Chapter One
I headed east out of the city, my inner GPS guiding my choice of highways. Suburbs replaced the skyscrapers, and then came intermittent slashes of farmland and woods. Time elapsed, too slow, as I tried not to white-knuckle the steering wheel. The bobble-head Yoda on my dashboard mocked me. I drummed the fingers of one hand on my thigh. My nails were already chewed down, the gunmetal paint chipped. Once…once I hadn’t made it in time. And that one time, of the dozens upon dozens, was the one that plagued my dreams.
Midafternoon slid away and the sky began a sluggish burn to night. The land became desolate, hilly, shadowed with thick forest. When I finally found the source of the Call, I passed it and circled up and down a few gravel roads before I spotted a good place to hide my car. My breath puffed miniature clouds into the cold air as I trekked back to the house. More of a cabin, really. Yellow shutters stood out against the wooden planks and plaid curtains hung in the windows. Smoke twisted lazily out of the chimney. Innocent and welcoming, like something right out of a creepy fairytale. And the Call definitely emanated from inside. That’s where I’d find the missing seven-year-old girl.
Crouched between a rusty water pump and an abandoned Volvo, I took out my phone to call the cops. I had to stay anonymous of course—it might make the police uncomfortable if they learned about the five-foot-four vigilante with mad skills at playing hide-and-seek. Too many questions, followed by answers they wouldn’t believe. I’d learned that the hard way a long time ago. My fingers tingling with unspent adrenaline, I dialed 9-1-
A blue and white patrol car rolled down the driveway towards me, before I could hit the last digit. Someone must have already tipped off the cops. I slipped the phone into my back pocket and became still. A few years after I’d learned I could find things, I’d learned I could also hide things rather well. Including myself. So now I shrouded myself in shadows, blending into the trees behind me, and waited. I always watched to make sure the kids were rescued and the perverts who kidnapped them got their asses hauled off to jail. The car pulled up right in front of the house and stopped. A squeak and a slam as the door opened and closed. The officer approached the house.
He was tall and slim, almost skeletal, but had the look of somebody you wouldn’t want to tangle with. I waited for another cop to get out of the car, but no one did. No backup? That seemed odd. He walked languidly up to the front door, hands hanging free, away from his weapons. Keys jangled. He unlocked the front door and went inside.
My blood slowed in my veins, and an icy wind ghosted through the trees. The kidnapper was a police officer.
Shit, shit, shit. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I mean, of course cops weren’t supposed to be demented criminals. But beyond that, I simply hadn’t planned for this. In all my years finding kids, this had never happened. The potential of it happening had never even entered my head. I’d been in some tough spots, but this one took the cake.
One minute crawled by, then two, as I ran through possibilities, all of which sucked. Plum shades of twilight seeped up around the edges of the horizon and I could taste imminent snow on my tongue, sad and solemn. It would be dark soon. I had to decide now.
The door of the cabin swung open, startling me. Officer Asshole went to his car. He opened the trunk and pulled out a large metal barrel, a saw, and a can of gasoline. He stuck the saw and the gas inside the barrel and walked back into the house.
The Glock was in my hand with no conscious thought. I jogged forward, keeping it at my hip.
He’d left the door unlocked. Guess he’d had his hands full carrying the barrel, but he’d be back soon. After a quick glance through the window, I opened the door and slipped in. Without lights on, shadows dominated the room. I surveyed the layout. Kitchen to the right. Bedrooms on the left. Hallway leading to the back porch straight ahead. And at the back of the room, a worn wooden door. I could feel the tug of the Call. The man and the girl were behind the door, but below floor level. A cellar maybe, or a bomb shelter.
The cop drug the barrel down the stairs. Thud. Thud. Thud. Like a sluggish heartbeat.
Outside, the wind worried along the eaves and across the opening of the chimney. Taking a deep breath, I strode forward and kicked open the door.
The kidnapper stood at the bottom of the stairs, just to the right. In the corner of the room sat the girl, all blonde curls and a dirty face, tied to a chair. His eyes widened at the same moment hers did, and his hand went to his gun in a millisecond.
