Guardian Hound

by Cutter, Leah

  # # #

  Lukas left Da and Rudi hovering in the hallway outside Greta’s laboratory, trusting that they wouldn’t kill each other and that Da wouldn’t banish Rudi before Lukas came back.

  It wasn’t that Lukas wanted to go forward alone. The stench of shadows was so strong from beyond the door he expected to see them rolling through the air, amassed like a great cloud. He insisted that both Da and Rudi stay outside—Lukas had to minimize Rudi’s exposure to them, as well as his father’s.

  He was supposed to be a guardian hound, after all.

  The acrid smell of magic threaded through the death scent of the shadows. Plants lined the shelves on the walls, bathed in humming purple lights. Two long stainless-steel tables divided the space, front from back, side from side. Against the far wall on the counters sat microscopes, machines that spun a dozen test tubes, and other modern equipment that Lukas didn’t recognize.

  A tall blond woman in a white lab coat slowly rose as Lukas walked across the room, stopping at his side of the stainless steel tables.

  “Greta?” he asked softly.

  His oldest nightmares had come true: Not only had the shadows infected his sister, they’d turned her into a doll.

  Blond curls perfectly ringed Greta’s face. Her eyes were brown and expressionless, as if they’d been carved from glass. Bright red tinted her lips, forming a Cupid’s bow that looked painted, not real.

  “Lukas?” Greta asked, her voice as mechanical and contrived as the rest of her. She stayed on her side of the table, examining him like he was an unexpected result from an otherwise successful experiment. “Is that you?”

  Lukas didn’t dare touch her—he was afraid the shadows would try to infect him again. He nodded and said, “Yes. It’s me. I’m here. Human again.”

  Greta waited, impassively studying him. “You’re taller than I think anyone expected,” she finally said, showing some humor in her voice.

  But again, she could have been talking about anyone, not her long-lost brother.

  Lukas shrugged. “Finally grew into my paws. What are you doing?”

  “I became a scientist, like I told you I would,” Greta said. “You were stuck, as a hound. I wanted to free you. I searched for your cure.”

  “You dove too deeply into the shadows,” Lukas told her.

  “Shadows? Nonsense,” Greta said, dismissing them.

  Lukas was getting tired of hearing that word.

  “Here, let me show you,” Greta said. She started walking around the table.

  Lukas stepped back, not wanting her to touch him.

  “Please,” Greta said. For a moment, something human broke through her glazed eyes.

  Lukas shuddered, but made himself reach his hand out and take her cold fingers in his.

  “Now, this,” Greta said, leading him to a shelf where a row of string peas grew in clay pots. One third were stunted, skinny, as well as a sickly green. Two thirds looked healthy and hearty. “There’s no growing magic, nothing to help crops, at least among the hounds,” Greta said.

  “Do the other clans have growing magic?” Lukas asked, despite himself.

  “We don’t know,” Greta admitted. “It might just be a human type of magic.”

  “You have magic,” Lukas said, suddenly realizing how the shadows had gotten to her. She wasn’t clan, and Oma had always said the shadows came through hound magic. Maybe it was all magic that attracted them.

  “As a scientist, I tried to tell myself that there was no such thing as magic, at least in humans. But then—this happens.”

  Greta waved toward the withered plants, pointing at a charm that Lukas hadn’t noticed before. It was a bundle of bound twigs wrapped in twine, with the shape of a barrel. It looked plump, full as an over-fed mosquito, and it reeked of shadows.

  “That charm is supposed to help the plants grow,” Greta said. “Strictly a human spell. However, this is what happens when I make it.”

  Lukas nodded. Greta’s magic had been infected with the shadows.

  “And that,” she said, pointing to the middle group of healthier plants, “is what happens when a hound makes the same charm.”

  “Those two sets of plants look the same,” Lukas commented, pointing to the middle group and the far group.

  “Of course they do. Control group and magicked group,” Greta said with a hint of older-sister derision in her voice.

