Hell's Eyes

HELL'S EYES

eyes up as he’d instructed her last night as they’d planned their foray into the Shadow Forest to search for the hellish predator. “Miss Hyacinth,” Mr. Basil breathed, “I do believe we’ve found our fiend.” A small yip met the herbalist’s words, making Elsie lower her bow. “Why, it’s just a kit!” At the very edge of her vision, Elsie could just make out an uncer tain creature attempting to appear like the predator it should’ve been. Crouched low to the ground in a pose meant to strike, the cerbertes let out a low growl that sounded much like a hungry stomach and less of a menacing deterrent. Forgetting herself, Elsie laughed. The sound of Miss Hyacinth’s laughter was like thunder in the oth erwise still wilds of the Shadow Forest. Startled as he was by it, Herman was no more startled than the cerbertes kit, who yelped at the sound and fled before he could even attempt to do away with it in order to save Mr. Noblémyn. “It just might be, but that does not mean we are in any less danger…” Herman said slowly, turning a curious gaze on Miss Hyacinth, “though I have read that perhaps cerbertes kits are not as adept at stunning their prey as their grown counterparts. At any rate, it is mere conjecture.” “And I, for one, am quite happy with keeping it at that,” Elsie said, catching her breath. Frowning, she glanced to where the cerbertes kit had been and onward to where it had fled. “What are we to do now?” “The only thing we can do,” Herman muttered, taking a step through the bushes to follow in the young fiend’s footsteps. “If we wish to free Mr. Noblémyn from the hound’s bewitchment, we must return to Halberry once this matter is dealt with.” “And the cerbertes? What of it?” Herman paused, unwilling to say what he hoped they both knew to be the only solution. “Miss Hyacinth…” he began, “we cannot allow it to—”

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