Two flashes. My first bullet hit his shoulder. My second his left kneecap.
He fell to the ground with an anguished moan, his gun dropping to the floor and sliding under a shelf. I ran down the steps. I’d kill the cop—he deserved no less—but not unless I had to. That was one dance with death I’d rather avoid. He didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I retrieved his gun from under the shelf, emptied it of bullets and stuck it in the waistband of my pants. The girl whimpered. I pulled out my pocket knife, set my gun at my feet, eyes on the cop, and slashed through her ropes.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded, tears cutting through the dirt on her cheeks.
“Up the stairs. I’m right behind you.”
I picked up my gun and kept it trained on the pervert, walking in the girl’s shadow as she crossed the room. She paused, trembling, when she got to the base of the stairs. I nudged her gently and once she started up, I backed up the stairs, my gun trained on his forehead.
He simmered in rage, colder than the Illinois winter pressing in from outside.
At the top of the stairs I spun and grabbed the girl’s hand. “Come on!”
We raced across the living room and out the front door. Only the slightest shimmer of light remained on the horizon. The snow had finally begun to fall, and a couple flakes drifted into my eyes.
I guess that’s why I didn’t see the woman until her fist collided with my face.
Chapter Two
“Run!” I screamed to the girl.
A moment later a steel-toed work boot slammed into my ribcage. An animal moan crawled up my throat. I could see only flashes of the woman: short dark hair, a camouflage shirt, ripped jeans.
She pulled back her leg to deal me another blow, but this time I grabbed her foot and twisted. With a snarl, she flipped over backwards and I was on her, my knees straddling her chest. I landed my own blow to her cheek right as the door opened behind me.
The cold barrel of a rifle pressed into the back of my head.
I didn’t have time to contemplate my final moments. A sudden staccato pounding split the air. From the woods to my right, a huge black horse charged towards us. Its rider lifted a small golden cylinder to his lips. Something flashed towards us, cutting through the air with a crisp swoosh. The cop grunted and smashed into me. A deafening blast from his gun. A streak of heat as the bullet passed in front of my eyes. The rider lifted his odd weapon again, aiming at the woman pinned beneath me. She stiffened momentarily and went limp. Dirt showered into the air as the horse pulled up short, its earthy scent filling my lungs. Two golden darts glittered in the necks of my captors, illuminated in the halogen lights on the porch.
The world spun for a moment. Reality shifted on its axis.
I blinked into the sudden silence. Alive. I’m alive. I’d been saved by—“Who the hell are you?”
The rider laughed at my outburst. He wore breeches and a medieval-style white tunic, and he wasn’t much older than me; twenty-three maybe? Lifting one gloved hand, he saluted me, a smile on his lips. “You can call me Seeker.”
My mouth hung open as I searched for something rational to say in this incredibly irrational situation.
He smirked and said, “I’ll see you soon, Huntress.”
And he vanished. Along with his horse. Poof. Gone. Nothing.
It wasn’t like my little hiding trick either. I reached out with my powers and I couldn’t feel him anymore. He had gone somewhere…else.
A shimmer, a burning, coursed through my body. Like the Call, but not centered just in my gut. I’d never felt it like this. And I knew this Seeker guy caused it. Because he was like…like me. In my whole life, I’d never met anyone else similar to me; that could hunt like me. The wind stirred the dead branches, while inside me something else stirred, emotions I’d buried long ago. A foolish hope that contrary to all evidence, I wasn’t alone.
But I didn’t have time to rehash old feelings. The little girl was out there somewhere in the snow, and I had to get her back to her parents, and get these kidnappers arrested.
Taking a deep breath, I thought of the girl. I needed an image of what I sought. Earlier today it had been her picture on the news. Now that I’d seen her in person, it would be even easier.
I awoke whatever lived inside me that allowed me to find things—power, magic, I didn’t really know what to name it. The Call flared up even stronger than before. It tugged me into the trees, like a dowsing rod. Her blonde head appeared first, a bright spot in the dark of the forest. Night had fallen completely now, everything else around me just shades of black. As I moved closer, I could see her more clearly, crouched behind a thicket of vines. Snow fell and soft sobs split the air.
