{"sf1_id":5170,"sf2_id":"k1V9qrAn","title":"Maranatha - Chapter XIII, as told by Sybrand Brubaker","author":"khakidoggy","words":10265,"posted_at":"2005-03-22T03:23:00.000Z","tags":["Character Development","Contemporary","Death","Gore","Harsh","Lynx","M/M","Panther","Violence"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/5170-maranatha-chapter-xiii-as-told-by-sybrand-brubaker","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/k1V9qrAn","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/56/da/56dae61d-b3fa-46b8-90c3-b5350e15c678","description":"#13 of Maranatha","content":"  \n  \n\n  \n\n  \n\nM A R A N A T H A  \n  \n  \n  \n© Osfer, March 2005  \n  \n  \n_All rights reserved.  \n  \n  \nMay only be distributed for free.  \n  \n  \nMay not be altered in any way.  \n  \n  \nContains material of an erotic and homosexual nature which may be illegal to  \nread in your country, state, province or region.  \n  \n  \nThe author takes no responsibility for transgressions on the part of the reader  \n  \n  \nComments welcome at  \n[[email\u0026nbsp;protected]](%5C)._\n\n  \n\n**Available on paperback in 2005**\n\n  \n\n[  \nMail the author](%5C) for information  \nor [  \njoin the mailing list](%5C)!\n\n  \n\nCheck out [Maranatha on WikiFur.](%5C)\n\n  \n  \n\n~ Enjoy. ~\n\n  \n\n* * *\n\n  \n\nChapter XIII - As Told By Sybrand Brubaker\n\n  \n\nMy name is Sybrand Patronius Olivier Randolph Brubaker. Quite a mouthful, to  \nbe certain ­- let me assure you, while we're on the topic, that that has been  \nsaid to me for more then one reason. More than two, in fact.   \n  \nCan you think what those are? No?  \n  \nThat's all right. It isn't because you don't have enough information about me,  \neven though that's probably what you're telling yourself. In fact, you can't  \nimagine accurately what those reasons are because you're an inferior intellect,  \nmy sweet. Take comfort in that blessed mental inadequacy, because it absolves  \nyou of a responsibility to personal ambition on a scale which has on numerous  \noccasions driven me to madness, and back again, and what delightful trips those  \nwere, let me tell you. This is something which you are spared and in this matter  \nI'll accept no objection because I can assure you with wire-sharp certainty that  \nwhatever cerebral faculties you possess and whatever psychological anguish and  \ndamage you have experienced it is simply inconceivable that it compares in any  \nmanner to that of yours truly. Please don't take offense at that.\n\n\u0026nbsp; Now why did I say that to you? Of course you should take offense. I said it to  \nhurt you. I like doing that, you know. Not just hurting you specifically, I  \ndon't even know you and actually who do you think you are, that you should be  \nworthy of my unsplintered attention? Very few people are, you know. Very very  \nfew people. Could you ever be one of them? Would you want that, I wonder.   \n  \nWhy don't I just stop babbling and introduce myself, so we can get on with the  \nstory and we can properly get to know each other, something I would very much  \nlike. To get to know you. It's something I like generally as well, getting to  \nknow people, even more, possibly, than hurting them although actually that's a  \nsilly comparison since the one naturally flows from the other, like blood from a  \nvein and consciousness from a glistening eye.  \n  \nI told you my name, but nobody calls me by it fully, nobody who is now alive,  \nwith one exception whom I'll introduce you to readily. I'm a lynx, though I'm  \ntall for my species and my cheektufts, which sometimes lend my kind a somewhat  \ncomical or at least amiable look, are very modest. With some grooming I can pass  \nfor another type of cat, if someone isn't too familiar with the feline family,  \nafter all, the pointed ears are hard to miss and few other species with my  \ngrey-speckled coloration have such ears. I'm fond of them, though. The  \nround-eared varieties strike me as too... cutesy. Is that a word? I think I've  \nread it. But you know what I mean. It's why felines are so popular as  \nsubmissives, and Lord, if I meet another snow leopard who professes to be  \nanother male's full-time slave I'll... That's unfair. Some of them are actually  \nquite, quite good.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I may be tall for my kind, but I haven't lost any of our typical stockiness, so  \nthat if I chose to, becoming a bodybuilder of some quality would be a none too  \ndifficult task. My limbs are heavy and my torso broad, but these are qualities  \nwhich I try to downplay. I do only light exercises to keep certain muscle groups  \nin shape, but otherwise I focus on parts of my body which might otherwise get  \nless attention. My fingers, for example - how terrible my life would be if they  \nwere to be injured. I trim my claws to the proper length and sharpness daily and  \nthe exercise regimen I have adopted to guard myself against RSI, the bane of  \nanyone with dexterous fingers, is more involved than most people's daily  \nwork-out.  \n  \nThe result is marvelous, though. When relaxed, I can type on average two to  \nthree hundred words per minute, I can tell gold from silver and glass from  \ncrystal and I can judge the temperature of an object or the air in a room with  \nat most one degree Celcius deviation, all this by touch alone. I can trail a  \nclaw over another's hide, thorugh the fur, scratching the skin lightly enough to  \ndraw a gash through only the very top layer of the skin and, again by touch  \nalone, trace the exact path of a blod-vessel so that it becomes excited and  \nwidens while its neighbors remain unaffected. I can fold an origami panda from a  \npostage stamp, on which, with an ink-dipped pin, I've written the full partiture  \nfor the violin of Pachelbel's Canon in D.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Merely - I say merely, but take my word that it is no trifling feat - by the  \ncaress of my fingers I can bring a person, male or female, old or young, to  \nterrible, gnashing arousal without ever straying from areas of their body which  \nare normally exposed in pleasant society. Hands, necks, faces. Merely by the  \ngrip of my hands, the twist of my wrist or the penetration of my fingerclaws I  \ncan end a person's life. Male or female, old or young. Quickly or slowly,  \ndepending on my preference and this does tend to vary, so there's no real  \naverage to be drawn there - but always silently.  \n  \nPerhaps that bothers you, that last part. Not the silence, the killing people  \npart. You know, already, that I like hurting people but perhaps you're of the  \nimpression that I mean the gentle kind of hurting that some take quite some  \npleasure from. Paddling, whipping, clamps on certain parts of the body, or a  \nsafe helping of electricity, these are known to excite some people sexually.  \nWhen I speak of hurting, though, it can mean one of two things, and one of these  \nis the kind of hurting that precedes, or in another way of putting it, leads up  \nto the termination of one's life. Without becoming crass with gory details,  \nwhich I'm sure you're not yet fully ready for, I could describe certain acts  \nwhich fit the bill, such as the removal of parts of body which still serve a  \npurpose, the breaking of things that should normally be left whole and the  \ndestruction of the body's tissues through genuinely unpleasant but, considering  \nmy superior intellect, shockingly creative ways.