October 22.

The next morning is sunny and obscenely cheerful, which would have been a good thing if half of them weren’t hungover. Lindsay gives them lots of coffee with their breakfast, and doesn’t attempt to hide her amusement.

“If you have more than two or three beers, you have to drink water at some point,” Brighid chides. “And not just after you’re hungover!”

Decker winces. “Brighid, not so loud.”

“Hey guys, where’s Mal and Alima?” Matthaeus wonders loudly with a smile, and the hungover people wince again.

“Avoiding sunlight,” Owen snaps, and rubs his forehead.

---
Technically, he’s right: Mal’s stuck himself underneath the blanket for a good fifteen minutes, but more from lack of sleep than anything else. Once he gets the will to move more than a few inches, though, he sighs and stretches. “I think I needed that.”

“The sex or the concert?” Alima’s not moving either.

“Both.”

“Mm-hmm.” She checks her phone and groans. “We need to get up now.”

---
October 25.

After three full days of rain, Alima, Aine, and Brighid take Bulan to Doolin; it wasn’t raining quite so hard there.

As they walk, Alima notes that Aine has a knife at her belt. Her shirt and Brighid’s sweater are inside-out, and no doubt the two have both eaten salt.

“When you live in the country, it’s better safe than sorry,” Aine says after she asks. “City people think the Folk are all sweet pretty healers, but it’s because there’s too many people and too much iron in a city for the Folk to NOT be nice.”

“Huh. Bulan, heel.” Alima pats her leg. “American fairies aren’t nearly as focused.”

“What do you have in America?” Brighid wonders. “I know immigrants brought a lot of things over with them, but is there anything specific?”

“It varies on your region,” Alima admits. “California is big on being eco-friendly, which is good for the earth and good for all the forest-spirits and sea-spirits. Plus, fox-spirits are crazy fuckers.”

After half an hour, they loop back towards the walls and Alima can feel the other girls relax.

After lunch when they find out Alima hasn’t seen the Burren yet, Aine remedies it immediately by driving them over. “You need to see the Burren, Alima, you’ll go mental!” She turns the engine on.

“Do we have to go right now?” Brighid wonders from the backseat. “I have work at seven.”

“Brighid, this is Doolin! We could get stuck in traffic and you’d still be home by five.”

“Oh, fine.” With how fond Brighid’s tone is, she’s not protesting that hard, and she scratches Bulan under the chin.

---

The cracks in the limestone make the Burren look like an ocean of a street, with plants as its green mortar. Alima has to stick her hand in to prod at a flower: The plants aren’t fake, and they’re very much happy--they hum in content from the recent rain. “No fucking way! How does this work?!”

“I know, right?” Aine laughs. “There’s some fancy geography talk for how it got like that, but it’s nice seeing people lose their shit. It’s just the Burren, you know. Been like this for eons.”

While Alima takes pictures, Bulan noses along with his tail wagging. “Once I spend a few months back home, I’d love to visit this place again.”

They wander through the massive street, using the tourist portals to reach stony caves or haphazard castle ruins, until Ned catches the smell of bone and ice on the way back to the car: The Hunter. It’s still far, but his hackles rise and he pulls Alima back towards the car, growling.

“Hey,” Alima chides. “Bulan, heel.”

“No, that’s fine,” Brighid picks up the pace. “Something’s coming.”

“What if it’s just another dog?” Alima asks, but the blonde shakes her head.

“It’s magic,” she insists. “Magic in an open place might not be good.”

“Right, you’re a nurse.” Alima unlocks the car.

“No, Alima, I’ll drive. Back to Doolin, then.” Aine checks out the windows--no one’s there, at least not yet--and locks the doors. “Seatbelts, birds.” When she tries to activate the wards, she accidentally presses the hazard lights instead. “Alima, where’s your ward ring?”

“It’s by the wheel on the dashboard, on the right.”

“Ugh, that’s weird.” She twists the ring, then starts the engine and pulls out. “It’s supposed to be hazards and wards, then all your steering wheel stuff. What if you use the wipers because it’s rainy and then you accidentally turn the wards on? Then you look like an idiot.”

