“Get your own!”
And then a terrifying howl almost on top of us caused him to drop it.
We both went for it, but he grabbed it first, and I grabbed—
God, I thought, as something gelatinous and porky oozed up through my fingers.
And then it was too late.
A giant head appeared over the hill. And for a second, I thought it was the hill. Because it rose out of nothing, like all the darkness in the world had decided to congeal in one place. One great big slavering freakishly huge place. I’d seen houses smaller than that, only houses didn’t have evil yellow eyes and an enormous drooling maw and weren’t jumping for us—
And then stopping, halfway through the motion. And gulping and swallowing. Because I had reflexively thrown the pig foot I’d been holding, like that was going to help somehow.
Only it had.
The hound had stopped and was just standing there, steaming and black and blocking the view of everything with its enormous face.
Which was suddenly in mine.
The breath could have stopped traffic for a ninety-mile stretch. Drool was drip, drip, dripping onto the bed linens in slimy strings. Eyes bigger than my head were reflecting the still-burning fire, along with a vision of my body as I slowly, slowly, slowly bent down. And picked up another foot. And held it out—
And felt a wash of hot breath over my arm, which was somehow raising goose bumps anyway, maybe because my skin was still trying to get the hell out of there. And then a tongue, big and heavy as a rug, wrapped around my flesh. And withdrew, along with the tiny, tiny offering, but not with the arm itself, because I guess I didn’t compare with good old pork.
And really, what does? I thought hysterically. If I had bacon, I could probably make him fetch—
Rosier grabbed my arm, his fingers like a vise. “Get. On. The. Bed.”
“I . . . am on the bed.” Well, I was pretty sure.
“Oh.”
He snaked a leg off the side and gave a little push. I felt the hell wind start to ruffle my hair as we started down the hell road with the hellhound shaking the street behind us, while I lobbed pig foot after pig foot into its gaping maw. It didn’t miss a one.
Until the darkness overhead suddenly congealed into
a second hound, even larger than the first, which went for its throat. And then another crowded the street, which was almost too small to hold them despite being big enough for a couple city buses to pass each other with room to spare. But hellhounds are not buses and there was no room here, and that was before the council’s guards decided to show back up, running up the hill toward us.
And abruptly turning and running back the other way as we began picking up speed, the night boiling behind us, all black smoke and sleek, shifting fur and firelit eyes.
And sailing pig feet, because I was throwing them both-handed now.
“Put out your hands!” I told Rosier frantically.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no,” he said, grunting and straining, trying to break through the damn Victorian ironwork, which must have been forged in the same factory where they made tanks if they had tanks. I didn’t know. I just knew it wasn’t freaking budging.
“That isn’t working!” I yelled the obvious.
“You can’t throw those things and get these damn cuffs off me at the same time!”
“And when I run out? What then?”
“You’re not going to run out. As soon as we get far enough to clear the river, I’m going to shift us back!”
I blinked. “Okay.”