LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Awkward Reunions

And then it's over. That's a nice and simple way to put it. Whoever that guy in the stag's head was—good or evil, man or monster—he's dead.

I ... I did what I had to do, right? I don't remember most of it, and I don't want to. Instead, I get these little flashes—a whole lot of blood and a whole lot more screaming. In the back of my mind, I can still hear it, that sound that a human makes when they die. I can't forget that part.

I used to think I could save everyone, but now I know that I can't. Not everyone is going to make it out alive. In order to save as many as I can when we face off with the Glass Man, I'm going to have to do some things that I'll never want to remember.

... and then there's the hunger.

The more you eat, the hungrier you are.

That feeling, a gnawing feeling deep in my gut, ... it's not completely gone. It was like ... hell, there's nothing else like it. It keeps you moving. Your whole body surrenders to it. You shake and then there's something that's like an echo and then a roaring. You have to keep moving, have to keep going so you can feed it. It's that hunger, deeper than what the dark ones feel. It's what they all fear. It's what has allowed the Huntsman to survive. He feeds that hunger, but it's twisted him from that prince of the Tylwyth Teg to the thing that he is now.

With the Huntsman's family and entire kingdom gone, that's what replaced them—the hunger.

There was ripping and tearing ... and the guy in the stag's head ...

I can feel myself slipping back into that small bit of a memory. No. There's saving Belle Lake. And Grim. And there's Jamie, too.

All of my friends need for me to get the Huntsman to Belle Lake. And they all need for the Glass Man to lose, and I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen.

But if I'm going to do anything, I have to open my eyes. So I do. After stretching my legs and moving my fingers (it feels pretty damn good to have fingers again, and it feels really great to actually have a body), I sit up. I'm not in the Huntsman's Bānhūs. While my soul was all warped and part of the Hunt, did my body just walk out here? No, I'm guessing that one of the curs brought me here to the woods and dressed me (hopefully, not in that order).

It's around three in the afternoon. With how I've been kicked around and attacked by monsters, I'm surprised that my watch still works. That should go in a commercial. Yep, even after a few cemetery hounds, wendigo and impending doom, you can still know the time when you're about to die ...

Then I feel claws on me. That's when I realize where I am. This is where I first met Grim and where I can slip into Belle Lake.

The Hunt stands behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the Huntsman on Zephyrys. Blood streaks his face and chest. He's holding a spear that's about seven feet long, with its tip sticking straight up toward the sky. A rectangular green banner with a silver stag that's rearing up has has been tied about a foot from the metal point. An army of curs clusters around him. A couple of them have poles that also have banners hanging on them. Except these are all shredded and torn up and have eagles on them. Those have to be the ones from Tylwyth Teg, from when the Once-Kingdom was lost to the Stone Hounds.

The curs start to lope forward, but the Huntsman stops them. He then points to me, letting me know that I have to go first. Maybe it's to show Belle Lake that they didn't kill me, that they're not here to fight the Old Bone Woman and the other monsters here.

With me at the head of the column, we all head into Belle Lake. Each step is like I have one-hundred-pound weights tied to my ankles. It's as if the magic here just doesn't want the Huntsman anywhere near it.