Imperium Lupi

by Adam Browne

  Sara thought it through, “You think that’d work?”

  Tristan nodded, then looked to the clinic, “Who’s she seeing in there anyway?”

  “Her usual doctor… Doctor Maher.”

  “Maher?”

  “Aye.”

  Tristan cocked his head, “I take it he’s being paid to keep his mouth shut?”

  Sara looked around, “Aye,” she confirmed, guiltily.

  Tristan sniffed, “I’d better check him out nonetheless.”

  “Och, he’s fine. Olivia’s been seeing him years. He’s one of Heath’s ex students.”

  A grunt.

  Standing up, Tristan took his leave, boots crunching on the gravel. “I’ll be in touch.”

  After tugging on her fingers for an age, Sara finally called after him, “Tristan!” she began, exhaling a second later, “Thank ye.”

  Tristan saluted with a finger and walked on.

  *

  Finally Sara was called into the surgery by the pig nurse, who opened the door for her and ushered her inside. She found Olivia sitting beside the doctor’s desk with her bag on her lap and her pink coat tucked close. She looked ready and eager to leave after suffering through a carnival of needles, breathing exercises and questionnaires.

  “Sorry,” she apologised, as Sara pulled up a seat beside her, “you must’ve been bored out of your mind.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Sara dismissed. She waited a moment whilst Olivia blew her nose in a hanky, then she reached over and clasped Olivia’s nearest paw. “Well?” she urged with a gulp. “How bad is it?”

  “Hmm? Oh! The blood tests won’t be in for a week,” Olivia replied chirpily, waving her free paw. “But he says it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “What? But Ah thought it was getting really bad?”

  “It’s not full-blown rot yet; I’ve just had a bad reaction.”

  “Reaction?”

  “He reckons I’ve become allergic to ash now, that’s all. You know, like Bruno was? Just the next stage.”

  Sara looked down a little.

  Olivia went on. “I told you it was nothing to worry about. I’ve got this all under control. A little sting here and there is all I’ll ever need. I’ve been doing it a long time, now.”

  Another door opened and a steel-grey wolf in a long white coat and black breeches, emerged.

  “Yes, yes, strong with honey,” he said, “but not so strong the spoon stands up in it, thank you!” Slamming the door he faced the girls and rolled his spectacled eyes, “Sorry, new assistant’s never seen a teabag in her life, it seems.”

  Olivia laughed, whilst Sara made good a polite smile.

  “I’m Doctor Maher,” said the dashing grey wolf, removing his specs from his blue eyes and holding out a paw. “You must be Sara.”

  “Uh, aye.”

  “Olivia here says you’re into bugs,” the doctor said, as paws were shaken.

  Sara nodded vigorously, “Oh, aye. It’s mah degree.”

  “A noble subject, Miss,” Maher praised, beaming effortlessly at Sara whilst reclining in a cantilever office chair made of shiny new-materials. “Oh! What a life Professor Heath has led. I took his biology class myself, though in the end I went the imperiology route. No doubt you’ll follow the great bear’s pawsteps and see the big wide wild world?”

  Sara was still processing Olivia’s good news and what it might mean for Tristan’s plans, but managed to make small-talk, “Aye, that’s the idea.”

  Maher moved on. Donning those circular, wire frame spectacles again he pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. “Now then, Olivia, I’m going to prescribe some antihistamines to get that swelling under control,” he said, scribbling away. “Plus the uh… additional extras.”

  Olivia duly produced a brown envelope from her bag and passed it to Maher.

  The doctor stared at it, then at Sara.

  “Oh, Sara knows,” Olivia reassured Maher, shrugging her shoulders. “She was the first to know. I used to get my venom from Professor Heath, you see.”

  “Heath, eh?” Maher said, pocketing the money at once.

  “Olivia, what’s going on?” Sara gasped. “Where’d ye get all that money?”

  “My parents,” Olivia said, with a slight, false chuckle. “It was their parting gift. They... never want to see me again. I think they mean it this time.” She raised her chin, flicked an ear, “It’s all right, though. I’m going to pay my own way from now on. Well, soon I will. What I mean is, I don’t want you or Heath getting in trouble on my account. I’ll move out of his flat soon.”

