Seeker

Quin was following the sound of John’s voice through the smoke, which lay so thickly around her that she was forced to creep along the ground, her cloak over her nose and mouth. She had been following that voice all around the commons, but at last she was getting close.

It wasn’t John’s real voice she was following, of course, but that strange, harsh metallic one he was using, as though it could separate him from what he was doing. She hoped Shinobu could hear that distorted screech as well and that he was nearby with an armful of weapons. She didn’t want to hurt John, but weapons seemed a necessity if she wanted to get her mother back.

“I don’t have what you’re looking for.” This was a new voice through the smoke—her father’s.

“You have it,” John said. “When you give it to me, you will have your wife back.”

“Have my wife back?” Briac repeated, a mocking tone in his reply. “That’s what you’re bargaining with?”

There was a breath of wind, and Quin came into a patch of clear air unexpectedly. The moon was up now, and she discovered she was again near the smoking wreck of her own cottage at the edge of the field. Her mother was visible directly in front of her, still on horseback, with a man seated behind her. A short distance away, John faced Briac in the tall grass of the commons, the mounted men encircling them both.

Quin crouched low in three-foot-tall scorched stalks that had been a green meadow only a few hours before.

“You can kill my wife only once,” Briac said. “Then what?”

You’re a beast, Quin thought, staring at her father.

“You’re a beast,” came John’s altered voice, speaking Quin’s own thoughts aloud.

“Aye, I’m a beast,” Briac agreed. “But I don’t have the athame.”

“All right,” John said.

Quin watched as John pulled out a pistol and shot Briac in the leg. Her father cried out and collapsed into a sitting position, blood blooming through his trousers along his upper thigh.

“There’s a matching scar for you,” John told him in his inhuman voice.

She knew the sight of her father bleeding should bother her, but Quin could not stop herself from feeling a fierce satisfaction at his pain. Briac would kill any of us if he had to, she thought, finally admitting the truth to herself.

Her eyes went back to John. She couldn’t see his face because he still wore his mask, but his hatred for Briac and his desperation for the athame seemed to radiate from his body. Is he desperate enough to hurt my mother? she wondered. She had the strong urge to pull the athame from her cloak and toss it to him. That simple action would put an end to the attack and make John happy all in a moment.

And then what? she asked herself. What if we were to decide, Quin? John had whispered to her in the barn. We’d do a better job …

“Where is the athame?” John demanded of Briac again, bringing Quin back to the present.

“I don’t have it!” Briac yelled, clutching his injured leg. “Kill me, kill her, kill anyone you like! I still don’t have it!”

It was time to act, while everyone’s attention was on her father. Quin moved in a crouch toward her mother, staying low in the grass. As she approached, she could see a wash of red over Fiona’s neck—her throat had been badly cut and was covered in blood. Had John done that to her?

Quin pulled a knife from its sheath at her waist, thinking, I hope you’re sober now, Mother. Fiona turned her head and looked directly at her, as though Quin had spoken the words aloud. Seeing Quin’s knife, she moved her head slightly, acknowledging that she understood. Her horse was the farthest back in the circle of men, away from notice at this moment.

“I was betrayed,” Briac said frantically as John got closer. “I don’t have it, I tell you!”

John shot him again, hitting his shoulder. Briac was thrown backward, and the new wound bled quickly, soaking his shirt.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

“Don’t worry,” John told him in his awful voice, still approaching. “I’ll stitch those up for you. I’ve got a needle and thread around here somewhere.”

Quin saw her moment. She threw her knife, knowing she wasn’t as skilled at this as the Young Dread but hoping her talents were sufficient. The knife arced through the smoky air and buried itself in the throat of the man holding Fiona. He tried to grab the blade, but before he had a chance, Fiona twisted her head and slammed it back against him, crushing the knife farther into his neck.

Staying low, Quin ran to her mother. She eased both Fiona and her captor—the man desperately clutching his throat—off the horse. By the sounds he was making, he would be dead in a minute or two. Quin retrieved her knife and slashed the ropes from her mother’s hands, and then they were running back into the smoke.

When they were past the burning cottages and among the trees, Quin paused to examine the wound at Fiona’s throat. Blood was still seeping from it, but the cut was shallow enough to pose no immediate threat. Had John and his men meant only to make a surface wound? Or had Fiona simply been lucky?

“Your father …” Fiona whispered.

“We’re leaving.” Quin said it firmly, and though unspoken, it was clear she meant: We’re leaving without Briac. “As soon as we find Shinobu.”

She took her mother’s hand, and they ran deeper into the woods, heading along the west side of the commons. Unless Shinobu had abandoned the estate, it was the only place he could be.

“John may kill your father,” her mother breathed.

From their new location, they could see Briac again. John was approaching him with a knife. At that moment, Quin realized that she wanted John to finish him. Whether John was dangerous or not, sane or not, she wanted him to finish Briac. It would set her free; it would set all of them free. She was about to answer her mother—If John doesn’t kill him, I promise you I will—when her attention was drawn to a large shape moving deeper in the woods.

“Look!” she whispered. “There’s Yellen!”