Chapter 30: Hellhound

Warning: Violence, blood, gore, and all the things that happen when you piss an elder vampire off.

A/N: The pictures that go with this are posted on Ao3.

Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose, cept for that last part where she left me unsupervised. XD

Loyal

"And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

-Scooby Doo (like every episode ever XD)

Severus was finally getting used to living in the Undead Nation, and it wasn't so unlike living anywhere else save for the more supernatural things that were a common occurrence.

He kind of liked that over Cokeworth, anyway.

The only problem was the cats.

They were all—bloody mental.

They'd find you whenever you were alone, and they'd rip you to shreds like you were vermin.

His father and his Coalition were "annoyed."

The kind of annoyed that made for flaming eyes, claws, and irritable tempers.

They never hurt him, but Severus had to admit it was—scary.

His mum had the superpower to be able to walk into the room, give his father a kiss, and his temper would immediately defuse.

He had no idea why. It had always been like that.

Hermione was beside him as he crouched in the bushes. Her nose was jammed into his armpit as she whined.

"Shh," Severus said. "We're investigating."

Hermione gave him that look that seemed to come right out of his father's signature handbook on how to look suspicious and intimidating at the same time.

He put his hand over her muzzle. "Sshh."

Hermione seemed to grumble to herself, but she stayed by him.

She was the Coalition's familiar, and he never doubted that, but his father and uncles seemed to think that until the hellcat problem was figured out, it was better if he wasn't alone since he wasn't old enough to have vampiric powers.

He felt sort of annoyed that he had to wait until he was older for vampiric powers. What was the use of being a vampire if you couldn't be one until you were a grown up?

Psh.

Sure, they said he'd have some enhanced senses, eventually, but for everything else, he had to wait. Seemed a little unfair.

Hermione could drink blood as a pup.

She wasn't turning into an ageless murderer—

Hermione clamped her mouth around his arm, jolting him out of his wool-gathering.

The cats were making her paranoid—

It was justified, but it made it really hard for Severus to go anywhere without a certain flaming hound following him. He couldn't get away with much unless he somehow convinced her what he was doing was justifable—somehow.

And this—

Well, he'd finally tracked the one place down in the Undead Nation that didn't seem to have a homicidal feline problem.

A warehouse marked for import and export of Muggle supplies.

Unlike the Wizarding World, the Nation accepted both magical and Muggle things in their world. They had no issues accepting both, and they often proved that one could use magic and still use a computer—

Mind—the Nation only had a single computer for the entire place, and they used it to train their people in the rise of what they viewed to be the technology of the future. Ever so often, one of the Sang, a "hacker" that had helped create a game called "Spacewar!" let Severus play it. He would navigate a spaceship through space and try not to get swallowed by a star. It was really exciting!

One day, he said, it would be far more complicated, but Severus didn't care. It was pretty wicked just as it was.

But, why was THIS warehouse strangely free of felines when felines were infamous as effective vermin control—something all warehouses had a lot of?

"Come on," Severus said, pressing his hand to Hermione's back. The Lethifold nesting there rustled. If he was judging him, it was silent judgement.

Hermione seemed to be super suspicious, but she wrapped her tail securely around his waist and accompanied him as he skulked around the building.

It wasn't long before he heard rustling sounds, and he dove behind one of the large stacks of crates and then under the more concealed stairs.

"You dope the stupid cats and charge the beacon?"

"Yeah, first thing every week."

"Good, how are our plague rats coming?"

"They seem perfectly normal, but they are testing very high in the plague."

"When will we be able to test them?"

"Should be enough of them to test on the Kindred village in the Scottish Highlands," the other voice replied. "Remote enough that if things go pear-shaped, we can just burn it to the ground."

"Good. With any luck, it will be the second coming of the Black Death just like our master wants."

"We'll wait for night," the one voice said. "Prepare the rest for a warehouse fire. Use Muggle accelerant. We want nothing left that is traceable by magic. I'll check the animals and prepare them for their new task."

Severus noticed that the noise died down save for the one man who was placing crates and paperwork together. He set down a pair of crates marked in crude block lettering, one labelled "CAT TOYS" and another "FOR MOGGIES."

There was a meow from one of the crates as one of the hellcats had slipped into the warehouse, and the man scowled. "Get out of here!"

The cat was scraping at one of the crates.

The man yanked off the lid of one box and then the other, and he pulled out two components and screwed them together, there was a pulse, and it lit up.

Hermione flattened her ears against her head, whining, her tail squeezing him with anguish..

The cat hissed, eyes glowing, and it tore off and out of the warehouse in a feline rage.

Severus stared at Hermione in a panic, and he took off his shirt and wrapped it around her head, covering her ears for her. He pawed through his pockets and pulled out a small bag of dried blood figs—her favourite sweet treat—and gave one to her.

She looked at him gratefully, her tail loosening the death grip it had on his waist, distracted from having her ears covered with the tasty treat.

Severus lifted the shirt from her ear and whispered, "I need you to fetch my father," he said. "This is really important. Can you do it? He needs to be here."

