Chapter 1

The woman looked around the dog-park dog looking for the guy to come around from his usual round. When she spotted him she smiled wickedly. He was about to walk to the trap and I held my breath. He was going to be stocked in about five, four, three, two, one...and he kept walking. She frowned. That wasn’t what was suppose to happen.

“What the...” She stopped mid shoulder stretch when the dog sat down in the middle of the trap and barked happily. “Oh you gotta be shitting me.”

She looked around and started to jog, that was her cover after all. When the woman got near her target she stopped near the dog, faking the biggest smile she could manage.

“Aw, he’s so cute!” She said putting her hands on her knees to look at it.

“Yes. Yes he is...” The owner fidgeted on his feet.

“Can I pet him?” You asked looking up at the man. He gave her a curt smile and nodded, his curls bouncing.

She placed her hand near the dogs nose and he smelled it. The dog seemed to frown at you but then let her pet him. The white eyed dog barked softly at his owner and the man smiled at the dog.

‘Undo the trap please.’ A voice inside her head said and she widened her eyes to look around. ‘It’s me, down here.'

She looked at the dog again and he barked. His tail was wagging and he didn’t seem at all ready to pounce on her. If anything it seemed like he was more ready to lick her face then anything.

‘You clearly weren’t expecting this.’

“Clearly.” She mumbled to the dog and the guy standing next to them made a question sound. She smiled and looked up.

“His eyes are very clear.”

‘Good save, hunter.’

“Oh yes. I always wanted a dog with Heterochromia...you know what that is right?” he was talking a hundred miles per hour but so she nodded quickly. “Yes, huskies usually have that, but the people at the training centre only had that one so I got him.”

“Training centre?” The woman straightened up and the guy scratched the back his neck nervously.

The dog whimpered and walked to him, nuzzling his nose on his leg. The woman frowned at that behaviour but didn’t move.

“Bob is a service dog, I had to go get him at a training centre...for service dogs.”

“He’s a service dog?” She was incapable of keeping the digits and confusion from her voice, but the guy didn’t seem to notice.

‘Watch the tone.’ The voice in her head said.

“Yeah...” The guy said looked at the pet. “We gotta go...” He stuttered and pulled dog’s leash, but the dog didn’t move.

‘Now you scared him. Do you know how much it takes for him to actually leave the house?’

She was surprised by these new informations, and only when the dog whimpered again did she snapped out of her stupor.The woman walked towards the guy and very subtly dragged her sneakers on the ground, undoing the invisible circle on the ground.

“Hey!” She smiled once again. “I’m Charlotte by the way.” She extended her hand.

“Hum...” He looked between her hand and her face to the point where she was almost letting her hand fall. He grabbed it quickly and shook it. “I’m Adam...”

“Nice meeting you Adam.” She kept the smile on her face as she put the buds on her ears again. “I gotta run.” She nudged her head to the pathway and winked at him. “Cya tomorrow!”

He nodded once again rapidly and gave her a tiny smile. The dog owner turned around and the husky walked out of the circle happily.

‘See you tomorrow hunter.’

Charlotte did a couple of laps around the park, trying to gather her thoughts, formulate a new plan.

She had been given an assignment by the Company. It was a find and destroy assignment. Now the finding part was easy. She was a hunter, she had been trained since she was a teenager to track these things that crossed into our plane. There signs and she had followed these signs to a quiet town in the middle of nowhere. Helmsfirth it was called.

The tracker found that the signs pointed to a small house near the edge of the city and so she waited until the perfect moment arrived. She had planned on taking him alive, probably stunning him with some incantations on the spot and then exorcise the demon out of the guys body, hoping it wouldn't kill him in the process.

But she didn't expected it to be the god damned dog! A service dog?

She cursed under her breath.

Back to square one!

---

 

A week went by and everyday there she was doing laps at the small park, once again. It started to become a time for Charlotte to clear her head and think about her next step.

She knew Adam would bring Bob for his walk at four pm, even before, when she thought that Adam was the one possessed. What she found out was that it was a meticulous scheduled routine. He wouldn’t show up at 4:01 or at 3:58. No, he would arrive at precisely 4:00.

So she would run one last lap around the park and then, inconspicuously walk behind him.

‘If you’re trying not to look suspicious, you are failing. Where did they teach how to track? Stalker class?’ She heard a familiar voice in her head and frowned.

“Does he know?” She said under her breath knowing the demonic pup would hear it.

‘About your inability to track someone? No, I don't think he has caught on.’ His tone was sarcastic but not evil.

“About you…”

‘No’ he simply replied into her mind.

She left the conversation and ran to her motel room, trying to device a plan that could get her close to the dog and assert his motives.

