Rosehead

Chapter 24. Up the Oak Tree

Lilith and Panther ran for their lives, using bushes for cover. Rosehead didn't seem to be very agile when it came to following her prey. She crushed after them, uprooting everything in her wake. Neither girl nor dog dared to look back as they sprinted along the alley to Ed's cottage. At last, panting, they smashed through the gate and, slipping on the grass, reached the fence at the back where they were supposed to meet. An angry stitch poked Lilith's side.

"Where is...he?" she wheezed. "I can't...see him."

"I can't see him either, but I can smell him, most unquestionably." Panther lolled out his tongue. "Stale, hormonal, teenage cookie-cake."

"Where?" 

"All over the place. He must've been here not too long ago. Unfortunately, I can't give you his precise location at the moment."

"What? We're about to be eaten!"

A loud thud and a bellow indicated the fall of their chaser.

"Not anymore," commented Panther.

"Very funny," snapped Lilith. "Do you mind sparing me your ruminations and focus on the task at hand, namely, on not being eaten by a plant-freak and on finding Ed?"

"May I remind you that I still haven't received my payment? Oh, and that you rudely interrupted my very important conversation with Bär? But never you mind. I will oblige, of course, the faithful pet that I am," Panther grumbled crossly.

"Panther." Lilith narrowed her eyes.

"What? I'm working here. Working, as I may add, on the promise of future wages." He sniffed. "The trail of his precious fragrance indicates—"

"Indicates?" Lilith prompted.

"Indicates, that precise location."

"You just said you couldn't give me his precise location."

"The atmospheric aura of his adolescent odor has nothing to do with this, madam. If one were only to apply a certain logic and use certain other senses..." 

Panther scowled at the forest. It leered back with its twisted trees in place of teeth. It surrounded the entire rose garden, their only separation a tall white-painted iron fence.

"There!" Lilith squinted.

A light blinked deep in the greenery.

"I was about to say precisely that," growled Panther. "Do you mind?" He stuck out his neck. Lilith took off the leash.

Both skinny, they easily squeezed in between the bars and disappeared into the woods just as three figures rounded Ed's cottage—Alfred Bloom, Gustav, and an ominously woofing Bär. Two of them shouted Lilith's name with intermittent success. 

The earth shook again. Rosehead must have lifted herself and, by the sounds of it, was stomping away. Where and why, Lilith didn't have time to ponder. She knew that if she tarried, their chances of escape would cease to exist. This thought must not have occurred to Panther, who suddenly skidded to a halt and issued several prolonged barks. Lilith, running on inertia, stumbled over him.

"Panther! What are you doing?"

Unworried, he barked again.

Barely visible through the trees, Bär howled in response, doubled back, and closed his jaws on Alfred's ankle. He fell face forward. Gustav toppled over both of them. The wild rosebush that once saved Lilith and Panther observed the pile at its feet with the calm of, well, a rosebush that doesn't care.

"What did you tell him?" Lilith demanded, fixing her beret and bag, both of which were astoundingly still present.

"I told him that you're the Bloom heir now, and that you command him to stop your pursuers."