To Kill An Angel

by M. Leighton

  Between their shoulders was an exaggerated hump on which raised hackles stood at attention. Their especially wide mouths were partially open, baring dozens of razor sharp teeth, much more numerous and deadly than on any dog I’d ever seen.

  As I followed their hairy, black bodies to the ground, I saw that their legs didn’t end in the paws typical of canines. Instead, these hybrid creatures stood on cloven feet with two large, grasping talons that held them securely to the earth of the hill.

  Other than paralyzing fear, the only thought in my mind was the question of what these strange animals were. As it turned out, I needn’t have bothered asking anyway. Lucius unwittingly answered me with two words. They were uttered so quietly his breath barely disturbed the air.

  “Hell hounds,” he whispered.

  I saw Bo slowly move his foot to take another step forward. The wolf on the left dipped his head to turn his burning stare on Bo. He growled more loudly and the ground beneath us grumbled in agitation. The hound’s long tongue licked hungrily at his wet lips and thick globs of sticky drool dropped from its trembling jowls to splatter on the forest floor. The saliva hissed when it landed, as if searing the earth with acid.

  Bo took one more step forward and the wolf’s flaming eyes blazed hotter, tiny sparks flying from their red-orange centers. As it stared at Bo, the putrid smell of burning flesh began to saturate the air and Bo began to stagger backward.

  A sizzling sound crackled and spit into the tense moment and Bo fell to his knees with a strangled cry. He raised one hand as if to shield himself from the glare of the dog and it was then that I realized from where both the smell and the sound had arisen.

  Bo’s exposed hand and arm were blistered and blackened, as though they had been burned to a crisp. My breath hitched painfully in my chest when I saw his face turn to the side and it looked no better than his hand.

  “Bo!” I cried lunging forward.

  I had no idea what my plan was; I just knew that I had to get to him, had to help him. I knew that I had to save him, like he’d saved me so many times.

  I made it several steps before I heard his strained voice.

  “Ridley, stay back,” he cautioned, but I didn’t listen.

  I fell at his side just as he toppled over, his head falling right into my hands. His face was charred and completely unrecognizable. My heart squeezed inside my chest just before I felt a searing heat scorching the skin of my neck and shoulders. In my mind’s eye, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the hound’s fiery gaze was now upon me where I knelt with Bo’s head in my lap.

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I hunched forward, covering as much of Bo as I could with my own body and bracing myself as the hell hound tried to burn me alive.

  “Ridley, no!” I heard Bo croak throatily, his voice dry and rough.

  At his words, I opened eyes I hadn’t even been aware of closing and I saw one already healed ebony orb looking up at me.

  “I won’t let you die for me,” he breathed.

  I sucked in a gasp as the pain at my neck worked its way up the back of my head, tearing into my scalp like a thousand needles. I wouldn’t let them make me scream. Not in front of Bo. I’d be strong to the end.

  “It’s better than spending one minute of my life without you,” I managed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut again and barely felt the movement of Bo in my arms, the pain was so intense. And then I was weightless and my face was on fire.

  I cracked my eyelids and saw the hounds above me. Bo had taken me in his arms and was struggling to his feet. The heat baked my corneas, rendering my vision blurry. Bo cried out as he straightened with me in his arms.

  I don’t know how he managed it. He was burned so badly, even the slightest movement must’ve been excruciating. And yet he persisted until he was upright, with me in his arms, trying to make it to the safety of the mine’s entrance.

  As if warning Bo not to make another move, I heard the deep, threatening bark of the two hounds, crying out in unison. But still, Bo moved on, taking another hard-won step forward.

  The heat on my face dissipated and I cracked my lids again, just in time to see the two huge hell hounds take their eyes from us just long enough to leap from their perch atop the hill and land on the ground behind us. As soon as their attention was focused tightly on us again, I felt the heat rise once more. I knew that we didn’t stand a chance against the two animals. They carried hell itself in their fiery eyes.

  I thought blearily of praying, but I lacked the focus to form any kind of plea. God and angels and destiny swirled lazily inside my head as my flesh melted under the intensity of the hounds’ flaming gaze.

  Then I was sailing through the air. The brief gust of wind felt like heaven on my burning skin, but it was short-lived. Next, I felt resistance as the boards that crossed the mine’s entrance gave way beneath my weight. The crunch and splinter of breaking wood blocked out Bo’s cry for just a moment before I landed with a thud on the cool dirt of the mine floor.

  I scrambled to sit up as Bo’s cries echoed all around me, bouncing around inside the tube and finding their way back to my ears from a thousand different directions. Each cry hit my heart like throwing knives, pelting me with their torturous blades.

  Turning, I looked back for Bo, but he wasn’t in the mine with me. He was barely standing on the outside of it, facing me, the hell hounds now between us.

  One hound turned to come after me, but when his huge muzzle entered the mine’s mouth, he screamed with an ear-splitting cry that lanced through my head like a hot poker through butter. He stumbled back and tried again, but whined when his cloven foot touched the earth inside the mine.

