Page 97 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

He could not abide the idea of Pitch reliving that moment.

Silas’s cry thrashed the water. Here he was, acting the godsdamned fool over an ancient fear. There was no changing what had happened that day in the loch, nor did he desire to. Charlie’s family lived because of it. Silas’s last moment, one of fear and sacrifice, had lasting consequences. All of them were astounding.

All of them had brought him here. To a place where he knew Balthazar Crane could search for an eternity with his sinister blades and find nothing.

Silas’s heart wasn’t here to be found.

He’d left it in a bower of brambles. In the hands of someone frustrating beyond endurance, and so full of beautiful cracks and wonderment that he was impossible to look away from.

Tobeaway from.

A gentle prodding at his back sealed his resolve. The brush of the asrai as they gathered beneath him, reminding him of what old fear sought to erase. He was not alone. Not here in the water. Not anymore.

Silas’s bellow churned the water. The asrai drove him upwards. And the sudden motion had his captors set on the back foot. Quite literally, for the Nephilim stumbled, taking his pressure away long enough for Silas to get his face above the surface. Crane’s blades drove deeper, cutting off Silas’s cry. He could not tell the asrai to stop their pushing, and so his impalement worsened. With breathless agony Silas endured the rending of the blades, which felt sure to pierce him straight through.

‘Hold him! Hold him, you fool.’ Crane was flustered, the dampness doing him no favours with keeping his grip.

If the Dullahan heeded him, there was no sign of it. The loops of the bones remained slack enough that Silas entertained hopes of freeing his right arm. But the goddess’s blades pierced his lungs too deeply for sudden movement. The silhouette of the Herlequin swept over him, the massive creature resettling at Silas’s head, reaching broad hands towards him.

The shriek that filled the air did not come from Silas. The monstrous sound, one that sought to tear free the few leaves remaining upon winter limbs, caused Crane to start, twisting his blades.

A choked laugh jumped from Silas.

‘What is that?’ The Herlequin’s hiss was the blast of a steam engine.

‘A skriker…a hound of death.’ Crane eased the pressure on the scythe. ‘Of small concern to us, but do not let your Hunt be distracted.’

The shriek came again. Much closer this time, even to Silas’s water-filled ears. Christ almighty, had he ever heard such a beautiful sound? Forneus had found him.

‘Surround us.’ It was as though an entire ballroom had dropped all its chandeliers at once. The Herlequin’s call superseded the ear-piercing sound of the skriker. The order was meant, Silas presumed, for the assembled fae of the Hunt, their exact location hidden from him where he lay. ‘Find your places, be at the ready.’

Another cry rang out. Not a shriek this time but a hoarse and awful scream. The foolish grin upon Silas’s face widened. Bloody hell, never would he have imagined the ugly sounds of a teratism could be so welcomed.Histeratism. There was not a doubt in his mind.

The Herlequin glared down at him. ‘What is that? What do you know?’

Oh, he knew many things. ‘Know of what?’ Silas found his own voice rough.

‘Don’t piss around, Mercer.’ Crane’s face was set in furious, hard lines. He pulled the scythe’s blade free from Silas’s chest. The sudden retreat had Silas wheezing, struggling to catch his breath. ‘Get him up, get him up now.’

The Herlequin did so with a hand wrapped around Silas’s neck, dragging him to his feet like he were a butchered duck. With the Nephilim’s formidable height, he was able to dangle Silas so his feet were just neatly clear of the ground. With enough wriggling, Silas could touch his toes down, but it was hardly enough to reduce the intense pressure at his throat.

‘Let me snap his neck now and be done with it.’ Metal grated against wood, the Nephilim’s words torture to listen to.

‘He’s no mortal man. You will finish nothing that way,’ Crane snapped. ‘Only a scythe can end an ankou.’

‘Yet yours fails to do so.’ The Herlequin’s grasp tightened with his anger.

Cries rose from the assembly.

‘Hold your ground.’ But the Herlequin’s order was buried beneath screams.

Chaos descended around them: flashes of movement, and a chorus of bestial snarls and growls that bounced between the trees, the heavy press of hooves upon the earth as horses shied and whinnied. The Dullahan’s mount lunged backwards, going down low on its haunches as it backed away from the brook. With the Nephilim’s hold on his airway taking its toll, Silas viewed it all through eyes watering and with mouth widened to suck at air that barely filtered to his lungs. Seeing the Dullahan’s horse shift, he tensed, expecting to feel the bones tighten cruelly, but the horseman, intent on steadying his mount, let the coils slip too much. Silas pulled his right arm free, the bone tips scratching his skin, tearing his sleeve.

‘What are you doing?’ Balthazar Crane’s fury lit his words. He jabbed the scythe towards the headless horseman. ‘Hold him, Dullahan. I command you,holdhim.’

But the headless horseman paid him no heed. As Silas’s vision fluttered with black specks, the Herlequin’s chokehold nearly too much, the Dullahan’s bone whip slid away entirely. Its owner took it with him as he turned his roan and raced off towards the sounds of the fight raging deeper in the forest.

Take the blade.