Now that I got this sucker going. I kind of feel there's a few details that need to be put in, but that's for the next draft, I just need to get this rolling. Still, 3600 words is I think a record for getting writing written. And in less than a week too.


The Brothers, one of many meaningless small street gangs in Phoenix, was no more. Frank was kind of glad of that. The five friends with him wouldn’t be facing the fate of the rest of the gang, the hardcore ones killed in a shootout with one of the bigger gangs last week. Frank led them from the rundown pawn shop they had met at, and proceeded to the nearby mall where Greg would take them all home, and get them to child services and taken care of tomorrow. Getting out of even a small gang like theirs could be fatal, so he was glad that the survivors, all about the fourteen-year-old’s age, were interested in getting out of the ghetto after surviving their first gunfight. He’d been arrested during his initiation, so he had never been in one, but it hadn’t been pleasant.
They’d been crossing a warehouse yard when they noticed things getting odd. A large shadow moved across the street from the gate. Passing near the building, they heard movement inside, then gunfire. Muffled by the building, the sound that echoed on many nights in the area was familiar and sent them running. It wasn’t until they were hearing gunfire from the next building they passed that they realized that something serious was going on. They paused under a trailer, listening and watching as a group of men lined up near another building and performed a dynamic entry they had often seen on television.
“What’s going on?” The younger kids were the worst, jumping at every burst of gunfire that got louder from the nearby loading dock.
Six headaches occurred simultaneously as something crashed into the wall, sending them all jumping up to slam their heads against the metal above them. Frank started to lean out, started again as another burst of gunfire sounded, loud enough to deafen. Covering his ears, he leaned out to look. He fell over when the wall bulged out with a slam. He sat back and watched as the wall bent again, tearing metal preceding a loud thump inside the trailer. The younger kids screamed and scattered out from under the trailer as it rocked again and more gunfire sounded.
Unlike the movies, or the distant thunder from the ghetto, gunfire wasn’t soft. Hammers slammed into his eardrums, sending his ears ringing. Sparks flashed under the trailer and he turned and ran, staggering as he tried to cover his ears as each shot hammered him like nothing he’d ever heard, feeling it in his chest and sinuses as well as his ears.
Across the yard, a tangle of machinery had provided temporary cover for two of the kids, who cowered now as bullets whizzed by. He couldn’t hear the shouts behind him, but he saw the large shadow that dove into the refuge, metal clattering as it shrugged its way through with no apparent trouble.
“Run!” He got the kids moving again, before something hit him in the shoulder. He bounced off a forklift, the dog-like shape now in front of him as it lunged and caught a blocking arm in its mouth, and he screamed as he passed out.
Some people fought fire with fire. For werewolves, that meant other werewolves. The scream came as Ludolf finished crossing the gap between the building and the machinery. The ground smelled like human and wolf as he passed, and he saw two figures running into the night. Rather than deal with the tangle of metal, Ludolf jumped on top of it, paws jockeying to find a stable hold as he shifted from four feet to two, hands reaching back and pulling the massive gun to bear. The werewolf below him finished ripping off the arm it had grabbed but the killing bite to the neck was cut short as a stream of bullets ripped into its side.
The big wolf hadn’t bothered to reload before his dash, seeing the humans present, so he only got a few rounds off before the gun clicked on an empty chamber. The other wolf had turned though and jumped at him just in to meet the other load burdening the big white wolf’s back—the massive war club that turned the head it landed on into a spray of gore into the air around him.
He jumped down to check the body and the boy—alive, and would stay that way after a tourniquet on his arm. “Big boy to base, we have civies in the area, need a medic to the rear of the Freight Inn. All furries check in.” Lame name for a warehouse, he thought. He listened as the federal agencies’ wolf pack checked in. They were holding themselves well, but a good hunt would do that. All in all, the kids caught in the crossfire were the only hitch to the operation.
The team from the building behind him arrived, and he pulled two to go with him as he slung the gore covered club and the reloaded gun on his back and shifted back to all fours as he started tracking the kids. Alerted, the containment teams shouldn’t have too much trouble rounding the others up since the feral pack they were exterminating were all in fur at this point.
