Slurping the last of my soda, I Googled the number for the airline. After a couple of minutes of hold music, an operator answered, then transferred me to the department in charge of canine transportation. Unfortunately,thatemployee was much less than helpful.
The airlinewasprepared to handle dogs of Orthus’s size. Or so they claimed, without actually having seen him. However, he’d have to have an absorbent-cloth-lined carrier large enough for him to sleep and stand in comfortably, and even if I knew where to get one of those at the last minute, I had no reason to believe Orthus would actually get in it. The airline also wanted him sedated and supplied with an adequate amount of food—I doubted severed goblin arm would qualify—and they absolutely wouldnotlet any animal travel without proof that its shots were up to date.
I didn’t have said proof, and I was pretty sure Orthus’s immunizations were not only out of date, but non-existent. A dog that couldn’t be dropped by a bullet probably didn’t have much to fear from rabies.
Orthus would not be flying out of Halifax. Not with a major international airline, anyway.
“Well, what are we going to do with you now?” I asked, leaning over the front seat with my chin on the headrest. “How the hell did you get here, anyway? Charter your own plane?”
Wait a minute, that’s not a bad idea…
Struck with sudden inspiration, I dug through the glove compartment for the map of Nova Scotia. After a few seconds of studying it, I found the symbol I was looking for: a gray airplane icon, indicating a municipal airport in a tiny town called Digby, near the western shore of Nova Scotia. Surely they’d have private planes for hire, if one had the money to spend. And thanks to Troy Devich, I had the money.
Three phone calls later, everything was set. I had a plan and directions to a small dock on the west side of the Annapolis Basin, near Digby, where the scruffy-sounding pilot I’d spoken to would be waiting to fly us to Maine on a tiny twin engine seaplane. No dog carrier, no airport security, and no hassle. Inspired by the amount I offered him, he’d promised to be ready to leave in three hours, and he’d asked no questions about the dog, the rush, or the odd destination.
Half an hour after we’d arrived, I pulled out of the restaurant parking lot, satisfied by both my greasy meal and my recent stroke of luck. Orthus hadn’t eaten a single bite, but until I had time to find and stop at a butcher’s shop, there was nothing I could do to placate his finicky palate. So we set off for Digby, me drumming on the steering wheel along with Barracuda on the local classic rock station, Orthus pouting in the back seat.
Nearly an hour into the drive, when I was sure I wasn’t going to slide off the still-slick road into the woods on either side, I dug my phone from my pocket to check for a signal. Two bars. With Orthus snoring in the backseat—I was starting to wonder if he ever did anything other than sleep and eat people—I dialed Evan-the-psychopomp’s home number by heart. That was part of the problem with a good long-term memory: I couldn’t just forget old boyfriends’ numbers. Or their faces or voices. Though apparently they could forget mine.
“Hello?” Evan said over the line, and I exhaled in relief. I was worried he wouldn’t answer.
“Hi, Evan—”
“This is Evan. I can’t answer the phone right now, but if you leave a message, I’ll call you back.”
The phone beeped in my ear, and I groaned. Voicemail was one of my least favorite things to come out of the twenty-first century. Along with “influencers” and paint color names like Sea Foam.
It’s fucking blue.
“Evan, it’s Lex. I need a favor. There’s a wraith stuck in the pit on Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, and I need you to come pick it up. Ithasto be you, and you can’t tell anyone what you’re doing. This wraith is very old, and he likes to talk. I don’t know anyone else I can trust with this.”
Not that I trusted Evan in all respects, but I knew for a fact that he could keep his mouth shut. Even when he probably shouldn’t.
“I’ve got a big checkbook financing this, so send me your receipts. And keep this one quiet. Call me if you have any questions. I’m still at the same number.”
I hung up the phone and tossed it onto the center console in disgust. Calling Evan hadnotbeen part of my plan for this job, but I didn’t know any other psychopomps. With any luck, he’d just get on a plane without calling me back. Then again, I wasn’t exactly working on a surplus of luck so far.
On the radio, Patty Smythe’s ‘The Warrior,’ gave way to a news break. A calm voice announced that the President’s most recent trip to Europe had gone off without a hitch, and that an isolated case of bubonic plague in a small African village had been confirmed and contained. I reached forward to flick the power button, cutting the reporter off in the middle of an assurance that there was no need to panic. I had to agree. Humans had much more to worry about from their Netherworld neighbors than from an illness wiped out by simple antibiotics.
When we arrived in Digby, I stopped for supplies at a sporting goods store on the way to the lake. After the close-call with the fisherman at the motel, I knew better than to take Orthus inside with me, so, as ridiculous as it felt, I explained to the now-restless hellhound that I was going to have to lock him in the car until I got back. Fortunately, it was far too cold outside to risk overheating him in a locked car—not that that was really a concern for a hellhound.
In case my serious tone wasn’t enough to inspire obedience in a dog who really didn’t give a damn what anyone else wanted, I promised to buy him a whole, raw chicken if he resisted any urge to launch himself through the windshield in a bid for freedom while I was gone. Because a skull that could withstand a bullet could almost certainly destroy a pane of glass.
Clearly unimpressed by my promise of poultry, Orthus growled as I spoke, his dark fur blending seamlessly with the thick shadows on the seat.Hard-headed mutt.
I glanced over my shoulder several times on my way through the parking lot to make sure he was still in the car, and to my surprise, he stayed put. Yet twenty minutes later, when I trudged back to the Corolla carrying a new backpack full of hiking supplies, he was nowhere to be found. The car was still locked, the windshield and all the windows perfectly intact.
“Son of a bitch!” I hissed beneath my breath, shoving the key into the slot. Roaming free somewhere in a small Nova Scotia town was a hungry hellhound I’d unwittingly unleashed upon the world. I could already see the headlines:Vicious demon dog races through streets of Digby, devouring sinners and children alike.
No good could come of this.
After an exhaustive search of the parking lot and the surrounding strip-mall, during which I was propositioned by a grizzly-looking man in a flannel shirt and offered a ride from a soccer mom with four kids in the back of her van, I gave up and got back into the car. Orthus hadn’t caused any trouble on the loose in Memphis, and I could only hope he wouldn’t here. And that he could get home on his own. And that I wouldn’t be attacked by any more goblins without him around to decapitate a bad guy on my behalf.
I was angry and irritable when I left the strip mall, and my mood hadn’t improved fifteen minutes later, when I pulled into a gravel lot in front of a short wooden pier and parked at the edge of a lesser-used section of the harbor. The plane sat on the water, twenty feet in front of my windshield, balanced on the softly rippling surface on two broad white pontoons.
Glancing around for any sign of Orthus, I stepped out of the car into the bright afternoon sun, inhaling the combined scents of seawater and fuel from the dock half a mile down. My leather coat flapped in the ocean breeze as I extended my arms over my head for a good stretch. My spirits improved almost immediately. I hadn’t been on the coast in years and had almost forgotten what the ocean looked like.
Yawning, I hauled my bags from the trunk and turned toward the water, eyeing a well-kept Cessna seaplane. On the boardwalk in front of the plane stood the pilot, Arthur Finnigan, an obviously fit man in his late fifties, who looked every bit as craggy in person as he’d sounded over the phone. I liked him immediately. Mostly because he waved when he saw me instead of running his eyes appreciatively up and down my body—not that he could have seen anything worth leering at beneath the full-length leather coat.
