“But why did she attack you?”
“I don’t know, maybe she thought I was after her pup,” Hunter surmised.
“What were you doing in the woods?” Summer asked.
“Nothing. Just out for a stroll,” he said.
“Out for a stroll? At three o’clock in the morning?” she said.
“What? You don’t think demons get insomnia?” he said. “I was just out getting some fresh air.”
“What is it that demons do, anyway? Were you out looking to take someone’s soul? Make a deal for your master? Kill an innocent hellhound,” she said, hugging the pup.
“Now wait one minute. Hellhounds are not innocent in any way, shape, or form. As for demons—we don’t take souls; that’s all a bunch of lies. We’re more like vampires in that we feed on a human’s essence or emotions. Some are mischief makers and love to stir up a riot, but most live their lives like any living being.”
“What do you feed on?”
“We all have our preferences, and mine tends to be selfishness. There’s plenty of it around and even the perfect human will allow a little selfishness once in a while. I don’t even have to instigate selfishness; it’s everywhere, so I’ll never starve. Now if you run across a demon that prefers fear or anger? Hightail it out of there. Those guys are bad news,” Hunter informed her.
She thought for a few seconds then asked, “What will happen to this little guy?”
“He’ll probably follow the reaper into Hell.”
“Then what?”
“He’ll find his way or another hellhound will care for him. Hellhounds are very resilient.”
“But he’s just a baby. He won’t survive on his own.”
“Sure he will, won’t you, big fella?” Hunter said, patting the pup on the head. The pup growled and smoke came out of his nose, making everything reek of sulphur. Hunter pulled back his hand.
“What if I raise him?” Summer asked.
“You can’t raise a hellhound.”
“Why not?”
“Humans are too fragile. He’ll accidentally cut you to threads or sneeze and burn your house down,” Hunter informed her.
“Well…I’ll just buy a few fire extinguishers and keep them around for accidents and maybe buy a Kevlar coat,” she said.
“You’re not seriously considering this, are you? Look how big its mother is,” he said, waving his hand towards the unmoving body. “A male will be much larger. How are you going to control something like that?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll figure something out,” she proclaimed.
“You’re either the most charitable human I’ve ever met, or absolutely insane, and I’m leaning towards the insane side,” Hunter said, shaking his head.
She gathered the heavy pup in her arms and marched towards the cottage. Hunter didn’t know if he should leave or follow her so he opted to leave.
Chapter 7
Back at the cottage, Summer gave the pup a leftover hamburger from the fridge and a large bowl of water, but she felt unsure what a hellhound might eat. He ate the hamburger and accepted the water, but Summer wished that Hunter might have stuck around a little longer since he was the only one she knew who knew anything about hellhounds.
In the morning she would take the pup to the office to have Dr. Stuart check him out. Sure, he likely didn’t know anything about hellhounds, but who knew—maybe he did.
In the closet she found a couple of old towels and a tattered blanket that, combined, made a rather soft place for the pup to sleep. Since it was still dark, she thought she would try and get some sleep and deal with more of the details of how to care for the pup in the morning.
She got ready for bed a second time and lay wide eyed in the dark. From his bed on the floor, the pup started to whine.
“What is it, little guy?” she said, leaning over the side to give his fuzzy head a little rub. He got up on his back legs, trying to peep over the edge of the bed at her and whined, staring at her with his bright eyes partially lighting the room.
“Lie down on your bed now. It’s time for you to get a little sleep.”
She heard him slide back down the mattress onto the floor, but he whined again and raked his nails on the side of the mattress. She hoped he wasn’t shredding the bed.
“You miss your mom, don’t you? Okay, you can come up here, but you need to lie down and sleep,” she said as she hefted the heavy pup onto the bed with her. He seemed to follow her instruction as he circled three times and settled with a plop into the curve her body made with her knees slightly bent. He was lonely and he’d been used to sleeping nestled up against his mother. Now that she was gone, Summer was that substitute and he was exhausted.
