Cold Dish- Prologue

I'd like to be able to say I didn't make a dog explode. I'd like to. I really would.
Besides, it's Thomas's fault anyway for letting himself get hurt. I thought he was supposed to have super reflexes or something.

It all started when I was approached by a man whose pet had been killed and eaten alongside a number of woodland critters. That wasn't what made him come to me though. Apparently the 'rabid dog' had smashed through his living room window, torn Toto's metal cage to shreds and then made off with the poor little guy right in front of them. Needless to say, after the police promised to 'look into it' with no results, he came to me: your Friendly Neighborhood Wizard.

Fortunately for me, when I went to the house to investigate I found a few hairs snagged in the broken window. I tracked what I had assumed to be a faerie in disguise to a small suburban house. My tracking-spell-charged necklace wrapped with hair pointed unswervingly at the middle of the house when I circled around. Good, at least I had the right place. Nothing had gone wrong yet. Something about this job didn't sit right with me though. My life is never this easy. The sentiment was confirmed a second later when I extended my wizardly senses towards the house. A sense of horrible, greasy coldness slid against my spine. I froze instantly, no amount of experience able to overcome sheer survival instinct.

It felt wrong.
It felt evil.
It felt like Black Court. And their little dogs too. A Black Court vampire is the traditional, reanimated-corpse, Stoker style of vampire. What people think of when they hear the word vampire. Well, what people used to think.

Black Court vampires would usually recruit Renfields - people whose minds were psychically crushed and twisted to what the vamp wanted - which was usually mindless violence. It left them howling mad and what remained of their minds could barely be called human. Once you got became a Renfield, there was no recovering. You were better off dead. Thankfully, it seemed I got to the scene before they got that far.

Up until now, I had been picturing Cujo as a faerie who wanted to screw with the local mortals. I realized then the thing that ate Toto was a Darkhound. Darkhounds were the doggy equivalent of Renfields. Unlike Renfields, Darkhounds were obviously not normal dogs. You could just by looking at them. They scratched themselves bloody and lost patches of fur. Cujo was probably just a stray who had the bad luck of catching the attention of the local vamp.

Lucky for me, based on the amount of Dark magic in the air and conspicuous lack of horribly maimed bodies, this murder of vampires was still in the early stages. Because I was in no way, shape, or form stupid enough to try and take out Black Court stronghold by myself, even in broad daylight, I called for help by way of my annoying half-brother. No way was I including Murphy in Black Court business again. Kincaid either, for far more financial reasons.

I went home and used my old rotary phone to call Thomas, the kind with the spinning dial.

"Hey Harry, what's -"

"Black Court." I said.

There was a silence a heartbeat long.

Then he said "I'll be right there."

I hung up and turned to Mouse, who had been looking patiently at me with his lead in his mouth.

"Let's go boy."

While Thomas, Mouse and I rode to the Black Court nest I filled him in.

"Looks like a nest with just a few vampires so far. No mundane defences, no wards I could see. No Renfields either. There is one Darkhound that I know of for sure, but he should be easy to take care of. Seems like they're trying to keep under the radar. I think the vampires themselves are in the basement. Any questions?"

"Yeah, where's your apprentice? She wasn't at your apartment." Thomas said.

I gave him a sidelong look and said "She's helping her father recover. Demonreach."

Thomas winced and fell silent.

"Anymore questions?"

"No."

"Good."

We got out of the Blue Beetle and walked toward the door. Mouse was a steady presence behind me. I focused my Will down my staff and brought its tip against the lock "Forzare." The staff rocked back slightly as the lock broke with a sharp rattling sound. It shot off down the hallway to thunk against the wall. I kicked down the door and charged inside, my faithful sidekicks right behind me.

Everything was quiet. I took a firmer hold on my staff to reassure myself as I swept my gaze across the room. Still nothing. I reached for my magical senses and extended them across the room.

"There's something-"

I couldn't even finish my sentence. Supernatural monsters are rude that way.
The Darkhound leapt at me from a shadowed corner, wildly baying its desire to eat our faces to the world. Isn't it sad that this is one of the more polite supernatural things I've met during my career as a wizard?

