CHAPTER TEN
Jake coughed and reached up to adjust his oxygen mask. Although he’d tightened it earlier, the straps kept pulling loose, causing smoke to leak around the seal.
Maybe that’s why the mask was left on the back of the truck, he the mask resealed against his skin and he breathed in the oxygen from the tank strapped to his back.
He and Murotomi had parked the car and walked around the building until they’d seen a hose truck with no one near it. The two men had searched the hose truck’s compartments and found two sets of uniforms, boots, oxy tanks and breather masks. They had put everything on and walked into the building without any problems. Jake’s sense had led them to the twenty-second floor, right below the highest floor. They were walking down a smoke-filled corridor toward the back of the building. Jake was on the right side of the corridor and Murotomi was on the left. Jake paused at the door of an office. He opened the door and looked in. He patted his hand on the bowie knife at side, ready to pull it and use it a moment’s notice.
Although the room was filled with smoke, he could still make out a good sized desk, a few chairs, some plants, and a body on the floor. He turned to the corridor and called to Kaji. When the monk got to the door, Jake pointed to the body, motioned for him to wait while he went in, then moved cautiously into the office. His sense told him the demon was near, but he didn’t know how near.
When he got close enough to the body to see it clearly, his heart sped up in his chest. It was a fireman, and he was a bloody mess. He was laying on his stomach, his face toward the door. The oxygen tank was lying beside him, the straps torn. The back of the man’s uniform was torn to shreds. Jake could see the bloody skin, and bones beneath the fabric. To Jake, it looked like some animal had eaten a big hole in the body.
Jake kneeled down next to the man, took off a glove, and reached down to check for a pulse, just to make sure. Nothing. Jake said a quick prayer, shook his head sadly and stood up. He looked around the office to see if there any other bodies, being careful to avoid stepping in the blood. When he moved around the side of the desk, he saw the fireman’s axe. He picked it up and took it with him as he left the office. As he passed through the doorway, he nodded to Murotomi, then resumed his walk down the right side of the corridor. The monk moved to the left side and paced Jake as they continued their search. Murotomi gripped the Bo staff lightly in his right hand and the nunchaku hung within easy reach around his neck.
They check five more offices all smoke and flame filled. They found another body in one, a woman’s, torn like the fireman’s, before they came to the last office door in the corridor. An emergency fire exit was about ten feet away, closed. Jake went to it and propped it open, then returned. The office door was made from thick, dark wood, that was lacquered and polished which looked expensive. There was a silver plaque on it that read executive dining room. It stood open a few inches and smoke curled out around the edges to swirl into the corridor. Jake’s sense told him the demon was in there. He looked over at Kaji to make sure he was ready. The monk nodded. Jake saw his eyes through the plastic lens of the mask and saw the determination there. He wondered briefly how his own face looked, then mentally shrugged and focused on the coming confrontation. He hefted the fire axe in his hand then pushed the door open far enough to get through. He took his helmet off and quickly looked around the edge of the door, making sure the demon wasn’t waiting in ambush.
When he saw that the immediate area was clear, he put the helmet on, tightened the straps to the mask, then, eased his way into the room. He waited for a moment as Murotomi followed him in, then looked around.
Although the room had a lot of smoke in it, it was not as thick as it had been in the corridor of the other offices. He could only see about fifteen to twenty meters around him. Jake saw six tables, small enough to fit two or three people, and a few larger tables for four or five, spread around the area. They had thickly cushioned chairs positioned around them. The room was only about twenty meters by twenty meters, with a six or seven meter high plaster ceiling that had track lighting fixtures to give light to the diners. There was thick, grey carpeting on the floor, and Jake could easily feel the difference between it and the carpeting in the corridor. Although he could see most of the room, the walls and corners were hazy, there were several objects and shoji screens that blocked his sight.
Jake walked into the room, his head moving slowly from side to side, keeping alert for any movement or anything out of place. His sense told him the demon was here in this room, so Jake was completely ready for a confrontation. He concentrated on the shoji screens in the two back corners of the room. They appeared to be the only things big enough to hide something human-sized. When he looked closer, he realized there were doors behind the screens, which he assumed led to the food preparation area. He looked over at Kaji, who was three meters away, and pointed to the two screens, indicating he should take the one on the left and Jake would go to the right.