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Murderer, killer, homicidal maniac, torturer, butcher. Yes. All of these, yes. I  \nprefer another term though, and no, don't worry, it's not 'artist'. I'm not that  \ntacky. Technically, I consider myself a hobbyist, which is a reference to a  \nshort story which I know for a fact you have never read, and more accurately, an  \namateur in the original sense of the word. Look at the word and see what it  \nderives from; an amateur is someone who loves what he does, who does it out of  \nlove for doing it, rather than because of some apprenticeship.   \n  \n  \nThat's the introduction, all you need to know about me other than that, for all  \nI've divulged to you about my tastes - and I'll have you know that I've been not  \nonly very tactful about these tastes but also very, very modest - I'm terribly,  \nterribly sexy. My body possesses that degree of masculine grace that arouses  \nboth genders, both the dominant and he submissive, though primarily the latter.  \nWithout becoming androgynous, it lacks certain exaggerated features which wold  \notherwise close off the interests of some people with certain tastes, but nobody  \nthinks my shoulders are too broad or too narrow, nobody thinks I'm too muscular  \nor too slender. Even my feline grace is tempered by the bulk of my limbs and  \nthis makes me very easy to recognize and very difficult to describe.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I take liberties, praising myself, of course, but these insights are culled from  \nreactions gleaned from others as well as objective self-reflection, which my  \nsuperior intellect can easily manage, of course unlike yours. You are very  \nprimitive, and I am very advanced. Remember that.   \n  \nI am irresistible. Those who like to be penetrated lick their lips at the sight  \nof me, those who like to have smaller persons under them to take pleasure from,  \nlook at me an decide to try something else for a change, consider that perhaps  \nif even I'm not receptive to their kind of sport, that simply anything that they  \nand I could do together, sexually, would be gratifying. Often I've wondered at  \nthis gift of mine, this magnetism, which I'm not ashamed of emphasizing. It's  \nrather special, and whether it stems from my unique personality or was one of  \nthe causative factors, even my grotesque intellect can't discern.   \n  \nBut I wander from the path. I was trying, and this is always challenging for me,  \nto depart from the topic of myself and enter into the story proper. The story  \nproper is that I have just endured a twelve-hour airplane flight, followed by a  \ntaxi cab ride from the airport to the city, from there another six-hour train  \nride to yet another city, where I stayed for another four hours before taking  \nthe bus to Maranatha, at another six hous' travel time. All this was following a  \nforty-eight hour conversation with a young man I met in a bar on the other end  \nof the world, took home, had sex with a few times, and then proceeded slowly to  \nkill. It was very invigorating and even now I feel no need to sleep.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Fresh-faced and clear-eyed, with no luggage and a crisp, new suit, I arrive at  \nmy destination. No, actually, I'll go back to describing myself just once more:  \nI'm beautiful. Even though my attire is somewhat out of place, it seems as  \nthough I, like a mobile La Defense, determine fashion and that everybody else  \nwith their shirts and ties and slacks needs to catch up, feels embarrassed at  \nhow they're dressed. Over modest, soft leather shoes I wear simple black khakis,  \nmy torso clad in a black long-sleeved silk sweater and a crushed velvet black  \nblazer over this, all terribly humble, and yet I don't go unnoticed. Heads turn  \nas I push the glass doors of the building and step into a lobby buzzing with  \nyuppies, men and women, eyes all gleaming with pride at their own achievements  \nand covetousness at those of others. This place reeks of schemes.  \n  \nI walk up to a reception desk, one of three, decked up in that modern style of  \nplain white shapes and soft, tasteful lights, so devoid of visible function and  \nyet so very natural looking, such as those popular digital music players, the  \nones with the circular dial and the white earphones. Behind the desk is a  \nsquirrel, her fur as white as the desk she sits behind, making her smart suit  \nlook all the more crisp. From my inside pocket I withdraw my only luggage, my  \nwallet, and from the myriad cards it contains I withdraw my identification. S.  \nP. O. R. Brubaker. She types this in, informs me which floor I'm being expected,  \nwould I like an escort? No? The elevators are over there, she says. I like her.  \nI decide she isn't someone I'd ever like to kill, and this gives me a good  \nfeeling. I go to the elevators.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The building is a paradise of glass and steel and the cleanliness makes me very  \nhappy. I like things that don't look like anything alive has ever involved  \nitself with them, things so inorganic and artificial that their existence can  \nonly be explained by assuming that they have always existed, or that it simply  \nmust be so, the way that certain minerals form crystalline structures of  \nsurpassing splendor without ever having been designed for that purpose. Don't  \nmake the mistake of assuming this is rooted in some disgust I feel toward the  \nflesh, far from it. I love the body, the flesh and its myriad splendid textures.  \n  \n  \nAnd sensations? We'll talk about those later. Please don't mind the strange  \ndirections my thoughts travel in sometimes. I'll kill you if you mind.  \n  \nThat was a joke, for you to laugh at.   \n  \nProceed.  \n  \nWithout being aware of the intervening period between admiring the  \nsteel-and-glass spectacle of reflections at the elevators and the bing signaling  \nmy arrival at the floor I have no memory of selecting, I step out onto the floor  \nand the door closes behind me. I don't know if there was anyone in the elevator  \nwith me or not, I simply can't remember. This is quite ordinary for me.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I am in a reception area, far more modest than the one on the ground floor of  \ncourse, and decorated in a very different style. There is more metal here, more  \ndark colors, things look more solid and massive than the white, light, nearly  \neffervescent shapes downstairs. I walk up to the reception desk, made of the  \nsame expensive light wood that covers the floor, hard and polished enough to  \nreflect with almost mirror-like clarity yet still able to absorb enough of my  \nstep so as to make only a little noise as I walk.   \n  \nMy ears, pointed, tufted little wonders, suddenly turn and I catch a sound which  \nmeans nothing to me but the instinctual reaction is something I heed, so I  \nignore the polite young skunk behind the desk and turn my head. The reception  \narea seems to double as some type of lounge space, there are earth-tone leather  \ncouches scattered about, a number of small, stylish coffee machines, a soup  \ndispenser even and various people milling about them, leaning against walls,  \nshowing that they're on their lunch break by having their suit jackets tossed  \nlazily over a shoulder, males and females casually flirting with each other in  \nthat deceptively professional way.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Images overlay what I can already see, another instinctual response and I  \nwitness what a part of my mind has calculated, from what I have consciously and  \nunconsciously observed, a glimpse of everyone's future. The two young wolves  \nboasting and chatting and punching each other on the shoulder as they converse  \nnear a coffee machine, I see them naked together for the first time, embracing,  \nlaughing and then teasing and then growing angrier and angrier with each other  \nas they both realize that neither of them is willing to be the first to take it  \nunder the tail. I see them shouting at each other, and then the image fades.   \n  \nA bitchy-looking older vixen with tight, deep red lips and her hair bound back  \nin a tight bob, cowing people as she passes them with obvious authority, I see  \nher sitting at home in a spacious apartment on a luxurious couch, sipping  \nchilled white wine and watching a romantic movie on a large widescreen  \ntelevision, bursting into tears, slapping her own face to make herself stop and  \nfinally going on a rampage, throwing her wine against the window and screaming.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;  \nAn organized-looking female serval in a neat grey business dress strolls through  \nthe space, speaking on her cellular telephone in a calm, collected voice almost  \nwalks straight through a timid young puma who darts aside and opens the door for  \nher and then slinks off - I see them sitting in a movie theatre, holding hands,  \nlaughing and talking with each other as they enjoy a comedy together.  \n  \nI see security guards, and it is among these that I spy the only herbivores in  \nthe entire room. This isn't strange, as the world of business is typically the  \ndomain of the more naturally competitive carnivorous species. A Palomino, who  \nbetrays all equines everywhere in their otherwise generally well-deserved  \nreputation for excellent physical condition by packing quite a paunch.  \nFortunately, he's the only one of the guards who distends his uniform in this  \nmanner, the others, two hares, assorted hoofers and a jackal, appearing in much  \nbetter shape.  \n  \nFor the guards I see what you would expect - I see them in bars, drinking  \nheavily and smoking liberally, some of them hitting on and failing to attract  \nthe sexual attention of girls, others failing just as miserably in their  \nendeavors with boys. So focused am I in my lightning-fast analysis of all these  \npeople that it doesn't even strike me as odd that there should be such a large  \nsecurity presence in such a small area, my attention drawn instead to two  \nthings. First, that there are two people I can see for whom I can see no future  \nprojection, the jackal security guard, whose uniform seems ill-fitting now I  \nfocus my attention briefly on him, and black panther dressed almost identically  \nto myself - black, remember, a black suit in velvet and silk - except that his  \nattire comes over as far too dramatic considering his pelt is already shiny and  \nblack.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The second thing that catches my attention is that I recognize this person (his  \nname is Claude, in case I forget to mention this later) and that not only has he  \nset down the newspaper he was reading but he's scanning the room with the same  \nattention I gave it and he has now recognized me as well. I can't describe what  \nit's like when we recognize each other, to even attempt that would necessitate a  \nlengthy explanation of how I know, or I should say, know of Claude, which I have  \nno inclination to do, especially since it would explain nothing about the  \nquality of the gaze he and I share.  \n  \nIt is interrupted when a girl, a slender vixen with a white shirt and a grey  \nskirt, bumps my arm and she drops the papers she was holding but before they  \neven hit the ground my arm is around her waist and I lean forward and tilt her  \nover my hip, grabbing her flailing arm at the elbow before taking hold of the  \nrear of her skirt as well, bunching it in my other fist, and hurl the poor girl  \nhead-first toward Claude.  \n  \nWithout waiting to see if he dodges or she hits him I turn and throw all my  \nweight into a three-foot sprint to the nearest guard. I take the gun from his  \nholster and in the time it takes me to properly orient it in my hand and unlock  \nthe safety lever I hear the vixen scream and grunt as she impacts what sounds  \nlike an empty couch. I push past the guard I just robbed and toward the pudgy  \nhorse behind him, who has all of half a second to reach for his own weapon  \nbefore I dart past him and behind him just as I hear the loud pop of a bullet  \nbeing fired from a gun, a sound amplified to terrible proportions in a confined  \nspace like this.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; A second shot is fired but it's only when the third bullet impacts his massive  \nbody that the horse actually wavers and teeters backwards, threatening to crush  \nme, but I crouch low and launch myself over the ground, between his legs,  \nblindly opening fire.   \n  \nYou might think this silly, that someone who has professed to possess a superior  \nintellect and has demonstrated some exceptional physical capabilities as well  \n(for comparison of speed, realize that only now the papers the vixen dropped are  \nstarting to hit the ground) might do something a little cleverer with a handgun  \nthan pointing and randomly pulling the trigger. I openly admit that this is a  \nmonumental flaw of mine, but I simply despise guns and have always avoided  \ntouching them or using them. I simply don't have any practice with these weapons  \nand even when I wield one in a life-threatening situation I feel so sick at the  \nmere presence of it that my instincts desert me and there is nothing to guide my  \nhand but feeble conscious mental processes.   \n  \nNone of the guards, as yet, have had time to so much as draw their guns. This  \nisn't because they are slow, but because Claude and I are very, very fast. I  \ncan't speak for him, but I even experience time a little differently from usual.  \nEvents occur at a more languid pace, the world is a slow-motion prison with  \npeople poised in unbalanced mid-motion, paper pages falling with all the urgency  \nof soap bubbles, where my mind commands my muscles to move at the speed to which  \nI am accustomed, yet merely lifting my leg to move it forward means combating a  \nforce of gravity that is many times what I remember it being and even the air I  \nmove through feels syrupy, as if it intentionally hinders my movement.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Claude is running to the side, away from the direction I'm sliding in and I put  \nmy hands, gun and all, on the floor, bracing them. My body tips forward and up,  \nlegs flying upward and smack against the face of an antlered guard, the backs of  \nmy knees smacking against his chest and as he tips over I am able to use his  \nbody as a platform to raise myself up in so that by the time he lands hard on  \nhis back, one antler splintering on the wall behind him, I'm crouching on his  \nchest behind the cover of a couch.   \n  \nI am sexually aroused, you have no idea.  \n  \nThe couch I'm hiding behind suddenly comes toward me, pushed, no doubt, by  \nClaude's full weight and as I spring upward I hear the stag guard's ribcage give  \na satisfying little cracking sound. I retract my legs in mid-air to clear the  \ntop of the couch and avoid hitting the ceiling and as the couch slams into the  \nstag's vulnerable legs, Claude has just enough time to roll out of the way to  \navoid my descending boots.   \n  \nOne of my feet plunges through the upholstery of the couch, the other on the  \nground and in an attempt to extricate myself I throw my weight backward.  \nInstinct kicks in for some reason and I find myself falling backward, arms  \nstretched back, continuing the fall as a somersault, and just in time, too - the  \nother guards have gathered their wits and opened fire, rightly assuming that the  \ntime for yelling 'Freeze! Police!' or whatever this security force might yell is  \nfar, far past.