Hellhounds of Bywater
“You’re talking about the rugaru,” I bitch. “We already did that.”
“No,” the goddess shakes her read head, “I’m talking about dogman. Dog. Man. Cynocephaly? Upright-walking canines? A man with the head of a dog, Marion! It’s right there in the name.”
Right, right. Dogman. It’s all Brigit wants to talk about, even though this is her first time visiting the compound. We’ve been renovating for months and she’s pretending not to notice. Stone cold, Brigit. Stone cold.
“Are you gonna take this seriously?” she frowns, an expression at odds with the smoky curl of her eyeliner. “Because I’m not gonna waste my time telling this story if you’re not taking it seriously.”
“This is my taking it seriously face,” I tell her, pointing to my sunken cheeks and scarred, puckered lips.
Brigit winces theatrically. “I’d hate to see your bitch face! Was that mean? I can be mean.”
“You sure can,” I agree.
“No, I mean I’m allowed. It’s a thing I’m allowed to do, Marion Adelide Barbarouss, so sit the unholy fuck down and listen the hell up.”
When a Loa addresses you in the manner of an angry, Catholic nun… I pick a chair near the front door and let her take center stage. I don’t need to get cursed today. It’s still morning outside my big, circular window and the rooftops of Treme still glow with an amber hue, complimenting Brigit’s hair. She probably planned it this way.
“They were out celebrating one of life’s little holidays, maybe a new job or an old friend. Maybe it was just another Thursday, I’m not here to judge. They’d gone to their favorite dive down in Bywater, sat outside and gotten shitfaced on two-for-one cocktails. They were young, their livers still more vital than their brains.
When they’d had their fill, poor Beau paid their tab. He was always doing stuff like that, because he had a debilitating crush on Bella and because he was just a generous, stand-up kinda dude.” I snort my amusement in an unladylike manner. “That funny to you?” she demands, indignant.
“I just didn’t think ‘dude’ was in your vocabulary.”
“I think you’ll find there’s precious little beyond my vocabulary, Marion.”
“There’s precious little beyond your anything, Brigit. Carry on.”
“Well, Bella didn’t give Beau the time of day, but they had a friend in common, a shy young woman named Paisley. To be honest, I don’t under her relationship with Bella. That girl’s a right piece of work, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
“So, Beau paid the tab and they started walking home, east through St. Claude. Most of that neighborhood is still abandoned, a real ghost ‘burb. Their footfalls echoed through the night like raindrops on water.
“Paisley was the first to see it: a man crouched on a rooftop just ahead of them, unmoving. He was a hulking thing, broad shoulders piled high with muscle, but there was something off about his proportions. He seemed both too large and too thin at the same time, lean but powerful. His ears were triangular and sat too high on his head. Paisley thought they were an optical illusion until one of them twitched as if shooing away a fly.
Suddenly wishing to be anywhere but here, she urged her friends to hurry past, but they only weaved and laughed… until they, too, saw the thing. Up ahead of them, this time, not where Paisley had seen it. Now it perched upon a brick chimney down the street, staring directly at them. ‘Holy shit, it’s fast,’ Paisley thought — “
“No, it wasn’t,” I interject at serious risk to my health and safety. “There was more than one of them on different roofs. The first one hid before the second revealed himself. Bush league.”
She punches me with her pouty lips. “Don’t get ahead of the story, Marion! Nobody likes a spoiler. As I was saying, her friends spotted one on a chimney up ahead and nobody liked the looks of it, so they agreed without discussion to back up and take another route.
“Unfortunately, and this is the part you ruined with your smart mouth, the next block over was already full of them! On every gable, every dormer, every hip and valley there stood a dog-headed man, watching them intently, hungrily. Tossing stones up and down in their big, clawed hands.
“Before they could turn and flee, Beau was lying on the ground, blood gushing from a head wound! Paisley tried to apply pressure — she’d seen that on TV — but she only succeeded in coating her hands and clothes in crimson. ‘Help!’ she screamed, but there was no one to hear her, not even Bella.
“The taller girl looked down at her, as if from orbit, until a thought slowly worked its way out of her petrified brain. ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear,’ she uttered before tearing off back the way they’d come.”
“That’s cold-blooded,” I shake my head solemnly.
