Guardian Hound

by Cutter, Leah

  “You have come, finally, haven’t you?” Zane proclaimed, feeling his head go broad, his skin hardening and growing scaly, the color draining out of the world.

  At least the boy stepped in front of his mate, his fingers already lost to the knife-like feather-blades of a true raven warrior.

  “What do you want?” he squawked. His eyes stared, bird-black, oblivious to the shadows about to take him.

  “Your kind betrayed us all, didn’t you?” Zane accused him. The pressure along his sinuses increased as his venom sacs filled.

  “Centuries ago,” the raven warrior said. “And our young still pay the price.”

  “We’ve never recovered, have we?” Zane hissed. Only a trickle of pilgrims came to the mountain monasteries, so few to hear the mystic messages and carry the word down into the valleys.

  “I’m sorry,” the birdman said. He sounded truly sorry, as well, not at all like the boastful bird he surely was.

  “And you will be more sorry, won’t you?” Zane promised as he took a step closer to the boy. His fangs had started to distend, still hidden inside his mouth but pressing against the bottom of it, longing to come out and sink into something, anything.

  Shadows boiled beside Zane, eager for this new sacrifice, beyond the endless ones he’d already made—his family, his life, his true face, and his name.

  Though the raven was fast, Zane was faster still. He rushed at the boy, but then brushed past him and grabbed his mate, her pulse a fluttering thing under his palms.

  Time slowed. Zane raised one claw-tipped hand, nails dripping with poison. The anguish on the boy’s face was a marvel.

  Zane almost felt pity.

  But this time, he’d chosen the right target.

  With a sweeping motion, Zane lightly scratched down the girl’s left side, careful not to break the skin, hooking the tendrils of a shadow that curled around her waist and yanking it. With his other hand, he pulled the girl away, separating her from the shadow. He flung her to the side, heard her muffled cry and fall.

  He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but it didn’t matter. He finally had his prey in hand, a shadow. It was unlike the ones that lived with him: This one had come in a direct line from the first tiger warrior who’d been corrupted by the shadows, the one he hadn’t stopped.

  A shadow made whole around the indents of his poisoned talons.

  Before the raven or his mate could do or say anything else, Zane struck the shadow thing, sinking his fangs into it.

  Finally, one of the damn shadows was solid enough for him to strike it, though its texture was more like biting into rancid oil, not flesh.

  The shadow struck back the only way it knew how: cold upon cold upon cold. Ice seared into Zane’s bones, lacing his viper soul with frost. Age dropped on his shoulders like an avalanche, making it difficult to even hold himself up.

  Zane hung on, biting deep into the shadow, pumping his venom into its soul, taking away its life as a shadow, forcing his toxin into what served as veins in the creature.

  Forcing the shadow to become corporeal, and walk in the light.

  After wringing the last drop of poison out, Zane stepped back, letting the thing drop at his feet.

  “Do you see?” Zane intoned, the syllables sliding one into another.

  “Yes.” The raven and his mate stared at the ground, at the nightmare Zane had made real.

  “You will bear witness,” Zane said, knowing that through his proclamation, he would make it come true. “You will tell the hound prince. This is the new form the shadows will take. This is what comes,” he added, his words ringing like a clear bell across the hill, over the water, and through time.

  “We will,” they said, falling into the geas laid before them.

  The weight of the task laid on Zane so long ago dropped from him, like he’d shed a skin made of stone. He’d finally made things right. The hound prince would know it was time.

  Zane—no, he could take his full name again, so Gezane—felt himself grow taller, stronger, as the years fell from him and he reclaimed himself. He was still old, yes, but finally just his own age. The whispering need for liquor disappeared from the back of his mind, and instead, his viper soul circled closer than ever before. The edges of the rocks and the nearby cactus grew sharper, clearer, and the wind blew across him fresh and new, smelling sweetly of hidden flowers.

  Gezane had worn his own face as a mask for so long, he couldn’t even imagine how he must appear now.

