No Returns Allowed
A tale of a devious hound“Have I ever mentioned that I hate rain?” Clyde stared out the door leading to the wilds of Night Owl City.
“You don’t hate the rain, in fact you love it. You hate the fact that I won’t let you outside because I don’t want to deal with the mess that comes along with it. There’s not a patch of dirt for miles, and yet somehow you turn into a mud monster whenever outdoors and water is involved.”
“I hate to tell you this, but I do have to pee. Do you want to take a gamble on me being able to hold it until this rain is over?”
Nyx had to think about that one. Her options were giving Clyde a bath, which she’d probably make someone else do, or being stuck with the horrific odor she’d just recently gotten out the curtains, by buying totally new curtains.
The holes in the curtains necessitated the need for new ones even more than just the smell. There was dog pee, and then there was Hellhound pee, and there really was no comparing the two. The Hellhound variety could corrode through the strongest metal.
Looking back through the glass doorway, Nyx wondered how long the sudden downpour would last. Even if it instantly stopped, Night Owl City didn’t get a lot of rain, so she expected it’d be a while before things dried out. The drops of clear water almost mocked her as they pelted the glass.
“I don’t believe you have a lot of options here, Mom. You can take all the time you want to think it over, but we’re going outside.”
Clyde sounded so confident; Nyx hated hearing that tone in his voice. The Hellhound got his way too often. It didn’t help that they always found themselves in situations where there weren’t a lot of options other than letting him get what he wanted.
“Is it just number one?” Nyx asked considering her choices again.
Clyde looked back over his shoulder, the wrinkles on his face scrunching together as he considered where his mother’s mind was going. He wanted to go outside and he wasn’t above lying to do it. He didn’t really even need to go to the bathroom.
“I think you need to rethink wherever your mind is going. Not a single shoe in our house would be safe from me if we don’t go outside.”
“I really wish Ben didn’t have a no returns policy. I don’t think there’s been a day that I haven’t wanted to return you to him.”
“You know you love me. One of these days you’ll accept that, maybe even admit it. Are we going? You got all dressed up in your cute little workout outfit and we lost the guards at some point. If you stall any longer, someone’s going to find us and take away all our fun.”
Nyx wasn’t sure how they’d lost the guards, but Clyde was right. She wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom without someone standing outside the door. Clyde could be considered a guard, if you decided to use the definition of the word loosely.
As a Hellhound he had built-in weaponry, like the fact he could bark fire, but that wasn’t usually enough for Alex and Sebastian. Nyx became really suspicious when logic started dawning on her.
“What did you do the guards, Clyde?”
“Crap.” Clyde knew he shouldn’t have mentioned the guards were gone. It was a gamble because he’d thought Nyx would be excited about being free instead of realizing there was a problem.
Clyde didn’t move a muscle and hoped Nyx would forget she’d even asked the question. He knew it wouldn’t work, but he wasn’t going to reveal what he’d done. He could feel the heat coming from Nyx staring at his head, and he wasn’t going to take a chance that she developed some kind of fire vision.
“Seriously? You’re just going to sit there. Ben!” Nyx yelled as loudly as she could. Even if the apartment complex had other occupants, she didn’t care if someone was a little disturbed by her raised voice.
Neither of them budged while they waited to see if Ben would show up. He was almost always keeping an eye on Nyx, so it was a mere second before they smelled his presence. To Clyde it was like being home, but Nyx couldn’t stand the sulfur stench and gagged a little.
Nyx turned to face the demon and rolled her eyes when she found him wearing a yellow slicker and goulashes. He even had a shiny yellow hat to match.
“Did I catch you right before you left for a costume party? Actually, knowing about the kind of parties you have down in Hell, I don’t think I want you to answer that.”
Nyx wanted to plead with Ben one more time to take the annoying Hellhound back. Nyx would never admit it, but messing with the guards put her in danger. Alex and Sebastian both had places they had to be, so she expected they were still safe, thankfully. If Clyde had done something to either one of them, Nyx would’ve taken him to the nearest pound, which was probably a hundred miles away.
“I heard there was a downpour and I thought I’d dress appropriately. You won’t believe how expensive the suit I’m wearing under here is.”
“As you can imagine, I could care less about your clothes, Ben. You’ve got to take him back.”
Ben studied Nyx carefully and then tilted his head to glance behind her at Clyde. Nyx watched his face closely, looking for any secret messages being exchanged.
“What’d you do this time? I don’t expect the rain was your doing, and currently that’s the only thing I can think of setting her off.”
Clyde couldn’t reply in a way Ben would understand, so Nyx had to decide if she was going to play translator. She should’ve run back to the penthouse as soon as she suspected something had been done to her guards. It was doubtful Clyde was capable of killing them, so trying to get rid of him took precedent.
