Chapter 3: Onwards and Upwards

There was nothing left to do at camp, we'd already stowed everything worth taking. English shrugged into his pack as I looked up, fussing at the straps to make it fit. The lion's burden was twice the size of mine, but it looked like a child's toy strapped across his broad back.

I pulled my own on, its weight bearing down made my feet punch through the snow beneath me. I could feel every bruise I'd gotten in the last year, real or imagined.

Reaching an arm out, I bowed towards Rebeca. "Come on, Babe, hop aboard."

She looked at me sourly for a moment, "I've got to start walking for myself at some point, Wolfy. Might as well be now."

"Not going to happen, Babe." I lunged towards her, the extra weight on my back almost overbalancing me. For a moment I had a horrible vision that I would come crashing down atop her, finishing what Huston had started. Thankfully, I regained my footing at the last moment. On her own part, she scrambled away, but not far enough to get out of reach. I hooked her with an arm and gently cradled her to my chest.

"Try it tomorrow, Babe. If you're as tired as me, you'll be stumbling into the brambles in no time. And you don't have my night vision."

"One last time, Wolfy." She reached out and tweaked my nose. "Just to let you feel like the hero."

"Are you two coming? Or are you just going to natter away for an hour?" English's voice floated back through the shadows as he disappeared among the trees.

We headed back south, towards V-town, there wasn't much anywhere else we could go. North was nothing but snow covered wastes, and the Rockies were an impassable mass of stone from where we stood. Even if we were to strike out east, we hardly had the provisions to make it more than a few days. That left V-town.

The sun was starting to rise over the mountains when we neared the edge of the city. The forest ran deep, never thinning until the edge of the crumbling pavement that marked a natural boundary between the two worlds.

Visually, there was nothing to suggest that we were just moments away from town, the trees continued to hem us in on all sides, but I could feel it.

It was an odd sensation, returning to civilization after having been forced from it for so long. I'd almost describe it as pulling my head up after having been dunked in a pale of ice water... but in someways it was the opposite.

The first sign was the scents. Like ghosts, they rose around me with each step. Every stride drew us into land that dozens, ney, hundreds of others had recently trod. So unlike the furrows of the untouched countryside.

Next came the sounds. The trees may block any sight of the spires before us, but I could still hear the people. Nothing specific yet, only that background hum that you so quickly come to ignore. An hour ago the night had been silent, the winter wind being the only accompaniment to our feet crunching through the snow. Now I could feel the voice of the city, a throbbing in my bones.

The trees fell away like a hand pulling a curtain aside. For the first time in months I saw V-town. And realized how ugly it was.

The cracked and crumbling husks of high rises still punctured the washed out morning sky. They were their own shade of gray, streaked with the green and purple of moss that had creped up them in the last century. The newer buildings were still white, but something felt... wrong about them. As if the hands that constructed them had never seen how a building should look, like they were amateurs trying to emulate the works of a master with nothing more in their tool kit than crayons and modeling clay.

I wasn't sure where English was leading us, I simply tromped along behind him as he walked, brazen as day, through the streets. Rebeca had the presence of mind about her to slip back into her disguise. I hadn't even realized she still carried it.

Her costume was as simple as it was elegant. Nothing more than a pair of animatronic cat ears and some perfume. The ears alone were enough to mark her visually as a non-human. As long as she kept her real set covered, the fake ones would move and twitch enough to look as true to life as anything she might hope for. The second part was less tangible, but just as thorough, a spray of feline scent. I had no idea where she'd gotten it, but mingling with her true odor it provided the perfect subliminal hint to back up her mixed appearance. Over all the effect was, well... effective. It had been enough to convince me. Right up until I'd accidentally ripped one of her furry little prosthetics off.

We came to a stop. I looked up from the pavement to see Monrou hall, my old apartment, before us. It looked more rundown than I remembered.

"English, what's going on?" I hefted Rebeca in my arms, she had fallen asleep.

"What do you figure, mate?" He grinned at me, for a moment looking as though it hadn't been a day since I'd first met him. "We need to stock up, and where else would you rather make home base? You know I'm partial to my own crash, but it's a bit far out in the sticks to keep making treks to."

