Chapter 8 Wildling


Forest Edge, Oregon

Dean sat on the edge of Rosie's bed, looking at his daughter's huge eyes and wondering what the hell to do.

"Rosie, there's nothing that can get in here, the house is like a…like a…a castle, with the, uh, drawbridge up." He tried again.

Rosie shook her head. "No, Daddy…it looks me."

"Looks at me, sweetheart," he muttered distractedly.

"She's right, Dad," John said, and Dean to turned to see his son standing in the doorway in his pajamas, his teddy dangling from one hand. "There's something in the garden."

His eyes were wide and his face as fearful as his sister's. Dean stood up and walked to the windows, checking the locks, the wax sigils over the glass, looking out and down into the dark garden below. He couldn't see anything, but he knew for sure that the perimeter alarm hadn't gone off.

"There's nothing there, guys," he said, turning and going back to Rosie's bed. "It's safe here, safer than anywhere else in the world."

"John? What are you doing up?" Ellie stopped next to the little boy and looked over his head to Dean and Rosie. "You guys having a meeting?"

"Mommy, there's something in the garden, watching us!" John burst out, looking up at her.

From the bed, Rosie nodded hard, her eyes filling with tears. "Bad."

Ellie looked at Dean. His mouth twisted slightly as he shrugged. "I don't know. I can't see anything out there."

She took John's hand in hers and walked to the bed, sitting and lifting him onto her knees. "Have you seen the bad thing?"

Rosie nodded straight away, John more reluctantly.

"What did it look like?" Ellie asked, her arms tightening around the boy.

"Sticks," Rosie said.

John glanced at his sister, then nodded. "Yeah, kind of. Like a little man made out of branches and twigs." He held up his hands, a little over a foot apart to show him the size. Dean frowned at the mental image.

"Where did you see him?"

"The old tree," Rosie pointed vaguely across the room. John shook his head.

"I've seen him in the big tree, near the gate. And…uh, in the prickly bush, and in the tree that's all bent over and twisted up, next to the pond," the little boy elaborated, brows drawn together in concentration.

Ellie glanced at Dean.

"Outside the iron boundary." She looked from John to Rosie. "Can you see it in the daytime?"

They both nodded. Dean saw that talking about it had calmed them a little.

"Have you ever seen it near the house, or the garage?"

The small heads shook in unison. Ellie nodded. "Around our house, there's a special wall, a wall made of iron, that stops bad things from being able to get close to the house. The bad thing can't get past it, can't look in the windows or come through the doors and tomorrow, we'll all go together and look in the garden," she said seriously. "And we'll scare it right away, okay?"

Dean looked at them. The reassurance had worked to a certain extent, but not entirely, he thought. He met Ellie's eyes resignedly, seeing the corner of her mouth tuck in.

"You want to sleep in our bed tonight?"

"Yeah!" John jumped off his mother's lap and raced out of the room.

"Yay!" Rosie scrambled out of her bed and raced out of the room and down the hall, following her brother.

Ellie leaned across the bed and turned out the nightlight, and the room plunged into darkness. Getting up, she and Dean walked out of the room, turning down the hall.

Rosie and John looked tiny in the big bed, and Ellie leaned over, tucking them both in as Dean turned on a lamp on the dresser.

"Snuggle down and go to sleep," Ellie said, kissing them. "Sweet dreams."


"What the hell could it be?" Dean paced the length of the living room.

"No idea," Ellie said, watching him go past her. "But whatever it is, it's not getting past the iron, so calm down."

"Calm down? How can I calm down? They saw it, and we didn't—" He stopped dead in the middle of the room. "How'd it get past the perimeter alarm?"

"Might not be solid," Ellie said, looking back at her laptop as the search results were returned.

"Great!" He looked at her, face screwed up in frustration. "How're we gonna kill it?"

"Well, let's see if we can identify it first?" She typed in a new set of keywords and hit Enter. "Then we can figure out how to kill it."

Dean threw himself into an armchair, hand slapping the arm. "Goddammit."

His fingers were drumming on the arms of the chair and after a moment of it, Ellie looked up with a sigh. Dean looked at her.

"What?"

"Get a drink. Get one for me too," she said. "Dean, the house is protected. Whatever it is can't get in. Let's just focus on getting rid of it, okay?"

He got up and walked to the low cupboard next to the doorway, pulling out two tumblers and filling both half-full. He carried them back to the sofa and sat down beside her, putting her glass down and looking over her shoulder.

"Anything on stick men?"

"Maybe." She turned the laptop a little, showing him the screen. On it, a number of drawings and paintings depicted twiggy humanoid figures, in woodlands or gardens, small black eyes bright against the darker, seamed bark of their branch faces. His brows drew down as he read the heading.

"Wood sprites?" He shot a look at Ellie. "Seriously?"

She shrugged, picking up her glass. "So far, that's all I've got."

He leaned past her, reading the description aloud. "Wood sprites are faery elementals that live in trees and woods. They are particularly fond of the oak, ash and hawthorn."

He looked back at her. "This is a joke, right?"

"Creatures made of twigs is what I had, and this is what's come up." She sipped the whiskey. "They're extremely susceptible to iron, can be seen if they want to be, but are invisible otherwise; they're not usually considered dangerous, they are sometimes regarded as harbingers of bad fortune and are sometimes used as an advance scout for other elementals…I do realise it's a reach, Dean, but that's all I've got."

He was staring at her, his eyes wide.

"What?"

"The fairies." The words slipped out of him as his eyes darkened with some memory.

"Dean?"

He blinked and shook his head, his eyes refocussing on her. "Yeah."

"The fairies?" Ellie looked at him questioningly.

"What?" He picked up his glass. "Oh, uh…didn't I tell you about that?"

"No. You didn't."

"Huh." He tossed back the rest of the whiskey. "It was back when Sam didn't have his soul. Indiana. There were disappearances and we went to check them out. Thought it was UFOs at first, that seemed to be the likeliest explanation. But it wasn't."

"It was fairies?" Ellie asked, watching him twitch with discomfort.

"Yeah." He looked at the screen. "It was, uh…fractured fairy tale stuff… some watchmaker'd made a deal and they came through from…from…wherever it is they come from, and they'd been taking the firstborn kids of the town, starting with his son. I…uh… well, you know, I…um…"

"You're the firstborn in your family," Ellie finished for him. "So they took you too?"

He looked at her sharply, hearing something in her voice. Her face was expressionless, and he nodded. "Couldn't hold me, though. I'm not sure how I got away but, uh, anyway, when I got back, I could see them. Sam couldn't, no one else could either, but I could."

Ellie nodded. "That's universal in the lore. Once you've been to their plane, you can see them forever."

"Yeah." He rubbed his hand over his face. "After that, it got…um…complicated. I, uh, kind of got into a situation with one of the locals, and ended up in jail, and Sam had to do the spell to banish them."

Ellie's brows rose. "Oh, okay, so Sam was fully involved then?"

Dean looked at her narrowly, catching the gleam at the back of her eyes. "You're laughing at me."

"Not much," she said, smiling. "Just a little."

He scowled at her. "None of it was funny."

"Come on, Dean. It's a little bit funny." She shook her head and looked at the screen. "Maybe they're here for you then?"

