shaving, the stubble had sometimes scraped the boy. Sometimes it had hurt. But he had never minded.
His nightmare returned. His mother in her parlor, and his father out across the shifting sand. Most of the dream was lost now, but he remembered those things. And something in his father’s face. Fear. But not for himself.
Oliver knew he had to get home. Even if he could find a place for himself in this world, he owed Julianna and Collette— and even his father— some word to indicate that he was all right, so they would not have to worry.
Bitterness rippled through him and lifted the corner of his mouth. As if Max Bascombe would worry. The old man might be frustrated, furious, and profoundly disappointed. But he wouldn’t worry.
Oliver shrugged off these phantoms of his mind that had come to plague him at the most inopportune time. He looked into the darkness between cottages, where Frost and Kitsune undoubtedly waited for him, though he could not see them. For a moment, he scuttled sideways, letting the shotgun barrel linger in the direction of the village square.
Then he was in motion again, somehow quieter and more focused. The shotgun felt more comfortable in his grip. He would feel better in the company of his friends.
As he reached the edge of that glorified cart path, the front door opened on a cottage off to his left and a Kirata stepped out into the night. The monster had to duck to get out, and its fur was bright stripes of orange against the night, for the black stripes were lost in the darkness. The effect was troubling, making the creature seem ethereal.
He was downwind, but it didn’t need his scent. It saw him.
The Kirata opened its jaws in a roar that seemed a gruesome promise, and suddenly it was all too real. An answering roar came from the south and he twisted round as he ran to see another of the Hunters coming around the corner in the village square. It wore filthy, matted pants that came down only halfway to its ankles, and no shoes, for its feet were more like large paws and the muscles in its legs stood out as it sprang along the street toward him, leaping at first and then breaking into a run.
Oliver never slowed.
As he passed between the two cottages, following the path his friends had taken, he gripped the shotgun more tightly, its case bouncing against his back. As he sprinted into the backyards, still heading east, he saw no sign of Kitsune or Frost. He searched the sky for a gust of winter weather, frantically sought a glimpse of the fox slipping through a garden or beneath shrubs. But they were gone.