Logan bowed his head with a smile, relieved they could at least joke about it. Then he lifted his eyes only to realize that she wasn’t joking at all. A look of sheer terror washed across his face, and he turned to the door just in time to see someone rattling the handle.
“Oh shit!”
He scrambled backwards across the kitchen floor, keeping low and out of sight. The door opened, and a second later, he heard heavy footsteps walking across the floor.
“Mandy?”
Mandy. So the neighborhood succubus had a name too.
Mandy threw Logan a quick wink, before cocking her head once again to the backyard.
“See ya,” she whispered. Then she straightened up and walked out into the living room with a smile. “Hi, honey! Want to help me unload the car?”
Careful, man. That doesn’t mean what you think it does.
With a surge of panic-fueled adrenaline, Logan darted to the sliding glass door and yanked it open, slipping silently into the yard. He sprinted across the grass a second later, and surprised himself by swinging his body effortlessly over the high fence. His feet came down in a narrow side yard between the two houses, and he took a second to catch his breath, before straightening his shirt and walking calmly out to his own front porch.
“Hey, Dylan!”
His spine stiffened, and he turned to see a man he could only assume was Mitch waving cheerfully from the next house over. Mandy was smiling by his side.
“Hey!” He forced a smile, and gestured awkwardly to his door. “I’m just...going inside.”
Mitch flashed him a curious grin, probably jumping to the same drunken assessment as Sam. “Cool, man. Have fun with that.”
“...I will.”
A second later, Logan was inside. His hands were trembling when he shoved the key into the lock, and they were somehow trembling even harder when he pushed the door shut again. It was only then that he realized his pants were still completely unzipped, and that same burst of belated adrenaline sent him stumbling away from the entryway into the living room.
For a man who never missed a single detail, Logan hardly noticed a thing as he flopped down onto the nearest sofa and shut his eyes. He felt like he’d been running for hours. First away from Sam, then away from Mandy. What the hell had he and Dylan been thinking?! There was no way this was ever going to work. He hadn’t even made it through the first day, and already things were falling apart at the seams. There was no telling what might happen next—
A savage growl ripped suddenly through the air, freezing Logan in place. First, he opened one eye. Then another. Only to find himself face to face with the scariest dog he’d ever seen.
...oh fuck.
All he could see was teeth. That was it—just teeth. It was hard to tell anything more than that, considering he was lying helplessly on his back, just inches away from its gaping mouth. To be frank, it was hard to tell much of anything at all with that frightful growl rumbling in his ears.
“Hey, buddy.” He sat up slowly, speaking in a voice much higher than his own. “It’s okay—I’m not breaking in. Your friend gave me a key, you see?”
He held up the house key, but dropped it immediately as the dog’s teeth clipped shut just inches away from his hand. A silent scream lodged in his throat and he leapt to his feet only to realize that he wasn’t dealing with an ordinary dog. He was dealing with a dog who’d swallowed a bottle of magical growth serum as a puppy.
“What...are you?”
The thing came up to his chest—sitting. He shuddered to think what would happen if it stood up on two feet. The elongated snout and floppy ears seemed to indicate some kind of Great Dane, but the wicked light shining in its eyes was far more telling. This thing had been mixed with demon blood. Logan was sure of it.
Spartacus. Dylan’s annoyingly chipper voice echoed suddenly through his head. He’s a little angel. You’ll hardly even no
tice he’s there.”
Logan backed slowly towards the front door, keeping his eyes on the dog the whole time.
‘Little angel,’ huh? Remind me to give Dylan a ‘little beating’ the next time we meet.
It was the stare down of a century. Man versus beast. And to anyone keeping score at home, the beast was most certainly winning.
“It’s okay, buddy—it’s okay. Just calm down.” One step after another. He was almost to the front door, at which point he’d decided to catch a cab to the airport and get on the next flight back to Florida. “That’s a good boy, Spartacus. That’s a good boy.”
The dog paced deliberately forward, growling all the while. Here was a man who looked like his owner, but wasn’t all at the same time. It wasn’t to be trusted. It was to be eaten instead.