  The raven before Gezane was still fully armed, but he also stood straighter, like a soldier, ready to be commanded.

  But the mate—ah—she shone brighter still. Just a worm of a shadow had burrowed into her side and now that it was gone, she was like a beacon.

  With a blink of surprise, Gezane realized that it was she the shadows had been after, not the boy. She was the arch stone, the only one strong enough to support them all.

  “Thank you,” Gezane said with a deep bow, both to the young couple on whose untested shoulders so much now depended, as well as to the gods who had let him do his duty at last.

  They bowed in return. Before they could speak, Gezane told them, “Go now. Enjoy your last day in my beautiful Tulum, won’t you?”

  The time to fight would come soon enough for them.

  They nodded and left, heading back down the path they’d come up, with many backward glances.

  Gezane folded his arms over his chest and looked out over the beautiful ocean, her sweet and salty breezes playing with what remained of his hair. Pride filled him. He’d finally done what he’d been instructed to do, so many years ago.

  He’d made the shadows real.

  Then he glanced down at the rotting corpulence at his feet, the darkness slipping away in the wind. He knew it wasn’t dead, that it would return in the new shape he’d forced on it.

  Was it enough to clear his debt? It didn’t feel like enough for what he’d done.

  He’d purposefully delayed the chosen messenger from his people, the one who was supposed to warn of the encroaching shadows. In Gezane’s pride and arrogance, as well as the confusion brought by the shadows, he’d thought he could take the other’s place, gaining the glory for himself and his family.

  Instead, he’d missed the meeting, the one chance when the tiger clan would have been open to the message. He’d arrived a day late, and therefore had imperiled the world, the shadows growing stronger in the intervening years.

  He’d hurt so many: all in his family were scorned; so many more people the shadows had corrupted because they’d been able to gain strength; the poor hound prince and the burden he’d had to carry.

  No, giving his life as he had wouldn’t repay his debt. But at least now, if the raven’s mate proved strong enough, there was a chance the world wouldn’t end in darkness.

  # # #

  Gezane spent the rest of the afternoon wandering, seeing Tulum with fond, fresh eyes. The markets amazed him, heaping piles of flowers, sharp spices, and racks of cheap clothes. People smiled at him as he slipped around them, of but not in the world. The sea called to him, and he dipped his hand in her, tasting her salt.

  He didn’t visit his rundown apartment—though he doubted anyone would recognize him, they might mistake him for a younger cousin or brother of the old drunk who had lived there, and he didn’t want to accidentally endanger anyone who might be friendly to him.

  The shadows would never let Gezane live after his decades-long treachery.

  Still, Gezane walked down a crossroad two blocks away, letting his senses flare for only a moment. The young ones laughed as they watched secondhand cartoons given to them by the Americans. The señora was gone, but the scent of her burnt toast remained. The concrete from the new hotel no longer smelled wet, and underneath it lay the sweet ocean tainting the air with her salt.

  As darkness stole the brilliant orange and red from the sunset, Gezane headed out of town along one of the old roads, going toward the interior. Not the new road the tourist bus
es drove carelessly along, no; instead, an original sak beh, a white road long abandoned by the people who’d once lived there, distant relatives of Gezane’s clan.

  Even in the dark of the jungle night, Gezane could see the glittering stones of the road, reflecting the brilliant Milky Way as the humans naïvely called it.

  Gezane preferred his people’s name for it—the Unending Dagger—a promise not just of quick death, but peace on the other side.

  The shadows formed quickly once Gezane stepped out from under the trees and into a clearing. They brushed against him, pushing him forward until a solid shape rose out of the ground.

  The hissing tones reminded Gezane of the council who’d proclaimed his fate and the task they’d set him. The death-like stench rolled out from the shadow, reminding Gezane of the stinking heaps of garbage hidden from tourists south of town.

  “I think you forgot to kill me,” the shadow stated, swaying and undulating before him, like silk hanging from a window.

  “Can you die?” Gezane asked.

