I Kissed a Dog

chapter 48

Misty responded first. Blasting into the air, she shifted into a wolf before her front paws hit the ground.

The nearby air swelled and rippled as the others followed her example, morphing into their fighting forms and circling their prey, a predator unlike any they’d faced before.

The newly formed pack radiated a sense of confidence that came from having the numbers advantage.

Our increased numbers offered me little assurance.

I’d been inside the creature’s mind. Its sole purpose was to kill. There would be no reasoning. No surrender. Its death alone would stop its murderous cycle. God only knew why Jazmine had kept the monster in her possession.

I needed to find the answer, and with it, the means to crush her rabid pet.

Zane glanced from the menacing demon back to me. I didn’t need any mindreading skills to decipher his thoughts: Stay here. Stay back. We’ll handle it.

I nodded, well aware I would be disappointing my mate for what I hoped would be the final time.

The pack bordered the demon. There were no other words but hell-spawned demon ¯ to describe what we faced. Demonic might prove too kind a description by the night’s end.

A thunderous bellow erupted from the fiend’s mouth.

Even from my position I could see its lethal fangs. Several rows of what resembled ice picks lined its cavernous maw. A thick tongue-like appendage rolled from its mouth, reminding me of a humungous frog seeking to capture an unsuspecting insect.

If I had any control over the outcome, no one I knew would end up in its protruding and malformed midsection.

To make matters worse, my thoughts flashed to Dillon. The idea that Dillon, or a part of him, was being digested inside the beast revolted me. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I would not allow myself to think about the slain guard. Any mourning would have to wait. Connie was doing enough of that already. I needed to think about locating Jazmine and bringing a rapid conclusion to this monster-sized problem.

Closer inspection revealed three sets of arms protruding from either side, all ending with scissor-sharp claws. I had no doubt the extent of damage those claws could render. I didn’t have to wait long to see the results.

One of the new mutant converts lunged, reaching for the beast’s throat. For the briefest moment I was fooled into thinking the creature was embracing its attacker. An instant later, all six arms sliced across the mutant’s back, gouging so deep, her spine was severed.

Gagging, I turned away and caught a glimpse of what might be our last hope.

From the tree line, David and his mutated brethren floated forward, forming a perimeter around the conflict.

In the interim, more mutants rushed the beast, and were gruesomely dispatched before they could deal out any damage of their own.

David, what is this? I was almost afraid to ask. Can you stop it?

What you see is a loathsome mistake created on the barge. Jazmine is able to control it, to a degree, with a mechanism she alone possesses. She’s eluded us all night.

We can restrain the beast not defeat it. It too is filled with fae, unseelie to be exact, magic. Yet to our benefit, it is of very low intelligence, operating by brute force and the instinct to kill.

An unstoppable idiot for a monster, we were facing the worst kind of enemy — dumb and deadly.

I had to find Jazmine. We needed the device she used to command it.

Contain it! I’m going for Jazmine. I had to act fast.

Zane and James McQuillen signaled for the pack to cease their frontal attacks as David’s cluster approached cloaked in silent secrecy. Without Zane’s command, the pack would have turned their aggressions on the fae-blooded oddities. Jazmine had warned them repeatedly about the dangers presented by the so-called abominations. The true abomination was shrieking and grasping for anything breathing.

In unison, cloaked arms raised igniting an unprecedented pressure that whipped through the field like a sudden storm. Low growls and snarls rumbled through the pack.

I could understand their uneasiness. Despite my trust and faith in David and his followers, I, too, was fighting the urge to come unhinged, unglued, or more simply stated: go stark raving mad.

Miraculously, whatever numinous spell they were weaving had the desired effect on the demon.

It skirted backward, arms waving, terrified by the newest intruders. Its black, pupil less eyes darted sideways, searching for the source of its distress. Spears of light arced over it, forming a cage of energy the demon was powerless to escape from.

Its temporary capture was my prompt.

Closing my eyes I extended my mind, allowing it to expand.

Jazmine, with Martin, appeared on my mental radar, shoving boxes into the trunk of an old car. Slipping into Jazmine’s mind as easily as Cinderella’s foot into the glass slipper, I surveyed the scene. Seeing Martin still alive baffled me. How could such a big coward have survived?

