Dwtd: Black Dog

[maderr]

Case # 667: Black Dog

Chris was in the library when they bothered him.

Having handed over the bulk of his prized agency to Doug and the others to run, he was left with those cases brought in by people who were not intimidated—or thought they merited—by Chris' being a demon consort.

It was his own fault for daring to relax. Every time he actually tried it, he was ambushed. He wouldn't mind so much, if the cases they brought him at least proved interesting. They were always boring, however. Too easy.

He set his wine aside and closed the book he'd been reading as the abnormal human across from him sniffled into her silk handkerchief once more. Behind her, her wealthy sorcerer husband scowled in a way that he obviously expected to have a certain affect upon Chris.

Chris ignored him.

"So everyone in your neighborhood is falling ill and close to death? You…want me to find the correlation?"

"No!" The woman said, then blew into her kerchief again. "I know what's doing it! That vile, nasty thing running around the neighborhood. Filthy mongrel!"

Something shivered across the back of Chris' neck, something that held the potential to be interesting enough he might stop resenting being bothered. "Thing?" he repeated. "Mongrel?"

The woman sniffled again. "Y-yes. A big, black, filthy dog."

Intrigue raced across his skin. A Black Dog…could it really be? Those were notoriously rare, even according to supernatural standards. Why would a Black Dog suddenly appear around Sable's city? At the far end where the obscenely wealthy abnormal skulked?

It was the sort of question that he just loved to answer.

He snapped his fingers and caught the second wine glass as it appeared on his command, pouring the crying woman a glass and handing it to her. He waited impatiently as she murmured and sipped, then finally said, "Now, if you will please—tell me everything. Leave no detail out, I do not care if it seems trivial to you. If I am to help, then I must know everything. Now, start at the beginning…"

Two hours later, he was finally able to have one of the hotel workers show the couple out. He yawned and reached out blindly for his wine—and encountered a warm hand instead, tamping down on a smile as Sable lifted it to press a kiss to the palm. "Sable."

"Beloved," Sable greeted, moving around to sit beside him on the long leather sofa. "Did the case intrigue?"

Chris grunted. Sable had known damn good and well it would.

He pointedly ignored Sable's soft chuckles, and even managed to ignore the way Sable nibbled at his earlobe—but he jerked with a gasp when those teeth bit down hard at his throat. "You're nothing but trouble," he groused, but went easily enough when Sable pushed him down into the soft leather of the sofa, reaching up to sink a hand into hair that was a thousand times softer.

Sable smirked and kissed him with slow thoroughness. "The best kind of trouble, the sort you could never resist."

"Ha!" Chris challenged, and abruptly shoved him off the couch, but his laugh was cut short when Sable reached up and yanked him down before he could scramble away.

There was a pained grunt as he landed. "You could watch the elbows."

Chris elbowed him again, just for good measure. "You could let me go to work on my newest case, instead of being a smug bastard who thinks giving me a potentially interesting case means you get sex."

Sable chuckled and nibbled at his throat, his jaw, then his lips, before taking a proper kiss.

Moaning, Chris shifted so he was straddling Sable properly, digging his fingers into the fine, broad shoulders, feeling muscle rippled beneath the smooth silk of Sable's shirt. He gave up another moan as knowing hands found his ass, drove their trapped erections together.

"Are you certain I can't have sex?" Sable asked, storm cloud eyes flashing with mirth and lust.

Chris rolled his eyes, and moved to Sable's tie. "Shut up."

Sable gave a husky laugh, and helped him with their clothing.

By the time Chris was able to leave to begin work on his new case, the sun had long past set. All to the better, of course—a true Black Dog was more likely to appear beneath the light of the moon.

Black Dogs…one of those rare abnormal known as Walkers. They could walk between the different planes with impunity. Heaven, hell, mortal, spectral, dream…any and all of them, the Walkers could travel between them as they liked. Rare were the races which could do that, and rarer still was the chance to ever see them.

Despite the prolific myths, true Black Dogs did not appear often. Those roads they guarded, they guarded quietly and unobserved. They tended to show themselves only when the threat was dire, and only to either guard or protect.

Not even demons knew much about the solitary Walkers, though that sprung in part from an old grudge—the enslaved races had very little love for those who could travel wherever they wished, whenever they wished.

Even Sable could be a bit of a baby about it, for all he had very little ground upon which to stand, cozy little King of All He Surveyed that he was.

