The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Then she pulled on the old black raincoat, to further hide her figure—she was already wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt, to make it as difficult as possible to see any distinctive details about her. Her feet were in old deck shoes with black stockings pulled up over them, to blur any markings or footprints.

  Then came the motorcycle helmet with the dark visor, hiding her face and hair completely—and making it hard to see; it was like wearing sunglasses at night.

  It was wearing sunglasses at night, really—the tinted visor was meant to serve the same purpose, as well as keeping bugs out of a motorcyclist’s teeth.

  And then came the scary part, as she lifted Dave’s pump-action twelve-gauge out of the trunk.

  She had fired the gun exactly three times. The first time she had started at the bang when it went off, but the other two she had been ready for it. She had still completely missed the target Dave had set up for her, and the next day her shoulder had been sore from the recoil, but she had fired it.

  Her hands trembling again, she loaded five rounds of birdshot into the magazine. That wouldn’t kill anyone, she was pretty sure, but it should be enough to hurt and to scare away anyone who got in her way.

  Thus equipped, she marched toward the pound.

  There were lights on—not very many, but at least two. That was a good sign; she needed there to be someone in there she could frighten into opening Dave’s cage. She reached the main entrance without serious incident, despite being almost blind with the helmet’s visor down; she had to lift it to peek now and again. Once she reached the entry she held the shotgun in one hand, and pounded on the door with the other.

  Nothing happened; she pounded again.

  She was starting to think about what she would do if the night watchman refused to answer when a surly voice called, “Who the hell is it at this hour?”

  “It’s an emergency,” Jenny called. “I need to use your phone.”

  “Oh, Christ…” The door started to swing open.

  Jenny thrust the barrel of the shotgun into the crack, then pushed herself after it, stepping into the building.

  She found herself in a narrow hallway, on a scuffed linoleum floor between green concrete walls, lit by bare bulbs in wire cages overhead. Backing away from her was a young man in a dirty T-shirt and torn jeans.

  The lights at least let her see through the confounded visor. “Put up your…” she began; then she stopped as she realized he already had both hands raised high.

  “Oh god oh god oh god,” he said, stumbling backward down the hall. “Listen, there’s no money here, I swear there isn’t, if there were I’d have stolen it myself.”

  “I don’t want money,” Jenny growled, trying to lower her alto voice to a tenor—she had hopes that her disguise hid her sex as well as her face.

  “What, did Uncle Bill do something again? Listen, I swear, I didn’t have anything to do…”

  “Shut up,” Jenny growled, aiming the shotgun at the man’s nose.

  The man—a kid, really—shut up and froze where he was.

  Uncle Bill?

  “Who are you?” Jenny demanded. “Who’s Uncle Bill?”

  “I’m Rafe Hayes,” the kid said. “Uncle Bill’s the mayor. My mom’s brother.”

  “Mayor Beasley is your uncle?” She stared for a moment; yes, there was a resemblance. “He got you this job?”

  Rafe nodded eagerly. “You don’t want to hurt me,” he said. “My uncle would get really pissed.”

  “I don’t care what your uncle wants!” Jenny roared—aware as she did that her bellow was not up to Dave’s standards; she didn’t have a man’s lung capacity or a cop’s experience in yelling. “I’m here for my…for the animals.” It had occurred to her at the last instant that revealing she was after a particular “dog” might not be wise. She didn’t want to attract everyone’s attention to that one specific canine, especially not when she’d told the animal control crew that Dave was her dog.

  “Oh!” The kid looked suddenly relieved. “You’re an animal rights activist? Which group?”

  “Uh…Free Our Furry Friends,” Jenny improvised hastily.

  “I haven’t heard of that one…”

  “We’re new.”

  “So, like, do you have a specific agenda? Have you got a truck here, or something, to take ’em away?”

  “That’s not your problem. You just open the doors I tell you to open and keep your mouth shut and your hands where I can see ’em.” She jabbed with the gun; Rafe’s hands, which had started to descend, rushed back up toward the ceiling.

