He ran, stumbling through the dark, to find himself at the end of a long alley. The end was lost in mist and darkness. The buildings stretched so tall that they leaned in toward each other. He had not choice to be keep going forward, there was no where to hide. The hounds chasing him were getting closer. Their howls echoing off the alley walls.  

    Just as he reached the mist, it solidified into a wall, blocking even that chance of escape. Turning, he tried to flatten himself against the wall. He wished for his gun, willed it to appear in his hand, but it never did. 

    The hounds appeared out of the mist. A pair of beasts, each the height of his chest, stalked toward him on large round feet. Wiry white hair hung into yellow eyes. One of the beasts was completely white, the other had red ears. They looked at him with an intelligence that unnerved him. He started to shake. The pure white one started to growl, the low sound vibrating up out of his massive chest. They leapt at him.

    Nathan threw up his arms to ward off the attack. 

***

Nathan woke himself with a cry, his arms flung out in front of him. Expelling a ragged sigh of relief, he stretched out across the bed. His searching fingers stopped when he realized what he was doing. Groaning, he pushed himself up and sat with his legs off the side of the bed. His head rested in his hands, his back rising and falling with each deep breath he took. 

He wasn’t sure which would drive him insane first. For the past week, every night he dreamt the same dream. Every morning he reached for a woman who wasn’t there, had never been there and could never be there. 

His night with Emily at her place had left a lasting impression. His body reacted to the thought of her. He could still smell her, taste her, despite the time between them. 

He had watched her perform a spell to find the murderer of her friend. He still didn’t know how she had persuaded him to give such a thing a try. Something had entered his body and taken control. Something that had driven all thought from him, leaving only a need for vengeance and a burning rage. 

A bead of sweat chased a chill down his backbone, a shudder following quickly behind. He found his phone in the darkness of his room and pushed a button to illuminate the screen. Four in the morning. He could try and fall back asleep, but he knew that he would end up laying there awake until his alarm went off. Rolling his shoulders, he tried to release some of the tension. 

The best thing for his mind right now, to rid it of his dream and the desire for a woman he could not have, would be work. Stalking naked through the darkness of his apartment, he flicked the light on in the bathroom. 

The mirror revealed dark circles under his eyes and hair slick with sweat. Thinking that a cold shower was needed first, Nathan twisted the knobs and stepped under the spray. 

***

It was still an hour before sunrise when Nathan arrived at the station. The building was empty of all but the small night crew. 

He set his coffee from the all night coffee house down the street on his desk. Sliding his jacket down his arms, he slung it over the back of his chair. He sat down and rolled up to his desk. 

After pushing the button on the station computer off to one side of the desk he sipped at his coffee as he waited for it to boot up. 

The hot bitter taste filled his mouth and slid down his throat. Closing his eyes, he savoured the taste a moment. The operating system loading chime interrupted him. The moment gone, he set his coffee down and turned to his work. 

Opening up the files needed, he had everything they knew about the murder of Augustine Collins in front of him. 

Unfortunately it was not much and it seemed everything they did know kept pointing back at Emily. She insisted that she was innocent, and he believed her. He wouldn’t have slept with her otherwise. 

Slumping back in his chair, he lifted his coffee to his lips but didn’t take a drink. Maybe he hadn’t slept with her because he was sure she was innocent. Maybe he thought she was innocent because he had desired her. 

He stifled a groan. This was a train of thought he had already ridden back and forth. Someone was covering up evidence. They had to be. 

While on the surface it did look as though Emily was the guilty party, the murderer, even Durrell was a good enough detective to sense that something was out of place. 

Setting the coffee cup back down, never having taken that drink, he reached for his computer. He was just about to start typing out his thought processes when the phone rang. 

“Ashton Police Department.” 

“There has been a murder.”

Nathan sat up, his chair rolling away from the desk slightly. “Excuse me?”

“I heard gunshots fired. He’s killed her this time, I’m sure of it.” 

Nathan grabbed pen and paper from their proper spots on his desk. “Can you give me an address?” He scribbled down the address given to him in his messy scrawl. “Sir, can you give me any other information. Can you tell me your name?”

But he was speaking to a dead line. Ripping the paper off the top of the pad, he headed toward the stairs. He was the only detective in the office, but there would be night shift patrol officers downstairs. He would grab a couple of them and then go see if the caller had been yanking his chain. 

