"I had thought it might be advantageous to make use of my small form." said Luke as he skittered along a rafter. I came here to the administration building to do some snooping around. Something about Wolftongues bothered me, you know? I wanted to see what else I could find. I realized that Wolftongues' room-within-a-room created this little crawlspace up here, so I snuck in this way..."

"Watson, that's illegal!"

"Illegal for a man, maybe. Who's going to prosecute a rat?"

"Luke..."

"Listen! While I was crawling around, I discovered that there's a crawlspace in-between the inner wall and outer wall of Wolftongues' office. And there, I discovered something that just blew me away!"

"What?"

Luke stuck his head down into the darkness, then pulled it back and looked at his companions in dismay. "It's gone!" he exclaimed.

"Quiet!" whispered Kelly. He looked down through a lighting panel. "Someone's coming in below us!"

Craig and Luke peered down into the room, confident that the grid-like panel would be sufficient cover to hide behind. Into the office stepped a jackal walking on his hind legs. He was dressed in a suit, tailor made for his canine frame. His face had a severe predatory stare, and a smile which was positively frightening.

Meeting Craig's gaze, Luke pointed downward and mouthed "Wolftongues!" Craig was surprised to be able to read the word on Luke's rodentian lips, but then, he had already realized the same thing.

Several others followed the administrator. There was a hyena, a cheetah, a horse, a gorilla, and more than a few wolves. Luke and Craig exchanged a meaningful glance.

"All right, everyone listen!" demanded the jackal. "We're going to have to step up our time table. You-know-who has learned too much. He's been causing me no end of trouble, and he's called in federal level authorities."

"You want us to off the feds, boss?"

"If you should see them at any time during the night, you are ordered to destroy them. Of course, after tonight, that may cover quite an expanse of time."

The animals laughed menacingly.

"We can't do that!" cried the horse.

The room fell silent as everyone stopped and stared at the mare.

"I mean... How do we recognize them? We don't know what they've turned into."

"Is that your real motivation for your statement?" asked the beast in the tailored suit. "I'd hate to think that you were starting to develop a CONSCIENCE again! Not after the last time!"

"No, master!"

Wolftongues placed his paws on the horse's head and yanked it down to eye level. "Listen to me!" he shouted. "We are the Shima! We are strong! Nature created us to be the masters of the Earth, and all others to be food for us! If you are not with us one hundred percent, then you are PREY! Do you want to be prey Mary?"

"no."

"DO YOU?"

"NO!"

"Horses are normally prey animals, you know. Would you like to have the honor of offering up your life to your betters as we feast on the meat that was once your throat?"

"no, master!"

"Then I would loose that conscience if I were you. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Oh look, now I've upset you!" Wolftongues paced around the desk and sighed. "There isn't anything more to be gained from you being jittery. Go to the kitchens. Have something to calm your nerves and I'll be in to speak with you privately when we are done here."

"Yes, Sir."

As soon as the horse had left the building, Wolftongues clapped his paws together. A wolf and a hyena came instantly to his side.

"Einstein, Bose... Go and help yourselves to a snack as well. And make sure that the kitchens' power tools are all in working order."

The animals laughed like a psychopath about to strike.

"Make sure no one sees you. Now go!"

"We've got to save her!" whispered Craig as he scampered down a rafter.

"What?" Luke balked. "US against THEM? We'll be slaughtered!"

"What was that?" asked a voice below.

Luke was instantly behind Craig. "I'm with you."

* * *

A weasel, a rat and a possum stood in the doorway of the mess hall, watching a wolf and a hyena advancing on a frightened mare.

"It's party time!" said the wolf with a vicious grin.

The hyena, true to being a hyena, couldn't stop laughing as he contemplated the delightful carnage about to ensue.

Mary, the horse, was neighing and whinnying wildly, eyes round with fright and searching for a means of escape.

"How are we going to save this woman?" asked Kelly.

"By hoping that everything I've heard about weasels is true." Craig surged forward.

"What? Wait!"

Already, Craig was leaping for the hyena. The beast had barely enough time to register surprise before Craig was clinging to the fur on his neck. Something deep in Craig's weasel brain told him exactly were to strike, and strike he did. Like a flash of lightning, he sank his teeth into his enemy's neck. Blood covered him instantly. The hyena was dead before he hit the floor.

"You killed Bose!" rasped the wolf in horrified amazement. The look faded into one of burning rage as the wolf slowly but inexorably moved in on the weasel. "You are going to pay, little man. Nobody messes with the Fang and Claw Gang!"

