The slate tiles of The Slaughter Lamb's roof were still warm from the day's sun, holding the heat like a sleeping creature as the sky above Aldis bled from deep orange to a bruised purple. Dáinn stood at the precipice, a silhouette against the fading light, his gaze fixed on the distant, darkening line of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The air was shifting, carrying the evening chorus of crickets and the first brave notes of frogs from the direction of Lake Fomor.
A soft scuffling sound, accompanied by the faint click of claws on slate, announced an arrival. Casper the crypt cat sauntered along the roof's peak, his black fur blending with the gathering shadows until only his luminous green eyes and the tip of his twitching tail were clearly visible.
"So," Casper drawled, settling himself a respectful distance from the Huntsman's boots. "How did the reconnaissance in suburbia go? Find any spectral hounds lurking behind the white picket fences?"
Dáinn didn't turn, but his head tilted a fraction, cutting his eyes toward the feline. The look was answer enough.
"That well, huh?" Casper mused, stretching out a front leg and meticulously cleaning between his toes. "You're back earlier than I anticipated, and you've traded your shadow-cloak for denim. A sartorial downgrade, if you ask me, but far less likely to terrify the local children. What's wrong? She didn't live up to your lofty, ancient expectations? Not, of course, that she is obligated to."
Dáinn's shoulders tightened. "Why is your kind so…"
"Insightful? Perceptive? So brilliant it truly is a burden to watch the rest of you struggle when the answers are so simple?" Casper finished, pausing his grooming to fix Dáinn with an unblinking stare. "Now, are you going to tell me what the issue is, or are you just going to stand there pouting like a gargoyle with indigestion? The brooding is impressive, but it's terribly inefficient for problem-solving."
A long, slow sigh escaped Dáinn, a sound of immense weariness. "She made a deal."
"A classic beginning. And?"
"But she did not know she was making a deal. She agreed to a 'favor for a favor' without understanding the nature of the binding. Now she is entangled with an ancient power, a… being named Camilla, who has her own agenda."
Casper's ears twitched forward with interest. "Oh, my. Sounds like someone took a leaf out of your book."
Dáinn side-eyed him, a flash of irritation in his blue eyes. "I did not leave the bargain open-ended. I offered an equivalent exchange: her aid for my hounds, my aid for her gate. A clear transaction."
"And this was a 'favor for a favor'," Casper repeated, letting the distinction hang in the air like a bad smell. "I see. And what will you do now?"
"I have obligated myself to assist her with the gate. My word is given."
Casper let out a soft, chuckling purr. "And so you are now committed. You are as subtle as a hammer on an anvil, my lord. A straightforward path, I'll grant you that. Where is the girl now?"
"She had an… afternoon class," Dáinn said, the words feeling foreign and trivial. "And something called 'track'. We are to meet tonight to begin gathering the items for a ritual to call the hounds."
A slow, knowing smirk spread across Casper's feline features. "Oh," he purred, his tail giving a final, lazy flick. "Well, that should be interesting then." The way he said it implied that 'interesting' was a synonym for 'catastrophically dangerous'.
The last sliver of sun vanished behind the Blue Wall, painting the sky in shades of deep violet and charcoal. The air in the Mag Mell Memorial Grounds grew cool, carrying the damp, rich scent of upturned earth and old stone. Eris stood at the iron gates, shifting her weight from foot to foot, the beam of her flashlight cutting a wobbly path through the gathering mist that curled between the headstones.
The crunch of gravel announced an arrival. Dáinn rounded the corner of a large, ornate mausoleum, his tall form moving with a silence that seemed to mute the evening sounds. The modern jeans and dark shirt did little to soften his otherworldly presence; if anything, they made the ancient wildness in his eyes seem more pronounced. Casper trotted at his heel, a smug shadow.
Eris's face lit up, a bright, human counterpoint to the gloom. She increased her pace, her sneakers scuffing on the path. "You're here!"
Dáinn offered a schooled scowl, a practiced expression of grim duty, but the corners of his mouth threatened to betray him. There was a peculiar, unwelcome warmth that spread in his chest at the sight of her undampened enthusiasm. A soft, chuckling sound emanated from the cat.
When they closed the gap, Eris bounced on the balls of her feet, her energy making the serene cemetery feel like a starting line. "You ready?"
Dáinn, attempting to deflect her infectious vibe, peered down his nose at her and gave a single, grave nod. "The hour is correct."