  The council hadn’t been sure if the shadows could be killed in their natural state.

  “Of course not,” the shadow scoffed. “Still, you tried.”

  “Did I?” Gezane asked, surprised at how little bitterness flowed through his veins. Like his poison, it had been drained away.

  “Do not play games with me, mystic,” the shadow growled.

  “Am I a mystic?” Gezane couldn’t help but ask, grinning. He’d never had a vision, just cheated the one who had, tried to steal it from him.

  The cold struck with the force of a blow, though all the shadow had done was tap him on the chest with a curling tendril. Sudden exhaustion made him hunch over.

  “Answer true,” the shadow admonished.

  Gezane caught his breath in the humid night as the touch withdrew, and drew himself upright again. He resisted reaching up to rub at the spot, but instead stayed in the game. “You don’t know my clan well, do you?”

  Never answer an outsider’s question, except with another question, was one of the oldest recitations of his kind.

  “Why haven’t you ever spoken to me like this before?” Gezane asked after the shadow had touched him again, and the clarity of the night had returned with its uncaring stars burning brilliantly above his head.

  “I only now have form. Form that you gave me,” the shadow explained. “I don’t believe that was your intent.”

  Gezane tilted his head to one side as if considering. He waited, enjoying the loud song of the cicadas in the surrounding jungle, the warm humid air, the rotting smell of jungle mulch mingling with the wet smells of rotting corpses from the shadows, as patient as his viper soul had always wanted him to be.

  He would never, ever, admit that it had always been the council’s intent to give the shadows form.

  “You have made me much more powerful,” the shadow claimed, finally ending the silence. It billowed out like a dust storm, filling the clearing, casting its dark form between Gezane and the stars, turning their light thin and tinny.

  “Did I?” Gezane asked through rote, his features shifting, his nose flattening and his skull widening as his venom sacks filled.

  The shadow laughed, sending icy shivers down Gezane’s spine.

  “I will take the light from you,” the shadow promised. “You will tell me everything, even as you forget your own name.”

  “Surely you understand my nature by now?” Gezane asked, the words slithering out as his mouth made further adjustments.

  “That you are false, even unto the secret smiles you give your young, never to be trusted or believed? Yes, that much we have learned.” The shadow paused, then added, “You robbed the bird’s mate from us.”

  “Did you really have her?” Gezane asked as he swayed, undulating like the shadow before him, as if he couldn’t help himself.

  “No,” the shadow admitted. “But we would have, eventually. Just as we’ll have you.”

  “You know what they say about the viper clan, yes?” Gezane asked, the words hard to form now with his full snake mouth, fangs extending.

  “No, I don’t think I’ve ever—”

  “Beware,” Gezane interrupted, striking out lightning fast.

  Nothing on earth could catch one of the viper clan, stop one of them from latching on. They moved the quickest of all the clans.

  Yet, the shadow did.

  “I do know you,” the shadow said as Gezane stood, stretched forward, frozen, unable to move, barely able to blink in the shadow’s iron grasp. “I know I can never be prepared enough for your treachery. But such a simple attack? Really? You should know better.”

  And Gezane did. He truly did. He knew how the shadows clouded his mind.

  How fast had he been actually moving before he struck?

  “Now we will milk you, relieve you of your poison until you are dry. Then again, and again. You will make all my followers as powerful, as corporeal, as I.”

  No! screamed Gezane, deep in his head, unable to move or make a sound.

  Patience. A calm overtook Gezane as his viper soul rose closer to the surface.

  The hound prince, the ravens, they will think I helped the shadows, that I worked with them, creating more of them, Gezane said, shuddering as the cold violated him, stroking his extended fangs, safely extracting his toxin.

  Only enough, his viper soul assured him. There are plans within plans. Now rest. You have earned it. It is the others’ time to fight.

  But only because I put them in harm’s way. Now the bitterness came back, flooding Gezane again. So much time wasted. So many lives.

  You were part of the problem, yes. Now, you are part of the solution. So rest.

