Guardian Hound

by Cutter, Leah

  A tennis court sat between the field and the apartments to the west. The two-story, brick community center and annex buildings blocked the north, and the east was partially blocked by a group of tall pines. There was only a street and a hill separating the south from the field, and Lukas intended to stay well away from there.

  The shadows couldn’t hide anywhere on the field.

  Mei Ling crossed the field with Rudi, both dressed all in black, looking determined.

  Harita strode across next, now wearing a blood-red sari, while Virmal followed, in a traditional tunic and trousers, in black. They stepped in perfect unison, as if they listened to lilting dance music.

  Peter and Sally came last, in typical Seattle-flannel hoodies. Ariel walked with them, in black motorcycle leathers.

  Lukas took in a deep breath, taking in the scent of the assembled warriors.

  His knight. It was a more complex scent than he’d remembered, with threads of ripe wheat fields and fertile Seattle mud in addition to the cool glass, fierce heart, hard scales, and calm mint. The sharp bite of the knight’s sword was missing, but Lukas felt sure that would come.

  But all the warriors he needed to assemble were here.

  “Now, we wait?” Mei Ling asked.

  Lukas looked at the assembled warriors, each so strong, standing with nothing to do in the middle of an empty field.

  “Yes?” Lukas said. He looked at Rudi, who shrugged.

  “They’ll come,” Rudi assured Lukas.

  Lukas shook himself. His neck hairs pricked up. “It shouldn’t be too long.” Embarrassment crept in. What if he was wrong?

  The warriors shuffled from foot to foot, looking around.

  Lukas raised his head and sniffed. Something had shifted, like a wind that suddenly puffed from a different direction, changing course.

  He turned his head, seeking the change.

  There. At the south end of the field, where the lights were the weakest.

  The scent of the shadows rolled out, foul in the clear night. Lukas squinted; the bright lights overhead made it difficult to see past the edges of the park.

  From the thin row of trees and bushes, shadows stirred through the dead leaves, rustling in the quiet night, slithering like great snakes.

  Hamlin pushed at Lukas.

  Lukas pushed back. No. He couldn’t change. Not here. Not with the shadows so close. What would happen if they trapped him?

  The other warriors started transforming. Peter’s fingers had already changed to great feather-like blades ending in talons, a beak forming on his face. Virmal’s skin grew orange, white, and black fur, while his hands grew into long, sharp claws. Ariel had tusks that curled up from her bottom jaw, along with hard eyes and wicked, knife-sharp hooves. Mei Ling’s face had pushed out into a snout with glittering teeth.

  “Sally, Harita, Rudi, in the center,” Lukas panted.

  Hamlin kept pressing against him. He couldn’t change. Not until the knight formed.

  “No,” Sally said. “That’s—that’s not right.”

  “You’re not a warrior,” Peter squawked.

  “You’re the heart,” Lukas said. Shouldn’t the heart stay at the center?

  Reluctantly, Sally stood in the center of the circle of warriors.

  Hamlin pushed images at Lukas, of strong teeth and great claws. Not hound form, no, but at least a hound warrior, so they could defend themselves.

  Lukas had never taken this form before. But he trusted Hamlin to show him.

  Quick as his other changes, Lukas’ snout pushed out, his nails grew into sharp, black claws, and hair pricked out of his face and chest. It settled on him like mist, comfortable and familiar, as natural as his hound form, or perhaps even more so: A true amalgamation of his human and hound souls, forming a warrior. Like the others, he didn’t wear armor—it rose from within; the strongest silver lined his bones and protected his flesh.

  A tall Douglas pine swayed in the southeast corner of the field, moved by a wind that didn’t ruffle Lukas’ fur. Then it shuddered and split into two.

  A towering shadow lumbered forward.

  Fear ran down Lukas’ back, his hackles rising further, like sharp blades ripping through his shirt but protecting his back and neck.

  The chaotic, boiling clouds rose up and up. Lukas had to crane his head back just to see the top of it. The thing had no face, no eyes, no hands or mouth. Nothing for Lukas’ eye to rest on, nothing to address. Foul scents of moldering corpses and bitter acid rolled over him.