It didn't even seriously try to go for Thomas, besides a cursory bite on the ankle. It just bowled him over and went straight for me. That was odd, but I can't really say I know what goes on in the mind of a Darkhound anyway. No worries though. I had plenty of warning, and a wizard who was warned is one of the last things supernatural predators like to go after.

I confidently raised my staff and shouted, "Forzare!" at the dog. A bolt of invisible force strong enough to bitch slap a charging vampire twenty feet soared through the air and hit the dog dead on.

And slid right off it. I goggled at the still charging Darkhound in disbelief.

Even as I scrambled to move my arm and shoulder, and more importantly, my charmed duster in between the Darkhound and my oh-so-tender throat, I was going through my list of spells and realizing very quickly none were well-suited for the task of rapidly taking care of the new and improved Darkhound 2.0.

Twice as bloodthirsty! No complaints from previous customers! 100% throat-rippingly guaranteed!

Just before the Darkhound hit me an almost leonine roar opened up in the confined space of the house and Mouse rushed past me to hit the Darkhound with around 200 lbs of angry dog.

As the two dogs snarled and grappled for dominance I opened my Sight to see what blocked me from swatting Cujo to kingdom come. There was Mouse of course, in his blue shimmering aura of a Foo Dogliness.

Then I looked at the Darkhound. It was just a dog at first. Then its flesh opened up into horrible gaping wounds, and its fur fell out in ragged clumps. There was the aura of Black Court power around the dog- a sickly, greasy, nauseating, burning coldness. Sewn into the skin of its neck was a protective talisman with a significant amount of power woven into it. This was specifically made with a Wizard in mind. In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar: It's a trap.

Anything I threw at the Darkhound would end up being diverted, or failing that, opposed directly. My best bet would normally be to overpower the amulet and immolate him but I wasn't exactly well suited precision spellwork like that. I had already filled my quota for unexplained burning buildings this year.

Luckily, I had been working on an 'inside-voice' version of Fuego with Bob.
Unfortunately, it was still in the early stages. It was intended to take in all the heat you could from the surrounding area and then dry roast whatever monster wanted to rearrange your organs into new and interesting shapes. I was unsure if I could pull off such an untested spell. An angry bass snarl from Mouse as the Darkhound scored a minor hit changed my mind

Mouse was winning, but I couldn't take any chances. He had bitten through the Darkhounds shoulder, a wound that was painful and slow to heal, even with supernatural healing. I closed my Sight and got out my blasting rod to work the spell. I turned to Thomas and told him to cover me. He nodded tensely and made a 'get on with it' gesture with his hands.

I took a deep breath, and shouted "Mouse, get clear!"

Mouse snarled and got clear in a hurry. I summoned my Will and concentrated. The world faded away as I took heat from the idling car 30 feet away, from the cooling pavement that had been baked by the Chicago sun, from the ground, from the air and from the house itself. Timbers creaked and groaned in protest.

"Aestus Accendo!"

A shimmering wave of heat erupted from the business end of my blasting rod and sped toward the just now recovering Darkhound. Its body absorbed the whole blast.

I still can't decide whether the spell was an amazing success or a horrible failure. Why, you might ask? Well apparently, if you hit a living creature with enough heat to crack stone and melt glass, but no place for that heat to leave, it explodes.

Cujo erupted into pieces of flaming dog that splattered everything thoroughly in a 10 foot radius. Thomas flicked a piece of Darkhound off his shoulder disdainfully with his finger, gave me a long-suffering look, and strode to the basement door, getting out his wooden stake as he did. He was only limping slightly. The wound on his ankle had already faded into an angry red bite mark.

Mouse shook gore the off himself and turned his shaggy head to look at me with mournful doggy eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, it wasn't my fault!"

Mouse continued to stare at me.

"What, did you have a better idea?"

Mouse chuffed and shook his head, trotting toward the basement door with dignity. We took care of the Black Court vampires by way of wooden shafts through their hearts. It was easy enough- these vampires were still newbies and had to sleep during the day. Hell, one of them still had white teeth. I headed home that night with next months rent in my pocket and the sense of a job well done. I should have known better than to tempt fate like that.