Page 22 of His Human Believer

“No, this doesn’t mean that you’re wrong about the sound, it just means I haven’t captured it yet. But when I do get an unusual sound out there, I’ll have yours to measure it against. Your account is the most useful I have received in this consultation,” Vidar tells him. “It contains a physical characteristic that does not appear in any of the other five reports. It is specific, it is falsifiable, and it gives me something to test.”

He inclines his head. Formally. The way you’d do it to a colleague. “Thank you. But you understand that I must inform your father,” Vidar says.

Dagr’s shoulders come up.

“I would prefer to do it myself, if you permit. It is my finding. It should be my report.”

“I’ll be there for that too,” I tell him.

“Then yes,” Dagr agrees. He meets my gaze. “Dad is going to be mad I went out there alone.”

“Yes, he is,” I agree.

Chapter Seven

Vidar

“He went through the gate. At night. Without an adult?”

Steam pours from Hannibal Hellstone’s nostrils. Beside me, his son’s eyes go wide.

“Yes,” I confirm. “This did happen. On the fourteenth, after full dark, Dagr Hellstone left this domicile alone. He used the gate code and walked the preserve path as far as the first turn. He observed a bipedal figure, taller than a Hyrrokin male, at a distance of some nanco. Gold eye-shine. Then, the figure withdrew.”

I did not soften any part of it. Softening a report is how a report becomes useless.

“His account includes a low-frequency pulsing sound. That detail appears in none of the other five reports.” I set my tablet on the counter. “This is the most useful first-person testimony I have received in this consultation.”

And then the silence, and the steam.

Hannibal turns toward his son. “I gave you that code when you were eleven years old,” he thunders. His voice fills the entire kitchen. “For emergencies. In case of fire. In case something happened to your mother and me and you needed to get out of this house.”

Dagr says nothing.

“You were fourteen years old and alone in that preserve at night.” Hannibal’s barbed tail lashes once behind him and cracks against a cabinet. “And no being in this domicile knew.”

Margaret sits quietly beside the boy and she has not moved from her spot.

“I protect this community,” Hannibal growls. “That is what I do. That is what I have done every diurnal of my adult life. And my own son walked out of my domicile in the dark and I did not know? Where was the wulver?”

All three heads of the enormous animal let out whines of desperation.

Dagr doesn't answer.

“Dagr. Where was Skylo?”

“On Sela and Mitry’s door. I tricked him. He didn’t know I was gone.”

Hannibal closes his eyes.

“Nobody was going to look,” Dagr challenges. He does not cry and he does not apologize. “Everybody said the little kids were making it up. So I looked.”

Avery walks over and puts her hand on Hannibal’s forearm. “Babe, he’s telling you now,” she says. “He kept it to himself for three weeks and then he told Dr. Coalstone and then he came in here and told you. No harm came to him. You might not agree with his risky behavior but let’s remember that he thought he was protecting the other kids in the community by going out there to get more information.”

Hannibal breathes out. Smoke goes toward the ceiling.

He crosses the kitchen and puts one enormous claw on the back of his son’s neck and does not say anything for a moment. “You will not do it again.”

“I won’t ever go past the wall alone again.”