Free Finding Midnight by T. Lynne Tolles

attention
to Sully. She was stunned, but not frightened when she reached out
to Sully, allowing him to smell her hand—which he did, then licked
it, leaving it coated with a slick goo. She scrunched up her nose
at the sight and feel of the drool. “Yuck,” she said, reaching for
a paper towel on the counter. Once she was de-slimed, she gave the
strange-looking dog a scratch atop his head.
    “When did you get a dog? I mean…whatever
this is? What is it?” Not waiting for answers, she continued, “And
what are these?” She touched the tiny horns on his head. “And
these?” she said, noticing the sigils beneath his skin. “How cool?
Are they tattoos?”
    Summer found herself stuttering trying to
answer Tori’s questions only to be interrupted by another question
until she finally waited for Tori to slow down and give her an
opening to speak.
    “He’s a hellhound; at least that’s what I
was told. We kind of found one another last night. His mother died
in some kind of fight with this demon guy I met in the woods.”
    Tori stopped petting the dog and stood up,
staring blankly at Summer. Summer knew this look. She’d seen it
many times before. It was Tori’s ‘don’t mess with me’ look.
    Summer retorted with, “I’m dead serious,
really.”
    “You’re telling me that you met a DEMON last
night…who was fighting a HELLHOUND mother and you’ve taken in the
stray pup from the aftermath?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,”
Summer admitted.
    “Geez. I swear you are the luckiest person
alive. First you move into the coolest cottage ever nestled next to
a graveyard, no less. You have a bad boy angel save you from what
you think was a dragon, then you meet a demon? And adopt a
hellhound? Nothing cool like that ever happens to me.”
    “Oh, come on, Tori…you’re dating a pretty
cool vampire, aren’t you? Good looking too, I might add.”
    “Yeah. I guess, but look at him,” Tori
referred to Sully. “He’s really something. I love the tattoos. I
should try and copy some of these and see if I can get one
done.”
    “I don’t know if you want to do that, Tori.
I was told they were sigils of names of very powerful demons in
Hell,” Summer explained.
    “You mean like permanent dog tags? Like, do
they own him?” Tori asked as she took a closer look at one while
her other hand rubbed one of Sully’s ears.
    “That was my thought at first too. The demon
just told me they were signatures of the demon lords that made the
original hellhounds.”
    “Oh. Can I come over if he comes back—this
demon of yours? I’ve never met a demon before. Was he red? Did he
have horns?”
    “He wasn’t red, but he did have
horns…sometimes.” Summer was rather shocked at the images Tori
spewed in her questions. “And other times, he looked…normal. Like
you and me. Nothing strange at all.”
    “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed, but a
second later her face brightened again and she blurted out, “Was he
cute?”
    Summer couldn’t help herself. She had to
laugh at Tori’s tenacity. “Yes, Tori. I have to say he was
definitely cute, that is, when his horns weren’t showing.” They
both laughed and continued to pet Sully.
    *****
    Just when the chuckles started to fade, Dr.
Stuart popped his head into the front office door to greet them and
see what the giggling girls were up to, but when he saw the
hellhound pup he froze.
    “Screamin’ kittens! What have we here?” he
said as he stepped closer to Sully.
    “I was just explaining to Tori that I took
this big boy in last night. His mother died in a fight with a
demon, no less.”
    “You don’t say? I imagine its mother must
have been a sight to see,” he said, not even pausing for a moment
at the mention of a demon.
    “She was. She was huge, but hairless.”
    “Huh,” Dr. Stuart said as he made a circle
around the pup, examining all sides of him. Then as if just
computing what had been said, he repeated with a start,
“Demon?”
    “Yes.