by Rhys Ford
I was lying. There was a zero chance in hell Malone was going to get out of that circle of hounds alive. All I could hope to do was keep him distracted and still. Moving would only drive them to a frenzy. Ainmhi dubh fed on fear nearly as much as they did flesh, energizing the arcane power in their blood. Malone was scared. Even I could smell it on him, but he clamped his gaze on my face and locked his knees, staring straight at me as if I could bring the gods down to wipe his ass.
But sometimes a lie was all a person needed to die well.
“Kai…,” Ryder called out again from the edge of the bungalows.
“Get inside, Ryder,” I ordered. I couldn’t think about him. Couldn’t worry about him. The damned sidhe lord had to get his ass someplace where there was a door between him and the ainmhi dubh. Of the three of us, he had the best chance for survival. “Go! Now!”
Ryder made some noise behind me, and one of the dogs slithered a foot away from Malone, its head angled to one side, alert and poised. The crunch of gravel beneath the thing’s paw and a shift of its shoulders told me its attention had wandered from Malone to the soft sound behind me. A door slammed, and Ryder cried out to someone to get back, to get inside. Then the monster’s ears perked up at the sweet, querulous sound of a little girl asking someone what was going on.
The ainmhi dubh leaped, and I began firing.
Black dogs don’t die easily. Whatever magic cast to form their skeletons was earth-bound, granite hard, and impenetrable, and the rounds I’d loaded into the Glock weren’t iron. I could only hope to repeatedly shoot at the same site, and by a slim chance, the dog’s skull would shatter under the repeat impact. Iron rounds were better. They disrupted the unsidhe Master’s spell work, and the bone turned brittle, shattering if shot again.
So many ifs and too few bullets.
The first pop went to the dog lunging past me toward the child’s voice, then another in the flat spot between the first creature’s eyes. Its powerful legs carried it nearly past me in two bounds, and my gut twisted, fouling my hope. Its back legs kicked out, sending waves of gravel and mud out behind it, and its jaws opened wide, smoking spittle flinging out in silken tendrils behind its broad shoulders. The bullets slowed it down enough to make it stop and shake its head, probably trying to get the ringing out of its ears.
I heard Malone scream, a terrifying shrill rattle, and my world slid into silence as I shut everything around me down.
There was no saving Malone now. Not until I took care of the larger dog before it tore past me. There were too many options. Too many dogs. I didn’t know if Ryder got the curious back into their rooms or even if he’d gotten to safety. These were young, smaller than a mastiff but still plenty powerful enough to kill, but their bodies were unscarred and sleek. Newly formed but better constructed and larger than an apprentice’s first dog, the hounds were going to be a bitch to kill, so I was borrowing trouble when I glanced over toward Malone.
He was bleeding from little nips and tugs, teasing bites meant to scare their victim to a heightened frenzy. The bags were torn, probably from him swinging at them, and food lay at the ainmhi dubh’s feet, an obvious wealth of protein and fries.
The black dogs ignored it all, snapping at Malone, their garrulous whines and coughs echoing in the rising fog.
“Might as well borrow some trouble. Come on, you bastards. Time to kick you back to the hell you came from,” I muttered. “Run when it’s clear, Malone!”
I couldn’t kill the two dogs snapping at Malone, but I could wound them enough to hobble their hunt. The Glocks barked, and I laid down as much fire as I could at the dogs’ feet. I popped one in the paw, blowing off a clawed toe, then another. They began to howl, furious at the pain, and Malone bolted for one of the nearby palms. He was limping, probably injured, but I’d done everything I could for him. Everything moved too quickly but at the same time, dragged along as Death circled us, looking for the first soul he would reap.
Personally, I courted Death, seducing him to draw near and rake me open to steal away my life. Or at least that’s what it felt like—laughing in Death’s face, almost daring him to choose me first. Especially since as soon as I’d unloaded a clip at the two smaller monsters, the largest dog was on me, drawn by the gunfire and the promise of my unsidhe blood.
