From outside his immediate sphere of concentration, Sonny saw that Kelley had blacked out, and was grateful for that. He didn’t want her to see what happened next-whatever the outcome.
As the creature lunged for Kelley, Sonny leaped and locked his arms around its massive torso. He threw his weight sideways, rolling with the wolflike animal, taking it as far away as possible from the unconscious girl. The roll ended with Sonny on his back. He threw his forearms up in front of his face as the thing snapped at his trachea.
Its fetid breath poured over him like swamp fog, its sharp-toothed jaws straining to close on his flesh. With his arms crossed in a defensive shield, Sonny reached for both of the creature’s ragged ears. He grabbed, pulling hard in opposing directions. The thing yelped in a disturbingly doglike fashion and flung itself onto its back. Sonny leaped to his feet and aimed a kick at the thing’s ribs. It grunted in pain and lurched to its feet, where it hovered several inches above the ground and gathered itself, swinging its head to and fro. Backing up on its raised hindquarters, it hunched in preparation for another attack, growling hideously deep in its throat.
Before Sonny had a chance to draw a weapon, it leaped again. Arching its heavy body in midair, it twisted past Sonny and went again for Kelley. Sonny flung himself in another tackle, one-armed, grabbing frantically with his free hand at the small of his back, where he carried a sharp dagger in a sheath on his belt. The move left the right side of his chest unprotected for an instant, and Sonny felt the bloom of searing pain.
Losing his bearing, he collapsed. Face pressed to the ground, he heard the sound of running feet and more snarling. Dimly he heard fighting and then silence.
After a moment, Sonny was able to raise his head.
Maddox stood above him, holding out a hand to help him stand. A heavy mace dangled from a thong at his other wrist.
“Bellamy and Camina must have sensed you needed help at just about the same time I did, I guess,” he said, gesturing down the deserted path. “They’ve gone after-”
Sonny cut him short. “You didn’t kill it? Did you?”
Maddox wiped his brow. “Nah-wounded maybe, not sure…”
“Where did it go?”
“Yonder. I’ll go help them. You can stay with-”
“No! It has to be me.”
Maddox’s head snapped up at the tone of Sonny’s voice. “That was a Black Shuck! It didn’t tag you, did it?”
Sonny pulled aside his coat and watched as his friend’s eyes went wide with alarm. He looked down and saw the dark red lines of blood through the slashes in his T-shirt. He could feel the poison of the shuck’s claws seeping, a terrible numbing cold growing slowly, spreading up toward his shoulder.
“Go,” Maddox urged him, near panicked. “Go! I’ll take care of the girl.”
“Get her home. Find out where that is.”
“Don’t worry about that right now-”
“She has a horse in her bathtub, Madd,” Sonny said urgently.
“Ah.” Maddox blinked, understanding. “Well then.”
“Be careful, Maddox. That shuck? It had a purpose and it didn’t come after me. It went straight for her. Ignored me like I was a stone. It was tracking her.”
“Seven hells. Tracking her for whom?”
“Dunno…”
Sonny staggered a bit and almost fell to one knee. Maddox put out a hand to steady him. In the distance, they heard baying.
“Go now, Sonny,” Maddox said. “I’ll try to signal Bell and Camina-tell them to hold off on killing the damned thing. But even still, you’ve only got till midnight if they don’t take it out first.”
Sonny nodded and took one last glance at where Kelley lay on the ground. Then he pushed all thoughts of pain from his mind and took off at a run down the path, hoping desperately that he would not be too late.
The Black Shuck had given the Janus twins one hell of a merry chase up and down the park. When Sonny finally found them, Camina and Bellamy had the thing cornered on the terrace of Belvedere Castle. By that time Sonny was a lurching apparition, heaving himself up the worn stone steps with the very last of his strength. Camina was about to send a slender spear hurtling down the thing’s gaping maw.
“Camina!” Sonny managed to rasp. “I need it. I need the kill…”
“Oh, Sonny!” She took in his appearance with one swift glance. “Bell, hold up!” She turned and called to Sonny over her shoulder, “You’d better hurry. You won’t be able to kill in another moment, from the look of you.”
His sword was out in his hand already and he brushed past the other two Janus, not even bothering to feint or dodge. The mental image of Kelley, unconscious and at the mercy of the beast that now stood snarling in front of him, was all he needed. He took two steps, slashed upward with the silver sword, and then down again. The demon dog’s head slumped to one side, its body to the other.
In the few seconds before the gruesome thing began to fade from existence, Sonny went around to its long, shaggy tail and, with the edge of his bloodied blade, sheared off a length of the coarse black hair. He held out the handful of wiry strands to Camina and sank to his knees on the hard stone, his head drooping.
“Could you…?” he mumbled, the fire of the shuck’s poison burning in his veins.
Camina knelt in front of him, and Sonny watched through a fog as she went to work with swift, capable fingers. Soon she was tying a ribbon of braided dog hair around his wrist with an intricate knot.
“‘Hair o’ the dog that bit ye,’” she said, lifting his face gently. “You’ll be all right now.”
Slowly, Sonny’s vision began to clear. He stood dizzily and thanked the twins for their help, wishing he could go home to bed. But the night wasn’t over yet, and there was still the rest of the Gate to be guarded until sunrise. As Camina and Bellamy prepared to return to their patrol, Sonny raised a weak hand, forestalling them.
“Be careful,” he said. “Very careful. Auberon thinks that someone may be trying to wake the Hunt.”