The ambulances had refused to turn off their lights, much to the chagrin of the bureaucrat. He was a perfect example of justifying his own existence beyond the mission the Crypozoological Suppression Department of the FBI—no, they were Homeland Security now—had been created for. He had screamed and until Lou had showed up and said one word—“Shutup.” He hadn’t questioned the ten foot tall wolf, just closed his mouth and glowered as the medics loaded the three kids. One bite, one with a broken leg from running around, and another with his stomach open from a burst of gunfire. Lights were more common now that things were winding down. Agent Jackson went over his numbers. The feral pack had been estimated at twelve, they had fourteen corpses and three wolves Lou had claimed could be salvaged and put two agents in the ambulances after threats of killing them anyway. The human agent still didn’t know what the mysterious wolf had done to them, but they were sleeping in a van surrounded by the oddly calm pack of werewolf agents.
Suppression didn’t always mean extermination, just keeping werewolves and other strangeness under control. His pencil scribbled over more forms, pausing temporarily over the “estimated effectiveness.” Normally numbers like eighty or seventy percent were put down. He wrote “ninety.” The plan had come off shockingly well, though partly due to the giant watching the ambulances drive off, sirens howling.
Lou turned and walked towards him, pulling on straps as he seemed to shrink. By the time he was in front of the agent, he was mostly human again, the big gun on his back at a larger angle to clear the ground. “Jackson.”
“Mister Klaussner. Thank you for the help, it’s been a pleasure.” He extended a hand to shake, and was surprised that the libertarian werewolf took it.
“I will see the wolves back, and I will be at the hospital tomorrow.” The last was spoken with a direct look in the eye of the human. No “Men in Black” crap with him. The werewolf turned and walked off towards the wolves. The human headed for the command truck to let his superior yell at him some more, and do a bit of paperwork.
Frank woke to a pounding headache and a loud ringing sound in his ears. Faintly, a beeping came from one side. Struggles to get farther awake resulted in fading out again, though that did help—the ringing wasn't quite as loud, other sounds were louder, and his head was clearer.
He was in a hospital. Heart monitor was beeping away beside the bed, and lights twinkled on another machine he didn't identify right then. With the events of the night coming back to him, he looked down and saw the stump of his left arm. Golden eyes flashed in front of him, and large white fangs closed in a flashback on that arm, making him flinch, a small stab of pain worming its way through his drug fogged body. He moaned. Leaning back and closing his eyes, he woke the next time to a nurse leaning over him. When she noticed he was awake she said “hello” and fussed about with the odds and ends connected to him. The unrecognizable machine had something to do with the IV, the needle in his vein had a tube that went through the device and up to the bag of fluid.
She left briefly to return with a tray of some stuff she was putting up on the IV stand when a man came in. “Cowboy” was the first thought he had, with the boots, jeans, big buckle and flannel shirt. He sat down in the chair in the room, and looked over at the nurse. “Is that antibiotics?”
She stopped and looked at him. “yes.”
“You might as well save it. He won't be needing it.” He waved his hands at the look of consternation that drew. “Not to say he's gonna die, far from it.” He looked at the boy. “He'll live a long and healthy life. That's part of it of course. He doens't need antibiotics anymore to help with any infection he got during the shuffle.”
Frank stared at him. He looked down at his stump. “What do you mean? What happened anyway?”
“For one, you've been in and out for three days. That's important, but this is even more.” He got up, and asked the nurse to leave. They got into a small argument about that, leading to the man simply picking her up by the arms like a doll and carrying her out the door to loud protests. He closed it behind him when he returned.
“Sorry, gotta at least partly obey the fed's rules on some of this stuff, makes things a bit easier.” He walked around the bed and unwrapped Frank's arm. The dressing was little more than a gauze pad to catch drainage from the stitches, and a loose wrap to hold it in place. The seam where they had cut off sharp bone and folded the skin over looked slightly grotesque, but worse was the jagged stitches on the tooth marks remaining. It was also mostly black.
