FSE

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Chapter 6

"I've never been on a four-forty before. How do they work?" Jeff asked, while zipping up the last of his suit inside the bathroom. From the other side of the door, as he pulled on his hardened leather work boots then carefully checked his heavy pistol, John answered in a voice tinged with motion, like he was already prepared to take action at any moment.

"Generally, something happens involving a confirmed meta-powered perp, and the cops send out the call. Sometimes it's city-wide, sort of an all-hands thing, but that's pretty rare. More often, they call one or two specific teams and inform them of the four-forty. Technically by how the law's written, once the code's called, any superhero can get involved...But some teams are unpredictable, or not too bright, so they try to keep it contained to one or two groups they can watch."

"Will the cops be with us?"

The sounds of shuffling cloth told the wolf that Jeff was still fussing with his outfit, which given how uncomfortable some super-suits could be was no real surprise. Especially given he'd just modified it again to include some limited trauma plates sandwiched between all that carbon fiber and ballistic cloth.

"Most cops don't get paid enough to charge into a meta-power fight, but there's usually a detective slapped on to any team that shows up. They back the supers from behind and take notes to make sure they don't violate the Pritchard Act. Uniforms usually tag along somewhere a few blocks off, in case they have to cordon something or investigate a crime scene."

The pistol went into his underarm holster, and the armored coat was pulled on over it, patted down to make sure all the ammunition was where it was supposed to be.

"So let me make sure I understand," the jaguar asked, while sitting on the lid-down toilet and leaning over, pulling on the black leather hiking boots that would complete his black on black ensemble of dark conductive metal plates and body-hugging composite fabrics, "Pritchard Act says we can't intentionally kill anyone or negligently harm bystanders, but otherwise can act as deputies to law enforcement as long as the four-forty is called."

"Right. And they usually call one retroactively to cover surprise meta-powered fights, as long as the hero side of things are found to be acting reasonably and responsibly by the investigation."

"So one last question?"

"Sure, shoot." The wolf was up, striding to the bathroom door, which he pushed open to watch Jeff check the last of his streamlined equipment, picking through a small bag of electronic repair items.

"Who was Pritchard?"

"Heh." The Wolf in Black grinned, and offered his jaguar partner a paw up, which was taken without hesitation. "What, they don't make electronic engineer students read history? He was a senator in the 50's who saw the need for meta-fur assistance in the war on Communism. He knew nobody would accept supers on the police force, so he put up the Pritchard Act and got it pushed through."

"Huh. That makes sense. I mean given that World War 2 sort of made the world aware that super-powers were real."

"Yeah. Kinda hard to hide it when there's cameras on you at the beach and you're getting shot too much to sandbag with your abilities...Or when the zombies break cover and charge down the cliffs."

Finished with the boots, Jeff stood up. At his full height, the slender jaguar stood just shy of six feet, a few inches shorter than the lanky, rangy wolf that grabbed carbon-fiber hugged hips, and pulled him in close. The black jaguar's breath caught, still surprised by the constant affectionate touches and aggressive but gentle kisses as their tongues and lips mingled together. Paws migrated to his ass, firm and rather more displayed than he would have liked by the tight dark material. John found the flesh-tight elastic sheath that covered the base of his kitty's tail, slipped his finger in, and tugged it till it made a soft snapping sound while conforming back to shape.

"Worried your costume'll stretch at a bad moment kitty?"

The jaguar blushed so hard John could see skin go scarlet under shiny black fur, as close as he was. With his chin tucked in and face down a bit in embarrassment, the jag spoke as if he were admitting something embarrassing.

"You're the only one who gets to see my naked butt."

The wolf couldn't help a belly laugh, as he kissed the jag again, pulling his tucked-down chin up so their lips could meet in a passionate sharing of closeness. His breath tasted of the blueberries they'd had with breakfast.

Without time to waste on a meeting at the precinct, the two-fur team of supers gathered with the authorities at the crime scene. For John, it wasn't even close to a first. Blood splattered about in a gory halo pattern, a chalk outline where a body had fallen, all inside the disused back rooms of a run-down soup kitchen in Hell's Kitchen. It was nothing new, though grislier than normal. Jeff, he noticed, was maintaining his cool, scanning the room as they waited for the briefing to start, pointedly avoiding staring too closely at the still-tacky blood.

