FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"This is the place?" the girl asked somewhat dubiously as they stood outside the front gate to the track house with an enclosed front porch and an older Honda Civic in the driveway. They were in northern California. The sun was just setting on a fine day in the late of winter, and the air was just starting to return to the chill of night. The young man with her cocked an eyebrow but nodded.

"I know what it looks like." He admitted. "It's not what I expected either." He eyed the cobwebs lurking around the corners and the half corroded siding. "Comfortable, yes, but comfortably Halloween, no." The girl bunched the collar of her coat up and pulled her wool cap over her ears more against the cold of the evening. The young man walked around the Honda in the driveway and smirked to himself.

"Yea, that seems like him. Roadhouse principle." He muttered and smiled lightly to himself.

Tentatively, they walked up to the tall gate in the privacy fence in the front porch. He pulled the string in the gate that lifted the catch on the other side and pushed the gate open. The patio had an overgrown garden with one untamed rose bush in it. He noticed as he walked in that there was an axe handle stowed right behind where the gate would open. It was such that you'd have to know it was there make easy use of it. She noticed what he was looking at and walked up the patio sidewalk to the door. Cobwebs draped a bit from the overhang and the corner of the door. The front walk was swept clean of leaves, though, despite the winter evening. The patio light was off, but that didn't bother either of the visitors.

"Are you Sure this is where they live?" She asked him, a nervous twitch at the spider webs. He nodded at her thoughtfully.

"You mean you can't feel it? I bet you manna that there's a hat rack within site of the front door." He smirked. "Yeap, this is the sort of place that he'd live. It's upscale neighborhood, but well worn. This is a home, not a house. It has a sense of belonging here that's linked to someone who has no roots. It's expressed in the wildness of the patio, the ill repair here and there. This is the den of one who knows nests and one who knows a bit of dens. I bet there's a hammock in the back yard. This place is his."

"You'd know better than I would." She said sarcastically. "The fireplace is nice though."

"Let where I live smell of woodsmoke a roses." He said, quoting. "It has both." He was about to knock on the door when her head snapped up.

"Oh shit." She said. And inside there came a fearful wail of a cat with a major objection to something. He froze with his fist inches from knocking on the door. He snorted.

"Well now." He said with amusement, "Wonder what her name is." The look she offered back to him could have frozen nitrogen. He knocked.

"Well, no turning back now. Here we go." The light came on.

*****

Tagg was sitting at home upstairs in his usual office chair tinkering on the latest bit of research and Facebook games. His cat, Gryphon, sat on his lap and was contentedly sacked out purring lightly. His wife, Tenaya, was downstairs going through Robin Hobb's latest, comfortable on the couch with a mug of cocoa and a fire in the fireplace. It was the normal routine for the two of them for unwinding for the evening when Gryphon suddenly perked up and started howling on Tagg's lap. He paused in his clicking to cock an eyebrow at his feline mistress when she bolted down off his lap and raced downstairs. Tenaya looked at her cat as well, wondering what was going on, when someone knocked at their front door. Over the banister of the loft he was sitting in, he cocked his eyebrow at his wife.

"Expecting anyone?" He asked. Troubled slightly, Tenaya shook her head. Tagg paused for a second and then asked "Know if Gryphon's expecting someone?" Tenaya snorted up at her husband, but he went into the bedroom and just to be sure about safety grabbed his sword and walked back downstairs as Tenaya walked to the front doorway and turned on the porch light and peep through the door peephole. As Tagg came up behind her, he asked who it was with his eyes and she shrugged. Tagg took a look through the peephole and didn't recognize the couple at the door anymore than she did. The knocking came again and Tagg handed her the sword and opened the door a crack.

"Yes?" He asked.

"Mr. Taggart?" The young man of the couple asked.

"Yeeesss?" Tagg drew it out cautiously. "And you are?"

