Howling Dead

by M. H. Bonham

  And maybe he didn’t, thought Kira. Spaz had acted awfully nervous about the Enchanted Forest. She poured the tea in the cup and boxed the sandwich. Without a glance behind, she walked out of Axioms and down the street toward home, wondering what she was going to do about Alaric.

  CHAPTER 28

  The message light on the computer was blinking when she returned home. Kira shut the door, set down the food, and clicked on the messages.

  “Kira, this is Jim. I’m so sorry I upset you by showing you that wolf—can I make it up to you and take you out to dinner?”

  Kira hit pause and shook her head. Even when she behaved badly, he still wanted to go out with her. A nice guy, if there ever was one. Too bad he’d dump her if he found out what she was.

  She sat down and stared at the screen. So much for her getting her old job back. Not that Bob had really been ready to give it back anytime soon. He’d have used her and then laughed at her when she asked for a job. Asshole. But now Kira had more pressing problems.

  Her first problem was Alaric. How in the hell was she going to get him out of the pound? He had said to contact Cathal, but she had her doubts about him. Alaric might trust him, but she surely didn’t.

  Her second problem was Spaz. Although he was a spider and a bit unreliable, she knew that if he was working it was because he needed the money, and he wouldn’t have just disappeared. It was totally not in character. She pulled out his card and entered his name in the white pages on the Internet. It didn’t turn up.

  She frowned. “Okay, let’s find you via your website.” Kira Googled him and the search engine came up with Spaz’s Home Page.

  Spaz’s Home Page.

  Only my mom calls me William. Welcome to my website. I’m just your itsy-bitsy spider in the corner doing no harm, unless you’re Little Miss Muffet.

  Beneath the intro there were a number of links. One stared back at her: The Yellow Brick Road.

  “Oh Spaz, Spaz, Spaz!” she grumbled and clicked on it. “Why couldn’t you have been clearer?”

  The link brought her into a rather staid looking site for an Australian Bed and Breakfast called, aptly The Ruby Slippers, www.therubyslippers.co.au. So far, so good, Kira thought. She had gone to Oz and had found the ruby slippers. Now to get them to work. Only she didn’t want to return to Kansas—or Colorado, for that matter. She began clicking on links on the website—and found nothing. There were pictures of the quaint Victorian-style Bed and Breakfast. It showed beautiful blooming flowers and rooms with quaint beds and patchwork quilts.

  “Damn, why would you have this link, Spaz?” she muttered. She knew that he didn’t put up businesses on his site without a purpose. Unless perhaps the site had some sort of hidden webpage that she could get to. She glanced at the link and found that it wasn’t an index page, but rather www.therubyslippers.co.au/BandB.html. Kira entered the site name without the page address. Technically, it should have brought her to the index. Instead, it brought her to the root file system of the computer.

  “Oh Spaz,” she said. She was in the public files. There had been a script that logged her onto the site. There was one file there: followtheyellowbrickroad. She entered type followtheyellowbrickroad and received permission denied. Frowning, she then entered pwd followtheyellowbrickroad and found it was only executable. But it was world executable. She frowned. What in the hell would it do?

  Feeling like she had crossed over the line, she entered the command. She saw some gibberish flash across the screen and then, opening port 42000, axioms.

  “Axioms?” She stared. “All the time it was on Axioms’ site?” Or was it? She glanced at the IP addresses and found that they were linked into Intermountain computers. “All roads lead to Rome,” she said. “Damn, what a twisted bunch of pricks you are.”

  Welcome to the Enchanted Forest, the words scrolled onto the screen.

  The phone rang. Kira grumbled and glanced at the caller id. It was the police station—probably Jim Walking Bear. The Enchanted Forest would have to wait a little longer. She sighed and picked up the handset. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Kira?” Jim’s voice came through. “Did you get my message?”

  “About dinner? Yeah, I’m up to it,” Kira said.

  “Didn’t you hear the rest of the message?”

  “No,” she said, feeling guilty now. She had put the message on hold.