“Maddie?” I pitched my voice low and soft, just a whisper above the wintry breeze.
She froze, her eyes pinning me with a panicked expression.
“I know you’ve been through a lot, Maddie. You’re very brave. The people that took you are sleeping now, and they won’t wake up anytime soon.”
“Like bears hibernating in the winter?” Maddie asked. Her voice came out as a raw squeak.
I smiled, in spite of everything. “Yes. Like bears hibernating.”
She leaned towards me, her slim fingers picking at the edges of her unicorn t-shirt. “And they’ll stay asleep? You promise?”
Could I promise that? Not really. But hopefully Seeker would have mentioned if his magic darts wore off in a matter of minutes. I was sure enough that a white lie seemed justified.
“Promise. And we can leave soon, but we need to call the police first to arrest these two.”
Maddie’s breathing quickened. “But one of them—”
“I know. One of them is a cop. But usually the police don’t do things like this. And I’ll be here to protect you.” I sucked in a breath. “Do you trust me?”
The girl’s eyes glistened. “I don’t know your name.”
“I’m Evryn.”
“I didn’t know girls could rescue people, Ev-ryn.” She sniffled.
“Don’t be silly, of course they can. Girls can do anything boys can do.” I reached out and ruffled her hair. I used to hate it when people did that to me as a kid, and here I was doing it. “So, can you be brave a few more minutes?”
Maddie sat up straighter and took in a deep breath. “I think so.”
“Good girl.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. “Yes, I’ve found the missing girl, Maddie Miller.” I gave the dispatcher the address and hung up. My identity needed to stay secret for as long as possible.
“You warm enough?” I asked Maddie. A dumb question—she was wearing a t-shirt in thirty degree weather. I pulled off my jacket and wrapped it around her, feeling like an idiot for not noticing sooner.
Before long, lights flashed up the driveway, sending blue and red streaks through the trees. Usually I hid at this point and watched from afar. Not this time. Not after Maddie crawled shivering into my lap and curled her head up under my chin, her blonde curls alongside my red ones. The cars, four this time, screeched to a halt and officers came pouring out. Shouts rang through the air as they saw the two bodies on the porch.
“Over here!” I yelled, raising my hands in the air and staying put.
Two of the cops took me and Maddie to the station. Her parents came. Which meant I needed to make use of my little disappearing act again, before I got questioned about everything. Like, the freaking golden darts Seeker had shot into the kidnappers. I had a pretty good guess how that would fly with the investigators. I’d given them a fake name and ID, which wouldn’t hold up under much scrutiny. So, in the chaos at the station, due to the fact that one of their own had just been slammed into a cell, I faded into the background and walked right out the front door. Yells rang through the halls right as I hit the parking lot, but by then I was darkness and mist and snow, invisible to their eyes.
The hike back to my car took a sweet minute, and I had to stop at a Wal-Mart to get a new jacket since I’d given mine to Maddie, but eventually I hit the road. As I drove down night-soaked stretches of highway, I could feel bruises popping up along my ribcage. Worse than that were the images of the barrel, and the kerosene and saw. My bruises would heal. Not sure the rest of me would. A sigh whooshed from my lips. It’d been a hell of a day.
But instead of being tired, I felt restless, edgy. Because out of all that craziness, it wasn’t Maddie, or the kidnapper, or his accomplice, or even the cops that stole my thoughts. Seeker did. Who was he? How had he found me, and how the hell did he know what I really was? Images of him rolled through my head, and my body vibrated like I’d just downed fifty energy drinks and a firecracker. Sucking in an excited breath, I extended my other senses, and the Call roiled up from the base of my spine.
My second hunt of the day had begun.
Chapter Three
Nothing happened.
Well, not exactly nothing, it just had no direction to it. I could feel him, Seeker, but only very faintly. The where was missing.