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; My body arches as only a feline's can and the somersault brings me to a  \nperfectly balanced stance right up against the desk and I am completely exposed.  \nOn the positive side I now have a moment to get a full view of everything that's  \nhappening in the reception area: Two guards are down, three more remain - the  \njackal is conspicuously absent. There are people running away from the lounge  \narea, the females hampered terribly by their unwieldy shoes; tough luck for  \nthem. The men have scampered already, such as are able to, down the two  \ncorridors that lead away from the reception, a few others are crawling. One is  \nthe vixen I used as a projectile against Claude, unsteadily moving on all fours,  \nclearly lacking any sense of balance; another is a man clutching his face and  \ncrawling away from the fizzling remains of the soup machine which emits bright,  \nviolent sparks and a spray of steaming hot water from its internal boiler, which  \nI imagine the crawling, screaming young man received full in the face.   \n  \nOh, yes, the screaming. I'm so used to it I don't even hear it any more.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The moose's antlers smack me across the jaw as his neck gives a satisfyingly  \nfinal crunch and I have to wonder how it is that I could be so foolish as to  \nsmack myself in the face when snapping someone's neck, an act I've performed on  \nnumerous occasions. Then I wonder how I came to be holding this bull who, at  \ntwice my size, seems like he belongs more in one of those guard uniforms than in  \nthe crisp white shirt and black tie he's wearing, where he came from and indeed  \nwhere I am.  \n  \nI drop the dead moose I'm holding and look around. A large office space for a  \nfew dozen employees, of a non-cubicle persuasion. Several other bodies are  \nstrewn about the place, over chairs, desks, slumped against walls, blood  \ncovering several motivational posters. 'Work from the heart' takes on a whole  \nnew meaning when splashed with arterial spray. I'm not even going to make a joke  \nabout the disemboweled canid sitting in an attitude of spine-snapped lethargy  \nwith is innards spilling out over a poster saying 'Show who you are inside'.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Do my descriptions bother you? I'm sorry. I suppose I've become somewhat jaded,  \nbut don't worry, I'll try to be less literal from now on, for the benefit of  \nyour gentle, blemishless soul.   \n  \nSome of the corpses have the distinct trace of my claws on them, others have  \nbullet-wounds. By the far door there lies a discarded gun and the body of  \nanother guard in a pool of blood with a slit throat. I surmise that after an  \naltercation that cost more lives than did damage, Claude ran out of bullets and  \nobtained a knife of sorts. Good for him.   \n  \nI check myself - spotless. Not a scratch, nor a drop of blood on my stylish  \nattire, neither mine nor anybody else's, except on my fingers. Claude doesn't  \nseem to be bleeding either, from what I can tell of his tracks. I straighten my  \njacket out, roll my shoulders and my neck to get comfortable, and as I head  \nthrough the doorway Claude obviously exited from I take a chrome-plated  \nletter-opener from a desk stand. Hardly an elegant weapon, but it feels pleasant  \nin the hand and it has good balance and a nice, sharp point.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I walk through the door and immediately turn right, positively sprinting and  \nonce I'm doing that, I realize why I was driven to do so. A gun-toting guard was  \njust approaching the doorway and now I've managed to rush forward fast enough  \nthat he's holding his gun over my shoulder and firing it behind me. The bang is  \nterribly loud, but at least it occurred behind my ear and not beside it, in  \nwhich case I'd be deaf on that side.   \n  \nWalking down the hallway - by the way, the guard is dead by now, I stabbed him  \nin the back of his neck - I notice that most of the offices are empty. From one  \nof them, an older greyhound comes crawling, drooling blood on the floor,  \ndragging his legs behind him that seem bent at all the wrong angles. The door  \nhe's pulling himself through is splintered inward, no doubt Claude hurled the  \npoor old dog through the door and he landed very badly on the edge of the  \nglass-top desk behind him. Tough luck, old chap.  \n  \nMoving past him in search of Claude, he grips my leg and whispers something like  \n\"Yell we,\" which makes no sense so obviously he's suffered some brain damage and  \nwith a quick punch of my letter opener into the base of his skull I put an end  \nto that little problem too. Actually, now I think of it, my ear still rings a  \nbit so he probably said \"Help me\". No matter, I'd have still done the same thing  \nfor the poor fellow.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Claude appears to be on the run from me. This bodes well, even though he most  \nlikely has a knife that's a good deal larger and sharper than my little opener.  \nI start to jog, passing through empty offices and corridors now, in no  \nparticular rush. My quarry - I find it satisfying to think of him as such,  \nrather than 'my adversary' - hasn't anywhere to go. We'll have, likely, about  \ntwo minutes before security forces figure out what's going on and manage to  \nwrestle their way up the stairs through the throng of fleeing white-collars and  \nthey're likely to have already given descriptions of us both, so there is no  \npoint in attempting to pretend to be a fleeing worker, either. He's on this  \nfloor, he's going nowhere and the only reason he's fleeing from me is to prepare  \nfor our confrontation.  \n  \nI'm not afraid in the slightest. Claude, for all his skill as a killer, is an  \nintellectualist. I'm a predator. He calculates every move he makes; I calculate  \nmost of them but when I feel the rush of heat in my blood and the pull of  \ninstinct on my muscles, that insistent tug of millennia of survival, I know when  \nto hand over the reins and sit back while I experience my body doing terrible,  \nmarvelous things to other people. Claude relies on a lifetime of training which,  \nif I remember correctly, gives the panther forty years on the outside, which  \ndoesn't stand much of a chance against, oh, the three and a half billion years  \nit took nature to make me.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Ego? Why, yes. Yes I have. On top of which, I'm never afraid. This isn't a  \nboast, you should know, I actually consider it one of my few weaknesses. That,  \nand my mental condition, which I can only surmise is schizophrenia. I'll admit  \nI've never had myself analyzed, nor have I performed any degree of research into  \nwhat schizophrenia is or isn't. All I know is that I have these little spells  \nwhere I don't experience what happens in between, though this could conceivably  \nbe an issue of memory rather than consciousness.  \n  \nI hear sounds at the end of the corridor I'm walking through. I'm in no  \nparticular rush, so I take my time peeking into every office to check for  \nbodies, of which I find only two, both of them in the same office. It occurs to  \nme that it must be a dreadful fate, to go to work and to visit a colleague and  \nto sit down for a chat and then to be butchered as a mere collateral casualty of  \ntwo dueling murderers. Tough luck, eh?  \n  \nThere's sound coming from up ahead, and though the door is still quite far away  \nI can read the sign clearly: \"Conference Room\". I tug at my sleeves for the  \nrequisite one inch of shirt showing past the sleeves of the jacket, smooth my  \nlapels and make sure my jacket is properly buttoned and look in the reflective  \nglass cover of a piece of disgustingly bland corporate art on the white wall. My  \nface is lit only by the glare of the overhead lighting and doesn't appear as  \ndashing as I usually like to present myself, but it will have to do. The sounds  \nI notice are those of, shall we say, involuntary lovemaking, a female's squeals  \nand a male's grunts. Good old-fashioned rape amid the slaughter. She sounds to  \nbe of some sort of canine species, I neither care nor listen all too carefully,  \nbecause this really is a pathetically cheap trick to pull.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I walk up to the door, very quietly and listen. The lovemaking seems to be  \noccurring some way away from the door, to the right-hand side. There's a regular  \nthump but only the female is squealing, suggesting she's bent over a table or  \nsome such, though curiously, she doesn't verbalize any complaints. I step away  \nfrom the door again and peer into the nearest office, where I find nothing of  \nthe sort I'm looking for, it seems to be an office with the exclusive purpose of  \nfacilitating internal meetings - the lighting is subdued, the walls and door are  \nsoundproofed, there is only one computer with two flat screens so that both  \noccupants can look at what's on it.  \n  \nBeing in no rush, I walk to the next office. The female is whimpering now while  \nthe male bangs away at her, losing himself in the rut - this is the time I  \nshould make my entrance, when Claude's off guard. I find what I need in this  \noffice and, bending my knees, I grab the chest-high filing cabinet at the base  \nand lift. I hear noises in my spine and shoulders that suggest the cabinet is  \ntoo heavy for me, but I pay them no more attention than usual. As an idol of  \nmine once said - and I admit, it has been copied far too often by others - \"I'm  \ngood with pain.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The cabinet threatens to tip me forward and that's fine, as long as I point it  \ndown the hall in the right direction, breaking into a run, still mouse-quiet,  \nleaning into the run to propel the heavy, square cabinet further. One of the  \ndrawers threatens to fall out, creaking far more noisily than my footsteps, but  \nit's too late to worry about that. With a final yell, a kiai, as it were, I hurl  \nthe cabinet through the door. The faux hardwood door splinters into chunks of  \nplywood and thick varnish and amid the thunderous clatter of bullets peppering  \nthe cabinet, perfectly following its trajectory - Claude's a good shot, after  \nall - I dash into the room and randomly pick left as my destination.  \n  \nI'm in a conference room, with windows facing me and an elongated black table  \ncentering the darkly tinted but brightly lit room. The view is gorgeous;  \nMaranatha looks absolutely stunning with the sun shining down on its citizens  \nwith all the UV radiation it can squeeze through our planet's scarred ozone  \nlayer and I can see it all the more clearly once the filing cabinet, its drawer  \nfinally flung open when it skidded over the table's surface, bursts through the  \nwindow-wall in an explosion of prismatic, mesmerizing glass shards and a festive  \ncloud of paperwork.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Claude is damnably clever, though, in a way I'm ashamed I didn't see coming.  \nWhile he tries to wrest his panicked, devoted aim off the filing cabinet now  \nhurtling down God knows how many floors to a plaza full of brunching  \nbusinesspeople and point his half-spent guns at yours truly, he moves sideways.  \nI charge toward him, he moves to the side, running along the other side of the  \ntable and it makes me giggle as I scramble to a halt to avoid the bullets that  \npop and prattle into the expensive wallpaper on the wall ahead of me. Like I  \nsaid, Claude's an excellent marksman, so I don't have much faith in running  \nthrough a hail of his bullets, so I figure it best simply to stop in m tracks  \nand restart again when he tries to take fresh aim.  \n  \nYou'll have to forgive the laughter, really. I assure you it isn't hysterical  \nlaughter, it's just terribly comical that my quarry should use such an  \nold-fashioned playground trick to keep me at a distance, and so effectively!  \nFortunately, I know a trick and all it'll take me is one and one tenth of a  \nsecond, and possibly the use of my legs for the rest of my life, we'll see.  \nRather than chasing after him, which might work since he's now reached the part  \nof the centre table where his two captives are coupling - if you haven't figured  \nit out, at this point, Claude had taken two living prisoners, one male, one  \nfemale and ordered the male at gunpoint to mount the female, so that I would  \nthink, listening to the sounds, that Claude was raping her and that he was on  \nthat side of the table, rather than hidden beside the door - I scramble back the  \nother way, keeping low so that the table's between Claude and myself and then,  \nreaching the midpoint of the table, clearly from the expensive end of the Ikea  \ncatalogue, I sit down on my derriere, brace my shoulders under the tabletop and  \nwith a roar and a creak in my spine and a pop in my knee and literally thousands  \nof calories of energy I manage to wrest the tabletop off its pedestal, the pegs  \nwith which it was inserted digging into my neck as I toss it backward.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The motion is awkward and off-balance, which confuses me for a second and I  \ndeduce with an inward groan, as the left end of the table smashes into the  \nwindow-wall first, that by disregarding the mating hostages I also disregarded  \nthe fact that they were doing so on top of the table I was trying to  \ndisassemble! So Claude is already out the door and running away, busily  \nreloading, by the time the right-hand side of the tabletop, intended to smash  \nhim in the side of the head, crashes through the window as well, sending the  \nwhole thing along with the male and female to join the filing cabinet on the  \nplaza below. By the sound of the screams, they seem to have landed amid, or  \natop, a number of curious onlookers who came to inspect the cabinet and stood  \nclose enough to be crushed by the falling bodies, or wood, or glass.  \n  \nFools.  \n  \nA quick stretch reveals my spine is fine, a quick feel that my right kneecap is  \nin the wrong place. It's quickly popped back with a few judicious pushes of the  \nthumbs and a bending of the leg, and the pain is pleasantly refreshing. With  \nrenewed vigor and, unfortunately, a limp, I pursue him some more.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Yet another hallway, how terribly boring. A dozen offices on either side, one of  \nthe doors left open in the distance. Much closer, though, is the door to the  \nemergency stairwell and while it's an impressive feat, running to the end of the  \nhallway to open the door and then running back to take the stairs without making  \na sound, all this in the time it took me to sort out my knee, it's not  \nimpossible, and Claude is good. I stop at a janitor's closet on the way and pull  \nout the light little cart, tossing his mop and bucket aside and then quickly  \nyank every plastic bottle from the various shelves that has the red 'flammable'  \nwarning on it along with a few rolls of wiping paper, all haphazardly arranged,  \nfinally opening one such up (Mayk-it-Kleen or some such nonsense) and emptying  \nthe contents over the exciting variety of chemicals. I carefully drive my  \nrickety, dripping cart down the hall toward the emergency door, stopping only to  \nrelieve a dead guard of his sidearm, and only the stinking, disorienting fumes  \nsteaming off the tray cart covers the sickness I feel at the mere touch of a  \ngun.