Finding Midnight (8 page)

*****

Summer had slept very soundly, so soundly
that she had not heard the pup get up and off the bed. When she
woke she looked around the room, noting the pup was nowhere to be
seen. She shuffled to the main room of the cottage, rubbing her
eyes. To her dismay, she found he had been rather busy.

One of the cushions from the couch had been
disemboweled, and stuffing and rubber foam littered the area around
the couch. She found the pup sitting on top of the tiny kitchen
table, eating the contents of the large Cheerios box that was now
unrecognizable as ever having been a box.

When he spied her entry into the room, he
directed his attention towards her. His whip of a tail wagged like
mad, launching pieces of cereal like bullets across the room. His
black tongue hung out his mouth with a few unchewed Cheerios
clinging to it as well as his jowls and one on his nose. She wanted
to laugh as he looked at her, his mismatched eyes shining brightly,
and if she didn’t know better, she could swear he was smiling.

“No. No,” she said as she headed for the
table and put him on the floor. “Puppies are not allowed on the
table,” she scolded. When she grabbed the broom from the closet, he
trotted behind her dutifully. As she started to sweep up Cheerios,
he thought this was some kind of game and he bit the broom, pawed
at it and chased it around the kitchen. Needless to say, the broom
served next to no purpose in cleaning but good fun for a pup.

She felt she was getting nowhere with the
Cheerios, so maybe she would grab a garbage bag and pick up all the
foam rubber and stuffing from the cushion. He followed her every
move and watched, cocking his head from one side to the other in
sheer amazement. His head followed with each handful of debris from
the floor to the bag as if his eyes could not move independently
from his head. She looked at him watching her quizzically and
showed him a handful of stuffing.

“Bad boy. Puppies don’t eat the couch,” she
said to him. He cocked his head again, his ears flopping a bit and
then he put his paw out to her as if wanting to shake, but then
pulled a clump of stuffing towards himself.

“You want to help?” she asked. He cocked his
head again. “Put it in the bag for me.”

He bent down and picked up a mouthful and
deposited it into the garbage bag.

She rubbed his ears and praised him, “What a
good boy.” He liked that and gave her a big, sloppy, stinky lick
across the cheek and grabbed another chunk of stuffing and put it
in the bag. She praised him again and his tail wagged out of
control with happiness and his black tongue hung out over his jowls
as he breathed stinky sulpher breath on her.

She waved her hand in front of her nose and
said, “We’re going to have to do something about that breath,
sheesh! Since you have already had a little breakfast I’ll get
ready for work and we can talk to Dr. Stuart and have him check you
out.”

He wagged his tail as if answering her and
trotted behind her into the bedroom, sat on his bed and watched her
get dressed.

*****

Summer made a leash out of a wide leather
belt and led him outside to the car. He looked curiously at the
furry dog-mobile, tipping his head to the right, and then looked
towards Summer for guidance.

“I know it’s silly looking, but it’s a good
little vehicle.” She unlocked the door while the pup smelled the
fur on the car, and then Summer spied a note on her windshield. She
grabbed it and led the pup, into the car and onto the passenger
seat. She settled into the driver’s seat.

She laughed looking at the pup that was the
size of a full grown golden retriever. He was comfortable now, but
if he grew to be the size of his mother, or bigger, it would be a
bit tight. She pictured in her mind the grown pup stuffing himself
into her already silly-looking car.
What a sight that will be
for other drivers to see
, she thought.

She opened the note left on the windshield.
Ms. Midnight was requesting an urgent meeting with her this
afternoon and making it very clear that she would not be taking
‘no’ for an answer.

“Oh boy,” Summer said to the pup. “Looks
like I’m in trouble again. Wonder what I did this time?” The pup
looked back at her with droopy, sad, red and yellow eyes as if he
knew what she was saying to him. She smiled and gave the spiky hair
on top of his head a little rustle, making him wag his tail and
appear to smile again. She started the SUV and headed for the
office.

*****

Sully enjoyed his ride to the office,
watching people and cars rush by the window. Some didn’t notice
him, while others took double takes and just about ran off the
road, but it was the children he most enjoyed. They waved and
smiled and when they did, Sully would paw at the window then licked
the glass as if to wave back and blow them a kiss.

