FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Firestorm

Deployment

"Stop laughing."

"I can't help it, it's too funny."

"I think it's sad."

"That's because you are a hopeless romantic, always have been. It's what I like about you." Ophelia, who had been listening into Kain's video conference off camera, stifled her laughter long enough to move in behind Kain and rub his shoulders. "I've been in the archives, Echos is not the first F.O.X. agent to sleep with a killer. Both you and Silver have done the same." She felt him tense under her paws. "No, I didn't yiff him!"_Although I tried to, she added to herself. _ "But your fellow arctic fox is starting his career off in much the same manner as your current Chief of Staff, who will have to know eventually, and then he will have to deal with young Echos. You have to admit that it is kind of funny, in a sad, pathetic way."

Kain had just closed the connection to his family mansion, where Kyroo Echos had stayed behind to confess that he had been sleeping with the rabbit that was holding Silver and Vikki's offspring hostage.

Kain reached up to clutch one of her paws. "Kyroo's just a lonely guy in a strange town with no family or friends. An American surrounded by folk that look and sound like him, but aren't quite the same. We both know how that feels."

Like Kain, Ophelia was raised in the United States, but unlike him she did not have dual citizenship when she was accepted for agent training at the Canadian agency. She had also been the first non-vulpine to take the training, and had been harassed mercilessly for it. If it had not have been for Kain she probably would have ended up killing more of her fellow students than she had.

"Yes, I know how that feels." She said, serious now. "All that politeness and bragging about hockey and their health care. Don't you find it a little tedious living there?"

"It certainly lacks the excitement of the gun-toting U.S. of A." He admitted, cheering up a bit. "Or the cleaver toting portion in this case. Here, let me fill you in on Pawstone's background." Kain proceeded to brief Ophelia in greater detail than he had the others.

"Runs With Stick, eh?" Ophelia said as she examined one of the few clear photos of the bunny that Kain was able to pull off the FBI servers. "I like her. Until now all her victims have posed some sort of threat to her tribe. It's a shame that she had to get involved in this. You want me to take her out?"

"No. I have a more challenging target for you. And did you just say 'eh'?"

"I'm obviously spending too much time hanging around with Canadians." She reached down and gave his groin a squeeze. "Or half-Canadians at least. So, what do you have in mind for me?"

"This Bloedrye character has managed to evade the police and security services of a dozen nations. His personal security is the best I've ever seen, as good as what we built for your role as the Perfect Stalker. He's neigh on impossible to trace and always has an escape plan. As soon as we make a move on any front he is likely to disappear again. I'm going to need your particular talents to locate him for us when that happens. I'll feed you as much data as I can, of course."

Ophelia was familiar with the type of precautions Kain was describing. The original Perfect Stalker, the world's premier assassin for hire, and his contractor in Singapore had some of the best physical and electronic cut-outs in the business. When Silver had faked her death and made her take up the assassin's mantle she had improved on them, with some secret assistance from Kain. So she knew what was involved, and how to circumvent it. If anyone could find someone who did not want to be found and get close enough to slit their throat it was her.

"Sounds like a worthy task." She leaned over to nibble on his neck as she rubbed his groin. "What do we do in the meantime?"

Kain pointed to the PC, sitting on the dining room table, which he had sanitized and protected before hooking it back up to the fibre optic cable. "You're going to start working on a list of GHOST properties and employees, so we can get an idea of where he might run to while I collect the details on the known agents to pass on to our teams. We've got at least forty-eight hours of work ahead of us."

Ophelia sighed. Five hours ahead of Ottawa the sun in Copenhagen was just rising and she had been up all the day before getting here. She released him reluctantly and slinked across the room to slip into the chair opposite the PC. "You Canadians are no fun."

"I'll extend my stay here a couple of days ... if we're successful."

Ophelia leaned over the screen and began entering the code that would hook her up to the database at the mansion she had taken over from the former Perfect Stalker. "You got a deal."

* * * * * * * *

Several hours later and a few hundred kilometres away, in the NATO Military hospital, the doctor in charge of Miss CC's case was watching Gray Muzzle on a large screen while monitoring the Poodle's vital statistics on a smaller one. He paid particular attention to the lines that indicated brainwave activity and conscious thought. They were spiking occasionally but there were still short periods of flat line activity between the spikes. I_t was like trying to jumpstart an engine that sputters and coughs but refuses to catch_, he thought, we need more juice.

He pulled the microphone towards him. "Can you get in a little closer?" He asked.

In the next room Gray, who was wearing a fair number of sensors himself, raised his head from between the thighs of the prone poodle. "This is all very distracting." He whined. "It just doesn't feel natural with you watching."

"May I remind you that I am a doctor, her doctor." The hollow voice came back over the speaker mounted in the corner. "I am a professional who cares for nothing but the welfare of my patient. This may be a sexual act to you, but to me it is nothing more than a form of treatment, just like any other, but one that has shown some promise. I am observing strictly for scientific purposes. I derive no pleasure from doing so."

"You tell 'em Freddy."

The doctor covered the mike hastily with his paw and shushed the crowd of other male doctors who had paid a nominal fee to help with the 'observations'. Then he turned back to the mike. "So, Mister Muzzle, shall we try again?"

* * * * * * * *

Dawn came to Edmonton many hours later than in Europe, but it came early as they approached the summer solstice. As with most Cities, there was a ban on large jets arriving or departing before six a.m. and so it was not unusual to see family groups gather for a farewell breakfast at one of the nearby restaurants. Even a five a.m. reservation for fifteen was not unheard of. What was unusual, however, was for the group to be as diverse as the one that showed up at Nick's. Nick, an elderly racoon that had moved west during the first oil crisis in the early seventies, could not recall ever seeing so many foreign species at the same table before - and the fact that there were three of each was even more unusual. But they had paid well to have the back room to themselves with a breakfast buffet that catered to a number of dietary restrictions. So who was he to wonder?

Once the buffet was laid out and a big carafe of coffee was brought in there was no need for servers so Nick pulled the big door to the private room closed as he backed out. Inside the guests, who had been silent up to this point, erupted in conversation as they rushed to the buffet. They spoke in English as it was the only common language that they shared between them, but here and there one could here snippets of Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Indonesian and several African dialects.

The groups represented the bulk of Bloedrye's twenty-one GHOST agents, minus the American wolves who were with him in Ottawa and the French poodles who had stayed behind in Europe to run the financial end of the organization while their colleagues did the grunt work in the oil sands. It was probably just as well, thought Number Seventeen, the Sumerian tiger in charge of the field force thought as he forked a pile of scrambled eggs into his maw. The older ladies would not have been much help doing physical labour under the prairie sun and he would not have been able to put up with the bitching.

