Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “Thanks, Sunny,” Yoda gasped. “If it wasn’t for you…”

  “Nonsense,” Sunny interrupted. “Nothing will happen to any of us as long as we are together, watching out for each other.”

  “Still, you were…”

  “What do you think, Levi?” Sunny asked, wanting to forestall any mawkish sentiment. She knew how Pomeranians were, and she knew it did not take much to get herself all teary-eyed. “Fight club slaves or lab rats?”

  “Could be either,” he replied. “Or something worse. I’ll try to get it looked into, but that will have to wait until this present case is resolved.”

  “What now?” Yoda asked. “Where to?”

  “Do you have a shadow?” Levi asked.

  Yoda looked down. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with the…” He snapped his head up with enough force to crack his neck. “I owe the hobo cat an apology, I guess.”

  Sunny followed Yoda’s gaze and saw two glowing balls, each bigger than her head, set into the posts on either side of a wide drive. It was a bright white light that banished all darkness.

  “But who is the Gnome?” Yoda demanded.

  Levi gestured with his muzzle.

  “Oh,” Yoda said meekly. “The Gnome is a gnome. I hope I never meet that darn hobo cat.”

  In the yard of the first townhouse apartment inside the gate stood a jaunty porcelain gnome with a pointed cap, a long-stemmed pipe and a big bushy beard. He also had a grin that Yoda found more than a little mocking. He growled softly at the figure, then hurried to catch up with Sunny and Levi.

  “One,” Levi murmured as they passed the apartment’s attached garage. Then he softly said: “Two.”

  “Levi, are you counting driveways?” Sunny asked.

  “Yes,” Levi confirmed. “I’m also counting aprons.”

  “An apron of concrete,” Yoda sighed, giving in to the illogic of the hobo cat’s argot. “They really are nuts.”

  At the seventh driveway they paused before a townhouse that seemed no different than any other in the complex. Levi lifted his muzzle and sniffed just enough to gather in ambient scent molecules. A map of smells and odors quickly formed in his mind.

  He smelled cooking food and dry kibble and laundered bedding, all the myriad scents of domestication and companionship. Amongst the familiar scents of dogs and cats, of mammals of various kinds, and even the exotic smells of reptiles, whose genetic memories defied the understanding of canine minds, he detected a scent that was both recognizable and alien. It was that of a dog, no doubt about that, but there hung about it traces of things no longer part of the modern world—coal dust, peat, air-borne sulfur and camphor; lacking from the canine scent was anything artificial—synthetic fabrics, flea treatments or chemical-laden shampoos. He smelled the strong scents of the Shih Tzus (the China Dogs the hobo cat spoke of) within the townhouse, but the other dog, a Welsh Corgi-mix, was a tremulous smell, as faint as a whisper on the wind. He doubted his friends could smell it at all.

  He glanced at the lighted windows of the townhouses. In this enclave, within these enclosing walls, pets and Companions had a haven in a chaotic and perilous world. Beyond the walls they might be set upon by two- or four-legged predators, but here they were protected by locked doors and latched windows, by vigilant eyes and wary noses. Here, they huddled against the terrors of the night.

  “What do we do now, Levi?” Sunny asked. “We need to talk to those Shih Tzu dogs, but how best to approach them?”

  Before Levi could answer, the porch light snapped on. The inner door swung inward. The dogs ducked into the shadow of a champagne-colored SUV. The locks on the screen door clicked, an iron security door opened, and two dogs ventured into the night.

  “Shih Tzus,” Levi whispered.

  The first dog was smaller than the female. They were splendid examples of the breed that had come to the West from China by way of the Byzantine Empire a thousand years ago. The male’s head was mostly white with gray ears and an off-white moustache. His body was white with a gray oval on each flank. The female had a black head, piercing eyes, and a white moustache tinged black. She was white except for dark lozenge-shaped marks on each side. The male had a carefree grin and an easy unburdened gait, but his housemate moved with wariness and surveyed the darkness as if it contained deadly dangers. A permanently raised upper lip bared her teeth and made her always look as if she meant business.

