A Flight of Raptors (Paws & Claws Book 2)

by Ralph Vaughan

  “Liar!” Caesar charged again, with just as much success as before. This time, though, Levi ducked low as the Rottweiler passed, nipping at the important hamstring muscle. Caesar was left with a severe limp.

  “Why don’t you do yourself a favor and roll over on your back,” Levi suggested. “I can keep this up all night long.”

  “You’re what they call an alpha, ain’t you?” Caesar said, regarding his opponent warily, pacing back and forth, forcing Levi to turn with him, but not approaching. “I seen your kind here before, snotty, tryin’ to bring order. Know what I found out?”

  “What?” Levi asked.

  “Alphas bleed!”

  Caesar again charged Levi, but this time it was no blind rush. Despite his youth, he was well trained in the art of combat, an art he had practiced and perfected on every dog who had come to this compound. He had defeated or annihilated every dog he had met in his training, and that was why he had been chosen for an arena match with this troublesome newcomer. Now that he had finally mastered the fury stirred up by Levi, he was able to counter Levi’s defense and nearly sink his teeth into Levi’s shoulder.

  But Levi was fast, very fast, able to avoid Caesar’s huge maw at the last moment. Caesar, despite his hatred of Levi and his words, was forced to admire the fighting skills of the little Dachshund-mix, and there was within him a tiny sliver of emotion that would regret killing such a skilled fighter, but that was the way of the world…at least the world Caesar embraced.

  Time after time, Levi fended off Caesar’s attacks and avoided serious injury, while at the same time getting in some good nips and bites, not to mention jibes. The jibes, however, were less effective now that Caesar had mostly mastered his emotions and had settled down to the serious business of murder, but the dog could still be goaded into occasional acts of rashness.

  Levi was under no illusion, however, that he had any chance of surviving this ordeal. Even if, miracle of miracles, he managed to somehow defeat Caesar, there were at least a dozen more fighting dogs out there just itching, probably literally, for the chance to take on this uppity little dog. And Levi knew another thing – he was beginning to tire.

  Caesar, sensing Levi’s fatigue, began a series of attacks designed to wear the Dachshund-mix down even more. As Levi’s reactions slowed, as his defensive bites became less forceful, Caesar felt his confidence surge. He was big and he was strong and he would tear this pipsqueak to pieces, just as he had so many others before. First there would be the heady sensation of sinking his fangs into soft flesh, then the yelps of pain and terror, and the blood and final shudderings. As it had been dozens of times before, so would it be this time, as it would be countless times to come.

  Caesar lunged for the defeated Dachshund-mix, savoring the feel of yielding flesh. He sank his sharp fangs into Levi’s throat…and closed on empty space. Even as it settled into his blood-dimmed mind that Levi had somehow escaped his ultimate attack, he felt the most pain he had ever felt in his life. And he could see nothing but a shimmering red mist. A dog was attached to his head, rapidly scissoring his face with busy teeth. As he shook his massive head in a futile effort to dislodge Levi, he realized that the mist he saw was his own blood.

  It was almost beyond Caesar’s intellectual powers to understand he had been defeated. It was something that had never happened before, and it was beyond his ability to imagine it. Even as he fell heavily to the ground, he realized Levi was no longer savaging him. He opened his eyes and saw Levi standing across from him.

  “What are you waiting for?” Caesar demanded, unable to stand. “Go ahead and finish it.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “I am not going to do it, Caesar,” Levi announced.

  “You have to,” Caesar told him. “That’s the way the world is.”

  “Your world, not my world,” Levi explained, though he knew the Rottweiler would never understand. “I am not a killer like you; I am better than you.”

  “You accomplished nothin’, Levi,” Caesar gasped. “Nothin’.”

  As if to make Caesar’s words prophetic, the panel opposite Levi slid upward and other another dog scampered in, a Pit Bull grinning maniacally.

