The notes of the war horn tore at Jack. He put his hands over his ears as he ran and shut his eyes, which made him trip over what lau before him on the gravel pathway - a bloodied, wide-eyed apparition.
It was Bob.
He was gasping for breath and looked as if he might have run the entire way from the theater. He flung out an arm toward Jack and tried to speak, but it was as if invisible hands clutched at his throat and covered his mouth. Jack instinctively recognized his affliction for what it was: The boucca wasn't simply out of breath; he had been enchanted. He struggled in vain to say something, but the words would not come out of his mouth. Flecks of pinkish foam appeared at the corners of his pale green lips.
Suddenly, as if the words of the Bard had a magic of their own, he began to quote his own limes from the play.
"Up and down, up and down," he chanted, kneeling with the effort to push the words past his pain-clenched teeth. "I will lead them up and down."
Jack wanted to help the boucca but found himself, instead, compelled to look past where Bob writhed in pain: up the road, to the top of the hill - and the carousel.
Dark glittering energy crackled and danced over the contours of the little building. The shuttered security doors, pulled tight for the night, wavered like a mirage and the darkened shadows beneath the carousel roof, and thunderclouds boiled in the sky above. In the distance, Jack could hear the baying of what sounded like a whole pack of Black Shuck.
All Jack could think of in his panic was to hide. Become invisible.
Hadn't Ethan once say he could do that?
The howling grew louder.
Jack wrapped his arms around Bob and wished with all of his desperate, terrified might that he could disappear. He looked down and saw Bob's pale green eyes go wide, and then he vanished from aight all together. Both of them did.
Hee could still hear Bob's ragged breathing, feel his limbs trembling in his grasp. The effort of casting the veil almost caused him to black out. Darkness threatened to descend upon him, but he fought against it, holding tight to the wounded fae in his arms.o
When he was able to see again, he looked toward the carousel, and Bob's warning became suddenly, devastatingly clear.b
The ride began to spin, wreathed in inky, glistening smoke. In the air above the carousel, the magnificent dark stallion that used to be Lucky galloped into view. He screamed and lashed put with teeth and hooves, long limbs coiled in shadow. Astride his back, the Rider kept his seat effortlessly upon the bucking, plunging mount.
Jack felt his strength falter as the tears streamed down his face and, briefly, the veil he had managed to call up wavered. The Rider's gaze shifted and for a moment they locked eyes. He cried out his name, but the Rider's expression remained remote.
Frozen and merciless.
Ethan . . .
The thin, cheerful music of the calliope twisted into a cacophony of skirling battle cries, and Jack cringed at the howling rage. He watched in horror as the wooden horses of the carousel convulsed, shuttering into terrible life. His nightmares were becoming real right before his eyes. Bloodthirsty Faerie hunters shimmered into being astride the gaily painted saddles.
Sounds of the Black Shuck approaching grew closer.
Jack pushed every ounce of strength he had into the protective veil he barely knew how to create. He looked down to see himself and Bob fade back into nothingness just as the Wild Hunt surged forth into the night.
Singing in their terrible joy, the hunters climbed into the sky to join their leader, the Rider on the Roan Horse. They were joined by a pack of thundering Black Shuck that burst through the trees and leaped into the air, snapping at the horses' heels.
Jack turned his attention back to Ethan. A gust of wind whipped his dark hair madly around his beautiful, remote face as his gaze raked the space where he had seen him cowering with Bob only a moment before. Jack whispered his name, but Ethan looked through him with unseeing eyes. Brow clouding with anger, he whirled his sword about his head and hauled savagely on the reins of his shadowy steed.
Together they climbed higher and higher into the storm, the Wild Hunt following in their wake.
This was all his fault. Even if he hadn't ever known who - what - he was, it was because of him that this was happening.
As the Hunt galloped off over the treetops and out of sight, Jack let the veil drop. He was trembling in every limb with the effort of having maintained if for even that short time. Huddled in his lap, Bob was still gulping for air, unable to speak. Fishing the clover charm from his pocket, Jack clasped it around Bob's neck. His gasping cries stopped almost immediately as the protective aura of the talisman enveloped him, and he looked up at Jack with gratitude.
