HEA

Two wolves ran through the forest beneath the fading light of the setting full moon. One was a lovely gray and black she-wolf with brown eyes and a fine thick brush of a tail. The other had a coyote’s tall ears and pointed muzzle. They had come to hunt, but spent the night more in play than tracking. Tonight their hungers ran in other directions.

Moonset caught the gray wolf in the middle of a leap. She changed in midair and landed awkwardly in a pile of dry leaves. Maureen sat up and brushed off forest detritus. “Poop.”

The coyote shifted into Ewan. “One of the drawbacks of true werewolfism. You’ve gotta have the right lighting. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She squinted at a smudge on her forearm. “Double poop. My eyes are back to normal too. You’ll have to lead me out of the woods. It’s so much easier as a wolf. I see so much better with my nose.”

Ewan plopped his bare ass down on the ground beside her. “Then you’re gonna go for it?”

“I don’t know.” She plucked a leaf out of her hair. “It’s pretty intense. I keep getting urges to rip things apart with my mouth. Living things. I wasn’t counting on that part. It makes me think about those monsters that wacko was creating. How he wanted to turn me into one.” She shuddered.

Ewan put his arm around her. “It’s not like that all the time. Being a werewolf’s easier than being a shifter. You know when you’re going to change. You can eat a full meal beforehand. Then you’ll just want to run around and chase things. Or sleep. Eat a moderate meal beforehand. Anyway, it’s only for three days a month.”

Maureen made a pouty face. “That isn’t much.”

“Better than no days a month. You’ve got plenty of time to decide. Marissa’s spell won’t wear off for another couple weeks. If you decide to go for it, she’s already agreed to use Gil’s curse spell on you. We just have to get you the right fur so you don’t turn into a squirrel.”

“Squirrel, huh? Let me think about that. I used to like climbing trees. I could throw nuts at people.”

Ewan spread his legs wide. “You don’t need to be a squirrel for that.”

Maureen giggled. “Darn astigmatism. I can barely see. You’ll have to bring them closer.”

He eased her onto her back and climbed on top on her. “Done and done.”

# # #

Did Maureen decide to go for her dream and become an actual werewolf? No one in Talbot’s Peak will say. But a lot of howls were heard in the woods around Ewan’s place, and not just on the nights of a full moon, either.

Maureen’s knowledge of xenomorphs served her well when Dante added her to his payroll as their cryptozoology expert. The Peak had many different kinds of enemies, and Cochrane and his team had hunted almost all of them. If a threat had a weakness, she’d find it.

Working for Dante meant they got a discount at the Pleasure Club. A lot of howls were heard down there as well, and not just from the harem room. Maureen refused to have anything to do with goats. Why, she never said.

And that about wraps it up. People would never imagine a flighty, irresponsible coyote would turn out to be a devoted, faithful lover. Ewan always kept quiet about that part. He had a reputation to maintain, for the sake of all coyotekind. “It’s those scatted wolf genes,” he’d grouse to Maureen, who’d pat his hair and say, “Amen.” After which they’d head for the bedroom.

And they lived happily ever after.

Wrapup

“They’re all gone?” Maureen said worriedly. “You’re sure?”

“As can be,” Ewan assured her. “Shaggy and Agent Mulder—I guess that’s Barry and Lowenstein—got run out of town days ago. Jumbo Dumbo’s been sent to a place he won’t be coming back from. Cochrane won’t be back if he knows what’s good for him. Your friend Pete, or whatever he is now, was seen headed for the tiger compound. They’ll deal with him, one way or the other. Zhere Ghan likes to keep a low profile. I think that’s everybody.”

Finally. Now maybe he could stow all this save-the-day scat and get down to the important business of courting his lady. Starting with this romantic breakfast at the Bighorn Diner. The place was packed as usual, but somehow a table for two had materialized when they’d come in. The perks of being a hero.

“Not quite,” Maureen said, still worried. “I wish I knew what happened to—”

“You two ready to order?”

“Ted?” Maureen leaped out of her seat and threw her arms as far as she could reach around the massive bulk of Comic Book Guy. “You’re still here? You’re okay?”

“Yep. Still here and better than okay. Atcheson dumped me here in town, so I figured screw it and went to breakfast. Best decision I ever made. The food here is incredible. And they have all you can eat days. I didn’t want to leave. So the owner, Miss Elly, gave me a job. I work here through lunch, then help out at her husband’s place for a couple hours.” He nodded toward the window, and the Grease ‘n’ Grill visible across the square. “Shifters have been better to me than humans ever were. I’ll be damned if I’ll hunt ‘em any more. I’m out of the cryptozoologist biz. You better be okay with that.”

“Hey, me too.” Maureen returned to her seat. She looked at him critically. “Have you lost weight?”

“Ten pounds,” Ted said proudly. “Miss Elly’s got me on a veggie diet. That’s the only downside. Her boys want me to start working out, and they’re relentless. She’s even got her husband in on it. I’m not allowed to eat over there.” He gazed longingly out the window toward the other diner and its enticing greasy odors. “Vern says he wants me to drop at least a hundred pounds because the way I am now, it’d take a pack to pull me down. He’s joking, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Ewan said. “That’s us. Born comedians.” Except for wolves, who had no sense of humor. No reason for Ted to know that. “We’ll have two specials. Blueberry for me, strawberry for the lady.”

“You betcha. Anything to drink?”

# # #

Eons in the past, in what would one day be Lapland, the mutant creature that had once been Wesley Atcheson surveyed his vast domain. He liked this place. It had the abundant food his mutated metabolism required, plenty of land to roam in, and puny little hairy hominids several hundreds of thousands of years away from inventing the gun. Their arrows and spears couldn’t penetrate his hide. He could stomp them with impunity. And gleefully did, as often as opportunity presented itself.

Best of all, this land was home to a herd of woolly mammoths. They also posed no threat to him, as he was clearly the largest, most powerful male in the territory—a fact not lost on the females. Within weeks he acquired an entourage of cows. Life was good indeed.

Roughly a year from the present day a team of Swedish paleontologists will discover the remains of a monster mammoth preserved in the frozen earth. Their findings throw the world of science into chaos. The human elements in the mammoth’s DNA are attributed to contamination in the lab. The wolf genes aren’t so easily explained. At least one scientist’s career ends in disgrace. The remains are locked away in the hopes they’ll be forgotten.

Reading about the debacle in a scientific journal, Morloxian ponders the discovery, then shakes his head. “Naw. Couldn’t be.”

# # #

“Lord Ghan.” The head of the Tiger Yakuza knelt on the floor before Zhere Ghan’s desk. “We have captured a … creature attempting to enter the compound. It appears to be one of the hated Hancock’s mutant werewolves, but it speaks. It says it is your servant.”

“Indeed?” Ghan’s brain sifted information. He could think of only one “servant” with even a tenuous connection to Hancock’s mutant werewolves. “Where is this creature?”

“Outside. Shall we kill it, Lord?”

“No.” Ghan stood. “Show it to me.”

The mutant werewolf had been bound with ropes and whips. It was ringed by Tiger Yakuza, many with guns. Yet when Ghan approached it, it turned its attention to him and him alone. It bowed as well as it was able. “Lorrrrrrd Ghan.” The Yakuza muttered.

Zhere Ghan stood before the beast. “What is your name?”

“Rrrrrranjeet, Lorrrrrd.”

Ghan considered this. “Leave us,” he told his Yakuza.

The mutters grew in intensity, but Zhere Ghan’s word was law. The Yakuza agents withdrew. Ghan himself removed the werewolf’s bindings. “Report.”

“This one was unsuccessful in securing Dr. Morloxian,” the werewolf growled in Urdu. “I attempted to bring you the mutant mammoth, but I was overcome and the beast was destroyed. I have failed in my mission, lord. I failed you. I offer you my life, and this, my mutant body, as compensation.” Ranjeet bent his head, awaiting execution.

Instead Zhere Ghan rested his hand on the werewolf-creature’s shoulder. “You’re a loyal servant, Ranjeet. I’m sure you did your best. You are to be rewarded. You are now a member of my Tiger Yakuza. The grounds and the forest beyond are yours. You will patrol them and keep us all safe from intruders. Any creature you catch, you may kill. But not eat, unless it’s a true beast. Drive off any shifters you come across, without too much violence if you can. We don’t want any unnecessary problems. Not unless I order it.”

Ranjeet quivered all over like an excited dog. He even dared to lick his master’s hand. “I live to serve you, Lord Ghan.”

“Then get to work. You’ve a territory to guard. You’d best get acquainted with it.”

The wolf-creature bounded off happily. Zhere Ghan smiled, watching him go. Such loyalty. You couldn’t even buy devotion so strong these days.

So he didn’t have Morloxian. Neither did Hancock. That counted as a victory in Ghan’s ledger. Those idiots in town never would have let him keep the mammoth anyway. This was better. He had his own mutant werewolf now, loyal only to him. And soon …

He opened his hand and regarded the long, loose wolf hairs resting in his palm. He bankrolled his own set of Indian scientists, well-schooled in both science and respect to the ancient tiger lords. They’d assured him they were making incredible strides in cloning.

The Bigger They Are ...

With the earth still far too far below, Cochrane felt gravity reassert itself. This was it. Even if the trees broke his fall, the ground was still going to break the rest of him. No way was he getting out of this, unless the Great Hunter in the Sky sent him a miracle.

And then the Great Hunter spoke: “Holy shit!”

His miracle arrived in a sweep of crimson wings. Syprelli maneuvered herself beneath him. He landed hard on the flying filly’s back. Both she and Cochrane grunted and swore, though hers was more of a neigh.

Deuce steadied him. “Thanks for coming out to meet us. I take it the fight’s not going well?”

“Understatement.” His gun was gone. They were up the creek for sure now, unless … “Did you get it?”

