“What are you going to do with him?”  I tried to ignore the dogs milling around me, to keep moving forward and follow Bitch.

Judging by your luck moving through the dog swarm so far, this might be difficult.

“We are going to help him.”

Ooh. I like how Rachel is very pointedly including Taylor here. So do you have a plan involving Taylor’s power?

I shook my head.  “I don’t think I can get the worms out without hurting him.  I mean, they’re in his bloodstream and the closest thing to an exit would be his lungs, and I think they would bleed too much.  I’m not even sure I can move them.”

Hrm. And I’m guessing there’s no good way to get the worms to kill themselves off.

“Grab that chain.”  She pointed across the room, still holding on to Sirius.

I saw several lengths of heavy chain, spotted with rust, looped up and hung on the wall above a pallet of weather worn brick.  I hurried over and hauled it down.  It was heavy enough I had to drag it on the grass to bring it to her.

Hm. What are you thinking, Rachel? Is this just to keep Sirius from running off, or do you have something else in mind for the chain?

“Backpack,” she told me.  I took it off and handed it to her.  She opened the front and handed me a carabiner, a metal loop with a locking hinge.  “Go tie the chain to something solid.”

I did, looping the chain around the base of the crane that was bolted to the concrete pad, toward the center of the room.  I fed the length through the carabiner  and headed back to Bitch.

Fairly basic chain usage so far.

Judas, Brutus and Angelica were already halfway to full size.

Huh? Why?

I just, really don’t see what the plan is here if hellhounds contribute to it. Unless… Is she going to tie Sirius on one of their backs… wait, no, that doesn’t make sense with the attachment of the chain to something solid, nevermind.

Bitch took the chain and began extending it around the struggling dog, winding it through a half dozen carabiners so it extended around his neck, body and stomach, and between his legs.

“What’s going on?”

Hm… keeping him from flailing too much?

“I’m using my power on him.  And he’s not trained.”

“Wait.  Didn’t a dog kill some people, back when you first had your powers?”

Ohhh, I see! There may not be a good way to get the worms out of a normal dog without hurting him too much, but a hellhound isn’t going to let something as trivial as a punctured lung kill him.

The other three powering up would be a precaution in case he gets out of the chains. Three trained hellhounds to counter one untrained one.

Hm… from a Doylist perspective, a good alternate name for Sirius, given this situation, would be Fenris.

The dog resisted until Brutus moved forward, then went along, though he still pulled and twisted against the grip on his collar.

“I don’t know dogs,” I said, following her into the herd of dogs just inside the building.  “I never had a pet, so I’m clueless here.”

Worth getting that on the table where they can both see it, I suppose.

“It’s heartworm.  Something dogs are supposed to take medicine to prevent, every month.”

“The owners didn’t, then?”

Ahh.

And hey, unlike flatworms, the roundworms responsible for heartworm infections don’t have eyespots. (Some aquatic roundworms do, but it’s unclear whether they can actually sense anything through them.)

Hm…

“Dogs show no indication of heartworm infection during the six-month prepatent period prior to the worms’ maturation, and current diagnostic tests for the presence of microfilariae or antigens cannot detect prepatent infections.” (source)

Sounds like this might’ve been in Sirius’ body for months, but is still being detected earlier than it normally would.

“The shelter didn’t.  Lazy, cheap-ass motherfuckers.

Oof. People who are supposed to know what they’re doing. Those fuckers.

This is the second dog I got from that place that wasn’t taken care of.  And people who do adopt get a sick dog?  Fuckers, fuckers, fuckers.”

Damn it, shelter!

“Bitch,” I spoke, cautiously.

“What?” She sounded… annoyed was the wrong word.  She sounded ready to kill me, for interrupting her from setting the dogs up with fresh water.

“I think one of these guys is really sick.”

Her head snapped in my direction.  “Show me.”

Oh yeah, now that’s certainly gonna get her to care.

The dogs stopped fighting as she stalked toward us.  I took the opportunity to gingerly take hold of Sirius’s collar as she ushered the rest away.  She glowered at me, “Explain.”

It was hard to organize my thoughts, even without accounting for her intense scrutiny.  “Worms.  But not, like, tapeworm.  I-I can’t see through their eyes or anything.

I suppose they don’t have eyes, then. Flatworms (tapeworm being parasitic flatworms) do have simple eyespots, so I guess that’s what Taylor is using to rule them out.

Um.  I don’t know what they are, so I can only tell you what I know.  They’re mostly juvenile, only a few adult, um-”

“Above the heart, here?”  She pointed to a spot low in his chest.

I nodded.

At least if the worms are young, that might mean this is a recent development.

“And the arteries?  There’s one from here,” she pointed at the lab’s shoulder, “To here?” she traced her finger along his spine.

“That’s where a lot of them are.  But they’re not just there.  They’re everywhere inside him.”

Rachel seems to have some idea of where things are not as they should be. She might be able to tell based on something that is visible to the outside, but which Taylor wouldn’t be able to identify just by sight.

“Fuckers.  Those fuckers,” she growled.  “I warned them.”

Taking hold of the lab’s collar, she ordered the dog, “Come along, Sirius.”

Which fuckers are we talking about, specifically?

I suppose it’s off to the vet.

The fighting was nerve wracking, conjuring up very vivid memories of Bitch’s dogs terrorizing me.  Why did this spook me so much when being around her dogs in monster form didn’t make me that nervous?

Maybe because the dogs weren’t in monster form when she attacked you, and you’ve been around them in monster form a lot recently. Maybe it feels like the hellhounds are more under control (which they aren’t).

Shutting my eyes, I drew on my power.  My objective wasn’t to do anything with it, but simply to get a little outside my own head, achieve a greater perspective.

Sure, that might be helpful.

