Page 39 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

“Roasted lamb, stewed peas…” His mouth twisted. “Syllabubs on special occasions.”

“Sylla-whats?”

“It’s a dessert,” he replied. “Sort of a sweet cream.”

Dessert was a category I could work with. I took a mental inventory of the snack aisle, preparing to blow Whitney’s mind with the Little Debbie’s catalog.

“Have you ever had a Twinkie?” I asked. “They’re stuffed with sweet cream. Ooh, or Ding Dongs?”

He looked so utterly perplexed that I couldn’t help but grin.

“Well, that’s the first thing.” I turned toward the kitchen junk drawer. “I’m gonna make a list.”

Behind me, Loren coughed into his espresso, sounding gagged enough I spun around. He covered his mouth with one hand, and his face was flushed, looking simultaneously embarrassed and alarmed.

“You okay?” I asked.

He wiped his mouth, then dumped the remaining coffee into the sink.

I’d almost forgotten about his tongue—or lack thereof—but watching him grimace through a swallow made clear other side effects besides the impact on his French kissing game. If it was hard to drink, eating would be next to impossible. Time to change the subject.

“So, how old are you, anyway?” I asked Whitney. “No offense but roast lamb and peas sounds a bit… medieval.”

The hellhound bucked back with a snort. “Medieval? It’s not so bad as all that. I was born in 1746.”

“What month?” I asked.

He frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“November, maybe?” I guessed. “You give strong Scorpio vibes.”

Whitney looked from me to Loren and back again, growing more befuddled by the moment. “The fifteenth,” he said.

I smirked. “Called it.”

Remembering my quest for a notepad, I dug into the junk drawer menagerie and found a block of Post-its and a pen. Iwas about to begin a grocery list when I noticed Loren standing by the sink, staring out the window. His playful attitude from earlier was gone, and now he seemed vacant. I never did ask him about the things he wrote on the note to Sully. And the things he hadn’t.

Peeling off the topmost note, I offered the rest of the pad and pen to him.

He glanced at it, then shook his head.

“What if there’s something you wanna say?” I asked.

With another shake of his head, Loren bent in and kissed my forehead, then shuffled down the hall toward the bathroom. The sounds of the door sliding shut and the lock clicking over seemed to resonate.

I stood holding the Post-its and pen and chewing my lip until Whitney piped up.

“He’s a somber sort.”

It sounded less like an observation and more like a criticism, and an unfair one at that.

“He’s going through some stuff right now,” I replied. “I think he’s allowed to be a little down.”

Whitney harrumphed. “He’s been ‘going through some stuff’ for a hundred-fifty years, by my estimation.”

Loren had bad days as far back as I could recall. His missing tongue was a reason for his silence, but not the only one. He was prone to clamming up, shutting down, and turning off when things got to be too much.

They used to call it melancholia, but Loren shirked that label along with anything that might set him apart as “other.” From what he’d told me, the need to fit into society had been paramount since he was a kid. But too often blending in looked more like trying to disappear.

---