The circle of hellhounds tightened around him.
Patsy still stood where she had since the beginning, back under the streetlamp.
“How’d you follow me?” Brodie asked, stalling for time. “Tuck took back all my shine.”
“We didn’t need to follow you,” Darkly said. “We followed the cat.”
Realization washed over Brodie. The car-hopping, before the fight in the alley.
“You took some of hers. When you were all in that car together.”
“Took? Hardly. She gave it to us, man, so we could follow you. Not too quick, are ya? She ain’t with you, buddy. She’s with us. We take down the ghost, she gets her cut of the shine. Everybody wins. Except you, of course.”
Brodie slashed his head from side to side, spinning and dancing to keep an eye on his attackers.
“I’m not going down without a fight,” he warned.
Darkly bared his white teeth in a salivating smile.
“I’m counting on it. It’s more fun that way. But you can’t run. And we can’t, you know, die. So the ending of this one’s already written.”
Well. There was a certain kind of sureness in Darkly’s words. They felt true, there on that dark bridge. But endings are funny things. You never know how they’re really gonna go, until they go. Just like beginnings. Believe me.
And Brodie? Brodie was a swirling storm of emotions. Panic that he was surrounded, with no way to escape. Fear of the hellhounds moving in around him ever closer, ever closer … and of that horrible feeling of his soul being ripped away. And a cold burning fury at Patsy and her betrayal.
But then, as he stood surrounded by evil, something happened.
New snow, icy and delicate as stars slipping from the sky, began to fall. Like it was blown from a mountaintop. Maybe by an angel. The snow began to fall all around them, as soft and quiet as the ash of feathers. But cleaner.
And for some reason, that hushed snow calmed and clarified the storm inside Brodie. Who knows why? But it did.
He raised his nose and looked up at the flakes fluttering down through the streetlights.
He didn’t wag his tail. Because he didn’t feel happy. He felt … sureness.
He looked back to Darkly’s black, starving eyes.
“You can have my soul,” he said.
Darkly’s ears lowered. His evil wag slowed.
“What?”
“You can have my soul,” Brodie said again. “All of it.”
The hellhounds stopped their slow circling.
Patsy had been looking away the whole time the dogs had been closing in. But at Brodie’s words, her eyes snapped back to him.
“What’s your game?” Darkly snarled.
“No game. You can have it. You just have to let me go.”
“What?”
“Let me go. To my boy. You can follow me. Let me go do what I came here to do. Please. And then I’ll give you every last drop of my shine. I promise.”
There was a long, tight moment of silence and falling snow and black eyes glistening.
Then Darkly’s tail began its slow, sinister wag again.
And he spoke.
“The cat was right. You are an idiot. Let you go? Never. You’re ours, mutt. Your boy is on his own.” Darkly took another step closer. His black eyes were dull. Bottomless. His teeth were ready for the bite. His voice dropped low, to a scratchy rumble that was something between a whisper and a growl. “And what do you think you could do, anyway? You couldn’t help him when you were alive. You sure can’t help him now. You’re alone with your fate. And your boy is alone with his.”
Those words. They jabbed at Brodie’s heart with sharp little stabs. They shivered his soul with coldness.
But those words and that stabbing and that shivering did nothing to weaken Brodie’s sureness. No. Believe me. They only made it stronger.
Because Brodie’s heart? It would never retreat from the last ground it was standing on. And the last ground it was standing on was Aiden.
Aiden. His boy. The boy of wide-mouthed laughter, the boy of secret bedtime tears, the boy of fierce hugs and thrown balls and behind-the-ear scratches. The boy with the broken nose and the black eye who only wanted one thing: a picture of him and his dog.
I’ll never let anyone hurt my boy. The words, the thought, the feeling of that pure unbreakable truth, ran through him like liquid iron; he felt his muscles tighten, his eyes narrow, his teeth shine, his claws flex, his whole hopeless self get ready to fight for his boy.