“I know! A real piece of work, am I right?! Paisley’s gotta get better friends.”
My ears perk up. “So she survives.”
“Damnit, Marion. Shut up. Anyway, Paisley tried to help Beau to his feet, but neither the cocktails nor the concussion were having it. He dragged them both to the pavement before they’d gotten two steps and now the rocks were falling like hail. The dogmen barked and howled, only adding to the cacophony until there wasn’t room for anything else in Paisley’s panicked mind. Shamefully, by her own admission, she released her grip on Beau and let him slump to the unyielding ground.
“She ran, just like Bella, and she did not return home for days.” Brigit tugs on her skirts and does a demur courtesy in lieu of taking a bow. I wonder how much of that was true. “In the meantime, she prayed to me. I’m her favorite Loa.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” I wink. “You’re my favorite, too.”
“I’d better be! I paid for most of this,” she waves her hand around the community room, finally acknowledging all I’ve done with the place.
“So you did notice!” I crow, leaping from my chair.
“Nothing escapes these emerald eyes, Marion. She begged me to get rid of the dogmen and maybe, if there’s time, find some justice for poor Beau.”
“And you’re subcontracting this prayer out to me,” I guess.
He puts her hands on the piles of black cloth on her hips. “I surely do! What else are you good for?”
“I make a mean jambalaya.”
“You do, at that. Got any in the fridge?”
I shake my had sadly. Last night was blackened shrimp on dirty rice and the leftovers are all mine.
“Well, I’ll give you this all the same.” She conjures a silk bundle from some hidden recess of her bustle and unwraps it, revealing a leather pouch. It smells witchy. She’s careful not to touch it, because touching someone else’s gris-gris grounds out its magic.
I pick it up with all due reverence. Loa hoodoo is serious shit. “You think this job is that dangerous?”
She shrugs. “I think life is that dangerous.”
The swamp invades Bywater from above and below. Weepy, tropical leaves hang over walls and fences, reaching for the sidewalk. Shoots of green burst through every crack and crevice. Unseen roots scatter brick and cobblestone before their slow-motion advance. Katrina signed her name in the striated stains of flood damage on every wall, indelible even after half a decade. Feels like a lifetime.
At least it’s life. The neighborhood is so silent, I can hear my hair growing. Even in broad daylight, it’s undeniably eerie. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but that’s just the game. You gotta get out there, maximize the odds that something lucky will happen, else nothing will happen at all. And if I get unlucky… well, that’s what my magic shotgun is for. It hangs under my arm on a strap, hidden as discreetly beneath my jacket as sawed-off double-barrel can be.
I spot conspicuous gashes on fences, porches, doors, even rooftops. One place in particular is covered with them, an abandoned two story with a hole in its roof. Quite a few prints in its muddy backyard, both animal and human. Curiously, most of the human ones are barefoot. I trace the lines of traffic and conclude that someone’s been climbing up the back porch to reach that hole, get into the attic. I resolve to do the same, see what all the fuss is about.
I hop over the fence and take a run up to the porch railing, kick off it and leap up to the eave. When did I get so heavy?! I have been eating pretty well since becoming a cult leader. The Survivors are quality cooks, practiced in French, Spanish, and Creole cuisine. And I haven’t been chasing down nearly as many stoolies as I used to. Anyway, hauling myself up onto the roof is an exercise in humility, but I make it.
The wall run up the second story goes a little smoother and soon I’m peering down into a dank attic. There’s a sad nest inside, made from tarps and blankets. Old, waterlogged magazines are strewn about, along with a deck of lewd playing cards. No food wrappers or discarded cans, but more dead pets than you usually see in an attic. Is that a racoon? What kinda shit are you into, squatter?
I lower myself down and the stench suddenly clutches by stomach like the devil’s crab cracker. Cutting short my inspection, I hurry down a narrow set of stairs and into someone’s bedroom. Recently several someones’ bedroom, as I find three more makeshift nests. Mercifully fewer carcasses. There’s a brush on the nightstand that’s choked with stringy, white hair.
No sign of a young man with a head wound, though.
I find the bottom of the next staircase barricaded with plywood, the kind that covers most of the windows around here. I put my shoulder into, then by big ol’ boot a few times, then my shoulder again and the planks burst free on one side. I force my way through, mindful of the exposed nails and the date of my last Tetanus booster, when I almost get shot in the face.
