Page 6 of Briggs
Carrington walked out of sight into an alleyway, and I had no doubt he was back at the council in a blink. I was completely in agreement that something was going on.
“We might as well go back to the hotel. It’s obvious that whatever is going on in this town has everyone wary of talking to outsiders.”
It was so bad in the area that we had to check in at a hotel that was a solid forty-five minutes away. That should have been our first indicator that there was something going on in the area. There were two…I wouldn’t consider them hotels, but they weren’t terrible-looking motels. One looked as if it hadn’t had anyone at it for months. There was someone at the front desk, but she simply told us that they weren’t full but weren’t accepting new guests at the moment. We tried the other motel, and although it looked like it was almost new and there was only one car outside, they gave us the same answer.
“I’m thinking about going in tonight and seeing what my beast can sniff out,” Damien said. “The pride is, at the minimum, hiding something. I’d say it’s more than that though, and they are up to something.”
“I can take to the air and see if I can see anything. Maybe the pride has a building they wouldn’t let Carrington or you near?”
“I will join you,” Dimitri added. “My dragon can cover quite a bit of ground in short distances.”
I glanced over at Felix. “Wanna learn how to play poker?” I asked while shaking my head.
“Yeah, I could do that. Do you not want to go with?”
I snorted. “I’d be on foot, which isn’t necessarily the issue. I don’t mind shifting and joining. But even I know my wolf is the weakest on the team. I’m no match for a hellhound, and Ican’t keep up with Raiden or Dimitri.” I shrugged. “If we were to encounter a bunch of the members of the pride, I could probably take two before needing serious help. They’re just bigger than I am and have larger teeth and claws.”
“Oh,” Felix said. He stared at me for a moment before nodding. “Learning poker sounds good. What do we need?”
I chuckled before turning my attention to Damien. “Yeah, we’ll be at the hotel, waiting. And I’m going to use that time to teach young Felix here how to play poker. Then he can go back to the council and kick his fellow faes’ asses at it next time they have a get-together.”
Damien and the others chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. That is, unless Carrington returns and tells us our assignment is suddenly over. It will all depend on what he hears from the council.”
I glanced down the street. It wasn’t a large city, but it was a town that was large enough to have people doing things. Only, it didn’t. It was eerily empty. “How big do you think Timber Valley is?” I asked nobody in particular. “Even Treasure Ridge, which we know has a lot fewer people than this place, has more people out and about at this time of the day.”
There was a rumbling in the distance before any of my teammates could comment on what I’d asked. We all turned toward the sound, and although it appeared to be getting closer, nothing ever arrived. It was odd and strange, and after several minutes of unidentifiable noise, it died down until it was silent again.
“What was that?” Felix asked, his expression showing exactly how he felt: uneasy.
“I’m not sure,” I said and looked to the others.
“Yeah, let’s go,” Damien said. He gently grabbed Felix’s arm and started walking, pushing the rest of us into the alley thatCarrington had disappeared into. One moment, we were walking down the alley, the next, we were suddenly in our hotel room.
I grabbed my stomach because there was just something about hellhounds and their magic feeling heavy when compared to warlock or fae magic.
“Whatwasthat?” I asked before I shivered. “Seriously, that, combined with the creepy empty town…”
“Why did it sound as if something was going by, but there was nothing there?” Felix asked.
“Because something was,” Damien said. He pulled out his phone and started typing. A few moments later, Atticus was suddenly in the hotel with us.
“How many?” he asked, confusing the rest of us.
“From the sound of it, I’d say at least five, but they were cloaked,” Damien said.
“Umm…what’s going on?” Raiden asked the question the rest of us were wondering about.
“Guys, I’m going to send you back to the council. I’m sorry,” Atticus said. “I know we’re all enforcers, but there are certain things that only some of us can deal with.” Atticus nodded at us, then my stomach did that roll again, and then we were all standing outside the council building. Well, all but Damien and Atticus.
“Anyone else just as confused as I am?” Dimitri asked.
“Yes,” we all said. We didn’t get to say more because Warwick came out of the council building, followed closely by Augustus and Dante. They nodded at us before they all disappeared.
“Yeah, so who wants to bet that the ookie noise had something to do with their world?” I asked. Why else would Atticus suddenly appear, and there was no way that the other three weren’t joining them?
“I would say that’s probably a good guess,” Raiden said. “I’m not upset about being home, and Alexander isn’t going tocomplain either. But I feel bad because we didn’t really get to fulfill our assignment.”
We nodded in agreement. “It is difficult to do a job when we can’t even gain access to the location,” Dimitri said.