"Lehrin." The young man said quietly. "We need to talk, may we come in?" Behind the door, Tenaya felt Tagg start slightly. She peeped around him and found the young lady looking back at her from behind the man.

"You're kidding, right." Tagg said in a warning tone. "Who sent you? And tell whoever it is that this is a poor joke."

"You're right, it IS a poor joke." The young man answered. "I'm not laughing." Behind Tagg and Tenaya, Gryphon snaked her way in front and put her paws on the screen door and looked at the lady behind Lehrin and yowled. Tenaya saw the lady make a shushing motion back to Gryphon, but her cat obviously had very feline things to say to this woman, in syllables, and with great gusto and detail.

"GRYPHON!" Tenaya went to move around Tagg to grab her cat, when the lady stopped and knelt in front of the door, bowing her head to Gryphon. When she looked up again, Tenaya started as she had cats eyes.

This caused Tagg to cock an eyebrow and look back up at Lehrin.

"All right, you prove that you're really who you say you are and I'll let you in this door."

"As you wish." Lehrin said, and his form shifted until he had a coyote's head. Tagg and Tenaya stood in the doorway speechless for a moment, then Tenaya did the truly smart thing. She hit the light and turned it out so nobody else could see in their front patio. Tagg regained his composure a few seconds later and opened the screen door and motioned the two inside.

The two beings from his made up world had just walked up to the front door, knocked, and said hi. His whole reality was thrown back to a day when an adventure was something he was always ready for, waking or sleeping. This was different now, though. A slight but very thoughtful frown found its way to his face. Lehrin took a seat on the floor in front of the fireplace and his companion did the same. As she did, Gryphon snaked into her lap and started doing her usual routine of stomping someone into the right shape. Tenaya looked at her husband and took a hesitant seat on the couch. Tagg chose to stand on the far side of the room from Lehrin and his friend, his sword still in hand. Then, after a moment, at the prompting of Tenaya, he sat down on the couch beside her, laying the sword across his lap.

"Are you going to ask why we're here?" Lehrin started. Tagg shook his head.

"I'm almost afraid of knowing why you're here." Tagg said slowly. "If this were a younger me, sure. I'd be excited. These days, though, and I hate to say this bitterly, but you're a complication." He gestured around him. "I'm not the adventurer you're looking for. I have a home, a wife, and I'm too old for this sort of bullshit anymore. If you're here to invite me to go off on some half assed hair brained adventure, and make me choose between there and her, you're in for the short stick on that one."

Lehrin nodded. His companion just sat there focused on petting Gryphon, who was curled in her lap purring her heart out. "Yea, we kinda figured out that you were not going to be a presence there anymore. And the place has gone to complete and utter pot while you've been, shall we say, unmindful."

"How are you even here?" Tenaya spoke up. "And please don't do anything to my cat." Lehrin smiled gently at that, and the look of utter affront that his companion put up at that point. Gryphon looked up at the lap she was occupying and meowed something and that seemed to settle the matter for the both of them and she went back to petting as was the kitteh's proper due in life.

"We're gods." Lehrin shrugged. "It's not like it's difficult for us. We have the power, vested in us by our creator" he motioned a hand at Tagg "to wander the planes as we wish. It's HIS primary power, after all. Traveler, wanderer, Courier."

"Traded it for a better one." Tagg said plainly "Husband."

"You mean you really wouldn't want to see it for real, just once?" Lehrin's companion looked up from her rapt attention of Gryphon and measured him. "Really?" Tagg sighed.

"Let me guess," he said softly, "That's what you're here to offer. I get to go, have my fun, live My wish and go off on some epic quest to fix your world." Lehrin frowned. "There's but one little problem with that. What comes after that?? Hrm?" Tagg looked at both of them. "See, I'm old and wise enough now to consider that. Tenaya gets left for a good little while without me, the house goes to shit, I lose my job here. While I'm there fixing things, those same things here go to shit. I can only do one or the other... And I'm not about to give this up. There have been too many times where the dream got me through, but in the end it was just that. A dream. What I have here is real."