I ran my tongue over my lips and fidgeted in my seat. This had never happened to me before. I always found what I sought. Brow furrowed, I tried again, summoning the Call. Seeker’s face rose in my mind’s eye and I focused all my energy on it: pale skin and dark hair, eyes the color of pewter, a small scar over one of his eyes. Left or right? I bit my lip. Right eye. It had been the right. An arrogant jawline, and an equally imperious slant to the shoulders. Mostly though, I focused on the feeling I’d had, like the Call, but an effervescent sensation from head to toe, throughout every inch of my body. I shivered at the memory.
The Call flared. But still nothing.
Maybe I just needed some rest. I had been on the hunt all day, after all. This didn’t mean I couldn’t find him. I would find him. Later.
Later, as it ended up, was almost twenty-four hours later. After ordering Chinese takeout and sleeping for ten hours. After waking up, showering, and working. My real job wasn’t quite as altruistic as my hobby of finding lost and kidnapped kids. Yeah, not so much. It usually involved finding things for other people, like computer data that didn’t belong to them, or on rare occasions even some lost treasure or the other—a tomb, an artifact, a long-lost piece of artwork. Good pay, though, something I was still getting used to after a childhood in the foster system.
The Call hit me like a punch in the stomach right as my fingers danced over the final keystrokes of my current computer hack. I’d bypassed layers of firewall, passwords, and encryption. The thrill of the hunt simmered in my veins. My client would be very happy, I’d be paid very well, and I’d go buy myself that new motorcycle I’d been wanting.
I doubled over.
Seeker. He was close. And all of a sudden, too, like he’d just landed from an international flight or something.
My focus blown, I still somehow managed to key in the final few steps to send the stolen data to my secure account. Then I bolted up off the sofa like a rocket, throwing on clothes and shoes. And checked my reflection in the mirror to make sure I didn’t look like garbage after lying in bed all day.
I left my apartment in University Village and followed the Call to an electronic dance club in River North. I finally arrived after eleven. Music throbbed through my core, and my eyes burned in the acrid chemical smoke of whatever they pumped into the air for effect. My eyes cut through the pulsing light and heaving bodies on the dance floor. I skirted the crowd. A couple guys called out to me and one grabbed my hand, but I ignored them. Only one guy held my interest tonight.
I felt his eyes on me a moment before I spotted him a few paces ahead. The energy of the Call flared white-hot, tingling across my scalp and traveling like lightning down my legs. Seeker grinned as if he could see it on my face. He wore normal clothes now; jeans and a fitted Henley. Like a normal guy. Far from it, though, I knew. I froze, unsure for once what to say. Thanks for the golden darts? Nice of you to show up again after disappearing into thin air?
Seeker turned and headed for the back door of the club. Playing hard to get? That was usually my game. I shoved my way through the mass of bodies and followed him out the back door into the alley. Colored light from several neon signs filtered down into the narrow slit between the buildings, illuminating a couple making out hardcore behind the dumpster. On instinct I turned left and headed for the shadows by the chain link fence at the end of the alley. When I got there, a rattle above my head drew my attention. It looked as if he’d climbed the fence and jumped from there to the nearest fire escape. Unless he could fly. Hell, he could disappear, so for all I knew he could fly, too.
I groaned and measured the distance with my eyes. No way could I make it from the fence to the fire escape. I’d have to find another way to follow him. He called to me like the taut inevitability of a coming storm. I couldn’t stop, couldn’t avoid it. I had to know what he was, and what that meant about who I was.
He shot me another grin from the top of the three-story brick building, a challenge, before moving out of sight. Gritting my teeth, I climbed the fence and hopped down the other side. I moved into a jog and rounded the corner of the building, my eyes scanning up and down for some way to the roof. As I did, he moved further away, as if he’d jumped to the building next to us. I accelerated to a run.
A buzz of frustration moved down my jawbone. I couldn’t lose him. Not again. An image of those gray eyes popped into my head, and the Call pulsed stronger than ever. I could almost see him in my mind’s eye, on top of the adjacent building. It felt as if a string of energy connected us, and if I just moved along it…
From my solar plexus came a strange pop, and suddenly I was standing on top of the building. What the hell? Part of me wondered how I’d done it, but I realized even as the question formed that it was the same thing Seeker had done at the cabin. It’d just never occurred to me to follow the Call that way.
