by Charley Case
“Not exactly, but sort of.” Finn smiled over his shoulder at her as they walked the length of the small, one-car garage. “You can smell the lilacs, right?”
She stopped and took a sniff. Then a deeper inhalation, closing her eyes to enhance her sense of smell. She nodded. “Faintly. Is that what magic smells like?”
“Some of it. It changes depending on who is using it; we all have our own scent when we perform a spell. Mine smells mostly like pine trees, and Penny’s...well, Penny’s changes depending on the spell, but she’s unique.”
They rounded the garage, and Finn saw a backyard that looked like it hadn’t been mowed in about a year. There was a path beaten down from the back door to a small shed at the back of the property, but everywhere else looked like an untamed jungle.
“I’m going to check out the shed. See if you can see anything through the house’s windows,” he suggested, then started to tromp through the foot-and-a-half-tall grass.
“Why would you ask the short one to look into windows?” Mila complained, but she was smiling when he looked back.
He gave a chuckle. “You could try jumping.”
She gave him the finger, which made him laugh harder.
With a roll of her eyes, she turned and started making her way to the back of the house.
Finn flattened a path to the shed as he cut across the yard. It was newer than the house by many years, but it was still in pretty bad shape. Some of the wood around the bottom was rotting out, and the door didn’t exactly hang straight. There was a small padlock on it, but that seemed like all the security. He took a second to see if he could detect any wards on the door but felt nothing, so he reached out for the lock.
He gripped the metal in his fist, feeling for its composition with a small shot of dwarven magic. His eyes turned light gray as the magic flowed, and the smell of pine filled the backyard. Once he knew what the lock was made of, it was a simple matter of using his power to change its composition ever so slightly.
His hand glowed purple for a few heartbeats, then he withdrew the power and checked the lock. It had lost its metallic shine and was flaking at the edges.
Finn smiled up at Penny. “Nothing like a few hundred years of oxidation in a few seconds to compromise the thing’s integrity.”
He had used a considerable amount of power to achieve the feat, but he wasn’t worried about needing much of his magic here and deemed it an acceptable risk.
He squeezed the lock, and it crumbled in his hand, turning to powder at the slight pressure. He wiped his palm on his jeans and undid the latch, swinging the door open on squeaky hinges.
The interior of the shed was in the same shape as the outside, and aside from a rusted-out lawnmower and a barrel full of yard tools, the place was empty. He stepped inside to see if there was maybe a trapdoor or something in the floor.
As he was moving the old lawnmower, Mila let out a scream of pain and surprise.
Chapter Thirteen
Mila watched Finn slog through the dense grass and turned to the house. The back of the house was in far worse shape than the front. Paint was peeling off in sheets, and rot had taken large sections of the siding, leaving dark brown holes that smelled strongly of earth. The concrete steps up to the back door were crumbling on the edges to the point that the iron railing had fallen out and was tangled in overgrown grass. The steps themselves seemed solid enough, though.
She had to high-step through the grass, unable to force her way through like Finn had, and made her way to the back door. Climbing the steps, she cupped her hands around her face and pressed them to the glass window of the door. The dim interior took her eyes a few seconds to adapt to, and when she could finally make out more than a few random shapes, she saw a kitchen that hadn’t been updated since the seventies. The room was fairly clean and seemed to be in order. There was an arched doorway that led to a small living room, where she could see an old, yellow couch and a stained La-Z-Boy© with a small table and lamp beside it.
She tried the door but found it locked. Blowing a loose strand of black hair from her face, she looked around the backyard one more time. She saw Finn standing at the shed, holding the padlock in his hand. The smell of pine filled the yard, and she saw his hand glowing purple even in the daylight.
“I wish I could do that,” she grumbled, looking over her shoulder at the locked back door.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a cellar door that she hadn’t noticed before jutting out of the back of the house, but when she looked directly at it, it sort of slipped out of view, leaving the sight of more overgrown grass.
