Something was out there.
I felt the hairs on my spine try to rise. But my red support-dog vest hid them.
My Friend knew he had to assess the threat he sensed, and that was proper. But he was worried to leave Maggie alone. He trusted me, but no safety measures could ever be thorough enough for him to feel completely sure she would be all right. He was right. Nothing is truly safe in this world—and that being the case, why worry about threats that have not yet appeared? Far wiser to make what preparations one could, face trouble as it arose, and be happy in the meantime.
That might be the saddest part of human heart-stupidity: how much happiness you simply leave aside so that you have enough time to worry. I know sometimes I’m not very smart, but I don’t see what’s so interesting about worry.
My Friend spoke to me. He used many words, but what his heart said was, “I don’t want to leave her even for a single second, but I trust you to protect my daughter while I am fighting evil.”
I told him I would. He’s learned enough to know how to hear me when I say that much. Then he took us to a place with food smells and got Maggie and me French fries to eat while he scouted out the threat.
Is My Friend awesome or what?
He got Maggie settled and then strode out, moving with purpose. I had to resist the urge to follow him, because when he did that it made me want to go with him and help. Instead, I sat by the French fries and watched them intently. You know. In case any villains were hiding inside and might be a threat to Maggie.
We’d only gotten to eat a few when one of the haunts simply walked up to our table and began to say mean things to Maggie.
No.
When one of the haunts was pushed to our table to confront Maggie.
This time, I sensed a change in the air. Someone was working energy against us.
Outside, partially concealed in some greenery, was a hulking, furry shape that looked like my shadow. I could sense that dark clarity flowing from it in a torrent, strong enough to push the creep toward Maggie, urging the creature to attack.
I felt myself begin to surge to my feet, a growl bubbling in my throat.
But Maggie put her foot on my head and pushed down.
Maggie was tiny, even for a human, even for one her age. She was a surprisingly tough-minded child, but she could not have stopped me from rising and running even if she’d been her father’s size.
My Shadow faced me calmly, something arrogant and mocking in its stance, in the angle of its head. It was crouched like a hunter, ready to leap.
And it was trying to hurt my little girl.
But I couldn’t leave her side. What if it pushed the haunt to break the rules and physically attack her and I wasn’t close enough to intervene?
So I didn’t advance on the threat. I stopped using my breath to growl and instead focused it into working energy, reaching out for light and softness to counter the black ice of My Shadow’s malice.
The dark energy pushing the haunt rolled back from mine like fog before an oncoming car, and just then, Maggie threw a handful of salt into the haunt’s face.
The haunt recoiled from the salt, more than from the pain the body it possessed suddenly experienced, and I directed energy toward it, urging it to back away. If the haunt left Maggie, I could deal with My Shadow directly and make it depart. I’d gotten its scent now, the smell of its hostile intent. I could follow it into, through, and out of every shadowy realm to which it could possibly flee.
The haunt retreated before Maggie’s defiance and my breath, and I began to move, to eliminate the true threat before it could make another attempt on Maggie.
But the scent was … gone.
I sniffed again, harder. That wasn’t right. I knew it in my tail.
But it was gone.
Impossibly, simply, gone.
Huh.
What in all the wide universe could do that?
My Shadow, it would seem.
When My Friend came back, he was tense, troubled, and quiet. That made me uneasy. I have seen him face many terrible things, and they rarely troubled his heart like that. A human, then. Monsters were not nearly the threat to him that other human beings had proved to be. He was in pain.
I would have gone to him, but my duty was to guard and protect Maggie, and she still was not safe—not with the haunts and My Shadow running around the zoo as if it was their own personal hunting preserve, and not with her Anxiety waiting to undo her if she didn’t have me beside her. He was her father. His primary concern was to protect and nurture her, and I would help My Friend with anything. So I stayed by Maggie’s side.
Also, she had French fries.
They spoke together some more. He told Maggie about warlocks and the dangers they posed. Maggie felt sad for the warlock, which I knew My Friend was feeling, too. But Maggie feared more than that—that he would not want to be her father. And he was afraid that she wouldn’t want to be his daughter if he always had work to do.
I sat very still and breathed bright energy all around them. Their fears were foolish, but dangerous, this early in their relationship. If only so many things had not come up at once, and today of all day—
Ah.
That made more sense.
These encounters were not the result of chance, but malice.
My Shadow was attempting to disrupt the course of what should naturally be taking place—bonding between a father and his daughter.
I lay quietly, staying focused on working energy. It would not do to dwell on violent thoughts during that process. But while I did what I could for my family, I also pressed my teeth together, to be sure they were ready.
They were.
MY FRIEND SET out to save the warlock, of course. He had no idea that haunts even existed, much less that they were nearby. I would have preferred to go with him—warlocks were dangerous propositions, and I could have sized up the person for him, helped him understand whether compassion or resolution was the most important virtue to hold while facing the warlock. I could have warned him, protected him.
But only by leaving Maggie vulnerable to the circle of hungry haunts waiting outside the cafe.
Maggie waited for My Friend to stride out of sight before she stood up and turned to me. “You know I have to do it like this. You can’t come all the way.”
I had read the Book as much as she had. I knew the course it recommended to confront haunts, and its reasoning was eminently sound. Evil left unconfronted only grows stronger. But to do that, she would have to face them alone—entirely alone. I would not be able to defend her from the haunts and their terrible thoughts. She would have to face them, and while the proper course was always to confront evil, victory over it was never assured.
This was her path. She had to walk it on her own. But …
She could be hurt. Perhaps even destroyed.
My perfect Maggie, the best little girl in the world, could be lost to those who loved her.
I made a soft, distressed sound and kissed her face gently.
“Yick,” she said, but she meant something else. She rubbed her little face in my fur. “I love you, too, Mouse.”
My heart pounded hard as the simple, frail, devastating power of that love flowed into me.
I tried once again to tell her that I loved her in human speech, and again only made some random sounds. I sighed. She knew.
We walked out of the café together and straight up to the waiting haunts. Maggie had already intuited which was the leader of their pack, and she faced the little girl with her back straight and her eyes bright. “Hey, you. Space Face.”
The haunts all stared at her with their empty eyes and felt the sudden surge of malicious power in the air as they drew up horrible memories from her time among the vicious, violent, and satisfactorily dead Red Court of vampires.
There were memories within her that could kill her, memories she didn’t even know she had.