  Not wanting to startle the Shih Tzus, Levi stepped away from the SUV and into the street. Sunny and Yoda followed suit, staying well behind Levi to appear less threatening.

  “Hello, I’m Levi,” he said pleasantly, carefully modulating the tone of his voice to project friendliness and respect. “These are my friends, Sunny and Yoda.”

  The smaller dog bounded excitedly down the walkway from the door. “Hi, everyone! I’m Sammy! Wow! Never saw you three…”

  The larger female leaped between Sammy and the three dogs. She yapped a savage warning.

  “Get back!” she snarled. “Sammy, move away from those three right now! How many times have I told you…”

  “You must be Kelsey,” Levi said. “We’ve traveled a very long way to meet you and Sammy.”

  Kelsey took a step back, eyes narrowing.

  “Wow!” Sammy exclaimed, starting forward again. “You mean you guys come from the world outside the wall? Wow! And double wow! I never met anyone who…”

  Kelsey barked in Sammy’s face, nipped him with sharp little teeth, and sent him scurrying. He sat, nursed his injury a moment, pouted for a second, then was back on all fours, tail wagging his whole body. Only the possibility of another painful nip kept him where he was. With Sammy put in his place, again, Kelsey turned to the three dogs. They neither looked nor sounded menacing, but with all the weirdness of the past eighteen hours she was not about to take any chances. She bared her teeth and growled savagely.

  “Mad or psycho?” Yoda whispered. “Or maybe just a case of plain old rabies.”

  “Shhh,” Sunny cautioned.

  “We mean you no harm,” Levi said. “We are detectives with the Three Dog Detective Agency of Chula Vista.”

  Kelsey growled even more savagely, as if she might launch herself at Levi at any moment.

  “Rabies for sure,” Yoda whispered.

  “Shhh,” Sunny repeated.

  “We’re investigating a sound heard in Chula Vista before dawn,” Levi continued. “A strange trilling sound.”

  “Really weird!” Sammy exclaimed. “I heard it and I…”

  Kelsey threw back a snarl, silencing Sammy. “Yes, we heard it,” she growled. “It has nothing to do with us.”

  “What about the dog that…”

  “Sammy!” Kelsey snapped.

  “Another part of the strangeness was a series of visions or apparitions,” Levi said. “We were told by a hobo cat that…”

  “I told him!” Sammy cried. “It was me! I told him about…”

  “I told you not to talk to him,” Kelsey barked. “Look at all the trouble you’ve caused by not listening!” She turned to the visitors. “You three beat paws out of here before I give you what for.”

  “That I would like to see,” Yoda murmured softly.

  This time, Sunny knocked her shoulder into the smaller dog. He kept from falling over, and he also kept quiet.

  “Our journey has been a long and dangerous one, surely as perilous as the soul guided by Anubis,” Levi pointed out.

  “So, you’re emissaries of Anubis?” Kelsey sneered. “You think by invoking Anubis you can drag us into your troubles?”

  “Come on, Kelsey,” Sammy called. “The Precepts say…”

  “Shut up, Sammy!”

  “We do not want to disturb you, but it is very important we talk to you about the trilling noise, as well as the dog in the fez and what he may have said to you,” Levi said. “However, if you do not want to help us, there is no way we can force you, no way that we would force you. Help must be rendered willingly or not a
t all.”

  “So, what?” Kelsey asked. “If we don’t want to help you…”

  “I want to help them!” Sammy interjected.

  “…then you’ll turn around and go back the way you came?” she said. “No intimidation? No violence?”

  “That’s right,” Levi confirmed. “It’s not what we do.”

  Kelsey frowned. “But it…what? Took four hours to get here?”

  “Nearer five,” Levi corrected. “But that was mostly by light.”

  “You don’t know how dangerous it is out there,” she accused.

  “We knew the dangers before we set out,” Levi said.

  “And ran into several getting here,” Yoda added. This time Sunny did not silence him. “Lurkers in the dark and a would-be dognapper. It was no stroll in the park.”

