by Pat Cunningham, Savanna Kougar, Rebecca Gillan, Solara Gordon, Serena Shay
“There’s nothing to tell,” Deuce, Dante’s double agent in his sire’s pack, shrugged helplessly. “We were headed to the lab in Colorado. Taylor pulled over at the exit to gas up for the trip. Rufe said the air smelled funny. Next thing we know we’re sprawled out on park benches and some cop’s telling us to move along. And the truck’s gone.”
And Maureen, who’d been in the back of the truck, but Deuce was kind enough not to point that out. “Dante found the truck about thirty miles up the interstate. Nobody was in it. They’re combing the area now. We’ll find her, man, I swear.”
“What about the driver?”
“Taylor was with us when we woke up, barfing up his guts like the rest of us. Whoever took the truck left it like we said. Smelled like seven kinds of crap. No idea who or what was driving it. We should’ve picked up Hoover. Maybe he would have known.”
“That fits in with what we found at the lab,” Ewan muttered. “The Doctor took off without telling Hancock. Wherever he took her, he didn’t want Damien to know. That’s why you got gassed.”
And that was that. Nobody’d seen anything. Nobody knew anything. By now Maureen could be in Canada, for all anybody knew.
Dante was still on the phone, grilling his agent over the confusing behavior of the Tiger Yakuza. Ewan caught himself trying to listen in. Something kept nagging at the back of his mind, telling him this was important.
“I know some people,” Deuce was saying. “I can draw on Hancock resources. If we backtrackâ��”
Ewan waved him off. “Be quiet a minute. I have to think.”
Normally wolves laughed when a coyote said anything about thinking. Deuce just nodded and backed off.
For the last day and a half, ever since Maureen had been snatched from the parking lot, Ewan had been running in wolf mode: find mate, kill something. That had got him a fine pile of squat. He needed his coyote side, and whatever it was that passed for a brain among coyotes.
Wolves think in straight lines. Their brains go from point A to point B without any little side journeys. Give them a task and they stick to it till it’s done. Give them a puzzle and they’ll worry it to death, and usually come up short.
A coyote’s brain doesn’t work that way. A coyote, when he bothers to think, thinks in leaps and hops and zigzags, making connections where a wolf wouldn’t even see a pattern. Especially if there is no pattern. Coyotes don’t need patterns. Their minds are attuned to chaos, out of which they bring, if not order, then at least slightly more ordered chaos. Give them a puzzle and they’ll work it out in seconds and then wander off to see what’s in the fridge, while a wolf is still scratching his ass.
Right after Maureen got kidnapped, a bunch of Yakuza went on the move. You’d think there’d be no connection there, unless you were a coyote. “Who did you guys grab, besides Maureen?” he asked Deuce.
“Two human males. The big blond one knocked her out for us, then Taylor did him the same favor. Then this other guy went up to Taylor and said they were his friends and he couldn’t let him take them. So Taylor knocked him out and took him too. We loaded ‘em into the truck and that was it.”
“What did this other guy look like?”
Deuce shrugged. “Kind of stocky, dark skin and hair, glasses. Some kind of accent. He sort of mumbled when he talked, like he was trying to hide it.”
“What about smell?”
“I was getting to that. He smelled like a spice rack. Stuff I’m not familiar with. I’d hate to see what he gets on his pizza.”
Dark. Glasses. Tried not to talk. The blond, of course, was Atcheson. Shaggy and Agent Mulder had been taken prisoner and were awaiting Dante’s decision on their fates. According to Deuce, the last anyone had seen of Comic Book Guy, he’d been hoofing it over to the Bighorn Diner. “Probably still there,” Deuce said. “It was all you can eat day. Hope Elly stocked up on syrup.”
Silent Sam, Ewan thought. Had to be. He hadn’t said a word the whole time Ewan had been in the motel room. Hiding an accent. From where?
He stopped thinking eyes and started thinking nose. Held hostage in the van. The usual smells: pizza, unwashed monkey, fast-food flavored farts. Maureen’s homey scent, the result of her wolf genes. And just a little whiff of spice, from somebody whose diet didn’t always match up with his buddies’.
“Son of a hound,” he said. “Dante!”