  “Ready,” Mei Ling hissed.

  A quick glance around showed Lukas that a wall of darkness and thick shadows had formed around them. They were surrounded by shadows. The bright field lights bounced off the dark clouds.

  The thing in front of Lukas rolled to a halt. “Little one,” it said, its tone jolly. “Is this all you can bring against me?”

  Lukas stiffened, a growl reverberating in his chest.

  The shadows had never talked to him before. They’d never communicated directly.

  “We’ve been seeking you for so long,” the thing continued. “The viper, he was seeking you, too.”

  “Where is the viper warrior?” Lukas asked. There was a trace of the viper clan in the awful scent, but it was thin and corrupted.

  “We left him behind, resting, recovering from his great deeds,” the thing said. “He has provided us with so much, giving us form. It will be so much easier, now, to live here.”

  “No,” Lukas said, shuddering. “You cannot stay. You can’t stop consuming. You’ll destroy this world like you destroyed your own.”

  “If that happens, we will simply move on,” the shadow replied.

  “You will be stopped here. Now,” Lukas said, growling.

  “By you, little one? Or the puny birdman, or the kitten? I think not.”

  Shadows suddenly flew through the air, thudding solidly into Lukas’ chest.

  Lukas eagerly clawed at the shadows pushing against his chest. Finally! They were physical and he could really fight them.

  He howled when acid bit into his hand.

  The things were solid, and full of deadly acid.

  Lukas fought frantically, tearing the things off and flinging them away, growling. He tried biting into them, but the acid ate into his tongue and he couldn’t spit— his warrior mouth wasn’t designed for that.

  Mei Ling, beside him, whirled and had some success beating shadows on the ground with her tail. The smell of burnt fur rose from Virmal and Ariel, while Peter howled as he sliced through shadows with his knife-like fingers.

  Why wasn’t the knight assembling? Why weren’t the warriors fighting together? And where was the knight’s sword?

  Rudi fought the shadows as best he could as well, trying to keep them away from Harita and Sally. But Rudi couldn’t protect them. Acid burned his snout and paws as well.

  Something wasn’t right. Sally smelled scared, not like the wild, beating heart.

  It was worse than any of Lukas’ nightmares.

  Lukas backed up as the shadows pressed in. The others pressed back as well. They were running out of room, out of time.

  Where was his knight?

  Dark, Hamlin said. Dark now.

  “Rudi! Cut the lights!” Lukas called out as he clawed off another shadow threatening to drill into him, to corrupt his soul.

  With a snarl, Rudi bounced up, leaping over the assembled group and racing toward the shed that contained the switches, shadows streaming after him.

  Lukas desperately fought on, trying to keep the shadows back, fighting to keep the humans safe. But Sally cried when a spray of acid flew through the air and bit into her cheek.

  How could they defeat these things? They weren’t pure shadow. Peter had said the viper had put his poison into them, making them corporeal.

  And unfortunately, even more deadly.

  The humming lights fell silent and darkness overcame them.

  The shadows paused their attack. They were almost
impossible to see in the dark, at least until their eyes adjusted.

  Hamlin propelled Lukas forward. Lukas bit into the large, towering thing, pulling off a hunk, worrying it and then dropping it.

  His mouth didn’t burn.

  The shadows flowed together around the leader, then dissipated like morning fog, growing thinner and lighter until they disappeared.

  Lukas turned around, panting. His eyes adjusted and he examined his warriors, all changed back to human.

  Mei Ling’s perfect hair was pulled to the side, her mouth and chin torn and bloody. Peter cradled his bleeding hand to his chest, and even in the dark, Lukas could tell his normally dark skin was pale. Virmal had burns all down his right arm. Arial sat on the ground, crooning, holding her arms tightly across her chest.

  Even Sally and Harita were hurt. Rudi, too.

  “I’m sorry,” Lukas whispered, though he wanted to howl.

  Why hadn’t bringing these people together, with the threat of the shadows, assembled the knight? Where was the knight’s sword? Was Lukas still missing someone? Was there something else wrong?

