2045, Ireland

“Young lady, I am very upset with you,” she wagged the gun toward the girl in question like an old woman wagging a finger. Which wasn’t that far off considering her actual age. “If your mother won’t spank you, then I will.”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “She won’t like you pointing your gun at me like that,” she crossed her arms.

“The safety’s on…”

“Everyone knows you only point your weapon at things you’re going to kill.”

“It’s magical. Zero percent chance of accidental discharge… anyways… we have more important concerns. Did you forget the wild hunt between us and Sanctuary?” she thrust her other pistol out past the tree line where a motley assortment of fae-looking thugs hooted and hollered menacingly in the middle of a wide clearing.

“Mother will make them leave.”

The certainty of children.

Evangeline cursed being the one to find the wayward scion of their little witchy haven.

The brat had zero sense of fear for her personal safety. It would’ve been foolish back in the old days. Now? It was double, nay, triple or even quadruply idiotic to run about in a world filled with actual monsters.

“If they won’t… then father will crush them all.”

So certain.

“Yes, yes… that would make things easier for me,” she mumbled as she looked up. She couldn’t see the sky through the dense tree cover. Then again with how fast he moved all she’d hear was the sonic boom and the clearing would be empty by the time she blinked. “Got your mother’s protection charm?”

“Yeah.”

The girl clutched the small stuffed raven woven from black-dyed yarn. Its googly eyes pointed in different directions.

For all her magical power, the head witch of their coven was a passable knitter at best. Probably, cause she refused to get a class in it.

Evangeline eyed the ring of raven feathers she had scattered around the two of them. Darker than black, they seemed to suck in what little moonlight managed to filter through the foliage.

She hoped that the head witch’s charms would keep them hidden.

“This is what happens when you sneak out,” she sighed.

“It’s not fair that I have to stay in the sanctuary all the time. It’s soooo boring. I should be able to fly like my father.”

“You can’t yet— can you?”

The girl’s big, brown eyes narrowed.

“Lera? Have you been lying about your abilities?”

“No!” the girl huffed. “I can’t fly… yet.”

“I see you’ve been practicing your ominousness with Rupert.” She waited for the girl’s smug grin to appear before dashing it. “It’s just as non-threatening as when he does it. So cute!” she pitched her voice to a sickly sweet height.

The girl pouted.

Ah, children… so enjoyable to take them down a peg.

Did that make her petty?

Yes.

Did she care?

No.

Especially, since the kid in question might’ve just gotten the both of them killed… or worse.

“I’m stronger and tougher than almost everyone in the sanctuary.”

“Maybe… but you’re also seven. So, I’ll give you 2 points for what you said and a minus 35 points for being a literal child.”

“Oh yeah, well I’m not dumb like the other kids.”

Evangeline groaned theatrically.

“I’m not!” Lera stomped her foot with sent a small tremor through the carpet of fallen leaves on the forest floor.

“Shhh!”

The wild hunt had heard or felt that despite the hiding charms around them. Several heads turned toward them.

Human-ish faces seemed to waver in the moonlight.

Evangeline was a Witch, so she had a built in ability to see through glamour spells to a certain extent.

She saw green-skinned faces with mouths filled with sharp teeth, yellow eyes and leather caps dripping in red. Perfect alabaster faces that sparkled with eyes that glittered malevolently. Small, spritely faces with pointy ears and pointier teeth. And much more.

“Unicorn? Sharp teeth though…” she mumbled. “Shoot the horn, maybe?”

A very human figure stepped out from the throng.

The young man wore jeans, combat boots and a black leather jacket studded with spikes and metal plates like armor. He had blond hair spiked up like horns and dark glasses that were too large for his gaunt face.

“Come out, come out, child of the sun! Come out, come out, child of the raven! Witch of the gun! Be bold, be brazen!” the young man’s voice warbled into the night.

“Oh god.” Evangeline tapped the barrel of one pistol on her helmet.

“That’s Drake! Why is he with the wild hunt?” Lera’s head vacillated from witch to witch.

“Well… he’s a moron, so…” she shrugged.

“He disappeared and no one would tell me why?”

“You keep squinting like that and you’ll end up with a wrinkled face. Take it from me, you don’t want that.”

