Spellbound & Hellhounds, page 17
part #1 of Coven Chronicles Series
“What are you thinking about?”
“What I’m going to eat when I get out of this musty underbelly,” she said with a snicker. “I’m starving!” She heard a grumble that made her turn to face Bobo and chortle, “If you were hungry too you could just say something, big guy. No need to be shy. I was only teasing you about your weight, earlier.” Bobo froze where he stood, and she was forced to stop and look back at him. “Bobo?”
Shaking his head, he spoke in a low tone to her. “That… wasn’t my stomach…”
She looked confused for a moment and then the severity of his words sunk in. Her eyes grew bulbus and she leaned back on her heels to look behind them, down to the vast stretch of tunnel. At first, there was nothing. However, that didn’t last long. Slowly, four obsidian black, leathery skinned legs crept from behind the corner of the passageway. A cat-like flame-tipped tail was swinging back and forth behind the bulk of a massive, dark body and a wild, greasy, matted mane of hair like a poised scorpion tail. A bright ember, like a burning coal lodged within the creature’s throat, glowed profusely. When the beast growled, the throat vibrated and shook, and the ember flared to life like a wildfire. Smoke circled in fading rivulets around the broad-shoulders of the hound’s body.
“Bobo, how many were in the cage?”
“Three. We checked and doublechecked. I’m sure of it.”
“They travel in large packs. Why didn’t I stop to think of that?”
“What should we do?”
“Run.” It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order, and she didn’t wait to see if he’d comply. She turned and darted through the long corridor and let her mind race with plans. They needed to get out of there. Going back and trying to re-do what they had just done would only tack on time they didn’t have and would put them in further danger. The hellhound couldn’t be killed by any means that they had available, not that they knew how to kill one to begin with.
Banish a banshee! She was getting nowhere in her plotting. She just needed a moment to stop and think….
That’s it! She started to scan the tunnels and quickly came up with a plan. It wouldn’t be much, but they didn’t need much. “Bobo. We need to lose it and find somewhere to hide.”
“What?”
“Look, we won’t be able to outrun it, but we can lose it for a short time in the tunnels. I can cloak us with a spell. I already prepped one, I just need enough time to cast it.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll discuss that after we succeed with part one.”
The ogre’s tone dropped in pitch, “Understood.” There was no sense in explaining an escape plan while huffing and puffing and trying to ditch a speeding hellhound.
Up ahead was a passage. “There. Turn up there!” She skidded and hit the wall and picked up the speed again. “Take every turn we can!” And so, they did. Each time, the sound of the hellhound’s paws thundering behind them became more distant.
Vanessa searched for the cloaking spell in her satchel as she ran. She pulled open one of them and saw the nightingale feather buried in gold dust. “I found it,” she practically laughed, half crazed, and they turned down another tunnel. She started to slow her pace. The caves were crudely carved, and there were many dips and holes where they looked like they started to dig but changed their mind at the last moment.
Bobo slowed and looked behind him, his chest heaving as he sporadically looked from her to the end of the tunnel to make sure the hellhound wasn’t there. “Vanessa, what are you doing?”
“I need a…” She stopped speaking and walking at the same time. Instantly, she beamed and motioned him over. “Quick!” She said, and he rushed over not questioning further.
Shoving him into the carved-out space in the rocky wall, Vanessa quickly squeezed in next to him and started to cast the spell. Just as she started to mumble the incantation, they heard the hellhounds claws scraping over the stone flooring and start to trot and then slow to a walk as it growled, sniffing the air. It knew they were close by.
“Vanessa,” Bobo urged her to hurry with a frantic whisper that she almost couldn’t hear. She focused on the spell. She hadn’t concentrated so hard in her life.
Just as she opened her eyes, the hellhound’s face was on the other end of the opening.
