Chapter 4 #3
After another moment, Argos walked over to the first Giles, who’d accused Wolf Giles of being a wraith. But about a foot away, he stopped moving.
“What is this?” Wolf Giles snarled at me.
“This is a daemon,” I told him as, in an instant, Argos was as big as a male grizzly bear, now in possession of blazing red eyes and wickedly sharp teeth and claws that were far bigger than those of the werewolf.
“No!” Fake Giles roared, and suddenly there were dogs, enormous black ones that looked more like shadows than anything real. There were ten of them with orange eyes like burning pieces of coal in their heads.
“Don’t you touch my cat,” Lorne howled, rushing forward before I could get a hand on him.
Argos turned to Lorne, which stopped him so fast, he nearly fell over, before he tipped his head, gave a soft meow incongruous with such an enormous animal, and then began slaughtering the dogs.
When I first met Lorne, I had been attacked by vargrs, or faewolves, and I’d been worried at that time that Argos could have been hurt as he’d come to my defense.
When the C?n Annwn had showed up to save me, Argos had retreated, as he wasn’t crazy about them.
I suspected that was because they could kill him, but that could be a mistake on my part.
I had no information to support that hypothesis.
Even after searching in my family archives, there was only the mention of when Argos had first appeared.
What was known was that he was a daemon, and a powerful one, and had chosen to protect my family.
I had no idea what kind of dogs Fake Giles commanded, but they definitely were not the companions of a god, as evidenced by the way Argos cut through them.
“Holy shit,” Lorne murmured, walking backward until he reached me, watching as our cat dismembered several before the others retreated to the shadows and were gone. Argos was never one to go out of his way to chase anything; he preferred not to run. “I didn’t… I’ve never seen him…like that.”
“If you can, don’t treat him any different,” I cautioned Lorne. “He’ll feel it if you fear him. Just let him continue to sleep on the bed and sit in your lap when you’re watching football.”
He gestured toward the cat, who was stalking toward Fake Giles now. “Are you kidding? Why would I ever be afraid of him? I’ve always liked him, and now I know for sure he likes me back.”
It was true. But still, we both had to turn away when Argos reached Fake Giles, leaned slowly forward, staring at him intently, his wailing and the curses he was trying to summon having no effect.
“Oh,” Lorne yelled, startled when Argos suddenly clamped his jaws down over the man’s head and ripped it easily and cleanly from his shoulders.
What was horrifying for me was that there was screaming and then nothing. No gurgling, no final gasp, simply alive one second, and dead the next.
Lorne said, “You were right. Argos could tell.”
“Which is good, but before you’re scarred for life, we need to get Giles out of the ground and bring him into the house.”
“What do you mean scarred for—”
I tipped my head toward the corpse. Argos was now pulling on the body, loosening it from the ground.
“Oh, he’s gonna…eat him.”
“Yes.”
“I doubt Corvus will release the rest of—”
The rumbling sound stopped him from speaking, and when the body hit the snow in front of us with a sickening splat, he nodded.
“You all right?”
“Chief of police over here,” he reminded me, breathing through his nose. “And I’ve seen much worse back in Boston.”
“I’m sure you have, but that still doesn’t mean watching Argos eat that creature will be good for you.”
“I would agree.” He let his head fall back and stared at the stars. “Not at all necessary.”
We got moving after that.
Corvus had released the real—and now unconscious—Giles easily, but as we carried him back to the house, I thought that had he not been magical, frostbite would have been a real concern.
Once inside, Lorne, who’d taken over the carrying, dropped Giles not at all gently onto the heavy rug in front of the fireplace, and Giles immediately started pinking up from the heat.
“Good,” I said, covering him with quilts.
“I want all that blood off you,” Lorne told me, “and I want you to rest, but when he gets up, with his magic, I’m no match for him.”
“We don’t know what he’ll do, but without Corvus, I won’t be much of a challenge either,” I replied, feeling the weariness of this never-ending night wash over me.
“Okay, so for now we should check and see what there is to eat and drink here. This is still the Corey cottage, so there must at least be some tea.”
The kitchen was laid out the same as it always had been, counters and cupboards lining the wall on the right, beginning with the hearth and stretching back, in our time, to the edge of the sunroom and the steps that led down. Now it stopped at a wall where a broom leaned that I hadn’t seen before.
“Lorne,” I said softly, the besom concerning me as I noted the handle was carved with runes.
Not the ones I liked—Wunjo for kinship or Algiz for protection—instead with power runes for movement and victory and transformation.
When I heard something, I glanced back toward the fireplace, and Giles was sitting up, smirking at me.
“You play dead well,” I complimented him, hoping he couldn’t hear the fear in my voice.
“Thank you for killing the wraith. I needed it gone, but it was draining my power, so I couldn’t do it myself.”
“How did you know I could help?”
“I’ve been here many times, Xander,” he said like I was a child.
“I’ve seen Corvus change, become more and more powerful, and finally, now, become a place strong enough that I can remain here, live comfortably, and never age.
I didn’t know when I was younger that it had the potential to be what it is now.
The land will sustain me, and my presence will not drain it and turn it into a wasteland. ”
Looking over my shoulder at Lorne, I saw that he was frozen, unnaturally so, not breathing, eyes open but not blinking, both hands on the counter, caught, it seemed, in a moment of time.
But nothing could happen to me, or my love, inside our home. That wasn’t possible.
“Have you figured it out yet?” Giles asked, his tone dripping with condescension.
It hit me all at once, the understanding of what he’d done.
“This isn’t the cottage,” I whispered. “You made a duplicate slip.”
“The real one is twenty or so yards to your right.” He sounded so smug. “Cloaked of course. Surely you’re smart enough to figure at least that much out.”
It was getting hard to breathe.
“Your man is branded and will make a fine companion.”
“No. My lord Arawn will—”
“Your lord stops here in the fall to ride across Corvus and bless the land. The sole reason you had further interactions was due to your continual jeopardy. You’re so very weak, Xander,” he said, belittling me, enjoying it from the smirk on his face.
“Unlike you, I won’t need him to intercede on my behalf.
Imagine how pleased he’ll be to never be called on again. ”
“His dogs are—”
“The dogs need simply to be left alone to run when they’re here.
They do not instinctively crave the companionship you’ve foisted on them.
They can return to the wild and there await their master’s call.
They were created to hunt, nothing more.
You’ve tainted them with your humanity. Your lord should be both horrified and enraged. ”
“I have friends who—”
“They will see only the glamour, Xander,” he said as though my arguments were beneath him to even consider. “You think humans can’t be fooled? Have you learned nothing at all?”
“Lorne will know. He’ll—”
“He may be branded, but he’s still merely a man.”
There was more to say, more to argue, more time to waste so I could think of something, anything, to frighten him or make him hesitate.
“We’re done now,” he announced, his tone demeaning, his lips twisted into a sneer, and then he was in motion, leaping at me, and too late, I saw the knife coming for my throat.