  “Okay,” he said, staring at the gun.

  “Good. Now, where are the cages?”

  Rafe led the way down the corridor and through a door into the depths of the pound. Jenny found herself surrounded by dogs of all sizes and varieties, most of them asleep, a few stirring at this unexpected intrusion. A Great Dane whined at her, and a Pomeranian yapped.

  She didn’t see Dave.

  “Where are the newest ones?” she asked. “The ones they brought in tonight?”

  “Oh, they’re in the other room,” Rafe said. “We don’t put ’em in here until the vet’s okayed them.”

  “Show me,” she growled. An Alsatian growled in response. “Shut up,” Jenny told the dog. Then she gestured with the gun.

  Rafe led the way to the holding area; here half the cages were empty, several held cats—and crammed into one of them was a big gray wolf, wide awake and watching them silently.

  “Let that one out first,” Jenny said, pointing. “That cage is too small for him; it’s inhumane.”

  “Yessir,” Rafe said. He fetched a ring of keys from a peg by the door and unlocked Dave’s cage. Dave bounded out the instant the door opened, then hesitated, looking at Jenny and Rafe and Jenny’s gun.

  “Good dog,” Jenny said. “You’re free now.” She waved at the room’s open door, and Dave trotted out into the passageway, out of sight.

  Now Jenny found herself facing a dilemma; to maintain her cover story of being an animal rights activist she needed to let more animals go—but she didn’t particularly want a bunch of strays roaming the area.

  She hoped they wouldn’t do any real harm.

  “Let out the others,” she said.

  Rafe hurried to unlock the cages, releasing the half-dozen cats—and while he was doing that, Jenny stepped back out into the hallway and closed the door.

  Dave was waiting there; he looked up at her expectantly. Obviously, he thought she had a plan.

  She didn’t; she was making this up as she went along. She needed some way to get out of here without making a mess of it all. She wasn’t a detective like Dave, with lots of police training…

  Police. She looked at him, and then smiled.

  “Is that a siren?” she shouted. “Damn it, did you call the cops?”

  “No, I swear…!” Rafe called back. A cat yowled and hissed, and Rafe muttered something Jenny couldn’t make out.

  “You stay in there until I tell you to come out, you…you untrustworthy person, you!”

  Lame, Jenny, she told herself. Really lame. “You untrustworthy person”? She giggled. “Come on, Dave,” she said. “The car’s that way.”

  Together, woman and wolf ran for the door.

  They were almost there when Rafe burst out of the room with a pistol in his hand and fired at her.

  The first shot went wild, chipping concrete from the wall, but the sharp bang startled Jenny; she stumbled, but caught herself without falling.

  The second shot hit her square in the back and felt like she’d been kicked.

  “Ow,” she said, as she turned around and raised the shotgun.

  Dave had already spun around and was charging down the hallway; Rafe fired again, this time at the animal plunging toward him.

 
“No!” Jenny shouted, raising the shotgun—but she couldn’t shoot; she might hit Dave.

  And Dave didn’t seem to be hurt. Rafe fired again, at point-blank range, and then Dave’s teeth closed on his wrist. Jenny heard something crunch horribly, and the pistol fell to the floor. Then Rafe went over backward, the wolf on top of him…

  “No!” Jenny shouted. “Da… Don’t! Get off him!” She raised the shotgun again and pointed it directly at her own husband.

  The wolf turned and glared at her, those big yellow eyes almost glowing. For a moment they stared at each other—and Jenny realized she was staring along the barrel of the shotgun, the sights aimed directly at Dave.

  She lowered the gun, and Dave leapt off Rafe and ran for the door.

  Jenny hesitated until she heard Rafe groan—he was alive and conscious, so she didn’t think he could be that badly hurt. She turned and yanked open the door; Dave bounded out, with Jenny close behind.

