Rough Justice Read online

  Rough Justice

  Copyright (c) 2018 by KLA Fricke Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Dust jacket illustration Copyright (c) 2018 by Xaviere Daumarie.

  All rights reserved.

  Print version interior design Copyright (c) 2018 by Desert Isle Design, LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  Electronic Edition

  ISBN

  978-1-59606-857-5

  Subterranean Press

  PO Box 190106

  Burton, MI 48519

  subterraneanpress.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  One

  Olivia

  Tonight I would watch a man die for his crimes. I would hunt him down and let a pack of giant black hounds rip him to death and send his soul to the afterlife, and I would trust that he had done something to deserve it.

  I was struggling with that concept.

  Not the part where I'd hunt him or even watch him die. I'd seen a man torn apart by a cwn before, and while I didn't intend to closely observe the process, I did not have an issue with the overall idea of it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.

  I believed in the Cwn Annwn, in their purpose on earth. The Welsh Wild Hunt, tasked with wreaking vengeance on humans who murder those with fae blood. Did those crimes deserve such a fate? Sometimes. Other times, though, it was indeed rough justice. But justice it was. When you take a life--intentionally and maliciously--you must accept that you may receive the same in return.

  My problem with tonight's Hunt? The part where I didn't know what our quarry had actually done.

  I had chosen not to know. I'd seen that as purpose. Resolution. Faith, too, which doesn't come easily to me. I trusted that the Cwn Annwn were justified in their actions, and so for my first Hunt, I would prove that by not asking for details.

  Yeah...

  A noble sentiment, which lasted only until the moment of truth loomed.

  I sat on my horse, leaning forward, hand rubbing her neck, trying to calm my nerves with her warmth. She felt those nerves, though, and her left ear twitched.

  "Dwi'n iawn, Rhyddhad," I said, reassuring her I was okay.

  A soft whinny suggested I might be lying.

  Rhyddhad looked like a regular horse--a young gray mare--just as the cwns looked like regular hounds. They were, in their way. That is, they weren't shape-shifting humanoid fae. But they were fae beasts, and they understood us better than mortal ones.

  Rhyddhad and I were on an empty stretch of country road, outside Chicago. Waiting for our quarry to arrive.

  The Hunt must take place in a forest. That was traditionally the domain of the Cwn Annwn, and back in ancient Wales, the restriction had been no restriction at all as people passed through forest regularly. It was trickier in the modern world. And in Chicago? A city of three million people...? Let's just say that it was a good thing the local Cwn Annwn pack had been here for centuries, with time to adjust and improvise. Time to learn how to get even the most urban-dwelling killer to a patch of woods.

  It helped, too, that they only needed to conduct a proper Hunt a few times a year. That meant plenty of time to use their tricks--both human and supernatural--to get their prey where they wanted him.

  This time, they were lucky--their target worked in Chicago but lived outside it. He passed daily along this wooded road, and he often drove past dark.

  It'd been almost a week ago when Ioan--leader of the local Cwn Annwn--came to me and said, "We have one. Are you ready?"

  I was. There wasn't any doubt of that. I was the new Mallt-y-Nos. Matilda of the Night. Matilda of the Hunt. I had accepted that role, and along with it, I accepted this responsibility.

  When headlights bobbed down the empty road, hooves tapped across the pavement, a rider coming to my side, a cwn loping beside him, her tongue lolling.

  "Looks like we have a winner," Ricky said as he reined in. "Dark sedan headed this way, right on time."

  He smiled, but it wasn't his usual grin. He was on edge, too, and his horse--Tywysog Du--shook his head, breath streaming in the cool spring air.

  "We doing this?" he said.

  "I guess so."

  He inched Tywysog Du closer and reached to squeeze my arm. Ricky Gallagher. Former lover, current best friend--a feat I was still amazed we'd managed. It took work, but it was important to both of us, and six months later, we were settled into the new relationship.