  “You did come a long way,” Kelsey said after a moment.

  Levi waited.

  “And you don’t seem like bad dogs.”

  Levi sensed a drop in the odor that signaled aggression.

  “Detectives. huh?”

  “Yes, Miss Kelsey,” Levi confirmed. “We help others when we can, protect the weak when we’re able to, and give answers to the troubled by discovering the truth.”

  “Truth, justice and the canine way?” she asked, faintly mocking.

  “In a sense, I suppose,” Levi agreed.

  “Tell her the whole oath,” Yoda urged.

  “What does Young Wild-Hair mean?” she asked.

  Sunny kept Yoda quiet but could not keep him from bristling at her jibe, which made his fur seem even more wild. He was a little vain and took comments about his appearance personally. He wished he could manage a ‘Fabio moment’ to show her a thing or two, but there was no breeze to ripple his fur while he posed.

  “It’s an oath that all of us in the Three Dog Detective Agency swear, one we always try to live by,” Levi explained. “Let me strive, every moment of my life, to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right, and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of Companions, my fellow animals and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do my best to follow the Rules of First Dog and the Precepts of Anubis. Let me do right to all, and wrong no dog.”

  Levi expected derisive laughter.

  “Perhaps you had better come in,” Kelsey sighed. “But first give us a few moments to do what we came out to do.”

  “Wow,” Yoda breathed. “So this is what ‘out of time’ means.”

  “Why do you say that?” Kelsey asked.

  “Something the hobo cat said,” Yoda explained.

  “Hobo cats are crazy,” Kelsey asserted. “All cats are, but hobo cats are more so.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” When Sunny shouldered him, Yoda added: “But their directions make sense…sort of.”

  “I did not expect this,” Levi admitted, looking around.

  “It’s beautiful,” Sunny breathed. “Like stepping into the past.”

  While the exterior of the townhouse was like all the others, in keeping with late 20th Century architectural blandness, the living room embodied the solid sensibilities and values of the late 19th Century. Opposite the door was a fireplace surfaced with pale stone, a wide-based clock upon the mantel, heavy candlesticks on either side. The furniture was mostly overstuffed, though a thin antique chair sat to the right of the fireplace. A coffee table and an end table rested upon a brightly colored Turkish carpet.

  After they entered, Sammy sprawled in front of the fireplace and gnawed on a bone-shaped cloth chew-toy. Kelsey positioned herself by a chair covered with brocaded floral fabric.

  “You can’t stay long,” she said. “I don’t really want to send you back into the…”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Levi assured her. “We’ve been doing this a very long time.”

  “Don’t get on the furniture,” Kelsey snapped, looking at Yoda.

  Yoda sighed and moved over by Sammy, assuming the Sphinx Position. “She always like that?” he whispered.

  “Sometimes she’s worse,” Sammy confided softly. “But don’t let that tough exterior fool you. Inside she’s really sweet.”

  “Must be deep inside,” Yoda observed.

  “This is a tough and brutal neighborhood,” Sammy explained. “It’s usually calm enough inside the walls, but sometimes the trouble outside gets inside. I guess the reason she’s like she is, is because of me, to protect me from danger.” He paused. “And maybe from myself. She says talking to others leads to trouble, but I like talking to dogs and cats, getting my head patted by Companions. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Yoda said. “But you have to be careful.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to speak to us,” Levi said when all were settled. “Perhaps it would be helpful to tell you what we already know about the trilling sound and accompanying visions.”

  For the next several minutes Levi concisely explained their investigations, minutely detailing reports and manifestations.

  “He always like that?” Sammy whispered to Yoda.

  “Sometimes he’s worse,” Yoda said softly.

  “He’s so focused, it’s almost scary.”

  “When he gets going, there’s no stopping him,” Yoda said.

  “Doesn’t sound like fun at all.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Yoda added. “Levi’s probably the best alpha in the world, but he does have his moments. There was this one time when…”

  Yoda and Sammy realized an abrupt silence had fallen. They looked up quickly and both found themselves under the laser-sharp gazes of their alphas.