He held open the door as I crossed into the lobby. The place may not be the most upscale in the city, but the simple feel of carpet under my feet was paradise.

Then it hit me. "English, where's all the furniture?" Last time there'd been half a dozen chairs and sofas scattered about the lobby.

"Same reason the windows are boarded up, mate." I looked behind me with a start. It was true. "I told you that things weren't going well here." The lion didn't smile this time as he walked away.

We rode the elevator up to my apartment, I was happy not to take the stairs. There had been a point in my life when the thought of five flights would have been nothing, but I hadn't worked those muscles in a while and was glad to put that particular exercise off for as long as possible.

The room was almost exactly as I had left it, though someone had patched the door we'd broken down last time we were here.

"Let me guess, English," I watched him as he pulled a key from his ever present belt and flipped it to me, "You paid up the rent?"

"Good for the next year, mate." He grinned. "What kind of friend would I be if I let you lose your pad?"

I unlocked the door with a click and pushed it open. I could detect the lingering smell of English in the musty air, he had taken the liberty of doing more than just fixing the door. Other than that it was empty except for... the faint scent of my parents.

I felt dizzy for a moment, I hadn't seen them since we'd had to run from the city. My father's damaged leg kept him from the forests. They weren't here, but they had been, the signs were all over.

The ruins of my favorite chair had been swept away, and one of my mother's precious plants graced the window sill.

Setting Rebeca's sleeping form on my bed, I made a beeline for the fridge. I was pleasantly surprised to find it stocked with a day's worth of venison. While freshly hunted, the meat was no longer the delicacy for me that it had once been. Even so, it was still an act that made my heart ache to go see them right now.

English and I shared a meal while we looked out the windows to the street below. Monrou hall was on one of the main streets of V-town, and this near lunch there should be a fair amount of traffic. In the ten minutes we watched only four people pass by. And that was a formation of police dogs walking in close ranks as they nervously dashed up the street.

"English, is it really this bad?" The day light streets seemed alien, bare of people as they were.

"You have no idea, mate." He didn't turn towards me as he spoke, never moved his eyes from the empty cityscape. "You weren't there as they came through, the smoke laid about like a blanket. It's like the Cataclysm all over again..." The lion's voice petered out as he spoke.

"The police?"

"Are stretched too thin. The government may have supported the anti-human movement, may even have started it, but they can't control it. Not now." Abruptly, he got to his feet. "Anyway, mate, it won't do us any good to just sit here. The sooner we get out in it and grab our supplies, the sooner we can get out of this firestorm before it comes to a head."

I made sure to lock the door behind me. For a moment I debated leaving Rebeca a note, but by this point it seemed silly.

We made our way back out to the street, but this time English moved differently, as though on a hunt. He sprinted from wall to wall, shadow to shadow, as though being watched. I followed him as best I could, feeling more competent now than last time we'd tried this together.

Darting down a trash strewn alley, we almost tripped over a police dog huddled in the refuse. He was a German Sheppard, like Jon who we'd met before. For a moment I almost thought it was him, but the cut of his ears was all different, and the ghosts didn't haunt his eyes like they had Jon's - or at least not the same ghosts.

He looked up at English with a start, before recognizing him and nodding curtly. It wasn't until he saw me that he flinched away. I was still a dozen feet from him, but he scampered back against the wall, dragging a wounded leg behind him.

"Mr. Taggert." His voice was tired and cracked, I wondered how long he'd been here.

"You know me?" I asked him. The normal stoic detachment I had always associated with the police was long broken and warn away on him, he looked upon me with something only a few steps from unbridled terror.

He let his eyes fall when he addressed me, as though unable to meet my gaze. "Of course. Sayer has given explicit orders that you are to be escorted to HQ as soon as you reenter the city limits."

I looked over at English. The lion shrugged, his face in shadow. "That's, ah... news to me, mate."

"Why does he want me?" I took a step towards the dog, he shuttered and tried to back away again.

"I don't know... I'm just following orders." He finally looked up at me. "You're the only one who can stop this. You started this, he believes that you have control."

I barked out a laugh, it echoed down the walls of the alley, sharp and harsh. "Then Sayer is more of a fool than I took him for. I didn't start this, and I have even less control over it than that old dog does."