They discussed how many of the initiation devices each group had installed over the past week and recounted their encounters with site security and the local police. In each case the letters purportedly from the Department of Natural Resources had worked like a charm. Now all that was needed was a good cold front with plenty of energy to move in, and one was expected in the next few days.

"Sucks that you get to stay here until the fireworks start and we got to leave." Number Four, the leader of the Russian bears said to the tiger. "We could have some fun here while we wait."

Seventeen turned to his colleague and said "We," he indicated himself and the other two tigers, "are not going to be having fun, we are going to be patrolling the initiator array to make sure they stay in place and to deal with anyone that tries to remove any of them. You," he gestured to the rest of the creatures, "get to be out of the country before they close the borders once the shit goes down. Just because you fooled a bunch of locals don't get to thinking that you'll be able to get by the RCMP, or F.O.X. for that matter."

"F.O.X. bah! I piss on F.O.X. agents, just like I did during the cold war when I was KGB."

"I recall that you lost that particular war." The tiger replied, and had the pleasure of seeing the bear grind its teeth in bitter remembrance. "Their Chief of Staff was in Eastern Europe when your Putin was KGB there and he got out of Russia with a couple of your scientists, I hear." The tiger knew this from his time with the Indonesian Special Forces, from when they trained with their American and Canadian equivalents as Indonesia was seen as a Western ally. The exploits of Silver and several other allied spies made for good drinking stories. "And they haven't gotten any softer. The two we shot in Brussels are still alive, although one is still in a coma. But the other was up and about within a day. He must be made of cold gray steel."

"Or you tigers can't shoot worth shit." The bear prepared for a retaliatory attack, but Number Seventeen just smiled and patted the ursine offender on the cheek.

"Number Two has issued his orders." He said with a bit of menace in his voice. "Would you disobey them?"

The bear hastily looked around, up and down for booby traps or deadly devices, but just because he could not see any did not mean that there were none. The tigers had booked this room and had been there before the rest. How long before? He wondered.

"Nyet. Of course not." He said, backing off and using another visit to the buffet as an excuse to walk away from the tiger with his dignity intact. Seventeen just smiled at how his bluff had worked and went for more tea.

The party broke up soon after that. Most of the rest had early flights out of the country and the tigers had to get back out and check on the initiators. They stayed behind to settle with Nick while the rest piled into taxis to go to the airport; there would be no tearful farewells for these creatures.

Check in and security went by smoothly as none of them were stupid enough to be carrying anything more suspicious than a bottle of scotch and a carton of cigarettes. Once past security they went to their separate gates, there to wait for their flights.

The coatis flight left first, headed for their homeland of Columbia, where their friends in the underworld would hide them until the heat that was soon to be applied died down. The Ibex left next, headed for Yemen, where anyone on the right side of the Islamic extremists could disappear for as long as they wanted. The jackals followed soon after, bound for Somalia and the lawless pirate regions on the horn of Africa. The bears were the last to go, as their flight was delayed. But as they were finally lined up to board their flight to Russia the lead bear, Number Four, saw a small corporate jet pull up to the gate next to theirs. The passengers left by the same gate that they were waiting to depart through, and the fact that they had to wait for the capitalist swine to deplane irked him.

His anger was turned to lust when he saw the first passenger come through the door though. She was a busty blonde vixen whose hips rolled like the battleship Potemkin on stormy seas. He was so enamored by her jutting breasts that he hardly noticed the tall, young grey wolf that followed her trough the door. She looked vaguely familiar to Number Four but, thanks to a pint of vodka he had been sipping from all through breakfast, he could not concentrate enough to recall her face. Not that he gave that feature of hers more than a passing glance. He was sure that it would come to him eventually.

He followed her undulating ass until the crowd swallowed her up, and then he sighed and turned to present his fake passport to the airline clerk.

* * * * * * * *

"So, where are we going?" Zac called after Delores as she strode through the airport toward the rental car kiosks.

"To see an old friend of mine who may be able to help." Delores had sent a message as soon as they landed but she had yet to tell Zac where they were going and who they were here to see.

Zac caught up as she stopped by the first booth and started filling in the form to rent a car with a GPS. He was feeling a little jealous about this mysterious friend's relationship with Delores. "I hope your friend is a centipede with a big family, because we're going to need a lot of paws to pull out a thousand of those electronic lightning rods before the thunder storms roll in." They had been following the weather reports too, and they knew that they had to work fast.

"Oh, he's known for being a 'paws on' kinda guy." Delores said with a wink. She refused to answer any more of Zac's inquiries on the drive north from the airport to the city. Leaving the highway when the GPS advised her to, she got onto the ring road and circled around the city core until she was on the far side. There she turned north again. After a short drive she turned onto Valour Road, where a sign announced that they were entering Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, home of the Headquarters of the Army of the West, and that by entering the premises they were subject to search at any time.

"Your Friend is a soldier? Did you meet him while you were a cop in Calgary or through the porn industry?" He asked, rather meanly.

"As a cop, but he could have worked in the erotic film industry if he wanted, he had incredible drive and stamina. And if you're ever looking for a couple of fit males for a threesome scene there is no place like a military base to find them, with all that running and push ups and obstacle courses and such." She winked again.

Zac sat back and mumbled as they went through the check point. It seemed that Delores' friend had told the gate to expect them and they were waved through as soon as she showed them her driver's licence. They drove in silence to a large building advertising itself as the 3rd Division Headquarters. There they were met by a young female officer, a tall slim greyhound in a form fitting dress uniform. She greeted them with deference and asked that they follow her to the General's suite.

"You friend is a General?" Zac whispered as they walked fast to keep up with the long stride of the greyhound.

"Not when I met him. He was a Captain in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry back then, the liaison officer between the Area Headquarters and the police forces. He's come up in the world since then."

There was no time for further discussion as they entered the antechamber of the suite. There the greyhound pointed Zac to a seat but led Delores to a large leather covered door, which she knocked on before opening it and allowing Delores to enter alone. Closing the door she strode to a lone desk and sat gracefully down behind it. "They will probably be a while." She informed Zac with a knowing smile.

Inside the office a large timber wolf rose from behind a very large desk and came around to greet Delores. He was also wearing a dress uniform, with red tabs on the lapels to indicate that he was a senior commander. A square sky-blue patch with a gold maple leaf on his arm indicated that he belonged to the Third Canadian Division and the crossed swords of a General on his epaulettes showed that he was the commander of the division.

"Pooky!" Delores exclaimed as she opened her arms to welcome him.

"Babydoll!" He replied as he embraced her. Further conversation became impossible as their open mouths connected and their tongues proceeded to engage each other. His paws were clamped firmly on her ass but she was already undoing the buttons on his tunic with hers.

