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Eight
As soon as I got home, Pansy was waiting, gripping my guitar in her teeth as he barreled past me towards the elevator, dancing like his old bladder couldn’t hold out much longer.
It hadn’t even been an entire day, so I’d have to find someone to come and walk him halfway through my shift unless I wanted to clean my apartment. I hurried after, barely reaching him when the elevator door opened and Mary Hilbus was chased out, hands up in alarm as she stared at the dog.
“So sorry about that, but he’s a service animal, you know, musical maintenance business. Enjoy your afternoon,” I sputtered as I stepped back into the elevator and pushed the button for the main floor. “What are you doing?” I asked, grabbing the guitar. He released it immediately and then smiled at me, tongue lolling, head cocked as he freely drooled on the industrial carpeting.
I took the strap off the guitar and once more secured it to his collar before the doors opened and he took off, yanking me along with him. He was a rather large animal, heavier than he should be, probably because of the metal furnace he must have swallowed so he could belch fire. Once he got going, it was hard to get him to stop, but thankfully, the doorman saw us coming and opened the door for us before nodding coolly and saying, “Enjoy the lovely afternoon, Miss Morell,” before closing the door on my heels.
I didn’t enjoy anything other than hurtling down the sidewalk between alarmed citizens behind a monster dog that went faster and faster, like he couldn’t stop if he wanted to.
“Pansy! Stop this right now! We have to get back to the apartment and take a nice nap. Stop!” He took a corner, the strap caught on a fence pole, and then Pansy was racing off, leaving me with a raveled strap in one hand and a guitar in the other. Maybe I should take up running, because I was already out of breath, but that might have to do with spending so much effort trying to heal Bert.
“Stop that dog!” I called out, chasing after him, dodging tourists and joggers, none of whom tried to stop Pansy, particularly when he belched flame at a would-be helper, who immediately backed off, hands raised in surrender. That seemed to be the automatic response he got from people. Maybe he’d been a cop in another life.
It was fine. Eventually, the old monster would get tired and then I’d probably have to carry him home. I wasn’t looking forward to that. I just had to keep him in sight.
In each sector of the city, there was a gate to the undercity caverns, sometimes stairs, elevator, or a winding roadway, depending on the part of the city. This sector’s gate was a set of escalators that descended a broad tunnel that led deeper and deeper into the city. I hadn’t been in Song for six years, and had no intentions of changing that, but Pansy charged down into a crowd without any hesitation. He kept running down the escalator, knocking back anyone in his way like he was chasing a squirrel or a cat.
“Stop him!” I called out, but it was hopeless.
Should I just let him go? What kind of helpless damsel in distress was I? I took a deep breath and then grabbed a teen’s skateboard, climbed on the middle between the escalators, and then, after a prayer to the god of fools, took off.
I’d never actually ridden a skateboard before, and if I’d taken the time to think through logistics, I probably would have put in a notice with the local department of animal control instead of putting my life and the lives of everyone around me in danger, but I didn’t think, I just pushed off on the smooth ramp between two escalators, and then held my breath.
It was very steep, and the ground came rushing towards me faster and faster. When I got to the bottom, the skateboard sailed up, and then we parted ways, and I came down in a pile of squishy garbage bags while the board flew off into the darkness.
“Hey! You stole my board!” came drifting towards me while I tried to breathe and failed. Repeatedly.
I was lying there in the oozing smelly bags, when Pansy came up to make sure I was okay by licking me repeatedly, climbing on my stomach, and then when I oofed and sat up, sitting on my legs with a satisfied expression, like he’d done a good trick and was waiting for a treat.
“Pansy, are you secretly an assassin? Because you almost killed me!”
He licked me again and then climbed off me, grabbing the guitar carefully out of the bags so it didn’t bang up and break. Somehow, it hadn’t smashed into a million pieces, which wasn’t the miracle I’d been praying for. Tiago would be happy, but I was not. Clearly, adopting the old Music Master’s dog had been a grave error on my part.
I slowly got to my feet in time to see the teen charging towards me, but he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t as bare-skinned as he’d been earlier. He’d sprouted teeth and fur, and had brought his pack to come and deal with the thief. Why had I followed Pansy into Song?
I rubbed my head and limped in the direction of where the skateboard had gone, stopping to take the guitar from Pansy before he dropped it.
“Where you going, lady?” And then they were howling after me.
I had two choices: run, or stay where I was. The last time I’d been attacked by Katrina the young vampire, I’d thrown a death spell at her. These young werewolves shouldn’t die just because I’d been stupid enough to come into their territory, so that meant running.
I groaned and then broke into a run, stretching my legs while Pansy ran beside me, barking a few times in approval, which made the howls even more out-of-control.
I focused on spells that would stun instead of kill more than paying attention to where we were going. We passed a few brightly lit shops, a bar, a restaurant, an apothecary with really pretty soap in the window, but after one block, the streets grew darker and drearier, ragged and crumbling.
This was not a well-maintained part of the city, in fact, it was a wonder that Sing hadn’t fallen down into Song already. Were those cracks running through the cavern’s ceiling high above, letting in bits of natural daylight? How terrifying.
Pansy turned in front of me, tripping me so I stumbled to my knees, skinning them, because we needed to add the scent of blood to this nightmare. The werewolves stopped running as they spread out, teeth bared in manic smiles.
Pansy barked twice, then ran in a circle around me, barfing all the way. It smelled so awful, sulfur, and rotten ginger, but I didn’t get to appreciate the scent much longer than that, because then he farted, and lit that trail of vomit up into a wall of fire that roared up until it was licking the roof, a hundred feet above me.
The werewolves whimpered and threw themselves away from the flames, so one problem down, two new ones to deal with. The flames weren’t getting lower, and this part of the city wasn’t stable enough to deal with any kind of stress, much less walls of magic fire.
A large piece of roof came down to my left, shattering into chunks of rubble, one of which struck my cheek, leaving a stream of blood behind. Yep. This was exactly what Jessica had been talking about when she sent me home early from the library to relax.
Pansy bumped my knees, almost sending me back into the circle of fire, then he nosed the guitar, before sitting down on his fat rump to stare at me with wagging tail, jowls smiling at me. He clearly expected me to do maintenance spells like his former master would have done, spells that would actually work and save the city instead of not working and getting thousands of people killed.
