Desperately, Meg scanned the flashing landscape dead ahead, then to her left, right. The German Black Forest glared back at her, far from still. Pines and firs shuddered and bowed. Snow poured from the sky. Aside from the voices of her team crackling in her ears—the four other Gifted Border riders on her patrol—the howling wind overpowered every sound, including the steady rhythm of her own horse’s hooves and the staccato pounding of her heart. In their world—of magick, and evil—she was blind, deaf, useless. It was only through sheer accident that she’d wound up on point, ahead of the others on the craggy slopes of the alpine mountain.
Or maybe it had been by design: Sofie had insisted that Meg wasn’t ready to ride, that she’d slow them down. Two minutes ago, the snotty German chick had been in the lead. Now Meg didn’t know where Sofie was, and her precious Sight had failed. Maybe Sofie had cast a spell of some kind to get rid of the deadweight. What had Sofie said? We travel light, or we die . Sofie’s thick German accent had made her sound like a mad scientist in a bad movie.
“Turn left!” Lukas shouted.
Setting her jaw, squinting, Meg pressed her heel against Teufel’s flank and the horse turned sharply—directly into the path of a lowlying pine bough. Meg flattened against her horse’s neck, holding on tight as Teufel soared over it, landing very hard. These animals weren’t bred for grace. Or long lives.
Like horse, like rider.
Icicles rattled down on her helmet and shoulders. Thank God for her body armor, uncomfortable though it was. And her kicker boots, which she’d insisted on wearing. She wasn’t losing her steel toes for anything. Though truth be told, her feet were freezing.
“Meg?” That was Heath, again, eagerly welcomed into their ranks six months ago by Lukas and Sofie. Meg was the newer newbie. Not a lot of eagerness on Sofie’s part when Lukas showed up with Meg, like a little boy with a stray puppy he wanted to keep. Heath was a European and he had a strong Gift. Plus he was incredibly hot, and Sofie was on her own Great Hunt to get him into bed. Meg supposed it made sense for Sofie to be a little bit German-centric, given her vocation as a Bavarian Border guard. But Meg would have thought she would be a little more human-centric, given what they were guarding the Pale from.
“Where are you?” Heath persisted.
“Unknown.” She was out of her element; this was crazy. “I can’t see anyone.”
“I’m coming for you,” Heath said.
“ Nein . Heath, keep going.” That was Sofie. “We’re almost at the Pale.”
How did Sofie know? What could she see?
White-hot lightning crashed, revealing a rider to Meg’s left—Edouard, the fifth member of their team. The Haitian held up his gloved hand in salute. She returned it as Teufel increased his speed, slaloming around trees like a skier.
“Eddie at nine o’clock,” she announced.
Sofie said something in rapid French, Eddie’s language, and Eddie answered. Everyone on the team spoke at least two languages; unfortunately, Meg’s second language was Spanish, and no one else spoke it. After a month in Bavaria, Meg still couldn’t understand 90 percent of what Sofie said—in any language. Her accent was very heavy.
“Going ahead of you, Meg. I’m too close to the Pale,” Eddie informed her, rising in his saddle jockey-style.
Like her, he was dressed in black body armor over a black cat suit, camouflage for their night ride. Their saddles were black leather, too, and each had an Uzi and a crossbow strapped behind it. She was a good shot with a submachine gun; she had that going for her. But what use was that if she could never see the target?
A curtain of snow swallowed Eddie up. To dodge another tree limb, Meg cantered left, in the direction from which Eddie had just retreated.
“Also, Meg, vorsicht!” Lukas yelled as Teufel lost his footing, and dizziness hit Meg like a fist. Vertigo fanned from the center of her forehead, smacking her temples and ripping in a zipper down the back of her neck. Jerking on the reins, she imagined the top of her head exploding and her brains shooting like a geyser toward the moon.
She knew she was skirting the Pale. The Great Hunt must have crossed over. If so, Team Ritter’s mission had just failed. Humans, Gifted or not, couldn’t cross the border between the realm of Faerie and humankind. Or so they’d told her. They seemed to be telling her a number of things that might not be true.
She thought of that little Mexican baby, six weeks old. Her stomach clenched as the old anger overtook her. She wasn’t turning back, not this time.