Drake’s hands began to trace an intricate dance in the air. “Reveal to me what is hidden. Turn it into a midden.”

“Oh shi—” Evangeline gagged.

“It smells!” Lera pinched her nose.

She felt the once fairly solid ground turn soft, like mud. “Be glad you can’t see and that you’re wearing boots… you are wearing boots, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh good. It’s always fifty-fifty with you. Sometimes in proper footwear, sometimes running around barefoot like Mowgli.”

“It’s faster, but icky.”

Drake and the wild hunt continued to search the trees.

“Okay. Your mother’s hiding charms are still working. It stinks in here, but I say we wait as long as—”

“Witch’s charms be undone. With my curse let there be none,” Drake unleashed a bright snake of light with a flourish. It slithered through the air weaving around trees and branches.

“Damn it! Stay hidden. I’ll distract them and when you see an opening run for the sanctuary as fast as you can.”

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Wide-eyed Lera nodded.

“Listen, these aren’t small monsters and mutant animals. They are fae… probably, maybe… whatever, point is they’ve got magic and who knows what other kinds of powers. You might be vulnerable, so don’t try to fight. I can take care of myself.” Evangeline switched out her magazines and popped out the chambered rounds.

The curse struck with a blinding flash of light.

One of the dark feathers on the ground lit up and burned to ash.

“Ah, I thought I smelled your powder, though I expected you to be louder,” Drake said.

“Let me guess… you’re still a simple Rhyming Witch, Drake? I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Five years of trying and failing to become a witch of poetry should’ve given you the hint. You’re no The Bard. The wild hunt though? Really?” she called back.

“And you? Still using that glamour as your armor? You can never cloak the truth of time with the illusion of your prime.”

“Low-hanging fruit, Drake,” she tsked. “How about this? Let us be on our away, lest mother and father ruin your day. See, it’s not so hard. Even I can do that two-line bullshit. That’s why you’ll never improve your class, Drake. You aren’t composing real poetry. Where’s the meter, the iambic pentameter, the sonnets and soliloquies—” she lowered her voice, “Lera, what else do poems have?”

The girl shrugged.

“Don’t you have lit class with all this crap?”

“I don’t pay attention…”

“I’m telling your mother.” Evangeline aimed at Drake’s smiling face. The young man’s teeth were helpfully white, almost shining in the dark night. “Not yet,” she muttered.

The wild hunt hadn’t moved so that meant they were still hidden to a degree.

“At least my craft is worthwhile and full of class unlike yours which is just trash,” Drake smirked.

“Yup,” she nodded. “This is why I wasn’t too sad when you disappeared, Drake! Pretentiousness is the worst trait in a person. Doubly so when it’s unearned. The Bard cringes in his grave at your word vomit.”

“Lera. Come with me to save your mom. Come with me and save everyone,” Drake said.

“What is he saying, Eva?”

“Don’t listen to him. Remember what we say about the fae?”

“Don’t listen to them.”

“Right and Drake’s with them now, so…”

“Don’t listen to him,” Lera echoed.

“What do you want with Lera?”

Keep him talking. Keep them searching.

Every second bought gave the head witch and the others time to find them.

The wild hunt’s presence so close to one of the sanctuary’s entrances wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.

“A hostage for the court, a serious matter. Not for sport, she won’t be baked in batter.”

Lera scowled.

“Which court?”

“All of them,” Drake grinned. “You’ve—”

“Enough of this idle banter,” a looming, impossibly thin figure materialized or stepped in front of Drake. “Witch, I respect your craft, but the wild hunt has stood in place for long enough. We must hunt and I smell our quarry.”

Evangeline regarded the looming figure in its armor of tree bark and leaves, writhing and moving even though it stood still. Its unearthly voice made it impossible to tell if it was male or female, if that even mattered to the fae.

“You, witch in the woods. You reek of anathema and the foulness of this world. I grant you passage. Leave the child. The witch of rhymes speaks the truth. She will be unharmed… for a time.”

“What do you want with her?”

“The mother will do what she must to ensure the spawn’s safety. The mother will do what the courts demand. You are unwelcome squatters in our lands. You will leave or bend knee and provide tribute. As it should be. As it has always been.”

“You lot didn’t show up until years after we made our sanctuary. Don’t try to pretend that you had a prior claim. We know that you fae came when the spires opened Earth up to those with special dispensation. You’re the squatters!”

