Marie Brennan - Midnight Never Come

The Wild Hunt rode to destroy the London Stone.

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: May 9, 1590

The wind was already stirring, fleeing before the oncoming storm, when Lune reached the western porch of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

“The entrances will be watched, my lady,” Gertrude had said, when word came that the irrevocable move was made, the Wild Hunt was alerted to the secret of the London Stone, and the battle would take place under the full moon. “But there’s one she cannot guard against you.”

St. Paul’s and the White Tower. The two original entrances to the Onyx Hall, created in the light of the eclipse. The latter lay within the confines of a royal fortress, and would have its own protection below.

But the former lay on Christian ground. No faerie guard could stay there long, however fortified with mortal bread he might be. None had passed through it since Invidiana had confined Francis Merriman to the chambers below.

The only question was whether it would open for Lune.

She passed the booksellers’ stalls, closed up for the night. The wind sent refuse rattling against their walls. A snarl split the air, and she halted in her tracks. Light flashed across the city, and then from the sky above, a roar.

She glimpsed them briefly, past the cathedral’s spire. Dame Halgresta Nellt, towering to a height she could never reach in the Onyx Hall. Sir Kentigern, at his sister’s right hand, howling a challenge at the oncoming storm. Sir Prigurd, at the left, his blunt features composed in an expression of dutiful resolution. She had always liked Prigurd the best. He was not as brutal as his siblings, and he was that rarity in the Onyx Hall: a courtier who served out of loyalty, however misplaced.

They stood at the head of the Onyx Guard, whose elf knights blazed in martial glory. Their armor gleamed silver and black and emerald, and their horses danced beneath them, tatterfoals and brags and grants eager to leap into battle. Behind stood the massed ranks of the infantry, boggarts and barguests, hobyahs and gnomes, all the goblins and pucks and even homely little hobs who could be mustered to fight in defense of their home.

The Onyx Hall. It was their home. A dark one, and twisted by its malevolent Queen, but home nonetheless.

Before the night was done, the Wild Hunt might reduce it to rubble.

But if Lune let herself question that price, she would be lost before she ever started.

The great doors of the western porch swung open at her approach. Stepping within, she felt holiness pressing against her skin, weirdly close and yet distant; the waiting tension of the angel’s kiss thrummed within her. Like a sign shown to sentries, it allowed her passage.

She did not know what she sought, but the angel’s power resonated with it, like a string coming into tune. There. A patch of floor like any other in the nave; when she stepped on it, the shock ran up her bones.

Here, faerie magic erupted upward. Here, holy rites saturated the ground. Here, London opened downward, into its dark reflection.

Lune knelt and laid one hand against the stone of the floor. The charm that governed the entrance spoke to her fingers. Francis had prayed, the words of God bringing him from one world to the other without any eyes seeing him. For her, the angelic touch sufficed.

Had any observer been there to watch, the floor would have remained unchanged. But to Lune’s eyes, the slabs of stone folded away, revealing a staircase that led downward.

She had no time to waste. Gathering her courage, Lune hurried below — and prayed the threat of the Hunt had done its job.

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 9, 1590

The marble walls resonated with the thunder above, trembling, but holding strong.

Seated upon her throne, Invidiana might have been a statue. Her face betrayed no tension — had been nothing but a frozen mask since a hideous female giant brought word that the Wild Hunt rode against London.

Whatever he might say against her, Deven had to grant Invidiana this: she was indeed a Queen. She gave orders crisply, sending her minions running, and in less time than he would have believed possible, the defense of the Onyx Hall was mustered.

The presence chamber was all but empty. Those who had not gone to the battle had departed, hiding in their chambers, or fleeing entirely, in the hope of finding some safety.

Most, but not all. Invidiana, motionless upon her throne, was flanked by two elf knights, black-haired twin brothers. They stood with swords unsheathed, prepared to defend her with their lives. A human woman with a wasted, sunken face and dead eyes crouched at the foot of the dais.

And Achilles stood near Deven, clad only in sandals and a loincloth, his body tense with desire to join in the slaughter.

The thunder grew stronger, until the entire chamber shook. A crashing sound: some of the filigree had detached from between the arches, and plummeted to the floor. Deven glanced up, then rolled out of the way just in time to save himself as an entire pane of crystal shattered upon the stones.

Achilles laughed at him, fingers caressing the hilt of the archaic Greek sword he wore.

Where was Lune, in it all? Up in the sky, riding with the Hunt to save him? Battling at some entrance against guards that would keep her from the Onyx Hall?

Would she bring the miracle he needed?

He hoped so. But a miracle would not be enough; when she arrived, Achilles and the two elf knights would destroy her.

His sword was gone, broken in the battle against Achilles; he had not even a knife with which to defend himself. And he had no chance of simply snatching a weapon from the mortal or the knights. While he struggled with one, the others would get him from behind.

His eye fell upon the debris that now littered the floor, and a thought came to him.

They said Suspiria had called her lover Tiresias, for his gift. She had clearly continued the practice, naming Achilles for the great warrior of Greek legend.

Deven glanced upward. More elements of the structure were creaking, cracking; he dove suddenly to one side, as if fearing another would fall on him. The movement brought him closer to Achilles, and when he rose to a kneeling position, a piece of crystal was cold in his palm, its razor edges drawing blood.

He lashed out, and slashed the crystal across the backs of Achilles’s vulnerable heels.

The man screamed and collapsed to the floor. Downed, but not dead, and Deven could take no chances. He seized a fragment of silver filigree and slammed it down onto his enemy’s head, smashing his face to bloody ruin and sending the muscled body limp.

He got the man’s sword into his hand just in time to meet the rush of the knights.

The palace groaned and shook under the assault of the battle above. How long would the Nellt siblings and their army hold off the Wild Hunt?

She ran flat out for the presence chamber. The rooms and galleries were deserted; everyone had gone to fight, or fled. Everywhere was debris, decorations knocked to the floor by the rattling blasts. And then the doors of the presence chamber were before her, closed tight, but without their usual guard. She should pause, listen at the crack, try to discover who was inside, but she could not stop; she lacked both the time and the courage.

Lune hit the doors and flung herself into the room beyond.

A wiry arm locked around her throat the instant she came through, and someone dragged her backward. Lune clawed behind herself, arms flailing. Fingers caught in matted hair. Eurydice. Sun and Moon, she knows….

Achilles lay in a pool of his own blood along one wall. Sir Cunobel of the Onyx Guard groaned on the floor not far away, struggling and failing to rise. But his twin Cerenel was still on his feet, and at the point of his sword, pinned with his back to a column, Michael Deven.