7: The Mid

Even astride a fleet horse, the distance was deceptively vast. Hours later, with the strange sun dropping below the plains, the imposing castle was hours away. The sky darkened. The hollerings and horseplay of the other demons rose above the thunderous hooves. Immediately Cairo urged his steed clear of fray. They drove their horses to clip hooves and nearly collide;  rode up and viciously tugged the arm or leg of a distracted rider. The horses, for all their natural markings, still bore fangs the way the Smiling Dark still ran with its forked tongue lolled out. It was as if this world were a sunken mirror of our own; a steady, familiar surface with an ocean's worth of mysteries lurking underneath.

I pulled my billowing hair to one side and turned a cheek into the soft fabric of Cairo's shirt. He immediately leaned backward.

"Where are we?" I asked.

A thousand stormy nights shivered through my veins at the sight of those cold grey eyes. He wore his displeasure like a mask carved from sandstone, unmoved and stoic but not impossible to erode.

It was a long ride to the castle; I wasn't planning on giving up easily. So I bit my lip, prayed he wouldn't toss me off the horse, and rubbed my shoulders into his chest with an inquisitive, "Where are we?"

Wrapped in fluff, I turned my chin up like a curious kitten and peered at him.

"Where?" I began in a small voice.

"Not. Now."

"Give you this fur back." I fiddled with the clasp near my neck. "I'm not married to the thought of wearing it. I don't even know what a Marl is. Talk to me from here to the castle and it's all yours. I'll just fashion a potato sack into a dress or something. It's cool."

His chest rose and fell on a heavy sigh. "It reeks of human now."

"It reeks of death." I pointed to the imposing skyline, where the castle loomed ever so slightly nearer. "Don't you have slaves to wash it for you?"

"I don't trust servants paid to stand around me, let alone those forced to," he said.

When my eyes met his, his attention reverted to the skyline. The beginnings of a blue aurora shimmered over the castle's spiraling towers. The castle and its crown city were surrounded by a wall higher than the hoover dam. Light glowed over its perimeter. Though I couldn't be sure, for the briefest moment it seemed as if a large shadow had snaked down from the highest tower and disappeared around the far side.

Cairo frowned. Maybe he'd seen it, too. "You are wearing the cloak. You have hands. You wash it."

"We don't do much hand-washing in the century I'm from." I didn't have time for that, anyway, unless I was scrubbing my boots or hosing the flies out of my head net.

"If you borrow something, do you not return it cleaned?"

"Oh yeah, I'll bring it back lavender-scented and fluffy, just the way you returned my calf."

"I didn't promise anything."

"God, no," I said. "Demons make deals, not promises."

Irritation slipped into his tone. "No God here, human."

"Tay," I snapped. "My name's Tay. The Walrus says names have power. Well, mine doesn't carry much weight at current, but it will. So say it. Tay Wilson. T-A-Y Tay. Wilson like the volleyball."

He was quiet for a long stretch. "Not very smart, are you?" he finally asked. Before I could say something mean, he carried on. "I am Cairo. Like the human capital of Egypt. C-H-I-R-O."

I laughed. "Not very smart, are you? That's not how you spell Cairo."

I couldn't read his expression, but he sounded almost embarrassed. "I was making the letters very fast when I chose the name."

"You chose it?"

"I carved it." He indicated a patch of smooth, unscarred skin on his left forearm. "Just here when I was four years old. I only knew the capital letters. I did not connect the 'A.'"

"So what's your satan-given name?"

"No Satan here, either, Tay Wilson. We protect our true names by taking a false one."

"Protect it from what?"

He wouldn't answer.

Like the lizards overhead, I circled back. "Where are we, Chiro? In the big picture sense, not 'The plains of Andorian Butterflies' or something utterly meaningless to me."

"You'll return the pelt?" he asked slowly.

I nodded. "Absolutely."

He shifted. "Through time it has gone by many names, but we here of this land, the ones who share the common tongue, call it the Mid. Not quite death, not quite life. Somewhere in the middle."

"Logical."

"Possibly the only logical thing about this place," he replied.

An indigo night fell fast across the castle and distant mountains. My cloak buffeted the wind as the horses charged along, endlessly energetic no matter the distance they'd traveled. At our backs the sun sank in hazy shades of emerald; stretched the herd's shadows into shapes of rhino-horned snouts and skinny, feathered tails. Atka's horse drew nearer, running through the change. The eye that bobbed past me to engage our horse was round and yellow, not a trace of pupil. Like its rider, the dun was truly a beautiful animal, and in the waning light its scale-studded cheeks glittered. The white coat of Chiro's horse had toughened along its neck and underbelly into tiny, octagonal plates. I felt the tiny ridges through the white silk of its mane, and then Akta's horse rammed its horn sideways into the neck of ours.