"Do I look like a dream to you?" Lehrin half snarled. "No, you poor little flake, I'm not some figment of your rather fertile imagination. I'm not the bullshit that you usually dream to pass the time in Your real world. I'm here, I'm real. I really need your help this time. We all do. You don't know what you've let loose in Aerie inadvertently. It's going to become your problem whether you like it or not. They're going to follow me here. And it's not just 'my' world. We know YOU invented it. YOU wrote it. It's YOUR world."

Tagg sat up. "Who's going to follow you here?"

"Who the hell do you think?" Lehrin snorted. "Everyone that you let into Your little world and then suddenly didn't find it to their liking. They've been looking for the complaint department ever since. Everyone wants a retcon that turns reality the way They want it."

"And what, exactly, am I supposed to do about any of that. I'm a writer and a daydreamer, I'm NOT otherwise empowered any way." Tagg waved his hands around as if doing magic. "See, no gifts on my end."

"Ah," Lehrin smiled. "But see, that's where you're wrong."

"Bullshit." Tagg said. "And Puppy, this is a poor joke to pull on me. Way to fucking rub my nose in it too."

"Fuck you too dad number one." The smile Lehrin offered in return wasn't very friendly. "I don't have any choice in the matter. My existence is at stake too. Dad number two wants his parts of me back."

"Fuzzbutt?" Tagg asked and scowled at him. Tenaya snerked. Lehrin nodded.

"Wait, wait," Tenaya said. "You said you can give him gifts?"

"Yeap." Lehrin nodded. "I can unlock him. Just like Sehriss is doing for her Highness there." He motioned at Gryphon and his companion.

"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU'RE UNLOCKING MY CAT!!?!?!"

"Meh." Gryphon looked at Tenaya and nodded, and then purred. Sehriss looked up from where she was petting Gryphon.

"She wanted to stay with you a while longer." She said as if that not only explained but quite frankly settled everything. "Who am *I* to deny she who is above me."

"MAHM!" Gryphon said from her lap and purred really loudly.

"Focus!" Tagg scowled at the lot of them. "What the hell has Fuzzbutt all riled up?"

"He wants the parts of him that are in me back." Lehrin said. Tagg shook his head.

"The way I understand that is that it's like asking a child for the sperm that created it back." Tagg said. "It's not entirely possible."

"It is for him, it is his essence." Lehrin replied. Tagg still shook his head.

"He'd have to be a healer." Tagg objected. "He's a mage, last I checked."

"Ah, but there's so much room for inaccuracy in those last three words, isn't there?" Lehrin half mocked. "Things have changed. Andrew is backed by a deity like me, or her, or Gryphon."

"Backed? By who?" Tagg asked "The draig? That makes no sense. They were meant to keep an eye on things but they don't have the ability to go about making people multi-branched in magic. There are no such things as dual branches. I saw to that."

"Technically, he's not." Lehrin sighed. "But he's got some devices that mimic a healer's abilities and gifts. He inherited them from Xander."

"Xander?" Tagg asked surprised again.

"Yeap." Lehrin nodded. "Xander linked up with him to get him a device that drains essence. Got him the notoriety as the first healer to be convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to the same."

"And the bard?" Tagg whispered. "They'd need a bard to pull that off."

"Ah, but are you ready for this?" Lehrin asked with a lot of bitterness in his voice. "That'd be YOU."

Silence spread in the living room and was interrupted only by the sound of the fire in the fireplace. Gryphon, sensing something was wrong, crept up off Sehriss' lap and leapt up on Tagg's lap. She head butted his chin and Tenaya petted her.

"Me." It was quiet, but it was Not a whisper. Beside Tagg, Tenaya sensed the danger uttered with that one syllable.

"Yeap. Not willingly, but yea. You." Lehrin said with soft bitterness.