And that feeling? That feeling of desperate will, of full-souled determination to protect his boy? It wasn’t a new feeling. It felt familiar. Brodie dropped his head, closed his eyes. And the memory, the full horrible memory, finally came back to him there on that dark bridge, surrounded by demons.
The mud. The fear. The anger.
The cursing, the thrown can.
Brave and beautiful Aiden, standing up to the monster. To protect Brodie.
Then the hit. Aiden crumpling. Brodie terrified, trembling. The monster looming, lumbering closer. His arm was raised, his hand tight in a mean fist.
And then: that feeling. The same one he’d just had, facing down Darkly.
I’ll never let anyone hurt my boy.
And then: Brodie running.
Not away from Aiden. No.
Running toward the monster. Teeth bared. Heroic heart pure.
His teeth had sunk into the monster’s leg before the monster’s hand could come down.
The monster had roared and stumbled back.
Brodie had pressed forward, lips pulled back, ears tucked low.
The monster looked down at his ripped jeans for one ugly moment. Then his eyes slid with seething fury up to Brodie. And with a growl, the red-faced monster lunged.
Yes. The monster attacked. But with his boy at his back, Brodie had met him.
Aiden screamed. “Brodie! Brodie!”
Then it was a blur. There had been shouts from the monster, whines and growls and barks from Brodie, cries from the boy. There had been kicking feet and punching hands and snapping teeth.
But Aiden would not leave Brodie. And Brodie would not leave Aiden.
And then he’d been sent spinning and yelping. He crashed against the wall.
And Aiden had screamed.
And he lay there, hearing his boy crying. Unable to rise. Unable to help him. Unable to save him. And then the monster was standing over him, panting. He’d raised his heavy boot high.
Aiden cried out one last time.
“No! Please!”
And the boot had come crashing down.
And the memory ended.
He hadn’t run away. He hadn’t abandoned his boy. He’d fought for him. Of course he had. He’d fought for him, and he’d died for him.
And Brodie? He’d do it all again. A million times, forever.
Brodie raised his head.
He thought of Tuck. Brave Tuck. Tuck who fought. Tuck who battled. Tuck who never wavered.
And he thought of Aiden. And he remembered how his boy had fought for him, and stayed with him, and asked for pictures to remember him still. His boy.
And then Brodie said four words. He said them quiet. He said them to himself, partly. But he said them to Aiden, mostly. Wherever he was.
“You,” he said. “Me. Together. Always.”
Darkly heard the words. He didn’t understand them. But there was no time for Darkly to wonder about them, if there was even any room left for wonder in that dog’s dark heart. Because with the last word, with that whispered always, Brodie charged into battle.
Brodie didn’t run at the closest hellhound. Or the smallest.
No.
Because Brodie was full of sureness. And full of anger. And he was full of Tuck.
And he was full of Aiden.
So Brodie? He readied his jaws and ran right at Darkly’s waiting maw. He ran with his sure heart right at the beast himself.
Brodie’s attack didn’t tak
e Darkly by surprise. Darkly had done this before; he knew that prey that is cornered will almost always, at the end, lash out. It’s just how these things go. Almost nothing, in the end, wants to die. Believe me.
But … not being surprised is not the same thing as being ready.
Brodie leapt with all the speed that his spirit body could give. His soul sparkled as he flew at the dark beast.
Darkly stepped back; he swung his head and snapped with his jaws and swiped with his claws.
But Brodie’s teeth found fur and held it.
Brodie whipped his neck, tearing at the monster.
Darkly snarled. Darkly howled. Finally, Darkly whimpered.
Brodie felt the other hounds close in around him. He felt their teeth on his back, his haunches, his shoulder, his neck. But he didn’t let go. And then he felt it. The nothingness. The nothingness of Darkly, the emptiness. The black blankness of a creature with no soul left. There was nothing for Brodie to take from him. Nothing more that Darkly could lose. All that Brodie could do to Darkly was to give him pain.
And Brodie? He didn’t want to.
So Brodie let go. He gave Darkly one last tug and chew and then he spat him out and spun, all teeth and anger and sureness, shaking the hellhounds off his haunches. And then he stood, once again at their center.