  This would be Ricky's first Hunt, too. The first time we fully inhabited our ancient roles--me as Matilda and him as Arawn, Lord of the Otherworld, legendary king of the Cwn Annwn. There was a third party in this configuration. Gwynn ap Nudd, even more legendary king of the fae, the Tylwyth Teg. But Gabriel had no place here. Not tonight.

  "Is that the car?" Ioan asked, his quiet voice traveling through the silence.

  Another of the Cwn Annwn--Meic--peered down the road with binoculars. Yes, just regular binoculars. The Huntsmen were blessed with near-perfect night vision, but not bionic sight, and unlike most fae, they embraced human tech.

  "It's definitely a dark sedan," Meic said. "Could be an Audi..."

  "You realize you have an expert, right?" Ricky called to him.

  Ioan chuckled and waved for Meic to bring the binoculars to me.

  My Cwn Annwn blood gave me decent night vision, but it wasn't like theirs, and I had to squint to make out the oncoming vehicle.

  "We've got a BMW," I said, as it came over a dip a hundred feet away.

  I only needed to nudge Rhyddhad. She knew what that meant: get the hell away from the roadside before some poor stranger goes into a tailspin seeing a pack of giant hounds and horsemen.

  Human folklore said that if you spotted the Hunt, you'd die. That wasn't exactly true. Yes, if you spotted them, and they were there for you, I'd suggest an emergency call to check your life insurance policy. But for any culture with Wild Hunt folklore, the fear of them was ingrained, and the Cwn Annwn preferred not to send innocent humans into mindless panic, especially when they were behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

  So the horses and hounds headed into the field, not unlike city kids playing road hockey when someone called "Car!"

  I watched the vehicle as it passed and... "Shit!"

  There was the dark blue Audi we were waiting for--a few car lengths behind the BMW.

  "Brenin!" Ioan shouted, alerting the alpha cwn.

  The hound whipped around, but he was too far from the road. The closest to it was Ricky's cwn, Lloergan. She suffered from old injuries, meaning she hadn't kept up when we bolted for the field.

  "Lloe?" Ricky called, but she was already veering as Brenin barked a command.

  Lloergan ran back to the road. The BMW was gone, the Audi coming fast. The cwn wasn't going to make it. And if she did...

  Lloergan leapt onto the road right in front of the Audi. I shouted, "No!" as the car went into a spin.

  "I can't see Lloe," I whispered, leaning over Rhyddhad's neck. "Where's...?"

  I spotted her then...lying on the road.

  Ricky st
arted forward, but Ioan cut him off, saying, "No."

  Ricky let out a growl, and his horse stamped.

  "She's getting up," I said as I peered through the binoculars. "She's limping, though."

  Ricky cursed under his breath. Tywysog Du continued stamping.

  "Wait," Ioan said. "Just wait."

  The Audi had stopped spinning. The BMW driver either didn't notice what happened behind him or pretended he didn't, as the car's rear lights faded into the night.

  The Audi driver's door opened. A man stepped out. As soon as he saw Lloergan, she toppled over.

  The man looked around, as if assessing his chances of getting back into his vehicle and taking off. Not exactly a choice that warranted the death penalty, but if I was looking for signs that this guy was an asshole, I could take this.

  He gave Lloergan only a cursory glance. Then he bent to examine the front end of his car.

  Yep, definitely an asshole.

  The man got down on all fours to check for damage on the undercarriage.

  "The front end's fine," Ricky murmured.

  I was about to ask what he meant when Lloergan pushed up, slowly. The guy didn't notice--she was behind him, and he was intent on seeing what damage she'd done to his precious car.

  Through the binoculars, I saw her lips pull back in a growl. The man glanced over his shoulder and then gave a very satisfying start.

  Lloergan advanced, her head lowered, fur on end, inflating the big dog to the size of a bear. The guy scrambled up. She let out a snarl loud enough for me to hear.

