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CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

NED

The fox had gone into a trance or something, muttering incoherent nonsense and whimpering quietly to himself, paws gesturing, so after a moment of that, Ned had started edging himself towards Garrett, who, the silly yote, looked far more curious about the scene than frightened, judging by the way his big ears were pricked up, one flicked towards Ned, the other towards Maxwell, and how he was watching the fox with an air of fascination.

Ned had just slipped the knife from his belt when the lawyer coughed and started gasping, like someone who has just surfaced after a long time underwater. "I remember" he whispered, seemingly to himself.

Slipping the knife behind his back, Ned turned to face the fox. "You're not denying it anymore?"

Maxwell looked up; frowned. "Get away from him, now" he ordered, waving the pistol. "There, that's fine." He walked closer to Garrett as Ned obediently backed away. "Yes, you were right."

"You're Michael Rosgen."

"I am" the fox admitted. "Or I was."

Keep him talking. Plus, it would be been a lie to say that Ned wasn't a little curious. "Who killed your family?" he asked. "Was it the gang?"

Grimacing, Maxwell shook his head. "No. It was my best friend. Brett. My crush." He spat the words like they were bad-tasting. "I told Brett I loved him, and he took that confession to be a betrayal; I was corrupted and evil, so he killed my family. He and the otter twins, Ben and Jerry, who we had used to hang out with."

This was the Prophet he was talking to here, but nonetheless, Ned felt a slight twang of sympathy for the fox, watching the slumped shoulders, the voice dejected. Every gay teen fears the day he'll have to come out to his family and friends, and on some occasions, as Ned knew well, coming out did not go well, but to have a boy kill his best friend's family - and Brett, whoever he was, had certainly intended to kill Maxwell in the process - that would have to be the worst response to a coming out Ned had ever heard of. How betrayed the fox must have felt. Then to come home to a (it seemed) loving family, only to have them all murdered by the same best friend - no, Maxwell had said Brett was his crush. Which would have made it even worse.

"I told him after we left our last class" Maxwell said. "I remember it clearly. I told him I had something important to confess, so we went out and sat underneath the football bleachers. I remember the way it smelled. Spring; they'd just mowed the grass."

Listening to him talk, Ned was still wondering if he could get close enough to tackle Maxwell and get the gun away from him, but he was standing right next to Garrett, who still had yet to say a word during the entire exchange. "After I told him, and he called me worthless trash, and worse, and told me to run away before he hurt me, I went home to my bedroom and cried. My mom asked me to come down for dinner, because Bradly - my brother, but you know that - and Francesca were there for the weekend. She wanted us all to be there as a family.

"They came while we were eating. The door was unlocked, but it was never locked during the day. We always had friends coming and going. Brett walked in with a big gun, and the twins were behind him, and they didn't even say anything, just started shooting."

"You don't have to-" Ned started to say, but the fox droned on, jaw shaking again.

"I was told later that my dad died instantly. I didn't see that, because I was watching my little sister's head explode. Mom and I both got hit too, and we both fell to the ground. I remember looking over at her eyes. They were very wide, and scared, and I tried to reach over to comfort her...."

Ned realised Maxwell was crying. "Bradly and Francesca weren't hurt as bad in the first round" he sniffed. "Bradly pulled Francesca up and tried getting her out the sliding glass door, but Brett and the twins riddled them with bullets. It shattered the door, and they fell into all the broken glass. Each of them was shot over twenty times. Francesca's baby - she was only a month away from....he alone took six. Afterwards they put some more bullets into the rest of us, to make sure we were dead, and that was the last I remembered, until a few weeks later when I came out of the coma."

"I can't imagine living through that" Ned murmured, remembering his father's anger the night of his own coming out.

Maxwell just wiped his eye. "I was in critical condition for...I don't know how long. A month maybe. I woke up with a scarred body and no tail and no family. Afterwards they assigned me a new identity as JJ Maxwell. I haven't been called Michael Rosgen since then."

"You moved out here and became someone else."

"I did. But first....I waited three years, until I was eighteen, and then, after taking some significant martial arts training, I tracked down and killed first the twins, then Brett." He smiled maliciously. "First I cut off his balls, followed by his tail, and then I filled his clothes with rocks and threw him into the Mississippi. He begged for mercy till the end, the coward."

Ned was reminded he was talking to a psychopathic murderer. "So the recent tragedies are not your first taste of killing." He lowered his ears, lifting his lip just a little. "It was evident we weren't dealing with a greenhorn."

The fox met his eyes, and....lowered the gun? "Do you understand why I had to do what I did? Why I have to continue this? I can't let people like Brett, or that Senator - I remembered him because dad talked about him a bit, back when he was just getting started - I can't let them win. I have to show the world what their hate does."

