Dogs of War

by Geonn Cannon

  "If this is about someone going berserk, I can't help. It's this wolfsbane shit--" He looked past Gwyneth and saw the gore in the backseat. "Good Lord. Open the door. Now!"

  Mia opened the van's door as Frost ran around and clambered inside. He scanned the women in the van before he found Dale. "Miss Frye, my bag is inside the house underneath the coatrack in the foyer. Get it, now, please."

  Dale went to retrieve the bag. As she burst into the foyer, a woman with brown hair that had started fading to an elegant pale silver appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Aaron... oh my God..."

  "I'm a friend," Dale said, unable to think of anything else to say as she grabbed the bag and ran back outside. The others had thrown on clothes and gotten out of the van to give the doctor a chance to work, with Mia sagging against Milo and sobbing against her shoulder. Dale delivered the bag and saw the woman had followed her outside. Frost reached back for the bag, saw the woman, and gave an apologetic shrug.

  "Sorry about this, Caroline. Not exactly the most romantic evening in the world."

  "Shut up and tell me what you need," the woman said as she climbed into the van with him.

  Gwyneth moved to stand next to the door. "Do you have an office inside where we can take her?"

  "I don't feel comfortable moving her any more than necessary."

  "Did you see the damage on the front of this van? Trust me, you don't want it sitting in your driveway any longer than necessary."

  He grimaced and looked over his shoulder. "All right... someone go inside and open the garage door. I have an emergency room in there. And I'm going to need blood donors. Are any of you matches?"

  Milo and Paige raised their hands.

  "Congratulations, you've just been nominated as canteens."

  Dale had been inside the house before, so she ran for the garage. She turned on the light and found a neatly-appointed medical center with wood paneling and a glass case full of beautiful medical equipment. She punched the button and the door began rising as Frost and his date-slash-assistant began preparing Hannah to be moved. Caroline came to retrieve a gurney, and together with the wolves they transferred their fallen comrade onto it and carried her into the garage. He gently lowered her onto the bed and then looked at the group gathering around him.

  "Out. Unless I need to suck your blood or you're helping with the surgery, I need you out of here."

  Milo hooked her hand on Mia's arm. "C'mon..."

  Mia shrugged her off without looking. "I'm not going anywhere."

  "You're not going to be any good to her here. You'll just get in the doctor's way, and he's already working in less-than-ideal conditions. Give him a little space. Paige and I will be right here for her. She'd want you to take care of yourself."

  Mia looked down at her partner. "Her name is Hannah Milsap. She..." Her voice caught in her throat. "Her name is Hannah."

  Caroline looked up sympathetically. "We'll take very good care of Hannah for you, dear. But now you should go and let us work."

  Mia reluctantly allowed herself to be led into the house by Dale and Gwyneth. They put down the garage door and left the doctor to his work, then focused on their own emergency. The police were looking for the van at that very moment, and the backseat of the van was full of a poison that would turn every person in the house, with the exception of Dale and possibly Dr. Frost's date, into homicidal maniacs.

  "We need to get rid of the van," Gwyneth said. "And the wolfsbane."

  "That's easier said than done," Mia said, her voice still shaking. "We don't know how to safely dispose of the stuff, and I for one am not eager to experiment. If we burn it, the smoke might still affect us. We can't dispose of it in the water because then it might get into the water supply. If it doesn't get filtered out..."

  Gwyneth held up a hand to stop the speculation. "We have a time bomb on our hands. Getting rid of the van is job one. We might not know how to get rid of the wolfsbane, but losing a vehicle should be easy enough. Mia, any suggestions?"

  Mia was staring at the closed garage door.

  "Detective Cohen!" Mia's shoulders jumped and she finally faced them. "I understand what you're feeling right now. You're not going to help her by standing there catatonic. We need to find a way to get rid of the van."

  Mia nodded and pushed her hands through her hair. "Is there, um. Is there any sort of construction site nearby?"

  Dale had to think for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah. There are a few."