The plank next to be head explodes into kindling. I duck reflexively, wondering how I’m not dead or dying, and just miss a second shot that appears to erupt from a blank wall at the end of the hall. Brigit’s gris-gris may have already saved my life.
I scramble back up the steps and take cover, ramming two shells into my shotgun: one black and one red. I peek around the corner just in time to witness a middle-aged woman in a knit sweater burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man on a meth bender! I decide to use the Unlucky shot and, aiming blindly down the hall, I send a spray of grave dirt to rewrite her fate, if only for a few minutes.
Thoroughly cursed, my enemy struggles with her gun, which suddenly jams. I walk calmly down the hall and pluck it from her ill-fated fingers. To her credit, she takes a swing at me. Would’ve been a solid right hook, if she hadn’t lost her footing on the wall debris. I push her with one finger and she tumbles backwards into her little deer blind.
Or maybe it’s more like a panic room. Boxes of dry goods line the walls, mostly trail mix and beef jerky. No accounting for taste. Bottles of a suspiciously yellow liquid huddle in one corner. How long as she been in here?! “You really commit to an ambush,” I kinda compliment my would-be murderer while she picks herself up. “Nearly erased by face, too, and you would’ve had a pretty solid stand-your-ground defense.”
“Who the hell are you?!” she very reasonably demands.
“I wear a lot of hats,” I respond, tipping my wide-brimmed, red fedora, “but today I’m the neighborhood watch. My name’s Marion. You having some trouble with squatters?”
“I’m Olive and that’s what I thought, too,” she sighs, sitting down in a folding chair and opening a bag of jerky. “Wanna hear about it?”
I look up and down the hall, but there are no chairs for guests, so I lean against what remains of her closet door. “I surely do.”
“Well, I shoulda run. Any sane person would have, but the last time I ran away from this house… I never saw my husband again. His name was Jaxson. We bought this place with his inheritance, wanted to retire early. That was his dream. Anyway, I evacuated ahead of Katrina, but he stayed behind to protect the house. I still have no idea what happened to him. I kinda hope he drowned. Better that than get eaten by these… things.
“I only returned recently. Hell, I guess it was just over a week ago. Feels like so much longer. The first night, I was sleeping in the office. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in our bedroom, even before I saw what they’d done up there. Around three in the morning, I was woken up by all this ruckus: people running around outside, banging on the walls, stomping on the floor above, hooting and hollering. Sounded like it came from everywhere.
“I assumed they were just asshole teenagers and went outside with my shotgun to scare them off, but I swear to you, they thought it was funny. I couldn’t see them, but I heard them laughing.
“Like I said, I shoulda run all the way back to Alabama — that’s were my mama lives — but I couldn’t. Still can’t. Instead, I busted out some of Jaxon’s looter discouragement devices… bear traps,” she admits sheepishly. “I also barricaded the upstairs, though I guess not very well, and made a dummy out of barbed wire. I’m an artist. I laid it on my mattress and waited in a dark corner of the dining room, shottie in my lap, high on adrenaline and trucker pills.
“When it finally happened, it was so much worse than I’d imagined. Instead of the previous night’s riot, a single intruder crept up to my window and peaked inside. All I could see was a silhouette, but I could tell their head was all wrong. They had enormous, hooded ears and an elongated jaw, far too long for any human being. It was a muzzle, Marion, not a mouth, and it was full of these awful needle teeth.
“It placed its claws on the sill, silent as the night breeze, and started to crawl its way inside. My mind so rebelled against what was happening, I felt like I’d left my body, like I was watching this terrible thing happen to someone else. I couldn’t feel my hands around the barrel or my finger on the trigger. This other me just sat there and watched as a monster — a real live monster, Marion! — invaded my home and lowered itself over my bed.
“It didn’t fall for my decoy, either. How was I supposed to know it could smell me?! I snapped out of my stupor just as it looked up, found me, and snarled. It was crouched low, ready to pounce. I didn’t even aim, just pulled the trigger. There’s no way I coulda missed at that range. No way! But all I did was obliterate the back wall. I racked another round and fired again, but it ran off through the house and out my front door. Maybe I hurt it a little, but I definitely didn’t kill it.
