goblins had taken them, probably before they had actually begun to flee. Both of the Eebs were staring at Susan and me with raw hatred written on their snarling faces.
The Erlking looked at the captured vampires for a moment, and smiled faintly. “Well fought,” he said, his deep voice resonant.
We both bowed our heads slightly to him.
Then he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, once. It echoed like the report of a firearm.
Screams went up from the entire helpless Red Court crew as several hundred violence-amped goblins fell on them in a wave. I watched for a moment in sickened fascination, but turned away.
I hate the Red Court. But there are limits.
The Erlking’s kin had none.
“What about the Red King?” I asked him. “The Lords of Outer Night?”
His red eyes gleamed. “His Majesty’s folk failed to prove their peaceful intentions. The trial established their deception to the satisfaction of law and custom. Let him howl his fury if he so wills it. Should he begin a war over this matter, all of Faerie will turn upon him in outrage. And his people will make fine hunting.”
Beneath the screams of the Red Court—Esmerelda’s were especially piercing—a ragged chuckle ran through the hall. The sound danced with its own echoes. It was like listening to the official sound track of Hell. A goblin wearing thick leather gloves appeared, holding what was left of Susan’s club as if it were red-hot. The touch of iron and its alloys is an agony to the creatures of Faerie. Susan accepted the steel calmly, nodding to the gloved goblin.
“I presume, then,” I said quietly, “that we are free to go?”
“If I did not release you now,” the Erlking said, his tone almost genial, “how should I ever have the pleasure of hunting you myself some fine, bright evening?”
I hoped my gulp wasn’t audible.
The Lord of the Hunt turned and gestured idly with one hand, and a Way shimmered into being behind us. The green light that had let us see began to darken rapidly. “May you enjoy good hunting of your own, Sir Knight, lady huntress. Please convey my greetings to the Winter Queen.”
My sane brain fell asleep at the switch, and I said, “I will. It was a pleasure, Erl.”
Maybe he didn’t get it. He just tilted his head slightly, the way a dog does at a new sound.
We all bowed to one another politely, and Susan and I stepped through the Way, careful not to take our eyes off of our host, until the world shimmered and that hall of horrors was gone.
It was replaced with an enormous, rustic-style building that appeared to be filled from the basement to the ceiling with everything you might possibly need to shoot, catch, find, stalk, hook, clean, skin, cook, and eat pretty much anything that ran, slithered, hopped, or swam.
“What the hell?” Susan said, looking around in confusion.
“Heh,” I said. “This is the Bass Pro in Bolingbrook, I think. Makes sense, I guess.”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said, and pointed. “Look.”
I followed her gaze to a large clock on the far wall of the big store.
It said that the time was currently nine thirty p.m.
Thirty minutes after our departure time.
“How can that be?” Susan demanded. “We were there for half an hour at the most. Look. My watch says it’s two.”
My heart began to beat faster. “Hell’s bells, I didn’t even think of it.”
“Of what?”
I started walking. Susan ditched her club behind a shelf and followed me. We must have made a charming sight, both of us all scuffed up, torn, ragged, and wounded. A few late shoppers stared, but no one seemed willing to approach us.
“Time can pass at a different rate in the Nevernever than it does here,” I said. “All those stories about people partying with the fae overnight and waking up in a new century? That’s why it happens.” The next link in the logic chain got forged, and I said, “Oh. Oh, dammit.”
“What?” Susan said.
“It’s a three-hour trip to Chichén Itzá,” I said quietly. “We can’t get there by midnight.” Lead ingots began to pile up in my belly and on my shoulders and the back of my neck. I bowed my head, my mouth twisting bitterly. “We’re too late.”
38
“No,” Susan said fiercely. “No. This isn’t set up on Greenwich mean time, Harry. These creatures aren’t performing their ceremony based on a clock. They’re using the stars. We only know an approximate time. It could happen after midnight.”