Jinx

Sorry this is so long!

 It was the baying of the hellhounds that woke me. The howls drifted up through my open window, feral and completely unearthly.

For a moment I just laid there, the phantom taste of iron thick in my mouth. The dream I’d been jarred from had been unpleasant, filled with ashes and blood and golden eyes in the darkness. Desperately, I tried to grasp the jumble of images, but the nightmare was already slipping away.

 Another howl echoed through the night, as piercing as a siren. Something’s really got them going, I thought, suddenly cold despite the muggy July air. I sat up, wide awake now, feeling the aching muscles in my lower back and arms protest the movement. The evening’s training session with Agares had been particularly brutal. The sadistic bastard had forced me to repeat the same defensive spell for two hours straight, his hexes smashing through my defenses again and again until I felt as battered as a cage fighter. I massaged my shoulder absently and looked around for my alarm clock. It wasn’t there, of course – after two days back at my parents’ house, I hadn’t even started unpacking anything yet.

Groaning, I pushed myself out of bed and promptly smashed my foot into a pile of thick spellbooks. Muttered profanities bubbled from my lips as I limped across the dark room, taking care to skirt the unpacked boxes that were piled haphazardly about. The hardwood floor felt gritty under my bare feet, still covered by a thin layer of the dust that filled the old house.      

The hallway was in just as much disarray as my room, jammed with potted plants and random pieces of my dad’s hiking gear. My Peruvian Predatoria plant – carefully positioned to take advantage of the thin moonlight seeping through the window – snaked a thick, spiked vine across the floor as I passed. “Cut it out, Norman,” I told it, quickly sidestepping the plant before it could get a grip on my ankle.

Outside, the hellhounds were still going berserk. The vampire couple next door is going to hate me, I thought, brushing my tangled hair out of my face as I staggered down the stairs. So much for all of those welcome-back-to-the-neighborhood casseroles I had been hoping to receive. Do vampires even make casseroles? I mused. I had no idea.

I found Seis, our friendly family gargoyle, dangling upside down from the lintel over the front door. “There’s someone out there,” he whispered. “They drove up in a truck and now they’re standing outside the gate.” It was too dark for me to make out anything except for the outline of his wings, but I could imagine the panicked look that was almost certainly on his face. Seis had always been overly anxious for a gargoyle.

“Who the hell would be standing outside at this hour? I said, peering through the glass set into the door. The fog that perpetually blanketed the city was a thick, sickly purple haze tonight. The driveway, visible in brief glimpses as the mist shifted and roiled in the windless air, was empty except for my blue Ranger and the half-unpacked U-Haul truck. It was too foggy for me to make out the silhouettes of the two hellhounds, but I could picture them pacing down by the wrought iron fence as they carried on like a whole pack of wolves.

“Are you sure someone’s out there? I can’t see a thing.” I fumbled for the switch for the porch light. The beam flickered on, illuminating the overgrown yard in a weak, washed out light. For a moment, the fog seemed to recoil from the light, giving me a clear look at the dogs prowling down by the fence.

And there, on the other side of the gate, barely visible under the streetlight, stood a person.

            Watching the house.

            I reflexively took a step back. My heart was pounding a jagged rhythm in my ears. The fog had already rolled back, obscuring everything in a purple cloud again, but I thought I could still feel the weight of the stranger’s gaze. Much as I hated to admit it, I was rattled. The empty house suddenly seemed much more sinister. I was acutely aware of how alone I was, an eighteen year old girl with only a skittish gargoyle for protection.

            “I have to bring the dogs in at least,” I said, torn between the fear of being killed by a chain saw wielding maniac and the idea of having to pay the fine for yet another noise complaint citation.

            “We should call the Watch,” Seis said, as though reading my mind. His voice wavered. So much for all of that “gargoyles are better home protectors than Dobermans!” shit – he was far more frightened than I was. Fantastic.

            “Maybe.” And how will that conversation go?  a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Help! There’s a scary man outside, and I need you to chase him away! That would be a great way to start the summer vacation – the High Witch’s own niece, heiress to the whole damn city, crying to Lyria’s law enforcement officers for protection from a Jehovah’s Witness. Aunt Estelle would die of shame. And then triple my tutoring sessions with Agares. No thanks.

