Broken Trust (Broken Book 3)

30: Ariel

"So what exactly is a hellhound?" Lindsey asked.

"Depends on what legend you want to believe," Parrish explained. "Most call us omens of death. Some say we drag souls to hell. We're most famous as being the hounds of the Wild Hunt and guardians of holy ground."

"And the truth?" Derek asked.

"We're protectors of the supernatural. We protect the innocent from the knowledge if we can." Parrish looked over at Sean. "We also protect the innocent from the worst of the supernaturals."

"Like you did with Kenton," Sean said. "When he tried to kill me. Again."

Parrish nodded.

"You didn't use nightshade on him?" Stiles asked.

"No, I lit his ass on fire and threw him out my front door."

Lindsey snickered.

Parrish changed his eyes from green to glowing orange. "I learned how to control it a long time ago." His eyes went back to normal. "I chose to be on the bomb disposal unit in the army because I knew I would never get hurt doing it. Although it still hurts like hell when an IED explodes on you."

"I bet," Scott remarked.

Parrish's eyebrows knit together. "I've been looking out for professional assassins, but I think the amateurs are starting to come out of the woodwork."

"Why do you say that?"

"Haigh wasn't a professional."

Derek and Isabel exchanged glances, recognizing the name from Devin's vision.

"I don't think he'd tried anything like this before. I think he was taking a chance."

"That means anyone with the dead pool can take a chance," Derek said.

"Is there a chance that Haigh had partners?" Isabel asked.

"What do you mean?" Parrish asked.

"People that worked with him?"

"I really don't know. And if I see him again, I'm going to do more than beat the crap out of him."

"Yeah, let's not do that," Scott said.

~~~

Liam's printer suddenly came to life, startling him from his sleep. He rubbed the sleep from his eye, looking around the room bleary-eyed. He caught sight of the papers coming out of the printer and went over to it, trying to shut it off. When it wouldn't shut off, he crawled under the desk and found the cord, unplugging it. The printer finally stopped and he started gathering up the papers. He paused, seeing that an updated version of the dead pool had printed off. He picked up three of the sheets and stuffed them in his bag. He needed to show the others this.

~~~

"Your grandmother was a banshee, too?" Parrish asked after Lydia relayed the story of how her grandmother had predicted her girlfriend's death during a freak thunderstorm on the lake outside the Martins' lake house.

Lydia nodded. "It took decades to figure out how Lorraine knew. She started with parapsychologists. They built the study in the lake house according to every pseudoscientific theory they could find. None of it worked."

"Not really surprising," Sean commented. "Since, it's supernatural not science."

"She thought the same thing, so she turned to the occult. Mediums and psychics. All of them were failures until they found Meredith at Eichen House. This fragile girl who didn't understand the things she heard. They brought her to the study and they nearly killed her. She was hospitalized for over a year. But she never really recovered. My grandmother drove her insane. And I drove her to suicide. All she ever wanted to do was help." Lydia pulled the paper from her grandmother out of her purse and set it on the table. "My grandmother created the code for the dead pool."