So the real question here was—why had this Black Dog appeared? If it was making all who saw it desperately ill, then it was likely on a quest for vengeance. Provoked by what? By who? The sniffling woman and her sorcerer husband had been remarkably unhelpful. Not unusual, but still aggravating.

Rich neighborhood. The kind of rich that didn't blink at the idea of staying in Sable's hotels for weeks or months at a time. The kind of rich that never told the truth, because the only thing more natural than breathing was keeping secrets.

Which meant the real question was not, in fact, why was the Black Dog around, so much as what were the good people of Rose Crest Park not telling him?

He walked the main street dividing the park in half, transparent but not invisible—it would make him less obvious to anyone who might glance his way. The moon was not quite full above him; two more days would make it fat and full and yellow. Tonight, however, it was silvery and not yet whole. Clouds blotted the starlight here and there, and the air held a hint of a chill but it was only early fall. No real cold yet.

The soft chuff alerted him just a beat before he felt the shift in the air, the presence of a quiet but immense power—it was not unlike the way he sensed Yume. Soft, subtle, but a nearly unbreakable strength.

He turned sharply, and simply stared.

The Dog was massive—it easily reached his hip, and was proportioned accordingly. It had shaggy black hair and glowing red eyes, and as it barked at him he caught a hint of teeth he preferred to keep well at a distance.

At least it did not yet seem aggressive, though Chris still was not feeling terribly relaxed as it approached him. Not that anything could hurt him, unless he let it, but still. When the Dog reached him, however, all it did was push its muzzle into his hand in a timeless demand to pet.

Chris frowned, confused, then obliged. He was not the type for pets, but he didn't hate animals unless they tried to bite him or piss on him or—in the case of six cats to date—jump on his back with claws fully extended.

The dog chuffed again, after a moment, then sat back on its haunches and stared up at him.

"What?" Chris demanded. "Why are you here, and what are the local idiots not telling me?"

In reply, the massive dog threw back its head and howled.

Chris jerked, barely resisting an urge to cover his ears, the eerie howl like nothing he had ever heard. It could not be mistaken for a wolf's, nor anything remotely normal. No, it was one hundred percent supernatural and redolent with a power no werewolf would ever possess.

Then he felt a prickling across the back of his neck, a sensation like someone lightly stroking fingers across his skin. Only one type of abnormal had that effect upon him. He turned around, following the feeling—and was both surprised and not by what he saw.

He stood at the intersection of the two main roads of Rose Crest—nearly all the houses belonging to that district ran along these two streets, with only a handful of smaller streets off them. The primary crossroads, where Black Dogs most often lurked.

Except it wasn't the only thing inhabiting this place. Chris was staring at a ghost. Not surprising; ghosts were common on roads.

Not, however, the ghosts of children.

Chris frowned and approached the child. It stared at him fearfully, despite the fact it should have been reassured by the presence of another ghost. He knelt down and extended a hand, but the ghost child only continued to stare, wide-eyed and terrified.

The Black Dog brushed against Chris as it walked past him to settle beside the child—which promptly turned and tried to bury itself in the dog's fur, crying piteously.

Not good. Children always made for poor ghosts—they didn't understand what they had become, not really, not the way an adult would. Chris' father was still the best example of a ghost he knew; he'd survived with all memories and functions intact. Most ghosts lost a little bit of themselves in the transition, but they retained the major bits, usually an ability to communicate if they could find someone living who could communicate with them.

Children, less often. Any child who died in so miserable a fashion as to leave a ghost…well, this one had died so terribly that its pain had called forth the Black Dog. That was no small thing, and Chris' anger grew as he wondered what in the hell someone could have done to let a child die in a way awful enough to rouse a Black Dog.

It made him sick just thinking about it, and he didn't even know what it was, yet.

The Black Dog chuffed at him, then focused on the child, soothing and calming it. Several minutes later, it turned back to Chris, red eyes blazing.

Chris nodded, and rose. The Dog could do much, but it could not do what Chris could—and the ghostly child was trapped in its dying misery. It would not be able to tell him anything; all it had been able to do was instinctively rouse the Dog, who in turn was making the people suffer.

Which meant it was the people who were guilty, at least in the minds of the child.

Turning away, Chris walked back down the street to the house he knew belonged to the couple who had hired him. He knocked upon the door, and waited irritably for someone to answer it.