“I know, right?” Alima wonders if Aine’s genuinely calm or if she’s trying to keep attention away from whatever Bulan’s scented.

And so they head to Doolin ten or fifteen kilometers too fast--but nobody’s there to get mad at them, which can’t be a good sign. Ned tries to track the Hunter’s scent through the cracked-open windows, but it drifts or nears with the wind.

Alima gets her phone out. “Is it okay if I call someone?”

“Sure. Calm down, boy.” Brighid gives Bulan a pat on the shoulder, but he still strains to reach the window.

She presses speed-dial for Duyen, and after two rings the woman answers: “Alima?”

“Hi, Duyen? We’re heading to Doolin and Bulan smells something weird. Brighid says it’s magic.”

“Are you okay?”

“We’re about halfway back to Doolin, so we should be home in twenty or thirty minutes. Just a heads up.”

“No problem.” Alima hears her press a button, and her phone flashes orange as the tracking spell activates. “If you need us fast, press 111 and we’ll portal over.”

They reach the sign for Doolin, and the girls relax as the streetlights envelop them. But a few minutes out of the village, when they pass the “Welcome to Cloncarrig” sign, the baying of dogs creeps through the windows.

“Fuck, we’re ten minutes off! Alima, I’ll pay for the car!” Aine speeds up, and in a few moments they see the town’s skyline at the edge of the road. But the hunting dogs get louder, to Bulan’s answering growl, and in the mirror they catch the points of the Hunter’s deer-antlers at the front of the rabble.

“Can we make it?” Brighid asks.

“We can’t go straight, we have to tire the horses out!” Aine lets up and takes them to the right, dragging them through the first tangle of grass. “We’re going for the Blue Gate!”

The Hunter is forced to split with one half after them, and Alima presses 111. Jude responds on the speaker: “We’ll be in the car asap.”

“Just so you know--” A bump on the passenger’s side pitches her into Aine. “Ow! We’re being chased by the Wild Hunt!”

“Got it. Duyen, iron ammo!”

Now Alima grips the bear’s claw: “Artio? The Wild Hunt’s following us.”

No worries, lovey, her voice is a cutting thread under the engine. Are you in the car?

“Yes. We have people coming to help, too.”

Good, but don’t be shy about calling me again.

Another road stretches across their path: Aine turns onto it.

A clicking noise distracts Alima, such a small and foreign thing after the roar of the engine. There’s the Fianna’s whistle, all the way in the cupholder. She checks her bag--it’s been shut for a while, and she doesn’t know how it could have fallen out. Perhaps this is Irish magic.

“I’m calling the Fianna,” Alima tells them, to a wave of nods.

So she blows the whistle, and the sound of the hunting horn makes the other car screech to a stop. But the only sound right now is the whistle of wind, and the blood in their ears.

Aine gets out to warn the other car. “Go back! The Wild Hunt are on us!”

“Are they all coming?” The driver asks.

“Half are following us, don’t know about the other half. We called the Fianna. Warn Rickard to keep people in!”

“Aye!” He waits till Aine gets back into the driver’s seat, and then his car spins back towards Cloncarrig. Soon the tail-lights vanish into black.

The car’s pushing a hundred after Aine guns the engine again, but the Wild Hunt strains back into view at the edge of the mirror. Their horses’ necks are nearly flat over the ground--eight or ten of them vanish in exhaustion, but it’s not enough to dent the crowd.

“Goddamn fairy-horses!” Aine slams the brakes and screeches left: The foremost riders run into each other, and the Hunter’s steed jumps clear of its downed fellows.

As she gets back on the road, a flash of orange makes Brighid shriek.

“It’s okay!” Duyen says. “It’s us! Jude, how many?”

Jude uses the tracker’s point again after he buckles in: “Twenty-three.”

“You can’t shoot now, we’ll go deaf!” Brighid protests as Duyen checks her gun. “Oh, wait!” She hunts through her bag and grabs a little glass orb, then gives a sliding hum up. At the peak of the high note, a mist wraps snug around everyone’s heads before dissipating.

“Why do you have a silencer?” Duyen wonders.