She rubbed his head and he seemed to melt into her. His eyes slowly slipped closed and he let out a deep sigh of contentment. Feeling his relaxation beside her filled her with great comfort. His steady breathing served as a sleep-inducing drug, like the ticking of a clock or the sound of ocean waves crashing on the shore. Summer and the pup slept silently through the rest of the night.
*****
Summer had slept very soundly, so soundly that she had not heard the pup get up and off the bed. When she woke she looked around the room, noting the pup was nowhere to be seen. She shuffled to the main room of the cottage, rubbing her eyes. To her dismay, she found he had been rather busy.
One of the cushions from the couch had been disemboweled, and stuffing and rubber foam littered the area around the couch. She found the pup sitting on top of the tiny kitchen table, eating the contents of the large Cheerios box that was now unrecognizable as ever having been a box.
When he spied her entry into the room, he directed his attention towards her. His whip of a tail wagged like mad, launching pieces of cereal like bullets across the room. His black tongue hung out his mouth with a few unchewed Cheerios clinging to it as well as his jowls and one on his nose. She wanted to laugh as he looked at her, his mismatched eyes shining brightly, and if she didn’t know better, she could swear he was smiling.
“No. No,” she said as she headed for the table and put him on the floor. “Puppies are not allowed on the table,” she scolded. When she grabbed the broom from the closet, he trotted behind her dutifully. As she started to sweep up Cheerios, he thought this was some kind of game and he bit the broom, pawed at it and chased it around the kitchen. Needless to say, the broom served next to no purpose in cleaning but good fun for a pup.
She felt she was getting nowhere with the Cheerios, so maybe she would grab a garbage bag and pick up all the foam rubber and stuffing from the cushion. He followed her every move and watched, cocking his head from one side to the other in sheer amazement. His head followed with each handful of debris from the floor to the bag as if his eyes could not move independently from his head. She looked at him watching her quizzically and showed him a handful of stuffing.
“Bad boy. Puppies don’t eat the couch,” she said to him. He cocked his head again, his ears flopping a bit and then he put his paw out to her as if wanting to shake, but then pulled a clump of stuffing towards himself.
“You want to help?” she asked. He cocked his head again. “Put it in the bag for me.”
He bent down and picked up a mouthful and deposited it into the garbage bag.
She rubbed his ears and praised him, “What a good boy.” He liked that and gave her a big, sloppy, stinky lick across the cheek and grabbed another chunk of stuffing and put it in the bag. She praised him again and his tail wagged out of control with happiness and his black tongue hung out over his jowls as he breathed stinky sulpher breath on her.
She waved her hand in front of her nose and said, “We’re going to have to do something about that breath, sheesh! Since you have already had a little breakfast I’ll get ready for work and we can talk to Dr. Stuart and have him check you out.”
He wagged his tail as if answering her and trotted behind her into the bedroom, sat on his bed and watched her get dressed.
; *****
Summer made a leash out of a wide leather belt and led him outside to the car. He looked curiously at the furry dog-mobile, tipping his head to the right, and then looked towards Summer for guidance.
“I know it’s silly looking, but it’s a good little vehicle.” She unlocked the door while the pup smelled the fur on the car, and then Summer spied a note on her windshield. She grabbed it and led the pup, into the car and onto the passenger seat. She settled into the driver’s seat.
She laughed looking at the pup that was the size of a full grown golden retriever. He was comfortable now, but if he grew to be the size of his mother, or bigger, it would be a bit tight. She pictured in her mind the grown pup stuffing himself into her already silly-looking car. What a sight that will be for other drivers to see, she thought.
She opened the note left on the windshield. Ms. Midnight was requesting an urgent meeting with her this afternoon and making it very clear that she would not be taking ‘no’ for an answer.
“Oh boy,” Summer said to the pup. “Looks like I’m in trouble again. Wonder what I did this time?” The pup looked back at her with droopy, sad, red and yellow eyes as if he knew what she was saying to him. She smiled and gave the spiky hair on top of his head a little rustle, making him wag his tail and appear to smile again. She started the SUV and headed for the office.
