Betrayals (Cainsville 4)

"Agreed."

"You know what we need more of?"

"Bike sex?"

She laughed, and he knew that wasn't some random snippet of conversation shouted across a forest--she was making sure it was really him.

"Run, little Arawn," the voice whispered. "Run after her while you still can."

Ricky shot his middle finger over his shoulder and picked up his pace. A shape leapt in front of him, darkness against darkness, pulsing there. He veered, as if it was no more than a stump in his path, but when the shadow dove for him, he was ready, blade slashing. He could still see nothing, but the knife met resistance and there was a sharp intake of breath.

"Guess my puny weapon can do some damage after all, huh? Even if you don't have the guts to uncloak yourself."

Ricky saw the blow coming. No fist. Not even a shape. Just darkness flying at him, but he'd been in enough fights to recognize the sense of movement alone, and he wheeled out of its path, shouting, "Liv? Be careful! I've found our rogue Huntsman."

"Kinda figured that's who you were talking to," she yelled back. "You two keep exchanging semi-witty banter and I'll have no problem finding you."

"I think he'd rather exchange semi-useless blows."

The next one came from his right, and Ricky wasn't quite fast enough to duck. That was, of course, the danger of being a smart-ass. You can enrage an opponent into wild blows, but one of those blows is bound to hit. This one struck him in the jaw and--

Holy fuck.

He'd say it felt like a sledgehammer, but there was no pain, just...explosion, and then--

Terror. Overwhelming terror, like something had reached into his brain and released every nightmare, the shock of that doubling him over, breath stopping, heart stopping, everything stopping, that blackness swallowing him and--

God-fucking-damn it, no. Just no. Get a fucking grip.

He gave himself a mental smack upside the head. He would not go down. He would not let this bastard put him down. He was better than that. Stronger than that.

He was Arawn.

Or at least he could fake it long enough to smack himself back into shape.

"You find this funny, boy?"

Ricky realized he was laughing. Doubled over, barely able to breathe, but wasting what little breath he did have laughing at himself. Because sometimes, that's all you could do. You make a fucking stupid mistake, and you could only call yourself an idiot and then snap back before you screwed up again.

He heard Liv in the forest, trying to sneak toward them, and when he looked, the rogue Huntsman's shadow had taken shape. Still black as night, no features to be seen, but the form of a cloaked man turning in Liv's direction.

Ricky ran at the figure. He jumped at its back and hit solid flesh and thought Yes! and then his hands started to pass through it, to pass into absolute cold, that ice running up his arms, pitch black enveloping his arms--

Running.

He was running so fast every breath was a dagger through his lungs, but the terror--that crushing terror--kept his legs moving as pain ripped through them, ripped through his entire body.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...

Prayers raced through his head, the words expelled on each exhalation, words Ricky didn't know, prayers he didn't know. Another man's prayers, coming in desperation, a ward against a fear for which there was no ward, a hope against a fate for which there was no hope.

A vision? A memory? Someone's memory. Not the Huntsman's, but from him, a straight shot of terror, sending Ricky tumbling into some stranger's body, in some long-ago place. He tried to hold on to that, tell himself this wasn't real, but all he could think, all he could feel, was whatever this poor man was thinking, feeling...

The hounds, dear Lord, the hounds, he could hear their baying growing ever more distant, and in the beginning that had given him hope, until he'd discovered that the farther away they sounded, the closer they actually were, and when he glanced over his shoulder--

Do not look! Do not look!

He looked anyway, and he saw fire. The fires of hell on his tail, giant hounds whose eyes blazed, giant black steeds who breathed flames, whose fetlocks and manes burned with it. And the riders. He could see the riders now. Faceless cloaked men with red eyes. Eyes that burned hellfire and promised damnation.