Dogs of War

by Geonn Cannon

  Dale raised an eyebrow. "Moving into a new apartment together, now you're putting the agency in my name. You sure you want to go all-in like this with me?"

  Ari sighed and brought Dale's hand to her mouth to kiss the knuckles. "I'm not tying you into everything. I'm making everything tied to you so you can't get away from me. The alternative is losing the agency, going back out on the street, working at Zeeks Pizza just to have a little cash in my pocket. That's if I don't freeze to death one of the nights the wolf decides to take me halfway to Oregon when I let it off the leash. You made my life while you were saving it, Dale, and if I thought it was the right choice for us, I'd ask you to marry me."

  Dale stared at her for a long time. "If I thought it was the right choice, I'd say yes."

  Ari smiled and raised an eyebrow as she brushed her cheek against Dale's hand. "That's good information to have. You know, for future reference."

  "Give me back my hand."

  "No." Ari put Dale's hand on her thigh and covered it with her own so it couldn't be quickly extricated. Dale chuckled and squeezed Ari's thigh through her jeans and accepted the theft as she used the GPS tracker with her other hand. Ari watched her for a while before she focused on the street in case Lorne came out but left his gun at home. It seemed unlikely but possible and she didn't want to miss him if he did. The plan was for Dale to be ready to follow in the car while Ari could follow on foot if vehicular pursuit wasn't possible.

  She had worked with a partner while earning her work experience to get her license. It was a necessary evil but, when she moved on to her own agency, she had made a vow she would work alone like her boss and mentor Glory had. She hadn't anticipated how necessary it would be to share the load, how impossible it would be to do everything without help. She'd managed for a few weeks before Dale came along but there was no doubt in her mind it was a downhill slope toward failure. The only difference between crashing and soaring was the arrival of Dale in her life.

  "He's moving," Dale said.

  Ari looked at the screen and saw the little blue bauble had moved slightly closer to the bottom of the screen. Dale said, "It keeps going from side to side. Judging from the scale and the position in the building, I think he's going downstairs."

  Ari climbed between the seats and quickly shed her clothes. Dale glanced back as Ari stripped out of her bra, taking the handful of clothes she was passed and looked to make sure no one was paying attention as Ari began to transform. Ari rolled through the transformation and dropped onto all fours as the change completed. She shook herself to ruffle her fur, bared her teeth, then waited as Dale reached back to open the door for her.

  "Give ‘em hell, puppy."

  Ari chuffed, bounced her head, and trotted down the street. They had parked next to a stone retaining wall and Ari leapt to the grassy slope in a single bound. She moved through the trees, keeping the street in view as she moved into position. She crouched down and watched the front door of Lorne's building. As Dale predicted, he wasn't carrying his keys; he was smart enough to not risk driving in his current condition. He looked up and down the street before he lurched to the south. Ari gave him a good head start before she began loping after him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When she was certain she wouldn't be needed to follow Lorne across town, Dale took out her phone and got online. Ari was so focused on Keighley and Lorne, the men who had personally betrayed her, that she'd forgotten about the man Lorne took her to meet immediately following the robbery. Fortunately she had a secretary who was willing to pick up the slack. Dale smiled at the thought as she accessed the file she'd been working on the past few days.

  Patrick Huxley was Lorne's superior in some way, shape, or form. He was the one who received the report of the accident so Dale figured it would be handy to know more about him. So far she'd discovered he was a bigwig in the Seattle elite. He owned the Alki Emerald Cab Company, a fleet of sixty cars that served the greater Seattle area. She recalled having seen the cars lined up outside the airport on a few occasions, and the blue-and-green cars were a common sight around town. He frequently made the news for donations to schools and education, and she found a photo of him smiling as he handed over a check to a teachers' association.

  "Beware the smiling snakes," she muttered to herself. She dug a little deeper and checked anything connecting Huxley with Keighley. They were both well-off, so it stood to reason there might be some kind of affiliation between the two. Five minutes later she found what she was looking for. Both men were part of a business association that also supported the Police Athletic League. A quick scan of the PAL website revealed Kyle Lorne was a member.

  Dale went back to the association's roster. "Huxley, Keighley... Beck, Vance, Levitt, Wakefield, Warwick." She chewed her bottom lip and chose a name at random off the list. The man whose name was in the middle of the list she found, a Mr. Colin Vance Esquire, who worked at Microsoft in some capacity. She read his title and job description and still wasn't entirely sure what his job entailed, but that wasn't important. What she needed was personal information about the man, his hobbies and affiliations, and she found a bio for him on a site for business professionals that listed his hobbies.

  "Enjoys the great outdoors... I bet he does." She scrolled through his photo album and found a picture of him standing in a snowy field with a rifle resting on his right shoulder. He was decked out in the finest hunting gear, and clearly visible on the lapel of his reflective jacket was the logo for K1 Sport Gear. She checked the names of the other men and discovered they were also high-level, also loved the outdoors, and according to their online portfolios, they all seemed to shop at Keighley's sporting goods store. They all had ties to the police department. Dale tracked the information in a file and, when she was finished, she looked at the seven men she'd identified.