"You picked a pretty poor way of doing it" Ned commented, not liking how close Maxwell was to Garrett, or the way he said "continue this." "Killing other gay people, instead of helping them.

"Ah, but I am helping them" Maxwell insisted, with less warmth in his voice. "I am disappointed in you, Ned Parker. I thought you might understand."

Ned shook his head. "Turning the public against homophobia would not be worth doing if the only method of doing so was to murder gay people and imply that homophobes had done so. Fortunately, there are other ways of doing so. Which you could have chosen."

"So disappointing" the fox muttered. "But so it goes." He stepped up to Garrett, cruelly yanking the coyote to his feet, and pointing the gun from Ned to Garrett and back, itself only a dark shadow in his black paw. "It may seem foolish for me to continue, now that the city thinks that Senator was behind it all." He shrugged. "But once you start something, it's best to finish it, you know?" Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out two pieces of paper. "Only two commandments to go..."

Two commandments. One for Garrett...and one for me. Maxwell had called him there to make him the last death, the eleventh victim, the completion of the sacrifice.

"I'll allow you to tell each other 'I love you' first" Maxwell said, as if he were merely separating them for something trivial. "It's what I did with those wolf twins." He smiled, like they were old friends. "Then, maybe I can move on. Find something new?"

Time to lay things down. "I'm afraid that won't happen, JJ" Ned said, as coolly as James Bond. "Because in order to succeed at anything, you have to be holding all the cards. And there's one thing you do not know." He took a step towards the fox.

Maxwell frowned, but did not appear worried. "And what would that be?"

Ned delivered the punchline, muzzle opening in a grin. "That Garrett is not really an actor. He's an officer in the Chinese Triad."

Garrett moved flawlessly, at the absolute perfect moment. One second he was still standing meekly, head bowed; Maxwell's paw gripping his shoulder, and then his knee came up, hard, into Maxwell's crotch. As the fox yelped, Garrett twisted, swinging his still-tied paws around so that his elbow knocked the handgun from Maxwell's paws. It went skidding away to land somewhere in the broken glass, just as Garrett swung a leg and kicked the already unsteady fox in the side, this time knocking him down.

Ned was already almost to the coyote when Garrett held his paws out behind him. A quick slash of the knife, and they were freed. The fox was picking himself up now, glancing around wildly for the gun. "Thanks for the rescue, WonderWolf" Garrett smirked, giving Ned a quick lick on the cheek as they turned to face the fox. The smart thing to do would be to just leave, but Ned was a policewolf, and JJ Maxwell, alias Michael Rosgen, was a killer who belonged behind bars. Ned could never have forgiven himself if he let the fox go without attempting to arrest him.

"It's over, Max-Michael" he growled. Maybe use of the lawyer's real name would get through to him. "Your game is up. Haven't enough people died?"

Garrett had taken the knife from him and was holding it in such a way that Ned suspected the coyote was poised to send the knife flying straight into Maxwell's chest. The fox's eyes were darting to and fro like those of a trapped deer, ears flicking. "Careful with the knife" Ned held out a paw in front of Garrett. "Alright, Michael. Can we do this easily? What would your family want?"

Oops, wrong move. "They'd want me to kill you and escape!" the fox shrieked, and Ned saw, too late, the flash of metal in his paw. The penknife had appeared there so quickly that the wolf could only surmise Maxwell had slipped it from a pocket, but either way, it flashed and flew and seconds later, Ned yelped as the knife struck him in the shoulder.

"Fuck" he swore, looking down at where the knife was embedded in his shoulder. He could hear the sounds of paws on shards as Maxwell beat his escape, fleeing for the stairs. Garrett had apparently responded by throwing his own knife, but, unfortunately, had missed.

"Babe that's..." the knife hurt like hell, and Ned wanted to quit this crazy episode, but the fox was escaping, and that was unacceptable. Garrett's paws were on him; the coyote's face close to his shoulder. "I don't think it hit anything crucial" he said - and yanked it out.

Ned swore again. "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't let him get away!" Maxwell was somewhere on the next floor, in a place that offered thousands of hiding places. His footfalls were still sending echoes throughout the mall, but they were fading, and Ned pushed the concerned coyote away. "We can't let him get away now..." His shoulder was bleeding, but not too much; it was a small knife and had not gone in too deep.

The coyote nodded, all business again. "Right. Stay close with me." He moved like ghost, trotting carefully to the stairs, barely changing his stride to reach down and retrieve the knife he'd thrown at Maxwell. Ned followed, wishing to hell he hadn't left his pistol in the Ford. Maxwell had said he'd shoot Garrett if Ned came armed, though - and that was a risk not worth taking.