It snagged my jeans, tearing at my thigh with a nipping bite. A piece of my skin was caught in its teeth, and it shook its head, ripping my flesh open. The ainmhi dubh was a black streak against the grays, and then someone somewhere turned on the parking lot’s flood beams, blinding me with a curtain of searing white light.
The ainmhi dubh were even uglier in full light, mutated gargoyles too hideous to squat on church waterspouts. They smelled the same, though, and I was smeared with the larger dog’s slimy ooze where it rubbed up against my leg.
Silhouetted in the bright glow, the black dog feinted away to dive toward the shadows, angling its run toward the bungalows. Its paws scrambled to get purchase on the mud, its legs working furiously. Its back end shimmied away from me, tucking its stubby tail under.
“Oh, no. No. No. No running, you piece of shit,” I said, shoving my guns into my waistband.
I jumped at it and tried to dig one hand into its spongy flesh, anchoring myself against the sidewalk’s edge. My arms were still sore from fighting the truck’s flight through the raging waters and rockslide, and my back popped alarmingly when the dog curled around to snap at me, nearly flinging me off.
There was a flash of gold hair in the shadows beyond the sidewalk, and then Ryder burst into the hot circle of light. Wielding a thick crowbar over his head, he looked ridiculous or maybe heroic, depending on who would tell the story of our deaths. I tangled with the dog, and Ryder brought the crowbar down, smacking me in the shoulder. The jarring blow rattled my teeth in my head, adding to the pain lurking in my joints. Then the dog’s head turned, its jaws snapping close to my face, and its spit struck my skin.
The burn was familiar, a fire I’d been teased with from the moment I could recognize the difference between my own flesh and the hard surface I was strapped to. One of my Glocks slithered over my left hip bone, so I drew it out again. Closing my eyes against a spray of acidic spit, I shoved the muzzle of one of the Glocks into the ainmhi dubh’s throat and unloaded as many rounds as I could. The gun’s blasts were short, powerful golden blows slicing through the dog’s greasy black flesh, the stink of gunpowder a welcome sulfurous slap across my face compared to the death reek of the writhing dog’s body.
The dog stumbled, going down on its chest, but its legs were still pumping away, the tiny speck of gray matter it’d been given focused solely on one thing—killing the sweet-voiced piece of meat it heard mewling its distress. Blood and brain gushed from the bullet wounds in its throat and head. It stumbled, snapping at the air, but its eyes were already fading, their crimson light flickering in the misty air.
My hands and arms were burning from the dog’s blood splatter. Red welts rose up on my skin, a few blistering where larger drops hit, but the dog’s youth lessened the potency of its sting. Shaking off the pain, I tossed Ryder one of the Glocks.
“Finish the damned dog, Ryder!” I shouted at him as I dug out my other gun. I had two knives on me and another clip. There were enough bullets left in the Glock for Ryder to make short work of the ainmhi dubh writhing on the ground. “I’m going to help Malone.”
It was a simple eject, snatch, and reload while I sprinted across the parking lot to the other two dogs, and the empty clip went wide, clattering when it hit the asphalt. The ground was wet, and ahead of me, the dogs were tearing at the base of a clump of tall, staggered bark palms, their thick, bulbous trunks oozing from numerous smoking bites. Smears of blood dribbled down the tree’s bark, vaguely hand shaped and a good sign of Malone’s climbing ability. The fronds were thick, obscuring the top of the trees, but a thin wheezing whimper came from above, barely audible over the black dogs’ snarling and snapping.
I began firing w
hen I got within five feet of the monsters and prayed I could take at least one down before I ran through the clip.
The smaller one kept to the trees, clawing at the trunk, but the larger one—a male with gender barely emerging from his paunch—caught a bullet on the side of his head, and he turned, the ricochet taking off most of his left ear. The blood hit a low-hanging frond, cooking its yellowed tips to cinders. A wisp of smoke lifted up from the dead leaf, the curl hammered by the thickening rain. The dog’s haunches dropped, and I squared off, resting my palm under my hand, and aimed again.
I squeezed the trigger, but the ainmhi dubh was already moving.