  "Then we should get there as soon as possible. We can dump the van, use bleach to take care of any physical evidence we might have left behind, and hopefully it won't be discovered for a while."

  Gwyneth went down the hall, turning on lights as she went. She returned in a few minutes with two buckets of laundry bleach. "Will this be enough?"

  "It'll do," Mia said.

  Gwyneth said, "Okay. Let's go."

  Mia shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here until Hannah wakes up."

  "Mia..."

  "Stop being selfish." Mia and Gwyneth both looked at Dale. "Your girlfriend was hurt badly, but you know where she is. She's right through there being tended to by a doctor. Ariadne is... Ari was there, too. She was amid all the gunfire and she was surrounded by hunters the last time I saw her. If they happened to see me, they are going to have a lot of tough questions for her. I doubt they'll ask nicely. But I'm not going to help her by sitting here wringing my hands together. Hannah is in good hands. Her friends are here. You'll do her more good by coming with us and covering our tracks."

  Mia nodded slowly.

  "Excellent," Gwyneth said. "We should go soon. We don't want to run into any roadblocks."

  Dale held up two fingers and closed her eyes as she thought about the neighborhood. "When we leave here, we should go north. There are roads that go through the park. We can take one of those to the nearest construction site without running into any cops."

  Gwyneth said, "Are you positive?"

  "I don't want to get caught in a blood-drenched van any more than you do. I'm sure." She put her hand on Mia's arm. "Dr. Frost will call me as soon as he knows something, or Milo and Paige will call you. But the longer we stay here, the longer we keep this van here, the better chance we'll be caught."

  Mia nodded. "Okay. Yeah."

  They went outside and Gwyneth checked the street for signs of police. When she declared it clear, they climbed into the van. Mia didn't want to sit on the blood-soaked middle seat, so she crouched between the driver and passenger seats. Dale gave Gwyneth the first few turns and closed her eyes as they reached the park and drove into the dark tunnel created by the canopy overhead. Her heart pounded as the adrenaline of the past hour was beginning to wear off and leave her weary. She slumped against the door and tried breathing exercises to calm herself.

  "I saw what you did back there," Mia said softly.

  Dale opened her eyes and looked at her. "Me? I just tried to talk some sense into you. I hope I didn't come off as cold or bitchy..."

  "No, not that. And it was fine, by the way. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Hannah would have cheered." She smiled weakly and looked out the windshield. "I meant that I saw what you did during the ambush. You ran into the line of fire to save her. To pull her into the van. You didn't have to do that."

  "Milo and Gwen were in wolf form, and you and Paige had your hands full. I was the only one who could get her to safety. You would have done the same for Ari."

  "Yeah, because she's a wolf. I don't know if I would have done the same for you. I'm a cop, and I think I would have just kept running if it was you." She met Dale's eye. "I wouldn't now, though. No matter what happens in that garage, whatever small chance she has of surviving is down to you. Thank you, Dale." She held out her hand, her slender fingers shaking from emotion or an excess of adrenaline.

  Dale took her hand and squeezed. "I'm just glad I was there."

  "You said you saw Ariadne there as well," Gwyneth said. "I didn't."

/>   "She was okay so far as I could tell. She was the only one not bleeding when they got back in the van."

  There wasn't an obvious reaction from Ari's mother, but Dale thought she saw a lessening in the tension around Gwyneth's lips. She looked out at the road, grateful for the lack of traffic as they drove through the dark streets of quiet neighborhoods with only the rattle of the van's engine breaking the silence. Dale looked over her shoulder at the coolers stacked on the back seat of the van and realized the sad truth of the night's events. Despite her shell-shock, despite Mia's near catatonic worry over her partner, and Hannah's touch and go condition, in the end they had won.

  It was a hell of a victory march.

  #

  Chase had gotten back into the van in time to promptly pass out, and Lorne pulled a first-aid kit out of the glove compartment as Ari drove. She had taken two wrong turns, been ‘forced' onto a one-way street, and ended up hopefully miles away from wherever Dale and her mother had fled. Lorne cursed and punched the seat with his uninjured hand with every turnaround and reversal, and Ari helplessly lifted her fingers off the wheel.