As usual, the crime scene had been left as untouched as possible, in case the heroes needed any additional clues. Only the body had been removed, as was required by law, since next of kin hadn't yet given permission for deputized outsiders to examine the corpse. For some heroes, it could be a major hindrance, but the wolf wasn't about to complain. Experienced as he was with this sort of thing, poking corpses wasn't something he relished or could get much useful information from in any case.

Still, the police weren't stupid, and though Kolter hadn't shown up yet, a pair of uniformed officers were still there to make certain the heroes didn't do anything to mess up the crime scene or move the blood-soaked firearm that still lay where it fell. What bothered John was that no other superheroes had shown up. Either they'd refused the call, or only he and Jeff had received it, neither of which seemed like a terribly good sign.

Five minutes on, Jeff had finished scanning the room, and was just opening his black-masked mouth to comment on time being wasted, when Kolter's spotted white form whipped through the door at a furious pace. His fur mussed, eyes deeply bagged, he looked like he wasn't interested in bullshit, and his words backed that up.

"I called just the two of you, because you have direct personal experience with the perp and were able to keep fighting. I'll make this quick. He took a hostage. Father Dover disappeared from the soup kitchen here at approximately the time of death given by the coroner. Since he hasn't taken anyone alive before, we're inclined to believe whoever took Dover is escalating and evolving his method."

"Escalating?" Jeff queried from his perch against the wall. "As in a serial killer changing his methods?"

"Yes. As of this moment, Father Dover's been missing for five hours. The longest time we believe the killer has ever kept a captive alive before is just under two hours, and he's always made sure the bodies were found shortly after death."

John nodded, and leaned up against the wall next to the black-suited jag before speaking.

"So why call us in now? We ain't investigators or trackers, detective."

The white-furred spotty gave a grim sort of smile, and held up a little black plastic box with a glass screen on its front.

"I doubt the priest is still with his car, but it has LoJack. Witnesses tell us he dtrove himself and three other furs here last night, but nobody here at the soup kitchen has been able to find his vehicle. We track the car's current location and find clues from there."

"And you're bringing us along in case we run into a trap," Jeff observed, before glancing sideways at John. It wasn't obvious through his form-fitting face mask, but the Wolf in Black knew his lover was nervous. So far, fights with villains hadn't gone so well for him.

"That's the gist of it, yes," Kolter responded as he pocketed the device and reached for a file folder left on one of the tables, offering it towards them. "Standard paperwork. You get hurt on the job, the city pays for your care. You get union standard cop wages for hours logged, and a combat bonus if things get hairy. Are you in?"

"Of course we are," the jaguar said, pushing away from the wall. In a moment, he'd gone from uncertain and maybe a bit frightened to suddenly self-assured, as he walked to the detective and took the folder in paw. John just crooked a brow, curious at the sudden shift, wondering if it was affected or real.

"Well, I guess so, Kolter. Let's get our asses in gear."

Bobby laid in bed, the cheetah's long tail flapping restlessly as he stared with listless depression at the bedroom's popcorn ceiling. He was still angry, having spent most of the night curled up in his walk-in closet, trying not to tear his own fur out as a defense against the agonizing anxiety attack that had left him feeling as if he were having a dozen heart attacks at once.

While in there, he'd found a tiny stuffed bear, with a sappy loving card attached, from Spinner - A dimension-hopping fangirl who had fixated on John a year or so back, and scared the daylights out of Bobby. After throwing it across the room, screaming in terrorized anger, he'd stormed back into his bedroom.

Now, not having slept, he lay in bed nursing a terrible headache from all the hyperventilating, feeling as if his body was entirely sapped from the strain of just continuing to breathe. Worse, when he moved a paw, a monumental effort given how empty and numb he felt, there was no sass-mouthed playful wolf there next to him on the bed to nip his fingers or make quirky remarks.

That he missed the wolf made him so very angry, raising an ache in his chest that caused a reedy growl to ripple from his lips. John had always been sweet and loving, sure, but also thoughtless at times, a constant source of stress and pressure because he just couldn't give up the tights-and-terror lifestyle he was always bitching about. Making fun of villains' terrible costumes was a past-time they shared, but the cheetah simply couldn't live with the reality of the costumed life any more. Bobby wondered just how they had lasted so long together, with John taking so many damned idiotic risks with his life all the time.