  “Animal control has made a decision about the wolf,” he said. “They’re euthanizing it tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Shit! Shit! Shit!” Kira shouted.

  “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “Why don’t they turn it loose in the forest or something?”

  “Kira, there haven’t been wild wolves in Colorado since 1935,” said Jim. “The Colorado Division of Fish and Wildlife considers any wolf found in a populated area to be a job for Animal Control, not them.”

  “What about wolf preserves?”

  “They don’t want an aggressive wolf.” He paused. “Look, Kira, I don’t understand why you’re concerned about this.”

  “Well,” Kira said. “Well...” She fell silent. How could she explain to him that they had captured the Alpha of the Denver werewolf pack? An uncomfortable silence followed.

  “Dinner tonight?” Jim asked. “We can talk about it then.”

  Kira held her breath and looked at the clock. It was one o’clock. Maybe she had enough time to talk to Cathal by then. “Let’s say six.”

  “How about the Italian?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I’ll make reservations,” he said. “Meet you in front of your apartment?”

  “Sure,” Kira said. She hung up the phone.

  Kira stared at the words: Welcome to the Enchanted Forest. The Enchanted Forest was going to have to wait if she was going to rescue Alaric.

  K

  Kira pounded on Trevor’s door. Music from Warren Zeevon was blasting inside. She pounded again, this time using her werewolf-augmented strength. Now if he’d use his werewolf hearing—assuming he wasn’t already deaf...

  Trevor opened the door, looking sleepy. His clothes were baggy and rumpled—Kira couldn’t tell if they were pajamas or real clothes. “Yeah? Oh, it’s you.” He tried to shut the door. She gripped the door and held it open. He turned around and walked into his apartment. “What do you want? An extension on your rent?” He wandered over to the couch and sat down. “You know, once they become were, half of them become deadbeats. They figure I won’t evict them because they’ll beat me up at night. Well, I don’t think so. A deadbeat is a deadbeat, that’s what...”

  Kira walked over and turned off the stereo.

  “Hey! What’dya do that for?”

  “Alaric has been captured by animal control,” she said.

  Trevor raised an eyebrow, causing the brow-ring to move upwards slightly. Kira winced. “Oh?”

  “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

  “That’s interesting news,” Trevor said. “Can I turn my music back on?”

  “No,” Kira said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, since you woke me up, I guess I’ll have breakfast.”

  “It’s one o’clock.”

  “Ten past, actually.” Trevor shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Kira?”

  “That you’ll help me get him out. They’re going to euthanize him.”

  “No they won’t,” he said. “Alaric will attack and tear their throats out.”

  “Not if they dart and sedate him first.”

  “Oh, I didn’t think of that.” Trevor smiled. “He could become human right there. Wouldn’t that surprise them?”

  “Yeah and expose more than just him,” Kira said. “You know, they’ll find out about the werewolves. And it won’t take long before they figure out that the wolf attacks were actually werewolf attacks. Now, be a nice boy and help me.”

  “Bitch,” Trevor remarked.

  “Thank you,” Kira said. “You say that like it’s a bad t
hing.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Who do I need to talk to?”

  “Cathal,” Trevor said. “He’s at The Grey Wolf.”

  “Okay, come with me.”

  “Why?”

  Kira hesitated. What could she hold against him that would make any difference? She knew nothing about werewolves except that they seemed to behave according to pack politics. She paused. Pack politics. That was her edge. “I know you weren’t tailing me last night,” she said. “And you should’ve been. You’ve disobeyed orders from your Alpha.”

  “So?” Trevor said. Despite the bravado in his voice, Kira could see uncertainty in his eyes.

  “That doesn’t make a wolf popular, does it?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Trevor said.

  “It does when you’re at the bottom of the pack,” Kira replied. “Oh sure, if you were one of the Betas looking to grab the Alpha spot away, that’d be one thing. But you aren’t, are you?”

  A growl issued from Trevor’s throat.

  “How low in the pack are you, Trevor?”

