Page 63 of Jack of All Trades

Finally, what they did was to name one Beck, the nickname given to Maltin’s father by his mother, and Benji, like Jack’s real father. Their middle names, however, were the same.

Rodney.

Life with triplets kept them busier for that first year than they could have guessed, but they quickly got the hang of it. Maltin worked on his scripts and Jack began to study for college. He wanted to become a writer, like Maltin.

The happiness each smile from their children granted them couldn’t be measured. They’d been lost and alone for so long; the continuing gift of their family gave them both a lasting gratitude that showed each day they were all together.

A family.

When Jack shifted again, it wasn’t until the children were nearing their eighteenth month. It was dark, and the rest of the house occupants were asleep. He got up to relieve himself and suddenly felt his body begin to change.

He hadn’t felt it for almost two years, so it caught him by surprise. When he figured out what it was, he felt a stabbing of fear that left as soon as his clothes were in torn strips on the bathroom floor, and he saw himself in the mirror, with glowing red eyes and curled horns on each side of his head. Busting through the door, he felt himself running so fast he knew he’d be a blur to anyone who could witness.

A crack of breaking wood sounded loud to him as he escaped the house and began to run north, away from the city lights that lit up the sky to the south of him.

Away into the night, he ran, knowing the name of the man he’d fetch to the underworld. Fenton Moorehouse, a fabled mystique, selling his wares on one of the cable channels local to Valleywood. One of those late-night infomercials that he’d watched a thousand times, it seemed, when the babies kept him up most nights.

That wasn’t why he was being taken, however. He was a hellhound, created by the avenger of murder, and in his youth, Fenton Moorehouse murdered seven people and used his petty magic to cover up the crimes. It was time for him to pay for those crimes and for Tisiphone to have vengeance.

As he ran, he saw it, saw himself busting through yet another door, bounding up a flight of stairs to snatch the man’s leg between his jaws as he heard the piercing scream from the man’s terrible awakening.

A lighted circle appeared, and he saw her, the young figure of Ms. Tempest, the fury, beckoning him to enter the doorway. He dragged the man with him past her into the red light that awaited.

Awaking the next morning to his mate tapping his shoulder, Jack came to and noticed he was naked. “Were you taking advantage of a sleeping man, my love?”

Maltin’s cross stare told him that wasn’t the case. “Would you like to tell me what happened to two doors of our home?”

Jack’s smile was quick as he said, “It wasn’t a dream. I really did that.”

“That’s not an explanation, Jack.”

“It’s a good one. Care to let me tell it over a cup of coffee, dear?”

Maltin sighed heavily. “I may need to add a jigger of scotch to it but come on.”

The end