The gun jerked in my hand, hot casings flying into the cold air. The rain came down hard and fast, striking my face with icy slaps, but I couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away from the squat dense monster barreling toward me. Another shot, another bloom of blood from the ainmhi dubh’s forehead, but if the damned thing felt anything, he wasn’t showing it.
The male was almost on me, its fetid breath curdling the air, and I braced for the hit, tallying up how many bullets I had left before I was forced to use a knife. If I could get to my knives. The hit never came. His haunch struck my leg, nearly twisting me around. Then the monster was gone, passing me in a streak of bloody fur and acidic blood.
I took a step back, half wishing I hadn’t given Ryder my other gun. With targets on either side of me—the male and the unsexed ainmhi dubh at the base of the palms—I was outmaneuvered and certainly out-fanged. There was a short clip in my back pocket, but I didn’t have enough time or distance to reload if I ran out of bullets. I took aim at the smaller dog when a warble wormed its way through the rain, a thin, plaintive line sharp enough to dig through my eardrum and burrow down into the base of my skull.
Its piercing sharpness curled into my brain, laying a hot scalpel into my ear, and I shook my head, trying to clear the buzzing spreading through my skull. I blinked, and the smaller hound snarled, drawing my attention again.
After taking one last snap at the trunk, the smaller ainmhi dubh broke off and charged after the first, its ears flat against its misshapen head when it picked up speed. It flew on rapidly churning legs, nearly too quick for me to track, hot on the trail of the male.
Rogue packs never ran from a fight. Never.
So someone—somewhere—was controlling them. And from a distance.
I broke into a run after them, but the dogs blew past the bungalows, disappearing into the sage. I got twenty feet into the grounds, stumbling through the dark, but the shadows swallowed the ainmhi dubh whole, leaving me nothing but smoldering brush and a curious tinny squeal lying just under the sound of the wind.
“A whistle?” I cocked my head, straining to filter out the pitchy cry, but the rain and Ryder’s shouts for help with Malone drowned out anything I might have heard. Still, I backed out of the sage slowly, keeping my gun up until I felt flat, hard asphalt beneath my feet. “That’s what you’re using to control them, you bastard?”
I didn’t expect an answer. I didn’t get one. Not unless I counted the pea-sized hail falling from the storm-shrouded sky.
“Kai!” Ryder’s shout broke through the storm’s growing fury. “We’ve got Malone!”
Lowering the Glock, I turned slightly to see Ryder and a few others helping pull Malone out of the palms. The kid looked bad, a bloody, oozing mess, but he was still breathing and, from what I could hear, awake enough to complain.
“Coming!” I shouted back. “Hold on.”
The noise faded—if it ever really existed—and I scanned the hillside, looking for any trace of the dogs. There was nothing to see, not that I was expecting anything other than the hard hail and thunder rolling on top of me. Standing there, it dawned on me I hadn’t heard another shot, other than the ones I’d laid into the black dogs. One look at the large dog confirmed my suspicions. It was still twitching, slowly dying while it tore the air up with dangerous snaps of its powerful mouth.
“Pele damn you, Ryder.” There was a crowd forming around the dog, if I counted four people as a crowd, but one of them was a little girl, wearing a flowered pink nightie and no shoes. I left Malone’s extraction to Ryder and walked over to the dog, shooing the bystanders back their bungalows. “Go on. Head inside. Those two might come back. Get back inside.”
It took me ten damned minutes to get rid of the crowd and another three to convince an old woman barely hiding her belly-button-skimming flat breasts under a crop top that I didn’t need company for the rest of the night. With Bryan taking Malone inside to be looked at by the sometimes-drunk medic living in a shack behind the restaurant, I waited until the parking lot was clear before I took another step closer to the slavering black dog lying on the sidewalk curb.
The ainmhi dubh twitched and writhed, its naked belly bloating from the gases building up inside of its dying guts. I sidestepped its paws as it made a slow swipe at my feet. The cement smoked from its drool and the frothy blood bubbling out of its snarling mouth.
“Kai.” Ryder was behind me, my name a soft plea rolled around the gold in his voice. “I….”
“Don’t want to hear it, Your Lordship.” I could taste the hot of my fury in my throat. “I gave you a damned gun I could have used so you could take care of this.”