"Watch the tie." He cautioned as she began to tug at it with her teeth. "I have a graduation parade to attend later today and the Sergeant-Major would kill me if I showed up with holes in it.

"No problem." She loosened it enough with her paws to slip it over his furry head and then she went to work on his belt buckle.

"You're looking good, Babydoll." He commented as she unzipped his fly and helped him step out of the green serge trousers. "You haven't aged a bit."

She paused as she was lowering his green army boxer shorts. "Oh, you're so sweet, but you know it's not true." She pulled his bushy tail through the hole in the back and he stepped out of the shorts.

"No, it's true. I still remember that night seven years go when you left to take some kind of government job out east." His cock was half erect already and she rubbed his balls with one paw while she licked the shaft. "How did that work out anyway?"

"I got the job." She said between nibbles. She was loosening her own clothing with her free paw. "That's why I'm here. I need you help to resolve a situation that I can't reveal much about. Mmmhh." She took his cock in her mouth as she shrugged off her blouse and bra. Then she stood so he could undo her slacks and peal them off her while he kissed her all over her head and muzzle. It was a well rehearsed routine and he had her naked in less than a minute.

"I'd love to help, but the department needs an official request through the Minister's office, unless it's already covered under a prior agreement." He said between kisses.

She felt his digits at her groin as she began stroking him to full hardness. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to keep this one off the books." Then she added a codeword that Kain Algorath had found deep in the F.O.X. archives, a codeword that, like BASTION, cut across all the usual red tape.

The General stepped back in shock. "You work for them?" He asked, studying her face carefully. She just stood there, naked and ready, and waited patiently for him to continue. "I guess you do." He concluded, having noted the layer of hard muscle and the tell-tale signs of one who practices martial arts and weapons handling regularly. "But do you have the authority to use that code?"

"The fox that sent me does." She replied, hoping that she was telling the truth, for Kain's sake.

"Ah, the big one or the silver one? No matter. If it's in my power to help I'll do it."

Delores let him believe that Silver or Gold, the codename for the Director Tancred Williams, had sent her and stepped up against the General again. He did not resist. Paws found private parts while mouths found each other and they were locked in an embrace of mutual caresses for almost two minutes before Delores spoke again.

"I noticed that slim little greyhound in the outer office has a few of your short curly hairs on her muzzle." She teased. "Do you think that she would care to join us?"

The general laughed. "Just a little hummer to loosen up before hitting the paperwork." He said. "I was just finishing up when your message came in. Of course, I would have saved it for you if I knew you were coming sooner."

"I never cum sooner." She quipped.

"That's true." He admitted. "But with the quick one gone I think I can give you a run for your money. And no, she will not be joining us. I want you all to myself. Besides, she has a thing for wolves, she won't feel left out." And with that he sealed her mouth with his, lifted her up and carried her across the room to the big desk with its leather covering. There he lay her down on her back and knelt down to bring his muzzle to a level with her hips.

His tongue was where his digits had been in an instant, and Delores had to moan with pleasure at the familiar feel of that long rough appendage,

In the outer office Zac could not hear what was happening on inside thanks to the sound-proof door between them. But the greyhound seemed to have inkling as to what was going on. She had removed her tunic and she kept looking over at the tall, fit, young grey wolf and giving him sly smiles.

Feeling awkward alone with her while Delores was probably bumping uglies with her boss Zac struggled to think of something to start a conversation. "So, I noticed that you army guys have changed your rank insignia." He said, indicating a chart on the wall that compared the army's British-style rank markings to that of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Navy.

"Oh, yes." She breathed as she rose from behind the desk and came to join him by the chart. "We have gone back to the traditional Commonwealth markings that we used up until amalgamation in the late Sixties. The insignia for the NCOs has not changed, but the officers are all pips and crowns now." She cocked one shoulder over so he could get a good look at the two square diamonds on her epaulette. "I have two pips because I'm a Lieutenant."

Zac's eyes were locked on the bumps her erect nipples were making on her dress blouse. "Nice pips." He commented.

She stepped closer and looked up into his face. "Would you like to touch them, my pips?"

"I'd like to taste them." Any qualms about whether he had gone too far were settled when she smiled and began unbuttoning her blouse.

Inside the office Delores was squirming under the tongue lashing the General was giving her. He alternated between driving the long pink snake between his jaws deep inside her and using it to tickle and tease her clit. Occasionally he paused and rubbed her vulva with his dangerously large fangs before going back to the tongue action. Delores thought that it was very unfair, that he should get to excite her toward orgasm while she could not get a paw on him except to squeeze his hear or pull his ears. But she had come looking for a favour, after all, so it would not hurt to let him have his way .... this time. So she wrapped her thighs around his neck and pressed his snout harder to her.

In the vestibule the Lieutenant had stripped down to bare fur, and was undressing Zac as he sucked and licked at her nipples. He rubbed her flanks as he did, marvelling at fur so short that it was almost like she had shaved all over. She confirmed that that was the case when he commented on it, although she was due for another. "I'm a competitive runner." She explained. "A Sprinter. The bare skin cuts down on the wind resistance."

"I'm more into endurance events myself." Zac commented.

"We'll see." She said with another knowing smile as she knelt before him and took his cock into her mouth.

"Dammit Pooky! Enough with the tongue. I want you cock in me. Now!"

"You've developed an air of command about you." He joked as he got to his feet and shuffled in between her spread legs. "It suits you." He felt for the wet opening and guided the tip of his cock to it. "Ready or not, here I come." He shoved hard with his hips, driving his rod balls deep inside her in a single thrust. If it had not been for the pre-lubricating effect of his saliva and the juices he teased out of her it would have hurt like hell. As it was the sudden shock sent a thrill through her and she gasped. He reared back and did it again, and again, and again.

Meanwhile, Zac had lifted the greyhound to her feet so that he could get a paw on her twat, and in it. She backed away slowly, pulling him after her until her back was up against the General's door. Once there she turned, leaned forward and planted both paws on the green leather. He whip like tail came up as she tilted her hips to offer her slippery slash to him. Without hesitation he tilted the tip of his prick down until his cock was parallel to the floor and aimed straight at her sweet smelling slit. Unlike the General he slid his sword in slowly, easing it along in small, ever deeper thrusts until his hips were planted against her athletic ass. Then he too pulled back and rammed it back at full speed, driving it home like the loader on a tank crew.

Inside and out of the office large wolves pounded away at their female partners. Laying on her back on the desk Delores' large breasts bounced back and forth with each thrust. Up against the door, the Lieutenant's small firm tits jiggled just a bit each time Zac's hips slammed into her ass. The General had to hold on to the desk for purchase, his claws digging into the wood, while Zac had his paws locked on the greyhound's hips. But both wolves enjoyed the view of their cocks sliding in and out of tender pink pussies.

