There were wraiths outside the city borders as well as more solid demonlings, enough of the latter to make him sorry that he hadn’t brought his sword along. The price of traveling with Tarrant (he thought as he dispatched one particularly nasty winged thing, which had managed to dig its claws into his shoulder before he gutted it with a back-swipe of the hunting knife) was that you tended to forget such things existed. They sure as hell didn’t manifest in the Hunter’s presence.
Which was how he found Tarrant, eventually. Like a child playing warm—and-cold, he went in the direction where the creatures seemed most scarce, until he came to a place where there were none at all. A few steps more brought him over a broken ridge, to a place where a steep mound of boulders lay piled against a vertical wall of sheer granite. Tarrant stood at the pinnacle of the mound, his dark nature devouring the night’s power before any wraith or demonling could make use of it. In the distance, barely visible from that vantage point, the sea cast white-capped waves against a jagged granite island; in the stillness of the night it was just possible to hear the surf.
When the Hunter made no move to descend, Damien sheathed his knife and climbed up after him. When he reached the top, the Hunter didn’t look at him, or otherwise stir to acknowledge his presence, but he said—very softly—“Your shoulder is infected.”
With a soft curse Damien sat, and he worked a quick Healing to cleanse and close his wounds.
The delicate nostrils flared, sifting the night air for scents. “The rest of the blood?”
“Just scratches,” Damien assured him. Then: “There’s a lot of nasty stuff in this region.”
“Local constructs can’t feed inside the city. Therefore they gather outside the gates and wait for food to come to them.”
His eyes remained fixed on the south. Looking for signs of the enemy, or simply watching the sea? His profile, outlined against the moonlight, was a chill and perfect mask. So utterly controlled, Damien thought. Every hair in place. Every inch of skin spotless and smooth. And cold, so cold. No wonder mere sunlight could kill him.
“Is it true?” Damien asked quietly.
“What?”
“What she said about your children. That you didn’t kill them all.”
His voice was a whisper, hardly louder than the breeze. “Don’t you know?”
“I thought I did. Now I wonder.”
“What do the Church’s texts say?”
“That you killed your family. Murdered your children and dismembered your wife. Just that.”
“Just that,” he repeated softly. As if the phrase amused him.
“Is it?” he pressed.
The Hunter sighed. “My oldest son was gone that night. Staying at a neighbor’s, as I recall. I didn’t consider his presence important enough to justify my going after him.”
“The other deaths were enough for you.”
The pale eyes fixed on him, sparkling like cracked ice in the moonlight. “They were enough to establish my compact,” he said. “That was all I required.”
“And that’s it?”
He looked away again, gazed at the distant sea. “That’s it, priest. The whole story. You may add it to your texts, if you like. No doubt the Church will benefit from the correction.”
For a moment he could hardly respond, just stood there in amazement. Then: “You’re full of shit, you know that?” When the Hunter said nothing, he pressed, “You’re asking me to believe that one of your children just happened to be elsewhere that night? The most important Working of your whole damned life and you didn’t plan it well enough to keep all your victims together?” He spat on the stony ground. “How gullible do you think I am?”
The Hunter chuckled darkly. “So you tell me.”
“I think you wanted him alive. I think that vanity is your one weakness, and this time you couldn’t let go. The Tarrant line was something you’d created and you couldn’t resist the temptation to see what he would do with it all—the land, the power, the title—once you were gone. No mercy involved, Hunter—just another one of your precious experiments, to add to all the others.” When Tarrant didn’t respond, he pressed, “Well? Am I right?”
The silver eyes fixed on him—disdainful, forbidding. “Why did you come here?” he demanded.
He answered quietly, “Hesseth says the girl’s using the tidal fae.”
He heard Tarrant’s response, an indrawn hiss. “So. Humanity adapts to that power, at last.”
“You don’t sound very surprised.”
“Longevity gives one a special perspective, Reverend Vryce. I was born in an era when adepts were rare, and I’ve watched their ranks increase with each new generation. Yet few of us have children of our own, and the Sight is rarely inherited. So what other explanation is there? This planet is changing us, bringing us in line with all the native species. But the tidal fae . . . that’s something else entirely.”
He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. It was a strangely human gesture. Strangely vulnerable. “That night . . .” he whispered.
Damien didn’t have to ask which night. There was only one that mattered.
“I thought that night . . . if our enemy were Iezu . . . dear God.” Tarrant’s self-embrace tightened as he leaned back against the rock behind him. Remembering? “We had no chance, you understand. Not against one of that clan. Not against a demon who could turn our own senses against us.” He drew in a deep breath, slowly. “So I thought . . .”
The words trailed off into silence. In the distance surf rumbled, and the distant roar of thunder warned of a storm closing in. Or passing by.
“No good,” he whispered. “It’s no good.”
“What?”
Tarrant shook his head. Lightning shot over the ocean, a distant spark. “I thought there wasn’t a demon I couldn’t handle in open combat, but a Iezu . . . that changes all the rules.”
“What you’re saying is that we need the girl.”
Slowly, as if every word were being weighed and considered before it was spoken, he answered, “Her vision is extraordinary, and seems to pierce through Iezu illusion. I suppose that if we were to continue our intended course, then one might believe we could benefit from that.”
“Which means what?” he demanded. The compound conditionals made his head spin. “She comes, or no?”
“If you wish,” the Hunter whispered.
And that was so unlike him that Damien just stopped speaking altogether and stared at the man. Wondering why his sudden complacency scared him more than all the threats, all the anger. Wondering why he suddenly had the sinking feeling that the very rules he’d been playing by had been changed, only no one would tell him what the new rules were. Or when they had been instituted.
“Your call, Reverend Vryce.” Lightning flashed across the southern sky. “It’s your expedition, your quest . . . your call.”
Thunder rumbled across the sea.
“All right,” Damien said. “We take her with us. And since it’s the tidal fae she’s using, maybe Hesseth can teach her how to control it.”
“The rakh can’t Work for strangers,” Tarrant reminded him. “Otherwise Hesseth could serve us herself, and we wouldn’t need the child at all. As I recall, the plains rakh can only Work for their own kin.”
He thought of the small girl nestled against Hesseth’s fur, of the long claws cleaning and combing her hair with loving precision. “Somehow I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
More lightning flashed. Damien counted eight seconds, then thunder rumbled. The storm was moving in.
“I told you where to find Ran Moskovan,” the Hunter told him, “and I can tell you what the odds are that he’ll help us, without turning us in. Not much more than that.”
“The time you wrote down. That’s for tonight?
“That, or tomorrow. Your choice. After that he’ll be gone.”