Chapter One: The Message
Scorch woke up to the quiet tapping.
He lifted his head from Valkyrie's bed looked at the window. The person he saw on the other side of the window was someone who's butt had a close relationship with his teeth.
Caelan and Scorch stared into each other's eyes for a long moment then Caelan motioned toward the pier and disappeared.
Scorch waited a few moments then slid off the bed, walked over to the window and pushed it open with his nose. He took one last look at Valkyrie and jumped.
He landed silently in the long grass and loped across the grass towards the pier.
'What does he want?' Scorch wondered to himself as he passed behind a neighbor's house. 'Probably just wants to try to get me to let him at least two meters away from Valkyrie,' he thought and allowed himself a small smile himself at the thought. Then immediately replaced it with a scowl he had required from being around Valkyrie so long as he reached the pier and stopped in front of Caelan.
"What do you want Caelan?" He growled. "Because if you were trying to get me out of bed you have succeeded; and if that is all you wanted to do…" Scorch turned to go.
"That isn't what I wanted." Caelan said in his quiet voice.
"Then this outta be good." Scorch sat down on the moist ground and flicked his ear. It was almost three in the morning, the demon's hour. Also time of day when hellhounds become the strongest. He could already feel the power humming in his veins. It made his heart quicken.
"I want to talk to you about your sister. I know you have a sister; I've heard you talking to her before, the silver one."
Suddenly he was pressed against a wall being only held up by Scorch's claws around his neck. Scorch's eyes bored into his; the signature hellhound eyes, a mixture of black and blood red.
"What… do you know… of my sister." He said very, very slowly.
Caelan put his hand to the hellhound's paw but couldn't break that grip.
"Let me go please, I can't breathe and I can't talk if I can't breathe."
Scorch let him go and backed off a couple steps. "Now what do you know about Angel?"
"I will tell you, IF, you let me near Valkyrie without biting my butt off."
"No way, now tell me what you know or you won't have a butt to worry about being bitten."
Caelan shrugged, "it was worth a try. Now I don't know all my details but from what I've heard is that Dusk has kidnapped your sister as leverage to make sure that you are no longer a threat to him by killing her if you try to hurt him."
Scorch stared. He felt numb. The one person other than Valkyrie he had dedicated his life to protecting was now in the greatest danger possible to a hellhound possible, a vampire's.
"And what's stopping me from going over there right now and ripping out Dusk's throat out right now before he even as a chance to get things entirely together?" Scorch finally asked.
"What's stopping you is a pack of at least thirty infected, way more then I know you can handle on your own. After all, you are still a young hellhound, only a year old. You still have a lot to learn and you're going to need help."
"Are offering me you're assistance?" Scorch asked.
"No, no, I'm just letting you know what you're up against so that way you have a better chance of stopping them."
"Why?"
"Because I still don't like Dusk and if you can't help who's going to protect Valkyrie? Dusk would go after her when she was alone so that way no one could get in the way and even if you were there with her I doubt that you would have the guts to get your sister killed."
Scorch sighed. He didn't like this. Not one bit.
"So I guess I need to get some help."
"Yes you do and I will leave you to that." Caelan then turned around and disappeared into the shadows even though Scorch could still see him through the darkness.
"Dang it," Scorch grumbled to himself when Caelan was gone. "I hate it when I have to owe people."