It is time, mortal. Release me.
The words suddenly appeared in my head without going through my ears, scarlet and glowing and scalding. This time I did flinch as the Erlking's will sent meaning into my thoughts like a well-thrown spear. I tore my attention away from that lance of thought and spoke aloud in reply.
"I will not release you."
The glowing eyes within the helm snapped back to me, flaring larger and brighter. I am no beast to be lured and trapped, mortal. Set me free and join me in the hunt.
Images came with the thoughts this time-the rush of rain and wind in my face, raw hunger in my belly that I was about to sate, the strength and power of my body and that of the mount beneath me, and the glorious thrill of the chase as the prey fled as it was created to do, testing my strength, speed, endurance, and will while the night called and the storm raged around me. To my surprise, there was no sense of hate in it, no twisting bitterness of despair. There was only a wild and ferocious joy, an adrenaline sense of excitement, of passion, of savage harmony red in tooth and claw.
I barely managed to pull my thoughts back into my own control, grinding my teeth and reminding myself that I was kneeling in Murphy's backyard, not pursuing game through the forest primeval. The Erlking might not be evil incarnate, but that didn't mean that he wasn't far too dangerous to be allowed to go free. "No," I growled. "I will not release you."
His amber-flame eyes narrowed, and he dropped slowly into a crouch, knees bent, his fingers resting lightly on the grass just inside the barbed wire. Those eyes were barely three feet from mine, and he considered me in silence that swiftly became a torment of suspense.
You are he, the Erlking cast at me. He who defied Queen Winter. He who slew Lady Summer.
In those thoughts, I saw Mab standing over me as I lay stunned beside the Summer Lady's corpse, offering me her hand. I felt Aurora's blood drying on my skin, tasted it, harsh and sweet, in my mouth. I had to force myself not to try to spit the phantom taste from my tongue.
"I am he," I said.
We are not foes, came his thoughts. And … he was curious about it. Even baffled. In sending me his thoughts, I also got flashes of emotion from him. You are part of the hunt. A predator. Why do you call me if not to join me?
"To prevent another from setting you free this night."
The Erlking tilted its head. There was no sending of thought, but I read the gesture clearly enough to interpret it as if he had. Why?
"Because your presence would mean suffering and death for those people I would protect."
Man suffers. Man dies. It is how things are.
"Not tonight it isn't," I growled.
Hunter, cast the Erlking. You are not strong enough to hold me. Release me, lest I turn the hunt upon you.
And suddenly I felt the other side of the hunt. I felt my legs singing with the strength of terror. I felt my lungs burning, felt my body moving with the power and grace that only the approach of death can summon from it. I fled over the rough ground, bounding like a deer, and knew the whole while that there was no escape.
"Thrice I say and done." I gasped, forcing the words out in a defiant scream. "I will. Not. Release you."
And the Erlking rose, an unearthly scream piercing the night. The chorus of howling dogs rose with it, louder and louder, and the storm lashed at the air with sabers of wind and lances of lightning. The sound was deafening, the light searing, and the freaking ground started to tremble as the Erlking lashed out against my circle with his will.
I stood my ground, facing the Erlking and casting my will into the circle, forcing it against his own power, struggling to contain him while he sought to burst free from my enchantment. It was an enormous struggle, and almost hopeless. I felt like a man straining to push a car up a hill. Not only was it a difficult weight to begin to move, but a greater force was working against me, and if I allowed it to move even an inch it would begin to gain momentum and crush me beneath it.
So I fought for that inch, refusing to give it to him. The Erlking wasn't an evil being-but he was a force of nature, power, and violence without conscience or restraint.
He screamed again, and the howling wind and rain and the call of beasts grew even louder. Again he surged against the circle of my will, and again I held him in. Wild, the Erlking shook his head like a maddened beast, and his antlers slammed against the confining wall of the circle that imprisoned him, sending ripples of greenish light out through the circle. Then he reached to his side and drew a black sword from its scabbard. He lifted the blade, and a lance of green lightning flashed down from the storm, touching upon its tip and wreathing it in blinding light. Then he took the sword in both hands and brought it down upon the barrier.