“Nurse! And it’s not a proper silencer, it’s just a normal soundproofing orb.”

“Either way, thanks!” Something clangs into the door on Duyen’s side. “Elf-shot! Perfect!” She rolls down the window, aims, and shoots. A horse goes down, blundering into the ones near it, and Duyen aims out the window again.

“Three down!”

Duyen takes another shot. Her bullet goes too far left--nothing hits, but a cluster of horses spook and barge into each other.

“Seven down!” Jude calls, just before the car gets jolted by another arrow.

“Bulan, good boy,” Brighid pats the dog’s neck. “You’re being so calm, I wonder what--”

“Forty more!” Jude calls, pointing left.

“Damn it, the other half found us!” Aine looks out the window to the new horsemen careering towards them. “Hold on!”

“Does my insurance cover whatever you’re going to do?” Alima wonders.

“No, but they’ll replace the car if they have to! Hold on!” Aine brakes and heaves the car around, straight back towards the Hunter.

The car is a little block between the flood of horses, and Brighid’s soundproofing orb can’t help with the wall of dread in their chests. The Hunter jumps clear, but the core of his group slams into the car. The larger group attempts to split around them, only to ram into the flanks that are bolting to the sides.

Alima’s pretty sure that the only thing that keeps them from getting flattened are the wards, and the only thing they see are flailing horses with white-eyed screams until Aine breaks onto the road again.

Jude laughs as they forge away from the Wild Hunt, clutching his head from whatever he senses, and his dizziness cuts like rocks into water. “Twenty-eight down!”

Through the window, Alima spots the Hunter’s antlers at the front of the survivors. He puts a hunting horn to the mouth of his deer-skull, and two blasts boom through the night. A mound of obsidian arrows pummels the back window, and it splinters open as the ward gives out. Everyone ducks, but Brighid screams and clutches her chest.

“Brighid?” Aine calls.

“Isn’t your sweater inside-out?” Alima asks.

“It’s still just a sweater!” She digs through her bag, already waxy, and struggles with a bottle of aspirin--Jude has to open it. “We have a few minutes before I’m officially in trouble.” She chews and swallows.

Alima grabs her bear-claw again. “Artio! Brighid’s having a fucking heart attack!”

She can feel the goddess struggle, but something keeps her back like a rubber band. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Do you know any hand-laying, love?

“Brighid knows hand-laying!” Alima despairs.

“I do.” Brighid’s voice is as weak as a kitten, but she shakes her head to get her focus. “Okay--”

Another hail of arrows puts out one of the back tires and the tail-lights, and they spin out off the edge of the road. Brighid heaves, a scratching noise deep in her throat. “Alima? Hand-laying.”

“Ohhhh no.” But she stumbles out the door and squeezes into the back seat.

“Hang on!” Aine says. “Alima, check your wards.”

She presses the button on her keyring, and the wards on the front and sides flicker in response. The rear ward is faint. “The back quarter’s shaky. The other sides are still good.” She drops her keys in the cupholder.

“Let’s move Brighid to the front after she’s clear,” Aine says. “Also, Jude? We’re getting the spare tire. It’s in the boot, right, Alima?”

“Yeah.” Alima puts her hands in position on Brighid’s chest and head.

“Okay,” Brighid says, taking off her sweater. “Just channel some magic into your right hand, and then take it down through my chest. If you get the elf-shot out, that’s good, but as long as it’s out of the way, I’m stable.”

“The arrow’s still inside?!” Alima freezes.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry! Right hand--” Her head sways despite Alima’s pressure on it, and she coughs. “Right hand, then left hand. Okay?”

“Okay.” She winces through the red glow of her hands. “Ew. Right hand, then left hand…”

Aine and Jude start working on the tire, with Duyen standing guard. Only the shapes of trees are in sight. “No more fairies?”

“We don’t see any more fairies,” Duyen says. “Jude?”

“They’re far,” he offers, but he still checks his gun before getting the jack out.

A darkness rattles under Alima’s hands, and she shies away: “Brighid! The arrow’s moving!”