“Right here.” Deuce did a little drumroll on the lid of the plastic tub under his arm. “Nice and fresh and chocked with chunky bits. Now we just have to shove it down his throat.”

“You leave that to me. Can you get me up close?”

Syprelli shook her mane. She didn’t want to get any closer to the Hellephant than she was right now. Sensible, but not helpful. “Just set me down, then,” Cochrane said. “I shouldn’t have any trouble getting that asshat to attack me.”

The shifter fooled him. She changed course, aimed for the mammoth. Cochrane was impressed in spite of himself. He’d long believed shifters were monsters that skulked in the dark and menaced honest humans. This last week had made a dent in a lot of his preconceptions. Maybe some shifters could be spared. You just had to pluck the good apples out of the rotten barrel.

First things first. He had a mutant mammoth monster to kill.

Syprelli carried Cochrane and Deuce back to the heart of the battle. Cochrane leaned past her neck to peer at the ground. It looked like a tribe of Scotsmen—and one Scotswoman in a Xenaesque corset—was attacking the mammoth’s legs. Cochrane shook his head. This town just got weirder the longer he stuck around.

The winged filly flapped higher. “Watch out for the trunk,” Deuce said. Syprelli muttered something that Cochrane guessed was No shit in horse talk, and dove.

No good. The mammoth saw them. Syprelli swerved beyond reach of that snaking deadly trunk. She swept past the monster and climbed for another attempt. Its bellow followed her into the sky.

Deuce passed the tub of peanut butter to Cochrane. “Any idea what you’re going to do?”

“Stop him.”

Deuce shrugged. “Okay.”

The red horse dove again. This time they got help from the ground crew. The Scotsmen were watching Syprelli. When she started her dive they charged in and laid axes and knives to the Hellephant’s hind legs. The beast half-turned to deal with this more immediate assault. Its mouth gaped in an irritated roar.

“There!” Cochrane pointed. “Get me right up to his mouth.”

Syprelli whinnied. Are you out of your mind? But she bravely veered in as close as she dared. With Deuce’s help Cochrane got up on his knees on her back, with his feet under him. “Hey! Atcheson! Open wide, you son of a bitch!”

The mammoth swung its head toward them. It lifted its trunk and gaped its mouth to roar at them.

Cochrane jumped.

He landed right where he needed to, just inside its mouth. God above, it stank in here! And it was slimy, and hot as hell to boot. Bits of tree branches and mashed leaves and grass were stuck in its mammoth teeth. Cochrane anchored himself around a molar and throttled his instinct to gag. A mass of black flesh quested around for the annoyance worrying at it: the mammoth’s tongue.

Just the thing. Cochrane pried the lid off the tub and lobbed handfuls of peanut butter at that writhing slab of meat. He smeared gobs of the deadly-to-Hellephants foodstuff onto its teeth and the floor of its mouth for good measure. Finally he just tossed the whole tub down its throat. That ought to give it some problems in several hours’ time. “Bottoms up,” he said.

Now to get out of here.

Already the part of the monster that was still Atcheson was realizing something was wrong. Those hot blasts of breath came more quickly. The humongous tongue appeared to swell even as he stared at it. Short gaggy sounds rumbled up out of its throat.

It was going to vomit.

“No,” Cochrane groaned. “No no no no.” He scrambled past the Hellephant’s lips and teetered on the edge of its gaping mouth. A tusk curved just within reach. He leaped.

And missed.

Once again Syprelli appeared in the nick of time. Deuce caught Cochrane by the arm and hauled him aboard. “We figured you wouldn’t have an exit strategy,” he explained.

The airborne shifters streaked for the sky. Those on the ground scattered. The mammoth halted. It shuddered all over. It tried to scream, but couldn’t force more than a squeak through its rapidly-closing throat. Its eyes bulged. Its legs buckled. One of the Scotsmen yelled, “Timberrrr!”

The Hellephant collapsed just short of the bridge over Schitt Creek. It rolled over onto its side and wheezed desperately for breath. Red splotches—monstrous hives—appeared on its trunk.

Cautiously Syprelli came to earth a prudent distance away. Dante, the Scotsmen, Rafe the eagle shifter, and a naked Turkle, even scrawnier and uglier without his clothing, crept up on the mammoth. When nothing happened to them, Cochrane joined them. “Is he … ?”

“Not yet,” Dante said, with a jerk of his chin at the Hellephant’s heaving side. “Its mutant genes are trying to fight the allergy, and its human genes are resisting. It might survive. It might even recover, given sufficient time. We have to act fast.”

“No problem,” Cochrane said. He glared into the former Atcheson’s glassy blue eye. “Just hand me a gun. I’ll make it quick.”

“No.”

The hunter stared at Dante. “No?”

“I need to put in a call to the local witches. If they can’t restore him to human form, they’ll move him somewhere else—another dimension, another planet. Some place where he can’t hurt anyone.”

“Works for me,” Turkle said. “Someplace where he can smash stuff and be the biggest bastard around. I suspect he’d like that. Got a radio in m’truck.”

“Thanks.”

“You can’t do that!” Cochrane yelled at Dante’s retreating back. “We have to—”

One of the Scotsmen stopped his tirade with a meaty hand on his arm. “Leave it, laddie,” he advised. “Yon beastie’s threat is done. ‘Tis up to us to help him now, as well as we’re able. That’s our way.”

Your way sucks, Cochrane wanted to say. However, he saw that he was outnumbered and prudently kept his mouth shut. His opinion of shapeshifters rearranged itself yet again. He stood off to one side and glowered at his fellow defenders, and concluded his original hunt might not be finished after all.

# # #

Sometime later a weary, poo-streaked Ewan and Maureen trudged up the highway and joined those still on the battlefield. They made a wide detour around the laboriously-wheezing Hellephant and reported in to Dante. “I see you saved the day,” Ewan said. “Sorry I missed it. Anybody get a video?”

“We were busy,” Dante said dryly. “Duff and his buddies will be happy to fill you in, but you’ll have to buy the drinks. By the way, where’s my car?”

“Back there.” Ewan jerked his thumb to indicate the highway behind him. “It’s a little … well, try not to be too upset. It was all for a good cause.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Shit happens.”

The Solution in a Jif

Ewan and Maureen helped each other out of the mammoth poo and wiped each other off as well as they could. This meant shedding what remained of their clothes. Ewan didn’t mind public nudity, especially in front of a woman. Especially since he could now happily stare at Maureen’s sweet little tits. They made his mouth water, in spite of the stains and the pungent aroma permeating the air. Yep, true love for sure.

Maureen clearly wasn’t as comfortable with nakedness as a shifter, and tried to distract herself by focusing on the matter at hand. “Atcheson’s still headed for Talbot’s Peak. He’ll stomp it to bits just for the heck of it. He’s not just an a-hole, he’s a psycho a-hole. Getting changed into a giant mutant mammoth didn’t do him any favors.”

Much as Ewan would have enjoyed a romp in the woods with his favorite naked lady, even he had to concede now was not the best time. “We should join up with Dante. He’s set up a defense line at the creek. If Dumbo makes it past them there’ll be no stopping him. Hope Dante’s rustled up some weapons. Like a dragon, maybe.”

“You have dragons?”

“Just the one that I know of. We’re a pretty open town.”

Maureen hugged her arms over her breasts, and Ewan muttered swears. “Pity they don’t have some peanuts. That’d stop him for sure.”

“Peanuts for the elephant? Well, if he stops to eat ‘em—”

“No, not that. He has an allergy. A really bad one. Just the smell of peanuts gives him a rash. If he swallowed some, jeepers, anything could happen.”

“Hold up there. You’re serious. Are you sure about this?”

Maureen made a sour face. “I was the group girl, duh. Guess who had to do all the cooking and grocery shopping? Atcheson was really specific about what he wouldn’t eat. Every time Ted had a candy bar Atcheson would pitch a fit. Especially Reese’s. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

“So if we got him to swallow a Snickers he’d keel over?”

“Probably. He’s still mostly Atcheson genetically. If the allergy carried over—”

“We can stop him in his tracks.” It was a wild, off-the-wall idea, just the kind that appealed to coyotes. “I need to shift for a minute,” he told her. “Try not to scream.”

Maureen massaged her throat and offered up a wry grin. “I’m pretty much screamed out.”

Ewan couldn’t answer. His mouth was now a muzzle. Dante needed this new information, and a howl would travel faster than their feet. He lifted his head and filled his throat and sent his song out into the air, in the hopes wolf ears would pick it up.

# # #

Cochrane pointed. “There he is!”

The point wasn’t really necessary. A four-story-high mutant werewolf/mammoth hybrid was pretty easy to spot. He’d reached the open stretch of road that angled down toward the creek. If he made it past the bridge, it was only two miles to Talbot’s Peak. Even if the town was prepared, there would still be damage and injuries, maybe even casualties.

The monster wouldn’t cross the bridge. Even if Dante had to drive his motorcycle down its throat and choke it.

He turned to Rafe. “Is she still on his back?”

The golden eagle shifter shaded his eyes. “I don’t see anybody up there. Let me check.” He spread his arms, which shifted to wings, and sprang into the air. Cochrane and Turkle, more pragmatic, continued loading their elephant guns.

The long grass at the side of the road shivered and a wolf emerged. He loped up to Dante, where he shifted. Deuce hunched over with his hands on his knees and gulped in breaths. “Ewan,” he gasped when he had enough air. “Back there. Had a plan.”

It must not have worked, because the beast was still coming. Dante peered grimly at the rapidly-approaching Hellephant. “He’s not slowing,” he said, “and we can’t wait any longer. Will those things bring it down?”

“If we hit the right spots,” Turkle said. He and Cochrane nodded to each other. “We’ll hit the right spots.”

Off to the side, Syprelli stared in horrified fascination at the lumbering mammoth. She was not a fighter. Dante had expected her to shift and bolt well before now, but she’d held her ground, determined to do whatever she could to help. His admiration for the Pegasus shifter increased.

