Drums & Monsters ficlet

[theladysnarkydame]

So,turlough guessed the story that I wrote for no_tags this time around, and so I promised her a timestamp of her choosing, from any fic I'd written.

This then, isturlough 's ficlet -- set after Drums and Monsters but before the next story in the Hunt 'verse, still in progress.



Interval

For there is nothing lost, that may be found if sought. -- Edmund Spencer, The Faerie Queene

* * *

The Hollow City

The Goblin Prince could hear them. The hunting horns. Distant still, high and cold and far away. He could feel the sound shivering through the glass under his hand. His toes curled into carpet as his weight shifted, as he braced both arms against the window until his biceps strained, as he snarled at his reflection laid out over the city lights below.

He could feel him coming. As the King came hunting he dragged his greedy hands through the world like a child in a toy store, gathering more treasures than he could hold.

Toys that did not belong to him.

So far, the Goblin Prince had managed to protect his own, hiding them where he could. He could see in the darkest places, find his way on the oldest roads. But the King just. Kept. Coming.

The cool lights in the penthouse flickered and dimmed, stealing his reflection from the glass. The city lights still gleamed outside, bright and bold and gaudy – arrogant, in their youth and ignorance. They licked through the window, tiny shining fires on his bare skin, across the dark ink of his tattoos. He liked them. He liked this city.

Slowly, the knotted muscles in his arms relaxed, and he swayed forward. His slid his hands along the window until his arms stretched wide, until he could rest his forehead against the glass.

"Here," he murmured. "Hunter. Kingling. Thief." His breath fogged the view. The city lights acquired halos.

The Goblin Prince wrote his adversary's name in the clouded glass.

"Woden. Come and find me."

Below him, the city lights, one by one, went out, swallowed in a spreading, dark corona.

The world . . . flexed.

* * *

The High Reaches

They kept returning to this place, these hills. Even though they'd long since chased the game away. The trees were very old here, older than the King himself, and the Hunt was too solid to run through them.

They left tracks here, as they did in very few places – the massive, burning hooves of the Hunters' horses left prints lined in fire that guttered and darkened and cooled, and the paws of the hounds . . .

The hounds. They were wolves once. They had names. When they were here, he could almost remember his own.

He whined, and his companion nipped at his jaw. He ducked his head and leaned into the other's broad chest. Something deep within him, something that never entirely went away (not even when they were running through myth and dreams) said pack. Said family. It murmured so even under the all-consuming pull of the King's Hunt, and here, in this place that made them almost real, it was loud enough for him to notice the missing note in the chord.

He whined again, taking another step. Only the hound at his side (he never left his side) ever strayed so far from the Hunters. Where was the third? His brother. Where was his brother? Almost, almost, he could remember his name – could feel it forming, just at the edge of a thought.

The horns rang out, and he shook from the force of them. The sound was overwhelming – he could feel his edges fraying back into smoke, thought and memory already gone. The Hunt was moving.

He left tracks edged in charcoal behind as he ran.

* * *

Spencer's Queene

The band was loud – not really good, maybe, but very loud. And enthusiastic about it. If that kid on the mike tried much harder he might rip a few vocal chords, and the drummer had already broken, like, half a dozen sticks.

Frank could appreciate that kind of commitment.

But he wasn't in the mood for the pit tonight, for the crush and the noise and the pressure of a hundred heartbeats hitting against his skin. Instead, he sat outside the club, perched on the edge of the steps leading down to the loading dock. The puddles on the asphalt were evaporating slowly – the summer air was already heavy with moisture. High above the club's neon signature, lightning flickered and skipped about the tallest buildings in the city.

Except for the muffled rumble of the band inside and the buzz of the neon signs, it was quiet here.

He twirled the glass of O Neg in his hand again, watching the blood coat the inside. It was half full, and growing cold.

The dock door opened. Noise swelled out like an escaping tide – it rippled against him. He felt his skin twitch.

"The bassist is really killing it," he said, lifting his glass. "He's probably going to pull that band into the limelight all by himself."

"Hard to say. They're new yet."

Brian leaned against the wall beside him, tilting his face to watch the lightning. Frank gave up on his drink. He set it down on the step and crossed his arms over his knee, resting his chin against his elbow.

"Any sign of him yet?" Brian asked, and Frank sighed. Brian nudged him with his sneaker. "He'll show up. He always does."

"He's overdue," Frank mumbled into his arm. And the full moon was four days past.