"Why." Tagg's tone was not that of a question, but of an order. Something in him changed. With Tagg, quiet was dangerous. Sehriss sensed it too, her eyes were wide and curious, her feline pupils wide and her irises nearly gone from the whites of her eyes. Tenaya put a hand on her husband's leg and stroked gently. Tagg was focused on Lehrin like an angry parent who's child had just been brought home by the police.

"Ferrune killed the Old Wolf's mate." Lehrin said softly. "Meeting of the wills. Only one could be alpha."

"Ferrune doesn't do that sort of thing lightly." Tagg said with a furrowed brow. "He's not the sort to go about killing his own children or the mates of his children. And he'd have to know that Andrew doesn't pose a credible alpha challenge. What changed?"

"The draig backed him." Lehrin said, still softly, the very image of a child admitting a bunch of trouble that his siblings have gotten into while their father was away.

Tagg sat back, stroking his beard and thinking hard. There was something missing from all that. The Draigs weren't about to go about backing a mortal to the ability of killing or even challenging a god. He made those deities to fashion pawns and pieces of mortals, sure, but never back one to the ability to Kill another one of their own. Tagg's eyes narrowed in thought when Gryphon snapped up and hissed at the front window.

"Oh shit!" Lehrin swore. "He's here."

"Love," Tagg turned to his wife. "Second drawer option, NOW." He didn't yell, but he was firm enough in his tone that Tenaya got up off the couch and bolted up the stairs. Within a moment, the sound of her fumbling around in his dresser came downstairs. It was followed by the sound of a .45 upper receiver sliding back and loading a round in the chamber. There was another sound of one, then two nylon sheaths hitting the carpeted floor. From over the railing of the loft, Tenaya's head appeared and it was followed by the pistol. She dropped it to Tagg and then dropped him two fully loaded mags.

Tagg clicked the safety off on the weapon. As he did, the lights went out in the house.

"Sehriss," Tagg ordered. "Get upstairs and protect Tenaya. Lehrin, you're with me."

"That's not going to do piddly against him." Lehrin objected, motioning to the pistol. Outside, the sounds of footfall and the sounds of claws on the stone walkways echoed into the house. Tagg said nothing but watched the windows and listened to the house as a whole. At the front door, something growled low.

Not used to the darkness yet, nobody really noticed Gryphon, and that was exactly the way she wanted it. She sensed the man outside and sensed that dad and mom didn't like this man. She lightly hissed back at the growling at the door, and as the locks undid themselves and the door opened, she let out a HUMPH!

As a result, the door blew off its hinges, blowing Andrew back and into the light of the gate at the end of the yard, making a perfect silhouette in that light for Tagg, who brought up the pistol's sights in the dark, lined them up center mass on the shadow of the Kiagho wolf half form and squeezed the trigger. The .45 boomed in the acoustic of the house, and the werewolf form outside staggered. Tagg was about to hit it with a second and third round, but Gryphon was already out the door and had somehow grown in proportion to Andrew, as a 400 pound black panther slammed into him with her back claws bunched up and raking into him.

Tagg's eyes went a bit wide at that, but he kept the sites on Andrew, waiting for another clear shot. Gryphon, on the other hand, wasted no time in raking Andrew across the belly again as he snapped back at her. For his trouble, Gryphon slapped him in the jaw with one set of her own claws and growled back at him. Andrew managed to get her by the throat and throw her off, but the effort cost him. He stumbled back, stunned, shot, and raked and bleeding on the patio. Gryphon was back on him in an instant, teeth around his throat and her front canines growing longer in genetic memory. Andrew clamped down on her ear, which elicited an outraged snarl from her. Andrew then threw her off again, pulling his intestines back in.

Tagg, having a free and clear shot, took it. The .45 barked in his hand as five more hollow points chewed through Andrew's rib cage. Andrew turned to face the attacker in the house, staggered with each impact. He snarled at both Gryphon and then Tagg and then disappeared. Gryphon went into sniffing the air around her, puzzled.

