by Andrew Dudek
As planned, all three clerks stared at the heavyset man having a fit. Krissy leaned over the desk, facing the only male clerk, a nineteen-year-old who looked like he was there on a work-study program, giving him a spectacular view of her cleavage. Harrison and I darted down the hallway.
“You know what to do?” I whispered.
“Ten times!” Harrison hissed.
One of the doors was marked RECORDS. I opened the door and slipped inside. As I closed the door behind me, I heard Krissy’s voice, in a snotty but melodious register: “It’s like they have no idea who you are, Daddy.”
The records room was little more than a big closet, jammed full of filing cabinets. Each one was labeled with letters: A—E, F—J, and so on. I opened the one marked U—Z and flipped through the manila file folders inside.
I could faintly hear Dallas roaring something about how the dean was going to hear about this. I shook my head and hurried. Too much, too soon, man. If the wizard got his ass thrown out by security they’d find me and I’d have to get out. What I was doing was illegal and an invasion of privacy. I wasn’t afraid to fight a couple of college rent-a-cops, but I fought in the Third Vampire War, y’know? It felt a little beneath me.
Ah! There it was. “Vernon, Amy.” A thin folder near the middle of the stack. I grabbed it, shut the cabinet, and left the room.
Harrison was still watching the show. Dallas was stomping his feet, waving his hands like a chimp. Sweat poured down his temples. Krissy was hunched over the desk, her head in her hands in embarrassment that didn’t look feigned.
I slipped Harrison the file, and he hid it under his baggy T-shirt.
“He’s talking about getting his friends from the IRS down here. Does he have friends in the IRS?”
“No idea,” I said, and looked at Dallas. His tie was flopping wild and the arm pits of his suit jacket were darkened with sweat. “Probably not. Let’s get him out of here before bursts a capillary or burns the building down.”
I put a hand on Dallas’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright, Frank. We’ll put her in a community college for the fall.”
The clerk frowned, lines appearing at the corners of her mouth. “I thought his name was George.”
“Uh…” I stared for a moment. “We gotta go.”
Back outside, Krissy laughed. “All those times we went over the plan, Dave, and you’re the one that almost screwed it up!”
“I thought we were doing an Ocean’s Eleven reference.”
“We were,” Krissy said. “That’s why we were calling him George. Like, George Clooney.”
“I thought we decided on the Sinatra version.”
“Who’s Sinatra?” Harrison asked.
“Never mind,” Dallas said with a wave of his hand. “Did you get it?”
“Oh, we got it.” I grinned. “Let’s go talk to the witch.”
Amy Vernon’s off-campus apartment was in a complex a few blocks west of the school. We passed a couple of coeds in sports bras and yoga pants. If I had known that the girls in college dressed like that, I might have gone.
“You’re staring, Dave,” Krissy said as we entered the lobby.
“Am not,” I said.
“Nothing wrong with looking,” said Dallas, his voice a leer. Harrison let out a low growl that sounded like agreement.
“Men,” Krissy scoffed and shook her head. “Is all you think about sex?”
“Not all,” Dallas said. “I also spend a lot of time wishing I wasn’t a Mets fan.”
“God. Let’s go find Amy so we can break up this sausage fest.”
The apartment was on the fourth floor. The hall was in desperate need of the attention of a vacuum cleaner. The floor was littered with empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and chip bags. Several of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling had burned out, giving the place a strange, striped quality. We’d pass through patches of brightness, followed by patches of dark.
I knocked on the door to apartment 4D, stepped back, and waited. No response. I knocked again and called, “Miss Vernon, you in there?” Nothing. I looked at Harrison. “You smell anything, kid?”
The werewolf leaned against the crack between the wall and the door and took a sniff. He shook his head. “No one’s in there. It’s kinda hard to tell, but I don’t think anyone’s been in there for a while.”
Krissy looked at Harrison. “That’s amazing. You know that, right?”
