The Hunt: A Custodes Noctis Book (18 page)

“Fail safes?”

“Usually it’s break the ritual and you die.”

“Fuck.” Flash stopped struggling and just watched.

The sound of Rob’s voice broke the stillness, the words soft, nearly unintelligible. He was looking at the raven, the words tripping easily off his tongue, the bird cocked its head to the side and muttered softly. Rob spoke again and the raven gave a happy cry, opening its wings and throwing up its head with a croak of laughter. The second raven approached Rob with little skipping steps. He smiled
 
and reached out to touch each bird, a look of affection lighting his face. The larger of the two dipped its beak into the blood pooling on the stone, then touched Rob’s face with its bloody beak. The other came forward and repeated the movement, marking the opposite side of Rob’s face with a print of red. Rob spoke to them, gently stroking each of them as he did. The larger one rubbed its head against his cheek, almost like a cat, then stepped back. It murmured something then the birds stretched their wings and fluttered into the sky like bits of silken black paper.

Galen was moving before Rob slumped over the stone. His brother’s eyes were closed and there was a happy smile on his face. A soft rustling noise drew Galen’s eyes away from him, from the blood marring the stone. The
each uisge
was still standing under one of the stunted trees, Its gray flesh transparent in the soft winter sun, the bone standing out in clear relief against the background of the trees, the ground-level fog swirling around its legs.

“Rob?”

“Galen?” Rob asked, his voice thick. He opened his eyes and squinted at the bright light. “What happened? How did we get here?”

“You decided to have a little ‘feed the birds’ moment,” Flash grumbled.

“What?” Rob frowned. “The ravens?” His voice took on a gentle note.

“Yes,” Galen replied.

“The Ritual of the Ravens, they will serve me when I am king,” Rob said, mists curling through his eyes. “As will you,” he added, addressing the
each uisge.
It tossed up its head in acknowledgment before turning away and moving into the shadows of the trees. “We should get back, it’s almost time for the midday dose.”

“Wait.” Galen stopped him. Laying a hand over the bloody wound on Rob’s forearm, he let the
 
healing flow and closed the slash, using the Gift to get an idea of how deeply Rob had been affected by the ritual.
“Hang in there,”
he said silently.

Galen sighed, then stood, offering Rob a hand to get up. His brother swayed for a moment, a distant look in his eyes, Galen gave him a gentle shake. “Hey.”

“Here. Let’s go.” Rob smiled and led the way back to the car.

The heavy fog was still clouding Rob’s mind as he struggled towards consciousness. The second dose of the iridescent liquid had put him to sleep, nearly silencing the link with Galen, pulling him into a cold world untouched by sunlight, dark shapes moving through endless rolling plains. It was terrifying gazing into the Between World. During his dreams the night before, he’d known he’d been dreaming, but part of him had been with the Hunt,
 
present, knowing what was happening without actually riding with them.

the king whispered to him. Rob’s heart sang with joy at the statement, he would be king soon, riding with his ancient brothers. With a gasp, he pulled himself away, forcing his eyes open and staring blearily at the ceiling, trying to concentrate on the world around him, not that cold place that was calling with increasing volume.

“Yes, I’m still here.” Galen’s voice came from the other room, despite the call of the Hunt, he could feel irritation buzzing along the bond. “Do you have any idea what this is costing?” There was a pause. “Most people at least have the decency to play music, not sing off-key. It’s so off-key it hurts.” Pause. “I know what time it is, I still remember when you called me at three in the morning for that cite from… Yeah, I know I own one of the only copies on earth, but it was three in the morning. Want to tell me what you found?”

Rob sat up, shoving the fog further away, trying to focus on what Galen was saying and the emotions flowing through the now muted bond.

“What’d he find?” Flash asked.

“Rob can translate four or five at once, and he’s half your age, so stop complaining, Hugh.” Galen chuckled softly in response to something the other said and affection flowed along the bond, warming Rob. “Yeah, that’s true,” his brother said, the affection present in his voice as well.

“Four or five what?” Flash demanded. “What’s he saying?”