I walked over to the officer, moving too fast for him to escape, and reached down to pull him to his feet. I could feel him shaking like a leaf in my hand. For a moment I wondered what Sayer had told the pup. Sure I had killed a police officer, but English had done at least a dozen of them in and the kid didn't seem concerned about my friend.

I threw the dog's arm over my shoulder and half-dragged him along. "Which way to the nearest branch station?" He pointed down the road.

It was hard to be discrete as we stagged along. English walking point ahead of us, he growled off the few people we came across. I hadn't noticed it before, but he was kitted up in battle gear - a full length thick leather vest covered his chest and a knife the length of my arm danged from his belt. I doubt the knife was for anything but show - what I'd seen of him promised that he would toss it aside in favor of his claws.

The streets around us were boarded up and broken, sheets of wood had been slapped over the windows only to be torn away again and the insides gutted.

The police station was an island of normality amongst the chaos of the street, like a single building that had survived unscratched in the wake of a tornado. The small one story blue structure still had unshattered glass globes standing out front with the word 'Police' monographed on them.

I shifted the weight of the dog onto English's shoulders as we neared and then dropped behind them. If one dog had acted this way to me, I didn't want to see how a whole den of them would. The cat and dog continued forward as I fell to a crouch behind a pile of trash, one of many that lined the street.

The two of them had barely gotten within a stone's throw from the steps before the door flung open with the sound of ripping hinges. A dozen identical dogs stormed out to surround the two intruders. I could only make out one word in three at this distance, but it was obvious that our pup had to do some fast talking to keep the pack from ripping them to shreds. As far as I could figure, the pup wasn't from this detachment, and had to all but beg to be taken in.

The one word I could make out for certain though was my name. Every time 'Taggert' came up I could feel the pack's tension ratchet a further notch. It wasn't long, however, until English came sauntering back my way.

"Mate," He knelt down beside me, for some reason I didn't want to stand up while the dogs watched, "I think you might want to hear this. It sounds like Sayer is more desperate that we thought."

"This isn't my fight, English."

His eyes softened as he looked back towards the dogs. "Mate, I know Sayer did us one over. We've both got the scars from it, but he's been my friend for years - I started Storm Front with him a decade ago. Despite what he's done to me..." He cleared his throat with a cough, "Us, he still does need out help."

"Not my problem, English. Not my fight." I stood up, in the distance I could see the dogs pointing. For a moment they began moving towards me. A single growl rumbled from deep within my chest and they stopped.

Together, English and I hit what few stores were still open. There weren't many supplies that I needed, rope, belts, medicine, but Rebeca would need more. I'd had ample time to learn what her measurements were, now I put them to good use grabbing cold weather gear and hiking equipment.

Over time we'd been working our way towards the downtown core, not that it looked better than any other part of the city. It wasn't until I could see the ocean in the distance that I realized where we were.

I cocked an eyebrow at English as we walked down the wide, grass lined street. There were only a few broken windows here, though they were all still boarded up. I almost couldn't make out the tailor's sign.

"Smith!" English's voice boomed out in the empty stillness. "Smith, open up."

For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then I heard the smallest of scrapes from within. The door creaked open a moment later, the aged and gray fox stood before us.

"My son!" He practically fell into English's embrace, the lion seemed to squeeze the life out of his frail body. "I thought you were lost to me." He pushed himself away from the lion, surveying him for a moment as though he didn't believe his eyes.

"Me, Smith? Never." English laughed and helped the vulpine hobble back within the dark confines of his store. I followed after them, closing the door behind me with a weary glance over my shoulder.

Smith took his place back on the old warn stool where I'd first seen him, as though it had only been a day since we'd last stood here. Other than a few more patches of gray on his coat, it just as well could have been.

The inside of the shop was much as we'd left it. There were few windows, so the boarding had little effect on the room around us, it was still stuffed from one side to the other with tailored suits of all descriptions.

"What silly thing have you gotten yourself into this time, Michael?" Smith was the only person I knew who called English by his real name. "You and your partner." He gave me an appraising look, "Congratulations, young one. I never expected you to last this long, likely so much as turn the whole city upside down."

English laughed and gently slapped him on the back, "Neither was I." A moment later the smile fell from his lips. "You do have what I left here, don't you?"