That it took five minutes for someone to answer, and that someone wound up being an enslaved imp, did nothing to improve his temper. He glared at the sorcerer. "You keep an imp?"

The sorcerer shrugged. "He's treated well."

Chris bit back what he wanted to say, and focused on his job—for now. "I want to know about the child, if you please."

"Child?" the woman asked, and coughed into a silk handkerchief. The one she'd used in the library had been green silk; this new one was blue, and looked as though it had runes embroidered in it. Decoration, or an actual spell? Why? "What child? I have no idea what you're talking about."

Her husband shook his head, obviously irritated. "Now see here, detective—"

"Consort," Chris corrected icily, because if there was one thing these people understood it was power—and his power far surpassed theirs, and his rank paled theirs, and he did not want them forgetting that. Solving a simple case of a Black Dog was one thing—finding the ghost of a dead child was quite another.

The sorcerer's mouth tightened briefly with irritation, then his face smoothed out into a more cooperative mien. "Consort," he said with a nod, "we have no idea what you're talking about. What does a child have to do with the case we assigned you?"

Assigned him? Chris let that one slide, but only because it was too fucking funny to take seriously.

They were lying. He didn't need special demon powers to see that. He barely need good old fashioned detective skills to see it. "The child," he said flatly, "that died at the intersection and whose pain stirred the Black Dog which is making all of you sick. I cannot get rid of the dog if you do not tell me about the child. You can do it the easy way, and cooperate with me, or we can do it the difficult way."

He didn't bother to say that as Sable's consort, there were a thousand different ways he could do difficult.

It wasn't like him, he knew, to make such free use of Sable's power and authority--but they should not have hurt a child. Such cruelty was beyond his ability to endure.

"You can't mean that pathetic little thing that knocked on our door," the woman said dismissively. "We sent it away, of course. Someone else dealt with it."

Chris glared at her. "Who helped the child?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Whoever it bothered after us, I suppose. Someone. We didn't have time, a party to go to, you understand."

"I understand, all right, but I doubt we understand the same thing," Chris snapped. "What time did it knock upon your door?"

When she shrugged again, he lifted his left hand in warning, the diamond on it flashing in the light.

"It was a little before eight," her husband said, clearly more appreciative of the threat Chris posed if pushed too far. "We were running late, and she couldn't find her purse--the child knocked on the door, and getting rid of it made us really late."

Chris nodded, then turned and ghosted so he didn't have to stop to open the door. He heard someone shriek, but ignored them.

Outside, the Black Dog sat on the stoop. It chuffed at him, stood up and wagged its tail, then turned and walked halfway down the path. Then it turned to look over its shoulder, and woofed softly at him.

"What?" Chris asked.

He swore the dog gave him a disapproving look.

"I don't speak mutt," Chris retorted.

The dog barked at him.

Chris rolled his eyes, not certain why he reacted that way, but relatively certain for whatever reason that was the most apt response. "I need to go figure out who else that child tried to get help from."

Bobbing its head, the dog barked again, then strode all the way down the path to the sidewalk, and began to head down toward the next house.

"You know all the houses the child visited," Chris said slowly, beginning to understand what the dog wanted--Chris could do far more to help it exact the vengeance for which it had been summoned.

The dog chuffed at him, as if to say 'duh' and Chris glared at it. Giving him something which looked suspiciously like a grin, the dog woofed for him to hurry and follow, and made his way to the next house.

Chris knocked on the door. It was opened by a harried looking woman in an apron. "Let me speak to your boss," he said.

"Only if you take her with you," the woman muttered, then vanished.

Several minutes later, a woman wearing illegally imported furs appeared in the doorway. She smelled like a vat of perfume that had probably cost fifty times what it was actually worth. Chris sneezed. "We—" He blinked, realizing what he said, then gave a mental shrug. "We are searching for information on a missing child. Did one come by here in the past few days, knocking on your door?"

"We?" the woman asked, peering down her nose in amusement at Chris' obvious idiocy.

The dog growled.

She shrieked as she finally noticed the dog. "That thing made my son sick—he's still in bed, what in the hell are you doing with that nasty creature. Get it away from me or I'll call the cops!"

Chris smirked and brandished his left hand.

Abruptly the woman fell silent, mouth falling into a grim line. "Consort."

"That's right," Chris said. "Now, did you see a child in the past few days?"

