by wildbow
Slightly calmer, her words measured, she called out, “I’m going to ask you again. Who the fuck are you?”
“Siberian,” the woman spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. Barely audible.
“What the hell are you doing here? This is my territory.”
“I’ll leave soon. I just wanted to talk.” Again, the whisper.
Talking, always talking. “Not interested. Go.”
Siberian looked down at the man, who was still writhing and twitching, making small noises of pain.
“Go!” She shouted. The woman didn’t budge. Bitch glanced at her dogs to see who was the biggest, the least injured. Lucy. “Lucy! Attack!”
Lucy pounced on Siberian. Bitch saw Siberian stretch out her arm, saw Lucy’s jaws clamp down on the limb.
There was no reaction. Lucy tugged, the full force of her body behind the movement, and the woman didn’t move a hair.
With great care, Siberian stood. She looked at Lucy, her bright eyes roving over the dog’s face and the length of the dog’s body.
“Beautiful,” she whispered. She pressed her lips against Lucy’s nose in a kiss, as if uncaring that the dog had seized her arm between jaws that could crush a motorcycle. Lucy snorted in response.
Then she looked at Bitch. This time, she made eye contact, and despite her whisper, there was no-nonsense in her tone. “Your dog lets go of me now, or she gets hurt.”
The confidence in the tone, the authority, the fact that the woman’s eyes didn’t waver in the slightest, they made it abundantly clear to Bitch that the woman was telling the truth. She was certain enough about it that it was worth weakening her position here. “Lucy, off. Come.”
Lucy let go and backed off, moving to Bitch’s side.
“They’re beautiful,” Siberian whispered, looking at the dogs.
Bitch nodded mutely in response.
Siberian approached her, walking with a great deal of care. There was grace in her movement, and she walked on her tiptoes, each foot carefully placed a measured distance in front of the other. Her eyes shone through the curtain of her white and black hair.
Bitch felt a moment’s trepidation.
“What…” She regretted opening her mouth the instant she did, but it was already too late. “do you want?”
“You.”
“I don’t understand,” she tried to inject more confidence into her answer.
“They told me I should pick someone. Someone they can test. I read about you, I heard about you. I want you on our team.”
“Team?” She hated the short answers that were coming out of her mouth, the way that they were uncertain and they put her on weaker footing.
The woman’s response carried over the flooded street, through the growls that slowly ratcheted up from the dogs as the stranger approached their owner, “The Nine. We have only eight, not enough. So some of us are picking people. Then we test them. I picked you, and I like what I’ve seen. I’ve been watching you for weeks, now.” She smiled again.
Has to be a lie, Bitch thought. Her dogs would have noticed someone following her, wouldn’t they?
The woman was only a few paces away. The question was, should Bitch retreat and put herself in an even weaker position, or did she stand her ground?
She stood her ground. The woman stepped closer, within arm’s reach, then another two paces, until her chest pressed against Bitch’s body. She met the woman’s gaze, unflinching, until Siberian wrapped her arms around her, holding her close, resting her chin on Bitch’s shoulder.
“Aren’t you tired of pretending?”, the woman whispered in her ear.
“What?” Bitch tried to pull away, so she could ask the woman the question to her face, but the limbs were unmoving, more resisting than steel bars would have been.
“Acting like one of them. Playing and losing their games, decorating yourself in their clothing and their symbols, following their rules?”
“I—” Bitch paused, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The pause was telling. She knew it was telling. The woman understood her, she knew.
The woman understood her. The thought clicked. The way the woman moved, her body language, everything, she was making sense to Bitch in a way that so few people did.
The idea left Bitch shaken. How? Why? Was it some power? From the start, she’d known what the woman wanted to express as easily as she did with her dogs.
