Free Must Love Hellhounds by authors_sort

places that might escape inspection. Batanya’s went into the thick padding of her socks, and Clovache’s into a tiny crevice in the stone floor of her cell.
    “Hands in the water!” Batanya said hoarsely, and Clovache immersed her hands in her water bucket. Batanya hoped it was quick enough to save Clovache’s skin.
    “They attacked each other!” Amelia told the guards. The American woman was not a great actress, but she did look very excited. They believed her.
    “I’ve never seen them turn on each other,” Sha hissed, but he didn’t seem inclined to ask more questions. After all, the prisoners were in their cells, and unarmed.
    Though the hounds were still whining, their wounds were healing fast. Narcissus called them to him and stroked their huge heads while they whimpered. Narcissus had kept silent for so long that Batanya was hopeful he wouldn’t blurt out some information. He was watching all the action with an expression that sat oddly on his face.
    “He’s thinking about something besides himself,” Clovache muttered to Batanya, who was standing as close as she could get, because she wanted a look at Clovache’s hands. “That can’t be good.” Tears were running down Clovache’s face. That meant the water immersion hadn’t completely worked.
    “Steady,” she said, and Narcissus moved to the corner of his cell to look at the bars on Batanya’s. Batanya followed the direction of his gaze. The bars were beginning to smoke; just a little, easy to miss in the murky atmosphere, but still ... Their eyes met. Come on, beautiful, she thought. Give me this. I’ll admire you till the pookas return to their burrows, if you’ll just give me this. She tried to smile winsomely, but it was too much of an effort. She gave him a good, hard stare. She was much better at that.
    “What are you doing, bitch?” screamed Sha. Clovache whirled to face him, her fingers scattering drops of water. The skin of her hands was blistered, and Clovache clasped them behind her after a quick downward glance.
    “Washing my hands, since the hounds slobbered all over them,” Clovache said. “What did you feed them, razor blades? Why’d they bite each other?” Sha glared at her, suspicion written all over his scaled face, and a third guard, one of the dust-balls, rolled around in an unbelieving manner.
    The steam coming off the bars was slowly increasing in density, and any moment the guards would notice. If sheer force of will could have moved them, they would have shot back outside the doors. The hounds, casting malevolent looks at Batanya and Clovache, skulked out into the guardroom. The guards, after a few more threats and a lot more curses, followed. The doors slammed shut just in time, because the smoke was beginning to really pour off the bars that had been touched with hound blood.
    “Let me see your hands,” Batanya said, and Clovache held them out. There were bright red blisters covering the palms of Clovache’s hands. They looked so painful that even Narcissus winced in sympathy. (He felt better after he looked down at his own white, unsullied hands.)
    Clovache shrugged. “Worth it, if we get out. Will they come back in if we make a lot of noise?” she asked Narcissus.
    “No,” said the beautiful youth after a moment’s thought. “Others scream and plead all the time. And they only came in before because the hounds were howling, and the hounds are favorites of Lucifer’s. An ogre beat his heads against the bars for an hour before they came to check, two weeks ago.” He looked at the Britlingens expectantly.
    “You were so clever to keep silent when the hounds were in here,” Batanya said hastily. “I was so proud of you. I don’t know how we’d accomplish this without your help.”
    Satisfied temporarily, Narcissus gave her a lovely smile and fetched his hairbrush.
    The smoke roiled and thickened, and the air got even worse. After perhaps five minutes, the smoke began to dissipate, though the thick