The fox pulled an expression as though he'd sucked on a lemon. "Of course I do, scamp. A matter of professional pride. I never loose what a customer gives me." He shot the lion a look, "Even a non-paying one."

He was about to slide of his stool when English laid a hand on his shoulder. "Keep your strength, old man. You're going to need it before this is all over." A flick of his puffed tail and the lion was gone, up a set of stairs hidden in the back of the shop.

"So, pup, it looks like you've managed to do something that not even that big lummox has ever pulled off - to shake up the whole city."

I shrugged and leaned on the counter in front of him, up on his stool he was just about eye to eye with me. I was feeling like English had brought me home to meet the family before the three of us set out into the wilds.

"I don't know, Smith. I didn't try to do this, it's not like I planned it or anything."

"It doesn't matter what you 'wanted', son. It only matters what you did, and what you're doing."

"Did English tell you what we're planning to do?"

The fox's head cocked to one side for a moment, then he smiled. "Ay, that he did. Sounds that the lot of you are off on a fool's journey." He paused for a moment, tapping a claw idly on the polished wood of the counter. "What you do may not be completely by choice... but if I were twenty years younger, I would come with you." A small laugh escaped his lips, followed by a wet cough. "Then again, many of us would do anything to escape the city right now. The police are advising it."

A crash echoed from above our heads, and a weak "Sorry!" filtered down. Smith covered his forehead with one hand.

"Not my sowing machine, Michael! Not again." He shock his head weakly and laughed. "Do me one favor, Tommy?" I nodded at him. "Bring him back alive. I need to tell you stories of him when he was a kit." I couldn't help but laugh along with the fox. "That will be my revenge."

A moment later English's tawny form reappeared, under one arm he carried a wrapped burlap sack large enough to hold a fair sized body. "You good to go, mate?" He nodded at me.

"We're only here for whatever you wanted."

Setting down his weight, English took Smith in his arms once more, squeezing the fox as though he expected never to see him again. "You keep you're self together, old man."

Smith reached up and cuffed his ear, it was a stretch but he could reach. "Only if you promise to do the same yourself, my son."

It wasn't until we were halfway back to my apartment that I made the decision, stopping dead in my tracks. "English, I want to see my parents."

"Not a good idea, mate," The cat kept walking, "If you want to avoid the schism that is the city right now. The battle field lies right between us and them."

"I want to see my parents..."

"Don't worry, mate." He turned and set a hand on my shoulder. I'm not sure if it was to comfort me, or to keep me moving. "I promise you we'll see them before we leave. Anyway," He flicked a speck of dust from his shoulder, it flew to where a wolf, a hunter, skulked in the shadows not three feet from us, "Do you really think a family like yours wouldn't know we're here? I'm sure he'd skin me alive if I tried to keep you from him."

We made it back to my apartment without any further incidents. Despite my best efforts I couldn't see anymore hunters watching over me from the shadows.

Neither of us heard the faintest of scuffles until we crossed the door, not even a scent tickled our noses.

But he was sitting there, ram rod straight on one of my few remaining chairs, Rebeca across from him, obviously unhappy.

"Tommy!" She sprang from her seat the moment we arrived. "He was here when I woke up, he hasn't said a word."

It was Sayer, the police dog. Every time I saw him he seemed to have aged ten years, this was no exception. From the look of him, I was surprised that he had even been able to make it here from the police headquarters.

His eyes sprang open as we approached, they were a watery gray that seemed to have trouble focusing.

English pushed me back as he stalked towards the man, the dog seemed tiny before him.

"Bob..." English's voice was deep, not quite growling, "What are you doing here?"

The canine raised his eyes to the lion, almost seeming to not recognize him for a moment. "Oh. Hello, English. Pardon me, I'm waiting for someone."

The anger broke on English's demeanor, he knelt down gently before the old dog, taking Sayer's mussel on one hand to peer in his eyes. "Are you okay, Bob? Gods, what happened to you? Why are you doing this?"

Sayer batted him away with one hand, seeming to gain a measure of strength. "I'm waiting for someone." The clip had returned to his voice. "Do not interfere with police business again."

I took a step forward, edging into his vision, behind the lion's bulk.