"What d'you mean?" He got up, taking his glass back to the cupboard for another double. Stupid goddamned job had been the most bizarre of his life.

"Well, they had you and the lore is also pretty clear that once you've seen their side of the fence, you're not supposed to be able to get back." She looked at him over the rim of her glass. "If they're here, you might be unfinished business."

"Please tell me this is your weird sense of humour, and you're not saying that I'm being targeted by fairies," he said, turning back to her.

"'Fraid not." She looked at him, making a face. "My sense of humour isn't weird; you should talk."

"Don't get off track," he said, walking back to the sofa. "What do we do about it?"

"Well, a few things." She looked at the screen. "Is Sam coming over tomorrow?"

"Yeah, uh…we don't really need to tell Sam about this, do we?" He looked at his glass uncomfortably.

Ellie snorted. "We have to tell everyone about this."

"What?! Why?"

"They're faeries." She gestured at the screen. "If they're here, they'll be looking to take the 'fruit and the fat of the land'…they'll be after all the firstborn children here. John's in danger, and Marc, and Henry…everyone has to be warned and we'll need Twist and a couple of the nephilim down in the town as well, to keep those people safe." She bit her lip, thinking. "Tamsin might know of some protective charms for the children—and you," she added, a dimple appearing in one cheek.

"Do me a favour? Stop enjoying this so much," he said.

"Me? Enjoying your discomfort? I'm just being practical." She grinned.

"You're just waiting 'til I leave the room so you can roll around on the floor laughing your ass off," he said darkly, watching her duck her head.

"It's not that bad." She drew in a deep breath. "And I'm taking this seriously, Dean."

"Huh."

"All the houses have iron boundaries, so while everyone stays inside, they should be okay." She got up and picked up the phone, tossing it to him. "Call everyone. Tell them to stay home tomorrow, especially the children."

"What are you going to do?" He got to his feet as she headed out to the hall.

"Build a trap for a wood sprite," she said over her shoulder as she headed for the basement.


"Wow, I really didn't remember that," Sam said, his hands around his coffee cup as he looked across the kitchen table at Dean. The early morning light spilled into the room, reflecting from the cream walls and lighting up the timber cabinets and counter.

"Yeah, well it was a job we both should have blocked out," his brother grumbled.

Sam laughed, bits and pieces of memory coming back. "The tinkerbell in the microwave. Wow."

Dean shook his head, looking up at Ellie. "Thanks for this, by the way."

She grinned at him. "Embrace your past."

"Mom, we've finished breakfast, can we go now?" John came into the living room, Rosie on his heels.

"Sure can, baby." She turned to look at Dean. "You ready to go sprite hunting?"

He grunted and got up, looking down at his brother. "I suppose you want to see this too?"

"Absolutely." Sam got up and followed them out.

The garden was soaked in dew, the early sunlight refracting from a million droplets over the grass, the shrubs and flowers and trees. Between the larger trees and the buildings, cobwebs shimmered and further down the slope near the pond a soft white mist rose from the water.

Damned place looks like a fairy garden, Dean thought as he followed Ellie down the porch steps at the back of the house. She held an unwieldy construction of fine twigs and branches, loosely woven around a simple frame of ash wood and topped by a thick thatch of hawthorn, the darker wood shining in contrast. Interwoven with the twigs, thin staves of blackthorn had been wound around with a length of fine copper wire and bound together with red silk thread. She'd explained a bit of the making to him last night, but what the thing looked like now was a preciously rustic bird-house.

"Will the birds like the house, Mom?" John looked curiously at it, walking beside his mother.

"I hope so, sweetie." She looked up at the oak that stood near the boundary to Baraquiel's home. It had a wide canopy, the branches spreading and solid and would be the most likely place for the thing to be hiding, she thought, with full view of the house, both the front and back.

Where the iron tracks were buried, she stopped. "Dean, you and John and Rosie stay here, behind the iron. Sam, you're pretty safe."

Dean picked up Rosie and told John to stay close to him, watching his wife and brother walked across the dew-soaked grass to the oak tree. Sam gave Ellie a leg-up to the lowest branch and handed the trap up to her, and she climbed a few more feet into the canopy before hanging it up in the branches. It still looked like a bird-house.

Ellie dropped back to the ground and she and Sam walked back to them, stopping and turning when they reached the boundary.

"Well, it looks like a bird-house," Dean said, looking down at John.

"That's the idea." Ellie smiled at him. "A nice, safe little bird-house with a view of the house."

"And why would the sp—birds want to use it?" he asked, glancing at Rosie.

"Because there's a bowl of cream and another of honey to get them to go inside," she said over her shoulder as she took John's hand and walked back up to the house. "Irresistible to the 'birds' around here."


"Hey, Dean, I been looking for you," Twist looked up as Dean walked into the kitchen later in the morning. Garth was sitting next to him, and Bezaliel and Idan sat across the table from them. Sam sat at the head of the table, head bowed over something in his hands. "Need some help on something."

Dean walked past the table to the counter, picking up the coffee pot and a mug. "Sure, what's the problem?"

"Well, I wanted to get your take on how we should tackle the boggarts?"

"And the brownies," Idan interjected.

Twist grinned. "Sam says you took care of the tinkerbell real easy."

Dean looked at them as the table erupted into laughter, his brother's head dropping lower, shoulders shaking.

"Oh yeah, you guys are hilarious." He stalked out of the room, turning into the hall and heading for the basement.

Ellie was reading at the long central table, a number of books open on the table top surrounding her.

"Sam told 'em everything," he said, dropping into a chair next to her. "They'll never let this go."

She looked up at him and smiled sympathetically. "Yeah, they will, we have other things to worry about, and they're just blowing off steam."

He scowled into his coffee cup. Blowing off steam at his expense, he thought. Goddamned fairies. Goddamned Indiana job.

"How long do we wait for the trap?" He put the cup down and made an effort to push his embarrassment and aggravation aside.

"We'll check it in the morning." She tapped her pen on one of the books. "In the meantime, Tamsin said she had some charms ready for us. She's not sure how well they'll work; she was mostly going from fairy tales and Celtic mythology."

The stairs creaked behind them and they turned to see Frank walking down, a file held in one hand.

"Mornin'." He walked over, handing Ellie the file. "Just finished loading those books you gave me yesterday, and we've got a few hits on Asase Ya. Good ones."

She tucked her feet up against the side of the table, and opened the file, resting it on her knees as she skimmed through. Frank turned to Dean.

"So…you've got faeries in your garden," he said, his face expressionless.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Frank, whatever it is that you're desperate to say, just get it over with. I'm done with this game."

Frank's mouth twitched. "You could just get the children to go out and yell "I don't believe in fairies!" you know, I believe that does the trick."

"Wow." Dean looked at him. "This is so much better than the last fucking time I had to deal with this shit."

Frank grinned at him. "Opportunities like these don't come along very often."

"Go away, Frank. Far away."

Frank laughed and handed him a small bag. "Sugar. It's the one thing that all the lore agrees on, they have to stop and count the grains before they can do anything else. Might give you enough time to get away."

He turned away and went back up the stairs, snorting to himself. Dean took the bag and dropped it on the table, rubbing a hand over his face. Hunters didn't get a lot of amusement in their lives. He could look forward to the comments for a long time. A long, long time.

