Page 35 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
I push Alice towards the stairwell and nod to her to get going. Thank all the old gods, she just goes, flipping the light on nonchalantly.
The cottage is silent for a long moment, eerie and too still. The birds have gone quiet outside, and the day’s grown darker somehow. All the hallmarks of not one, but a whole damn pack of hellhounds.
Caden’s body convulses, and he grips the doorframe to his bedroom. “I don’t have long,” he grunts. “Can’t hold back much longer. Gun’s on the workbench.”
I nod, turning swiftly back to the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I meet her at the bottom, she’s already got the lamps switched on in the basement. The knotty pine panels on the wall that once seemed so comforting to me now look like eyes, watching.
“Get in there,” I murmur, grabbing the iron keys off the door. I pull two rifles from the wall and grab several boxes of silver bullets, handing them to her. “What do you know about loading a gun?”
Alice stares blankly at me, shaking her head. “It’s been a long time…”
After a quick breath, deep as I can take it, I nod and do the work for her. My fingers fly. She won’t be able to reload, but hopefully she won’t need to. “Anything that comes down here that’s not Cade or me, you shoot it ’til you run out of ammo. And don’t come out ’til Fallon comes to get you.”
“Fallon?” she whispers, realizing that if Fallon comes for her, it means neither of us are able.
I nod, unable to meet those gorgeous eyes. “Or a big black cat with glowing eyes. The cat-sìth are safe enough for us, especially Cat. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s Fallon’s and he can open any lock for you.”
From upstairs, the stillness is broken by a long, vicious growl. It’s Caden; the shift is complete. I shove the guns toward Alice, grab the keys from the hook outside the door, and lock her in before tossing the keys to her. “Back in ten, tops,” I say with a grin I don’t feel in the slightest. “Don’t come out ’til you get the all-clear, promise?”
Alice nods slowly. I can’t tell if she’s afraid or just stunned, but I don’t have time to think about it. I turn back to the workbench and find the gun Caden bought from Blackstone. It’s a thing of beauty, but I don’t have time to admire it. I just load it without another look back at Alice.
If I look at her, I’ll have to deal with the way my heart’s beating out of my chest, a raptor in a cage, demanding that I stay right here and make sure she’s safe. But that’s not how this works, and I damn well know it. She’ll be safe because I’ll make her safe, and no other way.
“Be right back, Blythe,” I murmur as I head for the stairs.
“I know you will,” she replies, her voice only shaking a little. “I trust you, Wyatt.”
I pause, my heartstrings plucked by the confidence in her words just a little too hard. I can’t turn around. I just nod and take the steps back upstairs two at a time, just like I came down, slamming the door shut behind me. It locks, and it won’t open ’til me, Fallon, or Cade go back down.
We had the new witch in town, Willa Proctor, help us with this one. She’s uncommonly good with warding, a rare talent for modern witches. Fallon had all kinds of wild theories about why that is, and I’m not sure why I think of it now, but it does seem a little strange.
I shake off the random thought as I reach the top of the stairs. My brother stands in wolf form, a hulking sable beast with glowing golden eyes, staring at the front door. Cautiously, I approach. Caden and I have been working on this for a year, but we’ve never tested it under stressful conditions.
Keeping my voice low and steady, I let him know I’m behind him. “On your left, bud.”
He glances behind him, irritation like a living thing in his expression. I can’t help but chuckle a little. Even in wolf form, Caden is still my little brother. Still irritated as fuck with the way I act. I place my hand on his back.
And all holds. Caden hasn’t lost himself to his wolf. He recognizes me. Hell, he even leans against my thigh, like Fern would, though he’s nearly twice her size. Even in this tense atmosphere, I breathe a sigh of relief. He really has made progress.
If we make it through this, I hope this will help open the door to healing his agoraphobia. This is a huge step forward for him.
But my relief is short-lived as something heavy slams against the door.
A slow split cracks right down the center.
“They’re through the wards,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “Fall back.”
The smell of sulfur seeps through the crack, and then there’s another heavy thump. No footfall, no noise, just the thump of hellbeast against the wood, as though the hound came from nowhere at all. The door splits apart as Caden and I jump aside, falling back to opposite sides of the front room.
I barely have time to get behind the couch to set up the rifle as three hellhounds burst through the breach in the cabin door, splintering it apart in a cascade of wood and slavering jaws. The one closest to me has a white scar on its shoulder that I recognize. It’s the one from the Stardust.
Inwardly, I swear up a storm. I can’t believe I’ve put Alice in this kind of danger. Why else would They be here? The three beasts still as Caden growls at them. I desperately want to open fire, to eliminate the creatures before They have a chance to find Alice.
But there are rules to our profession. Ancient rules that exist between us and the Courts to keep some semblance of peace. Mere destruction of property is not enough for me to shoot one of the hellhounds, even if it is Alice at stake. They have to attack first, or I risk starting a war so unholy it would swallow Blackbird Hollow whole.
Caden, too, remembers just in time, the growl dying in his throat as he lowers his head just slightly to the beasts. The stench of Them is absolutely vile. I’ve only come this close to one of Them one other time, and I don’t remember the hounds smelling so badly.
But we were just children then. Perhaps I’ve forgotten. My heart races as we wait. The one in the lead is missing one of its six glowing eyes, a massive scar slashed across its face. It sniffs the air, almost delicate in its grace, its skull pulsing with thesame glowing fire as its eyes, suddenly visible through the fur on its face.
