“By the time the Lion feeds on mortal souls, it will be a very difficult fight,” Cerberus said.
“Perhaps we should go bite Cowl and My Shadow first.”
“They are behind the farmhouse’s threshold,” Cerberus said. “I cannot enter without being invited.”
“Oh. What if we both go fight the Lion,” I said, “while he is in the piggie building.”
“Perhaps you can exorcise the Lion swiftly,” Cerberus said. “Then we deal with the wizard if necessary. Unless we cannot.”
“If we cannot,” I said, “the wizard will be there. And My Shadow. And he is skinny and fast.”
“Then there is no time to be gentle,” Cerberus said, his voice regretful. “I am sorry.”
“We must save Mister,” I said. “My Friend needs him.”
“I am sorry,” Cerberus repeated. “The Lion is too dangerous.”
I eyed Cerberus.
And I showed him my teeth.
“What are you doing?” Cerberus said. I noted that his shadow, too, was much larger than it should have been. Much larger than me.
“If you will not help me save Mister,” I said, “I will help Cowl and My Shadow defeat you.”
Cerberus looked indignant. “You will not.”
“I swear it,” I said, “by my nose and tail.”
The mythic dog stared at me, exasperated.
In the distance, another piggie screamed.
“That is different,” he said after a second. “There is no time for this. What is your plan?”
“Plan?”
“If you wish to be the Big Dog,” Cerberus said, “you should have a plan.”
I tossed my head and shook my ears until a plan came. “Very well,” I said. “But you must do what I say. And you must trust me. And then we will both be Good Boys.”
Cerberus wagged his tail hopefully.
I concentrated and started altering energy to help the plan work.
The first part of the plan was simple. Cerberus dropped his illusion under the cover of night and was suddenly enormous and fearsome. And also, he had three heads. He hurtled across the yard to the building where the piggies were kept and smashed a hole the size of a garage door in the side of it.
From within the barn, there was an enormous sound that was part cough and part snarl, and Cerberus answered with a ferocious series of roaring barks. Piggies began squealing in even greater panic as the sound of shattering wood cracked through the night.
A big machine went flying out one end of the building, some kind of tractor about the size of a truck. It tumbled across the ground and crashed onto its side.
Inside the farmhouse, lights flicked on. The front door, tearing off its hinges with a squeal of protesting metal, slammed flat down onto the porch, and My Shadow stood on it with all four paws, staring intently toward the barn. Umbral energy began to boil off him in roiling waves that a mortal could not have seen, and My Shadow hurtled across the ground toward the barn to join the battle.
He did not see me where I lurked in some nearby brush. That was the trouble with working with dark energy—it tended to blind even those who use it. My Shadow flew across the ground with his own supernatural power and grace, and I was once again sad at what my brother had become.
But though I felt sorry for him, there were also innocent children in danger, and that was more important.
I waited until My Shadow had entered the barn.
Then I picked up the large stick I had chosen and sprinted forward. It was difficult, but I turned my head sideways so that the stick held in my jaws dug into the earth, and I began to sprint around the farmhouse in a circle, leaning so that my paws were on the inside.
The side of the barn exploded in a shower of splinters and shards of broken wood, some of which flew out very fast and went very far.
Cerberus landed on his back, all three heads snarling and biting, while something that was shaggy and looked like one of those saber-toothed cats from the Stone Age, except with an enormous mane, landed atop him. It was grotesque with muscle and power and speed and landed atop him. Cerberus’s great jaws raked and tore, as did his claws, but the Nemean Lion did not care. Its hide was invulnerable and where Cerberus’s jaws and claws struck, green sparks flew up, but nothing was torn, and no blood flowed.
Cerberus was not to be so easily overpowered, though. The great dog levered its paws beneath the Lion and flung it away, then regained his footing so quickly that it seemed its own kind of magic. Cerberus flung himself in a chest-to-chest clinch with the Lion. The two great beasts staggered back and forth, tearing vast gouges in the earth as supernaturally powerful muscles strained against one another.
But Cerberus was bleeding from marks of claw and fang. The Lion was not.
The doorway of the farmhouse darkened, and suddenly Cowl stood there, all dark robes and dark hood, gripping a wizard’s staff in one hand. He stared toward the battle for a moment and then I saw a flash of white teeth in the hood.
“A gift, Lord Hades?” Cowl murmured. “Why bind one when I could have two?”
And he raised his hand and began to mutter beneath his breath. Power gathered around him and began to snake out toward Cerberus.
And that was when I finished the circle, dropped the stick, and touched the furrow in the earth with my nose and a surge of bright energy.
An invisible curtain of my energy leapt up from the circle, rising up to enclose the farmhouse in a dome, and Cowl’s Power was snuffed out like a candle on Maggie’s birthday cake.
The dark wizard froze and stared at his hand for a moment. Then he drew in a breath and extended it again, snapping a louder word—and nothing happened.
I let a growl explode from my chest and sprinted toward the dark wizard and went for his throat.
I am a Good Dog. But people who hurt children deserve to be bitten. My Friend would agree with me.
Cowl saw me coming at the last second and brought his staff up. He managed to get it between his throat and my jaws, but I overbore him and drove him to the ground with all the power in my body. The breath exploded of him in a huff, and I closed my jaws, shattering the staff as if it had been a dental bone treat.
Perhaps I should have considered that.
A wizard’s staff is a powerful magical tool, one that is often used to store Power so that the wizard can unleash it when he is tired or otherwise does not have access to the natural flows of energy in the world. The energy stored in the staff exploded outward and flung me up into the ceiling of the farmhouse.
I hit hard enough to hurt even me, and I fell heavily back down onto Cowl, who let out a weak curse. We both sort of flailed at one another, stunned and weakened. He got his arm between my teeth and his throat, and I bit down, but his robes were enchanted with protective magics, and I could not get my teeth through them.
This Bad Man had attacked My Friend when he was so sad he could not fight. He had endangered Mister the Cat, who I had known since I was a tiny puppy.
So, I clamped down like a vise on the armor, twisted my head and shoulders and hips, wrenched my jaws, and snapped both bones of his forearm like sticks.
Cowl screamed.
He twisted and I lost my grip on his suddenly wobbly forearm. He wriggled out from beneath me and staggered into the farmhouse’s kitchen. I followed, still dazed.
He seized a red metal fire extinguisher with his good hand, and suddenly my nose and eyes were full of powder that smelled very bad. I reeled to one side, shaking my head and sneezing uncontrollably to clear my nose. When I could see and small again, Cowl was running out the front door.
“Ash!” he howled.
I chuffed and growled, my throat raspy with powder, but I did not pursue him—for this part of the plan Cerberus was on his own.
My nose had already told me where the children were—locked in a bedroom. I reared up and threw my whole weight of my body and bright energy at the door and smashed it open. Inside the bedroom, three children, all of them smaller than My Maggie, and with darker skin, were huddled together and sniffling, staring at me with wide eyes.