I sat on the dirty carpet, blood pouring between my fingers. Despite the bloody injury to my stomach and the shattered right arm, the pain wasn’t as severe as it should have been. Probably because I was going into shock.

The demon pulled the blade free of the cursed one’s skull and the corpse dropped to the floor.

The demon walked towards me and paused.

“Two down, one to go,” he said as he shifted back into human form. “If you survive, stay out of my way, Ethan.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

The demon shrugged. “Orders.”

He left me alone with Paul’s body, blood seeping underneath my clothes, a dark stain blooming on the surrounding carpet. As long as I stayed still, I was numb. Excruciating pain tore through me if I moved.

I tried to get up, failed. I’d never suffered injuries like this before and didn’t know if my healing abilities could handle them, or if I’d die from blood loss before they had time to kick in. I tried to crawl towards the landline, but as soon as I took pressure off the wound, blood flowed freely.

I felt faint.

I knew I was dying.

This was the end of my story, lying here bleeding out in an ugly little semi-detached house in a small English town, having failed to stop the bad guy from completing his mission.

“Great work, Ethan,” I muttered. “James Bond is handing in his retirement letter, now you’re on the case.”

I was a little delirious. I had one thing going for me, which was that Section 13 was on the way. How long had it been? An hour and twenty minutes? Could I hold on for another ten minutes?

I tried to get up again. Failed again. The pain had given way to a strange warmth, which in my dazed state I thought was quite nice.

Then it occurred to me that the heat wasn’t coming from inside me.

It was being generated from somewhere in the room. I looked around, confused. There was no fire. Had someone turned the radiators on in the meantime? Why would they do that? It didn’t make any sense. Man, it was getting really hot in here. And there was a warm wind blowing.

That didn’t make any sense, either.

I heard a popping sound, like a hundred overloaded lightbulbs burning out at once. White streaks of electricity danced around Paul’s body, rising up from it. Killing him had released a burst of magical power, which crackled and span and grew into a white-hot circle maybe two metres in diameter.

A portal.

I watched it with astonishment. The opaque, white energy circle span and twisted before my eyes. It became translucent, and I glimpsed the world on the other side. A field of gold. A mountain in the background. Trees like broken fingers in front of a rich red skyline. Shadows stalking the land.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

The portal twisted again.

A single paw, roughly the size and shape of a large dog’s stepped through from the other side of the portal to this one. A snout appeared. A snout that I recognised.

“Oh, come on. You have got to be kidding me.”

A demon hound, the same thing that had chased me around school, stepped through the portal and into the living room. The portal sputtered, twisted one last time, and closed behind it, all the energy spent.

The demon hound, now on this side of the portal, sniffed the air.

“Come on,” I half-laughed. “Come on, can I seriously not catch a single break today? Bad enough that I’m bleeding to death here. Now I’m going to get eaten alive as well?”

The demon hound looked at me curiously. Sniffed the air again. Turned to look at the corpse behind it. Nudged it with one paw.

“Easy boy,” I said through the pain. “Easy there...”

The demon hound slobbered a huge tongue over Paul’s face. I couldn’t tell if it was trying to wake him up or figuring out what he tasted like. Maybe both. It sniffed Paul’s body, appeared satisfied he was dead, then turned its attention to me. It ambled towards me, sniffing.

“Okay, fella,” I said. “Let’s see if we can work something out here. How about that?”

The makeshift staff I’d fought with was out of reach and I wasn’t in any shape to stand up, never mind run.

“Hey, let’s, you know, be friends. How does that sound?”

The demon hound stuck its snout on my fingers, which were pressed against my wound.

“Hey, ouch, no, that hurts!”

The demon hound pulled back. Looked me in the eye. Now that one of these things wasn’t chasing me, it was almost cute. Still huge and terrifying, but hey, I’ve seen bulldogs with more malice in their eyes than this thing.

The demon hound nudged my broken hand. I winced in pain.

I think the damn thing wanted me to stroke it.

“Sorry, old boy. No stroking for you, I’m afraid. I broke one hand on a wall and the other one is the only thing keeping me from bleeding to death.”

The demon hound looked at me quizzically as I rambled. Then it opened its mouth and licked the side of my face with its slobbery tongue.

I giggled in semi-disbelief. I was delirious by this point.

“Oh, yeah. That’s what I need to make my life less complicated. A demon hound for a pet. I’m sure Mum will love that, Scooby. Do you mind if I call you Scooby? Not very original, I know, but it’s the best I’ve got right now. And maybe a vampire for a girlfriend? We’d be cute, right?”

I could feel myself slipping away as Scooby stood beside me. He made a purring noise.

“Hey! You can’t purr, you’re a hound, not a cat! Show some dignity...”

Scooby ignored me and purred again. He nuzzled my face. It tickled.

“No self-respect,” I sighed.

My vision was fading, and I knew I was a goner.

At which point the Section 13 squad finally showed up.

Four heavily armed men cleared their way into the living room.

They shot Scooby thirteen times until he was dead as dead can be. I looked up to see four men in the section’s standard black uniform.

“You killed Scooby,” I said indignantly. “That wasn’t very nice!”

“The kid needs medical attention, stat,” one soldier said. I vaguely recognised him. The squad leader who’d put me in a cage and driven me to their base.

One man checked Paul’s body for a pulse.

“He’s dead,” I said, unnecessarily. “Do you think I could have a milkshake?”

Before you ask, I have no idea what that last sentence was about. I’d lost a lot of blood by then and was babbling. I’m really glad I didn’t die, though, because as last words go, ‘Do you think I could have a milkshake?’ is hardly up there with the best of them. How would Mum have reacted if it had got back to her? She’d have spent the rest of her life wondering if she hadn’t given me enough milkshakes when I was alive, and whether I’d secretly resented her for it. (No, really, she would have done. That was the kind of stuff that Mum worried about.)

The last thing I heard as I lost consciousness was; “We need to get him to a hospital right now.”

Then I passed out.

So, yeah, like I said sometime earlier:

That was one truly messed up Sunday.