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ROGUE SWORD

Chapter 12 - Streams Go, Rocks Remain

Marcel shifted his sore butt on the hard wooden bench as the wagon he was driving hit another pothole on a gravel road leading toward the Polish border and cursed the horse that was between the shafts. He had always found sentient equines to be difficult to deal with, but their feral four-legged cousins were doubly so. This one in particular seemed bent on hitting every hole and bump in the road.

Marcel had only been driving automobiles for a few years but had managed to master that art, just as he had mastered skateboarding and many other sports that required precision and control. But for the past few days he had been trying to acquire the skill of wagon driving with mixed results. The commands seemed simple enough, pull on one rein to turn, both to stop or to slow down, slap them on the horse's butt to speed up. But he suspected that they had given him a defective animal because he was always going too fast or too slow or refusing to move at all. Fortunately his wagon was in the middle of the caravan and the road was narrow with steep embankments so they could not get too far off course. Still, Marcel was looking forward to reaching their destination where he could rent a car with really thick seat cushions ... and shock absorbers ... and drive really fast on one of Poland's oh-so-smooth autostrada.

The wagon he was piloting was part of a gypsy caravan, although the polecat had told him that they referred to themselves as "Romani" and found the term gypsy to be insulting. The wagons were colourful, wooden structures built like mobile homes, with beds and stoves inside. Most had curved roofs and some were almost cylindrical. There was a door on each end. The one in the front opened on to the driver's bench and the one in the back led to a set of wooden steps that could fold down to the ground for ease of access. Mostly everything on the wagons was paw-made. The wheels were wooden with iron rims, the traces were leather and the windows were made with small panels of glass sealed with clay putty. The caravan had a blacksmith and harness maker, as well as several other specialists. If something broke, there was someone in the clan that could fix it. But while they met most of their day-to-day needs from within the clan the labour was far from free. They had a saying: He who does not work is without food. In other words, you had to earn your keep. If you could not pay the craft master in cash or barter you expected to work off the debt in labour.

This was true for Marcel and Geno as well. The leader of the Romani clan, an elderly red fox with immense whiskers, had accepted them into the caravan as a favour to the polecat, who he apparently owed a considerable debt to, but they had fled with little money and the protest leader had none to spare for them, so they were reduced to performing manual labour for the others in the camp at night in exchange for food and coal for their fire. The only other marketable skill that Marcel had was his familiarity with knives, and the fact that he could hone a blade to surgical sharpness in no time at all. In their low-tech society knives were everywhere. Knives for eating, knives for cutting leather, knives for trimming hooves ... knives for fighting. The clan, which was made up entirely of foxes, appreciated his skill with a whetstone almost as much as they respected his skill with a blade, which he had a chance to demonstrate the first evening. He did not kill the young fox that got a little too forward with Geno, although he made it clear that he could have. Only the fact that the Romani had pulled a knife first had saved them from being kicked out of the caravan though.

Marcel found that most of what he knew about gypsies was wrong. They rarely fought among themselves for one thing, and even the provocation that forced him to demonstrate his prowess with a knife was frowned upon. They were a tight-knit family group, but not inbred. Those that could speak Ukrainian explained that they exchanged brides and grooms whenever the clans gathered. That was why there were grey foxes and gold foxes and even a few black foxes in the caravan, which allowed Marcel with his ebony fur to blend right in. He had also assumed that gypsies were all followers of some sort of pagan religion, but was surprised to discover that this group was Muslim, and that most of the Romani clans in this part of the world were. They told him that the clans further west were generally catholic and that there were even a few Jewish clans in Central Europe.

Far from being the hedonistic, free-living bohemians of his imaginings, the clan lived by strict rules of behaviour. Females of mating age for instance were expected to keep their heads and faces covered when outside their wagon. This helped them in that Geno could keep covered when outside without raising suspicion, only exposing her emerald green eyes. With fake fox ears and snout under the headscarf and a loose black robe to hide her other attributes she looked like any other female in the caravan. The few officials they encountered on the road knew better than to stare at the females, least they invoke the wrath of their male relatives. The presence of the baby in her arms helped dull their interest too.

Marcel would have liked to call F.O.X. headquarters and let them know that they were alright, but the Romani had no cell phones and they were avoiding the towns. He could not sneak off because that would be a big insult toward his hosts, the polecat had told him, and if he was spotted and led the Russians back to the caravan they would declare a blood feud against him and his clan. And while they may live like the Amish the Romani had no qualms about violence and revenge.

Taking them in erased a debt the caravan leader owed to the polecat, but he made it clear that his obligation to protect them while in his caravan did not make them friends. He disliked foreigners in general and ones who meddled in the affairs of the nations he travelled in particular. It made the security services suspicious each time the CIA, MI-6, or the Mossad conducted an operation in their vicinity.

The Romani harboured no love for the Russians either. Their ancestors had suffered under the Czars and then at the paws of the Nazis, only to be further suppressed by the Soviets when their territories were "liberated" after the Second World War. They often began a meal with the toast: "Remember the five hundred thousand", a reference to all the Romani executed in the holocaust and other purges of the century. And as long as Putin was in charge in Moscow it might as well be the old USSR as far as they were concerned. That was another reason that they were willing to help the two Canadians, but their code of conduct did pose a problem. Unmarried couples were not allowed to be alone together, let alone share a wagon. While it was obvious that Geno could not be the mother of the kit she carried, interspecies marriages, even among the Romani, were not unheard of. But when the elder asked if they were married Marcel was compelled to answer honesty that they were not. After that admission the leader would not allow Marcel and Geno to pose as a couple and travel in the same wagon for any amount of money. He let Marcel drive an old wagon that belonged to the blacksmith but he made Geno ride in a wagon full of widows.

That caused a bit of a problem. As a single female Geno was fair game for all the young males in the caravan, not that they were not perfectly chivalrous about it. And not because Geno could not handle herself, she could, but because seeing her surrounded by a gang of athletic young males every time they halted for a break or a meal was driving Marcel insane with jealousy. Moreover, he was sure that she was encouraging them just to get to him. If she was, it was working. Marcel had not had such a case or the jealous hornies since the time he thought that she had taken back up with a pair of clydesdales she used to date before they met. It was all he could do to keep from dragging her into the back of one of the wagons and ... but he had to keep those thoughts out of his head. Such an act would offend their hosts and they would find themselves out on the street, literately.

They had come close to being kicked out on the first night when one young fellow got a little too friendly with Geno. That was the one that had pulled the knife. He was punished for what the clan considered lewd behaviour and for threatening a guest, but not too severely; he was young and the caravan's leader would have stopped him if Marcel had not. But that was only the beginning. Geno could not hide her curves all day and her presence was having a disruptive influence. The leader was also wise enough to see the effect their separation was having on Marcel, and to foresee the kind of trouble it could cause.

On the third morning he called Marcel aside. "We are going to have to make other arrangements to get you two to Poland." The old fox declared. "You can stay with us but I'm thinking of sending the widow wagon along another route, escorted by my uncle and his step brothers.

The uncle and step brothers were possibly older than God, Marcel speculated, and as good a choice as any to escort a number of widows and single females without families to protect them. But even this far east there was trouble in the Ukraine, and the Russians were not the only threat. Right wing nationalists were not kind toward the gypsies, and the advanced age that made the uncle and his kin safe escorts for ladies also made them poor protectors. Marcel realized why the leader was taking this drastic measure, but he was loath to let Geno out of his sight. He had been thinking along the same lines however, and he thought that he may have come up with a better idea.

"Why don't you marry us?" He asked the elder. "You can do that as the leader, can't you?"

The old fox scratched his chin. "I can, but marriages must follow our marime, our purity laws." Leaning over he indicated Geno where she stood several meters away. The wind had caught her dress and lifted it to reveal that she was wearing nothing but a bright red thong beneath it. "After all, you should not pick a bride with your eyes, but with your ears."

"Sorry?" Marcel did not catch the meaning of the old Romani's saying. Geno's voice sounded fine to him.

"I mean that you should consider a female's reputation more than her physical appearance."

Marcel shrugged, still not getting it.

The old fox leaned down and whispered in Marcel's ear. "I suspect that she may not be a virgin.

Marcel almost choked but managed to reply. "I'll, ah, vouch for her. She's as pure as, ah, day-old snow in Sudbury." Marcel had been in the northern Ontario mining community once in the winter and had seen a fresh fall of snow quickly turn grey from the grit blown off the mountainous slag heap just outside of town.

The leader of the clan noted the way that the young males of his tribe were gathering around the busty Cheetah as she fought to control her dress and made up his mind. This would surely be one way to avoid any more jealous fights. Married females were out of bounds and none of the males would dare even look at her after the wedding. He still had his doubts about her maidenhood, but he didn't have to live with the blonde cheetah. "Very well." He decided. "We shall forgo the usual examination by the matrons and perform the ceremony tonight."

Marcel smiled and shook the elder's paw, excited or at the prospect of being with Geno again. But there was a touch of nervousness there too, similar to what he felt on his first solo mission, a sense of standing on the edge of a cliff about to make a leap of faith, an irreversible act. He left the caravan leader to inform the clan and hurried over to where Geno was standing by the widow wagon and told her of his plan.

"Of course, it won't be recognized as a legal marriage back home." He stammered. "But it will satisfy the clan and allow us to watch each other's backs. It's not like we're really getting hitched or anything. You wouldn't want that ... would you?" He added tentatively

"God forbid." Geno replied with an expression that Marcel found difficult to read.

"Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of stuff to consider before making a decision like that."

"Tons."

"It would just be for show. A ruse. You, ah, okay with that, Geno?"

Geno smiled knowingly. "That's okay, Hon. It's a step in the right direction." Then she went off with the females to prepare for the ceremony, leaving Marcel to wonder what she had meant by that. He went to see about moving her things into the wagon feeling relieved that she had not been angry and mildly excited at the prospect of an impromptu honeymoon in a comfortable wagon under the stars.