Teen-wolf shrugged. “It’s just something I can do.”
“Nose of steel on this one.” I pounded on the door across the hall. A moment later I heard the scraping of chair legs on a floor.
The door was answered by a young dude with long blond hair and no shirt. A cloud of skunky smoke followed him into the hall. His voice was sleepy when he asked, “Wha’s up?”
I pointed over my shoulder. “You know the girl that lives there?”
“Amy?” A lazy smile settled on his face. “Yeah, man. I know her. Hot as hell, right?” Some color rushed into his face. “Uh. She’s not your sister, is she?”
“Relax, Fabio,” I said. “I’m not here to horn in on your love connection. I just need to talk to her.”
“Are you a cop?”
I fought not to roll my eyes. The only one of my companions who could have passed for police was Dallas, and he had abandoned the suit jacket, tie, and button-down, leaving him clad in a T-shirt. Not exactly a law enforcement convention.
“Concerned friends,” I said. “You see her recently.”
“Nah, man, not since the day before last. Said she was going to some sorta party in a cemetery. Sounded rad. Tried to score an invite, but she wasn’t into it.” Fabio grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “Don’t worry, she’ll come around.”
“I’m sure she won’t be able to resist your manly charms.”
“Wha’?”
“Nothing. Go back to your ‘studying.’”
Laughing quietly to himself, Fabio closed the door.
So Amy hadn’t been home in two days. Either she’d been killed by the hellhound…or maybe she was responsible for its appearance. At least one of the summoners was probably still alive—a demon, even a relatively minor one like a hellhound, would cause a lot of carnage if left to wander around uncontrolled—so I was beginning to get the idea that Amy Vernon was the instigator of this whole mess.
We needed to get into her apartment.
I drew my knife from my hip, slid the blade into the doorjamb, and brought it down in a quick slash. The knife didn’t have the power of my sword, but it had been enhanced by a Swordmaker. Like my sword, it had a blue jewel embedded near the handle, which gave it some limited magic. The sapphire glowed and the blade sheared through the lock. There was an odd popping noise, and a plume of thin smoke curled out from under the door.
“That’s strange,” I said.
“What?” Krissy asked. Harrison licked his lips and showed his teeth in alarm.
“It’s a warding spell,” Dallas said. He closed his eyes and put a hand near the smoke. “Pretty strong, too.”
Wards are a dangerous business. Some of them function like landmines.
“Is it gonna explode?”
“If it was, it would’a done it already.”
“Terrific.” I reached for the knob.
“Wait!” Harrison said. “Do you smell that?”
I sniffed the air. All I got was the acrid, slightly chemical scent of magic in the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
Something in my pants pocket heated up.
“Uh, Dave,” Krissy murmured, “is that a glow worm in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
An orange light was pushing through the denim of my jeans. I reached inside and fished out the wallet-like thing that Professor Bogart had given me. The rudimentary runes were glowing like little torches.
“Oh. Well, that’s not good,” I said.
“What is it?” Krissy asked.
“It’s a demon alarm,” I said. “We’ve got company.”
Dallas snarled and brought his hands up. Little green sparks danced on his fingernails. “The ward must have been set up to alert the demon when someone opened the door.”
“We need to evacuate the building,” I said quietly. “Harrison, Dallas, knock on as many doors as possible. Yell, scream, shout ‘fire,’ do whatever it takes.”
Dallas nodded. “Come on, kid.” They took off down the hallway, banging on doors and shouting at the top of their lungs.
“Krissy go to the car and get my bag. My sword’s in there. Hold on to it and wait there.”
“What about you?”
“There might be something in the apartment that could give us a clue where Amy is. If there is, I need to find it. Anyone you see, make sure they get out of the building.”
Krissy bit her lip, then nodded and bolted down the hallway. A slow trickle of people were beginning to make their way to the stairs. She maneuvered around them like a bird and disappeared down the stairwell.