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I push the door open and, as expected, there are guards coming up the stairs.  \nTheir uniforms are of the same color as the ones wrapped around the bodies  \nClaude and I left on this floor, though there seem to be a great many more  \nrunning up the bland, white, well-lit spiral staircase, from what I can see, all  \nmumbling that strange hut-hut-hut that military people like so much. With a  \nkick, I send my little cart careening down the stairs and shoot at it before it  \ngets too far. Immediately all the guards duck under the cover of the guard  \nrails, on all the floors and floors of stairs spiraling down beneath me, so the  \ntopmost guards fail to notice that the cart, covered with wadded paper soaked in  \nflammable cleaning substances, has now slightly caught fire. Tossing the gun  \ndown the gap of the stairwell with disgust, I grab the handrail and hoist myself  \nupward, starting to follow Claude, pulling myself forward with every other step  \non account of my limp.  \n  \nI wonder which floor Claude went to?   \n  \nWhen a sudden loud popping sound occurs, echoing madly through the vertical pile  \nformed by the emergency stairwell, soon followed by a sudden wave of heat and  \nred light and screams as the cart properly bursts into flame and continues  \nrumbling down the steps, spilling half-melted bottles of corrosive or flammable  \nmaterials for the entertainment of the guards it passes, I stop in my tracks and  \nchuckle. Claude's actually pretty clever.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I carefully go back down the steps, ignoring the sounds of screams and random,  \npanicked gunfire and the occasional whoosh-thud of a burning guard jumping over  \nthe rail to put the flames out, only to find that they are indeed out by the  \ntime he hits the floor several stories below. I stop briefly to admire the  \nspectacle - three floors worth of stairs are burning to greater and smaller  \ndegrees, with men waving their arms and patting themselves to put the flames  \nout, or howling and protecting their eyes, or choking, or simply burning and I  \nwonder what it must be like to burn. I think I might enjoy it, actually, feeling  \nthe fluids in your skin boil away before the surface cracks and peels away,  \nexposing the muscle for charring. Almost jealously, I regard the security people  \nwhose last moments are so very interesting. Regretfully I pull my attention away  \nfrom the spectacle and go back to the floor I came from, shutting the door  \nbehind me.   \n  \nClever, clever, clever. The old I-know-you-know-I-know-you-know, he didn't  \ndouble back. He opened the office at the far end of the hallway and continued,  \nthe sly devil. I jog in a wobbly fashion on account of my annoyingly  \nuncooperative right knee, the joint burning every time I put my weight on it,  \nthough I know that movement is good for a dislocated joint and besides, the pain  \nis comforting. I turn a corner and find this hallway to lead to a familiar place  \n- the earth-toned and now blood-spattered reception slash lounge, and it's from  \nthere that I hear Claude utter the first word I've ever heard him speak: \"Fuck.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I wince at the swear, not only because I'd taken him for the kind of elitist  \nwho'd say \"merde\" or \"mon dieux,\" if he were of a gentler persuasion, I honestly  \ndon't know him well enough to predict that - but \"fuck\"? My neck hairs bristle  \nand my whiskers splay. Swearing upsets me. I don't like it at all. Do you swear?  \nIf I ever meet you and I hear you swear, I'll kill you very very slowly.  \n  \nIn the closest thing to blind rage I've come in a while, and let me take the  \ntime to point out that while it's true that I hate swearing, my current  \nemotional state is uncharacteristically extreme and can only be attributed to  \nthe fact that I'm probably insane - filled with anger and fury I charge into the  \nreception. I hop over the couches, landing softly on the squishy belly of some  \noffice worker, blood fountaining comically from his mouth and simply run. Claude  \ncould have shot me a dozen times over If he were facing me, but he isn't. He's  \nprying open the elevator doors, pushing them apart with his bare hands, fingers  \nbleeding from the claws he tore while trying to get the doors open and in a  \nmoment he looks at me over his shoulder.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I must be roaring or shouting, because my mouth is open and there's a lot of  \nnoise, but I don't know for certain. What I'm certain of is that my body impacts  \nClaude's hard enough that he emts a sound like no other I've ever heard, simply  \nproduced by the sudden collapse of his lungs during an attempted scream, and we  \nboth fly out into the dark, deadly elevator shaft.   \n  \nThings happen very slowly from this point forward. Slowly for me, at least. I'm  \npractically hugging Claude from behind. I like his smell, he smells clean, with  \na modest helping of cologne, and he smells of blood and the pleasant oily,  \nsulphurous scent of gunpowder. He spreads his arms, as if to surrender and to  \nexperience flight in his last moments, and I close my arms around him, feeling  \nmy fingers sink knuckle-deep into the muscle of his stomach. We fall about two  \nfloors before we hit the ceiling of a still-standing elevator, but I'm so busy  \npulling the spasming Claude's insides out of his abdomen that we quickly roll  \noff.   \n  \nMy mind is occupied, while Claude comes apart under the attention of my fingers,  \nthe details of which I'll spare you, as I promised previously. How fortunate I  \nam to have landed not only on that elevator just now, but also on another three  \nfloors down and going down so the fall hardly hurts at all. How sad it is that  \nClaude is now all but dead, and after only such a short scuffle. Now, I  \nunderstand, gentle reader, that to you the massacring of an entire floor of an  \noffice building and dozens upon dozens of honest, hard-working security  \npersonnel, might be something you'd describe using words like \"brutal\" or  \n\"excessive\" or even \"diabolical\", but it's a fairly modest endeavour by my, and  \nClaude's standards. The Quebecois cat whose bits and pieces are coming away from  \nthe trunk of his body so satisfyingly has some truly legendary achievements to  \nhis name. Good, old-fashioned shudder-inducers like the burning down of an  \norphanage to hide one single incriminating birth certificate, long forgotten in  \na hidden basement room. Pro-actively administering one half of a two-component  \npoison to an entire flock of law school graduates so that, at any point, they  \ncould easily be given the second component, causing their death, but leaving no  \ntrace of harmful substances in their bodies - good, solid work, all of it.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; And now? Now he's a few smears of blood on some unwashed concrete elevator shaft  \nwalls, a few unrecognizable hunks of meat on elevator roofs and inter-floor  \nwalkways and one scarecrow of a corpse, which I hold in one hand, my other  \nclinging to the rung of the maintenance ladder running down the side of the  \nelevator shaft. My arm, the one holding on to the ladder, hurts like my knee  \ndoes, from the sudden impact of halting my fall by grabbing the rung, so I drop  \nClaude's lifeless remains and switch hands long enough that I can pop my  \nshoulder back in its socket with a deft flick of my arm. Honestly, that limb's  \nbeen in and out of socket so often I can just about pop it at will.   \n  \nClaude vanishes down the dark shaft and I continue climbing down. I figure that  \nthere'll be some sort of boiler room downstairs from which I can plan some kind  \nof escape, but as I climb down and down I notice something very odd. The floor,  \nthe very bottom floor of the shaft isn't concrete - it's yellow. Bright, shiny  \nyellow, with an ever-growing splash of red, the blood seeping from Claude's  \ngaping chest.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Grinning, I continue climbing down. I have a feeling about what I'll see when I  \nget there.  \n  \n  \n\"Did you really think I'd need that?\" I ask the stallion in his finely cut black  \nbusiness suit, suited comfortably in a fold-up chair beside a coffee-table laid  \nout with tea and biscuits. I point at the inflatable safety-mattress behind me,  \nso large and bloated that I could probably have simply dropped from the floor I  \njumped out of and survived. Two men dressed in black uniforms, different than  \nthe other guards upstairs, are behind me, carefully removing Claude from the top  \nof the yellow balloon, slipping about on the slick blood, making it look like  \none of those bouncy castles for children. \"Tiber Ferrum, you really  \nunderestimate me sometimes,\" I say with a chiding grin, doing my best Stern  \nMother impression as I take a seat on the white plastic deck chair opposite  \nTiber's side of the small table.  \n  \nWe're in a maintenance hallway at the base of the elevator shaft, which  \nstretches some distance behind him. The walls are dark grey concrete, lit from  \noverhead bulbs which emit an annoying flicker. Behind Tiber stands the jackal I  \nsaw in the reception earlier, though he seems to have traded the blue security  \nuniform he wore upstairs for the black outfit also worn by two more guards, who  \nsling their weapons on their straps and use their free hands to peel my jacket  \noff my shoulders and lift my pullover up.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Can it,\" says Tiber, the stallion looking at me with his usual unreadable  \nreserve and I cock my head, wondering what I said wrong, until a hare appears  \nfrom behind his seat. The young male crawls over on his knees, looking quite  \ncomfortable to do so, dressed only in a tight white tank top and a pair of  \ncutoff jeans.   \n  \n\"Hi, I'm Cannit! Your friend Mister Tiber hired me to help you relax,\" the  \ncheerful lapine explains as the handsome youth kneels beside my chair and leans  \nover to open up my pants. Naturally, I've been hard as a rock during the entire  \naltercation and I melt back into the chair as a warm, talented mouth engulfs my  \nmember, and I do indeed relax.   \n  \nThe stallion sets down his cup of tea and leans forward, while the guards each  \nfetch a pail ofsoapy water and begin scrubbing the blood off my forearms. I let  \nit all happen, lazy as a Persian prince, and interrupt the tall, striking horse  \nin his fine business suit before he can start. \"Let me guess. You have a job  \nthat needs doing, one with so many variables that you require an independent  \nthinker, who has no limits, to come up with a solution. You obviously didn't ask  \nme first, so you probably suspect that there is someone in this city who might  \nknow who I am, and so you asked around and convinced Claude to visit. In the  \ntime between this agreement and his arrival you changed your mind and invited me  \nanyway, timing the arrivals specifically to cause Claude and me to meet. This  \nboy gives really good head, by the way, you ought to try him.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Tiber sits back in his chair, content to let me do the talking. \"I have,\" says  \nthe stallion and I can feel the hare who's performing slow, deep, easy fellatio  \non my needful manhood is grinning in agreement, though the suction nor the  \ndelicious flicking of his tongue never waver. \"Go on,\" Tiber says encouragingly,  \nlooking at me with those unfathomable dark eyes of his.  \n  \nI think for a second. \"The timing is more critical even than simply causing us  \nto meet. You knew the situation would explode, that we would have no choice but  \nto go after each other,\" I says, sighing happily as my arms and face are washed  \nand then dried, the hare's head bobbing dutifully at my groin, his ears  \ncomically bouncing in and out of view between Tiber and me. \"You wouldn't want  \nthat sort of thing happening in your office. So you're not in charge today.  \nYou've taken some leave, or have business elsewhere, and this massacre happened  \non the watch of the guy who stepped in to run your department in your absence.  \nHe'd get all the fall-out, and you would be completely free of blemishes.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; The four guards return into vie, two of them carrying a plastic deck chair much  \nlike the one I'm lounging in, enjoying some pleasant oral and even more pleasant  \ncompany, reaching out for some tea - Darjeeling, with half a spoon of grass  \nhoney and just a dash of lime - and upon that chair the remains of Claude are  \nlaid out. Tiber doesn't blanch at this, and the hare can't see it, since he's  \nfacing away, so I keep my hand on the back of his head to protect him from the  \nsight, and to quickly snap his neck in case he sees it and the fright causes him  \nto bite down.   \n  \nI smile at Tiber and raise my cup in salute to him. \"I'm not even going to ask  \nhow you predicted that I'd end up in the stairwell,\" I say, sharing a chuckle  \nwith the horse, the laughter echoing through the long concrete hallway, from  \nwhich emerges half a dozen or so men in white coats, all wearing green surgical  \nface-masks and blue latex gloves, some of them pulling two steel trolleys behind  \nthem while others carry leather cases under their arms. Quickly, they surround  \nme and Claude, placing the trolleys between us and three of the men start  \nworking on the corpse, though what they do I can't tell, while the other three  \nfocus on me, and I simply let them.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Tiber clears his throat and everybody briefly pauses in their work, even the  \njackal behind him breaking his guard-dog sternness and folding his ears for a  \nsplit-second, before solidifying again as the stallion continues and pours  \nhimself a fresh cup of tea. \"I have to leave for a while, an urgent... family  \nmatter.\" He doesn't explain what that means, and I don't ask. The doctors  \nsurrounding me are feeling my pulse, my throat, combing my damp fur,  \noccasionally pushing Cannit aside, who always manages to shift into a position  \nwhere he can continue performing his job. And a great job he's doing, let me  \ntell you. \"I was interested in reconfiguring the standing structures in a  \nsegment of this city's organized crime, though by various circumstances, that  \nseems to have backfired. I've prepared some materials for you-\"  \n  \nI hiss suddenly, and one of the doctors seems to think the hiss is in protest to  \nthe syringe he's jabbing into my throat, but I nod to him to let him know it's  \nall right, and a warm tingle spreads through my veins as he withdraws the  \nsyringe and pricks another into my wrist. The sounds of what delicious arts  \nCannit is performing on my erection mingle with the sounds of what the doctors  \nare doing with Claude's remains.