For Delores, who had been primed by the talented tongue of the General, the orgasm came quickly. But her partner was not far behind. She had used muscles inside her twat that she had learned to control on F.O.X.'s advanced seduction course in the brothels of Bangkok, but had held back just enough to let him win. The General collapsed on top of her, a rather comfy collapse for him as her breasts served to cushion the fall. They ended up with their heads ear to ear as they both gasped for breath and waited for their heart rates to return to normal.

"So, Babydoll. What exactly do you need from me?"

Delores told him.

"I think I can manage that." He said, reaching over to push a button on his desk intercom. "Lieutenant, can you email me the daily personnel reports?"

"Coming." The voice that came back over the intercom sounded a little strained to Delores' ears, but that could just be the fault of the speaker.

Out in the foyer the General's aide was indeed coming, with her paw on her clit as Zac's cock continued to excite the soft spot up inside her. Her moans and the sudden splash of hot fluid on him put Zac over the edge too, and he mixed his spooge with hers.

She was hardly breathing heavier than normal as she disengaged from his quivering prick and ran behind her desk. Her digits pounded the keyboard for a few seconds and then a chime acknowledged that her message had been sent. Inside the office a similar chime announced it's arrival in the General's mailbox.

"Let's see what I can do for you, little lady." The General said to Delores as he rolled off of her and open the file containing the whereabouts and activities of the ten thousand troops under his command.

The lieutenant, having completed her task, came back around to the front of her desk at a leisurely pace, leaned back against it, and spread her legs invitingly. "You mentioned something about endurance?"

Zac, whose erection had not wilted, walked toward her. "Let's see what I can do for you, little lady."

* * * * * * * *

Once Kain had learned as much as he could about the movements of the GHOST agents and forwarded that to the F.O.X. agents in the field he turned his attention to the phone number Kyroo had given him. By going back through the data the telecommunications company kept, usually only available with a warrant, he was able to trace her movements and cross correlate it with traffic and security camera records. The record ended on the night of the kidnapping, in the vicinity of the same hotel that Kyroo had met her for their last liaison. Kain suspected that she had dumped the phone there.

The data trail showed that she had come straight from the farmhouse he identified as her main residence for the period she was working undercover at Leslie's school. By running the security footage of the hotel and all nearby establishments backwards he was able to identify her car. Accessing the traffic camera network for times that matched her phone location he managed to trace it back to the edge of the city in the direction of the farmhouse. Then he ran the same recognition algorithm that he had used to trace the attackers from Brussels to see if she went back there after meeting Kyroo, but she didn't. He discovered that she had driven east and then north to the Ottawa Airport Park-and-Ride where she switched vehicles. There she had parked the van in such a way that he could not see what she unloaded from the trunk of the car she was abandoning. But he figured that it was Leslie; the kit must have been tied up and drugged in the trunk the whole time she was yiffing Kyroo, he realized.

Clever, he thought, but not clever enough. She was probably more used to operating in an open environment against enemies of limited technical ability than she was a national spy agency, but so far she was winning, so who was he to criticize?

He tried to track the van but only got as far as the exit to the airport. She must have disappeared into the semi-rural area south of Ottawa and gone to a new hideout, he supposed. He sent a message to Kyroo using a Google Gmail account he had given the other arctic fox to check out the farmhouse anyway. Maybe he would find something that would help with the search.

He had one more trick up his sleeve. Going back to the phone records he added all the service providers that carried signals in Ottawa to the search and downloaded every signal with a location stamp that matched hers since she had arrived in Ottawa. Then he set the computers in the nearby server farm to parse through that massive amount of data. There would be some coincidental matches from cell phones at the school or from those in nearby cars while she was driving, but there should only be one number that consistently matched - the number of the phone Bloedrye was using to communicate with her. Once he had that he could start the more tedious job of hacking into wherever they stored the data for it to see what he could find out about the elusive Persian. He dozed in his chair as the programs he had designed did their work.

A soft 'ping' from his laptop alerted him that the application had produced results. Kain shook the sleep from his head, glancing at his watch to find that over forty minutes had passed since he started the program running. The screen showed a number of possibilities, with the best match at the top of the list. As he suspected, the number of matching signals for it far outweighed any or the others. He isolated that signal and displayed it on a map with time stamps as their labels. Since the kidnapping the phone had only been turned on three times, in three widely separate locations, and for only a couple of minutes each time. If she kept that up there would be no way of predicting her whereabouts or getting Kyroo there in time to intercept her. But he set his image tracking software nevertheless less. Maybe if she didn't change vehicles or locations again he could get Kyroo close enough to pick up her trail.

Kain sighed. Now came the hard part, tracing it back through however many cut-outs GHOST had on its system. He lowered his head and got back to work.

* * * * * * * *

Gray had been at it for hours and he was starting to lose the feeling in his tongue.

He lifted his head from the sodden vulva of Miss CC and addressed the speaker mounted in the corner. "I don't think that I can do this any longer."

"Try again, please?" The doctor's voice came back sounding slightly tinny. "You were so very close that last time. Just a few more minutes should do it.

Wearily, Gray lowered his head and began to lap at her clit while he held her vagina open with one paw. He clenched and unclenched the other to get the circulation back in it before returning to stimulate the spongy patch inside with his digits.

Behind him the lines indicating Miss CC's brain activity and heartbeat rose again, as they had a dozen times before, only to fade back to a flat line after twenty minutes of intense activity. The young doctor was convinced that the sexual stimulation would bring her out of her coma, however, after hours of trying Gray had all but lost hope.

He licked and lapped and rubbed with all his might, putting everything he had into one last attempt. He was so intent on giving it his all that he did not hear the rapidly increasing beeps and pings from the monitor or notice the exciting hubbub coming over the speaker. A cramp hit him at the base of the tongue, making his head jerk erratically against her mound. He was just about to tell the doctor that he was quitting for the day when he heard a familiar gasp. The gasp was followed by a pair of paws clamping on his head, pressing his snout down until he couldn't breathe any more, and that was followed by a flood of hot juices that made him gag and cough so hard that he had to jerk his head free to keep from asphyxiating. For several moments he sucked air in and spit poodle cum out while she moaned and diddled herself to completion.

"Maudit tabernaque!" Miss CC's voice sounded raspy, unused. "That was good mon p'tit chou chou. But enough fun and games. Untie me so that we can go deliver the courier package."

Gray got up off the floor where he had been fighting for breath and came to stand beside her head. "We delivered it already, Marie."

"We did? My mind, she must be slipping een my old age. But I really need to visit la salle des petite femmes, so untie my legs and let me go. We can switch after. I'll tie you up and tease you."

