10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The library. He hadn’t been there in years. He used the internet to research for his scripts, so there was no need.

Jack walked up the stairs to the entrance with him. “This place is huge.”

“I remember. I used to love coming here, but that was before the internet. I feel rather badly now, for not coming back for a visit sooner.”

“Well, we’ll be here a while so you can reconnect.”

Inside, they walked together to the desk, and Ms. Tempest smiled at them both as they neared. She spoke first to Jack but didn’t take her eyes off Maltin. “Is this the mate?”

“Yes,” Jack confirmed rather shyly. “I mean, we think so, but we don’t know anything about,” he started, then moved closer and lowered his voice further. “what exactly we do.”

“Oh, well, I’m very happy for you both, and that goes for discovering what you are and finding your mate. Not all shifters do, you know.”

She led them back to an area he’d been in before that day, but again, it had been a very long time. Jack was practically bouncing with excitement, but Maltin knew that his happiness was more about sticking it to his family than actually being a shifter.

“Alright,” Ms. Tempest said, waving a hand over one of the stacks in the shifter section. “This is some of it. Now, you two are like other shifters in a lot of ways. One difference is that you won’t shift until you’ve found your fated mate.”

“Well, we’ve done that,” Jack pointed out. “That’s where we are now, and…well, now what?”

Her orange-painted lips curved into a patient smile for Jack. Like Maltin, Jack had wrapped her around his finger quickly. It was hard not to take to him. “Jack, there is no timeline. You see, most hellhounds are given tasks from the underworld gods. Some people shouldn’t be on the earth any longer. They’ve made deals, did spells, spit in the face of death to live millennia longer than they should have,” she said, and then her eyes finally fully fell on Maltin. “You, darling, come from witches that have done that very thing, yes?”

“How…how do you know?”

“I know a great deal, Maltin Graves.”

Maltin’s head spun to Jack, but he held up his hands. “I didn’t tell her your name.”

“I’ve read a lot, obviously, and I know the names of all the hellhound families.”

“Then you know my family, on my mother’s side, are witches.”

“Don’t worry about your family. No one would ever expect a son to go after his own family. They may get away with their witchery for centuries yet. Hellhounds are rare, you see. And once they are given their…marching orders, they will shift and do the bidding of those spirits of the lower realms.”

Jack’s worry came back. “We kill people?”

“Jack, the lives you’ll be taking are meant to go south if you understand my meaning. They’re likely terrible people. Those that aren’t will likely be caught and sent to the nicer place. People who extend their lives for selfish reasons aren’t necessarily evil. They just fear death or aren’t finished with their tasks here yet, or so they think.”

Jack was pale again, so Maltin whispered, “We’re not evil, Jack.”

“No, honey,” Ms. Tempest agreed. “Not at all. You are the wrath of time and the realms of the gods. We all have our places, dear.”

Maltin stared at her, and she gave him a wink. Something deep in him felt her power, but she was so old and serene that he couldn’t place what he felt.

“What books can we read?”

She shuffled along until she came to the end of a stack and pointed to the second shelf at the top. “Dear boys, indulge an old woman. Get that book up there, the thick red one.”

Maltin did the honors and got the book from the high shelf, handing it to the old woman.

She placed it in Jack’s waiting hands. “I’ll check it out for you if you like.”

Jack asked her, “Why didn’t you give me this book when I first came?”

“You weren’t ready, dear.” She looked at Maltin and said, “But I think you are now. The both of you.” Turning back to Jack, she finished, “After you take care of your personal problems.”

“Problems?”

Maltin knew what she meant. “Jack, she means, you know, our families.”

After giving him a wink, she left to head back to the desk, calling back to them, “I’ll check that out for you. Take it for as long as you need, dears.”

Maltin took the book and then took Jack’s hand. “We’ll only read this together. Understand?”

“Yes. I don’t think I could without you. I have a feeling I’ll need you. Does that make me completely pathetic?”

“Yes,” he teased.

Jack laughed a little too loudly, and two people walking by the stack shushed them.

Back at the warehouse, a stretch limo sat. “What the hell?” Jack asked.

Maltin’s laugh came more from relief than anything. “It’s someone very special and someone that knows how special he is.”

“Huh?”

Before he could explain, the driver got out and moved around to the back door, opening it. Maltin saw Jack waiting breathlessly. With a flourish that only his uncle could accomplish, wearing only the most expensive clothes money could buy, a man emerged from the limo's backseat, his arms stretched out to either side of him. “Malty! How are you, my beautiful nephew?”

Maltin went to Rodney Hilderbrand and received the hug. He was lifted off the ground as Rodney sang a chorus of guffaws. “Oh, it’s so good to see you!”

“You too, Rodney. You, too.” Maltin said once he was back on the ground.

