Dogs of War

by Geonn Cannon

  "What the hell are you doing?" Jacqueline growled. "This is wolf manoth."

  "You're going to kill her in cold blood."

  "It will be self-defense. There's a difference."

  Ari shook her head. "No, there's not. If you think there is, you're delusional."

  Jacqueline shoved Ari away and focused on Serena again. Their conversation had given her time to shed her bulky sweater and transform into a golden-blonde wolf. The animal was immense, with dark eyes and its deadly-looking fangs bared. The wolf snarled and launched herself off the coffee table, teeth flashing as Jacqueline brought the gun up. Ari threw herself against Jacqueline and let Serena hit her instead. The gun went off, the explosion muffling the sound of shattering glass as Serena closed her jaws around Ari's neck. The sharp fangs hit the leather of Ari's collar and miraculously didn't penetrate or slip. Ari got her arm around Serena's neck and flipped her over, knocking her to the ground. She made sure she landed hard enough to knock the wind from the wolf's lungs, hopefully taking her out of the fight for a few seconds.

  She looked up and saw Jacqueline had recovered and was aiming a gun at Serena's head.

  "I would move if I were you, Miss Willow. I can't be confident I'd make a clean enough shot to avoid you. I guess it would help the self-defense claim if you were both shot, but the forensics would be tricky. I'd prefer if you stood up and moved aside."

  Ari let her wolf have a little slack on its leash. She felt her logical and ordered mind giving way to animalistic rage. She bared her teeth, the flesh around her eyes darkening as she flattened her feet on the ground and pounced forward. Jacqueline's eyes narrowed with confusion as Ari knocked her backward. She slapped the gun out of Jacqueline's hand, closed a hand around her throat, and pushed her down to the floor.

  "You're a goddamn wolf!"

  "I'm a canidae. I will not let you kill this woman in cold blood."

  Serena slammed into Ari from behind, trying again to find a place to bite. Ari rolled her shoulder and spun around, holding Jacqueline in front of her with Serena's wolf riding her back. She threw herself against the wall and Serena yelped in pain before the weight fell away. Jacqueline twisted away and reached for her gun, but Ari threw herself on top of her and pinned her arms back.

  "She's going to kill us both, you idiot!"

  "I won't let you kill her."

  "You may not get that luxury. Someone is going to die in this house today." She laughed and twisted to look at the dazed wolf in the corner. "You're thinking it's going to be me. You're thinking I know your secret, and hey, I was going to kill this bitch and her kids anyway. Go ahead. Tear me apart, wolf. Prove that we don't need the wolfsbane to turn you into animals. You're all animals without us intervening."

  Ari looked back to see Serena was slowly recovering. The wolf was already back on its feet, swinging its low-slung head around to get its bearings before it attacked again. Ari put her arm around Jacqueline's neck and rolled, using the assistant as a human shield as she began pushing herself along with floor with her feet. Serena looked at the retreating prey, growled in a low rumble, and began to stalk after them. Ari reached the office where she had first found Jacqueline and scrambled inside, kicking the door shut just as Serena arrived at the threshold. Ari and Jacqueline got to their feet and Ari gave the room a quick once-over for weapons. Serena slammed against the other side of the door and released a querulous whine.

  "I suppose you're just going to let her kill me."

  "You said it yourself. You drugged her food, you got her husband killed, you got Mark Kurtz killed, and you would have killed her kids if they were here. The way I see it, you've earned your death several times over. Are you ready to die for your cause, Jackie?"

  Serena growled again and Jacqueline tensed.

  "I'm ready. The plan was to have her attack me before you arrived. I'm ready."

  "I don't think you are. I think you're terrified of being hurt, being ripped to shreds. You didn't see Mark Kurtz after Logan got done with him. You think she's just going to gnaw on your arm a little bit? She went for the throat. She'll tear out your windpipe, Jackie, and that will just be to disable you. We're wolves. We don't nip and scratch... we hunt to kill. You hunters are putting yourselves in the crosshairs of a species who has spent their entire existence fighting the misconception that we're killers. Forget what I said about dying for your cause. Are you ready to die slowly and screaming as the wild animal you let off the leash tears you to bloody bits?"