The wedding was a bit of a disappointment at first. The leader had moved the caravan off to a secluded clearing in the forest so they would not be observed or disturbed by strangers. They built a great bonfire and arranged all of the wagons around it, except for the one Marcel was driving. That one they parked in a smaller clearing deeper in the woods all by itself. The ceremony was long, boring and incomprehensible as it was conducted mostly in Romani with only the occasional instruction to the Groom and Bride in Ukrainian. After that they gathered around the fire for a feast. The food was good, and plentiful, but there was no alcohol. They did pass around a water pipe with something in it that made Marcel light-headed but did nothing to dampen his desire. But he would have to wait to get as much as a kiss in though, as the sexes were kept separated throughout the feast. Marcel could only gaze across the fire at Geno and watch her joke with some of the matrons who understood Polish. Occasionally she would glance over at him and smile wickedly when his face lit up at the contact.

"Look at him!" The leader's elderly uncle exclaimed in Ukrainian, pointing at Marcel with the knife he was using to cut his meat. "He can't wait to start pushing the wheel on his new wagon."

"New wagon?" Marcel was confused, as he often was by the Romani expressions. Whatever was in the water pipe was not helping. "We are still using the same wagon, aren't we?"

"He means that you are anxious to start your honeymoon." The leader explained amid the laughter that erupted. "But first, you two will have to dance and sing for us."

"I know a couple of old folk songs." Marcel admitted. He had picked them up from watching something called 'The Elephant Show' when he was a kit and they still had a television, before things went bad for his mother. "But I'm not much of a dancer."

"Then you sing. She can dance. I'd rather look at her anyway."

Marcel got up on wobbly legs and did his best rendition of 'The itsy-bitsy spider' and 'Skinnamarink' in English, accompanied by paw gestures that must have looked a bit risqué to those who did not understand the words. In any event they went over well, with the males laughing and slapping each other on the backs and the matrons screaming and hiding their faces in fake shock while they laughed just as hard behind their paws.

Marcel sat down and it was Geno's turn. She had to be pulled to her feet by some of the single females, who began to dance around her to show her how it was done. They were young and pretty, dressed in opaque veils and colourful skirts that swirled around them as they swayed and turned to the music of a violin and an accordion. They were fit and healthy, with vibrant fur and full tails. They moved with the ease of foxes, turning and twisting but watching their audience for their reaction. More than one caught the eye of a single male, which sent both sets of parents whispering behind their paws as they evaluated the potential match. But Marcel only had eyes for Geno.

She was dressed in robes of silk that were blue, red and green. Instead of a skirt she wore silken trousers, and the silk was so sheer that you could see through the outer layers to the darker fabric below. She had eschewed the fake ears and snout and her tail was free to loop and turn behind her. On her head she wore a tiara of green stones that matched her emerald eyes, the eyes that shone out over the top of a sheer veil that covered the lower half of her face but did nothing to hide her toothy grin. Her arms were bare. Her tunic was short and hung straight down from her breasts so that her midriff was exposed. Her chest expanded as she took in a deep breath before taking her position among the dancers and the buttons on the tunic threatened to pop. Most male eyes were on her, hoping to see what would be revealed if those buttons gave way.

Then Geno began to dance.

At first she imitated the moves of the Romani females. But her feline grace was not suited for the vixen's dance. Her moves were more sinuous, more supple. She bent at the knees and stood on her toes when she turned which made all the muscles in her thighs and calves stand out. She leaned over backwards and twisted her torso, which brought her back and over and around and then up to face the males across the fire. She did not need to stick her paws out like the vixens to keep her balance, so she let them roam, through her blonde hair, down her sides and over her hips, across her chest. The musicians unconsciously speed up the tempo and she danced in time with them. Within a few moments all the rest of the dancers had sat down because all the male eyes were on Geno. And there was more to come.

There was a smooth-barked poplar tree near the fire, a young one with a trunk only a couple of inches thick. Geno put a paw on it and wedged her foot against the trunk. Sticking her other leg out she grabbed it with her free arm and pulled it up until it was pointing at the sky. Then she leaned forward and let gravity pull her around the tree. Her head dipped until her hair brushed the ground and she brought the upright leg down to counter it as it came up again. Three times she circled the tree in this manner, rising and falling along an invisible sine wave. Then she stopped and placing both paws on the smooth bark leapt into the air and wrapped her legs around it. She had put enough momentum into it to make her turn slowly round and round as she slipped down the trunk. Both the violinist and the accompanying accordion held a single note as she rotated slowly around until she finally came to rest on the ground.

But she was not done. She leapt into the air and the musicians responded with a crescendo of sound as she landed, twisted, turned and leapt again. She moved away from the female section and danced among the males, flipping the hat off an elder here, pinching the snout of a single male there. Despite their code their paws reached out, only to be slapped back with a grin and a wink. By the time she stood opposite Marcel and the caravan leader there was not a mouth on that side of the fire that was not hanging open in shock and desire, including Marcel's.

Geno slowed it down again. She stood in front of Marcel and mimed pulling him up on a rope. Laughing males pushed the black fox upright before her. She crocked her digits in a come along gesture, and a dozen paws shoved Marcel toward her. He stood frozen as she wrapped herself around him without touching him, ran her paws up and down and over him without ever making contact. The males 'oohed' and 'aahed' and encouraged her to grab him somewhere intimate. The females shrieked and wailed and secretly wished that they could get away with dancing like the foreign devil cat.

Geno lifted the veil from her face with one paw, tilted Marcel's head back with the other, and lowered her lips toward his.

"Enough!" The leader jumped up and cried as if he had been speared. Geno froze, her lips a millimeter away from Marcel's. The leader, like many of the males, was in full sweat. "Time for you two to go to your wagon." He waved his paws at the newlyweds to indicate that they should leave. "And as for the rest of us," he looked across the fire to his mate and jerked his head toward their wagon, "time for us to go to bed ... to sleep ... I mean." He turned slowly, making a show of self control, while his spouse scampered back to the wagon she shared with him with a grin half a mile wide. There was nothing like a wedding to bring out the romance in a Romani.

Marcel and Geno left the circle of wagons paw in paw following a trail lit by candles that led to their secluded wagon. But as soon as they were out of range of the light cast by the bonfire Geno turned around and started kissing the shorter fox deeply as she walked backwards, relying on him to guide her. She held his head between her paws. Marcel responded in kind, but his paws found their way under the silken robes to her breasts, which he squeezed as her drove her back toward the wagon. Walking was difficult, and not just because the trail was hard to see in the darkness; the massive erection trapped in a fold of his jeans was not helping.

The Romani had hung a lantern on the end of the wagon to light the stairs and another one inside. As they entered the pool of light the outer one cast Geno jumped up and wrapped her legs around Marcel's hips. Her crotch was hot against him, he could feel it through the layers denim and cotton.

"Carry me across the threshold." She demanded.

Fortunately, even though she was a few centimeters taller than him she was not too heavy and Marcel was able to hold her steady as he mounted the stairs to the small platform at the back of the wagon by gripping her ass with his paws. At the top he drove her back against the door, grinding his prick against her groin when it did not open. She giggled and rolled her hips to grind back as he fumbled behind her for the handle. His paw hit it and the door flew open. They stumbled forward, passing the made-up bed and ending up against the small table he ate at, which was fixed to the front of the wagon's single room. Marcel set her down on the edge of the table and began pawing at her pantaloons.

"Hey, careful with that. It's borrowed." Marcel slowed down, found a catch above her tail and undid it. They were now loose enough to clear her hips. Geno lifted her ass off the table so he could pull the garment off. He tossed it onto a chair and then dropped to his knees before her.

Geno thought for an instant that he might be getting on one knee to make some silly declaration of love, but he had other things in mind for his tongue. He wedged his narrow muzzle deep between her thighs and stuck his often overlooked appendage into her already open and wet slit. Questing up and down inside her swollen vulva he quickly found her clit and proceeded to rub the tip of his tongue on it in speedy circles. She dug her digits into the fur on his head to encourage him as his tongue sent little bolts of lightning through her.

He kept the pace up, having built up the muscles in his tongue though many similar sessions. Occasionally he alternated by flicking it from side to side, or rubbing the rough surface along the top of her clit in long, slow licks. But he always went back to the little circles because that was what worked best on her. The technique produced a lot of juice, saliva from his mouth that mixed with the metallic sweetness secreted by her cunt. Marcel stuck a digit into the vee of flesh at the base of her twat to collect the dew. Then, when it was wet enough, he pushed it back toward her tail hole and spread the moisture around, lubricating it. Soon the ring of muscle began to respond, pulsing and expanding in an attempt to draw his digit in. After teasing her for a minute he let it penetrate, but just a bit.

Geno was gasping for breath. Her whole body felt hot, and even the thin silk tunic seemed to burn against her fur. She released Marcel's head and pulled the tunic off, freeing her breasts completely. The pink nipples stood out from the downy fur and cried or attention. She grabbed her breasts and squeezed the nipples roughly, delighting in the bolt of pain that shot though the waves of pleasure coming up from below. She leaned back against the front wall of the wagon and pressed her groin hard against his mouth. She was ready for the rest of him.

Marcel recognized the sign. His erection was aching where it was trapped in his pants, but he continued licking as he dropped his paws to free it. His prick sprang forth as soon as the zipper was lowered, and it too was ready to engage. He stood, shoving his jeans down over his hips but not bothering to push them any farther. It was enough to free his throbbing balls. He grabbed his cock and lowered the tip to her steamy slit and worked it in a bit. Then he gripped the edge of the table and shoved hard with his hips, driving the hot shaft all the way in.

Marcel exhaled in a long sigh as it went in. Geno gasped. He pulled back and drove it in again, and again, and again. She adjusted the angle of her pelvis so that it hit just the right spot inside without losing contact with her over-excited clit in the process. Marcel settled into a steady pace, but that would not do for Geno. She wanted to drive him crazy, just as he was driving her around the bend. It was time for the next phase of their ritual.

"You know," she grunted as his balls slapped her tail hole, "for a short fox you are pretty well endowed."

"And you would know this how?" He said through clenched teeth.

"The young males like to urinate in sight of the widow wagon, just far enough away to be discrete, but close enough for the widows to see if they lean out of the windows."

"And you looked, I suppose?"