Darkly had stumbled when Brodie had released him. He rose to his feet and took his place in the circle. His head was low, but not in defeat. It was low like a snake, ready to strike.
“Little puppy,” he said, “is not playing nice.”
Darkly’s whiteless eyes had no sparkle, no soul, but they weren’t empty. His eyes burned with dark hatred. And bottomless hunger.
Brodie looked into the eyes of the other hellhounds. He didn’t see what he was hoping to see; there was no wariness now that they had seen his anger. There was no caution now that they had seen his fight.
Their eyes, like Darkly’s, were brighter now. Shinier. Hungrier.
He had shown them his spirit. His hope. His heart. Brodie had shown them his life.
And it had made their lifeless mouths water.
They were starved for it.
“You ready, Patsy?” Darkly asked. “A deal’s a deal. You get first take. We’ll hold him down and you get yours.”
There was no answer.
Darkly looked over his shoulder to where Patsy sat in the streetlight’s glow. She was looking up, through the snow and into the darkness.
“Nah,” she said after a moment. “I don’t want none of this dog’s soul.” She stood up and gave Brodie one last, long look. “It’s too bright for me.” Then she turned and walked away through the falling snow, back the way they’d come.
“Suit yourself,” Darkly said with a wagging tail. “More shine for us, then.”
Darkly’s head swung back to Brodie. His mouth opened in a toothy grin. And then the hellhounds swarmed.
Darkly surged forward and Brodie lunged to meet him … but before their jaws met, Brodie felt two sets of teeth sink into him from either side, one on his shoulder and the other lower, on his belly. The teeth sank deep and found pain there. Brodie twisted, howling and snapping at his attackers.
And that’s when Darkly hit him. Brodie felt the collision, saw the blur of Darkly’s yellow fur, and then felt himself driven into the asphalt. If he had been alive, with breathing lungs, it would have knocked the wind out of him.
Darkly stood over Brodie, his paws on his chest, and snapped quick and vicious at Brodie’s neck. Brodie slashed his head from side to side, blocking Darkly’s bites, panic rising in his throat. The other hounds were on him, too, nipping and tearing at his body. He felt fangs sink in, felt them hold, felt them chew and dig into him.
Then … the tearing. The pain rose, the agony. The ripping of his soul. One, then two, then three, four, five, six. Six pieces of his soul, torn away. Brodie felt each one as it left him, felt hope leave his heart in six painful pieces and felt despair seep in to take its place. Even as he fought and dodged and blocked Darkly’s relentless teeth, Brodie could not stop the high whine that howled out of him into the night.
This would be how it ended. This was how Brodie would lose his soul, his life, his boy.
If he didn’t break free, all would be lost. If Darkly got a grip on his throat, all would be lost.
Brodie focused all his energy, all that he had left, on one last effort.
He didn’t jump up, or charge at Darkly, or try to lurch forward and shake the dogs loose.
Brodie gathered all his strength and rolled, hard and tight and fast, a wild twisting roll in the snow.
Darkly’s paws slipped off his chest. One, then two, then three tearing mouths lost their grip. There were still growls all around Brodie, still paws and claws and struggling bodies, but when he felt the last mouth tear free he scrambled fast to his feet and spun, snapping and snarling.
Brodie was surrounded but he kept his paws moving, spinning and dancing and sidestepping, keeping each hungry mouth away as they came at him. He felt jaws close around his tail and he spun, shaking loose. He felt more teeth latch on to his shoulder and tore free with a snarling snap of his own. And he kept moving, kept fighting, kept his heart in his mouth and kept his teeth at the ready.
He was battling his way, step by tortured step, across the bridge. Toward his boy. With all those dogs around him and no place to run, no chance for escape, Brodie with his hero’s heart kept fighting toward his boy.
Because Brodie? He had decided something on that snow-speckled darkness of the bridge: If he was going to lose his soul, he was going to lose it like this. Fighting.