*****
Sully enjoyed his ride to the office, watching people and cars rush by the window. Some didn’t notice him, while others took double takes and just about ran off the road, but it was the children he most enjoyed. They waved and smiled and when they did, Sully would paw at the window then licked the glass as if to wave back and blow them a kiss.
Summer scratched him behind one of his ears and Sully moaned with enjoyment. Another light and two stop signs and they were pulling into the parking lot of the veterinarian office. Though she had him on his makeshift leash, she didn’t need it; he followed her like a shadow trotting behind her, head held high and tail in the air wagging back and forth with such force that it nearly knocked him off balance while he walked.
The odd pair walked past the reception desk where Tori was chatting with a delivery boy, her back to Summer and Sully. It was the boy’s shocked face at seeing the hellhound that made Tori turn her head and do a double take of her own only seeing Sully’s posterior.
“Summer?” Tori said after them as the delivery boy scurried off in a fright.
“Yes?” she answered, coming around the corner, nearly running into a hurried Tori.
“Hey!” Tori said than turned her attention to Sully. She was stunned, but not frightened when she reached out to Sully, allowing him to smell her hand—which he did, then licked it, leaving it coated with a slick goo. She scrunched up her nose at the sight and feel of the drool. “Yuck,” she said, reaching for a paper towel on the counter. Once she was de-slimed, she gave the strange-looking dog a scratch atop his head.
“When did you get a dog? I mean…whatever this is? What is it?” Not waiting for answers, she continued, “And what are these?” She touched the tiny horns on his head. “And these?” she said, noticing the sigils beneath his skin. “How cool? Are they tattoos?”
Summer found herself stuttering trying to answer Tori’s questions only to be interrupted by another question until she finally waited for Tori to slow down and give her an opening to speak.
“He’s a hellhound; at least that’s what I was told. We kind of found one another last night. His mother died in some kind of fight with this demon guy I met in the woods.”
Tori stopped petting the dog and stood up, staring blankly at Summer. Summer knew this look. She’d seen it many times before. It was Tori’s ‘don’t mess with me’ look.
Summer retorted with, “I’m dead serious, really.”
“You’re telling me that you met a DEMON last night…who was fighting a HELLHOUND mother and you’ve taken in the stray pup from the aftermath?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Summer admitted.
“Geez. I swear you are the luckiest person alive. First you move into the coolest cottage ever nestled next to a graveyard, no less. You have a bad boy angel save you from what you think was a dragon, then you meet a demon? And adopt a hellhound? Nothing cool like that ever happens to me.”
“Oh, come on, Tori…you’re dating a pretty cool vampire, aren’t you? Good looking too, I might add.”
“Yeah. I guess, but look at him,” Tori referred to Sully. “He’s really something. I love the tattoos. I should try and copy some of these and see if I can get one done.”
“I don’t know if you want to do that, Tori. I was told they were sigils of names of very powerful demons in Hell,” Summer explained.
“You mean like permanent dog tags? Like, do they own him?” Tori asked as she took a closer look at one while her other hand rubbed one of Sully’s ears.
“That was my thought at first too. The demon just told me they were signatures of the demon lords that made the original hellhounds.”
“Oh. Can I come over if he comes back—this demon of yours? I’ve never met a demon before. Was he red? Did he have horns?”
“He wasn’t red, but he did have horns…sometimes.” Summer was rather shocked at the images Tori spewed in her questions. “And other times, he looked…normal. Like you and me. Nothing strange at all.”
“Oh,” she said, looking disappointed, but a second later her face brightened again and she blurted out, “Was he cute?”
Summer couldn’t help herself. She had to laugh at Tori’s tenacity. “Yes, Tori. I have to say he was definitely cute, that is, when his horns weren’t showing.” They both laughed and continued to pet Sully.
*****
Just when the chuckles started to fade, Dr. Stuart popped his head into the front office door to greet them and see what the giggling girls were up to, but when he saw the hellhound pup he froze.