The molten saliva dripping from its sharp fangs and its feral burning eyes peering into the crevice they had tucked themselves away in. It snarled, its black, leathery lips quivered angrily. Her hands, that were outstretched near its snout from performing the spell, shook profusely in place, and she dare not move or speak or scream.
The hellhound sniffed around the edges of the hole, howled its scream-like howl, and Vanessa bit her lips to try not to shriek. Her heart was scratching at her chest like a caged hellcat. Just as soon as she thought that the beast would lunge and devour them both, it turned, sniffed the ground, and bayed into the darkness before running off further into the tunnel.
Her body relaxed so much that she was sure she had melted into a puddle on the floor. “That was close,” she breathed.
“Too close,” Bobo said what she was thinking.
After taking a quick moment to collect herself, Vanessa turned to Bobo. “Hand me your crystal ball.”
He snapped his gaze to her. “My what?” he whispered.
Her hand was open, ready to receive the orb, and she bobbed it up and down impatiently. “Ha, ha. Hand me your crystal ball,” she urged.
“I… Vanessa. I don’t have it.”
“You what?” she snapped hoarsely.
“I. Don’t. Have. It.”
“Why not?”
“Well, dear, I wasn’t expecting to need it. I left it at home in my haste to chase after the young and restless trouble-maker.” He leaned in and cupped his mouth for theatrical purposes, as if to shield his words from an unseen crowd, “That would be you, by the way.”
Her face twisted in anger. “Why in the name of magic would you leave the house without your crystal ball?”
“I didn’t think I’d need it, for starters. Nor did I expect you, oh fearless master, to go kicking yours into the ugly face of a minotaur,” Bobo sounded exasperated and strained the last few words in a breathless whisper scream.
“This is just perfect,” she muttered.
Bobo gasped, and she braced herself on the small enclosed walls, half expecting the hellhound to have returned. The ogre fished around his satchel on his hip. Removing a pair of glasses, a book, and finally a compact mirror. “Ah-ha!” he exclaimed right before she snatched the compact mirror from him. “Rude,” he whispered.
“This will do just fine,” she said with a gleeful lilt in her voice and hope glistening in her eyes. Soon that look turned into confusion as she turned her attention to her demon pet again. “Wait… why do you have a compact mirror?”
He looked a bit bashful and pinched his fingers together and brought them to the space between his brow line. “Sometimes I get these few stray hairs betwee—” He shook his head and came out of the daze of explanation. “You know, it’s none of your business! Just make your confounded call, woman.”
She shook her head and opened the mirror. “Fine. No reason to be short. Sheesh.”
Mirrors could be used as communication devices just like crystal balls, but she preferred to use a crystal ball. They could do more than a compact mirror as well. Because of their ability to do more than make calls, the crystal balls were all the rage in Aeristria. It didn’t mean that mirrors, lakes, and anything that was reflective wasn’t able to hold a call, it was that the calls were distorted and glitchy. Too much outside interference jumbled up the connection between the callers. Crystal balls and compact mirrors were more common than anything else to hold a call. This was primarily due to how they were made. Crystal balls were imbued with more magic and from start to finish were infused with spells and magical items to aid them in being the best item to have for calling other witches or wizards.
Right now, it didn’t matter what she was holding as long as it could make a call. She thought of Leon, his pinched brow and angry eyes, his long sandy-colored hair and frowning mouth, the last face he made before Bobo draped his handkerchief over the object. She waited. Barely two buzzes went off before a frantic Leon picked up. His mouth was in a hard frown, his eyes searched the orb wildly, and he combed the area before he spoke in a whisper. Was he… worried?
“Vanessa, where are you? Are you all right? Where is Bobo? Is he with you? Are you in the tunnels? The front door is closed and locked from the inside, I can’t get down into the basement. I’ve been pacing for hours.” Everything came out in rapid succession, and Vanessa couldn’t answer one question fast enough before he shot out another. She waited until he was done before she replied.