"It was hard not to. There is quite a range of sizes. Sometimes one of the widows would take a liking to one and disappear into the woods with the young lad."

"As long as you didn't." He paused in his thrusts. "Did you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

Marcel thrust as hard as he could, driving her back against the wall. "You did, you slut!"

"Ha! Slut am I? You're a stupid prick!"

"Bitch!"

"Tail hole!"

"Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt ..." He punctuated each word by driving his cock in as deep as it would go inside the orifice he was naming.

Now she had him going. She leaned in to hold him against her and gasped insults into his ear as her swore and pushed. And with each thrust his cock seemed to grow bigger and harder until it filled her. The orgasm that was fast approaching would be a memorable one.

"I'd rather yiff a dead frog than let you stick that skinny thing in me." She cried, holding back the flood.

"Cu- cu- cu- " He stammered. "Cuuunnnntttttt!" He grabbed her ass and held her against his pelvis as he came. She could feel his cock twitch inside her as hot spooge spread. He shot quite a wad, but he did not go soft, and after a moment he began to move inside her again, quickly, roughly, and right where it felt best.

"Cocksucker!" She cried as her insides liquefied. And then she screamed as his prick hewed out a very intense and very long orgasm.

When Marcel could spare some concentration away from servicing her twat he put a paw up to her mouth to stop her and she bit him hard on the soft pad of his palm. It was his turn to scream as he pulled it out before she could shred it.

"Goddamn it Geno! You're going to wake the whole caravan. They are probably on their way right now to see if I'm murdering you with a blunt axe."

"S- sorry." She wheezed as the last vibrations of ecstasy faded. "But they're probably used to it. That's why they parked the wagon here, deep in the woods."

"Still, I'd better go check." He said as he stood and pulled up his trousers and pulled down his shirt. Somewhat tidy, he left the wagon, grabbing the lamp that hung outside as he descended the stairs. Using it and the few candles that were still burning to light his way he made his way back to the edge of the large clearing where the rest of the caravan was parked. There he paused to listen for sign of anyone moving about because their screams had woken them. A few seconds was enough to tell him that he need not have bothered. Any noise softer than a gunshot would have been drowned out by the creaking boards and squeaking springs of twenty or so wagons that were rocking wildly in the amber light cast by the dying embers of the bonfire. And it was all accompanied by joyous wailing and hearty cries the like of which Marcel and Geno could only hope to produce one day.

Truly, there was nothing like a wedding to put the romance in a Romani.

Marcel turned and plodded back to his wagon, where he found that Geno had not been idle. While he was absent she had used a bucket of warm water left for their convenience to wash up and had turned down the bed. Marcel found her in it below the lantern, which she had dimmed.

"Hop in Hubby." She grinned up and reached for him. "The night is still young."

* * * * * * * *

Fisher was staying in a VIP Guesthouse just twenty kilometres away from the Yak Mountain Nuclear Complex. As it was a leadership resort it was surrounded by guard posts where the elite of the North Korean Special Forces were stationed, a site even more secure than the nuclear complex itself. When the commandos had burst into the room where he was interrogating the one-eyed fox Fisher decided that he would rather be there than inside a mountain that had already been breached. After his narrow escape he had run to the exit, wanting to get out before some idiot decided to lock the place down and trap him inside.

He made it out just in time, and only because the pass card he carried opened all doors that were not manually locked. His driver was not expecting him, but the car was parked in the VIP area right outside the gate so it did not take more than a minute to get it started and get out of there. Behind them sirens wailed and gates clanged shut as the security forces began to realize that an armed force had infiltrated their compound.

There was an outer perimeter to clear, and Fisher talked his way through it by waving his VIP pass and claiming that he had to get somewhere safe because the raiders were after him. It was not a lie as far as he was concerned. Although the two spies they had captured had not talked much what they had said told Fisher a lot. Just the fact that they were there and knew his background told him that someone had put two and two together. He was not sure who, although the one-eyed male had a definite American accent, as had one of the agents they had temporarily captured in Buenos Aires, so maybe it was the CIA. Whoever it was, he was certain that their mission must be more to capture him more than it was to rescue the spies. After all, he reasoned, he and what he knew was much valuable than a couple of one-armed operatives.

The outer gate guards let them pass. No one had said anything about keeping the scientist inside, and there was nowhere for him to go except the Guesthouse on this road. Fisher told his driver to hurry, expecting a black helicopter to drop on them at any moment. They had just cleared the gate when the ground shook beneath them. A second later the air was filled with a rumbling roar. Fisher was sure that someone was shooting at the car with rockets but when he turned around, expecting to see a pair of F-22 Raptors, his eyes encountered a more disturbing sight. The entire face of the mountain was collapsing, falling in on itself in a growing, glowing pit of molten rock. The complex was imploding, with all the project records, equipment and staff inside it.

His diver almost drove off the road when he saw what was happening in his rear-view mirror.

"Drive, you fool." Fisher ordered. "And drive fast if you value your fur. The radiation won't go far and we'll be safe once we're over the ridge." The driver, who wanted to have sons one day and knew how radiation exposure could affect that, hit the gas and almost flew the rest of the way to the Guesthouse.

During the short drive Fisher reviewed his options. He did not know if the commandos had sabotaged the reactor or whether it had tripped over of its own accord; they had yet to tackle the stability problem that the Argentine info would have solved. Either way, heads would roll when the leadership heard about this. It would be better to be somewhere other than North Korea when they did, but there was no way to sneak out of this country, not without help, and no one would be rushing to help the sole survivor of a double nine project that had ended in disaster. But on the other paw, he was now the only creature on earth with the knowledge to recreate the project, and with no witnesses to testify as to what caused the implosion he could add a bogus fact or two to his description of the commandos to guide the conclusion toward sabotage.

"I heard them say they were headed for the reactor." He whispered to himself. If he repeated it enough he could even convince himself that it was the truth. The best thing was to hole up in the guest house and rehearse his responses until they came for him. His car was recognized by the soldiers maintaining a perimeter around the guest house and they let it pass.

He told his driver to take the car to wherever they were setting up decontamination centres. Not because he thought that it needed it, but more to get the idea into the driver's head so that he took care of himself first and reported to the Ministry of Security second. He smiled as the car sped off towards a nearby army base rather than into town where the security liaison office was. He flashed his pass at the final checkpoint and walked into the forecourt of the VIP residence. Waving the desk clerk away he made his way to his suite and inserted the key card into the locking device on the wall. It did nothing. Of course, he thought, the electromagnetic pulse from the implosion must have demagnetized it. He was about to turn around and go back to the front desk for a new card when the mechanism clicked and the door swung inward a few centimetres. Cautiously, he pushed it open and peered inside. All the curtains were drawn and the room was dim. There was someone on his bed, but he had to get closer to see who it was. He found the switch for the ceiling light and turned it on. Now he could make out the intruder.

It was a leopard of some kind that he was not familiar with. Instead of dots its grey fur was mottled with blotches of darker fur that looked like rain clouds. It was a female, and she was unarmed. He could tell because she was completely naked.

As he stood there watching her she put down the remote that controlled the room's functions, including the lock on the door, and stretched. She flexed her frame in that way that felines have that involves every inch of their bodies. Fisher had to admire her physique. She was lean but not skinny, strong but not muscle bound, feminine without weakness. And those icy purple eyes! They were exotic and inviting at the same time.

"Doctor Kang, I presume?" She said in slightly accented English, using the Korean translation of his name that he was know by at the complex, or had been. "I was sent by the service unit to be your companion tonight."

Fisher relaxed a bit. One of the perks of working for a regime where everyone lived to please the leader they thought of as a demi-god was their attitude toward the role of females. In theory they were equals but any girl that showed promise of great beauty could be selected to provide pleasure to the leadership. And they bought it, all hoping that if they did a good job they would one day be selected to serve the beloved leader himself. As an important guest Fisher rated a top-notch companion to keep him warm at night. This was a bit of a departure from the soft-furred rabbit does he preferred though. But she looked like she had just come from the shower and with her fur freshly toweled dry it looked soft and supple enough to satisfy him. It was a shame about the ears though. He really liked caressing those long rabbit ears before lowering their heads to his groin. Maybe that long tail of hers he could see waving in the air behind her would provide the same effect.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." He said as he closed the door behind him and locked it with the dead bolt. "What is your name?"

"You can call me Ophelia."

He frowned. "That is an unusual name for a Korean."

"I am a cloud leopard." She answered, rolling onto her stomach and batting those purple orbs at him coyly. "We originated on the island of Borneo, but many families have immigrated over the years. I was brought here special for you." She gestured to a steaming pot on the side table beside two delicate cups. "Would you like some green tea? It is fresh, I prepared it when the gate reported your car approaching. It will help cleanse your system and give you strength and durability ... both of which you may need very soon." She giggled as she rolled over and stretched again.

The sight of her made his balls swell. Fisher sat down in one of the easy chairs and loosened his shirt. "Sure, some tea would be great ... to start with." He did not know how long it would take for the security service to track him down, and things were likely to become tense for a while after they did; best to take advantage of this situation while he could.

She poured two cups of tea and offered him one of them. He watched as she sipped hers before tasting his. One thing that he had learned from working with Bull, it paid to be cautious. After she drank half of hers he was satisfied. "Say, this is good." He said savouring the delicate blend of tastes.

"Family recipe." She said. "Drink up."

Drink he did, until there was none left in the cup. He was tempted to ask for another, but the sight of her sitting on the end of the bed, back straight so that her breasts stood out, knees together and her legs turned slightly away from him made him want to run his paws all over her. He stood up and took a step toward the bed ... and immediately fell to the floor. For some reason his legs would not work. He tried to stand again but the numbness that had invaded was working its way up his thighs.

"You!" He gasped, and he lunged for her legs. But she was too quick and rolled out of his reach. Fisher crawled across the floor, gripping the carpet with his claws, dragging his useless legs behind him as his abdomen went stiff. He tried to climb up on the bed but only succeeded in pulling the covers off. He shoved them behind him and tried again, but now he was having trouble moving his arms. He settled to the floor as he lost the last bit of muscle control.