Summer scratched him behind one of his ears
and Sully moaned with enjoyment. Another light and two stop signs
and they were pulling into the parking lot of the veterinarian
office. Though she had him on his makeshift leash, she didn’t need
it; he followed her like a shadow trotting behind her, head held
high and tail in the air wagging back and forth with such force
that it nearly knocked him off balance while he walked.

The odd pair walked past the reception desk
where Tori was chatting with a delivery boy, her back to Summer and
Sully. It was the boy’s shocked face at seeing the hellhound that
made Tori turn her head and do a double take of her own only seeing
Sully’s posterior.

“Summer?” Tori said after them as the
delivery boy scurried off in a fright.

“Yes?” she answered, coming around the
corner, nearly running into a hurried Tori.

“Hey!” Tori said than turned her attention
to Sully. She was stunned, but not frightened when she reached out
to Sully, allowing him to smell her hand—which he did, then licked
it, leaving it coated with a slick goo. She scrunched up her nose
at the sight and feel of the drool. “Yuck,” she said, reaching for
a paper towel on the counter. Once she was de-slimed, she gave the
strange-looking dog a scratch atop his head.

“When did you get a dog? I mean…whatever
this is? What is it?” Not waiting for answers, she continued, “And
what are these?” She touched the tiny horns on his head. “And
these?” she said, noticing the sigils beneath his skin. “How cool?
Are they tattoos?”

Summer found herself stuttering trying to
answer Tori’s questions only to be interrupted by another question
until she finally waited for Tori to slow down and give her an
opening to speak.

“He’s a hellhound; at least that’s what I
was told. We kind of found one another last night. His mother died
in some kind of fight with this demon guy I met in the woods.”

Tori stopped petting the dog and stood up,
staring blankly at Summer. Summer knew this look. She’d seen it
many times before. It was Tori’s ‘don’t mess with me’ look.

Summer retorted with, “I’m dead serious,
really.”

“You’re telling me that you met a DEMON last
night…who was fighting a HELLHOUND mother and you’ve taken in the
stray pup from the aftermath?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,”
Summer admitted.

“Geez. I swear you are the luckiest person
alive. First you move into the coolest cottage ever nestled next to
a graveyard, no less. You have a bad boy angel save you from what
you think was a dragon, then you meet a demon? And adopt a
hellhound? Nothing cool like that ever happens to me.”

“Oh, come on, Tori…you’re dating a pretty
cool vampire, aren’t you? Good looking too, I might add.”

“Yeah. I guess, but look at him,” Tori
referred to Sully. “He’s really something. I love the tattoos. I
should try and copy some of these and see if I can get one
done.”

“I don’t know if you want to do that, Tori.
I was told they were sigils of names of very powerful demons in
Hell,” Summer explained.

“You mean like permanent dog tags? Like, do
they own him?” Tori asked as she took a closer look at one while
her other hand rubbed one of Sully’s ears.

“That was my thought at first too. The demon
just told me they were signatures of the demon lords that made the
original hellhounds.”

“Oh. Can I come over if he comes back—this
demon of yours? I’ve never met a demon before. Was he red? Did he
have horns?”

“He wasn’t red, but he did have
horns…sometimes.” Summer was rather shocked at the images Tori
spewed in her questions. “And other times, he looked…normal. Like
you and me. Nothing strange at all.”

“Oh,” she said, looking disappointed, but a
second later her face brightened again and she blurted out, “Was he
cute?”

Summer couldn’t help herself. She had to
laugh at Tori’s tenacity. “Yes, Tori. I have to say he was
definitely cute, that is, when his horns weren’t showing.” They
both laughed and continued to pet Sully.

*****

Just when the chuckles started to fade, Dr.
Stuart popped his head into the front office door to greet them and
see what the giggling girls were up to, but when he saw the
hellhound pup he froze.

“Screamin’ kittens! What have we here?” he
said as he stepped closer to Sully.

“I was just explaining to Tori that I took
this big boy in last night. His mother died in a fight with a
demon, no less.”

“You don’t say? I imagine its mother must
have been a sight to see,” he said, not even pausing for a moment
at the mention of a demon.

“She was. She was huge, but hairless.”

“Huh,” Dr. Stuart said as he made a circle
around the pup, examining all sides of him. Then as if just
computing what had been said, he repeated with a start,
“Demon?”