Concentrated on the tooth marks, Frank saw with some horror that the marks were splotched with black, spidery lines fading outward into the surrounding tissue. He heard of gangrene, didn't that turn things black? He looked up at the man.
“You can call me Lou, by the way. Yes, gangrene is black, but it's also a horribly smelly disease. If that was gangrene, they wouldn't be able to stop the smell. Lucky they didn't try to cut more off, though that wouldn't have done much but make it harder to heal.” He re-wrapped the injury with practiced efficiency and returned to his chair. “How much do you remember about getting your hand bit off? And don't worry, I'm not a fed, and I'm not writing anything down. Most of the info we need for the reports is in the forensics. We just need a few informal details, and I'd like to work my way around to the explanations.”
Frank worked his way through an edited version of the events, from bringing the group back to the mall to finding themselves in the middle of the fight. He tapered off after running though, he wasn't sure about that part.
“Golden eyes, long, white fangs?” Lou inquired. He avoided the gaze in response. “You were bitten by a werewolf.”
“WHAT!?” The boy had to believe him a little bit though, there were those eyes...and fangs.
He gestured to the stump. “Those are classic symptoms, the black is a severe infection around the bite mark. It doesn't smell like gangrene though. A werewolf though, can smell that it's the vector. That's what we call it, no one really knows how to classify the organism that makes werewolves, so it's just “the vector.”
Frank looked at the stump again. “So I'm...”
“A chance in a million really, and don't worry, the hand will grow back.”
Well, that seemed kind of silly. “What do you mean? And doesn't anyone who gets bit turn into a werewolf?”
“One of a werewolf's gifts is amazing regenerative capability. You're not like Wolverine to grow it back in a day, but it will be back in a few months. As for the odds, well, you have to be bitten a certain way to be turned. Lycanthropy is blood-borne, it's not in the saliva. After the werewolf bit you, I killed him, quite messily too. Some of his blood got in your wound, and the rest is history. Or biology, take your pick.” He gave a macabre smile. “you also don't turn if the werewolf eats you first.”
“The problem is, what to do with you. The other boy that was bitten is doing just fine, like you, and while I have little faith in the Order of Lupus, the boy will do well there—he seems to be a devout Catholic after all.” Frank knew who he was talking about, was glad he was one of the ones who made it.
“There were six of us. Who—who all made it?”
This made Lou sit back and think a minute, staring at the boy before answering. “Luckily, everyone lived through the night. One of your friends was shot up by an idiot with a submachine gun, but the doctors think he'll survive. Only the two of you were bitten, and since your friend is looking at becoming a monk, that just leaves what to do with you.”
“You have a few choices, though you might debate on the ones that lead to your death. Agent Jackson will be here soon, he will talk to you about the choices he thinks you have. They’re basically to do a government course in control, few of which survive since they euthanize the ones that can’t make it, and it’s not really designed to teach you control. Second, join an organization like Father Corin’s, which won’t try to kill you outright but they don’t quite know what they’re doing either. They’re very religious too, so if you don’t like that you won’t fit well. Third option is to come up to Wyoming, and let someone like me teach you. Few have regretted that choice.” He sat back, looking at the boy to see what he’d do.
It didn’t seem like much of a choice. He’d been to church with Matt a few times, and hadn’t liked it. Living in a church sounded like what he’d be doing, and that appealed less. Like most of the gangs, the Brothers had run drugs, and so he had a very healthy lack of respect for authority. The only good thing government had ever done was allow Greg to foster then adopt him.
“I’d like to go with you, but my family…not the gang, but my new family. What about them?” Worry showed through. Painkillers had been slowly downgraded too, and now the edge of what he’d gotten earlier that day were wearing off to wear on his expression even more.
“They’d come too, if possible. Good to have that support.” He seemed to reflect on something private and then continued. “Let me get their contact information, and we’ll talk together on it. In the meantime Jackson will probably give you his pitch.”
Lou left with a phone number in hand. Most of the small aches and pains had faded while he was asleep, leaving only a couple of large bruises and the stump. He went to put his hands together and his right met nothing but air. Remembering his loss, he reached farther and felt gauze. It itched for some reason.