The monk gave him the ok sign and moved toward the left while Jake headed toward the other one. They both arrived at the doors at the same time. Jake noticed that the shoji screen was made of silk and had a very beautifully painted scene of fishermen pulling a net full of fish from the sea. He also noticed that the door behind the screen was open and that was where the smoke was coming from. His breathing was fast and he felt a little queasy. He took a few calming breaths to steady himself. Unfortunately, the body he was in was not very fit or healthy and it didn’t help that all of the gear he was wearing weighed about forty pounds. He shrugged it off and moved into the doorway, then slid quietly around the corner.
The first thing he saw was that there was a grey non-slip floor. And there were small pools of red liquid spaced out in irregular spaces. Jake assumed the liquid was blood. He glanced to his left and made sure Kaji was there and had seen the blood. The monk nodded and moved towards a pair of ovens and stoves. Jake couldn’t see anything more in that direction because of the smoke. He looked to his front and saw two stainless steel prep tables, with a variety of equipment to them, including blenders, mixers and two industrial type microwave ovens. Beside the microwaves were wooden spice racks and metal racks filled with knives, ladles and other utensils.
Pots and pans hung from racks from the ceiling and were also stored neatly beneath the tables. As he started to walk around them, Jake heard a noise.
It was a woman’s voice.
“Please let us go!” It was followed by a fit of coughing, then a rumble of laughter.
Jake glanced over at Murotomi again. He saw through the pots and pans that the monk had heard the voice, and he knelt down, apparently in an effort to see under the rising smoke. He motioned for Jake to kneel down also. Jake did so and he could see ten feet further, but he didn’t like what he saw.
There was a large walk-in freezer in the back wall. Its’ door looked as if it had been torn off the hinges and was laying on the floor about ten feet to the right. Beside it, lay two bodies in a large puddle of blood.
There was a semi-circle of fire in front of the doorway that made it hard to see, but inside the freezer, Jake could see what he estimated were about a half dozen people, sitting on the floor. One woman, who was wearing a dark-coloured business suit, knelt inside the doorway, looking out. She held a wet cloth napkin over her mouth and nose in an effort to breathe better. Jake assumed that this was the woman who’d spoken a moment ago. His assumption was proved correct when the woman took the cloth from her face and repeated her earlier request. Jake was about to get up and try to help the people when he saw a movement to his left. He looked that way and his eyes widened.
A man walked out of the smoke and approached the doorway. At first glance, Jake thought the man was a fireman because he was dressed in a fire resistant uniform. The same uniform Jake and Murotomi were wearing. When Jake looked closer though, he noticed the man wasn’t wearing a hat, mask or oxy tank. He also wasn’t wearing any footwear. He walked through the chest-high flames as if they weren’t there at all. When the man got to the doorway, he turned to the woman and stood there. The rumbling laughter Jake had heard a few moments ago returned, followed by a voice.
“Shut up, whore!” You’re not getting out of here today.” To Jake’s ears, the voice started out normal, but then changed pitch to a deeper more guttural sound by the end. The man’s form also changed by the end of the sentence.
Jake watched and his breath became faster as a haze surrounded the man and changed what he looked like from an average sized human being to a demon.
The demon stood about eleven feet tall. Its’ skin was black with dark green splotches all over, and it had a very large pair of wings springing from its’ back. Unlike Crocell’s wings. Which had looked small and atrophied, these were full and looked as if they could be put to use and actually work. Jake realized that they would they would have to be his first target. As he thought this, Jake looked at the rest of the demon. Even though he’d seen Crocell and know this was a demon, its’ appearance still shocked him.
Besides the wings, it had four arms; two in the normal place, and two sprouting out beneath the rib cage. The skin looked slick, kind of like a scale-less fish’s, but not wet. It had what looked like small, very sharp fins running from mid-back to its’ waist. The biggest shock though, was that there was not a head on its’ shoulder. Jake grimaced in disgust as he saw a head, also black and green, and about normal human size with normal features except for the skin colour on a thick four or five-foot-long tail, that twitched from side to side like a cat’s.
When he got over his immediate feeling of disgust, Jake became a little confused. The head, even though it was small for a demon’s body, couldn’t hold the demon’s brain, or be used to see for that matter. For one, it was facing away from the front, and two, its’ eyes had been closed the entire time Jake had been watching it. That didn’t last long however.