“Shut up, Flash,” Galen said. There was a long moment of silence. “He did? And?”

“And what?” Flash demanded.

“Shut up. You sure, Hugh? No, I understand. Call me if you find anything more.” Galen laughed. “Yes, joint publication rights, you freak.”

Rob got up, leaning against the wall for a moment before heading out into the main room. Flash was sprawled on the couch and Galen was sitting at the table, a pad of paper in front of him. “What’s up?” Rob asked as he sat down in one of the easy chairs.

“Research,” Flash muttered. “It’s a barrel of laughs.”

“Oh?” Rob tried to hide his distress, the Sight was almost completely gone. He stared at Galen, letting down the restraints, and still there were only the softest of colors swirling around his brother.

“It’s the spell, Rob,” Galen said gently. “As it moves through your system, the Gift should come back.”

“Until I have to take the next dose,” Rob heard the resignation in his own voice.

“Maybe not.” Galen frowned at the paper in front of him. “According to Hugh…”

“Hugh?” Rob leaned forward to get a better look at Galen’s notes. It was a lost cause. His brother’s handwriting was attractive to look at, impossible to read. Galen joked it was because he’d considered being a doctor for awhile.

“Hugh Frampton.”

“Hugh Frampton? From Oxford? Author of
Mystic Rites: Native Mystery Cults in Roman Britain
?”

“That’s the one,” Galen said.

“You know him?”

“Do I detect a little hero-worship there, Brat?”

“A little.” Rob chuckled. “His research is amazing, I read the article he wrote for last month’s
Old Europe Review,
discussing the spread of the concept…” He trailed off when he realized Galen was grinning at him. “How do you know him?”

“He attended a convention on Dark Ages medicine that I was a speaker at, he came up after I finished to ask about a point I’d made. We ended up heading to the bar and discussing the transition between Roman and Saxon medical practices in England.”

“You have so much fun without me,” Flash piped up.

“Why did you call him?” Rob reached for the notes. He caught a word here and there, one stood out, mostly because Galen had underlined it several times, the strokes hard enough to cut through the paper. “What about the Fae?” Rob inquired, trying to figure out the words around that one.

“According to Hugh’s research, a man named Theodoris Valerius claimed to have witnessed a ritual…”

“His writings were lost in a fire during the Battle of Britain, I was looking for a copy of his
Travels
for a paper,” Rob said, frowning.

“A copy was recently found in a collection excavated in the 1960s, but never properly evaluated.”

“I’d give my eye teeth to see it,” Rob said, scholarly greed momentarily getting the upper hand.

“Talk to Hugh, I’m sure he’d let you have a peek. He’s scanned it to go with a publication about it.”

“Good, I wanted to follow up on an idea I had about the later Sagas of…”

“Can we get back to the ‘what he found’ part of the conversation? Before you two start discussing something completely fucking unrelated?” Flash interrupted him.

“Sorry, Flash.” Galen grinned. “Valerius claimed to have witnessed a ritual that sounds a lot like something to do with the Hunt. He noted that one of the people gathered there was a member of the Fae. Of course, scholars have dismissed that as nonsense, believing the man to have been a priest or other official in the guise of the Fae, playing the part for the ritual.”

“But he wasn’t,” Rob said with certainty.

“No.” Galen hesitated, Rob felt it through their bond.

“And?” Flash prompted.

“Valerius recorded some of the ritual, some of what happened to the man destined to ride as king. Of course, we’re assuming that this was the Hunt he witnessed. It would’ve been before the Hunt was lost.”

“I thought you knew what was going to happen? That’s what you told me at breakfast,” Flash said, alarmed.

“We do know what’s going to happen, there are just details here and there that are missing,” Galen said patiently.

“And Valerius has some?” Rob looked at Galen’s scribbles on the page.

“Maybe, at least according to what Hugh said.”

“And?”

“And from what he said, the bond was active for the
Custodes Noctis
who experienced the Ritual of the King.”

“No, the Sagas say very clearly that the bond is lost.”