Ellie pulled a sheet from the file, the characteristic crease between her brows deepening. "Well, we've got a way to put her to sleep."

He looked at her. "Great, let's go do it—no, wait, I forgot. We can't because we're under siege by fucking faeries!"

She smiled at him. "We also need to find her."

"How do we check out those charms?"

"Someone'll have to go for a wander tonight."

"Maybe Twist can do a test run for us?" He smiled humourlessly. She laughed and shook her head.

"He's got two older brothers and four older sisters, he's safe. I'll take a walk around after dark to test them."

"You?"

"Technically I'm a first born." She looked at him.

He exhaled. "But they don't want you—or at least, not as much as they want me. I'll do it, then we'll know for sure."

She propped her chin on her hand, looking at him thoughtfully. "Yeah, maybe. It would be definitive, I guess."

"Have we still got that old billhook you thought was an antique?" he asked.

"It is an antique—" She frowned at him. "—and yes, it's in the garden shed."

"I'll take that, just in case. It's iron."

"Good point." She got up. "You want me to ask Sam to get the charms from Tamsin?"

He lifted one shoulder slightly. "Yeah, I'll do some reading down here for a while."


The sun had dropped behind the Cascades and the valley was inked in purple, deepening to indigo on the slopes. Dean felt the small charm prickling against his neck, an iron pendant woven through with twigs and herbs that gave off a pungent odour. His hand tightened around the long shaft of the billhook as he looked into the growing gloom of the road.

He'd barely been able to see anything, when he'd been taken in Indiana. Bright lights and the feel of small hands against his back and sides. The second he'd realised that he wasn't in the corn field any longer, he'd started firing his automatic, swinging Ruby's knife around, screaming at the top of his lungs. And then he'd seen the corn stalks and the night sky, the receding lights disappearing and leaving a bright afterimage against his eyes.

I went crazy. I started hacking and slashing and firing. They actually seemed surprised. I don't think anybody's ever done that before.

He thought of what he'd told Sam, when he'd finally made it back into town. Maybe no one had done it before. Both the tiny fairy and the silent dude who'd come after him didn't seem too interested in taking him back.

He glanced at the weapon he carried, blade and shaft almost as tall as him. Well, they'd get it solid if they tried it tonight. The billhook's long blade was cold iron and he'd spent the afternoon sharpening it to a fine edge. He had zero compunctions about slicing and dicing if anything at all came after him.

"You ready?" Ellie came out onto the porch and looked at him. He nodded.

"Yeah."

"Take it slow, alright?" Ellie looked at his face, seeing the jaw muscle twitching. "We just want to make sure that the charm hides you."

"Yeah, I got it," he said, glancing at her. "I'll see you in a bit."

He walked down the steps and across the turnaround, feeling the faint rise under his feet that marked the iron track buried under the ground. Against the skin of his chest, the charm seemed to warm and he slowed down, looking around in the deepening darkness, both hands on the smooth wooden shaft of the billhook.

In his peripheral vision he caught glimpses of movement as he walked toward the road, heard the shiver of the new leaves in the trees to either side of him. Could they see him? Or smell him? Or hear him…or whatever the hell it was they did?

He walked through the gate to the driveway, and the noises and movements he'd barely sensed ceased abruptly. Taking another step along the road, Dean felt his neck prickling, and looked around. There wasn't so much as a breath of movement in the night air, not a sound.

He took another cautious step forward, hands tightening unconsciously on the billhook's shaft. Further down the road, the lights of the houses, cast soft pools of normality in the darkness. He turned around, seeing the lights of his own home, broken up by the vegetation.

Wind roared up the road, the tree tops lashing furiously back and forth, road dust and twigs and leaves blowing in a whirlwind around him and over the wind's noise he heard hoofbeats and a high, ululating cries, the stentorian breathing of big animals, getting closer. He spun around, staring into the darkness, then light burst over him, and he could see them, vividly bright in lavender and gold, cerulean and ruby, incandescent swords and lances; wild, fey faces; long hair in every shade twisting upwards in the vortex.

Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam

The words flashed through his mind, their source unknown, their meaning clear now, that vision hanging over him, and he yelled back at the hunt, swinging the billhook blindly, hearing a savage hiss by his side as the heavy blade bit into something.


Ellie stood on the porch, the long iron knife she'd sharpened and cleaned held in one hand as she watched Dean walk to the gates and then through them, disappearing as he turned onto the road. A silence and stillness fell as soon as he'd passed through the stone pillars that held the iron gates, and her senses tingled with unease, her breath caught in her throat.

"You feel that?" Sam asked, his hand curled around the haft of a hoe, also iron, also ground to a sharp edge.

She nodded. "Yeah."

She heard the roaring as it came up the road, and ran down the steps, stopping at the lump in the ground that marked the iron circle, watching the tree tops flailing and lashing over the small section of road she could see, barely making out Dean's shape beyond the gates, a shadow against the darkness of the forest behind him, just the pale blur of his face. When the light exploded over him, she saw him swing the billhook, and under the wind, the air filled with wild cries and screams and the snort of horses and the bellowing of cattle. Riding the wild whirlwind, a dozen figures were above him, mounted on beasts that bore little resemblance to their earthly counterparts, shining in a rainbow of colours too bright to look at directly.

The Wild Hunt.

A thousand works of fiction, of faery tales and legends and myths, of Celtic and Nordic songs filled her mind in the instant she recognised them, and she ran up the gravelled drive, the long iron knife raised, a scream of rage tearing out of her throat.


Dean heard the scream from the direction of the house, and ducked under the sweep of an eldritch sword, rolling hard toward the gates. These weren't anything like the fucking fae he'd seen before, and he was pretty sure they weren't here to wish him happy birthday. He came to his feet a few feet from the gates, eyes slitted against the bright light that was enveloping him, the long reach of the weapon in his hand sweeping in front of him, jarring in his hands as the blade hit something else, unable to see what it was. Behind him he could hear panting and the crunch of feet on the gravel, but he couldn't afford to take his attention away from the enemy in front of him.

He glimpsed a gleam of dark metal to his right, and a slender figure jumping high to his left.

The light of the Hunt lit up Ellie's face as she swung toward the nearest fae, astride a huge, black…bull-like…thing. The being met the knife blade with a long sword edge, sparks drawn along the blades and heard a ringing from the clash. Ellie turning in the air, the tip of the other weapon's longer reach cutting into her shoulder, and he was next to her, the billhook slashing down at the fey, the iron plunging into its side. The shriek was impossibly high, drilling into his ears, as the black animal reared and swung away.

"Back to the house," Ellie gasped, her arm hooking around his ribs and dragging him backwards. "Sam, back!"

Dean saw his brother swinging the long-handled hoe wildly around him as he backed to the gates, Sam's eyes glittering in the light of the faeries in complete focus, and he let Ellie pull him back through the gateway.

The second they crossed the iron track everything stopped. The wind vanished. The lights vanished. In the garden, the small noises of the nocturnal creatures resumed. The air felt real again, breathable, untainted.

Dean turned to look at Ellie, eyes narrowing as he took in the slash on her shoulder.

"You alright?"

She nodded, moving the arm a little. "Yep."

Sam looked at them. "I'm guessing this means that the charms don't work."

