BLACK CITY SAINT by Rene

Author:Rene [Rene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hewlett-Packard

END

THE HOUND MASTER

Fetch had a habit of disappearing every now and then, but never for long stretches. Usually, he reappeared after a couple of days, smelling like the trash cans of a restaurant --- Berghoff’s off West Adams being a favorite --- and wasn’t allowed inside until he’d used what limited power he had to clean himself. For a shapeshifter who couldn’t shift due to his magic not being strong enough in the human world, he’d never seemed much bothered by being trapped in what passed best as a canine form. In fact, over the years since I’d known him, I’d gotten the idea that, if he stayed the way he was for the rest of his life --- which could be centuries, assuming that he didn’t get killed --- he’d be just fine with that fate. Fetch was pretty resourceful and could survive indefinitely on, not just the garbage, but Chicago’s plentiful rat population --- the four-legged kind --- as well. He found rats quite tasty. Cats, too, but I’d long forbidden that and I thought that he was keeping to that promise.

Still, when four days passed and there was no sign of Fetch, I started to wonder. Claryce had also begun questioning his absence, not to mention hinting that my concern wasn’t nearly strong enough. She had a tendency to see Fetch in part as my pet, something I always tried to dissuade her from doing, although without any real hope of success.

“Have you checked around your neighborhood?” she asked me after I brought up the fact that it’d been four days now.

“My neighborhood consists of bootleggers, speakeasys, and the like. Not exactly the type of places where I’d go in and ask someone if they’ve seen my big, ugly dog with the really odd bark.” Even when away from me and, so, unable to speak, Fetch couldn’t properly bark if it meant his life. When he could talk, he honestly said “bark” or “arf,” which never helped, and when he couldn’t, it still came out sounding like a guttural version of one word or the other. You’d think, with practice, that he could’ve achieved something reasonable, but no. “Besides, if anyone had found Fetch, I’m fairly certain that word would spread. Not to mention the fact that I can’t imagine how they’d hold him. He can bite through leashes and manipulate doors.”

“True.” Claryce didn’t sound convinced. “He wouldn’t go off on some mission himself, would he? Or peek in on one of the gangs?”

Fetch wasn’t likely to do the former, but he had done the latter a couple of times until I’d found out and warned him against doing so. Fascinated by both gangsters and the way they often spoke --- human slang had become an obsession with Fetch since he’d first ended up on this side of the Gate --- he’d slipped into warehouses and other locations --- anywhere some nefarious activity was taking place --- and watched and listened so avidly that he might as well have been hired to replace Nipper as the Victor Talking Machine Company logo.

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