“You’re an animal, Bitch.” The woman gave special treatment to that last word. Bitch stiffened. The woman pulled away, one hand remaining to caress the side of Bitch’s face. Her eyes were lowered again, Bitch noted. She was smiling lightly, her lips pressed together, teeth hidden. Playful, gentle. Bitch let herself relax. It hadn’t been meant as an insult. The body contact was intrusive, but she could grit her teeth and bear it, at least until she figured out who this person was and how she could fight back.
“We’re all animals,” Siberian murmured. She walked over to Bentley, and Bitch hurried to give the dog the hand gesture for ‘stay’, then ‘off’ before the woman moved to touch him. “Some more than others. You and I, more than others.”
“Philosophy shit?”
Siberian smiled, her hands tracing Bentley’s snout, the exposed muscles and horns. “Philosophy shit. Yes. Touché. An idea given meaning because people think it should have meaning. But it’s just words, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“Join me. Stop pretending to be like them. You know you’re bad at it.”
“I’m fine where I am.”
“Mmm,” the woman smiled, her eyes lowered. She clasped her hands together and pressed them to her chin, squishing her breasts up against her chest. She turned, taking in the neighborhood, assessing Bitch’s territory. “Maybe for now. You have freedom to run, to do as you like. It’s nice. But you’re going to chafe at it sooner or later. You’re going to realize that you’re still in a cage they made. You’re still following their rules, in the end.”
Bitch looked around the empty, flooded streets as Siberian was doing. She didn’t answer.
“Maybe you can be happy like this. A dog, collar around your neck, a fenced in territory. You’ll never really understand what they’re all talking about. The best you can hope for is a pat on the head when you’re good, when you do as you should, maybe some companionship whenever you’re a good girl. But maybe that’s what you want.”
“As opposed to what?”
“Being wild. Being free. Truly free. It’s exhilarating,” Siberian breathed.
Bitch frowned. Words that sounded nice, but that was all they were. Just words.
“I’m going to give you two presents, Bitch,” Siberian whispered. “One will be waiting for you when you go back to your… what do you call it?”
Bitch didn’t answer.
“Let’s call it your den. I like that.”
Siberian closed the distance to Bitch with a surprising speed, her steps less controlled, carrying her long distances forward as she zig-zagged over the flooded street. Before Bitch could react, or before the dogs could step in, she was next to Bitch, stopping. Siberian put a hand on her collarbone. Bitch was lifted into the air and pushed down into the water, soaked, landing hard enough that the air was forced out of her lungs.
As she struggled to breathe, Siberian whispered, “The second gift is special, a treasure for a kindred spirit.”
Bitch coughed, struggled, but she couldn’t move the hand.
“As of this moment, you’re the only one to hear me speak and live afterwards.”
She kissed Bitch on the forehead, like a mother would with a child. Bitch tried to twist away, and only succeeded in getting water in her eyes and nose. She sputtered as she struggled to draw air into her empty lungs.
When she could see again, Siberian was gone. Her dogs were looking up at a nearby rooftop.
Shaken, she gestured for Bentley to come to her, and climbed up onto his shoulders.
Coughing, snorting water
from her nostrils, she gave the order, “Home.”
Her thoughts were chaotic as she rode Bentley down the streets, a dull roar of too many things all at once, all too important to be ignored. At the same time, she didn’t want to think about them, didn’t want to put those pieces together, because she wasn’t sure she liked where they would lead.
The gift Siberian left her. Some of her henchmen were at her den. More important, some of her dogs were there. Every minute the trip took left her more worried.
She hopped off Bentley as they arrived at the building, shoving the doors open.
Blood. Trails leading to Barker and Biter, who were on the ground floor, unconscious, still breathing. One of the girls, the one with veterinary training that Coil had sent to her, was sitting in one corner, nursing an arm that dangled at the wrong angle from the elbow, sobbing.
This was recent. Siberian had done this in the time it took Bitch to get here.
More blood, one of the boys, a dog groomer with years of experience, lying beside the kitchen counter, his shirt wadded up and pressed to his face. Around the shirt, she could see the four parallel tracks where Siberian’s fingernails had left gouges running across his face.