  “You may’ve got Caesar, but you won’t get…”

  The dog’s rant was interrupted by a volley of angry voices and loud bangs. Flashlight beams shot through the air and a helicopter appeared overhead splashing a harsh glare over everything. Levi took advantage of the sudden confusion to steak past the Pit Bull. As he exited, the panel fell into place, trapping the dog in the arena.

  Levi ran to where Sunny and Yoda were still trying to free themselves.

  “Levi, are you all right?” Yoda asked.

  “Just some cuts and bruises,” Levi said. “I’m fine.”

  “I was so worried.”

  The compound was filled with K9 officers and the regular police capturing suspects, rounding up rogue animals and giving aid to the poor pathetic creatures that had been used to train the dogs to kill.

  Sunny looked around. “But how did…”

  “You guys are all right!” Stacker exclaimed happily as he came bounding up. “I was afraid we would be too late!”

  “Are we glad to see you,” Yoda said. “How did you do all this?”

  Officers Arnold and Antony trotted up, chewed at the leather bindings and quickly bit through.

  “You okay, Miss Sunny?” Arnold asked.

  “I’m fine, Officer Arnold,” she replied.

  “I’m glad that…”

  “Go help the other dogs with rounding up and controlling those mutts,” Antony ordered.

  Arnold went to join the other K9 Units and officers.

  “Arnold, there are two dogs in the fighting arena,” Levi called. “One is in bad shape, but the other is ready to rumble.”

  “Good,” Arnold called back. “Sounds like fun.”

  “You have this pup to thank for us pulling you out of trouble,” Antony said.

  “And for getting us into it in the first place.” Yoda quipped. “We were on the verge of heading back when he…dropped in.”

  “Sorry,” Stacker said in a voice so small no one heard.

  “Yeah, he told us about that and about a million other things that didn’t matter,” Antony said dismissively. “The way he flew into our kennels at the station, the pup must be at least part Greyhound, I’ll say that much. When we finally got him to slow down enough so we could understand what he was saying, we told our bosses what was going on, and they connived to lead the regular police here, and here we are, just in time to save your hides, again. Civilians have no role in…”

  “Save it Antony,” Levi said peremptorily. “We’ve heard it all before. But we also heard that you couldn’t do anything about this place, would not even believe it existed, until you had evidence. This evidence enough?”

  “Yes, it is,” Antony conceded. “But we would have come across this place on our own sooner or later. We were getting reports of stolen pets in east Chula Vista, and too many carcasses were turning up in the area, all with signs of fight-trauma. We suspected a place like this, and were investigating.”

  “How many more would have died?” Levi asked. “How many dogs would have been stolen from companions?”

  Antony looked uncomfortable. “I’m not saying you three did not do a good thing here, save a lot of poor souls and all that, but it’s dangerous work.”

  “It’s a dangerous world, Officer Antony,” Levi replied. “But we don’t run away from it.”

  “What’s going to happen to the dogs here?” Yoda asked.

  “They’ll all be given over to the Shelter.”

  “Oh my!” Sunny gasped.

  “Don’t worry, they don’t do that there,” Antony assured them. “The injured will be cared for. Those not too damaged by all this will be adopted out…but there will be few of those.”

  “And the others?” Levi asked.

  “They’ll be held as long as pos
sible,” Antony answered. “The worst of them, those too far gone into darkness, well, they will eventually be transferred to a Shelter where they…where they do that…that process.”

  “Do you need us anymore?” Levi asked.

  “No, the four of you best be getting along back home,” Antony said. “And try to stay out of trouble.” He fixed Stacker with a baleful authoritative glare. “Especially you, young pup; follow in the pawprints of these three troublemakers and you’ll probably end up in a Shelter yourself…and I don’t mean the no-sleep kind.”

  “Let’s go,” Levi said, leading his pack out.

  “You look terrible, Levi,” Sunny commented.

  “Yeah,” Yoda agreed. “Like you fought a clowder of feral cats.”