  Not prepared to endure any pain himself, the huge beast turned his attention back toward the fading Bo. My bleeding heart leapt up into my throat when the other hound raised his front leg and pawed at Bo, his mighty talons tearing easily through Bo’s clothes and flesh. Bo crumbled to his knees.

  Across the space between us, Bo’s singed eyes met mine and time stopped for us. Bo teetered on his knees for what felt like an eternity before he began to fall forward. An invisible fist gripped my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter with every inch of Bo’s decent until he fell flat on his stomach with his face buried in the dirt at the hound’s feet.

  The squeal of a banshee broke through the horror of the moment, Lucius and Annika sweeping in from out of my field of view, each grabbing one of Bo’s arms and then leaping into the mine with him in tow.

  The trio skidded to a halt not far from where I sat, but I only saw one body come to a stop—Bo’s.

  Fighting against the pain of my burns, I crawled to his side and rolled him onto his back. His face was charred, his lips black and cracked. His eyelids were all but swollen shut now and his singed shirt hung in tatters from his bloody chest and shoulders. Although it tore at my guts to see him this way, it was easy for me to look past all that. It was easy for me to see the handsome face of the person I loved most on the planet, the person I loved more than my own life.

  Vicious barking drew three pairs of eyes toward the mine’s entrance. The hell hounds growled and spit and voiced their disapproval, but never once did they attempt to come into the mine. There was something about the dark interior that kept them at bay. At that moment, I didn’t care what it was. I was simply thankful for it.

  Again, thoughts of God and angels and destiny drifted through my mind, but this time I was so consumed with Bo and the hell hounds, I gave them little thought other than to acknowledge the intense feeling of gratitude that flooded me.

  Of course, Annika and Lucius were the first to recover.

  “In all ma years, I’ve ne’er seen anathin’ like it,” Lucius said, his brogue thick in his awe. He stood and brushed the dust from his bare chest and shoulders. “The question is, lasses, how the devil are we goin’ ta get outta here?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “What about Bo?” I asked, reaching out to gently brush a strand of hair from
Bo’s scorched cheek.

  “He should heal fairly quickly,” Lucius said as he walked to the mouth of the mine, inciting more vicious growls from the hounds.

  Even as Lucius spoke, I could see the charred tissue around Bo’s left eye, the more burned of the two, beginning to give way to healthy pink skin. Our situation was still too precarious for me to relax very much into the relief that I felt over his progress. We were in serious trouble and we all knew it.

  “Why can’t they come into this mine?”

  It was Annika who asked this question, but I looked to Lucius for an answer as well.

  Lucius paced to the dirt wall of the tube and dragged his fingers along it, bits of dirt and dust flaking off and falling silently to the mine floor. He sniffed his fingers and then leaned in to get a better look at the mineral composition of the shaft. Straightening, he sniffed his fingers once more and then touched the tip of his tongue to them.

  “This is a salt mine,” he announced.

  Annika glanced back at me and we both shrugged, neither of us having any idea why that would make a difference. Lucius must’ve figured that out that we were lost when neither of us spoke.

  “Hell hounds can’t pass over a salt line. The mouth of the mine must still have enough salt in the dirt to keep them out.”

  “But why salt?”

  Lucius shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Something about the purity of the mineral, of the rock salt.”

  “I guess that means Devon is here. I mean, why else would those things be guarding this mine?”

  “No reason I can think of,” Lucius replied.

  “My question is this: why would Sebastian put him in a mine like this?”

  “Maybe he was afraid something would be able to get to him elsewhere.”

  I looked down at Bo. His eyes were closed, but I could see his color improving, lightening from sooty to his normal pale pink. Despite the fact that he was on the mend, I still didn’t want to leave him to go search the mine.

  “Would you two mind walking a little farther in to see if you can locate Devon?”

  They both agreed quickly. Obviously they didn’t mind being in each other’s company, which made me believe that if Annika was trying to make Bo jealous, it wasn’t her sole reason for being so attentive to Lucius. But, really, who could blame her? It was Lucius after all. What’s not to like?

  As they strolled off into the inky blackness of the mine shaft, I turned my attention briefly to the hounds pacing at the boarded entrance and then back to Bo.

  His eyes were open and he was watching me. One corner of his mouth lifted and he spoke in a dry, raspy voice.

  “Hi, beautiful,” he said, reaching up to brush my cheek with his fingertips. My heart melted right inside my chest.

  “Hi, handsome,” I responded, returning his grin. Looking into his healing face, hearing his familiar voice, feeling his incredible touch, I felt like all was right with the world and that we could take on anything, anyone, and win. As long as Bo was near, no odds seemed too high to overcome.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” he said, regret and the heaviness of responsibility shining in his eyes.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is. If I had stayed away from you, none—”

  “I’d be miserable,” I interrupted quickly. “I wouldn’t trade you and the time we’ve spent together for anything. Anything! Do you hear me?” I was adamant and I wanted to make sure he got the point.

  Bo grinned.