Gregory Overlake and his wife were rushing through the doors when they saw Father Corin in the lobby. Both recognized the other and they homed in, exchanging light pleasantries. “Father, do you know anything about Frank? I got a call he was here.”
A flash of worry crossed the robed priest’s face. “I’m afraid I—“
“He knows a bit, but not enough.” A baritone cut across the conversation, and the priest looked at the newcomer with near panic. He looked like a cowboy, only missing a revolver on the hip. He’d started talking a few feet away, and closed the distance before finishing. “My name is Ludolf Klaussner. I was just talking to your son, and can show you to him. We have a lot to talk about.”
The priest stared for a minute as they shook hands, looking from the worry on Greg’s face to the smile on Lou’s. “You can’t do that! It’s not allowed!” Panic was edging into his voice. To see someone take the government’s rules so lightly, and he knew what usually happened to people whom the government didn’t like on matters such as werewolves. Being a werewolf himself was part of the trouble though. There was an energy coming off the man, an aura, that demanded respect, and it quite simply flabbergasted the priest who had never seen anything like it.
Lou’s eyes narrowed as he looked over at the priest, not seeming to take the man seriously. “Allowed? And what makes you think anyone up there can do anything about me?” He turned back to the couple. “Ignore him, he’s crazy. No one is going to bother us about going up there. Shall we go?”
Disarmed. Corin opened his mouth then closed it. Normally composed, he could do nothing as the couple looked at him uncertainly and followed the strange wolf to the elevator. He had to do something! The elevator wouldn’t work, so he hurried over to a side hall, where the stairs were. The hospital wasn’t tall, and the ward the feds had taken over wasn’t that far up anyway.
“Tod.” The bureaucrat looked over, but returned to watching the trio leave the elevator and head for the boy’s room. None of the agents standing around did anything to stop them, the one outside the room even opened the door for them.
“What is he?” The gray suit turned, demanding an answer with his whole body. Bureaucracy was where he thrived, the epitome of the middle manager. Of course, he couldn’t stand the idea of someone like Ludolf, who was his anti-thesis. He was in charge, he didn’t need help, and he drove the bureaucrat mad with his “shut up and do it” attitude. He’d looked up the wolf’s military record, he’d probably set a record of switching between sergeant and private—get the job done, on time, but not always by the book. Not enough paperwork and people like Tod and the military superiors were driven mad. Even worse since he knew what was REALLY important. Rebuild an engine? Done, with all the paperwork. Parts requisition, time spent, fudged or done afterwards. Never something they could really nail him for, just enough to pull his pins. One lieutenant had commented he kept pins for everything from private to master sergeant in his pocket just in case.
“He is an alpha, I’m pretty sure.” Werewolves tended to the social organization of their feral cousins. “Beyond that, who knows? Nobody like him hangs around the government long enough for us to find out. The behavioral profile doesn’t fit anything in records either.”
They were interrupted by Father Corin, Four flights of stairs couldn’t do much to ruffle a wolf, but something else was. “Jackson! That man! He’s…” He trailed off, realizing they were probably talking about the same thing. “What are you going to do?”
Jackson laughed. “What CAN we do?” He got up and moved away from the wall. “None of the wolves that I think can touch him will, and none of the others are worth trying. Having seen him swinging that club of his around, none of the human agents will touch him with a ten foot pole. Don’t forget he put two upstairs.” The Wyomingite had made quite clear that they “Should not take too much advantage of their Dane’s geld—“ the threat of crackdown in Wyoming that had been held over his head to get him to help reform the Cryptozoological Suppression Department to where it could actually do its job. Tod was the first head that did his job before the graft and corruption previously found.
“Nothing? But he’s—“
James cut the priest off again. “Nothing! I’ve avoided writing two letters about ‘regretting to inform’ today.” He started walking. “I’m going home while I’m ahead.”
He passed the room as the parents were leaving with Lou. He paused to offer his hand to the man, saying, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully in the future we can do things like this—“he gestured to the wolf looking at him in that odd way, “—a lot more often.”
He just waved at the man and left, not bothering with a conversation that would do nothing right now.