  “But, where will ye go?”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  Sara closed her eyes as thoughts of Olivia becoming a wolfess in a Lupanar flitted through her mind. “Olivia-”

  “My mind’s made up,” Olivia insisted. “I can do this by myself now.”

  “But-”

  “Olivia was telling me about your friend,” Maher interrupted, in that clumsy, subject-changing tone of voice.

  “Friend?” Sara blinked in surprise.

  “Yes, the one who disappeared. Bruno was it? I used to help him as well, but his father kept moving him on and eventually I stopped hearing from them. Pity what happened. The Howlers can be such bullies, can’t they?”

  “Aye,” Sara said, clearing her throat.

  “Don’t worry,” Maher assured, “I’ll take extra special care of Olivia.”

  With pleasantries exchanged and the deal done, the doctor showed his patient and her escort the door, telling the pig receptionist to hold all other patients for five minutes.

  “I’ve an important call to make,” he growled.

  Locking the door, Maher simultaneously eased into his cantilever chair and dialled the telephone. Whilst waiting, he pulled a folded sheet of graph paper from his coat pocket and set it out on the table. The long sheet was traced by a black line that spiked wildly up and down, like a seismometer.

  “Doctor Josef’s office,” a nasally female said.

  “Yes, this is Doctor Maher,” replied Maher, following the wild, jagged line with his spectacled eyes. “Put me through to Josef will you? It’s urgent.”

  “The doctor’s out of the office. Can I take a message?”

  “Why yes, you can!” Maher woofed, his voice dripping with incredulity. “Tell my dear old teacher that I’ve a possible pure-blood for sale, female, and I’m going straight to the next bidder if he’s not in, all right?”

  Silence.

  Within five seconds there was a click and a recognisable hiss down the line, “What’s this, Maher?”

  “Sorry to bother you, Josef, but I’ve just had the most charming dodger drop by, very pretty-”

  “And?”

  “And she’s off the charts!” Maher marvelled. “She must be a pure-blood. She’s finally reached maturity, but I fobbed her off by telling her she’s just allergic to ash. She is, but she’s going to need rather more than antihistamines soon.”

  “Name? Address?”

  “Ah ah ah… you know my price.”

  Josef growled, “You realise I could have ALPHA take you in for helping dodgers whenever I wanted!”

  “Sir!” Maher squeaked, removing his glasses. “Really, is that any way to talk to a star pupil? You know I’m worth every penny.”

  “We’re on a tight budget since we started work on Rafe. I can’t afford it.”

  “Well then I’d better find someone who can. Ta ta-”

  “Wait!” Josef mewed. By the sound of things, he sat down in a squeaky new materials chair. “All right, perhaps we can come to some other arrangement.”

  “A position at ALPHA, like you promised?”

  “She had better be good, or else.”

  “Oh she’s good,” Maher insisted, admiring the wildly spiked imperium graph. “She might even be better than your last Eisenwolf.”

  ~Blick iv~

  The atmosphere in the warehouse was thick with ember vapour. Seve
ral smouldering hogs nervously counted money whilst a bespectacled white rabbit checked the quality of stings with an eyeglass. Rats, stoats and a single hyena stood guard at the table, doors and windows, with pistols and rifles aplenty lest any Howlers dared show their snouts. They shouldn’t, not in a designated Dead Zone, all had agreed.

  “C-ccc-can we hurry, please?” a smartly-dressed hog dealer asked; the boss of the others. “This Dead Zone air must be killing us all,” he complained, kerchief pressed to snout as a rudimentary guard against any ambient black-imperium.

  An enormous brown bear in a suit was overseeing proceedings from the other side of the table, his black lips nursing an equally enormous ember smouldering away. He had murderous purple eyes with which he glared at the hog dealer across the way.

  “The puny Howlers exaggerate the danger,” he claimed. “It does not hurt to come and go from a Dead Zone.”

  “As you say, Mister B,” the white rabbit agreed.

  Mister B, or Mad Bront as they called him, had so much purple-imperium swilling around his veins it didn’t take much to upset him and everyone knew it in Lupa’s criminal underworld, especially the hog sting dealer, nervously mopping his brow.

  Still, all was going well.

