Page 39 of Jack of All Trades

The hellhound itself was hideous. There was no getting around that. Two long, curving horns like a bighorn sheep above the ears. Long fangs and flaring nostrils in the snout. The thing's shape was like a dog, but scaly instead of furred, and a long tail that came to an arrow at the end.

And the entire thing was red, including its glowing eyes…

Finally, Jack turned the page, and they all let out a breath when they saw another depiction. This one was no less frightening, but it looked more like a regular dog, only bigger. It had fur, no horns, and was black, not red.

“Which one is it?”

“I don’t know,” Maltin told his uncle. “I’m seeing all this for the first time like you are.”

“You don’t have, I don’t know, instincts?”

“Obviously, that’s why we had to get a book. Will you be quiet, Rodney?”

“Geesh, invite a guy to the party only to tell him he’s not dressed for it.”

Jack and Maltin stared at him after that, and he yelled, “Okay, you think of a better analogy!”

Jack turned the page again, and they all began to read. Maltin finished first, but he read twice as fast as Rodney or Jack.

Jack learned quickly that the librarian was right. They weren’t evil beings, no matter their appearance. They didn’t hurt good people. They didn’t terrorize villages or go after good, kind people.

They only got called up when those who shouldn’t still be in the world were running around alive. The evilest, who got past those grim reapers that took most souls away from their earthly bodies. Those were the people hellhounds went after and took to the underworld.

The calls were like dog whistles, and only hellhounds could hear them. Some force most knew as gods would call out, andthe closest hellhound would go after the prey and kill their bodies and retrieve their souls.

As they read, Jack calmed down, knowing that one day, he’d be called, that Maltin would. Maltin’s fingers threaded through his and he could feel his mate’s relief combining with his own.

“I don’t know about you two, but they seem okay to me. They are…scary things.”

“Rodney, you do get that they…go after folks like you and Mother, right?”

“We’re not evil!”

“No. You’re not.”

“We’ll go when we go. I don’t believe we’ll go to hell. Your mother has too good of taste to be sent there. And mine? I’m impeccable.”

“Taste isn’t the issue, Rodney,” Maltin laughed.

Jack flipped through the book, and sure enough, he found the chapter he was looking for. “Pups.”

“Dear god, we are having pups,” Maltin whispered.

“Pups? Like puppies? You cannot be serious!”

Jack laughed. “Let me read before we go out and buy chew toys.”

There were graphs and more illustrations, and Jack subconsciously set his hand over his stomach when he saw what his insides must look like. “I have a uterus?”

“I’ve been checked. My mother took me to the doctor when I was very young, and then, well, once X-rays were invented, she made me go. I have none of this. And, well, I knotted.”

“I’m pregnant?”

“Well, I’ll be damned. She’s going to be a grandmother, after all. She’ll have parties, and the children will be so spoiled. This will give her a reason to go on. Another piece of her late husband, her son. Trudy will be thrilled.”

Jack heard that and felt a scream rise in him. He wouldn’t have anyone to tell that would be thrilled. “Jack, please, don’t. You have a real family, remember?”

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

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