by Jim Butcher
Maggie had not pointed them out to me. Perhaps she wished to ignore their presence on such an important day. That was a reasonable attitude. But slink-thief predators like haunts were not often reasonable. They marked her and began tracking her as we moved.
That could be a problem.
But … something was wrong. I knew it in my tail.
I focused my senses, trying to locate the threat that only my instincts insisted was near, but I could smell nothing. Human racket was drowning out the subtle sounds, as per usual in the city. There were scores of people walking through the park, and I could track no movement.
But there shouldn’t have been so many creeps here, walking about in plain daylight. I had been expending energy for two days to help make this day smoother for My Friend and his little girl. Their first day together was important, and I had worked hard to make sure no malicious energy would interfere with it.
Perhaps simple ill fortune was at play, and things might otherwise have been much worse.
Or perhaps there was a force working against me.
My Friend leaned down to ruffle my ears and tell me how much he loved me, and my heart surged happily at the gesture.
Well. If something wanted to interfere with My Friend and Maggie’s happiness, it would have to get past me.
That thought normally made me wag my tail.
But today, it sent a slow, cold chill up my spine.
“HEY,” I SAID to the otters. (We were seeing the otters.) “Hi, guys!”
“Hi!” burbled an otter.
“Hi, hi!” said another.
“I’m tired,” said a third, yawning.
The humans around us didn’t notice the conversation, of course. Humans think you need your mouth to talk.
I wagged my tail at the otters so they would know I was friendly. “I’m Mouse, and this is the best little girl in the world. Could you guys please show off for her? She’s never seen an otter before.”
“Show off?” asked the first otter. “What’s that?”
“Go play!” I said.
“Play!” shouted the first otter, and jumped on the third otter’s head.
“Eeeep!” the third otter shouted. The first otter bounded off, and the other otters followed, into the water, out again, around and around a tree trunk, and then back into the water.
“Look, look!” Maggie said, tugging on My Friend’s coat. “Hey, look!”
The otters ran behind some rocks, but before Maggie could even ask, My Friend had scooped her up and lifted her high so that she could follow the action. Maggie let out a rolling, bubbling giggle, fascinated, and the warmth between them sang of love and light.
I wagged my tail so hard that I had trouble standing up.
I spoke to the sun bear, who was sort of grumpy but who didn’t mind tearing a section of log apart to show Maggie how strong sun bears were. The lionesses only rolled their eyes when I tried to talk them into a pouncing demonstration, but the lion was pleased to roar. The monkeys were as happy to play as the otters, and I didn’t even have to ask the peacocks to show off their pretty feathers.
All in all, I did a good job, I thought.
Good boy, Mouse.
And then magic, dark and ugly, rippled through the air.
And under it was … energy. My kind of energy, but dark and hard and terrible, full of cold, merciless clarity.
I caught a scent: the far-off scent of something I could barely remember. It made me think of mountains and burning oil lamps and cold, bright sky.
My Friend had reacted to the black magic in the air. He was scanning the park, tense, the happy energy around him suddenly replaced with watchfulness and an unconsciously projected aura of confidence and power. My Friend is not to be taken lightly. He is not heart-stupid at all when it comes to defending those weaker than he is. He sensed a threat, a dark practitioner, and he was ready to confront it.
I had a dark feeling roll through me and make the soft spot of my throat itch. A magical threat, here today? My nose told me that the pack of haunt-ridden children was still trailing us, even if they were keeping a distance.
What were the odds of a threat unique to each of my family appearing? Especially when I’d been working energy to avoid this exact outcome?
Something was out there.
I felt the hairs on my spine try to rise. But my red support-dog vest hid them.
My Friend knew he had to assess the threat he sensed, and that was proper. But he was worried to leave Maggie alone. He trusted me, but no safety measures could ever be thorough enough for him to feel completely sure she would be all right. He was right. Nothing is truly safe in this world—and that being the case, why worry about threats that have not yet appeared? Far wiser to make what preparations one could, face trouble as it arose, and be happy in the meantime.
That might be the saddest part of human heart-stupidity: how much happiness you simply leave aside so that you have enough time to worry. I know sometimes I’m not very smart, but I don’t see what’s so interesting about worry.
My Friend spoke to me. He used many words, but what his heart said was, “I don’t want to leave her even for a single second, but I trust you to protect my daughter while I am fighting evil.”
I told him I would. He’s learned enough to know how to hear me when I say that much. Then he took us to a place with food smells and got Maggie and me French fries to eat while he scouted out the threat.
Is My Friend awesome or what?
He got Maggie settled and then strode out, moving with purpose. I had to resist the urge to follow him, because when he did that it made me want to go with him and help. Instead, I sat by the French fries and watched them intently. You know. In case any villains were hiding inside and might be a threat to Maggie.
We’d only gotten to eat a few when one of the haunts simply walked up to our table and began to say mean things to Maggie.
No.
When one of the haunts was pushed to our table to confront Maggie.
