She had no idea what she was looking at.
HA HA, said the storm inside her head. JUST AS I EXPECTED!
So, what exactly is it I’m looking at, Sheena asked it before her silence could stretch out too long.
DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE ME? IT’S ME! AT LAST! The reflection puffed up. MY TRUE, INNER, MAGNIFICENT SELF!
Sheena’s eyes widened. Internally. The glowing pits in the reflection stayed shiny—and burning—with smug glee.
Her inner self? Beneath the thunder and lightning, the animal did sound like… her sheep. And…
She looked closer at the reflection in the pool.
Beneath the flames spouting from her mouth and nostrils, behind the eyes like twin pits to Hell itself and under the dark smoke that coiled from her coat like she was smuggling dry ice…
A big-eyed face covered in curly black hair. Two soft ears and two curling dark horns twisting over where her hair turned white on the rest of her head and body.
Her sheep, but massive. Still adorable, also on fire. Not a hellhound, a… hellsheep?
HELLSHEEP! YES! THAT’S ME!
You’re very loud, Sheena thought at it, feeling ever so slightly overwhelmed.
GOOD!
*Having fun ogling yourself in the mirror, Snow White?* Parker sneered. *That’s enough. You’re still mine. Whatever you are.* His voice prickled with opportunity. *A hellhound-sheep hybrid? Looks like I can turn other shifters after all. Now that’s interesting. If I can do the same to other shifters… Might end up a bit of a menagerie but hell, everyone’s banging on about diversity these days…
The hellsheep snorted out brimstoney smoke. HE’S RIGHT. ENOUGH! WE SHALL END THIS!
Parker’s voice wormed around her legs like slithering chains. *Trot on over here, girlie.*
*You said you would let her go!* Fleance growled.
His uncle blinked at him, slow and condescending. *If you’ll recall, kiddo, I said I wouldn’t make her work jobs for me. Let her go? Are you kidding me? I mean, sure, those teeth don’t look any good for biting unreasonable clients, but she can still make herself useful doing the coffee.*
Fleance bristled, but it was Sheena who lunged forwards, her hellsheep’s voice roaring in her skull: TEETH? I’LL SHOW YOU TEETH!
There was a brief psychic pinch as Parker, rearing up, tried to pin her in place with his alpha powers, but the cables around her legs snapped like daisy-chains. He almost fell over backwards in surprise as the hellsheep bore down on him.
At the last second, his eyes flashed with alarm—quickly covered over by a sneer of disdain. The smoke seeping from beneath his fur thickened at the same time the fur itself faded away. In less than the time it took Sheena to leap at him, he’d faded completely from view. There was nothing but a wisp of smoke in the air.
The hellsheep’s teeth clacked shut in the air where Parker had been a moment before. COWARD! it roared. COME OUT AND FIGHT!
He’d turned invisible, Sheena thought, then added: But if he was just invisible, her teeth would have chomped something. Which meant he wasn’t just invisible, he must be…
Like when I fell through the car, Sheena thought, and concentrated.
Fleance’s voice brushed against her mind. *He’s phased out. But since you’re his pack, you should be able to match his… Rhys calls it a frequency. We could all do it. But we could never use it to fight him. If you can shake off his chains like that…*
HE’LL NEVER KNOW WHAT’S COMING! Sheena’s hellsheep trumpeted.
*Might as well give it a go,* Sheena added. Fleance wouldn’t have heard her hellsheep, but he heard her. His body radiated worry.
*Be careful.*
*I will,* she reassured him.
GET READY TO DIE, ARSEHOLE! roared her hellsheep, and she added silently: Of course, I’m not sure I’m the one who gets to decide whether I’m careful or not…
All it took was the memory of the car seat turning to mist beneath her, and she was there. The closest thing she could compare it to was trying to open her eyes in a dream. The world around her looked convincing enough, but part of her brain still thought she was asleep.
Her hellhound stepped forward. Its leg passed through a small shrub like it wasn’t there. Feels like a dream, she thought, dazed. Then: If I can walk through things that are on the ground, then does that mean I could fall through the ground…
STOP THINKING, her hellsheep demanded. START DOING!
She couldn’t see Parker, but she didn’t need to see him. Her brain felt like it was short-circuiting, a runaway train rebuilding the track underneath itself. She couldn’t see Parker but she could feel where he was. That radar in her head dealt to that.
Her hellhound bounded forward. It moved like a rugby ball: quickly and unexpectedly. Sheena homed in on what the radar map in her mind told her should be the center of her universe. Her hooves flickered through spindly trees and hardy fences, across ground sizzling beneath the frost and over vents hissing with steam. She didn’t know how far she ran, only that the air was growing paler around her and the bastard in her sights could run as fast as she could.
Almost.
A surge of energy drove Sheena forwards. She laughed deliriously. The air was thick with steam, now, and running through it—through through, not even touching it—felt like some wicked, daring trespass. Which it was. She’d passed a stay-on-the-path sign a ways back—passed through it as she nipped at Parker’s tail—and she was far, far off the trail now.
Mud boiled at her feet. The sky was wide and open above her, the blaze of stars a scream in the darkness that tore at her own heart. She wanted to sprint into the sky and tear the stars out by their roots and eat them, just because she wasn’t meant to.
She felt more alive than she ever had before. She felt… right.
OF COURSE YOU FEEL RIGHT! Her hellsheep