“Chattering cow,” the looming figure seemed to grow even larger, “bite your tongue, lest I do it.”

“I’ll be generous. Leave now and live another day.”

“The raven witch’s charms are strong, but I have found you. Death it is for you, witch of powder and iron.” The looming figure gestured with a blade of wood and leaves.

The wild hunt howled and darted forward like a pack of hounds.

Evangeline felt like a cornered fox just like her father and uncles hunted a long time ago when she had been a child. She had hated it then. She instinctively knew that it had been most unfair.

“Eva, I lied…” Lera said.

“You can fly! Then fly home!”

“Not that… another thing, but it gets me really tired after.”

“Whatever you can do, do it now!”

The wild hunt crashed through the dense undergrowth.

Huge things bowled trees over.

Small things slipped through thickets with barely a brush.

Everything in between came for them.

Evangeline fired two-fisted death.

Instead of hot lead, she used cold iron.

The fae things didn’t like that.

Her craft made her more accurate than she should’ve been while dual-wielding.

Every squeeze of the trigger was a hit.

They howled in pain.

An ugly, wicked sprite-thing was blown away into a fine mist leaving only tattered remnants of gossamer wings to drift to the forest floor.

“Fuck you, Tinkerbell.”

“Watch out, Eva!”

She dived out of the now useless charm circle. Specifically, so that she got out of the midden Drake had turned the ground inside into.

Night turned into day as Lera screamed.

Evangeline had shut her eyes tight on reflex but she still had to wait for what felt like an eternity for the all-encompassing white in her eyes to dissipate.

When she could see again the fae had scattered or simply had been incinerated. Along with a huge swath of forest all the way out into the clearing.

Small fires burned around the path of devastation.

“Lera…”

“I don’t feel so—”

Evangeline darted toward the girl catching her before she fell face first into the midden. “You’re a lot heavier than you look. Makes sense.”

She ran for Sanctuary.

The dead weight on her shoulder slowed her down but it was a mark of the girl’s powerful display that she made it past the tree line before Drake and the fae things, the ones still living, reacted.

“A curse of—”

“Anti-curse Bullet.”

She shot the building spell in Drake’s hands along with his left hand.

The looming fae chased with strides that seemed too long.

She hit it with a double-tap.

It cut the cold iron bullets out of the air with its blade of wood and leaves.

The remnants of the wild hunt filled the night sky with a cacophony that promised her death.

She had only made it a third of the way through the clearing.

“Rocket-jump Bullet.”

She fired into the ground at an angle behind her.

Despite the spell granting protection she felt the strain in her arm and shoulder as it propelled her and Lera high into the air.

They landed in a rolling heap.

She came up firing.

“Multi-bullet.”

Two became eight.

Seven fae fell or slowed.

One simply cut the bullet out of the air.

She had made it three-quarters of the way to Sanctuary.

She ran out of time.

The impossibly tall and thin fae was a stride away from her and Lera.

The air rippled behind her. She felt it. So close, yet so far.

“A Murder of Crows.”

A rush of wind and wings brushed around her.

They swarmed the fae thing pecking and clawing, cawing all the while.

She turned and rushed to Lera, hefting the unconscious child like a sack of potatoes over one shoulder.

“Wytchraven. Your daughter is… something else,” she said as she rushed toward the young-looking woman dressed in black with a raven on each shoulder.

“Thank you for keeping her safe, Eva. I can never repay you for that.”

“I’d take a long vacation, but it seems like that’s not in the cards.”

“The fae?”

“Well, Drake is alive and with the wild hunt.”

“Yeah, I see him over there trying to stop the bleeding, but he’s a lesser concern. That’s a noble, summer court from the feeling I’m getting. Yet, it’s with the wild hunt?”

“That’s the problem. All the courts are out to get us.”

“We’ll talk about it in Sanctuary. Get Lera inside.”

Evangeline hurried through the invisible gateway.

“You’ve attacked my blood. I don’t take that lightly,” Wytchraven said.

“Charlatan wench,” the impossibly tall fae growled even as it stabbed and slashed crows out of the air, “you will regret your unearned arrogance.”

“We’ll see, won’t we.” She turned and walked into her sanctuary.