  “This one’s fake,” the rabbit suddenly spat, setting a sting aside. He picked out another few and inspected them. Two passed his test, but the third did not. “Looks like they’ve been filled out with flour, or chalk, Mister B. Not all of ‘em, but more than a few have been adulterated.”

  Mister B’s ember rolled in his lips, his eyes flared open.

  “What are you on about?” the hog dealer spluttered. “This is good stuff. I checked it myself.”

  “Aye I bet you did!” the rabbit accused, removing his spectacles and pointing with them. “What’re you trying to pull? Our clients are first rate. They’re rich Freiwolves helping relatives dodge. If someone’s beloved son or daughter dies because we supplied fake stings they won’t come to Mister B again!”

  The hog looked to the wall that was Mister B. “Mister Bront, sir, I assure you-”

  “How many are fake, hog?” Mister B interjected, removing his ember and blowing a veritable cloud of vapours.

  “N-nnn-none, it’s all-”

  “Are you calling my imperiologist a liar?”

  “N-nnn-no, he’s just mistaken-”

  “Incompetent then? I hire only incompetent beasts!”

  “Of course not, I am merely saying that-”

  “That I’m trying to screw you out of imperium? Because if it’s not you it must be me. But the thing is, I know for a fact it isn’t me, because, well, I’m me. Do you follow?”

  The hog boss mopped his brow – for the last time.

  In two or three great strides, a snarling, roaring Mister B climbed across the table, kicking aside wads of money and sending piles of stings spinning. Closing the gap between himself and the hog he clapped both great paws down upon the latter’s pink head.

  Pfffzaack!

  “Eyaaagh-blurp-gggh!”

  The dealer hog’s skull was crushed and fried both at once, his body quivering wildly under Mister B’s plasmatic blast, before going limp. Released like a squashed insect, he flopped on the tabletop and slumped to the floor.

  Dead.

  “Now look what you made me do,” Mad Bront sighed. He looked to the hog’s followers, who stood back, aghast. “Well, aren’t you going to protect your boss?”

  They all shook their heads.

  “Little late now, I suppose,” Bront huffed. “We will be taking our money back and also the stings as compensation. Do you gentlebeasts have a problem with that?”

  More head shaking.

  “Excellent. Now be off with you, before I seek further… damages.”

  The hog contingent of the shady dealings took their leave, hurrying for the exit lest Mad Bront snuffed out their lives as he had their boss. But no sooner had they disappeared than screams and flashes of light erupted from the depths of the warehouse! One hog came running back, stumbling over cardboard boxes in his haste and rolling into Bront.

  “It’s him! It’s him!” he squealed.

  Mad Bront grabbed the passing hog, lifting him by the back of his shirt, “Him?”

  “The Eisenwolf! They do got one! It’s real!”

  The clomp of boots announced the approach of an impossibly huge wolf with blank yellow eyes, striding through the warehouse and stopping before reaching the light where Mad Bront’s deal was being cut. A cloud of ash erupted from the wolf’s left shoulder and swirled overhead. Bront’s beasts readied their pistols and rifles, but the wolf was unafraid.

  “So… it’s true,” said Bront, dropping the hog, who crawled rapidly away. “The Eisenwolves walk again.”

  “LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER,” said the Eisenwolf. “PLEASE.”

  “Please? Hahahahaha! I don’t think so, freak.”

  A Prefect with ruddy fur joined the Eisenwolf. She looked at Bront, then at the hog slumped under the table. “Looks like murder this time, Bront,” she hummed. “Crooked dealer or not, murder is murder, and I bet those hogs back there will testify against you when faced with a hefty Gelb sentence.”

  Bront huffed, “Howler Janoah Bloodfang, we meet again.”

  “Prefect, please,” she corrected primly.

  “I see. Well, whatever filth you work for now, forget you saw us and I’ll let you and your abomination there walk… or do I send you both to the bottom of the Lupa in eisenglanz chains?”

  Silence.

  “Kill em!” Bront snarled at his beasts.

  As pellets took fly, Janoah leapt into the shadows and drew her rapier, “Book ‘em, Stenton!”