The woman gave an irritable shrug. "Yes. My maid was out, so I was forced to answer the door. I told it to run along home. Honestly, what is the world coming to when brats are just left to wander about in decent neighborhoods like that?"

"You didn't help the child at all?" Chris asked.

"No," the woman said. "I was busy. I scarcely have time for my own children, even though they're grown. No time to waste on brats who should know better than to bother decent folk."

Chris turned and walked away before he gave in to a very strong urge to punch her.

At his side, the dog growled. The sound reverberated through Chris, almost seeming to make his very bones shake. But it wasn't a frightening sound—no, to him, it was similar to Sable's storms. Dangerous to most, but a comfort to him.

Though why he found comfort in the angry sounds of a Black Dog, he didn't know. Then again, most days he still couldn't figure out why a demon lord had chosen him.

He and the dog travelled through the entirety of Rose Crest Park. When they finished, perhaps only half a dozen houses had not been guilty of contributing to the child's death. Every other house on the street had turned the child away, on one excuse or another. The one thing all of them had said was Someone else took care of it.

Someone else.

It.

The vastness of their apathy, their selfishness—their inhumanness—made it hard for him to breathe. He wanted to scream, he wanted to punch them all in the face and demand to know what in the hell they thought—

The booming crack of thunder made him jump. He jerked his gaze up to gawk at the dark stormclouds which had gathered—right as they finally broke, and the rain came crashing down in a furious torrent. He summoned enough power to keep it off him and the dog, in no mood for a soaking right now.

He had not seen such a storm in months, not since the last time Sable had been in one of his dark, gloomy moods…

A warm, familiar power rippled over him as he completed the thought, and Chris stared as his lover appeared. "Sable? Is everything all right? What's wrong?"

Sable laughed softly, warmly. There was anger in his eyes, and worry—but only the latter emotion was for Chris. "That is what I've come to ask you, beloved. Why the storm?"

"That's your thing, Sable," Chris said, confused.

"No, Christian," Sable said, and pushed a hand through Chris' messy hair. "Since you were trapped by those damned wolves, you have been more accepting of my power. The bond grows stronger all the time, the more comfortable you become with it. This storm is all you—and I want to know right now what has you so angry and anguished."

"Oh," Chris said, and in the back of his mind felt vaguely stupid for not having realized that—but the rest of him was angry and miserable, and he didn't protest as Sable drew him into a tight embrace. The beating of Sable's heart was as sure and unrelenting as the pounding of the rain around them, and he was shockingly warm against the increasing cold of the night.

Sable kissed the top of his head. "Tell me, beloved."

Christ simply nodded, unwilling to move from his position, and let Sable rifle through his mind as he pleased.

The thunder which cracked then was deafening, and seemed to make the entire world shake. He felt more than saw lightning flash, heard the sound as it struck something, destroyed it.

"Go home," Sable said.

Chris pushed away slightly at that, frowning. "No. Sable, you're not—"

"I said go home," Sable cut in, eyes flashing lightning. "This is for me to deal with, Christian."

"No," Chris replied. "Damn it, Sable, this is my case."

Sable jerked him forward, and kissed him hard, not letting go until Chris was dizzy with the need to breathe and his lips were bruised and throbbing. "Go home," Sable said softly against his mouth. "Let me deal with this, Christian."

"You said you wouldn't hurt anyone over me again," Chris countered.

"No, beloved," Sable said, stroking his cheek. "I said I wouldn't kill anyone."

Chris glared at him. "You can't—"

"I’m a demon," Sable interrupted quietly, but with force. "You are mine. No one hurts you."

"That isn't—"

In the very next breath, Chris was back in their room at the top of the Tantalus. He was still for a moment, then began cursing in every language he knew, furiously trying to go back but unable. He slammed one hand into the glass of a floor-to-ceiling window, and wondered bitterly what the hell he had been thinking.

Then he remembered the terrified child, and how cold and uncaring all those people had been.

Stripping off his clothes, he went to get a shower.

Half an hour later, he dropped down into the leather couch on the sitting room side of their bedroom, starring moodily at the carpet, the roaring fire doing nothing to warm him.

A soft chuff made him look up. He blinked. "What are you doing here?"

Sitting back on its haunches, the dog made a low, sad sound that wasn't quite a howl, but neither was it a whine. He didn’t know what it was—but he rather thought he understood the meaning, anyway. "The child?"