A tingle went down her spine. She realized immediately what was happening.
This was magic, and she was able to see it.
Granted, only from a side angle, but still.
When she tried looking from the corner of her eye again, she could still see it, unlike when she had tried a second time in the past and it hadn’t worked. Finn had told her that now that she knew about magic, her peabrain would start to wake up. He’d warned her that it might take years, but here she was showing signs of awakening after only a few weeks. She had always been a bit of an overachiever.
A huge smile crossed her face, and she slowly made her way down the porch steps, feeling out each one as she focused on the cellar door in the corner of her eye. She nearly fell over, tripping on the tall grass, but eventually, she got there. Standing right in front of the cellar’s double steel doors on a steep incline, she felt disoriented when she looked directly at it and it vanished.
A fly began buzzing around her, but she was so focused on the fact that she was able to see the door when she turned her head that she didn’t notice it.
Keeping her head turned nearly ninety degrees to the right and focusing on the blurry image of the doors, she knelt down and reached out a hand, searching for a handle.
The buzzing of the fly grew in volume as the insect flew next to her ear. She waved a hand at it, but it persisted.
She bit her lip in concentration. She never realized how hard it was to judge distance from your periphery. She had a few false starts, but she scooted forward and reached out one last time.
Her hand was almost to the handle when the fly bit her on the ear.
She let out a scream and stumbled backward, her hand flying up to her throbbing ear. She had never been bitten by an insect in her entire life, and the sensation was far more intense than she could have imagined. She blinked back tears as she felt the lobe of her ear. It was swelling and throbbing with heat.
The fly buzzed right in her face, somehow seeming sorry, but still insistent on getting her attention.
“What the fuck, man? Why did you bite me?” she pleaded with what she could now see was a horsefly about the size of her pinkie’s first two knuckles put together.
Its thick black and gray body bounced up and down, trying to communicate something to her.
A crashing sound made her jump, and she spun to see Finn barreling out of the shed with so much force that he half ripped the door off its hinges when he hit it with his shoulder. Fragar was out and unfolded. The dwarf’s eyes were wide as he scanned his surroundings, tearing through the yard with such force that clumps of grass went flying, with dirt still attached to the roots.
Penny had taken wing, circling the yard, looking for the enemy she assumed had to be there.
“What was it? The hound? Kashgar?” Finn was wild with the need to protect her.
“It was a fly,” she said lamely, pointing to the large horsefly hovering in front of her.
Finn slowed to a stop like a train running out of steam. He blinked and raised an eyebrow at the insect. “A fly? Why did you scream?”
“It bit me!” She showed him her swollen lobe.
“Okay…” He leaned in to look at the small dribble of blood from the bite. “I mean, it looks pretty bad for a fly bite, but it’s still just a fly.”
Mila’s lips tightened in a thin line as she frowned at his denseness
. “You know how I get along with insects. That was the first time I’ve ever been bitten. It scared me.” She rubbed her ear. “And it really, really hurt.”
Penny swooped down and landed on Mila’s shoulder. Reaching out a taloned hand, Penny gently touched the swollen earlobe. A cooling sensation flooded Mila, and she could smell berries. The pain faded away in seconds, replaced by a feeling of wholeness.
Penny removed her hand and patted Mila on the head. “Shir?” she asked in a gentle voice.
“She wants to know if that feels better,” Finn translated.
Mila felt her ear again. It was swollen, and her fingertip came away with a dab of blood on it, but the pain had vanished completely.
“Yeah, what did you do?”
Penny gave a series of chirp and clicks, her hands gesticulating as she got lost in the explanation.
Mila glanced at Finn when Penny finally quieted down.
He laughed. “She took the long way of saying that she can soothe emotions and pain with her magic. It’s how she keeps me from going over the edge when my berserker rage kicks in.”
“Oh,” she held out a fist for Penny to bump. “Well, thanks, Penny.”
