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“A little help?” I called out.
“Ya’ll done got yourself into that mess,” came Fortune’s reply.
The only way I knew the beast got closer was how my own shadow stretched. Paws the size of hub caps with glossy claws padded out of the dark. The growling deepened and bared teeth caught the distant headlights.
Cops shot more dogs than people. Strays and even pets often caught bullets for being aggressive. Feel threatened? End it. In the suburbs where dogs are dressed up in little sweaters and have a plate at the dinner table, that comes off as bloodthirsty. In places where a dog is bought and raised to be the first line of defense against an inevitable break-in or robbery, or where they train dogs to kill for sport, you don’t lose much sleep when it happens.
Faced with a dog made from the stuff of shadows, I knew popping off a few rounds wouldn’t be enough. If we had to fight, it would come to his fangs versus my magic knife. More blood would be shed, mine in particular. I often wished Atofo’s ancestors had consecrated a few bullets instead.
“Easy,” I said as the shadow beast prowled into the intersection. I let Atofo’s knife slip from the wrist sheath and palmed the blade. “I never hurt you, remember?”
“Never hurt it?” Araceli stood ready outside the intersection. “You know this creature?”
“We’ve met. I first thought maybe I interrupted its dinner at Fenwick Hall.” I edged sideways to match the circling beast. “Beginning to think it’s here for other reasons.”
“It’s here because your corrupt sorcery summoned it, Warlock!” Araceli belted. She tracked the movement with her eyes, staying close to the hearse for cover. Smart. Smarter than me.
“Fortune,” I shouted. My palm began to sweat against the leather grip of Atofo’s knife. The owl feather brushed against my forearm. “You know something, start talking!”
“Three times,” he called. “I told you three times. No blood. No fancy knife. And then he’d come.”
“Right, the devil,” I said.
“That’s right.” I heard his reply from the void.
“Devil?!?” Araceli shouted.
“Not the Devil,” I said, exasperated, “like with the horns and the pitchfork—”
“Yessir,” Fortune called. He added a wheezing laugh to the repetitive creaking. “The one and only. You just wait ‘til he gets here.”
“You thought calling up another demon would solve your problems?” Araceli lectured.
I fought the urge to take my eyes off the creature and start muggin’ Araceli. She maybe had her centuries old holy mission or whatever, but I had more immediate troubles which required immediate risks. If Death couldn’t carry me away, I wasn’t about to let this hound do it.
I brought the words of a spell to mind. I hadn’t figured out yet if Atofo’s battle magic made you superhuman or an apex predator. If I had to describe it, you became part demon yourself. Shedding the blood of your enemies drove your every thought and motion. That worked best against foes in This World though. Would this creature even bleed?
“We can fight if need be,” I said, not even sure if the words were understood. “But that’s not why I’m here. I came to find a sword, but I also need to find a boy.”
The circling shadow crept to a halt. I strained to pick up on every possible cue. Was there a relaxation of tension or a thoughtful narrowing of the single ruby eye? A softening of the growl? Maybe it could understand me. I kept talking.
“A father lost his son. I know, I saw him in the same house where we met. He would’ve done anything to get him back, but I don’t think he ever had a chance. I’ve sworn to find the boy and reunite them. I’ll die to make it happen if I have to. On this road though, this won’t be where my journey ends.”
The growling stopped as well as Fortune’s rocker. Araceli had moved to work an angle on the beast. I threw her a warning glance and shook my head.
She showed no surprise at my willingness to back down but didn’t follow suit. She stayed poised, her knife close to her body and in a boxer’s stance prime for quick jabs and footwork. She knew how to work a blade. Would hers cut a spirit?
“If we fight here, I might not be able to fulfill my promise.”
The creature faltered. I could sense the indecision. Why? Aside from the house, I had no connections linking it to any part of the current investigation. Swords, confederates, slaves, sheriffs or hoodoos, nothing accounted for this apparition from the Below. But when I’d mentioned the boy, it reacted.
The creature’s head traced an arc through the air. I heard a sniff. Watched the fangs flash in a sudden and deep snarl. I let Atofo’s knife turn in my hand, exposing the blade. Araceli’s jaw nearly came unhinged as the otherworldly weapon slithered into view.
Stabs in the dark. It’s what we’d come to. I’d have preferred to bring a gun to this knife fight, but you work with what you got. The owl feather on Atofo’s knife tickled the cut on my forearm. Blood spilled, words ready, I’d go down swinging.
“The ferryman, he comes for you,” spoke the beast, its words a broken groan. “Maybe I’ll help him by stripping your hide? You might join this boy then. He’s awful lonely.”
I wanted to laugh. A self-conscious fear of loosening the settled mucous in my chest kept my reply strained. “Death won’t take me anytime soon if I can help it. I have a promise to my own son to keep.”
My answer exposed more truth than I’d been ready to give. Araceli’s fixation on the cold-forged blade drifted to my face. I heard the hollow thump of Fortune’s limping stride and cane as he edged closer on his porch. The beast tilted its head.