“That was the last I’ve seen of them, but I haven’t slept more than a few minutes since, not all in a row. Been hiding in this closet, waiting for them to retaliate, praying to the Lord Almighty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I didn’t kill you just now, but if you’d been one of them… I’d be dead. Maybe I’m in over my head, just waiting to drown.”
I listen to her story, but I can’t say I believe it. Grieving and sleep deprived, recalling a few moments in a dark room, there’s no telling how much of it actually happened. I’d have to find out for myself. More importantly, Olive’s prayer needs answering and apparently I’m in the business.
“You’re luckier than you know, Olive. I think your monsters mights be connected to a missing person I’m investigating. I know how much this place means to you, but will you let me put you up in a hotel for a few nights? I’d like to set a trap of my own.” She has to think about it. “It’s just a house, Olive. You carry your husband with you.”
“Every damned where I go,” she agrees. “You sure you don’t want some help? These things are dangerous, Marion. You don’t have to believe me — I wouldn’t believe me! — but everyone needs someone to watch their back.”
“Thank you, Olive, but what I have in mind will work best with as few people as possible.” I don’t add that I’m protected by a top shelf gris-gris and all she’s got is Jesus. “Would you mind if I borrowed you barbed wire dummy?”
You know, I don’t think I believe in dog-headed men. Rugaru, sure. Werewolves, maybe. Sexy, cat-eared men… I certainly hope so, but there can’t really be people running around with dog heads on their shoulders twenty-four seven, can there? Not even in this town.
And yet, here I am, lying under a tarp on a ruined rooftop in the middle of the night, watching a dummy watch Olive’s backyard. I gave it the prime position, and also Olive’s shotgun, to complete the illusion. I can’t see much from here, but if anyone — or anything — makes a move on this decoy, I’ll get a real good look. And also a little blood.
When it comes to monsters, it pays to know how they bleed. Lake monsters, of example, bleed green foam. The undead, like my Survivors, don’t bleed at all. This sort of knowledge has saved my ass before and tonight I mean to keep the streak alive. I have a short blade tried to a rope, which is looped around my arm. If anything comes sniffing about, I’ll give it a little nick and see what we see. Right after I give it a Hotfoot, of course, so it leaves Olive alone. Serve and protect.
Fuck a duck, it’s cold up here. Folks don’t associate the South with cold weather, but we ain’t the tropics. It’s probably forty-five degrees right now, feels worse with the windchill. Makes me long for the cozy confines of my cult compound. Sure, it’s full of reanimated pirates, but —
There’s something in the yard. It circles around the perimeter, so tall and thin you’d think it was a shadow cast by a telephone pole. It gets down on all fours before darting behind an overgrown garden bed and disappearing into the side yard. It’s trying to flank the dummy. I’m beginning to doubt the drunken teen hypothesis.
I wait for it to spring my trap… any second now… what’s taking so long?!
The silence grows heavy. The night sky feels like an ocean crushing down on me. I resist the urge to get up and look over the side. I can be patient. I’m the hunter, here.
I’m the hunter. That’s exactly what I’m thinking when a pair of fish hook hands clamp down on my ankles and drag me off the roof! The tarp whips around me like bat wings, but does nothing to slow my fall. I tear the gutter off the eave and bounce off a bay window on the ground floor before landing in the soft earth of Olive’s side yard.
The sudden stop presses my brain against my skull. Tiny lights explode across my vision. Where’s my magic shotgun?! I grope blindly, but find only the rope dart, still tangled around my arm. I kick the air, hoping to keep my assailant at bay, but something presses down on my legs, then my arms, like six feet of grave dirt.
I feel wet, hot breath against my face and, as the stars fade from my sight, I finally learn the terrible truth. Bristling, black fur over a long muzzle, snarling with too many teeth. Blazing, orange eyes. Triangular ears tilted toward me like devil horns. It smells like an exhumation.
I wait to feel its maw on my throat, but the death blow never comes. It’s getting its first look at my face. Its ears fold back against its head and its growl squelches into a sad whimper.