  Levi passed his paw across his muzzle and grimaced, then grinned. “Not my blood, mostly. Guess I’ll have to find a lawn sprinkler to walk through on the way home. This would certainly cause a needless fuss. You know how they are.”

  As they walked along the shadowed walkway, Levi thought of the meeting he had missed with Natividad. There would not have been much information to pass, but he would have liked to speak to the Parrot about the routines of the Raptors. True, he could do it tomorrow, but he felt as if he had somehow shirked a duty by letting his emotions about the gladiatorial school get the best of him. He could have chosen a less direct line of investigation, made better use of their network of irregulars, and in doing so could have set up a situation where Stacker would not follow them into danger.

  “I’m sorry I put you all in danger,” Stacker said as he caught up with Levi. “I just wanted to be a detective, so when I saw you three leaving, I trailed you.”

  “And a good job of it too,” Levi remarked, glad for a distraction from his brooding, self-recriminating thoughts. “None of us sensed you at all.”

  “The wind was from the wrong direction,” Yoda protested.

  “And with all the interference from the trolley tracks and wires…” Sunny offered.

  “Well, wind or whatever, you have to admit that escaping the notice of three seasoned detectives is pretty good for anyone,” Levi said. He looked to Stacker. “You like excitement and danger?”

  “Yeah!” the Parson Russell exclaimed.

  “Good, because we have an assignment for you so exciting and dangerous it will make tonight’s outing look like a Frisbee toss.”

  “What?” Stacker’s eyes grew wide with anticipation.

  “You, young pup,” Levi replied, “are going to tell your dam and sire everything you’ve done tonight.”

  Stacker gulped.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The house on Fifth Avenue was being closely watched by Raptors, and they were not exactly secretive about their surveillance. Whenever the dogs or cats went outside, one or other of the Hawks would be perched upon a pole or wire nearby. None of the animals went outside alone, especially the cats, but the outdoor cats reckoned they could handle things on their own.

  “Even birds the size of those Raptors don’t want to pick a fight with someone like me,” Smokey had said in his soft gravelly voice, which was delicately accented from his years spent as a ship’s cat traveling to the world’s many seaports. “I have Groucho’s back, and he has mine – he may be a Calico male (you know how they are) but I’ve taught him some pretty good tricks. Let them try something with us…it would be fun.”

  Levi doubted they would. The Birds of Prey had focused on the Three Dog Detective Agency only because they had given Benedict sanctuary and had humiliated them. The Parrots were their prey, the dogs were their enemies because they interfered with their prey; it was Levi’s experience that bullies like these Raptors rarely got involved with fights they were unsure of winning, and when cats and birds came into contact the outcome was always unsure,

  After briefing the cats on the events at the former gladiatorial school, the dogs fell into a sleep from which they did not awaken till late the next morning. Levi’s sleep, however, was not as restful as it was healing, for he was troubled by dreams he had thought long suppressed. He awoke earlier than the others and left the house for a walk. He was the first one to notice the surveillance of the Raptors; it troubled him only because it might hamper his meeting with Natividad later in the day.

  He breathed a slight sigh of relief when he noticed the watch was set upon the house itself, not on its inhabitants. Which meant, Levi thought, as he walked along, that they were still hoping to catch Benedict away from his sanctuary.

  Smokey bounded up and fell into step with the dog.

  “I heard about last night from Miss Kim,” the large silver and black cat said. “You don’t look too torn up.”

  “You ought to see the other dog,” Levi quipped, pulling a page from Yoda’s playbook. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you, about the Parrots and their situation.”

  “What about them?” Smokey asked.

  “You know they are not from around here.”

  “Who is?” the big tom quipped. “I’ve been around so much, been in so many ports, I sometimes forget where I started out.”

  “And where was that?” Levi asked.

  Smokey gave the feline equivalent of a shrug. “Odessa, maybe; perhaps Belomorsk or Varna. Hard to say. I wandered onto my first ship as a kitten, or I may have been part of a litter born on a ship. It was a long time ago, and I have traveled much since then…until I happened to light here. I found this a good place to, as they say, put down roots.”