Besides, after six years of training at the Academy, I was probably just as capable of handling an attacker as anyone the Watch captain would send to defend me. I might not be able to figure out how to run my mom’s washing machine, but I was more than capable of protecting myself with magic. Anyway, the fence encircling the house was enchanted. The figure lurking outside my gate like some kind of Michael Myers wannabe couldn’t enter unless a member of the family opened the gate – and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do that.

            Another volley of loud barks decided me. “Stay here,” I said to Seis. I grabbed a flashlight from the overflowing box sitting next to the door, hesitated, and then pocketed a second. “Strength comes from darkness” might be the Sinclair family motto, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk being stranded out there in the fog without a backup if my flashlight died.

“Cassie, no! You can’t go out there.” The gargoyle slid clumsily from the door and landed in a heap of wings at my feet. “It could be a- a demon!”

There was a thought that I could have done without. “Or a lost Girl Scout,” I said with a calmness that I didn’t feel. “Besides, the dogs will just bark all night if I don’t go get them.” He watched silently as I shoved my bare feet into my sneakers and wrenched the front door open.

The hellhounds fell silent as I stepped outside. The thud of the door closing behind me and my footsteps on the porch seemed to echo loudly in the sudden quiet. Now that the hounds had stopped baying, I could hear the rattle of a griffin carriage on the next street over and the muffled sound of distant gunfire, presumably coming from the shooting range at the Watch headquarters.

I almost turned around right then. They would only start barking again if I went back inside, though – probably louder than ever. Sighing, I clicked on my flashlight and moved off the porch. The mist swirled around me, leaving a slick, wet feeling on my skin. I had been born in the city of Lyria, but the ever present fog still made me uneasy. Nervousness quickened my steps. The stranger didn’t move as I walked down the driveway, its features shrouded in shadows. The fog parted for a handful of heartbeats, just long enough so that I could make out the dark shape of a vehicle parked on the road behind the figure.

            Who the hell could it be? I wondered again. As far as anyone knew, I was spending this summer across town at Aunt Estelle’s cozy mansion. Until our big fight last week, it had been the same place where I had spent all of my school vacations since I was twelve. Even my parents didn’t know that I was staying at their house instead. Avid biologists, they had taken off to the Artic back in March to study the thrilling lifecycle of snowshoe hares.

Maybe it’s Estelle, coming over to apologize, I thought, and then immediately dismissed it. Even from this distance I could see that the figure was a man. Lurking outside gates wasn’t exactly Estelle’s style, anyways. Nor were apologies. I should have called her first. Too late, I remembered my cell phone, still uselessly plugged into the charger up in my room.

            Mirage, my gorgeous hellhound, loped up to me as I approached the gate, briefly pressing her cold nose against my leg before darting back to the fence. The bitch’s snowy white coat looked orange under the flickering streetlight. Mirage’s mother had been a full-blooded shepherd, and she could have passed for a normal dog to the uneducated eye. Hellhound blood ran much stronger in Bane, a massive shaggy beast. Bane’s black coat was so dark that even with the porch light on I could barely distinguish him from the shadows. Both canines growled and snarled as they paced in front of the gate.

            The stranger regarded me silently through the iron bars. For the first time, I realized how disheveled I must look, with my long hair tangled. I was only wearing a skimpy pair of shorts and a tattered Miami Witch’s Academy T-shirt. The man didn’t look so hot either, though. It was too foggy to make out his clothing clearly, but I thought I could see several rips in his hoodie and jeans. He had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head, despite the warm night. Classic thug outfit, I thought, fear making it hard to breathe. Lovely.

            “Well?” I said after a moment, hanging back to keep the hellhounds between me and the gate. Across the street, the vampires’ house was dark. I couldn’t decide if I was happy about that or not. On the one hand, they probably weren’t calling the Watch to file a noise complaint about my hellhounds hounds, but knowing that there were no witnesses to this little encounter frightened me.  

            The man started, as though my voice had yanked him out of some deep reverie. With an impatient movement, he shoved back his hood. “About time,” he snapped. “I thought you were never going to drag yourself out of bed. Hurry and open up the damn gate, would you? I need your help.”

            He stepped closer to the gate, moving into the circle of light cast from the porch. I stared at the short blond hair and handsome face, uncomprehending. “Who…” I began, and gasped as recognition hit me.

            It was my brother.