Craig now found himself as helpless as Mary had been moments ago. The wolf would be prepared for a neck attack. He had no offensive options, and nowhere to run.

Suddenly, the wolf's jaw dropped as his eyes went wide. A moment later, he collapsed on the floor in utter agony. Where he had stood now appeared Luke, who was wiping off his tongue and saying "I cannot believe I actually bit him THERE! You owe me one, Wilder!"

"Gangway!" shouted Kelly. Craig managed to leap away just in time as a large, heavy set of shelves came crashing down on the whimpering wolf.

Panting and heaving, Craig looked down at himself and took in the mess he had become. "Water?" he said.

In response, Kelly turned on the sink tap.

Once he had washed himself, Craig looked over to Mary, the horse, who lay curled in a ball with her hooves over her head, despite Luke's best efforts to comfort her.

"Mary?" said Craig.

The mare did not respond.

"Mary, why were these two trying to kill you?"

Mary simply shook her mane.

"No? No what? No, you can't answer?"

"No, I can't!"

"Why not?"

"He'll kill me if I talk!"

"Who? Wolftongues?"

Mary shook her mane again. "That's not Henry!" she blurted.

"No? Who is it?"

"It is him, but it isn't... I can't tell you! He'll kill me!"

Craig placed his paws on Mary's head as he had seen the jackal do, being careful to be gentle and calm as he did so, but demanding Mary's attention, nonetheless. "Mary, You understand that these two were sent to kill you, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Whoever it is in there wants you dead. Telling us the truth may be your only hope for survival. Do you understand that?"

The horse hesitated.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes. I do."

"Who is the jackal?"

"It's Henry, only it isn't Henry."

"That makes sense." Luke commented.

"That's the reason Henry doesn't believe that people turn into animals at sunset." said Mary. "He doesn't remember it!"

"Wait a minute..." said Craig, sitting back on his haunches. "Are you telling me that Henry Wolftongues has a split personality?"

"Yes! Exactly! When he turns into a jackal, his mind changes too. The jackal calls himself Kachin."

"Tell us about Kachin."

"He's crazy... He thinks he's Genghis Kahn or something. Always talking about how the Shima are supposed to rule the world."

"I'm a little confused here." said Luke. "I thought that the Shima were wiped out long ago."

"Not all of them." Mary explained. "A few survived and had half-blood children. I'm part Shima myself. That's why Kachin brought me in on his plans, even though I'm a horse."

"Even though?"

"He surrounds himself with killers like... like Einstein and Bose. Kachin is the one who formed the Fang and Claw gang. They're his private army!"

"That's why they didn't turn on Henry Wolftongues when he confronted them today." Craig deduced. "It's because Henry IS Kachin, even if he doesn't know it!"

"That's right. I've wanted to tell him for so long, but if I did, Kachin would kill me."

"Mary, is Kachin responsible for the disappearance of those five children?"

"Yes. They got too close to certain areas he was operating in, and so he had the Fang and Claw boys kill them."

"So why were the bodies never found?"

Mary motioned with her nose to the two lifeless bodies. "Those two are why." she said. "They're Kachin's personal garbage disposal. Between the two of them, they can devour an entire human body and never leave any evidence that one existed."

Kelly now stepped forward to ask a question. "You said that these kids were killed because they found out about Kachin's operations. What exactly is he doing?"

"I don't know exactly, but I do know that it involves the volcano, Mount Christopher."

"I know something else." said Luke. "When I was snooping around his office, I found plans for a home made atom bomb."

"What?"

"They're actually unbelievably easy to build. The hard part is getting your hands on some heavy radioactives."

"The plutonium!" Craig exclaimed. "Somehow, he managed to get a canister of plutonium out of the nuclear facility and then make it look like someone screwed up their math so that it would seem that there wasn't one missing after all. That way, the investigation would be over with in a few days, he'd get away scot free and he'd have time to build his bomb."

"But what would he do with it?" Luke pondered.

"What would happen if he set off the bomb inside Mount Christopher?" asked Craig.

Kelly pondered. "At the power level he'd be capable of constructing the bomb with, not much. The walls of the crater would contain most of the blast, as well a lot of the radiation. It wouldn't erupt, since it's extinct. The most that would happen is..."

"The ash."

"Tons of ash and dust in the atmosphere. A localized nuclear winter."

"But worst of all," said Craig. It would be dark. The pollution would block the sun, making it permanent nighttime on the ground."