"Did he just cloak or did he just port?" Tagg asked loudly as his own ears were ringing. He was trying by sense to see or hear where Andrew was, but couldn't hear much of anything.

"He's gone." Lehrin shouted back. Tagg nodded, acknowledging that he'd heard Lehrin.

Upstairs, Tenaya was in a state of near panic. Tagg was downstairs shooting off firearms and there was growling. It took her a moment to realize that Sehriss was sitting her on the bed despite the fact that Tenaya had a white knuckle grip on a pair of short swords that Tagg kept for her in the same drawer as the pistol.

"He wants our essence." Sehriss told her and gave Tenaya a crooked and gentle smirk. "But I have a better idea." Then before Tenaya could do anything about it, Sehriss did something that Tenaya couldn't quite catch, but then couldn't move. In her own head, Tenaya felt a new awareness. It blossomed in her consciousness slowly and she felt it expand. Patterns became apparent to her that she'd never noticed before, patterns between the bonds of matter, of life, of energy, and how it all worked together.

:I give it to you, instead.: Sehriss's voice came to her. :You are worthy of it, and he will need someone to help him and keep him in line. I do not agree with Lehrin that the Father of All on my world is the best one to fix it. I have seen his other versions. He is a flake.: Tenaya bristled a bit at this. Tagg was a lot of things, and at times lazy, but he was a good man. He was downstairs, defending her.

:Oh no.: came the tart retort. :He's downstairs having his own version of life. That is HIS nature. As the book says, he's living true at the moment. Don't doubt for a second that you're up here safe, but also because it puts you out of his way. You aren't. You are more than that, and for all his flaws, he trusts and loves you. That will be important for the both of you.:

Downstairs, Tagg was in furious thought. The shots fired were bound to have the neighbors calling the police and any second Davis' finest were bound to be crawling all over the place with firearms that would put his to shame. He went outside to see what Gryphon was sniffing at and figured that it was entirely possible that multiple slugs and Gryphon ripping into Andrew was bound to leave a blood trail. Gryphon was going back out the front gate slowly, tail low and stalking and Tagg took the cue and kept his own weapon in the ready position, but paused at the gate. He listened as much as he could past the ringing in his ears for the sound of sirens, but he couldn't hear any yet. Gryphon was sniffing around the huge dent in their car in the driveway. Andrew had apparently half collapsed against it. It looked like Tagg had backed into a bear at doing about fifty. The trunk was crunched in and the back windshield was a mess of spiderwebs.

Tagg was once a professional soldier, but more importantly, he was used to the way amateurs thought, and one thing struck his instincts immediately and he looked the direction few ever do in the last seconds of their lives. He looked up. There was a wreck of a trail made in the roof shingles of his house right up to the window in the second story library. Andrew was going for Tenaya. Tagg raced back in the house yelling for Sehriss as a warning.

Tenaya knew nothing of this, lost in the link between her and Sehriss. What encompassed Tenaya's attention was a small glowing sphere of raw utter potential that hung in the air between her and Sehriss. She could see Sehriss drawing it from herself and putting it in between them. Idly, Tenaya wondered what it would be like to have that in her, for her own. To her surprise, it answered.

She found herself laying on a cold gurney in what appeared to be a 1930's laboratory. Beside her, a man she knew was the head scientist from the movie Capitan America was beside her with a glowing syringe. He smiled playfully at her.

:All this does is take what's in here..: He pointed right between her breasts, :And make it more so. If there is good in you, it makes it greatness. If there is bad in you, it makes you a monster. It is you, in the end, and to the end.:

She felt it size her up, running down the branches of her essence and nature, finding all the bright parts and all the shadows.