Rafe swept back and circled overhead. He shifted while still in the air, and landed hard. “Nobody’s up there,” he reported. “It’s just Jumbo by his lonesome. I didn’t see Ewan, or the werewolf or the girl.”

“Then we’re clear,” Dante said. “Fire at—”

Then he heard the song, the long coyote howl of trills and yips. The mammoth paused in mid-step, snorted through his trunk, and kept coming. “What—” Cochrane started.

Dante chopped his hand through the air for silence. He and Deuce listened intently to the coded message inside the howl, translatable only to canine ears.

When it ended, Deuce blinked at Dante. “Peanuts? He wants us to fight it with peanuts?”

“Food allergy,” Dante deduced. “Cochrane. Did your man have a food allergy?

“Is that what it was?” Cochrane said. “I thought he was just a prissy boy. Damn finicky about his food. Worse’n a goddamn cat.”

Dante had already tuned him out. “Your place is closest,” he said to Turkle. “Do you have any peanut products?”

“Hell yeah,” Turkle said. “Peanut butter. Buckets of it. The missus makes her own. She baked a batch of cookies this morning. There might be some left.”

“If we can get him to ingest some, it might slow him down, maybe even stop him completely. Rafe—”

“I’ll go,” Syprelli said. “I’m no good in a fight.”

“You’ll need someone to carry it. Will you take a rider? Deuce.”

Deuce saluted and darted toward Syprelli. Where the girl had been now stood a red horse with crimson-feathered wings. Deuce asked permission before he got on. He clung tight to her mane.

“Password’s ‘giblets,’” Turkle said. “Better yell it as you come in. The missus don’t know you two, and she’s got dead aim.”

“Got it,” Deuce said. His words were whipped away as the horse leaped skyward. She and her rider shot over the trees.

Far closer than he’d been only moments before, the mammoth lifted his trunk and trumpeted. He’d spotted the enemy. Tiny eyes narrowed in hate, he charged the bridge.

# # #

No, I didn’t pull the allergy bit out of my butt. I set up that plot point weeks ago, in this entry here. Even pantsers can plot now and then. (smug grin)

Go Fish

Following the Hellephant’s progress wasn’t a problem. The once-human creature fed as it went, ripping branches from trees and huge swaths of grass from any meadow it passed. This resulted in large piles of natural “breadcrumbs” left in its wake. Deuce, behind the wheel, swerved around one and rolled up his window. “He does like grass,” he remarked. He glanced over at Ewan. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have grabbed a gun?”

“This’ll work.” Ewan was fitting his weapon together—no easy task, as its larger piece was ten feet long and stuck out the passenger-side window. It made stringing the line somewhat difficult. “It’ll get me on top of him. After that I can wing it.”

“I know you’re a coyote and all, but … a fishing rod?”

“Surf rod,” Ewan corrected. “I grew up using these, back in New Jersey. You can reel in a two-hundred-pound marlin or a shark with one of these babies. Hey, if they’d had a grappling hook I’d have taken it. It’s all about the improv. Any word from Dante?”

“Last time I talked to him, he was making a stand at Schitt Creek. He’ll hold off as long as he can, so you can get Maureen. That means we—there he is!”

Ewan shot a look out the windshield. The broad, brownish-blond line of the mammoth’s back towered above the treeline. Deuce floored it.

The car shot around a curve, right into a pile of poop. The engine ground and shut off.

Deuce worked the windshield wipers, and got only a field of streaky brown. “Dante’s gonna have a goat,” he said.

Ewan, rod in hand, was already climbing out of the car. If anything, Freddyphant had picked up speed. Maybe whatever human memory was left to him recognized the road to Talbot’s Peak. He’d come here to kill shifters, and now he had enough natural power to do some serious damage. No wonder he was eager.

“Get his attention,” he ordered Deuce. “Stall him. Then run and catch up with Dante. I’ll take it from there.”

“Yessir, boss.” Deuce dumped his clothes and shifted. His gray wolf form raced after the motoring Hellephant.

Ewan made a couple test casts to get the feel of the rod and make sure all the parts were working properly. If he could pull this off, what a tale he and Maureen would have to tell their grandkids. “Lord of the Rings,” he murmured, “meet Jaws.” He dashed up the road.

# # #

Deuce did his bit, as well as he was able without getting tromped. He didn’t exactly stop the beast, but he slowed it enough for Ewan to catch up. Then he whirled and ducked into the safety of the forest lining the highway. The Hellephant bellowed its rage. It seemed unaware of the second peril creeping up behind it.

Here goes nothing, Ewan thought, and cast.

The heavy hook snagged in Freddyphant’s shaggy coat, high up on its side. Before Ewan could give it a test tug the Hellephant tugged first, with a long stride back on its course. Ewan was yanked off his feet. He stumble-ran-got-dragged several feet before he could reel himself up. The braided line could hold several hundred pounds of fighting fish; it should be able to handle his one-eighty long enough for him to grab a handhold of mammoth pelt. It was the hook that scared him. If it tore loose—

The hook held. Ewan had one iffy moment when a treetrunk leg swung back at him. He kicked off it and upward and landed near Freddyphant’s underbelly. By the time the hook finally ripped free Ewan was scrambling hand-over-hand up the mammoth’s side. He reached the top, reeled in his line, and took a look around.

The first thing he saw was Maureen. She was clutched beneath the arm of a seven-foot mutant werewolf. The werewolf held onto the swaying pachyderm with its foot-claws and steered it by tugs on its ears. It didn’t appear aware of Ewan’s arrival. Maureen spotted him and clapped her hands over her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out and betray him.

Something must have, though, because the werewolf suddenly turned. Its muzzle wrinkled back from a set of teeth that put a shark’s to shame. It dumped Maureen on the mammoth’s head and charged.

Ewan swung the pole. The werewolf swatted it aside. Three feet of pole snapped off and tumbled to the ground, trailing line. Ewan dodged the werewolf’s lunge and reversed the pole in his hands. He brought the heavy grip end up between the werewolf’s legs. The big reel landed exactly where he aimed it.

Well, howzabout that. Mutant werewolves could yodel.

The beast crumpled, clutching at its groin. Its feet lost their grip on the Hellephant’s pelt. The werewolf slipped and fell over the side.

Ewan darted along the mammoth’s spine and peered down at its flank. No clinging mutant werewolf. If Mutie had hit the ground and survived, he wouldn’t be in any shape to tag along.

Then Ewan’s arms were full of hot, frightened woman. A she-wolf’s hiked scent hit his nose and a tongue crammed into his mouth. Ewan crushed his mate against him and kissed her hard while maintaining both their balances on the back of the swaying mammoth. No easy feat, but coyotes are nothing if not adaptable.

At last he could see her tits. They were everything he’d dreamed they’d be.

Finally they broke apart. Ewan grinned down at her. “You are one tough gal to land a date with.”

“You’re deranged.” Her laugh had only a little hysteria in it. Commendable, given the circumstances. “That wolf thing—he used to be Pete. This—this is Atcheson. Pete told me. They're going to destroy Talbot’s Peak.”

“He’s got a long way to go and quite a few tough characters to get through before that happens. Be nice if we could stop him. You know how to drive this thing?”

She shook her head. “Pete was controlling him, but it was getting harder. I could tell. Atcheson always was a contrary bas—”

The mammoth lurched. Both Ewan and Maureen fell atop its spine. Ewan dumped the rod and grabbed Maureen in one hand and a hunk of thick hair in the other. Freddyphant, it seemed, had finally realized there was no one at the wheel.

Ewan tried to get up. The mammoth’s trunk curled back and quested about for a target. Maureen yanked him back down right before the trunk smacked him. The mammoth trumpeted.

“New plan,” Ewan said. “Here’s where we get off. Wrap your arms around my neck and hang on.”

Maureen clamped her arms around his neck and her legs around his torso. Just in time. Freddyphant suddenly reared up. His back rose at a steep vertical angle. Ewan slid the length of the mammoth’s spine. He managed to snag hold of its lupine tail. They swung there while Ewan scanned the ground for a spot less hard and rocky than the rest.

There. He swung out and let go. They landed dead center in the chosen spot and sank. It wasn’t ground. It was soft and grainy and filled with bits of grass and leaves and stank like a son of a hound. Maureen shook clods of it off her hands and wiped smears of it off her glasses. “Shit!”

“Pretty much,” Ewan said. “Beats broken bones, though not by much. You okay?”

“I will be, after a week-long shower.” She leaned through the crap cushion to press against him. They held each other close. Freddy was already nearly a mile up the road, still stubbornly on course for Talbot’s Peak.

“Ewan?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Are you going to take your hand off my boob?”

“Not in this lifetime.”

“You damn well better not.” She grabbed him by his hair and crushed her mouth to his.

All Hellephant Breaks Loose

Ewan and Deuce made it out of Morloxian’s lab without trouble. By now the place was practically deserted. Even the Tiger Yakuza had vacated the premises.Everybody, it seemed, had heard that weird roar from behind the metal doors. Nobody wanted to stick around to find out what had made it.

Ewan charged outside, back onto the mini golf course, and stared around. “Which way’s the—”

Oh.

The sod covering the old swimming pool had scrunched back to reveal a metal hatch, now almost completely open. Loading dock, Ewan thought. So that’s how they got all the big stuff in there.

Suddenly a huge furry trunk and a pair of curved ivory tusks thrust up through the opening. That horrible trumpet/roar sounded again, this time with no doors to blunt it. This was accompanied by the shriek of metal as the rest of the impatient beast shouldered its way out of its underground holding pen and into the light.

Behind him, Deuce swallowed a howl of alarm. Ewan, who saw stuff like this at the movies every weekend, just stared.