It was hopeless. It was. Believe me. Brodie, that good dog, never had a chance.
Even as he fought, even as he bit and battled and bled for every inch he could make toward his boy, he was losing. One of the hellhounds would get a grip and tear with its terrible teeth for just long enough, before Brodie shook them free, to steal a bit of his shine. As he struggled and wrestled across that bridge, Brodie lost his soul one little light at a time. One to Darkly. Then one to Smoker. Then two to Thump. And another to Darkly.
Brodie was getting darker and darker and darker.
But there was no surrender in that dog. Right up until the end, right up until the very end, there was no surrender.
Finally, he found himself backed up against the concrete side of the bridge.
The hellhounds stood in a half circle around him.
Their eyes were still black. But around each of them were swirling bits of Brodie’s soul. His shine.
They had more of it than he did now.
But shine? It’s not the same as heart. They had more shimmer. But Brodie, even then at the end, still had more of everything that mattered.
The snow hadn’t stopped. It fell all around them.
A car drove by, its headlights making the fluttering white flakes even brighter and whiter where they shone. Music from the car’s radio could just be heard, seeping through the snow-wetted windows. It was soft, and sad. Something with violins. And a woman’s voice, singing. The driver had no idea, I’m sure, of the drama happening on the bridge as they passed. A drama visible only to the dead. And to the angels.
“It’s time,” Darkly said. His voice was grim. Eager, but without the tail-wagging excitement he’d had earlier. Taking someone’s soul for forever is a dark business, even to the darkest.
Brodie looked him in the eye.
“Will I still be able to help my boy? After, I mean? When I’m … like you?”
“No,” Darkly answered, stepping closer. “But you were never going to be able to help him, anyway.”
Another car passed. There was no music from that one.
Brodie looked at his shine out of the corners of his eyes.
Six. He had six lights left. He would lose them, he knew.
But Brodie? He didn’t care about that. Not much, anyway.
“My boy,” he said. He said it softly.
“Your bo
y,” Darkly said, “has already forgotten you. I promise. They always do. Now you should forget about him. It makes it easier.”
Brodie straightened his shoulders and turned his gaze back to the hellhounds.
“Never,” he said.
“Always,” Darkly answered.
But Darkly? He was wrong about that. The best hearts, the bravest souls, the strongest loves? They always remember. And they’re always remembered. Believe me.
The hellhounds closed in.
“Only a few lights left,” Darkly growled at them. “And I get the last one.”
Another car was driving across the bridge behind them.
Brodie bared his teeth. He would lose, he knew. But he would lose fighting.
Just as the hellhounds leapt, just at that moment when their dark bodies launched at him, Brodie saw something. Just barely, just a flicker behind the beasts coming at him. Something flying through the air, sailing his way. A shadow, darting out from the passing car.
Then they were on him and he was fighting, slashing, to keep off their attack.
And in those first furious seconds, Brodie knew that he was done. They were too many, and he was too trapped.
But.
But then, in all the madness and the mayhem, Brodie heard something. A sound that didn’t belong in a fight to the death between one good dog and four bad ones.
It was a howling, a screeching, a hissing and a snarling.
It was the battle cry of a cat.
The cat came out of nowhere. Well, she came flying out of a moving car.
But to Darkly and his hellhounds, it seemed like she came out of nowhere. It seemed like she had dropped straight from heaven.
She had not. Believe me.
But there she was, all claw and fang and fur and fire.
She leapt onto the back of Skully, just as the dog sank his teeth into Brodie’s flank. Her claws dug deep. Her teeth sank in and found what they were looking for.
Skully’s teeth let go of Brodie. He turned his head to the sky and howled in pain. And a soul light that had been Skully’s for only a matter of moments floated over to the cat. And then the cat moved on, springing straight from Skully’s back to Thump’s.
Thump had been inches from grabbing hold of Brodie’s throat when the cat grabbed hold of his. There was a whimper and a whine and a desperate pulling back. But it was too late. A light left the dog and joined the cat.
Good Dog Page 17
