Page 13 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)
13
Loren
Indy didn’t see much of me the next couple of days, but I kept a close eye on him. His hair was shockingly teal, and he looked good. Healthy. Clean. He sent text messages every so often, asking if I knew where things were in the trailer and when his lot rent was due, but our conversations were succinct and superficial.
Sully came by as promised and delivered a beaded bracelet made with every color of the rainbow. I watched from the parking lot and talked with her a bit afterward, but I knew it worked because the second Indy slid the jewelry around his wrist, every hint of his honey-sweet scent left the air. The vacancy stirred immediate panic in me. It reminded me of the days and weeks I’d lived here alone, sensing Indy’s absence more keenly than I ever wanted to.
I didn’t sleep that night. I stared at the trailer and promised myself that my phoenix was still alive inside. Still breathing. Still with me.
By the end of the week, I had convinced myself that Whitney must have grown bored following up on me, or maybe he had better things to do. But I couldn’t avoid him or Hell forever.
I made the slow climb to the trailer park bathhouse, trudged past occupied toilet stalls, into an open shower. I pulled the scummy shower curtain closed behind me before I drew a portal on the wall and ventured into the arid depths of Hell.
Powdery dirt underfoot and a high, bright ceiling gave me a keen sense of the space in which I landed. The walls stretched long and wide, doubling the size of the grand ballroom in a sweeping oval shape flanked by staggered rows of bench seating. In the middle, a dusty arena brought to mind ancient combat pits where gladiators battled wild beasts in barbaric fights to the death.
Here, everything was already dead, so we fought for sport and show and the amusement of demons like Nero, who occupied a canopied dais at the far end of the arena. The stadium seats were empty, but the pit itself was cluttered with hellhounds engaged in one-on-one combat. The scores of hounds had been stripped of their muzzles so they could use their shadowy teeth to snap at each other and spritz the air with blood. Two brawled barehanded before me, not yet gifted with their demonic weapons. Through their flailing arms and legs, I saw Moira observing from her post against the wall of the arena.
My arrival drew her eye, and she turned with a leather riding crop gripped in both hands. I remembered the sting of that tool on my skin, delivering reprimand for every misstep. Occasionally, it found its way into the bedroom to offer another kind of correction. It was one of her gentler forms of punishment, but that didn’t mean it was ineffective.
When she smiled, the sharp tips of her teeth dented her bottom lip, and I considered fleeing again. But I managed to stand and wait while she strode along the edge of the arena toward me.
“Lorenzo,” she called ahead, melodic as a siren and twice as dangerous. “Making a habit of hasty departures lately. And arrivals.” Coming close, she hooked her hand around the back of my head and pulled me down for a lingering kiss. She tasted bitter, almost tart and, when her tongue roamed into my mouth, I fought the urge to bite it.
She pulled back and smudged her thumb across my lips, wiping away the residual red tint.
“Nevertheless, your timing is good.” She swished the crop at her side, and I watched it swing. “Whitney’s been hard at work breaking in the new hounds, and I’d like you to take a turn.” She motioned to the fighting pairs spread throughout the arena.
I spotted my counterpart engaged in combat with a petite girl with long, dark hair. Unlike the other hounds, these two had weapons. Whitney brandished his military saber, and the girl—I recognized her as the hound Karst had chosen from the kennels days ago—clutched a pair of curved daggers.
Before I could respond to Moira’s question, she looped her arm around mine and pulled me through the battleground. We dodged kicks and punches, and Moira snapped her crop at a few combatants as we passed. A pair of female hounds tangled in the dirt with their claws slashing. I sidestepped them but didn’t evade the fountain of black blood that spurted high enough to speckle my face.
Moira laughed as I used my sleeve to mop it.
We came to a stop across from Whitney and the new hound. A shrill cry pierced the air as he swept his saber across her middle, shredding the fabric of her already ruined dress. Her daggers disappeared in a puff of smoke as she hunkered over to grab her stomach. Her eyes widened with alarm.
