Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [130]
Nelli rose to her feet, snarling viciously. Saliva dripped from her bared fangs. Her hair stood on end. Her eyes glowed with demonic red light.
“Max!”
I dragged him out the door with me and pulled it shut behind us, just as Nelli leaped for our throats, her massive jaws open wide as she howled madly for our blood.
22
I braced my body against the door, praying the thing could withstand Nelli’s weight as she hurled herself against it, barking maniacally at us.
“What the hell . . . ?” I was panting with terror, my body shaking from the sudden flood of adrenaline.
The door, which was mostly made of glass, shook in its old wooden frame when Nelli flung herself against it again, trying to get to us. Max dropped his bag and his machete and braced both hands against the glass, trying to prevent the dog’s violent onslaught from shattering it. The fierce wind whipped his hat off his head and carried it down the street. My hair was blown across my face and got into my mouth.
I turned around and looked inside the shop. Nelli’s dripping teeth looked enormous as she raged and snarled at us, her red eyes glowing. I had seldom seen anything so terrifying.
In my peripheral vision, I saw motion at the back of the shop. I looked up to see Jeff and Frank emerge from the stairwell. Max and I started shouting at them to go back, turn around, go back.
Seeing us standing at the front door with Nelli pressing her nose against the glass barking at us, Jeff must have thought we had locked ourselves out. He started forward.
“No!” I screamed. “No! Go back!”
“What?”
Hearing Jeff’s voice behind her, Nelli whirled to confront him. He looked at her—and his puzzled expression transformed instantly into shocked horror.
Behind him, Frank stood in frozen terror as Nelli made a beeline for the two of them. Jeff shoved Frank hard, practically throwing him down the stairs, then followed him into the stairwell and slammed the door shut just in time to escape Nelli’s dripping jaws. She threw herself against the wooden door in a fury; but I had confidence, now that it was closed, that the two men were safe.
“Max! What’s happening?” I cried.
Shock washed across his face. “Oh, no! I am a fool.”
“Max! What is it?”
“A fool,” he raged. “A fool!”
“Max!” I removed my hands from the door to shake him by the shoulders. “Tell me what’s happening!”
“The accident. Friday. At the foundation,” he panted. “Nelli left behind blood and body tissue.”
“You mean the torn off dewclaw?”
“I was so alarmed—so distracted—I didn’t realize it. Didn’t think!” He beat his head against the glass door. “Oh, no.”
“Blood and body tissue?” I looked at the red- eyed, snarling dog as she crouched down and made another run at us. The door shook when she hit it, but it held. “What does it mean, Max?”
“It means she is in the power of the bokor. It means . . .” He gestured to the bared fangs and glowing eyes. “. . . that the bokor can do this to her.”
My phone rang, making me jump out of my skin. I fumbled in my purse, flipped open my phone with shaking hands, and held it to my ear. “Yes?”
“What the hell is going on?” Jeff shouted over the phone.
I explained, and then I concluded, “I guess that’s why she’s been feeling so sick. The bokor was working dark magic on her.” As a mystical being, Nelli had evidently responded to such interference the way a normal dog would respond to an infection.
“Well, what do we do now?” Jeff said. “Frank and I are trapped down here!”
I could hear Frank having hysterics in the background.
“You’re going to have to wait here until Max and I dispatch the bokor.”
“Wait here?” he repeated. “You’re going without us?”
“We have no choice,” I said, raising a hand to shield my face from the wind. “You did get a good look at Nelli, didn’t you? We only have two choices now. Either we stop the bokor, or else we get animal control to shoot Nelli.