As much as he loved the wolf, and admitted to himself that he would likely continue to do so, he couldn't handle the stress. He'd given John the choice, and the heroic, sarcastic Wolf in Black had been more important than regular old nervous-wreck Robert 'Bobby' Shore. The ache in his chest came back at that thought, and he rolled over in bed, curling up in fetal position in the hopes of crushing the dull pain out before it spread all over his body again.

On his bedside table, a pair of orange pill bottles peeked at him playfully from behind the clock. Heavy-duty anxiety medications that would knock him out for the rest of the day, they were hidden just half out of sight, forbidden fruit. Only these didn't give wisdom, they just took away pain and replaced it with a thick drowsy mist. Given the choice, he never took them, determined not to live his life as a lifeless medication zombie.

He had the bottles in paw, pills clattering softly after their short telekinetic flight, when his bedside began its soft buzzing. Bobby almost shoved pills in his maw just to make the sudden spike in chest pressure go away. Instead, he reached for it, putting the thing to his ear.

"Hello?"

Why his voice sounded so hoarse, he wasn't sure. Bobby hadn't noticed he'd been crying all night.

"Robert, this is Theo. Please listen before you hang up on m-"

The phone slammed into its cradle, and the former hero known as Shockwave curled into a ball of clenched muscle, shaking and sobbing as memories rolled over him like a wave of burning lava, searing and tingling along his body as he began to hyperventilate. The air tasted wrong, dead, and sat in his lungs in a worthless way as he gasped like a drowning fur.

The phone rang again, and his mind and power lashed out, exerting force from inside the device in a shockwave that hurtled outward in all directions, blasting it to little pieces of flying plastic shrapnel that bounced off the walls and ceiling and the cheetah's rumple-furred face. Which he then covered by turning face-down into the pillow. Bobby screamed, paws wrapped tight around the cushion's edges, trying to force the crushing pressure out of his chest to no avail.

Then, as he knew would happen, Dr. Theorem's voice spoke directly into his storm-wracked mind in a calming, almost echoing tone.

"Robert, calm yourself. I understand you do not wish to talk to me, but this is very important."

"Get out get out get OUT!"

Even in his head, the holler sounded pathetic, angry and terrified all at once, like a rampaging kitten. It didn't hold a candle to the rising tide of panic as his very mind was invaded.

Dr. Theorem's presence, though, was too potent, especially with the spells the sorcerer commonly wreathed himself in. Slowly, like a receding tide, the anger and crushing anxiety were pushed aside, quelled down by Theo Rémy's magic until they merely simmered like a resentful volcano, waiting just under the tenuously calm surface for a reason to erupt.

"You invade my mind, play with my emotions...Give me one good reason not to throw you out, Theo. I made it really fucking clear I want nothing to do with this...This SHIT any more."

For a moment, he thought Theorem had backed off, and the rage simmered. The invasion of his thoughts was something he'd always made clear to the others that he wouldn't accept. Then an inkling of doubt perked itself up; Theorem wouldn't have forgotten that statement, and wasn't in the habit of infringing on others' rights to privacy and personal space.

Grudgingly, Bobby thought at Theorem again, assuming with aggravation that the wily old professor hadn't left without getting what he wanted.

"I'll give you five minutes, Theo. This had better be good."

The good professor didn't bother with further pleasantries. Bobby felt that was a smart thing.

"Eve Hightower wasn't in a coma. Her mind was trapped in a shadow realm...A literal border area to the underworld. This villain that John and the Presidents fought somehow forced a Pit Lord into her Astral space. Forced, Bobby. We haven't seen someone of that kind of power since..."

"Since Warlocke," Bobby thought, though the knot in his chest and get intensified a thousandfold. He was nearby when Paladin had sacrificed herself. He'd seen her skin melt like candle wax, and her bones explode like microwaved tomatoes. The cheetah wanted to vomit, but his muscles had clenched far too tightly for that.