“Bobo’s with me. We’re fine. I have a plan to get out, but I needed to let you know that we are all right. We need to talk, but after I get out.”
“What’s wrong?”
“There is a hellhound down here…”
He yelled, and she heard the distinct sound of something soft hitting something hard. His face disappeared from the sight of the mirror for a moment. Quickly he came back into view with his features twisted in pain that he was poorly trying to mask. “Can you get away from it?” he whispered crossly.
“I think so. The tunnel has a daze spell. I made a rip in it that Bobo and I can slip through, after that anything that attempts to come through will be stunned. But that thing is fast.”
“I can smell us out of here, but it’s a bit of a ways. There’s no telling if we can beat it,” Bobo added.
Leon stared at the orb. “Vanessa…”
She cut him off, “I was calling to tell you … If I don’t come out in the next fifteen minutes … I need you to do something for me.”
“No.” She blinked, baffled at the compact mirror. “You get out of there and tell me what you need to.”
“Leon.”
“I’m not saying goodbye. You are going to get out of there.” He looked sternly into his crystal ball. “I’m giving you ten minutes, not fifteen. Don’t make me wait.” The connection cut off.
“Well, can’t blame the man for being upset,” Bobo said with a sniff.
She sighed and closed the compact and handed it back to Bobo. Leon was mad, and he had every right to be. She was stupid coming down here on her own, without preparations, without consent from the Coven, and without letting him know. She looked without poking her head out from the cloaking spell and saw nothing. “I think we are just going to have to make a run for it and pray to the Goddess it’s enough.” She turned and looked at her pet. “You lead the way. Get us out of here so we can go home.”
Bobo nodded to her, and she took one final look before inhaling deeply, holding her breath, and stepping out into the tunnel. The silence that surrounded them was horrible. Every little sound made her heart skip, and every breeze made her skin shiver with fresh goosebumps.
They carefully and quietly made their way back to the main tunnel where they could see the opening to the system of passageways. Nothing ever looked as sweet as that sight did. She was tired of the scent of mildew, must, and soil. She was tired of being chased by monsters. She was tired of thinking of all those ogres she had … she frowned hard and looked at the floor passing under her feet.
“Come on, Vanessa, we’re almost there,” Bobo whispered.
“I’m coming.”
The sound of claws dancing on stone made her heartbeat climb to a painful patter. She turned just to see a few feet behind them, the hellhound emerged from a tunnel dumping out into the main passage. She slapped Bobo’s back repeatedly right as it started to snarl. “RUN, Bobo!”
He only looked to confirm that the beast was there before breaking out in a sprinting start. How could such a massive creature be that fast? She followed close behind as best she could. The hound scrambled, feet slipping a bit as it tried to catch traction and then hauled off after them in a raging rampage.
Sweat beaded over their faces and dripped from their chins. Vanessa’s lungs felt like they were on fire, her legs felt so sore she was sure they’d give up on her, and she’d fall to the ground any moment. Every breath in was like needles scraping at her dry throat, and her lips and tongue felt as though they were cracking, like she was stuck out in desert heat. She whimpered as she started to fall behind Bobo.
“Pick up the pace!” Bobo growled.
“I’m trying,” she whined.
That sound wasn’t something she produced often in the face of danger. The whine made the ogre turn on a coin, kick off the wall, and remove his battleax from his hip as he hit the ground and bravely went to face the hellhound head on. As though the weapon was a golf club, the ogre brandished it like a sports tool, scraping it over the ground as he ran at the nightmarish dog. Sweeping up from the floor, Bobo swung, connecting the metal with the meat of the hellhound’s chin and slinging it several feet behind them with a bellowing roar.
The creature yelped and then bounced and slid to a stop a good distance away. But it didn’t stay down. It slowly rose, shook off the blow, and erupted in flames as it gave a shrieking howl right before it picked up speed and resumed racing back to them.
Bobo spun around and caught up with Vanessa. “I did what I could, dear.”