He was lying on his stomach and now that the covers had been removed he could see under the bed. There was a woolly rabbit doe under there, staring back at him, but her mouth hung open slackly, her eyes were glazed over and she was looking down between her shoulder blades, an impossible position for one still living. As he watched helplessly the feet of the cloud leopard appeared on the other side of the bed. They came around and he lost sight of them because he could not even turn his head or roll his eyes any more. He was completely paralysed, and completely numb.

Or at least he thought that he was numb. A few seconds later a terrible pain ripped through his chest, making him wish that he was. A soft moan escaped his lips, the best that he could do without the ability to force enough air out of lungs to scream. When it was done he felt his legs being grabbed. He was dragged to the centre of the room and flipped over on his back.

The cloud leopard loomed over him. "I know that you cannot speak or move." She said with no trace of an accent as she kept her face in his line of sight. "But you are probably wondering how you were poisoned and what with. It was in the cup you used before I poured the tea. You were too busy staring at my body to look elsewhere, weren't you? It's a neurotoxin I invented myself. It blocks the motor control to most of the body, but allows for automatic functions like breathing and blood circulation. Then a second ingredient goes to work on your heart, killing off the cells one by one. Well, actually it kills of thousands at a time, like a small heart attack. But it keeps on doing it so it's one long, drawn out, agonizing process."

She stood up and he found himself looking up to the junction of her legs. He could not take his eyes off her crotch, but this time lust was not the reason. As she continued speaking she began pulling on clothes that she must have had hidden under the covers while she poisoned him.

"A health guy like you, probably take at least an hour before enough of your heart is killed off for it to stop beating." She stepped into a pair of white cotton shorts, the kind the locals wore. "Then your heart will stop hurting, but other parts will begin to as they begin to die from lack of oxygen, especially your brain. But I've added an ingredient that will keep you alive and conscious and feeling the pain, right up to the point where your brain dies." She leaned down again. She had donned a loose black outfit, much like the ones the domestic servants at the guest house wore and a cotton mask of the type worn all over Asia to prevent the spread of germs. Her eyes were like ice. "That should take about another ten minutes, but it's going to feel like a lot longer."

Another moan escaped his throat. The pain was so bad that he would have been shaking all over if he could, but he couldn't, and that seemed to make it worse.

"You'll have to excuse me while I tidy up." She said before leaving his line of sight.

For the next few minutes he could hear her moving about the room and occasionally he caught a glance of her as she stepped over him. She used a battery powered vacuum to remove any traces of herself from the bed and then she wiped all of the surfaces that she might have come into contact with. When she was done she dragged the doe out from under the bed and positioned her on top of it. Finally she grabbed Fisher and hefted him up beside the rabbit's corpse. The movement only added to the agony he was suffering. Once she had him laying bedside the doe she grabbed his wrists and placed his paws against the dead rabbit's neck. Then she squeezed then together with much more force than he would have thought possible from such a compact feline.

"She told me about your fetish before I killed her." Ophelia's voice came from somewhere behind him. "Sorry to do that but she came out of the bathroom and saw me before I could knock her out. It's not perfect, but it will look like you broke her neck while strangling her to the point of unconsciousness like you like to do after you blow your load down their throats. What's up with that anyway? Oh, sorry, you can't talk. Anywho, they don't have the best pathologists in the world here so it will probably pass. And by the time they cut you open the poison will have disappeared and all that they will find is evidence of a massive heart attack. Boo-hoo."

She stuck her face in his, and the effect of staring directly into those icy purple eyes was worse than the pain he was feeling. "I'd love to stick around and watch but I've seen it before and there is a mini-sub I sortta borrowed from a North Korean naval unit waiting for me under the dock at the river." She tweaked his nose playfully, but he hardly felt it through the sting in his heart. "Toodles."

Her face disappeared, thankfully. The last thing he heard before being left alone in his agony was the door of the suite slamming behind her.

* * * * * * * *

The six agents hurried up the tunnel as fast as they could, and that was not very fast considering that the four healthy ones had to carry the other two, but Delores prayed that it would be fast enough. She had watched Kain and Pan playing a deadly game with the nuclear device that saw the timer go from thirty minutes to five, back to thirty and finally to thirteen just before the signal cut out. They were already in the tunnel by then and Kain had hacked into the system to lock the emergency door behind them. There was no telling what the Chinese agent would do when he found that his escape route was cut off though.

"Do you think that he will set the bomb off early? Try to take us with him?" Delores asked Kain while they could still communicate over the complex's channel.

"Maybe. But He's more likely to try to disarm it and get out another way. So far the Koreans don't know that he was working with us."

"He can do that simply by turning off the timer." Delores commented sourly. "If he does that the mission is a failure."

"No, there is an internal override to the timer. I set it for fifteen minutes before he disabled the antennae. No matter what he does that thing goes off in .... " the signal faded out.

"Told you." Zac said to Kyroo. "The government always has a backdoor so they can make it go boom if the team chickens out. You owe me ten bucks."

"Can I owe you until payday? When is payday anyway?"

Delores shushed them, she was trying to hear what Kain was saying but his signal was breaking up as they put more distance between them and the complex.

"Say Again Rogue Two?"

" ... et your asses ... five ... I repeat, Get .... asses out of there because it's .... five minutes, over."

Static filled the air as the radio lost the signal and began searching for a new one. Delores turned it off and stowed the device. She motioned for Hu to take Vikki by the shoulders while she took a leg under each arm.

"Run!" She ordered, and took off at a fast trot.

"Running with them could kill them!" Kyroo protested.

"Walking will kill us all!"

Kyroo had to admit that being fried alive in the tunnel would not do any of them any good. Running was everyone's best chance of survival. He and Zac took up the limp body of the male fox and hurried to catch up.

None of them had stopped to check the time nor did anyone bother to look at their watch as they went; doing so would have slowed them down and every second counted now. Kyroo had no idea how long they had been running when they came to the tunnel exit where they had to set down the injured agents to get the door open, but it felt like forever. They took up their burden again after securing the door behind them and raced to the bottom of the dry gully, heading downhill toward the reservoir that was their rendezvous point.

"One minute." Hu called as they reached the bottom. He had been counting off the seconds by regulating his breathing into a pattern similar to the one Silver used since Kain had announced that they only had five minutes to go. It was a fairly accurate system, but not as sure as a Rolex. The group sped up incrementally as they raced down the slope, still far from safety.

"Thirty seconds." Hu puffed.

"Quick! Up over the west bank." Delores called. They scrambled up the embankment and over. The far side dropped off sharply and they slid down, trying to protect their burden from the larger rocks and trees that dotted the slope. Zac spotted an outcropping of granite near where the ground leveled out and directed them to it. They huddled aginst it as Hu counted down the seconds.

"Five, four, three, two, one ... zero." They waited. Nothing Happened.

Hu held up his paws in the dark. "It's been almost six minutes now. Even with a bit of a fudge factor it should have gone off by now if Kain was right about his timings."

"I guess he was ..." WHUMP

The four were thrown to the ground on top of the wounded foxes as the ground shook beneath them. Pebbles rained on them and small boulders bounced past as the embankment came loose. They rode it out, wondering all the while if the ground was not about to open up and spew forth molten rock as the reactor core melted its way through the mountain.

They stood up when the ground was steady one again and the three looked to Delores for guidance.

"The gully is probably a mess after that shake up." She guessed. "And we have more protection from the radiation down here, so let's head off cross country to the reservoir." She and Hu hefted the vixen and got under her arms. "Guns out and ready." Delores told them, holding her own silenced pistol up in her free paw. When they were all in position she checked her compass and led them off.

The trip to the reservoir went without incident. There were no roads on this side and the local farmers had been cleared out years ago. They put their burdens down when they found an old field that was to serve as the landing zone. Delores pulled a satellite transceiver out of her pack and lined it up while Zac and Hu set out radio beacons at the corners of the field. Kyroo stood guard.

"They will be here in thirty minutes." Delores informed them when they were reassembled. "They won't make the final approach until I give them the all-clear so let's stay small and try not to attract too much attention. If a patrol comes by let them go, but if they set up anywhere near here we'll have to take them out."

It was a tense wait, especially for Kyroo who had never had to do this sort of thing before. He was more used to the sudden violence of an ambush and the fight or flight that followed. He could see the occasional vehicle on the road over on the other side of the reservoir, and once a pair of trucks with flashing blue lights, but nothing that was coming their way.

Kyroo almost missed the helicopters on their approach, they were that quiet, and their matte black finish was all but invisible on this moonless light. Two of them just appeared over the reservoir out of nowhere. Delores turned on the short range radio beacons and one of them moved in and settled into the middle of the field. The other hovered nearby as a backup.

A team of medics piled out of the helicopter and ran over to when the wounded agents were. They examined them and injected something directly into the female's chest that woke her up with a gasp. They strapped an oxygen mask to the male to help him breathe. Zac and Kyroo helped them put the two foxes on the stretchers while Delores and Hu collected the radio beacons. Kyroo went to follow the medics onto the helicopter but they told him to wait for the second one.

"The chopper can lift us all but the medics need some room around them to work, okay?" The senior Special Forces operator said. "Don't worry, they're going straight to a hospital ship."

"So we'll see them there?"

"No. You four are going to the carrier to be transferred out of the area right away. These two will follow when they can."

The male was already loaded and being worked on. The female was just being lifted on board, and she made eye contact with Kyroo for an instant. Kyroo put a paw on the stretcher and the other on the arm of the squad leader. "Give me a second, okay?"

"One second."

The arctic fox leaned over the vixen that he had been fantasizing about for the last five years and whispered in her ear. "My name is Kyroo." He said. "What's yours?"

"Vikki. My name is Vikki."

"Take care Vikki. I'll see you back in Ottawa." He released the stretcher and stood back so they could get it on board. Then the door slid closed and he had to back away as the helicopter lifted off.

"I'll see you." He said as the black chopper disappeared into the night, "I'll see you and your kit, and your mate all happy together in Ottawa. And then what the hell will I do?"