The next day there she was again, but she was about to change the routine a little. She had already ran her laps and when he stepped on the park, she put her biggest smile on her face and approached him.

“Hey Adam.” she said to him, walking in step with the dog and the owner.

“Oh, hi Charlotte.”

“How are you?”

“Good, good. You?” He kept fidgeting by her side, but not in a “leave-me-alone” sense. More like “look-someone’s-talking-to-me. What-do-I-do?”.

“Great!” she over exaggerated her happiness and he gave her a short smile. “How is Bob?”

“Good, I guess. I mean he wags his tail a lot so, I guess he’s happy.” his eyebrows twitched into a frown for a millisecond as he looked at Bob and then back at her, shrugging. “I think he’s good.”

“Great!” Charlotte repeated with the same enthusiasm from before.

They walked a few minutes with each other in silence, Adam nodding every time they passed someone he knew. Charlotte knew he wouldn’t say anything about her walking with him, his awkwardness and anxiety prevented him from being confrontational. He would rather endure and then have a slight breakdown when she left, thinking and overthinking about why she would beside or how he should have said anything or maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. She knew this because she had taken the time to investigate Adam as a human now and not a demon. She had found out about his anxiety and depression. And now she took advantage of all she found. It surprised her how not guilty she felt when she thought about that but how bad she felt now that she was doing it.

“So! Adam, what do you do around here for fun?” she asked trying to make small talk.

‘What are you doing?’ The voice asked.

“Hum…” he shrugged and frowned a bit. “I think my idea of fun by diverge from yours.” He paused and then looked at Charlotte’s raised eyebrow. “Not that your idea of fun is bad.I mean it's not like I know what your idea of fun is. S**t that sounded mean. S**t I shouldn’t curse. I'm sorry.” his speech got fast. “I don't do anything fun really. I walk Bob. That's fun. For me. Not for you probably. Sorry, I didn’t meant it to sound conceited or assume that I know you. I don't know you. At all…”

Bob barked and the man snapped out of his faster the light speech. He stopped in the middle of the gravel trail and shook his head.

“I gotta go.” He turned his back and walked out of the lark as fast as his feet would aloud.

‘Thank you, hunter, for making him feel more inadequate than he already does on a regular basis.’ The voice in her head scoffed as it faded with the distance.

Charlotte was so surprised by the quickness of the past events that she just stood there, in the gravel, blinking.

“S**t.” she cursed and shook her head.

His face had become increasingly red and his eyes became bright as if he was about to cry, but no tears fell, his eyebrows furrowed in an almost painful expression. His voice had raised an octave and his breathing had become erratic. At some point she thought he was going to collapse right there. If Bob hadn't barked maybe he would have. The god forsaken demonic possessed dog had just helped a poor guy from having a full blown nervous break down in the park.

“S**t!” she said louder this time.

---

 

The next day, Charlotte waited patiently at the park, but when 4pm passed she started to worry. She sat on a bench looking intently at the ironed gate of the park almost willing the man to materialize in front of it.

She was about to go over his house to check if he was okay when 5pm stroke. He walked inside the park with Bob at his side and she let out a breath of relieve.

Bob looked immediately at her, while Adam just looked straight ahead or to the ground.

‘Why keep up the charade, hunter? Just deal with me already. I have started to miss a good fight.’ His voice was becoming increasingly threatening, but Charlotte didn’t show fear.

Fear was a weakness demons loved to explore. A gateway to your soul. She cursed at him in her head, knowing full well he couldn't hear her. This telepathic connection only worked on way. Demons usually used it to make someone scared and vulnerable so they could enter their bodies. Common people never knew what was happening, thinking it was their own mind voice talking to them. But Charlotte knew about this. She was trained to distinguish her voice from the demon’s.

When Adam was close enough to her she got up from the bench and walked towards him. He frowned and swallowed nervously and she tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. For the first time since this whole mission started, she was being sincere in her actions.

“Hey.” she greeted him with a soft smile.

“Hi.” he replied back with a nod. She noticed him twisting the leash on his fingers nervously.

“I'm sorry about yesterday.” she blurted out.

'What?'

“What?”

“I didn't mean to make go into a frenzy.” Charlotte said looking at him dead in the eye. “I just wanted to make small talk. I kinda don't know anyone in this town and you seemed nice enough.”

‘Liar’ Bob said into her head and she dismissed him.

“I'm really sorry.”

He gave her a small smile, bigger than the usual corner tugs but not a full blown smile, and sighed. He shook his head and started walking. For a moment there she didn't know what to do.

