Black Dog

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “Watch out!” I screamed, pulling Leo down as it passed through the glass and over our heads. A bitter cold washed over my bare skin, frosting my breath and turning the tips of my fingers blue. The glass where the shadow had touched was now a halo of frost, so cold the pane cracked beneath it.

  More of the shadows started moving outside, breaking away from the shapes of trees and mailboxes and streetlamps. It was so cold now my fingers were numb, and every breath burned my lungs.

  “Shit,” Leo whispered. I peered out the car window, watching them mass and move toward the Buick.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  “Revenants,” Leo muttered, shoving his gun into his waistband. “Soul fragments,” he said when I stared at him. “By-­product of the magic necromancers use to raise deadheads. If they touch you, they’ll burn the soul right out of you.”

  He pointed at Kayla Stillman’s porch. “We’re going to have to run for it. Do not let those things touch you.”

  He put his hand on the car door and looked at me. “You understand?”

  I nodded silently. I hadn’t run into many ghosts. Usually I was the one creating them. The few necromancers I’d pulled in before Leo had run more to the traditional deadhead army. These things, which looked like vaguely human forms draped in black sheets made of mist, were something new.

  Usually ghosts were just loops of leftover humanity, sad little scraps that couldn’t do much more than appear, cry, and fade away again. To find a truly malignant ghost was rare, and they were usually so entrenched into a place they were impossible to remove. I’d never seen any that roamed, or vibrated with so much black magic.

  Leo tripped the latch and shoved the door open, and I dropped out, rolling on the pavement and coming to my feet already running. The revenants swirled to look at me, and even though they didn’t have eyes—­or faces—­that I could see, I had the profound sense that I was the sole focus of their gazes.

  I almost made it to the sidewalk on the other side of the street when one of them rose out of a pool of shadow in front of me. I came up short, staring into the shimmering black column, and felt a heaviness in all my limbs as the mist began to part. I saw a pointed chin made of bone, a mouth full of piranha teeth, and the gaping eye sockets of a skull where the eyes should be.

  Something exploded next to my left ear, and splinters of wood flew off one of Kayla Stillman’s porch post. Leo grabbed me and pulled me out of the path of the revenant, his gun in his other hand. We took the steps of Kayla’s porch three at a time and Leo pounded on her door.

  “Kayla!” he shouted. “Open the door!”

  The revenants hissed but seemed hesitant to come much farther than the lawn. “They draw you in,” Leo said. “Like rattlesnakes.” He pounded on the door again, and I joined him.

  A porch light flicked on. “Go away!” Kayla shouted from behind the door.

  “Kayla, you need to let us in!” Leo shouted. “We’re here to help you!”

  Kayla’s voice sounded high and strained. “I seriously doubt that!”

  Leo rolled his eyes. “I’m kicking this door down in two seconds, so you better shut down any traps you’ve got hooked up to it.” He waited a split second, then reared back and planted his foot in the doorframe. The door was old and solid oak, and it took a few kicks before Leo managed to bash it in.

  We piled inside, Leo slamming the ruined door again. When I looked in front of us, Kayla was holding a shotgun. It wasn’t an antique like Annabelle’s Winchester, it was the cheap kind you could get at Walmart for less than a good bottle of scotch would run you.

  Kayla racked the gun, her skinny fingers shaking with the effort. “I’ll blow you straight to Hell!” she screamed. “You’re God’s mistake! Get out of my house!”

  I grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, pointing it at the floor and stepping inside the firing radius before I sock Kayla hard in the eye. She yelped and went down, drawing her knees in and clutching at them as she glared at me. “I am a warrior of the Lord. I don’t fear you, demon.”

  “Good for you,” I said. “I’m not a demon. If demons don’t scare you shitless, you’re even crazier than I realized.”

  “I’m not crazy!” Kayla spat with surprising ferocity. “I see your face right now—­the real face, the black dog with the red eyes. Demon!”

  I smacked the top of her head again. “Stop that!”