Seeker stood just a couple steps away. Waiting. A smile played over his lips, this time one of satisfaction, of a cat who’d just consumed a particularly juicy canary. “Took you long enough,” he said. His voice came out dark and lush as the star-strewn sky.
A shiver worked its way up the base of my spine. “Who are you? Or, what I mean is—what are you?”
The night air pulled in close around us. “I’m a Hunter, like you.” He placed emphasis on the title. “And I’ve been looking for you, Evryn.”
I stared at him for several moments, fighting the feeling of falling, the feeling of my carefully controlled life shattering into a million pieces. “How the hell do you know my name?”
“I know a lot about you. How the excitement of the chase is all you live for. How you have a seriously bad track history with relationships.” He paused and his eyes roved over me. “I know that after you inexplicably wandered a dozen miles through the mountains as a child and discovered a missing girl, your foster parents gave you up, and you hopped from foster family to foster family for the next eight years until you ran away. That you became something of a vigilante, finding kidnapped children before the police do, as well as hacking very secret data—the ultimate Hunter’s chase.” A quirk of the lips again. “And I know when I make the offer I’m about to make, you won’t say no.”
I had started shaking, a fine tremor of my limbs. When my brain finally formed coherent words, they came out with the force of a solar flare. “You have exactly two seconds to explain how you know all this before I shove my boot down your throat.”
“I told you, I’m a Hunter, too. So I know the thrill of the chase, and I know how you can never be satisfied in a relationship because I’m the same way. The last bit I learned through old-fashioned research.” He smiled, seeming not in the least bit perturbed by my threat.
I wrinkled my nose and saw him looking at the small ring in my left nostril. As much as I wanted to grill him more, I could not resist the carrot he’d dangled. “What’s this offer?”
“A job offer. We need your help.” His eyes burned into mine, celestial in their intensity.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “We?”
“My companions and I.” He paused. “Have you heard of the Wild Hunt?”
I almost took a step backwards. “What?”
“The Wild Hunt. The tales of the hunts for the white stag.”
I stared at him, trying to detect a glassiness in his gaze that might indicate he was stoned out of his mind.
He seemed to take my pause for incomprehension. “You know—riders on horseback. With hounds. Hunting in the forest? There are variations of the tales in many of the ancient legends here on Earth.”
Odd how he said ‘here on Earth’. As opposed to….? “Um, yeah, I think I might’ve read something about it as a child. What’s that have to do with this?”
“Only everything,” he said with a low laugh. “What would you say if I told you those Hunters, the most skilled of them, still had descendants alive today and that you were one of them?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I would say that despite my assessment to the contrary a moment ago, you’re on some serious drugs.”
He seemed unfazed. “Can I show you something?”
I shrugged. “If it’s not something lewd, then sure.”
He turned his head to the side, revealing the tendons on the side of his neck, and pushed aside his hair. Just below and behind his earlobe lay a small birthmark that looked like an antique key. I took a step back, my heart ricocheting inside my ribs.
“Where’s yours?” he asked, his eyes serious.
I swallowed, my throat tight and dry. Lifting my right hand and peeling back the fingerless gloves I wore, I revealed an identical mark in the center of my palm.
Chapter Four
I realized that somehow we stood only inches from each other, though I didn’t recall moving closer. The heat of his body washed into mine, and I could feel his heartbeat pulsing along with mine, smell the earthy cologne he wore. He pushed back my hood, and red curls tumbled out around my shoulders. His eyes met mine, tugging me into them.
I stepped back, a bit unsteadily. “So, what’s this job?”
“I’ll explain once we get there.”
“Get where?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?” His eyes danced over me, and he reached forward into the space between us.
I thought he was going to touch me, but instead a sliver of light appeared before his fingers, and his hand disappeared into nothingness. My eyes widened as he turned his wrist, and more light seeped out around the edges.
“Just follow me.” He took a step forward, vanishing into the fissure of light.