“That’s good! It’s not in my heart!” She looks better, no longer pale as Alima puts her hands back in position. “Just a little longer and you can draw it out--”

“I have to get him.” Ned squeezes out through Duyen’s door, and she grabs his leash.

“Hang on, boy.”

“I need to kill the Hunter!” He growls and strains, tail up, but Duyen crowds him back inside and shuts the door.

“--good,” Brighid says. “Now move both your hands to my chest and you can try to draw it out. If you can’t manage it, that’s okay--it’s not in the danger zone anymore.”

“Shit. Shit. Ewewewewew--” Alima can’t decide whether to look away or not, and she decides to compromise with one eye flinching shut. After another couple of seconds, the arrowhead finally peels out onto Brighid’s shirt. “Okay, done!” She tosses it away, and the obsidian thuds into the car’s shadow.

“Thank God.” Brighid sighs. “Tell me if someone needs healing. I’m staying still after I get in front--”

“Hang on,” Jude says, stopping Alima from putting Brighid in the front. “I’ll boost the ward. Does anyone have dried nettles?”

“I have nettle pills in my bag--is that okay?” Brighid says.

“I hope so.” Jude finds the bottle. “Duyen, I’m starting a spell.”

“One minute.” Duyen finishes with the jack. “Okay, we’re taking the tire off.”

Alima grabs the bear claw again. “Artio? Any progress?”

I’ll be there in a minute! Artio strains again.

Jude crushes the pills in some folded paper, sweeps away the broken glass, and taps out a line of green behind the seats. He sends a few delicate breaths through his cupped hands, like he’s coaxing a fire onto tinder, and a silver net builds in the remains of the window. “Come on, you.”

He keeps blowing on the powder, but it vanishes after a few more moments, so he grabs his knife and carves a rune near the window. “Better than nothing. Brighid, time to switch seats.”

Aine wrenches at the tire and curses when she can’t move it. “It’s rusty! Why the hell now?!”

A roar makes them all jolt up, and Brighid looks like she’s going to have another heart attack as a huge shape stumbles near the car. But Alima calms down when she realizes it’s a bear, and it turns into a familiar giant of a woman. “Artio!”

“Sorry, loves. I had a devil of a time reaching the mortal world.” Her hair is well past her torso, with the last foot of it thrown into a rushed braid. She’s left neither bear nor human prints--just a thick trail of frost.

She looks in at Brighid, shaking her head. “You’re much too young for a heart attack.” Artio strokes the nurse’s hair, and a tiny flurry of snow puffs in response.

“Th-thank you, ma’am.” She pokes at her chest, wide-eyed, and Jude chuckles and brushes the snow off her hair.

She looks in the car. “I don’t think there’s room for me in either shape, is there? Well, I’ll just follow. Don’t worry about driving, lovey.” Artio pounds the bumper twice, and the entire car flashes the same mottled green of her dress.

“Thank you!” Aine puts the wrench in the trunk and gets into the driver’s seat.

“Remember your seatbelts!” Artio waves, like the Wild Hunt isn’t on their trail, and they clip on after a few dazed glances at each other.

“Feeling okay, Brighid?” Jude asks.

“I’m not having a heart attack,” she offers. “That’s good.”

“Yay,” he says dully. He searches for the Wild Hunt with closed eyes: “They’re slowing down.”

“We finally wore out the goddamn horses.” Aine turns back onto the road. “Where the hell are the Fianna?”

“We’ve been driving full-throttle for the past few minutes,” Duyen reminds her. “We’re probably at least twenty miles away from where we first signaled them.”

It’s none too soon before the Wild Hunt comes, swarming so close that the horses’ tattered breathing leaves mist on the windows.

Duyen and Jude don’t have to bother aiming: They blast iron bullets into the crowd up ahead, and the horses that don’t go down scatter in fear. But one of them leaps off his horse onto the trunk, and he reaches through the silver net as if it’s gauze.

“No!” Jude grabs for Brighid, but the fairy drags her out of the broken window, flicks the silver net away like cobwebs, and barely dodges Duyen’s answering bullets as he jumps away with her.

“Brighid!” Aine stops the car and runs out after her.