  “None of your fucking business, bitch.”

  “I think it is,” Kira said. “Alaric gave you a job and you failed to perform. That’d drop you right down to—what? Below bottom of the pack? They might just drum you out.”

  “You don’t scare me. You don’t have Alaric to protect you.”

  “No, but I have Cathal.” Kira wondered how much she could bluff. “Even if Alaric doesn’t get rescued, I’ll tell Cathal what a worthless prick you are and how you don’t obey orders.”

  Trevor became very pale. “You wouldn’t.”

  Kira smiled. “Try me.”

  “Bitch.”

  “And?”

  “I hope Cathal chews you up,” he muttered. “Okay, you win. We’ll see Cathal.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Trevor brought her back to The Grey Wolf. This time, Kira decided she wouldn’t show fear—too much was at stake here. Cathal was brutish but she hoped he cared enough about Alaric to at least save his life. If not, than at least maybe he cared enough about keeping the werewolves hidden. Kira suspected Alaric would change into a human if he had no other choice but to face a lethal injection, and then the werewolves would be exposed, so to speak. Kira wondered how the shelter worker would react, finding a naked man in a wolf cage.

  “I’ll lead you to Cathal, but I’m not going to back you up,” Trevor remarked as they walked through the bar with the various patrons staring at them.

  “Why are they staring?” Kira whispered.

  “Because you’re new, and because I’m with a woman.”

  Kira stared at Trevor for a moment. She remembered Megan’s statement. “I forgot, you’re a gay werewolf.”

  “You’ve got a problem with that?”

  Kira laughed and shook her head. “No, I don’t. It’s just so—unexpected.”

  “What did you expect?” Trevor challenged, showing his teeth.

  “Save it for someone else,” Kira snapped. “I don’t know what I expected, I guess.”

  Somewhat mollified, Trevor turned and asked two young werewolves at the bar where Cathal was. They pointed to the pool room. Trevor glanced at her and gave her a nudge toward the back room where she had first met Alaric. Kira nodded, whispered “Thanks,” and made her way through the various lycanthropes to the back room.

  There were no guards, so Kira entered. Cathal was playing billiards with another werewolf with long, dirty brown hair, wearing leather. He was younger than Cathal by a few years and had fewer scars on his face and more tattoos. His gold eyes watched Kira with mistrust.

  Cathal didn’t bother looking up. Instead, he was studying the position of the cue ball relative to the solid balls on the table.

  “Come on, Cathal, don’t take all day,” the other werewolf said. He glanced at Kira. “Who’s the bitch?”

  “Wolf-bait,” Cathal said, flashing his teeth. “What are you doing here, bitch?”

  “Alaric has been caught by animal control.” Kira eyed them both. She doubted she could take them on in either of her forms so she figured she’d have to bluff if they became aggressive.

  Cathal laughed. “So?”

  “He’s scheduled for euthanasia.”

  Cathal lined up his cue and took his shot. The white ball clinked against a blue solid and sent it ricocheting off the sides. “That’s not my problem.”

  “You’re his second-in-command.”

  “And?” Cathal looked up. “Look, bitch, I don’t know how the monkeys do things, but the pack law is how we do things.”

  “Meaning?” Kira asked.

  “I’m now in charge of the Denver pack.” He bared his teeth. “Alaric is a monkey-lover and he deserves what he gets. He was too damn concerned about what the rogue-wolves do, but he doesn’t get it, now does he?”

  “His beloved monkeys are now going to give him the needle. Ironic, isn’t it?” the other werewolf spoke up as he took careful aim. He hit the cue, and a striped ball went into the corner pocket.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “You’re not going to try to rescue him?” Kira said. “He’s your friend and leader.”

  “He ain’t my friend,” Cathal said. He walked over to the table where his beer sat and took a gulp. The other werewolf tried to send another ball into a side pocket and it bounced and skittered into the middle of the table. Cathal met Kira’s gaze with his own. “You don’t understand, do you? He made a mistake and he’ll pay for it. That’s pack law.”

