The Arrival of Doom

Sulfur and coal, smoke and ash. Natural, powerful old magic.

“Shit.”

A long, wet dog tongue licked my face. And I could feel her. Hear her, the dark furred shadowy animal. There were five of them. I knew it without looking. Five.

We should be six. They all said it as one. Words but not words. A pack that was missing a piece of themselves. The one licking me was the lead, the alpha of her pack. One. She poured out sensations on me as she greeted me doggy fashion with a pink tongue in the face. Over my eyes. Up my nose.

Gross.

Oh, this was a heap of trouble and shit. They caused the tingle in my feet. And that cold, hard ice-shard in my chest transformed into pleased satisfaction at the sight of doom dogs. A quiet, hissing yes of agreement with the hound, One, took place inside my head. Against my will. Was this really happening?

My body relaxed as the dogs circled around me, their feet padding soft on the wet stone cobbles of the alley between town buildings. I should be running. Screaming. Stopping this.

This was the worst possible thing. Magic. Fucking magic dogs.

In my heart of hearts, my most undeniable center, I recognized them. They pressed in around me, big hunters with fur darker than the night, as friendly and happy to see me as a litter of little fluffy puppies.

I’d never had pets. The only dogs I knew barked at me as I walked by and belonged to someone else. Who can afford pets especially ones made of pure magic? But these were not typical pets. I knew exactly what they were from my mother’s book. Hounds. Shadow hounds. Doom hounds. Hel hounds. They were said to be the guardians of the shadow ancient and considered deadly. People didn’t get licked in the face by doom hounds. Their very presence was supposed to make a human rethink his reason for living.

I’m human. I’m a null. I have to be a null and afraid of these horrifying nightmare shadows, but instead my arms went around the neck of the dog licking me and I pressed my face into her fur, taking in her warm brimstone and fir tree scent and wiping off her canine spittle from my cheeks.

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We’d never met. Yet they knew me. And I knew them. All of them. Instantly. They were mine and I was theirs-a dangerously insane connection happening before I could stop it.

The door was still open from the kitchen. I felt Jaks’s shadow. He made a noise behind me. If a bull ever came to the edge of a cliff and accidently jumped off it during a rampage, that sound might match the horrified baritone squawk that came out of Jak’s chest. “What have you done, Anika?”

That was the first time he’d ever used my name. I didn’t know he knew it. The man didn’t stick around to answer the question. The door slammed shut and the puzzle lock snicked shut behind me.

The alley between Jak’s place and the butcher shop was not an area I considered safe. On busy nights, drunks who passed out in the pub or ran out of money congregated here. Outside of the pub, they had no reason to pretend to be decent people, and with the ale stripping away all their common sense, they forgot how. I never ventured out here except to toss the scraps in the heap at the end of the alley.

Along with the hounds there were three elegant duo’s – two-wheeled machines made of metal, leather and wood. Powered by magic. I didn’t see any people outside with us, but someone parked those machines here. Gossip about the bounty hunter had been floating through the markets and pub of Little Indio since his first sighting. He was the only one around with duo’s like that. No one had ever mentioned hunting dogs with him. I could guess why, but my head didn’t want to do any of these conclusions.

“I got to go.” My hands pushed One away. She was wearing a collar of made of metal and magic enticingly warm against my fingers. A witch powered mage-crafted thing that I wanted nothing to do with.

A long-legged pony sized animal, One was not a lightweight. I pushed, she pushed back, as if to crawl inside my chest. The others did the same. Doggy licks on every bit of exposed skin they could find, crowding me so that I couldn’t get my balance to stand up. Their actions matched the feeling words that shaped in my head.

Stay. Pack.

They spoke to me, and I understood them.

I wanted to panic. Needed to panic. Where in the depths was my panic? All my feelings were the opposite of what they should be. How could I panic when the doom hounds felt like home-familiar to me the way my favorite blanket was familiar. Every natural impulse told me to lay down and let them crawl all over me, roll around in a pile of happy puppy laughter and welcome them.

“Can’t. I can’t do this. Don’t you see? I can’t be this.” I moaned the words to remind myself how stupid this was.

It didn’t work. They were beautiful. Incredible. And inexplicably mine. I felt fur and wet tongue as they shifted through shadows, going from corporeal to misty darkness and back again.. One had red, burning eyes, with inner blue flames. They other four were just as unique yet, matching. Pack. They told me their names but it was unnecessary. I knew all of them all ready.

And I had to go.