It leaps off me and hauls finely toned ass down the side of the house. I lurch to my feet, inner ear rebelling, but it’s an easy shot. I throw my little dagger and catch it in the shoulder. Olive was right, this thing is absolutely jacked. Muscles on its muscles. It yelps and tears the dagger loose before vaulting over Olive’s fence like it wasn’t even there.
I sit back down, my world spinning, and reel in the rope dart.
There’s not a drop of blood on it.
I kick in the door to my own compound. It’s far from necessary, and I’ll have to fix it later, but I want these lying sycophants to know I’m serious. Also, it’s just my favorite way to make an entrance. “Bagman!” I bark at the gaggle of Survivors lounging around the front parlor. “Where is he?!” The sycophants all point toward the kitchen.
Bagman’s in there, alright, sitting on the center island and sucking down a bag of blood. He’s short and plump with a ruddy complexion, at least when he’s been drinking. Navy blue suspenders hold up a pair of baggy, wriggling pants. There’s no polite way to say this, but Bagman is all tentacles from the waist down. That’s not a gross euphemism. Literal tentacles.
Most Survivors look as they did in life, but some have been deliberately hybridized with animals so that they can never again walk amongst the living. Bagman used to cook the books for the pirate John Laffite, but he got greedy and dared skim a little off the top. Laffite’s punishment was turning him into a Lovecraftian horror. He was prone to overreaction.
“Bagman!” I bark again. He points innocently at himself. “You were supposed to get me a comprehensive list of Survivors. Every last one.”
“Well, we all worked on that list, capitaine,” he deflects after squeezing the last out of his beverage. “And it was complete, as requested.”
“Then why is Bywater lousy with dog-headed Survivors?”
“Oh, them,” he demurs. “They hardly count.”
“You’re an accountant!” I retort, incredulous.
“Yes, and I know what not to count… Your Grace.” Apparently, my death’s head stare is not the response he expected. “Mon Deus! They tried to mutiny against Laffite, so he marked and exiled them. By the time you, how shall we say… assumed management, they were no longer part of the community. I am surprised they are still here.”
“Well, they are,” I inform him, then get myself a beer from the fridge. They’re right next to the blood bags. “One of them got shot harassing a widow, so they kidnapped a young man for his blood. Oh, and one of them tried to kill me.”
“Laffite called them dogs and he was right,” Bagman shrugs, unconcerned with my attempted murder. “You should put them down like dogs.”
I stare pointedly at Bagman’s tentacle feet, peeking out below the cuffs of his pants. “I expected more compassion from you, all things considered.”
“Compassion for mutineers?!” he scoffs. “Please. Laffite mixed this creature with my remains so I’d never run off with his money. I took my punishment like a man and they are taking theirs. All is right with the world.”
Unbelievable. “I can always count on you nineteenth century types for a fresh take on morality, but here’s how we’re gonna play it: You’re gonna get me a quart of clean blood, I’m gonna show these exiles a better way, and then we’re all gonna welcome them back into the fold.”
Definitely would’ve gotten the grossest spit take ever, if Bagman hadn’t already finished his blood. He chokes on his indignation. “We do not have a limitless supply, Marion. We should not waste it on mongrels.”
“You just drank one for fun!”
“Non! I had injuries to heal. From a, um… hate crime?”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I roll my eyes.
“It’s the emotional scars that — “
“Get the blood together. Now. I’m heading back out in the morning.” After I take some aspirin.
And booze.
There are only so many places in Bywater where a pack of undead, dog-headed mutineers might go to ground. I make myself a list and hit the streets with a cooler full of blood bags. Just another day in Nola. Should’ve gotten beignets.
It’s a glorious afternoon. People are out riding their bikes along the river, watching their kids in the park, giving me strange looks on account of the read leather jacket and the scars from where I had my mouth sewn shut that one time. I almost don’t want to find the monster lair.
But then I do, right where I knew it’d be: the abandoned naval base. Like so much of this city, nobody even tried to rescue it after Katrina. Three massive warehouses plus office space and a parking ramp, all connected by dilapidated skyways. Layers of graffiti, like tree rings, tell it’s stories: refugees seeking shelter, criminals lying low, kids blowing off steam, and now reanimated pirates on the lam.
