Chapter 46:

Minutes passed with Shannon lying on the ground, gutted, bleeding out as forest bugs crawled around on her entrails. She had tried shoving herself off the ground, but the strength had long ago left her limbs, and now she could only watch the beetles as they picked through her entrails. She felt herself start to flirt with unconsciousness as she lay there, delirious, and watched Angus pace back and forth at the edge of her vision, dropping to feel her pulse several times with a worried look on his green-tinted face before going back to his pacing.

He has a tree growing out of his head, she thought. Leaves, sprouting from his hair like a flush of growth on the end of a birch branch, framed a tinted face of emerald eyes and deep green lips.

He looks like the Green Man, Shannon thought, drifting in a haze.

Angus stopped pacing suddenly to squint at her. “What did you just say?” he demanded, his green eyes strangely sharp.

I’m hallucinating, she thought. Hallucinating because I’m dying. “Good…doggie…” she whispered, choking on blood. “Go get…beefcake.”

“You’re dreaming.” He sounded disappointed. He squatted beside her even as she experienced an overwhelming urge to pass out. “Here, this will help. I can’t heal you, but I can restore some energy while we wait.” He reached out to her forehead with that green-skinned hand and it flared with a firefly’s glow as he brushed it between her eyes.

She must have passed out, then, because she came back to awareness when a sudden wind overhead blasted the meadow nearby, throwing grass and debris into the edge of the forest where she lay.

Four men in black military combat gear came running from an unholy-looking helicopter, guns out, steely determination on their faces as they surveyed the destruction.

“I’m your leader,” Angus said, before they saw him. He stood, sliding out from behind the tree he’d been using as a shield. “There was a great fight. We won the day. The queen and the barghest are dead. They have been burned, their ashes scattered. The corpses you see are just plants.” The dog gave Shannon an anxious look before returning his attention to them. “Go back on the bird-of-steel. Report to your other superiors you killed the queen and barghest personally, because you did. Everyone who doesn’t report back to duty today ran in terror and renounced the Faith as filled with mind-numbingly brainwashed hypocrites, just as all of you will do next month. They’re cowards better off dead, and no one needs to look for them.”

“Yes, Inquisadora,” they shouted with the harmonious efficiency of an oiled military machine. Then, without another look, the four men in black jogged back to the chopper. The rotors picked up speed, and moments later, it was gone.

Shannon watched the dog bend down and pick her up in his arms. “You’re going to live,” Angus promised her, his fuzzy brown face right next to hers. “You’re an immortal. I just have to remove the silver for you to heal properly.”

Why was Angus talking to her? That was…weird. But, strangely, she had a sudden rush of strength, a knowing that she was going to live, regardless of how butchered the men in black’s bullets had left her. I’m going to be fine, Shannon thought. I’m an immortal. A badass vampire immortal.

Then Angus was drawing a circle in the air, a loop of shimmering gold that seemed to cut into the very fabric of reality, opening a window into the Void itself. Contained within the Void, Shannon could see an infinite series of tiny, brilliantly-colored threads shooting off in all directions, infinitely, criss-crossing each other like some chaotic yet utterly beautiful tapestry.

“It’s an understatement to say this will be unpleasant for you,” Angus said. “But my father bound most of my magics and I don’t have much choice.” Then he pulled her through the opening, into the void-black emptiness and the criss-crossing lines that stretched for eternity.

Immediately, Shannon felt her body start to freeze like it’d been dipped in liquid nitrogen. First her skin started to burn, then her fingers went numb, then stopped moving. Then her arms and legs. Her eyes froze open, and the air crystalized in her nostrils, searing her lungs, which suddenly did not even have the ability to scream.

Still dragging her, the dog plucked one of the shimmering strands seemingly at random and yanked. Suddenly the lines became a blur around her. Like warp drive, Captain, Shannon thought, ridiculously. It was glorious…and strangely familiar.

The dog yanked her through another golden loop hovering in the air above their strand and dumped her out in the middle of her ripped-up living room.

“You forgot what just happened to you,” the dog said casually, as he walked across the room towards the woodstove.

“No, fuck that,” Shannon croaked, her tongue only half working.

The dog, who had squatted by the stove and already begun loading it with kindling, hesitated and looked over his shoulder. “What?”

