The Watchtower

was no flesh over the right side of his face, only bloody sinew.
    He chuckled. “My outfit, you say? This is what a thousand years of riding to the hounds does to a man … oh, yes, I was a man once. A fine man, a ruler, with palaces and châteaus and hunting grounds of my own. I liked nothing more than to ride to the hounds whenever I could. I liked it so well I tired of chasing fox and pheasant and boar and instead began to chase more interesting … game.”
    His blackened tongue swished over his bloodied lips. “Only one day I made the mistake of pursuing a creature who wasn’t human. A woodland nymph who in the moment of capture cried out to her sisters to punish me. It was Sylvianne and her kind who cursed me to this … life, if you want to call it that. An eternity of riding to the hounds. If I ever dismount, they’ll devour me. See, even now they lap at my blood.”
    I looked down and saw that indeed the creatures swarming on the ground were licking the blood-flecked dust with their long black tongues. Even the satyrs. I felt bile rise in my throat.
    “So, you can’t give me passage to the Summer Country?” I asked, anxious to terminate this interview.
    “Sure,” he said, extending a blackened hand out to me. “Ride with me for a bit and we’ll look for it together.”
    “Um, no thank you. I think I’ll go by foot. I’m sorry to have troubled you. I guess this was Sylvianne’s idea of a joke.” I saw that now. She probably liked taunting Hellequin by sending hapless women such as myself to ask him for favors he couldn’t grant.
    “Yes, she’s probably laughing about it now with her latest pet … unless…” His bloody lips pulled back over blackened gums and I realized he was smiling.
    “Unless what?” I asked, adding a hopeful (hopeful that I didn’t look as nauseated as I felt) smile.
    “I do have an idea of who to send you to. A fey who once took pity on me and gave me a cool drink of water from her spring as I rode through the Forest of Coulombiers—Melusine. She’d know the way to the Summer Country. You’ll find her at the Château of Lusignan.”
    I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the Château of Lusignan was rubble and that Melusine wasn’t anywhere near there. The last time I’d seen her in the flesh had been at Governors Island in New York, and she’d been dissolving into a puddle of goo.
    “Thank you,” I said, feeling oddly reluctant to disappoint him. Why? I wondered. He’d been a rapist in life and he was still abducting innocent young women. What happened to them anyway…?
    A gust of wind gave me the answer. Hidden in the folds of his cloak was the woman in the capris and fisherman’s shirt. She was clinging to Hellequin’s back, her eyes squeezed shut. She looked thinner than she had earlier … and as I watched, she grew even thinner. She was evaporating, leaving only a husk of skin behind her that clung to the shreds of cloth that made up Hellequin’s cloak … which weren’t shreds of cloth at all, but the husks of Hellequin’s previous victims. Okay. I didn’t feel bad for him anymore, just anxious to get away. Besides, I’d just recalled where to find Melusine.
    “I’ll be going now,” I said, taking a tentative step backward. The hounds and satyrs parted to let me go.
    Hellequin gave me another grotesque smile. “Good luck on your travels, Garet James, and remember, if you ever get tired of walking, just call my name and I’d be happy to give you a ride. I’ll keep an eye out for you.” He flicked his cloak over his shoulder and I saw the faces of his victims distend with pain. Then he was gone in a whoosh of hoofbeats that made me want to take to my heels. It took every nerve in my body to make myself walk out of that forest without breaking into a run.

16
    The Black Bird
    “On the way back, I’ve got to stop for a wee time to pick up a passenger,” the driver said to Will as his horses and carriage trotted out of Dee’s front yard. “Hope you don’t mind, Sir Hughes.”
    Will was startled. This was the same driver who had brought him up from London; he hadn’t observed any change in his appearance or attire when awakening him just now. But he was almost certain that his voice had changed to a deeper, gruffer one, with more of a brogue.
    “Sir?”
    “I don’t mind,” Will said. “I’m quite tired, but I assume your passenger will be punctual?”
    “That he will be, sir! Yes!” the driver responded, with