"What happened to you?" he asked, his voice catching in his throat at the sight of him once again.
"Auberon . . . " Bob coughed - a sickly broken sound. "He came to the theater looking for you. Took it badly when I wouldn't tell him where you were . . . I came here to warn you. We were wrong. The Hunt . . . it wasn't Mabh. It was Auberon. Had to be. He doesn't want you back - he wants you gone. Dead."
"But he's my father," he whispered.
Bob attempted a sardonic grin that just came off as pained. "It's not like he sent you birthday presents, Jack."
"Thanks to you, Goodfellow, I didn't have an address."
The sound of the Faerie king's voice made Jack jump. He turned to see him stoop to retrieve something that lay in the grass beside the empty carousel house. When he straightened, Jack saw that Auberon clutched a tall bronze war horn in his fist.
He rose to his feet and stood protectively over Bob. Without the shield of the charm he'd worn all his life, Jack could feel his power humming in his veins, even drained as he was. The air seemed charged, electric, where it touched his skin.
"Impressive," Auberon said as he walked down the hill toward Jack, his glance sweeping over him, lingering on his luminous silver wings. He stopped in front of Jack and smiled coldly. "Well - the apple does not fall far, it seems."
"I'm nothing like you," Jack snarled. "I will be nothing like you."
"What will you be then? It is quite apparent, from where I stand, that you no longer belong to this world."
In the distance, they could hear the cries of humans in the park as the Wild Hunt - and all the other dangerous fae - rampaged through the night.
"Or what will be left of this world. After they are finished with it."
Jack felt himself falter.
"Of course, all of this can be remedied. But only I can remedy it." His father's voice softened. "Forsake your claim, boy. Give up the Unseelie power that resides within you. Do that, and I will grant you the means to stop the Wild Hunt. With my help, you cam keep this world safe and rescue Ethan Nestor from the fate of the Rider." He pointed to the sky with the horn. "Save the man you love, Son."
"I'd really rather you didn't call me that," he ground out between clenched teeth. As strong as he was now that his Faerie gift was unleashed, Jack knew he was still far too inexperienced. He didn't even know how to fly yet. There was no way he could even come anywhere close to stopping the Hunt. Not without help.
"Do we have a bargain?" his father asked.
"What the hell do you think?"
"I'm afraid I need to hear you say it," he murmured coldly.
"Yes, damn you." Jack stifled a sob. "Give me what I need to stop the Wild Hunt. So that I can save Ethan." He looked up into his father's cold, dark eyes. "Do that, and I will let you take the Unseelie power from my blood," he whispered.
"Agreed," Auberon said as he stepped toward Jack.
"Wait." In the distance, Jack could see one of Mabh's Storm Hags throwing thunderbolts at a careening carriage. He remembered what Herne had told him. "I also want something else in return."
"That is?"
"While I go take care of the Wild Hunt, Dad," he growled, "I want you to get 'Mom' and her psycho Bitch Brigade the hell out of my park. And this time make sure she never comes back."
"With pleasure, my dear." Auberon smiled magnanimously and spread his hands wide. "With very great pleasure."
Auberon placed a hand on Jack's head and whispered a word. Suddenly it was like the song of Jack's power went from a tune played on a pennywhistle to a full-blown orchestral score. He lit up the park.
Then, jsut as suddenly, there was silence. Darkness.
Jack fell to his knees, hollow and empty. Too empty even to weep.
His father stood before him, his icy skin glowing with Jack's light and his eyes filled with a warmth that had been absent prior to that moment. The brightness faded: his eyes grew dark again.
"Okay," Jack said finally, his voice flat, muted. "How do I stop them?"
The king looked down on him, once more distant as a marble statue. "I cannot tell you how. But I have given you the means by which you might accomplish the task. The rest, you'll just have to figure out for yourself."
"What?"
"Good luck, child." Auberon turned to go.
Jack was seething. "You're a real son of a bitch. You know that?"
"I can be," Auberon said, as he looked at Jack with something like regret in his eyes. "Unfortunately, you are as well. Remember that."