  How was Lukas going to defeat the shadows if the one thing his dreams had foretold wasn’t true?

  Chapter Seventeen

  United States, Twenty-Two Years Ago to Present

  Sally

  One of Sally’s earliest memories was of trying to save the world.

  She couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time. They had traveled to La Jolla, California, to visit Dad’s mom and dad.

  Salt tinged the skin around Sally’s lips and the warm sun kissed the top of her head. Grandma had tied her black-and-white-checked dishtowel under Sally’s chin, so it flapped against her blindingly pink one-piece suit as she charged across the wet sand toward the waves. In her memory, she always shrieked as she dashed into the water, though she knew her mom wouldn’t have stood that for long.

  With her arms spread wide, Sally commanded the ocean to stop threatening her sand castle village. She raced back out of the water, to her masterpiece, scolding every encroaching wave.

  It never worked. The water always won.

  But that didn’t stop Sally from trying even harder the next time.

  # # #

  Sally missed her dad after he moved out. She missed his funny stories about wild bands of alligators saving the high school or the teddy bear pirates rescuing the princess. She missed his carefully crafted, blobby pancakes and the outrageous lies he’d tell about how they resembled dinosaurs or castles.

  She didn’t miss the fights between Mom and Dad. Though they’d yelled at each other in whispers in their room, they didn’t realize the vent above their bed went straight into Sally’s room and she heard every hissed word and curse.

  Liz and Mary, Sally’s two older sisters, didn’t like going to Dad’s house on his weekend. Mom quickly claimed they were old enough to make their own decision, so it was generally only Sally who raced up the cracked and weed-covered sidewalk to where her dad stood on the porch with open arms and a sad smile.

  Mom called Dad’s house a shack. It stank like dog pee, the green plastic tiles on the kitchen floor were cracked and broken, it boiled in the Minnesota summer, and the cold winter winds pushed through the gaps around the windows.

  Sally still loved it. The front room had floor to ceiling bookcases along two walls, as well as wide windows overlooking the porch and the yard. The tiny room Sally slept in was crammed full of brightly colored, half-finished canvases and always smelled like mineral oil. She loved the statue Dad had made that stood guard over her bed, created out of “found art”: branches blown down during last summer’s storm made up his arms, bottle caps formed his eyes and crooked smile, and bubble gum wrappers outlined his vest and tie.

  More fascinating pieces filled Dad’s room, such as the copper-wire-and-bolt men that floated on the ends of the mobile above his bed, the fantasy garden painting that he used to block one of his windows, and the window shade made of soft bearskin, leather, yarn, and cotton.

  The weekend they celebrated Sally’s eighth birthday, after presents and chocolate-chip-ice-cream cake, Dad asked Sally to sit down in the front room to talk.

  Sally sat heavily, the cold from the ice cream still rolling around her belly. She knew it was going to be bad: Dad’s art had changed again. Before he’d moved out, the usual happy faces he painted were suddenly tinged with blue, and the city he’d painted, with the broken walls and blank windows, had scared her. He’d started painting bright yellow sunflowers and cities filled with trees after he’d moved out, but now his art was filled with desert scenes in cool oranges, and sunsets over ancient gray and black stones.

  “You know I love you, darling,” Dad started. He knelt next to the old beige couch, his ginger-colored hair graying along the temples, wearing his blue denim painting shirt covered in splotches of all colors.

  The books towered over them, and normally Sally felt most safe here, curled up on this couch, escaping into new worlds and faraway places.

  “But?” Sally asked when Dad didn’t continue right away, knowing the worst was yet to come. It had been too special of a birthday for everything to work out right.

  “I need to go back home. To California.”

  Sally’s chest suddenly hurt, as if Dad had stabbed her with his big tin shears. “But why?”

  “I need to be back near the ocean. It’s where my heart is,” Dad said. “You can come visit.”

  “No, I can’t,” Sally said, tears hitching up, out of her eyes, and down her cheeks. “Since you and Mom split, there hasn’t been a single trip to California. Mom says it’s too expensive, and you can’t afford it.”

