Page 36 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
It keeps its terrible jaw shut, letting out a huff—smoke billowing from its mouth. Caden and I both freeze, watching, waiting. I’ve read about this, but never thought I’d see it. The smoke sinks to the floor, taking on a life of its own, almost as though it’s got a mind—a sentience. The hounds watch it undulate before shooting forward, into the back hall.
They let out an unearthly bay, a call to something primal, something deeper, and rush after the seeking smoke. Toward the basement door.Toward Alice. Caden and I spring into action as the hounds lope forward, following the smoke.
In a moment that shocks me, They bypass the basement entirely, headed straight for Caden’s bedroom. A ruckus breaks out as They tear the room apart. I frown, not understanding until I hear more wood splintering.
My brother’s behind me, but I hold out a hand to him, signaling for him to get back. “Protect Alice,” I hiss, moving as stealthily as I can.
The beasts aren’t behaving as They should. If They were tracking Alice, They’d be barreling against the basement door about now. Instead, the hounds are tearing Cade’s room apart.But why?
I step forward, making my footfalls as light as I possibly can, keeping back as far as I can and still see what They’re up to. They’ve destroyed Cade’s bed and are tearing at the floorboards. The room is filled with the stench of not just sulfur, but rotting flesh. And then I see it: a flash of red.
Before I can get my eyes on it completely, one of the hounds has it in its mouth. The scene is chaotic as the hellhounds home in on Their prey. The putrid scent of death and sulfur fills the air as the wet sounds of death crowd out any other noise. Thehounds move with a speed I cannot easily track now, and I understand what little chance we ever had against Them.
Even with Blackstone’s gun, there was no stopping these beasts. The one missing an eye stops and turns toward me, gore dripping out of its maw. Inside my head, a rough voice I can hardly understand says one word:Powrie.
Redcaps. There are redcaps hiding under Caden’s house. It all makes sense. His bedroom was once a screened-in sleeping porch, back when this place was someone’s summer house. It’s the only part of the house not built over the basement.
The hellhound’s head snaps back around as one of the horrific little creatures pops its head up, trying to escape. I take aim, but I needn’t have. The hellhound has it snapped between its jaws before I can shoot.
They came for the redcaps, not Alice. But why? It hardly makes sense. Why would the creatures go after Their own kind? The Hunt has always been a bit of a mystery to us, but maybe I was wrong to dismiss Cade’s theories.
I’ll have to chew on that later. I can see with my own two eyes that They’ve nearly cleaned the redcaps out. There’s no telling what will happen next, but I don’t want Them going back through the house, back by Caden and the basement door.
I slip out into the hallway, leaving Blackstone’s gun on the kitchen table as I move faster out the back door and around to the French doors on the porch. I yank the doors open and step aside, calling out, “Feel free to exit here, kind sirs.”
Through the side-panel windows that flank the doors, Caden appears in the doorway. He whines softly at the sight of his bedroom. That same rough voice blasts through my mind, making my ears feel like they’re bleeding. I realize it’s not the voice I don’t quite understand; it’s the language. I can just make it out, but barely.If you will not lead a pack, Caden Hayes, join the Hunt.
Caden does something I don’t predict: he bows to the hounds’ leader, the one with the missing eye, dipping his great, furry head low. And then I hear Cade’s voice clear as day in my head, though he too speaks Their language.My duties are here.
The three hounds stare at him, then at the open doorway. Tense silence fills the space between us, and I wonder if it was a mistake to leave the gun in the kitchen. But then They’re gone, disappearing in a whiff of smoke, the smell of sulfur and ash the only thing left behind.
Caden whines at the destroyed floor as I make my way back across the bedroom. I can’t make heads or tails of what just happened, but I want Alice to stay in the basement ’til I’m sure They’re not coming back. I can’t just leave her worrying, though.
I open the basement door and call down, “They’re gone, but you stay there for a spell while I take stock of things.”
Alice hums some sort of answer that sounds vaguely noncommittal, but I need to move quickly. I leave Caden staring at his destroyed bedroom, still in wolf form, and take off to check the perimeter. There’s not a warding or sigil on this earth that would keep one of the High or Their minions out, but the redcaps shouldn’t have been able to get in.
The place where the ward was broken is obvious. There’s a trail of bright green moss spreading from the forest toward the windows of Caden’s house, and using my tiny bit of the Sight, I can see where the wards were disturbed enough to let the redcaps through.
Wards and sigils are funny things. They work alright enough with the malevolents, but they’re less useful for keeping things like pixies or other forest neighbors out sometimes. Still, Willa Proctor’s wards were the best I’d seen. They should’ve held.
I shake my head as I turn back to the cottage. Too many strange things are happening in Blackbird Hollow for my liking. As I approach the house, my heart stops. Through the openFrench doors, I watch Alice walk into Cade’s bedroom. My heart thumps, three wholly terrified beats of my caged beast of a heart.
Why can’t that damn woman do as she’s agreed? Too brave for her own good, and now all the good luck of the past ten minutes might be swept away in the heat of a bad moment. Every muscle in my body is ready to spring. Ready to throw myself between my brother and this slip of a woman I just met.
Caden turns swiftly, scenting her, and I don’t know whether to stay still or run toward them. But my little brother’s glowing eyes are soft as he tucks his huge head under her right hand reassuringly. Caden not only instinctively recognizes that Alice isn’t an enemy—heknowsher.
Her eyes meet mine, and a small smile banishes all desire to scream at her to get back. “We’re good,” she whispers, and though her voice is soft under the sounds of the forest coming back to life, I hear Alice Blythe loud and clear.
We’re good.We are.
Chapter 17
Alice
If someone told me just a few days ago that I’d be standing in the splintered ruins of a bedroom, petting a goddamn werewolf and trying not to get choked up about everything that just happened in the past hour or so, I would’ve laughed.
Laughed, and then, beneath the nonchalance and aloofness I’ve so often worn as a guise, I would’vehoped. I would’ve hoped wildly and unreasonably for it all to be true. I blink away tears and let out a long, shuddering breath, gently patting wolf-Caden’s enormous head. Wyatt’s gone from looking at me like I just stepped on a grenade to gazing at me like?—