  “How well traveled are you in Latin America?” Levi asked. “The southern area of Mexico, to be specific.”

  “Well, you know I escorted Bobo back to Guatemala…”

  “Yes.”

  “And that was not my first trip in a Dole cargo ship,” Smokey added. “For about two years, I served as ship’s mouser on lots of those fruit carriers, including ones to and from Salina Cruz down in the State of Oaxaca. I knocked around a lot in southern Mexico, going between the Pacific and Atlantic. To answer your question, if you want someone who knows Mexico, I’m your cat.”

  “From what Benedict has been able to recall from the stories told to him by Christobal and other elders of the tribe, they originally came from the jungles of southern Mexico,” Levi said.

  Smokey nodded. “Pretty likely, actually. The Parrot trade is illegal now, but there are still lots of poachers. However, it would have had to have been long ago because the birds are now smuggled in through Galveston, Biloxi and ports in Florida.”

  “A very long time ago,” Levi replied. “Christobal claims to be a hundred years old.”

  Smokey stopped and stared at Levi, his pale eyes wide. “You talked to him yourself? He actually said that?”

  Levi nodded.

  Smokey shook his head in wonder. “Life is not fair.”

  “No,” Levi agreed. “Life is what you make it.”

  “So, why do you want to know about Mexico?” Smokey asked. “You’re not thinking of trying to get the Parrots home, are you?”

  “Actually, yes, that had crossed my mind.”

  “Why? Let them live here, make the best they can where they are like everyone else,” Smokey proclaimed. “Why help them return to a place most of them have never seen?”

  “Because none of them came here of their own free will,” Levi answered. “The oldest ones were stolen, and the others were born here because of that long-ago crime.”

  “But this should be their home by now, it’s been so long,” Smokey protested. “They should have adapted to the real world after all this time.”

  “Perhaps,” Levi conceded. “But it isn’t, and they haven’t. They remain outsiders, isolated and vulnerable, which is ultimately how they fell prey to the Raptors.”

  “What makes you think they even want to go back?” Smokey demanded. “Did they tell you?”

  “No, I think they’ve all but given up hope of that actually happening.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “Because they still tell stories
about home,” Levi replied. “If they did not on some level yearn to return to their jungle home, the stories would have stopped. The elders would have stopped telling them, and the younger ones would have stopped listening.”

  “From what you told me about Benedict,” Smokey observed, “that one does not listen, not closely.”

  “A crisis of faith,” Levi explained. “It was that crisis of faith that led him to abandon his friends and brought us into the fray. Without it, we would never have intervened, the enslavement would not be on the verge of ending.”

  “You believe it all will work out?”

  “I do.”

  Again that characteristically feline shrug. “Miss Kim tells me Bast moves in mysterious ways, and one could probably say the thing about your Anubis as well.”

  “And Quetzalcoatl,” Levi added.

  “Whatever,” Smokey muttered. Since he was more or less a follower of Primal Cat, he generally found all the others’ talk about the spirit world more confusing than not. “Now, getting back to what we were speaking of, am I correct in thinking you want to find a way to get the Parrots back to their jungle home?”

  “Not their original home, that would not be a practical hope,” Levi said. “But a jungle environment where they could thrive and be happy. They stayed here because they had no way to return, but they have never been happy. No matter how hard they try to adapt, they cannot change the fact that they are creatures of the tropics, and this is a coastal desert, and overly encroached at that.”

  “Cats adapt to everywhere,” Smokey pointed out. “And dogs too, mostly.”

  “They are neither cats nor dogs,” Levi said. “They are who they are, and that they cannot change.”

  “Very well,” Smokey sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nose around and see if there is some way to get them back home,” Levi said. “Like we did with the Howler Monkey.”

  “That was a vacation I did not mind taking, but I will not bird-sit for two thousand miles,” Smokey exclaimed. “However, I will check around, see what I can find out, and let you know.”