"Yes. The aura attached to the magic shares many common factors with Warlocke. I don't believe he is the nameless nightmare-giver. But I do believe he is responsible for that villain's power. I have reason to believe the young sorcerer has minimal control over his power, and is lashing out at the clergy. The demon intimated that Warlocke left behind some kind of...Shadow organization...I'm guessing they must hide themselves as Catholic Priests. The young sorcerer seems to be attacking them, trying to wipe out his own creators."

"Demons lie, Theo, you always told me that..."

"No, Bobby. I told you that they mislead. This one left little room for interpretation, given the facts. We have no choice but to investigate, if there's any chance of Warlocke's power coming back into the world. John Silverstone and Jeff Castillas are already investigating, trying to find a priest that our nameless villain kidnapped. I'm hoping that we can find the priest and learn what he knows."

"Or, y'know, save his life. Because his life has value, Theo."

"Yes, that too. Bobby, we could use your help. Tokamak is a blunt object, and I'm not as young as I used to be. We need Shockwave."

"No. No you don't. I can't...Theo, I-I just...I don't have the nerve anymore..."

"All I'm asking of you is that you accompany Tokamak to keep him from going out of control. You're the only one that can stop him once he starts getting angry."

"Doc...Theo...I...I c-can't get it out of my head...I have t-to take downers just to g-get through the day. I have panic attacks when cars honk their horns for f-fuck's sake..."

Theodore Rémy was sympathetic, and Bobby knew that. He'd never pressed the cheetah, not since the day Paladin had died. He had accepted the collapse of the team better than anyone, and respected Bobby's wishes to be left alone. So when the old wizard's next words came, the cheetah flinched and curled in on himself, but took them as the rebuke they were meant to be and not a rejection.

"You aren't a coward, Bobby, so stop acting like one. You will never defeat your demons if you don't face them. If you really want me to leave you alone forever, just say so now. Otherwise, Tokamak is coming to get you, so get your spotty ass in costume and stop wasting everyone's time on self-pity."

"Th-theo...I..."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"I n-need t-time to..."

"Yes or no, Shockwave?"

"Goddamnit!"

The black cat stalked a fenceline, and amused itself with the knowledge that no one would pay him any mind so long as he stopped to yowl every so often and took care not to speak when the two-legged furs were nearby. Luckily, those he intended to watch had no need to know of his presence for his plan to proceed.

He closed his eyes, perched on a flat-topped fence post, and sent his mind flittering out through the darkness to see through the eyes of another.

Detective Kolter drove with the smooth, easy care of someone with many years' experience dealing with adverse conditions and high-speed chases. Smooth movements, careful attentive eye sweeps, gentle acceleration and deceleration all in the name of safety, which could change to the highly-charged motions of a race car driver in a moment.

Behind him in the unmarked detective's vehicle, the back seats were occupied by the two meta-powered furs Locke had sent him to find. Better yet, they were on their way to his real target, the child who had been slaughtering his clerics, those receptacles of his lost powers.

It couldn't be allowed, no matter how much of his power he would lose by ending the boy. He could not afford to lose the majority, which was still left in his remaining followers, so deftly and carefully hidden for the last three years, right beneath Dr. Theorem's hated snout.

From behind Kolter, Locke heard the two superheroes talking. One voice was rougher, older, the Wolf in Black, who had been one of the many auxiliary lesser heroes present at the great battle.

"So, Xolotl, how bulletproof are your duds?"

"Duds? The fuck? What is this, the fifties?"

"Bite me. Answer the question."

"Um...Moderately. It's layered ballistic fiber with some trauma plating...So a few nine-millimeter hits will knock me on my butt but shouldn't kill me. I'm not too confident about it handling anything bigger, though."

"Hm, okay. If we find the nightmare guy, remember to let me get in front. I'm immune to his hoodoo, and my jacket's pretty heavily protected."

"How? I mean, it's just a leather coat with some plating. It's not taut enough to stop the kinetic energy."

"Heh, trade secrets kiddo."

"Trade secrets my ass. I bet it's totally useless."

"You bet your ass?"

"What?"

Locke's four-legged feline body rolled its eyes at the tete a tete as it went on. From what Kolter's unlocked mind had told him, the younger jaguar had potential to be a potent superhero, but was held back by self-doubt. The wolf he knew well enough himself to understand he was no danger to anyone who had half an ounce of ability to plan.