"Great!" Eris chirped, turning to survey the vast, misty expanse of graves. "So, where do we…?"
"Mrrow."
Casper announced his presence definitively by weaving a figure-eight around her ankles, his tail brushing against her jeans. He then looked up at her with an expression of supreme feline entitlement.
Dáinn's scowl deepened. "The creature is a nuisance."
But Eris was already bending down, her voice dropping into a coo. "Well, hello there! Are you coming too?" She scooped Casper into her arms, scratching him firmly behind the ears. The cat began a rumbling purr that vibrated through her entire body.
"Let us go," Dáinn interrupted, his tone suggesting they were on a military campaign, not being delayed by a cuddle session.
Casper, with a final, superior glance at Dáinn, hopped gracefully from Eris's arms and trotted to resume his place as vanguard. Eris rushed after them both, falling into step beside Dáinn. "So, where do we start? Is there, like, a special way to find a 'shattered yew'? Do we just wander around poking trees until one feels… sparkly?"
Dáinn glanced at her, a glint of something almost playful in his blue eyes. "I figured we would just ask."
Eris stopped short. "Really? Ask who?"
"The animals."
Her jaw dropped. "You can talk to animals?" she breathed, her voice full of wonder. "Like, all the animals?"
Dáinn sighed, the sound long-suffering. "Yes. It is a simple matter of listening."
"That is amazing!" Eris squealed, her excitement echoing a little too loudly in the quiet cemetery. Her eyes, wide with revelation, then shifted to the black cat strolling ahead of them. She pointed a trembling finger. "Wait. Have you been talking to… him?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
Casper stopped, sat, and deliberately lifted a hind leg to lick a spot on his fur, his green eyes sliding toward Eris with a knowing, almost mocking expression. He let out a very deliberate, "Mrow."
It was all the confirmation she needed.
Eris jumped up and down on the spot, a stifled scream of delight bursting from her. "Oh my God! Oh my God! What does he say? What do you two talk about? Is he sassy? He looks so sassy! Does he have opinions on, like, everything?"
Dáinn pinched the bridge of his nose. "He has opinions on the consistency of his breakfast and the inadequacy of my brooding. It is a relentless commentary."
Casper flicked his tail, as if to say, "And you're welcome for it."
"That is the coolest thing I have ever heard," Eris declared, her gaze swinging between the ancient huntsman and the sarcastic cat with utter reverence that lasted for all of thirty seconds before Eris's curiosity reignited like a firework. As they wandered deeper into the Mag Mell Memorial Grounds, the mist thickening around their ankles, her questions began again, a relentless, cheerful barrage against the cemetery's silence.
"So, like, can you talk to bugs? What do flies even talk about? Is it just 'hey, this rotting thing is great'? And squirrels—are they just gossiping all the time? What about birds? Oh! Can you ask a hawk what it's like to fly? That's got to be the best view, right? Way better than the view from the library." She barely paused for breath, her flashlight beam dancing over weeping angels and weathered obelisks. "Okay, so where are they? The animals. Who should we ask? A crow? They seem smart. Or maybe a groundhog? Do you have a favorite?"
Dáinn moved with a hunter's patience, his eyes scanning the shadows between the headstones, his expression a mask of strained tolerance. "Creatures of the night are often more conversational. But we may not need to consult the local populace."
He came to a sudden halt, his head tilting. Eris, mid-question about the diplomatic relations between raccoons and opossums, nearly bumped into him. He nodded toward the northern edge of the cemetery, where the ground rose into a small, neglected hill. There, standing alone against the bruised purple of the twilight sky, was the silhouette of a massive tree. Its form was grotesquely beautiful, one half of its canopy lush and dark, the other a skeleton of splintered, charcoal-black limbs clawing at the sky. The work of a lightning strike was unmistakable, a scar of raw, elemental violence frozen in wood.
"Whoa," Eris whispered, all her questions forgotten. "That didn't take very long at all." A grin spread across her face. "See? Teamwork."
Without a second thought, she rushed forward, taking the lead and charging up the gentle slope toward the shattered yew, her flashlight bobbing like a manic firefly.
Casper, who had been padding along silently, stopped dead. His ears flattened against his skull, and his bottle-brush tail fluffed to twice its size. A low, rumbling growl vibrated deep in his chest, a sound of pure, primal warning. His emerald eyes were fixed not on the tree, but on the deep shadows pooled at its base, where the roots twisted into the soil of the old graves.