* * * * * * * *

Silver pushed his chair back from his console. An hour ago a message from the Americans had come through confirming that the mission was a success, in so far as the North Korean complex had been destroyed. Then just a few minutes ago they had confirmed that all the agents had gotten out, all six. Two were in bad shape, but the doctor with the extraction team was certain that they would recover. The last bit of good new had come just now, a source in the Ukrainian democracy movement had confirmed one of the leaders had arranged to get Marcel and Geno out of the country in a gypsy caravan. The thought of those two dressed up in colourful costumes and living in a wagon brought a rare smile to his face.

Almost all of the loose ends were wrapped up. The only important one was ... a low beep announced a delivery to his encrypted account. He opened it, decrypted the text message and read it with relief. The Perfect Stalker had accomplished the task he had set for her. Fisher was dead, and all the knowledge that he had killed for had died with him. It was going to take a very long time to rediscover all the secrets that went to that particular grave, but unfortunately someone would one day. Once it was known that a thing was possible it made it much easier to figure out how to reproduce it. But at least he could pull Miss CC and Muzzle back in from Argentina. Thank God, he thought, because I have not been able to find a file or have a decent martini since they left.

Everything seemed to be in order, but something was nagging at the back of Silver's mind. Some sense of something left undone. He looked around the office for a clue as o what it might be. The quarterly reports had been filed before the mission began. The staffing actions had all been authorized. His hotel for the upcoming allied intelligence conference was booked. What could it be? Then he looked at his computer. There were no unanswered emails. Nothing on his schedule. No pending actions. There was, however, a fiery fox icon on the bottom of the screen, indicating an open window on his browser. He expanded it and the screen was filled with an image from the illicit website he had used Algorath's Internet Research course to exploit.

Ah yes, he sighed, there is still that.

A message box in the corner of the screen indicated that the webmaster was online and available to chat. A wave of betrayal washed over him. You trust someone, give them clearance and access to all your secrets, and they turn around and do something like this. Well I guess that's why they call it an insider threat. Silver stood up and loosened his Glock in its holster. Might as well get this over with now, he mused.

Silver left the headquarters building and walked across the lawn toward the labs. He used his pass card, the one that opened every single door in the Academy, to gain access. He strode down the hallway to the stairs and took them down to the second and deepest basement level. Halfway down a dim corridor there was a heavily secured door and Silver used the pass card again. Slipping inside, he walked as quietly as he could through the workshop and storage room he was in, and that was very quietly indeed. In that manner he was able to get right up behind the creature hunched over a laptop in the corner. Silver reached over and snatched the laptop away from under its paws.

"Hello Joel. What do we have here?"

"Silver!" Joel, the lemur who worked as the Academy's forger whirled around and tried to grab the computer back. "I can explain!"

"I'm sure you can. Let's start with the name of this website, 'F.O.X. After Dark'. And you're using our Logo too!"

"That logo has never been registered." Joel pointed out. "There is no legal restriction against using it."

"We didn't register it because we're a secret damned agency!" Silver snapped. "We don't officially exist is why we haven't registered it!"

"Well, that's not my fault. But because of that no one knows that it's our logo so they can't associate my site to the Academy, can they?"

"The allies know that it's our logo, the Russians know that it's our logo, the Chinese know that it's our logo. Hell, the Vatican probably knows that it's our logo."

"They should, they have a pretty good cyber intelligence unit there." Joel agreed. "But still, it's a logo. It doesn't contain any secrets, it doesn't even say what F.O.X. stands for. Anyone could use the name fox, and a lot of folk do, clothing lines, sporting goods, television networks ..."

"But your site advertises sex toys!"

"Adult sexual aids and accessories." Joe corrected. He gestured to shelves full of merchandise. "To cater to those who fantasize about secret agents and espionage and the thrill of engaging in, uh, recreational activity with a spy or an assassin. It's a niche market but I predict it will take off when the next Daniel Craig movie comes out."

"We have a code of conduct that prohibits our members from engaging in unsavoury activity." Silver declared.

"You send folk out to seduce the secrets out of some poor slob and then kill him and you think selling sexual aids is immoral?"

"Not just any sexual aids. Sexual aids that depict our agents."

"How so?"

Silver looked around and grabbed a spongy latex object with twin globes. It was covered with false white fur, except for the protrusions at the apex of each globe, which resembled nipples. "These are definitely Miss CC's breasts." Silver declared, squeezing them to relieve the tension that had built up inside him.

"I don't sell them as 'Breasts of the Secretary to the Director of the Foreign Operations eXecutive'." Joel pointed out. "They're known as 'Party Poodle Pillows', or those who have trouble sleeping and need a little extra sense of security."

"How did you get a scan of her chest anyway?"

"Grey brought me some digital images he had taken of her and I rendered them in 3-D on a printer ... my printer I should point out. Paid for with my money and using materials I bought myself. No Academy funds, equipment or supplies were used in any way, shape or form. I know how that sort of thing upsets you."

"You figure? Who gave you permission to use this room or your little enterprise?"

"You did, two years ago when I began making skateboards and such to market under Marcel's secret identity, Antony Foxx. They weren't selling so I switched product lines. This one should do much better because there is less overhead and more of a profit margin. But don't worry, F.O.X. still gets a percentage."

Silver was struck dumb, a rare occurrence, even for one who had perfected the art of the menacing silence. He picked up another product from one of the shelves. The package was labelled 'Gold's Balls of Ecstasy' and contained a pair of spongy orbs on a nylon string. They were covered with tawny fuzz. "What are these?"

"Ben-Wa balls, you stick 'em up your ..."

"I know how they work. Why are they fuzzy?"

"They are modeled after the real thing."

Silver hastily dropped them to the floor. The Director's codename was Gold, and Williams had an ongoing relationship with the masochistic lemur. He could imagine how Joel made the model for this product. He picked up another object, something more ordinary, a chrome-plated vibrator. As befitting a sex aid it was shaped like a penis. Somehow it felt familiar to his paws.

"We call that 'The Silver Bullet'." Joel offered, seeing Silver's interest in it. "It's nicknamed 'The Chief of Staffs.' Get it? Chief of Staff's .... " His voice faded at the look Silver gave him.

Well, at least I know why it feels familiar, Silver thought. "How did you model this?" He said in a threatening tone.

"Remember when they brought you back from the Werewolf's den all injured down there and Doctor Jones had a rubber cast made to protect it while it healed? It sortta fell into my paws after he took it off you."

Silver looked around in disgust. "Who else's privacy have you violated?" He spotted a shelf full of body-length pillows and pulled one out against Joel's protests. The cover had a cartoon image of his mate, Vikki, printed on it. She was depicted in a frilly nightgown giving the observer a 'come hither' look through a party mask that barely disguised her. It was labelled 'Agent Amber'. "And this is ... ?" He demanded.

"A Dakimaraku. Sort of a Japanese hugging pillow. I have ones showing all of the agents, but I put masks on them to hide their identities. Vikki's is quite popular with the males. Kain's too strangely enough." Joel shrugged. "Go figure."

"At least you showed enough restraint to put a fairly demure picture on it." Silver said as he turned the pillow around.

"Hey!" Joel cried. "You don't need to do tha ...."

When Silver saw the image on the other side of the Dakimaraku his knuckles went white. He squeezed the pillow so hard it burst into a cloud of feathers. "You have just decided to go out of business, Joel." He said in a deadly voice.

Joel knew better than to argue when Silver was like this. There was no recourse; the Chief of Staff would not have come if he did not have the full backing of Joel's lover, the Director. "Okay Silver, I'll get this stuff out of here."

"No. It all goes into the furnace, today. And you shut that website down this minute. I'll have Algorath erase any traces of it when you are done." Silver kicked a large plastic drum toward Joel. "Start loading it up. I'm staying to supervise the destruction personally."

"Aw, geeze Silver. Do you know how much I sank into getting this stuff made?"

"Load it up."

Joel complied, mumbling under his breath the whole time. It took five trips to the incinerator but Silver made sure that he put every single item in the trash. There were dozens of golden balls of ecstasy, twenty or so Silver Bullets, six Party Poodle Pillows and hundreds of other items, including a pair of Dakimaraku modeled after Marcel and Geno.

I wonder how they are getting along with the gypsies, he thought, as he watched their effigies go up in flames.

* * * * * * * *

The night following their sham wedding, or so Marcel thought of it, was wonderful, but things had gone downhill from there. He had been counting on Geno to help with the work around the wagon, maybe even taking over the reins now and then. Instead he found that by bringing her into his wagon he had inherited a monster, and that monsters name was Aldwin.

When Geno had been riding with the widows there had been a dozen vixens willing to hold the kit and comfort it and feed it. He never lacked for attention or waited for a diaper change and his feet never touched the ground as he was passed from paw to paw. But now that they were married in the eyes of the Romani it was their responsibility to take care of the wiggly, wailing kit that was now feeling starved for attention. At the start of their first day together Marcel and Geno were already both exhausted, having stayed up most of the night before, but before they could even decide who would take first shift driving the wagon the widows had shown up to pass over the kit that proceeded to rule their lives.

They needed to be constantly catering to the burping, barfing, lap soiling, eating machine. He wanted to play, he wanted to poop, he wanted to be fed, he wanted to snuggle. It was nothing more than when Geno was watching him back in Kiev, but now there was no one else to prepare the meals for her, or tidy up, or take him for a while when she was tired ... except Marcel, and he was busy guiding the wagon when they were on the move and earning their keep when they weren't. After his cushy life in the nursery and a few days of instant gratification from the widows Aldwin had developed a bit of an attitude of entitlement. If he did not get what he wanted right away he began to wail at the top of his lungs.

The worst part for Marcel was that he could no longer lay as much as a paw on Geno before the Aldwin needed attention again. The kit no longer wanted to sleep in his crib alone at night, not after being surrounded by soft warm bodies in the big common bed in the other wagon. They tried to wean him off sleeping with them but it took forever to get him to fall sleep in his crib and if they held him until he fell asleep then he would wake up and start crying again as soon as they put him down. By the second day they were both bleary eyed, emotionally exhausted, walking zombies. Just like many new parents Marcel saw among the Academy support staff. It really made him wonder what the big attraction to procreation was. It certainly wasn't the lifestyle.

