Tales from the Hood (5 page)

“Well, if justice is what you’re after, then there must be a trial. I need to meet with Canis and prepare his defense,” Robin said.

“Dear me, perhaps I am ill. I hear you speak but your words are nonsense. You don’t give a rabid dog a trial—you put him to sleep before he can hurt anyone else.”

“You’re going to kill him?” Sabrina cried.

Daphne burst into tears. Sabrina did her best to comfort her sister, but she was too shocked to speak more.

“Oh, here come the waterworks,” the sheriff said, his face full of mocking concern. He bent over and took Daphne’s chin in his gloved hand. “Don’t cry, little one. Save your tears. You’ll need them sooner than you think.”

Little John grabbed Nottingham’s arm and jerked him away from the little girl. He took the Sheriff’s hand in his own and squeezed and squeezed until Sabrina thought she heard bones snap. Nottingham yanked his hand away.

“Never let it be said that I don’t have a kind heart,” he growled, caressing his mangled hand. “I’ll let you all see your precious pet one last time before he goes off to doggie heaven.”

He led the group down a long hallway. Puddles had collected on the floor and a dark green mold was creeping up the walls. At the end of the hallway was an iron door with an enormous lock. Nottingham inserted a key and pushed the heavy door open, and a creak echoed off the walls. Inside, the large room was split into four separate jail cells, two on either side of a walkway down the center. A lone fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling blinked on and off, fighting a losing battle with the room’s hungry shadows.

“You’ve got visitors, mutt,” Nottingham said, running his curved dagger along the bars of one of the cells. The highpitched screech it made pierced Sabrina’s eardrums. “Have your talk and make it quick.”

Sabrina peered into the darkness. In the far corner a hulking figure huddled against the wall. His limbs were bound to enormous chains. Sabrina felt a familiar tingle, one she felt only in the presence of magic, and guessed the chains were enchanted. A normal chain could never hold a creature with the strength of the Big Bad Wolf.

As she stepped closer, an odor drifted into her nose: a combination of filth, sweat, and something less identifiable, something wild. It reminded Sabrina of the time her mother had taken the girls to the Bronx Zoo. While they watched the lions in their pit, a zookeeper tossed in slabs of raw meat for the animals. The lions fought over the scraps, roaring and threatening with their heavy claws. A smell rose up from the pit that afternoon that frightened Sabrina. It was the smell of something savage.

Granny approached the cell, seemingly unfazed. She pressed her hands against the bars and stared into the shadows. “Old friend,” she said softly.

There was a rustling in the dark and then a deep voice broke the silence.

“Go away, Relda.” The voice was tired and rough.

“We’ve come to help you,” Daphne said as she joined her grandmother at the bars. “We hired lawyers. We’re going to get you out of here.”

Nottingham laughed. He sounded like a hungry rat excited over a piece of cheese.

Robin and Little John joined Granny and Daphne at the bars. Robin took a small recording device out of his suit pocket and turned it on. “Mr. Canis, I’m Robin Hood of the Sherwood Group and this is my partner, Little John. Our firm is working to release you. I’m sure we can clear this up soon. In the meantime, you’ve been arrested for murder, and it would be in your best interest to tell me everything you remember about the crime.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Canis said. “I have no memory of the event. I rarely know what the Wolf does. I only know it was something horrible.”

“You don’t remember anything about it? Then how do you know you did it?” Robin asked.

Canis shook his head. “I just do.”

Robin and Little John shared a worried look. Sabrina couldn’t believe she heard surrender in the old man’s voice.

Robin shook his head. “Mr. Canis, I don’t think you understand, we—”

Canis leapt to his feet and let out a horrible roar. It was only then that Sabrina realized how much the old man had changed. When he rose to his full height, he was nearly eight feet tall and thickly muscled. His arms were long, and his ugly, taloned hands dragged on the ground. His ears, pointy and sprouting hair, had migrated to the top of his head. His nose was a slippery snout with glistening fangs hanging below, and his shock of white hair was now brown flecked with black. Sabrina’s mind reeled. This couldn’t be Mr. Canis. How could he have changed so much in four weeks? She was sure this had to be a twisted joke, some kind of terrible prank cooked up by Nottingham for his own amusement. But then she saw the undeniable proof that this creature was her old friend. The beast was wearing a black eye patch on his left eye. It covered a wound that Nottingham had inflicted not long ago. She knew the truth. Canis was losing his battle with the vicious Wolf inside him. Out of instinct, she leaped forward and pulled her sister and grandmother to safety.

“Sabrina!” Granny cried, bewildered. There was disappointment and anger in her voice. “You have nothing to fear from Mr. Canis.”

“Do not scold her, Relda,” Mr. Canis said. “She might be the only one in your family who sees me for what I am. You’d be wise to pay more attention to her.”

Granny shook her head, denying his words.

“What have you done to him?” Daphne demanded, racing at the sheriff with fists clenched. It took all of Sabrina’s strength to hold her back.

“Get control over your brats, Mrs. Grimm, or they’ll be enjoying the cell next to your friend,” Nottingham said.

“Girls, attacking the sheriff won’t help Mr. Canis,” Granny said, pulling Sabrina and Daphne to her side.

“Nothing can help me,” Canis grunted. “Relda, take the girls and leave. I don’t need your lawyers or your help. I’m right where I should be. A cage is where I belong.”