"Guess so." Dean pulled out the necklet from his shirt. The herbs and twigs were soft and twisted and blackened. The iron had melted, Tamsin's carefully wrought design unrecognisable now. He pulled down the collar of his shirt, touching the skin gingerly. It was fine, no burn, not even tender. Jerking free the leather thong that had held the charm around his neck, he held it out to his brother.

Sam took it, his forehead creasing as he looked at what remained. "Okay then."


"The Wild Hunt." Ellie pulled her shirt back over her shoulder, lifting it over the dressing. "There's a lot of lore, too much to go into now. One of the things the Hunt is tasked with is retrieving or killing those who escape."

"So they were there just for me? They wouldn't come after anyone else?" Dean fastened the first aid kit and sat down next to her.

"Well, they might come after Sam and me now…I'm not sure. But yeah, you were definitely the primary target."

"How do we kill them?" He took the glass Sam offered him.

"I don't think we can, not all of them, at least." Ellie leaned back in the chair, the soreness of the cut throbbing gently in time with her pulse. "We have to send them back."

She looked up at Sam. "Tell me you kept that spell, from the book in Elwood?"

He shook his head ruefully. "I sent the book to Bobby. It might be with his library."

"We'll have a look in the morning," she said. They would need help, someone who really knew about these creatures. None of the hunters here had run across anything more taxing than a goblin and that wasn't enough. As a child, she'd read a lot about the Fae kingdoms, mostly the mythology of the Celts. She had enough background, just not enough detail.

"How could they get out to begin with?" Sam sat across the table from her, nursing a glass of whiskey.

"Someone invited them." Ellie turned around. "There's no way of knowing who—or even where. Once they've been invited to this plane, they can go where they like. It's just that they usually stay around the person who did the spell."

"But they had other business this time," Sam said, looking at Dean.

"Yeah." She turned to look at him as well. "Pretty much house arrest until we can get rid of them, Dean."

He shrugged. "Whatever."

"I'll get Frank onto the Fae lore. We need stronger charms, and we need something proactive, something that'll hold them while we find that spell to banish them."

"That lady from Indiana told us about the sugar—or salt—spilling it in front of them and forcing them to count every grain," Sam said, looking up.

Ellie nodded. "We can use grain too. Anything small and plentiful."

"Trent's still making some weapons at the back of his place; he might be able to cast some iron arrowheads, something we can use from the ground against the Hunt?" Sam continued.

"Yeah, can you see him tomorrow?" Ellie asked. "We can't use pure iron, it's too soft. But salt-hardened iron would probably be strong enough. Not cast though. Cold iron – wrought and beaten is the strongest."

Sam nodded, and looked at Dean. "I'm taking off—listen, about telling the others—"

Dean shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Sammy."


They were in the kitchen, the table cleared after breakfast and covered with newspapers, slowly filing and smoothing the trilobate edges of the cold iron arrowheads Trent had hammered out over the past two days. Frank had come up with zip on stronger protective charms so far, and Sam could see his brother getting irritable with cabin fever.

"Anyway, it could be worse."

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "How?"

The doorbell chimed softly, and he turned slightly, hearing Ellie walk down the hall, open the door, the murmur of voices.

"Well, it could have been aliens…or we could have to sit through another discussion with Crazy Cat Lady, drinking thimbles full of tea?"

Dean snorted, looking back at the door as the voices got louder in the hall.

"Mmmm…Dean and Sam, that's right. It's been a long, long time, hasn't it?"

Dean turned around at the voice, ringing through his memories like a leaking bottle of faux maple syrup. He felt his brother start against the table, Sam's indrawn breathe whistling a little.

Marion Allbright stood in the doorway. A tight burnt-orange polyester pantsuit hugged her ample curves, the pale apricot blouse under it shimmering with speckles of glitter in the morning sunshine. A dozen necklaces of varying lengths hung from her neck, polished crystals, cheap rhinestones and coloured glass sparkling among the frills of the blouse's jabot. Long, blonde hair, more silver than gold at the front now, was piled into a haphazard chignon on the top of her head. Her hands were heavy with rings, silver and gold and set with enormous semi-precious stones. Her skin was still unlined, the small mouth curved into a smile as she looked from one to the other.

"Marion…" Dean's mouth stretched out in a smile, his eyes flicking past the woman to Ellie, standing behind her. "Wow, what a surprise…this…is…"

Sam swallowed. His memories of the case in Elwood were clear, including the way he'd spoken to her when they'd met and a dull line of red was inching its way up his neck. "Hi…Marion…you're, uh, a long way from home?"

"Yes! Ellie called me. She said you needed my help."

"Come in, Marion. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Ellie slipped past her.

"Do you have tea, dear? I do like tea."

"Yes, sure. Have a seat." Ellie ducked her head at Dean's expression and walked around the table to the cupboard, pulling a canister of loose tea and a small ceramic teapot from the top shelf.

"Uh…Ellie? Can I have a word with you for just one minute?" Dean got up, putting the file and arrowhead on the table. Ellie finished spooning tea into the pot and nodded, walking past Sam and out the door.

Sam looked up to find Marion's gaze on him expectantly. He smiled uncomfortably and looked back at the arrowhead in his hand.

"Uh, yeah…so how's the fairy business been?"


"Are you fucking kidding me?" Dean hissed at Ellie when they were in the living room. "You invited her here? As a…a…a what? Consultant?"

Ellie smiled. "Keep your voice down. And yes, I called her, she's studied faery lore for more than ten years, she knows these—"

"She's crazy! There isn't one tight screw under all that hair!" he yelled in a whisper. "Trust me, she cannot help us!"

"Actually, she got more involved after the job you handled there, and everyone I asked said that she was the one to call," Ellie said calmly. "She didn't give you bad information when you talked to her."

He couldn't think of an answer to that, settling for glaring at her.

"Anyway, play nice because she's going to be here until we can get this sorted out," she said, turning for the door.

"You didn't…" He looked at her, understanding dawning. "You didn't…she isn't…tell me you didn't…"

"I did. She hasn't got a lot of cash to spare, and we have the room."

"No! Dammit, don't walk away." He hurried after her down the hall, adjusting his expression to one of bland pleasantness as he walked back into the kitchen after her.

Sam looked at him expressionlessly. "So Marion tells me that she's been hunting faeries since we last saw her."

"Really?" Dean stood behind his chair, nodding. "My wife says that you, uh, got more involved in the lore after, uh, after—uh—?"

"After you left? Mmmmm. Yes." Marion looked up at him warmly. "I was shocked by Mr Brennan's murder, and after the…erm…hoo-ha…surrounding what you did to the District Attorney, I put two and two together. The children who went missing were never returned."

Sam looked down; the file's soft rasping filling the silence. Dean swallowed.

"And you've been…uh, looking for other incidents since then?" he asked, clearing his throat.

"Oooh, yes. There are many once you start to look," she said, her voice getting softer and quieter. "And doing the banishings, if the fey folk were called by those who are greedy and should know better."

Dean shot a look at Sam. He pulled out his chair and sat down, looking at Marion.

"You've been doing banishings?"

Ellie filled the teapot and brought the pot and a small china cup to the table, setting them down next to Marion. Over the other woman's head she sent Dean a told-you-so look. He lifted one shoulder in a discreet shrug.

