Gremlin peered cautiously from the shelter of a holly bush, letting her glance flick from side to side. All her senses were alert, but she could see nothing beyond the dense undergrowth, scent nothing except the lush smell of vegetation, and hear nothing but the rush of the nearby river.
With a sigh, she stepped back into the hollow space of at the center of the bush. “No sign of him,” she reported. “Maybe our spies got it wrong.”
Her companion, Snake, was crouched down with his black-and-white-furred shoulders hunched. He replied with a grunt. “Maybe.”
He took her place, gazing out through the gap between the branches. Meanwhile, Gremlin began to groom her own patchy black, white, and tortoiseshell fur, grimacing at the taste of the chervil she and Snake had rolled in to disguise their scent. Her pads tingled with a mixture of excitement and apprehension at the thought of what could lie ahead—very soon now.
Snake’s tail lashed once, snapping past Gremlin’s face and startling her so that she had to bite back a squeal of alarm. Snake spoke in a low growl. “He’s here.”
Gremlin pressed up beside him so that she too could see through the gap. Two ginger cats—a tom with a flame-colored pelt and a she-cat with paler fur—were brushing through the undergrowth, less than two fox-lengths away from the bush where Gremlin and Snake were hidden.
