Force hit the charhound low on its front legs, and the beast’s head went into the concrete at breakneck speed—literally. There was a terrible snapping sound, and the charhound’s limp body went tumbling end over end, bouncing up into the air for a dozen yards before landing, shedding wisps of darkness all the way.

What landed in a boneless sprawl on the road was not a dog, or a canine of any sort. It was a young man—a human, wearing a black T-shirt and torn old blue jeans. I barely had time to register that before the body tumbled off the road and was out of sight.

“Good shot!” Karrin cried, grinning fiercely. She was driving. She hadn’t seen what was under the hound’s outer shell.

So that was how one joined the Wild Hunt. It was a mask, a huge, dark, terrifying mask—a masquerade.

And I’d just killed a man.

I didn’t get any time to feel angst over it. Karrin gunned the engine of the Harley and it surged ahead, running along the spit of land that bifurcates Jackson Harbor. Even as she did, two riders descended, one on either side of the road, their steeds’ hooves hammering against empty air about five feet up. Like the charhound, the steeds and riders were covered in a smoky darkness through which shone the amber fire of their eyes.

Karrin saw the one on the right and tried to move left again—but the second rider pressed in closer, the dark horse’s hooves nearly hammering onto our heads, and she wobbled and gunned the accelerator.

I recognized another hunter’s tactic. The first had forced us to close distance with the second. They were driving us between them, trying to make us panic and think about nothing but running straight ahead—in a nice, smooth, predictable line.

The second rider lifted an arm and he held the dark shape of a spear in his hand. He hurled it forward, leading the target perfectly. I flung up my left hand, extending my shield spell. It got mixed results. The spear flew into it and through it, shredding my magic as it went—but instead of flying into my face, the spear was deflected just enough that its blade sliced across the back of my neck, leaving a line of burning pain behind it.

The adrenaline was flowing and the pain didn’t matter. Hell, it really didn’t matter if the wound had opened an artery—it wasn’t as though I could stop to get medical attention if it had. I twisted around to fling another bolt of force at the rider, but he lifted a hand and let out an eerie screech, and my attack was dispersed, doing little more than inconveniencing my target. His horse lost a step or two, but he dug black spurs into the beast’s hide and it soon made up the pace.

Big surprise, magic wasn’t a big threat to the Huntsmen.

Solution: Winchester.

I drew the rifle from the rack on the Harley, thumbed back the hammer while still holding it in one hand, then twisted at the waist to bring it to bear on the rider, the heavy weapon’s forearm falling into my left hand. I didn’t have much time to aim, and it might have actually been counterproductive, given our speed, the irregularities of the chase, the darkness, and the rain. Plus, I’m not exactly Annie Oakley. So I made a best guess and pulled the trigger.

The rifle let out a crack of thunder, and a burst of disintegrated shadow flew up from the shoulder and neck and jawline of the rider. I got a look at the armor beneath the mask, and a portion of his face, and realized with renewed terror that I’d just put a bullet into the Erlking.

And an instant later I realized with a surge of incandescent hope that I’d just put a bullet into the Erlking on Halloween night.

The Erlking reeled in the saddle, and his horse faltered and veered away, gaining altitude again. I levered a new round into the chamber, gripped the weapon like a pistol, and whirled it back over Karrin’s ducked head to point it one-handed at the rider on the right, who was even now making his own approach, spear uplifted.

I guessed again and shot. I didn’t hit him, but the thunder of the gun came just as he flung the spear. I didn’t rattle the rider, but the flame-eyed horse flinched, and the spear flew wide of us. The rider was not deterred. He brought his steed under control first—then he let out a weird, bubbling screech and swept a long, dark-bladed sword from the scabbard at his side. He started closing the distance again.

It was impossible to lever another round into the rifle quickly while riding behind Karrin. That thing John Wayne does, whirling the rifle one-handed to cock it? It really helps if you have one of those enlarged, oblong lever handles to do it with, and mine was the smaller, traditional rectangle. Also, it helps to be John Wayne. I had to draw the rifle into my chest and hold it steady with my left hand to get it done. The rider swerved in at us and I shot again—and missed as his steed juked and abruptly changed speed, briefly falling back before boring in again.

I repeated that cycle three times before I realized that the rider was playing me for a sucker. He respected the gun, but knew its weakness: me. He wasn’t dodging bullets—he was dodging me, tempting me into taking shots with little chance of success in an effort to get me to use up my ammo.

And all the while, the rest of the Hunt kept pace with us: dozens of riders like this one, plus maybe twice that many shadowy hounds, all keeping about fifty yards back and up, clearly giving the first two hunters the honor of first attempt.

“His horse!” Karrin screamed. “Shoot the horse!”

I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to do that. For all I knew, that thing was only a horse costume—there could be another human being underneath that shadowy outer shell.

The rider screeched again, the sound weirdly familiar and completely hair-raising. Again and again he came in on us, and I kept holding him off as we raced at insane speed through the rainy night, trading bullets for time.

“There!” I shouted suddenly, pointing off to our left. “Over there! The walls!”

We had reached the old steelwork grounds.

Karrin gunned the engine and swept the Harley out onto the open ground, racing frantically toward one of the only structures remaining—a trio of concrete walls maybe thirty or forty feet high, running parallel to one another for at least a quarter of mile—the last remains of U.S. Steel.

As the steed’s hooves started hitting the ground, they abruptly threw off clouds of angry silver sparks with every strike. The dark horse screeched in agony and I let out a howl of defiance—after a century of labor in the steel mills, there had to be unreal levels of trace steel and iron in the ground where they had stood—and whatever power sustained the Wild Hunt didn’t like it any more than the other beings of Faerie did.

“Between the walls!” I shouted. “Go, go, go!”

“That’s crazy!” Karrin shouted.

“I know!”

She guided the Harley around a pile of rubble and raced into the heavy shadows between two of the walls, and the rider was right on us as she did.

“Closer!” I screamed. “Force him to the wall!”

“Why!”

A quarter of a mile goes by fast on a roaring Harley—and the only thing in front of us was the cold water of Lake Michigan. “Hurry!” I shrieked.

“Agh!” Karrin howled, and abruptly the Harley slowed and cut right.

In an instant, we were even with the rider, and though no expression could show through the darkness surrounding his face, his body language was one of shock.

Now for the dangerous part, I thought. Which made me start giggling. Now it was getting dangerous.