Done with his call, the alpha turned. He raised a brow in inquiry. “The Yakuza. The ones who up and ran off. Where’d they go? What are they staking out?”
“If you must know, they appear to be watching the mini golf down at the exit. They’ve been there for hours.” He eyed Ewan intently. “You think it’s related?”
“Could be. Deuce, how close was that gas station you stopped at to the mini golf?”
“Right up the road, butâ��”
“But, my butt. Zhere Ghan wants the Doctor too. He snuck a spy into Cochrane’s outfit. A human guy, so Hoover wouldn’t spot him. Guy never talked ‘cause they’d wonder about his Indian accent. He just couldn’t live on the junk food, though. Had to eat native every once in a while. It showed up in his scent. He let you boys kidnap him, so you’d take him to the lab. Then he signaled the Yakuza. They’re looking for him now. They didn’t follow the truck because he wasn’t in it. The truck was a diversion. They’re still at the exit.”
Deuce was staring at him like he’d gone scatty. Not Dante. Most wolves couldn’t stand to be around coyotes. Dante always kept a couple on the payroll. Coyotes saw into corners a wolf wouldn’t even know were there. “The mini golf was shut down last week,” he said now. “For ‘maintenance.’ Hoover reported it. He wanted to take some girl there and it was closed.”
“Same time as the bugout at the Colorado lab?”
“Roughly.” Dante reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Take my car. It’s faster than it looks.” He smiled. “Good work.”
“We don’t know for sure yet. It’s only a long shot.”
“It’s all we’ve got. Good hunting.”
Ewan bounced the keys in his palm and glanced over at Deuce. “You want in?”
“Sure,” Deuce said. “I owe those monkeys. They made me yark up half my breakfast.”
“Atta boy. Let’s go play a round of golf.”
Chapter Thirty:
How to Win Friends and Influence Yakuza
By Pat Cunningham
Back in the day (the day being sometime in the 1950s), Route 15 had been a quiet little two-lane blacktop that wound into the mountains and eventually brought unwary travelers to the town of Talbot’s Peak, which even in those days had a rep among the monkeys as being a couple bubbles off true. There was a motel down at the foot of the mountain, and Super Stock Car Raceway and its partner, the Rodeo Arena, and an amusement park whose owner must have looked at Disneyland and said, “Feh. I know what kids like.” The owner had been dead wrong, but with little else for miles around the better-than-nothing rule was in full effect.
Then around the mid-60s the interstate came in, and the Talbot’s Peak exit became a happening place. Like the gold rush towns of yesteryear, a whole civilization sprang up beside the on-and off-ramps, heavy on the motels, fast-food joints and gas stations. A bowling alley and movie theater (which later grew to a multiplex) joined in, followed by bars and clubs, all geared to getting those folks whizzing by on the highway to pull over and spend a few bucks.
Somehow the Raceway survived, though these days it relied more on monster trucks and demolition derbies to bring in the paying customers. This being Montana, the rodeo’s continued existence was assured, in spite of the annual PETA protests. Uncle Fuddy’s Funland also lasted through the decades, with occasional updates to bring it into the modern era. A video arcade joined the kiddie rides, skill games, miniature golf and train ride in the 1980s, while the old swimming pool was filled in. You could still get a cherry Sno-Cone there, and the chance to barf your guts out on the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Ewan, who�
��d grown up at the Jersey Shore and its many boardwalk offerings, was not impressed. He wasn’t here to be impressed. He was here to save his mate. Yes, mate. Usually he ignored his wolf half, but this time the big hairy mutt refused to back down. If it meant he got some on a regular basis, then the coyote in him was all for it. With both his natures in full accord, he studied the mini golf.
“Is it just me,” he said to Deuce, “or is that really creepy?”
The mini golf’s theme appeared to be classic horror movies. A ten-foot Frankenstein guarded the entrance to a stone laboratory with several tunnels for golf balls. A Dracula in an unmoving plastic cape lorded over a many-towered castle decorated with rubber bats on the 4th hole. A generic masked maniac with a chainsaw guarded the 13th fairway. Ewan also spotted a witch in the window of a gingerbread house and a dinosaur stomping the hell out of the obstacles surrounding the 5th hole. The creature looked just different enough from Godzilla to avoid a copyright lawsuit.
