Free Cat's Claw by Amber Benson Page A

after ignoring it for three days first. The note, too, I guessed, had been chucked in the trash as I remembered paying as little attention as possible to the envelope as I slid it into the garbage.
    “Really, I am.”
    Jarvis turned back around to face me, his mouth set.
    “I accept your apology and I know that this was not something you would do on purpose.”
    Shit! I thought guiltily but nodded my head like the penitent I was supposed to be. A mean thought niggled at the back of my mind, making me wonder if Jarvis knew I’d thrown the envelope out on purpose and was just digging in the knife. I decided not to push my luck—let him think I was too dumb to notice he was trying to manipulate me—and just accept my feelings of total and complete guilt as punishment enough for the day.
    “What did the summons say?” I asked tentatively, but Jarvis just shrugged.
    “I don’t know. I didn’t open it.”
    Damn it! The bastard was enjoying this, I thought angrily, noting the hint of a smile that was slowly transforming his face. He knew that I knew that he knew and he was enjoying it!
    “You did this on purpose!” I shrieked as I started pacing back and forth next to the polished marble island that dominated the room. “You were just waiting for this, weren’t you?”
    Jarvis started to giggle and I swear to God I almost decked him.
    “I had a feeling,” he moaned between breaths as the giggling became full-fledged laughter.
    “Oh, you jerk, you knew I would throw it away and you specifically didn’t read it on purpose,” I said, my face turning red with anger. “You. Suck .”
    This only made him laugh harder.
    “So, now what do I do?” I moaned, taking an angry sip of lemonade and nearly choking on it.
    “I guess,” Jarvis said, starting to calm down now, “you go down to Hell and see what the big, three-headed dog wants.”
    “And what if he wants Runt back?” I said angrily.
    This was something that I didn’t want to think about. Runt had become like a part of my family and I had no intention of giving her back now. She may have stayed at Sea Verge with Clio, but that was for purely selfless reasons. I mean, what kind of life would a hellhound pup have trapped in a tiny one-bedroom flat in New York City?
    A miserable one, that’s what.
    Jarvis merely nodded at my question. “I assumed that was the reason for your summoning.”
    Of course, Jarvis had no idea that I owed Cerberus a favor, one that he could collect on at any time, so the thought that I might be summoned for something other than Runt’s future wouldn’t have occurred to him.
    “What do I do?” I asked. “How can I get him to let us keep her?”
    Jarvis shrugged.
    “That’s between you and him . . . and Runt.”
    I looked up, startled.
    “You mean, Runt may actually have a say in this?”
    Jarvis shrugged again, then picked up the pitcher of lemonade and put it back in the refrigerator.
    “From what I understand about hellhounds, it’s the females that you have to worry about,” Jarvis said, beginning one of those lectures he so loved to give. “They are the dominant sex of the species—”
    “But Cerberus is huge. And he has three heads ,” I interrupted.
    “Yes, the females may be the smaller of the two due to sexual dimorphism—and they may only have one head—but that doesn’t really matter much these days. The females are the ones in control. They choose a life partner to mate with, then after the young are weaned, they go and hunt while the males look after the children.”
    “Amazing,” I said, liking how the hellhounds did business more and more. “So, why is Cerberus the Guardian of the North Gate of Hell and not his wife?”
    Jarvis shrugged.
    “I assume that the females don’t want to be tied down, so the job of Guardian would be better suited to a male.”
    “Interesting,” I murmured, wondering how best to put Jarvis’s information to use while I was down in Hell.
    “How long do I have before I