“NO!” Jude uses the tracker’s point with one hand and aims his gun under it, shooting Brighid’s captor in the head. There’s still twenty or so fairies still around them all. “Aine, wait!”

Alima’s dog bounds out like a ghost, and she panics: “Bulan!”

“Nonono!” Duyen tries to grab the dog’s leash, but he’s just out of her reach--pretty soon, he and Alima are getting too close to the gang of fairies. “JUDE! WE ARE FUCKED OVER!”

“I didn’t notice!” Jude snarks by her right side. “This is the worst fucking time for the dog to stop behaving!”

“Where the hell are the Fianna?!” Duyen demands. “I’ll get Alima, you get the other two!”

Artio arrives, a raging mass against the glowing skin of the Folk. Amidst her roaring, Jude’s gunshots, and Brighid’s screaming, Alima grabs Bulan’s leash. But she’s too small to slow him down much, and she nearly skids behind him. When the Hunter spots the white dog sprinting for him, he laughs and runs for the woods.

“No you don’t!” The bear-goddess hauls off after them, clunky from exhaustion.

“At least I’ll have help.” Duyen rubs at her temples, gets her knife out from the back of her shirt, and heads left after the three of them. “Jude! Track me!”

“Got it!” He stamps a boot on the dirt, and a silver thread of magic links him and Duyen. “Go!”

Brighid struggles to break the grip of the fairy holding her, but her left arm’s cut from the glass and her chest is starting to hurt again. Her blood sizzles when it drips on him. Somewhere to the left, Aine knifes a fairy.

“Rock salt,” he winces. “So you live in the west, don’t you blondie?”

“Please,” Brighid pulls. Gunshots thin out the ranks, and the other screams of pain must be from Aine’s efforts to get to her, but they make her head swim. “Please--let go, I won’t do anything.”

“You?” His blue eyes are gleaming in the night. “You’re a bloody nurse! What will you do?”

“How do you--”

“Oh aye, how?” He smiles, so dreadfully handsome. “Fairies see lots of things, blondie. You should be dead or close to it after getting hit with elf-shot. But you’re not, so clearly you have medical training.”

“Why are you…?” Brighid’s head is clamoring even more to get away, but she can’t figure out why. She can’t feel anyone’s presence in her head, which scares her more than an intrusion.

A shot sounds, and he ducks a hair too late. The bullet grazes his shoulder. “You don’t like men, do you, blondie?” He asks her--and then he turns into Owen, and her blood runs cold: “I figured, Brighid. Who else would put up with me?”

She blares some desperate noise and lunges away. He’s amused enough to let her go, and he keeps using Owen’s voice while he tracks her:

“Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high

We’re pretty mermaids and we’ll never die!”

The laughter of the Folk bounces off of the trees.

“Except for Brighid, she’s the only one!

Turn her around, turn her around, so she cannot face the sun!”

Motorcycles boom through the night air--but don’t the Folk have horses? She scrambles against a tree until a headlight shocks her into screaming.

“It’s okay!” It’s one of the Fianna, and his red suit shimmers in the afterimages of her vision. “Gods, how long have you been tailed by the Hunt?”

She’s getting dizzy again because it’s so dark under the trees, but someone blunders into her from the left and the shock of it makes her claw at the silhouette. “Owen?!”

“It’s me!” Aine keeps a hold on her.

“Where’s Owen? He said he wouldn’t tell, he promised--”

“He’s not here. All right?” The brunette stares hard at her, and a corner of Brighid’s mind is relieved that nobody knows. “Whatever the Folk were doing, they were trying to freak you out.”

“Okay.” It’s not a lie--Brighid’s still too confused to think about lying, and the ‘Wallflowers’ tune is rolling in her head.

They hurtle around the group to the car. The Folk blood on Aine stings Brighid’s forearm in turn, but they spill into the driver’s seat and the back. Jude dives in after them and shuts his own door.

He points them to the woods, lets out a breath, and reloads his gun. “That way.”

---

In the forest, Ned’s doubled back since Alima’s not letting go of the leash--he’s tried to lose her and he’s managed to slip out a couple of times, but she’s always managed to grab the leash back after a minute or two.

