Black Dog

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “I still need a clue beyond sweet and innocent,” Marty said. “A location, a gender, whether they wear boxers or briefs . . .”

  I thought of the marquee on Father Colin’s church in Rapid City. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit . . .

  “Revelation,” I said. “In Revelation there’s a chapter about the two witnesses to the Apocalypse. One of them sees the angel blow his trumpet and open the seven seals.” Unleashing the pale horse, among others, but every time I thought about Clint I wanted to cry, so I shoved it down.

  “The witnesses were given the ability to prophesy the end of the world,” I said. “And a bunch of weird stuff about fire flowing out of their mouths that I’m guessing is just creative license. But they definitely went out and killed a bunch of the enemies of God.” I never thought my apathetic Bible study back in Bear Hollow would come in handy, but there’s a first time for everything.

  Marty stopped typing. “Got her,” he said.

  I blinked. “Seriously?”

  Marty made the screen larger. “Yeah. She has a blog.”

  The Web page was bare, glaring green text on a black background, proclaiming SATAN WALKS AMONG YOU. The picture next to the headline was a cropped shot of a serious, brown-­haired young woman who had what I would charitably describe as a serious case of crazy eyes.

  “Kayla Stillman,” Marty announced. Another monitor popped up her file from the Oklahoma DMV. “Proud owner of one of the ugliest Web pages I’ve ever seen and a criminal record in the great state of Oklahoma.”

  He started a bunch of files scrolling. “She was a specialist in Iraq until 2009, when she was injured by an IED. Came home on a medical discharge and ended up shooting her CO outside the hospital where she went for PT.”

  Marty whistled under his breath. “Kayla here claimed that she’d been given the gift to see demons and that they were here, right this second. Her little satanic panic got her off of the murder charge. She was diagnosed with psychosis brought on by severe PTSD and sent to a state hospital. Attacked other inmates three times, released last year . . .” He scrolled rapidly through screens. “Due to budget cuts. ­Couple of run-­ins with the law since then for disorderly conduct, screaming about being a witness to the end of days. Direct quote from the police report. Here’s her address.”

  I memorized it, along with Kayla Stillman’s face.

  “Here’s the real thing,” Marty said. He had what looked like police records, and I decided I should go soon, before the FBI showed up. Marty didn’t strike me as the most detail-­oriented hacker.

  “That guy she shot? They found evidence in his house from a ­couple of cold cases in the area. Missing kids going back about ten years. Lots of paraphernalia in these crime scene photos. Guy was a warlock.”

  So Kayla was off the chain mentally, but she was right. She could see what I saw—­the taint of magic on a soul, the true face of something like Lilith.

  I stepped back. “Stay out of trouble, Marty. You get a new car yet?”

  “No, thanks to you,” he grumbled. “You don’t have to jack me again, anyway. Your bike is out back.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “You didn’t sell it to a chop shop?”

  “Hell no,” Marty said, leaning back in his creaky chair. “You have any idea what a pussy magnet that thing is? I’ve been riding it. Seemed like that was only fair.”

  I thought about what could have happened on the seat of my poor Softail and tried not to get nauseated. “You better not have rubbed your parts on it,” I told Marty. I grabbed the keys, still on my fob, off his desk and ran out. I was going to have to push it if I wanted to pick up Leo and get to Oklahoma before Lilith got to Kayla Stillman. I had the sinking feeling as I gunned my bike toward downtown Vegas that I might already be too late.

  CHAPTER

  25

  Erick, Oklahoma, wasn’t a depressed little flyspeck, although it was still small enough that most maps didn’t show it. I’d stored my bike in Henderson and Leo and I had picked up a car, legally this time, with some cash I’d convinced Marty, with a little cajoling and a lot of threats, to wire over to Leo. We got off I-­40 at Texola and spent time on an old stretch of Route 66, which eventually lead me to Erick. Signs everywhere pointed me to a museum commemorating Roger Miller, the country singer who I swore was in literally every jukebox in America when “King of the Road” was a hit.