  “Your magic is tainted with shadows,” Lukas said softly.

  “No such thing,” Greta said automatically.

  Lukas shook his head. How could he free Greta? He’d never been able to do so in his dreams.

  “How was this experiment supposed to help me?” he asked finally, looking between the healthy plants to the unhealthy ones. His palm itched to grab the bloated charm and crush it.

  “This growing spell, this healthy charm, it seems to draw health to it instead. Life. Magic,” Greta said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Maybe it could have drawn your soul out, too.”

  Lukas nodded. It was a good idea, actually. Then he turned and looked at Greta. Could it help her as well? Draw her soul out from where it was hidden behind the shadows?

  But the blank eyes that returned his look gave him no hint.

  The real Greta was in there. He knew it. He just had to find a way to free her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Germany, Present Day

  Rudi

  Rudi walked behind Lukas and the king to the room where Oscar, the heir apparent, waited. Each walked silently, wrapped in their own thoughts or, in Rudi’s case, guilt. Many of the people they passed stared at the prince, though just as many bowed their head in respect. A scurry of whispers swirled after them—hissed comments, gossip, and speculation.

  What did the clan think of Rudi and how he’d kept the prince? Was he despised or admired? Could he ever come back to the court? Or should he start testing all his food, making sure no one had poisoned him?

  From the main working areas, they turned down a darkened hall—one of the older parts of the castle—with cold stone floors and no rugs to soften them. The narrow passage smelled sterile and contained only traces of old dust and faraway deserts.

  Ancient statues brought from the original hound temples lined the walls, with some partially hidden in climate-controlled boxes. Rudi slowed as he walked, fascinated. He’d only ever seen photos of these, not the actual stone deities.

  The elongated snout of I’tiram still bore flecks of the original green paint, though most of the stone he was carved out of was bare. He was the one who guided faithful hounds to peaceful pastures after they died. Na-ya, the warrior god, stood with huge flexed arms and a chest piece carved with wings. According to the myths, he spoke with the birds just as the raven clan could. Kulka, Izcuintli-a, all were there, in their various incarnations though the millennia.

  Rudi wished he had time to study the figures, to spend time with the history of his clan, but it had never been a priority. At least no shadows tainted the air here.

  Two of the hound guard waited outside the chamber where the heir apparent waited, standing in the usual blue uniform, with large automatic weapons at their sides and their hands transformed into claws.

  A minister of the court waited with them, dressed in a fine navy blue suit, a white shirt with red pinstripes, and a gold-and-red tie. The king merely nodded at him as he and Lukas entered the room.

  The minister stepped neatly in front of Rudi, licking his flabby lips and saying, “The heir apparent would like to speak with the king and Lukas alone.”

  Heir apparent? But wasn’t the vote next summer? Lukas was no longer in the running at all?

  Rudi glanced at Lukas, who stood rigid, his face betraying no emotion. Only the stiffness in which he held himself told Rudi the truth: that Lukas was also surprised, as well as possibly hurt.

  “No,” Rudi said, stepping forward. “I’ll accompany him.” Rudi had no intention of letting Lukas out of his sight. He’d never admit it, but on mor
e than one night in Seattle, he’d woken late and gone to check on the boy, making sure he was all right, that he was still human, still here.

  Lukas turned back and looked at Rudi. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” Rudi had to ask. The political waters here were deep, and Lukas had never learned to swim in them.

  Lukas looked at the door, then back at Rudi, and nodded. “Yes. Nothing here could hold me. Or harm me.”

  Rudi didn’t bother pointing out that Lukas could be facing hurts other than physical. But at least the boy felt safe. Rudi wondered about Lukas’ hound soul, why it felt comfortable making such declarations (because it was obvious to him, at least, that this pronouncement had come from Lukas’ hound soul, and not from the gangly teenaged boy who stood in front of him.)

  Then again, no one here at the court had seen Lukas transform to his natural hound shape now that he was fully grown. He’d been big as a boy, but Rudi would bet they had no idea that Lukas’ hound form had grown so large. They wouldn’t be prepared to defend against a hound the size of a small pony.

