Page 7 of Monsters of Mayhem

The song erupted from my throat, carrying through the window and it spilled down onto the satyrs and the hellhound. They all paused in their battle, looking up at me. The hellhound grinned showing its teeth and its joy.

I had finally come out to stop the madness.

It immediately stopped attacking the satyrs, showing no interest in them whatsoever. Instead, it came bounding over to the window and jumped up, trying to make contact with the glass and break through it.

“It’s going to come in here,” Furlan said, his voice strained.

“Where did you think it was going to go?” I interrupted my singing.

“It should go to hell,” Furlan snarled.

“Clearly it got out of hand and it doesn’t want to be there anymore,” I let the keening come at the tail end of my voice and it flowed. I moved slowly toward the back door, allowing the hellhound to follow me.

“Either you open the door or I do and I step outside and get it,” I insisted.

“You sure about this?” Furlan asked.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I was adamant. I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach about the beast. It was the closest thing I had at the moment to a friend and something I wanted desperately, some sense of home. Clearly the beast wasn’t Laney and it wasn’t Ryder, but it was something. I knew I desperately needed something to help me.

Furlan stepped in front of me, pushing me back and making sure he stood between me and the animal. He opened the back door and the hellhound came bounding in, jumping up against me, it’s paws on my chest. Its massive tongue licked my face in greeting.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I hugged it back.

“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Furlan said as he watched the hellhound greet me with enthusiasm. “You’ve tamed more than one beast, I see.”

When I looked up at Tony, I realized I’d had an impact on him as . His eyes were misted over and the other three satyrs who had been in the fight with the hellhound came running up the back stairs.

“We’ve almost got it, boss,” they said to Furlan.

“Stand down,” he commanded. “Apparently we’re keeping the beast.”

“You can’t be serious,” one of the satyrs said. “The damn thing almost killed me.”

“It’s not for us to say,” Furlan said. “It’s not our house. We’re just doing a job here.” He turned to me, blinking the sadness from the banshee song out of his eyes. “Are you sure you want to keep it?”

I looked around at the satyrs. They looked just as dubious as Tony did, but I knew it wasn’t really a matter of what I wanted. “The beast wants to stay,” I said. “Who am I to argue.”

It was only after the hellhound settled down that one of the satyrs, the one with the bite, fell to the ground.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. The others moved toward him rapidly. “He can’t have lost much blood.”

“The hellhound’s bite is poison,” Tony said, his hand over his face as he looked down at his compatriot. He was quickly fading.

My voice erupted out of the depths of my throat. I sang not even wanting to. I didn’t even wish to hear my own voice. The sound came out of my throat in a way I never imagined. It was loud and robust. It was as if all the saddest bells in the city were ringing at the same time. We stood in a circle around the satyr as he faded away from this world.

Chapter 5

As much as I needed portals, I really didn’t like portal travel. It was better than flying but it wasn’t made for monsters, it was made for fae and demigods and demons. Ratchet was always a fan of the portal and without Ava around, we didn’t have much choice. I knew we needed to get to the North fast.

The portal opened onto a frozen glacier with harsh winds blowing icy snow across its slick surface. I immediately shifted into my monster form. It helped fight the sickening feeling of the portal and I needed an extra layer of hair, skin and muscle just to stop from freezing to death. Ratchet turned on his fire so it was coming off of his shoulders, arms and hair. We both knew how to keep from freezing to death out where it was below zero.

“Where the fuck are we?” I grumbled. I’d never been this far north before. There had never been a disturbance up here. Monsters didn’t really like the cold. We were more like demons and liked the heat.

“Greenland,” Ratchet said. “The far north of Greenland, inside the arctic circle.”

“What the fuck is up here?” I asked the question, but I was distracted. Even I could hear it in my tone.

I hated the way my mind was still on Caroline. I had a problem to solve here, but all I could think about was her. Was she OK? Was Furlan looking after her the way she needed to be looked after? Was the Victorian house safe enough to protect her? I’d asked the demigods for protection for her and they were keeping the rings, but would they make any effort on behalf of a banshee? Vina had skirted the issue and sent me on an errand. I doubted they would come to a decision that would help me out much at all.

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