  There were also downed telephone poles and power lines everywhere, trees smashed up, and even a few houses that had their roofs ripped off and deposited in pieces all over their yard.

  An old guy walking his dog saw me looking and pointed at the house. “Tornado!” he yelled over the idle of our decidedly temperamental ride. “Don’t usually come this time of year. Folks over there weren’t prepared.”

  I tipped my head at him and drove on. Leo shifted in the passenger seat. “I don’t imagine you could be very prepared for a tornado spawned by a demon.”

  He’d been pale and bandaged when we’d walked out of the hospital, nursing bruised ribs and a concussion, but really, it was miraculous he hadn’t been smashed to bits in the wreck. He hadn’t even been wearing a seat belt, and he was in better shape than I was. My arm throbbed nonstop from the hours on the road, and I still had a thick cluster of bruises in my hairline from where I’d smacked the Chevelle’s window. We should both be dead, when you got right down to it. But maybe the universe was saving us for Lilith, one last cosmic fucking over before I finally died for good.

  If Kayla Stillman was dead, I was fucked. That was all there was to it. Lilith would find Clint, Tartarus would crack open, and soon Oklahoma would be beachfront property in Hell. I wound my way through the small side streets of Erick until I found the address Marty had pulled. The house was a cute Craftsman with a sharply sloped roof, but the paint was peeling, the yard was a jungle, and at least a month’s worth of mail made a snowdrift against the front door. The windows were muffled with the thick blackout curtains that got used only by vamp nests or the truly paranoid. Staked in the front lawn amid the weeds was a piece of plywood spray-­painted in thick, wavering letters.

  FOR THERE STOOD BY ME THIS NIGHT THE ANGEL OF GOD, WHOSE I AM, AND WHOM I SERVE

  I put the car in park. Leo whistled between his teeth. “We are definitely in the right place.”

  It was just after sunset, gray-­blue light filtering down and turning everything into shades of shadow. Perfect for checking to see if Kayla was home, and alive. I wasn’t going to go up and ring her bell—­I figured one look at me, and if she wasn’t already around the bend, I’d push her.

  I moved down the side of her house, covered by overgrown bushes that snatched at my jeans and jacket. There were no lights on that I could see, and I caught my shin on a pile of rusted lawn furniture and fell flat on my face, tasting mud.

  I cursed, but compared to where I’d been before, with Gary, I’d take breaking into the house of an armed, psychotic, possibly violent hoarder any day of the week.

  The windows at the back of the house were covered in a rusted screen that crumbled in my hands, but they were low enough that I could hoist myself in. I found an empty metal bucket lying in the weeds to stand on and ran my hand along the sill, feeling for a gap.

  “Don’t do that.”

  I yelped and fell on my ass for the second time in as many minutes. Leo crouched down and helped me sit up. “Sorry,” he whispered. “But you really don’t want to break into this place.”

  “I really do,” I hissed back.

  Leo pointed to a thin wire running across the windowpane, so transparent it could have been a spiderweb. “Window’s rigged,” he said softly. “They’re all like that. I did a job in New York setting trip wires on the door of a guy’s boathouse out on Long Island. Wired Semtex and a propane tank so it’d look like an accident. I think our little friend in there probably jus
t rigged up a spare claymore mine inside the window, though. That’s what I’d do.”

  I breathed out, sitting down on the bucket. “Is she in there?”

  Leo shrugged. “No idea. I’ve been here just long enough to discover this house has more booby traps in it than the Branch Davidian compound. On the bright side, if this place hasn’t turned into a smoking crater, there’s a chance Lilith hasn’t found it yet.”

  We retreated to the car, a black Buick that looked like something Bonnie and Clyde would have stolen for a joyride. I could wait. I was a hunter, not a mindless killer. I could dig in and be patient, more patient than some jumpy head case like Kayla Stillman. She had to leave the house eventually.

  Leo turned to look at me, the springs of the seat creaking under his weight. “So are we gonna talk about this wreck, and us being here, and how this is all Clint’s fault?”

  “He just . . .” I sighed. “After Caleb, you’d think I wouldn’t exactly be surprised when guys lie to me, right?”

