The boy offered me a hand. I took it to be polite, but he showed inhuman strength in pullin’ me up on the horse behind him. I shoved the rapier into a loop on the saddle and winked at Jo. “Go get ‘em, sweetheart.”
And then I rode off into the sunset.
CHAPTER TWO
There was nothin’ in the world like riding with the Wild Hunt. Dogs, big white fellas with red-tipped ears and huge mouths, ran in front of us and bayed like bloodhounds. Grey-beaked rooks chattered and scattered in the air around us, and the horses’ hooves pounded against the sky like they were running over cobblestones, loud warnings to anyone smart enough to get outta the way. Cernunnos rode in the lead, the rest of us like a flock of geese behind him, spread out in a V that shifted and mutated as we scrambled up clouds and down moonbeams. Even ridin’ double with the boy, I had a grin stuck to my teeth and couldn’t let it go.
Night came on full and fast, the way it does when you’re flying toward it. Clearer stars than I’d seen since I was a kid burned white against the blackest sky I could remember. There was nothing to compete with the Milky Way spreading out above us, no light pollution, no air pollution, no nothin’, just us and the stars and the grey-green forest way below. For half a heartbeat I thought it’d be okay to stay here, deep in the back end of forever, but I knew I’d never do it. Jo expected me to come home on the other end of time.
The kid I rode with had a voice as clear and sharp as the stars, loud enough to be heard over howling dogs and cawing rooks and clattering hooves: “Father, this will not do. Not if we ride to battle. The mare cannot abide, so burdened.”
“I ain’t that much of a burden!”
“You are if we must fight,” the boy said sourly. “Father.” He didn’t wait for Cernunnos to pay attention, just wheeled off, upward, toward the star path stretched across the sky. The dogs came our way, and then the birds, and finally the other riders. Cernunnos came after, and sent the kid a dagger glare as he took his place at the front of the ride again. I couldn’t help remembering what Jo had said, back in those first days when we’d first met and had first dealt with Horns: “And a child shall lead them.” Looked to me like Cernunnos might be lord of the hunt, but the kid was the boss of Pop. “Where we goin’?”
The boy said, “Home,” in his clear strong voice. I caught a glimpse of longing on Cernunnos’s face. Then he was ahead of us, riding fast for the stars, and the air got damned cold before I started wonderin’ whether I was gonna survive going where a god called home.
The answer was no, a’course I wasn’t, because the air got too thin an’ the stars got too close, but the Wild Hunt didn’t have to worry about things like that ‘cause they were magic. It turned out, as we burst through the stars and crashed into a blank empty space in the sky, that for here and now, so was I. It wasn’t just the Sight Jo had granted me, but also riding with the Hunt and being under the god’s protection. I’d ridden with him once before, just for a couple minutes, but that was him givin’ us a lift. This was real, and it went into my bones until I belonged with the Hunt. Until I felt the cold place between worlds edging under my skin, getting its hooks in. Until a pounding started in my heart, more than a heartbeat, more of a life pulse, the life of another world. I remembered that world, its misty forests and dew-damp meadows. I remembered the sharp smell of the sea in the air, and how the muted night colors of the ancient Ireland we’d just left behind reminded me of home. I remembered the loamy earth grabbin’ at me, holding me close as I sank into it, and I remembered how laughter carried through the air like crystal, a song of its own.
I remembered all of it, an’ when we burst through the walls between worlds to splash into shallow seas and ride for a silver shore, everything in my bones said I was home.
I grabbed the mare’s reins and hauled up. She reared, then stomped in a circle, shaking an angry head as the rest of the Hunt swung around us, swirlin’ and moving like fog. The boy took the reins back and stilled the mare while Cernunnos came out of the fog and met my eye. “What the hell are you doin’ to me?”
“You are not Joanne, to demand answers from me, old man.”
“Nah, I’m just her best buddy, and here to do you a favor.”
He went tight around the eyes just like anybody might do, ‘cept with him it did something uncanny to the horns distortin’ his temples. They hadn’t burst through the skin yet. Wouldn’t, I reckoned, for half a year or so, but they were still there, thick and visible and making him look more dangerous than your average Joe.
The thought made me grin. Maybe more dangerous than your average Joe, but I wasn’t so sure about more dangerous than my average Jo. “Knock it off,” I said. “We’re in this thing together, and we’re both doing it for Joanne, right? So no sense in tryin’ ta out-alpha each other. You got the magic mojo all over me anyway, and I know it, so lemme try again: What’s happening to me?”
He clenched and loosened his jaw, but it’s hard to pick a fight with a guy who’s apologizing. Which was what I was doing, even if not in quite so many words. Most humans didn’t like sayin’ I’m sorry very much, and I didn’t figure it got any easier if you were a god. Didn’t hurt my ego any to back down, and besides, I was on his territory. I guessed Cernunnos figured all that out too, ‘cause after a few more seconds of being cranky he flared his nostrils and muttered, “Two things, old ma—”
“All right, now look, Horns. You don’t call Jo “little shaman” anymore, so how ‘bout you stop callin’ me old man? I’m a spring chicken compared to you. Call me Gary. Or Muldoon. Somethin’. Just not “Old man.””
A buncha the riders looked the other way. Or in a lotta other ways, which made me think they were tryin’ not ta look at each other for fear of laughin’. Probably weren’t used to people saying “No” to their boss, but hell, I didn’t have much to lose, and there was nothing like being told you were old to make you feel that way.
Cernunnos said, “I shall endeavor to find something suitable to call you,” through clenched, pointed teeth. I gave him a nice big smile with my own pearlies on display, and asked once more for good measure: “So what’s goin’ on?”
“First,” he said, still through clenched teeth, “we are getting you a horse. The boy is right: in the battle that I see coming, being double-mounted would be a killing disadvantage.”
“All right. And second?”
“You can ride, can you not?” Cernunnos asked. “Unassisted?”
“Been through a rodeo or two.”
His expression went blank. I said, “Forget it. Point is, yeah, I can stay on a horse. What’s the second thing?”
“You are not yourself an adept. A magic user, one of the connected. Therefore the Hunt cannot long abide you unless you belong to my home, to Tir na nOg. In this moment, with the Sight visited upon you, with the spirit creature living within you, you may be bound to the land because it knows she who gave you those gifts by a gift she will give it in the future. You may belong, a denizen of Tir na nOg, and as such ride with the Hunt. Welcome,” he said more softly. “You are of my people now.”
A sharp twist pulled at my heart. “You mean I ain’t human anymore?”
Quick as that, the gentleness fled. He snapped, “All the riders are human. All but myself and the boy, and he is half of one. Do not forget that.”
“All right. All right.” I raised one hand to accept it, and the boy twisted to look at me with an expression that said “Are we done now?”
I nodded. He urged the mare through the low surf up onto the damp sand. The Hunt followed, even Cernunnos, all of ‘em spreading out along the shore and half-disappearing into the mist. At the back of my heart I knew the land, an’ I said, “There’s no stables around here,” aloud.