  I handed off the shotgun to Leo, who peered through Kayla’s thick Lone Gunmen curtains. “The barrier will hold for a while. They won’t try to come in until it starts to wear off.” He emptied the shells from the gun and leaned it against the wall. “Where did they come from?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Where do you think?”

  “I’ve seen one or two when there’s two necromancers churning out deadheads in a turf war,” Leo said. “But a whole pack of them isn’t normal.”

  Kayla tried to jump up again, reaching for a small holdout pistol in an ankle holster. I grabbed her by the shirt and swung her into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. “Bitch, slow your roll,” I ordered her. “If we wanted to kill you, you would have been dead hours ago.”

  Kayla went limp under my hand, and Leo sighed, shoving his hands through his hair. “Then again,” he said, “what about this is normal?”

  “Who are you?” Kayla demanded. “I want you out of my house.”

  “I’m a hellhound, this is Leonid,” I told Kayla, letting go of her so she’d trust me enough to quit thinking I was here to ax murder her. I drew the Scythe from its pouch. Kayla stared at it, her pupils dilating.

  “You know what this is?” I asked, and she nodded, her thin lips slightly parted.

  “The Grim Reaper’s Scythe . . .” she breathed.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, putting it away quickly. Her doe-­eyed fixation was creepier than any of the revenants outside. “The Scythe can kill anything,” I said. “I’m going to use it on Lilith. And if you’re smart, you’ll help me stick her before she sticks you.”

  Kayla swallowed a lump in her throat, staring at me from under her long dark lashes. “I know Lilith. I know every word of the Bible. Chapter and verse.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said. “And sorry to tell you that the Lilith who putters around Eden and messes with Adam’s head? She’s a polite fiction. The real demon is much worse.”

  Kayla sighed and leaned against the wall again. A lot of the taut intensity endemic to ­people who seriously need to up their meds drained out of her. “I’m not crazy,” she muttered again. “They said I was, and they took my rifle. I had to shoot him,” she said sadly. “I had to stop him from hurting anyone else.”

  “That’s me in a nutshell,” I said. “Just trying to help.”

  “Lilith wants me because of what I see, huh?” Kayla said. She kicked one toe against a deep gouge in the hall floor.

  “That’s the short version,” I said. “Trust me, you’re better off just seeing the highlight reel.”

  The light in the hall flickered, and in the few seconds of darkness a silken voice slithered into my ear. “Couldn’t agree with you more.”

  When the lights blazed back to life Lilith stood in the front hall smiling at me. Her hair was down, long golden ringlets that gleamed under the bare bulb in Kayla’s ceiling.

  Kayla let out a yelp and hid her face, curling into a tight ball. Lilith gave her a benevolent smile and then turned to me. “Hello, Ava. Thank you for all your help.”

  “I didn’t help you,” I said, frozen to the spot. Lilith never blinked. Her eyes were that flawless crystal blue, but she was like a snake—­beautiful right up until she pumped you full of venom.

  “You did, actually,” she said, tapping the side of her own head. She was wearing slim blue pants and a fawn jacket, like she’d just stepped out of the country club to talk to us. “You remember anything after that
little accident of yours?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. The thing in the road. The thing that came out of nowhere.

  “You didn’t make it easy to find you.” She sighed. “But I knew sooner or later Azrael and Raphael would get the band back together. So really, all I had to do was wait. Very bad form to leave the scene of an accident, by the way. I almost lost you after you managed to crawl away. When I’ve got you on my special steel table in Hell and we’re playing with all of my favorite toys, you’ll have to tell me how you managed that.”

  So I really did have a mysterious taxi ser­vice that had saved me from Lilith back in Louisiana. Just like the voice in my head had saved me from dying in a cooler in Reno, and sharpened my instincts in Wyoming, where I’d avoided Billy’s hit squad by inches.

  That was interesting. When I wasn’t facing a pissed-­off demon it’d be a good mystery to solve.

  “How did you get past the barrier?” Leo spoke up. He was also standing perfectly still, switching his gaze between Lilith and the revenants outside like clockwork.