“Fuck. That.” Shannon managed. Her eyes had started to freeze, so it was difficult to see more than his blurry form moving around, but now that there was a barrier between her eyes and her mind, she could see that his shape wasn’t that of a dog. It was a tall, slender, green man.

I’m dying, she thought. I’m finally going to meet Odin.

“Odin’s a hairy, uncouth whoremonger,” the dog said.

“Probably,” she whispered.

“You’re not dying.”

“Pretty sure I am.”

The greenish man-shape cocked its head at her, then threw more wood into the stove and there was a bright emerald flash, followed by a roaring fire. Then he came back over and held a hand over her. The same green light that had flared when he had touched her forehead on the forest floor suddenly burned from his fingers, making her flinch at its intensity as it gently penetrated every exposed inch of her body. She felt the warmth seep back into her flesh, felt her muscles relax, felt the ice drain from her lungs and organs. Suddenly, it was a dog holding a paw over her, doing something to thaw her frozen fingers, toes, guts… And with the thawing came burning.

“Hold still,” Angus said boredly as she started to groan and twist away from him from the intensifying pain. Then, with matter-of-factness, he began reaching into her body with his paw and started plucking little lumps of metal from her body with bloody dog toenails, dropping them to the floor beside her head. “You feel no pain,” he calmly said as she started to contort, gasping. Like he was talking to a child.

“Fuck…you…green man…” she gasped, pain wracking every inch of her body as he dug around in her flesh.

The dog hesitated in moving its furry paw over her body. “What did you say?”

Shannon used the moment to roll away from him, moaning.

The dog yanked her back to face him. “What did you say?” Then, with growing excitement, “Can you see me?”

“Stupid dog,” Shannon whimpered. “Let go.”

Immediately, the dog’s featured schooled back into studied boredom. “I see.” He shook his head and went back to plucking bullets from her flesh.

“Oowwww,” Shannon groaned, trying to roll away from him.

“I told you to hold still,” the dog said, actually sounded irritated as he dug his whole forearm into her abdomen as he sought something out within. “I’ll be done soon, then we can take the silver off your wrists and you can heal. Don’t move.”

Shannon kicked him in the face.

The dog-man-thing went tumbling backwards, holding its furry muzzle with both paws, until it stumbled to a sudden seated position on the floor, staring at her.

“Who…” Shannon gasped, crawling onto her hands and knees, “the fuck are you?”

The dog’s mouth fell open and his hands dropped from his bleeding face.

“Odin’s eye,” she gasped, realizing her guts had sloughed from her body and were pooling on the floor under her. “Oh shit, oh shit…” She frantically started grabbing them and trying to put them back inside her now-empty shell of an abdomen, but they kept falling out.

The dog watched her warily before saying, “You wear enchanted shackles and still carry silver in your flesh. You will not heal until I get the rest of it out and take the bands off.”

Shannon glanced at the dog, who watched her with a mixture of wariness, curiosity, and trepidation. “What the hell are you?” she gasped.

“I am just a dog.” There was a tone of unmistakable sadness to it. “You will treat me as such.”

“No you’re not,” she said, as a tide of irritation flushed away the suggestion, bubbling up from the same deep place as the threads of darkness that had cut men in half.

The dog gave her a wide-eyed look of total surprise. Then his brow furrowed. “Yes I am.” This time, the compulsion was almost overwhelming.

“No, you’re not,” Shannon snapped, as she forcibly shoved aside the impulse to see him as just a dog. “Stop trying to brainwash me you green-skinned creep or I’ll come over there and suck you dry like a slushy apple Ice-Pop.”

The dog’s mouth hung open for some time. Then, with obvious difficulty, he closed it and swallowed, hard. “You really don’t want to do that.”

“Oh, that’s it,” Shannon snapped, as another wave of compulsion slammed over her. She lunged to her feet, ignoring her sprawling entrails.

“I can’t help it!” the dog screamed, scrabbling backwards. “The power’s in my very words. I can’t help it!”

Shannon, who was already halfway to him, hesitated. Then, because it was really uncomfortable dragging her intestines, she paused a moment to reel them back in and hold them out between them. “Can you fix this?” she asked, gesturing at her stomach with her wad of guts. That, she figured, was probably more important than emptying a tasty green ice-pop of his delicious juices. Which, now that she was noticing, was flaring with exquisite green energy…

Then, almost because she realized it, the radiant green blood-web dulled and went back to the dull brown-gold of the dog before her bloodsucker instincts could kick into gear. It left her thirsty, though. Really thirsty…

Odin’s balls, I’m gonna jump him if I don’t distract myself.