  Jacqueline was trembling by the time Ari stopped speaking. "I... can fight her off. I've done it before."

  "And you know that because of your hunter training?" Ari asked. "What was it? Some doped, weak, starved animal your father kept in a cage until it was too weak to defend itself? Is that why you think you stand a chance against that rage monster outside?"

  Doubt finally filled Jacqueline's eyes, and she looked toward the door. "I..."

  "Do you want to survive this?"

  Jacqueline looked at Ari. Finally she nodded, quickly and only once, but it was enough.

  "Then don't do anything stupid in the next few minutes." She walked to the door and looked at the knob. "This is stupid. This is so stupid. Oh, Dale, why aren't you here to slap me in my stupid plan-making face?" She took a few deep breaths to brace herself and then threw the door open. Serena was startled by the sudden movement but overcame her surprise quickly. Ari threw herself at the animal, closing her hand around Serena's snout and holding it shut as tightly as she could. She wrapped her other arm around the wolf's neck and squeezed. The wolf bucked and writhed to get free, but Ari had the better angle. She managed to wrestle Serena to the ground and pinned her there by bracing her feet against the doorjamb.

  Ari felt her own wolf tickling at the back of her mind and closed her eyes. She fought the change, knew that she stood a better chance of winning the fight if she stayed two-legged. She twisted her neck so she could see Jacqueline, uncomfortable having the assassin in her blind spot. She looked conflicted, but she was sitting with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up against her chest. The reality of poking a dangerous animal to the point of snapping was finally dawning on her, and Ari could see her face had become pale behind her makeup.

  "Relax, Serena... just settle down. Relax." She kept her voice as calm as she could, her hand holding tight to Serena's golden fur. "Just get through this first bit, okay? Then you can clear your head... and you can put all this behind you. But right now you need to take over for the wolf and realize what you're about to do. You're about to become a killer. I know you don't want that no matter what this woman did or planned to do to your family."

  The wolf bucked and squirmed against her but Ari held her tight.

  "There's a gun on the floor over there. I could end this right now, or I could let Jackie do it, but I think there's been too much death. I won't make your kids into orphans, and I won't let you go to jail for murder, so you stop. Lie down and let the wolfsbane get out of your system. Think about your kids. Think about who would be left to take care of your kids."

  Serena trembled and whimpered softly, but the tension slowly faded from her body. Ari held tightly to her until the transformation was nearly done, then she pulled away and took the throw off the back of the couch. She wrapped it around Serena, who was now fully human and shivering. She looked up, her eyes wide and the pupils dilated. Ari helped her sit up and brushed the hair out of her face.

  "What happened? My head is killing me."

  "You were poisoned. Stay here." She walked over to Jacqueline, who seemed to have regained some of her aggression. "Now you."

  Jacqueline glared at her. "You're going to kill me."

  "No. But you're a problem. I can't have you blabbing about what you've found out. I'm working to save lives here. Not just canidae, but hunters, innocent bystanders... I can't have you running around threatening that."

  Serena said, "There's a room in the basement." Her voice was tremulous but slowly becoming st
ronger. She clutched the blanket tighter around herself. "We can tie her up down there, keep her until you're out of danger."

  Ari wasn't sure she liked the plan, but it was better than anything she'd come up with. "Okay. You have something to tie her up with?"

  "Uh. Yes. Yeah, down by the garage, there are some ropes we use for the boat. They should be enough to hold her. I'd get them myself, but I'm..." She gestured at her nakedness.

  Ari looked between the two women. "Can I trust you alone with each other?"

  Serena didn't take her eyes off Jacqueline. "I suppose you'll find out when you get back."

  "Shit." Ari didn't see how she had much of a choice. She turned and jogged out of the house, jumped the railing, and ran to the end of the driveway. The ropes were coiled on the ground like snakes, and she crouched to slip them over her arm before running back to the house. Part of her knew what she would walk in to find, but she was still horrified by the sight of Serena stepping away from Jacqueline's bloody body.

