Maybe it was time for my hobby. I worked on my hammock for a while, but got stuck on who was bringing me the chocolate until I fell asleep.
CHAPTER7
Rumple
“Did you know that was possible? That animals could eat evil?”Feather’s words echoed in my mind as I stared at the inconceivable scene in front of me. A few days had passed on Earth since she had died and gone back to the void, and the animal in question was lying alongside his owner, Charles de Soissy. They were both on the floor of the chateau where his father and my little one had died, though they had moved to a new room.
Charles lay asleep on the same flat cot that Feather had used, though, and his love for the animal was apparent. Even in his sleep, he had an arm over the dog’s upper back, as if he couldn’t bear to be apart from it. The man’s soul was one of the most balanced I’d seen, only slightly darker than light. It would be enough to send him to the void, though, rather than the Fields of Joy, if something didn’t change before his death.
The huge dog was obviously still injured, though it was healing well. But in one corner of the room, there was a massive golden cart, with painted dogs on the sides, and an enormous pillow inside. It could only be a dog chariot. Was the creature that wounded? He wasn’t whimpering in his sleep, and he wasn’t lying strangely.Huh.Possibly just spoiled?
I floated closer to see the injury more clearly, but stopped in utter disbelief when the dog raised his shaggy head and exposed his teeth, snarling at me.
You can see me?I thought.
The dog rolled its eyes, but kept its teeth out. It had definitely heard my question. And I was almost certain it thought I was a threat. Or an idiot.
I mean no harm to your…I almost said owner, but for some reason, changed it tofriend.
The dog narrowed its eyes, staring at me for a long moment with what could only be judgment in its dark gaze. Then it let out a fart that could have cleared the Colosseum, and settled its head back down, licking the small spot on the man’s bare arm that it could easily reach.
I watched in awe as the dark gray smut that had been on that forearm lightened with every lick, until the gray sheen of his skin was perfectly neutral. Not the charcoal gray of a lost soul, and not the bright shimmer of the far rarer ones who ascended on their deaths to what humans thought of as paradise. Though it was really one of the places where the most holy of all creatures spent their eternities. Creatures who looked a lot like this dog, though if I remembered correctly, those Celestials were pure white, where this one had the markings of his earthly breed.
“You cannot be a Celestial dog,” I whispered aloud.
The dog—Bernard, I remembered—didn’t stir, but Charles’s breathing stuttered, as if he’d heard me in his sleep. “Best dog… in the world,” he muttered, his hands gripping Bernard’s fur in what had to be a too-tight grip.
There was truth in his words. If this creature was somehow a Celestial dog, stuck here on Earth, there was no doubt that was true. “I believe you,” I said, floating closer, needing to see the man’s arm. Had the dog really done what I’d thought? I hovered over the sleeping pair, noting the balanced smut on all the parts of the man the dog must have licked.
There was only one creature in the world that could do such a thing, without making a sacrifice to accomplish it. A being so pure in its very essence, it could be thought of as the embodiment of the Mother of All Creation.
But Celestial dogs never left their realm. They lived eternally, traveling only between the Celestial Realm and the Fields of Joy, using their temples as pathways between the realms. The only time any Celestial beings came to Earth was on the occasional journey as a Messenger, sent at specific, urgent moments in the history of the world, to affect the balance…
Or to guard it. To keep watch over a pivotal moment, or person.
I scowled at the man, Charles. He wasn’t unique in any way I could see, except in his affection for this dog. “He’s nothing special,” I breathed as I dipped my head closer, reaching out with one shadowed finger and wishing I had a corporeal form. Curiosity was making me itch to uncover what lay at the heart of this mystery.
Instead, I woke the beast. “Ow, fuck!” The creature’s head had moved faster than I could float away, and somehow, its teeth had caught on my leg. It shook me once, then twice, until it was certain I’d learned my lesson. Then it spat my leg out, shuddering and licking at its own paws. A long string of charcoal gray drool extended from its mouth to the floor and it sneezed once, flecks of more dark gray smut flying everywhere. It stared balefully up at me again, growling low in an obvious demand for me to retreat.
I did, with both hands raised, my pulse pounding. “How in all the realms did you do that?” I asked, keeping my voice soft. “How did you… touch me?”
If I never saw disappointment in a dog’s eyes again in my eternal, cursed life, it would be too soon. Bernard didn’t blink for a long moment, just drooled and judged me. At last, he opened his jaws, and I was almost certain he was going to speak, or bark, but the voice I heard was familiar, and farther away.
And panicked.
“Stop!” Feather was shouting, her tone one I had never heard. “Rumple!” I blinked at the dog, who just seemed to raise his shaggy brows, unconcerned.
“Later, hound,” I promised, and shot away, as my little one cried out for me again.
“Never! Stop!”
My sluggish, tainted blood boiled. Bernard had a charge to protect. But I had my own, and I would always come when she called, and help her even if there was no help for me.
The mystery would have to wait.
CHAPTER8
Feather