Deuce also peered around the course, with a frown on his face. “You think the lab’s near here?”
“I think it is here,” Ewan said. He thought, If I was a mad scientist, where would I put my secret entrance?
His narrowed gaze automatically went straight to the building guarded by Frankenstein’s monster. Pretty on-the-nose, but that’s how humans thought.
He started toward it. Then he stopped, and stopped Deuce before the wolf could follow him. “We got company.”
A few bored folks were halfheartedly knocking little colored balls around, but Ewan wasn’t worried about them. His concerns centered on the men seated on benches at various spots around the course. In coloring and ill-fitting clothing they were cut from the same spicy cloth as Silent Sam, but in much better physical shape. A closer squint at the golfers turned up one of their number poking around the fiberglass hazards surrounding the holes. Ewan saw no telltale bulges, but pros wouldn’t advertise their armament anyway.
“Tiger Yakuza,” Deuce muttered. “How do we get past them?”
“We don’t,” Ewan said. He picked the nearest ninja and strode right up to him. “Howdy.”
The man glared at him suspiciously. Now that they were up close and in each other’s personal space, Ewan could smell the tiger on him, just as he was sure the tiger had a healthy dollop of coyote up his nostrils. That would account for his sour scowl. “The name’s Ewan,” he said, and offered his hand. “Zhere Ghan sent me.”
The tiger continued to glare, first at Ewan’s hand, then at Ewan in general. “Yeah, I’m a coyote,” Ewan went on, “which means I’m not an idiot. That’s why I switched over to your side. I’m here to help you get your hands on Dr. Morloxian.” He took a stab in the dark and said, “Is the signal still coming through?”
The tiger’s widening eyes told Ewan he’d hit the bull’s-eye. “You find the entrance yet?” Ewan asked. “Bet you didn’t, or you wouldn’t be sitting around.” He leaned in close for a conspirator’s whisper. “My money’d be on Frankenstein’s lab over there. It has symmetry. Apes love symmetry.”
His new bestie said nothing, but his hand moved in a choppy signal. The ninja poking around Godzilla’s feet abandoned Little Tokyo and cut across the greens to the lab set. They watched him try the door. It didn’t budge. The ninja turned at once toward the towering fiberglass Frankie.
“No,” Ewan said, thinking aloud. “Kids’d hang on those arms. Same for the sconces and the gargoyles. They’d climb all over this stuff. I wonder ifâ��naw. Some teenager at some point would’ve kicked Frank in the jewels. What wouldn’t a kid go near?”
The tiger listened to all this intently, without appearing to. He mumbled something in a foreign language into his lapel. The ninja sniffing around Frank suddenly climbed nimbly up the ten-foot statue, beyond the average kid or teen’s reach, to twist the bolts that jutted from the monster’s neck.
The door to the “lab” swung silently inward.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a hound,” Ewan said. “You boys are good.”
The tiger smiled thinly up at him. Then he rose, still without a word, and sprinted for the lab. From all around the course similar dark, silent men converged on Frankenstein’s lab and ducked through the open door.
Deuce trotted over to Ewan. “What just happened?”
“The Yakuza found the way in,” Ewan said. “There being more of them, I figured we’ll let ‘em run interference for us. We’ll wait here five minutes and then go in. They should have the place in a right proper panic and the mutant werewolves occupied by then.”
Deuce stared at him in awe. “You’re twisted.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m a coyote, son.” Ewan stared at the doorway. It hadn’t been anywhere near five minutes, but he had a special damsel to rescue from distress. In addition to being twisted, coyotes weren’t big on patience. “C’mon. Let’s go be heroes.”
Chapter Thirty-one:
Missed It By That Much
By Pat Cunningham
Morloxian had Maureen strapped down on the table and was reaching for his hypos when the sound of the first crash reached them. It was followed quickly by others, plus screams. The semi-werewolvan doctor shot a glare toward the door. “Not again,” he grumbled. “The mutants,” he explained to Maureen. “I can’t let them run loose like I could in Colorado. Too many civilians with cameras. So they attack the cafeteria.” He shuffled toward the door on bare, taloned paws. “Don’t go anywhere.”