  Two restaurateurs, a politician, a mass transit leader, a police officer, and the CEO of the Orarian Group. Dale could almost see the web between them, and she understood how they had used their influence to manufacture and spread the wolfsbane across the city. They had all the power and the reach, but the war had just shrunk from every hunter in the Pacific Northwest to seven men who were pulling the strings.

  Dale sent the information she'd gathered to Gwyneth and backed up the file in her own email. She had gotten the addresses of the seven men and decided she would check them out while Ari was tracking Lorne. Her first stop would be Huxley to see if she could tell how he was dealing with the lack of wolfsbane. She would do reconnaissance on the other men she'd just discovered and, when Ari was ready to be picked up, the information would be available for her to do with as she wished. The wolfsbane was already out of play. Keighley was on the run, Lorne wasn't long for the world, and she had a feeling the other hunters were going to quickly lose their will to fight once it became clear the wolves wouldn't just lie down and accept their fate as victims.

  The hunters had gotten almost a full week of their wolf manoth. She would be damned if she let them have an entire month. The wolves had spent the past six days running, but it was time to turn and take the fight to their enemy instead of waiting for the enemy to come to them.

  #

  The building rose up from the surrounding greenery like a medieval fortress, an Art Deco tower that peeked above the treetops to look out over Puget Sound. Lorne's walk had been brief, but it was marked by frequent stops for him to catch his breath that allowed Ari to keep up with him. Now she could tell he had finally arrived at his destination by his suddenly cautious body language. He stopped to make sure he wasn't being observed, overlooking the wolf crouched in the park half a block away before he crossed the parking lot to the main entrance.

  Ari waited until he was inside before she closed the distance. The property was surrounded by a waist-high wall topped by a wrought-iron fence. The two stone columns that flanked the driveway had plaques, one which presented the building's street address and the other gave the name of the building as The Venatorial Club, est.
950. Most people probably assumed it was a mistake on the engraver's part, but she knew the plaque referred to the first historic hunt that created hunters in the first place.

  She slipped around the gate, hyper-alert for sounds she had been spotted as she crossed the open grass to the landscaped trees that would serve as cover so she could get closer to the building. The small private woods concealed a parking lot from view, and she saw two cars parked close to the building, along with an Orarian Group van that was parked at the far end of the lot. She ran along the side of the building, aware of each window she passed. She sniffed near both cars and identified that one belonged to her father before she continued on.

  When she reached the door she closed her eyes and focused. She had done the trick that morning to convince Diana her story was true, but doing it again required effort. The bones of her left forepaw stretched and cracked until it was a woman's hand, the thick fur closing in around her wrist. Her fingernails were still smudged gray and black as if they were still claws. Her hand ached as she stretched the fingers and lifted her hand like a dog offering to shake. She gripped the knob with effort, twisted, and pushed the door open.

  The room in which she found herself reeked of spices and the ghost of long-served meals but currently stood empty. She let her hand transform back into a paw, a slightly less painful alternative to leaving herself half-changed as she crossed the floor. As a wolf it was easier to remain unseen behind the kitchen islands in case someone came in looking for a snack. She crossed to the kitchen's entrance and listened to the sounds of the house. Her father's voice boomed through the wood-paneled corridors and she paused to determine the difference between source and echo before she turned to track it. There corridor from the kitchen led through an empty dining room and out into a wide receiving area that included the foyer. Lorne and Keighley were on the other side of the foyer in the den, and Ari stayed low as she crept past the foot of the stairs and slipped into the shadows behind the credenza.

  "Tell me you understand that," Keighley said.

  After a long pause, Lorne said, "If she was, then consider it mission accomplished. She wants us scared, we're scared. It was great while we were sitting around here smoking cigars and talking about how we were going to confirm our position at the top of the food chain. But this is reality. People are dying, people we care about are dying. You can't tell me you're still excited about how this is all going down."

  Keighley said, "People we care about? You mean Ariadne?"

  "Your daughter, apparently? I mean, holy shit, Jake. You didn't think to mention that?"

  "I didn't know until I saw her. She does look very much like her mother."

  Lorne was quiet for another long beat. "You know, maybe you were the wrong person to bring this to."

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "I mean, Christ. You raped a woman because she was a wolf. Surely you have to see that was crossing a goddamn line."

  Ari heard the clink of glasses. "A woman, sure. I would be horrified at the idea of someone violating a woman in that matter. Gwyneth Willow is a wolf."

  "And that means less than human."

  "Yes. You've heard them howling about how they are canidae. They consider themselves a different species. Left unchecked, these animals will overrun cities, they will become powerful, and then we will be the ones running because we lack the ability to transform. We cannot allow them to advance beyond us."

  Lorne said, "So this is just an extermination."

  "That's what this has always been, Kyle. Wolves overrun England, the king decides that wolves need to go. We were knighted in order to restore England for its people. People... not beasts. The canidae we ran off the island were remnants of a darker age, a bygone era of monsters and magic. They should never have survived to the second millennium."

  Ari crawled closer to the door, now able to see that the room was a study. Judging by the vague shadow moving across the wall, Keighley was the only one standing. She assumed Lorne's worsening condition left him seated while Keighley paced.

