The 10th Kingdom

by Kathryn Wesley

“Was that you?” she asked.

  He shook his head and flipped a hamburger. This place could get robbed and he would stay behind the grill, calmly cooking any order that had been placed in front of him.

  Virginia grabbed the staff keys as she hurried to the storage

  room door. With shaking fingers, she unlocked it, and pushed the door open.

  A broken jar had sent glass everywhere, and beside it, a container of flour had fallen and spilled open. Prince stood beside the flour, his tail wagging hesitantly.

  “That’s it,” Virginia said. “I’m putting you outside and—”

  And then she froze. Crudely scraped into the spilled flour was a single word. Danger. She stared at it uneasily for a moment—this night had been too strange for words—and then she realized what was going on.

  “Okay, Candy, come out,” she said, looking around. “Funny joke.”

  Wait. Candy was in the main room, taking the order of some good-looking guy who reminded Virginia vaguely of a wolf. She looked at the keys in her hand. She had locked the door and she had unlocked it. And there was no one else in the room. jj

  Feeling a little silly, she said to the dog, “I don’t suppose you wrote that, did you?”

  Prince barked and she moved backwards just a little. The night was getting stranger and stranger. He couldn’t have done it. The flour had to have been spilled before. She just hadn’t noticed.

  Like she hadn’t noticed that Prince, even though he was covered in flour, had most of it concentrated on his right front paw. Just the way it would if he had written something with that paw.

  Dogs couldn’t spell, could they? What was he, a trick dog escaped from the circus?

  She looked at him for a very long time. Those intelligent eyes of his met hers.

  Finally she gave in to the absolute weirdness of it all. ‘ ‘Bark once.”

  Prince barked once.

  “Bark twice.”

  Prince barked twice. Virginia was so startled, she jumped backwards.

  “Stop it!” she shouted at the dog. Then she took a deep breath. “Okay, Virginia, you’ve fallen off your bike and cracked your head and you’re in hospital. You’re in hospital and they’ve given you morphine or something and that’s why—”

  Prince barked twice again. Virginia glanced at the word Danger and then back at Prince. He was covered in flour. He had too much of it on his right front paw for any explainable reason. He could bark on command.

  He had the most intelligent eyes she’d ever seen in a dog. Hell, there were some men who didn’t have eyes as intelligent as that.

  He was staring at her with such intensity that she couldn’t ignore him.

  “Can ... can you understand everything I’m saying?”

  Prince barked once.

  Virginia resisted the urge to cover his mouth. The boss would hear. Everyone would hear.

  “Stop it!” she said. She found herself backed against the wall, and she had no idea how she had gotten there. Her heart was beating so hard, she thought it would carve a hole in her chest.

  Okay, she thought to herself, using a tone she’d only heard from her grandmother. Okay. Get a grip. The dog says there’s danger. Let’s find out what this is about. No matter how ridiculous it seems.

  “Who’s in danger?” she asked. “Both of us?”

  Prince barked once more, then grabbed her sleeve gently between his teeth. He dragged her arm toward the door. There was no mistaking this message. He wanted her to leave. With him.

  That meant both of them were in danger. What kind she wasn’t sure, but she remembered that feeling she had in the park, the eyes staring at her, the growing darkness.

  Danger, Both of them. And now she was taking advice from a dog. Prince tugged harder on her sleeve.

  Could this night possibly get any worse?

  Wolf had given in to his animal nature. He simply had to have something to eat. And there were so many choices here! The menu was quite extensive.

  He figured he had time. The dog was hiding nearby and probably wouldn’t come out, thinking he’d found the perfect bolt-hole. Wolf could smell him, tantalizingly close.

  But not as tantalizing as the steak. The chicken. The fish ...

  The waitress was standing near him, chewing gum, and looking completely vapid. Her nearness was making him nervous. Humans were meat. Good meat, although hers would probably be a bit tough. And he really didn’t want to go for a human tonight, although she was standing awfully close.

  So many choices, so little time.

  “No, I just can’t decide,” Wolf said.