Penny gave her a slight bow and bumped fists, then pointed at the fly. “Squee chir chi?”
Mila didn’t know what she asked exactly, but she got the idea. “I don’t know why it bit me. I was trying to open this cellar door, and it just freaked out.”
“What cellar door?” Finn asked, looking around the backyard.
Penny focused on the ground and began to glow slightly blue as she tapped into her magic once again. Her eyes widened, and she glanced at Mila, giving her a thumbs-up before hopping off her shoulder and slowly approaching where Mila figured the edge of the doors was. Penny held her little hands up and began to glow brighter as she closed her eyes and focused.
Finn, still not seeing the concealed doors, squinted down at the area he knew they should be, and shook his head. “Damn, girl. How did you see that? I can’t detect it at all.”
Mila shrugged. “I don’t know, I can just see it out of the corner of my eye, like when I first noticed your tattoos.”
Her eyebrows rose with an idea, and she tried the trick on Finn. She turned her head so that he was in her peripheral vision and focused on the short hair on the side of his head. She smiled as she saw the deep blue runes that circled the back of his head like a wreath. It was the first time she’d seen them since they had first met, and they were as intricate as she remembered.
When she looked directly at him again, the runes vanished, and he looked the same as he had every day for the last few weeks.
She opened her mouth to say something when a loud popping sound made her jump back and instinctively reach for Gram.
Penny shook out her hand, kneeling in front of a set of steel doors that had not been there a moment before. “Chi chi.” She frowned at her hand and shook it out again. “Shiri chi quee shee.” A small jet of flame punctuated what Mila thought might have been a bunch of dragon f-bombs.
“Interesting,” Finn mused, his eyebrow raised as he regarded the newly revealed doors. “She says the doors had a ward on them that would have hurt or more likely killed you if you touched them. Someone really didn’t want this found. Looks like you owe your little fly buddy thanks.”
Mila gulped, making a fist with the hand that she had almost touched the door with, and looked around for the fly, but it was gone. “That’s frightening. What if I had tripped over it?”
“Not likely,” Finn said, reaching down and grasping the now dispelled handle. “The spell would have kept you away subconsciously. I want to know how you made it over here in the first place. That ward should have made you forget what you were doing.”
He pulled the door open before she could come up with a theory, and loud barking and howling turned her focus to the dark stairs leading down.
“Sounds like the hound is still here.” She pulled Gram out but didn’t activate the golden sword. “Maybe you should go first,” she suggested.
Finn smiled and hefted Fragar before taking the steps one at a time in a crouched, ready position. He got to the bottom and fumbled around for a few seconds before flipping a switch. When golden light filled the darkness as the overhead lights came on, Finn’s shoulders loosened, and he stood up.
“Come on down. She’s still locked up.”
Mila started down the stairs, and Penny hopped onto her shoulder for a ride.
The cellar was probably the nicest part of the house. The walls were white cinder block, and one corner of the room contained a cot, a small refrigerator, and a table with a TV and an ashtray with a couple of stubbed out butts in it. The rest of the large space was made up of chain-link kennels, about twenty in all. Aside from the blood that was dried all over the floor, it was pretty nice.
“What the fuck happened here?” Mila asked, noting that the smell of lilac had faded, now that they were out of the yard. She reasoned it was the spell on the cellar doors that had been causing the smell, but the pleasant aroma had been replaced with that of dog feces and stale cigarettes.
“This is where Peter was attacked,” Finn said, stepping up to the barking hound in the last cage. “You can see the trail where he pulled himself out into the yard and called the ambulance.”
Mila glanced at the steps, and sure enough, there was dried blood all over the wooden risers. They had walked right through it and hadn’t noticed because it was so dark. She noticed several bloody pawprints as well, indicating that a lot of large hounds had walked up the stairs after the attack.
She didn’t know much about tracking, but the fact that all the prints were whole and not streaked made her think that they had calmly walked up the steps, as if they were following someone, and not fleeing.