  "I'm a cop, Jake. This sort of thing goes against everything I believe in."

  Keighley's voice became angry again. "This isn't coming out of the blue, Kyle. We've discussed this for over a year. We've planned, we've prepared... and now you're losing your nerve. Because of her. We should have killed her when we had the chance."

  "She's your daughter, Jake, for--"

  "She's a side effect I should have made sure to take care of at the time. Believe me, if I'd known the consequences of our little game, I would have finished the job with Gwen before that little abomination could see the light of day."

  Ari bristled, but she didn't feel any personal betrayal. She wasn't his daughter, and he certainly wasn't her father.

  "We're going to get the wolfsbane back, and we're going to get this wolf manoth back on track. This region, hell... this entire city has been overrun by those beasts. It's about time someone did a little extermination. The wolves we don't get need to receive the message that they're not welcome here. This is our town." A bell chimed, and Ari retreated into the shadows as Keighley put down his drink. "That will be the others. Clean yourself up before you join us. You look like shit."

  Keighley came out of the study at such a brisk pace that he didn't have time to spot her hiding behind the furniture. He opened the front door and a tall, gaunt man she recognized from the news came into the house. His hair was an odd mixture of brown and gray, swept back off his forehead. Only when he craned his neck to look into the study and then extended his hand to Keighley did she recognize him as Scott Levitt, the mayor's chief of staff.

  "Everything okay?"

  Keighley nodded. "We're brainstorming ways to track down the ‘bane."

  They continued talking as they passed the stairs, coming within inches of spotting Ari. She tensed until they went through a swinging door and their voices faded. A few seconds later Lorne came out of the study to follow them. He had his head bowed, hands up to massage his temples. The pained position left his eyes angled downward so he was looking directly at Ari when he entered the foyer. He straightened slightly and he dropped his hands to return her stare.

  Agonizing seconds ticked by. Ari was poised to move if he went for his gun or raised the alarm, but he surprised her by turning on the ball of his foot. He moved like a marionette tangled in its own strings, each step punctuated by a quiet burst of air pushed out through his lips. He opened the door, turned around, and followed the path Keighley and Levitt had taken.

  "Willow?" His voice was soft enough that she knew he wouldn't alert anyone that she was there.

  She chuffed and nodded her head up and down.

  Lorne sighed and shook his head, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "Go. Get the hell out of here."

  Ari waited until he was out of the room before she got up and ran for the door. She paused before going outside to make sure there weren't any other guests on their way. The drive was clear so she darted across the porch, onto the grass, and ducked into the trees. She stopped and hid again as a truck pulled up. It followed the drive past the front of the house to park near the back, and Ari took the opportunity to leave the property before anyone else arrived.

  When she crossed the street she was so focused on the safety of the woods that she almost ignored the sound of a car door being opened nearby. The shrill whistle that followed made her turn her head, and she skidded to a stop when she saw Dale leaning across the front seat of her car to push open the passenger door. Ari changed direction and charged with her head down, nails clicking on the pavement, and Dale retreated just as Ari scrambled into the car.

  She climbed into the backseat and dropped onto the floor. Half a minute later she reached between the seats and Dale handed her the clothes she'd left behind earlier. She dressed as quickly as she could and slid up into the backseat. She was panting, sweating, too inflexible at the moment to even squirm between the front seats to sit next to Dale. She pulled her lank hair
out of her face and tied it into a sloppy ponytail just to get it out of her eyes.

  When she'd caught her breath she said, "What are you doing here? Did you follow us after all?"

  "No, actually... I was following a lead."

  "I thought you literally just told me you didn't want to be a detective."

  Dale shrugged. "This case is different. I'm not going to tell you to lay off Keighley and Lorne to focus on something else. I knew if your father--"

  "Could we stop calling him that? He's not my father, he's just someone who..." She grimaced and shook her head. "Let's just stick with calling him by his name."

  "Okay. I knew if Keighley wasn't involved, you would have followed up on Huxley. He seems to be more important than Keighley in the grand scheme of things. So I headed to the headquarters of Alki Emerald. I had just pulled up when Huxley came out."

  Ari stretched her back. "How did you know what he looked like?"

  "He's got pictures all over the internet."

  "See, this? This is why I think you'd make an excellent private eye."

  Dale grinned over her shoulder. "I don't want to be a PI. I want to be your, uh.... your housekeeper. I clean up the messes you don't have time to take care of yourself. I was thinking I would tell you everything I'd discovered over dinner. I didn't think we'd both end up in the same place. I guess I'm busted."

  "I'll be sure it's reflected in your pay."

  Dale looked at her again. "Are you okay? You look hurt."

  "I'll be fine."

  "What's with your hand?"

  Ari looked at her left hand which was curled into a tight fist. Now that she was aware of it, the fingers throbbed with pain. She tried to relax her hand, but the ache radiated up her forearm as if she was trying to walk off a leg cramp. After a few seconds she managed to move the fingers, and soon the resistance faded enough for her to open and close her hand without pain. She knew it had to be a result from her partial-changes, but she didn't want to worry Dale.