The thing that thrust itself to freedom wasn’t quite a mammoth, in spite of the trunk and the tusks and a giant bulk that made the statue of Godzilla look like the Geico gecko. Its huge ears came to points and sat too far up on its skull. Its feet, the size of manhole covers, had claws. A wolf’s tail sprouted out of its backside. Its shaggy pelt was brownish blond. It looked like something out of Ice Age, if Manny and Diego had a kid.

It had blue eyes. Human eyes

Ewan’s gut dropped into his undies. All of a sudden he knew what had happened to Freddy.

Even that wasn’t the worst of it. Freddy had passengers. A mutant werewolf crouched on his neck. The fella with the mismatched limbs and bad body haircut had to be the Doctor.

Between them, clutching at the mammoth’s pelt to keep from falling off, was Maureen. Her scream was lost beneath another roar from the mammoth.

The beast paid no attention to them, or to the humans currently fleeing Uncle Fuddy’s Funland. It swung about and lumbered toward the highway, picking up speed as it moved.

“Lupa help us,” Deuce moaned. “What do we do?”

Ewan’s hard stare never left Maureen. “We bring him down.”

“With what? I doubt if Dante left a bazooka in his car.”

“Then we improvise. Is there a gun store around here?”

Deuce shrugged. “It wouldn’t be Montana if there wasn’t.”

“Let’s go, then. I’ll drive. You call Dante, tell him we got us a big problem.” Screams and the squeal of brakes told them the Freddyphant had reached the highway. “I don’t think we’re going to lose him.”

They ran for the car. Behind them, a shaking human teenager was recording it all on his cell phone. “Dude,” he said, “you won’t believe this. This course has some serious hazards.”

# # #

Maureen dug her fingers into the mammoth’s pelt all the way up to the knuckles and still didn’t hit skin. She lay flat across the monster’s back and tried not to think about what kind of loud, wet noise she’d make if she tumbled off. It had started off at a gut-shaking lurch, but its gait seemed to be smoothing out with practice. This was a positive thing. The beast sounded really pissed off. She didn’t want to annoy it further by ralphing into its hair.

“Whooo-HOOOOO!” Morloxian pumped a fist in the air. “Look at my baby go! Can I cook, or can’t I? By the way,” he added, much less enthused, “where are we going? You’d better not be taking me to Hancock. I’m guessing my unannounced defection left him a little perturbed.”

The mutant werewolf grinned at him over his shoulder. Maureen tried not to look at his fanged and furry face, tried not to remember he was Pete. “Not Hancock,” he rasped in his rough, bestial voice. “I am to deliverrr you to my lorrrrd.”

“Oh shit. There’s another one? I was afraid of that. I guess that accounts for all those tigers. Well, you tell your lord he can bite me.” Morloxian scrambled up. Before Pete could stop him he leaped for the mammoth’s lupine tail, swung himself down to the tip, and let go.

Maureen didn’t bother to scream. As far as she was concerned, he was now one less problem to deal with. She couldn’t hope for Ewan to rescue her. What could he do against this monster? For that matter, what could she?

Her stomach did a somersault. She clamped her jaw shut and hung on and told herself not to think about Pete’s hideous transformation, or how far below her the ground was, or how much worse things were liable to get once Dumbozilla here finally stopped. It really, really sucked to be the group girl in these circumstances.

# # #

Morloxian timed his fall perfectly. He landed in the moat surrounding Dracula’s castle. The scummy water was just deep enough to save him from serious injury. Almost. He tried to stand and his ankle buckled. He went down butt-first in the water.

“Son of a bitch,” he said philosophically. Now he’d have to find another sponsor, build another lab. Great-Uncle Franz’s hidden catacombs had served the family well for generations. No chance of salvaging anything now, thanks to that idiot mutant mutt running off with a giant hairy, walking billboard. If Hancock didn’t come after him, some other shifter was bound to.

Maybe he’d head for New York, for the Catskills. He still had family out there.

“Well, well, ladies. Look what we’ve got here.”

He jerked his head up. His captive harem had apparently made it out of the lab intact. They’d also armed themselves with the iron putters ditched by the mini golfers. They moved into a ring around him, smiling.

He didn’t like the look of those smiles. No sir.

“Hi, Morry.” Candi bounced the shaft of her putter in her palm. “Mind if we play through?”

He looked at their implacable faces and swallowed. “Oh, bugger,” he said.

The ladies lifted their putters and closed in.

# # #

Ranjeet grumbled to himself, but only briefly. True, he had lost the scientist, Lord Ghan’s primary target. The Yakuza would be following at a discrete distance. They would have seen the Doctor drop off. No doubt they had collected him already. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was returning to Lord Ghan empty-handed.

The Atcheson wolf-mammoth paused to challenge a tour bus. Ranjeet tugged on his ear until he turned. “Not here,” he crooned in Urdu. “There will be bloodshed and destruction aplenty for you. But not here.” Atcheson trumpeted his frustration, then turned in the direction Ranjeet guided him.

The Ghan family had trained him well. He had learned how to control elephants in his native India, and knew how to manipulate Atcheson from his undercover stint in the group. This hybrid creature was easily steered.

Lord Ghan would be ecstatic. The tiger lord had his own crew of scientists. They would surely glean something from this mammoth offering, and from Ranjeet’s own mutated body, and that of the woman who smelled like a she-wolf, the unexpected prize.

He glanced back at Maureen, her hands knotted desperately in Atcheson’s pelt. She smelled different to him now that he had a wolf’s nose. Enticing. Exciting. He’d never viewed her in that way when he was human, but this new body had other ideas. Feral, primal ideas. Perhaps Lord Ghan would see fit to reward him for the gifts he brought.

The quickest way to his lord’s stronghold was up Route 15, directly through Talbot’s Peak. The beast beneath his feet hungered for destruction. Perhaps it might be wisest to let him run rampant through the shifter town. Drain off some of that massive energy, slake the bloodthirst a bit. Then he’d be more tractable by the time they arrived at the Ghan compound.

He tugged on Atcheson’s ear, and dug his foot-claws into the mammoth’s skull. Atcheson barked and bolted forward, leaving the exit behind, aimed for Talbot’s Peak.

Missed It By That Much

Morloxian had Maureen strapped down on the table and was reaching for his hypos when the sound of the first crash reached them. It was followed quickly by others, plus screams. The semi-werewolvan doctor shot a glare toward the door. “Not again,” he grumbled. “The mutants,” he explained to Maureen. “I can’t let them run loose like I could in Colorado. Too many civilians with cameras. So they attack the cafeteria.” He shuffled toward the door on bare, taloned paws. “Don’t go anywhere.”

The moment he left the lab Maureen attacked her bindings. On TV the heroine would grab a scalpel in her teeth and saw through the straps. Unfortunately, the Doctor hadn’t left any scalpels within reach. She had to settle with wriggling her scrawny body out from under her bonds. The buckets of sweat pouring off her helped immensely.

She had one arm loose and was working on the other when Morloxian returned, on the run. “Time to go,” he said. He ripped the straps loose himself. “Goddamn welcome wagon.”

He lifted Maureen off the table. Her feet touched the floor. She steadied herself and then rammed her knee into the Doctor’s groin. His lupine howl cracked on a warbling high note. Maureen was out the door before he finished collapsing.

One quick sprint into the hallway later, she saw what he was talking about. The hidden lab, so quiet and orderly when he’d dragged her off to his workroom, was now a chaotic arena peopled by silent men in black coats and monstrous eight-foot werewolves. The men were armed and the wolves had claws, so they were pretty evenly matched.

Morloxian’s human staff took no part in the melee. They were wisely running for the exits.

As Maureen watched, one of the men tossed his coat aside and shifted into a tiger. He and a mutant werewolf charged each other. Their roars were equally inhuman.

Yeah, the exits were looking really good right about now.

A flash of pastel color caught her eye. The ladies of the harem were taking advantage of the invasion to vacate the premises. Candi, leader of the group, spotted her and waved. “C’mon, hon. There’s a way out through Dracula’s castle.” She and the women ran on without waiting to see if Maureen followed.

Whatever “Dracula’s castle” meant. Maureen dashed after the women.

She almost made it. Right at the doorway a mutant werewolf suddenly appeared. Its dark fur had made it nearly invisible in the shadows. It clamped its furry paw over her mouth before she could scream. “Don’t be afrrraid,” it rasped, in a rough, labored growl of a voice with an odd trace of a foreign accent. “All will be well, Maurrrrrrreen.”

Her blood temp went down to absolute zero. She whispered against his paw, “Pete?”

“There you are. Good, you got her.” Morloxian ran at them in a painful shamble. He stopped well back from Maureen with his hand cupped over his crotch. “Goddamn tigers. Who let them in? Get out there and help clean up the mess. I’ll take it from here.”

He reached for Maureen’s arm. The mutant werewolf grabbed the Doctor’s arm instead. “You come with.”

“What? Wait, what are you doing, you stupid mutt! You do what I tell you. I created you!”

“Perrrrrhaps.” The creature formerly known to Maureen as Pete snarled into Morloxian’s face. “But I serrrve anotherrrrr.”

He slammed his fist against Morloxian’s head. The Doctor went limp. Werewolf Pete caught him and Maureen under his arms and changed direction, heading now toward a set of double doors at the end of a branching corridor.

Maybe she was delirious. Maybe she was panicking. But as she jounced beneath Pete’s arm, she thought she saw a familiar blond head at the end of the corridor. Desperately she screamed, “Ewan!”

# # #

The underground lab was a mess of flying, bloody bodies, some of them human, most of them not. Ewan figured the real humans had skedaddled already. If the monkeys had any real talent, it was a healthy sense of self-preservation.

Ewan wasn’t interested in them, or the monster werewolves, or the Tiger Yakuza, or even Morloxian. His nose sorted through the mess of scents for that one special perfume that wasn’t quite human or quite a she-wolf but already said home to him. He hugged the wall and dodged raging wolves and silent, lethal tigers and sniffed every door he came near. Deuce, no fool, followed his lead.