“It doesn’t matter. You have to take him back. If you don’t, I’m sticking him outside and putting a ‘free to a rotten home’ sign on him.”
“Hey, that’s not nice. There’s nothing wrong with them. I just picked up something the last time we went to see Hilda and I decided to see if it would work. Surprise, it did. I thought you’d be happy to find a way to lose the guys.”
Clyde was working hard to backpedal. He found he had too much fun topside to go back down to Hell. Hell dwellers weren’t as easy to manipulate as the paranorms he lived with.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Nyx pushed Ben out of the way and broke into a run.
Checking on the guys became imperative if Hilda was involved in any way. Clyde was an idiot for using anything he found at SpellBinders. Hilda couldn’t be trusted when it came to the health of the people using her products.
“Hold up, Mom,” Clyde said nipping at Nyx’s heels. “You don’t want to go in there without a little knowledge of what you’re going to find.”
Nyx had to wait for the elevator doors to close, so Clyde was able to hitch a ride. Nyx thought about throwing him out, but that would take too much time.
“If you’re worried about me falling prey to whatever you did, don’t. After one trick too many being played on me by Hilda, I’ve enlisted help from an outside source to make sure I don’t find myself dancing for hours again.”
“You know someone who has that kind of juice? That’s so cool.”
Clyde was impressed. He didn’t know that Ben had the chops to take on Hilda. Knowing that, there wasn’t a lot of options for who Nyx got to help her. Nyx had to be pretty desperate to ask her mom for help.
“You’re already in trouble. I don’t suggest you ask any questions.”
“No questions needed. Look, I read the fine print. Nothing bad is going to happen to the guys. As soon as we deactivate the banana, things will go back to normal.”
Nyx didn’t understand what a banana had to do with anything. The elevator doors opened into their extravagant foyer. Nyx wished she could turn Clyde into another statue to place in the space. They already had David and Venus, a Clyde would go nicely with those two.
“Where are they?” There were three people who should’ve been in the apartment. The others had left to spend their time off as far away from Nyx as they could get.
“Jake’s room. I figured since it has a doggie door, it’d be easiest to set my trap in.”
As they turned the corner to Jake’s room, neither of them were surprised to see Ben waiting for them. Something as mundane as taking an elevator was beneath him. He hadn’t lost his fish sticks box getup.
“Nyx would probably prefer if I scolded you for this, but it’s amazing. If you’re not going to let him keep the toy, can I have it?”
Ben moved out of the way and Nyx’s eyes widened as she saw the banana for the first time. She couldn’t see any of the guards, so she walked closer, keeping her eyes on the weird dancing fruit as she moved. It looked like someone had stuck little hands, feet and a face on the banana and brought it to life.
Across from where the banana was dancing around, Jake, Jonas and Smitty were staring intently at the fruit. Nyx wasn’t going to have to worry about what to do with Clyde, because they were going to kill him.
“I hope you’ve made whatever arrangements you needed to before you put this plan of yours in motion. Now, how do you make it stop?”
Nyx didn’t want to get anywhere near the thing. Lucy had made her immune to Hilda’s magic, but there was a chance Hilda had put some kind of rash inducing substance on the banana that wasn’t magical. Nyx had absolutely zero trust when it came to Hilda.
“It’s got a timer, so I think you just wait until it stops. The best thing about it is that they won’t remember a thing.”
Nyx was having trouble looking away from the cartoonish fruit. She knew it wasn’t influencing her like it was the others, but it was too peculiar not to watch.
“Ingenious. Do you think there’s still some in stock?” Ben asked, clearly eager to get his hands on one of the toys.
“I’ll give you that one if you take Clyde. You two can go laugh it up as you torture unsuspecting victims.”
“Why do you have so much trouble accepting that Clyde’s yours to keep?” Ben had probably posed the question thirty times.
“Because I don’t want him. Now take him and the banana and leave.”
In immediate response to Nyx’s demand, Ben left, forgetting both things he was supposed to take with him. Clyde walked over and nudged Nyx’s hand to get her to pet his head.
“Sorry to tell you, but I’m yours until one of us dies. You wouldn’t kill me, would you?” Clyde looked up with the most pathetic puppy dog eyes Nyx had ever seen.
“This can’t happen again, Clyde,” Nyx said pointing in the room.
“Promise. How ‘bout we go take that run we both really want. We probably have another thirty minutes before they’ll miss us.”
Nyx sighed, and Clyde knew he had her. If he could’ve rubbed his paws together, he would have, but he was going to have to be careful about revealing his deviousness for a while. He figured Nyx would forget all about the incident in a week or so, and everything could go back to normal.
Oh and yeah, I may have finished up the three books I was working on, and I'm doing a giveaway if anyone's interested in entering. Maybe I should've put that above the story, or at least mentioned it up top, but this way I can tell if you're really reading :)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
No comments:
Post a Comment