"Marie, dearest, your legs are not restrained."

"Eh? Then you must have set the straps too tight again, mon dieux, they have gone numb."

"Marie, there is something that I have to tell you."

For years afterwards Gray would remember the stricken look on her face as he explained what happened, and whenever he did he also recalled how he never wanted to see that look again.

* * * * * * * *

Ophelia and Kain had been at it for almost twenty-four hours, napping only when large amounts of data were being analysed. But they were both used to that kind of sustained effort so they did not look or feel as tired as one might think.

"How are you doing?" Kain asked when he saw her get up to fetch a paper she had printed out.

"I've found a species smuggling service that does VIP work for drug lords, dictators and terrorist leaders that need to travel for business or medical reasons. It looks like Bloedrye has used then several times in the past for his exit plan. Their IT security is very good, too good for me. Think that you can hack into them and monitor their activity for signs of Bloedrye?" She passed him the paper she had printed, which showed what she had found out about their electronic defences so far.

Kain studied the paper for a minute. "Sure. Any other leads?"

"None worth mentioning. How about you? How's the investigation into Pawstone coming along?"

"I hacked into the Ottawa police labs and took a look at the evidence from the Cohen killing. They found a lot of rabbit fur at the scene, conveniently enough, and they ran it against the DNA bank, but she isn't in there. The testing also indicated that the fur was old, as in not freshly shed, Still, if it ever came to a standoff, given the gruesomeness of the murder, the cops will likely shoot first and compare DNA later. Interestingly, they did find a single strand of fresh wolf fur on the victim."

"You don't think she did it, do you?"

"No, I don't. Anyway, I passed what I found on to Kyroo to help him develop a profile of her. I also found the number for the phone Pawstone uses to contact Bloedrye and cloned it to Kyroo's phone. Now whenever she uses it Kyroo will not only see the location but be able to listen in too."

"Cool."

"It's simple really. Remind me to show you how it's done when this is all over."

"You'll be too busy showing me something else." she stood, still naked from their greeting ritual the day before, and stretched, making her clouded fur stand on end as the skin over her taut muscles rippled. "Meanwhile, I'm going to take a shower."

"I'll join you."

* * * * * * * *

A day and a half had passed since the video conference at the Kanata mansion, and Kyroo was begin to wonder if any of them would ever hear from Ruth Pawstone again when the cloned phone Kain Algorath had managed to install on his own went off.

The alarm indicated that her phone was back in operation. Kain had said that she must be pulling the battery between uses so he had set Kyroo's up to sound an alarm as soon as hers pinged the system again. The first thing that she did was to read and delete the messages that had come in since the last time she was connected. Kyroo had read the angry, unanswered texts Bloedrye had sent demanding that she get in contact with him and had deduced that Ruth and her employer were not on the best of terms. By the time she was finished the phone was already ringing, so Bloedrye must be tracking its use too. Maybe that was why she was disabling it between calls, to keep him from finding her, not F.O.X.

"PAWSTONE!" The Persian's shouted when she answered, his voice was no less demanding than his texts had been.

"Calm down, Bloedrye, I'm here." Although she had never talked to him in that tone it was definitely the same voice Kyroo remembered. There had been no mistake about Ruth being the killer, Runs With Stick.

"I know where you are, it's the kit's location that concerns me."

Kyroo could see the location of Pawstone's phone but not that of Bloedrye's; Kain was still working on that. The map showed that Pawstone was in a different quadrant of the city than on previous calls, and she was moving, most likely in that van Kain had described. There was no way that he would be able to get to that part of town before she turned off the phone.

"The kit is fine." He heard her tell Bloedrye. "Did you have plans to change that?"

Kyroo's heart sank, but rose again as the cat replied. "No, the parents seem to be cooperating fully. There has been nothing passed on their network and all the personnel reports are normal. So there is no need at this time to separate the kit from any of his appendages."

Kyroo breathed a sigh of relief, and was surprised to hear it echoed from Ruth' end of the line. Her sigh turned into a cough, a forced one, he believed. "Whatever. Let me know if you change your mind."

"How can I let you know when you only call in once every twelve hours?"

"Are you trying to keep me on the line so your wolves can pay me a visit, Bloedrye honey, or are you just enamored by my dulcet tones?" After a moment of silence she continued. "I'm off Bloedrye. Talk to you in twelve hours. Send me a text if there is anything you need to tell me that will take more than a minute to explain." And with that she broke off the connection.

Kyroo heard Bloedrye swear in an unfamiliar language before he did likewise. Kain's application closed automatically when there was no more signal from either phone. Kyroo put the phone away ant thought about what he had learned.

Obviously Ruth, or Runs With Stick as she was known to her folk, and Bloedrye had had a falling out. He added that to Kain's doubts about the Cohen murder and came to the conclusion that she had relocated Leslie to counter any threat the Persian might have been holding over her. And she had sounded relieved when he didn't want a digit or an ear to be mailed in as incentive. That meant that Kain had been right about their motivation, as long as Silver did not interfere with Bloedrye's plans Leslie would be safe.

But what about after that? Kyroo wondered. What happens to Leslie when he is no longer needed as leverage? Doesn't he just become a burden?

Despite the realization that she had been sleeping with him just to get some inside knowledge on F.O.X., Kyroo felt that he had come to know her over the week of their affair, a little bit at least. Her aggressive style and quick reflexes in the sack led him to believe that she was capable of fighting off enemies with the cleaver she was supposed to favour, but he could not reconcile the image of her as a child killer.

He checked the weather forecast for the prairies again. A lightning producing cold front was expected to pass through the region in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, too soon to bet on locating her hideout. Kyroo could only think of one thing to do that might save the kit.

Praying that what he was downing would not have the opposite effect of sealing Leslie's fate, Kyroo composed a text and sent it to Ruth's new phone.

Now all he could do was wait for her to turn it on again in twelve hours and hope that she would take the bait.

* * * * * * * *

The Canadian prairies run from the Manitoba-Ontario border in the east, where the Great Canadian Shield ends, to the Rockies in the west. The land between then is mostly flat and lush, and where they are not they are rich in mineral resources. The roads are mostly straight and flat, and because they were built with heavy equipment in mind they are solid. Speed limits were high compared to the rest of the nation, but most folk only drove that slow during a blizzard. In this land where your nearest neighbour was often a dozen kilometres away and the nearest town could be a hundred the locals do not calculate the drive by distance, but rather by the amount of time it takes to get there.

Coming from a crowded, hilly island nation the Sumerian Tigers found the wide open spaces a bit intimidating, but the ability to drive over two thousand kilometres in a single day if they took turns at the wheel appealed to their sense of adventure. And so, in a stolen van with a cot and a number of illegal weapons in the back, they had been patrolling the oil patch for two days without pause.