He caught a whiff of her scent at the head of a dim-lit corridor and risked a look inside. Something big and hairy had two bodies clutched under its burly arms. One of them shrieked his name.

“Maureen!” Ewan raced full out down the corridor. He had no idea how he was going to take on a giant mutant werewolf without any weapons. He’d figure something out when he got there.

The werewolf didn’t even look around. It jabbed its finger at a keypad in the wall. The doors slid open. The monster and its captives ducked inside just as Ewan reached him. Maureen strained her hands toward him.

Ewan lunged for the door. It slammed shut in his face.

He was pounding futilely on the metal when Deuce finally caught up. “How are you with electronics?” Ewan said, and pointed at the keypad. “Can you get this damn door open?”

Something inside made a noise that shook the walls. Both Deuce and Ewan froze. The echoes had not quite died away before they were overridden by a second noise, this one a heavy grinding. It seemed to be coming from the ceiling.

“You sure you want to go in there?” Deuce asked.

Ewan wracked his brain. He’d done more thinking on this case than he’d had to do in his lifetime. They weren’t going to get these doors open any time soon, that was certain. There must be another exit inside. A huge one, from the sound of it. “Where are we?” he asked Deuce. “What part of the course are we under?”

“I don’t think we’re under the course itself any more. If my sense of direction didn’t get screwed, I think we’re near the swimming pool. They filled that in years ago.” His eyes narrowed, and he said what Ewan was already thinking. “Or made a bolthole out of it.”

Ewan gave the unyielding door a final useless blow with his fist. He shoved Deuce ahead of him. “C’mon. Back outside. We’ll have to catch ‘em out there.” He thought of that first gargantuan noise. That hadn’t been any kind of engine he knew about. It had sounded—he swallowed—organic. Living. “Let’s hope whatever they’ve got in there can’t fly.”

Gray (Wolf) Matter

“I’m sorry, Ewan,” Dante said, and meant it. “We didn’t get to the truck in time. They must have been transferred to another vehicle. I’ve got everyone available looking into it. We’ll find her.” His private cell phone buzzed. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to take this.” Dante turned away. “Still? What’s so fascinating about that place that the Tiger Yakuza would stake it out?”

Dead end. Ewan wanted to bite something. Scratch that; he wanted to grab hold of something and rip it to pieces. Tiny little pieces. He turned to his only other lead, another dead end but who knew? Sometimes the weirdest little things led to something bigger. “Go through it again. Even stuff that doesn’t seem important.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Deuce, Dante’s double agent in his sire’s pack, shrugged helplessly. “We were headed to the lab in Colorado. Taylor pulled over at the exit to gas up for the trip. Rufe said the air smelled funny. Next thing we know we’re sprawled out on park benches and some cop’s telling us to move along. And the truck’s gone.”

And Maureen, who’d been in the back of the truck, but Deuce was kind enough not to point that out. “Dante found the truck about thirty miles up the interstate. Nobody was in it. They’re combing the area now. We’ll find her, man, I swear.”

“What about the driver?”

“Taylor was with us when we woke up, barfing up his guts like the rest of us. Whoever took the truck left it like we said. Smelled like seven kinds of crap. No idea who or what was driving it. We should’ve picked up Hoover. Maybe he would have known.”

“That fits in with what we found at the lab,” Ewan muttered. “The Doctor took off without telling Hancock. Wherever he took her, he didn’t want Damien to know. That’s why you got gassed.”

And that was that. Nobody’d seen anything. Nobody knew anything. By now Maureen could be in Canada, for all anybody knew.

Dante was still on the phone, grilling his agent over the confusing behavior of the Tiger Yakuza. Ewan caught himself trying to listen in. Something kept nagging at the back of his mind, telling him this was important.

“I know some people,” Deuce was saying. “I can draw on Hancock resources. If we backtrack—”

Ewan waved him off. “Be quiet a minute. I have to think.”

Normally wolves laughed when a coyote said anything about thinking. Deuce just nodded and backed off.

For the last day and a half, ever since Maureen had been snatched from the parking lot, Ewan had been running in wolf mode: find mate, kill something. That had got him a fine pile of squat. He needed his coyote side, and whatever it was that passed for a brain among coyotes.

Wolves think in straight lines. Their brains go from point A to point B without any little side journeys. Give them a task and they stick to it till it’s done. Give them a puzzle and they’ll worry it to death, and usually come up short.

A coyote’s brain doesn’t work that way. A coyote, when he bothers to think, thinks in leaps and hops and zigzags, making connections where a wolf wouldn’t even see a pattern. Especially if there is no pattern. Coyotes don’t need patterns. Their minds are attuned to chaos, out of which they bring, if not order, then at least slightly more ordered chaos. Give them a puzzle and they’ll work it out in seconds and then wander off to see what’s in the fridge, while a wolf is still scratching his ass.

Right after Maureen got kidnapped, a bunch of Yakuza went on the move. You’d think there’d be no connection there, unless you were a coyote. “Who did you guys grab, besides Maureen?” he asked Deuce.

“Two human males. The big blond one knocked her out for us, then Taylor did him the same favor. Then this other guy went up to Taylor and said they were his friends and he couldn’t let him take them. So Taylor knocked him out and took him too. We loaded ‘em into the truck and that was it.”

“What did this other guy look like?”

Deuce shrugged. “Kind of stocky, dark skin and hair, glasses. Some kind of accent. He sort of mumbled when he talked, like he was trying to hide it.”

“What about smell?”

“I was getting to that. He smelled like a spice rack. Stuff I’m not familiar with. I’d hate to see what he gets on his pizza.”

Dark. Glasses. Tried not to talk. The blond, of course, was Atcheson. Shaggy and Agent Mulder had been taken prisoner and were awaiting Dante’s decision on their fates. According to Deuce, the last anyone had seen of Comic Book Guy, he’d been hoofing it over to the Bighorn Diner. “Probably still there,” Deuce said. “It was all you can eat day. Hope Elly stocked up on syrup.”

Silent Sam, Ewan thought. Had to be. He hadn’t said a word the whole time Ewan had been in the motel room. Hiding an accent. From where?

He stopped thinking eyes and started thinking nose. Held hostage in the van. The usual smells: pizza, unwashed monkey, fast-food flavored farts. Maureen’s homey scent, the result of her wolf genes. And just a little whiff of spice, from somebody whose diet didn’t always match up with his buddies’.

“Son of a hound,” he said. “Dante!”

Done with his call, the alpha turned. He raised a brow in inquiry. “The Yakuza. The ones who up and ran off. Where’d they go? What are they staking out?”

“If you must know, they appear to be watching the mini golf down at the exit. They’ve been there for hours.” He eyed Ewan intently. “You think it’s related?”

“Could be. Deuce, how close was that gas station you stopped at to the mini golf?”

“Right up the road, but—”

“But, my butt. Zhere Ghan wants the Doctor too. He snuck a spy into Cochrane’s outfit. A human guy, so Hoover wouldn't spot him. Guy never talked ‘cause they’d wonder about his Indian accent. He just couldn’t live on the junk food, though. Had to eat native every once in a while. It showed up in his scent. He let you boys kidnap him, so you’d take him to the lab. Then he signaled the Yakuza. They’re looking for him now. They didn’t follow the truck because he wasn’t in it. The truck was a diversion. They’re still at the exit.”

Deuce was staring at him like he’d gone scatty. Not Dante. Most wolves couldn’t stand to be around coyotes. Dante always kept a couple on the payroll. Coyotes saw into corners a wolf wouldn't even know were there. “The mini golf was shut down last week,” he said now. “For ‘maintenance.’ Hoover reported it. He wanted to take some girl there and it was closed.”

“Same time as the bugout at the Colorado lab?”

“Roughly.” Dante reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “Take my car. It’s faster than it looks.” He smiled. “Good work.”

“We don’t know for sure yet. It’s only a long shot.”

“It’s all we’ve got. Good hunting.” Ewan bounced the keys in his palm and glanced over at Deuce. “You want in?”

“Sure,” Deuce said. “I owe those monkeys. They made me yark up half my breakfast.”

“Atta boy. Let's go play a round of golf."

In the Monster's Lair

Maureen never saw how she went from the truck to wherever she was now. Somebody pumped gas in the back of the truck and she and her fellow captives passed out. When she awoke she was alone in a bare room with drab walls. No sign of Pete or Atcheson.

The first person, and she used the term loosely, to visit her looked like a mashup of a monster movie scientist and his creation. Bald in some parts, covered in thick, ragged patches of brownish fur in others, he wore the standard mad scientist white lab coat and glasses thicker than her own. One of his forearms was normal; the other was a hairy, meaty slab of twisted muscle that ended in a humongous paw. Like Hellboy. Come to think of it, Hellboy was cuter.

His crooked smile was fully human. Somehow that made it worse.

The smile didn’t last long. “Eh,” he said at first sight of her. “I thought they said they brought in a woman. You won’t do at all. Nice outfit, though.”

Maureen clutched what was left of her battered harem costume more tightly against her nonexistent chest. “Where are my friends?”

“The two louts they caught with you? They’re undergoing processing even as we speak. Your friend with the glasses will be joining my wolf pack shortly. Your blond friend with the anger issues?” He cackled. “I have plans for him. BIG plans.”

This seemed to strike him as funny. He cackled some more.

“As for you … ” He looked her up and down, and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll just watch you. Ever do girl on girl? But first … ”

All of a sudden he lunged at her and grabbed her arm. He jabbed a hypo into her before she could twist away.

The pain and the assault lasted only a moment. Maureen scuttled to a corner and set her back to the wall. She rubbed her arm and watched him warily. Mr. Monster seemed more elated by the blood he’d drawn than he’d been by the rest of her. “Can’t wait to see what’s in here,” he said. “You know what the problem is with women?”

“They don’t like you?”

