Chapter 22: The Woe of Community Service

It started when a couple walked by and Hellie handed them a flyer.

I was close, taping one to a wall, and Teena had gone inside a dorm to place a few at the front desk.

After I finished, I noticed the couple standing and arguing. The woman couldn’t stop ogling our way despite the man’s attempt to pull her away.

Catching my eye, the woman stormed back toward Hellie and me.

I immediately twisted to Hellie and whispered, “No pouncing, no growling, and definitely no death curses.”

Right as the woman got closer, I turned away from Hellie and smiled big, but she bypassed me and directed all of her attention to Hellie.

“Are you okay?”

“She’s fine,” I said to ease the woman’s worry.

“Let her speak for herself, creep,” the woman instantly snapped back, pushing the flyer Hellie gave her into my hands.

If dealing with her wasn’t enough, the man added himself into the equation.

“You’re a sicko, treating a woman like this. Is this some Halloween-type shit? Can’t you wait till then?” He scoffed.

The increasing wave of negativity alerted me to check Hellie.

Even though the couple had flanked us and verbally beat us down, she maintained a calm reserve.

What was even stranger, it seemed as if I could feel her disposition.

But that shared feeling was broken when the woman grabbed at the chain in my hand.

I pivoted out of her attempt and pushed Hellie behind me, tucking her close to my back. We then shuffled back, placing distance between us and the couple. I knew what was coming.

Failing to align with my preconceived notions of madness, Hellie only emitted a low grrr.

“Is she snarling at me?”

I felt humiliated as I reached into my wallet, but I was in a situation, so I shared my situation awareness card.

They had puzzled looks on their faces as they huddled close, reading it.

The woman took out her cell and snapped a picture of the backside of the card. I’m assuming to note the complaint email address.

I prepared myself for more nasty comments, maybe questions, but Teena’s return changed things.

“Let them live their truth. We appreciate your concern, but does she look like she’s being harmed or held against her will?”

Hellie sniffed the air and looked off into the distance when we all directed our attention her way.

“It’s not right. She’s on a chain.”

Teena gently took the woman’s hands and folded hers on top.

“Your concern is misplaced. What you should understand is… Hellie’s giving her trust and expressing herself in the way she desires.”

Looking deep into the woman’s eyes, Teena softly said, “If you were a little more connected to others, you would be willing to support how they want to live in this world.”

Teena handed the woman a flyer.

“Come out and listen to our message. Maybe you’ll find the courage to live your authentic life.”

After listening to Teena, the woman fell into a serene state and handed back the card.

“My apologies.”

Our group moved off. After we were a few feet away, I looked back, and the girl was still standing, motionless, eyeing the flyer in her hands.

“Thanks.” I said, amazed at how Teena effortlessly controlled the exchange.

“I hope you aren’t taking their judgment to heart. I commend you two for being honest about your sexual interests.”

“No! Why does everyone think that?”

“Sorry, is Hellie not your girlfriend?”

“No, she’s a childhood friend. After her brother died in an accident, she wrote me, explaining she no longer wanted to live as a human. Before changing her lifestyle, she asked me to take care of her. Right, Hellie?”

I was banking on Hellie remembering the cover story we’d practiced for Weird Nikki.

After a brief moment, Hellie nodded with an expression of sadness.

Good girl. Good girl.

Teena stopped walking and turned to me. “Oh my gosh. That is way more tragic than I realized.”

After hearing my made-up story that I didn’t think through, I felt in my gut that she would chastise me for using Hellie as part of my social experiment.

Teena moved into my personal space. She had a strange look on her face. One I had never seen before, maybe adoration?

“Billy, you are wonderful for taking on such a massive responsibility to help Hellie through her trauma.”

“Please keep that between us. Don’t add it to your write-up. It’s personal.”

“Fine, Billy. You only had to ask.”

She brushed my hand, and I lost myself for a moment. The flyers I was holding dropped.

Not surprisingly, I fumbled—a bit too much—grabbing at the papers on the ground. Of course, the light winds made the job much harder and more ridiculous.

Seeing me struggle, Teena assisted.

As the flyers floated up and whipped away around us, we found ourselves laughing.

Suddenly, I heard Hellie growling, and she tugged at the leash, knocking me off balance.

“What’s wrong, girl…err, Hellie?”

“I got these. See what’s wrong with Hellie,” Teena said in a supportive tone.

“Sorry. Give me a quick sec.”

I turned my attention to Hellie, and she started pulling me, growling louder with each tug, until she started barking.

The small pocket of people walking by hurried away, confused by how real her bark sounded.

“Hey, it’s okay. Calm down. What do you see? What’s bothering you?”

Given how frantic she acted, I was afraid she might transform into one of her dog forms.

I knew I couldn’t panic publicly, so I leaned in and whispered to her, “Do not change here, period.”

She wouldn’t stop barking, but thank goodness, did not transform.

In the distance, someone stopped against the flow of the other students.

His movement, although mundane, intimated a sinister undertone.

He turned around, clearly looking our way.

Once he had, I could see it was Tiny Jem.

No wonder.

He stood and watched us, before running off.

In response, Hellie yanked hard, making me flounder. I quickly unstrapped the leash from my belt. As soon as I got a firm grip on it, Hellie bolted, dragging me along with her.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to Teena.

I can only imagine how idiotic—or more aptly, disturbing—Hellie and I looked running across the campus.

A five-foot-five-inch-tall woman was pulling me, a six-foot-tall man, with a leash attached to her throat collar. To add to the bizarre visuals, I could only imagine how silly my overstuffed backpack looked, jostling up and down against my back.

“Hellie, I said slow down a little more.”

From how she kept looking back at me, I knew she was frustrated that I was slowing her down.

