Guardian Hound by Leah Cutter Page B

pulled letters from the edge into the middle, spelling out a single word.
    GUARD.
    Rudi nodded thoughtfully. “You need to guard her? Why?”
    Lukas couldn’t tell him, even if he’d been in human form. He padded over to where Rudi sat and sat down himself, looking up.
    â€œNot much of a guard hound, are you?” Rudi asked.
    Lukas cocked his head to one side and looked at him, his heart racing. Had Oma told Rudi his true breed? But Rudi was smiling casually, not as if the term had any importance.
    â€œAll right. if she’s that important to you, Prince, I will guard her as well.”
    Lukas put his paws on Rudi’s knee, then reached all the way up to lick his nose.
    It was all Lukas could ask for.
    # # #
    Over the weeks, Lukas appeared to Sally as different breeds. He never appeared in the same place twice, but on different streets, at different times of the day, now that Rudi knew. He merely asked Lukas to be careful, and left the gate open for him so he didn’t have to squeeze through the fence.
    She seemed to really like terriers.
    Lukas followed her endlessly through the streets, learning her patterns, where she went to lunch, where she shopped, where she worked. He couldn’t follow her on the bus, but he knew it was the one going downtown, so tried to meet her there.
    When he appeared to her as a Goldendoodle , she was walking with a friend, so she gave him only a quick pat on the head before walking away, saying to her friend, “I’m going to get a dog of my own this week.”
    Lukas woofed at her back. Take me, take me!
    But she wasn’t paying any attention.
    It didn’t take long for Lukas to track her scent to a nearby dog shelter, one she passed by all the time.
    Lukas stayed in a strange dog’s form, so Rudi couldn’t follow his scent until early morning. Then he curled up on the step as a little Scottish terrier and waited for the shelter to open.
    # # #
    Rudi showed up a few hours later. “My Scottie ran off,” he said, loud enough for Lukas to hear in the back pens. “I’d wondered if he’d shown up here.”
    The dogs who had been there for a while heard a friendly human’s voice, not one of the regulars, and knew this was their chance, so they pressed forward, going up to the front of the cages. Like with Lukas, they knew Rudi was something different.
    For the most part, the dogs had left Lukas alone, not trying to either befriend him or challenge him. Luckily, none of the volunteers had spent enough time in the cages to see just how odd their behavior was.
    An older woman walked Rudi back to the cages, bringing him to Lukas’ cage. But Lukas backed away from Rudi, shaking his head. He even growled.
    â€œI guess that’s not him,” Rudi said, staring at Lukas. “Still, if I can’t find my dog, I may come back in a few days,” he warned.
    Lukas turned his back on Rudi and wandered to another part of the cage.
    He’d be gone before Rudi came back. Sally would come and get him.
    That afternoon, Sally came by. Of course, she went straight to Lukas, as drawn to him as he’d always been to her. She put her fingers through the cage and he came right up and licked them, reveling in her complex scent.
    â€œI’ve been seeing so many strays lately, it just made me want a dog of my own,” Sally confessed to the volunteer, a dour young man.
    â€œHe does seem taken with you,” the young man said.
    â€œI know, but I shouldn’t get the first dog I see, should I?” she asked.
    Take me, take me! was all Lukas tried to say with his big doggie eyes and rapidly waving tail.
    â€œIf you think,” the man said, leading her down the line of cages to the next group.
    Lukas whined and stared after her. She had to take him. She just had to.
    Finally, she did, and called him Pixie.
    # # #
    Lukas had discovered that a side effect of Oma’s curse was that he could now see ghosts.
    There