The only addition that they had made to the van was a satellite receiver on the roof that was connected to a laptop computer mounted on the dash in front of the passenger side. They alternated between monitoring the lightning rod array and the weather reports, paying particularly close attention to the regional weather radar and the jet stream. The former showed show a line of red and purple storm cells gathering in the north-west while the latter dipped below the Canada-US border, allowing cold, wet northern air in to push the warm dry southern air out.

The day was hot and where they were, as they had been for the last two weeks, but a strong low was gathering strength up in the Yukon Territory, and the high that had sustained the heat wave in the prairies was weakening. Environment Canada was predicting that the jet stream would collapse and had issued a thunderstorm and tornado warning for the next twenty-four hours. The conditions were perfect for lightning. Citizens were warned to avoid high open ground and not to seek shelter under lone trees.

Excellent, Number Seventeen said to himself, as he picked up the phone to make his routine report. He was not surprised when Bloedrye himself answered as the Persian had taken personal control of Operation Firestorm. He was surprised however by how relieved the feline sounded after advising his leader that the first big storm of the season would surely come sometime the next day.

"How is everything going in Ottawa?" Seventeen asked casually.

"Fine." Bloedrye snapped back, telling the tiger that not all was as it should be.

"F.O.X. is cooperating?"

There was a relieved sigh before Bloedrye answered. "Yes." So that was not the problem, the tiger surmised. "Everything here is routine. All the agents are accounted for, except the analyst we had Silver send away for the duration of the operation, but we have contractors checking all the seaside resorts in Denmark for him. He has not contacted his headquarters in any event; we would have picked that up."

It was not like Bloedrye to be so verbose, the tiger thought, and took it as a sign of nervousness. But with an operation this big, who wouldn't be nervous? If one loose analyst was the biggest of Bloedrye's worries then things were well within the parameters for success.

"How about on your end?" Bloedrye asked him. "Everything still optimal?"

"Some of the initiator's have been knocked down by farmers or wild animals, but we fix them as we come to them. Over ninety-eight percent of the array is up and ready. All we need is the lightning."

"That's good. No problems with the local authorities?" There had been a slight change that some Security Chief or local Sherriff might check up on the letter supposedly from Natural Resources Canada, and get someone other than their inside guy on the phone. In such a case the tiger had to decide whether the threat of exposure was great enough to risk eliminating the troublemaker. A missing officer of the law would result in an intensive search, but the closer they got to ignition the less likely it would be that the body was discovered before the region went up in flames. This close to the conclusion Seventeen was willing to mow down a platoon of sheriffs if he had to. The word platoon reminded him of one thing though.

"Nothing with the police." Number Seventeen replied. "Although we have been seeing a lot of army vehicles on the road lately. Troop carries mostly."

"It's the time of year their Reserves do their summer training. Some of their training areas are close to the oil sands, so it's not unusual to see them moving about. But let me know if you see any close to the array."

"We will."

"Good. Report in again as per the schedule or if the storms come early. Number Two out."

The line went dead. Number Seventeen put the phone back in his pocket, unaware that it had been cloned during their conversation and would now send their location to Delores Johnson via Kain Algorath every time it pinged a tower.

He glanced at the weather report on the screen again. Tomorrow, he thought. This will all be over tomorrow.

* * * * * * * *

Zac Ember was monitoring the phone when the tiger's signal first appeared. "We got him." He informed Delores.

She leaned over to check the location and direction of movement. "Set a course to intercept, Mister Sulu."

Zac consulted the GPS then made a U-turn and headed east towards the tiger's location. Delores had been monitoring the weather situation and he asked her what the prospects were.

"The storm they want will hit sometime tomorrow." She said. "We'll have to be ready to take them out before it does, and before they can report to Bloedrye when they see the surprise we have arranged for them."

"Will your boyfriend be able to manage his end of things?" Zac asked sourly.

"He's not my boyfriend, just an old flame"

"We'll have enough flames to deal with if he lets you down."

"He'll come through." Delores said, biting her lip nervously. "He has to. But it is going to take some time to get everything in position. Let's pray that the storm holds off long enough for that."

"Let's pray that the two of us can take out three Special Forces operators." Zac commented.

"Pooky, ... I mean, the General, has arranged a little assistance in that aspect too." She smiled. "Backup will be available as of tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." He mumbled, upset about being kept in the dark and still a bit jealous. He brought the vehicle up another ten kilometres an hour as they entered a stretch of road that was dead straight and level as far as the horizon. "We should be right on the tiger's tail tomorrow."

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Delores turned to Zac, putting one arm around his shoulders and her other on his thigh. "We have a long drive ahead and a big day tomorrow, so let's talk about other things for now, okay."

He knew that he shouldn't stay mad at her. "Sure." He said, relaxing a bit. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Well, have you ever considered how nice it would be if I could have a threesome with my two favourite junior agents?"

* * * * * * * *

Kain was beat. Besides putting tracers on every phone that called Bloedrye he and Ophelia had been tracking the movements of the creatures that had left the oil sands the day before. As anticipated, they headed straight to countries where they could find safety among their personal networks. For the Coatis that meant the cartel controlled region of Columbia. The jackals had returned to the pirate enclaves of Somalia, while the Ibexes, who were wanted by security forces in their homeland of Saudi Arabia, found refuge with the Shia tribes of Yemen. The three bears meanwhile, used connections among their former KGB associates to get to a resort on Russia's Black Sea coast.

There had been some concern over who should go after which group, with Ophelia volunteering to take on one of them, but Kain was sure that any of the others could manage three targets alone with the element of surprise. Besides, Ophelia was his strategic reserve, to be used only in emergencies in case it revealed their forbidden relationship, earning them both the death penalty.

"There's nothing else we can do at this point?" Ophelia asked

"No, it's all up to Delores and the weather now. All we can do is wait until she makes her move and try to coordinate the rest as best we can, just like we do back in the F.O.X. Ops Centre for a big operation like this."

"You have a squad of planners, analysts and duty officers to spread the load over in the Ops Cen. Here you're stuck with a useless leopard." Her tail nodded sadly in concurrence above her head.

Kain took her by the paw. "You're not useless. It's just that your talents lie elsewhere."

"I'll bet that's what Silver tells failing students just before he wipes their memory and dumps them near a casino so they wake up thinking they were on a bender."

Kain couldn't help laughing at that, mostly because it was so close to the truth. "See, you've made me feel better already. That's useful."

Ophelia slipped off her chair and came around in front of Kain on all fours, her hips swinging and her tail swaying provocatively. "I've got something that will make you feel even better."

"Uh-huh."

She climbed onto his lap and purred as she tucked her soft furry head under his chin. "It involves you and a bed."