  “He didn’t sound like he was lying,” Leo said.

  I was saved from the You’re a reaper/I’m your hellhound debate and whether or not Clint was full of shit when a short figure hurried around the corner and scurried up Kayla Stillman’s walk, shoving a key in the front door like she was pissed off at it. I started to get out of the car, but Leo shook his head. “She’s got her hand on whatever is wired inside that front door. If you startle her you’ll both be fertilizing that lawn.”

  I sighed. “What if Lilith is in there? We need to get her to come with us. And if she won’t come, we need to knock her out and kidnap her crazy ass.”

  Leo smirked. “Lilith’s not getting in there. I put up a barrier around the whole house.” He settled back in his seat. “She’s safe for now, and when Lilith shows up, we’ll get our chance.” He looked over at me. “You still have the Scythe, right?”

  “I can’t wait to use it and get rid of this thing,” I said, setting it on the seat between us. “It’s been giving me hives.”

  “Why is the bullshit the God squad is spouting bothering you so much?” Leo said. “The likelihood I have some larger purpose in Hell is minuscule, and even if it’s true, you know me, Ava. You didn’t change when you died. I won’t either.”

  The words ripped out of me in one breath. “But then you’d be dead, and I was never human to begin with. I’m just as bad as I’ve thought all this time. If I’ve been born and dying and becoming a hound for thousands of years, I’ve always been a monster, just like Lilith.”

  Leo blinked at me. “That fucker. I’m going to knock his teeth in when I see him again. Making you think these things about yourself.”

  “It all fits,” I whispered, tears coming, even though I squeezed my eyes shut. I scrubbed them away with the heels of my hands. “It’s why I remember being human—­because I’m not. You and I both were made by the Fallen and recycled over and over again. Clint said this time when we die we’ll end up back in Hell. You’ll be a reaper and I’ll be your hound.” I shuddered. “And if we’ve found each other, it’ll be soon. We’re not going to make it through this. After everything I’ve suffered, and you, it’s not fucking fair. We should have gotten a chance to have some semblance of the lives that got stolen.”

  Leo pulled me close by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. “The Fallen can say what they want. Do you think you were human? Before those men murdered you?”

  I managed to nod, the tears so thick now Leo’s face started to blur. “It’s the only thing that kept me from just . . . ending it,” I whispered. “If this is what my life has always been—­”

  “It’s not,” Leo cut me off. “Clint is wrong, you were human once, and Ava . . .” He moved my damp hair out of my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I jumped across the space between us, grabbing him by the shirt front and kissing him so hard I split my lip. Leo moaned and pulled me into his lap, his fingers digging into my hip bones as mine dug into his shoulders. He tasted hot and sweet, like vodka and tobacco, and we didn’t break apart until he grabbed my shirt and yanked it over my head.

  I pulled at the tail of his shirt as well. His tattoos were stark in the dark car. There were no streetlights on this quiet block and his skin was almost luminescent in the shadows. We paused for a second, foreheads pressed together, our ragged breath heating each other’s bare skin.

  “Yeah?” Leo said, his hands moving up and down my sides, almost like he was trying to memorize the shape of my naked body. I put my hands on his chest in turn. He felt so solid and alive that the weight of what Clint and Annabelle had said dropped off me.

  “Yeah,” I said. Leo let out a long sigh, like he’d been waiting for weeks to hear the simple word, and kissed me again, sliding his hands under my ass and moving me to lie down on the lumpy car seat. I broke off the kiss.

  “Wait.” I slid off his lap and reached for his belt, undoing his jeans and jerking at the waistband. I felt like I was in a car picking up speed, hurtling down the side of a mountain, waiting until the last second to hit the brakes. I was being reckless for sure, probably stupid, but I didn’t care. I could pick up the pieces from the crash when this was over.

  Leo gave a sharp moan when I pulled his cock out of his pants, and dropped back bonelessly against the car seat as I took the tip in my mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ, Ava,” he rasped. He was big enough that I couldn’t swallow all of him, and already hard, but I did my best. Leo cursed again and wrapped a handful of my hair in his fist, urging me down farther.