Getting inside isn’t a problem; the place has been broken into countless times already. And I’m not trying to be stealthy. This is the dogmen’s turf and I’m the interloper, so I let the door creak like an old rocking chair. Besides, there’s no stopping my footfalls from echoing through this wet, cavernous void. The space is empty wall-to-wall, except for loose wires and tubing that hanging down like spilled viscera.
Light filters in here and there, but it conceals more than it reveals. The contrast is a rusty fork in my eyes. I take my time, searching for barefoot prints, claw marks, or suspicious hair, but the only sign I find is a smear of blood near the stairs. They may have dragged Beau through here.
Or it’s a trap.
I proceed anyway. The second floor is as empty as the first, but I still feel watched. Thousands of soldiers shipped out from this base during the last century, off to die on foreign soil. I imagine their souls passing through, trying to return home. For a moment, I even hear them marching.
No, wait… that’s the dogmen. Their nonstop howling gives them away as their slow march becomes a wild charge up the stairs behind me. Definitely a trap. I clear this floor in a rush, set on finding Beau before I face his abductors. The pandemonium of their pursuit reaches into my brain and unlocks a primal terror. My heart beats like a Taiko drum and my breath comes in short, ragged gulps. My shotgun’s out before I even think about it.
This is not going the way I’d planned. Gotta deescalate. I focus on what’s in front of me: rows of ramshackle offices and storage rooms, a brilliant rectangle of light where the building connects with the parking garage, the unmistakable odor of actual human shit —
Beau is up here somewhere! I let my firearm swing back under my jacket and tighten my grip on the cooler. Mission of peace, Marion. Humanitarian mission of goddamned peace.
I find the boy tied to a bathroom stall, ashen and unconscious, but alive. They’ve been bleeding him, as expected. Medical refuse is strewn about: needles, bandages, antibiotics. Orange peels are piled in a sink. They’ve been feeding him orange slices like the world’s worst Red Cross pop-up blood drive! I could hoist him into a fireman’s carry, try to find a way out past the pack, but that sounds doomed even as I think it. Better stick to the plan, make peace with these monsters, then worry about getting Beau some proper medical attention.
Out in the hallway, I wait for the mob to surge forth, but they’re too smart for that. They’ve melted into the shadows, become one with the derelict. I can hear them breathing, smell their stench, but they know every squamous square inch of this place. They’re two steps ahead of me.
“I have a peace offering,” I announce to the aether. My voice ricochets around the concrete walls like a warning shot. Slowly, I set down the cooler and pop it open, but that’s when they spring their trap.
The black-furred, orange-eyed dogman from last night stands framed in the door to the parking ramp. Against the stark daylight, he looks like empty space cut from a sheet of paper. His shoulders span the considerable gap. His legs are like tree trunks, gnarled with muscle. They bend in both directions, once at the knee and then again at the ankle. He stands on his clawed toes, then crouches down just slightly, compressing like a spring. He doesn’t want to kill me, not yet, but he damn well wants me to know that he could.
The others have already surrounded me. I know it. This is just a momentary distraction. I should finish opening the cooler, bet on their good will, but I don’t. I can’t. That’s not the part of my brain that’s in control.
I turn on my heel and rush the Doberman. I’ll have a better chance one-on-one than when they all close in for the kill. My nemesis responds in kind, covering the distance between us much faster than I’d like, but not faster than my shotgun. A blast of Unlucky shot hits him a heartbeat before I do and we tumble together across the floor.
The dogman can’t lay a claw on me, not with the curse I just laid on him. I pin him against the concrete and scream, “I don’t wanna fight you!” Mixed signals, I know. “I came to help!” He snaps at my face with those gnashing, dagger teeth.
Fuck it. I punch him in the snout. “Sorry! Sorry…” The other dogmen are out of hiding and flowing toward us like a flood. I gotta get to a more defensible position, so I roll to the side and shoot him with my other barrel. That’s his second Hotfoot in twenty four hours. He crawls away from me, seeking shelter in the mob.
I don’t feel good about that victory, but I don’t have time to feel much of anything about it, because another dogman leaps on me as I’m trying to reload. It’s the one with the big, hooded ears — the one Olive shot — looking pretty healthy with all of Beau’s blood in him. He barrels me over and gets his paws on my ammunition. Shit! Two shits on a single! I feel their magic ground out; they might as well be rounds of rock salt.