He touched Jack's cheek, and then spun on his heel and stalked into the night, turning himself into a falcon as he went. Wings spread wide, the king flew away with Mabh's war horn clutched in his taloned grasp.
Not knowing what else to do, Jack turned back to Bob, where he lay upon the ground, limp and unmoving. The charm may have kept the boucca from further hurt, but he was still desperately injured.
"Bob . . . " He shook him until he groaned. "Bob - Puck! Wake up! The Hunt. They're awake and they're hunting humans."
Above him now, he could see the Hunt. They plunged and one of the Faerie hunters chased down a woman dressed in a torn and bloodied Cleopatra costume. Plucking her from the ground to drag her through the air by her feet. "They're hurting them!"
"Aye." Bob said, sounding a bit delirious. "Don't worry - they're just playing. They'll get around to killing them soon enough."
"I'd like to avoid that eventually if possible, Bob. What do I do?"
"You must reach Ethan. You're the only one who can."
"He's two hundred feet in the air!"
Bob giggled .a bid and his head lolled back. "You're a Faerie. Use your wings . . . "
"Auberon took them!" Jack almost screamed with frustration.
"Oh . . . " His voice was reduced to a whisper as his strength ebbed. "Then you must find another way. You have a lot of power. . . . "
"Had, Bob."
"Still . . . do. . . . "
"What are you talking about?" he pleaded desperately. "Auberon took it from me; I gave it back!"
"Thou marvell'st at my words?" the boucca gasped, his eyes closing.
"No - Bob! - no more Shakespeare!" Jack shook him again, trying to jar him out of the poetic lapse. Now was not the time.
"But hold thee still," he murmured, those same cryptic lines he'd used to warn Jack in the dressing room. "Things bad begun to make strong themselves by ill. . . . "
Then Bob the boucca passed out from pain.
Ethan, where are you when I need you?
It was a stupid question. All Jack had to do was look into the sky and see him blazing across the treetops like a comet, the band of killer Fae hot on his heels as they pursued screaming humans about the park.
Jack turned inward, searching for an answer. When he closed his eyes, he found himself once more in the vision he'd had in rehearsal so long ago, a place he how recognized as Herne's forest - in the spring glade where Mabh had enchanted the kelpie. In his mind he looked across the clearing and saw Ethan standing once again in the shadows of the woods. He smiled at Jack, that sad curving of his beautiful lips, and lifted his hands, palms wide. The white branches of the birch trees at his back glowed dimly in the light that shone from Ethan's hands, arching over his head like the antlers of a stag.
The white King Stag. . . .
That was it.
Jack's eyes snapped open, and he gasped at the revelation. The Faerie king could take away his power from Jack's blood . . . but Jack was willing to bet that he couldn't take away Mabh's. Mabh, the Autumn Queen, who ruled the Borderlands. She, who hand created the Wild Hunt in the first place, who'd twisted the Faerie hunters, stolen away and hidden their prey . . .
Mabh, Queen of Air and Darkness, his mother.
Auberon had told him not to forget that, but he'd shied away from the fact.
Bob had told him too. Things bad begun to make strong themselves by ill.
Fight fire with fire. That was what they had been trying to tell him.
Ignoring the best he could the chaos all around him, Jack closed his eyes again and searched even deeper inside of himself - looking for the dark, dangerous spark of his mother's power.
There.
He touched something in his mind: twisting, serpentine energy. It was buried so deep that he never would have found it if Auberon hadn't taken away the blinding brilliance of his Unseelie gift. Jack's mind recoiled from that initial touch, even though he knew he was going to have to use that dark gift. Draw upon it. Em brave it.
He clenched his fists and, concentrating fiercely, reached again. The power of Mabh's shadowy throne wrapped around him, suffocating, overwhelming. He was drowning again, just like the night he'd rescued Lucky. Until suddenly, like a key turning a lock, something clicked. A door opened inside him, and Jack was flooded with straighten and fury. Mabh's power coursed through his veins like acid. He was deathly cold and on fire at the same time.
Stretching out his hands before him, Jack tore through the veil between worlds as if it were filmy silk, opening a rift right into the heart of Queen Mabh's realm.