The two animals collided with high shrieks, banged and slammed, twisting around, biting and ramming one another at the vulnerable points where scale met flesh. Chiro tried to steer us clear to no avail. I clung to the horse's neck, let go to avoid a blackened horn and almost slid off  if it weren't for Chiro's grip. Something sharp pinched my waist. I flinched away, right toward Akta.

He caught a fistful of my hair and yanked. I lost my grip, dropped between the thrashing animals; the pain in my waist deepened, raked across my hip and then I was free- of it and Akta. I hit the ground between the whirlwind of hooves, crawled away and by some miracle didn't get kicked in the head. Chiro, also down from his horse, grabbed me by shoulder and dragged me upright. The two mounts backed away, flanks heaving, sizing each other up in a slow half circle.

Akta stumbled away, his fingers pressed against his bloody neck.

A third dark horse burst through the dark. Its horn banged off the scaled rump of Chiro's. Both his and Akta's charged after the intruder. In a matter of minutes the rest of the herd, all riderless, disappeared into the grasses.

"You're okay," Chiro said once the hooves rumbled like distant thunder and the animals' electric screeches were lost behind the rattling grass. We stood alone on the plains, but from the sound of the other riders this would be short-lived.

"I am not," I argued, lifting my hand from my waist. Blood pearled off my shaking fingertips.

He inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes. I felt almost insulted by the gesture. "May I see?" he asked in the tired tone of a mother trying to stop a toddler from wailing over a bump.

The hounds bayed and their eyes glowed crimson in the dying pale rays. Embers flipped off their heels, vivid sparks rising like fireflies on the mellow wind.

I regarded their passage, then Chiro, carefully. "Does nightfall change you, too?"

"No," he said. "We have more control."

"But not total control?"

"This skin is a curse. If I had total control, I would not waddle around quaking, as you say."

He approached; I let him set his hands on my shoulders and adjust the cloak. His right hand slid over the soft fur covering my arm. As his hand came upon the tailored edge, he slid the furs back past my elbow then stopped, eyebrows raised. I nodded. He crouched to examine my waist.

He wiped the blood with his hand. The pads of his fingers felt rough and strong. My stomach quivered, but I held myself still against his touch.

Chiro was standing not a half minute later, wiping his hand on his pants. "The pelt is ruined, but you are fine. Just a scratch. A shallow bleed. Not nearly as bad as you believe."

I examined the injury for myself. He was right; it had been bleeding a lot, but the skin was shredded only at the surface level. Even now it was clotting.

"What's a Marl?" I asked, twining my fingers in the luxurious fur. The other riders were closing in on our location.

"Not a kitten."

I rolled my eyes. He covered his mouth with his hand or I'd have known whether or not that sandstone face had cracked. "Getting stabbed is years-of-therapy traumatic, but when I think about the actual act of dying, I'm not mad. I don't understand. Mark my words, I'm pissed at you and all the rest of these monsters, but the act itself doesn't bother me."

"You haven't died; you've changed. The caterpillar isn't afraid of change or the process that transforms it. It is not sad to leave behind its former state. Your father was one of us. Gabriel, my hound, smelled your blood shifting. It was not an accident that you were chosen."

My father worked on an oil rig and was, far as I'd been told, living a hard life with hard men. Uncertainty kept me quiet as, one after another, the horseless riders emerged. Everyone knew demons had a penchant for lying. But my mother, my sweet, adoring mum who'd rather exclaim 'Jiminy Cricket on a pogo stick!' than words like 'shit'? Had she lied to me this entire time? Is that why she had our home and fields blessed?

I didn't know what to say in reply. I didn't even want to think of that right now. I changed gears with a soft breath and asked, "How is this body of mine real and not a ghost?"

"A question for the Marrow Witch." Chiro drew his finger in a tiny circle over his heart, crossed it, then took my hand and did the same over mine. "May you have the good fortune to never meet It."

"Does the Marrow Witch—" He made the gesture again, stared at me imperiously until I also complied. "Does It know everything about this land?"

"It is the oldest damn thing alive here. Don't know how much It knows, but It knows more than any of us." The Walrus, for lack of a name, elbowed his way to the forefront. He swung his head toward the sky. "Aurora's out in full tonight. Winds have shifted. Thinking we should stop for the night rather than move on foot."