  "Look, if you think it's easy to chase one car while avoiding every police officer in Seattle, be my guest."

  "I told you, I can deal with them if we get stopped. It would have wasted less time than you driving all over creation."

  Ari bared her teeth. "I'm trying, all right?"

  Lorne grunted. He had taken off his bloody jacket and had wrapped his right forearm with gauze. One of the wolves that had jumped into the back of the van disarmed him by trying to take a chunk out of his wrist. He looked up and caught her staring. "Eyes on the road, Willow. It's just a flesh wound."

  "It's a canidae bite." Ari didn't have to hide the concern in her voice.

  "Doesn't mean anything. Not every bite kills. Just keep your eye on the road."

  Ari knew the truth. A bite from a canidae infected the victim and confused their biology enough that it tried to transform. The urge could be fought for a while, but eventually the need became too strong and the transformation took over. The eventual surrender was partly to blame for the ‘full moon' myth that got tossed around werewolf stories. A fully-grown person trying to transform for the first time was a messy sight to behold; there was a reason canidae underwent their first change during puberty. Their bodies had to be taught how to shift out of one form and into the other without leaving them crippled or deformed.

  Judging by the amount of blood on Lorne's clothes, the bite was deep enough and bad enough that he was infected. It was only a matter of time before his body lost the fight against the infection and he tried to transform into a wolf with dire consequences.

  "Damn it, we're not going to find the bastards." Lorne grunted and pulled his sleeve down over the bandage. "Look, Willow, when we get to where we're going... Chase is the only one that got bitten. Understand me?"

  She glanced at him. "You can't hide that."

  "Watch me. Broken glass all over the place, damn dogs were shooting at us. I can explain away a bandage easy enough."

  "Lorne..."

  "Ariadne. Look, by the time I give in to this, wolf manoth is going to be over anyway. If I tell the big guy I'm compromised, he's going to lock me in a room. I'll be useless to the fight. Let me go down doing what I'm supposed to do, not locked up in a room with a bunch of doctors waiting for me to twist myself into a pretzel, okay?"

  She slowed at a red light and finally nodded. "Mum's the word."

  "Thanks."

  "How bad is Chase?"

  Lorne looked into the back. He sighed and his voice took on a note of sadness. "He's not going to make it. The wolves tore him to pieces."

  While he was trying to kill them, while he was transporting a poison... She wisely kept her mouth shut and focused on the road ahead. "Where are we going?"

  "Drive toward Safeco. You know where that is?"

  "Why, because a woman can't be into baseball?"

  "That's not what I meant."

  Ari said, "Come on, Lorne. Don't give up flirting just because you have a little scratch."

  He chuckled weakly. "All right. And yeah. In my experience, I'd be much safer using dress shops as landmarks than the Mariners."

  Ari said, "I'll have you know I love the Mariners. I'm a big hockey fan. They're the hockey ones, right?" She decided to take advantage of his weakened condition to see how much he had noticed during the fracas. "I didn't get an accurate count on how many wolves hit us be there. You?"

  "Ah," he grunted and shook his head. "Five, I think. Can't be sure. Two of them were still wearing their human suits."

  "So two humans and three in wolf form?"

  "You got a different count?"

  Ari shook her head. "That fits with what I thought I saw. One of them knocked me on my ass. Don't know why it didn't rip me to pieces like it did you and Chase."

  "Maybe it thought you were too pretty to mess up."

  Ari scoffed. "Sure."

  "You are, though," he said, resting his head against the glass. "You're very pretty, Willow."

  "You're very pretty yourself, Detective Lorne. You could lose the beard, though."

  He reached over with his free hand and patted her leg, his hand lingering on her thigh long after the time had come to move it. She looked down at it, looked at him to see he'd passed out, and sighed. She moved the hand before she smacked his arm to wake him up.

  "I still need to know where we're going. You can sleep when we get there."

  "Right." He shifted in his seat and sat up straighter.