It took everything in me to keep up.

We had barely started but the brisk take off winded me.

The last time she became this determined, she was protecting me from a spying supernatural familiar. So this time I trusted her instincts to act.

Besides, I’d put her on Tiny Jem’s scent so she could find him and I could question him.

“Hellie, when we catch up to him, we talk.”

I wasn’t entirely sure if talk would matter.

I’d had several dealings with our quarry over the years, and he wasn’t known for being forthright—more like shady.

Scary shady.

More than enough to be involved with The Order of the Eternal Night.

He had a considerable lead over us from the beginning, and as fast as we were sprinting, we couldn’t close the gap.

Given his stout physique, it shocked me that he was faster than me

Hellie could have easily overtaken him.

I held her back, slowing her down because I wouldn’t let the leash go.

Several of my attempts to call out after him fell on deaf ears.

He heard me, flashed a wicked smile, and powered forward.

I despised his smarmy, smug smile. It took me back to our high school days when Tiny Jem had, basically, been a third-string bully.

No physical stuff—he specialized in mental terror tactics.

I pushed myself to my upper limit, knowing we had to catch him—and find out what he knows.

Our pursuit led us across the campus—up and down several stairwells, over viaducts of Devil’s Fountain, and even through a girl’s dormitory.

The longer the chase went on, the more I noticed a dark emission trailing our path.

Is this what Hellie sees?

When Tiny Jem neared a pair of security guards and didn’t stop running to make a complaint, I knew he was baiting us.

Not slowing in the least, Hellie bulleted through the guards, wildly knocking one to the side and the other to the ground.

When I looked back, I caught the pissed glance of Bob, the security guard, as he picked himself up.

For a moment, I thought we had lost Tiny Jem.

I almost ended our mini hunt there.

But after sniffing vigorously into the air, Hellie caught his scent, and we pursued him into the far reaches of the campus practice fields.

Despite my magical abilities, I had no superhuman prowess like Hellie.

All I could do was accept the blame for not being able to catch up to Tiny Jem.

Besides, something was off about his pattern.

He had plenty of opportunities to stop and talk to us or get away from us, but he didn’t do either.

Why?

He had to be leading us into a trap—away from the public and into the heart of more of Gula’s followers.

As we ran across the empty football practice field, I saw Tiny Jem disappear into the neighboring woods.

Not the woods again.

Immediately, panic struck. My mind revisited the mangled corpses of the cult members scattered all over the woods.

“Hellie, stop.”

She wasn’t obeying me, and I was running out of steam.

I hated it, but I had to remind her who the master was.

We were rushing toward our doom.

I let the leash go, and Hellie looked back.

I asked her to stop one final time.

She ignored me and kept running.

I had one shot at this.

Since I was no longer hindering her, she was moving fast.

I held my right hand out and turned my palm up, extending my index and middle fingers, glued side by side, followed by touching the bottom of my thumb to the fingernail of the ring finger.

Then, focusing on Hellie, I pulled my fingers and arm inward.

From my point of view, it looked as if Hellie had hit an invisible wall.

Then she came reeling backward, weightless, limbs adrift—feet grazing the air—before I stopped her, a breath from where I stood.

I hadn’t read about this, but intuition took over; rotating my hand, I spun Hellie around.

We locked face to face.

“Sit.”

I didn’t scream or look angry.

I meant what I said, and Hellie knew it and followed my command.

I placed my hand on her head, waiting for her to calm down.

She did, then I moved my hand.

She stayed.

Nightshade had always liked a treat after showing trust, so I dropped my backpack. A quick rummage through the pockets, I found a snack.

“Here, you’ll like this. You can stand.”

Hellie stood, and I handed her some jerky. She suspiciously sniffed the treat before happily gobbling it down.

“We can’t charge at everything when we hunt. We need strategies. Plans. Think things through. So that means you can’t run off or act without us being in sync. Together, like one.”

I didn’t know if the concepts were foreign or not, but I knew I had to reach her on a higher level than just commands.

She had understood it in Gene’s room.

I needed her to understand now.

Hellie walked around me in circles twice and barked toward the woods.

She was eager to get on with the chase.

I placed my hands on her shoulders to keep her in place. And although I felt weird doing it, I rubbed her behind the ears.

She looked at me and smiled. Her frantic energy completely vanished.

“Yes, I know I tasked you to find Tiny Jem, girl. But why are you so damn riled up to catch him?”

Hellie twisted her head side to side with a blank look.

“The guy.” I gave an awful impression of Tiny Jem.

“Running.” I motioned my fingers, mimicking our chase.

“The cult.” I pulled my hoodie up and acted like one of the attackers.

“Give me The Tome.”

Hellie’s eyes lit up and her ears perked up.

I’d connected.

“Okay, Why… do you… want to… follow.. him in—there?”

She cast her eyes at the woods.

Then she squatted and started tossing things out of my backpack until she unearthed Rules of the Black Arts for Advanced Users.

She sat cross-legged and placed the book in her lap, flipping through its pages with controlled precision.

My heart pulsed, unlocking a dear memory.

Hellie faded, and I saw Shellie sitting at the edge of my bed, reading a bedtime story.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Hellie’s repetitive strikes against the book jogged me from my thoughts.

Her eyes beamed with an invitation to sit, so I did. I scooted in close and gently removed her hand from the book.

I immediately recognized the page—Gene had asked me to read it before I left his place.

It was about Gula—one of the members of The Theater of Sins.

Hellie pointed to the page, then to the woods.

No—she was pointing to the name on the page, then the woods.

Name.

Woods.

When I finally understood, it crashed over me like a hurricane.

“Tiny Jem is Gula… Gluttony!” I shouted.

Ironically, my mouth gaped open, just like his sigil.