"Ah, there you are." The more he spoke the surer he became, like waking from a dream. "We have much to discuss, you and I."

I couldn't find any words to say as I pulled up a stool in front of him.

"You've done much, Mr. Taggert, and without even entering the city, no less." He coughed, the shallow convulsions wracking his frail body. "We did wrong to cross you."

"I haven't done anything." I said it little above a whisper, the way the dog looked at me I almost thought he would flinch back if I raised my voice at him.

"You have done much, Mr. Taggert." He reached out a frail hand that I took only hesitantly. "Not only did you lead the greatest escape of convicted felons in the history of the city, but also caused wide spread chaos and assassinated the only other person who might have had the power to bring it under control."

"What?" I hadn't the slightest what he was talking about. I hadn't done any of those things. Was the man so close to death that he was hallucinating? And if so, then why come to me in person?

"Vanderhoom." He spat the name, his thin white lips withered around it like a poison. "I suppose you haven't the faintest of what you've done, have you, Mr. Taggert?" For the first time a small smile touched his face.

"Bob, you're not making sense, mate." English was between us again, taking the dog's hand from mine. "What do you want from us? What are you trying to do this time?"

"Not you, English. Tommy." He coughed again, "He killed Vanderhoom, I have Constable Oak's private report on it. You brought this down upon us, it's yours to pull us all from the wreckage now."

I backed away from him, too quickly. The stool beneath me skidded, toppling over backwards and depositing me on the hard floor with a crash. I looked over my sprawled legs, wide eyed as the dog just watched me serenely. Had he gone mad?

"Who else would we look to, Mr. Taggert?" He continued to gaze down at me, as thought I wasn't laying in an undignified pile on the floor. "You are the one who delivered us into this chaos, you are the one who will deliver us from it."

I never even saw her coming, but Rebeca was at my side, pulling me to my feet as I spoke. "This isn't my fight, Sayer. I'm not part of this." I shook my head at the dog, but he continued to smile as though I were preaching good news to him from the pulpit. "We're not even going to be here, the problem is all yours. We just stopped in for supplies before we're gone for good."

The smile skipped for a moment, like a record playing on his face, but came back full force. "As you say, Mr. Taggert. I, we, are confident that you will return and complete this cycle. All in due time. Until then you must be safe. I'm sure your lion will see to that. You will do what you have to in order to complete what must be done. It will all be resolved in its proper sequence."

His mouth fell open, tongue hanging out in a gentle pant. I had no idea what was going on in that dog's head, but it was obvious that he'd come to his own conclusions.

"The force is, of course, at your disposal, Mr. Taggert." He levered himself stiffly from the chair, I was surprised that he could walk at all. Taking a single staggering step towards me, he latched a hand on my arm, fingers feeling like iron bands. "Do an old dog a favor, Mr. Taggert?" I nodded at him, not sure what else I could do. "Walk me from the building?"

The journey back to the ground floor was slow and halting, his uneven gait reminding me of my own when I'd so recently warn a cast. Rebeca and English insisted on joining me. After what we'd seen, none of us wanted to let anyone else from their sight again.

It wasn't until we'd stepped from the front door that we could see them, lines of police dogs, well over a hundred. They were arrayed in parade formation before us, all at strictest attention. If it hadn't been for the blood and jagged rips that covered their uniforms I would have thought it an inspection.

Sayer clutched my arm, refusing to be shook loose as we stepped through the doorway, into the sunlight.

Not a word was said, but it was obvious that I was the center of attention. My fur began to itch with so many eyes focused upon me.

There was a single face I recognized. He looked like all the others, down to the badge and cap, but their was always something about his eyes... Jon.

The Sheppard stood as straight and stiff as the rest of them, if not more so. He held his gaze as firmly forward as he could, but every few seconds it flicked to watch me. He stood only a few strides away, at the front of the formation.

"Gentlemen," Sayer's voice cut through the faint background noise of the otherwise empty city street, "Mr. Taggert has given me his assurances that he will be aiding us with the current situation."

"What?!" I couldn't help but blurt it out. All pretense of the dogs keeping their eyes forward was lost, they gawked at me openly.

Sayer cut back in as though I hadn't said a thing, "As soon as he and his team return from an excursion. We need only restore order before he returns to us."

