Alpha Omega 02 - Hunting Ground

instrument of our justice. We gift you with Finding and with this.” Sunny’s hand lifted, and in it was a dagger with a blade a few inches longer than her forearm. The handle was bone or ivory, it was difficult to tell. “Take Carnwennen as the means. Your mate’s life as the reason. Our geas as the cost. True love your reward. Remind her of the Wild Hunt.”
    Anna made no move to touch the dagger. “Who are you?”
    â€œWe are the Gray Lords. The one who makes the dead talk is she who takes the dead of the battlefield.” Sunny’s body jerked, the dagger fell from her hand to the bed. “Hurry, or he will die, and you will be left with justice and vengeance your only reward.”
    Sunny’s eyes closed, and her body was once more just a body. Anna reached over her and took the dagger, part of her waiting for Sunny to grab her wrist. But nothing happened until she touched the dagger.
    Then, magic curled up her hand, first warming her skin where it touched the dagger, then cooling it. A gift of Finding, the Gray Lords had said, and a reward of true love.
    â€œWhere is Dana Shea?” she said. And she knew.

THIRTEEN

    SHE took the stairs in two jumps and ran out the door, brushing past Tom and ignoring Angus’s shout. She ran past the parked cars and out into the street, turning down toward the water. Of course Dana would be headed toward the water.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Tom asked, running beside her.
    â€œCarnwennen the means,” Anna told him, showing him the dagger.
    He stumbled once, but caught up to her. “Fae shit,” he said.
    â€œThe Gray Lords,” Anna agreed. “Carnwennen the means. Justice the cause. True love the reward. Their geas the cost.”
    â€œZapped,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “Yeah, Angus. The fae got to her. Best I can figure it, they’re sending Anna out after Dana—can’t think they’d be concerned with the vampire who escaped, and he’s the only other player in this. She’s speaking goobledygook, but it sounds to me like maybe they’ve promised her it’ll save Charles.”
    â€œStay with her. Help her if you can.” Angus sounded frustrated. “He’s going to kill me if something happens to her.”
    â€œCharles?” Anna asked through the haze that kept her running away from him.
    â€œYes, him too—though I was talking about Bran.”
    She made an impatient sound.
    â€œCharles is still with us,” Angus said. “Moira says if Dana did this, that probably it’ll stop with her death. But fae are hard to kill.”
    â€œOh, I think that the dagger they gave Anna will kill a fae all right,” Tom said. “Stinks to high heaven of magic. And it has a name. Fae things that have a name will usually kill just about anything. Do you know of a dagger called—Carnwellen?”
    Angus repeated the question for the only one at Arthur’s house who couldn’t just listen in to the whole conversation. “Moira, do you know of a dagger called Carnwellen?”
    â€œCarn wennen ?” Moira squeaked.
    â€œProbably. Tom said the other.”
    â€œCarnwennen was King Arthur’s dagger. Little White Hilt, it means. Arthur used it to hunt the Very Black Witch.”
    â€œIt has a white hilt,” observed Tom. “Doesn’t look all that little to me. ’Bout as long as her forearm, almost enough to be a short sword instead of a dagger.”
    â€œIt couldn’t have been too little,” said Moira, when Tom’s reply had been repeated for her. “He supposedly cut the witch in half with it.”
    Anna saw Tom look at the dagger again.
    â€œYes,” he said. “I think it might be good for something like that.”
    â€œKeep safe,” Angus told him.
    â€œRemember,” Moira said, urgently. “Never trust the fae.”
    Anna frowned, “The troll told us that.”
    â€œTold you what?” Tom asked.
    But Anna was more concerned with finding Dana than in repeating herself. A paved trail broke off from the road, and Tom caught her arm, pulling her to a stop. “Anna, are we going to Dana’s boat?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she told him—and pointed her finger. “That way.”
    â€œWe could have taken a car, you know?” he said, folding his cell phone closed with one hand and stuffing it into a pocket.
    He was wrong.