"Thank you, my dear." Marion looked back at Dean. "Yes, mostly it's just sprites and sylphs, the occasional boggart or sometimes brownies. But I have, on two occasions, had the need to banish the Hunt, turn Caoilte and Nimh from their business and send them back." She sipped at her tea.

"So you've, uh, banished the Wild Hunt?" He turned and looked at Ellie, who widened her eyes at him.

"Mmm…of course." Marion set her cup down. "Once I realised, once it was made known to me that people were in danger, that the Fae were breaking through into our world on a far more than random basis, what else could I do but take what I'd learned over the years and use it to protect the weak, the unwise, the foolish?"

"Sure." He nodded. "So did Ellie tell you—?"

"Tell me about you, Dean? Yes," she said. "You should have told me that you'd been taken, in Elwood. I could have given you something that would have hidden you from them then."

"Ah…yeah."

"You have been to the Faery Realm and you have returned." She sipped her tea. "I don't know if I can make you understand how rarely that happens. The Little Folk used to demand a tiende for being released, returned. A tithe. It was a terrible price, whichever choice the person agreed to."

"What price?" Sam leaned forward.

"There was always a choice, you see?" Marion turned to him. "A choice between going back straight away, and living out your life as you would have if the visit had never been made—but going to Hell in the place of a fae at the end of it."

Dean's face paled a little. "And the other choice?"

"You stayed in the Faery Realm and worked for the price of freedom, whatever work they had for you," Marion said, looking back at him.

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"No, it doesn't, does it?" She smiled, a little sadly. "But time in the Faery Realm is different to time here. Those who chose to stay were returned hundreds of years after they'd been taken, to find their families and their friends gone, their whole lives gone."

"Great." There was no way he was picking either of those options.

Ellie put a cup of coffee on the table beside Sam, and one beside Dean, picking up her own and walking around to sit next to him.

"So, what do we need to banish the Hunt and stop them from finding Dean again?"

"Ahh. Mmmm…we'll need rowan and St John's Wort, and silver, for those ride in the Hunt are the dark fae, and although iron is poison to them, silver will burn more deeply." She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. "The spell can be made on the half-moon, which I believe is tomorrow night. Hawthorn and elderberry we will need as well. And a separate circle of protection to counteract the original invitation."

She opened her eyes. "Mr Brennan had a book?"

"Yeah, we think we have it here, but we haven't been able to find it so far," Sam said.

"No matter, I have a number of possible spells that will work." She turned to Ellie. "I will need a space in your garden, or in a clearing nearby, preferably one with oaks grown around it."

Dean felt his eyes widen slightly as Marion shed her dreamy, gentle persona, turning into a different person in front of them. Even the wispy, breathless little-girl voice she normally used had deepened and strengthened. He felt his brother's eyes on him, and half-turned, the one-sided smile aimed at Sam hidden from the other side.

Ellie nudged him and he looked back, finding Marion's gaze fixed on him.

"I'll need a small amount of all your bodily secretions," she said. "And hair, nail clippings, some clothing and a photograph."

"Bodily…what?" He looked at Ellie, who returned his look dryly.

"Blood, urine, sweat, tears, semen, faeces, saliva," she clarified, mouth twisting as she watched his brows rise. "The spell to hide you has to be locked to everything about you, or it won't work."

He looked at Sam, who shrugged. "Whatever it takes, right?"

"Yeah. Right."

Marion nodded and turned to Ellie. "We should interrogate this sprite."

Ellie got up. "It's in the basement."


"What were the orders from the Aes Sidhe?"

Marion's voice was soft and light again, and Ellie could hardly hear her, despite being seated right next to her.

The sprite, which did look like a loosely tied bundle of sticks, peered out from the dim interior of the trap, sparkling black eyes barely visible within the seamed and cracked bark, the elemental's features suggested by the whorls and protrusions of the central, thicker, branch.

"To find the prisoner. To alert them when the location was known. To place the markers." Its voice was harsh, high-pitched but rough and broken in timbre.

"What markers have been laid?"

"The fungi and the dead crow. The antler horn and the soft, white stone." It scowled at her as she held out another small dish of cream, taking it angrily and downing it in a few noisy gulps and throwing the dish behind it.

"Why did the Hunt wait until now to collect the prisoner?"

The sprite laughed suddenly, an odd scratching sound. "They couldn't find him, not for years. I told them where he was laired, three or four years ago, but they didn't believe me, kept trying to track him themselves."

"Why didn't they believe you?"

"How should I know?! I didn't get an invite to the council!"

The sprite drew back inside the trap and Marion squeezed a little honey into another small dish, extending it to the creature. The dish was seized and dragged inside, and Ellie heard smacking, gobbling, slurping noises coming from the dim interior.

Marion had told her not to look at the sprite. It was considered ill-mannered to stare at a faery, ill-mannered and even threatening. She kept her eyes on the notebook in front of her most of the time, stealing a glance every now and then.

"Who opened the doorway? Who invited the Fey into this world?" Marion's voice firmed suddenly.

"The Sidhe need no invitation to come to a world already theirs!" The sprite snapped back at her.

"Who opened the doorway?" she repeated, her voice hardening a little more.

"Some fool farmer in Arkansas," the sprite said, suddenly appearing at the opening of the trap again. "Wanted a bumper crop."

"How many came through?"

"Not many," it said, staring up at her. "Not so many these days."

"How many?"

"Eleven of us altogether. Four to work the fields and cajole the spirits of the earth. Four to the four winds to find the prisoner. Three to hold the doorway open and take the tiende."

Ellie frowned at that comment, making a note on the paper. She'd ask later.

"Thank you," Marion said with no irony in her voice. The sprite looked sourly at her and turned away.

She got up and gestured for Ellie to go ahead of her, and they walked back upstairs to the kitchen.

"There's a circle of oaks on the edge of the forest. A vixen lairs under one of them." Ellie said to Marion as they sat at the table.

"Good. Good, mmmm … that will work nicely, the vixen's scent hiding us until it's too late." She held her cup, looking at Ellie over the rim. "I will need some help, three or four men who are not first born sons."

Ellie nodded. "Sam can go with you in the morning. Twist and Bezaliel too."

"Bezaliel … what an interesting name."

"He's a Watcher," Ellie said, the side of her mouth curving up as she saw interest leap in Marion's eyes.

"A Watcher, here?"

"There are a few here. They were driven from their own lands quite a few years ago, and they decided to stay, to train their children to be hunters."

"Do they know much about the alternative planes? The Faery Realm?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, they know more about Heaven and Hell. Angels, even the fallen, are not particularly curious creatures."

Dean came into the kitchen, and put eleven small glass jars on the table.

"That's all of it." He looked at the bottles sourly. It'd taken wallowing in memories he'd had no desire to revisit to get the tears. "Anything else you need?"

Marion shook her head. "No. The herbs must be picked in the morning, with the dew still on them."

He rolled his eyes at Ellie. "Sam's gone. The iron arrowheads are ready, and he's already told Trent to melt down the family silver and get us some silver ones."

"We'll make a couple of make-shift halberds with the silver knives as well. We need something with a good reach."

"Any reason we can't use guns with silver bullets?" He looked from one to the other.