  The waitress chomped harder on her gum. Her eyes didn’t quit? meet his as she said, “The specials are lamb and—”

  “Lamb?” That was right! He had smelled lamb when he first came in here. Good, succulent fresh lamb. He had been thinking of how wonderful it smelled when he caught a whiff of dog.

  “Ohhh,” he said, thinking of the delicacy of all of it. “New season’s lamb, I hope. Young and juicy and frolicking provocatively in the fields, bouncing up and down with soft fluffy wool—”

  He shook his head. “Stop it, pull yourself together.”

  The waitress had tilted her head slightly as if she heard something far away.

  And he thought of lamb and couldn’t stop his mouth from running on. That animal nature again. “Some little shepherdess not really paying attention to the flock,” he said, his thoughts of delicious lamb turning again to delicious girl. “Probably asleep if I know little girls ... I mean I’m not going to eat her, not if there’s a nice leg of lamb going ... no, no ... I mean I could eat her of course, especially if she’s dozing in the meadow, breathing soft, warm breaths . .. ohhhh ... but if there’s lamb fillet, or a nice fat rack of chops ... I’m not greedy. Well, I am greedy, I don’t know why I said that. I have a substantial appetite. Bom to gorge, that’s me.”

  The waitress hadn’t really heard him. Or if she had, she hadn’t cared. “So,” she said, “is that a yes on the lamb?” “Of course it’s a yes. If, of course, the lamb is fresh. If it isn’t, I want steak.”

  “It’s fresh,” the waitress said. Her gum snapped. That was a disgusting sound. He couldn’t believe he was thinking of eating her. He was human after all. Humans didn’t eat their own kind. Not even enhanced humans. Not even enhanced humans with wolf-like tastes.

  “So, it’s the lamb, right?” she said, as if she weren’t exactly sure.

  “Yes,” he said. “And make certain it’s undercooked.” “We don’t undercook nothing,” she said.

  “I want it undercooked.”

  She frowned. This girl was not one of the most brilliant specimens of humanity he’d ever encountered.

  He was losing patience. “What’s your name?”

  “Candy,” she said.

  Named for food. The wrong kind, but food nonetheless. “Candy, my dear,” he said, “I want my lamb undercooked.” “You mean rare?”

  “No, no, no,” Wolf said. “Listen, rare implies dangerously cooked. When I say rare, I mean just let it look at the oven in terror and then bring it out here.”

  She squinted at him. “You want fries, baked potato, mashed, coleslaw, or rice with that?”

  Wolf winced. “No fries. No vegetables, no blue cheese, no sour cream—just meat, red as a young girl’s first blush. And six glasses of warm milk.”

  “That’s the lamb special and six glasses of warm milk,” Candy said. “Got it.”

  Wolf sighed. That sounded fantastic. He could imagine himself sitting here all night, eating to his heart’s content.

  And then he thought he heard a dog bark, faintly, through a wall behind him. Wolf reached out and grabbed the waitress’s arm before she managed to leave.

  “I almost forgot,” Wolf said. “I’m looking for this lovely lady who found my doggie.”

  To his surprise, Candy smiled. She looked younger when she smiled. Fresher.

  “Oh, is it yours?” she asked. “Virginia’s out back.
I’ll tell her.”

  She hurried away as if she were on some kind of mission. He left his seat and followed her, through the kitchen (cooking beef, sizzling on the grill, ah, the smells, the delightful succulent smells!) and toward a storeroom.

  At that point, Candy noticed him. “You can’t come in here.”

  The smell of dog was strong here. There was another scent underneath it. A delectable feminine scent. Tantalizing. Beautiful.

  Wolf reached around Candy and whipped the door open. The room was empty. But it hadn’t been for long. The smell of dog was strong here, and so was that delightful female scent. They had been together here. The dog had a helper.

  Then he saw Danger written in the spilled flour, and he cursed. The dog had found a way to talk.

  He rubbed out the message with his foot before Candy noticed it.

  Candy was frowning. “Maybe she went home. She hurt herself when she fell.”

  She. That’s right. Candy had mentioned a she. A Virginia, she of the lovely scent.