  “What about loyalty?”

  Cathal chuckled. “You’re wasting your time, wolf-bait. Go home.”

  Kira frowned as he went back to playing pool. She stepped back and stalked out of the room without another word.

  As she returned to the main room, she spied Trevor in the back of the bar. He was drinking beer with a man with orange hair and earrings. “Trevor!” she shouted above the music. “Trevor!”

  Trevor glanced her way and then turned to his companion. Kira pushed her way through the crowd of werewolves until she made it to Trevor’s table. “Trevor,” she said. “Cathal didn’t go for it.”

  “So, who’s your new girlfriend?” the werewolf with orange hair asked in a falsetto voice. “I had no idea you went both ways.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” Kira said flatly.

  “Thank Hecate for that,” said Trevor. “She’s a bitch.”

  Kira glared. “You’re some help.”

  “I got you in to see Cathal.”

  “For all the good it does,” Kira said. “He won’t help Alaric.”

  “Well, little wonder, girlfriend,” said the other werewolf. “Cathal is Alpha now.”

  “This is Mark,” Trevor said quickly to her quizzical gaze. “We’re friends.”

  “Yeah,” said Kira. “I bet.”

  “You know, I could really do something with that hair,” Mark said. “I did Trevor’s—don’t you like it?”

  “A little too punk for me,” Kira said.

  “I’m a hairstylist,” Mark said. “I also do wardrobe consultations.”

  “Somehow, I guessed,” she said blandly. “Look, Trevor, we have to do something.”

  “Like what? This is pack rules, Kira,” Trevor said. “Cathal is Alpha. Get used to it.”

  A low growl rumbled in Kira’s throat. She turned and made her way out of the bar without another word.

  Despite herself, her ears picked up a snippet of Mark and Trevor’s conversation. “You know, I think she has something for Alaric,” Mark said.

  CHAPTER 31

  Kira walked out of The Grey Wolf, her eyes watering from the cigarette smoke and from her own anger and frustration. What in the hell was going on? What was wrong with these people? Didn’t anyone care that a man was going to die? She sat on the curb and put her head in her hands.

  Pack rules. She was getting a little tired of hearing those words. Sure, they were wolves, but they were also humans. That meant that the
y still had the ability to rationally think and act like humans. Somehow, along the way, the werewolves had not evolved the kind of society that valued fairness, kindness, and decency toward each other. Instead, they were concerned with pack law—that is, the biggest, baddest wolf became Alpha.

  She wondered if someone like Alaric could change things. Kira could see plenty of good attributes in Alaric that made him the ideal Alpha. He didn’t want a race war between werewolves and normal humans. He appeared to genuinely care about his pack members. And he seemed to have the kind of human side that, as Kira was quickly learning, most werewolves had abandoned.

  But what could she do to free Alaric? The Animal Control building looked impossible to get into without keys. Even if she figured out some way to break in, she still had the daunting task of getting Alaric out. The cage was locked and she had no idea how to free him without the key.

  She needed someone inside. She needed Jim Walking Bear.

  Kira frowned. Convincing him would take some doing. And even if she did prove to him that her story was true, there was a little matter of whether or not he’d help her.

  Kira walked back to her apartment and checked her messages once she got in. Nothing from Spaz. Kira called Axioms and found out that Spaz still hadn’t shown up for work, nor had he called in. Kira shook her head as she hung up the phone. This was so unlike Spaz.

  She checked Jim’s number and called.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jim,” she said. “This is Kira. Hey, I need a couple of favors.”

  “A couple of favors?” Jim said lightly. “You know, it’s going to cost you.”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, I know. I’ll owe you, big time.”

  “Okay, shoot. What is it?”

  “Well, I have a buddy from college who came into town not too long ago.”

  Silence greeted her.

  “No, not a boyfriend, just a good friend. His name is William Tagura. Anyway, he’s pretty regular about work and all, and he hasn’t shown up at his job today and hasn’t called in.”

  “You sure he’s not playing hooky?”