"We'd all be stuck as animals forever!" said Mary.

"The legend!" Luke exclaimed.

"Huh?"

"The Yondak were able to defeat the Shima by waiting until daylight and turning back into humans. If daylight never comes, Kachin has a massive tactical advantage which his ancestors didn't."

"Precisely." Craig concurred. "He plans to wipe out the Yondak and everyone else living on their land, with the exception of his own men."

"But what happens when outsiders come in to investigate the blast?" Luke pondered.

"Then they would fall under the land's spell and be instantly changed."

"Not only that..." said Mary. "The magic of the Shima grows stronger at night. The longer it stays night, the wider the range of the spell will become. Who knows how many could fall under it's influence?"

Kelly turned to face Craig and Luke. "Gentlemen, we heard Kachin say that he had to step up his plans. That means that we have to act quickly. For all we know, he could be setting off his bomb tonight."

Craig called Kelly and his partner over for a huddle. "Kelly, can you take Mary someplace where she'll be safe from the Kachin's men?"

"The hollowed oak tree north of town. It's a social gathering point. Lots of people. She'll be safe there."

"Take her there. Watson and I are going to go after Kachin. I'm going to try to find a local map. Watson, bring me the ornate little box we saw in Wolftongues' office."

"Why?"

"Because it may be the only hope we have of stopping Kachin."

* * *

"What I can't figure out," said Luke as he bounded along on all fours. "Is why, if Kachin wants to get rid of the Yondak, he doesn't just blow them all up with his atom bomb."

"Dif guy ivn't right in da head." replied Craig around the bundle which he held in his mouth. "He'v trying to fulfil da plan of hiv Shima anfeftors. He'v got to kill vem by turning vem all into animals." As soon as he finished speaking, Craig took an abrupt left turn.

"Where are you going?" Luke shouted. "The volcano is the other way!"

"I know."

"Aren't we going after the bomb?"

"Not the bomb. Kachin."

"You know where he is?"

"If you were about to detonate an atomic bomb, where would you be?"

"Underground?"

"Right."

"The caves!" said the rat in sudden realization.

The night was dark as pitch on the path toward the caves. Neither the weasel nor the rat could see much of anything. Craig didn't even see the huge, meaty simian hand that reached down out of the inky blackness to grab him by the head, nor did he see the rock that smashed into his cranium.

* * *

Craig wilder awoke with a splitting headache, naturally. This time, instead of a possum's face against a ceiling of wood, he was surprised to see a jackal's face against a ceiling of stone. "Welcome back to the living." said Kachin with an evil smile. "I congratulate you on getting this far. You're a very clever weasel, mister Wilder. Or is it Watson?"

"I know who you are." said Craig. I know what you're planning."

"Oh, do you now? Extra points if you do."

"Your Henry Wolftongues' alter-ego, and you're planning to take over Lunacorpora by creating a nuclear night."

"Take over Lunacorpora? What kind of small time loser do you take me for?"

"I know about your plan to create a permanent night and destroy the townspeople."

"Destroy them? Oh contraire. Take a look around you."

Craig slowly rolled over until he was standing on all fours. He twisted his throbbing head about and took in his environment. He was inside the caves, as he suspected. All around him were enormous cages. Huge, monstrous cages with heavy iron bars. "You plan to keep them as pets?"

"No, no. Livestock, my dear man. Don't you remember what my other self told you? We Shima are cannibals. We plan to take the townspeople along as we lengthen these tunnels to extend into nearby counties."

"Why?"

"I thought you were so smart. Try to keep up with me."

"You plan to create the nuclear night so that you can round up the townsfolk and bring them down here."

"Where night is truly permanent. No sun, no humanity."

"And you're going to use them as livestock as you tunnel into neighboring towns and do the same to them. You're forgetting one thing though."

"And what might that be?"

"You'll become human as soon as you leave the Yondak land. You'll be out of range of the spell."

Kachin threw back his head and laughed, barking and howling like a mad dog. "I AM the magic of the Shima! They cast the spell. I can re-cast it. I can re-cast it in every place my forces surface. The entire world will be mine before too long."

"So why are you telling me this?" Craig said at last.

"Tell me, my little weasel... how did it feel when you sank your teeth into Bose's neck?"

"What do you mean?"

"Honestly, Wilder... did you think that you weren't being watched? I had a camera on you the whole time. I saw the gleam in your eye when you severed his jugular. You're a man-killer, Wilder, with the immense brainpower to make you truly formidable. I want you on my team."