Chiro agreed, announced to the group at large to get a fire going, then started off with the Walrus. Mindful of the furs, I hiked the hem to mid-thigh and trotted after the two men.

"Excuse me," I said, not once breaking my gaze from the younger of the pair. "We were having a conversation."

"Jealous I took him from ya, lass?" The Walrus winked. "I too would be worried of my wily charms, but he don't swing my way."

In the deepening haze the Smiling Dark and three smaller versions emerged before Chiro (smaller being relative; grizzly-sized wolves were still grizzly-sized wolves, whether or not they were sized like a sow or  full grown boar). He spoke a single, sharp word to them in a language I didn't recognize. The pack shot into the grasses. Chiro, completely ignoring me, headed after them.

Without my temporary guardian, the other demons moved in closer. It was clear who ran the show. I pulled the cloak tight around my body and gave 'em the stern look to keep walking. Somewhat reluctantly, I turned to regard the Walrus. "Interrupting people is rude."

He bowed his balding head. "I apologize, Lady Wilson."

"Treat me like a lady and you won't have to apologize."

"It is easier to ask forgiveness," the Walrus responded. "And this lot here will take the easy way every time. Were I you, I would lay that feminine wile on thick and heavy with Prince Chiro. When night falls in the Malumbrian Oaks and you find yourself alone as the monsters close in, trust me when I say you'll want him hunting for you. That is, if you can convince him to join the Hunt."

I couldn't get all the questions out of my mouth at once, so I started off plain. "He didn't introduce himself as a prince."

"He don't have to."

"And the Hunt, this thing I'm to be a part of, what is that?"

"Humans call our ritual the Wild Hunt. The details are not always accurate, but you know of this, do you not? When the nights were much darker than they are today, when the world was less connected, we were a thing remembered and feared." The Walrus waited for my nod before continuing. "We harvest every half century. The Hunt itself takes only a few weeks. It is the season of ritual, of beast and bride, of binding flesh and blood in honor of the Witch. You are here because you are a bride of the Hunt. You are to be loosed in the forest with the other brides. Think of this as releasing trout into the river or pheasants into the field specifically for the purpose of capture. Whether you are eaten or mounted, well, that part is not the same as what hunters would do with a fish or pheasant, that is dependent upon who catches you."

I ran a hand through my hair. The Walrus, sensing my dismay, patted my shoulder with his heavy hand as if patting a dog who'd just realized it was standing in the vet's office. "I am sorry. It is not a choice for us. We harvest the women or we are harvested ourselves. We take them as our brides or we go extinct. Demons, like humans, are born. We need the human spirit to exist."

"How do you travel back and forth between this world and the next?"

"There is no escape, lass."

"How do you do it?"

"We of the demonic, of the fairies and furies, and whatever else you call us, can walk both worlds."

"There's no other way?"

"You humans can only inhabit one body at a time. It is here or it is there. Yours is gone from there. You are tethered here. You cannot bring this flesh to the other side."

"Chiro called me a halfbreed."

"You do not have the Witch's blessing to cross." A fire sparked to life twenty yards away. The Walrus gestured at two demons wrestling shirtless near the fire. "Showing off for you, lass," he observed. "See those tattoos? The bison and the crocodile? A sign of the blessed. If you wish to cross, you must receive It's blessing."

I chewed my lip. "Fine. Tell me where It lives. I'll Dorothy my way through this Oz."

The man's belly shook as he laughed. "You will have to survive the Hunt. I am not sure you will. Akta is rather keen for revenge. You insulted him when you picked a fight with Chiro instead. He will hunt you down. I suspect he will kill you, but then again, you are only the third halfbreed, and like the other two you are female."

"What's the difference between a halfbreed and your average hellspawn?"

The Walrus yelled at the men to save some blood for the Hunt, then turned back to me. He was growing impatient, I could see it, but he was open and tolerant enough to answer my questions a bit longer. "Your father was not to do what he did. You were born on earth to a flesh and blood mother. Yes, you have a body here, but it is not the same. If you were able to visit your home, you would be called a spirit or a ghost. Those born here are born of the union between a demon and a woman who has been harvested- what you would call a spirit."

"I would call them murdered."

The Walrus shrugged. "The offspring of this are always male and always demons."

"What happened to the women before me?" I asked.

"The first was slaughtered in infancy by the mother's human mate, who threw the child down a well. The second was harvested for the Hunt. She was quite strong. It was a pity, that one. She could do things with fire. Snap her fingers and half the pups in this party would be burned to a crisp. I was surprised she did not survive." He stroked his bristly mustache. "To tell you the truth, you are a bit of a mystery, a bit of a danger to us. That is why you are the crown jewel of this Hunt."