The old dog pushed off my arm, standing on his own. He wavered in the breeze for a moment before a pair of younger dogs were at his side, gently aiding him away. On the edge of my hearing I could just make out, "This way, Commissioner."

"Wait," English came up from behind me. A second pair of dogs set themselves between him and Sayer, and yet another between English and I. "Bob, since when did you get a promotion? You're just an inspector."

Sayer shrugged weakly. "You were out of town recently. Terrorists, true ones, have destroyed half the police building. And a quarter of the staff who were within it at the time."

My chin may have just as well hit the pavement beneath me when he said that. The police HQ? That place was built like a fortress, heck, it was a fortress, and someone had bombed it?

"Gods..." English echoed my sentiment as Sayer made his way down the street. Half the force followed him.

The three of us were back in my apartment, I was nervously peering out the window at the dozen dogs who remained stationed below. Assumedly, they were some kind of 'honor guard', a gift from the misguided Sayer. I wasn't sure wither he'd gotten his head knocked by a shard of falling debris, but he seemed to be expecting something more from me than I could give.

All three of us had taken turns showering and what moments we could to get cleaned up. It reminded me of what we had done last time we'd been here. Thankfully, English had learned not to raid Rebeca's apartment across the hall for supplies. Last time he'd tried that he ended up smelling like he'd tripped and fallen face first into an old lady's flowerbed of petunias.

"English, I want to see my parents."

He'd just finished combing out his mane. Whetted down, it make him look tiny as compared to usual. "Alright, mate." He pointed a thumb towards the window. "What about them?"

"Who cares?" I shouldered my backpack, "They can do whatever they like. It doesn't look like they'll be getting in the way. For all I know, they may just be waiting for me to do a magic trick."

We didn't see a single soul on the way back to the front doors, for all I knew the building might just as well be deserted, save us. Stepping into the sunlight, I could see the dogs were no longer in their parade formation. They had taken cover up and down the street, dug in as though expecting a war. It looked like they were awaiting an army to come storming in and rain fire down upon them. From what Sayer had said, I wasn't so sure that was far from the truth.

One of them turned to see us coming out and howled to the others. Now, I'm a canine, and I've heard a lot of howls, I even fancy myself as not a half bad singer, but this one sounded like a funeral dirge.

It echoed down the boarded up buildings, a wail that dragged on for what seemed minutes. By the time he was done the whole pack had encircled us. One with the tattered insignia of a sergeant addressed me, eyes planted firmly at my feet.

"Where do you wish to go, Sir?"

"I'm going to my parents, up on... wait, what did you call me?"

"Pardon, Sir?"

Oh, Gods. Now they wanted to call me 'sir'.

"I'm going north. Keep up if you can, pooch."

In order to make it to my parent's house we needed to cross King Edward Avenue. Normally this was a street like any other, just one more byway in the snob section of town. Now it was just this side of a gateway into the underworld.

I'm not sure if it made any difference, but it was about equal distance between Storm Front and the Police building. I hadn't asked English, but I didn't get the feeling that S.F. was holding up any better than the government.

The buildings surrounding the area were nothing but burned out husks. If Smith's part of town looked like a riot had stormed through, this is where it had stopped to party. Whole blocks were nothing more than skeletons of their former selves, the roads so strewn with rubble that it felt like I was trying to climb through a gravel pit.

If it had just been the three of us we could have likely slipped though unnoticed, but the police didn't even know the word 'subtle'.

We'd just passed the mid way point through the disaster zone, I was about to heave a sigh of relief, when I heard a cry from a dozen strides away. One of the dogs escorting us had disappeared from sight, behind a chunk of concrete that had fallen from a building. The jagged slab of rock must have been at least a dozen feet tall.

A growl echoed across the stones, I turned to English, but it wasn't his. Three dogs sprinted to find their wayward companion, the rest fell into a close circle around us. From the corner of my eye, I could see Rebeca snatch the knife from English's belt, he didn't even notice.

"Sir, I think we should keep moving." The Sargent was at my shoulder, hand out, but seeming afraid to touch me.

I started moving towards the crumbled front of a vandalized building. I didn't know how much, if any, protection it would offer us, but I felt too exposed out in the middle of the street.