“Straighten up, sweetheart.” Moira pulled away from me and used the end of her crop to tap the girl’s chin.
Panting and panicked, the girl obeyed. She slowly spread her arms, sticky with blood from the cut that was slowly healing. Trembling, she marveled at the wound while Whitney sheathed his saber and bowed to our mistress.
“Well done, Whitney,” Moira said with a smile.
Judging by the sweat slicking Whitney’s brow and soaking his blond locks, the sparring had been going on for some time. The female hound looked similarly spent, smeared with dirt turned to mud on her bare arms and shins. She was a delicate thing, waifish and deceptively frail considering the hellish power lurking inside her.
Moira sidled up to Whitney and patted his arm. “Take a break, won’t you? I’d like Lorenzo to have a go.”
Whitney’s green eyes flicked over me with the faintest surprise before he nodded. The sword disappeared from his hip as he strode toward the edge of the arena.
Across from me, the girl clutched at her dress where it gaped from Whitney’s attack. It hung open from her navel to the waistband of her underwear, but her attempts to will it back together were for naught. Moira watched her struggle for a moment, then snapped the riding crop against the girl’s scrabbling hands.
“What do you value more?” the demoness asked. “Your decency or your life?”
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes.
“Defend yourself!” Moira told her, then beckoned to me.
My glaive materialized beside me, stretching from the dusty floor to my shoulder and glinting black and steel. When I grasped the weapon and spun it sideways, the other hound yelped.
Moira’s lips curved in a smirk. “Good boy. Show her a thing or two.”
The demoness took her leave, passing Whitney’s post beside the wall to ascend a set of stairs toward where the archdemon Nero observed. While I tracked her departure, the girl hound fumbled to summon her daggers.
She was breathing hard from either fear or exertion, and it gave her a wild look as she clawed at her sides, her forearms, then the empty air in search of the weapons.
“Don’t rush,” I told her. “I’m in no hurry.”
She stared at me with eyes impossibly round and bloodshot.
I remembered these early days. Every minute out of the kennels was critical. Every misstep was measured. Moira’s approval was not easily earned, and it was the key to a respite from battle or freedom from a cold, metal cage.
When the girl managed to conjure her daggers again, I nodded to her. Talking was discouraged among the hounds, but I couldn’t shake the thought of her muffled wails days earlier or the memory of all the things I’d wanted to say when I was in her position.
“I’m Loren,” I said in a voice so low the grunts and cries of those fighting around us almost overcame it.
She quivered, adjusting her grip on the leather-wrapped handles of her knives. “Abigail,” she replied.
My attention flicked to Moira as though I could feel her impatience at range. But, while I expected her to be zeroed in on me, she surveyed the arena with a pleasant expression. Nero, in contrast, was stern. I caught his scathing glare and quickly looked away.
When I faced Abigail again, she was staring down the length of my glaive and growing more frightened by the moment. Her throat bobbed through a swallow before she spoke.
“How am I supposed to…?” She pressed a hand to the scar forming across her belly, then nodded to my polearm. “That thing is huge.”
Stepping back, I slowly swept the blade end toward her. She leaped aside and raised her daggers in a pitiful defense.
She’d closed her eyes in a flinching wince and, when she peered out, I held the glaive outstretched, extending nearly seven feet with the added length of my arm. The tip rested level with Abigail’s chin, scant inches from touching her.
Her face went ashen white.
“You have to crowd me,” I explained, then motioned with my other hand. “Nothing dangerous from there to here.” My gesture spanned the distance from the base of the blade to my own chest. “Once you get past the pointy end, I’m hard-pressed to stop you.”
She gawked at my glaive again. Its steel blade was not about the length of a short sword and curved to a wicked tip.
“Right.” She looked and sounded unconvinced.
I pulled my glaive back and held it at an angle in front of me.