Without giving himself a chance to think about it, he threw himself into the abyss.
The assault on his senses proved almost more than he could bear. The stench of the swampy terrain was overpowering, and the dank air clung to his arms like wet gauze. He had crossed over into some kind of nightmare. Above him, black, skeletal tree branches clawed at the gloomy air, and tiny insect-like sprites darted around his head, hissing and chittering at him in outrage. Jack ignored them, fighting through the fetid ooze of a bog toward an outcropping of mossy high ground.
He reached the bank and his fingers dug into the spongy loam as he hauled himself up out of the brackish water. Something unseen slithered past his ankle. Jack squealed and snatched his feet clear of the muck, breathing heavily from the exertion and fear.
He stood on shaking legs and surveyed his gloomy surroundings. Fog, thick and luminescent, carpeted the swampy ground. The forest seemed to be watching him with unseen, malevolent eyes, as if he was an intruder.
He wasn't.
As horrid as the place was, Jack sensed a disturbing familiarity. It was almost a feeling of homecoming - if home was a haunted house. Part of him belonged here, and that frightened him more than anything.
In the near distance, he heard the baying of hounds. More Black Shuck - and they were coming toward him.
Mindless terror seized him, and Jack ran for his life, heedless of the thorny branches that tore at his skin and the sink holes that threatened to trip him with every step. The howling of the shuck grew louder and he could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, almost at his heels. Desperate, Jack threw his arms up in front of his face and charged through a thicket of brambles, rumbling out into a clearing where a high, full moon dripped silver on the weedy grass. The shuck were only moments behind him.
He tried to gather his mother's power, to call up another veil to do something - anything - but fear made it impossible to concentrate. He thought of Ethan. He was there, in Jack's mind, under the trees. Over Ethan's shoulder, Jack saw a flash of silvery white.
He seized upon that whiteness with his mind and drew it to him.
In that moment three enormous hellhounds burst into the clearing. Slavering and crimson eyed, they circled him, a quarry run to ground. And Jack knew that they wouldn't bother to wait for any hunger to come and finish him off. the lead shuck's massive black muscles bunched, and it leaped at him, snarling in rage.
Jack shut his eyes tight and braced for death.
There was the sound of bone-crushing impact, and the snarl turned to a yowl of pain. Jack's eyes flew wide open - in time to see the magnificent white King Stag throw the limp body of the first shuck into a tree with it's massive antlers. The other two hounds didn't hesitate but lunged for the stag's exposed flank. The stag bellowed and bucked, shaking lose one dog and goring it with it's deadly antlers. But the last shuck clung to the stag's shoulders with its wicked claws, and blood flowed, silver, down the white hide as the stag's front legs buckled.
Jack leaped to his feet and screamed defiance.
A flash of darkling energy exploded out from where he stood and lit up the grove with a burst of indigo light. The shuck recoiled and fell to the ground, where it died beneath the hammering hooves of the enraged King Stag.
The stag turned its head toward Jack. Its gleaming silver hooves were sullied with the black blood of the shuck, but it was still the most regal creature Jack had ever seen.
The great beast pawed the ground and snorted, eyes blazing with white fire.
Jack reached out a hand and waited as it approached him, fear a tiny tight knot in his stomach. If the stag did not accept him, all it had to do was swing its head and the dagger-sharp points of its antler crown would gore him.
The stag nuzzled his hand, nostrils quivering. Then it dipped its great head and bowed to him, bending back one long, graceful foreleg so that Jack could mount up on its back.
He almost wept.
Climbing up, Jack wound his fists tightly in its thick, pale mane. He hung on for dear life as his noble steed leaped into the sky. It bucked and plunged, waiting impatiently as he reached out with his power and tore another rift between the realms, then galloped through the hole in the thin air, back toward the mortal realm and the Wild Hunt.
As they emerged in the skies over Central Park, Jack heard the Faerie hunters roar with unbridled joy at the sight of the white King Stag.