“I can continue to give you energy and vigor so you don’t need to drink,” the dog said quickly, looking uncomfortable. “But I can’t heal your wounds until we remove the bands.” He swallowed. “And the rest of the silver.”

Meaning he had to shove his hand back inside her guts. Well, damn, Doctor, that’s not a good prognosis…

To ease the pang of thirst before she mindlessly tried to grab him and sate herself that way, Shannon made a face and went to the kitchen, still holding the loops of intestine with one hand while she filled a glass of water with the other.

Seeing what she planned, the dog quickly said, “You probably don’t want to—”

Shannon drank, and a moment later, water sloshed down her guts and dribbled from her ripped-open stomach cavity. She paused, watching watered-down blood spatter all over the sandstone tile. She set her blood-smeared mug down. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“—do that.” The dog swallowed hard.

“I thought I was a vampire,” Shannon said, staring at the growing puddle of blood, feces, and water on the floor. “Why am I not healing?”

“Um. Vampires’ powers are negated by silver,” the dog said.

As every squealing Twilight nitwit knew. Shannon grimaced down at her wounds, then at the dog. “Can you fix it?”

“I was fixing it,” he said. “But you weren’t listening to…erm…instructions…”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine. Fix it.” She went over to her ripped-up couch, dropped to the shredded leather, and tilted her head back so she couldn’t see her abdomen.

But the dog stayed put. “Uuuuhhhhmmm.”

Shannon jerked her head to glare at him. “What?”

The dog licked his lips. “I, uh, don’t feel as comfortable…”

…because he couldn’t tell her what to do. Remembering being in this same position only a few hours ago, except flipped, she groaned. “Fine. Tie me down, whatever. Just get it done before I have much more time to think about the fact I was just attacked by the MIB, I’m holding my own guts in my lap, and a leaf-covered green man effectively tried to use the flashy-thing on me.”

The dog, who had been nervously eying the front door, glanced back at her startledly. “Come again?”

Thinking of Men in Black and these creatures’ lamentable lack of cultural awareness, Shannon waved a dismissive hand with a disappointed sigh. “It’s a movie reference. You won’t get it.”

“I’ve watched Men in Black,” the dog said, sounding almost irritated. “One of Theo’s favorite movies. You said I was green?” He cocked his doggy head. “What are you seeing, exactly?”

Still lying on the couch, Shannon squinted at him. “Big, drooly mastiff.”

He blinked, looking confused. “But—”

“Back when my eyes froze from whatever hocus-pocus you pulled back there, you were green for awhile. And looked human. Blurry, but human.” She cocked her head. “Oh, and when I was dying on the ground, before you dosed me with that stuff, I saw a green man for a moment too.”

“So there’s a physical component!” the dog shouted, jumping onto his hind legs and slapping a fist into a palm. Like a scientist shouting Eureka! For a moment, his image flickered, both man and beast, before he dropped back into a doglike squat and the dual-image faded back to just a mastiff with a mental twist that made her see double. Squinting at her like a scientist examined a rat, he said, “So if I blind them…”

“Hey now,” Shannon warned. “You’re still looking like an apple-flavored slushie at the moment, so if I were you I wouldn’t press my luck.”

He stopped grinning, refocused his attention on her face, and looked ill. “Yes, um. Well.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “I’ve given you plenty of energy to survive a few days, so I’ll just run along and allow your friends to pick up the slack.” He made a nervous sound and got up to head for the door. To leave her there. Because she’d threatened him. Like a genius.

“I won’t eat you,” Shannon blurted. “Please don’t leave me like this.” She was pretty sure she didn’t have the steely serial killer Jason Bourne mindset it took to dig the silver out of her own ribcage and use the grinder on her own wrists like the barghest had.

Already halfway to the door—whatever he really was, the dog was fast—he hesitated, his fuzzy butt to her. Very slowly, he turned. Then, almost nervously, he said, “You want me to save your life?”

“Yes!” she gritted, trying not to vomit at the way her intestines squirmed under her fingers.

“So…you agree that in me doing you this favor, you might owe me something in return?”

“Huh?” Shannon demanded. “Sure, fine, whatever.”

“With no reservations?” he prodded. “You will owe me a blood debt?”