Another growl echoed through the air, followed by a high-pitched yip. One of the police dogs that had sprinted behind the bolder came flying back into sight. He fell boneless at the foot of a wall a dozen feet away.

A bobtailed cat of some shade stepped into view, he was flanked by a half dozen felines of other types, all of them baring their teeth. I will applaud the police where credit is due, I could feel a snarl pulling at my lips, but the dogs around me stood as though carved in ice.

The Sargent was the first to speak, "Stand aside, citizen. We are on official business, and aggression will not be permitted."

The cat's lips were pulled so wide that I could almost have thought he was smiling. "And what would you do to us, dogs?" His voice came out pure silk.

English pushed his way forward, shoving the dogs aside. "Let us pass... brother."

The feline just laughed. "Brother? No true cat would ever lower him," He glanced at Rebeca, "or her, self to pad about with such lowlifes as these mongrels. You should have stayed with your own kind 'brother'."

The cat didn't bother to scream as he came forward, swiping at the nearest dog. Oddly, they didn't attack either English or Rebeca. I guess that despite what he'd said they were still 'his kind'. I, however, was not so lucky.

While there were more dogs than cats, the police seemed to be tied in that they were pulling their punches. By the looks of it they didn't want to seriously injure any of the attackers. The cats didn't have that problem.

For the first few moments I was hardly even able to see what was going on, the dogs were packed so close around me that they formed a blue wall. It only took the cats a handful of moments to realize that they were protecting something, me, and decide they wanted it.

A few seconds later a hole appeared in the defenses around me, the blood of a dog splattered on my face as he went down to the claws of a cheetah. The next moment he dug those same claws into my arm, trying to pull me out.

I let loose a punch to his face, but he blocked it with a forearm, in turn he struck out at my legs, trying to knock me to the ground. He managed to connect high on my shin, just barely missing the knee cap. I was grateful for that, a kick to the knee would have left me in a crumpled heap on the pavement.

The dogs all around me were preoccupied, none of them seeming to have noticed that their defenses were breached. They may be limited to what they were willing to do to stay alive, but I wasn't. I lashed out with one arm, aiming for the cat's eyes, never expecting to connect. While he was busy blocking my blow, I casually walked a step forward. It took him a moment to even register that we were now practically face to face. I watched his eyes widen as I smiled at him, he tried to back away but it was too late.

My months of living off the land had taught me much when it came to hunting, I was no longer the pup I had been in the autumn. Take for instance, I had discovered that I'm not really a 'hands on' kind of guy, but rather that I tended to put my money where my mouth was.

The cat was a head shorter than me, so I had to duck down to make connection. He was obviously still a city dweller, likely never hunted a day in his life. For all I knew this could be his first time in a scrap. That was likely why he didn't realize what I was doing until he couldn't escape.

A cat's teeth are just as sharp as any wolf's, but they're no good if you don't use them. I sunk my fangs into the cheetah's neck, feeling them come together in his windpipe. His hands came to his throat, but he didn't know how to defend against a bite, likely he'd never seen one in his life.

There were a dozen ways he could have gotten me off of him, but in his panic he did the one thing he shouldn't, he pulled away. A single push, both of his arms against my chest, and he was free. The only problem was that I was still holding half of his neck between my jaws.

He'd just enough time to feel what was missing before he fell to the ground, the arteries spurting from his neck caused the blood pressure in his brain to drop within seconds.

I spat out the flesh that remained in my mouth, it landed on the ground beside him. For a moment the battle around me stopped, everyone just stared.

"What?" The cheetah's blood still dribbled out the sides of my mouth as I spoke. The cats looked horrified as I stared back at them, the dogs had returned to their carefully cultivated neutral expression. English just shrugged, and Rebeca didn't even bother turning around to look.

I growled again and took a step towards the nearest cat that was still on his feet. He looked at me wide eyed for a moment before turning and running. A second later the entire band broke, they all scampered away as fast as their feline legs could carry them. Not one of them chanced a glance back at me, nor their fallen comrade.

It wasn't until every last one of them was gone from sight that the police stood down. The Sargent was at my shoulder again, peering down at the body that laid motionless on the rubble strewn ground, a crimson puddle still growing around it.