My head was spinning with questions, but I stuck to one at a time, trailing after the Walrus as he barked commands for fires and sleeping arrangements. "How does the Hunt choose women?"

"We choose the brave ones, the pretty ones, the stupid ones: gather up a nice, well-rounded bunch in our nightly travels. We kill the frightened ones. Not much sport in that. Tend to wither away before the Hunt."

"So which was I?"

He gave me a long, hard look and laughed. "The pretty one." I knew he was lying. "What you are is up to you. You are the halfbreed. We were taking you whether you were a crying sack of shit or a beauty queen."

Knowing monsters surrounding me were in the market of hunting down wives for sport, I held the cloak tightly, felt more conscious of their eyes. "How do I win the Hunt?" I asked.

"Get your wives back to the castle and they're yours to do with as you please." He stopped, realizing what I'd said. "Ah, you don't win, lass, not exactly. You are not a Lord of the Hunt."

"What if I get myself back to the castle?" With my chin high, I did my best to puff my chest and look braver than I felt. "I can Hunt. If the qualifier is being a demon, I've got the right blood."

"The Hunt is about bringing wives back to the castle." Without a word of warning he reached out and slapped my ass. I jumped; the strike hurt even through the cushion of the cloak. "You might be blood, but you are quite clearly a maiden. Look at how you act now. How will you survive against them?"

For several minutes I followed behind him, red-faced and muted and unsure what to do now. "So I take a girl back," I said slowly. "Then I'll have a wife. That's the game, right? Find a bride, get back to the castle alive and you win?"

Akta sat some distance away, in deep conversation with a hawk-nosed man sporting a serpentine tattoo. He looked across the flames at me. "Join me tomorrow," he called. "I'll give you a ride you won't soon forget."

"I'd rather ride the subway naked," I hissed, and then the Walrus was pulling me away, warning me to hold my tongue.

"Gotta ask the king," the older man began. "He would be the one to give you permission to join the Hunt as a Lady. Thing is, you'll have a better chance of surviving as a maiden. Lords are extremely competitive. They have a low survival rate."

"I'm a lady."

"Dead is dead."

"Do it," I instructed. Nodding, the Walrus excused himself. The bison from the fire waved me over, but with Akta's green eyes gleaming at me from across the flames I turned away. Carrying the cloak off the ground as best I could, I marched through the dirt and grass away from everyone. My feet bleed from stone and razor-edged weeds.

Movement rustled the grass to my right. The Smiling Dark's head surfaced. Its mouth split into a luminescent grin, though the grass under its paws did not burn. It barked, if you could call it that, and took a wide, dogged path further in.

I limped after it, until the wolf leaped onto a boulder and barked again. Chiro sat at the base. He took one look at me, having been about to light a fire in the short span of bare earth, and scowled. I had a little more knowledge, stood a little taller as I regarded him.

"You're the baddest bitch in this camp, aren't you?" I asked with a wary glance through the grass toward Akta.

"Go away."

Wincing, I stepped through the weeds and into his area. Tail wagging, the Smiling Dark took scent of the air and leaped away. "Hey, we had a deal."

"There wasn't a deal," he said, leaning over a coil of dry twigs and vines. "I never agreed to any terms."

I frowned. "It was implied. Anyway, if you want this back minimally damaged, you're gonna have to protect me."

Tinder ignited with a soft breath. "Did the Walrus send you to bother me?"

"I sent myself."  With the sun gone, the temperature had dropped several degrees. I stepped nearer the budding fire. "He claimed you're my best bet in the Hunt. Therefore, you're my best bet tonight."

With a stick the Prince prodded his fire. "He's lying. I haven't said I'd join the Hunt."

"Oh?"

He was on me faster than I could defend myself. In a heartbeat his body bore down on mine, heavy, strong, and hot as a candle close to the palm. One hand gripped my shoulder, holding me pinned. With the delicate ripple of a puddle disturbed by a raindrop, the face inches from my own shifted. His chiseled human features turned toward saber-toothed fury, claws dug into my shoulder- and in the blink of an eye his hand was human and his features just the same.

"I don't play with my food," he hissed. I touched my shoulder as he sat over me, licking the blood from his fingertips.

"I'm not your food," I declared, balling my fist and punching him in the ribs. "I'm your competition."

He rolled off me, one hand held against his side, and the look in his wide grey eyes seemed to be surprise.