Focusing on the big picture, seeing myself as a very small figure against the backdrop of a whole neighborhood, I was able to center myself.  I could ignore the hairy animals shoving up against my legs, jumping up at and around me, pressing their cold noses against my hands and arms.

Some people dislike seeing themselves as an ultimately insignificant entity in a greater whole. Taylor, on the other hand, seems to draw comfort from that.

I think I can relate, to be honest.

A mass of bugs in my immediate vicinity lunged between my legs.  My eyes snapped open, and I saw the culprit, placed my hands on him, the dark furred lab.

“hi!”

It wasn’t fleas, either, or ticks or anything like that.  It was a denser mass.  The closest parallel I could draw would be a wasp nest.  Or maggots in a trash bag.

Oh, geez. Maybe he’s acting up in part because of this?

Bitch headed to a wood pallet stacked with bags of dog food, which rested atop a pallet of bricks.  She drew a knife across the top of two bags and let them empty into a trough sitting below.  I was grateful when most of the dogs around me rushed off to get their food.

Hehe. Go get your food, doggos ❤

The reprieve didn’t last long.  Several of the dogs began fighting in front of the trough.

Uh oh.

A black lab, snarling with his expression pulled into something grotesque, chased a smaller dog directly toward me.  The little dog collided with my legs, and with the lab hot on her heels, it started fighting tooth and nail in its own defense.  A bigger dog, longer and lankier than the lab, with very short fur, crossed the room to join the skirmish, protecting the little one.

Welp. So Rachel, are you going to do something about this, or do you consider this the natural order of the pack?

“Bitch?”  I asked, doing my best to keep my voice calm as the dogs fought beneath me, bumping into my legs.  I backed up, but they brought the fight right to me once again.

“The black one is Sirius.  He’s the newest, not used to things.  He’ll get better as the other dogs socialize him and I get a chance to train him.”

Does he turn into a human wizard sometimes?

Okay, but seriously – no pun intended – a black dog named Sirius does not strike me as a coincidence. (Sirius Black’s animagus form was definitely not a labrador, though. Apparently Padfoot was played by a German sheperd in PoA and a Scottish deerhound in OotP.)

Anyway, it seems Rachel is content with letting this go on for now.

“They’re, uh, really going at it,” I winced and pulled one leg off the ground to keep it out of the way.

“Let me know if he draws blood.”

Fair enough, I guess.

I couldn’t afford to appear weak in front of Bitch, so I avoided asking for help.

Yeah, that’s fair. Appearing weak might not get the best of reactions.

Cement was laid out over nearly half of the building interior, as the floor or foundation, but the work had been interrupted and abandoned partway through.  There were areas where crushed stone had been laid out in preparation for the cement pour, and a combination of wind and rain had mixed regular dirt into the crushed stone a long time ago.  Any spot inside the building that wasn’t covered in concrete was marked by patches of grass and a few scraggy weeds.

There’s one thing there’s no doubt about, even if it hasn’t really been specified: We’re still very much in the Docks.

Three walls of the ground floor were erect, plywood and drywall bolted to wood frames, with cement blocks piled against most of the exterior walls.  Enough had been done at the front of the building for the construction workers to have started laying out a second floor, providing an overhang between the ground floor and the sky to keep things more or less dry.

I wonder why construction stopped.

Things were too much of a mess for me to tell if the far exterior wall had been left incomplete or if had fallen down.  It stood open to the environment, letting rays of dusty sunlight inside.

Not really the best place to keep dogs, but I guess Rachel just has to make do with what she’s got access to.

Y’know, unless she changes her mind about Coil.

We approached the building that all the barking was coming from.  The rusted skeleton of a small crane stood atop a partially constructed building.  Bitch opened the door and waited until I was inside before closing it and latching it shut.  I could hear scratching at the door just past the first room.

E8ÅD

…that dog smiley is getting out of hand.

When the second door leading further into the building was opened, a tide of dogs nearly bowled us over.

AWOONAMI

I couldn’t count them, but there were more than ten, less than twenty.  All sorts of breeds, different sizes and shapes.

Look at that huge hexagonal prism dog!

As Bitch moved forward as though the dogs weren’t there, I struggled to even stand.

Turns out Rachel can swim through dogs like Scrooge McDuck through money.

I leaned against the front door for balance, and all I could think about was that moment Bitch had set her dogs on me, back when we first met.

Well, if she wanted to get back at Taylor for winning that fight, now would be an excellent opportunity. Though I have a feeling these dogs aren’t as thoroughly trained as the usual trio, she could probably still sic many of them on her.

She glanced my way, and a shadow of irritation touched her expression.

Ah, yes, there we go.

“Oh right. She’s here.”

I was intruding on her domain, spoiling that.  If I slipped up and pissed her off, I’d be lucky to get hit just once.

A deal’s a deal, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance she’ll go “fuck what Brian said” if sufficiently pissed off.

I knew we were close to our destination when I heard the barking.  Angelica yapped back in reply, cranked herself up to ‘excited frenzy’ mode and rushed forward, pulling on the leash.  Bitch stopped her, directed her to lie down with a motion of her finger, and we waited.  When Angelica relaxed and put her chin on the ground, we moved forward again.

Ah, yes, there’s the leash-pulling. :Å)

We didn’t get three steps before Angelica pulled again, provoking the repetition of orders and another minute long wait.

I think I see what the goal here is. By stopping every time she pulls on the leash, eventually she’ll learn that pulling doesn’t get them to the destination faster.

The third time it happened, Bitch gave me a dark look.  As though it were my fault, or more probable, she might have been anticipating impatience on my part.  I didn’t really mind, though.  It wasn’t like I had anywhere to be, and it was interesting to see her process.

Hehe.

Third, less likely option: “do you see this shit?”