Page 24 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
The sedan’s headlights shut off, and the agents get out of the car. One is chattering on about the spaghetti at the dinerbeing the best he’s ever had, while the other nods. Neither spares a glance for the sign, nor the mist. These two have the observational skills of a pair of bowling balls.
Fucking Sector. Half of their so-called agents couldn’t fight their way out of a soaking wet cardboard box. Anything comes out of the woods to snatch them, and I swear I’m gonna let them get gobbled up. But nothing jumps out as they make it safely to their pair of rooms and exchange a brisk good-night. The lights on the front of the building flicker, going a pale green.
That’s not great, but we’re in the thick of it now and I can’t afford to slow down. The tension leaves my shoulders—somehow, I’m always calmest in what Wanda calls “one of oursituations.” I get to checking the drawers and under the bed. Alice said she didn’t do any unpacking, but I like to be sure.
I also want to be sure that Sector didn’t stick their fingers into her business while she was out. I know how they like to drop little devices here and there. As I pass the desk, the phone catches my eye. I pick it up and call Cade. He answers after a few rings, and I’m happy to hear him sounding sober and alone. “Did Fallon call?”
“Hello, Caden—how ya doin’, kid? Well, good evening, Wyatt, I’m rather disturbed by the news of hellhounds in the forest. How about you?”
My brother, the smartass. “Glad you’ve been informed of our situation. See you Sunday.”
“Wyatt, hang on…” Cade pauses.
“What?” I ask, impatient to be gone. I stretch the long cord into the bathroom, where I check the sink and the medicine cabinet.
“Oh, nothing.” My little brother laughs. “I just didn’t want you to hang up on me.”
I laugh along with him, not because it’s particularly funny, but because it’s good to hear him sound so normal. I shut themedicine cabinet, catching three pairs of glowing red eyes in the reflection.
“Fuck,” I swear under my breath. “Fuck.”
Cade sucks in a breath on the other end of the phone. We’ve worked together our whole lives. I trained him. He doesn’t need specifics to know when shit’s gone bad. “You got silver on you?”
“Yeah,” I growl, cradling the receiver between my ear and shoulder to pull my rifle into position, aiming through the thin glass of the bathroom window.
I get a good look at the thing now. Hellhounds are rangy, sleek things, with six fiery eyes and a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. Bit like a wolf, a lot like something else nobody’s ever seen walk this Earth. I stare back at the otherworldly being that has its sights set on me, but then it turns and lopes off into the trees, a white scar flashing on its shoulder.
“It saw me,” I breathe, “and then just…left.”
Caden hums a little, and there’s the sound of ruffling paper that’s likely his notebook. “Yeah, I’ve been picking up some chatter about that on the darknet. Hedgeriders all over have reported that when they’ve encountered the Hunt lately, it seems like They almost purposely avoid them. Like They’re hiding something.”
I let out a dismissive hiss. “That’s attributing too much to Them, don’t you think?”
Caden grumbles a little before reasoning, “The Hunt is an instrument of the High Courts, Wyatt. We don’t have any clue what They’re up to.”
They’re up to nothing more than planning macabre parties and fucking each other’s brains out, but I’m not gonna dissuade Caden from this particular notion. Some scholar amongst the hedgeriders always has a thesis going about the High Courts and Their shenanigans, but it pans out the same each time. “TheHigh are planning a fête and need human eyeballs to freeze for ice cubes”—or some other gruesome thing.
Undoubtedly, there’s something deeper brewing somewhere under the hill, but I doubt very much that the Courts care one way or another about it past Their endless, spiteful politicking. Caden and I stand on opposite sides of this debate, and that is as it should be. Disagreeing helps us see the full potential in any situation we get into with Them.
It’s kept us alive all these years, and we’re a pretty good team. In my mind, Alice slips neatly into things, somewhere between Fallon’s ability with strategy and Cade’s with research, and I can see how she just might fill in all the cracks that the three of us can’t quite manage on our own.
“Earth to Wyatt,” my brother practically shouts. “I asked if you were okay.”
“Yeah,” I answer. “Just fine. Headed out now. Stay in tonight, alright?”
“I’m not so foolish as to think I can take a hellhound on my own, big brother,” Cade replies, before adding, “Careful on your way home.”
“Yep,” I agree and hang up.
When I pullup to the house, Fern’s lying on the couch in the front room, her chin perched on the back so she can see outside. She woofs softly a couple of times as I get out. A greeting, not a warning, thankfully.
When I push open the front door, Fallon waves at me from the kitchen, where she’s got her old wooden stool pulled up under the phone. She’s yapping away to Widow Harkness aboutsome town gossip, which I can only take to mean she’s done with her phone tree chores.
Before I can wonder where Alice got off to, she’s half tumbling down the front stairs. I drop her bags and catch her in my arms, just in time to see that she’s wearing a pair of my sweatpants and one of my old faded blue football jerseys. It has the words “Blackbird Hollow Football” printed across the chest in collegiate letters, with a giant raven on it, and a couple of white stripes on the sleeves.
I swallow hard, knowing that the back says “Hayes” on it. Alice Blythe is wearing my jersey—and it just about sends me over an edge I didn’t know I had.
“Sorry, I took your clothes. I spilled wine on myself,” she mutters into my shirt. Her hair is damp and curling at her temples. She laughs into my chest. Fallon got her shitfaced while I was gone.