At least, he mused, while licking a paw with which to groom his pointed feline ears, they served as good trackers. He could follow their progress, through Kolter, to find Daimon. If he was lucky, he might even be able to salvage all that delicious, vicious, terrible power with which that vessel had been entrusted.

Detective Kolter glanced down at the LoJack tracker, a black box with a yellow directional light and approximate distance counter. They were getting close, and he wasn't liking the part of town they were entering one bit. Decaying concrete-block tenements leaned together on both sides of the road like drunken old men, windows smashed out like lost teeth and soot covering them in a rime of filth that spoke of neglect and depression. Even the few furs he saw out on the street looked to mirror the state of the structures.

Not that he had any fundamental problem with the homeless, but when there were enough of them to make an instant violent mob, it made the old beat cop in him twitchy and nervous.

"Okay, get your game face on you two. I want to be in and out of this area before the local gangs realize cops and capes are here."

Even after ten years on the force, the sound of a heavy pistol's magazine and slide being checked made the fur on the back of his neck ruffle. An uncomfortable, slightly nervous shift from the jaguar dressed all in black-on-black told the detective that they had a rookie on their paws too. Better and better, he grumped to himself, as the LoJack detector started chirping.

A careful turn of the wheel had them pulling up to a ragged curb of buckled concrete. Looming above them to the right, an old tenement building looked as if it were on the verge of collapse, its front door taped shut with long-faded red tape and a city condemnation sign that had melted to paper goop from years exposed to the weather. The gang tags that festooned its face were in far brighter colors, and fresher besides. Kolter knew the dealers and coke-heads who squatted here were watching, and the fact his LoJack was pointing to the car being in one of the structure's many individual garages didn't bode well.

John reached across the back seat, while staring up at the decaying apartment block. It reminded him of a corpse, all empty of life signs. He could almost feel the danger it presented, and touched Jeff's shoulder.

"Okay, Xolotl...Stick close to me. This kind of place can get ugly very, very fast."

"I'm not a child."

"No, but you also aren't a street kid with a sixth sense for someone coming at you with a knife."

Daimon awoke with a harsh gasp of breath that tore through his lungs like a wind made of razorblades. His throat, sore and so dry it felt cracked, could barely move when he tried to swallow. Fiery, acidic panic burst through his chest, as he struggled upwards against great pressure on his chest.

Then he opened his eyes, and realized he'd been dreaming. Dreaming of something other than the nightmare nothing-space, or of the Black Monastery with its towering ebon walls and dark clerics with their sinister, vicious, curling smiles.

Daimon snarled, but the noise came out vague and garbled, as if his lips and throat were disobeying him. Billowing with anger, his chest rose sharply, and he felt the harsh pain all over again, just before a wrinkly paw touched his forehead with the gentleness of an alighting butterfly.

"Please try not to move, young cat. You lost a lot of blood and have a fever...Did it not occur to you that having glass imbedded in your flesh would lead to infection?"

The priest, he thought. His first instinct had him wrapping a metaphysical paw around his powers, grabbing onto the squalling, struggling, disobedient demons that crowded and bred inside the black hole of his deepest consciousness. He very nearly thrust one into the elderly fox that knelt over him. Then he heard something, a soft, buzzing sound that made him open his eyes again, only to realize he'd passed out once more and come to again.

There was something cool against his forehead, cool and damp, and when he reached up to touch it, it fell free. His heavy, itching eyes saw that it was a thick series of black cloth strips, torn from the priest's own clothing. Finally able to tilt his head, though his body refused to allow him to sit up, he saw the elder grey-white vulpine sitting just a few feet away on the mildewed and damp stone floor, legs crossed, his clothes torn to bits above the waist.

Daimon looked down at himself then. His costume had been stripped away, mostly cut off his body, though he could feel the mask still covering most of his face. The familiar grey and black fur looked cleaner than he remembered having been in quite some time, and was spotted with makeshift bandages made of his 'guest's' button-down and undershirt. Any one of which, the priest could and probably should have corded up and used to strangle an unconscious, helpless kidnapper.

"My name is Daimon."

