Chapter 32 #2
The hellhounds pounce. The Sector agents open fire, and I start picking them off. Not-Cookie lunges for Alice, still trying to take her rather than running. And then half a dozen more agents swarm out of the alley, dressed in expensive tactical gear, helmets, and automatic rifles.
I shove Alice back toward the lilac bush. “Get inside.”
“Not a fucking chance,” she shouts back.
And then she shoots that bazooka, her eyes locked with the injured nymph’s.
They both nod, as though they’ve agreed upon something.
To my amazement, instead of bullets, red honey locust thorns fly out of the bazooka, long and sharp as the dickens.
The injured nymph throws her hands out, as though guiding the thorns, straight into three of the original agents’ eyes.
They fall immediately, and the nymph snarls, leaving Alice and me behind to jump into the fray.
I cover Alice, kneecapping as many of the tactical agents as I can. It’s the place where their armor’s weak. As they stumble, the hounds and the nymphs take them. The trees are too close now, obscuring the moon. It’s hard to see.
But Alice and I are the only ones affected by the darkness. The tactical agents wear night vision helmets, and Fey creatures see just as well in the dark as They do in the light. The red and green of Their eyes flash in the near-pitch darkness.
I reach for Alice, but she’s right behind me, tucking herself into my side. The two of us shoot into the dark, and I think we’re probably making some headway when she screams. She’s there one second, and the next, she’s gone, the bazooka falling to the ground.
The scent of petrichor fills my nose. “What would you give for forest Sight?” a nymph sings in my ear. It’s not the one Not-Cookie stabbed, but another, this one younger.
Her voice is terrible, the song of dying years and wolf winters. Long fingers wrap around my arm, keeping me from struggling. I smell pine sap and leaf mold. Petrichor and the wintergreen of willow bark.
She has me pressed against her, but instead of feeling the soft curves of a voluptuous body, I feel the hard bark of a tree.
We haven’t come across nymphs too often—They usually keep to themselves.
You don’t bother the trees, you don’t meet wood nymphs.
It’s simple, and I don’t fuck with trees that aren’t already fallen.
“I’d give just about anything right now,” I whisper, “but I think you said a little somethin’ about a boon.”
“So we did.” She laughs, then shoves her fingers into my back, slicing through skin, muscle, and down to bone like a hot knife through butter.
I scream, but she’s as good as her word.
To be Fey-touched is to feel pain, and I’ll carry the wound for the rest of my life, but even as her power burns through me, I know it’s doing some good, along with the harm.
As her Fey-fingers touch my spine, I see with the eyes of the forest. It’s not just night-vision; it’s something more. Something bigger. Like I’m every tree, every mushroom, everything in the godsdamn circle of life. And it is all so beautiful, all so precious, I want to cry.
And there’s my girl, being dragged off thrashing by Not-Cookie-Grandma.
The nymph snarls. “Let us take our revenge.”
I nod at the creature, who now looks more tree than woman.
But she is far more beautiful this way. I can’t explain it, but I’ve never seen something as pure and good as this nymph.
Cruel? Yes. But I have always loved the forest. Always loved the trees.
Always loved these woods, dangerous as they are.
“I don’t know what you’re taking revenge for, ma’am,” I offer, “but I’m with you.”
She moves like the wind, and whatever she did to me doesn’t hurt any longer, and I can move with her as we follow them into the forest, catching up with hardly any effort at all.
The nymph grabs Not-Cookie by the hair, I grab Alice by the arm, and we force them apart.
Alice rages like a feral beast, slipping out of my hands and onto the forest floor, scrabbling for the bowie knife that Not-Cookie dropped.
There’s just enough moonlight to find it, and when she has it in her hands, she moves.
Before I can stop her, she’s shoved it in the woman’s gut. “That’s for the nymph,” she snarls.
My heart sinks as a part of me mourns for her. I never wanted her to have to harm a human. But the nymph who gifted me forest Sight smiles triumphantly with a love I didn’t imagine her kind capable of.
Before Alice can do anything else to the woman, the nymph swallows Not-Cookie whole. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s like her entire body becomes a gaping maw, and then Not-Cookie-G and the nymph both are simply gone, an ancient ash tree standing in their place.
Alice yanks on my arm, dragging me back toward the fight. “We’ve gotta finish them off,” she huffs. “Take the rest of them out.”
But when we make it out of the forest, there’s not a single Sector agent left. In fact, there’s no one behind the store except the hound with the missing eye and Mrs. Cheng. They appear to be talking.
The hound turns to me and Alice. You would be wise to keep your wits about you and set a watch for the forsaken.
I swear under my breath. “I don’t know what the fuck that means.”
You will, the hound promises, and then lopes off into the mist.
“Do you know what that means, Mrs. Cheng?” Alice asks, a little out of breath from our run through the forest.
Mrs. Cheng shrugs. “Who ever knows what that one’s on about? He’s a good enough pup, but a hellhound all the same. They speak in riddles.”
“Mrs. Cheng,” I ask, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice, but it’s been a wild end to a stressful day. “Are you some kinda expert on hellhounds?”
Mrs. Cheng just smiles at me. “Middle Hayes, you don’t know the half of what I’m an expert on.
” And then she giggles, pointing to an overflowing grocery sack next to the smaller bag of s’more supplies.
“Thought you could use some extra snacks after all that. Bring my bags back to me tomorrow, please,” she chirps as she heads back into the store.
Alice looks up at me, her eyes wide. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry?”
I curl my arm around her head, kissing the top of it. “Sweet girl, I feel the same.”
She leans against me, shuddery laughs fluttering against my chest. “I need to lie down on the bathroom floor and scream.” I know the feeling. “You have one of those at your house?”
“Sure do, sweet girl. Let’s get our dog and go home.”
I look down at Alice, and she throws her arms around my waist. “Don’t let go,” she sobs into my chest. “Don’t you ever let me go.”
“I won’t,” I promise as I hold her as tight as I can without hindering her breathing. “Now that I’ve got you, you’re mine forevermore.”
Alice doesn’t say another word, but she doesn’t need to. She’s staying. I know it.
Alice Blythe is staying in Blackbird Hollow forever, and my heart might burst for how happy I am.