  “You’re not such hot shit as you think you are,” Lilith told him. “In a little bit of a hurry, maybe?” She turned back to me, tapping her nails against the arm of her coat. “In the beginning I wondered why Gary kept you around, but I see now. You’re not the fastest or strongest hound, certainly no great shakes when it comes to brains, but you are tenacious. I didn’t even have to look for the innocent. I just had to stick with you.”

  “Ava doesn’t belong to you,” Leo said. “Or anyone else. So why don’t you just take what you came for and go.”

  “Leo!” I hissed while Lilith laughed, bubbly and genuine.

  “I like you, Leonid Karpov. If I were a betting woman I’d see great things in your future.” Her smile dropped off and she sighed. “Unfortunately I can’t do that. You see, I need Ava around until I get what I want.”

  “Why?” I said. Kayla was shaking as Lilith stood in front of her, and I didn’t feel great about letting Lilith take her out from under my nose, but it was better to be alive and guilty than noble and in six separate Dumpsters along the interstate. “I’m never going to obey you. Why do you keep trying to get your claws in me?”

  “Because I need a damned soul to spill their blood on the doors of Tartarus,” Lilith said flatly. “And I can’t think of one whose throat I’d like to slit more than yours.”

  “Not going to happen,” Leo said, starting toward Lilith. I opened my mouth to scream at him to stay back, but it was too late. The snake struck and Lilith grabbed him by the windpipe, turning so her forearm was pressed against his throat. She forced Leo to his knees in front of her. I took a step, and she clicked her tongue.

  “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t have time for games, Ava. You get that girl up and walk out this door with me or I kill him.”

  I hesitated, staring at Leo. I was frozen with a panic I thought I’d left behind me a long time ago. All I could think was that it was all my fault, I’d let Lilith manipulate me, and that everything Clint said was true.

  “Clint won’t let you do this,” I said. Lilith tossed her head back, laughing again.

  “Ava, Azrael gave himself to me willingly when I found you in the swamp. He pleaded with me to save your life and not simply kill you outright, and because I am not, as you so classily insisted, a monster, I agreed.” She stroked Leo’s throat with her sharp nails and he flinched. “Seeing Azrael squirm after all he did to me . . . I admit, that’s something I’ll remember happily for the rest of my days.” Her expression twisted and she pointed with her free hand. “Drop the Scythe on the floor.”

  I did as she said, watching the black holster hit Kayla’s stained carpet with a sense of sinking down into something I could never hope to escape. My chest was tight and my vision was blurring, like I really was drowning.

  “Good girl,” Lilith said, saccharine creeping into her voice. “Now tuck your little tail and go kill the girl.”

  “No!” Kayla moaned, struggling to get away from me.

  All I saw in that moment was Leo, and I strode over to Kayla and grabbed her by the back of her shirt.

  “Not as yourself!” Lilith snapped. “Honestly, you try to do a simple thing like force a hellhound to kill an innocent stranger to teach them that they’re not human and they never were and you still manage to screw it up. Tear her throat out. I need the blood, idiot.”

  Kayla looked up at me, tears streaking her face. “Please . . .” she whimpered. “I know I haven’t lived a righ­teous life but I tried . . . I tried . . .”

  I straightened up. It would be easy, I’d done it a thousand times. And then I’d turn myself over, and Leo would be safe. Nobody else would get hurt, especially not him. Whatever Lilith wanted to do to this miserable, dirty, angry pile of shit that humanity stood on top of and called a world, I didn’t care anymore.

  “Ava.” Leo looked up at me. His pulse throbbed in his neck, but his voice was calm. “Don’t,” he said to me. “It’s not worth it for me.”

  “Shut up.” Lilith sighed. “You’re not in charge here. You never were.”

  “I’m not talking to you, bitch,” Leo growled. He looked back at me. “Ava, if you kill her you will never be able to live with yourself. Leave that girl alone and tell this whore to go sit on a flagpole.”

  Lilith’s arm clamped tight around his throat. “I told you to stop talking. Do you want to lose your tongue along with your testicles?”

  I started shaking, pressing my hands over my face and wishing it would all go away. Kayla scrambled away from me, but Lilith cut her eyes to the door, and it slammed shut of its own volition, locking.