"I'm aware," the priest said, half-smiling, eyes still closed. Daimon twitched, and glowered his direction. He'd assumed the priest was asleep, and had spoken the words to himself.

"Why are you still here?" he snarled out.

"You needed my help."

"Bullshit," the young housecat growled.

"Also, you don't have a key. We're both locked in here."

Daimon blinked, and looked down. Even his pants had been cut away, leaving him wearing only boots and some cloth draped as a blanket for his modesty. That the priest hadn't found a key puzzled him. Then he scowled, realizing what had likely happened.

"He picked my pocket...I hire him to protect me while I do this work, and he...I see."

"Hm. Perhaps he's locked you down here as part of his job. He feels you're a danger to yourself."

Before he could even think, the rage bubbled up in Daimon's chest, like magma in a volcano. Forcing fatigued, fevered muscles to move, he sat up, and thrust his paw out toward the priest, roaring out as the demonic presence sitting in his soul burst forth.

"I AM IN TOTAL CONTROL!"

The priest looked up, and merely tilted his head, looking perplexed. Nothing happened. The demonic aura, visible as a whipping, dripping blackness to the injured Daimon, struck him and simply turned away, like water against a great boulder.

Seizing control again, he wrenched his arm back, feeling as if he were pulling free of the grip of some world-class weight lifter. Then he stared, in disbelief, at the priest who had just effortlessly resisted his terrifying power.

"Wh...What...How?"

Dover looked down at himself, quirked an eyebrow, and brushed a paw at some phantom speck of dust on his grimy, sweaty silver-furred chest. His smile was, Daimon realized, genuinely amused.

"If I offended you, I apologize. Let me give you the once-over and make sure you haven't re-opened anything. Then we can look for something to eat, hm?"

"Boss, we gots one plain-clothes bacon and two tights scoping our position. One's the Wolf in Black. Not sure on the other guy," the gruff female spoke into her lash headset. Her Chicago twang rolled off her tongue. Waiting for a response, she pressed her black-furred back against the wall to stay out of sight through the window, observing their approaching opponents through a fiber-optic cable attached to her tactical suit, fed to an octagon of transparent aluminum that hung over her left eye.

The scan information that scrolled on her eyepiece display told her plenty about the cop and the familiar meddling wolf. Both were armed with simple conventional-round handguns, and the officer with a taser as well. The third fur, though, she couldn't get much from, other than a field of electromagnetism slightly stronger than normal, which made her brows furrow with curiosity.

From the tiny speaker that clung by a clip to the shell of her tall jackal ear, a strong basso voice responded.

"Understood, Spotter. Be ready to jump out when things get hot. Remember we're only here to capture. Killing is off the table, so your brand of combat is out of the question. The client wants to do the killing himself."

The tall, powerfully muscled gold and black-furred jackal let her lips twist into a sardonic, chilling smile that had her partner in overwatch looking up and quirking a foxpostrophe'd brow at her. Maric chuckled quietly, and reached down, thumbing his mag-rail pistol's power supplies to the off position. His fluffy red-brown brush of a tail flicked in amusement, mounted over a nice bubble butt she wanted to pounce on, as he laid flat on the floor to look out on the street through a hole in the wall.

"Understood, Obliterator. When things gets hot, I'm goin's ta disable their car."

As per usual, Obliterator's level bass voice was quick to respond. It almost wasn't fair, she thought. The guy was nearly seven feet tall, built like a stone outhouse, and could juggle a dozen competing data streams at once without missing a beat, while being shelled and shot at to boot. And those traits weren't even his powers.

No wonder she'd followed him home like a lost puppy dog after their last disastrous foray into legitimate government work.

"I copy, action approved. Wait for us to engage before you pop their engine."

He must have switched channels, because Maric gave a slight nod a few seconds later, and responded in his almost too-soft and studiously unaccented tenor.

"I copy, Obliterator. Keeping the Wolf in Black occupied shouldn't be a problem. He can't cancel my speed. I'll need someone to mop him up, though. That armor he wears will make him pretty much immune to anything I can do that won't kill him straight-out."

Right about then, Spotter figured, Obliterator would be instructing Ender on his role in the coming fight. The fifth and final teammate, Gyro, would be monitoring the special fish-eye cameras they had affixed around the building at his request, and feeding data to the super-powered team once their opponents were out of sight.