  “Oh, poor little sausage,” Wolf said. “Where does she live then, this lovely lady? I can’t wait to thank her.”

  The storage room door swung shut behind them. He stifled a small smile. Candy looked nervous.

  “Well, I can’t really tell you where she lives, you know, I don’t know who you are ...”

  Wolf backed Candy against the wall and trapped her between his arms. He tried to look at her the way a prospective lover would, but all he could think of was how wonderful her flesh might taste. Still, he had to find out about that dog ...

  He made his eyes flash hypnotically.

  “Oh,” he said ever so gently, “you can tell me.”

  Virginia got off the bus at the end of her block. It was amazing how empty New York streets could be at night. She was used to seeing more people around—or maybe she just didn’t notice when she was on her bike.

  Her poor wounded bike was still at the restaurant, but Prince was with her. He’d followed her obediently onto the bus, even though he’d looked around as if it were something strange, and he was following her now. It seemed that he looked a little less worried than he had before.

  Now she was judging the mood of a dog. She shook her head. “I’m going to go straight home,” she said to the dog, “and phone the police, or the dog pound.”

  She glanced at Prince. He didn’t seem unduly upset about that last phrase. Maybe he didn’t know English as well as she thought he did.

  She frowned at him. “I don’t know if you’ve escaped from a circus or what, but I am obviously not well and I need to go to bed.”

  The street was in shadow. There seemed to be people sleeping against the small iron gate two buildings down from hers. That was unusual. Homeless people usually slept in the park. It was close enough, and they’d be much more comfortable than they were on the sidewalk.

  Or the stairs. She frowned. A man was sprawled on the stairs leading into her building, his hand on a paper bag, his face turned away from her. She couldn’t smell the booze on him, but she wagered it was there.

  “This used to be a nice street,” she said, more to herself than Prince. The dog gave the man a wide berth and followed Virginia inside.

  No one sat at the desk, which was unusual, and the lobby was dark. Was she getting home later than usual? She thought she was early. She had spent hardly any time at work.

  The old TV was still on, broadcasting to no one. Maybe her father had desk duty tonight. He was sometimes known to disappear for hours, raiding beer from the fridge and then smuggling the cans to the lobby.

  “Dad?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She tried louder. “Dad?”

  He wasn’t around. Prince looked at her expectantly. Virginia shrugged and went to the elevator. She pushed the call button several times. It flashed on, then off. She sighed heavily and kept pushing until the light stayed on and she heard the clink and rattle of ancient elevator cables.

  Prince raised his head and looked at the closed doors as if they were doing something strange.

  “Look,” she said to the dog, “you can stay tonight and then you’re on your own. Understand?”

  Prince barked once. His instant response startled her, just as it had before.

  She put a hand to her cut forehead. “How can I be talking to a dog? I’ve gone crazy.”

  Prince barked twice.

  “Yes, I have.” She sounded irritable and she didn’t care. “Don’t try and reassure me.”

  This time, the dog was silent. The elevator arrived and the doors whooshed open. She got in and pressed the button for her floor, then wondered at the wisdom of that. Her father had told her to take the stairs on the way home just in case.

  Oh, great. She might get stuck in an elevator with a talking dog. Even Prince seemed a little alarmed. He was whining softly in the back of his throat. Apparently, where he grew up there weren’t such things as elevators.

  Lucky dog.

  The elevator arrived on the seventh floor with a clunk. The doors hesitated for a moment—and Virginia’s heart did too— then they opened.

  The hallway was darker than usual, and there were people lying in the hallway. One of them was snoring. Virginia stepped carefully out of the elevator. Prince followed. His whining had stopped.

  One of the people was holding a leash that led to a sleeping dog. A Dachshund. Prince went and investigated. As he got close, he started snarling.

  Virginia’s heart started beating hard. “That’s Mrs. Graves from next door,” she whispered, “And her husband and their son, Eric. What’s happened to them?”