I went to the door to 4D and pushed it open. Before I went in, though, I slammed my fist against the door to the apartment across the hall. “Hey, Fabio! The building’s on fire! Get your ass out!”
And then I stepped into Amy’s apartment.
The interior was small and cramped, exactly like you’d expect from a college dorm. The furniture was cheap and second-hand, and were covered with pink throw pillows. Something like cotton candy or bubblegum scented the air and I took a couple of hesitant steps further in. Nothing exploded or tried to kill me, so I made my way to the middle of the living room, where a stack of books stood on a coffee table.
Textbooks—standard issue college fare, mostly—though there were couple of old, leather-bound editions that looked like they might contain real spells. She’d probably bought them at Dallas’s store. I knocked over the stack of books.
Cursing, I bent to return the pile to where I’d found it, I noticed that one of the books—a philosophy text—had fallen open to a page where a postcard was being used as a bookmark.
The front of the postcard showed an image of the Brooklyn Bridge, as seen from the Brooklyn side of the river. I flipped it over and read the handwritten note that was scrawled in a neat, orderly script:
A:
I hope you’ve been enjoying our time together as much as I have I don’t care what my people say—or the Ambassador. I know we’re meant to be together. I worry about the magic you’re performing with those other human cows, but I also know that your power and ambition are what make me love you so much.
Just know, my darling, that should you ever find yourself in over your head, you are always welcome to stay here with me.
With love,
—S
I had a feeling I knew exactly where I could find the person—or whatever—that had sent that postcard. I folded it up and shoved it into the back pocket of my jeans. I was on my way towards the apartment door when there was a scream like a volcano giving birth.
The back wall of the apartment was ripped away in a gout of flame. Brick and wood fell, burning, to the street below. I heard people scream. I smelled smoke and sulfur.
And then it appeared.
In an instant, as if it had always been there, it appeared.
It was about the size of a buffalo. Four muscular legs, ending in clawed paws. A heavy chest covered in wiry, midnight black hair. A long tail that wagged back and forth, knocking over Amy’s wine rack and a bookshelf.
And three heads.
Each one was square and flat like a pit bull’s muzzle, each one of full of long, slavery teeth. Six eyes that seemed to be made of living fire. All of them were staring at me.
None of the mouths opened, but somehow it spoke. Its voice was feminine, and oddly familiar.
“Where is the girl?”
Chapter 11
The dog's heads lowered and snarled. At this distance, the smell of sulfur was unmistakeable and choking. Somewhere in the hall, a smoke alarm screamed.
“Nice doggie,” I murmured, my voice high-pitched. “Who’s a good doggie?”
The middle head snapped and that same female voice rumbled from deep inside the dog-demon’s chest. “The girl.”
I spat on the floor, trying to clear some of the sulfuric scent out of my sinuses. I didn’t mean it as a gesture of disrespect, but it’s possible the demon took it that way. Especially when I said, “You know, they always say nothing smells worse than wet dog. I’m starting to think they should change that to ‘hellhound.’”
The three-headed beast took a step forward, knocking a a cheap plastic chair over. The parts of the plastic that came into contact with the dog’s chest melted. “I will not be mocked.”
“Hey, pup,” I said, “if you didn’t want to be insulted, you should have stayed out of Jersey.”
The dog leaped. Its front paws were stretched out like a flying superhero’s hands. I flung myself back, landed on my ass, and knocked Amy’s TV off of its stand. It broke in a satisfying smash of glass and I felt a shard dig into my forearm. I pushed myself to my feet and stared at the hellhound, now only a few feet from me. All six eyes shone.
“Hey, stinky,” I said, “I know where she is. I have an address on a piece of paper in my car. You want her, you gotta let me leave this apartment.”
The dog growled for a moment, then took a step back, giving me access to the door.
Once I was in the hallway I sprinted towards the stairs and took them two at a time. As I ran I listened for the sounds of padded feet, but there was nothing. The hellhound wasn’t following me. At least not physically.