None of the dogs were hurt. She had to double-check them to see. Most were cowering in the corners. Some had retreated up the stairs.
The blood had a pattern to it, as though Siberian had painted a picture with the spray. A line drawing from each of the injured to the center of the room, where a box sat, faintly dusted with flecks of blood.
She was nervous as she opened it, but she couldn’t not.
A furry bundle tried to escape, and she stopped it. It bit for her fingers. She pulled her hand back, gripped it by the throat and forced it down to the ground, making her dominance clear.
A husky puppy? No. The physical makeup was wrong. The smaller ears, longer limbs, and markings around the jowls and muzzle.
A wolf pup. Where had Siberian found this?
There was a card in the bottom of the box, stained with urine. Bitch picked it up with the very tip of her finger and thumb. She’d never properly learned how to read, so she had to work out the individual sounds, moving her lips to try to piece it together.
“Ah… air yoh… you. Air you a…” That letter, she didn’t recognize it. After it was… “oll… wolf.”
She gave up. She could guess, anyways.
Are you a wolf, or are you a dog?
The rule was to call Coil at a time like this. To let him know what had happened. She found her phone in one of her jacket pockets and she fumbled with the keypad to find him in her contacts. Her finger hovered over the button.
What was she holding on to? Who was she protecting? Her friends? Were they really her friends? It wasn’t that she wanted to betray them, she wasn’t about to repeat that mistake, but…
She couldn’t articulate the thought, but it was Taylor’s face that flashed into her mind’s eye when she put the phone away.
Maybe she would see what this test was about. She wasn’t about to back down. But in the end, she’d make the call about where she went and what she did.
“You,” she told the man with the gouges in his face, “Go to a doctor. Take anyone here that needs it. But I don’t want you telling Coil, I don’t want you using his doctors. Got it?’
The man looked up at her, staring for long seconds. Finally, he nodded. She didn’t know if he would, or if he’d be able to hide it, but if he did inform Coil, it would at least be an excuse to get rid of him and the others.
She looked down at the wolf pup, who was still struggling to bite at her fingers. She let it go, waited until it tried to attack her again, and pushed it down onto its side once more.
“Little bastard,” she smiled.
Almost without thinking about it, she used her power. Just the smallest amount. She felt almost none of the vibrations or shudder she experienced as a visceral feedback on her power with the other dogs. It was only when she saw his skin splitting that she realized it was actually working. Faster, quicker, with so little of the temporary exhaustion she so often experienced on her end.
Was it easier with him? What did that mean?
Interlude 11b (Anniversary Bonus)
Theo clutched the remote control in both hands. For five minutes, he hadn’t taken his eyes off the TV set.
For those same five minutes, the TV set had been off.
“Who’s a pretty baby? Who’s a pretty little girl? You are! Yes you are!”
Aster squawked in one of the little cries that foretold an incoming tantrum. Theo clutched the remote control tighter. He felt a throbbing pain where the corners of the remote bit into the heels of his hands.
“Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry!”
Theo’s throat was dry, every thud of his heartbeat seemed to make his hands shake and his vision waver. He’d never been more intimately familiar with the television itself. The shape and color of the TV set, the proportion of the screen to the outer frame, the little border of silver around the very edges, and the ‘Starry’ brand name logo at the very bottom. He suspected it would be ingrained in his memory for the rest of his life.
Which might just be a very short span of time.
“Nope. Don’t see the appeal. Hey, boy.”
Theo’s heart leaped in his chest. He tore his eyes from the television and looked up at the man who was cradling Aster.
“The baby needs to be changed.”
Theo nodded and stood. He was reaching for Aster when the man threw the baby at him. He had to scramble to catch her, almost let her slip through his arms, and only just barely caught her by pressing her against his stomach and pelvis. She started screaming.
“Don’t drop her, now, or I’ll be very annoyed.”