This time, I sensed a change in the air. Someone was working energy against us.
Outside, partially concealed in some greenery, was a hulking, furry shape that looked like my shadow. I could sense that dark clarity flowing from it in a torrent, strong enough to push the creep toward Maggie, urging the creature to attack.
I felt myself begin to surge to my feet, a growl bubbling in my throat.
But Maggie put her foot on my head and pushed down.
Maggie was tiny, even for a human, even for one her age. She was a surprisingly tough-minded child, but she could not have stopped me from rising and running even if she’d been her father’s size.
My Shadow faced me calmly, something arrogant and mocking in its stance, in the angle of its head. It was crouched like a hunter, ready to leap.
And it was trying to hurt my little girl.
But I couldn’t leave her side. What if it pushed the haunt to break the rules and physically attack her and I wasn’t close enough to intervene?
So I didn’t advance on the threat. I stopped using my breath to growl and instead focused it into working energy, reaching out for light and softness to counter the black ice of My Shadow’s malice.
The dark energy pushing the haunt rolled back from mine like fog before an oncoming car, and just then, Maggie threw a handful of salt into the haunt’s face.
The haunt recoiled from the salt, more than from the pain the body it possessed suddenly experienced, and I directed energy toward it, urging it to back away. If the haunt left Maggie, I could deal with My Shadow directly and make it depart. I’d gotten its scent now, the smell of its hostile intent. I could follow it into, through, and out of every shadowy realm to which it could possibly flee.
The haunt retreated before Maggie’s defiance and my breath, and I began to move, to eliminate the true threat before it could make another attempt on Maggie.
But the scent was … gone.
I sniffed again, harder. That wasn’t right.
I knew it in my tail.
But it was gone.
Impossibly, simply, gone.
Huh.
What in all the wide universe could do that?
My Shadow, it would seem.
When My Friend came back, he was tense, troubled, and quiet. That made me uneasy. I have seen him face many terrible things, and they rarely troubled his heart like that. A human, then. Monsters were not nearly the threat to him that other human beings had proved to be. He was in pain.
I would have gone to him, but my duty was to guard and protect Maggie, and she still was not safe—not with the haunts and My Shadow running around the zoo as if it was their own personal hunting preserve, and not with her Anxiety waiting to undo her if she didn’t have me beside her. He was her father. His primary concern was to protect and nurture her, and I would help My Friend with anything. So I stayed by Maggie’s side.
Also, she had French fries.
They spoke together some more. He told Maggie about warlocks and the dangers they posed. Maggie felt sad for the warlock, which I knew My Friend was feeling, too. But Maggie feared more than that—that he would not want to be her father. And he was afraid that she wouldn’t want to be his daughter if he always had work to do.
I sat very still and breathed bright energy all around them. Their fears were foolish, but dangerous, this early in their relationship. If only so many things had not come up at once, and today of all day—
Ah.
That made more sense.
These encounters were not the result of chance, but malice.
My Shadow was attempting to disrupt the course of what should naturally be taking place—bonding between a father and his daughter.
I lay quietly, staying focused on working energy. It would not do to dwell on violent thoughts during that process. But while I did what I could for my family, I also pressed my teeth together, to be sure they were ready.
They were.
MY FRIEND SET out to save the warlock, of course. He had no idea that haunts even existed, much less that they were nearby. I would have preferred to go with him—warlocks were dangerous propositions, and I could have sized up the person for him, helped him understand whether compassion or resolution was the most important virtue to hold while facing the warlock. I could have warned him, protected him.
But only by leaving Maggie vulnerable to the circle of hungry haunts waiting outside the cafe.
Maggie waited for My Friend to stride out of sight before she stood up and turned to me. “You know I have to do it like this. You can’t come all the way.”
I had read the Book as much as she had. I knew the course it recommended to confront haunts, and its reasoning was eminently sound. Evil left unconfronted only grows stronger. But to do that, she would have to face them alone—entirely alone. I would not be able to defend her from the haunts and their terrible thoughts. She would have to face them, and while the proper course was always to confront evil, victory over it was never assured.
This was her path. She had to walk it on her own. But …
She could be hurt. Perhaps even destroyed.
My perfect Maggie, the best little girl in the world, could be lost to those who loved her.
I made a soft, distressed sound and kissed her face gently.
“Yick,” she said, but she meant something else. She rubbed her little face in my fur. “I love you, too, Mouse.”
My heart pounded hard as the simple, frail, devastating power of that love flowed into me.
I tried once again to tell her that I loved her in human speech, and again only made some random sounds. I sighed. She knew.
We walked out of the café together and straight up to the waiting haunts. Maggie had already intuited which was the leader of their pack, and she faced the little girl with her back straight and her eyes bright. “Hey, you. Space Face.”
The haunts all stared at her with their empty eyes and felt the sudden surge of malicious power in the air as they drew up horrible memories from her time among the vicious, violent, and satisfactorily dead Red Court of vampires.
