Unknown - Scorched

“Macmillan.” He nearly dropped the phone. His voice resonated differently, bouncing around in a larger rib cage. It was also shaking with stress.

“Hello? Mac?” It was Holly.

“Hey,” he said, clearing his throat, trying to shrink his voice back to normal.

“Sorry to call so early. Have you got a cold?”

He rumbled again, feeling like a sports coupe that woke up as a monster truck. “What do you know about the Castle making superwarriors?”

“Guardsmen? Mac, are you all right? You sound strange.”

Guardsmen. Was that what he’d become? But they were originally human, not demon. They were bound by oaths and spells and trapped against their will, sent to the prison by some whacked-out secret society in charge of supplying Castle guards. Nothing to do with him.

“Mac? What’s going on?”

How much did he want to say this minute? He was too hungry to think, too impatient to explain himself. Too scared. Too embarrassed. “I’m okay,” he said.

“I found something on the demon boxes. I figured you’d want the information as soon as possible.”

His cop side jumped to attention. Good to know it still worked. “Hit me.”

“They’re not exactly common, but they’re not rare, either. I popped into my grandma’s place and had a look through some of her books. Sure enough, I found some thing. I made up a charm that should stop you from being sucked inside.”

“Great!”

“Lore was over here about something else. I’m sending him to you with the charm. He should be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Great,” he said again, inwardly cursing. He wasn’t ready for visitors, but after the effort Holly had gone to, there was no way he was going to complain about timing. “I owe you big time.”

“No problem, Mac. Take care.” She hung up.

He hung up, grappling with the jumble of problems he had to solve, starting with the most basic. Crap, what am I going to wear? Nothing was going to fit.

Mac paused, remembering his raincoat. He’d noticed the sleeves felt short a couple of days ago, when he had been talking to Holly. Had the first signs of this change already started then?

What if it wasn’t over?

His stomach growled. He ached. He got up to head to the shower and knocked over the hallway lamp. Everything was too close, too cramped.

I hate this. He was an alien in his own landscape. Just call me Ogg, cousin of Tarzan.

After the shower, he grabbed his largest pair of sweat pants and a muscle shirt. The shirt, straining across his chest, made him look like something from a cheesecake boy-toy calendar.

Great. Just great.

The door buzzer rang. Mac walked to the hall and pressed the button for the outside door, not bothering with a greeting. As he moved, he could feel muscle shirt pulling tight across his back. Prowling back to the kitchen, he rummaged in the cupboard until he found some soda crackers. He tore the package open as Lore walked in.

The hellhound reached the kitchen, stopped in his tracks, and looked Mac up and down, the only change in his expression a slight lift of his dark brows. “You’ve been working out.”

Mac chewed a cracker. “I had a makeover.”

Lore narrowed his eyes, considering. Hounds seldom showed emotion to outsiders. The merest flicker was like anyone else having a spazz attack. “Did you mean to do this?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not an illusion.”

“Nope.”

“Huh.” Lore was silent for a moment, and then held out a brown paper bag. His hands were large, the type that would deliver a bruising blow in a fight. Mac could have crushed them in his.

“Holly asked me to give you this,” Lore said.

Mac stuffed another two crackers in his mouth and took the bag, unrolling the top. It held a small cloth pouch pulled shut by a drawstring long enough to hang around his neck. Mac pulled it out of the bag slowly, cautious just in case it didn’t mix well with whatever transforming spell he was packing. When it seemed safe, he slipped the string over his head and tossed the bag on the counter. The pouch looked primitive, filled with who-knew-what witchy herbs and rocks, but it was small enough to stuff under his shirt and out of the way.

Lore watched him silently, dark eyes following Mac’s every movement. “Holly said that charm protects against demon boxes. You’re going after Sylvius.”

Mac looked at Lore sharply. The hellhound’s expression was guarded. It was like looking into the gaze of a street-tough stray. Which, in a way, he was.

“How do you know about Sylvius?” Mac asked.

“He’s a friend.” Lore folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the refrigerator. “I would have said it was sure death to attempt to rescue any prisoner of the guardsmen, but you can do it. The gods have obviously prepared you.”

For a moment, Mac forgot about refueling. He had no idea what hellhounds believed in, but he didn’t like the idea of being prepared by some entity. That smacked of being the anointed one, or inflated one, or whatever. More crap he’d never signed off on.

“How do you know what I can do?” he asked. “How do you know what goes on in the Castle? You haven’t been there for a year.”

For the briefest instant, Lore looked smug. “Hounds are good with locks.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’re half demons. We have power over doorways and thresholds. Things between one realm and the next. Prophecy. Now that I’m free, the Castle door is no problem for me.”

Mac choked on a cracker crumb. He poured a glass of water and drank it down. Then he started back in on the crackers.

Lore watched him with steady eyes. “We’ve been watching you.”

“That’s creepy.” The hellhounds in general were pretty weird—not harmful, but too silent, too watchful for comfort.

As if reading Mac’s mind, Lore lowered his gaze, studying the kitchen floor. “When you returned to Fairview, some thought it was a miracle. You had fallen into the dark, but came back in defiance of your curse. Our elders thought the gods had called you here for a purpose.”

Mac made a dismissive noise. If the gods were calling, they could leave a voice mail.

Thoughts chased across the hound’s strong-boned features, whole arguments Mac would never hear because he didn’t belong to their closed, silent community. Finally, Lore said, “You don’t believe me. Hounds don’t lie. We can’t.” -

“Whatever.” Mac reached for another cracker, and realized the box was empty. He crumpled it in disgust.

The hound stiffened, pulling away from the fridge to stand straight, his hands half clenched at his sides. “Events are moving quickly. You need to listen.”

Mac threw the box back on the counter, a white haze of frustration flooding his mind. “Screw all that. I need to eat. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.”

The words came out between clenched teeth. The alternative was roaring like a wounded bear. He didn’t want to deal with gods and legends. He had more immediate problems.

Lore edged back, cautious now.

Mac steadied his breath. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it. I’m done with being special. I don’t do destiny.”

“That’s your decision.”

“Damned straight.”

Lore held on to the ensuing silence until Mac met his eyes. Then he carried on as if Mac had been listening intently all along. “Nothing happens without reason. If you’ve been brought back and changed, there’s something you need to do. Something even bigger than rescuing my friend.”

Mac felt irritation bunching his shoulders. “Like what?”

“If the task is yours, you already know.”

“That’s crazy.”