Ellie wrinkled her nose. "Guns can jam, and you can bet they'll all be jammed if they're anywhere near the Hunt."

Marion nodded. "The Fae will be throwing out spells of protection, of deflection. But they're spiteful as well, and will think of nothing of exploding the weapons in your hands if they can. Solid metal can be deflected but it cannot blow up in the hands of the bearer."

A sharp, vivid image filled his mind and he nodded.

"Mmmm…I need to rest before the morning's labours. If you would be so kind as to show me my room?"

Ellie turned back to Marion. "Of course. Dean, could you take Marion up to the guest room? Her luggage is in the hall."

He looked at her expressionlessly for a moment. "Sure."

Ellie got up and put the jars into a basket, lifting it into a high shelf. Rowan, hawthorn, St John's Wort, primrose and verbena. All of them grew in the garden, and Tamsin would have the rowan berries, harvested last fall.


Pale moonlight filled the bedroom, enough for them to see each other. Ellie rolled onto her side and looked at Dean.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't." His face was screwed up apologetically. "I just…can't."

"Why?"

He glanced at the door. "I can't do it while she's just down the hall, in our house."

The half-muffled snort of laughter beside him was unexpected. He looked down at her.

"You know, this isn't funny."

"It kind of is." She smiled at him, repressing another burst. "I didn't think anything could inhibit you."

"She's as crazy as a bedbug, and that…it just gets to me, okay?" He shifted away from her a little, and felt her arm curl around him, pulling him back.

"I'm sorry. You're entitled to a couple of weirdnesses."

He sighed. "You don't think she's nuts?"

She settled against him. "We had a long talk, when I called her."

The laughter had gone from her voice, and he waited.

"She lost her husband and two children in a car accident, about twelve years ago. She was supposed to have been with them, but something came up in her business and she had to stay and deal with it. She used to run a small import business, specialising in jewellery, pretty successful one apparently. She was going to follow on when she was done, but the police came first." She sighed against his chest.

"After the funerals, she just couldn't hold on. Didn't see the point of it. So she sold her business, and started to wear what was left of the inventory, sold the house that they'd owned, and drifted around for a while. She'd loved fantasy, mythology, all that stuff when she was a child, and she went back, in her mind, and just immersed herself in it. Somewhere, buried deep, she knew it wasn't helping, but every time she remembered, or she thought of them, she'd think about the otherworld, and pretend that they'd been taken there, and they were okay, and she'd see them again one day, and she got by."

Dean closed his eyes. God, there was no end to the pain on this planet, he thought miserably. Everyone had a reason—for what they did, for how they were—how'd he forgotten that?

"After what happened in Elwood, she said she started to come back up, back out of it. She packed up her stuff and put it in storage, bought a car and started researching properly. She had all the background, and a lot of contacts, some useful, some not so much. She used the money she had to go to Europe and see for herself the barrows and cairns, the circles and haunted woods. She compiled every bit of information she could find into a reference work, and has been adding to it ever since."

She heard his exhale, long and low, felt it stir her hair. "She really does know her stuff, Dean."

"Yeah." He nodded, his arm tightening around her. "Fuck, I feel like a douche now."

"You didn't know."

He looked down at her. "I should've though, of all people, I should've known how easy it is to go crazy when everything gets taken away."

"You can't let on you know this, okay?" Ellie said, her voice sleepy. "I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone. She doesn't like the sympathy."

He felt her yawn, her jaw muscle jumping into his side. "Yeah, okay."

A moment later he heard her breathing change. "You asleep?"

Damn, that was fast. He shifted slightly, curling a little toward her. Sleep would be nice, but he doubted it would come for him anytime soon.


His arm slid across the cool, bare sheet, confirming what his other senses had already told him. She was up, gone to pick the herbs and flowers with the dew still on them, most likely.

The sun had just crested the peaks to the east, pale gold light beginning to fill the room and he realised he'd only gotten a few hours sleep. He debated the pros and cons of trying for more, and decided against it. His stomach was growling and if he made pancakes for John and Rosie, he'd save Ellie some time as well.

To his surprise, the kitchen was already redolent with the scents of breakfast as he came down the stairs. He walked into the room and stopped, looking at John and Rosie sitting quietly at the long table, a stack of pancakes on their plates, rapidly vanishing, no spilled syrup or jelly, glasses of milk still upright beside their plates.

"Dad, Marion's making us breakfast," John said, tucking the mouthful of pancake into his cheek.

"I can see that." He walked to the table, looking around. The coffee pot was hot and full. A pan of bacon sat at the back of the stove keeping warm, next to it another pan of scrambled eggs and as he turned around, the toaster pinged.

"I hope you don't mind, I thought I'd just get this underway so that Ellie could get the plants from the garden without having to worry about it." Marion turned to him, Ellie's barely used apron covering a jade-green pantsuit.

"No, I don't mind," he said, shaking his head. "This is great, thanks."

"Mmmm … I miss cooking for a family. There doesn't seem to be much point in making an effort for just one," she said, turning back to the stove. He let the comment go and reached for a cup, pouring coffee into it and taking it back to the table.

"Shouldn't you be out looking for the whatevers with Ellie?"

"She said it would be quicker if she found the herbs and plants, she knows where they all are in the garden," she said, taking a plate from the warmer and putting bacon, eggs and buttered toast onto it. "It's a new experience for me to do this with someone else, someone who knows what I'm talking about, I mean, someone who knows the lore."

She walked to the table and set the plate in front of Dean, gesturing vaguely to the small pile of cutlery on the table, as she returned to the stove. "Most people think it's all nonsense."

Dean looked down at the food in front of him. He'd thought it was all nonsense as well, until it had gotten in his face. "Thanks. Uh, most people don't have the first idea of what's out there."

"Yes, that is true." Marion sighed. "It takes seeing it for yourself to really believe."

The screen door banged open and Ellie came through the back door, the basket hung over her arm filled with greenery. "This is everything except the rowan berries. I'll need to get those from Tamsin."

She set the basket down at the end of the table, taking the plate that Marion handed her and sitting down next to Dean. "Did you sleep alright?"

"Yeah, eventually." He glanced at her, and looked back, more closely. Under her eyes, and around the sockets, a bluey-purple tinge stood out. "What about you?"

"Like the dead. Could hardly open my eyes this morning." She piled bacon and eggs onto the toast and cut a section from the layers. "Must need some catching up."

Marion took the children's plates to the sink as soon as they were finished, getting another plate for herself.

"Can we play outside now?" John turned and looked at his parents. Ellie paused, her fork halfway to her mouth.

"Stay inside of the iron, John—the lump in the ground I showed you. No going up to the gate or down to the pond," she said.

They both nodded and slipped from their chairs, racing out of the kitchen and through the back door. The screen door slammed back against the wall, the sound echoing slightly around the kitchen.

"They are lovely children," she said, sitting across from Ellie with her breakfast. Ellie smiled.

"You're seeing them on a good day," she commented wryly. Dean snorted.

"Ah, but all children are everything we are, just without conventions and the armour around them to keep them subdued," Marion said softly. She looked at the basket at the end of the table, and when she spoke again the wistfulness had gone from her voice. "Getting everything ready will take a full day. Do you have straw or hay?"