:This sort of power, it requires a vessel, it also requires a conduit. Your nature provides both. It will store itself in your nature and your inclinations. If you are protective, you will be powerful when Being protective. If you are calm, you will be powerful when you are calm. If you have a temper, you will be powerful when mad. It does not obey you, it IS you. If you cannot obey yourself, then you will be dangerous.:

:So what would I be the goddess of?: She asked the professor. She honestly didn't know what she'd be goddess of right off the bat. Wisdom? War? Godiva brownies and Good Books? He chuckled.

:You will be the goddess of the best thing you can be.: He replied. :You.:

_:I still want the brownies and good books.:_She good naturedly pouted to him. He smiled to her and put the needle in her arm. What followed was hard for her to describe. It was an expanding of every part of her. Her senses, her nature, her flaws, her virtues, her good points, her breasts, all of these things became better. They became more pronounced. In short, in about sixty seconds by her reckoning, she became the goddess of good books and chocolate brownies, the sexiest of librarians that ever curled up in front of a fire. It was better than screamingly good sex and thousand dollar port and ten thousand dollar sipping chocolate served by Brendan Fraiser with Robin Hobb being read by Alan Rickman. And damn, it was good to be a goddess.

:And don't forget the kittehs.: Sehriss reminded her. Tenaya cocked her head mentally at her.

:I thought that was your job.:

:Not at the moment.: Sehriss said softly. She had a sad smile to her. For a moment, she was there, and solid, and then she just seemed to fade a bit. :Andrew just killed me.:

:Oh No He Didn't.: Tenaya thought back, fury starting to boil in her. Nobody attacked a cat in HER home. Reality came back to Tenaya, and she looked up from where she was sitting in her dark bedroom. Above her, a heaving, growling shadow loomed. Downstairs, she could hear Tagg yelling as he came back in the door. Gryphon, she sensed, was close by. From behind her in the back yard in the cherry tree, the angry scream of a large cat made the hulking form look over and past Tenaya. And there in front of her, with a set of claws through her rib cage, was the goddess, only not quite. A satisfied smile was oddly on her lips though. It was almost the revenge that Sehriss wanted, but she wouldn't quite see it, and in front of Tenaya she faded until all that was left of her was the corpus of her being, bleeding out on the carpet. Tenaya's head snapped up to Andrew's wolf form, staring at Sehriss' remains with an expression of puzzlement. Out of instinct, Tenaya slammed him with divine force and sent him flying back across the loft, through the library, and back out the window with a thunderclap to mark his passing.

Downstairs, Tagg was just getting in the front door yelling to Tenaya when he was flattened to the ground by a thunderclap going off in the house. He heard, distantly, the sound of his car's alarm going off. The ringing in his ears redoubled. He stumbled quickly up the stairs to see a huge hole where the library window used to be. He looked the other direction to the bedroom and saw the savaged remains of Sehriss and his wife looking like smite incarnate. Her hair flowed of its own accord around her head and her eyes glowed a soft red. The look of focused rage on her face made Tagg feel distinctly under armed. He turned to see the hole in the wall where the library window used to be. As he was looking, his wife moved past him, and Tagg came to realize that she was floating past him, fists clenched. Tagg did the smartest thing he could think of. He got out of his wife's way and went downstairs.

He headed for the front door to find Lehrin out on the front patio standing there half cringing. He ejected the mag on his pistol and found he still had three rounds in it and slammed it back in and then went out front. If Lehrin wasn't going to engage, that was okay. He was going to back up his wife. He turned around and went back inside the front door and into the garage. He could see the last of the days rays coming in from holes in the roof of the garage, but his gear was still there. The garage door looked none the worse for wear, and Tagg figured that he was going to get the drop on Andrew if he was still out there by opening the garage door quickly and then leveling shots. He looked around and knew that if he did open the door, there would be no cover. He'd get one shot at this and then have to book it back in the house for cover.