Theo nodded, raising his voice to be heard over Aster’s shrieks, “Yes sir.”
“Must you keep calling me that? Do I really look like a sir?”
Theo looked at the thirty-something man. He wore a dress shirt that was open to show his muscled chest and stomach, and had the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms. His tight jeans were low slung, his limbs long, and his hair was longer and greasy.
The man’s beard had been trimmed, but scruff was growing in around the edges, obscuring the intricate pattern that had been trimmed into the inside border of the facial hair. A knife danced around his fingers constantly, making Theo flinch every time the blade turned to point toward him and Aster.
Jack Slash.
“My father told me I should address my betters as sir, sir.”
Jack laughed with the slightest touch of derision. “Well, your daddy taught you well, didn’t he?”
True enough. Theo wondered if this measure of respect played any part in why Jack had let him live this long. “Yes, sir. I’m going to go change the baby.”
“Yes. Do.”
Theo’s hands shook as he adjusted his grip on Aster, hauling her up until her head was at his shoulder, even though that meant she was screaming in his ear. He carried her to the changing table and set her down.
Kayden had reclaimed her old apartment after the catastrophe, found many of her possessions still there. The man never let the front door out of his sight as he walked around the living room, and was soon behind Theo. With the open window, Theo could hope the man was upwind of the aromatic diaper. How long before the squealing of the baby, an offensive smell or something else set the psychopath off?
“How long until your mother gets back?”
That was something else. That was the third time Jack had asked the question. Was his captor’s patience running out?
“She’s not my mother,” Theo changed the topic. He dropped Aster’s dirty diaper into the bin.
Jack walked up to Theo, until he was just behind the boy, his shadow cast long by the setting sun, stretching over Theo and the changing table. Theo could feel the tension ratcheting up. “I’m going to get upset if you lie to me.”
Theo didn’t take his eyes off the
baby, forced his fingers to keep working on the diaper. “Kayden is Aster’s mother, sir, my dad’s ex-wife. She’s been taking care of me since my father died.”
“Of course, of course, now I understand. I believe you,” Jack said, before chuckling. He turned and walked away, leaving Theo breathing out a shuddering sigh of relief. When Jack spoke again, there was no humor in his tone. “Do you love her? The mother of that baby?”
“Yes, sir.” But I don’t like her.
“Good, good. Does she love you?”
“No sir. But she likes me.”
“Ohhhh?” Jack drew out the sound, and it was vaguely mocking. “Do tell.”
“I—I take care of Aster for her. I do my chores, I don’t talk back. I don’t make life harder for her,” Theo began. He swallowed, “But my dad treated her badly, and I think she sees him when she looks at me, and she’ll never let herself love me because of that.” She has to look past the doughy face to see Dad in me, past the baby fat I never seemed to lose, but I have his genes, I look like him, beneath it all.
“Do you have some of your father in you?”
Did he? “I’d like to think not, sir.”
“I’m remembering now. Kaiser. His name in costume was Kaiser. I met him once, don’t you know?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Years ago. Allfather still ruled Empire Eighty-Eight then. They held a big meeting between all of the factions. We stopped by. Great fun. I don’t think they accomplished a thing that day. We provoked a bidding war instead. Group called the Teeth wound up hiring us to kill some members of the Protectorate team. We did it, and then we wiped out the Teeth before leaving the city.”
The Slaughterhouse Nine must have been new, then. People today would know better. Hopefully.
Jack chuckled lightly, “I digress. I do remember your father. He was older than you are now when I saw him. He talked in a way that made me think he was an athlete.”
“He was, sir,” Theo confirmed. And he was disappointed I never followed in his footsteps.
“There were more teams in this city, then, more villains. Not many heroes. Lots of scary motherfuckers around, and yet I could probably count on one hand the people who made eye contact with me. Even then, when my reputation was a fraction of what it is today. Your father was one of those people. Ballsy fucker.”