by Adam Browne
Seething in pain, Gunnar burst out laughing. Tears streaked from his lemon-yellow eyes. “Hahaaah! I g-g-got it good,” he guffawed, recalling his performance, “I did.... I got it good, sergeant... right good. Pow!”
The Eisbrand snorted, “Sergeant who? He’s delirious.”
Rufus huffed at him, “It’s the centipede’s venom, you fool; can’t you see he’s been bitten?”
Ivan also turned on the Eisbrand, “Tristan, what’re you doing here?”
“Helping, cousin-”
“We don’t need your help. Patrol your own land!”
Janoah claimed haughtily, “Spying as usual, eh Tristan?”
“I was just passing.”
“You’re always just passing.”
Staying out of the squabble, Rufus stood up and addressed a stocky-looking blond Howler. “Linus, find a telephone and call HQ. This chap needs an ambulance fast or he’s not going to make it.”
“Yes, sir,” Linus acknowledged.
“Insist they bring a sting and some taubfene. All right? The white-imperium will counteract the poison.”
“But, he’s a Greystone, sir.”
“And?”
“Well, n-nnn-not that I mind, but they’ll never allow us to squander stings on a rival with this shortage-”
“They’ll never know who it’s for,” Rufus interjected. “Cite my name if you have any trouble; I’m a Grand Howler now and I’m going to use this cloak. There’s a pub down the road, the Silverfish. They’ve a phone.”
Linus nodded, “Right. Where exactly, sir?”
Another Grand Howler stepped in, tall and imposing. “I’ll go; I know where it is,” he said. “I’ll take the hit for the stings, Rufus; I’ve more credit with Amael than you.”
Surprised, Rufus nodded, “Much obliged, Vladimir.”
Whilst Vladimir went to see about that telephone, the remaining Howlers and Janoah looked on.
Rafe reached round his back with a metal paw and twisted a red valve on his backpack. Within seconds the thick funnel protruding from his heaped, cloaked back popped open and expelled a jet of ash, then another and another! Like some imperium-fuelled mechanical contrivance, the Eisenwolf clomped steadily forth, chugging wisps of noxious ash in his wake.
Fearlessly approaching the centipede, he grabbed one of its innumerable orange legs in both mighty paws and simply twisted it off amidst a blast of plasma. The response was immediate, the centipede dropped its prey and whipped down from the arch, its fangs and jaws stained with wolfen blood. The mad invertebrate charged Rafe.
Tossing its leg aside, the Eisenwolf stood his ground and simply let the centipede take him. Pincers clamping around his waist, it swept him away, slamming him against the tunnel wall, sending dust and mortar tumbling over his cloaked shoulders.
At once and together, Linus and Tristan drew their wildly different-sized swords.
“Don’t!” Janoah barked at them, raising a paw.
Tristan snarled, “It’ll kill him!”
“Rafe has to do this by himself, he must prove he’s worth the investment or they’ll cut off his imperium rations!” Janoah explained, imploring, “Please… let him be.”
Reluctantly, the Howlers stayed put. Rufus looked on, arms folded.
Rafe and the centipede remained locked together, pincers and arms wrestling for control. Try as it might, the centipede was unable slice through Rafe’s armoured waist. Realising it had bitten off more than it could chew, it released him and tried to withdraw, but Rafe clung on like a limpet, his long, powerful arms wrapping tight around its neck. Trapped in an iron head-lock, the panicked bug scrabbled about the cobbles, shaking side to side, coiling and squirming, rolling around the tunnel with Rafe, trying to twist him off, but the wolf’s grip was indomitable, and his armoured bulk immovable. The centipede couldn’t brush him aside as it had so many others. Rafe was a millstone around its neck and the mad beast quickly exhausted itself trying to remove him.
“SORRY, BIG FELLA.”
With a sudden, violent jerk and air-wobbling coil of corona, Rafe twisted the centipede’s head segment through ninety degrees. There was an audible, stomach-churning crack, akin to splitting a tree. Then, silence.
Rafe let the giant bug flop down like a fire hose. Some of the legs twitched a little and white blood spilled rapidly between the cobbles. It was dead.
“By the Founders of Lupa,” Linus mouthed shakily.
“Incredible,” Tristan seconded.