  Rafe ducked down, missiles pinging off his shoulders. Hardly moving a muscle he accelerated in amongst Bront’s followers by riding a wave of imperious energy that rippled and warped the air around him. The coronal tsunami upturned crates and crashed into the table, catapulting it and all the money and stings across the warehouse. The white rabbit dashed for cover amidst the fluttering cash and imperium rain.

  Bront himself stood back whilst the rest of his beasts descended upon Rafe from all sides and angles. Their weapons having been fired and long in the reloading, they tried to club him and stab him instead. Rafe boxed and slapped the feeble rats and stoats aside with barley even noticeable snaps of plasma. The more powerful hyena he wrestled for a time, before sending a bolt of plasmatic blue into his paws and up his arms, shocking him to his knees.

  “Gaaagh-aaag!”

  As the hyena was being subdued, Mad Bront dived on Rafe from behind, his mighty bears arms clapping clean around even the Eisenwolf’s broad frame.

  “UNGH!” Rafe barked in surprise; his arms were pinned!

  “Let me show you… the ancient greeting we Koda bears used to give Howlers… up on the… Steppes!”

  The bulk that was Bront both crushed Rafe and summoned a surge plasma so mighty the sleeves of his own fine suit smouldered and went up in flames. His fur sizzled and smoked, but Mad Bront felt nothing of it as he tried to cook Rafe alive inside his Eisenwolf suit.

  “Aaaahahahaahaaaa!”

  “Rafe, get out of there!” Janoah yelped. She scurried in from left field and stabbed Bront in the arm with her rapier. The moment she touched him the Koda’s immense power channelled down the sword blade, blasting Janoah back across the room.

  “GAAAGH! JAN!” Rafe snarled, kicking and squirming. “GRRRAAAAAGH! GERROFFOFME!”

  “W-www-what the-blaaagh!”

  The air twisted, bent and altogether exploded in a wave of near-invisible energy. Mad Bront was ejected across the warehouse, slamming against a support girder, so fast, so hard, his body deformed back-first around it like a wet pillow and fell in a heap at the base, whereupon life took its leave. Windows shattered and corrugated walls bowed outwards as Rafe’s coronal shockwave continued, upturning the whole building.

  Rafe collapsed on all fours, iron chest heaving, his m
antle torn to shreds, backpack puffing away.

  “JAN?” he panted metallically in the gloom. “JAN!”

  “I’m here, Stenton. I’m all right. You?

  “YEAH. I THINK GOT HIM. HAH!”

  “You did. Just… do yourself a favour and don’t look behind you.”

  Chapter 26

  Rufus wriggled through the stony crevice, his belly slithering slug-like on a film of water, his back scraping against the jagged, chalky ceiling.

  The red wolf paused for a rest and to tug at his stifling imperium collar. He looked ahead, at the faint creamy light emanating from within the pale rock face. It rekindled a memory in him; that of Janoah smuggling a lamp under the sheets to read past lights out – the faint glow was similar.

  It’s been a long time since we met at the Academy, Rufus chuckled in his head, dipping his chin a moment to rest his aching neck muscles.

  “Anything?” someone urged outside.

  “Hold on!” Rufus called back.

  He scrabbled behind with a wet paw and pulled his imperium lamp after him, past his stripy convict’s breeches and into the cramped space. The lamp’s metal housing lodged between the lips of the crevice and Rufus had to wrench it side to side to force it through, gouging crumbs of soft rock from the ceiling. He was appalled he could fit through so narrow a gap himself and supposed he was losing weight; not mere fat, but muscle too.

  How much longer? Where’s my contact? When do we get out? Perhaps it’s all gone horribly wrong. Has Jan abandoned me? I deserve it, the way I’ve treated her. I do.

  Concentrate, Rufus.

  The Howler groped blindly behind for his pickaxe. Someone back there realised what his leader needed, grabbed his wrist, and placed the pickaxe grip firmly in his grasp.

  Rufus easily recognised that big, rough paw. “Thanks, Madou,” he acknowledged.

  “Be careful,” the hyena rumbled guiltily, crouching on all fours outside – he was no taller than Rufus, but was simply too burly to crawl into so small a crevice.

  Grunting and growling, Rufus shuffled within reach of the shimmering vein of imperium. It was white. Rufus could feel it in his bones and, more uncomfortably, at his throat as his cruel imperium collar tightened.