  I groaned when he did, feeling heat crawl all over my skin like I was standing naked under the afternoon sun. I used my free hand to unzip my jeans, needing to crawl back into his lap.

  Leo stopped me after another minute. His hand in my hair was shaking. “I need you,” he said, his voice shaking. “That’s too much. I need to fuck you.”

  He didn’t pull me to straddle him, though. Instead, he grabbed me under the knees and pulled until I flopped back on the seat. Leo rolled my jeans down and yanked at my panties so hard that one side tore. He licked his middle and index finger and shoved them between my legs, rubbing me roughly, so I whimpered. He slipped his fingers inside me, inhaling in surprise. “You must really want me.” He grinned.

  I could only nod. His fingers were good, so good, but I needed more and I thought I might start screaming out of frustration if I didn’t get it.

  Leo surprised me by ducking his head between my legs, kissing the dip in my stomach, my pelvic bone, and then lowering his tongue against me. He gave me a long slow lick, then another, working his tongue over my clit, licking and moaning until lights started exploding in the corners of my vision.

  I pushed on his shoulder. “Leo,” I whimpered. “Please . . .”

  Abruptly, Leo lifted his head and pushed my thighs back so my knees pressed into my chest. I felt the tip of his cock press in, and gasped at the sharp pinch as he pushed his hips forward. I bit down on my lip to stifle a scream. I was on the small side, and Leo definitely was not.

  He paused for a moment, hesitating to see if he’d hurt me, but I lifted my hips into his, begging him to keep going. He let out a slow pant, thrusting again and stopping. “Can you get pregnant?” he asked me abruptly.

  I blinked. “What? No!”

  Leo nodded. There was a sheen of sweat on his cheeks and chest, and he bent and pressed his lips into my forehead. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

  He thrust into me again before I could say anything, pushing me into the seat with each movement of his hips. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held on, digging my nails into his arms as he fucked me insistently, harder and harder, until just when I was sure I was going to split in two, I felt my muscles tighten and I came hard enough that I bit into Leo’s shoulder to muffle a scream, tasting the salt on his skin.

  “Oh, fuck,” Leo mumbled against my neck, giving another ragged thru
st or two before he came, collapsing with his face buried in my neck.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered after a few seconds of me silently trying to catch my breath. “I haven’t come like that since I was sixteen.”

  He pulled away from me, sitting up and pulling up his jeans. I stayed where I was, my heart thudding like I’d just sprinted ten miles. I could already tell I was going to feel like I’d spent the night doing the splits come morning, but I couldn’t have cared less.

  Leo lit a cigarette. “Next time we do this in a bed. I need the space to fuck you senseless.”

  “You think there’s gonna be a next time?” I said. I fished my shirt off the car floor and slid it back on, shimmying back into my jeans.

  Leo exhaled and grinned, passing me the smoke. I took it, watching the pale cloud drift up to the ceiling.

  “There is,” he said. “And a time after that, and after that.” He rubbed his shoulder and laughed. “You bit me. Am I going to turn into a hellhound now?”

  “That’s lycanthropes, ass,” I said, not able to help the smile on my face. “You’re not—­”

  Something rattled the car, and I fell silent, sitting upright with a jolt. It felt like we’d been rear-­ended, but there was nobody else on the street. No other cars had passed the entire time we’d been parked by the tree-­lined curb.

  Leo stubbed out his cigarette. “The fuck was that?”

  The car rattled again. Whatever it was acted like a heavy wind, shaking the Buick on its suspension, but none of the tree branches stirred outside.

  Leo reached under the seat and came up with a gun, a brushed steel Colt automatic with ivory grips. “Is that Kayla woman doing this?” he muttered to me.

  I shook my head, my eyes searching the darkened street outside. The only faint glow came from the moon and the golden light spilling out of the houses on either side of Kayla Stillman’s, light that cast long shadows across her lawn.

  As I watched, one of the shadows peeled away from the overgrowth and flew toward the car, moving so fast it shimmered.