Now we came to it.
“Ash,” Cowl said. “Nix his aura if you please.”
My brother growled, and I felt my bright energy dimming, even as the shadows around him lessened, his darkness and my light blurring and diminishing in tandem.
“Now you die, brother,” My Shadow said. “For nothing.”
The dark wizard lifted his hand and I felt him gather power for another stroke of lightning—and without my own shield of energy to protect me, I would be helpless against it.
I shook my mane defiantly and said, “You have forgotten two things, brother.”
My Shadow paused, suddenly wary.
“First,” I said, “that no one tells cats what they may or may not do. Not even wizards.”
My brother let out a warning growl, and Cowl paused, suddenly tense.
“And?” My Shadow asked. “Second?”
“I cheat,” I said.
Fires appeared at the base of the darkened farmhouse wall behind them. Six fires. Utter, inky, void-black solidity appeared around those fiery eyes, and Cerberus, Hound of Hades, implacable and unyielding warden of the mythic dead let out a growl so deep that it shook the earth.
Cowl whirled.
The three-headed monster dog rose up on its hind legs, and hellfire kindled in three sets of jaws. With a roar, Cerberus swelled in size and power so that his heads were higher than the farmhouse and unleashed three furious jets of deep red and blue flame that shot toward Cowl, scorching the summer grass black for thirty feet on either side of them.
Cowl lifted a hand and cried a desperate word, and the will of the mythic beast, met that of the Master of the Future. Flame cascaded out from the shield the wizard raised, and even the Nemean Lion and My Shadow flinched back from it, suddenly terrified.
“Mister,” I snapped. “I know you have been enjoying yourself. It is time to stop playing. Harry needs us now.”
And with my brother suddenly distracted, I gathered my bright energy and barked hard and loud, the sound reverberating for miles across the countryside, smashing into the dark spirit possessing my friend the cat.
Cowl whirled to the Lion and screamed, “Kill them! I command you to kill them!”
The Lion flinched away from the sound of my barking, reeling, and in the fury and cacophony of clashing forces the old monster became suddenly insubstantial, a darkness, an idea, a memory.
Here, with the turbulence of forces shaking the air, torn by Cerberus and Cowl and My Shadow, the old spirit could not keep its purchase upon its mortal host in the face of my power, and suddenly the Nemean Lion was nothing but an enormous shadow stretching out from the sturdy, scarred body of the veteran tomcat Mister.
Who looked at Cowl. And then quite deliberately looked away and began fastidiously cleaning one paw.
Cerberus had been waiting for that, and the terrible fire of the underworld swept away from Cowl and over that shadow, burning it away, making it curl up like newsprint in a fire, while the distant roar of the Lion began to fade into an unfathomable distance and depth, burning the Nemean Lion’s spirit into the earth, while wave after wave of my own energy washed over it, adding to Cerberus’s efforts.
And in seconds, just like that, the Nemean Lion was once again a story, a memory, a piece of history.
“No!” Cowl screamed, pain and frustration welling up.
Cerberus’s great jaws closed, and the enormous dog came crashing back to the ground so hard that it shook, trees in the old farmyard swaying.
The Lord of the Underworld’s Good Boy stood tall and proud over Cowl and My Shadow and slowly, slowly bared his three sets of fangs in a triple snarl.
I did too. It was the right moment for that sort of thing.
“Now, brother,” I growled, taking a step forward. “It is time for you to flee.”
Cowl turned his hood back and forth between me and Cerberus. I could smell the pain rolling off of him.
And sudden fear.
With a curse, he turned and spat a word and ripped open the veil between the mortal world and the spirit realm, rending reality with his will. Then he seized My Shadow by his wounded ear and dragged him forward into the veil and vanished.
The portal sealed itself behind him a second later, and they were gone.
Fires burned in the quiet. The farmhouse began to burn down.
Mister the grey tomcat purred and began arching his back and rubbing it against my chest.
“That is that,” Cerberus noted with professional satisfaction. “I am getting three treats when I get home.”
“I did not know you could breathe fire,” I said.
“Yes,” Cerberus said modestly. He dwindled from his gargantuan size until he was merely enormous.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Only those who have earned it,” Cerberus said seriously. “It was a gift from My Lord, and he is very concerned with justice.”
“Oh,” I said, and wagged my tail.
There was a creaking sound behind me.
We turned and found the three children peeking out of the root cellar and staring at Cerberus with very wide eyes. Mister walked over to the boy, still purring, and calmly rubbed against himself against the boy’s knees. The boy leaned down to pet the old cat. And then the little girls giggled and did too. One of them came over to me and petted my mane, just like My Maggie did.
In the very far distance, my keen ears picked out the wail of emergency sirens.
“It was a good plan,” Cerberus said. “Pretending to lose.”
“Bad People always look for weakness,” I noted. “And once they think they have found it, they cannot see anything else.”
“I must go,” Cerberus said.
“Not yet,” I said seriously.
“But the mortals are coming,” Cerberus said. “They will care for the children.”
“We have minutes and minutes before that,” I replied. “And we are Good Boys.”
Cerberus tilted all three heads at me. And then he started wagging his tail.
And in the light of the burning farmhouse, Cerberus and I, and even Mister, spent the remaining time playing with the little ones.
Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files, the Codex Alera, and a new steampunk series, the Cinder Spires. His resume includes a laundry list of skills which were useful a couple of centuries ago, and he plays guitar quite badly. An avid gamer, he plays tabletop games in varying systems, a variety of video games on PC and console, and LARPs whenever he can make time for it. Jim currently resides mostly inside his own head, but his head can generally be found in the mountains outside Denver, Colorado.
Jim goes by the moniker Longshot in a number of online locales. He came by this name in the early 1990’s when he decided he would become a published author. Usually only 3 in 1000 who make such an attempt actually manage to become published; of those, only 1 in 10 make enough money to call it a living. The sale of a second series was the breakthrough that let him beat the long odds against attaining a career as a novelist.
All the same, he refuses to change his nickname.
Learn more at: https://www.jim-butcher.com/
The Unlikeliest Places
By John G. Hartness
Dedicated to Daisy, Gandalf, and Stevie, who rescued me from the darkness inside.
I THOUGHT I HAD THE VAMPIRE right where I wanted him. He thought he had me right where he wanted me. I was pretty sure I was more right than he was. Then a tornado of tiny knives attacked my right calf with the kind of speed and viciousness I’ve only found in some of the upper Circles of Hell.