Page 26 of Astarion

“—mm-mmf of diamond and a throat made of pearl—”

Astarion bolted for the door. The music swelled triumphantly behind him.

“—and did things with her tongue that would make your toes curl—”

Downstairs, the shadow mastiff began to bark.

—

He tore down the hallway, no longer bothering with stealth or anything like it. The barking was coming closer and turning into a bay as the mastiff took the stairs. The baying had a dark, discordant note to it that chilled the blood in Astarion’s veins.

Behind him, the harp was belting out the chorus.

“Oh, I’m broke and I’m tired and I can’t help but weep—”

Astarion groped for the knob of the office door and discovered that it had locked itself.

“—and I’ll never get home to old Waterdeep—”

Gods and devils, when I oiled it, I must have unstuck the lock. Tymora, why do you hate me? He yanked out a lockpick, missed the keyhole twice, and got it in on the third try, which would have woken unpleasant specters of losing his virginity if his mind hadn’t been so intensely focused on a) the tumblers and b) whether vampire spawn could return from inside a dog.

“—so listen, my young lads, and learn from my tale—”

The bay rang off the walls. If it had been anything but an absolutely cut-rate lock, Astarion would have learned whether he could fight off a shadow mastiff with a dagger and his teeth. But it was the same model as the one on the storeroom door, and he had it open before the harp had finished the chorus.

“—for you can’t trust a lass with a come-hither tail!”

Astarion hurtled through the door, looked up, saw black teeth coming at him, and slammed the door in the monster’s face. He fumbled with the lock, wasting precious seconds, then wood splintered next to his head, and the mastiff’s jaws came through the flimsy door.

Right. Fuck that lock. Astarion was across the room in an instant, papers flying up like startled birds in his wake. He heard crashing noises from the door as he leapt for the top of the desk, got his shoulders through the window, pushed off—

And stopped.

The mastiff was no longer baying, but unearthly growls leaked from the sides of its muzzle as it hung onto his trouser leg. Astarion slowly flexed his bare foot and felt his toes brush against coarse fur, drawn-back lips, and then wet gums and slick, dripping teeth.

Oh, this is bad.

They were at a dreadful stalemate. If the shadow mastiff let go of the leather, it could probably take most of his foot off in one bite. But if Astarion was faster than it was, he could yank his foot out of the window and be gone. Either way, it was the dog’s decision.

“Good dog? Drop it?”

Foam dripped onto his ankle. He cautiously freed one hand, hoping to reach his dagger, but the dog twisted its muzzle, trying to pull him back. Astarion grabbed for the windowsill and hung on for dear life. “Bad dog! Errr…horrible, evil dog!”

In the distance, the harp twanged out a strained rhyme between lost and lust that Astarion would have had very strong opinions about under normal circumstances.

And then, like a thunderbolt, like a comet, like an extremely cheap gift from the gods, Rooftop Henry dove through the window and slammed his sharply curved beak into the shadow mastiff’s nose.

The monster let go with a yelp. Astarion was out the window so fast that he had to slap both palms against the wall and think very hard about being a spider to avoid plummeting to his death.

He flung himself headfirst down the brickwork, hearing enraged barking and a few inventive avian curse words behind him. Then he was on the ground, the beautiful, glorious ground. Why had he left it in the first place? When he became a real vampire, he was never going to turn into a bat, and that was final.

The mastiff began to bay again. The sound echoed off the cobblestones and chilled the air. He looked up and saw a black muzzle jammed through the window as it barked. There was no sign of Rooftop Henry.

The trick to these things was to pretend that you weren’t involved. Astarion reclaimed his shoes and socks and ducked into an alley to put himself to rights. The shadow mastiff let out a howl that curdled the fog around it.

He dressed hastily, wiped the worst of the bird shit off his cloak, got to the end of the alley, and broke into a very serious stroll. As the mastiff’s barking began to fade, he made sure to look back over his shoulder with the pointedly concerned expression of an elf out late who had no idea what that noise was but didn’t like it.

Two guardsmen passed him a block or two later, and he nodded coolly to them—ha ha, no, Officer, this isn’t my vial of unicorn blood, I’m just holding it for a friend. He made sure he was several streets over and the baying had faded completely before he leaned against a wall and let the adrenaline wear off.