“Screamin’ kittens! What have we here?” he said as he stepped closer to Sully.
“I was just explaining to Tori that I took this big boy in last night. His mother died in a fight with a demon, no less.”
“You don’t say? I imagine its mother must have been a sight to see,” he said, not even pausing for a moment at the mention of a demon.
“She was. She was huge, but hairless.”
“Huh,” Dr. Stuart said as he made a circle around the pup, examining all sides of him. Then as if just computing what had been said, he repeated with a start, “Demon?”
“Yes. At least that’s what he told me he was,” Summer explained.
“And did this demon tell you what it was that he was fighting? And why?”
“He did. He told me the mother was a hellhound and he figured she attacked him because he was too close to the pup, though he didn’t know about the pup until after the fiasco,” she explained.
“I see. A hellhound, huh? How amazing,” he said when he stopped in front of Sully and held his hand out for him to smell. Anticipating the same thing she’d endured, Tori reached for the paper towels just as Sully slimed Dr. Stuart’s hand. He stared at his hand as if it were not his own. “Fascinating,” he said, wiggling his fingers. He sniffed the slime, wrinkling his nose as he did, and said, “sulphur” under his breath.
Summer responded with, “Yes. That’s why I’ve named him Sully. Short for Sulphur.”
“Cute,” he said as he continued to examine the pup and wiped his hand from the slime. “There’s a bit of a tingling from the drool. Rather acidic, I suspect.”
“I thought that too,” Summer agreed.
He rubbed Sully’s head noticing for the first time his tiny nubs of incoming horns. “Well, now…there’s something you don’t see every day, at least on a canine-typish animal. Did its mother have horns?” Dr. Stuart asked.
“Not that I noticed,” Summer answered.
“Might be a male thing, but the heterochromia,” he said, referring to Sully’s mismatched eyes, “could be unusual.
It’s more common in some breeds of dogs than others, but I don’t know much about hellhounds.” Then he laughed—to himself mostly—and added, “Nothing actually, but he certainly seems lovable.” Rumpling up the fuzz on top of Sully’s head, he said, “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Sully wagged his tail in reply.
“Do you mind if I take some blood and run some tests? I’m not sure they will tell us a lot but he seems mostly canine. It would be good to know as much about his physiology as we can in case, God forbid, he ever gets hurt. We’ll at least know what might be normal for a hellhound.”
She smiled at the doctor and nodded. “As long as I can have you watch him through lunch. I’m supposed to talk with Ms. Midnight about something urgent.”
“Sure. This is turning out to be a pretty exciting day,” he said with a huge smile. “Come on, Sully, let’s go weigh and examine you properly.”
Sully first looked at Summer as if asking for permission. “Go ahead,” she said, waving her hand in the direction the doctor was headed. “Dr. Stuart’s our friend.”
Sully turned and trotted off after the doctor who was calling his name again from down the hall.
Chapter 8
Before Summer left for the Midnight mansion, Dr. Stuart was trying to check Sully’s ears with the otoscope, but Sully kept pawing him and the tool popping off the funnel-shaped ear speculum that goes on the end of the scope. Sully thought this was a fun game. Dr. Stuart was patient as always as he reattached it over and over, laughing at Sully’s intelligence and playfulness.
She smiled at the two of them when she left, Dr. Stuart waving with his slimy, slobbered glove-covered hand, and Sully with a wagging tail and tongue hanging out.
As she approached the front door of the mansion, she found herself a bit nervous. She’d never really talked with the woman, and given the sour looks she always received from the upstairs window, she didn’t expect the meeting to be very cordial.
She took a breath and knocked on the door, releasing brittle, peeling paint to rain onto the worn and barely readable “Welcome” mat. Slow but steady footsteps could be heard inside making their way to the door. The deadbolt turned and then an awkward silence. Apparently the door was swollen or out of square of the door jamb since the door suddenly yanked open, nearly toppling the old woman behind it.
Finding Midnight Page 6