There were memories within her that could kill her, memories she didn’t even know she had.
They came out only when she was sleeping.
I saw her begin to struggle with the images and then brush them aside in an act of will startling in its intensity. She clenched her jaw and turned in a slow circle. She was a head shorter than every other haunt-taken child there, but she made full eye contact with each and every one of them before speaking in a clear, calm voice. “You guys are the worst. Let’s get this over with.”
We turned together and headed for the nearest place of darkness and fear, and the haunts followed us.
On the way, my instincts warned me again. My Shadow was near.
Whatever this creature was, it was a master of remaining unscented and unseen. It would, I presumed, rely heavily on its abilities and be accustomed to being undetected by its prey. It had struck me as arrogant before, as poor a look as I had gotten. I decided to trust that instinct as well. So instead of going on guard, I only walked beside Maggie, as if I were entirely unaware of the threat.
Together we walked into a building that smelled of stale old predator scents, and inside found stairs that went down into darkness and fear sufficient to encourage the haunts to come out of their protective human shells and be destroyed.
If she could. They would do everything in their power to tear her heart into pieces and leave her vulnerable on the ground, meat to be taken.
At the top of the stairs, Maggie turned to me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I got this.”
My Maggie is clever and quick and brave, but she was also lying. She didn’t know if she could do it.
But, then, if she had been certain, it wouldn’t be an appropriate challenge for her.
Then I caught it again—the scent of black ice, the vibration of violent energy, rolling forward like mist around the haunts behind us. I could hear the dark whisper of thought behind that energy as well, enveloping the haunts like fog.
Kill the child.
I saw the haunts at the rear of the group, nearest the source of dark energy, begin to clench their fists and reach into their pockets for objects with which to hurt and tear.
Sudden rage filled me. My Shadow was a creature of evil the likes of which I had seldom faced. It was trying to get the haunts to violate natural Law, to physically attack a little girl. Certainly, if they did, I could intervene—but only by hurting innocent children who had committed no sin but to be unprepared to face spiritual threats they had likely never imagined.
My deepest growl rumbled from my chest and into the air with my breath, beginning the work of disrupting that dark energy and serving as a warning to the haunts at the same time.
The weight of small human bodies had begun to shift, but they settled back again at the sound of my growl. For a moment, I thought that they might break and leave Maggie in peace—but then their leader, the girl with the tear-streaked face, turned to me and sneered.
“Guardian,” she said. “You know the Law. We are within our rights.”
I growled lower. I needed to be closer to them to protect them from the influence of My Shadow. I took slow steps forward, growling out more of my breath, until I stood before the haunt, almost eye to eye. I was working energy in earnest now. Excess power skipped along the tips of my hairs in a glow of blue starlight, and the dark energy once more recoiled before light.
The haunt hadn’t even realized what was happening. It thought I was trying to threaten it. “I know the Law. As should you,” it said. It pointed the child’s finger past me, at Maggie. “That is my prey. Stand aside.”
I could send these creatures fleeing with a roar, but that would only scatter them. It wouldn’t stop them from continuing their pursuit later.
“It’s okay, boy,” Maggie said. “I got this.”
I looked at her, falling silent.
This child was about to walk into the
darkness with a dozen predators, knowing full well the danger she faced—and knowing equally well that there was no promise that she would emerge victorious. Her heart was pounding, her eyes a little wide, but she stood with her feet planted and her expression set in stubborn calm.
Maggie was not heart-stupid at all when it came to courage. She had chosen to forge her own destiny in this meeting.
So be it.
I bowed my head down low to the ground in respect. I could, at least, be sure that nothing else disturbed her during her confrontation. I moved past the haunts, brushing excess energy gathered in my fur against several of the taken children who were still touched by darkness, wiping it away. I got to the doorway My Shadow must use if he wished to interfere, and settled down by it to wait.
Maggie stared at me for a moment more. Then she took her phone from her pocket and, without looking back, descended into the darkness.
The haunt-ridden children followed her down. The last shut the door behind them.
“You might as well come out,” I said.
There was a moment of silence, and then in the darkness of the stairwell above me, something stirred and appeared at the landing.
My Shadow.
I huffed out an energetic breath, and it was like wind blowing away fog. The shadows and darkness lifted, and standing a single long leap from me was …
Me.
He was a celestial hound, just like I was, though his fur was streaked with broad bands of nearly black coloring. His mane, especially, was vast and dark, and it made him look threatening. He was leaner than I was, with more sharply defined muscle, and scars that showed through the fur in streaks of fine white. He showed every mark of having lived a difficult life.
“Brother,” My Shadow growled.
I inhaled, and the scent of him filled my nose and brought out brilliant, simple images from when I had been small enough to fit in My Friend’s pocket. Taken by figures in dark robes, male and female, from the monks of the monastery. They’d swept all of us, my brothers and sisters, away to a place of dark power, and surrounded us with cold stone, black enchantment, and watchful demons.