I stood there in the dark, listening to the traffic on the street below, staring at the spot where the dark stranger had been standing just moments before.
Things had just taken a detour to crazy land, with a capital C and neon lights. Sanity, please exit here. Tickets are nonrefundable. Hell, I didn’t even know this guy’s real name. But backing down absolutely wasn’t an option.
I took a deep breath and listened to that familiar pull in my stomach that always told me where I should go when I sought something. This time, the pull I felt wasn’t directional: north, south, east or west. It felt more like when I hacked into a database, a pull down and in, diving off a cliff into dark water. I couldn’t attribute a where or a how to the feeling, I just knew what to do.
So, I stretched my hand out as he had done, and I reached toward the emanating tug. A tingle, like plunging my hand into layers of static electricity, and then my hand vanished into the crack I’d created. After that it was simply a matter of following with the rest of my body.
I blinked. Thick purplish fog swirled around me. It hung so thick I couldn’t see the ground beneath me or the sky above me. My feet just seemed to float in the fog, though I could feel solid ground beneath me. Sweat broke out on my upper lip, and I twisted one of the many silver rings on my fingers, willing myself not to panic.
“Nicely done.” Seeker’s eyes appeared on my left out of nowhere, disembodied in the mist for a half second. “You’re a natural.”
“How’d you know I could follow you?” I asked with no small amount of irritation.
“I didn’t. But if you hadn’t been able to, we wouldn’t want you on our team.” With that he turned and walked off into the mist.
I followed, but not too quickly so as to let on how unnerved I felt. “Are you going to tell me anything? Being as how I’ve followed you on blind faith into some other realm?”
He turned abruptly and I almost ran into his chest. Dark hair fell into his eyes as he looked down at me. “Faith had nothing to do with it. You followed me because you can’t turn down a good hunt. Even if it means losing yourself in the process.”
I opened my mouth to retort with something unpleasant, but a noise came out of the fog ahead, a low, mournful sound like a horn of some sort, the type that hadn’t been used for hundreds of years.
“Ah, we’d better hurry. The Ferryman doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Seeker’s lips turned up as he took in the bewilderment on my face, and he took my hand and pulled me through the mist.
Below our feet appeared dark, wet earth covered in patches of bright moss. After a few steps the lapping of water hit my ears. Seeker led the way out onto a rickety wooden dock. The water beneath us sparkled with a phosphorescence that seemed oddly out of place in the surrounding gloom. My gaze darted up, and I could see the crags and crevices of a cave far above, lit with glowing spots like stars or crystals. When we reached the end of the short pier, I stared through the swirls of fog. They seemed to take shape at times, forming an animal or winged creature, but when I blinked they were just normal clouds again.
Something began to materialize out of the fog, and it wasn’t my imagination this time. A boat, long and wooden, with a curved prow in the shape of a woman holding a bow and arrow. Behind the prow, dipping a long oar methodically in and out of the water, stood a huge horned beast. I stiffened and could feel Seeker grinning at me.
Yep. I’d definitely fallen down the rabbit hole, and Wonderland had just arrived in full force.
The creature stood at least seven feet tall, with a massive chest and shoulders, the face of a bull, and two horns the size of cornucopias sprouting out of his head. He guided the boat alongside the pier and stared down at us with eyes that glowed bright blue.
“I see that you have found the Lost One, Seeker,” the Ferryman said, his voice the roots of the earth and the depths of the universe. “Titus will be pleased.”
Seeker glanced at me, appraising, as if looking at me for the first time. “She is untested, but she feels the Call strongly. I should hope that if nothing else, he’s satisfied that after more than a decade of searching, I’ve finally succeeded where no one else has.”
I stared back and forth between the two of them. “Wait—you’ve been searching for me for ten years? Why?”
“Patience, Evryn. All will be revealed in due time,” Seeker said with such dripping condescension I had to squeeze my fist to keep from slapping him. He offered a hand to help me into the boat.