He did his best to tolerate the situation, but he could feel his temper growing short. He was afraid that he would do or say something to Geno, hurt her feelings or get into a real fight with her. But mostly he dreaded losing his temper and acting like his stepfather, a cruel, violent creature that had taken advantage of his mother and beat them both regularly. He began avoiding them when he got upset, taking the knives he had been commissioned to sharpen or hone away from the caravan for a little peace.

On one such venture he had just settled into a secluded spot by a river when he heard approaching footsteps and tensed, thinking that it may be Geno looking for him to help with the baby. But the footfall was that of a heavier creature so he relaxed and continued to sharpen. A moment later the leader of the caravan joined him. Marcel grunted a greeting but did not stop what he was doing.

"How are you taking to married life?" The elder fox asked. Marcel made a paw gesture that summed up his lack of thrill with the situation so far. "We'll be crossing into Poland in a few days, and be in Lvov soon after. You'll be safe there?"

"Yes, thank God." Marcel could only imagine the luxuries that awaited them: feather beds, restaurants, babysitting services.

"What are you plans afterwards?" The old fox inquired.

"Go home, I guess." Marcel did not want to say too much. The leader knew that they were foreigners on the run from the Russians but he didn't need to know all the details.

"I meant for your family." The fox watched the river as he waited for Marcel's response.

Images of his life with his stepfather, the only life Marcel could remember, came to his mind. The fights, the arguments, the beatings, the poverty and his mother's shame. That final day when "Uncle" Yurgi had come at him drunk, intent on raping the adolescent kit while his mother was away at work. The knife in Marcel's paw that had ended the attack. It was not a happy picture. Marcel had not seen his mother since, had barely thought about her, convinced that she would never want to see him again after killing the male she had chosen to live with after his real father had died.

But thinking of his real father brought a warm feeling from deep down inside. Marcel could not actually remember him, or what life was like back then. He had no real memories until he was about five or six. But somehow he knew that life was good before, that he was loved. A tear rolled down his cheek and he brushed it away with his sleeve. Silver had told him that Yurgi had survived the stabbing and that his mother had left him after she found out what he had planned to do to Marcel. She had looked for him, but he had spent the next four years on the road, living on the streets when he wasn't moving on to a new town or being moved on by the local law. Like a gypsy, he thought. He wondered where his mother was now.

"I don't know what to do about them." Marcel finally answered the fox. "I want us to be happy, but things have changed so quickly."

"It is true that you have gone from washing your own shirts to being the head of a family in record time." The leader said. "Normally one eases their way into these things and has a few relatives to help out. You are probably feeling some doubts about your ability to cope."

"You got that right."

"Thinking of leaving the cheetah and the kit when you get back to wherever you are going, of abandoning them?"

"Abandoning them? That's pretty harsh. I would not put it that way."

"But that is what you will be doing."

"Whatever." Marcel did not want to argue the point, especially since the thought had crossed his mind once or twice. "I did not ask for this you know."

"No one ever does."

"I don't owe them anything."

The fox shrugged. "Apa trece, pietrele raman." He said in Romani.

"What's that?"

"Streams go, rocks remain."

"And what does that mean?"

"Acquaintances are like steams of water, they come and go and sometimes dry up when you need them. True friends and family are like the rocks in the stream, they stay around, even when there is no more water."

"And what does THAT mean?"

"Care for those that stick by you." The elder fox said as he stood and then he patted Marcel on the shoulder, like a father might to his son, and with that the caravan leader left him alone.

Marcel sat and sharpened knives and thought about what the old fox had said. Lately he had his doubts about whether Geno intended to stick to him or not. Back before the scientist was killed it was looking like she was about to jump ship to sail with the SS Brodsky. How could she do that to him? After all that he had done for her?

"Ouch!" Marcel looked down. He had sliced the pad of his thumb with the knife he was working on. That was rare, and the sight of his own blood shocked him. He stuck it in his mouth and sucked on the cut. The last time that he had cut himself was the day that he met Geno. It had been after the third or fourth time that had sex, and he was cutting some fruit that he had found in the fridge of the safe house for them. She had appeared at the door of the kitchen wearing nothing but a grin and some of those leather straps that she liked. Marcel had looked up and cut the same thumb in right about the same place as today. She had taken his thumb in her mouth and sucked on it for a minute. By the time she had pulled it out the bleeding had stopped. He withdrew his thumb from his mouth. The cut stung and it was still bleeding. He stuck it back in his mouth, wishing that Geno was there to fix it like she had before.

Had he ever done anything like that for her? He could not recall. She tended to take care of herself. She had tracked him down when Russian agents were trying to kill her and forced Silver to let her into the Academy so that she could be close to him, even though she knew about his feelings or Vikki. Then there was the time she had worked with Algorath to help him when he had run off without authorization to rescue Vikki on the off chance that she might be grateful and ... and what? Had he really been that stupid? That insensitive? Yet Geno had stuck by him then, and she had stuck by him ever since. She had proved her loyalty to him time and again, and he had just taken her or granted. He had even been ready to leave her behind with Brodsky if that was what she wanted ... without an argument, without a fight. What did that make him? Not a rock, that was or sure. More like a turd in the stream.

Marcel wrapped a bit of cloth around his thumb and packed up the knives. He walked back to where the wagon was parked. Geno was pacing up and down beside it holding the crying Aldwin in her arms. Her eyes were red from fatigue and it looked like she had been crying.

"Where have you been?" She said when she saw Marcel approaching. "This stupid horse crapped all over my laundry and there is nothing for supper, or coal to cook it on and the crib has come loose from the wall, and ..." She went on, listing a number of shortages, defects and troubles as if they were all his fault. It was unjust, but Marcel held his temper, held his tongue, and then he reached out and took the kit from her and held it too.

"You've been working too hard. I'll take Aldwin or a while. Go lie down and I'll get us something for supper and some coal. Aldwin can sleep between us tonight. I'll fix the crib tomorrow."

She looked stunned, but that could have been the exhaustion. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. A couple of the families owe me for work. It will be enough for supper tonight, and breakfast tomorrow."

"You can't carry Aldwin and all that stuff." She stepped forward and reached out for the kit. "Leave him with me."

"It's okay." He said, pushing her back. "I can get some of the kids to help in exchange for knife throwing lessons. You get some sleep." He made sure that she lay down, waited until he could hear her snoring before he left and he did not return to wake her until several hours had passed. They had a quiet but pleasant evening and they all slept well that night.

Things started to settle down after that. Marcel's butt blisters were healing and his paws were developing calluses where the reins had rubbed the fur off his digits. Geno was getting used to doing the chores around the wagon while watching the surprisingly mobile infant. Even Aldwin had started sleeping through the night again now that the atmosphere was less tense. Best of all, they had yet to run across a patrol or anyone but locals on the dirt roads they were following westward.

This would be their last night in the caravan. They were near the frontier and the leader intended to stop just shy of it and wait for morning to cross, otherwise they would have to bribe the Polish guards to let them across after dark. Once on the other side Marcel could find a phone and call the emergency number at F.O.X. and arrange to get the two of them back to Canada. If all went well Marcel hoped to get a little quiet nooky on the side after the babe fell asleep tonight. There was a blanket separating their bed from the infant's crib, so he would not feel guilty about being seen and warping the child's mentality should Aldwin wake up while they were doing it, but keeping it quiet enough to prevent him from waking was going to be a challenge if the kit was anything like Silver and Vikki's son, Leslie.

The one thing that he was not looking forward to was telling Geno that she would have to leave Aldwin with her relatives, because he was certain that Silver would never allow them to bring the kit back to Ottawa. As the senior agent on their team it would be his responsibility to enforce the Chief of Staff's decision. Marcel could predict a long spell of no sex following that episode, which was another reason to cherish this night and make the most of it.

The sun was a thumb's width above the horizon, leaving them with just a couple of hours of light to find a campsite and set up, when a pair of official looking black vehicles came over the ridge between them and the border. The sedans stopped on the road where the embankments were too steep to go around them and the occupants got out to wait for the wagons. Marcel could hear the comments being passed back to the elder's wagon. He had not picked up enough Romani to decipher them but he could tell from the tone that they were nervous. This was not a Ukrainian border patrol or the police. Marcel was willing to bet that they were working with the FSB. There were a lot of pro-Russian factions in the government, even this far west. He reached up his sleeves and under the jacket they had given him to loosen his hidden knives. Then he shifted the bone-handled dagger at his waist, which he had traded one of his Gerber fighting knives for, so that he could draw it with either paw.

The leader had left his wagon and rode up to the waiting cars on one of the few horses that was not engaged in pulling a wagon. His sons and lieutenants gathered around him, but Marcel stayed where he was, hoping that the Romani would convince the intruders to drive off without searching the caravan. As he brought the wagon to a halt Geno came out from the door behind him carrying the baby.

"What's going on?" She asked. She was wearing her false ears and snout and she tugged on her thick head covering to make sure everything was covered up.

"Some sort of inspection." Marcel answered. "Get back in the wagon and keep Aldwin quiet. Maybe they won't look inside."

"That would just make us look suspicious." She said as she settled on the bench beside him, placing the baby on her knee for all to see.

"Do as I say." Marcel whispered out of the side of his mouth as the strangers pushed past the Romani gathered around them and headed towards the caravan. The leader and his entourage followed closely behind.

"Too late, they've spotted us." Geno replied from under her veil. "Besides, they won't take us, the Romani will see to that."

"What makes you think that they'll stand up for us?"

"You really don't read much, do you?" She said as the strangers approached the first wagon. They were halfway back and it would be some time before they got to them. "The Romani were honour bound to protect us the minute they accepted us into their caravan as guests. Their religious beliefs and their culture demand it. If these clowns try to lay a paw on us our hosts will rip them apart. Even though it means that the Russians will hunt them down and punish them for it eventually. Until we are over the border and leave them of our own free will they are responsible for us, the same way that we are responsible for Aldwin now."

"Jesus, we can't let them take the fall for us." Marcel said as his paw fell to the handle of his dagger.

"Then you had better start thinking of a way out of this that doesn't involve killing the agents." Geno snapped. "Those cars have antennae on them so they have probably reported this encounter already. If they don't report back in their agency is going to assume the Romani took them out no matter who does the cutting."