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” I whispered as Kayla sobbed and Lilith shouted something at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Kill that damn woman this instant or I am going to actually get angry!” Lilith bellowed. Glass shattered and the light overhead fizzed. The floor under my feet vibrated as I looked at Leo. He gave me a nod. I knew he was right. If I gave in to Lilith I wouldn’t get away from her. I’d be shackled to her for the rest of my existence, bullied into cold-­blooded murder on her say-­so. I hadn’t been thinking when I killed Gary, but I’d had time since, and I realized, almost calmly amid the screaming and sobbing, that I could be a dog on a leash or I could be a hound.

  “Ava!” Lilith shouted. “Do what I say!”

  I moved my eyes to Lilith’s. “No.”

  Lilith’s nostrils flared. “Fine.” She plunged her fingers deep into Leo’s back. Bone cracked, and he screamed as Lilith gave a twist and dropped him to the carpet, where he landed face-­first.

  I thought it was strange that he kept screaming when he was so still, blood slowly pooling under him, more blood trickling from his mouth and nostrils as he coughed. Then I realized it was me, and I fell on my knees, blood from the carpet soaking into my jeans. I cradled Leo as Lilith looked on.

  “It’s okay,” Leo whispered. “Really. You did what you had to do.”

  I dropped my head to put it against his, and I felt Leo shoving something under my folded legs, our bodies hiding the action from Lilith’s eyes. I pulled away a little, recognizing the thin, flat shape of the Scythe. The pouch was still half under Leo’s torso, soaked with his blood, but the blade was within reach.

  “You’re going to be fine, Ava,” Leo whispered, squeezing my hand. “Kill the bitch first chance you get.”

  He let out one more horrible, rattling cough. The last breaths leaving the body are startlingly loud and heart-­squeezingly ragged. Leo shuddered once and went still, his glassy eyes staring at the carpet.

  Lilith used one of Kayla’s coats to wipe the blood off her hands as I knelt there, trying to make myself put the Scythe in my boot and stand up. I couldn’t stop looking at Leo, and even when I squeezed my eyes shut, I knew I’d always be able to see him lying still and cold whenever I closed my eyes from now on
. Forget Caleb and Jasper—­this was the death that would be in my nightmares.

  “Now that you’ve learned from that little object lesson,” Lilith said, grabbing Kayla off the floor, “get your ass up and get moving.”

  I got to my feet slowly, one leg at a time. After the body blow of seeing Leo fall, I didn’t feel anything. Everything was slow and remote, and I could see exactly what I needed to do like I was sitting high above, controlling the Ava standing in the hall with blood on her hands and her legs via remote control.

  Kayla was in the way—­if I tried to use the Scythe on Lilith now, she had a built-­in human shield.

  “Don’t you pull another stunt like that again,” Lilith snapped as I descended the porch steps, the revenants parting like mist before the prow of a boat.

  “I won’t,” I said quietly. I meant it too—­I wasn’t going to defy Lilith again. I was going to play my part as a hound until she dropped her guard and I could jam the Scythe directly into her heart. That was the only thing that kept me moving as I followed Lilith away from Kayla’s house and into the darkness of the street.

  CHAPTER

  26

  Lilith stopped in the center of the street, holding Kayla firmly by the neck, and beckoned to me. I looked back at the open door of Kayla’s house. I could still see the outline of Leo’s body. I shuddered and looked away.

  “Don’t cry, Ava,” Lilith said. “Soon you’ll be far away and this will just be the part before the time you spend in Hell.”

  “You don’t scare me, witch,” I said, looking at the cracked pavement so I wouldn’t have to see Lilith smirking.

  Lilith huffed a sigh and then turned away from me, facing the intersection. I felt a shimmer of electricity around me, the same feeling I got when I felt the unwrapped Scythe against my skin. When I looked up the intersection had vanished and the road stretched away into the invisible distance. Fog crowded the shoulders, and only a faint glow of a distant, invisible streetlight gave any sense that we were still in a place hemmed by space and time.