I have little memory of what the third blow was like. I remember it in much the same way I do the burning of my left hand. There was too much light, too much energy, a tide of agony, and I was terrified. My vision faded to a blind field of white, and I thrust my staff hard against the ground to keep from falling.
And then my vision began to clear. The tide began to recede. And within the circle, whirling in a frenzy of frustration and need, was the Erlking. His power was fading, and the circle I'd built had been good enough to give me enough leverage to hold him.
I thought I heard a muffled voice somewhere amid all the wind and rain and thunder and the swift pounding of my own heart. I started to look around for the source of the noise.
And then someone hit me on the back of the head.
I remember that part, because I'd been through it before. A flash of light, pain, a sickening whirling sensation as I fell, and a disjointed looseness to limbs that had suddenly gone useless. I fell to one side, shocked that the whole world had suddenly tilted on end. The grass suddenly felt cold and wet against my cheek.
With a shriek of triumph, the Erlking shattered my circle into a cloud of golden light that faded and vanished. There was a roar of wind, and then an enormous horse landed in Murphy's yard as if it had just vaulted over the whole of her house. The Erlking flung himself up onto the black steed's back and let loose an eerie cry. When he did, all the howling music of the dogs, primitive and fierce, seemed to congeal into flashes of lightning that leapt up from the ground and into the clouds.
For a second there was silence, and then the screaming winds warbled and whistled into deeper, more terrifying howls than any dog had ever uttered. From the shadows rushed a great hound, a beast the size of a pony with dark fur, gleaming white teeth, and the flaming amber eyes of the Erlking himself. More hounds came leaping from the shadows, bounding in bloodthirsty joy around the Erlking's horse.
The Erlking whirled his steed, lifted his black sword in a mocking salute to me, and then cried out to his steed and his hounds. The black horse gathered itself and leapt into the air, then started churning its legs as if running up a hill-and kept going up. The hounds leapt and followed their master up into the teeth of the storm. Lightning flashed in my eyes, and when it died again, they were gone.
The Wild Hunt was loose in Chicago.
And I had been the one to call them here.
I struggled until I began to move. I wasn't able to get enough balance to rise, but I managed to roll over onto my back. Cold raindrops slapped against my face.
Cowl put the barrel of my own.44 to the end of my nose and said, "An impressive display, Dresden. It's always such a pity when someone with such talent dies so young."
Chapter Thirty-four
I looked at the cavernous barrel and thought to myself that a.44 really was a ridiculously big gun. Then I looked past it to Cowl and said, "But you aren't planning on doing it yourself, are you? Otherwise you'd have just shot me in the back of the head and had done with it. With me groggy like that, you might not even have had a death curse to worry about."
"Very good," Cowl said approvingly. "Your reason, at least, seems sound. Provided you remain very still and give me no reason to think you a threat, I'll be glad to let you live until the Erlking returns for you."
I held still, partly because I didn't want to get shot, and partly because I thought I might throw up if I moved my head too much. "How'd you find me?" I asked.
"Kumori and I have been taking turns tailing you most of the day," he said.
"When do you people sleep?" I asked.
"No rest for the wicked," Cowl said. His tone was amused from within his heavy hood, but the gun never wavered.
"Someone had to keep an eye on me," I said. "You and Grevane and Corpsetaker all wanted the Erlking to be in town. It didn't matter to you who called him as long as someone did."
"And you were the only one with an interest in keeping him away," Cowl said. "All I needed to do was watch you and ensure that you did not actually trap the Erlking."
"And that's why you followed me," I said.
"It's one reason," he replied. "I think you might actually have done it, you know, had I not interrupted you. I was the only one of the three of us who thought you might succeed."
"I don't get it," I said. "I thought that you guys hated one another's guts."
"Oh, yes."
"Then are you working together or trying to kill each other?" I asked.
"Why, yes," Cowl said, and what sounded like a genuine laugh bubbled in his voice. "We smile at one another and play nicely all in the name of Kemmler's greater glory, of course. But we are all planning on killing one another as soon as it's convenient. I take it that Corpsetaker tried to remove Grevane last night?"