The moment he left the lab Maureen attacked her bindings. On TV the heroine would grab a scalpel in her teeth and saw through the straps. Unfortunately, the Doctor hadn’t left any scalpels within reach. She had to settle with wriggling her scrawny body out from under her bonds. The buckets of sweat pouring off her helped immensely.
She had one arm loose and was working on the other when Morloxian returned, on the run. “Time to go,” he said. He ripped the straps loose himself. “Goddamn welcome wagon.”
He lifted Maureen off the table. Her feet touched the floor. She steadied herself and then rammed her knee into the Doctor’s groin. His lupine howl cracked on a warbling high note. Maureen was out the door before he finished collapsing.
One quick sprint into the hallway later, she saw what he was talking about. The hidden lab, so quiet and orderly when he’d dragged her off to his workroom, was now a chaotic arena peopled by silent men in black coats and monstrous eight-foot werewolves. The men were armed and the wolves had claws, so they were pretty evenly matched.
Morloxian’s human staff took no part in the melee. They were wisely running for the exits.
As Maureen watched, one of the men tossed his coat aside and shifted into a tiger. He and a mutant werewolf charged each other. Their roars were equally inhuman.
Yeah, the exits were looking really good right about now.
A flash of pastel color caught her eye. The ladies of the harem were taking advantage of the invasion to vacate the premises. Candi, leader of the group, spotted her and waved. “C’mon, hon. There’s a way out through Dracula’s castle.” She and the women ran on without waiting to see if Maureen followed.
Whatever “Dracula’s castle” meant. Maureen dashed after the women.
She almost made it. Right at the doorway a mutant werewolf suddenly appeared. Its dark fur had made it nearly invisible in the shadows. It clamped its furry paw over her mouth before she could scream. “Don’t be afrrraid,” it rasped, in a rough, labored growl of a voice with an odd trace of a foreign accent. “All will be well, Maurrrrrrreen.”
Her blood temp went down to absolute zero. She whispered against his paw, “Pete?”
“There you are. Good, you got her.” Morloxian ran at them in a painful shamble. He stopped well back from Maureen with his hand cupped over his crotch. “Goddamn tigers. Who let them in? Get out there and help clean up the mess. I’ll take it from here.”
He reached for Maureen’s arm. The mutant werewolf grabbed the Doctor’s arm instead. “You come with.”
; “What? Wait, what are you doing, you stupid mutt! You do what I tell you. I created you!”
“Perrrrrhaps.” The creature formerly known to Maureen as Pete snarled into Morloxian’s face. “But I serrrve anotherrrrr.”
He slammed his fist against Morloxian’s head. The Doctor went limp. Werewolf Pete caught him and Maureen under his arms and changed direction, heading now toward a set of double doors at the end of a branching corridor.
Maybe she was delirious. Maybe she was panicking. But as she jounced beneath Pete’s arm, she thought she saw a familiar blond head at the end of the corridor. Desperately she screamed, “Ewan!”
****
The underground lab was a mess of flying, bloody bodies, some of them human, most of them not. Ewan figured the real humans had skedaddled already. If the monkeys had any real talent, it was a healthy sense of self-preservation.
Ewan wasn’t interested in them, or the monster werewolves, or the Tiger Yakuza, or even Morloxian. His nose sorted through the mess of scents for that one special perfume that wasn’t quite human or quite a she-wolf but already said home to him. He hugged the wall and dodged raging wolves and silent, lethal tigers and sniffed every door he came near. Deuce, no fool, followed his lead.
He caught a whiff of her scent at the head of a dim-lit corridor and risked a look inside. Something big and hairy had two bodies clutched under its burly arms. One of them shrieked his name.
“Maureen!” Ewan raced full out down the corridor. He had no idea how he was going to take on a giant mutant werewolf without any weapons. He’d figure something out when he got there.
The werewolf didn’t even look around. It jabbed its finger at a keypad in the wall. The doors slid open. The monster and its captives ducked inside just as Ewan reached him. Maureen strained her hands toward him.
Ewan lunged for the door. It slammed shut in his face.
He was pounding futilely on the metal when Deuce finally caught up. “How are you with electronics?” Ewan said, and pointed at the keypad. “Can you get this damn door open?”