Seconds ticked by. Abigail didn’t advance, and I sensed Nero’s scornful gaze boring into me.
“You shouldn’t allow this distance between us,” I whispered to her. “It’s the surest way to lose an arm.” My smile was meant to soften the figurative blow, but she seemed so terrified she might have been frozen in place. Loosing one hand from the polearm’s shaft, I curled my fingers in a beckoning motion. “Crowd me.”
Abigail’s features hardened, and she set her stance. It must have taken every ounce of her determination to lunge.
She was fast, startlingly so, and she closed the gap to me in the time it took to blink. I barred my glaive at her shoulders, blocking the swing of one dagger, then tilting the shaft to parry the other.
Abigail snarled and bared her teeth, and my hound growled in response to the challenge.
Fight , he urged, and I thought back No .
This was not a conflict I needed to win. This was a frightened young woman battling for survival. She needed instruction to grow her confidence, and I intended to give her better than anything I’d gotten.
She backpedaled .
Wrong direction.
I swiped at her knees, and she retreated farther.
Stop running!
I liked the space; I needed it to deliver sweeping, severing blows and javelin-like thrusts that could punch a hole through someone’s guts. But it was the worst position my opponent could be in.
Moira and Nero watched. Whitney watched. The other hounds scattered.
Abigail had given up attacking, gone on the run instead while I pursued with my glaive at the ready. The bad showing was made worse when she tripped in her rush to escape and landed on her back in the dirt. Her empty hands shielded her face, and her petite body curled into the fetal position.
There was no honor in this. No point in winning a fight that was more of an execution.
With a fleeting glance at Nero and Moira on the dais, I hissed through gritted teeth, “When I close, roll, grab the shaft, and pull yourself up.”
Abigail barely had time to babble out a disjointed, “Wh-what?” before I drove the blade end of my polearm toward her.
My reliance on her speed was rewarded as she lurched to one side, evading the weapon that plunged harmlessly into the ground. Sitting, she took hold of the slick metal shaft and used it to propel herself toward me. Her daggers rematerialized, and she swung one around to plunge into my open left side.
I winced, and she shrieked. Her cry was the loudest thing in the arena, causing everyone—combatants and observers alike—to turn toward us.
Abigail staggered backward. The knife she held dissipated, but the one lodged in me stayed put. It grated against my ribs as I straightened.
“Oh, god!” Abigail cupped her hands to her face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
My glaive faded into the air, then I turned gingerly to take hold of the protruding dagger handle. The serrated edge dragged through my skin as I pulled it out. I wiped it on the thigh of my jeans, cleaning off viscous black blood before I offered it back to her.
She took the dagger with a trembling hand while babbling apologies. Tears spilled from her eyes.
Nero and Moira loomed above. Their scrutiny made me sweat.
“Take a break.” A familiar voice came from behind me. Whitney had approached and stood with his arms folded and his brows dipped in a critical squint.
Abigail ducked her head. The bulky choke chain hung heavy around her neck. She took Whitney’s dismissal and scurried toward a cluster of hounds at the edge of the arena. They made for a sorry bunch, all blood smeared and bedraggled with their clothing ripped by gnashing teeth and claws. More than that, they looked afraid. Of Nero and Moira, their cruel overseers. Of Whitney and me.
With Abigail gone, Whitney closed in to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we surveyed the remaining pairs as they reengaged in combat.
“Respectfully, Loren,” he began. “What was that?”
With our backs to the dais, Nero and Moira couldn’t see us talking. That was for the best because speaking out of turn was the surest way to earn reprimand and, if Moira realized what I assumed Whitney had, I was already due for a scolding.
Whitney needed no response from me to conclude, “You threw the fight.”
I dabbed my fingers to the wound leaking lukewarm blood down my side. I didn’t expect him to understand. He predated me in every way and had participated in my training. Armed with his saber, he’d bested me in every fight. Obedience school, Moira called it. She was most invested in the obedience part.
