A Hollow in the Hills by Ruth Frances Long Read Free Book Online Page B

happened?’
    ‘I believe Izzy encountered something impossible.’
    ‘Impossible.’ Mum looked at Izzy through the vanity mirror in the sun visor. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Must be a day ending in a “y” then.’
    ‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Izzy grumbled.
    ‘You weren’t careful enough.’
    ‘Those … those things would have killed Charlotte.’
    ‘The Fear,’ her Dad said, his voice taking on that tone of preachiness she was beginning to dread. It was his teaching voice. He could go on for hours and hours when he started. ‘A fae fairytale. A myth and a monster, the male version of the banshees. What do they say? When the fog is dense and thick, When the whispers are all you hear … something like that. And yes, they would have killed you both.’ He sighed heavily and rolled his shoulders as if trying to loosen up taut muscles, uncurling his fingers from the steering wheel and stretching them out. Trying to calm himself down. The idea that Dad was shaken by the thought of what she’d seen wasn’t comforting. ‘You actually did a remarkably good job considering.’
    ‘High praise,’ Izzy muttered, squirming in her seat.
    ‘You did,’ said Mum, in tones far more gentle than Dad’s. ‘You’re still here, that’s what matters. David, you’re not angry at Izzy. She’s safe. She drove them off. And someone else’s daughter is going home to them as well.’
    ‘Any number of daughters, if the Fear had gone on a killing spree. The Sídhe used to be terrified of them and that’s saying something. Whoever has let them out has a hell of a lot to answer for. They won’t stop here. I’ll have to—’ Dad turned the corner into their road, rounded the bend to approach the house and swore loudly. For the second time that day, Izzy’s tattoo flared with an icy cold warning and she gasped in alarm as she saw what he saw.
    Five angels were waiting in the front garden. The car shuddered to a halt as it stalled in the drive, the engine coughing and spluttering. Dad growled under his breath.
    ‘What are they doing here? Those—’
    ‘David!’ Mum cut in, silencing his litany of curses before they even began.
    Izzy swallowed hard on a suddenly dry throat and tried to grin. The flood of adrenaline brought out her reckless sense of humour. ‘Why not go with “morons”, Dad?’ she offered.
    ‘ Isabel! ’
    Her parents did that one in harmony.
    An uncomfortable silence settled over the interior of the car. The angels watched them, keen as cats on a mouse that had unwisely wandered into their domain.
    ‘We’d better see what they want,’ said Dad and opened the door.
    As Dad approached them the angels’ wary attention sharpened to a knife point. They watched his every move. Izzy followed him out of the car, painfully aware of the way their eyes flicked over to her and away.
    They dismissed her so very quickly. Or couldn’t bear to look at her for too long. They saw Dad as a challenge though and respected him for it. She’d already encountered the deep seated loathing the angels seemed to have acquired for her. Luckily they hadn’t shown their faces much since August. Very few supernatural things had until today, in spite of all her extracurricular training and study. She should have beenrelieved. But seeing them now, after almost three months of almost nothing, this was much worse.
    The angels wore white from head to toe. Tailored clothes, expensive, perfectly fitted to their perfect frames. They were so beautiful, so painfully beautiful, that they didn’t seem quite real. Their shoes didn’t even carry a mark from the grass.
    They reminded her of a nineties boy band. They probably sang in close harmony too.
    Izzy clenched her teeth as one of them stepped forward, the others falling into formation behind him. Had there been a key-change? She hadn’t heard one.
    ‘Zadkiel,’ said Dad. ‘To what do we owe this honour?’
    He didn’t make it sound like an honour. Izzy had never known her