“This must be your…mate?”

Before Jack could introduce himself, Rodney lifted him off the ground in another hug and more laughter rang out.

Maltin rushed over to them and begged his uncle, “Don’t…overly do it, Rodney. He’s a bit skittish from all this.”

Jack was pale and drawn but smiling, especially after Rodney pinched his cheek and said, “He’s a peach! If I weren’t the stud of a million beautiful ladies, I would definitely take him from you.”

“We’re fated mates, Rodney. I doubt that.”

“You must have forgotten your lineage, dear boy. Your mother so wooed your father that he no longer cared about his own fated mate.”

“One, I’m not a boy, and you’re a week younger than I am. Two, if he’d met his first, I wouldn’t be here, at least not as Trudy Hilderbrand’s son.”

“Pish, posh, my boy. Pish posh.”

Maltin finally introduced them properly. “Jack, this Broadway Show on two legs is my uncle. Rodney, this is my mate, Jack.”

“He’s a real peach. Too handsome for you, old boy.”

Jack laughed and reached out his hand to Rodney. “Nice to meet you.”

“Polite, too. Surprisingly, after being raised by those fobs, the Pengroves. They’re so stuck up; they can’t stand out in the rain for fear of drowning.”

Jack’s eyes lit on him. “What? You told him?”

“He’s my family, Jack. He’s also more powerful than any other witch I’ve ever seen or heard of.”

As Jack’s brows raised, he asked, “Really?”

“Yes. He’s accompanying us when we confront your family with the truth.” He turned to Rodney and warned, “And we’re only telling them. You’re here in case they try to hurt Jack. They’re going to learn their child died almost twenty-three years ago.”

“As shocking as that might be to most, I doubt they’ll care. They are the most uncaring people I’ve had the misfortune to know. But, enough of this. Today, we celebrate our reunion.”

Rodney was every bit a Hilderbrand. Handsome, dark-haired, his eyes blue as the sky and skin so perfect, he looked more like a doll than a real man. He was tall, like Maltin, but thinner and kept himself that way for nothing more than his love of fine fashion.

Rodney turned to the warehouse. “Why am I here?”

“This is my home, Rodney.”

Rodney turned to him quickly, grabbing his shoulders and shaking once. “Why didn’t you tell me you were destitute?”

“Because I’m not. I store my cars here, and I have a loft upstairs.”

“Heaven’s no! A loft? Where do your servants sleep? How can you live like this?”

Once Rodney went to the door and threw it open to inspect the place himself, Maltin whispered to Jack, “And he says your family is snobbish.”

“Good thing it’s not raining, I guess,” Jack whispered back with a laugh.

They entered the warehouse to see Rodney change into white silk overalls and a shining purple shirt. What was more shocking, however, was that the Corvette and Mini Cooper were completely restored.

Maltin rushed over to them, running a hand over the hood of the Corvette. “Rodney! You fixed it!”

“How you left it that way is shocking. You know better. How did it happen?”

Maltin felt his blush as a blast furnace on his face, and Rodney got it immediately.

“Oh, I see, you old dog.”

“He called you a dog,” Jack said, giggling.

“Jack, he doesn’t know.”

Jack’s smile faded as Rodney looked from one to the other. “Your mother said you were hounds. Is that not a dog? Canines, descendants of wolves?”

After Jack pointed to the loft, he said, “I’ll go fix us some…drinks while you two talk.”

As soon as he was up the stairs, Maltin faced his uncle. Swallowing the sudden lump his throat had developed. “Uh, Rodney, uh, we are hounds, but not the sweet, puppy kind.”

“Lord and Lady, what the hell, Malty?”

Looking everywhere but in his uncle’s eyes, Maltin whispered, “Hellhounds.”

Craning his neck, Rodney asked, “Excuse me? What was that?”

“Hellhounds, Rodney, okay?”

Taking a step backward, Rodney simply stared at him.

“Say something!”

“Well, at least you weren’t a mouse or some rodent, I suppose. A hellhound? I thought those were myths.”

“No, not myths. In fact, we’ve got a book in the car that will tell us something about ourselves.”

Rodney nodded once and then waved to the stairs. “I think I’ll need that drink your…your mate offered.”

“Don’t start, Rodney,” he said as they walked to the stairs. “Mother is bad enough.”

“She’s had a shock, Malty. She loves you very much and was hoping, I think, that you’d find a nice witch.”

“Female witch, at that.”

“Yes, she’s old-fashioned. She doesn’t understand all this. She did nothing wrong in her life except marry a man who was ultimately meant for someone else and was harassed about that for years. You can’t blame her for being suspicious of shifters.”

In the loft, Rodney looked around while Maltin went to Jack to help him with the drinks. “How did he change so fast?”

