Blood Pact (Darkling Mage 7)

“Says me,” Asher said, placing the dog gently down on the floor. “And him. Right, Banjo? You like that name, boy?”

The dog barked once, its – sorry, his cheeks rising into that weird and admittedly crazy cute smile that dogs make when they’re happy. I frowned harder, getting jealouser and jealouser by the second. Making sure no one was looking, I raised my arm and sniffed myself carefully. Did I stink? Was that it?

As if sensing my thoughts, the dog turned towards me, staring unblinkingly with his beady little black eyes. This time, though, he didn’t growl. Aha. Progress.

Then Asher reached in to ruffle the fur on Banjo’s back. Distracted, the dog went into a little spin, yapping excitedly as he began to chase his own tail. Gil took out his phone to start recording Banjo’s antics. Hell, even Sterling got off the couch to get involved, scouring the kitchen for dog-safe treats.

Puppy Yum biscuits. All I needed were Puppy Yum biscuits. Then Banjo would be mine.

Chapter 4

It was going to be a while until we would get Carver accustomed to the idea of having a dog around the Boneyard, plus it wasn’t like you could just amble out into Valero and pick up some pee pads and a litter box for a puppy past midnight. Hell, even the Black Market didn’t stock that stuff, and they sold pet dragons.

“Then maybe they have dragon pooper scoopers,” I said. “You know, something we can improvise with before morning. Gil and Asher did volunteer to buy stuff for Banjo, so now we just need to make sure he doesn’t poop everywhere tonight.”

Sterling cocked an eyebrow at me, and the corgi sort of mirrored the expression, looking at me with a sidelong glance up his snoot. Sterling had the dog on a makeshift leash. I only say makeshift because Sterling’s the kind of guy who definitely keeps leather collars and leashes around his bedroom, only ones that were sized for humans. With a few adjustments and some tightening, though, Banjo seemed happy enough.

“This is improvising,” Sterling drawled, a cigarette hanging loosely out of the corner of his mouth. “We do a couple of rounds around Heinsite Park, get him to do his business, and we’re set.”

“Did you bring any bags for his poop?”

“Of course I did,” Sterling huffed. “I’m not a monster.” He pushed a couple of small paper bags into my hands. “Here. You hold on to them.”

I frowned. “Why are you making me keep these?”

“No reason.” He shrugged, pulling lightly on the leash. “Come on, boy. Let’s go take a walk

. You gonna make a doo-doo for daddy?”

I shook my head, watching as the pair of them ambled along into the darkness. When I joined Carver’s employ as a member of the Boneyard – hell, when I was first recruited as a staffer at the Lorica – I had no idea my life was headed in this direction.

In all my time with them, even knowing that they were decent people at heart, I still always knew that Sterling and Gil were fundamentally beasts: bloodthirsty predators, a vampire and a werewolf who’d worked in concert long before I showed up, twin instruments of destruction.

To see them so quickly reduced to cooing, quivering piles of jelly by this tiny, furry creature and its waddling butt was quite something else.

Okay, fine. I could relate. How can you not love a dog? And a corgi, of all things. The Queen of England keeps a billion of them. That woman has the right idea.

I lingered at Sterling’s heels as Banjo waddled among the bushes, picking the perfect spot to evacuate. The dog looked at Sterling, then at me as he shat his brains out. I’d read somewhere that dogs did that with people they trusted, to check that their pack mates had their backs in times of vulnerable, pooping need.

But for some reason, Banjo’s gaze felt more authoritative than that. “That’s right,” it seemed to say. “You pick up my leavings.”

Probably just my imagination, but I was willing to bet that this creature had to be in some way supernatural, if not at least a little bit smarter than the average dog. I mean come on, you parse this out for me. Thirty dead bodies, smashed into pulp and drained of their blood – fine, twenty-nine, if you account for the fact that Delilah somehow survived.

And you’ve got a dog just minding its own business among them, hardly distressed. That’s not how a dog behaves around its owner, especially one who’s been injured. Banjo didn’t belong at the scene, the way he didn’t belong to the Ramseys. The pieces of the puzzle just did’t fit.

But hey, free dog. At least until we figured out who the real owner was. No collar, no tag, from what we could see, but again, as Carver said, better with us than with the Lorica.

I bundled my jacket around myself, trying to keep warm against the wet chill of Heinsite, then held my breath as I carefully, very carefully deposited Banjo’s little pile of poops into a bag.

“Nicely done,” Sterling said, blowing out a puff of smoke.

“You’re an asshole,” I said, grimacing as I tossed Banjo’s present in a trash can. “Can we hurry up and get out of here? I don’t know why we still come to Heinsite, man. I feel like I’m always getting attacked out here.”

“Aww, that hurts, Dusty. Don’t you remember? This was where we met for the very first time. I tried to suck your blood out and everything.” He squinted, his eyes narrowing with sudden remembrance. “And you kicked my nuts to smithereens that night, too.”

“You kind of deserved it. I mean, you were trying to kill me, kind of. I’m not going to stand around playing dumb if the bushes start rustling.”

The bushes started rustling.