“Why the hell won’t you leave?” Ned laments, and he butts at her knee and whines.

“Bulan, come back to the car!” Alima orders, but in spite of her pulling on his neck, he won’t listen. “Gods, is it the wolf blood that’s making you act like Call of the Wild?”

The Hunter waits under a rowan tree, red berries dripping all around him. “Hello, Mr. Fangs,” he greets them, and Ned growls.

“Fuck you.” He sinks his teeth into the leash and rips himself free as the Hunter bears down on them, then runs full-tilt.

It’s a bad idea.

All the Hunter does is swing his antlers to the side, and Ned thinks he’s floating for a few disoriented moments until he hits a tree. His vision goes gray from the impact--for a minute he can’t even hear anything, but Alima comes over to him and he feels her hands. Eventually her voice filters through the ringing, sharp from worry:

“--lan? Bulan? Come on!” Alima digs her hands under him and hauls at him.

“Honey, you weigh less than me! You can’t lift me!” Ned knows she can’t hear her, but struggles up anyway. His side is a mass of pain.

A long shadow falls on them, and Alima grabs her knife. It hums at the nearness of the fairy.

“Looks like Blondie’s your boyfriend,” the Hunter remarks. “Interesting. But he’s not here right now, is he?”

“I don’t need a boyfriend to use this.” She holds her knife steady.

“Alima!” Ned lunges for the Hunter in spite of his ribs protesting, and he manages to graze the Hunter’s leg before he’s kicked out of the way again.

“Poor Mr. Fangs.” A hollow laugh through the Hunter’s elk-mask. “Who’s helping you now?”

“I AM!” Duyen scrabbles through a bush and blasts a shot at him. The Hunter’s startled, but the bullet ends up in his mask instead of anything vital.

With his distraction, Alima swings her knife at him--the hit she landed on him so many weeks ago must not have been that bad, because now he bellows like an elk and swings his head blindly, flinging her away like paper. Somehow she’s kept a grip on her knife, and the Hunter’s blood burns into her skin.

Duyen all but catches her. “Alima, stay out of the way!”

“You.” The Hunter comes at them, and both of the women keep their weapons up. “Why do you bother fighting? You’re just some city girl from America, you’re not supposed to be--”

But he heads straight into Artio’s waiting arm, and she slams him up against a tree before he can struggle. “Och, laddie, you’re losing your touch!”

“Well. Artio. You’ve been gone for a while,” he says to her, almost cordial--only mild strain hints that he’s getting choked on his own weight.

“Missed you, boyo.” She smiles at him, her bear-fangs gleaming, and rams her head into the deer skull. It shatters in half with the crunch of glass, and pieces of ice jet out around them. The earth rattles like a snake.

There’s no sign of him after the world goes still--just frost, dark splatters, and melting ice.

Alima heads back to where Ned is whimpering, dimly noting that her own arm’s starting to sting. “Bulan?” She puts her head in his lap. “Don’t worry, boy. We have a goddess around. Wait--do you treat animals?” She realizes.

“Bear-goddess, lovey. I know a bit of everything.” She chuckles and mends the chewed-through leash with a poke, and then puts a hand on Ned’s chest.

In a moment he feels the green hum of earth-magic in the back of his head, and he tests it out: He can stand and walk carefully, but a sharper ache starts up in his ribs and he whines. “I guess I don’t want to take painkillers for the next five years.”

“Five years on painkillers? Och, I don’t have enough juice.” Artio picks him up as if he’s a terrier. “It’s a good thing the Hunter was just having fun. If he wasn’t, you’d be smeared on the trees by now.”

“Can you understand him?” Alima wonders.

“He’s a wolf,” Artio says. “Or partly, anyway. Wild things are in my field, after all.”

The Fianna’s motorcycles arrive, circling loosely, and lead the three back to the road.

Alima’s car is… running, she figures. But the back window’s out, it’s covered in horse blood, and dented like a golf ball. Plus the back ward is out and the side wards are flickering.

“I swear I’ll pay for whatever the insurance doesn’t cover,” Aine apologizes.

Next Chapter: XXVIII: yes, and back again