Chest heaving, Rafe stepped back from his brutal deed, as if ashamed. With a quick flick of his metallic ears, as if dismissing a mosquito, he hurriedly reached under his cloak and twisted that red valve again, only the opposite way. The funnel projecting from his back ceased puffing ash.
Nursing his head, the Eisenwolf attempted to walk back to the others, but teetered sideways – imperceptibly so to all but Janoah.
“Rafe?” she said, stepping forward. “You all right?”
“YEAH.”
The assurance had no sooner left Rafe’s iron muzzle than he tripped and staggered across the cobbles, collapsing and rolling to cacophony of scraping metal and jangling belt buckles.
“Rafe!” Janoah yelped. She dashed over and strained to roll the hefty Rafe onto his back, whereupon she clasped his armoured head in both paws. “Rafe, what is it? Speak to me! Come on, don’t do this to me, Stenton, not now, not when you’ve done so well!”
The others gathered round.
Linus asked, “Is he wounded?”
“It’s the eisenpelz,” Rufus said impassively. “It’s too much even for him, isn’t it Janoah?”
Janoah ignored her husband. “Find Josef Grau, tell him to bring venom,” she said. Hearing no immediate response from the Howlers, she turned and shrieked at them all, “Quickly! He’ll die!”
Whilst Linus ran off to do Janoah’s bidding, Rufus and Tristan remained, watching Janoah nuzzle into Rafe’s mighty body and stroke his metallic brow.
“JAN… JAN… I CAN’T SEE.”
“Hold on, Rafe,” she soothed. “It’ll be all right. I’m here. I’m here.”
~Blick~
“Gaaaaagh-aaagh!”
“I’m here, Rafe! Rafe, look at me; look at me and hold my paw!”
Rafe’s bleary eyes focused on the grey-furred wolfess looming over him. She took his paw in hers and he squeezed. He tried not to squeeze too hard for fear of hurting her.
“That’s it,” she woofed. “I’m right here. Squeeze as hard as you like, I won’t mind a bit.”
“It… hurts!” Rafe panted at her. “Am I… am I dying?”
“No. I know it’s terrible, I know, but it’s normal for a Howler. They all go through this. Your body is adjusting to the imperium. You won’t die, I promise.”
“Unnnggfffgh!”
As the sweating, heaving Rafe writhed on the bed, his wolfen nurse looked across to the cat in the coat. “Can’t I give him more taubfene, Doctor Josef?” she implored.
“No,” he said, wrestling with a long paper readout, one of many trailing from the machines roundabout. The spikes and troughs traced a wild zigzag, which might alarm an untrained eye, but not Josef’s. “Magnificent,” he marvelled, deciphering the code.
His assistant seemingly cared nothing for the readouts. “But I can’t stand to see him like this.”
“We’ve numbed the pain as long as possible,” Josef hissed impatiently. “He can’t have any more. I’ll not make him a taubfene addict on top of an imperium addict. He’s going to have enough difficulties adjusting as it is.” The cat looked to Rafe’s beseeching nurse and cocked his head, “For pity’s sake, girl, just hold his paw and mop his brow.”
The nurse did just that. Wetting a cloth she dampened Rafe’s forehead and spoke soothingly. “It’ll pass soon, I promise. You’ll fall asleep and you won’t remember any of this.”
“R-rrr-remember?” Rafe gasped at her.
She nodded. “Howlers forget their induction all the time,” she e
xplained, trying to keep Rafe talking, to concentrate his feverish mind on anything but the pain. “You won’t even remember me. It’s for the best, I think.”
The panting Rafe flashed a quick smile, “Meryl Stroud, yeah?”
“Yes,” she said, a little surprised.
“I’ll remember you… I will.”
“Don’t worry on my account,” she replied softly.
“Bet you a penny I do!” Rafe laughed, before tipping his head back and enduring another tsunami of bone-melting torture. “Grrrrrffffaaaagh!”
*
“Hold out your paw and concentrate. Tense the muscles in your arm, squeeze out the power within them.”
Sitting up in bed with a tube up his nose and a drip in the wrist, Rafe watched Janoah’s fingers gnarl, observing the plasma snap and pop between them.
“See? Now try again,” she instructed, shaking her paw. “You can do it. You have the power.”
For the umpteenth time, Rafe opened a big paw on his lap. He stared at it in silence, muscled arm tensing, tendons and veins popping.