Jake turned to Kaji to let him know the human fireman was the demon, using one of the pre-arranged signals they had practiced earlier. When he started to turn back to begin the attack on it, Jake’s mask slipped again and he inhaled a lung full of smoke. He coughed. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. He lifted his hand quickly to the straps and tightened them, the move made awkward by the axe in his hand. When he was done, he looked toward the demon, hoping it had not heard the noise.
That hope was quickly squashed.
The tail had stopped its’ twitching and was about a foot off the floor, facing in Jake’s direction with its’ eyes open. Jake stared at them a moment before springing into action. He didn’t like what he saw. The momentary impression that he got was that they were all red, although there could have been other colours in there. He didn’t care because he was running for the demon. He raised his axe and tried to strike as close to the right wing’s root as he could, but as he closed in on it, the wing spread and the demon turned. It hit Jake solidly in the mid-section and threw him back about fifteen feet. He slammed into one of the prep tables, causing his oxygen tank to clang when it struck a lower shelf and the metal leg. He didn’t know how he did it, but Jake shook off the effect of the blow and started to get up. He noticed he was still holding the axe. Then he saw Kaji running toward the demon who was focused on Jake and did not see him coming. The monk jumped through the ring of fire and struck the demon king, using the sanctified Bo staff. As he swung the staff in an arc, it glowed brightly, getting brighter as it got closer to the demon. When it actually struck the demon, the weapon flared brilliantly, causing Jake to raise his left hand to shade his eyes from the flare. He heard a solid thwack sound when it hit. The demon grunted from the impact and stumbled to the side, falling through the curtain of flames on Jake’s right. As soon as the demon king passed through, the flames decreased, not all of the way, but only a foot to two in height.
Kaji jumped through them and struck the Hell monster again, his Bo staff flashing as he attacked relentlessly. The demon king continued to stumble backwards as the blows landed. The monk was swinging the sanctified weapon so fast, Jake could only see a blur of motion, and it seemed that he was attacking from all directions at the same time. He was about to get up and try to attack the demon king from the side while it was distracted, but was stopped when he heard the woman who’d been in the freezer coughing. He looked over in that direction and saw the woman and five other people crawling out of the freezer.
Jake jumped up and ran to help to help them. He knelt down by the woman and asked if she knew where the fire exit was and asked if she could lead the others to it. She nodded her head. He looked in the woman’s eyes and saw fierce determination there. Jake told her to hold the next person’s hand, who Jake saw was a cook dressed in a cook’s outfit. To stay below the smoke and get out fast. He then led them all through the ring of fire, which by now was only a pale flickering on the tiled floor. He led them to the door of the kitchen, then watched as they made their way through the dining area and out the door. He sighed with relief, then turned back to help Kaji. When he got to the back of the kitchen, he stopped short. Jake saw that it had let its’ human form dissolve and its’ true form now stood revealed to all. The demon had Kaji on the floor, holding him two of its’ left arms and getting ready to plunge a large kitchen life into the struggling monk’s chest with one of its’ right hands. The other arm was limp. Jake guessed that Kaji had somehow disabled it. Jake also noticed the black mist that appeared around the demon similar to Crocell and the dozens of faces.
In the second or two Jake had before he reacted, he heard the demon saying something, but he didn’t pay attention. He lifted the fire axe and in one fluid motion, stepped forward and threw it with all his force at the centre of the demon king’s back.
The axe turned twice in the air and struck the demon six inches below the left wing root, making a meaty thumping sound when it hit. The force of the throw caused the axe head to penetrate the demon’s skin and sink in three or four inches.
As soon as the axe hit the demon, its’ three working arms spread wide, the muscles in its’ back contracted, and it screamed. The sound was loud and hideous; similar to what Jake heard from Crocell. It only lasted a moment however.
The demon king spun toward Jake, knocking Kaji in the side while turning. The monk slide across the floor and struck the wall. The sanctified Bo staff rolled across the floor and under a table.
Jake stared at him a moment, relieved when he saw the monk sit up and shake his head. When he turned his eyes back to the demon, he gasped in shock and disgust.
The demon had another face in the middle of its’ chest, and it was just as hideous as the rest of its’ body.