Hermione whined, conflicted at leaving him alone.

"I need you to do this for me," Severus insisted. "Please!"

Hermione slowly loosened her tail—

Severus felt a tight squeeze around his neck as someone lifted him up into the air.

"Tobias' brat," a vampire hissed angrily, his talons digging into his neck.

Hermione looked ready to leap to his defence, but Severus locked gazes with her desperately.

Get Father! PLEASE! Get Tobias!

Hermione still hesitated, her lips pulling back from her teeth.

FETCH! Severus screamed in his head.

Hermione leapt, snarling—

And swiftly disappeared in a whorl of Dark plasma.

"Dumb mutt won't save you, son of Tobias," the vampire taunted him. "Soon, you and all those who have not yet Turned will perish. Only the vampires will remain."

Severus choked out a reply, "Then who will you feed upon—with no—humans—left?"

"Our master will sustain us," the vampire hissed. "He alone will keep us alive."

Severus gurgled and stared into his face. "Once you do what he wants, he'll kill you and everyone he no longer needs."

"YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" the vampire screamed in his face, his talons crushing harder around Severus' neck.

"No, you." Suddenly a wicked set of talons emerged from the vampire's chest, smashing through the ribs as Tobias sank his fangs into the vampire's neck and tore it out. The heart he ripped back out along with his spine.

His father snarled, his face utterly inhuman. Devoid of compassion. Lacking in pity or mercy. His power pulsed outward, and every single electronic device in the warehouse area promptly burst into pieces and flames. The lights in the warehouse went out, leaving it in pure darkness.

Severus tried not to feel scared, but scared seemed like a pretty good, sensible reaction to have at the moment.

He felt a warm body under his hands. A familiar curl of warm tail around his waist as Hermione's body ignited—yet the fire did not burn him. It gave off a small glow in the room as multiple sets of glowing eyes floated in the dark.

A magelight formed in the darkness, cast to the ceiling of the warehouse, shedding moonlight into the room.

Sanguini.

Rada had the other vampire Severus had seen earlier in his talons as he pulled his bleeding hand from the vampire's mouth. Rada's normally serene expression was still there—and that was scarier to Severus than his father's abrupt change in demeanour.

"He will tell us everything," Rada said icily, his voice heavily accented—a sign, perhaps, that he had relapsed into another time when violence was far more prevalent.

Severus's eyes widened as he realised that Rada's blood must be so potent that it could override the thrall of another vampire.

Maybe it's better that I don't have such power, he thought.

"Eat," Tobias said, and Hermione bounded over and ate the heart right out of his hand, licking his skin clean until it was perfectly pale and pristine in the magelight.

The Lethifold detached from her back and settled upon the savaged body, making it and the spine disappear completely until not even a trace of the blood pool remained.

Tobias' eyes glowed brightly. "Hermione, fetch Master Grimwald and bring him to the Council."

Hermione leapt and disappeared into a whorl of Dark plasma.

Tobias held out his hand. "Take my hand, my son."

Severus stood and walked over, nervous, but he placed his hand in his father's. Those dark talons closed around his hand like a vice.

Crack!

They disappeared.

Severus had never been in a Council meeting while it was in session, and now he realised why his father had been so adamant that he not want to be.

Every elder of the Lines sat on stone thrones in the council chambers. While every seat was lined with a thick sheepskin and other creature comforts, he could hardly view them as being what he would consider to be "comfortable." Then again, he'd never sat on one himself, so maybe they were far more luxuriously accommodating than they looked.

Every single elder looked visibly—annoyed.

Perhaps, far more than merely annoyed.

"For the assault upon my son, you have earned death," Tobias said darkly, "as no Sang is permitted to harm a child just as they are not permitted to Turn one."

"Just as you didn't harm my son?" Master Grimwald hissed. "You're all a bunch of hypocrites! You sit there on your thrones and judge people, but you aren't looking out for the Sang. You're just protecting your own bloody arses! I was saving the Sang from impurity! The only vampires that should exist are ones that are made. Birth is an abomination!"

"Your son was a murderer," Lord Aku said, his claws tapping on his chin. "He killed over fifty humans in one village after violating their bodies in so many other ways."

"They were humans!" Grimwald snarled. "They don't matter!"

"Did you think vampires were born of the Nether?" Lady Layra asked. "We all came from human stock. The very first vampire had been mortal, just as we start our life, even if born to vampires.

"Vampires were born of the primordial Dark!" Grimwald said. "And I would have all remember this!"

"So you what?" Lord Zaidu asked as his distinctively pale claws contrasted against his darker skin as he rubbed his chin. "Kill off all the humans and leave the world covered in starving vampires?"

"We have the blood fruit," Grimwald scoffed. "The rest we can feed from those who bleed."

"And who do you think developed the blood fruit, boy?" Lord Agvardus said, his face twisted in disgust. "It was not one of the Sang. It was a Kindred who did not wish to see the Sang suffer from hunger in a world that wanted us dead for all the reasons superstition gave them. It allowed us to create a society. A civilisation. Instead of skulking around in the dark like crazed animals, desperate for a feed. It was created as an offering to the gods to bring peace between the ancient vampires and humans. A peace we try to preserve to this day."

