Extra Thursday Post: The Great Escape

“I have to use the bathroom,” Ewan said.

“Come on, son,” the hunter scoffed. “That’s the oldest trick in the book. How stupid do you think I am?”

In percentage points? Ewan thought. Aloud, he said, “Not dumb enough to fall for that, and we both know it. That doesn’t change the fact I’m seconds away from turning this here mattress into my own personal newspaper. You let me dump my load, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Including,” he added, with a jerk of his chin toward the grainy photo Agent Mulder had left on the nightstand, “what those beasties are and who made ‘em.”

Cochrane flicked a disinterested glance at the photo. His full attention stayed on Ewan. Chaos bite his prick. The hunter wasn’t after answers, like the rest of the Scooby Crew. He was out for blood. If he ran across Hancock’s monster hybrids he’d shoot them, and every other shifter he happened on. Ewan wouldn’t miss the mutants, but he had good friends in the Peak.

He looked toward Velma and added, “C’mon. You seem like an honorable sort. Would you really make me humiliate myself in front of a lady?”

The hunter rolled his eyes. “You do know how to pile it on.” He gestured to Silent Sam. The man left his post by the door and approached the bed. He drew a knife big enough to gut a rhino with. Ewan tried not to flinch while Silent Sam slit his bonds. All the while Cochrane kept his gun trained on Ewan. Velma stood by the window. Her glasses magnified her eyes to dinner-plate dimensions.

“There any windows in the bathroom?” Cochrane asked. Both Silent Sam and Velma shook their heads. “Okay. You get five minutes. No tricks. Maybe I should blow out a knee, just to play it safe.”

“That’d make it tough for me to aim. No need to get messy. I won’t do anything tricky. You have my word.”

“A shifter’s word,” Cochrane said with a sneer, but he let Ewan enter the bathroom and shut the door. “Five minutes!” he barked.

That sat fine with Ewan. He only needed three.

As promised, the bathroom had no windows. He could probably throw himself through a window in the main room, and slice himself to tatters in the process. Nope. It would have to be the door.

He had no weapons; they’d patted him down when they caught him. A shifter’s weapon was their animal form and whatever natural advantages came along with it. Ewan’s human form had only one advantage, and the coyote in him couldn’t wait to use it.

But first, prep. He stood by the toilet, shut his eyes, and thought about Velma. Her short, soft hair, her big brown eyes. The fun he could have feeling under her t-shirt in a leisurely search for her tits. The loud, barky sounds he could coax out of her. She looked like she might be a biter. Ewan liked biters. He pictured her bony body writhing beneath him while he covered it in love-nips. He reached for the buttons on his shirt.

“One minute!” Cochrane shouted at the door.

Ewan threw the door open. “All done,” he announced. “I’m ready to talk. I got nothing to hide.”

Indeed he did not. He was totally naked. His enormous dick stood stiff at attention, blatantly pointed at the room.

For one shocked second, all three humans froze. In that second, Ewan shifted.

Being an Eastern coyote, or coywolf, he lacked a wolf’s full size but shared the jaw muscles that made crunching the bones of big prey such an easy deal. The coyote’s legendary flexibility added on made him hell on four paws. Best of both worlds, really.

He dove straight for Cochrane and closed those wolf’s jaws on the wrist of the man’s gun hand. Bones snapped. The hunter howled and dropped his gun. Ewan swung toward the door before he remembered the downside of wolf jaws and wolf paws, especially when confronted with a doorknob. Looked like it would have to be the windows after all.

No go. The barricade that was Silent Sam blocked his way. He changed direction yet again, and almost got his ears blown off. The bullet cut a notch in the doorjamb.

Chaos bite it. Cochrane had the gun in his left hand. He must be ambidouchious, or whatever the word was.

“Keep him away from the windows!” Cochrane barked. “He can’t work the door unless he shifts.”

No shit. Ewan scurried for cover. Silent Sam tried to tackle him and missed. Ewan leaped onto the bed and off again just as Cochrane fired another round. The pillow went up in a flurry of fiber stuffing. Before Ewan could dodge Velma caught hold of his hind end and threw them both to the floor, with her on top. Normally Ewan enjoyed this kind of play, but with a hunter pointing a gun at him it kind of lost its thrill.

Ewan’s jaws and Velma’s throat were close enough to say howdy. He had to get her off him fast, and there was only one way.

He lapped his tongue straight up her face, with an extra-thick swipe over her glasses. “Eeeeyyyeeeewww!” Velma screamed. She threw herself away from him. Ewan scrambled under the bed. The hunter’s third shot clipped hairs off his tail.

“Move the bed!” Cochrane yelled, presumably at Silent Sam. “We’ve got him trapped!”

At that moment the door flew open. “Mr. C?” Shaggy the supporter of Free Weed said. “We got problems.”

Perfect timing. Ewan clawed out from under the bed and charged Shaggy. His near-wolf weight knocked them both into the hallway. Shaggy made a perfect cushion, shielding Ewan from impact.

Pity he couldn’t be used as a shield, because Freddie, Agent Mulder, and Comic Book Guy were also out in the hall, between him and the exit. They looked a bit frayed around the edges. Freddie stank of canine urine. Suits you, Ewan thought as he hustled in the opposite direction. The bark of Cochrane’s gun and ping of a bullet followed his retreat. Ewan slewed around a corner just ahead of the shot.

Fortunately the door to the inside stairwell was a push-bar deal, no shifting required. Ewan fled downstairs and burst into the lobby.

The lobby was crawling with cops, and they’d all heard the gunshot. They bounded up the stairs. Ewan pressed himself against the wall until the wave of uniforms subsided. Those boys upstairs were in for a lick of trouble, sure enough.

He glanced toward the front desk. Hoover was on, thank Chaos. He had a dingo with him—the source of Freddie’s new cologne, to judge by his personal odor. All three shifters nodded acknowledgement to each other.

Hoover took a careful sniff. “Ewan,” he ID’d him. “Let me guess. Those jokers in room 103?” Ewan barked affirmative. “I had them pegged for trouble the minute they came in. Dante’s already aware. You better scoot.” Ewan barked again and let himself out the fire exit.

The back lot had cop cars scattered all over, but with no cops in them. Shouts of, “Hands behind your head! Down on the floor!” and a lot of inventive swearing came from the second floor. Ewan flashed a big doggy grin at room 103 and trotted across the lot.

Then Thor hit him with a strike of lightning.

At least that’s what it felt like. One minute he was on his way to freedom, the next a blast of painful energy zapped him from out of nowhere. He fell to the tarmac and writhed like a landed bass, with a high howl of absolute agony.

It lasted only seconds, but felt like forever. Then small but strong hands yanked the Taser’s wires out of his flank, wrestled him off the blacktop and started to drag him toward a vehicle.

One last quiver of electrical impulses and Ewan lost control. He shifted to human.

“Oh, poop!” Velma. “You couldn’t stay wolf, could you?” Still semi-swearing, she adjusted her hold to under his armpits and resumed her drag. The vehicle was the Scooby Gang’s van. He’d been so busy patting himself on the back he hadn’t even noticed it, or Velma hiding behind it.

She struggled his human body into the passenger seat. After strapping him in she climbed behind the wheel. The van coughed to vehicular life and charged out of the lot.

Ewan blinked dazedly against the unending pulse of neon on the commercial strip’s main drag. His head pounded like a son of a dog, and most muscle control had gone bye-bye. He managed to wet his throat. “We going to your place?”

“Shut up.” Velma kept her eyes determinedly fixed to the road. “You just took me hostage.”