Ellie nodded. "There are a few bales in the shed."

"Good, we can begin straight away."


Dean looked at the pile of straw in front of him, the bundle of his clothes to one side, and the bowl of blackened blech that was the burned remains of everything he'd handed over to Marion. He was supposed to make an effigy. Of himself.

Sympathetic magic, Ellie called it. Something that the faery world didn't use, having no need of it. A way to convince the creatures that followed him he had died and was beyond their reach. He started stuffing.

It was mid-morning by the time he was reasonably sure that the straw man he'd made was close enough to his own size to fool a casual observer. The huge, wobbling stitches that enclosed the stuffing reminded him of Frankenstein's monster, the old Boris Karloff movies that he'd sometimes caught on late night TV as a child. He looked up as John and Rosie came into the shed.

"That looks like you, Dad," John said doubtfully. Dean looked down at the effigy.

"You think it does, John?" He shook his head. "You don't think I'm better-looking than this?"

Rosie laughed and ran over to him, her brother following slowly. "What's it for?"

"Garden. Going to scare away those pesky bad things," he said lightly, tucking Rosie under one arm and the scarecrow under the other as he stood. "C'mon, let's go find Uncle Sammy."


Sam, Twist and Bezaliel followed Marion into the house a little past noon. The three men were hot, sweating and grimy from digging and sinking the posts that were needed for the circle.

"Woman's a slave-driver," Twist muttered, accepting the beer Dean handed him.

"Is it all ready?"

"As it'll ever be." Sam twisted the top off his bottle and let the cold liquid pour down his throat. "You finish your scarecrow?"

Dean nodded. The circle and effigy were just one part of what they had to do when the moon rose that evening. They were for him. The other part was harder; the ritual to banish the Hunt and close the door between the planes was going to be a real trick, needing most of the hunters to accomplish.

He wasn't entirely sure of how they were going to pull it all off.

Marion had gone straight to her room to change, and she reappeared several minutes later, looking cool and comfortable in a soft white button-through shirt and wide-legged cotton pants.

"Tonight, everyone has to wear their clothes inside out," she said as she walked into the kitchen.

The men blinked. Twist looked around at her. "Why, exactly?"

"Faeries have difficulty seeing people when their garments are not as they should be."

"Again. Why?" Dean frowned at her.

"I'm not a Fae one, Dean. I don't know why," she said stiffly, pouring a long glass of cold juice and replacing the jug in the 'fridge. "All I know is that it works, so before we start out, all clothing needs to be inside out—underwear included."

The men exchanged looks and Sam shrugged. "I'll let the others know."

"Good." Marion took her glass and walked out onto the porch.

"Wow, touchy," Dean looked after her.

"You would be too if you were trying to co-ordinate a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing to perform a banishment for the Wild Hunt," Ellie said mildly from behind him.

He turned, opening his mouth to protest, and she cut him off, "Doesn't matter. How many of the nephilim can we have this evening?" she asked Bezaliel.

"Everyone will come. I'll tell them about the clothing," the Watcher answered. "Trent says we won't have enough silver arrowheads."

Ellie shook her head. "That's fine. The main thing will be to pin them down once they're in the circle, stop them from moving or escaping and destroy whatever glamour they're using. The iron will be enough for that. The silver should be for the leaders."

Twist looked at her. "An' here I thought fairies were mischievous but mostly beneficial."

"Not these ones, Twist. You don't want to get close to them, you don't want to draw their attention to you. They're proud as the devil and have the morality of swamp rats, and they're malicious and sadistic—they do enjoy the Hunt, especially when they're chasing down humans."

Dean felt a shiver race down his spine as he recalled the inhuman beauty of the face he'd seen briefly, outlined in light. The almond-shaped eyes had been filled with laughter, and malice, and a mad kind of blood-lust. He didn't want to get any closer to them.

"So what am I supposed to be doing while everyone else is fighting the Hunt?" He raised a brow at Ellie.

"We'll be seeing to it that you get a proper hunter's burial, complete with dancing." She smiled at his bemused expression.


The sun had dropped below the western horizon twenty minutes before, and the last of twilight was fading into night, the breeze that had been dancing along the high side of the valley all afternoon sighing away to stillness.

In the forest on the other side of the road, and concealed within the branches and shrubs surrounding the gate, Dean knew Idan and Achina, Twist, Garth, Trent and Katherine, Chazaquiel, Oran and Sariel were waiting, their clothing oddly askew and inside out. Baraquiel and Chaz had been the most offended by the thought, but they'd complied after a single glance from Marion, whose softness had vanished completely as the preparations had begun to gear up. Baraquiel and Bezaliel were flanking her now, shadowed by the stone wall that divided garden from road, not even the last dim light in the sky able to draw an answering gleam from their makeshift silver-bladed weapons.

He felt Ellie's hand on his arm and turned away, following her through the oppressive gloom up the path into the forest. The clearing wasn't far, a few hundred yards from the edge of their property, jutting out from the mountainside where the slope had broken and left a bevelled cut in the hill. By the time they'd reached it, it was full night, and he couldn't see the work his brother and the others had done in the circle of old oaks, could barely make out Ellie picking her way carefully along the path in front of him. Like the others, their clothes were inside out, and the buttons and zippers and fastenings were hidden and muffled. He wasn't sure that he bought Marion's story about the clothing distracting the faeries from seeing them, but it hadn't been worth arguing over.

He stopped when Ellie stopped, eyes widely straining to see any detail in the dark clearing against the blackness of the trees and hill behind it. Marion had explained to them both exactly what had to be done. Only he could go into the circle. Ellie had to remain on the outside, to make the spell and direct it inwards.

"I need to what?" He'd looked from Marion to Ellie.

"Dance with the effigy, hold it close against you, so tightly that from a distance it looks as if it's dancing on its own," Marion had said again slowly and clearly, the waspishness of her tone indicating that she was getting irritated with him.

Ellie had been suppressing a laugh as she'd added, "Think Survivor."

He'd scowled at her. At least no one else would be there to see it. It wasn't much of a comforting thought but it was the only one he could muster.

Now, he walked past her carefully into the circle. He could just make out the tattered edges of the straw man, hanging on the post Sam had set into the centre that morning. He heard Ellie move behind him, along the outer edge of the circle. He pulled in a deep breath.

All that was left was to wait for the fucking faeries to show up.


"I thought the Wild Hunt came with the witching hour," Baraquiel said, his voice low, to Marion. She was crouched between the two Watchers, her eyes fixed to the forested slope above the road.

"They come when they please," she replied, glancing up at the sky. When the sun had set, the sky had been perfectly clear. Now there were patches of darkness, blotting out the stars on this side of the mountain. She frowned at them. The moon wouldn't rise for another hour and the Hunt favoured the moonlight, sliding down the moonbeams and using the pale silver light to enhance their illusions. "There is much in the lore that is not correct, exaggerated or extrapolated without cause, or just made up by the men who wrote it."

Bezaliel glanced over her head at his brother. "Sounds like a lot of what mankind has written down about things they know little of."

The red-haired Watcher smiled. "The short-comings of a tiny life-span."

"Ssh." Marion tilted her head. From down the road, they could hear the silvery chimes of bells. Every archer had them, a cluster of round bells to warn of the Hunt's approach and to hide their thoughts from the Fae as they passed by. "They're coming."