  “You and Sammy can compare notes about me and Kelsey some other time,” Levi said.

  “Focus, Sammy,” Kelsey advised.

  Both dogs, properly chastised, returned their attention to the matter at paw. Levi finished his narrative of strange events in the night and looked to Kelsey.

  “It never occurred to me this might be bigger than our four walls,” Kelsey said. “As you know, this is an insular neighborhood. The world outside our complex is violent and deadly. Clashes between outlaw packs happen all the time, and there are much worse things out there. We tend to turn a blind eye to things beyond the wall, and even mind our own business inside the complex. We keep ourselves to ourselves because it’s the safest thing to do, something I have tried to impress upon Sammy, but to little avail. He’s always bounding into some potentially dangerous situation, always ready to chat up every Spot, Fido and Rover. And don’t get me started about how many strange Companions he lets pet him.”

  “I’m gregarious!” Sammy protested. “It’s my nature!”

  Kelsey sighed. “See what I mean, Levi? A happy-go-lucky goofball who’s going to give me a nervous breakdown someday.”

  “Oh, come on Kelsey, you know I…”

  “Did both of you hear the trilling noise?” Levi asked.

  “I heard it first!” Sammy blurted.

  “If you were inside…” Sunny started to ask.

  “Through the open window!” Sammy exclaimed. “I heard it through the open window and I jumped up…”

  “Our Companions sleep with the windows open,” Kelsey added. “Fresh air, but they still snore like trains passing in the night.”

  “…and I ran to the window and put my face right up to the screen,” Sammy continued. “Weird! Really weird! Double weird! It went like…” Then the little Shih Tzu made a kind of high warbling sound that no dog other than a yodeling Basenji should have tried.

  “Stop that, Sammy, you’ll hurt yourself,” Kelsey said sharply. “Besides, it sounded nothing like that.”

  “Did to!”

  “You’re overexcited.”

  “Am not!”

  “Did either of you feel as if…” Levi paused. “Did the trilling make you feel as if you wanted to answer it? To go to it? As i
f it were…calling you somehow.”

  Sammy shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Kelsey?” Levi asked the suddenly quiet Shih Tzu.

  “There was a moment…” she began. “As you know, I don’t like to go outside unless I have to, but when I heard the trilling I had the urge to go into the night, to answer…yes, I guess you could say I felt it was calling me. But I didn’t answer.”

  “Any visions of a giant hound?” Yoda asked.

  Kelsey shuddered. “No.”

  Startled by the abruptness of her answer, they waited for her to continue. After a half moment, however, it was clear Kelsey had said all she was going to say upon the subjects of giant hounds and the effects of the trilling.

  “What about the direction of the noise?” Levi asked. “Did you get a sense of that?”

  “From the northeast for certain,” Kelsey said.

  Sammy nodded in agreement. “Looking out the upstairs rear window, I could tell it was coming from somewhere in line with the tall Denny’s sign on the other side of the freeway.”

  “Yes,” Kelsey confirmed, still pensive. “So it seemed.”

  “Yoda, help me with this,” Levi said.

  The little Pomeranian crossed over to Levi and edged his sharp, pointed muzzle under Levi’s collar. Behind the wide collar Levi wore to hide his scarred throat where fur refused to grow was the map Little Kitty had prepared from Kim’s data. When the taped-together map was unfolded on the floor between them, they added the new info from the Shih Tzus.

  “This is where we are now,” Levi said, pointing with a claw. “If we extend a line from here through the location of the Denny’s Restaurant, we intersect our other sightings…” He drew his nail across the map. “Here.”

  “Looks like all roads do lead to Otay,” Yoda quipped.

  “We knew that already,” Sunny said. “But where…”

  “We’re not going to be able to pinpoint it on this scale, with these approximate sightings,” Levi cautioned. “Best I can tell from this…somewhere in the vicinity of Third Avenue and Zenith.”

  “Tough neighborhood,” Yoda murmured.

  “Tougher than ours?” Kelsey challenged.