“Get back here,” Marco yelled. He set fire to the True Bloods, stepped back from the intense heat, and then crushed their bones to the dirt. With a quick glance at Cutty, he flew down the hill after the colonel.
Marco’s words from just a few days ago rang in her head: there will not be another war in this city. Dixie and the wolfhounds followed him toward the chaos. Before she jumped into the fray, Dixie surveyed the field of battle:
Sangre di Real were executed by invisible forces, their heads flying into the air and their innards eviscerated by unseen powers. Bolts of fire flew through the night, enveloping the True Bloods in flames. Survivors, both in human and canine form, jumped up and down on the remains, grinding their bones to dirt.
True Bloods slashed through the canines, cutting them down like fragile stalks of wheat. Yips and howls coursed across the hillside. Forms dashed from tree to tree, looking for cover, looking for prey. She knew there’d be no chance of finding Adam in this madness.
An ungodly odor grabbed her attention. She turned to the right and found herself face to face with a True Blood. He slashed out at her, his claws scraping across her leg. In a moment, his head flew into the air. Dixie glanced behind the creature’s flailing body. Marco Ramirez had cut the Daemon’s head off and began the task of scooping out its bowels. Ramirez’s face exhibited both exhaustion and fear, but his actions were determined.
He nodded at Dixie as he produced a lighter from his pocket and touched it to the fallen True Blood. She barked, but he did not acknowledge her. He could not have known the wolfhound he’d just saved was once his lover. How could he?
“Exteritus.”
The secret word popped into the air, shouted from farther down the hill. Dixie dug her claws into the dirt and took off in pursuit of the word. She witnessed more Sangre di Real being taken down by unseen forces as she galloped through the warzone. Lucas Knight arranged to have the Daemons killed, and succeeded with deft precision; his legacy from the grave.
“Exteritus.”
Dixie halted, scouring the nearby area. The moon cut a path through the clouds, bathing the hill in surreal glow. In the distance, perched on a small mound, Charlie Nguyen stood tall, her arms held out in front of her as she cast the deadly spell she learned tonight, “Exteritus.” A True Blood fell to the ground and dissolved into a pool of liquid. Nguyen took aim at another. “Exteritus.” And another.
Dixie felt a rush of joy at the sight of Nguyen taking down True Bloods, one after the other. The momentum of the battle shifted in their favor, the war nearly won. She took a step forward, felt something crash down on her head, and crumpled to the ground. She forced her eyes open, but the moon had disappeared behind a cloud, mudding her vision. Before she blacked out, Dixie caught sight of a small man wearing turquoise robes. A sweet, childlike smile played across his lips. She also detected the scent of rotten eggs.
****
I found Dixie in a ravine at the bottom of the hill. At first, I thought she was dead—she’d been found in the area of the heaviest fighting, survivors in both canine and human form covered the ground in numbers.
She drifted in and out of a coma for two days. Tina, Charlie Nguyen, Marco, and I kept constant watch over her, nursing her back to health with plenty of rest, and good healthy food. We knew it was best to keep the hospital and, by extension, the authorities out of it. I sat up with Dixie almost every night, reading to her, and drawing little black and white sketches. I placed the drawings I made of her while in prison next to her bed. I don’t know if that helped with her recovery, but I like to think it did.
Colonel Dayton buried Cutty in a clearing near the house. Everyone on the hill attended the service except Tina and Dixie. Tina said it would be too painful to attend. She volunteered to stay back and keep an eye on Dixie.
Dayton gave a brief eulogy. “Paul Cuthbert was many things, but he was not a soldier. Even though, he hated war, he never shied from the fight. Cutty was a humanitarian, as you well know, a heroic figure, as we all found out, and my dearest friend. Cutty, I’ll see you on the other side.”
Charlie Nguyen held a brave face throughout the ceremony, but finally bowed her head and brushed tears away.
I felt compelled to say something. “Cutty could always make us laugh. He had a way with words…and food. He was genuine, open, and honest. The human qualities we should all hope to have when we leave this hill and join the outside world.”
And as the days passed, the survivors left the hill and joined the outside world, one by one and two by two. Deputy Chief Ramirez arranged identification papers for every one of them. He grinned and told me he knew a guy who knew a guy who owed somebody a favor—a top of the line counterfeiter. He laughed. I guess it was a private joke.