“It’s… it’s not working-”
“It’ll come, boy. That and so much more. Give it time-”
Pfffzack!
With a flash of light the bed sheets around Rafe’s paw went up in smoke!
“Oh schmutz!” he yelped patting his burning lap.
Thinking fast, Janoah grabbed a glass of water and doused the smouldering sheets with a hiss, then opened a window to let the smoke out. Satisfied, she returned and checked Rafe’s shaking paw, turning it over for damage.
Rafe seethed a little, and Janoah squinted knowingly.
“You’ll find it numb at first, then it tingles and finally you feel the burn,” she explained, letting Rafe go, lest he accidentally set her aflame next. “That’s part of the deal, I’m afraid. With great power comes great pain… in all walks of life.”
Rafe held his wrist and opened and closed his paw. “I did it.”
“Yes, but don’t do any more,” Janoah said. “Not until you’re up and about or Josef’s little nurse will have a fit.”
“Who?”
“Nobody. I’ll get a change of sheets.”
“Janoah,” Rafe called, staying her at the door.
“What?”
After the longest period of brow-twisting and word-searching, the Eisenwolf said, “Can you tell me who I am? I mean… I’m Rafe Stenton, but… where was I born? Who’re my parents.”
Janoah sighed, “I don’t know, Stenton.”
“But-”
“You were orphaned in the war and raised by a rabbit. That’s all anyone knows.” She smiled briefly, “It’s not who you were but who you are that counts. Remember that above all.”
Janoah stepped out, leaving Rafe to spread his fingers and make plasma play gently between them.
*
“Welcome to ALPHA, I’m Grand Prefect Silvermane,” said the young grey wolf in black, his voice as smooth and golden as silk in sunshine. He extended a paw across the desk, “I’m the wolf in charge of this project. If there’s anything you need, come to me-”
“Pleasure, mate,” replied the giant brown wolf opposite, vigorously shaking paws, his own voice light, but booming, as if coming from the back of the throat. “I’m Rafe… Rafe, uh… Stenton. Aye, that’s it.”
Silvermane’s steely brow rose.
Janoah stepped in and physically pushed Rafe’s mighty arm down. “Please excuse him, Grand Prefect,” she said, with a disarming chuckle. “Rafe’s still confused from his induction.”
Silvermane opened and closed his paw, as if a lingering tingle of plasmatic energy were dancing between his fingers. “Of course, but wasn’t that weeks ago?”
Before Janoah could excuse Rafe further, Josef purred from the back of the office, “Rafe’s induction wasn’t like that of any normal Howler, Grand Prefect. It took half a dozen stings to get him up to speed, a number that would’ve killed you or anyone else. Rafe will never be as… settled as a ‘healthy’ Howler, not with his elevated imperium levels.”
Rafe glanced back at Josef; Janoah elbowed him, making him face Silvermane again.
“There are no ‘Howlers’ here, Doctor Josef,” the Grand Prefect reminded everyone, taking his seat again and tugging on his black mantle. “Whatever institutions you were a part of, you are now loyal only to ALPHA and must put aside all previous connections and sympathies. Prefects, Agents… even Eisenwolves,” he said, looking at Janoah, Josef and Rafe respectively, “we exist solely to protect Lupa from those who would abuse her. Whilst the Howlers remain an essential arm of the law, corrupt individuals and their greed for personal gain fermented the conditions that led to the last war, we must see to it this never happens again.”
“My greatest fear, Grand Prefect,” Janoah said, “having lived through the last war when so many friends didn’t.”
“Indeed,” Silvermane seconded.
A brief, solemn silence took hold amongst the wolves; Josef checked his watch, eager to be off.
“My parents were killed in the war,” Rafe blurted, grasping his head and frowning, “I… I think.”
Janoah pulled his paw down. “Yes,” she said, gently, “and then you were adopted by a rabbit.”
“R-rrr-right. He… he….”
“He was a criminal who fed you imperium. Remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Until you went mad and attacked a Politzi. You should be in trouble for that, but you’ve been given a second chance by the good wolves of ALPHA. We’ve been through all this.”
Rafe dipped his chin. Janoah released his paw and urged him to face Silvermane.