It had a snout like a crocodile, in the centre, just above where the sternum would be in a normal person, and it stuck out about three feet. They were slit-pupil like a crocodile’s too, but the slit was red and the eyes were sunk into the chest a few inches above the snout instead of being in the snout. Jake’s mouth went dry when those eyes focused on him and the snout opened, revealing hundreds of sharp, yellow teeth. Very large teeth. The demon reached behind its’ back with its’ lower left arm and pulled the axe out of its’ back. Jake heard a wet, sucking sound as the fireman’s tool came out of the demon’s skin. The demon moved slowly toward Jake, the axe in its’ lower left hand and the kitchen knife in its’ upper right hand. As it moved, it spoke to Jake.
“So, you’re a demon stalker, eh?” Its’ eyes assessed Jake, looking him up and down.
“You don’t look like much to me.” Its’ lips peeled back from the teeth and Jake heard more than saw the sneer in its’ voice.
Jake was momentarily surprised that the demon knew what he was but then understood when he felt an intrusion in his mind; something foreign, unclean. Jake immediately closed his mind to the demon. He didn’t know how he did it; it was instinctive, natural.
The demon stopped seven feet away from Jake, far enough away from Jake to be out of Jake’s immediate striking range, but close enough to strike Jake if it took a step forward and reached out with the axe. Jake clearly measured the distance and reached down to the knife at his side, placing his hand on the handle but not pulling it out of the sheath.
The demon noticed the movement but ignored it.
“So, Jake Steele,” it said. “I see you can block me from your mind. Let’s see if you can also block pain.”
As soon as the demon said the word, pain, Jake felt excruciating agony throughout his entire body. Jake had experienced pain before, but nothing like this. It felt like all of the nerves in his body were on fire. His eyes, his nose, his ears, mouth, even his heart hurt. The pain was so intense he couldn’t think straight. He fell to his knees and had a flashback.
He was back in Afghanistan, in the clearing just after the claymores had torn his men apart. He could smell the smoke in the air around him and the odor of burnt flesh stuck in the back of his throat. He looked around. Dead bodies surrounded him. Severed arms, legs, heads laying all over the clearing. Torsos were split open and entrails were spilled over the ground, their contents splattering the grass around them like a macabre painting.
Jake stood there a moment, stunned, then saw a movement in front of him. It was an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Jake reached for his rifle, but it was gone. He then reached for his pistol and pulled it out of the holster, only to find it was a knife. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned savagely, then ran toward the terrorist.
When he got close, Jake thrust the knife at the enemy, intending to disembowel him but the man moved quickly to the side to avoid the blade. Jake pivoted and sent a kick to the man’s left leg, intending to break it and get him on the ground. He struck the leg, but the man moved at the last second and it was only a glancing blow. The man skipped back when Jake adjusted his grip on the knife and tried to slash him across the mid-section. That’s when Jake saw the knife and axe. His instincts made him move quickly.
He feinted for another strike at the left side of the mid-section, then when the man moved to block, Jake changed his swing and slashed at the man’s arm. The move worked. He cut a deep gash in the bicep and the man dropped the axe and screamed. Before Jake could press his advantage however, Jake was hit from the side; a massive blow that threw him several feet in the air. He landed on the floor, tumbled and rolled four or five times before coming to a stop against a wall. He lost his mask and oxygen tank during the tumble and started coughing when he inhaled smoke. That’s when he came back to his senses and realized he was in an office building in Japan and not in Afghanistan. Another thing he realized was that the pain the demon had been projecting at him was gone. That was the good news. The bad news was that the demon was coming toward him, and he looked angry.
As Jake struggled to get up, he noticed that the demon’s upper left arm, the one that had been holding the axe, had a deep cut in the crook, just above the elbow joint where the bicep muscle joined the forearm. Blood, dark and vicious, flowed from the cut and down the forearm to the hand, where it dripped from the demon’s clawed fingers onto the floor. As it walked, it’s clawed feet scraped on the non-slip tiles.
When the demon got to within a few feet, Jake tried to lunge forward in an effort to try to cut the demon’s Achilles tendon. He figured if he could disable one of its’ legs, the demon might be easier to fight. Unfortunately, the demon saw it coming, and it moved faster than Jake.