But Eris was already ten paces ahead, her sneakers slipping on the damp grass, and Dáinn's attention was locked on the prize, his mind already on the shard they needed to collect. The cat's silent alarm went unheard.
With a twitch of his tail, Casper trotted after them, his pace hurried, his gaze darting warily into the deepening gloom around them. The easy part was over. The tree was found. What watched them from the shadows at its roots, however, remained unseen.
The shattered yew remained a fixed, mocking landmark in the distance, its splintered limbs stark against the star-dusted sky. They had been walking toward it for what felt like an age, their boots and sneakers scuffing the same type of gravel, passing the same style of weeping angel statue again and again. The mist clung to them with a tenacious, almost sentient grip, and the cemetery had fallen into a hush so deep it felt like that all that could be heard were there footsteps.
"Wow," Eris finally huffed, stopping to put her hands on her knees. "It was further away than we thought. It's like this place is bigger on the inside."
That simple, offhand comment snapped Dáinn's head toward her. "What did you just say?"
Eris looked up, confused by his intensity. "I just said it seems like we keep walking and can't seem to get there. Like we're on one of those gym treadmills that goes nowhere."
A low, continuous growl rumbled from Casper's throat, the sound vibrating in the unnatural silence. Dáinn's eyes met the cat's, and he gave a sharp, understanding nod.
'It's quiet,' Casper's thought brushed against Dáinn's mind, a silent alarm in the stillness. 'Too quiet. Even for the dead.'
Dáinn became rigid, his head tilting as he strained to hear something—anything— beyond the sound of their own breathing and the frantic beat of Eris's heart. The absence of sound was a void, a heavy blanket smothering the night.
When Eris opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, Dáinn lifted a hand, his gesture sharp and absolute. "Quiet."
Casper's emerald eyes, wide and alert, shifted to Dáinn. 'Ask the girl,' he projected, his mental voice tight. 'Ask her if she can see any spirits.'
Dáinn's brow furrowed, but he trusted the familiar's instinct. He turned to Eris, his voice low and urgent. "Eris. Look around. Tell me, can you see any spirits? Now?"
Eris's head swiveled, her gaze scanning the misty lanes between the headstones. Her face, usually so animated, grew still, her expression turning distant and puzzled. She shook her head slowly. "Now that you mention it... no. Nothing." She pinched her chin, thinking hard. "Actually... ever since I met Sarah, the other spirits have been... distant. I haven't been seeing them at all. I just thought I was lucky for once."
The realization struck Dáinn and Casper at the same moment, a shared, chilling epiphany.
"Perception Spell!" they said in unison, their voices a blend of deep rumble and sharp hiss.
"Perception Spell?" Eris echoed, bewildered.
The moment the words left her mouth, the air around them shimmered. It was like looking through old, warped glass that suddenly cracked and fell away. The oppressive silence shattered into a cacophony of overlapping sounds—the frantic chirping of crickets, the hoot of an owl from a nearby oak, the scuttling of unseen things in the underbrush, and a low, collective murmuring that hadn't been there a second before.
Eris blinked, her vision swimming. As the spell dissolved, her sight was flooded not with light, but with presence. The cemetery was now crowded with translucent figures—soldiers in tattered uniforms, women in long-faded dresses, children chasing ethereal hoops—all going about their silent, eternal business.
And one was moving straight for her.
A young man in a mid-19th-century coat and waistcoat, his form flickering with anxious energy, rushed through a marble angel to materialize directly in front of her. "Eris!" he cried, his voice a desperate, echoing whisper.
Eris stumbled back a step. "Ben?" she said, recognizing the lonely, proper ghost who sometimes left old-fashioned wildflowers on her windowsill.
Benjamin Johnson wrung his spectral hands. "Eris! I have been trying to get to you for days! There's been a... a veil! A wall! I could see you, but I couldn't reach you, couldn't make you hear!"
Casper let out a yowl that was half-surprise, half-self-recrimination. "A glamour! A simple, confounding glamour! I can't believe I missed the scent of magic this thick! I'm losing my touch!"
The air was now alive, the world returned to its true, noisy, and spiritually populated self. The shattered yew tree now looked just a hundred yards away, no longer an unreachable mirage. But the ease of their quest was gone, replaced by the unsettling knowledge that someone—or something—had gone to a great deal of trouble to slow them down and blind them.