The barking stopped, and Mila turned to see the hound for the first time in the flesh. After a second’s consideration, she thought “flesh” might not be the right word.
She had seen the grainy video of the hound, but that was nothing compared to the specimen that stood before her in the cage. She was nearly as tall as Mila, and slim now that her pups had been born. Her eyes glowed red, but not with malice. Mila thought she detected a look of sadness in them.
But it was the hound’s coat that really drew the eye.
Under the bare bulbs in the fixture on the ceiling, her fur had turned to white marble, thanks to the golden ring on her tail that glinted in the light. Mila could see veins of black and pink in her coat, and the effect made the animal look like a statue until she moved, and the illusion was broken. Then she would settle once again, and Mila would again question her authenticity.
“She’s beautiful,” Mila said, coming over to stand next to Finn, who had squatted down to look the hound in the eyes.
“She is, but she’s also quite upset, and if I had to guess, she could do with a little food. Hellhounds don’t eat every day, but we don’t know how long it’s been since she was last fed. I have to say, the fact that she’s so docile right now is surprising.”
Finn reached out a hand to the hound sitting behind the fence, making gentle sounds. He almost had his fingers through the links when the hound bared her pointed teeth and lunged at him.
He jerked his hand back and barked a laugh. “Well, not all that docile, I guess. We need to distract her so I can get that ring off her tail. Hellhounds are tough, but not so tough I can’t handle one if I have to. However, with her stone skin, I would probably lose a hand for my efforts.”
Mila swept her eyes across the room and saw the small refrigerator near the cot and TV. She went over and opened it up, finding it stocked with raw cuts of beef still in the foam tray and plastic wrap of the local grocers.
Penny smiled and nodded, patting Mila on the head.
“Thanks, Penny. I have to say, for some reason, it’s not completely condescending when you pat me on the head like that. I don’t know if it’s because I want the praise, or because I understand that you
don’t have any other way to express yourself to me.” She glanced at Penny, who had a thoughtful look on her face. “We need to start language lessons soon. I like you too much to not be able to talk to you girl to girl.”
Penny nodded, then after a second, patted her on the head again.
Mila laughed. “You’re a bit of an asshole, Penny. I think I like that most about you. Now let’s go help our handsome dwarf before he blows a gasket and charges in there to get the ring.”
Penny bounced with laughter and puffed a smoke ring in agreement.
Mila grabbed a big cut of beef and peeled back the plastic, tossing the tray and wrapping in the garbage, then headed back over to Finn, who was still staring at the hound, trying to think of how to distract it. As soon as the hound smelled the approaching meat, it focused its burning-coal eyes on Mila and began to drool.
Mila held the steak out, close to the side of the cage, right above an opening designed to slide a bowl of food through. The hound turned and pressed its nose through one of the links in the fence, snorting at the smell of raw meat, and drooling even more.
“Can you get it now?” Mila asked.
Finn had a half-smile of wonderment on his face. “Damn good thinking. Give me a second.”
He put his hand on the gate latch, now behind the hellhound, and took a deep breath. In one fluid motion, he opened the gate and grabbed hold of the ring, halfway down the hound’s tail. The hound yipped and began to turn at the sudden attention, but Mila dropped the steak through the opening, and the animal dove down to the ground, snatching up the meat with a set of razor-sharp teeth and tore a chunk out.
Finn slammed the gate closed and took a deep breath. “Fuck, that thing is terrifying. Whoever thought of giving an apex predator stone skin was an asshole.”
“Did you get it?” Mila asked, noting that the hound was still marble-skinned.
He held out the ring between a thick thumb and forefinger. “Got it. It takes a second for the magic to wear off. There it goes.”
She saw the white marble fur begin to lose its shine. At first, she thought the stone was becoming rough because the color never changed, but when the black and pink veins of the marble faded along with the shine, she realized that the hound just happened to have white fur to begin with.