Marcel frowned, but he took his paw off the knife and returned to holding the reins loosely in both paws. Silver always said that it was harder not to shoot than to shoot, meaning that it was against most agent's nature to sit and wait until they had enough information to make a good decision than it was to act at the first sign of opposition, and that the ability to do so was what separated the professionals from the amateurs.

When the four agents approached he spat on the ground before their feet. The wolves looked ready to attack there and then.

"Someone needs to teach this one some manners." The largest of them commented in Russian. Confirming Marcel's fears.

"What do you expect when you go interfering with the peaceful conduct of our caravan, eh?" The leader of the Romani foxes retorted in Ukrainian. "As you can see there are only our people here. No strangers or felines."

"We have not seen everybody yet." The big wolf pointed out, staring back and forth between Marcel and the cloaked figure beside him. That the larger one was female was evident by the bulge under her dress. She had a baby fox in her arms. They could be the ones they were told to keep an eye out for, he thought, but why are they just sitting here? He was told that they would be armed, dangerous and likely to bolt at the slightest suspicion, not to confront them. The kit in her arms began to squirm and cry as the silent examination dragged on.

"Leave us alone!" Geno cried in Ukrainian so poor that she was barely understandable. "You are upsetting my baby." He voice had taken on a shrill note that Marcel had never heard before. It was one he hoped not to hear directed at him any time soon.

The wolf smiled and reached for the reins. Marcel flicked them out of reach and gave the wolf a hard smile when he huffed at the obstinate act.

"Get down." The wolf snarled.

"No. Daylight is fading and we must move on to set up camp." Marcel said haughtily. "We have no time to be playing with a Kusikar like you." By the wolf's reaction Marcel guessed that he recognized the Romani term for 'little penis'.

Once the wolf calmed down he decided to ignore the black fox and he called to the female instead. "Hey, green eyes. How about you do the dance of the seven veils for us and let us see your pretty face."

"Magherdo." Geno uttered a word she had heard the caravan females use whenever something was not right. It must have been a good choice because the females in the crowd took it up until they were almost chanting it.

Marcel stood up and placed his paws on his hips, one of them dangerously close to the bone handled dagger, and glared down on the wolf. "Do you know what it is to ask to look upon the face of a married female in our culture?" He demanded in Ukrainian what he deliberately accented to sound more like the Romani. "It is the gravest insult a _Gadjikane_can bestow upon a Romani. With my leader's permission we will duel now, to the death."

The wolf looked around to the leader of the caravan, confused. "Such is his right as her husband." The elder told them. "You two can duel and I will guarantee that none shall interfere ... nor will we harm your colleagues after this one kills you." He added with a wicked smile.

The three other wolves pulled pistols out from under their jackets. The males in the crowd began to grumble. A number of knives and no less than three shotguns appeared out of nowhere. The lead wolf was reminded of the few times that his agency had crossed paths with the Gypsies and was well aware of the fact that they were outnumbered. "Stupid backward barbarians." He mumbled in Russian as he waved his cohorts down. The Romani in the crowd that understood the language, and there were more than a few of them, pretended not to. The wolf looked back to the fox that had challenged him. The dagger looked deadly even in its sheath, and he had never been one for fighting one-on-one. Besides, the creatures that they were after were supposed to be on the run, not confronting FSB agents out on the open road. The fox was black furred and short, like the one they had been told to watch out for, but most of these gypsies were on the short side, and he had seen a couple of other black ones in the group. Doubt crept into his mind. It was one thing to risk your life taking down a couple of foreign agents on the lam, and quite another to get killed by a mob of angry gypsies because you inadvertently broke one of their mysterious taboos.

He looked at the few wagons that they had not already checked. They were sitting there with their doors open and the occupants either on the benches or standing beside them as if being stopped for inspection was a routine matter for them. Perhaps it was, he thought. _What a stupid idea it would be, hiding out with a bunch of cutthroats that were likely to murder you for your shoes._And it had been an equally stupid idea to waste time checking them out, or so he would tell the Director, Olga Tatrano, who had sent them on this wild goose chase. He spun on his heel and the crowd parted before him. The other three fell in behind him as he strode back to the cars.

"May witches fly off with your pricks!" Someone in the crowd called cheerily in Russian as they got in and drove away.

"Thank you for your help." Marcel told the Romani leader as the wolves sped off northward, toward the Belarus border. "That was close."

"Too close." The elder replied. Then he turned to his people and announced. "Back in the wagons. We push on to the frontier tonight. We don't stop until we are ten miles inside the Polish border.

Marcel got down and bowed politely, the way he had seen others do when addressing the leader. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me." The leader said with a frown. "I will thank you when we are free of your burden and can travel safely once more."

"I will see that you are well compensated for your troubles."

The older fox softened a bit. "There is no need. I was in debt to the polecat that brought you here. Taking you in and seeing you safely across the border will not only pay my debt but place him in mine. One day when that young fellow sits in the government of this land I will return to remind him of that debt. So don't worry about paying me. Just take care of your little family and be safe so that what we did here is not wasted." With that the fox turned away and set to getting his caravan moving again.

"What did he say to you down there?" Geno asked Marcel when he was seated beside her on the wagon's bench again.

"Nothing much." Marcel answered, thinking about the fox's last statement. "Just relax. We'll be in Poland soon and from there I can arrange our passage back.

"What are you going to say to Silver?" She asked, a nervous edge to her voice. "You know ... to explain this?" She held up Aldwin.

"Nothing." Marcel said, remembering some other advice Silver had given him during their early days, about it being easier to ask for forgiveness than it was to get permission when you needed to break the rules. "We'll deal with it when the three of us get back to Ottawa."

Geno smiled and hugged Marcel with the kit between them until it was struggling for air. "I do love you, you know." She whispered through the veil. "And when Aldwin is asleep I'll prove it to you."

Oh yeah, Marcel thought, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. It was going to be so much easier suffering the wrath of Silver than it would have been living with a pissed off Geno.

"Giddy up." He called to the horse as he slapped its rump with the reins. "We got places to go."

* * * * * * * *

Epilogue

The Americans had evacuated the healthy Canadian Agents back to Ottawa immediately after the extraction. Kyroo did not know what they had done with the other three but they put him back in solitary and debriefed him for a week before letting him outside at all. The Academy Psychologist, a rat called Doctor Gordon, explained that it was taking some time to complete the background checks on him, because of his unusual recruitment. In the meantime he would have to stay in the detention wing where his contact with other members of the Academy would be limited. But he was allowed to train with the combat instructor between sessions with the rat.

Kyroo lost track of time, but he figured that several weeks had passed before the morning when his cell door opened and the tall red vixen appeared.

"Vikki!" He exclaimed as he jumped up and rushed o greet her.

She held out her right paw. "You remembered my name."

He took her paw in both of his. "How could I forget?" Her missing left arm had been replaced with an artificial one that looked very real, he noted. "Thank you for coming to see me."

"Thank you for rescuing me. Your clearance came through this morning, and I asked to be the one to tell you that you are officially accepted into the ranks of F.O.X. Grab you things and I'll take you over to the single agent's quarters."

Kyroo did not have much to grab, just some clothes that the rat had brought him. He put them in a gym bag he used to store dirty laundry and followed her out of the detention building. It was a bright sunny day outside, a rare warm day for mid-November this far north, she informed him. The lawns of the Central Experimental Farm were still green even though the flowers of the nearby Botanical gardens had lost the last of their blooms a month ago. Here and there mothers and children picnicked on the grass between the Agricultural Museum and the livestock barns. Vikki led him towards one such group.

It was a mixed bunch. There was an older vixen who had black fur peppered with grey, a blonde Cheetah with a body that made the arctic fox's balls twitch, and a pair of fox kits. The younger kit was just an infant that still had its dark fur and white tipped tail, but it was showing some red in its coat. The older one was about four or five years old, he guessed, with vibrant red fur and bright blue-grey eyes. He ran towards them calling "Mommy, mommy!" and Kyroo could see the resemblance between him and Vikki. He also recognized the eyes from his short interview with the fox called Silver, but they looked much friendlier on the kit.

"Leslie!" Vikki said as she turned her kit to face Kyroo. "This is the fox I was telling you about. What do you say?"

"Thank you Mister Echos, for helping my mom at work." The kit said solemnly, sticking out a paw.

"You're, uh, welcome." Kyroo replied as he shook paws with the little fellow. He wondered just how much Vikki had told the kit about the 'help' Kyroo had given her. When he released the paw the kit became animated again.

"Come see Aldwin mommy! He's making bubbles with his snout!" Leslie ran back to the others while they followed at a more sedate pace.

Vikki introduced the others. "This Geno." She said as the cheetah stood, passing the baby to the older vixen. "She's in the same line of work as us."

Kyroo had a hard time keeping his eyes above the cheetah's shoulder level. It did not help that she was wearing an outfit that exposed more fur than the average bikini. And while it was warm for November it was still cool enough to make her nipples stand out against the thin material of her top. Kyroo shifted uncomfortably as his neglected loins stirred to life.

"Pleased to meet you." Geno said with a knowing grin.

"Geno is partnered with another of our colleagues, Marcel." Vikki told him, and his groin deflated in frustration. Were there no single female agents around here? He thought, wondering if he should not have joined the CIA instead.

"The baby is Aldwin, their adopted son." Vikki continued. "And this is Yana, Marcel's mother."

"Hello." The old vixen greeted him from the grass where Aldwin was trying to pull the white hairs out of her eyebrows.

"Yana has come to Ottawa for a few weeks to help us settle in with Aldwin." Geno informed him. "She's been a godsend, especially since Marcel had to go to a conference in Europe this week."

"I did not even know that Arborists had conferences." Yana said in accented English.

"Oh yeah, all the time." Geno turned to reply and pulled Aldwin off her before he rendered her bald. "Marcel is a pruning expert. He's gone to Kiev to demonstrate how to cut back some ugly growth."

"Oh dear, I hope he does not get caught up in those demonstrations." Yana exclaimed.