“I didn’t—”
“Think?” I finished for him. There was no looking at Ryder. Not now. My fingers were shaking when I reloaded my Glock with the short clip I had left. “These cursed things heal faster than we do, and they don’t need a higher brain function to kill. All it needed to do was get on its damned feet, and it’d have been on that little girl like Spam on rice.”
I pulled the Glock’s trigger once, and the ainmhi dubh heaved around the violence of the shot. I gave it another round, satisfied it was dead before I turned to face Ryder.
“I’m going to go check on Malone now,” I said through my anger. “Then you and I are going to talk. And you’re going to tell me everything you know about your damned sister and what connections she has to the unsidhe Courts.”
Thirteen
I LEFT Malone in the mostly capable hands of Doctor Ed with a stern warning to keep the kid alive until morning. It wasn’t going to be that difficult of a task, even for a permanently soused gristle of a man and his one-eyed parrot. Malone’s wounds were mostly superficial, but a few were deep, needing stitches. After Bryan opened up Changa’s tiny infirmary, Ed slammed down a pot of coffee and got to work on our young not-Stalker.
That just left me with Ryder, an empty belly, and a desperate need for a shower.
I’d decided on the shower first, and when I emerged from the steamed-up coffin Bryan called a spacious bathroom, Ryder was coming through the door with boxes of hot food.
Being naked didn’t bother me. Much. Ryder’s eyes on me did. It was a complicated glance, part arousal but mostly resignation, maybe a hint of regret. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. What I needed was clothes, food, and sleep.
The clothes were easy. A pair of loose fleece shorts and my worries about dangling in the wind were over, and an old T-shirt covered the taint of my father’s house scarring my back. I’d scrubbed the dog’s bite marks raw, paring off any blackened spots with a knife before I’d gone into the shower, but they needed covering or I’d end up sticking to the linens when I slept.
I stuck on a few plasters while Ryder put the food down on the dresser, and then the fight began.
At least it did in my mind. Ryder probably viewed it as a steady, thoughtful conversation where points were made and concessions were given. What I really wanted to do was punch him in the face, eat, and get some sleep.
Or fuck him.
Since that was out of the question, the first three options seemed like a healthier choice, but punching him would probably negate my contract and end up with me losing my license. So, even as good as it would feel, plowing my fist into Ryder’s nose was off the table. I also didn’t have the energy for a fight, so a thoughtful conversatio
n was looking like the price of my meal, but I wasn’t ready to pay quite yet.
Ryder opened one of the boxes, then pulled out a thick paper-wrapped, greasy cheeseburger. He was not playing fair. Especially when he set a plate of nachos down on the box’s lid next to the burger, putting all of it down on the bed next to me with a handful of napkins.
Pride told me to ignore the offering, but my stomach had no shame, so I ate a cheese-and-jalapeño-laden chip.
“I saw Malone in the infirmary. He’s sleeping.” He lobbed the first volley, an innocuous start. “I didn’t get to talk much with the doctor. He seemed intent on gulping down a cup of coffee.”
“Best news I’ve heard all night.” I sniffed at the heat building up on my tongue from the pepper. “Coffee’s a good thing for Ed.”
The nachos and burger were joined by a bottle of black label whiskey, and Ryder asked, “Are you certain this Ed will take care of him? Wouldn’t he be better off here?”
“He’s going to need fluids, and Ed’s a doctor. When he’s sober,” I said through a mouthful of corn chip. “I paid him fifty to stay sober. And gave a twenty to Bryan to make sure Ed kept up his end of the bargain. Malone’s got to go the night without any problems, and then we can reassess in the morning.”
“He was lucky the ainmhi dubh didn’t kill him.” A small shudder worked through Ryder’s torso. “I’d never seen one up close until the river with you and the girls, but I’ve heard what they can do.”
“Lately every damned unsidhe in the county seems to think they’re a Hunt Master, so now we’ve got rogue packs everywhere. I keep hoping the dogs eat them before breaking their leash, but I don’t think that’s happening.”
“You don’t think these were rogue, do you?”