“He’s a witch, honey. You’ll…you’ll see more of that while he’s here. He loves clothes.”

“Well, this is very nice for a…for such a tiny place. Again, where are your servants?”

Maltin handed him the glass of scotch and said, “No servants, Rodney. Until very recently, I treasured being alone.”

“You’d be alone! Servants serve and then leave. Do you mean to tell me you actually clean your own house? Your mother would faint dead away and need smelling salts.”

“Then don’t tell her.”

“I don’t plan to. The last time I gave her bad news, she turned me into a saltshaker and kept throwing bits of me over her shoulder!”

Maltin glanced at Jack and then asked his uncle, “Is that how you dress for cocktails?”

Rodney’s eyes grew as big as saucers, and he shoved the glass at Maltin. “Dear me!”

After spinning around, Rodney was suddenly wearing a rather casual black tuxedo, no tie or vest, the top two buttons on the gleaming white shirt open. “There. Better?”

“Much,” Maltin laughed.

Then Rodney waved a hand over him, then Jack, and they, too, were wearing casual tuxedos. Jack’s was gray, Maltin’s was black, like his uncle’s. “We’re dressing for dinner, too, unless I have to cook for myself. I haven’t cooked in two hundred years, though, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“No, we’ll order in tonight. I don’t think I have it in me either,” Maltin said, taking Jack in his arms. “Why don’t you go grab the book from the car? I’d hate for something to happen to it, and we’ll read it later.”

Jack nodded and left the loft, and Maltin hurried to explain to Rodney, “He’s very vulnerable right now, Rod. Please, be careful around him.”

For once, Rodney agreed to keep his mouth shut, at least with Jack. “He seems lovely, Malty. Really. I’m happy for you.”

“We don’t really know each other well yet, but I care for him so deeply, I’m not sure of myself around him. He’s terribly special.”

“And the reason you wanted someone with enough oomph to take on his former family. I understand, Malty. I won’t scar the boy.”

“Thank you. Now, how is mother?”

Rodney immediately was back to his usual self. “A flirt. She’s got scads of boyfriends in Europe. Of course, half are after her money, but you know her, once she’s done with them, they’ll be lucky to keep their own possessions.”

Maltin knew his mother well. “Not one will ever realize she’s had the love of her life. No one can come close, I’m afraid.”

“Truer words were never spoken, Maltin. And you, my dear nephew, are the product of it. That’s why she worries about you so much. You’re all she has left of your father.”

He nodded, feeling tears welling in his eyes. “Father was a wonderful man.”

“So, please, tell me about hellhounds.”

They sat on the couch with their drinks, and after taking a sip, Maltin sighed, “We don’t know a lot, yet. We’re tasked with taking supes with evil intentions to hell. Or whatever the underworld is. The librarian told us a bit but gave us a book to explain it more fully. We don’t know much, like I said.”

“Dragging folks to hell, that’s a helluva purpose in life, Malty. You’ve yet to actually shift?”

“Not yet. I thought, possibly, after we…came together. Jack’s had nightmares, but me? Nothing yet. The only time I feel differently is when we’re being intimate.”

“Is that what wrecked the cars?”

“How did you know that?”

He chuckled, but there was little humor there. “I know you. You have loved those cars for over a hundred years. Every time one comes along that catches your eye, you add it to your collection. Most don’t know you bought most of those cars brand new off the lot.”

“Not all. I discovered a few later, and I’ve even restored one. That, however, is rare. The entire time I did it, I was tempted to use my powers when I couldn’t find an original part.”

“I can relate. I do the same with clothes.”

“Being old, like we are, we find something that makes us happy continually and hold onto it tightly.”

“Now you have Jack. I’ll admit, I’m jealous.”

“You’ll find someone if you stop whoring yourself all over the place and settle down.”

“Not a chance,” he smiled and gave with a cheeky wink.

Jack returned to the loft with the book and joined the two on the couch. After he set the book on the coffee table, the three of them stared at it like it would jump up and attack.

Finally, Rodney said, “Shouldn’t you two…open it?”

“Why don’t you?”

Rodney told Maltin, “I’m not the shifter!”

Jack turned to him with soft eyes that pleaded, and Maltin knew it was him who had to make the first move. “Fine, but you two need to read it with me.”

“Again, I’m not a shifter, but being your uncle?”

“And a week younger than me,” Maltin reminded him.

“I will stay and protect you.”

“From a book. How chivalrous of you, Uncle Rodney.”

“I do what I must.”

The book opened, and right away, the three stared at an illustration of a hellhound. While he and Jack simply stared, Rodney could be counted on. “Rather odious creatures, your people.”

“Rodney!”

“Sorry. Read on.”