“Uh…” Shannon said, squinting at the way she thought the dog’s eyes were suddenly glowing green. “…I guess?”

“You will seal it to your honor, this debt, so that if I find myself in need, I may call upon you for help?”

The dog’s creepy eyes were glowing. And there were swirls of glimmering green dust slipping through the cracks and crevices of the room, pooling in a cloud around his feet. Seeing that, Shannon started to get nervous. “Uhhh…sure?”

“Agreed!” the dog shouted, with a voice that seemed at once both authoritative and filled with glee. “By the power of the lords of the Second Realm, I bind you to your oath!” Then, in a rush, the luminescent green mist that had been pooling around his feet lunged forward and slammed into her like Thor’s mighty hammer, taking the breath from her completely.

And then, without another word, the dog purposefully strode across the room and shoved his paw back into her guts and started prying around. “Ooowwww, ewww oh Odin’s balls that hurts…” She started to gag and dry-heave.

“Shhh,” he ordered, all business.

Shannon shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut, and did her best to think of something else until he was done. When he finally pulled away after spending a little extra time removing pieces of a bullet that had splintered, she hurriedly glanced down at herself.

“I’m still not healing,” she muttered.

“One moment,” the dog said matter-of-factly. “Stay here.” Definitely on some sort of mission, he got up and trotted outside. Less than a minute later, he came back with a freshly-cut willow branch that immediately made her think of her father’s sadistic punishments, in her youth. She inched away from him, despite herself.

“I’m not your father.” The dog paused over her, his stick in a fist. “But this will hurt. Don’t attack me.”

She felt the sudden urge not to attack him, and that whatever was about to happen would hurt like a mother—

And then he slapped the stick to the metal with a good thwack and the band on her left wrist exploded into hundreds of thousands of tiny shards that immediately tinkled to the floor in a cascade of shattered silver.

“Ow!” Shannon cried, yanking her hand back to squint at all the little pieces now sticking out of her flesh. “Mother—”

Before she could realize his intent—and much faster than a dog should have been able to move—he thwacked her other wrist.

“Ow you frosty cock of a jötnar’s hairy buttbaby!” she cried, as the shackle exploded and rained to the couch and floor, good chunks of it embedding in her wrist. “You should’ve warned me—”

But the dog’s booming voice overpowered the rest, suddenly thundering into every crevice of her mind like the ringing of Völundr’s anvil,“As you have sworn before the a lord of the Summerlands and the Horn of Truth, you, Shannon Meeks the vampire queen, now owe me a blood debt in return for my service to you. Thus, by the laws of the Second Realm, Queen Shannon of the clan Meeks, I claim the Rule of Three. For a favor given, threefold are owed. By the words of my command, three times you will heed. As it is witnessed by the lords of my realm, your life shall thus be mine until the debt is repaid.”

“It is done,” the dog said, in a drooly, jowly grin as the green power drained away from him, back into the floor. “You owe me a favor.” He cocked his head. “Well, three of them, technically, but I only really want one.”

Shannon was still flattened to the sofa from the sheer intensity of the booming voice. She swallowed hard, realizing maybe she had made a mistake. “Favors? Plural?” She hastily started to sit up. “I don’t owe you any—” And then she couldn’t finish what she was about to say. Simply. Could. Not. Finish. She held her mouth open, wordless, until she finally just shut her jaw.

“That’s the Horn of Truth,” the dog said, quickly backing up and going suddenly solemn. He moved his paw to touch his chest. “I wear one around my neck. A very small one, but still… Mistruths can not be spoken within two feet of me.” He let out an explosive sigh. “My father hated me, you see. And, in my world—you’d probably call it the Second Realm, but we don’t think of it as such—one of the best way to castrate an unwanted son is to remove his ability to skirt the truth.” The dog, despite his drool, long tongue, and heavy jowls, looked deeply sad.

Shannon squinted at him. “Wait. What are you?”

“Tl'oghk'etnaeyen, firstborn son of Lord Yazaan Naltsiine, of the Clan Naltsiine, bewitched by my father to forever take on the form of a beast in the minds of all who see me.” His voice had gotten even more solemn, almost dead. “And, as it was by my father and not some sprite on the street, it is the most unbreakable kind of mindweave that can be done, and not even other magi can see through the guise.”

Great. “And now I owe you a favor,” Shannon said flatly.

“Yes!” The dog grinned back at her. “Well, three of them, technically.”