"And how dare you presume to make those who bleed for their mates and children responsible for feeding the entirety of our society," Lord Gareth snapped. "The entire reason we bleed is to provide for those we love so we may Turn them. Provide for them. Nourish them when they are the most vulnerable. To pass on the essential memories that keep our kind alive. How dare you make a mockery of such a gift and saddle those who have been given such a blessing with the yoke of necessity and slavery to our people!"

"It won't matter," Grimwald said with a smug smile. "I already released the vermin. All of the humans and mortals are going to disappear."

A clowder of hellcats marched in and placed dead rodents at Grimwald's feet. They used his legs as scratching posts and trotted out, some of them pausing to jump up on the Council's laps and sprawl across them.

"These vermin?" Sanguini inquired, tilting his head just so.

"No! NO!" Grimwald screamed.

"For your crimes against Lord Tobias' son, the entirety of the population of hellcats in the Nation, your intended crime against mortals, and the abuse of your position to conceal your crimes, your complicity in the death of your mate by having her set the first beacon that drove the hellcats to insanity—" Lord Rada said. "All of this and everything else you were also hiding that you had your thralls cover up for you—we sentence you to live out the remainder of your life within the Garden of Light, suspended in a prison of quartz for all to see, and impaled so that your light-purified and powerless blood runs freely into the fountain to feed our hellcats forevermore."

"This is our decision."

"This is our decree."

The elders' eyes glowed together.

"And to ensure that your blood does not ensorcel you aid from anyone who might inadvertently partake of it should the light garden fail," Tobias said, "your heart will be removed and fed to the hounds so that your core of magic is permanently cast to the Underworld.

Lord Aku's talons slid into Grimwald's body and ripped out his heart. "Take him away. Painfully."

Severus watched as the guards hauled Master Grimwald away, dragging him by the hair as he struggled and fought to escape—a feat he didn't understand considering the man had no heart (Arguably, he didn't have much of one to begin with, but now he physically had no heart—).

There was so much he still had to learn about the Sang.

Lord Aku beckoned Hermione over, and extended the heart to her.

The hellhound dutifully crushed the heart to paste between her jaws and swallowed, licking Lord Aku's hand clean as the core of Grimwald's unliving magic was released.

Tobias found one bit of blood that remained, dipped his fingers into it, and painted a rune on Hermione's head. "You are Allantu, Goddess of the Underworld. Many names you may be called in your life, but this one is earned. This one is yours."

The blood sank into her fur and skin and set to flames, creating a flaming rune on her forehead that glowed brightly for a moment before fading away into nothingness.

The Council's eyes glowed together.

"How many names does she have now?" Lord Nikolai asked Tobias.

"A few," Sanguini admitted. "We couldn't decide on just one."

Nikoloi rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, Hermione gave a startled yelp as all of that floating power the heart had released didn't escape to the underworld and instead shot into her body. Her body was consumed in flames as a bright ball of fire exploded—and then imploded in on itself.

When the fire faded, a bushy-haired, pale young girl with a very baffled expression on her face sat where the hellhound had been. The girl let out a belch, and a wisp of power escaped back to the Underworld.

Sanguini clucked his tongue, and suddenly the girl was a hellhound again, bounding over to him to gain his enthusiastic pets.

"I don't think when we said your son needed a friend that is what we had in mind," Lord Gareth said, a smile on his mouth.

"Be careful what you say," Lady Antonia said. "The gods may be listening. Again."

Eileen hugged her husband from behind as he watched Severus playing with the hellhound in his life. While she hadn't changed into a human form since the Council meeting, Tobias was too old to believe that it was a one-off deal.

"They seem happy together," Eileen said as she kissed his cheek.

"I think there will be plenty of adventures for them in the future," Tobias said. "Our son did very well despite his mischief going off to investigate on his own. He knew to cover her ears to keep her from going mad, and he knew that she could fetch us and bring us back to him. While I am angry with him for doing it behind our backs—he at least did it competently."

"You're proud of him," Eileen said. "Admit it."

"I will not," Tobias said with a scowl. "It's hardly appropriate, considering he put himself in danger."

Eileen gave him a tender kiss, instantly softening his scowl." It's a good thing I can read your mind."

Tobias huffed, but he took his wife into his arms, a smile tugging on his lips.

And in the Garden of Light, hellcats gathered around the Everlasting Fountain of Blood, played, lounged, and mated as Master Grimwald's silent screams went unheard to anyone but the Lord of the Underworld on His Throne.

Hades gave Cerberus a fond pat. "Your daughter has served me well, old friend."

Cerberus whuffed in agreement, tail wagging.

The King of Hellhounds lay one of his heads on Hades' lap and enjoyed His praise of a fate well done.

And they lived Darkly ever after.

(Only everyone died, because Dragon wandered off and left me unsupervised.)

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this one. Heh.