“They deserve to be taught, not tormented.” I failed to soften the edge that crept into my voice. “You might’ve forgotten what it feels like to have your face ground into the dirt, but I haven’t.”
Whitney sighed loudly, almost a growl. My inner hound grumbled back.
“You’re making this personal, and it shouldn’t be,” he said. “You have ample responsibilities without involving yourself in theirs.”
“I was told to involve myself.” The tip of my chin indicated the demoness languishing in the stands.
“You were asked to show your skills ,” Whitney corrected, “not your concern. That would be better spent on your own standing.”
My hound prickled again, bristling enough to cause the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
“Miss notices, you know,” Whitney said. “She’s been making excuses for you, but you oughtn’t expect that to continue.”
Around us, the hounds sparred. They would carry on until Moira allowed them to stop or they collapsed from exhaustion. Tomorrow, the process would begin anew. Over and over. For weeks. Months. Years.
After several seconds, I worked up the nerve to ask the question that had haunted me for days.
“Have you been making excuses for me, too?”
Whitney’s gaze cut sharply toward me. “About your Earth pet?”
Biting back the argument that Indy was no one’s pet, I resigned myself to nod.
Whitney bobbed his head in response. “It hasn’t come up.”
It opened the door to wonder what kinds of things had come up, and if Whitney had continued his babysitting duties while I was unaware. Before I could worry about that, his next statement gave me far more to be concerned about.
“I’ve been looking into it, though,” he said. “On my own.”
Cold and hot rushed my face simultaneously, leaving me bathed in clammy sweat while Whitney stared across the arena.
He didn’t even blink as he added, “I didn’t take you for a bird dog, Loren.”
It might have been a joke. Indy called me that from time to time while teasing or flirting. It usually made me smile. From Whitney, though, it felt like a curse.
“What?” My voice was a rasp.
“They’re dangerous, you know,” he carried on, agonizingly calm. “Their fire burns hotter than Hell’s depths. Even we aren’t immune to it. ”
What the demons didn’t know—and hopefully never would—was that those powers left Indy decades ago. Along with the memories he lost over lifetimes, his supernatural abilities were fading, as well.
Forty years ago, he had wings. Beautiful, golden things that he used to soar. The feather that hung from my rearview mirror was a final remnant of that part of him. His fire had snuffed out much the same way. Flames only came now at the end of his life, a sort of ceremonial blaze that consumed him.
My heart ticked like a stopwatch. Second by second.
“Miss says we’re dangerous, too,” I murmured.
“Aren’t we?” Whitney asked.
Blood misted the air a few dozen feet away, and a shrieking scream rang out after it. I grimaced.
“I don’t smell him anymore,” Whitney said after a pause. “Did you kill him?”
My look of horror served as a resounding denial.
“Still alive then.” Whitney shifted his weight from one leg to the other while pondering. “He would make a nice trophy for Miss. Something pretty she could put in a cage.”
My hound rumbled deep in my gut, a garbled sort of growl that I refused to give voice.
Imagining Indy imprisoned drummed up feelings of panic like I’d never known. He deserved to be free. I’d worked tirelessly to ensure it. It was the purpose I’d given myself—something that mattered more than kotowing to Moira’s whims. To have that taken from me, to see the only thing I’d loved for a century suffer… I couldn’t bear it .
I tugged my sleeve cuff down over my palm, worrying the fabric beneath my fingers.
“She has us for that,” I muttered.
Whitney’s laugh rattled me all the way into my teeth. “She’ll have you for it if you don’t shape up. No more sudden disappearances, lengthy absences…” He fixed me with a narrow look. “Or half-assed combat.”
At least he’d moved on from Indy, enough that I could speak past the lump in my throat. “Thank you for your concern, but it’s not necessary.”
Whitney tilted his head toward me. “You say that…”
I turned away, ready to escape, but I had a stop to make first.