We roll out onto the bridge that connects the warehouse to the parking ramp. Daylight slaps me hard in the face. Fighting blind, I decide to put my knee in the one place the sun ain’t shining. He howls above me, showing his needle teeth before sinking them into my left arm. The pain is like a wildfire, spreading up my arm and consuming my every thought.
One of its big, black eyes is right up against mine. It looks as terrified as I feel. “I’m Marion Barbarouss! You know my name! I killed the pirate John Laffite and I came to make peace with you!” The hulking Chihuahua’s expression doesn’t change. He just keeps tearing at my arm, pressing me down with his weight. Any second, I’m going to feel those claws under my ribs or rending my femoral artery. “I brought you blood! In the cooler!”
“Laissez-la partir!” a new voice squeaks from inside the warehouse. My attacker lets go, backs off. I can feel blood welling inside my sleeve, warm and sticky. I cradle my arm like an infant.
The pack parts to allow a woman through. She has the white, fly-away hair of a Chinese Crested and claws the size of hedge clippers. “He does not understand English,” she explains in a thick, French accent. “Please forgive him.”
“I didn’t come here to fight,” I reiterate, though forgiveness seems like a far distant shore.
“We know that now,” she courtesies. “And yes, we know who you are. You’re Death for the Undead. We’d like to accept your offer.”
“Oh. My. God. You answered my prayers!” I’m showing Olive around her new living room and she cannot stop gushing. “And the fireplace! Does it actually work?”
“There’s fresh wood stacked on the back porch,” I inform her with pride. Mostly vicarious pride, but I supervised the project. It’s been just over a month and the place is transformed. Even the roof has been repaired. “Wait until you see the kitchen,” I beam.
As she skips off around the corner, I notice a clump of white, stringy dog hair on her new couch. How many times did I tell that Chinese Crested to wear a hairnet?! I flip the cushion over and, thankfully, the other side is immaculate. I hope Olive doesn’t have a heart attack next time she’s vacuuming.
“Putting me up in that nice hotel, getting rid of those damned teenagers, and now this!” Olive continues to squee. She’d changed her mind about dog-headed home invaders about a week ago.
“It was my pleasure,” I assure her. “Not all my jobs get a happy ending.” As she’s running her hand along the tile backsplash, I spot claw marks on the door jam next to the fridge. “And my clients have deep pockets.” I wait until she’s got her head in a cabinet before hip checking the fridge to conceal the evidence. Olive looks up with a start. “It was making a noise,” I lie.
Unbelievable! There’s a canine nose print on the window right behind her. “Check out this ice maker while I fetch some firewood.” She hops up and down, clapping her hands. That should keep her distracted for a minute. I sprint through the back door and smear the nose print with my sleeve. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to not look like the place was refurbished by a pack of upright walking canines.
I gather up a few pieces of wood and hurry back inside. Really should’ve done a final walkthrough before bringing Olive in here. We’d been so careful to keep her away during construction.
“You’re a saint. A real, live, honest to God saint, Marion.” She meets me at the door, apparently unwilling to let me go even a minute without praise. “I’m gonna light a candle for you, more than one. Do you have a favorite votive or — “
“Oh, please,” I interrupt, piling the wood next to the fireplace. “I can’t stand being venerated.” I’d had more than enough of that with the cult.
Olive’s face scrunches up like a prune. “Get over yourself, girl! It’s only a candle and there are, like, ten thousand saints. You ain’t nothing special.”
I chuckle, relieved to be taken down a peg, but then she gets all serious on me. “Did you ever find that missing person?”
“I did, actually. They sent him home from the hospital last Tuesday.”
“What happened to him?” I can tell she doesn’t want to know the answer, not down in her bones, so I choose my words carefully.
“He lost a lot of blood, but he’s making a full recovery. Doesn’t seem to remember much of anything about what happened.”
Olive crosses herself. “Ain’t that a blessing.”
Distantly, I hear the sounds of those thunderous footfalls chasing me up the stairs, the inhuman voices barking and baying. I feel those claws on my ankles, that breath on my face, the searing pain in my arm.
And suddenly I remember… they’re waiting for me at home.
“Yeah, Olive. It’s a blessing.”
To find out how Marion became a cult leader, and a whole bunch of other lunacy, check out season one of This Rising Tide…