  Dad rocked back on his heels. “Where did you hear that? From your mother?”

  Sally indicated the room. “You live here. We had to move, too, and I have to share a room, now, with Mary,” she said softly. “There just isn’t enough money.”

  Dad opened his mouth, then closed it again. “If there isn’t a trip, it isn’t because I don’t love you or don’t want you to be there. But you may be right. How did you get so wise?”

  “Wasn’t from you,” Sally teased through her tears.

  Dad chuckled. “Nope. Your mom was always the smart, sensible one. But baby girl, sometimes you’ve got to follow your heart. It isn’t easy. But if you listen, and listen well, it will always tell you the truth.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Sally said. “You can’t just follow your heart. Not if it means you’re leaving.” Mom had said Dad was always leaving—not finishing college, not sticking with jobs, now, not staying with them in Minnesota.

  “You have a strong heart, too,” Dad told her. “Stronger than your sisters. I know. I can see it. If you don’t follow it, you’ll regret it.”

  “There has to be more,” Sally insisted.

  “Oh, honey,” Dad said, reaching out and squeezing her hand. “There so much for you to learn. It isn’t about being wild or free. It’s about being true to who you are.”

  “But why can’t you do that here?” Sally asked, her own heart breaking.

  “I would if I could, darling,” Dad replied.

  Though Sally let Dad hold her as she cried, she was also determined to prove him wrong. She would figure out how to follow her heart and stay.

  # # #

  Sally followed her dad’s advice and let her heart lead her into non-profit work—focusing on feeding families when they fell into bad circumstances, like her family had—then to Seattle.

  When Peter came dancing into her life, Sally nearly called her dad that night. He’d been right: Her heart had always been strong. However, he’d never told her that there might be more pieces of her heart out there, waiting for her to find them.

  Sally’s heart told her to stay when Peter lied to her. She knew he was holding back about the tiger thing that had attacked her, the thing that Pixie had defended her from.

  For the first time, Sally truly understood that staying wasn’t alway
s enough—that the brave thing to do was to walk away. She needed to have all her heart if she was going to live, and staying when Peter wouldn’t let her in would only hurt her in the long run.

  Of course, Sally had never imagined that Peter was hiding a raven soul.

  After Sally learned about Ravens’ Hall and the way they’d tortured the boys there, she understood just how brave Peter had been to tell her as much as he had.

  It convinced her that she’d always been right: The will of her heart always had to be tempered with courage.

  # # #

  Sally had always known Pixie was special. She’d been as drawn to him as he had been to her when she first saw him at the shelter.

  After the attack by the tiger creature, she suspected there was more, much more, to Pixie.

  Sally wasn’t surprised when the awkward, tall boy with the raven black hair who was Pixie’s human form—Lukas—named her the heart of his knight.

  Nor was she surprised when Peter tried to immediately talk her out of fighting the instant Lukas left.

  “I don’t like the idea of you in a battle,” Peter started out, taking Sally’s hand and drawing her to the couch. “I can’t lose you.”

  Sally sighed, wrapped her arms around Peter, and held his head to her chest. “I couldn’t lose you, either,” she said. “Which is what I’d do if I insisted that you always stay safe. You had to fight that tiger warrior, Tamara. I would have lost you if you hadn’t, as surely as if she’d killed you with her bare hands.”

  The man in her arms shuddered. “She did try to kill me.”

  “I know. And you had to fight her. Just as I have to fight with you, beside you.”

  “What if Lukas is wrong?”

  “Do you think he’s wrong?” Sally asked. “It’s an awful long time to be cursed in the form of a hound and have it not be true.”

  Peter grunted. “I know. I just—I don’t like these shadows. They’re awful. I still don’t want it to be you fighting them.”

  “We’ll be careful.” Sally suspected she’d be more on edge for a while, ever since the attack the previous night. “How about this? If I notice you not behaving, or being weird, like how Lukas said you might, I’ll just smack you. Like this.” She playfully slapped his arm.