Page 3 of How to Flirt with a Hellhound
“I don’t know what you think I’ve done…” the man whispered through his cracked and bleeding lips.
I didn’t respond. I walked in and went over to my table of tools. He started to plead then, offering me money, connections... He even offered me his youngest daughter. I grabbed my ear buds off the table and put them in, pulling out my phone and putting on my “Bargain with the Devil” playlist. It seemed like a fitting choice.
Yesterday Toby had been asking his PA how many fingers a person could lose before they bled to death. I put on safety glasses, picked up the handheld saw, and went to work to find out the answer to his question.
The human body never ceased to amaze me. The lack of major arteries let me get through all ten fingers, although the subject passed out before I even made it to the second hand. He was steadily losing blood, but the first wound already seemed to be bleeding less, and I wasn’t even sure this would kill him if I left him a few days. Humans were amazingly resilient in some things, and so easily breakable in other ways.
I walked over to my work table, coating my hands and the saw in blue flame to get rid of the blood. I took out my ear buds and paused my music. I supposed it was time to talk to the subject before I sent him on. I liked them to know why.
I walked over and slapped him a few times until he groggily looked at me. The pleading started up right away.
“Please. I’m a husband and a father, and my family—” he started, but I cut him off.
“You beat your wife and children and terrorize them. You would have sold me your youngest daughter. You are even now in negotiations to sell her to a colleague for a more lucrative business deal,” I stated.
The man’s face contorted. “Then you know who I am. My people will hunt you down and kill you, you piece of shit,” he swore. “They’re looking for me now—”
I laughed, cutting him off again. Hellbound mortals were always so delusional.
“You think they’re looking for you? Do you really? Your wife prays that you will never come home. Your second in command has told everyone that you’re on vacation and he’s in charge. Your son unfortunately saw me take you from the back of the restaurant where your family was dining, and he went back to the table and told everyone you left to take a phone call. He eventually told his sister the truth, and she wept tears of joy and prayed for your death. That is the legacy you leave behind. No love. No loyalty. Only relief,” I told him.
“You lie!” he cried out, his face contorting in rage. “They wouldn’t dare!”
“You are not as powerful as you thought, little man. You have killed, raped, beaten, maimed, and destroyed hundreds of lives. There is no redemption for you. Your existence on earth will only lead to more misery and death, and so you have earned a place in hell. I am here to give you passage there. If you think anything that happened here was awful… Just wait until you’re dead.” I smiled at him then, letting my hellhound nature emerge, and the man shrank back and sputtered in fear.
I let my hands ignite, and I placed them upon his chest, straight over where I saw his blackened, shriveled soul. He screamed as his body ignited in flame.
It was really rather loud and annoying. I sighed, amping up the flame until his vocal cords were burned and I didn’t have to hear him. I stepped back and let the fire destroy every trace of the man and cleanse the room. I had the fire engulf me as well, burning away my clothes and all traces of blood. I usually tried to salvage the clothes, but the blood spray from the saw had been more extreme than I expected. Black jeans and black t-shirts were easy enough to replace anyway.
I walked upstairs naked, leaving the lights off. I couldn’t help it when my thoughts strayed back to Toby. It would probably be odd to give him an answer to his question. I wasn’t sure if there was some way I could casually slip it into conversation. He was probably right that most people didn’t talk about torture and death in their routine conversations.
I wouldn’t necessarily know. My upbringing had not been… conventional.
As I slipped into the shower, I thought about some way to slip it into conversation anyway. Toby probably wouldn’t think it was weird. He did talk about methods of death all the time.
I was pondering how to go about having an actual conversation with Toby, as his friend on the phone had suggested, as I fell into bed, and it was thoughts of Toby that chased me into sleep.
When I was suddenly in a basement room, I knew I was dreaming. I did have some human traits, like the ability to dream. Of course, my dreams were sometimes visions, as well.
I heard a soft whimper and turned around, and I felt my body ignite as I saw Toby cowering on a cot in the corner of the room. He was thinner, his body bruised, his clothes torn and dirty. He was cowering away from me, and I attempted to douse myflame, but then a figure walked through me, and I realized that Toby hadn’t been cowering from me—he’d been cowering from this man. I could only see the man’s back; he was tall, muscular, and had brown hair. I tried scenting the man, but of course that didn’t work in the dream.
Toby’s little whimpers of fear nearly broke my heart, but the man just continued to advance on him. A rhythmic banging sound made me look around, but Toby and the man didn’t seem to hear it. The man was almost to Toby now, who was trying to make himself as small as possible, and the banging was getting louder and louder…
Which is when I shot up in bed, wide awake.
The sheets were smoldering and a haze of smoke filled the air. Apparently I’d ignited my flame in my sleep because of the dream. The rhythmic banging was also still going, and I realized that hadn’t been a part of the dream, but had instead been happening for real. It must have been what woke me, but it stopped in the next moment.
I laid there and contemplated the dream. At least I hoped what I saw was only a dream and not a vision. If it had been a vision, I swore I would circumvent it. No one would take my Toby and do that to him; I would make sure of it. I was a hellhound—I could find anyone I needed to. Perhaps I should mark Toby with my scent somehow, just in case it had been a vision. I ignored the part of me that insisted that would be invasive and that mortals cared about silly things like privacy.
The rhythmic banging started up again, and I shook off my thoughts and climbed out of bed, going over to the window.
Oh. Oh no. Toby was outside on his front porch with a hammer.
I threw on sweatpants and a t-shirt as fast as I could and raced down the stairs. The last time Toby had attempted home improvement there had been quite a bit of blood, and the onlything that had prevented me from rushing over then had been the fact that his friend was there to take care of things. Toby was alone this morning, though. I neither saw nor scented anyone else in the vicinity.
Disaster was imminent.
I flew down the stairs, throwing open my front door. The sound must have alerted Toby, because the banging stopped, thank goodness. I walked onto my own porch, and from the corner of my eye I could see him watching me. I gave a long stretch, letting my t-shirt ride up, and I scented Toby’s arousal on the breeze. It was lovely, and I had to concentrate to not have my own cock hardening in response.