“All right, besides that. It’s your chemical makeup. Something in you doesn’t play well with my werewolf serum. That’s why I can only make boys. Testosterone gets them over the hump. The ladies just die in agony. I’ve got to figure out a way around that. The boys are getting testy.” He grinned at her and winked.

Maureen wanted to barf.

He left her alone after that, thank God. Some time later two hirsute guards came in and hauled her off to another part of wherever this place was. Her new prison resembled the harem room back at the biker bar in terms of lace and cushions, just with shoddier curtains. And other occupants. Maureen joined a group of eight dull-eyed women in costumes that made her own look like long johns. All were older than she was, and definitely the worse for wear.

“Hey,” their leader said when Maureen was flung into the room. “You must be the new lab rat. I can’t see him touching you. Hope you like girl on girl.”

“We have to get out of here.”

“No chance. We’ve tried. You don’t want to anyway. You don’t know what’s out there. He likes to let the werewolves roam. They’re not big on foreplay. We’re safer locked in here.” The woman grimly pursed her lips. “There used to be ten of us.”

Maureen found a cushion and curled up on it despondently. No way she was staying here. What would Velma do?

Find out all she could, for starters. The women didn’t know much, but they still knew more than she did. Maureen learned the man with the Hellboy hand was Dr. Morloxian. His job was to take captive humans and turn them into mutant monsters for a madman named Damien Hancock. They’d been at a lab some hours from here up until about a week ago. Then there’d been a massive bugout and now they were here. This new prison was smaller than the old one, but smelled a lot nicer and had prettier walls.

They also told her Morloxian was enormous, but in spite of that sucked in the sack. Maureen would have preferred not to know that.

Judging time was iffy in here. She spent it observing the guards’ routines, and studying the lock for pickability. It helped her not think about Ewan, and how badly she wished he would find her.

She was on day two or three when the monstrous scientist himself suddenly burst into the harem room. The women collectively groaned and fixed strained smiles to their faces while trying to jostle each other to the forefront.

“There you are,” Morloxian sang out gleefully. “You beauty. You absolute beauty.” He seized Maureen.

The relief from the others was palpable. A few of them even waved as he dragged Maureen out the door.

Maureen fought like mad, but he picked her up in his massive wolf arm. Given his muscles versus hers, it wasn’t much of a contest. “I’m not a beauty,” Maureen chattered. “Look. No boobs at all. Just throw me back. I’ll even do girl on girl.”

“You beauty, you beauty,” Morloxian crooned. “Oh, those beautiful genes.”

“And I’m a virgin, so it won’t be any fun for you, and I have this disease, and I—what?”

“You lovely little bitch,” Morloxian said. His ugly, half-wolf face was suffused with bliss. “Little werewolf bitch. All this time you were hiding them from me. Those lovely she-wolf genes.” He beamed a crooked smile at her. “Just enough that there’s a chance you’ll survive the process. You’d better. I’ve already told the boys. You should have heard them howl. You’re going to be the most popular lady in the state. And I won’t have to dig up subjects any more. I can breed my own.”

He started singing to himself. After a moment Maureen recognized the tune: “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

Maureen was not a screamer, or usually a thrasher. She prided herself on using her brains to get herself out of a jam.

Now she thrashed. And screamed.

... or not

“Bugger me,” Dugger swore.

Ewan would have gladly, had he thought it would do any good. Or knew what it meant. It wasn’t going to change things.

Here in what should have been the center of Damien Hancock’s hive they had found absolutely squat. Zero. Zilch. Nada and loose change. No guards, no scientists, no mutant monsters. A fat lot of nothing greeted Ewan and Dugger behind every door they tried. In one huge chamber they did find a set of eight-foot clear plastic cylinders lining the walls, but these were empty too. The offshoot rooms they explored were filled with even less of the same. They stank of exotic chemicals and wolf adrenaline, all of it at least a week old.

“Shit,” Ewan said.

“Thought I just said that.”

“American subtitles. Where is everybody?”

“Y’got me, mate. Looks like the whole place has gone walkabout. Must’ve happened right after Dante’s spy lit out. Hey! Where you going?”

“Back to the flying saucer.” She wasn’t here. She wasn’t going to be here. The van and the wolves who had taken her weren’t coming here. They were headed to wherever Damien Hancock had moved his pet scientist. That was where Ewan needed to be, not this empty nest.

“Hang on a mo. My sniffer’s got something.”

Ewan reluctantly retraced his steps. Now he caught it also, a fresher smell than the fading traces they’d encountered so far. Human, somewhat nervous, and close by.

Gun out, Dugger led the way. “You want to kick the door in? I hear it’s the American way.”

He’d pretty much lost heart by now. “Nah.”

“Suit yourself.” Dugger swung the door wide.

Two white-coated science types sat at a table long enough for a dozen, in what had probably been the lab’s cafeteria up until a week ago. They were drinking coffee and listlessly playing cards. Both leaped to their feet when Dugger and Ewan stepped in.

“Uh, hi?” said the skinny one in the thick glasses. “Are you the new owners?”

“Depends,” Dugger said. “What happened to the old owners?”

“No clue,” the skinny one’s stockier buddy said. “Dr. Morloxian called a meeting one morning, told us he was going into business for himself, packed up his experiments and split. We tried to get hold of Mr. Hancock, but he never talks to us. I hate this absentee owner crap.”

“He could’ve left his harem,” Glasses muttered. “We worked hard. We deserve something for that.”

“Where’d Morloxian go?” Ewan demanded.

“Search me,” Glasses said. “He just up and left. Maybe he got a better offer from somebody.” He eyed Dugger’s gun nervously. “Are you the FBI? Are we prisoners?”

“From what I hear, there were close to two hundred people here,” Dugger said. “They take off too?”

“Some,” Stocky said. “A few went with Morloxian, but most of us didn’t. He’s brilliant and all, but really chintzy. Try squeezing a paycheck out of him. The rest of us hung around, hoping to hear from Hancock, but so far he’s been unreachable. I’m signing up for unemployment tomorrow.” He too eyed Dugger’s gun. “I mean, if it’s okay.”

“No worries, mate. I know somebody wants to talk to you bright young lads. Probably offer you jobs. Interested?”

“Hell yeah,” Stocky said. “This place sucks. It smells like wet dog all the time.”

“You said he had a harem,” Ewan said.

Dugger slanted a look at him. “That’s your takeaway?”

“Morloxian did,” Glasses said morosely. “We weren’t allowed to touch them. He kept them locked up. Had to. There was only one other woman here, and she ran off the second she got the chance. The mutants,” he explained to their blank expressions. “All the mutants were male.”

“No she-wolves?” Dugger mused. “No wonder they’re so bloody vicious. Bet if she scented a sheila—”

He broke off and stared at Ewan with a growing horror nowhere near the size of Ewan’s own. Dugger didn’t know about Maureen’s wolf-shifter genes. Morloxian couldn’t either. The sexually-frustrated mutant werewolves would pick up on it in seconds. Once they did—

“Right, then,” Dugger said. He motioned with his gun. “Say g’bye to the nice lab, mates. We’re moving out.”

Ewan bit down on his mounting panic. “Double time,” he agreed.

To the Rescue!

Ewan had never considered himself a praying man. Right now, cooped up in a tiny flying saucer zipping toward Colorado miles above the ground, he was seriously rethinking that decision. He muttered a few syllables to Chaos on the off chance it would help. After an ill-considered glance out the hatch at the blur of earth far below, he added a second prayer consisting of much stronger words.

“Yer lookin’ a little green there, mate,” Dugger said from behind the controls. “These skimmers take getting used to. Y’might want to steer clear of the windows.”

Too little too late there, Ewan thought, while just managing to keep last night’s dinner in his gut where it belonged. “Where the hell’d Dante get this E.T. mobile anyway?”

“Dante knows people.”

“He never told me he knew Luke Skywalker.” Dugger was right; the flight went far better if he didn’t try to look at the scenery. “I don’t suppose he’s got a couple lightsabers stashed in the glove compartment?”

“It’s not that kind of a run, mate. We’re just supposed to buzz the place, find out if your sheila’s there, then give Dante the lowdown and let him make the tough decisions. That’s why he gets the big bucks ‘stead of us.”

Ewan growled to himself. He found he could keep his meal down better if he thought about Maureen instead of how far below the nearest terra firma lay. Trouble was, he could only think about Maureen in the hands of Damien Hancock’s twisted Doctor. His hackles had been stiff for a good hour now and showed no sign of settling. He wanted her in his arms again, with his mouth firmly latched onto her tits and her wolf-human scent in his nostrils. If he didn’t get her back he was going to rip somebody’s throat out.

Chaos bite it! Was this how wolves lived all the time, with their stupid macho alpha genes sending them charging blindly after their mates? No wonder they had no sense of humor.

“Scat on that,” he said. “We find the place, park this thing, slip inside and get her out, and then we call in Dante. If we can blow something up along the way, so much the better.”

Dugger bared his teeth in a grin as wide as the Outback. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

# # #

Dante’s intel was spot on the money. Once on the ground they found the hidden access door with very little trouble. Dugger went to work on the seals while Ewan kept watch.

Ewan felt uneasy, and not because of the heavily-armed troops who might or might not be waiting for them on the other side of the door. He’d managed to wrestle his stomach into compliance so he could scan the roads from above during their flight to Colorado. He hadn’t spotted anything that looked like a delivery truck. Maureen and her fellow captives should be well on their way to this installation by now. Damien Hancock didn’t hire henchwolves who stopped for beer and a burger. And shouldn’t a place so painstakingly hidden have surveillance out the wazoo? Shouldn’t alarms be going off?

“Call me a scat-faced optimist,” Ewan said, “but does all this strike you as just a hair too easy?”

“Never look a gift roo up the bunghole, I always say,” Dugger replied. “There! That’s got it.”