“Hum...there's a movie theatre down street.” He started and Charlotte snapped out of her reverie and walked to him. “They don't have many movie choices, usually older movies, but every so often they get a big blockbuster in there. They arrive later than usual, but you'll be able to see it.”

“How late are we talking about?”

“About 3 months.”

“Damn.”

Adam looked at her and gave her a very deep nod.

“The popcorn is good.” he added and Charlotte nodded. “There's a mall about 6 miles.”

“Shopping, yay!…” Charlotte said in sarcasm and rolled her eyes. He shrugged.

“It's not bad. If you’re into mindlessly wandering. What else...lets see. Well, theres the park, which you already know.”

She nodded and he furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. “Theres the coffeeshop slash bookstore down the street, the dinner next to it, about 5 antique stores and the...club…” he snorted and Charlotte smirked at the sound. It sounded so elitist for a guy who wouldn’t even leave the house to water his plants. “Its more of a pub than anything else, but on Fridays and Saturdays they grab a the local DJ and put some black lights on the ceiling and then its a club.”

His speech was picked up pace, but it was desperate like yesterday. He sounded more like he wanted to say everything at once.

'He tried to go there one night. It didn’t go so well.' Bob added in a condescending tone, as if he had somehow warned his owner not to go but he went anyway. He is stubborn little thing.

“A mall, a park, an outdated movie theatre, a dinner, a coffeeshop, 5 antique shops and a pub...thats it.” She asked and he nodded, but then tilted his to the side thinking about something.

“Well, no. There’s also the not so fun places. Police station, firemen, clinic, schools.” He said quickly.

“Hey! Schools can be fun.” Charlotte added and he made a disgruntled sound.

“Maybe for you.” He looked her up and down. “Yeah, definitely for you.”

Charlotte frowned at first, but then raised an eyebrow in question.

“You’re a well adjusted human being. I bet school was great for you.”

‘Would you like me to tell him or will you?’ The demon said and she actually looked at him pointedly.

“Sorry.” He said, the leash once again becoming intertwine in his fingers.

“You need to stop apologising.”

“Sorry.” He looked at her and gave her a grin, which she returned.

They kept walking for about an hour, until Adam deemed it had had enough interaction for one day and decided to tell him goodbyes. He turned to walk home and Charlotte watched him leave silently and then made her way to the motel.

She needed to make up her mind about this. There was no way she could go up to The Company and tell them she couldn’t go on with the mission, and truth was, that thing was a demon. She had always been taught that demons have many faces. The most dangerous one are capable of hiding in children, knowing that the morality in most human minds will never think it’s ok to attack a child.

Charlotte thought about exorcising him. But best case scenario, the dog would loose all his memories and it probably wouldn’t be much help to Adam. Worst case scenario the dog would drawn in his own blood. Exorcism were a practice only made by the highest ranks in The Company. Not because they needed any special power, but because it took practice to know when to stop and when to keep going. The human body is not made be inhabited by another soul other than it’s own. Once the second soul enters the body it becomes a parasite, a virus. It will subdue the hosts soul into a fraction and control it.

The hunter asked herself why she cared about what happened to Adam. She didn’t know him. She met him a week ago. She had talked with him for three hours in total. But yet she couldn’t help to feel sorry for the guy. She had surveilled him and he didn’t leave home much. He would go grocery shopping every Wednesday at 11 am and he would go out to dinner every Friday at 8pm. Other than that, and his usual walk around the park, the man was a hermit. He would sit on his porch and desk by the window and type away. His eyes glued to the computer screen as Bob sat at his feet when he sat outside. She wandered what would happen if she took away the dog.

“You’re getting soft Charlie.” She said to herself opening the motel room door.

The demon himself seemed quite settled with this arrangement. It was usual for a demonic entity to let itself become the servant and not the master. But not Bob. Bob was just cruising through the world in a grey and white, blue eyed Siberian Husky. And he seemed to be enjoying it. He had many opportunities to attack her, but he didn’t seem to be inclined to do so. Bob, the dog would just languidly walk beside his human and make snide and sassy remarks towards Charlotte and the overall conversation. But he never threatened, aside from that comment earlier today. He never even showed his teeth.

Was this an act? Was the dog a cover up to get Adam? But why not go for Adam? Lord knows his armour has many holes for the demon to seep through.

This didn’t make any sense to her, but she was sure as hell going to find out what was going on. Even if she had to run a marathon in that god damned park.

Author's Note

Please ignore grammar mistakes if you find any and please tell me what you think! Thanks for reading!

Reviews

[p]

That wasn't half bad. That's probably one of the most random writing prompts I've ever seen, but you did a good job turning it into a full story.

[Margie]

Thank you for your review. I'm trying to make it a multi-chapter story!