Luminari

Chapter fifteen

He threw me out the front door and I tumbled down the steps as the doors closed behind me. I heard a girl giggling from behind the tiger statue and for a moment I thought it was Inola come back to help me, but it was only the cat girl who had given me directions earlier.

"What do you want?" I asked tears coming to my eyes and my coughs starting up again.

"I thought the judge might refuse, so I followed you to see," she said with a sly smile.

"Why are you so happy?" I asked marching down the steps.

"Personally, I hate dogs and agree with everything the judge is doing."

"Then you're evil," I spat.

"You shouldn't call people names like that especially when they want to help you."

"Wait you want to help me get Seth back?"

"For a price of course," she said gesturing to the bag of gold Inola had given me a hungry look in her yellow eyes.

"How much do you want?" I asked pulling it off my belt.

"Fifteen pieces, no twenty," she said greedily.

I only had about fifty pieces and I needed this money to get a horse. But I had no other choice Seth could be killed any moment and I didn't know where else to turn.

"Fine you can have twenty pieces, but I'll pay you after I get Seth back," I said, and she frowned.

"How do I know you're not going to run off with the dog and refuse to pay me?" she asked her tail slowly waving back and forth.

"Fine, you can have five coins now and the rest after I get Seth back," I said pulling out five coins.

"I want fifteen now," she said mischievously.

"Fine," I agreed giving her the coins and praying she didn't just pocket them and run off.

"No one knows exactly where they take the dogs, but I know how you can find out."

"How?"

"Take these," she said handing me two bottles of potion "the yellow one will turn you into a dog for four hours and the red one is a sleeping powder, you have to find a way to get some on the executioner and if you do that you should be fine," she told me, and I thanked her.

"Hurry and take the potion the cart is about to leave," she said ducking behind the tiger statue.

I put my glasses in my pocket then unscrewed the cap from the bottle and drank it, it tasted like warm honey running down my throat, then suddenly everything began to hurt. I fell onto my knees as blonde fur sprouted from my entire body and my mouth grew into a long snout with a black dog nose at the end. My shirt tore and claws broke out from my hands and feet which transformed into paws. I was still able to stand on two feet and looked more like a blonde werewolf then a dog. I got down on my hands and knees and began barking, walking around the court on my hands and knees making as much noise as I could. I sounded like a real dog with loud and proud barks.

"That is one ugly dog," the dog catcher said to the officer as they walked out of the court room. shielding his eyes with his paw.

I stood my ground and growled my entire throat rumbling it felt great and filled me with adrenaline, the best part was I didn't feel the need to cough. The dog catcher pulled a small dart gun from his pocket and shot me in the arm with a tiny blow dart. As soon as the tip of the dart touched my skin I fell over and passed out.

.  .  .

I woke up in the back of a prison car full of dogs all barking and whining I understood what they were saying like it was a second language.