  The guy inched toward his open driver's door. He made it three steps. Then Brenin came tearing across the field, two other cwns on his heels. The man bolted for his car, but Brenin was racing across the road, and the guy clambered onto the hood of his car instead. He stood up there, looking down at Brenin and Lloergan, the other two dogs approaching. Then he peered along the empty road.

  He took out his cell phone. Hit a button. Peered at it.

  "Yeah, that's not going to work," Ricky said.

  In today's world, if you were beset by giant hounds, help was only a call away. Unless there was a high-tech cell-phone blocker...attached to the collar of the lead hound.

  The cwns circled the car patiently, allowing the man to realize that calling for help wasn't an option. Then Brenin leapt onto the hood. The man slid down into the opening they'd left, and he started to run as the hounds herded him toward the waiting forest.

  "And that's our cue," Ioan said, handing Ricky and me each a bundle. "We let the hounds tire him while we dress."

  "Our cloaking devices," Ricky said, shaking his out. "Appropriately in the form of an actual cloak."

  Ioan waved for one of the others to accompany Ricky into a patch of forest so he could put on his cloak, turning him into a true Huntsman. While Ricky and I had ridden with the Cwn Annwn on recreational hunts, this would be our first time donning the official costume.

  When I started after Ricky, Ioan said, "Wait," and motioned for me to follow him to a larger patch of trees.

  As we rode, he said, "Have you changed your mind? About wanting to know what our quarry has done?"

  I shook my head, but not before I hesitated a moment too long.

  "You can ask what he's done, Liv," he said.

  When I didn't respond, he said, "If you think you need to prove anything by not asking, please remember that you aren't the only one who is anxious to do this right. You are our Matilda. The only one we've ever had, and the only one we'll ever get. Having you ride strengthens us. That's why you're doing it, and we realize that, so we want you to be comfortable."

  "You know he's guilty."

  He nodded, but I meant it as a statement. Huntsmen had the innate ability to see guilt. It was like the old saying about guilt being written on a face. They knew their target deserved their justice, and so they didn't dig deeper. With my Cwn Annwn blood, I should have that same faith.

  "It doesn't work like that," he said.

  I gave him a hard look.

  He threw up his free hand, the other loosely holding the reins. "If you don't want me to read your thoughts, don't make them so easy to read. It's like speaking and expecting me to not listen. You cannot have our faith because you are not us. Yours would be blind faith. Ours isn't--we know they are guilty. Lacking that ability, you need evidence to develop honest--and open-eyed--faith in our powers. Which is why I urged you to investigate first. That's what you do. It's how your mind works, Liv."

  He was right. I was an investigator by trade now, for Gabriel's law firm. But that was the problem. Gabriel was a defense lawyer, so my job was to keep people from what was, sometimes, proper justice. Which I supposed made me a lousy Matilda. But while my father had Cwn Annwn blood, my mother--like Gabriel--was part fae, and their sense of ethics was a whole lot looser. Put those two sides together, and you got me: someone who was fine with setting a criminal free if the prosecutor failed to do his job, but who also believed that if you committed a crime, you needed to be prepared to pay the price.

  "How much do you know about what he did?" I asked.

  "His name and the very basics of the crime." He stopped his horse. "If you have any concerns, Ricky can join us on this Hunt, and you'll come the next time after you've done your research and are convinced that target is guilty."

  "I can't ever know that, short of an actual confession. All the investigation in the world only builds certainty. It never seals it." I shook my head. "No, this is better. You know the guy is guilty, and that's enough. But I will take what you have on him."

  "Will that help?"

  He told me what he knew. And I immediately saw a problem. A big one.

  Two

  Gabriel

  While Olivia was off on her first Hunt, Gabriel sat in a bar, drinking with a young woman who very clearly was hoping for more than pleasant conversation. Personally, he'd rather be at home working. Or with Olivia. But that was not permitted, so instead, he was doing her a favor by taking another woman for drinks.