Predictably, he checked in, coughing softly as he often did.

"All Black Angels, radio check please."

Spotter lifted her paw up and touched the sleek microphone attached to her cheek. She counted down two seconds, to give Obliterator his time to respond.

"Spotter, all equipment functional."

Two more seconds, and Maric gave the same signal. Two seconds after that, Gyro spoke again.

"All numbers accounted for. Targets are entering the building now via the front door. Uh wait...Cancel last, they're prying open a window. They're entering to their left of the front door now."

Spotter smiled and let her eyes lid shut, enjoying the soothing calm that came with the darkness. Then she stepped into the blackness in her own head, feeling that oh-so-familiar upside down and inside-out sensation of curling in on herself as space warped around her. A soft, warm wind then played along the bristly fur of her face just before she opened her eyes and laid herself flat on the building across from where she'd been moments before.

Maric gave a careful thumbs-up from his position, thirty meters away, to show he was aware of her position. Now all she needed to do was settle in, unfold the bipod of her rifle, and get ready to put an armor-piercing round through an unmarked cop car.

Her tail wagged slowly in anticipation.

Jeff wrinkled his snout as they emerged from the safe air conditioned interior of Kolter's car. The air here stank, a familiar but overwhelming stench of burnt rubber and moldy decay that tickled along memories of his impoverished childhood and set his hackles to rising against the restrictive fabric of his suit. All the broken-out windows and heaps of old trash made him nervous, too, feeling as if he were walking back into an era of his life he'd left far behind. On top of that, he knew they could be walking right into another nightmare-fest like the one that had nearly broken him last time.

The presence of a grizzled, confident but cautious police detective served as less of an encouragement than he'd hoped. Kolter checked around, craning his neck up to check for anyone above them, then strode to a side window as John gave the tape-covered front door a shove that failed to budge more than a small shower of paint flakes from the rotting façade.

A wave from the wolf had Jeff swallowing his trepidation and moving to cover Kolter, releasing the clenched-fist feeling he maintained in his chest and head that tamped down his charge. The surge of energy felt better than he wanted it to, as his body began producing a quantity of electrical power he hoped the new suit could successfully contain. It felt like some kind of cross between pre-orgasmic tingles and skin-flushing rage was radiating outward from someplace between his lungs.

With a crunch of rotten wood breaking under the detective's small crowbar, a panel of silvered-out plywood came away from a window, and was followed by a gust of dusty air that smelled like dirt and abandonment. Jeff gave a shiver, and flexed his sweaty paws in their gloves, as the spry-for-his-age snow leopard grabbed the window sill and stepped over it one foot at a time.

Then it was Jeff's turn, and he scrambled to get in through the empty window pane, feeling the crunch of sawdust under his paws. John's palms grabbed both halves of his rear, and gave him a more gropey-than-necessary boost that had the cat rolling to his feet with his habitual feline agility.

John rolled in after him, his heavy armored jacket making shushing-crinkling noise as glass was pinned between the middleweight wolf's body and a groaning, warped floor. The window, loosened in its frame, suddenly slammed shut, though the glass in its pane had long since been broken out, causing Jeff to jump as adrenaline punched him in the gut.

The Wolf in Black could barely contain a laugh, grinning like a look, as he gave Jeff a playful fist-tap to the gut, and signaled for him to turn around. When he did, the lupine leaned in, and whispered into his ear.

"Eyes front, kitty. This is where things get dangerous."

Kolter eased the door to the hallway open, and checked both directions with quick motions of his head. His left paw, held low but ready, gripped a large, sleek-bodied pistol Jeff recognized as a .45. Heavy duty, he knew, though his knowledge of firearms was rather skeletal beyond that.

They stepped into the hall one after another.

A doorway down the hall opened, and Jeff had just enough time to let out a wordless yell, as a black object flew into the passageway, bounced once, and detonated in a blinding flash of eye-searing light and blasted his ears with thundering sound that had him reeling and nauseous.

As he reeled back into John's chest, something plowed into him at gut level, so hard it blew the wind from his lungs and sent him sliding off the wolf's chest and bowling over backwards.

Oh god, he thought. I've been shot.