Case for a Hound

WHEN THE PI IS AWAY, THE HOUND IS IN PLAY!

While temporarily living at Delia Maddox’s home and enduring the company of two yappy terriers, the words a hellhound in dachshund form is most happy to hear are words from his master.

Beelzebub, a voice said in my mind. The Boss’s voice. The big boss. Samael, Satan, the Devil, Lucifer. Yeah, that big boss.

I have a chore for you, he said.

Name it, I snarled.

And so begins the adventure of finding a misplaced theophylaktos and a stolen hellhound puppy named Aspimodofereus, or Aspy for short.

It means doing most of the sleuthing in Beelz’s alternative form of Great Dane, though the black and tan coat of his preferred manifestation stays the same—because black is cool—but when a hound in tracking mode needs to slip from Detroit, Michigan, USA to Windsor, Ontario, Canada to follow the trail, going invisible is also handy.

Set in The Raven Tales universe, this quick read is Beelz at his best, though cats need to be dealt with as well as fledgling cultists and the ugly demon yanked from Hell into a calling circle.

It was time for our dachshundric hellhound to have a tale of his own because, based on the number of times he gets mentioned in reviews of the novels (lots of them 5*), he has a fan club. With snark in his bark, Burt the cab driver on speed dial, and the technology to Google Map his way to where the action is, Beelz is definitely not your average mutt nor traditional hellhound.

This novelette falls between the novels Marked Raven and Raven’s Edge. And introduces Aspy into the regular cast.