"Uhhhh-huh. Sounds good so far."

"Good. Come with me." She took his paws as she stood up and led him across the saloon to the door of the bedroom. There she spun him around and tossed him into the middle of the king sized bed.

"You get some sleep." She ordered from the doorway. "You'll need to be rested for tomorrow. I'll monitor the phones and babysit your programs overnight."

Kain looked disappointed, but a huge yawn and the call the down stuffed mattress won out. "Promise that you'll wake me if anything comes up?"

"I promise, but nothing will. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow." He mumbled.

She could hear him snoring before she could even close the door.

* * * * * * * *

Geno elected to stay in South America and deal with the three coati for several reasons, not the least of which was that she would be closer to home should an emergency arrive with their adopted son, Aldred. She and Marcel did not often go out of town at the same time but they had a friend in the embassy who would take the kit in when they did. The busty blonde cheetah also felt that she would blend in better in Colombia than with the orthodox Muslim community of Somalia, which was her other choice.

Kain had traced the three Colombians to a building in Barranquilla, a coastal city formerly under the control of the North Shore drug cartel and one famous for the corruption of the local officials. It was an easy city to hide out in, one with good connections to North America and the Caribbean and all the amenities of life. When Geno did a cruise by to evaluate the target she noticed two things: an unusually high number of armed creatures hanging about and an equally large number of alluring, scantily dressed females trying to coax them inside.

A cartel brothel, she concluded. Perfect.

Geno moved away from the target and called the number Kain had given her. "Hey sweet cheeks." She said when it went to voice mail. "Just calling to let you know that I have a way to get close to my targets." Should I tell him how? Geno frowned. She would prefer that her choice of cover did not get back to Marcel. "I'm going to get a job in the service industry, so don't worry, they won't see me coming." Although I might moan a bit, just for show, she added to herself as she disconnected.

Feeling fortunate that she had chosen to wear her typical outfit consisting of a revealing top, shorts that disappeared between the cheeks of her ass and a few leather straps as accent pieces, Geno strutted back to the brothel to apply for a job.

* * * * * * * *

Marcel had travelled to Somalia as quickly as he could, which was not quick at all due to the lack of tourism and commerce in the war torn nation. But with the help of Kain's computers and some assistance from a friend in the CIA he was able to make it to Hobyo, the ancient port city in the Gulmudug District where the jackals were said to be hiding out with their pirate clan.

He had to come up with a cover in hurry, one that would provide a measure of protection and pique the interest of the targets enough for him to get close to them. He debated posing as an arms dealer, but where would get the samples that one would be expected to carry? The same went for species traffickers and drug dealers. But fortune smiled on him during the flight into Mogadishu, in the form of a talkative dessert fox in the next seat.

The affable Egyptian had turned to him immediately after boarding and introduced himself. "I am Abdul Al Azab," he had said, "and I represent a humble group of metal working artisans based in Cairo. But you, Effendi, I see from your paws that you work with tools. You must be one of the oil rig workers, for what other work is there for a foreigner in these parts?"

Marcel had just smiled and nodded, although the only tools he used regularly were made by Gerber, Ka-Bar and Buck. But he let the dessert fox make his own assumptions.

"Do you speak much Arabic?" Al Azab had continued. "A bit, yes? You are not one of the faithful, I assume? No, I did not think so. Abdul Al Azab knows how to read people. But, I have some products that may interest one such as yourself."

Marcel told him that he was not interested in getting new tools or buying machine parts

"Oh no, Effendi, you mistake me." The dessert fox threw up its paws in mock embarrassment. "The metal objects we make, that the artisans make and I sell rather, are practical, yes, but of a more decorative nature. We make knives and swords. My name, Al Azab, in fact, means sharp sword. It was the name of a sword presented to the prophet, peace be upon him, by one of his followers before the war of Uhad. You would know this if you were one of the faithful. The sword is now kept in the famous Jamia Masjid Al Hussain bin Ali museum in Cairo. We make replicas of it at various levels of quality for the faithful as well as the tourist trade. Here, let me show you."

Al Azab pulled some catalogues out of his bag and proceeded to show Marcel his wares, because, he explained, since the attack on the American World Trade Centre even regional airlines in Africa made him lock up his samples in his checked baggage. "But if the Effendi is interested in taking home a unique souvenir of the region I could show him some fine samples after we clear customs and immigration in Mogadishu."

Marcel looked the dessert fox over. He was about the same height and weight as Marcel, although most of that was fat as opposed to hard muscle. But the fur on his face and paws was dark enough to pass for black. Marcel had told him that he was very interested.

When Marcel got off the train in Hobyo he was wearing the salespersons clothes and carrying a sample case full of his favourite tools, the kind that sliced and diced. Meanwhile Abdul Al Azab wandered the streets of Mogadishu wearing a hoodie and jeans that were too tight for him in a drug induced fog that would last for at least three days.

"Knives!" Marcel yelled in Arabic as he wandered the marketplace in the square in front of the train station. "Come and buy your knives, the finest in Somalia!"

* * * * * * * *

Dongo Fett found it easy to travel from Afghanistan to the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, even with his weapons, what with so many Russian "volunteers" crossing back and forth to participate in uprisings in other countries. He just had to fall in with a bunch of returning veterans, grunt a few words in Russian and pay for more than his share of the vodka.

Sochi was filled with early summer tourists, but there were plenty of rooms available in the smaller hotels away from the beach. The number of Russians that could afford a vacation under the current sanctions was much smaller than the crowds that had descended on the town during the Winter Olympics a few years back. He opened his duffle bag, took out his disassembled sniper rifle and put the parts in the pouches sewn into the lining of his trench coat before going out to survey the targets.

He found them on the beach in front of their hotel. Pretending to be a tourist from one of the countries that did not have sanctions against Mother Russia he engaged the hotel staff in conversation after tipping then outrageously. He discovered that the three bears lay on the beach together every day unless it rained, in which case they could be found on the covered deck by the pool. Dongo turned his back to both areas and looked up. The first thing that he saw was the Olympic bobsled run, abandoned at this time of year. It was just over half a mile away by his reckoning, and Dongo was a pretty good reckoner.

Dongo ate at the bear's hotel to see what their night time habits were. Then he went back to his hotel and reported in to Kain. He spent the next hour meticulously cleaning and testing his rifle before lying down. He fell asleep instantly, as most soldiers do when they know that they will need all their energy the next day

* * * * * * * *

Hu Lianmeng had to make his way to Yemen's former and perhaps future capital city, San'aa. That was difficult given the state of rebellion in the war torn nation. San'aa was held by the Houthi, a Shia Muslim group said to be backed by Iran which was under attack by a Saudi-led coalition of mainly Sunni nations. But only from the air, there was no ground invasion as yet.