  She almost expected Prince to bark some sort of coherent response. Behind her, the elevator doors whooshed shut, then opened, then closed. Virginia turned. The elevator was continuing its little door dance, and she noticed her father’s toolbox sitting below the still-open call box. But her father was nowhere to be seen.

  “You wait here,” she said to Prince. “I’ra going to see if Dad’s ail right.”

  The entire floor was quieter than she’d ever heard it. No far-off tinny voice of a television set, no fighting in the apartment down the hall, no barking Dachshund just inside the Graveses’ apartment door.

  Light came through the skylight, but it was marred by a strange shape. Virginia looked up. A bird lay spread-eagled on the glass. It appeared to be asleep.

  She touched her forehead again. Maybe this was all an elaborate dream. Maybe she was the one spread-eagled in the park, her bicycle beside her, the back wheel slowly turning with the momentum she’d had before the accident.

  But this seemed too real to be a dream.

  She reached her apartment door and stopped. Her heart hit jack-hammer rhythm. The door was splintered open, as if someone had hit it with an axe. It barely hung on its hinges.

  Inside, the cold light of the television illuminated her sleeping father’s face. It was covered with pink dust.

  “Dad?” Virginia whispered. “Wake up....”

  She didn’t want to be too loud, afraid that whoever had attacked the door was still around. She peered at her dad. He made a slight, gargly, sleeping sound and then exhaled. At least he was alive.

  She tiptoed across the room and down the hallway. Her bedroom door was open just wide enough for her to see through. The light was on and inside the room were three of the strangest people she’d ever seen.

  Two were as tall as basketball stars—one with orange hair Dennis Rodman would have been ashamed of, the other with frizzy dark hair. The third was short, but seemed to have more energy. They were pawing through her belongings as if they were looking for something.

  “Look!” the tall dark-haired one shouted. “Here they are!” He grabbed a shoe from her closet and sniffed it, closing his eyes as if he were smelling a delicacy. Virginia raised an eyebrow. This was getting stranger and stranger.

  “Soft cow,” he said. “Nicee nice.”

  Virginia glanced down. Prince was beside her, staring
into her room. He barely moved. He didn’t seem surprised by the people at all. And surprisingly, he didn’t bark.

  The tall, dark-haired one was trying to stick his huge gnarly foot into her shoe. The short one watched for a moment, then said, “No! Try the red ones.”

  Virginia was about to back away when all three faces turned in her direction.

  “Hello there, girlee,” the orange-haired one said.

  Virginia started. Orange-Hair was female, and she was cradling an armful of Virginia’s shoes.

  “These have been very badly cared for,” Orange-Hair said in a tone that suggested Virginia had committed mass murder. “Scuffed and cracked and neglected.”

  She dropped the pile. They clattered against the floor. The other two creatures staggered toward Virginia unsteadily. They had managed to shove their huge feet into her high heels. “You have nice shoes,” the taller male said. “And so tiny.” “We have hundreds of pairs at home,” Orange-Hair said. “—so we know what we’re talking about,” said the shorter male.

  Now Virginia finally understood how Alice felt when she tumbled into Wonderland. She wondered if Alice had this same sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, the feeling that things had just gone from bad to worse.

  The creatures were still tottering toward her. Virginia backed away, making it to the living room before they trapped her against a wall.

  What had all those self-defense classes taught? Attitude was everything. Show them that she wasn’t afraid.

  “Who are you?” Virginia demanded. “And what have you done to my dad?”

  “Hit him with a bit of Troll dust, that’s all,” the tall one said.

  Prince slinked behind the sofa. He was watching, undoglike, no barking, no attacking. It almost seemed as if he had a plan. She hoped so. If her dad could be felled by Troll dust, then she could be saved by a dog.

  “Troll dust?” Virginia asked.

  The tall one slammed his hand against his chest. “I am Burly the Troll, feared throughout the Nine Kingdoms.”

  Then he bowed, followed by Orange-Hair, who said, ‘ ‘I am Blabberwort the Troll, dreaded throughout the Nine Kingdoms.”

  “And I am Bluebell the Troll,” the short one said as he bowed, “terrified throughout the Nine Kingdoms.”