It kicked Jake’s forearm. The blow was so hard that it knocked the knife from his hand. Jake heard the sanctified weapon clatter against the wall and strike the ground somewhere beside him. It put its’ knees on Jake’s thighs and grasped his throat with its’ right hand. It pinned Jake’s right arm to the ground with its’ good left hand. The other two arms were limp and hung down from the demon’s centre to lay on the floor beside Jake’s waist. Jake struggled to get free, but even with the two arms the demon was too strong.
While Jake was struggling to get lose, the demon crouched over Jake, its’ eyes watching Jake’s face and its’ snout only inches from Jake’s chest. It spoke.
“Well, Jake Steele, Demon Stalker, it looks like you’re not so good at your job now are you?” It chuckled evilly. Jake gagged as he smelled the foul breath coming from the beast’s mouth. He turned his head to the side to try to avoid it.
“So, what am I going to do with you, little man? Should I eat you?” It opened its’ mouth wide and Jake’s heart rate doubled. His breathing rattled raggedly in his chest as he looked inside the evil beast’s throat. He shuddered in disgust when he saw pieces of shredded, bloody skin and clothes sticking between some of the teeth. He struggled with all of his might to get free, twisting, turning, even trying to gouge out the creature’s eyes with his free left hand, but the demon just closed its’ eye lids when he got too close. They were thick and too hard to penetrate. He tried hitting its’ ribs and smashing its’ snout, but only hurt his hand. He started to shove his hand in the demon’s mouth in a desperate attempt to grab at its’ tongue in an effort to hurt the demon, maybe enough to get it to flinch enough for Jake to work his way loose somehow, when an idea suddenly occurred to him.
“Before you—“ His voice cracked because his mouth was dry. He coughed and tried again. “Before you eat me demon, I have two questions for you.” He held his breath, hoping the demon’s curiosity and ego would compel it to stop in order to listen to Jake’s questions.
It did. The demon moved back about a foot and stared at Jake, its’ eye lids covering half of the slit eyes.
“And what would those be,” It said suspiciously.
“The first question is, what is your name?”
A look of surprise came into the demon’s eyes for a moment, then it chuckled again. “Why do you want to know my name, human? That won’t prevent me from eating you!”
“Well, if it won’t prevent you from eating me, what’s the harm in telling me,” Jake asked.
“Alright, I’ll play along,” the demon said. “My name is Orias. Are you satisfied, Jake Steele?”
Jake nodded and started to say something, but the demon king stopped him before he could speak.
“Now, what was your second question?” It stared intensely at Jake and Jake swallowed, remembering to concentrate on keeping his mind closed to Orias thoughts.
“My second question, Orias,” he spoke slowly trying to keep the demon’s attention. “is, why would you want to kill me when you know I’ll be coming back in a new body; one that you won’t recognize, and probably with more weapons. What kind of sense does that make? You’re a demon king, you’ve got to be smarter than that.”
Orias stared at Jake for a few moments that seemed like an eternity to Jake, then answered the question.
“You know, Demon Stalker, you’re not as dumb as you look.” It moved back a foot while still holding Jake’s arm and throat. It stared at Jake for a moment, then smiled.
Jake had a bad feeling.
“I have a better idea,” it said. “A much better idea.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that,” Jake asked.
“Instead of releasing your spirit to return in another body, I’m going to bind it to this body so that when I kill you, your spirit will stay with me for eternity, like the others that are here now.” It briefly released Jake’s right arm to gesture to the spirits surrounding it in the mist. Before Jake could react and think of what to do with his right hand Orias pinned it again, then simultaneously started humming and chanting strange, guttural sounds.
As soon as Jake heard the sounds, he felt a strange tightness inside him, a feeling that increased as the demon king continued to chant. The feeling of tightness was joined by a sudden overwhelming surge of claustrophobia, as if everything was closing in on him. His body started shaking intensely and became filled with pain. His back arced and he screamed uncontrollably for what seemed like hours when that chanting and the pain suddenly stopped. It took him a few moments to recover enough to realize that the weight on top of him was gone.
Jake looked up, to see Kaji had recovered, found the sanctified Bo staff, and engaged the demon king in combat.
Kaji moved with fluid grace and speed of a martial artist master, matching up with the superior strength and speed of Orias.