The dog woofed and bobbed its head, then made that noise again.

"Will he be all right?" Chris asked.

He received a firm woof.

Chris nodded, and some of his tension eased. He didn't think too long on why Sable wasn't yet back, as that would just spark his anger all over again, and he was too fucking tired. "So what are you doing here, if the child is all right?"

The dog gave him a grin, then padded forward and rested his head on Chris' thigh, casting him woeful puppy eyes.

"You are nothing like what I thought a Black Dog…" Chris muttered, even as he gave in and obediently scratched the dog behind its ears. "You're nothing but an overgrown puppy."

The Black Dog growled low, in a lazily reprimanding way that really only confirmed what Chris had said. "So what do you do when not avenging children and all?"

Whatever reply might have been forthcoming was forestalled as Sable reappeared, soaking wet and eyes still flickering with lightning.

Chris snarled and threw himself off the couch, at Sable, only growing angrier when he was caught up and kissed hard, held too tight to do anything more than bite furiously at Sable's lip before finally giving in to the bruising kiss. "You're a bastard. I didn't let you know what had happened just so you could—"

Sable kissed him again. "Beloved, I am a demon. You belong to me. No one is allowed to hurt you without suffering in their turn. That aside, this is my territory. Such cruelty will not be tolerated, not unless I am the one inflicting."

"That's a double standard," Chris said irritably, even as he leaned forward to lick away the blood on Sable's lip from where his teeth had cut it. "You are the single most infuriating creature I have ever encountered. Stop going all fury of hells just because I'm upset, you goddamn demon."

"No," Sable said.

Chris sighed. "What did you do to them?"

"I cursed them," Sable said, a finality to the words.

Reluctantly, Chris let it go. He could just go back over there later and deduce the nature of the curse himself.

Sable kissed him more softly, finally easing his almost painfully tight grip. "Are you all right, beloved?"

"No," Chris snapped, then sighed again. "But I will be. I shouldn't have let you do that, but…"

"But nothing. You were in pain. Now, who is your new friend?"

Chris glared at him for the unsubtle change of subject, but let it go for the moment. "What—you mean the Black Dog? I don't know what he's doing here."

Sable looked at him in amusement. "I would say that's obvious, beloved. He likes you."

"He's a Black Dog!" Chris said, confounded as the dog came up when Sable let him go, pushed against him to be pet again, rubbing against him, tongue hanging as he gave Chris another goofy grin. "You're supposed to guard your crossroads or what the hell ever."

Laughter made him look up to glare at Sable again. "What's so damned funny? You're in enough trouble for the rest of this decade, you damned demon—don't make your sentence longer."

"Black Dogs answer to the calls of ghosts, beautiful," Sable said, still snickering.

Chris scowled at them both. "I didn't call him, and I'm not in his territory anyway."

Sable reached out and stroked a hand over the dog's head, scratching it behind the ears. "Walkers can pick and choose their territories, bastards that they are," he said. "I would imagine he's utterly fascinated by such a strange ghost as you." He leaned over and kissed Chris' cheek. "Entranced at first sight."

"Shut up," Chris said, but not with all the heat he would have liked. "You don't even like Walkers, why are you suddenly being nice?"

"He has excellent taste in ghosts," Sable replied.

The dog woofed, and nudged Chris again, then sat back on his haunches and turned the puppy dog eyes up to maximum strength.

Chris threw up his hands. "Whatever. Dumb demon, dumb dog. I want a cup of coffee." He stared at the dog for a moment. "Do you have a name?"

In reply, the dog merely whined.

"Hmm," Chris said thoughtfully. Then he grinned. "Shuck."

"Shuck?" Sable asked.

Chris turned away, smirking. "Old nickname for my first boyfriend." He hated the bastard, but he'd always liked the name.

He went to go find a cup of coffee, leaving Sable glaring at Shuck, and Shuck barking playfully back.

Comments

[dusty-dreams.livejournal.com]

So cute! I love Chris and his ability at collecting strays.

I've always wanted to ask, but forgot. If you have time, could you possibly do a drabble/short story for Asenath and Grey? I seriously enjoyed Asenath the brief period when Sable let him out. Asenath and Grey would be so cute together. ^___^

Thank you for listening to my humble humble request!

[maderr.livejournal.com]

Drabble, nothing. I have a whole story for them, if it would ever cooperate.