Here was quarry. Here was prey worthy of the Hunt. As he'd hoped they would, the hunters abandoned the terrified mortals below and spun their mounts on their haunches entering the chase. The Black Shuck accompanying them howled madly and shot after in pursuit.
Higher and higher Jack led them, away from the world of mortals, so far that when he looked down he could see ragged clouds below. As the muscles of the Faerie animal beneath him gathered and released and gathered again, hooves pounding through the pale air as though it were a mossy forest track, Jack felt a thrill of exhilaration like nothing he had ever known, greater even than when he rode with Herne's hunters.
Close behind, the Roan Horse and its Rider were gaining on him. An arrow grazed his cheek, and Jack knew he was running out of time. As Lucky and Ethan pulled almost parallel, Jack drew his bare feet up underneath him, bracing them upon the stag's broad back and balancing in a precarious crouch. He took a deep breath.
This is going to hurt.
Jack opened up a rift in the King Stag's path. He hauled on the stag's silver mane, momentarily sending the creature veering to the right, and threw himself into the Rider - knocking him flying off the back of the Roan Horse.
Arcing through the air, the last thing Jack saw before he started to fall was Lucky gather and leap through the rift, still leading the Wild Hunt and their hounds as they charged madly after the stag. The hunting party plunged after the Roan Horse before he transformed back into a kelpie - right through the gaping hole in the sky, back into Queen Mabh's realm.
Good, he thought. Mabh made them; Mabh can damn well deal with them.
He sealed off the rift with a thought and whispered, "Goodbye, Lucky."
Then Jack and Ethan fell.
----------------------------------
They dropped like a stone through the night, plummeting back to earth,
Tumbling end over end, Jack searched desperately inside himself for the strength that would save them - for the power of his mother's magick. But the fearsome strength that had raged through him only moments earlier was gone, reduced to barely a trickle. Jack was too new to this. Too tired. They were falling, and he knew there was noting he could do to stop it. A sob of frustration stuck in his throat - it wasn't supposed to end this way.
He felt Ethan's arms and legs twisting about him and he realized that Ethan - mortal, human Ethan - was trying to turn them around in the air so that when they hit the ground, he would bear the brunt of the impact. With his arms wrapped tightly around Jack, Ethan cradled him against his chest. Jack looked up into his eyes and saw that he stared serenely back at him, happy. Content to die if there was the smallest chance it would save Jack.
"No!" He struggled madly in the vise of his embrace. "Ethan - no . . . "
Behind Ethan's head, far below, he could see the blackness of the unforgiving ground rushing up to meet them.
He remembered when they had danced. Ethan had called him his Firecracker.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut, tears of effort freezing on his cheeks, and called upon that image. At first, there was nothing - just a terrible emptiness - and then he felt his skin start to tingle. Electric sparks, drawn from the charged and stormy air around him, raced up and down his arms and legs. The wind screamed in his ears; bone-crushing impact with the earth was only moments away. Jack gripped the front of Ethan's shirt and opened his eyes to see Ethan smiling gently back at him.
"You dumb-ass," he muttered through clenched teeth. "You can't break my fall." He imagined his spine as if it were a til fuse and - straining with an effort so intense it felt as though he would split his own muscles and flesh - he willed the firecracker to explode.
His shoulder blades burned, with sudden dark fire, and Jack's cry of triumph ripped through the sky.
"Not when I can fly!"
The ground beneath them, mere inches away, blazed with sudden purple fire as Jack's wings unfurled, delicate as a gossamer, yet strong enough too catch at the air and sweep him and Ethan back up into the sky.
He could see out of the corner of his eye as he flew that his wings were no longer silver. Those lacy, lustrous things were gone - taken by his father. These wings unfurled behind him as though he were an exotic butterfly, dark and sparkling, like an indigo starburst. The world around him shone amethyst, bathed in the deep violet light of his newfound wings.
Jack was a Faerie prince.
In defiance of the Faerie king, he had taken up his destiny on his terms.
An expression of something that was almost awe suffused the features of Ethan's face, and Jack kissed him quickly before he had time to say anything. He felt Ethan's arms tighten around him as they spiraled up, borne aloft on wings that were dark as night, bright as a new star.