  A moment later they were in the car, Dave in the back and Jenny driving. She pulled out of the lot with tires squealing.

  They made it home safely, and Jenny staggered inside. She dropped the shotgun, peeled off her black raincoat and her kevlar armor, tossed aside the motorcycle helmet, and then leaned against a wall, panting. Utterly exhausted, she let herself slide down until she was sitting on the floor.

  Dave came to her, tongue lolling from his mouth, and put his head in her lap. She petted him once before falling asleep, sprawled there in the foyer.

  She was awakened by the transformation; dawn’s light was streaming into the house, and the head in her lap had changed from a wolf’s to a man’s. Dave’s eyes, human once again, looked up at her.

  “That little bastard shot you!” he said.

  “I had your bulletproof vest on,” she said. “He shot you, and you weren’t wearing anything!”

  He still wasn’t, she noticed admiringly. Her husband was unquestionably a fine-looking man—when he was a man at all.

  “Just fur,” he said. “I guess the stories are true, though—you need silver bullets to kill a werewolf.”

  “I would rather never have tested that,” she said, stroking his hair.

  “Would you really have shot me if I’d done what I wanted to and ripped his throat out?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jenny admitted. “And I really don’t want to test that one!”

  “Same here,” he said. “But I’m glad you aimed—helped me get my temper back under control. I mean, the little bastard shot you!”

  “I’m fine,” Jenny insisted.

  Dave sat up. “Let me see your back,” he said.

  She was too tired to argue; she turned and let Dave pull up her shirt.

  “Nasty bruise,” he said. “Skin’s not broken.”

  “Told you,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, you did,” he agreed. “And you told me I was crazy to run for mayor, and you were right about that, too.” He shook his head. “I probably broke that kid’s wrist tonight, and I might’ve killed him. And…and if the silver bullet part is true, then maybe the contagious bite is true, too, and he’ll be out there running around on all fours next month, same as me. That’s bad, and we’ll have to do something about it. This whole werewolf thing—I was kidding myself, Jen. It’s not just an inconvenience. It’d never work, me being mayor.”

  She twisted around to face him. “You’re not going to run?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not,” he said.

  She remembered Rafe Hayes talking about his uncle, Bill Beasley. She remembered Rafe making threats and promises and firing that gun wildly. She remembered a dozen other things about Bill Beasley and his family, and she considered what might have to be done to ensure that Rafe Hayes didn’t become a public menace at the next full moon.

  “Then I will,” she said.

  SOMETHING TO GRIN ABOUT

  When the doorbell rang Melody dropped the phone, tossed the stack of bills on the table, and ran to answer it, expecting to see Todd there in the hallway with some new argument. She’d had the last word before he stormed out—she already regretted that, and he wasn’t likely to let it stand. Sooner or later he’d be back to shout at her some more.

  But it wasn’t Todd; it was a uniformed deliveryman, not UPS or FedEx or any she’d seen before, but some courier service with a fancy, unreadable red and blue logo that was blazoned across the man’s breast pocket and the back of his clipboard. On the floor by the deliveryman’s feet was a large plastic box.

  “Melody Duke?” he asked. Before Melody could reply, he held out the clipboard. “Line 8,” he said.

  She signed, and while she did he lifted the plastic box by a handle on the top and set it inside her door. When she was done she handed the clipboard back and looked down at the box.

  “Where’s it from?” she asked, but he had already turned away and gotten halfway down the stairs.

  She shrugged, started to bend down for a look at the tag wired to the handle, then remembered the phone. She gasped, ran back to the kitchen, snatched up the receiver, and said, “Mother?”

  The line was dead; her mother had hung up.

  “Oh, poop,” she said. Not that the discussion had been going anywhere; her mother still didn’t like Todd and still didn’t think she was safe living here, and Melody had been through all that with her parents any number of times without any minds changing.

