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By dawn, Carl came to a farmhouse. The barns were empty, the
house dark and only a memory of long-gone smoke came from the chimney. The walls
were thick stone and the shutters steel made to look like natural wood. From
here, the house appeared to be impregnable.
The asgina:gili demon snarled, muttering, “Once was this a
place for mine own to hunt. The new owners do not remain through winter, nor do
the laws allow the keeping of animals for food. Still, there is meat of another
sort for thee, slave.”
Spying a nail, the demon bent Carl forward to pick it from a
rotting barn door. Carl shuddered, but the hold on him forced the nail out at the
expense of tearing off a fingernail.
“Go thee around the back. Once, I did hunt here in the
guise of the man, John Hallsey, a kinsman of the Grey-Wolf bitch, Anna." A
chuckle came from Carl’s throat. “He did feed well on the flabby one here,
and this led him to die, once, before a fool freed his spirit as I freed thine
own.”
Stumbling on raw, bleeding feet, Carl went around the house
to the back door. Unlike the one Hallsey knew, this was steel and had a
hand-lock, not an iron knob. Carl fumbled with it, scratching the lock’s palm
print and gouging at the door. Head pressed against the steel, he sank to the
wooden floor. The demon hissed and cursed.
Carl shrieked as it threw him on the roof of the porch. He
rolled off to sprawl in a drift of snow, and it took him again, entering him and
forced him to crawl from the house licking the manure of birds from the ground.
“Feed on this,
slave,” the asgina:gili screamed. “Eat you this. Is it not proper? Once,
I did force Hallsey to eat of corpses stolen from graveyards. You the same shall
do.”
Carl gagged, choking as the musty taste filled his mouth.
The asgina:gili laughed, shouting, “When you shit, you
shall feed on that, as well, if you can find not else. I am old, and I am a god.
You will not again die till the deed is done and the master claims the
Grey-Wolf.”
The demon slapped Carl to the ground, then ripped into him
again, and Carl shrieked, vomit shooting from his mouth as he twisted away from a
new agony. His skin and muscles rippled, his joints burned, changing, the upper
arms and thighs shortening, the head narrowing and growing longer until the body
was covered with a coarse fur.
The Carl/shon:gili sat on its haunches to raise his head and
scream a howl of fury. The sun was coming. The terrible, burning sun.
On all fours, he jumped fifty feet through the air to land on
the roof and clawed his way down, scattering stone slates and then iron-hard
chestnut planks. He fell into the attic and a pile of junk.
The shon:gili threw this out of the way, and then the muzzle
dropped, sniffing at the floor.
The new, changed Carl sneezed at the dust, but the demon
forced the head down until it picked up the scent of feet and hands from the
planks. He pawed at it, and then the paw-hand found a rusty steel harness ring.
One jerk and the trapdoor was ripped off its hinges to smash
into a pile of clutter. Dust followed him as he slid through the hole to a
narrow hallway below.
He sniffed through the hall with the demon laughing and
whispering, “Good doggy. Good Bowser.”
The part of his mind that was still wholly Carl snarled, and
the shon:gili bared its teeth, but this only made the asgina:gili howl with
laughter.
The shon:gili nosed open a door and entered. It pushed into a
circular area, and warm water poured down. Startled, the shon:gili yelped and
jumped back, crashing into the toilet.
Howling with glee, the asgina:gili showed Carl a mirror.
Up, dog, and see thy
new self.
Rising on trembling hind legs, the shon:gili peered in the
mirror. Carl saw a monster staring back. A thing that was remotely wolf-like
with the broad body of a bear, but nothing human remained. He screamed, throwing
himself back and away. He slid, dropping into the shallow pit of the shower and
huddled there, the water soaking through the coarse fur and over his shivering
body.
Like it not? The
demon snarled a laugh. Perhaps we should
flee to the Demons Road valley, and thy precious Anna shall make judgment.
Carl whimpered and the shon:gili form echoed.
Come, the demon
roared. Away and to the kitchen, fool.
Thee needs to feed.
Carl was dragged from the shower, and the water stopped,
draining into a small hole, and none remained.
The demon forced the broad head to look at the toilet, and it
laughed.
First, think I, thee
shall drink as all dogs do. Open the seat and lap the waters of another
coward’s bowels.
The lid swung up to crash against the wall. The shon:gili’s
head was shoved in, but the toilet was a dry one, a no-flush, with only a faint
warning of methane gas coming from the hole.
The demon snarled, and the shon:gili’s long tongue swept
around the inner rim.
Then it vomited.
A slug thee were for
Leda Melancowski’s many clients, and so too for me.
Jaws clashing with hate for the woman and the demon, Carl
forced the shon:gili’s head back, and the demon screamed, cursing him. The
shon:gili’s ribs caved in, but Carl held the animal back from obeying until the
pain stopped.
Enough. Go down the
stairs to the pantry, dog, and seek food. Go, it shrieked and the shon:gili
screamed with pain.
The Carl/shon:gili fled to a set of stairs and started down
only to tangle front legs and back, and it stumbled, rolling down the stairs to
slam into a wall, then down three more when the staircase turned to the left.
The shon:gili crawled over an oval area rug with urine
dribbling on the floor, and the asgina:gili laughed.
Pissin’ on the floor? Bad doggy.
Laugher changed to a snarl, and the asgina:gili snapped, Smell the kitchen? Go, then, and see what there is to feed upon, dog.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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