  The woman in question was a relatively new assistant state's attorney. So new that she actually thought asking Gabriel to drinks to "discuss their case" was a good idea. It was a common error, though not one that was commonly repeated. Some of the younger attorneys looked at Gabriel, saw a young and unattached attorney and thought they knew exactly how to beat him in court. Oddly, the fact that he hadn't been unattached for the past six months seemed to have no effect on the invitations.

  Before Olivia, he had been known to accept invitations, finding them very useful. Not for sex, of course, but for the same reason these lawyers asked him--to gain valuable information. He just happened to be much better at the game than they were.

  Gabriel had agreed to tonight's invitation as a gift for Olivia. Something to cheer her up after the Hunt. To distract her, if she needed distracting. Of course he had other ways of distracting her in the short term, but beyond that, she would require more. His gift would be information on a case that was stymieing her, a case to be argued by Amy Keating, the attorney sitting across from him.

  Ms. Keating was not particularly enjoying her evening. Gabriel could tell by the way she kept shifting in her seat. And the way she kept ordering refills, growing increasingly frustrated. Gabriel seemed oblivious to her flirting, and he wasn't getting refills, which meant she couldn't hope for an alcohol-loosened tongue. In fact, he barely seemed to have touched his drink. He hadn't, actually, not beyond a lip-wetting sip. Gabriel didn't drink unless he was with Olivia and comfortable with letting down his guard. Having an alcoholic drug addict for a mother tended to squelch any interest in social imbibing.

  For all Ms. Keating's frustration, though, it was proving to be quite a productive meeting for him. The younger lawyer wasn't very good at this sort of manipulation. Getting information from a source required a degree of quid pro quo. You needed to give something first. The trick was to only provide details they could easily find themselves. Instead, Ms. Keating was lu
ring him in with genuine tidbits, and when she didn't receive nibbles, she threw out bigger lures. The alcohol certainly didn't help her judgment.

  What Gabriel really wanted was her cell phone. Ms. Keating was trying to cajole a reluctant witness onto the stand, and Olivia needed his name. Gabriel knew exactly where to find it--in Ms. Keating's call records. While it was possible to obtain those in other ways, this was the safest method. Safe for Gabriel, at least, who'd been picking pockets since he was a child.

  When he finally did take the phone from Ms. Keating's open purse, the timing was not so much about the perfect opportunity to steal it, but rather the perfect time to have stolen it...as she began glancing about for the ladies room.

  When she returned he watched for any sign that she'd realized her phone was missing. If so, he'd slip it onto the floor. But she only sat down and started talking again, and he deftly returned it to her purse. Then, goal accomplished, he had to suppress the urge to leave. That would look suspicious. So they talked, a tedious conversation he could barely bring himself to follow. When his phone dinged with a text, he took it quickly with an "Excuse me."

  As he opened the message, Ms. Keating said, "Girlfriend checking up on you?"

  "No, she's out for the evening." He caught her look and added, "With Ricky Gallagher."

  Ms. Keating's blink confirmed she knew who Ricky was. He hardly needed to divulge that, but he couldn't resist really. Not after she'd smirked when he said Olivia was away, as if Gabriel had snuck out to have drinks with her while Olivia was otherwise occupied.

  "Isn't he...the biker?"

  Gabriel fixed her with a baleful look. "Mr. Gallagher is the member of a motorcycle club."

  "Right, but I mean, weren't they...together?"

  "Yes, and now they are friends. Olivia said hello, by the way. I asked her to join us, but her plans with Ricky were apparently more enticing."

  Ms. Keating's mouth opened, and nothing came out, which gave him time to read his text. It was from his aunt, which explained why he'd been in no hurry to read it. There was only one reason Rose texted him at this hour, and as he read the message, his stomach tightened.

  "I need to go," he said, rising. "A sick relative requires my attention."

  She snorted a laugh. "I think you can do better than that, counselor."

  He met her gaze, his pale blue eyes fixing on hers, and she shrank back.