“Yes. At least that’s what he told me he
was,” Summer explained.

“And did this
demon
tell you what it
was that he was fighting? And why?”

“He did. He told me the mother was a
hellhound and he figured she attacked him because he was too close
to the pup, though he didn’t know about the pup until after the
fiasco,” she explained.

“I see. A hellhound, huh? How amazing,” he
said when he stopped in front of Sully and held his hand out for
him to smell. Anticipating the same thing she’d endured, Tori
reached for the paper towels just as Sully slimed Dr. Stuart’s
hand. He stared at his hand as if it were not his own.
“Fascinating,” he said, wiggling his fingers. He sniffed the slime,
wrinkling his nose as he did, and said, “sulphur” under his
breath.

Summer responded with, “Yes. That’s why I’ve
named him Sully. Short for Sulphur.”

“Cute,” he said as he continued to examine
the pup and wiped his hand from the slime. “There’s a bit of a
tingling from the drool. Rather acidic, I suspect.”

“I thought that too,” Summer agreed.

He rubbed Sully’s head noticing for the
first time his tiny nubs of incoming horns. “Well, now…there’s
something you don’t see every day, at least on a canine-typish
animal. Did its mother have horns?” Dr. Stuart asked.

“Not that I noticed,” Summer answered.

“Might be a male thing, but the
heterochromia,” he said, referring to Sully’s mismatched eyes,
“could be unusual. It’s more common in some breeds of dogs than
others, but I don’t know much about hellhounds.” Then he laughed—to
himself mostly—and added, “Nothing actually, but he certainly seems
lovable.” Rumpling up the fuzz on top of Sully’s head, he said,
“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Sully wagged his tail in
reply.

“Do you mind if I take some blood and run
some tests? I’m not sure they will tell us a lot but he seems
mostly canine. It would be good to know as much about his
physiology as we can in case, God forbid, he ever gets hurt. We’ll
at least know what might be normal for a hellhound.”

She smiled at the doctor and nodded. “As
long as I can have you watch him through lunch. I’m supposed to
talk with Ms. Midnight about something urgent.”

“Sure. This is turning out to be a pretty
exciting day,” he said with a huge smile. “Come on, Sully, let’s go
weigh and examine you properly.”

Sully first looked at Summer as if asking
for permission. “Go ahead,” she said, waving her hand in the
direction the doctor was headed. “Dr. Stuart’s our friend.”

Sully turned and trotted off after the
doctor who was calling his name again from down the hall.

Chapter 8

Before Summer left for the Midnight mansion,
Dr. Stuart was trying to check Sully’s ears with the otoscope, but
Sully kept pawing him and the tool popping off the funnel-shaped
ear speculum that goes on the end of the scope. Sully thought this
was a fun game. Dr. Stuart was patient as always as he reattached
it over and over, laughing at Sully’s intelligence and
playfulness.

She smiled at the two of them when she left,
Dr. Stuart waving with his slimy, slobbered glove-covered hand, and
Sully with a wagging tail and tongue hanging out.

As she approached the front door of the
mansion, she found herself a bit nervous. She’d never really talked
with the woman, and given the sour looks she always received from
the upstairs window, she didn’t expect the meeting to be very
cordial.

She took a breath and knocked on the door,
releasing brittle, peeling paint to rain onto the worn and barely
readable “Welcome” mat. Slow but steady footsteps could be heard
inside making their way to the door. The deadbolt turned and then
an awkward silence. Apparently the door was swollen or out of
square of the door jamb since the door suddenly yanked open, nearly
toppling the old woman behind it.

Worried about the elderly woman, Summer
lunged forward to help steady her and asked, “Are you all
right?”

“Damn door,” Ms. Midnight said with spite,
and then addressed Summer with, “of course I’m all right.” She
brushed Summer’s helping hand away. “It’s about time you got here.
What don’t you understand about ‘urgent’?” Ms. Midnight turned and
mumbled something under her breath as she waddled to another room.
Summer wondered if she should follow or wait there until called
upon. She decided to follow. The entry was decorated and furnished
elegantly in what had probably been the height of fashion when the
mansion was built. Though it could use a good cleaning, it was like
walking through a door into the past.