As fast as I was, there were so many creatures out there faster and stronger, with better endurance.
A flash of white darted through the trees ahead of me.
I veered away, afraid one of the hunters had gotten ahead of me. The magic caught me up in its grasp, urging me faster. It sang a terrifying song that spurred me to reach deep, my only thought escape and evasion.
Again, the flash of white bobbing in the dark. The stag stepped out of the trees, leaping away as soon as I spotted him.
I don’t know what possessed me to follow, but I did, dodging through the trees in his wake as he led me over hills and through creeks.
He came to a stop on a pair of rusted out railroad tracks. He pawed the ground and tossed his head as I hesitated, caught between the urgency of the hunt and reason.
Until now,I’d been mindlessly running, too busy with the need to escape to think. It was a stupid mistake.
Even as I hesitated, the magic tried to grab me in its jaws again and send me thoughtlessly fleeing in any direction. It didn’t matter, as long as I ran and didn’t stop running, until I was caught or the magic was spent.
The stag stamped his foot and snorted. I struggled to focus, trying to think over the power that threatened to carry me away like a tsunami-sized wave.
Railroad tracks. What was the significance?
The stag began trotting along them—his message clear.
I wavered between answering the call of the hunt and following the stag. Could I trust this creature when he seemed so clearly in Niamh’s thrall?
Liam and Thomas had seemed to recognize him, the sight of the stag striking a chord in both men. They’d been upset to see him, but I still didn’t know why.
One thing working in his favor, and the reason I hadn’t already resumed my flight, was she’d said they’d hunted him many times before but never caught him.
Maybe he was trying to show me how to survive.
Already the sounds of the hunters were nearing. No matter how fast or far I ran I couldn’t manage to shake them.
Dawn was still a long way off. If something didn’t change, they were going to catch me. And soon.
I turned and followed the stag, trotting along the tracks after him.
The magic’s grip eased slightly, and a thought occurred to me. These tracks were old and likely made of iron. Ohio was riddled with the remains of railroads from the last century where people and progress hadn’t gotten around to ripping them back out of the ground.
And what hated iron more than anything? The Fae.
“Smart bastard,” I said, picking up the pace.
The magic seemed to loosen the longer I stayed near the iron, ebbing and flowing around us as we ran. It made it easier to think for the first time sinceI’d begun my mad dash.
The stag bounded in front of me, his pale coat practically glowing under the moonlight. If not for the antlers,I’d say he looked like a flippin’ unicorn with the ethereal glow he was throwing off.
It was hard to believe he’d survived so many hunts when he looked like a giant glow stick. His passage wasn’t exactly subtle.
Still, the baying of some type of dog creature in the distance said his trick had worked. At least for now.
The iron might throw off Niamh’s people, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence it would do the same for Liam or any of his enforcers.
I slowed down to a fast walk now that the danger of discovery had passed for the moment. Conserving my endurance seemed a better idea than expending all my energy at once. We had hours, and the chances of outrunning pursuit were very small.
The stag seemed of a similar mindset, matching his pace to mine as he picked his way silently over the railroad tracks.
I cast another glance at my silent companion, curious in spite of the dire circumstances. Who was he? How did he get caught up in all this? And what sort of Fae had the form of a stag but the intelligence of a human?
All questions he couldn’t answer, so I didn’t ask, just studied him closely.