A flash of motion caught Craig's eye. Kachin saw his focus shift and whirled around. Like lightning, he pounced. Before Craig even realized what was happening, Kachin had a familiar rat pinned under his paw. The jackal turned to the weasel and grinned. "Your partner on the other hand is much more stealthy. He made it past my men in the upper levels while you got yourself brained at the first opportunity. Still, neither of you can hope to take on me, alone or together."

"I didn't come to take you on." said Luke. "I came to deliver a present!"

Whipping his tail, Luke threw a small object across the cavern into Craig's paws.

For only a moment, Kachin seemed to hesitate, then he started toward Craig. The weasel took a quick survey of his surroundings. Seeing that he was in one of the open cages, he grabbed the door and locked himself in. Kachin leapt at the door an instant too late. He stood there, staring in at the weasel with a small, ornamental box in his paws.

"What do you hope to do with that?" sneered the jackal. "It's just a music box." Behind him, Luke was scampering to safety. He didn't move. He only stared.

"When I saw this music box in your otherwise barren office, I realized that it must have immense sentimental value to Henry Wolftongues."

"Shut up."

"You're afraid of him, aren't you?"

"Shut UP!"

"Afraid of what would happen if he ever found out the truth."

"SHUT UP!"

Craig opened the music box. Kachin stood transfixed and terrified as a strange, tinny song filled the air. After a few seconds, he began to quietly sing along. "NO!" screamed the jackal. "You can't come out! I won't let you!" Then in a softer voice, "What's going on? Where am I?"

"Henry? Talk to me Henry."

"Wilder? Is that you? You're not human! OF COURSE HE'S NOT HUMAN, YOU IDIOT, AND NEITHER ARE YOU, NOW SHUT UP! What's going on? Why are strange words coming out of my mouth? It's MY MOUTH! MINE! Now SHUT UP!"

"Fight him! Fight him, Henry!"

"Shut up, weasel! What are you? What are you doing with my body? It's MY body! MINE! You're nothing but my miserable human side, and as of right now, you're never going to exist again!" Lurching to the far side of the cavern, Kachin reached a mechanical console and slammed his paw down on a huge, red button.

The earth shook. A terrible thunder rolled through the very rock and soil.

"No!" cried Watson. "He's set off the bomb!"

"Bomb?" whispered Henry.

"That's right." Kachin answered. "The bomb that will end all humanity in Lunacorpora! No more humans! Only predators and prey!"

"I cannot allow that." said Henry calmly. He took a ring of keys down from a hook on the wall and tossed them into Craig's cage. He then stepped quietly into a cage of his own. "What are you doing?" demanded his other self. "Give me back control! You can't do this!" Even as his mouth was protesting, Henry closed and locked the door.

The bad guy was captured. The good guys had won.

* * *

When Craig reached the surface immediately behind Luke, he knew right away that he'd been unconscious longer than he'd originally assumed. It was already morning. The second thing he noticed was that a heavy haze hung in the air. Kachin had succeeded in creating his cloud of perpetual night.

And yet, it wasn't quite night. Sunlight was still filtering through the particles of dust and ash. The area was caught in a perpetual twilight, now.

What's more, it was starting to show on Craig. His body was already growing. His arms were beginning to assume human proportions, as well as his legs and his torso. He was soon a human man with the head, tail and fur of a weasel, and there the transformation stopped.

Luke, likewise, had become a humanoid rat. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing until they cried.

* * *

"I'd give it six months at the very outside." said the meteorologist who at the moment was a humanoid squirrel. Montana winds and rains being what they are, this cloud will be gone before you know it."

"Though I imagine it'll be a source of intense curiosity for some time." Craig speculated.

"No kidding. I've had three official visitors from Billings come out here wanting to know why it got so dark all of the sudden. These people are now a cow, a spider monkey, and a porcupine."

"And what about the radiation?"

"Nothing to be concerned about except right here at home."

"And even that's not a problem." said Doctor Phillips. "Even with a partial transformation every twelve hours, the rejuvenation factor cleanses the radiation from our bodies each time we change."

A bloodcurdling scream silenced all who were assembled. It was a silence borne not of fear or surprise, but of knowing that in the very next room, a struggle was going on with which they could not help.

Interminable minutes later, a ferret-man in a priest's robes stepped out to meet the elders of the town. A thousand questions sprung up at once. The ferret held up his hands for silence and spoke. "In answer to the question about the precise nature of Kachin, whether he was a part of Henry or something else, I can only relate what it told me, namely that it claimed to be the totem spirit of the Shima, and the force responsible for the spell cast over our town. It had been trying desperately to carry out its mission of subjugating and/or destroying the Yondaks."