I noted with some satisfaction his prized Doberman was no longer by his side. It appeared my mental barrage had reaped permanent havoc on the dog’s mind.

Realizing time was too scarce to spend gloating; with speed that surprised me, I perused Jazmine’s mental agenda, flipping through her mind’s file folders. The device she used to control the demon wasn’t hard to locate.

A necklace! She wore a chain around her neck. A silver whistle, resembling what an owner might use to train a dog, hung from the end of her chain, along with several keys and a heart locket.

I searched deeper and was rewarded with the sequence needed to complete the process. The commands were simple. Two short whistles: kill everyone but those I’ve branded. One long whistle: Kill anyone you see. Another directed it to return to its cell, a different one for remaining silent, and, finally, I located the cease all activity signal. Three long bursts of piercing sound. That’s the one I stashed in my own memory files.

Now I just had to retrieve one tiny, seemingly insignificant instrument that could alter the course of our lives by shutting down the greatest threat I’d ever seen.

No big deal, I thought sarcastically hoping to inspire my courage. But considering Jazmine loading a car on the property’s far side wouldn’t make my task any easier. Glancing at David’s men, I ensured their magic-powered cage was still standing strong, its captive secured inside.

Zane and his inner circle, including the two vampires, were gesturing wildly as they attempted to strategize their next move. He’d for a moment forgotten me, so it seemed.

Testing this theory, I dashed into the ever-thickening fog. When I was sure no one was following, I slowed my pace, directing my full attention on Martin.

Using my powers I infiltrated Martin’s mind and flipped the off switch.

He slumped to the ground, dropping the box he’d been lifting. The picture of a puppeteer snipping the puppet’s strings came to mind. Martin was my very own pliable puppet.

Since accepting the mating mark, I had experienced yet another expansion of my gifts. It was if a sealed book, overflowing with instructions, had been unlocked, revealing the mysteries and methods for managing my powers.

All I had to do was wish for a desired outcome and the solution materialized. Persuading someone to act in a specific manner was, after years of trying and failing, at last an option. I’d developed a form of mind control. Instead of causing debilitating mental anguish, painful and potent enough to kill, I could also now command my target to behave precisely as I wished. How convenient! And terrifying.

Such power could prove corrupting if I didn’t keep a firm reign on it. I’d worry about putting safeguards in place later, after our current mess was cleaned up.

Speaking of messes, I’d reached the school’s back parking lot. I peered around the wall. Martin lay on the pavement with items from his box strewn around him. I couldn’t make out what had spilled.

The limo we’d arrived in was nowhere in sight. Just the rundown car and two other vehicles were visible under the dazzling moonlight. Jazmine was stooped over Martin.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted her necklace, but for some insane reason, I felt the overwhelming urge to confront her first.

There were plenty of reasons to do just that. She’d nearly allowed Zane to die. She’d victimized Plum Beach by gruesomely killing its inhabitants; she’d experimented on unsuspecting men, turning them into inhuman creatures; captured and tormented countless mutant women; and she’d ensured that a little boy spent a portion of his life in a secured mental hospital.

If those weren’t reasons enough, the fact remained I despised her.

Looking into her eyes before I destroyed her seemed appropriate. On some level I understood that I should perform another mental trick like I had on Martin and be done with it, but an unfamiliar burning sensation swept through me, igniting a blaze of rage I wasn’t certain I could douse, nor was I sure I wanted to.

Ignoring the sensible voice telling me to grab the whistle and return to the others, I took a tentative step away from the school. But before I could advance further, a chilling wind gust swept through the tree branches, whipping through my hair. As I inhaled the resulting crisp fragrance, Jazmine did the same. She kept her face lifted, sniffing.

I knew before she spun to face me she’d smelled me.

Convinced of my ability to overpower her with my mental magic, I strode forward, feeling for the first time in my life, invincible.

She shifted with such speed; I failed to see the usual vibration preceding the change.

A biblical warning my stepdad often quoted flashed through my mind in the moment before she sprang.

Pride cometh before a fall.

My pride was about to get me killed.