  She glared at the phone for a moment, then hung it up. Then she realized she had left the apartment door standing open with the mysterious package just inside, and despite what she told her parents this was not really a completely safe neighborhood, especially with Todd gone for the moment…

  She dashed back to the living room, hauled the plastic crate inside, and slammed the door. For good measure she threw the deadbolt, then flopped down crosslegged on the floor to look over her new acquisition, whatever it was.

  The tag on the handle had her name and address in the TO: portion; the FROM: read, “Abigail Duke, 7 Little Moreton Lane, Chester CH6, ENGLAND.”

  Her British grandmother.

  Her grandmother who had just gone into the nursing home.

  Her grandmother who owned a cat Melody had promised to look after, a promise that Melody, eight thousand miles away, had not until this moment taken seriously. Now, however, she looked at the plastic crate and realized that yes, this was a pet carrier.

  “Ohmigod,” she said. She turned the crate around, and yes, there was the door, with rows of little airholes punched in it. She bent down and peered through the holes.

  The crate was empty.

  Melody blinked, and sat up.

  Had her grandmother’s cat escaped somehow? How could it have? The door was still latched. Had someone stolen it? She’d heard about people who stole cats and sold them to testing laboratories. Or had Grandma Duke maybe gotten confused and sent the crate empty? She’d always been a little dotty, as Melody’s father put it, and now she was so old…

  Melody had only met her grandmother three or four times, but the old lady had never seemed that dotty.

  Of course, Todd would never stand for a cat around the place, so it would be just as well if there was no cat, but maybe the cat had just found some corner to hide in. Maybe if she took a closer look…

  Melody untwisted the wire from around the latch and popped the door open—and out stepped the cat.

  It was a very large cat, with splendid stripes and a long graceful tail that swayed elegantly as it strolled daintily away from the pet carrier. It was rather plump, but not actually fat. Dark tufts projected from the tip of either ear, and it moved in utter silence, its broad and well-furred paws soundless on the well-worn carpet. When it was well clear of its prison it turned, settled to the floor, wrapped its tail about itself, and grinned up at Melody.

  She blinked at it in surprise. She’d never seen a c
at grin before, and how in the world could a cat that size have hidden from her in that carrier? She looked from the cat to the carrier, then back again, and the cat simply grinned at her.

  It was unquestionably a magnificent animal, but still…

  “I can’t keep a cat!” she said, to no one in particular.

  The cat tipped its head and looked at her. “Whyever not?” it asked.

  Melody blinked again. The cat’s expression had been so easy to read, she told herself, that she almost thought she’d heard it speak.

  “It’s not allowed,” she said, not sure why she was saying this aloud. “My lease says no pets. And anyway, Todd’s allergic to cats and he hates animals. And my mother would complain about how much it would cost to feed a cat. She thinks I’m wasting my money trying to live here instead of staying home with her, and if I were feeding a cat…”

  “And how is it your mother’s business?”

  “Well, that’s what I keep saying,” Melody agreed. “It’s my money, and I can spend it any way I like, can’t I?”

  “I don’t know,” said the cat. “Can you? You certainly may, for all of me, but I wouldn’t be sure you can.”

  It was at that point that Melody realized she was holding an actual conversation with a cat.

  “You can talk!” she said.

  “So can you.” The cat had a pleasant voice, either a tenor or a low alto, Melody couldn’t decide which, with the same lovely British accent as her grandmother.

  Which made sense, in a way, if you admitted a cat could talk in the first place. She stared at the cat for a moment, and it grinned placidly back.

  “I must be mad,” she said at last.

  “Oh, we’re all mad here,” the cat replied.

  “I know that line,” Melody said, staring at the cat. “I know all of this…a talking, grinning cat? A Cheshire-Cat?”

  The cat licked the tip of its tail thoughtfully, then remarked, “Your grandmother does live in Chester, after all; what other sort of cat ought she to have?”

  “You can disappear,” Melody said accusingly. “That’s why the box looked empty!”

  The cat did not deign to reply to that.