“Yeah, I know, Rob, but those were after the Hunt had changed. And it makes sense, if only one Keeper is going to be taken, of course the bonds with his brother—and this world—would be severed.”

“You aren’t telling me something.” Rob’s Gift was returning, achingly slow, but coming back and he could see the colors that in anyone else would be an outright lie, shining around his brother. Galen looked away, out the window at the gathering fog. “What?” Rob demanded.

“I’m not sure, Hugh’s following it up.”

“When you ride with the Hunt, you become one of them, you lose yourself completely, that might be what they meant,” Rob offered, trying to get a sense of his own words, it felt like he was skating dangerously close to a lie, he just wasn’t sure what it was. Something didn’t feel right, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“And all that’s assuming this guy saw the right fucking ritual, right?” Flash said, frowning at them both.

“The description fits,” Galen insisted.

“And no one noticed it before now ‘cause why?” Flash raised his eyebrows in query, but before Rob or Galen could answer, he cocked his head to the side. “No one was looking close enough to see it, there was no reason. Like a murder mystery where everyone overlooks the who done it.”

“Actually,” Rob said, trying to hide the surprise in his voice, “that’s exactly what it’s like.”

“So just don’t do it, don’t join,” Flash said.

“We told you, we don’t have a choice. If the
feorhbealu
are rising, the Hunt is our only hope.”

“Because that guy told you? The one you said was Fae? Who appeared out of nowhere with some fucking story about it all?” Flash was agitated. He got up and paced across the room, Rob watched the muted colors swirling around him as their friend worked himself into a temper.

“It’s not just that, Flash, those things we fought in the park were related to this, too,” Galen explained.

“Are you sure? You fight shit like that all the time.”

“Not like that, the Veil is weakening,” Rob said quietly. “We’ve both seen it, so something’s going on.”

“But what does that have to do with this Hunt thing?” Flash demanded, obviously not willing to back down.

“We need the Hunt to stop the
feorhbealu
, that’s why it was founded.”

“You’re both missing something,” Flash snapped. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something you’re missing. You were caught in it first, Galen, and now Rob, I don’t think either one of you is thinking clearly.”

“Flash,” Galen began.

“No! You’re not! You can’t see it, but I can! Something weird is going on, and you are completely missing it!” Flash took a breath to keep going but stopped when the phone rang, he watched through narrowed eyes as Rob answered it.

“Yes?”

“Your dinner is ready, sir,” a soft female voice said. “We have a place for your servant tonight.”

“Thank you.” Rob hung up the phone but couldn’t stop the chuckle. “Dinner’s ready, they have a place for our servant, too.”

“Yeah? They do?” Flash was winding up. “Well, they can just bite my…”

“Let’s go eat,” Galen said, holding up a hand to stop Flash.

“Galen,” Flash growled.

“Flash?” Galen growled back.

“Are they going to poison me again?” Flash looked from Galen to Rob.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Flash grabbed Galen and shook him, Rob watched pain register on his brother’s face before Galen put his hand on Flash’s shoulder. Rob saw the light of Galen’s Gift glow and Flash sighed. “Sorry,” Flash said a little calmer. “Let’s go eat. Your
servant
is starving.”

It was quiet in the restaurant, most of the diners clustered in the far corner away from their table. They were all human, although several had odd colors swirling around them, a combination of fog and shadow. By the time the waitress brought them their dinner, the restaurant was nearly empty. Flash sniffed the food suspiciously and refused to drink anything at all. Galen took a tiny bite of everything, the liquid silver around him changing color as he used the Gift to test the food. Rob sighed and just ate his, accepting the inevitable. He couldn’t see anything in the food, and the mead looked okay. But of course it had the night before, too.

Flash kept up a running commentary through dinner, growling at the waitress, complaining about the cook, and at one point flipping off another diner who’d been staring at them for most of their meal. He grumbled when they were served fruit for dessert, muttering about the hot fudge sundae he’d seen listed on the menu outside the door.
 
He’d finally went quiet after Galen kicked him in the shin for the fourth time. After that, he ate a pear, glaring at both of them.