  “Why don’t you wait with Oma?” Lukas suggested.

  “All right,” Rudi said. He bowed his head to the prince and added, “I will wait for you there, Lukas.” He said the name deliberately, to show the minister, the king, and the guard the closeness of their relationship, as well as to respect Lukas’ wishes and not address him by his title.

  “Thank you,” Lukas said. He turned, visibly braced himself, then walked into the room.

  Rudi waited for a few moments, listening hard, scenting the air, making sure that nothing had attacked Lukas, that an ambush hadn’t been laid. When Rudi didn’t hear or smell anything, he turned to go.

  “I hear we owe you a debt,” the minister said.

  Rudi turned back. “It was an honor,” he said. And he meant it. He’d always been honored by Lady Metzler’s trust and request. He still wished, though, that his actions hadn’t caused Lukas’ family so much pain.

  “Yes,” the minister said, his whippet-like snout pushing forward. “But is it a debt of honor? Or a debt of blood?”

  Rudi stared at him passively, consciously not reacting. A debt of blood was usually decreed when a deed required revenge.

  The minister sniffed the air, then transformed fully back to human. “You have little fear. That is good,” he declared.

  Rudi didn’t roll his eyes at the pompous proclamation. The minister must have some sort of public-facing aspect to his ministry—it was the only thing that explained his glad-hand style.

  “And you care about the boy.”

  “Of course,” Rudi said, keeping his tone mild. “He’s my charge.” Rudi had always felt that way about Lukas, even when he’d been in hound form. In many ways, Lukas was the son Rudi would never have.

  “Guard him well,” the minister said as he strolled past Rudi, back down the hall. “The court needs him,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Rudi shook his head. The world needed Lukas more, if the threat of the shadows were real.

  In the darkened hall, Rudi grew as stiff and still as one of the statues.

  If the threat were real?

  Where had that thought come from? Not from him. Rudi had seen the threat. He knew it was real.

  The shadows were more insidious than he’d realized, getting inside his head that way. He would have to tell Lukas later, make him aware of the danger.

  Rudi strode out from the castle into the late spring sunshine, breathing in the clean air. He passed into the kitchen gardens. Pumpkins and squashes decayed in one corner, spilling their guts and seeds across the bare ground, preparing and planting the patch for the fall. Spring shoots pushed thin blades out of the earth in strict rows. Rudi remembered fresh cabbages, green and wax beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes from these gardens.

  No shadows tainted the modified house that held the hound infirmary. Their scent trailed after Lady Metzler, but that was just because she’d been infected with them for so long.

  Was there something native to the building, either in the original architecture or one of the redesigns? Some sort of healing spell that held them at bay? Or was it in the nature of the place, where few people lived, and only those who were sick and dying?

  Rudi stepped out of the bright sunlight into the darkened hallway, then stopped and let his eyes adjust. He encouraged his hound soul to rise, then he sniffed the air, trying to tease apart the scents, to see if there was something different here.

  Beyond the normal warm fur smells of the hounds and the medicinal and chemical scents of modern medicine lay a thread of cool mint green. Rudi didn’t recognize it; he’d never scented anything like it before. It seemed important, and his hound soul kept bringing him back to it after he’d moved on to the scents of the people there and the traces of things the wind carried through the cracks and crevices.

  Finally, he understood: It was the opposite of the scent of the shadows.

  Head held high, Rudi tracked the scent through the hospital, down the twisting halls, past Lady Metzler’s room, around the two examination rooms, then finally, back to the kitchen.

  White-and-green tile in an old-fashioned hexagon pattern made up the splashboards. The counters were white, and the cupboards, too. However, the kitchen didn’t seem sterile, but homey—maybe it was the large butcher-block table supported by stout legs in the center of the room, the bright yellow daffodils in the center of it, or the copper-bottomed pots and pans that hung from a black iron oval above it.

