of your outlaw kind have been nothing but—”
“Disappointing to you? I agree. The crom cu isn’t my brother. Feel free to dismember him if he crosses your path. What do you want with us?”
“The sun will set, the moon will wane.” As Christie spoke, Jack’s irritation level shot sky-high. He narrowed his eyes at the boy.
“The stars will fall, become our bane,” Christie continued, his voice steady. “A tribe will bleed, a nation fade. The spirits will weep and turn away.”
Silence followed the poem. The lead Blackheart tilted his head and murmured, “Pretty words from a mortal boy—yes, I know he’s mortal—I’ve been told. We won’t force you to come with us, but you’ll volunteer.”
Jack said, “Where exactly are we volunteering to go?”
“The Dearh Cota wants to speak with you.”
“Two friends of mine are about to enter the Mockingbirds’ nest. We don’t have time.”
“You will make time, Jack Daw, because the Dearh Cota has the information that will help you take down the Wolf.”
Christie said desperately, “Finn and Sylvie, Jack.”
“Let me explain it this way,” the Blackheart continued. “You’ll come with us or remain here. Forever.”
Jack spoke through gritted teeth. “Ride fast and we’ll follow.”
The lead Blackheart turned his kelpie. His two comrades followed, the red one idly saying to the white one, “At least the mortal didn’t recite ‘Hiawatha’ at us, like the white folk usually do. The next mortal does that, I’ll get someone to cut out his or her tongue.”
“Whatever happened to scalping?” The white one looked wistful.
“They don’t recite poetic clichés with their hair. Removing the tongue makes more of a statement.”
“Fantastic,” Christie muttered as Sylph and Jack revved up their bikes. “More water monsters and a Fata comedy team.”
THE BLACKHEARTS LED THEM DOWN a road lined with witchy-looking elms decorated with painted rattles and wooden stick figures. As they passed beneath an arch made of withy and blackberry vines, the trees gave way to a street lined with abandoned brownstone buildings, their balconies strung with colored lights, graffiti on the doors, and talismans hanging in windows of broken glass. The red light muted the sky behind a blackened church at the street’s end and made the church’s stained-glass windows glimmer like sangria. Citrus trees in urns lined the stair, along with a variety of canine-headed gargoyles. Parked in front was a battered Jeep Cherokee scrawled with silver symbols, a wolf skull attached to the fender.
As the Blackhearts and the clockwork motorcycles halted before the church, the red doors opened and a slender figure in a hooded coat of scarlet, two brindled hounds at its sides, stepped out. Jack got off his stilled motorcycle and murmured, “Jill Scarlet. The Dearh Cota.”
“Wait . . . that sounds familiar. . . .” Christie stared at the figure as it spoke in a young woman’s voice.
“Jack Daw. Do you think you are the Wolf’s death?”
“Maybe”—Jack smiled savagely—“I’ll be yours if I don’t reach the Mockingbirds in time.”
The smile in the shadows of the red hood was equally as feral. The Dearh Cota didn’t look dangerous—she appeared to be a young woman in a ruffled black dress, striped stockings, and button-up boots—but Jack knew better. She receded back into the church, followed by her two hounds. “Come in. I won’t keep you long.”
Jack ascended the stairs, and Christie and Sylph followed him into the church that now served as a home, bookshelves and paintings on the walls between the windows and the altar area a bedroom with parchment screens. Jill Scarlet gestured with a slim, scarred hand toward an antique sofa and chairs set around a potbellied stove. Jack and Christie sat. Sylph wandered around.
“I’ll fetch you something to eat.” As Jill Scarlet pushed through a pair of doors that shut behind her, Christie leaned toward Jack. “Who is she?”
Jack replied, “She’s Little Red Riding Hood.”
Sylph, who still wore the aviator’s cap, its goggles pushed up, sat in the chair beside Christie. “The very one.”
Jack continued, “The fairy tale didn’t originate in Germany, but in the Basque province of France, when there were wolves and things that looked like wolves. She was an innocent girl—”
“Aren’t they all?” Sylph tilted her head.
“She was an innocent girl”—Jack frowned at Sylph—“who met Seth Lot. When she realized what he was and tried to twist from his grasp—with a hatchet—he killed her and made her into a Jill.”
Christie whispered, “I hate this place.”
Jill Scarlet returned with a basket of tangerines, dark bread, cheese, a bottle of black wine, and a carton of Fig Newtons.