I had no intention of giving Amy over to the hellhound, but I needed to get the three-headed dog-demon out of the building. This was the monster that had killed Heather Collins and those other girls. But if Amy had been there—and apparently not in control of the demon—then why hadn’t she been ripped apart as well? Everything I knew about an uncontrollable demon suggested that they were equal-opportunity murderers.
Because someone else was probably controlling it. It doesn’t take a lot of power. It takes knowledge. Power is what’s needed to control a demon once you’ve dragged it into this plane of existence. So there was someone out there with the power and the know-how to summon and the control the most powerful demon I’d ever seen. Probably the female voice I heard from inside the demon’s body.
All of this was academic at the moment. Right now, my only concern was keeping the dog-thing from killing everybody in the building. Later I could figure out who Amy Vernon was and who wanted to turn her into kibble.
As I reached the lobby and emerged onto the streets of Newark, Krissy was running against the flow of traffic, dragging my duffel bag. I shoved my way through the crowd and stood behind a parked car, which gave me a little bubble of personal space. I took my sword out of the bag and squeezed the hilt. As it always did, the power of the blade sent a rush of energy through my body.
“The demon’s here,” I said. “You see the others?”
“They’re with the car,” Krissy said. “They got as many people out as they could.”
“Good. Go with them and take the car back to the office. Tell Dallas that the demon has the shape of a giant three-headed dog. That should help him figure out what it is.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll catch up.”
A loud, long baying sound came from around the corner of the building. The sound of a hound on the scent. Smoke pillared into the sky above Amy’s building, black and terrible against the pale, hazy blue.
“You won’t stand a chance against that thing,” Krissy said.
“Maybe not,” I said. “But that’s the job. Standing between people and this kind of darkness.”
Tears welled in Krissy’s eyes, but she nodded. “Okay. But you’re buying the first round when we celebrate you surviving this thing.”
“Go.”
She went, running into the growing crowd. In a moment she was gone.
The hellhound pounc
ed from behind a UPS truck to land on the roof of a parked car maybe half a block away from me. One of its head rocked back and howled in triumph. Another landed on the retreating form of a straggler.
It took me a moment to recognize Fabio, the kid with the blond hair from upstairs. He’d put on a T-shirt and cheap running shoes and he was rushing away from the demon. Too slow.
Much too slow.
The hellhound leaped from the roof of the car. It landed on Fabio’s back. He screamed as one of the heads ripped open his spinal column. The other two rocked back and howled in triumph.
I bit my lip and tightened my grip on the sword.
Blood and gray, ropy entrails fell from the demonic jaws as the dog stepped over Fabio’s body. All three heads rolled like a boxer getting ready for a prize fight. “Where is the girl?”
“If you want my help, you shouldn’t kill people.”
“This child will be nothing if you don’t tell me where to find the girl.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was lying about that. “Sorry.”
I charged forward, swinging my sword with all the power in my shoulders. The dog twisted, avoiding a blow that would have taken off one of its heads. The blade sank into black fur near the shoulder of the right forepaw. Blood the color of a tangerine and fizzy like a soda bubbled out of the wound and the hellhound let out a yelp. It wasn’t hurt too badly by the attack, though: it still moved quickly and lightly on its four paws.
The hellhound roared, and the sound made my bones shake. One of its heads swung like a wrecking ball, hitting my chest with the force of a car. I was flung backwards and landed on the sidewalk. Oof. That hurt. I felt like a twenty pound weight was on my chest.
The dog leaped to the roof of a car, frighteningly agile for something so large. All six fiery eyes were focused on me. Sirens wailed, not far off. Newark’s finest would be here in moments. I pushed myself to my feet and snarled, “Let’s go.”
It pounced, its forepaws slamming into my shoulders with enough force to knock me down again. I managed to hold on to the sword and stabbed the dog in the side with the pointed jewel in the pommel. The dog howled, this time in pain, and rolled off of me.