***

The uniformed officer who had accompanied Nathan banged on the door a second time, his fist thumping and rattling the door in its frame. Nathan stood back on the edge of the small porch, just at the top of the stairs. No one inside was going to answer, Nathan was sure of that. But with reports of gunfire from the neighbours and the history of domestic violence, they couldn’t walk away.

He shifted his weight. As he had suspected, silence answered the knock. The air was heavy, black clouds hanging low over them. Nathan looked up toward the second story windows. He had known as soon as he stepped out of the patrol car that the call had not been a prank. Someone was hurt inside this house, but without evidence of distress they couldn’t break down the door. His gut feelings didn’t count. 

The officer was raising his fist to pound on the door a third time. 

“Stop.” Nathan spoke the command softly. He looked toward the corner of the house. Something from there had caught his attention. He couldn’t say whether he had seen or heard anything though. His instincts screaming at him though, and in the years he had been a cop, he had learned to trust them. 

He side-stepped down the couple of steps, keeping his gaze on the corner of the house. 

“We need to get into that house.” Nathan took a couple more steps, stopping when he didn’t get a response. He looked back. The officer was standing with his hand still posed to knock. 

“Constable?” Nathan kept his voice low, nearly a hiss. The officer started and turned. He looked surprised to see Nathan had moved. Pointing to the corner of the house, Nathan pushed the officer’s strange behaviour from his mind. 

His body was tense and vibrating with the need to run. The hand resting on the butt of his gun shook with a fine tremor. He didn’t try to stop it. As soon as he drew the gun, the tremor would vanish and his grip would be solid. 

Hugging the corner of the house, Nathan peered around it. He was just in time to see a young man in his early to mid-twenties drop from the second story window to the ground. 

He landed in a crouch. Sweeping a look from side to side, his gaze met Nathan’s. They both froze for a moment. Nathan started moving a fraction of a moment sooner, but it wasn’t soon enough to grab the man before he started to run and slipped out of reach.

“The suspect is running!” Nathan yelled. He ran after the man. The moment he had taken to yell back at the officer had give the suspect enough of a head start that he was slipping out of sight around a corner. 

***

Nathan took the corner at a run and bared down. The man was ahead of him by half a block, and quickly gaining ground.  

Nathan knew that there was no way that he was going to be able to catch the man. The distance between them kept growing. Then the suspect turned a corner a block ahead. Turning the next corner he came to, Nathan ran. He could no longer see the suspect, no longer track him by sight.

It was a gamble that the man was taking this route, that they would cross paths somewhere up ahead.

A low growl came from behind Nathan. He stumbled, falling to his knees. The two hounds came to a stop right in front of him and turned back. They towered over him.

They were blacker than shadows, but their eyes had the same yellow shine as the beasts in his dreams. The fear from his dream started to rise. His heartbeat quickened. His already ragged breath threatened to leave him completely. 

Warily he climbed to his feet. One of the hounds lowered his head and growled. The sound traveled through Nathan like a tuning fork. He trembled from head to toe. 

At that moment he wanted nothing more than to turn and run in the other direction. Only there was a murderer somewhere ahead of him and if Nathan didn’t catch him now the chances that they would dropped significantly.

Nathan held up a hand, palm out. “No, I am not your prey today.” His voice was stronger than he expected it to be. The hound that was growling fell silent. Both of them looked at him with questioning eyes. 

“I am chasing someone who is prey. He is a murderer.” His confidence grew with each word he spoke. He stood before them, no longer afraid. 

Both pairs of yellow eyes stared at him expectantly.

“I need your help to track him down.”

One of them stepped forward and bumped it’s head against his chest. There was enough force behind the affectionate bump that it threatened to push him over. Nathan reached up, digging his fingers into the ruff at the hounds neck.

Upon contact he knew immediately that his words were more true than he had guessed. The man had shot his girlfriend, in a fit of undeserved jealousy. She had lay dying while they knocked on the door and the uniformed officer had not reached her in time. 

The boyfriend would pay for the oaths he broke in blood.

Nathan ran.

The hounds paced him on either side, both moving at an easy lope, looking like they could run like that forever. 

Together the three of them turned a corner. Nathan could feel their prey ahead of them, his steps slowing as he began to think he had lost them.  

As he ran, he could feel his hounds as extensions of himself. Their great paws hitting the ground resonated through him. He turned down the street. He could smell the fear of their prey. 