Silvermane had watched and listened interest, but tactfully did not press his curiosity. “You will find your quarters stark and our HQ’s amenities basic, Rafe,” he continued afresh, spreading his paws at his simple office, devoid of beautification, save for a wall of literature and a potted orchid. “But we have all you need; a canteen, a gym, a library, you are free to use them as you wish. Your wage will be meagre, our organisation is stretched thin, but be assured we are all paid the same here. Even the Alpha himself takes no more from our coffers than the lowliest recruit.”
Rafe slowly raised a huge brown paw, just a little, as if unsure he’d be scolded.
Silvermane nodded, “Yes, Stenton?”
“Who’s ‘the Alpha’, sir?” Rafe asked, his hefty brows twisting like a cub’s.
“Rafe!” Janoah hissed.
Grand Prefect Silvermane was not offended, “A very great wolf, Rafe, the greatest I have ever met.”
Chapter 20
Janoah sat in the waiting room nursing an ember and staring at the single basic imperium lamp flickering overhead, her posterior mortified by the uncomfortably thin seat cushion.
ALPHA wasn’t one for creature comforts. Unlike the packs of Lupa, the newfangled ALPHA did not squander their budget on chandeliers and plush sofas, paintings and banners. Simple, modern furniture made of ‘new materials’ sufficed. Beds, chairs and desks were constructed of cheap steel and the latest injection-moulded imperium compounds, not expensive wood, marble or chitin. To spend even a penny on beautifying ALPHA HQ beyond basic functionality would leave the fledgling organisation open to condemnation. Set up after the war to guard against the very extravagance and corruption that had sparked the conflagration in the first place, they could not be seen to be hypocrites.
Still, Janoah thought, would it kill them to hire a tea-boy?
The intercom buzzed, “Send her in.”
“Yes, my Alpha,” the wolfess receptionist acknowledged, pressing the intercom. She was just a Freiwolf, not eligible to wear the mantle of a Howler, or in ALPHA’s case Prefect. She was instead dressed in a jet-black ALPHA uniform, like that of the Politzi, only smarter, the blazer’s many pockets fastened with bright silver buttons. “They’ll see you now, Prefect,” she let it be known, with a slightly haughty air.
Janoah snuffed out her ember. Blowing flavours
ome vapours at the nobody wolfess in passing, she moseyed through the plain double-doors into the hall beyond.
There was no Den Guard ahead, no paintings or parquet floor, just a plain white hallway with basic windows leading to another set of simple double doors – a layout lifted, consciously or not, from the awe-inducing, glittering majesty of the traditional Elder Chamber and its adjoining hall. Yet if anything this lime washed ghost of Lupan splendour was scarier. The stark unsentimental plainness conveyed no warmth, no sense of history or permanence, as if the glorious past was shameful, an embarrassment to be expunged. Indeed, Alpha Prefects were required to forget their adoptive pack and its ways, to sever all ties and remain neutral – easier said than done.
Janoah rapped on the doors. She was beckoned with a sharp but not angry, “Enter!”
Into an Elder Chamber – of a sort. The magnificent, carved wooden table of yore was reduced to some plain new materials composite, grey in colour, whilst the humming chandelier was cast of basic steel, no gold or crystal in sight, and gone were the plush, ancient thrones of a real Elder Chamber, banished by the same uncomfortable, ill-moulded affairs Janoah’s behind had been subjected to for an hour already in the preceding waiting room. There were no decanters of finest Rostsonne wine to be had either, just a jug of water and simple tumblers – the Alpha didn’t drink. None of the four wolves seated at the table were even smouldering – the Alpha didn’t like it.
Janoah stood upon the only nod to decadence, the black and white ALPHA emblem inlaid into the floor. She saluted her superiors by simply raising a paw to chest-height, as if waving hello. None of that outmoded ‘fist to chest and out’ business was tolerated here. Indeed, Janoah’s comrades saluted her back, equally, all four of them, however lacklustre.
Janoah’s green eyes flitted to the furthest right of the wolves, Grand Prefect Silvermane. The grey wolf looked fidgety, but not unduly worried. He could and would throw Janoah under the bus to save his own career, of that she was sure.
“Please take a seat, Valerio,” he said.
“I’ll stand, if it’s all the same to you, sir,” she replied. “I’ve been sitting an hour already and my tail is numb.”