“Not milord.” The creature’s eyes got wider, if that was possible. He seemed to shrivel and shrink for a second like crumpling garbage. Then he bolted.
That should have been my cue to head screaming in the other direction, but I leaped superhero-style over the nearest tombstone and tackled the thing to the ground. He squirmed and shook and shrieked like my grandmother when she found litter, but I had him. Even when he sank his teeth into my arm and I howled in pain, I didn’t let go.
“Release this hob! You will release him at once! Milord, oh, Your Highness, oh, this hob has faaaailed you, he has faaaailed—”
“Shut up!” I hauled him like a sack of potatoes out of the cemetery and started heading back to the house. “Stop it—just—!”
It’s funny. In the back of my mind, I had been thinking it would be pretty awful to run into a cop right now. Not even just a cop, but any adult who could then call a cop on me for breaking curfew. That had been the worst I could think of, especially with Nell’s warning to not tell Uncle Barnabas about trouble that could get us locked away in the house.
Your brain just isn’t programmed to guess that the broken mirror shards around you would start to shiver, then seal their jagged edges back together. You just don’t think to imagine a huge shaggy dog the size of a small cow, with teeth as long as your fingers, digging its way out of a small shard of glass.
I couldn’t even choke out a whimper.
The dog smelled sour and sharp all at once. It reeked like it was rotting from the inside out—its hot breath fogged the air around its head in swirling clouds, turning my stomach as it drifted past me. But worse—even worse than all that—were its eyes. They were red, red, red.
“Nice…doggy?” I tried, backing up. The creature in my arms went boneless, fainting with a wheezing gasp of terror.
As if that weren’t enough, the monster opened its mouth, the words dripping from its mouth with its acid drool. “Find Alastor. Take Alastor. Find Alastor. Take Alastor.”
Run.
I took a step back, the dog took one forward—all the way back onto the sidewalk and out of the graveyard. Yellow drool slipped between the gaps in its teeth, foaming as it hit the ground. The pavement sizzled as it burned. The air filled with the stink of rotten eggs, but I wasn’t sure which one of us it was coming from. There was a warm, damp patch on my shirt where the little creature had wet himself.
Awesome.
“What…what is that?”
A howler. You will not escape.
“Thanks for that vote of confidence!” I wanted to look around to see if there were other people watching, but the street was deserted. The giant dog came one step closer, its nose turned up to sniff the air.
I will run us back to the house and the witchling. We will only escape if I am at the helm.
“No way,” I choked out. The dog arched its back in a leisurely stretch. Black, gummy lips pulled back, almost like it was smirking at me.
Prosperity. Alastor sounded calm, but there was a sharp edge to his words. The fact that he used my name only made my heart lurch. We shall work together, or we shall die together.
No contract?
You think I have time to draft one? Zounds, Maggot—
The dog sprang forward, its jaws snapping open with a howl that tore through the moonlight. “Find Alastor! Take Alastor!”
And I was running.
The tingling heat filled my legs like a rush of pricking needles, but the night was cold against my skin. It smeared past me in a dark blur. My feet flashed under me, faster and faster until I wasn’t even sure they were touching the ground. I wasn’t even sure we were headed back to the House of Seven Terrors. I just gripped the ugly little creature in my arms and let Alastor pump pure rocket fuel through my system. The dog’s paws slapped against the sidewalk, kicking up sprays of mud and water. Two drops of its acid spit flung against my neck, and I almost stumbled at how bad it hurt.
Something sharp caught the back of my shirt and tore it across the back. I felt the pinch of that same sharp thing against my skin and let out a cry of my own.
I am going to die. I am going to die. I am going to be eaten by a Godzilla dog, and no one will ever know what happened—
SILENCE!
Alastor forced me to take one last leap off the sidewalk before my whole body launched into the air. I was flying—well, technically falling. I arched up over the two neighbors’ lawns. Their Halloween decorations seemed like tiny toys, I was up so high. I heard the hound snarl and snap its teeth, clipping my heel, and risked a look back.
The monster fell to the ground in a twisting bundle of dark fur. It whimpered like any dog would when it hit the gnarled bushes and flattened them. It thrashed against the pumpkin lights that were tangled around its neck, until it finally yanked itself free. The cat that was sitting on the porch, its tail swishing back and forth against the welcome mat, watched the whole thing happen without so much as a blink.
I didn’t look back again to see if it was following us. Not when I was the one that was suddenly taking a swan dive.
Alastor tucked my body in on itself just before I hit the dead grass with my shoulder and rolled to safety, narrowly missing the stained cement path. The ugly little nugget of a fiend I’d had in my arms went flying clear across the way, landing up on the porch with a thump.
It was such a weird sensation to be tired down to my bones but have someone else prop my legs up and move them along. I slumped forward against the porch steps, crawling the rest of the way.
Into the house, Maggot. Do not forget my servant.
“What if it comes after—”
Look. It stays at the fence, do you see? But why…?
Some part of me recognized the sound of the stairs creaking overhead. The front door was still wide open, giving me a picture-perfect view of the big shaggy black dog prowling back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the lawn.
The black puffball that was Toad had shifted into an even bigger dog than the one outside of the gate, and he was growling with anticipation of the fight. I wouldn’t have even recognized the changeling without its bright round eyes. He took off with a roar, chasing the other dog down the street until it was yelping in fear.
Note to self: do not upset Toad.
“Prosper?”
Nell’s already frizzy hair was sticking up every which way from sleep. She wiped at her eyes and suddenly jumped when her brain finally woke up the rest of the way at the sight of:
1. Me sprawled out in the front hallway with my legs twitching.
2. My pajamas hanging off me, totally shredded.
3. The bloodthirsty dog that had been staring the two of us down.
“What did you do?” she demanded. “Did you sneak out with the fiend to summon the howler? Did you make a contract with him?”
“Don’t—” I warned. “Don’t come any closer!”
Nell didn’t understand. I couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Before I could push him back, Alastor had my arm, he had my hand, and he was wrapping it around Nell’s neck.