  Ari dropped the ropes and swayed on her feet, bracing her hands on the back of the couch to keep from falling over. She closed her eyes, angry at herself for not preventing what had just happened.

  "Damn it, you didn't... you didn't have to do that."

  Serena's voice was calm and measured. "She poisoned me. She caused my husband to get killed, and she planned to murder my children. That is all the provocation I needed."

  "You're not thinking straight. The wolfsbane..."

  "That drug fogged my thinking briefly, yes. But you brought me back from the brink." She casually wiped Jacqueline's blood from her hand using the blanket Ari had draped her with. "If this is indeed a war, Ariadne Willow, there will be casualties on both sides. You should either prepare for that, or you should get out of the way. Thank you for letting me know what I was up against, and for saving my life. If you hadn't arrived when you did, I fear I would have been caught completely unawares and there would be a different corpse staining my hardwood floor right now."

  Ari tried to take comfort in that, but it was too bleak for her to even contemplate. "What are you going to do now?"

  "I'm going to join my children in Ireland and hope the hunters aren't as thick over there. And you? What is your next step?"

  Ari shook her head. "I have no idea."

  "You very nearly made a grave error this afternoon. You got between a hunter and a canidae and tried to save both."

  "I could have done it if you hadn't killed her the second my back was turned."

  "Perhaps. Or maybe you wanted a reason to turn your back. You're waging a war on two fronts, Ariadne. You're trying to save everyone, and when you fail, you will have saved no one. Choose, and soon, or I fear the choice will be made for you."

  Chapter Four

  When Ari texted that she would be on Yarrow Point, Dale calculated that she had at least an hour before any client work could be done. So instead she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and took out a file Ari hadn't seen. She didn't know it existed and with any luck wouldn't know about it until she had something conclusive to share. Just before Thanksgiving, during the kidnapping investigation, she and Ari had been trapped in Milo Duncan's house by a blizzard. She had been called to the house to help take care of Ari, who had been dosed with the wolfsbane as some sort of object lesson in the dangers of exposure. While Ari was coming down off the high, Milo had given Dale a sample of the drug.

  "Ari's mum brought it with her but we didn't know she'd use it so recklessly. I'm scared to go into my own kitchen. Anyway, if anyone should have it, it's you."

  Dale had lifted her hands as if Milo was offering her a live grenade. "I don't want it!"

  "No, not for a weapon or anything like that. Have it tested. I figure if you can figure out where it came from, maybe we can cut the hunters off at the source. Really I just want the shit out of my house, and I figure you can keep it as safe as anyone."

  Since then Dale had been trying to track down the source during every free moment. The actual sample she'd gotten from Milo was sent off to a lab where it was broken down into its base components. The complete report had taken much longer to finish than she expected, but eventually she'd received the email. The canidae knew that wolfsbane was an accidental discovery; no hunter had gone looking for a drug that would turn their enemy into primal killing machines. She'd found a naturally-occurring plant called wolf's bane, but that appeared to have no relation to the synthetic version other than a name.

  The synthetic wolfsbane had a high concentration of hyoscyamine, an alkaloid that could cause hallucinations, disorientation, and short-term memory loss but it was cut with something that only set off the side effects when exposed to a canidae physiology. She was tempted to dose herself with it just to see what happened, but she was horrified at the thought of having any trace of it on her lips or skin and having it transfer to Ari when they kissed or made love. Her eyes moved guiltily to her to-go cup of tea, and she quickly stuffed it into the trash under her desk.

  There were only three labs in Seattle with the ability to manufacture the wolfsbane on a large scale. She hadn't had the opportunity to check any of them out, but the lab report listed the items they would need large amounts of in order to mass produce the poison. She decided the next time Ari went out for a run, instead of going home to sleep and wait for the call, she would choose one of the labs to stakeout and watch for signs of hunter activity.