“Old friend—”

Canis shook his head. “Your old friend is gone.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Not yet . . . but soon,” Canis said wearily. “Fighting the Wolf’s control over this body is a constant battle, one I am losing. When the war is over, it is best if I am under lock and key.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Daphne said as she pulled away from Granny and approached the cell. She reached through the bars and took Canis’s hand in her own, caressing it gently. His was big and strong with nails like railroad spikes. A memory flashed in Sabrina’s brain—once, not so long ago, the Wolf had been unleashed and had snatched Sabrina around the neck. He had promised to eat her. The memory made Sabrina shiver down to her toes.

Sheriff Nottingham ran his dagger against the cell bars again. “Time’s up!” he shouted. “Get out of my jail.”

Little John turned to Mr. Canis. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back.”

Canis crawled back into the shadows, into the corner of his cell. “Do not waste your time on me, Relda,” he whispered as they left.

That afternoon Robin Hood called to update Granny Relda. As he had predicted, Mayor Heart and Sheriff Nottingham came to the offices of the Sherwood Group with an order to seize the property and premises of the business. The merry partners were tossed out into the street. Robin and Little John were forced to continue their work from an empty table at Sacred Grounds, a coffee shop run by Uncle Jake’s girlfriend, Briar Rose. Much to everyone’s surprise, Robin and Little John were thrilled.

“He said he and Little John have never been happier,” Granny Relda explained when she hung up the phone. “They’re Nottingham’s biggest annoyance again. I don’t know if Briar’s coffee shop sells beer but they both sounded rip-roaring drunk.”

“Being merry as often as those guys are can’t be good for their livers,” Uncle Jake said.

Unfortunately, Robin’s newfound joy came with some very bad news. He and Little John were running into one roadblock after another. The Ferryport Landing justice system had collapsed since the days when Mayor Charming ran the town. Since Nottingham had become the sheriff, there had been few arrests other than Mr. Canis’s. Not a single official document had been filed regarding any crime, and it seemed as if the sheriff and the mayor were making up laws as they went along. No one ever got a trial, so there were no judges to ensure justice.

Worse still, there was nothing the family could do to help. When Granny offered, Robin informed her that the best thing they could do was to stay by the phone and wait for the lawyers to call with an update. So everyone tried to find ways to keep themselves busy. Uncle Jake searched the magic mirror for Goldilocks. Granny busied herself making earthworm crepes. Puck lay on the couch trying to break his personal record for most farts in an hour. Sabrina and Daphne turned their attention to the family’s enormous book collection to research everything they could find on the Big Bad Wolf.

Sabrina and Daphne’s father had kept fairy-tale stories out of their house, leaving the girls with a tremendous disadvantage now that their jobs were to investigate crimes in the Everafter community. Still, even Sabrina had heard the Wolf’s most famous story—Little Red Riding Hood. The way she recalled it, a really lousy mother sent her kid into the woods with a basket of food and everyone was supposed to be surprised when an animal attacked her. Sabrina was wondering what kind of lame parents Red Riding Hood must have had when she noticed the pale and nervous expression on Daphne’s face.

“No one told me this story,” Daphne said, pointing to the book she was reading.

“What story,
liebling
?” Granny Relda asked as she came in from the kitchen.

Daphne held up a dusty copy of
Children’s and Household Tales
, better known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “The story of Little Red Riding Hood,” she said. “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm called it the story of Little Red Cap. This version is . . . gross.”

Granny shook her head knowingly. “It is troubling, but don’t forget, Mr. Canis isn’t like the Wolf in that story.”

Puck, who had been ignoring everyone up until that point, leaped up and rushed across the room. “What did he do?”

“He ate Red’s grandmother,” Daphne said.

“Ate her?” Sabrina cried.

“That’s awesome!” Puck exclaimed.

Sabrina ignored Puck. “I thought he killed her.”

“The killing part usually happens when you eat someone,” Puck said matter-of-factly.

“That was a long time ago,” Granny said. “We weren’t there. Some of the story could be exaggerated.”

Daphne scanned the old book. “It says here that Red’s parents sent her into the forest with a basket of food. She was supposed to take it to her sick grandmother but along the way she met the Wolf. He asked her where she was going and she told him.”

“Mistake number one,” Puck said.

Daphne continued. “The wolf raced ahead, ate her grandmother, then put on her clothes.”

“Creepy,” Puck commented.

“Then it says here that when Red showed up at the house he ate her, too. That’s not right. Little Red Riding Hood is alive.”

“And crazy as ever,” Sabrina said. Just thinking about the little girl gave her goose pimples. She calmed down when she remembered Red was locked up in the Ferryport Landing Memorial Hospital’s mental health ward. It had been only a few months since the delirious Red had stormed through town on the back of a Jabberwocky, causing serious mayhem.

“You can’t put a lot of weight in this story,” Granny explained. “There are a lot of contradictory facts that don’t add up, and there are many, many versions.”

“That’s true. Now I remember this story. My father told me it once,” Puck said. “Something about a woodcutter who saved Red and her granny by cutting the Wolf’s belly open and freeing them. Then I think he loaded the Wolf’s belly up with stones and tossed him in the river to drown. I’d like to meet that guy. He’s totally hard-core!”

“Who cares how many versions there are of the story? He eats people in all of them, right?” Sabrina asked as she glanced at the open pages of the heavy book. There was a horrible illustration of the Wolf attacking the little girl.

Puck nodded. “Don’t forget he tried to kill the Three Little Pigs and a whole family of talking lambs. I tell you, the guy’s got anger-management issues.”