I started with the circle where I intended to trap the Erlking. The coil of barbed wire still gleamed with its factory finish. I uncoiled enough of it to give me several small holes in my fingers and to join into a circle about seven feet across. Though it wasn't cold iron in the technical sense, it was very much what the faeries meant when they said "cold iron"-the wire had plenty of iron in it, and cold iron was the bane of the faerie world.
I laid the barbed wire out, straightening it slightly as I went, and tacked it down into the damp earth with horseshoe-shaped metal staples as long as my little finger. I double-checked every staple, and then clipped the barbed wire from the larger roll and used a pair of pliers to twist the loose ends together. After that, I marked out the points of an invisible five-pointed star within the circle, and placed several articles with an affinity for the Erlking; a heavy collar one might place on a hunting hound, a whetstone, a small bowie knife, flint and steel, and several steel arrowheads.
Then I placed my own affinity items opposite those of the Erlking's, outside the circle; a used copy of The Hobbit, the splintered end of my last blasting rod, my.44, a parking ticket I hadn't paid yet, and finally my mother's silver pentacle amulet. I stepped back and went over the circle again, making sure that it was fixed solidly and that nothing had fallen across it.
In the back of my mind somewhere, I was aware of the approach of sunset. I don't know how I knew it, really. It was already darker than most nights, and I certainly couldn't judge when the sun would be down with all those rain clouds in the way-but that didn't seem to matter. I could feel the sunlight still gliding down to be trapped in the overcast, could feel its presence and warmth with some part of my mind that wasn't entirely beholden to mere physics. I could feel it fading, and felt the concurrent stirring of the magical forces of night as it did.
The energy of night was far different than that of the daylight-not inherently evil, but wilder, more dangerous, more unpredictable. Night was a time of endings, and this night, Samhain, All Hallow's Eve, was particularly so. On this night, the forces of the spirit world, the wild things that haunted the Nevernever, drawn to death and decay, would flit freely back and forth. Spirits would turn restless in their graves and wander the world, mostly unseen by mortal eyes. The wild beasts could feel the night coming, and their metropolitan cousins could sense the knife edge of danger and energy in the air. Dogs began to howl in the neighborhood around me, first one, then two, then dozens, and their long, low, mournful howls rose up in a haunting tide.
Dark was only moments away, and I stripped the black leather glove from my bad hand and knelt by the barbed-wire circle. Then I leaned down and pressed my left palm, all scarred but for the shape of Lasciel's sigil like a living brand on my skin, against the nearest tine of barbed wire, pressing my flesh down with careful deliberation. I didn't feel the wire cut me, but there was a trickle of warmth over a portion of the sigil, and my blood-black in the greenish chemical light-slipped down over the barbed wire, mixing with my will to send energy coursing into the cold-iron prison I had built.
The prison was built and the trap was set. I wished that there had been more time to assemble the articles I'd needed. If there had been months to prepare, I could have worked with Bob to figure out the best way to do the job. The materials might have been rare and expensive and difficult to attain, but it was within the realm of possibility to build a circle from which even a being like the Erlking could not lightly escape.
But there hadn't been time, and if my quickie-mart Alcatraz was going to do the job, it would need all of my focus and determination.
So I shut my doubts into a closet in the back of my mind, along with my fears. I knelt in my coat in the rain, staff still in my right hand, and took slow, deep breaths. I envisioned myself drawing in power with each breath, and exhaling weakness and distraction. I felt the magic stirring around me and within me as I did, and I started building up my will, gathering my strength for use, until the wet grass seemed to sparkle with too many points of green-gold light and the hairs on my neck rose up on end.
I took in a final deep breath, and on the exhale night fell.
I opened my mouth and began to call out in the steady cadence of the summoning. My voice rang hollow in the wind and rain, muffled but strong, and I poured some of my will into the words, until the power in them began to make the air ripple around them as they flowed from my lips. There, in the darkness, I reached into the spirit world to call up one of the deadliest beings of Faerie.
And the Erlking answered.
One moment the circle was empty. Then there was a flash of lightning, a crash of thunder, and a disembodied black shadow appeared on the grass within the circle-the shadow of a tall, standing figure with no physical presence to cast it.
I barely stopped myself from flinching and breaking off the summoning chant-a mistake that would have freed the Erlking to leave at best, and freed it to kill me at worst. But I recovered myself and kept up the litany all the way through to the end. When I finished it, my voice had risen to a strident, silvery clarion, and on the last word lightning flashed down from the storm, green and white and eye-searing. It struck down upon the circle, slammed against it, and then scattered out around the circle in a hissing matrix of electricity and steam and magic, defining the cylinder of the magic circle in a sparkle of greenish light that rose up into the night for a moment, and then faded away.
When it was gone, the shadow within my circle was no longer alone.
The Erlking stood better than eight feet high. Other than that it looked more or less like a human dressed in close-fitting leathers and mail of some dark, matte black substance. It wore a bucket-shaped helmet that covered its face, and the horns of an enormous stag rose up and away from the helm. Within the slit of the helmet's visor, I could see twin gleams of amber fire, and as those terrible eyes settled upon me, I could feel the presence of the being behind them like a sudden raw and wild hunger that pressed against the outside of my skin. I could feel the Erlking's lust for the wild night, for the hunt, and for the kill. Lightning flashed again and the rain came down harder, and he raised his arms slowly, dismissing me and stretching his body up to glory in the storm.
It is time, mortal. Release me.
The words suddenly appeared in my head without going through my ears, scarlet and glowing and scalding. This time I did flinch as the Erlking's will sent meaning into my thoughts like a well-thrown spear. I tore my attention away from that lance of thought and spoke aloud in reply.
"I will not release you."