An engine gunned. Our unofficial parole officers pulled forward, illuminating the intersection. The beast crouched in the glare, an inky stain which couldn’t be erased. Under the intensity of those xenon lamps, the fearsome creature seemed oddly vulnerable. But those powerful shoulders coiled as the vehicle grew closer.
“Stop!” I shouted and raised a palm. And just like traffic duty, everybody ignored me.
Muscles released and the hound sprang, slathering maw open and red eye tracking — a laser sight seeking a target.
I channeled my fear into the brief meditation needed to call on the battle magic. It ripped through my nerves like stray electrical pulses causing my limbs to seize and contort. I gave up control as the beast bore down. How the fight began didn’t matter. How I ended the fight, how I crushed the life from my enemies, bled their essence on the field of battle, that was all that mattered.
Araceli launched her remaining dagger, one hand releasing the silver spike as the other gestured with a counter, pulling motion. Her blade at my feet quivered then shot out of the ground toward her summoning hand.
Both blades crossed mid-flight right below the creature’s ribs. Had it been a dog of flesh and blood, the scything blades would’ve disemboweled it. Hot guts would’ve spilled onto my legs as a mutilated corpse slammed home, limp and dead.
But this was no normal dog. The attack tore open a smoking rift. The beast yelped in surprised agony. Not dead, only distracted, the beast slammed into me before the battle magic had fully taken root. Its full weight slammed me into the gravel road. Clots of phlegm exploded from my lungs and I tasted rancid blood. Sharp rocks chewed into my exposed skin. The jagged edge of pain awakened my full-on war mode.
Time for Fido to play dead.
When the hound shoved its muzzle in my face with that laser stare and those glistening rows of flesh rending teeth, I snarled right back.
I’d lost the knife when I slammed into the ground. My inner beast didn’t care. My battle would take place with tooth and claw.
Savage? Barbaric? Everything Araceli thought about my magic had been on the money. Guns and knives had been invented to keep people from fighting like this, like animals. Invented out of fear. Better to drop your foe at a hundred yards than face this kind of violence.
Wounded by Araceli’s knives, the beast had entered the same primal fury. Jaws snapped and teeth tore into my cheek. Claws scrabbled and shredded my shirt. Every little scratch burned. I felt the pain radiating outward, eating away at flesh. The searing sensation faded to deathly numbness as the surrounding skin and muscle shriveled, fell cold. The gnashing teeth threatened to devour my entire face in one bite making the spreading decay the least of my worries.
A war cry bubbled up and exploded from my throat. I’d lost control of the muscles at one corner of my mouth, a situation which only deepened my rage.
Veins in my neck close to bursting, arms shaking, I seized a fistful of the hound’s slippery skin on both sides of its neck. I couldn’t possibly have enough leverage against a beast this size, not in This World. Gritting my teeth, I called on every bit of strength the ancestors had to give. I plumbed deep into their graves and sought the support of their bony grip. Throwing my shoulders up, twisting my hips, ramming my elbows into the dense chest, I felt the creature rise and watched the single eye burn with surprise.
Knives sailed through its flank once again in silvery tandem lines. The hound howled in pain. I arched, hefting the weight upward while it bayed, twisting and slamming it into the rough ground.
I straddled my kill, frigid otherworldly mist venting from its wounds. I caught a glimpse of Atofo’s knife just within reach. I’d scoop out that ruby eye. See how the motherfucker got along without that. The beast thrashed against my dominant position. I let it struggle, exulting in the triumph.
Then the face shifted. The bloodied muzzle collapsed inward; the mouth and the rows of vicious teeth shrank. The helpless casting of the great eye became the wild and frantic stare of a boy.
My grip slackened.
“Hold it down!” Araceli shouted. She’d grabbed both knives advancing with them in the sign of a cross. “Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino!”
These were the fancy words of Latin from whatever prep school the Lady had attended. Even though she called to God, a version of the Above which I didn’t believe in, I felt my insides burn.
When we’d first met, the song of her hammer had drawn me to her. This chant invited my soul to shed this battered body and stop fighting. Worse, it tried to banish the burning rage which gave me the only edge I had in this fight.
But was it a fight? Below me, the beast squirmed. No longer did I see a boy, just the muzzle of a dog clamped shut in fear, ears flattened. I almost had him defeated. Soon I’d string his limbs in the trees. Somebody had to be the victor. Why would she try and stop me? What did I really know about her, this...this conquistador?
Forgetting the dog, I whirled and snarled. Araceli’s eyes went wide. The creature shifted again, one last ditch effort, and I felt my feet knocked out from under me. Face and elbows hit the gravel, hard. The hound bolted.
I struggled to all fours. Inside, the animal rage pounded my skull, kept my jaw clenched, teeth bared. We had a new enemy, an enemy who had driven our entire people into the dirt. Who’d come and buried us underground where the vultures couldn’t feed, and the sun couldn’t receive us. They’d whispered to us the same curses in that infernal tongue she’d used all for a false God dedicated to peace and surrender even as they slaughtered us.
Like we should this one.
I threw myself at Araceli. A small part inside wanted to stop. Wanted to divert the charge, send that heat-seeking fury elsewhere.
I wasn’t sure if I could.