  She hated keeping the investigation a secret from Ari, but she knew it was the best course of action. If Ari knew, she would insist on keeping Dale away from the danger and investigating it herself. Dale wouldn't be able to sleep, certain that something would go wrong and she'd be somehow exposed. She hadn't even witnessed Ari under the full influence of the drug, but sitting by her bedside as she sweated out the toxins, holding her hand as she slept through another hour, another day, was bad enough. She didn't want to relive that uncertainty. Besides, Ari had talked about giving her more responsibility so she could be a true partner at the agency. Dale was fine making appointments and filing paperwork, but she appreciated being seen as an equal.

  She went through the file again, checking it against the suppliers of the pharmaceutical labs, marking them down in order of likeliness. Lorne said hunters had day jobs like anyone else, and a lot of them were using those jobs to help advance the cause. Tracking down canidae, spreading the wolfsbane, covering up the bloody murders committed by their people... the drug was supposed to make every kill self-defense, but it was good to have people in the legal infrastructure who could make any death look justified. Maybe some of them were chemists with PhDs that qualified them to work at the labs.

  It would be easier if there was a way to identify hunters. Some canidae could allegedly sense a hunter, but Ari lacked that skill. Milo had said it was just an ineffable sense, an instinct that they were in the presence of someone who meant to do them harm. Ari's lack was due to the fact she'd run away while she was still being trained by her mother. She knew how to transform, how to survive, but she'd missed out on honing the instincts that most canidae learned from their parents. It also might have had something to do with the fact Ari was part hunter. Dale still couldn't believe Gwyneth had kept that from her, but how exactly do you sit down your daughter and reveal such a horrific secret?

  Ari hated her mother, and for good reason, but Dale sometimes understood where she was coming from. Attacked and raped by a group of hunters simply because they'd discovered she was a wolf, one of them had left her pregnant. Gwyneth made the choice to keep the baby - a decision Dale would forever be grateful to her for, no matter what else the woman did - and quickly discovered she couldn't shift naturally into wolf form. She made another decision, a life-changing choice, to put Ari through an arduous, potentially fatal procedure in which the blood tainted by her hunter parentage was replaced with that of a full-blooded wolf canidae.

  The procedure worked, in a way, but the transformations hurt Ari in a way other canidae didn't have to s
uffer. Part of Dale's job was to massage that pain away, and it was the part of her job she took very, very seriously even before she and Ari became lovers. Ari had spent most of her life managing an excruciating amount of pain, and Dale was the first person to help ease it. It made her feel needed at a time in her life when that was something she didn't think was possible. Meeting Ari and being welcomed as an integral part of her life wasn't just important; Dale knew that it had saved her life in the process. In return there was no line she wouldn't cross for Ari.

  Before meeting Milo, she'd never taken the time to really deal with the fact she was dating outside her species. She was aware Ari was technically a canidae, and despite the fact she was one-hundred percent human in every other way, her ability to change into a wolf made her something different. She'd dealt with the oddity of knowing her girlfriend might occasionally become a wolf in the middle of the night, and she'd had the bizarre dream or two in which sex became... unusual, but actual waking acceptance was something she'd never had to consider.

  She decided she didn't care. Ari could have been a green-skinned, five-eyed bug from Neptune, and if nothing else was different Dale would still love her. She went back to her desk and shrank down the browser so she could see the wallpaper. It was a photo she'd taken of Ari before they realized that using her picture to advertise a private investigative services was a bad idea. She'd saved the picture for herself because Ari looked absolutely beautiful in it, and she smiled as she remembered the day she'd taken it.

  Whatever happened for the rest of wolf manoth, whatever the road ahead had in store for them, she would be with Ari every step of the way.

  #

  Serena went to get dressed while Ari dealt with Jacqueline's remains. She wrapped the body in the blanket from the couch and secured it at either end with the rope she'd gotten from outside. The blood soaked through almost immediately and she reluctantly retrieved a trash bag from the kitchen to cover the reddened end of the blanket.