Sophie slept the rest of the night in Daddy’s bed while Daddy sat up in a chair next to her, watching the locked door, his sword-cane at his side. There was no window in Charlie’s bedroom, so the door was the only way in or out. When Sophie awoke just after dawn, Charlie changed her, bathed her, and dressed her for the day. Then he called Jane to make her breakfast while he cleaned up the glass and plaster in Sophie’s room and went downstairs to find some plywood to nail over the broken window.
He hated that he couldn’t call the police, couldn’t call someone, but if this is what one phone call to another Death Merchant was going to cause, he couldn’t risk it. And what would the police say anyway, about black feathers and blood that dissolved to smoke as you watched?
“Someone threw a brick through Sophie’s window last night,” he told Jane.
“Wow, on the second floor, too. I thought you were crazy when you put security bars all the way up the building, but I guess not so much, now. You should replace the window with that glass with the wire running through it, just to be safe.”
“I will,” Charlie said. Safe? He had no idea what had happened in Sophie’s room, but the fact that she was safe amid all the destruction scared the hell out of him. He’d replace the window, but the kid was sleeping in his room from now until she was thirty and married to a huge guy with ninja skills.
When Charlie returned from the basement with the sheet of plywood and hammer and nails, he found Jane sitting at the breakfast counter, smoking a cigarette.
“Jane, I thought you quit.”
“Yeah, I did. A month ago. Found this one in my purse.”
“Why are you smoking in my house?”
“I went into Sophie’s room to get her bunny for her.”
“Yeah? Where’s Sophie? There might still be some glass on the floor in there, you didn’t—”
“Yeah, she’s in there. And you’re not funny, Asher. Your thing with the pets has gone completely overboard. I’m going to have to do three yoga classes, get a massage, and smoke a joint the size of a thermos bottle to take the adrenaline edge off. They scared me so bad I peed myself a little.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Jane?”
“Funny,” she said, smirking. “That’s really funny. I’m talking about the goggies, Daddy.”
Charlie shrugged at his sister as if to say, Could you be any more incoherent or incomprehensible? — a gesture he had perfected over thirty-two years, then ran to Sophie’s room and threw the door open.
There, on either side of his darling daughter, were the two biggest, blackest dogs he had ever seen. Sophie was sitting, leaning against one, while hitting the other in the head with her stuffed bunny. Charlie took a step toward rescuing Sophie when one of the dogs leapt across the room and knocked Charlie to the floor, pinning him there. The other put itself between Charlie and the baby.
“Sophie, Daddy’s coming to get you, don’t be afraid.” Charlie tried to squirm out from under the dog, but it just lowered its head and growled at him. It didn’t budge. Charlie figured that it could take the better part of one of his legs and some of his torso off in one bite. The thing’s head was bigger than the Bengal tigers’ at the San Francisco zoo.
“Jane, help me. Get this thing off of me.”
The big dog looked up, keeping its paws on Charlie’s shoulders.
Jane swiveled on her bar stool and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “No, I don’t think so, little brother. You’re on your own after springing this on me.”
“I didn’t. I’ve never seen these things before. No one’s ever seen these things before.”
“You know, we dykes have very high dog tolerance, but that doesn’t give you the right to do this. Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Jane said, gathering up her purse and keys from the breakfast bar. “You enjoy your little canine pals. I’m going to go call in freaked out to work.”
“Jane, wait.”
But she was gone. He heard the front door slam.
The big dog didn’t seem to be interested in eating Charlie, just holding him there. Every time he tried to slither out from under it, the thing growled and pushed harder.
“Down. Heel. Off.” Charlie tried commands he’d heard dog trainers shout on TV. “Fetch. Roll over. Get the fuck off me, you beast.” (He ad-libbed that last one.)
The animal barked in Charlie’s left ear, so loud that he lost hearing and there was just a ringing on that side. In his other ear he heard a little-girl giggle from across the room. “Sophie, honey, it’s okay.”
“Goggie, Daddy,” Sophie said. “Goggie.” She stumbled over and looked down at Charlie. The big dog licked her face, nearly knocking her over. (At eighteen months, Sophie moved like a small drunk most of the time.) “Goggie,” Sophie said again. She grabbed the giant hound by its ear and dragged it off Charlie. Or more accurately, it let her lead it by the ear off of him. Charlie leapt to his feet and started to reach for Sophie, but the other hound jumped in front of him and growled. The thing’s head came up to Charlie’s chest, even with its feet flat on the ground.
He figured the hounds must weigh four or five hundred pounds apiece. They were easily twice the size of the biggest dog he’d seen before, a Newfoundland that he’d seen swimming in the Aquatic Park down by the Maritime museum. They had the short fur of a Doberman, the broad shoulders and chest of a rottweiler, but the wide square head and upturned ears of a Great Dane. They were so black that they appeared to actually absorb light, and Charlie had only ever seen one type of creature that did that: the ravens from the Underworld. It was clear that wherever these hounds had come from, it wasn’t from around here. But it was also clear that they were not here to hurt Sophie. She wouldn’t even make a good meal for animals this size, and they certainly could have snapped her in two long before now if they’d meant her harm.
The damage in Sophie’s room the night before might have been caused by the hounds, but they had not been the aggressors. Something had come here to hurt her, and they had protected her, even as they were now. Charlie didn’t care why, he was just grateful that they were on his side. Where they’d been when he first rushed into the room after the window broke, he didn’t know, but it appeared that now that they were here, they were not going to go away.
“Okay, I’m not going to hurt her,” Charlie said. The dog relaxed and backed off a few steps. “She’s going to need to go potty,” Charlie said, feeling a little stupid. He just noticed that they were both wearing wide silver collars, which, strangely, disturbed him more than their size. After the stretching it had gotten over the last year and a half, his Beta Male imagination fit easily around two giant hounds showing up in his little girl’s bedroom, but the idea that someone had put collars on them was throwing him.
There was a knock at the front door and Charlie backed out of the room. “Honey, Daddy will be right back.”
14
BARKING MAD
Charlie opened the door and Lily breezed by. “Jane said you have two huge black dogs up here. I need to see.”
“Lily, wait,” Charlie called, but she was across the living room and into Sophie’s room before he could stop her. There was a low growl and she came backing out.
“Oh my fucking God, dude,” she said around a huge grin. “They are so cool. Where did you get them?”
“I didn’t get them anywhere. They were just here.”
Charlie joined Lily just outside the door to Sophie’s room. She turned and grabbed his arm. “Are they, like, instruments of your death dealing or something?”