Colonel Dayton negotiated a hefty bonus for his return to the United Nations Paranormal Activities Division with Admiral Garrison. He was never implicated in my escape. He divided the bonus among the survivors, called it seed money. Marco and Charlie Nguyen used their contacts in the city to find decent jobs for them all. I worked with them, teaching them how to control the urge to transform, and how to blend into the human world. It took time and patience but, eventually, we settled the remaining forty-three survivors into a somewhat normal life in the city—as normal as it ever gets, I suppose, for Sin City.
Dixie was depressed through her recovery, and nobody could blame her. However, her spirits improved over time, and she’s now, what the humans call, nearly a hundred percent.
She’s well enough to go for short runs around the hill. We leave the house before dawn and enjoy the cool, brisk air as we jog down the road to the hairpin turn. We usually walk the rest of the way down after that. Charlie Nguyen comes with us most mornings—today she didn’t.
Dixie keeps running past the hairpin, and that makes me feel good. It’s a sure sign her strength has fully returned. She nearly makes it to the bottom of the hill before she slows and takes up a steady pace to the frontage road.
Even though no more monsters hide among the trees, I keep my eyes wide open, scanning the hill for anything and everything. Although I was born on Claremont, I can’t wait to leave it behind and start a new life somewhere, anywhere, with Dixie. Charlie Nguyen insists Dixie is good to go, but I want to hear it from her.
I am good to go; as good as I’ll ever get, that is. Her thoughts fill my mind like happy memories. I always want her in my thoughts; it makes me feel safe and loved. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d died on this hill. I probably wouldn’t want—
But I didn’t die. C’mon, this is too nice a day to worry about what ifs. I’ll race you back to the house.
She takes off in a sprint, ignoring the road and galloping up the steep slope straight toward the house. She’s fast—lately, faster than me. I do my best to catch up to her, but it’s no use. She’s on the front porch waiting for me, her tail wagging.
I huff and puff across the street and join her. When I sit next to her, she nuzzles me and my tail joins hers in a steady back and forth sweep across the porch.
“Well, there are the lovebirds.”
It’s Charlie Nguyen. Her voice is friendly, teasing. She and Dixie bonded on the night they defeated Lucas Knight; Nguyen told me all about it. They became close friends in the weeks she helped Dixie recover from her wounds. The bond is understandable; they’re made of the same stuff: Daemon.
Charlie Nguyen did her best to explain to me the rule Dixie broke by remaining in canine form for more than one day: shift for one day; shift for all days. She also told me about the prophecy Dixie received during The Sufferings, particularly the last line: In love, the body dies.
There are times when I refuse to accept the fact Dixie will always remain a Giant Irish Wolfhound. But after her episodes of dark depression lightened, she seemed to accept her form and the challenges ahead. She says she loves the fact she can communicate with me, not to mention, what she calls, her new “super powers”: killer sight, an awesome sense of smell,
and a keen range of hearing.
Still, I notice how she observes Colonel Dayton and Marco as they move about the house, or how they sometimes comment on the colors in the sky, and I know it has to disturb her. If anyone can understand what she’s going through, it’s me.
So I made a decision: I will remain in canine form. This is how I was born, and since the one I love has no other choice, this is how I’ll die.
You’re such a gloomy Gus. C’mon, let’s go to our place and watch the sunrise. She barks. It’s a joyful noise—I can tell.
She skitters off the porch, and I race after her. We settle into the spot at the top of Claremont we dubbed “our place” and sit facing east.
The sun peeks over Sunrise Mountain, filling the sky with a myriad of reds, pinks, and yellows (we make up the colors in our minds from memory). A warm breeze whooshes through my fur, and she rests her head on my shoulder as a new day begins bringing with it our new life together.
A word about the author…
Richard Arthur Newberry lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. He considers himself a person who “cannot not write” and regards Las Vegas as a unique setting for his short stories and novels. He has been published in The Writer’s Block, an anthology, and placed second in the 2014 Las Vegas Flash Fiction competition.
Mr. Newberry, his wife, Betty, and their son, Samuel, share their home with Zady and Schnoodles, two loving rescue dogs who provided a world of inspiration for his novel, Sin City Wolfhound.
http://richardarthurnewberry.com
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Sin City Daemon Page 23