"You are aware, Mr. Taggert, that the consumption of another citizen is a capital offense?"

I turned to look at him, "And murder isn't?"

"We are in a time of turmoil, Mr. Taggert. We all do what we must to survive and keep order, but we are not beasts." He paused for a moment, I could just see the cracks in his institutionalized armor as his eyes flicked back to the corpse. "Are we?"

"No, Sargent," I turned and began walking again, "We are not beasts, but no more are we men than the humans are."

If the dogs had given me a wide berth before, they were all but standing on their toes now. I'm sure the cat's blood that had dried on my chest did little to help, it colored the cream of my belly to a dark orange that matted my fur.

The rest of the journey to my parent's home was in relative peace, only twice did we change course in order to avoid the fighting that had broken out in the streets. I had no clue who the teams were on either occasion - nor did I want to find out.

My parent's house was a simple white bungalow on a shady, tree lined street. Thankfully, the main thrust of unrest had yet to make it here. There were, however, a number of scratch marks that marred the otherwise immaculate Robbin's egg blue front door.

It felt a little surreal to walk up the steps again. Last time I'd been here was, as this time, with English and Rebeca. But I'd been escaping from the police force then, now I had an honor guard.

I knocked hesitantly, and was surprised when it took several moments to open, normally my father always knew the moment anyone set foot on his property.

My mother opened the door, just a crack at first, until she saw my face. Then she swung it the rest of the way, throwing her arms around me in the process. She was a slight woman, but never underestimate the strength of a sprigen.

"Tommy, it's so good to see you again." Her face was buried in my chest, seemingly oblivious to the dried gore that coated me. Both English and Rebeca received the same welcome as we were ushered into the house. For a moment my father was nowhere to bee seen.

"So, the mighty hunter returns, eh?" His voice was rough, I ran over to where he lay stretched out on the couch. He waved me away as he propped himself up on one arm. I noticed a number of new scars through his fur, some of them still oozing.

"We had some trouble with marauders again today." My mothers voice was quiet as she sat down at his side, applying a damp cloth to his wounds. "They won't be coming back."

I looked to my father's face for a reaction, there was none.

"So, son," His voice was rough but strong, like someone had poured gravel over it, "I see you've decided to broach your way back among us civilized people," He stressed the single word like he was gagging. "What is it we can do for you?"

I felt like a cad, returning only to leave again. "We're not staying." I lay a hand on his arm, feeling the puckered scars beneath. In his heyday my father had been the greatest hunter that V-town had ever seen, bringing in more meat every week than I likely could in a lifetime. The only thing that had stopped him was a broken leg. Unlike me, he didn't have the gift of regeneration. "English discovered a map that could lead us to something about the Cataclysm."

My father chuckled, a deep sound that came out as though I'd just told a joke. "Well, pup, any port in a storm, eh? Can't say I'd blame you, I'd be hightailing it out of the city now too."

"What? No, it's nothing like that..."

He laughed again. "I know, Tommy. It looks like we're in a bit of a crossroads here. And despite what people think, it has nothing to do with you. You just happened to be the final gust of wind that blew down the house of straw."

"But, what about you two? I can't leave you here..." I could feel my father's muscles flex beneath my hand, like steal cable under a velvet coat.

"Don't you worry about us, Tommy. I may not run as fast as I used to, but I'm still more than a match for any neerdowell that may decide to touch what is mine."

"What about Gowan and the hunters? Aren't any of them here to help?"

I knew I'd made a mistake in saying that, his coat bristled. "I can handle this. I don't need anybody's help." I could see him make an effort to lie still. "We'll be fine, Tommy. Really. Do what you must, we can hold our own until this fire burns itself out."

He cocked his head for a moment, listening, before speaking again. "And what are you doing with police dogs about?"

I sighed, "I wish I could tell you. They seem to believe I can put an end to all this madness. I think that one of them just got hit on the head too hard."

My Dad laughed, barking it out in a way I hadn't heard in years. "Your a messiah now, are you, Tommy?" He threw his head back, still baying. Despite my embarrassment, I couldn't help but smile. "You just keep finding new things. Was it only six months ago you were a pup who couldn't even so much as stand up to your paper pushing boss?"