Ignoring his outstretched hand, I stepped aboard, avoiding the monstrous bulk of the Ferryman. I settled myself on a bench at the back, one leg hooked over the other and my arms crossed. Seeker smirked, stepped gracefully onto the boat. He sat down beside me, too close. My eyes moved to the huntress at the helm of the boat as the Ferryman shoved off from the dock and began to paddle us through the mist.
“It’s Artemis,” Seeker said, his face so close to mine that his breath tickled the curls on the side of my neck. “The Huntress from Greek mythology. She wasn’t just a goddess, as most people read about in the history books. She was a faerie queen. The best Hunter of them all and mother of the Eternus Venators.”
“The what?” I turned to him. Questions burned inside me with a near physical pain.
“That’s the name for our kind—the Eternal Hunters. Ever chasing our prey.”
The water sparkled past us like liquid comets, the fog churned, and I shivered with the knowledge that I was in an alien place, with strange creatures, far from home. Not that I’d ever really had a home. That’s what I’d really been hunting my whole life—the truth of my origin. But now that I’d possibly found it, I felt even more unsettled than I had before. If what Seeker said earlier was true, did I even qualify as a resident of Earth anymore?
I took in a calming breath. “So, are you going to tell me anything else useful?”
“What do you want to know?” he asked, rather than volunteering anything. His eyes sparkled. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
I drummed my fingers on my thigh. “Well, we could start with where we are.”
“Where do you think we are?”
I ground my teeth together. “Clearly some sort of alternate realm.”
He shrugged and tilted his head to the side. “Sort of. This is a place between places, a path for traveling. Some of our kind, the most skilled of the Hunters, can slip directly from one realm to another on their own. But most can’t, so they come here, and the Ferryman escorts them.” He nodded toward our boatman.
“You can cut through realms. That’s what you did when you appeared and vanished again so quickly when I was chasing that kidnapper. Right?” I could still feel the thrill in my blood when I first saw him.
He cast his eyes over to me. “Yes, I can. I’d been closing in on your location, and I found you just in time.”
A frown pulled at my lips. Normally I didn’t need help on hunts. I distracted myself by thinking of more questions. “So, how many realms are there? Or dimensions, or whatever they’re called.”
“Realms, dimensions, it’s all the same. Just some place other. Reality isn’t just flat and linear as people on Earth like to think.” He gestured with his hands while he spoke. “It’s layered and overlapping, with other realities next to or hiding within another. There are countless, unlimited places. I doubt anyone could ever map them all, though many try.”
Looking up at the Ferryman I said, “And I suppose their inhabitants and landscapes are as endless in variety as they are in number.”
“Yes. If you stick with us, you’ll see things beyond anything you could ever imagine.” He smiled, his first nice and genuine smile, the warmth of it reaching his eyes.
I wondered what he pictured in his head. I hugged my knees in toward my chest, feeling altogether small and unworldly next to him.
“We are approaching Olivaris,” the Ferryman said in his deep rumble of a voice.
“That’s our stop,” Seeker said.
Through the mist I could make out another dock, this one made of polished white marble streaked with silver. Posts topped with ornate carvings lined each side. The Ferryman pulled alongside and came to a stop. “May the Call be true and your mount be swift,” he said, staring at me with his glowing blue eyes.
I started to stutter, not sure what kind of farewells were appropriate in this place. Or when addressing gigantic horned beasts.
“May we meet again under golden boughs,” Seeker said, the words rolling silken off his tongue.
Grabbing one of the posts, I pulled myself from the boat, feeling awkward and unskilled in everything. Seeker stepped off next to me, and the boat pulled away and disappeared into a bank of mist.
We walked to the end of the dock and out into the thickening fog. I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t walk so deep into the mist that the ground vanished beneath us again as it had before. I didn’t have long to worry, however, as the fog soon thinned out again and strange, tall pillars appeared before us. Tree trunks, I realized. Gigantic trees dotted here and there, their branches invisible in the mist overhead. The ground rose beneath us, and the trees closed in almost claustrophobically close. We hiked uphill for several minutes, and just when I was about to inquire where we were going, the land flattened out and a beam of sun shot through the fog.
Seeker turned. “And now we come to the home of the Hunters.”
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