The hatch swung open easily, with no betraying creaks. Dugger led the way inside. Ewan followed him into a narrow corridor lined by raw rock walls. He smelled metal and machine oil up ahead, and heard a few drips and clinks, but no noises from living beings.

“Easy peasy,” Dugger whispered. “Wonder where they are?”

“On break, maybe?” Ewan said. His mind kept conjuring images of foxes, henhouses, and farmers with shotguns.

“According to the blueprints,” Dugger said, “prisoners are usually kept—”

“Dante had blueprints?”

“More like a map. Dante—”

“Knows people. Gotcha.”

That was it for talk. Dugger conveyed through body language that they were coming up on a possible inhabited area. He pulled a handgun out of his waistband. Ewan would play it by ear.

They crept up to the corner and peered around it. And saw—

TO BE CONTINUED (ain’t I a stinker?)

Rude Awakening

The serial story continues!

# # #

Ewan woke with an empty sinking in his gut, convinced something somehow had just gone horribly wrong. It couldn’t be due to his dreams. His dreams had been full of Maureen showing off her tits and lots of frisky fun. Maybe that alarm blaring upstairs had something to do with it.

He looked around for Maureen and found her gone. Dang girl had run off again. Probably no farther than the nearest bathroom, her being female and all, but still. He’d been looking forward to waking up next to her so they could get to know each other a whole lot better.

Not with that alarm blasting, though. Ewan switched back to human and pulled on his pants. Check out the alarm first, then look for Maureen. If the two turned out to be related he’d be nabbing two birds with one stone.

The alarm shut off before he got upstairs. No big deal; the cause was pretty obvious. The upstairs bar was a mess, with overturned tables, smashed bottles, glass everywhere and one wolf on the floor holding an ice pack to his head. And two humans definitely the worse for wear. They’d been bound and stuck in a corner under heavy guard.

Ewan’s already-sunk gut did a further plummet: Shaggy and Agent Mulder.

Ewan shot a glance out the window. The van still sat where Maureen had parked it. Two of Dante’s men in wolf form sniffed around the parking lot. They were the only beings out there, active or otherwise.

No Maureen.

It couldn’t have been Cochrane. There would have been gunfire, maybe explosions. He looked around the wreck of the bar for a blond-haired body. Freddie had only been armed with a knife, but he wouldn’t have let that inhibit him.

Where was she?

One of the wolves turned toward him from questioning the humans. Ewan was surprised to see Dante. If the boss wolf himself had gotten involved, this must be worse than a hunter attack. And the only thing worse than a hunter attack …

He leaped at Dante before the alpha could speak. “What happened? Where’s Maureen?”

Dante held up his hand. “Take it easy. Your hunter buddies showed up to attack us, but a pack of my sire’s wolves attacked them first. They took the girl and two other humans. Cochrane wasn’t involved. At last report he was on his way to Talbot’s Peak, but he seems to have disappeared.” Dante’s expression promised the head hunter’s whereabouts wouldn’t stay secret for long. “It’s all right. They won’t be harmed right away. I have an agent in the pack. They’re taking them to the Doctor.”

Just when you thought a gut couldn’t sink any lower. “Kidnapped? How is that all right?”

“They’re being taken to the Doctor’s laboratory. We know it’s in Colorado, just not the exact location. Once we’ve got it pinpointed, we’ll move in.” He laid his hand on Ewan’s shoulder. “I already have agents en route to Colorado. We’ll get her back unharmed.” His personal phone, the one that operated off the grid, buzzed. “Excuse me.” Dante pulled out the phone. “Yes?”

Ewan wandered over to the bar in a daze. For once in his life his glib brain went on hold. It allowed one thought to whirl around inside it like a dervish: She’s gone. Her and her brains and her smile and her laugh and her smell with its touch of randy she-wolf. Taken right out from under his nose. He was a failure as a coyote.

He’d never even gotten to see her tits.

The wolf in him kicked the coyote in the ass. You going to just stand there and cry at the moon? Or you going to do something about it?

“Chaos, yes,” Ewan growled aloud. Bite those Hancock wolves. “Nobody takes my girl.”

Dante was still speaking into his phone. “Follow them. A squad of Tiger Yakuza doesn’t just up and take off for no reason. Keep me apprised.” He returned the phone to his pocket. “Get some breakfast. We’ve got this.”

“Screw that.” Nobody was getting anything until he had Maureen and her smile and her brains and her tits safe in his arms again. “I want in.”

Smash and Grab

Maureen backed up against the van. Her eyes darted past Atcheson’s sneering face toward the bar and the parking lot and any chance of help. Her hopes soared at sight of the cop car, only to plummet when Barry and Lowenstein climbed out of it. A delivery truck rumbled into the parking lot. Odds of the driver coming to her aid wavered at 50-50. One other car sat at the far end of the lot, but its driver appeared slumped behind the wheel. Some late-night partier, sleeping off his binge. He’d be useless even if he did come to in time.

She caught sight of one of the bar staff at the window, motioning to the manager. Atcheson waved to Barry and Lowenstein. “You boys go have fun,” he said. “I want a private word with Maureen.”

Barry and Lowenstein charged at the bar door just as the staff charged out. Surprise and momentum carried the hunters inside, driving the wolves before them, and dashing Maureen’s last slim hope of rescue.

Maureen tried to duck around Atcheson, but he slammed her up against the side of the van. “Now, where were we?” he said. “More importantly, where were you? And what the hell have you got on?” He fingered a fold of her harem outfit, then dropped it with a snarl of disgust.

“They kidnapped me,” she said desperately. “There are too many of them. We need to get out of here.”

 “We’ll leave, all right. Once every single wolf in there is dead. Then we go looking for Cochrane. Has he been here?”

“I—I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the motel. I thought he—”

Atcheson struck her across the face. “Worthless bitch. I told him we shouldn’t let a woman on the team.”

Maureen slumped to the ground, barely conscious. Ewan, she thought bleakly. He was still asleep in the harem room. He’d think she’d run out on him again. He’d never know what happened to her. Assuming he even survived.

Atcheson lifted her and propped her upright against the van with his hand around her neck. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

A blackjack cracked against the side of his head. Atcheson dropped like a stone. So did Maureen. They landed in a heap at the feet of the driver of the delivery van.

“Funny,” the driver said. “I was just asking myself the same thing.”

He reached for Atcheson. And jumped when a hand came down on his shoulder. “Your pardon, sir … ”

# # #

From his vantage at the far end of the parking lot Ranjeet observed Maureen come out of the shifter bar. She paid no attention to the police car when it rolled into the lot, but he did. His keen eyes spotted Atcheson behind the wheel. Ranjeet slumped as if asleep, and watched the mini-drama play out while considering options. Interfere? Rejoin the team? Which would serve him best?

Then the delivery van appeared and the driver got out. Ranjeet sat up. He’d been well briefed in Damien Hancock’s known henchwolves. This one and his pack were suspected of snatching humans for Hancock’s mad doctor’s experiments. Other wolves got out of the truck and gathered near the cab while their leader took care of the hunters.

Ranjeet was not a fighter. He was not equipped to take even one wolf back to Zhere Ghan for questioning. However, this turn of events provided the perfect opportunity for him to engage in his forte: infiltration.

He got out his cell phone and punched in a secret number. Code words were exchanged. Ranjeet activated the phone’s GPS. Then he got out of the car and approached the Hancock wolf.

“Your pardon, sir,” he said once he had the wolf’s attention. “These are my friends. I cannot let you take them.” He braced himself for the expected reaction.

The wolf looked him up and down. “You gotta be kidding me,” he said, and whacked Ranjeet with the blackjack. Ready for the blow, Ranjeet rolled with it. He went down, dazed but still conscious. The phone and its signal were not damaged.

“Load ‘em up,” the wolf ordered his pack. He shot a glance toward the bar, where the sounds of battle raged. “Before Dante’s team rips those yahoos up and comes after us. Dr. Frankenstein’ll just have to be happy with three.”

Strong hands lifted Ranjeet. Through slitted eyes he watched Atcheson and Maureen similarly wolf-handled into the back of the delivery truck. “Hey,” one of the wolves said. “This one’s a she.”

“Hey. This one’s a genius. Haul tail, Einstein. You want those bouncers on us?”

Ranjeet was thrown into the back of the truck. The engine roared to life. A quick Uee in the lot rolled him into Maureen. He wriggled himself off her and saw she was awake, if not fully aware. Her glasses had been knocked askew. He adjusted them for her, and patted her hand.

He also patted his pocket. The phone continued to send out its signal to the pursuing Tiger Yakuza.

Maureen’s mouth moved. “Pete?” she managed.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “All is going according to plan.”

True Romance

Maureen stretched, rolled over, and tumbled onto the floor. She came awake at once, fully alert. The dubious perks of a life on the road, hunting scary things with people who sometimes scared her even more.

She took in her surroundings: cushions, gauzy curtains, walls painted cream with lurid red accents, a bowl of plastic fruit heavy on the apples, bananas and dates. Another bowl held condoms. That one looked like it hadn’t been touched in a while.

Oh yeah, and the sleeping wolf curled up on the cushions.

Memories rushed back like a flash flood down an arroyo. Mutual kidnappings, ditching her team, the blow to her hopes when she learned Talbot’s Peak was home to shapeshifters and not actual werewolves. Their bites couldn’t give her the abilities she wanted. She’d have to start over from scratch.

And Ewan. Mostly Ewan.

When she looked at him, even only thought about him, everything else drained out of her head. New imaginings crept in, and drained to other parts of her body. Her nose, for one. And that other insistent spot between her legs, currently sweating up a storm.

She cautiously crept toward him. He’d switched to his coyote form, perhaps as a promise he’d take no liberties with her while she slept. After less than a day with him, Maureen already knew with certainty he’d wait until they were both wide awake for any liberty-taking. From the indentations in the cushions she realized she’d been using his flank as a pillow.