Trent looked at Katherine worriedly. "That's not them, is it?"

The group that passed along the road could have been any family group from anywhere in the country. Dressed casually, jackets zipped up against the faint cool in the night air, the first were two couples in their mid-sixties, talking and laughing, not even looking around at the dark road. Behind them, younger men and women held the hands of their children, the soft murmur of their voices clear in the still night, the conversations revolving around house renovations and the Baker's annual Fourth of July party, what to have for dinner and when did they have to be in Portland to get their flights home.

They didn't seem to notice the soft chiming of the bells as they passed and the hunters rose silently and followed them at a distance. Marion had told them about the Fae glamour, the illusions that could seem frighteningly real or utterly mundane. But would the Little People choose an illusion so completely banal? He didn't want to fire at these people and find out he'd shot some perfectly ordinary citizens trying to enjoy their vacation.


Ellie's head snapped around as she heard the distant bells. She struck the match in her hand and touched the flame to the pungent oil that Marion had poured around the circle.

Dean saw the flicker of firelight from the corner of his eye, grabbing at the straw effigy on the post and dragging it down as the line of flame ran quickly around the two sides of the circle and cut across to the oil-soaked kindling at the base of the post. Feeling like several kinds of idiot, he locked his hands around the wrists of the straw man, pulling it hard against himself and jumped back, clear of the leaping fire. The song that came into his head wasn't Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, but the Stone's Paint It Black.

Ellie looked up over the flames, her smile vanishing as she heard another carillon of bells, closer this time. She threw the thin paper sachets of herbs onto the fire and closed her eyes, the ancient Gaelic spell tumbling from her in clumps and whorls, now cajoling, now commanding, in a rising cadence to enchant the elements.


The circle on the road was invisible, a thin, unbroken trail of black dust, charred rowan and hawthorn, St John's Wort and primrose and clover, oak and ash and yew, ground to powder; the opening to one side wide enough for two to pass in side-by-side. Marion shot to her feet as the group stepped into it, the smoothed stone in her hand pressed against one eye. Through the water-bored hole, slightly off-centre in the stone, she could see the Fae as they truly were, stripped of their illusions. She could see the circle as a line of dark fire, flicking against the lighter black of the road.

"FIRE!"

A dozen arrows whistled from the trees on both sides of the road, and when the first silver leaf form tip touched the man at the front of the group, the glamour was shattered.

Light filled the road, a twisting rainbow of a hundred colours and shades, burning and bleeding into each other as the illusory humans glowed and elongated, the beasts of the Hunt neighed and bellowed, and the hunters sent more arrows into the growing maelstrom of light and sound.

Marion walked to the edge of the circle, shouting the incantation that would close the door between this world and the next, her eyes fixed on the glowering aspect of the leader, Caoilte. Astride a black horse, the Fae swung his sword at her and she raised her own, a tapered iron blade, the harsh clang as the two met cut off when the Watchers stepped to either side of her, forcing the dark elf-knight back, moonlight winking on the honed edges of their silver halberds.

Above the Hunt, the air thickened and roiled, bulging and pulsing as the spell tore at the fabric of space and time. Trent looked up, seeing a pinpoint of bright light at the centre, growing larger, his eyes narrowing against the shifting colours. Twist saw the expression on the faery closest to him change, mouth opening in a howl of protest as the swirling, flickering light touched its shoulder and drew at it, its form stretching and skewing impossibly then disappearing into the light, goat-steed and all.


"Now!" Ellie yelled across the clearing, and Dean threw the straw man onto the fire at the base of the post, flinging himself back when the flames roared up and out, turning from yellow to ruby and flaring fiercely into emerald as the effigy was consumed. He lay on the ground staring at the green flames that licked into the sky, Jagger still singing on about the world turning to black in his head.


One by one, the Hunt fae were touched by and pulled into the light above them, their shrieks cut off as they passed from one dimension to the other. Marion stood at the edge of the vortex, her voice a harsh contralto as she bellowed the Gaelic spell over the roaring portal, her sword held in one hand, the other holding a silver knife, blade tip pointing to the centre of the doorway.

From the woods surrounding the houses, from the forest stretching up the mountainside, from the fields and towns and gardens and lakes and rivers and waterfalls in the surrounding countryside, pinpoints of glowing, brilliant light flew through the darkness, dragged to the gate. Garth ducked as a small spindly birdhouse swept past his head and disappeared into the light, a tiny raucous howl audible before it vanished. Caoilte's voice thundered at them as he was stretched and pulled, his horse's shrill screams counterpoint to the basso profundo cursing and both flickered like lightning as they were sucked back to their world.

The doorway bulged outward as the last incandescent ball zipped into it, then the light vanished, the circular twistings of the air fading away, thinning out, becoming clear and transparent and then gone.

The hunters stood in a ragged circle on the road, clothing inside out and bows and arrows clutched in their hands, staring at each other.


The fire, at the base of the post, and in the circle around him, died. It didn't die down. It didn't flicker and fade. It just died, all at once. Dean rolled onto his side and sat up, looking around. The cloud that had been blocking out the stars earlier had gone, and the thin moonlight filled the clearing.

"Is it over?" He looked at Ellie, still kneeling on the outside of the circle.

"I guess it is," she said, looking around as she got to her feet.

"Did they get the others?" Dean got up and walked out of the circle, stopping next to her.

"They must have; we'd be able to hear something if it was still going on." Ellie looked down the path, then back at him. "Are you alright?"

"Aside from having another memory I need to bury deep enough to never have to think of again? Yeah, I'm good." His mouth curved up to one side


Next morning

"So, they're all gone now? Back to their own…plane?" Dean looked at Marion. The kitchen was bright with the morning sunlight, streaming through the large sash windows. Marion sat at the table between John and Rosie, sipping a cup of tea.

"Oh no. Only the Faery that came into this world through a Summoning were banished." She looked at him over the rim of her cup. "There are many of the Little Folk who live here all the time, who have assimilated, really, into our world and our society. Most live in the wild woods, where people do not go. Some choose to live closer to humans, to help when they can, to protect."

Her voice was soft and wispy, rising and falling gently. Dean sighed. He liked determined Marion a hell of a lot better.

"But we don't have to worry about them?"

"No. They keep to themselves." She put down the cup. "Well, it's time I was on my way."

He watched her say goodbye to the children, their faces brightening as she whispered something to each of them. He got up and walked to the hall, picking up the suitcases she'd brought and waiting.

When he'd loaded them into the car, he leaned on the edge of the car door, looking down at her.

"Thanks," he said quietly, gesturing around them. "For all of it."

"You're welcome." Marion smiled up at him. "I'm not really as crazy as I look."

His gaze cut away, one side of his mouth lifting. "Yeah, I know."

He stepped back from the car as she started the engine, watching her pull out and drive through the gates. He turned his head as he heard Ellie come up beside him.

"So, what's next?"

She turned to the house and he put his arm around her shoulder, walking with her.

"Finding a creation goddess and putting her back to sleep."

"Well, that should be easy." He looked down at her. "How 'bout we take the kids down to Trish and, uh, do a bit of research on our own?"

"I thought you'd never ask."