They were closing in, the three of them, the huntsman and his hounds, moving as one creature down the streets. People stepped out of the his way as he ran, but he barely saw them. All his focus was on the oathbreaker they hunted. 

Turning a corner, they found themselves at the opening of a dead end alley. The suspect stood at the far end, desperately looking for a way out. He turned. His eyes grew wide and he tried to press himself back into the brick wall behind him.

Something about his actions were familiar. The huntsman shook his head. Fear bubbled up from somewhere deep inside of him. It was the same fear he could smell from his prey. He slowed to a stop. His hounds turned to look at him in question. 

 There was a ringing in his ears. The alley he was in was a familiar one. He could remember running down it in fear, hunted by howls in the dark. The huntsman shook his head. He was never the prey, he was the hunter. 

Nathan fought back to the surface of his own mind, pushing the huntsman out before him. Nathan could remember the fear that was making his heart pound. It was the fear he felt in his nightmares and the huntsman had no memory to connect to it. The fear gave Nathan the leverage he needed to take back control. 

He stood with his gun naked in his hand. He could’t remember drawing it. 

The suspect cowered against the wall, as one of the hounds stalked toward him. The beast growled. The same growl Nathan could remember from his nightmares just before it leapt at him.

Stepping forward, he placed himself between the hound and its prey. 

“No,” his own voice a matched growl to the hounds. “You will not deal out the justice of the Huntsman on this one. I’m in charge, and this man will deal with human justice.”

Both hounds growled at him now, stalking him just as much as they stalk the man behind him. Nathan refused to budge. He had lost himself in the hunt, but he had his purpose back and was determined not to loose control again. “No,” he repeated.

One after the other, the two hounds gave in to him. They stepped back, giving him room before he had a chance to demand it of them. 

Turning to the suspect, he pulled him to his feet with a rough grip on his arm. Putting up his gun, Nathan pulled the cuffs that were tucked into this belt. He hesitated a moment.

Daniel Grey, the name was whispered through his mind. It came to him as if being pulled from a distant memory. Looking over, the two hounds stared at him. Their golden eyes shown without any direct light to reflect off them. He felt his connection to them was still there, not as severed as he had thought.

“Daniel Grey, you are under arrest for the murder of…” He paused a moment, turning to look at the hounds. “Amanda Drew.” He spoke the name the hounds provided. 

As he read Daniel his rights, he walked him to the mouth of the alley to await back up and a squad car. The hounds paced behind. Each time one of them growled, Daniel flinched. It became a game for them, keeping him scared. Nathan smiled and could feel that it was a grim smile. He didn’t stop them, the truth being that he liked to see the man scared too. 

***

Back up arrived as Nathan was leading the suspect out of the alley. Nathan tucked the man into the back of the squad car.

“You look beat,” the officer said. “Getting too old for those long chases?” 

Nathan smiled at the good natured ribbing and shook his head. “Maybe I am.”

From the back of the car, through the open door, they could hear the man mumbling. “Horns man, he had horns. The demon dogs are coming for me. Can’t you see them. Right there… black as hell… burning eyes…” His mumbles trailed off until they could no longer understand what he was saying. 

“What are you going on about?” The officer ducked down to look into the car.

The suspect was staring past them, back toward the alley. His eyes were large and round, the pupils dilated to a pin point. 

Nathan and the officer instinctively followed his gaze. 

Nathan started. Standing in the mouth of the alley were the two hounds. They weren’t black. They were once again the same white and red that they always were to him. He glanced quickly over at the officer. He was shaking his head.

“Damn crazies,” he said as he closed the door of the car. “You need a ride back to the station detective?”

One of the hounds bowed his head to Nathan slightly. Then the two of them turned back into the alley and walked out of sight. 

“Detective?” 

“Sorry, what was that?” Nathan turned away from the alley.

“I said, do you need a ride back to the station?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Nathan climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. The suspect in the back seat screeched and tried to move away from him. 

“The devil, the devil is coming for me.”

The officer slammed a fist on the divider stretched between the seats. “Shut up back there.” 

“You okay? Or are you going to tell me that you saw the demons too?” He turned forward again to start driving. 

Nathan shook his head. “I have no idea what he is talking about.”

Staring out the window Nathan dwelled on that. He did have some ideas about what had happened. The only person who could explain the rest was the very person he had been avoiding.