He really was impressive in his beast form. She’d seen coyotes in the wild. They were runty things compared to Ewan. He had a wolf’s size and muscular build, but now that she looked more closely she could spot his mixed heritage in his tall ears, narrow muzzle and tawny fur. A bit of drool wet the satin cushion under his jaw. He smelled absolutely delicious.

Maureen thought, Oh dear God.

When Maureen was ten years old, her mother had given her “the talk.” Even back then she’d figured most little girls didn’t get the version Mom had imparted to her. “Wolves know their mates by scent. Like hormones aren’t messy enough. You’re showing all the signs of wolfiness, so you’ll probably get this too. When you meet the right one, you’ll know. He won’t smell like anyone else you’ve ever met. He’ll smell right. That’s why I married your dad. I can’t explain it any better than that. You’ll just know.”

She recalled thinking her mom and dad might have rapped their skulls against the headboard one too many times. That was before she drove through the dark with a naked shapeshifter sitting next to her, cute as the dickens and smelling … just right. Maureen wasn’t much of a wolf, but her sense of smell knew what mattered, and it had never let her down.

“Crap,” she said. “What do I do now?”

Whatever actions she decided on would have to wait. First and foremost, she urgently needed to use the can. But even before that, there was something about werewolves, and by extension shapeshifters, that she absolutely had to know.

She reached a trembling hand toward the sleeping werecreature and scratched him at the base of his tail. Ewan grunted in his sleep. His rear leg kicked spasmodically. Grinning to herself, Maureen slipped out of the room.

Now that she had a better idea of the Pleasure Club’s layout, she found the ladies’ room with no trouble. Business attended to, a quick splash in the sink and she felt marginally human again.

That was the trouble, wasn’t it? Maureen was only marginally human. She had just enough wolf shifter in her blood to make her a target to the people she palled around with. Just enough to recognize her one true mate when she found him. One drive through the night in a van later, topped off with a dinner of leftovers in the kitchen of a shapeshifter sex parlor, and she was in love.

She examined her reflection in the restroom mirror, her haunted but beautifully made-up eyes. Less than a day and she’d already gone through enough romantic angst for a lifetime. Never let it be said the Starkeys dawdled in the matter of relationships.

Whatever her next move, it wouldn’t be made in this flimsy piece of tissue paper trying to pass itself off as a dress. If she was going to fall in love with a shapeshifter, it would be in her own comfortable if unflattering clothing. She was pretty sure she’d left her duffel in the van.

She found the stairs back to the above-ground biker bar part of the building. The crew was already setting up for opening. The manager stopped her before she could get to the door. “Sorry, miss. You’re not allowed to go outside. Boss’s orders.”

“I just need to get some stuff out of my van. I’ll only be a minute.” She made herself face the guy down. If her nose was correct, he was a beta. Alpha body language ought to do the trick. “C’mon. We’re miles from anywhere, and I can’t shapeshift. How far am I going to get?”

He quirked a grin at her. “With a head start, about three feet. Okay, you get five minutes, but we’ll be watching you. Oh, and don’t bother looking for weapons. We swept it clean last night.”

“You got rid of the pizza boxes?”

“Not in my job description. Oh yeah. That bologna in the cooler? That’s gone too.”

Ted would be crushed. Though she’d probably never know. Then and there she decided not to seek out her teammates. They’d never been her friends. Heck, Cochrane teetered on the brink more often than not, and Atcheson could be downright creepy. Put ‘em in the rearview and never look back, as Uncle Ellery used to say.

The van was still parked where she’d left it last night. Her duffle was still crammed under a seat in the back. Maureen pulled out a blouse and made a face at it. Nothing she owned was fit for trying to capture a cute guy’s attention. Given the company she kept—used to keep—she’d always dressed for the opposite effect.

If this place had performers, it must have dressing rooms. Maybe the chorus “girl”—or whatever—was still around. Maureen was willing to take in all the pointers she could get.

She stuffed the blouse back into the duffle and climbed out through the back. She shut the door and turned around, and bumped right into Atcheson.

“Well, well,” he said. He probably thought that twisted look on his face was a kindly smile. “So this is where you got to. Starting the party without us?”

Convergence

Overture, curtain, lights. This is it, the night of nights. The players have been introduced, the plot is rolling, the stage is set. That stage is Talbot’s Peak.

# # #

Out at the exit, the police release the Scooby Gang at dawn. They have no real charges to hold them on—everyone agrees Cochrane, currently MIA, was the only one with a gun—and the cops need the cells for the drunk drivers and brawlers that litter the strip every Saturday night. Even Barry receives a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. While the others were ditching their knives, he was flushing his last bag of Panama Red. Barry’s from California. He knows the drill.

The cast assembles at the far end of the cop shop parking lot: Atcheson (“Freddie”), Barry (“Shaggy”), Ted (“Comic Book Guy”), and Lowenstein (“Agent Mulder”). Atcheson tries Cochrane’s number and gets no response. Ditto for Maureen and Pete. He pockets the phone with a vicious oath, his face contorted in frustration.

“What now?” Lowenstein says. “Breakfast?” Ted asks hopefully.

“Screw breakfast,” Atcheson says. His eyes are glittering. This is his chance to seize command, and he grabs it with both hands. “We have to find Cochrane. The werewolf bit him. He’s a monster now, just like the rest of them. He has to die. For his own good,” he quickly adds, noting the expressions of alarm on the faces of his team. “Nobody wants to live as a monster. He’ll thank us, believe me.”

After a moment, they reluctantly nod. Like Ewan before him, Atcheson reaches the conclusion his partners aren’t very bright. That doesn’t dull the thrill of power becoming their new leader gives him. Hunting and killing monsters is what he was born to do. Especially the killing part.

He gives his first orders. “Cochrane’s bound to head for Talbot’s Peak. That’s where we need to go.” He gazes around the parking lot. The motel’s at least a mile away, and the van may not even be there. On the other hand, half a dozen cop cars are parked on the lot, just sitting there. “How are your hot-wiring skills?” he asks Lowenstein. Lowenstein wriggles his fingers and grins.

Ted stares longingly at the string of fast-food places that line the commercial strip, and sighs. There goes breakfast. Maybe they can stop for something on the way.

# # #

Already miles along the road to Talbot’s Peak, Cochrane floors his Chevy, throttles the wheel and grits his teeth. He got away from the alien bunny probe-free, only to discover his arsenal in the trunk was gone. Goddamn freaks. However, they missed the pistol and full clip of ammo he had hidden under the driver’s seat, and the three grenades in the glove compartment. That’s all he’s got left to wipe an entire town full of shapeshifters off the map.

And he’s naked. Again.

“Sons’a bitches,” he snarls. If that’s all he has to work with, so be it. They’re monsters. One way or another, they’re going to die. Vern and the Mayor first. He’s going to twist their heads off their necks with his bare hands. More satisfying anyway. As for the wolf boy, Cochrane can’t wait to beat his head in with the cast on his broken wrist. Wolf Boy gave him that cast. It has symmetry.

A rabbit takes a tentative hop onto the side of the road. Cochrane swerves to run it down. The rabbit makes a frantic dive back into the underbrush, inches ahead of the Chevy’s tires. The car rockets on up the road.

“They’re all gonna die,” Cochrane vows. Yeah, even the bunnies. Especially the bunnies.

# # #

Some miles behind Cochrane and ahead of the Scooby Crew, Ranjeet Patel, aka Pete, aka Silent Sam, drives his own stolen vehicle at a moderate pace along the road to Talbot’s Peak. His trained eye spots the “checkpoints” he’s been warned about. He keeps well within the speed limit. The wolf clan will have agents stationed all along this road. He does not want to draw their attention.

Zhere Ghan’s empire has long employed human servants, even before the tiger lord came to America. Ranjeet’s family has served the House of Ghan for generations. Somebody has to keep the poachers away from the tigers’ pelts. The Ghans were the first shifter clan to recognize the need to fight fire with fire.

Now the wolf lord, Damien Hancock, has stolen that idea. He’s found a human willing to turn other humans into beasts. Lord Ghan wants this human. Ranjeet is to see that he gets him.

The Doctor will not be in Talbot’s Peak itself, but those who know where he is will be. Ranjeet has a name and a species (Ewan the wolf) and a place to start (Dante’s bar). If Vishnu favors him, he will accomplish his mission without the need for violence. Violence is messy, and ruins one’s day.

Violence is what the Tiger Yakuza is for. At a single phone call a dozen ninja will swoop in and do what they do best, once Ranjeet provides them with a location. He himself will secure the Doctor. Some things must be handled personally, to ensure success.

He spots the gleam of saffron eyes by the side of the road, reflected off the headlights. He’s not worried. Cochrane will be travelling this same road, if he isn’t already. The man is insane, and so will make an excellent diversion. While the wolf lord deals with him, Ranjeet can slip in and accomplish his task.

He turns on the car’s radio and whistles along with the tune that comes on. One by one he passes the checkpoints, unhindered.

# # #

These are the pawns. The two kings in this chess game, Zhere Ghan and Dante, stand alert in their command centers and direct their men across the board. Dante gulps coffee. Zhere Ghan sips tea. No one knows where Damien Hancock is, or where he’s hiding his Doctor. Securing that knowledge is the top priority for both sides.

The sun rises on a Talbot’s Peak teetering on the brink of assault from numerous directions. Its populace has no clue. If Dante has his way, they never will. Zhere Ghan is less caring of the pawns. If some of them, including the Doctor, die in this skirmish, so be it. That’s all pawns are for.

# # #

Ewan and Maureen? They’re down in the kitchen of the Pleasure Club, feasting on sandwiches cobbled together from whatever’s been left over from the dinner rush. Maureen wonders if she’ll ever become a real werewolf. Ewan wonders if he’ll ever get to see her tits. They’re the only players on the board not looking to kill anybody. Poor bastards, they haven’t a chance.