Brian just knocked his fist against Frank's hunched shoulder and tossed his cigarette over Frank's head. It fizzled out in a puddle.

The band was between songs – only crowd noise escaped as Brian went back inside.

This was not his favorite part. Frank scowled out at the heat-hazed alley. The waiting sucked. Not having Gerard within arm's reach sucked. It wasn't that he didn't think Gerard would come back (what if Gerard found his pack and forgot about him? What if the King found him first, and picked up the last free werewolf to complete his collection? What if Gerard fell off a cliff and broke a leg and a manticore ate him? There were all kinds of dangerous shit in the woods) because fuck that, of course Gerard was coming back. For Brian. For him. Of course he was.

But the waiting sucked.

The heavy skies finally broke with a flash of lightning so near the whole night went purple, and a roll of thunder so long and deep it might have been an earthquake. The rain came down in torrents. Frank shot to his feet and was under the overhang with his back against the wall before his drink could finish overturning.

The blood spilled down over the stairs, but the rain washed it away. The glass too – Frank saw it break as the water rolled it over the step and down. He winced, but really, what was one more broken glass to this place?

He could hear the neon sputter and spit under the downpour and the relentless lightning – the violently purple Q went out entirely.

The water overspilling the gutters splashed back against his legs and soaked his shoes. Frank grimaced a little – he hated to squelch when he walked. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and didn't go inside.

Gerard was overdue.

* * *

Five Days Ago, and Far Away

"Where, exactly, did you see this?"

Gerard knew he was leaning a little too far into the bugbear's personal space, knew that his teeth would look a little too sharp, his eyes a little too hungry. The full moon was less than a day away, and he could feel its tide rising under his skin.

He shook the sketch under the bugbear's face again. "Where."

The ursine clerk blinked down at him, uncertain. Bugbears didn't have much of a prey instinct, so Gerard figured he was just coming across as deranged again.

"It was just south of the road I run my shipments over – there's a hill about a mile past the Hollow Gates." He scratched at one thickly furred ear. "But look, man, it's going to rain. That track won't be there long."

Gerard turned and walked out of the shop, shoving the sketch into his pocket. It crinkled and tore a little in his hand, and he stayed at a walk just long enough to toss a strained "thanks" over his shoulder to the bugbear. Frank appreciated it when he attempted manners.

Outside, on the broad sidewalk laid out along the town's only paved street, Gerard felt the aching tug of the moon from the other side of the fucking earth, let it pull him into a run past startled townies and their leashed dogs. The braver of them sent up a hail of barks and growls once he was safely out of reach, and he knew he was drawing notice – in this tiny little town, clean and landscaped and boring, not even a line of graffiti on the train trestle, he must stand out like a spill of black paint on an empty canvas. Running like something was catching at his heels just made it worse, but he couldn't make himself stop.

There were storm clouds massing on the horizon.

He was running on train tracks now – the long line of steel and old, weathered wood that snaked out of town, down the plain and over the horizon. There were weeds growing in between the rails, but they were solid, unrusted. Trains didn't come this way often, but they'd be important when they did. Judging by the way the rails rang under his boots, they'd been ensorcelled for long term use.

Which meant little to him, really, except that they'd run in a straight line to the next transportation hub, unbroken by terrain. This was the fastest way to the Hollow Gates.

He'd promised Brian that he'd stop chasing after ghosts, that he'd try to find a pattern to the Wild Hunt's movement.

And he had. Frank had helped. It was much easier to stay in one place when there was a vampire latched onto his arm, pointing out coincidences and helping him pick out the credible rumors from the bullshit.

But most of it was bullshit.

The Hunt was myth and vision, nightmares half-forgotten in the light of day, and most anyone who saw them turned and ran, knowing they were prey.

But there were patterns. Places they came back to, more than once. More than twice. The High Reaches, which he'd found himself. The Breaks, by the inland sea. A stretch of featureless rock in the Old Red Desert.

They hadn't figured out just yet what those places had in common, not definitely. And Brian insisted on definite.

But he'd found tracks in the High Reaches. He hadn't known then, how rare that would be. Real, solid evidence of the passing of a dream. And that bugbear, in that tiny town behind him, had seen more, on a hill past the Hollow Gates.

The sketch felt like fire in his pocket. He resisted the urge to pull it out and look again. He couldn't spare the time – the storm clouds were dark and massive behind him. He was running down the rails in their shadow.

He ignored the way his lungs burned, and ran faster.

Interval: fin