  A young woman from India sat on a stool near the sink, looking out the window. A plate with half a sandwich rested on the counter before her along with some pickled vegetables. Her long black hair was pulled back into a loose braid, highlighting her broad and friendly features. She beamed a large smile directly at Rudi. Her traditional sari was red and orange, worn over a gold blouse.

  “Good day,” she said in accent-less German.

  “Good day,” Rudi replied, just as formally. He walked over to where she was seated, still seeking that scent. He smelled finely baked bread, liverwurst, stone-ground mustard, vinegar, and dill.

  “Is there something I can help with?”

  She didn’t seem put out by Rudi’s inattention, how he sniffed the air around her. Though she was fully human, she obviously knew about the clans.

  Finally, Rudi tracked the scent trail to the open jar of pickled vegetables next to the woman’s plate. Below the strong smell of vinegar, sugar, and dill came that intriguing odor.

  “Where did you get those?” Rudi asked. They weren’t magic, not really, just soaked or blessed with something pure and green.

  “My brother makes them,” the woman replied happily. “Would you like some?”

  “Please,” Rudi said, already anticipating the fresh crunch of dill, the heady mint, and that trickle of something spring-like and alive.

  “I’m Harita,” she said as she got a plate and fork for Rudi. “I’m a medical student, doing shift work here.”

  That made sense, to bring in medical students for the quiet shifts. Rudi eagerly helped himself to small pearl onions, baby carrots, and baby cucumbers. “What are you majoring in?”

  “Clan diseases and cures. For all the clans.”

  Rudi almost choked on the amazing baby carrot he’d been chewing. “Not just the hound clan?” he clarified.

  “No, no. Not just the hound clan.” Her voice dropped and Harita looked around the room, as if verifying they were alone. “My family isn’t hound clan,” she said softly.

  “Really?” he asked, surprised. Though the court had regular interactions with other clans and other clan members, he was surprised that they’d hire someone from a different clan. Then again, that must mean she was doubly competent, probably some level of genius when it came to healing. “I’m glad they hired you, though,” Rudi said. And he was. There was something about her, something calm and cool, that he’d welcome if he were ill.

  Harita gave him her wide sm
ile again. “I’m kind of the black sheep of the family,” she explained.

  “What, did you stay out past your curfew one time too often?” Rudi teased. This woman—girl, really—was far too good and pure. To label her as some kind of shamed family member was ridiculous.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Harita said, laughing. Then the smile fled her face. “I’m from the tiger clan, you see. The power is supposed to pass from mother to daughter.”

  “I see,” Rudi said. And he did. Still. “Not every child born to a clan family is supposed to inherit the clan form.” If they did, there would be far too many of the clan.

  The numbers of each clan stayed constant through the centuries. Philosophers had debated this for just as long, speculating on reincarnation, natural limits on the number of animal souls, as well as more outlandish theories, like moon cycles and battles between the gods keeping their numbers low.

  “True,” Harita said, pushing the open jar of pickled vegetables toward Rudi so he could have more. “But it was worse than that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rudi said. He didn’t ask any more questions—Harita could tell him or not, if she chose. He recognized what she was doing, though: telling a story about her past to gain his trust. As an outsider, and a full human, it was a good strategy.

  “You see, my brother inherited the power. Not me.”

  “Ah.” A male tiger warrior would be as out of step with his clan as a female hound. “Were you raised here, in Germany, then?”

  Harita shook her head. “My family is in England, and—”

  Lukas barged in, heading straight for the pickles, picking up the jar and sniffing it. “Where did you get these?” he demanded.

  Harita gave her brightest smile to the prince, making Rudi instantly uncomfortable.

  Lukas hadn’t shown any interest in girls yet—then again, he’d barely had time to be human.

  Fortunately for Rudi’s blood pressure, Lukas seemed oblivious to the charm being thrown his way.

  “My brother makes them. He gets the freshest produce he can, then ages the brine,” Harita replied, still with that sweet smile.