From up above him, there was the sound of crunching glass, and Tagg saw Tenaya float past the hole in the wall, knocking some of the remains of the window as she went. He heard a growl on the other side of the garage door and knew that Andrew and Tenaya were about to go rounds. Tagg got on the left hand side of the garage door and put a hand on the door. Belatedly, he looked across and realized it was still locked. He cursed silently to himself for a moment and then smiled. Casually, he walked over to the latch and waited for just a moment. The growling was coming from both Andrew and his wife. Tagg threw the latch with a clank.

Outside, Tenaya was about to lay into Andrew when from below, the garage door unlocked itself with a loud CLANK. Andrew was distracted for a mere instant, but it was enough. As his focus went to the door, Tenaya blasted his hammer. That was when all hell broke loose.

Gryphon was watching the fun happen between the bad Goggie and Mahm and Dahd and the other Goggie. She was pissed that the bad Goggie had hurt the nice Kitteh that made her feel good and proper. She felt quite satisfied by Mahm blasting the bad Goggie out of the house, and she thought it would be great to stalk around the house and pounce the bad Goggie and rend into him. She slunk over the neighbors fence, and cloaked herself from the lesser senses of silly humans and was the barest hint of a shadow going toward the front of the house. She saw Mahm float out the window and thought for a brief moment about play batting her, but then remembered that there was a very bad goggie there and he needed a swatting. She smiled to herself as she set up the buttwiggle and got ready to pounce on the first cue. As the latch to the garage door clacked, she leapt. Poor goggie didn't even see what was coming. He was looking at the door latch as Mahm blasted his hammer, and she latched into him with the ultimate thrill of "Gotcha!" going through her.

And then things went boom.

Two blocks away, the Davis Fire Department didn't need to wait for the dispatcher to sort through the sudden rush of panicked phone calls about a bomb going off over in El Macero. After the initial boom, and they realized that they were still there, the alarm went off manually, and the on call staff started a mad rush to gear up. In MJs, the coffee house in the strip center right behind the fire house, the two detectives spat out coffee as the blast hit. They were a block and a half away. It sounded like the sort of explosion that comes from an air strike. Both of them left out the front door and went straight for their squad car.

Back at the house, Lehrin squinted through the cloud of dust and debris. He found Tagg under the remains of the garage door in the back of the garage. He was unconscious and bleeding from the scalp and nose. The upstairs library had collapsed into the front of the house. Their car was blown and flipped out to the middle of the street that they lived on. Lehrin could smell the gas from the water heater. From down the block, he could hear the sirens of the fire trucks and the two closer ones of the police. He knew what it meant on this world. He reached down, as he'd now have to be quick, and went to unlock Tagg.

And he had to pause as he found that he could not grant Tagg his divinity. He couldn't unlock him, and didn't know why. Further under the debris, he heard a groan that dropped into a growl. Andrew was waking up, and a police squad car pulled up with tires screeching. Lehrin took the appearance of Andrew and bolted back into the house. Something was seriously wrong. He had to flee. Tagg wasn't going to be any help to him. Cursing, he ran as the cops started yelling at him.

Andrew woke up and saw a mirror image of himself close the door in the garage and then heard the two police officers yelling at one another. He cursed quietly to himself as his shot, bitten, and clawed body was still mending. His lungs had started to mend from the hollow points, but he still felt like Tagg had opened up on him and his cat had decided to have a not so friendly sparring match. And his ears were still ringing from what that woman had done to his hammer. His back still spasmed from where he'd hit the car not once but twice. That Tagg's Honda was even still in existence, even as scrap, was a minor miracle in and of itself. He dropped the smoking remains of a shield ring off his finger, sucking at the burnt digit and wincing at the smell of burnt fur as it came off. That was the only thing keeping him from being like his hammer. Too bad he hadn't kicked it off until After Tagg's damn cat raked into him.

He tried to summon his hammer, but his hammer wasn't answering his summons. That alone was bad enough news. Then he caught sight of Tagg as he groaned under the debris of the garage door and swore. He crawled under the concealment of the debris as the fire truck pulled up, grabbed Tagg, and opened a gate and dragged them both through.