“It was more than enough,” she admitted. The end of the tunnel was there. So close she could taste it. She never ran so fast and hard in her life. As soon as she reached the opening Vanessa dove through. Bobo close behind and the hellhound inches behind him. The spell crackled as it widened its birth and Bobo lunged with all his speed and might through the opening.
A short bark echoed in the main room before the spell exploded in a deep-blue light and slammed a ghost-like image of a hammer down on the hellhound’s body. It was dazed.
Vanessa crab walked backwards as her eyes dared not remove themselves from the hellhound knocked out on the floor a few feet away from her. Bobo rose and didn’t bother with dusting off as he picked her up and raced for the summoning room. “It’s dazed,” she reminded him between panting breaths.
“It’s a hellhound, Vanessa. They regenerate faster than most demons,” he explained. She looked back and saw the dim fire start to grow in illumination.
“Double-dip a candlestick,” she hissed and patted at him. “Best pick up the pace or let me down to run,” she told him.
He put her down once they reached the white candle hall and they bolted for the stairs and the main door. They heard the shrilling howl of the hellhound just as Vanessa whispered the unlocking word to her spell. They tugged on the door hurriedly, squeezed through the opening, and frantically slammed the boiler room door shut. Right after, Vanessa whispered the locking spell.
With that spell, she felt spent and slid down the door huffing and puffing. The pain was starting to sink in as the adrenaline ebbed from them.
“Come on. I want to get as far away from here as possible,” Bobo said while catching his breath. She nodded in reply and they hobbled, holding onto one another, to the exit through the plastic curtain down the halls. They practically fell out of the opening on the side of the building.
Once out in the snow, they saw Leon racing through the almost knee-high mounds of white and sending flurries of snowflakes dancing in a kicked-up mess behind him. Slamming into Vanessa, he hugged her hard and strong. The feeling of his embrace made her go stiff, and she felt confused. But the longer he remained there hugging her, the more she let go of trying to pick apart what was happening and just lived in the moment. Her body ate up the warmth that he provided, despite him standing out in the cold for hours, and she felt that he cared for her for a moment. There was comfort in knowing someone had waited for her. After all that she had been through, there was someone waiting on the other side of that curses door that caged so many nightmares.
She let her guard down at the same moment that Leon pulled away and started to shake her as violently as he dared to shake a woman. “Are you a blasted fool! What were you doing down there?”
“Be gentle with her, Leon. She’s been through enough,” Bobo spoke softly, but Leon was furious and didn’t listen to the wise words of the calm ogre.
He shook his head. “You had no business being down there. You can’t handle taking down a hellhound!” he snapped at her.
One moment she was feeling things she only had glimpses of in her dreams and the next they were ripped away and followed by Leon yelling. She felt a swirl of emotions and said the first thing that came to her mind. “You said you didn’t think I was weak!” She screamed it in his face. How dare he lie to her, try to make her feel better just because he thought she was having a bad day. What a typical male. Saying something to make her feel better but not meaning a lick of it. She wasn’t his charity case.
Her yelling in his face didn’t bother him in the slightest. He just stared at her and furrowed his brow in anger. “I wasn’t afraid of you not being strong enough, I was afraid I was going to lose you!” He yelled back in her face, and it caused her to pull back as much as his tight grasp on her would allow. Her eyes widened, and he continued to yell at her, “You could have died, Vanessa. You would have died, and I would have blamed myself for the rest of my life for not being able to stop or save you.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, but when her mouth opened to speak, nothing came out. That was the moment when she realized that she was crying. Hot tears blazing down the sides of her frozen cheeks as she stared up at Leon, bewildered by his worn and worried expression. He sighed and pulled her into his chest and just silently hugged her as Bobo tried to shield them both from the blistering cold winds that whipped around them.
The three of them stood there in the start of the blizzard, holding onto one another like they were life rafts amidst a stormy sea.
