Must Love Hellhounds

I turned and saw Cerberus crouching in the ravine behind us. He stood there absolutely still, the three pairs of his eyes fixed on us with baleful fury.

I turned very slowly to Raphael.

“Did you like the thing?” he asked with quiet desperation.

“Yes. It was funny.”

He grinned, his face made unbearably handsome by the flash of his smile.

With a deafening growl, Cerberus charged us. Fur sheathed the monstrous bloom of Raphael’s jaws. I flipped on my back.

Cerberus’s center head dove at me, his black maw gaping, ready to swallow me whole.

I fired.

The first shot punched the back of the dog’s mouth. It yelped and I sank two more in the same spot. Flesh exploded and I saw sky through the hole where the back of the beast’s throat used to be. The head drooped down. I rolled clear just as an enormous paw clawed the spot where I had dropped. The smallest claw grazed my side and leg, ripping the clothes in a hot flash of pain.

I leapt to my feet. The left head dove for me and missed as Raphael launched himself into the air, slicing Cerberus’s nose with his claws. Cerberus jerked back and Raphael clutched on to his muzzle. The dog shook, but Raphael clung to it, flinging bloody chunks of dog flesh to the ground.

I backed up, reloading. Raphael carved huge clumps out of Cerberus’s muzzle in a frenzied whirl of fur and claws. Blood spurted in dark streams.

The right head snapped at him, great fangs clamping together like a bear trap. Raphael hooked his claws into the dog’s nose, dropped out of the way, swung his legs like a gymnast on a pommel horse, and smashed his clawed feet into Cerberus’s right head.

I snapped the Weatherby up, anticipating Cerberus’s recoil.

The huge head swung back, as if in slow motion, the ruby eye clear and bright.

Steady. Aim.

An ancient tie stretched between Cerberus and me, vibrating like a live wire. The bond between the hunter and her prey.

The head reared higher and higher.

I have time.

I fired.

Blood burst from the back of Cerberus’s head. The head jerked straight up, its nose pointing to the sky. Fire leaked from its ruined orbit. The flames surged, engulfing the head. As it crashed down, bouncing once on the hard dirt, Raphael leapt to the ground. Behind him the last head shuddered and fell, catching the flames. Raphael straightened, a dark demonic figure silhouetted against the orange fire, his eyes two points of red light.

If I weren’t a trained professional, I’d have fainted from the sheer overload of his badassness.

I pointed my rifle straight up, resting the butt against my hip, and put on my Order face. Move along, nothing to see here, I do this every day. I thought of blowing imaginary smoke from the rifle barrel, but the Weatherby was long and I’m barely five feet four, so I’d look pretty stupid.

Raphael strode to me. His voice was a ragged growl torn to tatters by his fangs. “Are you alright?”

I nodded. “A bit scratched up. Nothing major.”

We walked away, slowly, trying to maintain our coolness. A greasy stench of charred flesh tainted the air currents.

“That was a hell of a shot,” Raphael said.

“Thank you. That was a stunning display of hand-to-hand.”

We killed a damn Cerberus. Kate would turn green with envy.

Then the magic wave drowned us, and we paused in unison as it penetrated our bodies, awakening the inner beasts.

A bright blue glow surged from the ground. It flashed and vanished-the ward, a strong magic barrier, going active. Approaching the house during magic would be problematic. We’d have to somehow break through the ward.

A ghostly white light ignited in the wall right in front of us. It struggled free of the house and approached us, moving in sharp jerks. Its fuzzy radiance halted just before reaching the boundary of the ward and solidified into a translucent older man with kind eyes and pale hair.

I jumped back and snapped my gun up on reflex. Not that it would do anything with magic up.

A grimace strained the ghost’s face, as if he were pulling a great weight. “Raphael,” he gasped. “Not safe…”

A spark of magic snapped from the house. It clutched the ghost and jerked him back into the wall. Raphael lunged at the ward. The defensive spell flashed with blue, twisting a snarl of pain from his lips. I grabbed him and pulled him back.

“Is that Doulos? Your mother’s mate?”

He nodded, fury boiling in his eyes. “We must get him out!”

An odd sucking sound rolled behind us. I looked over my shoulder. Inside the ball of flames, Cerberus’s skeleton rose upright. The fire flared once more and vanished, snuffed out like a candle. Flesh spiraled up the colossal bones. Oh shit.

“Run!” Raphael snarled. We dashed down the ravine.

We were halfway to the wall when the first growl announced the hellhound giving chase.

“And you’re sure Doulos was dead?” I drove like a maniac through Atlanta ’s troubled streets. Next to me Raphael licked a burn on his arm.

“He was embalmed. Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Then what was that?”

“I don’t know. A shade? A soul on its way to Hades?”