"I'm sure he will avoid them." Vikki assured her. "I'll catch up with you guys later." She said as she took Kyroo by the arm and steered him towards a large modern building. "Be good for Geno, dear." She told her kit as she led Kyroo away.

They crossed the lawn, passing the office building that Kyroo had burst into with his Chinese prisoner all those weeks ago. One of the offices at the back had the curtains open. Kyroo glanced through the window and was surprised to see what looked like a white poodle with black ears and huge breasts wearing a leather widow maker and holding a short whip. She was standing over a small lemur who was vacuuming while wearing a skimpy maid's outfit and a rubber chest piece with breasts as large as those on the poodle. He shook his head to clear it, convinced that the solitary confinement was making him see things, and looked again. The angle had changed and the sunlight was reflecting off the pane now, making it impossible to see in. He debated whether to mention it to Vikki or not, deciding to keep it to himself in case the hallucination might affect his acceptance into the agency. They came to the modern building and stopped at the door.

Vikki passed him a plastic card with nothing on it but a fox head logo, made from the word 'Fox' and its mirror image. "This is yours." She said. "If you find a door that it doesn't open it is because you are not allowed to go in there unescorted." She pointed to the proximity reader and Kyroo held the card up. A green light came on and the door clicked open. He pulled it wide and allowed her to pass through first. They traversed a short hallway with change rooms and washrooms off it and entered a large room that looked like a clubhouse. There was a round bar in the centre where an older red fox with greying fur was cleaning classes.

"This is the agents lounge." Vikki explained. "Since you are not technically a student you can drink here. Grey Muzzle here is the head bartender, as well as a part-time agent."

"How do?" The older fox leaned over the bar to shake paws. "Let me guess, you're a beer guy, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Here, try this." Grey drew a small sample from one of the taps behind the bar.

"Not bad." Kyroo said after sipping the beer and wiping the foam from his muzzle. "A lager?

"Exactly. Hog's Back Lager, a local product. A couple of hogs living up on the Rideau River brew it."

"I'll have to stop by and try a bigger sample later." Kyroo told him as Vikki pulled him away.

"Anytime." Grey assured him. "We're open twenty-four and seven."

They passed through the lounge and through another set of doors that let onto a hall with numbered doors. Vikki pointed to number three and Kyroo put his card up to the reader. He pushed the door open and looked around. The dorm resembled a good hotel room, with a double bed, a private washroom and a kitchenette in one corner. There was also a desk with a computer terminal, a dresser, a couch, a large closet and a flat screen TV that could be seen from either the couch or the bed.

"It's better than the student quarters, but if you prefer you can ask to live off campus." Vikki told him. "There's a laundry room and a group TV room at the end of the hall, good for watching the hockey games. Right now you are the only permanent resident here. Zac, who you met on the mission, lives here too but he's on leave, visiting his family out east."

Kyroo dropped his bag by the closet and wandered around the room, opening drawers and peering into the closet. "I guess that I'm going to have to go into town and pick up a few things."

"There's a map of the local area in the TV lounge. You'll be able to get most of what you need within walking distance. If you have a car back home we can get it shipped up here. If not we can loan you one from the car pool until you buy one."

"I'll have to set up a bank account."

"Already done. Joel, the forger, opened one for you at the bank on the corner of Carling and Preston. He copied your signature and sent it to them. You'll find an ATM card for it in your wallet. You'll have to choose a PIN the first time you use it. We deposited two months' salary in it to tide you over until we get all the paperwork straightened out."

"When do I report in?"

"Today is Friday. Silver said to tell you to relax and enjoy your freedom until Monday. He'll send another arctic fox close to your age that works here, Kain Algorath, to get you and walk you through the in-clearance process. Until then you're on your own, but," she held out a piece of paper with a phone number on it, "if you need anything, anything at all, you call me, okay?"

"Your mate, Silver, won't mind me calling you?"

"He is just as grateful as I am for what you did. If you had not come to Ottawa chasing after me and forcing your way into the Academy the mission may well have been a failure. And while some things have to remain in the past that does not mean that we cannot be friends." She put her good paw on his jaw tenderly. He covered it with his.

"You're a senior agent right?"

"Yes."

"Will I be working for you?"

"No." She laughed, dropping her paw. "Silver has assigned you to Delores Johnson, the vixen that was in charge of the rescue mission. She's just been promoted and transferred back to Ottawa. She should be reporting in any day now." She said, stepping up to him, "I have to go get Leslie before he pesters Geno to death. You take care." She was still a bit taller than him so she leaned down a bit to plant a warm kiss on the corner of his mouth.

Kyroo could not think of anything to say other than goodbye as she turned and strode out of his room. He took out his wallet and examined the new ATM card they had slipped in there without his knowledge. Then he picked up his bag and walked down to the laundry room. There were several washers and dryers there and he poured all of his clothes, clean and dirty, dark and light, into the first one. He found a half a box of soap that someone had left there and poured some in, hoping that whoever owned it would not mind. He started the washer and then moved to the TV lounge to check it out.

There was a huge television at one end, and thick curtains over the windows to block the light while watching during the day. A number of comfortable chairs and couches filled the room. Kyroo wandered up to the front and was surprised to see that the couch right in front of the television was a long, blue leather one, just like the one that had been in the examination room back when he had first met Vikki. But it was in better shape, so it could not be the same one. He sat down at one end and examined the stack of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs that he found on a side table.

There were some current releases and some older classics, ones suitable to every taste. There were also a few pornographic ones. Kyroo shuffled through them. The Yiffing Fields, Battle Yiff Potemkin, The Year of Yiffing Dangerously, he read. The next one was an older movie, Super Vixens do Toronto was its title. The cover featured a screen shot of the star, one Foxy LaTush. She looked vaguely familiar to Kyroo. Intrigued, he inserted that disc into the player and started the movie.

In the first scene the female lead was cleaning a barn, wearing loose clothing that exposed her large round breasts and firm ass when she leaned over to scrub a feed trough. She was not wearing panties and her tail rose up to expose her puckered tail hole and the soft fuzzy slit of her sex below it. Another farm worker showed up, a big black stallion that spied on her from the shadows as she worked in the dusty sunlight. The horse pulled out a cock the size of Kyroo's forearm and stroked it hard as he concentrated on her perfect ass and twat. She heard him moan and, far from being upset, striped off her clothes before crawling over to his hiding lace and taking that massive cock in her mouth. Kyroo watched, fascinated, as she sucked the stallion to orgasm and took a huge load of spooge in the face before downing a foot or so of cock again to milk the last few drops from it.

Damn, but she looks like Johnson, he thought, but he had not seen much of her on the mission because she had been wearing a tactical assault suit the whole time. While he was watching his paws were moving on their own accord. Loosening his pants and pulling his own stiffening rod out in the open. It had been months since he had any relief. His right paw flew up and down as his left fumbled with the remote to rewind the action back to the point before the conclusion of that blow job. He hit play just as she deep throated eighteen inches of hard horse flesh.

"How can she do that?" He moaned.

"Want to find out?"

The familiar voice had come from behind him. His paw froze but his head turned so fast that his neck cracked in three places. Standing naked in a pool of cast off clothing behind the couch was the agent, Delores Johnson, and now Kyroo could see that she was indeed the vixen in the movie he was watching.

She sashayed around the couch and his head turned to follow her progress. After pausing the movie she knelt down in front of him and pried his stiff paw from his slightly deflated cock. She took it in her mouth and it rehardened rapidly. Kyroo was nowhere near as large as the horse in the movie but he was no lightweight either, and he was impressed at how she took the whole thing and both of his balls in her mouth before shaking her head vigorously on them. It did not take much to bring him off after all those months of celibacy and the stimulus he had inflicted on himself before she appeared. Three minutes of warm moisture and an almost prehensile tongue on him was enough. His cum shot was not as voluminous as the horse either, but it was close. Her beatific smile as the spooge sprayed out on her muzzle was one of the hottest things he had ever seen.

"I'll bet a fit young fellow like you could do it five more times before the sun sets." She said as she licked the creamy cum from her muzzle.

Kyroo grinned shyly. "Three, maybe. If we're lucky."

"Wanna bet?"

Five hours and five orgasms later, Delores showed Kyroo where the ATM was so he could pay up.

* * * * * * * *

Olga Tatrano, the corpulent brown bear that headed the Russian FSB in the Ukraine woke suddenly in the middle of the night. Something had disturbed her sleep. She rolled over with a bit of difficulty due to being forty kilos overweight and squinted, trying to make out the room in the near total darkness. There was a darker spot near the edge of her bed. Under her pillow her paw stealthily searched for the automatic she kept there, but she could not find it.

The shadow moved and a dim bedside light came on. She could see that the intruder was a short black fox in a dark hooded sweatshirt and a red ball cap. It looked like a teenager, and she thought that she may have seen it before somewhere. Was it one of the office messengers?

The fox held up her pistol in one paw and one that she recognized as belonging to her bodyguard in the other. If he had it then the wolf stationed outside her door must be dead. That told her lot about her nocturnal visitor, and she remembered where she had seen his picture before. His fuzzy, out of focus picture taken by a Moscow airport security camera when Rainshelter was assassinated. It was one of the F.O.X. agents they had been after several weeks ago, the one that liked knives.

As if to confirm it the fox put the guns out of sight and produced a wicked looking dagger with a bone handle, the kind the gypsies wore. It had a long curved blade that tapered to a needle point, like the kind of knife anglers used to fillet fish. In his other paw he held two pairs of shackles.

"Good morning Olga." The small black fox said as he stepped to the end of the bed and slipped a shackle that was already secured to the end of the bed around her ankle. "Shall we begin?"

The End.

The FOX Academy series:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love who Spied Me

Book III - The Curse of the Yellow Monkey

Book IV - Wait for No One

Book V - Dawn of Vengeance

Book VI - Unnatural Selection

Kain Algorath © Marcus X Light

Ophelia Cassidy Sommer © Devil Kitty

Joel Grigori © Joel the Lemur

Geno © Coyotek

Dongo Fett © Dongo Fett

Zachary Ember © EmberWolf

Grey Muzzle © Grey Muzzle

Kyroo Echos © Kyroo Echos