The monk slashed at the demon king’s side in an attempt to slash the ribs in between the lower and upper arms. Orias stepped back, twisted and aimed and outstretched wing at Kaji’s face. The monk ducked and dove to the demon’s right, rolled once, jumped to his feet and pivoted while slashing at Orias’ right leg. The demon king moved, causing the Bo staff to land only to land a glancing blow to the calf. The sanctified weapon flashed brilliantly, and although the hit was only slight, it staggered Orias, and the demon king fell to one knee.
Kaji moved in, trying to disable the demon’s right wing with an overhand strike, but Orias leaped backwards, twisted and struck the monk in the chest with the back of its’ right fist. Kaji saw the blow coming and managed to move with it to lessen the impact, although the demon king’s strength was that it still knocked the monk back a few feet. He didn’t seem too badly affected though, because he jumped back toward the creature and struck again, this time by thrusting the staff at the demon king’s torso in an effort to strike its’ face, maybe trying to penetrate the creature’s brain. Jake’s heart momentarily sped up, hoping the monk would kill it and end the battle.
Orias quickly twisted to the side and snapped its’ snout at the staff, catching it in its’ mouth and holding it there for a moment. Jake thought for a moment it was going to try to break the sanctified weapon, but he didn’t factor in the strength of the staff or the speed of Kaji Murotomi.
The monk stepped sideways and yanked the staff hard to his left. The staff flared bright as the sun and Jake heard the crunching sound of several teeth breaking form Orias jaw. Kaji pulled the staff from the demon king’s snout but was stopped when Orias surprisingly grabbed the end of the staff with its’ left claw. The staff glowed brightly again and Jake saw smoke coming from the demon’s jaw and from the hand that held the sanctified weapon. The demon yanked on the staff in an effort to get the monk off balance, but Kaji was much too experienced for such a move, and he had a surprise move of his own.
As Orias pulled, Kaji pushed and twisted. The staff came apart in the centre. Creating two separate four-foot long Jo-sticks, a Japanese weapon which was usually used in pairs, similar to Philippino fighting sticks. Orias was momentarily surprised and this caused the demon king to hesitate. Kaji quickly took advantage of the hesitation. In one fluid motion that he must have practiced thousands of times, the monk turned sideways, placed his palm on the bottom of the staff. And shoved it forward into the demon king’s left eye. Jake saw the eye lid close reflectively to protect the eye, but it didn’t help. When the staff touched the demon king’s flesh, it blazed with divine light and penetrated the eye lid as if it were a piece of paper. The light was accompanied by heat that just as easily destroyed the creature’s eye. This brought an immediate action.
Before Kaji could press his advantage and push the staff farther in to penetrate the demon king’s brain, Orias struck the monk in his chest with one hand and pulled the staff out of its’ eye with the other. The staff continued to blaze with divine light until the demon dropped it to the floor, where it joined the other piece of the staff. Kaji flew backwards until he struck the wall and fell to the ground in a limp about five feet from Jake. The force of the blow was so strong, he didn’t know if the monk had survived or not. Jake stared at him for a moment and was relieved to see the man’s chest move as he breathed. As he stared at Kaji, the demon suddenly put its’ claws on its’ ruined eyes and screamed in pain.
Jake tore his gaze from the monk, jumped to his feet, and ran to attack the demon, keeping to the side of its’ ruined eye to prevent being seen. When he was within striking distance, Jake lunged forward and thrust the sanctified knife in an underhanded grip towards the creature’s upper stomach, intending to penetrate its’ body just below the jaw and thrust up either into the brain or heart, whichever organ was there.
Unfortunately, the heart’s reflexes were too fast.
The demon king somehow saw the motion and lashed out, striking Jake’s forearm with its’ left hand. The force of the blow was so strong, it broke his two wrist bones, separated Jake’s shoulder, and drove him to his knees. The knife flew out of Jake’s hand, sailed over the demon king’s shoulder, and was lost in the smoky room. Jake heard it hit a metallic surface then clatter to the floor about the same pain from his broken forearm and separated shoulder hit him.
Struggling to breath in the smoky room and ignoring the intense pain, Jake reached down with his good right arm, grabbed the shortened staff laying in front of him and slammed it into the demon’s lower back, near where a human’s kidney would be. The staff blazed with light again and a puff of smoke appeared where the staff struck the skin.
The demon king grunted and turned toward Jake while stepping back a few paces. It looked at Jake for a few moments, panting in o