Hu had infiltrated both Sunni and Shia extremist groups in places like the Philippines and Indonesia so he had no trouble fitting in as a fellow Sunni fighter when he arrived in the port city of Aden but then he had to make the risky journey to the Shia controlled area around San'aa and convince someone that he was really one of them. Fortunately the Houthi cause was attracting foreign fighters so it wasn't too difficult.

One in San'aa Hu knew that he would be under observation for a time before one of the local commanders invited him to join their ranks. But that was fine; he needed time to accomplish his mission and would be long gone before anyone tried to recruit him. Meanwhile, he could take advantage of the lack of government control to pick up a few things he would likely need.

His first stop was to an open air market where the vendors specialized in weapons and ammunition. There he found a stand featuring blocks of dough-like substance wrapped in oily brown paper. Pinching a bit off a sample block he rubbed it between his digits to see if it was old and crumbly and sniffed it to make sure it had not been cut with inert ingredients. He took two acceptable blocks from the pile on display and placed them on the counter in front of him. The merchant smiled, complimented him on his choice and added "You want detonators to go with that?"

* * * * * * * *

Runs With Stick squatted in the middle of the big country kitchen of a farmhouse that had been all but forgotten by its owner and sharpened her cleaver. It was midnight in Ottawa and she was working by the light of her battery operated lamp. Its light was not really sufficient for the big room, but she had performed this ritual often enough that she could do it in the dark.

When she was done sharpening she put the heavy metal chopper down on the floor and picked up the necklace made from the foot bones of her victims, all enemies of her people .... so far. Would she be adding the bones of someone who had never threatened the safety of her tribe to it tomorrow, or would she be speaking with Death herself, perhaps short one foot? She did not know at this point, not after the latest exchange on Bloedrye's phone.

With the necklace settled against her breast she opened her last bottle of indamo powder. Dipping a digit in she coloured her cheeks below each eye so that she would see the truth and not be afraid when she arrived in Deaths realm. Then she applied it to her lips so that she would speak the truth to Death when she saw him. Finally, although it was not part of the tradition, she added the last of the powder to her long ears so that she would hear the truth when Death passed his judgment on her, even though that was what she was dreading the most.

It was not one of Bloedrye's tirades that had put her in a gloomy mood; indeed, the Persian had been almost jocular on the phone. He had assured her that he was no longer upset with her and that his business with F.O.X. would be concluded sometime the next day, after which she could do with Silver and his kit as she wished. No, it was the exchange that followed, the one that began with a text message she had read as Bloedrye bragged. A text message from an unexpected source.

Ruth Pawstone/Runs With Stick. It began. We know who you are and what you have done. More importantly, we know what you have not done - you did not kill Cohen. Because of that there is still a chance for you to negotiate your way out of this.

We know that Bloedrye ordered the killing and that he had evidence planted to make it look like you killed her. We know that he is holding the threat of exposing you to the police over your head. We also know that you have taken steps to avoid Bloedrye and are not following his orders, yet you continue to hold the kit hostage.

Runs With Stick, you are a noble warrior of your people. We can refute Bloedrye's evidence, and direct the blame back to him. We can stop any police action that he initiates. We can see that you get out of the country safely. If there is anything else that Bloedrye has promised you or is threatening you with we can likely address that too. All we want is the kit back safe with his parents.

_ Ruth, I don't believe you are the type that would harm an innocent kit. Whatever you want in exchange for Leslie, just let me know and I'll do everything I can to arrange it. You know my number, please, contact me._

Kyroo

Runs With Stick had pulled over in shock and read the message several times before realizing that keeping the phone active would allow Bloedrye, and F.O.X., to trace her to her current location. She had hastily disassembled the phone and put it back in the copper box before cutting into the traffic and speeding away from the scene. She turned south and drove for half an hour and then parked, took out the phone and read the message again. Then she disabled the phone, drove west for forty minutes and read it again. She was only twenty minutes away from her current hideout at that point and she could not dare to turn it on there so she made sure that she had the message memorized before she put the phone away.

When she returned to the farmhouse she had fed Leslie in silence and then locked him away in the basement with only the battery powered nightlight for illumination. Since then she had been contemplating the meaning of the message and preparing for a confrontation with F.O.X. They may have been monitoring the phone signal from the air and followed her back here with a drone. If they could find her on Bloedrye's phone then anything was possible.

It was really two messages, she realized, an official one from F.O.X. and a personal one from Kyroo. The first indicated that the agency was aware of her background and the acts she had committed in the past, and were willing to overlook them. It was direct and pragmatic, offering her incentives to return the kit. But it made no promise that they would not come after her in the future. She had no idea what it was that Bloedrye was up to but if he was successful the Canadians could hardly overlook her role in it. But she could respect that, the hunter often became the hunted.

It was Kyroo's message that upset her the most, the presumption that the lad knew anything about her just because she had worked a little tension off with him. He was a means to an end, just like the kit was a means to an end, and she need not bother with either once she had achieved that end.

That's what she tried to tell herself, anyway.

After her dream the other night she was not so sure what she wanted anymore. If it was a true vision then she may have gone a long way down a false trail. But one thing she had learned growing up in the dessert, the quickest way to get lost was to try to backtrack when you didn't know where you were. Sometimes you just had to keep going in the same direction regardless where it was taking you. Maybe she did feel a little affection for Kyroo, and more than a little for Leslie, but she had to overcome those feelings if she was to savage anything from this fiasco.

The fox said that she could have anything she wanted, and she still wanted someone to pay for what happened to her father. But most of all, she wanted the truth. And the only way she could see to find the truth was to confront her enemy, break their spirit and perhaps join them on the road to Death.

Tomorrow would tell, she mused, and then realized that midnight had passed. Tomorrow was now today, the day of reckoning. She knew what she had to do.

Her face painted with indamo powder, her bone necklace in place and with her cleaver hanging from her right paw, the warrior Runs With Stick rose, took the lantern in her left paw and walked to the basement door. Unlocking it she swung it wide and then descended the stairs. The pool of light cast by the lantern followed her, gradually leaving the kitchen in darkness. The creaking of the stairs gave way to a kit's cries, which were suddenly cut off by the 'thunk' of a heavy blade slicing though something solid.

After a few moments of silence, the song of a lone cricket filled the emptiness.

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

Book VII - Rogue Sword

Kain Algorath © Marcus X Light

Ophelia Cassidy Sommer © Devil Kitty

Joel Grigori © Joel the Lemur

Geno © Coyotek

Dongo Fett © Dongo Fett

Zachary Ember © EmberWolf

Gray Muzzle © Gray Muzzle

Ruth Pawstone/Runs With Stick © Bunners