Page 66 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
“I’m good,” I tell him, my finger resting on the salt rifle’s trigger.
He snorts softly at that, letting out a long breath. “I’m damn lucky that you’re a little crazy.”
I’m about to reply, probably to say something that’s more than alittlecrazy, like declaring that I think I want to spend the rest of my life with him—but then movement catches my gaze. In my peripheral vision, I watch Wyatt go completely still—and it’s at the same moment that Fern appears to stop breathing entirely.
There’s something coming up the hill.
“Something wicked this way comes,” I murmur, leaning my shoulder into the butt of the rifle. It’s been a while since I shot one, but Fallon gave me a refresher earlier today. I feel ready. Or, at least, ready enough.
A kind of rumbling crackle fills the air, and my heart flutters wildly. Then a strong scent slams into my nose; it takes me eons to realize it’s utterly mundane. Gasoline. My mouth falls open, brows knitting together as I watch what looks like a bunch of motorcycles pull into town. If not for the sheer amount of Them, and if not for the days of preparation that went into all this, I might be willing to overlook the sleek bikes and gleaming, studded leather, the pitch-dark helmets and hungry revving of the engines. If I were anywhere else, on any other day, I might watch these motorcyclists ride by without more than a curious glance.
But I’mhere, perched on a roof next to a hedgerider, and I know too much now. My breath is shaky as I pull it into my lungs, desperately trying to understand how something that looks like simple motorcycles can cover so much ground this quickly.
“Hold steady,” comes Fallon’s voice, incredibly calm, over the radio. “They’re just passing through.”
It’s a reminder and an observation, I realize. They’re making no attempts to stop, as if all the iron and rowan are propelling Them forward, keeping Them faithful to the narrow, glimmering ley line.
With one hand, Wyatt reaches for the radio. “Sector,” he says. “Archer Inn.”
I grit my teeth, glancing toward the building across from us, on the other side of Main Street. My eyes hunt through the nighttime gloom until I find the outlines of two undoubtedly besuited people. They’re cloaked in the shadows of the fancy burgundy awning, but they’re there. Outside. As the Wild goddamn Hunt comes roaring up the street.
“Are they fucking insane?” I ask, weirdly breathless for not moving at all.
Wyatt makes a low noise of disapproval from the back of his throat. “Was hopin’ they’d observe from inside,” he grumbles. “That’s just reckless.”
“I hope it’s that woman from last night,” I say, surprising myself with the malice in my tone. “And I hope They fucking take her.”
He glances over at me, his smirk outlined by the moon and all the more enticing for it. “You know, if you look at Them out of the corner of your eye,” he tells me, studying me closely, “you’ll be able to see. Really see. If you want to.”
I sit up straight in my camp chair, staring at him quizzically. I glance down at the motorcyclists drawing ever closer, and then back at Wyatt.
He arches a brow before returning his gaze to the sights of his rifle. “I think we both know you want to, Blythe.”
“Of course I do,” I whisper in response, twisting my torso around, trying to catch the Hunt in my peripherals. For a few moments, I’m unsuccessful, cranking my head back and forth.It’s only once I narrow my eyes and glance away, about to ask Wyatt for further instructions, that it finally works.
My stomach drops. A primordial sort of fear unfolds in my veins, like this terror had been stitched to my ribs my entire life and I just never needed it until now.
“Good god,” I gasp, squeezing my eyes shut before I can stop myself.
“The High Fey,” Wyatt murmurs with what might actually be a hint of reverence. “In all Their glory. All Their horror.”
Gone are the motorcycles gleaming in the moonlight, a sea of anonymous black visors. Even the scent of gasoline seems to morph in my nose, becoming something strange and wild: rain-drenched stone, a splash of mead, a curl of woodsmoke, and dark, lingering spices I can’t name.
My heart slamming against my sternum, I peer into the darkness from the corners of my eyes. My mind desperately tries to explain what I’m seeing, commanding me to turn my head and realize that They’re not so terrifying, not really.
But I hold myself at that defiant angle, chin tipped up, as I watch the Wild Hunt. At the front, a long-limbed Fey with streaming copper hair dressed in a diaphanous gown rides some kind of chimera—a panther-like body with too many eyes, set spider-like onto its forehead, and the vicious tail of a scorpion.
Creatures that I think must be kelpies flank the lead rider. If I keep Them in my peripheral gaze, if I resist the urge to look away, I can hear the sound of those wet, backward hooves on the pavement instead of revving engines. Upon the kelpies’ wide, long backs are people that I distantly recognize as human. For now, at least. I do not know what the Wild Hunt does with the ones They take. I let out a shaking breath, watching the kelpies’ greenish, corpse-light eyeshine in the dark, something poisonous-looking dripping from Their fanged equine mouths.
I am not sure that Ireallywant to know.
Behind the chimera and its kelpie-guard is a long line of elegant terror. Some of Them look like us, minus the too-tall bodies and pointed ears, but there’s something so viciously inhuman in Their faces that it makes my entire body quiver with fear. A monstrous horse with spider-legs and swiveling bat’s ears patrols the left flank of the Hunt, red eyes flashing in the moonlight. Six black warhorses walk abreast in a perfect line, their riders pale as death. As They draw closer, I can see the riders’ eye sockets are all empty and sightless, Their mouths crudely sewn shut with thick, dark thread. I glance down to find Their hands are stitched to their mounts’ necks. Queasiness floods my stomach, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
Fallon’s voice sparks to life over the radio. “Wyatt, we got a runner. Not one of ours.”
Her words set in, and my eyes fly open. It would be a lie to say I’m not grateful for the way there’s only a large horde of motorcyclists in front of me again, though the smell of gasoline doesn’t return—it’s still all rain-damp stone and dark spice and woodsmoke. Wyatt’s already speaking quickly into the radio as I lean over the half-wall, desperately searching the street.
A small child costumed as a tiny bear cub runs from the back of the Archer Inn, where there’s a few guest cabins at the edge of the woods. I suck in my breath painfully, fingers curling around the trigger of the rifle.