  “Me neither. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. I would never tire of hearing him say things like that.

  “I think we happened to each other.”

  Bo opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut as if he thought better of it.

  “What?” I prompted.

  “Nothing. I…” He trailed off, obviously having changed his mind about telling me. Unfortunately, that just made me all the more curious to know what it was.

  “What, Bo? Tell me.”

  He raised himself into a sitting position, bringing his face within an inch of mine. Even beneath the smoky odor of fire that clung to his hair and clothes, I could smell his clean, citrusy scent and it made my abdominals tighten in response.

  Bo searched my eyes as he deliberated telling me. He was so close I could see the golden flecks that made the near-black of his eyes look so warm and chocolaty. His were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.

  “I’ve been having dreams for a while now, more than just the one about the orphanage,” he confessed, holding my gaze.

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. The dream about the orphanage is when I’d first heard him say Annika’s name. Bo having other dreams couldn’t possibly be a good thing.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “On and off for as long as I can remember, which is what? A little over three years?”

  I nodded, saying nothing as I willed panic away.

  “At first I thought they were just dreams. Mostly anyway. That’s why I wasn’t completely honest with you when I told you about the night I saw you, the night you and your sister wrecked.”

  I hesitated. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when I saw you that night, I think I’d seen you before. Several times in fact.”

  “When? Where?”

  “I think I’ve been dreaming about you on and off all my life.”

  My chest swelled with pleasure and relief at his words.

  “Really?”

  Bo reached out with his hand again, lightly dragging his index finger across my forehead, down my nose, and around my lips to my chin.

  “Your face was so familiar to me, as if I’d seen it every day for as long as I could remember, though I knew nothing about you that would suggest that we were acquaintances. But, deep down, I had no doubt that I knew you. Really knew you, like you were the missing piece of my life. When I saw you through the windshield, I was so consumed with finally getting to see you outside my dreams, finally getting to touch you and smell you that I couldn’t walk away. It was so surreal that you were actually real.”

  I doubted he could’ve said anything that would have thrilled me more.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  Bo shrugged, seemingly absorbed with tracing the details of my face.

  “I didn’t want to scare you.”

  “Scare me? Why would that scare me?”

  “I don’t know. It scared me a little when I saw you. I thought maybe you were an angel come to take me away. But I didn’t care. I was willing to risk it. I knew that I’d die happy if I could just touch you one time. Just one time,” he repeated quietly.

  I was struggling for words to adequately describe the wings he’d given my heart when the intimate scene was ruined by the return of Lucius and Annika.

  “Alright you two love birds, break it up. We’ve got some planning to do,” Lucius said as he walked around us and came to a stop a few feet from the prowling hell hounds that waited just outside the mine.

  “Did you find Devon?”

  “Present and accounted for,” Devon said from somewhere to my left.

  I closed my eyes in relief.

  “Devon, thank God.”

  “Thanks for coming for me, Ridley. I assume Savannah called you?”

  “Yes. She was hysterical.”

  I could almost hear Devon smiling.

  “I see this wasn’t exactly an easy extraction,” he observed, no doubt referring to Bo’s bedraggled appearance. “Are those things what got a hold of Bo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are they?”

  “Hell hounds.”

  “Hell hounds?”

  “Hell hounds.”

  “Dam—”

  “And the worst part is that we still have to figure out a way to get out of here in one piece.”

  “Why didn’t they come in after you?”


  “Salt,” Lucius replied in answer. “Rock salt. They can’t tolerate it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “So it would appear.”

  “Well, lucky for you, I might just have a solution to your problem,” Devon crowed proudly.

  “Our problem?” Annika asked. “Now it’s your problem, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You know what I mean.”

  “So what’s this big solution then?”

  “Come on,” Devon said. “I’ll show you.” His voice echoed back to us as he turned toward the depths of the mine.

  Bo stood without much difficulty and the four of us followed Devon into the belly of the mine. Despite my sharper eyesight, I still found it difficult to see and that alone was very disconcerting. We had no sources of light and it was like being swallowed, one step at a time.

  “When they brought me in here, we went further down into the mine at first. Just around the bend from where they ended up staking me to the wall there’s a big pile of stuff and a bunch of buckets. I had no idea what it was, but now that you mention rock salt... It’s kind of clear-ish white like that,” Devon explained.

  As soon as we rounded the corner to which he was referring, it was impossible not to see the enormous mound of white gravel. It looked like a pile of hail.

  “So what’s the plan then? We get a couple buckets and throw the stuff at them as we run? We’d have to have a dump truck load to make it all the way back out of the woods,” I observed in exasperation. In my opinion, this was no solution at all.

  “Now hold on there, lass. This just might work. We wouldn’t have to make it that far. The hounds are shackled to this area. They can’t just roam about freely. All we have to do is make it out of their territory and we’ll be home free,” Lucius said encouragingly.

  His words brought the first bright ray of optimism into the dark interior of the mine. I bent to pick up one of the buckets. It was fairly large and would hold quite a bit of rock salt. If we could each carry two of them…