"Was that all it said?" asked a peacock in the back of the room.

"There was much more, but none of which was very useful, and none of which I dare repeat in polite company. At any rate, the being has, I believe, been successfully exorcized from the body of Henry Wolftongues. As soon as Doctor Phillips has seen Mr. Wolftongues and pronounced him sound, you may come and see him one at a time."

Craig Wilder pulled rank to be the first in line to see the camp administrator. The fire was gone from the jackal-man's eyes as he lay staring at the ceiling. He smiled when he saw Craig. The smile was no longer frightening nor fierce, but meek, and rather humble. "That Kachin sure played me for a sucker, didn't he?"

"It wasn't your fault."

"Wasn't it? It was my stupidity that let him control me. I wouldn't believe he existed because I thought the whole town was stupid and superstitious."

"Well, it's over, now."

Henry turned his gaze to the ceiling. "Am I going to jail?" he asked.

"What for?"

"What for? How about stealing plutonium? Murder?"

Craig looked up at the ceiling to try to find what Henry thought was so interesting as he spoke. "The plutonium case was closed years ago. As for murder... Yes it's tragic that five innocent children lost their lives. But do you think my superiors are going to believe that they were killed by were-creatures?"

"I wouldn't."

"As far as they'll ever know, their deaths were the result of wild animal attacks, which is in essence the truth. That doesn't mean, however, that the Fang and Claw Gang won't be placed into several juvenile rehabilitation facilities until they learn to be nicer doggies."

Henry chuckled sadly, then said "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"I feel silly asking you questions when I was at the center of everything... but... Did the werewolf cult ever fit into Kachin's plot?"

"Nope. In fact, it isn't a cult at all. The werewolf club is just a bunch of kids whose animal forms are small timid little animals. They pretend to be werewolves in order to balance the equation. Like the girl said, it's just a game."

Henry held up his furry hand, watching it slowly turn more paw-like. "It must be sunset." he observed.

"Yep." the fed agreed as he began to shrink to the proportions of an ordinary weasel.

"Boy, was Kachin mad when he found out that his cloud didn't work like he'd expected it to."

"Sure was."

Henry pondered for a moment. "By the way," he said. "How did you know that hearing the song from that music box would bring me around?"

"I didn't. I simply took a gamble that there was more to Henry Wolftongues than the hard exterior you projected."

"You were right. The song that the music box played... it was one my mother used to sing to me as a boy. I guess I'm still a little boy deep down."

"A little boy who conquered a monster."

"I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you, Craig Wilder."

Craig smiled and stroked the jackal's fur with his paw. "I'd better get going. Tons of paperwork to do."

"Goodbye. And thanks again."

* * *

"Grab me a root beer!" Luke called to his partner as he wiped down the windshield of the car.

"Two root beers and the gas on pump seven." said Craig to the gas station attendant as he handed over his credit card.

"Strange weather we're having these days, eh?" said the cashier while he ran the credit card through the striper.

"Sure is." Craig replied simply.

"I hear this here smog is from some weird happening or other up toward Lunacorpora. You heading toward Lunacorpora?"

"Just been there, actually."

"I wouldn't go there. I hear the place is hexed."

"Oh, it is. It's not a bad hex, though. I rather enjoyed it. Think I might retire there before too long."

"You mean to live?"

Craig signed his receipt and took his card. "Yeah." he said simply. He then walked out the door, hopped in the car, and headed for home.

The attendant stared after him with a predator's gaze and an evil smile. "Don't stay away too long, agent Wilder. I'll be waiting for you."

Epilogue

The remainder of Craig Wilder's career as a federal agent was very short, and full of accusations that the strain of the job had gotten to his mind. His colleagues first began to wonder when he started keeping a bowl of ferret chow on his desk. Their concern grew when he took to wearing a fur coat to and from work, even in the middle of August. When his supervisor caught his gazing lustfully into an issue of "varmint masters", he was quietly removed from the department. Craig took all of this without complaint, much to the bewilderment of all. He simply called up his old partner, who had moved to Montana with his wife and son a year ago, and asked if they had any spare room in their treehouse.

A few curious individuals happened to notice that shortly after Craig's departure, a private investigator going by the name of "Weasel Wilder" opened up shop in the remote Montana town of Lunacorpora.

And that was when things got interesting.

But that's another story.