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"Don't worry,\" says Tiber in his deep, reassuring tone, assuaging my worries  \nthat he's forgotten how I hate to be over-prepared for any job. \"All you need Is  \na list of names. I trust you'll figure the rest out for yourself. You're sharp  \nthat way,\" he says, handing a business card to the jackal guard behind him, who  \nwalks over, politely pushing his way past the doctors surrounding me to show me  \nthe card and the names written on it for two seconds, and then walks away again,  \ntearing the card up. Meanwhile, two of the doctors are busy shaving the fur  \naround my neck and ears, my eyebrows and my lips and my wrist, all of which I  \naccept without question.  \n  \nClearly, Tiber wants me incognito while I'm on the job, and now the whole fracas  \nupstairs makes complete sense. Tiber loves nothing more than to subtly push two  \ngreat forces into competition with each other and seeing which one wins; it's  \nwhy he pitted Claude and me against each other and it's probably what he's been  \ndoing with the upper-tier criminals in this city. The doctors, finished with  \ntheir shaving, each reach across me, their arms brushing against the hare's  \nears, who irritatedly huffs around the penis he's so skillfully sucking on, and  \npick up scalpels and forceps from the tray. I notice in the glint of metal the  \nletters S P O R engraved in each of the instruments and I smile at how  \nthoughtful Tiber is, not only providing the hare's mouth for my comfort, but  \nalso my favorite brand of scalpel.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; \"You have the standing mandate not to kill too many people, though you will be  \nheld accountable for none of your actions. I'll accept whatever decisions you  \nmake in the field, as usual,\" says Tiber and sips his tea, the jackal behind him  \nvisibly gulping and blanching as the doctors begin to cut into the skin of my  \nwrists, my hands, my neck and my face. It feels very interesting, those  \nlaser-sharp incisions in so many parts of my body, and I'm pleasantly surprised  \nto notice that none of the substances they just injected me with were  \nanesthetics, so the pain is deliciously vivid. I close my eyes and moan happily  \nat the sensations, feeling the surgical steel slide through my skin like a shark  \nthrough a school of sardines.   \n  \n\"Just try not to kill too many people. You know,\" says Tiber and I open my eyes  \nto look at him. A piece of skin is removed from the side of my face and laid  \ncarefully in a prepared tray on the trolley, while one of the doctors who was  \nworking on Claude comes discretely our way to hand over a bowl containing a  \npatch of silky midnight-black-furred skin. A pair of scissors crip-crip-crip  \nthrough the cartilage of one of my ears. \"You know,\" the horse repeats  \nearnestly, patting my sore knee, \"I knew you'd beat Claude. And I'm glad.\"  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I smile at him as he stands up, straightens his tie and leaves with two of the  \nguards, the jackal, the two remaining guards and the six doctors now all working  \nin silence, looking more nervous with every echoing hoofstep signaling Tiber's  \ndeparture. Only Cannit seems unaffected, the sweet, stupid thing that he is and  \nas more skin is removed from my face the sensations finally drive me over the  \nedge and I climax in the boy's mouth, my fist true orgasm in several months.  \n  \n  \nIt seems to last that long - several months. I ride the high in fast-forward and  \nslow-motion at once, continuing to feel the icy cold burning sting of the steel  \ncutting my flesh and the warm muzzle engulfing me to the base and swallowing  \nhungrily, I feel like I'm literally floating, weightless, buoyed by the ecstasy  \nof extremes, on a cloud of downy-soft hare-fur and white-hot razorblades...  \n  \nFinally I come down from my high, and once again, time has passed that I'm not  \naware of. I'm standing outside the Sargasso building, on the plaza decorated  \nwith an explosion-pattern of glass shards and papers and blood with in its  \ncenter a filing cabinet, a long wooden conference table top and two corpses  \nbeing busily photographed. Police and panicked onlookers are everywhere, the  \nformer trying to herd the latter to make room for the ambulances arriving and  \nleaving immediately when a shivering, sheet-covered victim is delivered on a  \ngurney.  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Amid all this I stand, with silky black fur on my hands and on my face, with  \n'cutesy' rounded ears atop my head, a black leather jacket hugging my shoulders,  \nbuttoned up all the way, a pair of black leathers clinging to my legs. I look  \nbetter than Claude did in his suit, and he looked positively edible.   \n  \n\"Excuse me sir, you'll have to move,\" says an irritated bear in a cheetah in a  \npolice uniform, pushing me away from the plaza and toward the side of a large  \npolice van, I'm standing amid a crowd of truly terrified panthers and lynxes,  \nall of them looking worried. The bored-looking police-bear standing beside the  \nvan's open door calls for a volunteer, and when none come forward, I raise my  \nhand, quickly lowering it before the stitches show, let alone my natural  \ngrey-with-spots fur.  \n  \n\"This way, sir,\" says the bear gruffly as I push my way through the crowd,  \nlistening to the babble of journalists and reporters juggling their need to  \nremain on-camera and interesting with their desire to bribe the policemen  \npreventing them from getting close-ups of the carnage. I step forward and from  \ninside the van a technician, a young rat appears. \"Just hold still, sir,\" says  \nthe bear, cupping my chin. The tension on my face causes pulling at the seams,  \nbut my new hide sticks fairly well to my facial muscles. The bear holds my head  \nand the rat takes a snapshot with a large, clunky-looking plastic camera with a  \nstrange red lens, then he turns my head and the rat takes another snap. \"Just  \none moment, sir,\" says the bear, keeping one hand on his pistol and the other on  \nmy chin while the rat returns to the van's interior.   \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; I see him setting the camera down in a cradle clearly designed for it, I see him  \nloading up the two pictures of my face on one screen, over which the computer  \noverlays yellow dots marking my eyebrows, nose, cheekbones, jaws while another  \nscreen in the bank of monitors that lights the rat's face with their grizzly  \nblack-and-white images shows footage from a security camera offering a blurry  \nclose-up of Claude's face back in the conference room. Over his face the points  \nare drawn as well, and a large overlay on the screen with my pictures shows a  \nnumber of percentages, with the largest being an average match score of  \nfifty-nine per cent.   \n  \nThe bear releases me, nods and I push my way through a throng of disaster  \ntourists, reporters and emergency walkers and, with the sun not yet risen to  \nnoon, I think I'm ready to take apart Maranatha City until I find the pieces I'm  \nlooking for.  \n  \n\n  \n\n  \n\n_To be continued._\n\n  \n\n  \n\n**Available on paperback in 2005**\n\n  \n\n[  \nMail the author](%5C) for information  \nor [  \njoin the mailing list](%5C)!\n\n  \n\n  \n  \n  \n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Maranatha","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/4986-maranatha-chapter-xii-as-told-by-owen-zelazny.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/5640-maranatha-chapter-xiv-as-told-by-sybrand-brubaker.json"}}