  But—

  Rest.

  And the world faded into endless blackness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Germany, Present Day

  Lukas

  Harita and Virmal’s apartment was in the old city, but wasn’t old itself. It looked like it had been built in the 1960s, flat-faced, with red brick and symmetrical windows. It smelled like fake wood and glue, as well as long-boiled potatoes and fresh mud from the garden out front.

  Lukas sniffed, but he couldn’t find a trace of that cool green scent he’d been expecting. Maybe they had the wrong place.

  Harita let them in after they buzzed. The dim and narrow hallway made Lukas hunch in on himself. He could touch the roughly textured ceiling without fully stretching his arm out. Cheap brown carpet muffled their steps to the door of the flat.

  The door opened before they could knock. The parquet floor in the vestibule bore evidence of claws as well as fresh dirt. They hung their coats next to the thick parkas and heavy jackets already hanging there.

  “Would you like some chai?” Harita asked, leading them into the living room. Strings of white Christmas-tree lights hung across the front window, complementing the two lamps and giving the room a warm glow. A sleek beige couch with wooden arms stretched along one wall. Brightly colored pillows were scattered across the floor.

  “No, thank you,” Rudi declined.

  Lukas did the same. He kept sniffing, turning the corner of the room. Just off the long, galley kitchen sat a nook. A round wooden table with four chairs took up most of it.

  A young Indian man waited there, in a dark burgundy shirt and jeans. He rose gracefully and strode out to greet them. His brown eyes filled up much of his face, with only a small, upturned nose and mouth. His hair was short, just over the edge of his collar.

  Lukas held out his hand first. Only when he drew closer could he scent what he was looking for, that cool hint of power, spiced with mint and cardamom.

  “Virmal,” the man said, his voice deeper than his slight frame would indicate.

  “Lukas,” he replied, taking another step closer.

  He couldn’t get over how Virmal’s scent complemented the others, a sweet harmony of the glass and warm feathers from Peter, the wild-beating heart of Sally, the rich earth and strong sca
les of Mei Ling, and now, this strength and calm, the opposite of the chaotic shadows.

  If only Lukas knew what to do when he got them all together.

  “Ah, sorry,” Lukas said, shaking himself and coming back to the present day and finally dropping Virmal’s warm, comforting hand.

  Virmal looked suspiciously at him. Lukas immediately backed away. Damn it. He’d wanted to make a good first impression.

  Rudi introduced himself, and Harita invited them to all sit around the table.

  “Does your clan know anything about the shadows?” Lukas asked, seated directly across from Virmal, with Rudi on his right and Harita on his left.

  “No, sorry,” Virmal replied with an educated English accent.

  Harita said, “There is one old story about them.”

  Virmal looked at his sister, puzzled.

  “A man from the viper clan sought out one of our ancestors, warning of the shadows,” she replied.

  “‘I’ve never heard that story,” Virmal said.

  “Grandmother Irita told it to me, long ago,” Harita explained.

  “So the viper clan knows about the shadows?” Lukas asked. Maybe he had more allies than he realized.

  “They’d foreseen them, I guess? The mystics? Doesn’t mean their vision ever came to true, though,” Harita pointed out.

  Lukas grimaced. “It’s true. The shadows are here. They’ll take over the clans, then move on to the human races. They’ll suck all the life out of the world. I’ve foreseen it as well.”

  “Why are you telling us?” Virmal asked. He had drawn back in his seat.

  Lukas wondered how close Virmal’s tiger soul was. Hamlin pressed up against his own skin, ready to defend him if necessary. “You’re part of the solution,” Lukas replied softly. “I’m starting to believe that there needs to be someone from every clan: hound, tiger, raven, boar, viper, and crocodile.”

  Virmal shook his head. “Sorry, but I don’t want to be part of your solution. Find someone else.”

  “But—but, you have to!” Lukas replied. “It has to be you. You’re part of it.”

  “Nope. Wrong chap,” Virmal said.