Up the stairs. Garrett's bushy tail swished silently in front of him, every fibre of their bodies poised. Would Maxwell have fled? Possibly, but that depended on how intent he was on finishing his "sacrifice." No sign of him when they reached the next floor - had he gone farther up? - but no, the only pawprints visible in the dust of the stairs going up from there were Ned's. Garrett held up a paw, big ears high. Listening. Drip, drip went the water. The air stank of mildew and mould. Not a sound - damn, Ned thought, we've lost him, but if that were true, wouldn't they have heard the fox retreating? The mall was too full of debris and silence; it was a difficult place to avoid making your presence known.

One of Garrett's ears twitched, jiggling its earring, and he nodded towards what had apparently been a bookstore. The store was somewhat more undamaged than some of the other establishments; the glass of the display windows was mostly intact, at least. One large poster advertised a 50% off sale; another, older, proclaimed that a new biography of Princess Diana would be coming out in September 2001. The bookstore's door was open, and Ned followed Garrett as the coyote padded carefully through the door, past some shelves. A few odd books still lay on some of them, although largely they were either rotted or faded, the covers of the paperbacks curled over by years of humidity. A display stand had been knocked over and lay partway blocking the entrance.

Ned felt Garrett's eyes on him as the coyote glanced over his shoulder, making sure he was still there apparently. The carpet beneath his paws was rough but not rotten, and here and there he felt harder shapes, books. Literature forgotten and neglected to a slow degeneration. They were passing the checkout counters now, still holding stands of faded brochures, advertising area attractions. A movie section in front of them featured a large poster blaring that "Castaway is now available on VHS!"

It was like exploring an abandoned civilisation, and if not for the gravity of the situation, Ned would have been fascinated. Even as it as, the setting was distracting, and perhaps it was that which led Ned to miss catching Maxwell's scent before he made his move. Somewhere to the back of the store, which was more shadowy, something crunched under a paw, and abruptly a small object went hurtling through the air, crashing onto the counter, where it knocked over some of the brochures in a cloud of dust that blocked Ned's nose, but just as the object was falling, and as Ned began to crouch, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and leaned away just in time to avoid the swing of Maxwell's chopping paw.

Thrown off-balance by his avoidance of the fox, Ned sprawled against the counter, but Garrett moved like quicksilver, spinning and throwing a series of wild kicks and punches at Maxwell. The fox met them well - after all, he'd said he had trained to become skilled in martial arts - although Ned wasn't certain he was as talented as Garrett. Ned himself instantly rolled away and bolted to his feet, throwing a punch of his own at Maxwell.

He had to hand it to him - the fox was a good fighter. He actually reminded Ned, if he could really think such things while caught up in the adrenaline-infused rush of their combat, of Garrett, in the way every paw, arm, and leg seemed to move of its own accord, flying out to meet Garrett's or Ned's own movements. Their exchange probably lasted no more than a couple minutes, but during those moments Ned took several blows and delivered several as well, finding thankfully that his body remembered the moves even if his conscious mind did not always do so. In the frenzy of the duel they knocked over several bookstands, raising clouds of scent-blocking dust, and each of them was knocked back or down at least once, until Garrett suddenly spun away and threw himself over Maxwell in a side spin, swinging one leg down as he did so, so that his paw struck the fox square across the face, knocking him flat over one of the fallen bookcases.

Instinctively, Ned threw himself at the fox. Flatten him like a football player, tackle him, get him handcuffed. At least he'd brought those along. Unfortunately, Maxwell had kept his wits (what else could one expect, fighting a fox) and instantly rolled away, off the bookshelf, so Ned was again on his paws; the fox had avoided Garrett's grasp and fled the bookstore.

The feral drive of the pursuing hunter rushed through Ned's veins as he and Garrett threw themselves forward, threw the doorway. Maxwell could not have gone far, and besides, he had to be at least a little bruised. Just to run him down-

The fox laughed, and Ned and Garrett froze.

"Isn't this the way fairy tales end?" Maxwell smiled, grinning at them from only a few feet away, near the rail of the balcony. "The fox always has the last laugh." He pointed the pistol from Ned to Garrett, and back. Where did he get another pistol? It was not the same one as below, smaller, and stainless steel rather than black.

"Put the gun down, fox" Garrett growled. "You've lost."

Maxwell laughed again. "I never lose. Like with being a lawyer. I always got convictions." He took a step back. "And with the lawsuit against the state, over marriage. I'm winning that." Another step. "And now, I'll kill you both, and I won't ever-"

Ned had been contemplating whether he could spring forward and tackle the fox before Maxwell could shoot him, but he never got the chance. Still talking, Maxwell had taken a final step away from them, not watching where he was walking, and that was his mistake. Ned saw the lawyer's paw slip on the unsteady piece of glass, just as the big shard went skidding away from under his foot, and then Maxwell was waving his arms frantically, trying to catch his balance.

For a moment Ned thought he would.

But instead, JJ Maxwell, alias Michael Rosgen, fell backwards, and toppled over the balcony.