  He gave her directions into the industrial district, past warehouse stores and tall electrical transformers connected by wires that hung between them like thin strands of ivy in a technological forest. He guided her to the parking lot of a taxi company and told her to park the van behind the fleet of blue-and-green cabs. She parked nose-in next at the end of the row and climbed out. Lorne put his jacket on to cover the bandage on his arm, then he and Ari checked on Chase to find he hadn't survived the trip.

  "Damn. All right, one more thing for Huxley to be pissed off about, I guess. Come on."

  They left Chase's body and Ari let him lead her to the side entrance. The interior was a sprawling garage with a half dozen of the Alki Emerald Cab vehicles in the midst of repair work filling the space. Ari realized how easily the backseats could be coated with wolfsbane. Any canidae that caught a ride would end up catching something else. She added cab rides to the list of luxuries she could put off until February.

  An office was attached to the top of the wall where the owner could literally oversee his fleet, and the man who had been sitting inside of it quickly descended the stairs to meet them as soon as they came in. He was at least in his sixties but he looked as solid as a retired football player. When he reached the floor he charged toward them with his fists balled at his sides, and Ari braced herself for an attack despite being half the man's age.

  "What the hell happened out there, Kyle?"

  "The wolves fucking hit the transport. They were waiting for us. I don't know how, but they were on top of us as soon as we left the building. We saw one trap, but the other..."

  The man looked at Ari. "Who is that?"

  "Ariadne Willow. She's the private investigator who has been helping us the past few weeks. Ari, this is Patrick Huxley. He's in charge of the Pacific Northwest."

  "Where's Chase?"

  "Dead. Wolves got him."

  Huxley grimaced. "And the wolfsbane?"

  Lorne reluctantly shook his head. "They got it. All the coolers."

  Ari expected anger and thought she had anticipated violence, but she was still unprepared for the roundhouse punch the man threw. Lorne was also unprepared, taking it punch on his chin and dropping as if his legs had been cut out from under him.

  "Do you know how long we've been stockpiling that shit? How long it's taken us to get the amount we had in that lab? We moved it on your word, exposed the entire operation because you said it
was compromised, and now all we have it whatever our boys are carrying in their pockets? You'd better give me a damn good reason not to cut my losses and put a bullet in your head right now."

  Lorne stayed down, one hand rubbing his jaw where he'd been punched. "I saw the wolves who took the ‘bane. I can track them down and get it back."

  "You really think they're going to keep it around?"

  "I think they're going to have a hell of a time disposing of it without risking exposure. If we move fast enough this doesn't have to be a total loss. In addition we'll find out who the hell these wolves are working with. They were far too coordinated for it to have just been dumb luck. They had the attack all thought out."

  Huxley snorted. "That doesn't sound like any wolf I've ever seen."

  "It is what it is, boss."

  Huxley looked at Ari. "You, I don't know. How do I know you're not working with the wolves?"

  "She's unaffiliated." Lorne worked his jaw back and forth. "She was trained by her mother so she didn't get brought into any clubs." He looked at her and explained. "Membership goes through the father."

  "I guess that's another reason there aren't many huntresses."

  "That, and the fact women make lousy hunters," Huxley said. "Let me see your phone. I don't want you contacting anyone about this place."

  Ari rolled her eyes and took out her phone, arching her eyebrow when she realized Milo's tackle had indeed caused some damage. She showed the shattered screen to Huxley and shrugged. "Looks like I won't be contacting anyone for a while even if I had your permission."

  Huxley said, "Where did you leave Chase?"

  "He's in the back of the van."

  "Are you hurt? You have blood on you."

  "I had to get Chase up into the van. Plus I managed to wing one of the wolves as they were getting away. I think it was a kill shot."

  "Oh, good. ‘You think'. Well, as long as you think you got one of them, it all evens out perfectly." He sighed and shook his head. "Go home, Kyle. We'll clean up your mess. Call tomorrow and let us know if you've tracked down the wolves or if you've decided to go one more day without putting one in the win column. Get out of here."