THE DOG AND I STOPPED AT THE OR DER’S STABLES and I checked out Marigold again. I did have a beat-up old truck by the name of Karmelion which ran on enchanted water, but it took a good fifteen minutes of intense chanting to get it started, and if the guy in the cloak attacked somewhere, I didn’t want to waste time begging my engine to start.
My apartment building came equipped with a set of garages, which the residents used for everything, from extra storage to makeshift stables. I used mine mostly to store wood for the winter and to put up an occasional mount I borrowed from the Order’s stables. With Marigold safely installed in the garage, the faithful canine and I went down to the store.
The corner store didn’t have clippers, so I generated a new plan, one that involved leaving the shaving of attack poodles to people who actually knew what they were doing. The dog and I jogged three miles to the groomer.
We stepped through the door, announced by a bell, and a smiling plump woman emerged from the depths of the place, glanced at the dog, and smiled wider. “What a lovely poodle.”
We both growled a little bit, I because of the poodle comment and the dog out of a sense of duty.
The happy woman, whose name was Liz, secured my poodle to a long iron pole and turned on the electric clippers. The moment the clippers touched his skin, the dog whirled about and tried to clamp his teeth on Liz’s arm. Instead I clamped my hand on his muzzle and turned him to face me.
“Pheew, you’re fast,” Liz said.
“I hold, you cut.”
Twenty minutes later Liz had swept away a rank mass of matted poodle fur, while I received a new dog: an athletic-looking mutt with smooth ears, long legs, and a build similar to an abnormally large German pointer. The dog got a homemade dog biscuit for suffering through the indignity and I was relieved of the awful burden of thirty dollars.
“Have you picked out a name yet?” the woman asked.
“No.”
She nodded at the pile of black matted fur. “How does Samson sound?”
WE JOGGED HOME. THE MAGIC WAVE CAUGHT US on the way and I gave silent thanks to whoever it was upstairs that we’d managed to get the poodle trimmed before the magic rendered the electric clippers completely useless.
I let the chain sag as an experiment, but the dog seemed content to stay by my side. In the parking lot, he proved that not only did he have a stomach of steel, but his bladder was also magically connected to one of the Great Lakes. We made a circle, as he enthusiastically marked his territory. The sleepless night was catching up with me. My head swam and my legs kept trying to fold, pitching me into a horizontal position. I’d put a lot of effort into the wards around Joshua’s corpse and my body demanded a few hours of sleep.
The dog snarled.
I looked up. He stood with his feet planted wide, back humped, his body frozen stiff. Hackles rose on his spine. He stared left, where the parking lot narrowed between my apartment building and the crumbling wall of the ruins next door.
I pulled Slayer from the sheath on my back. The ruins had once been an apartment building as well. The magic had crushed it, chewing it down to rubble, and now crumbling brick walls served as purchase for ivy frosted with the cold. The greenery obscured my view.
The attack poodle bared his teeth, wrinkling his muzzle, and let loose a low, quiet growl.
I took a step toward the ruins. A figure dashed from behind the wall with preternatural speed, veered left, and jumped. It sailed through the air, clearing the six-foot-tall wall with a couple of feet to spare, and vanished from view.
Alrighty, then.
I jogged to the spot where the person had been hiding, comparing the memory to the wall. Whoever it was, he or she wasn’t very tall, near five feet. Swaddled in some sort of drab garment. Not much to go on. Chasing the person through the ruins wasn’t an option. I’d never catch up, not with that kind of speed.
Who would want to keep tabs on me? No way to know. I’d pissed off a lot of people. For all I knew, it could be one of the Steel Mary’s flunkies. Assuming he had flunkies.
I headed back to my apartment, dog in tow. “If this person is following me, he or she will continue to do so. Sooner or later, I’ll snag them,” I told him. “If you’re really good, I’ll let you bite them first.”
The attack poodle wagged his tail.
“What we need now is something to eat and a nice shower.”
More adoring wagging. Well, at least one creature in this Universe thought my plans were genius.
I heard the phone ringing when I unlocked the door. Phones were funny things: sometimes magic took them out, and sometimes it didn’t. When I desperately needed it, the damn thing failed, but when I didn’t want to be bothered, it worked like a charm. I got inside and picked it up. “Kate Daniels.”
“Kate!” The frantic note in the Clerk’s voice knocked the sleep right out of me. “We’ve been hit!”