"Happy birthday
to me! Happy birthday to meeeeee!" Meow Monkey sang enthusiastically, if
off-key. The female rocked her chair back and forth on it's legs,
threatening to topple over at either end of her travel.
"Okay! Okay! I'll
buy you another Stali, just PLEEEZE stop that!" Red Lioness said with a wince.
"Skat! Vodka, quick!"
Silverkat, owner and operator of the pub where this
informal celebration was being carried out, hastened over with a fresh
bottle of clear liquor. She filled Red and Meow's glasses, and turned to
leave.
"Ahem?" Alan said, tapping his shot glass.
"Riiiight," Skat
said. "Let's see some ID, junior."
Alan sighed. "I've already shown you
the bloody thing three times," he complained, digging it out of his jeans
pocket.
"And I still think it's a fake. No way you're 32 and look 13,"
Skat said dourly. She took the card and squinted at it, cursing herself
for the third time for forgetting her glasses at home. Finally, she snorted,
dropped the card on the table and filled Alan's glass.
"If you
guys are taking rooms, let me know. It's late, and that storm outside is getting
worse by the minute," the tigress commented. As if to punctuate her
remark, a burst of thunder pealed outside with enough force to rattle
the celebrant's glasses on the table. Skat looked warily at the door,
then returned to the bar.
"You should feel ashamed of yourself, passing
off a fake ID like that," Red whispered to Alan. The thunderan
lioness was dressed in a camoflauge tank top, matching pants and combat
boots. Her flak jacket was draped over her chair, her service colt
tucked into a holster on her hip.
Alan smirked. A human teenager, he had
the whole smirking thing down pat, and rather enjoyed showing it off.
"It's not fake. See for yourself," he said, sliding the card to
Red.
The lioness took it and examined it. "According to this,
you're fifteen years old. Then where'd she get the 32?"
"Inches, luv.
Right there under hair and eye color," he smirked some more.
"Now I know
it's a forgery," Meow said soberly, which she herself was anything
but.
Thunder shook the club again, jostling them all. Outside, the rain
poured down in torrents, turning the soft dirt track into a muddy river
and swallowing the manicured lawn in a shallow lake that streched from the
doorway to the main road. The window itself was obscured by sheets of
water sluicing across it's surface, the drops hitting the glass with
violent force, as though the elemental fury outside were clawing at them,
straining to reach in an lay hold of those hiding within the
bar.
"Damn!" Alan complained. "We got a pikachu out there or
what?"
At that moment, the club door slammed open, making everyone
jump. Alan was poignantly reminded that he had his back to it,
particularly when the girls gaped in shock at whatever was behind him.. With
great care, he turned and looked over his shoulder.
Framed in
the doorway was a figure wrapped in a sodden cowl of coarse cloth. The
stranger's size was imposing, nearly seven feet tall, with broad
shoulders hinting at tremendous strength. But more imposing was the huge
battle-axe slung across his back. The weapon was notched from heavy
use, and not even the storm had succeeded in washing away all of the
blood stains the weapon had collected.
The hood turned left and right,
taking in the environment. Then the stranger stepped inside and closed the
door against the efforts of the wind to hold it open. He crossed the
floor in three long strides and arrived at the bar. Coins clattered on
the wooden countertop.
"Stout," the stranger said, in a suprisingly soft
voice. Silverkat swallowed, nodded, and set a pint of Murphy's on the
counter. Each swept up their half of the transaction, and the newcomer made his
way to a secluded table in the corner of the bar, near the
fireplace.
Alan looked at Red. She shrugged, watching the stranger
carefully. They all knew the stories; lawyers, Puritans and evil
Undictators abounded in this cock-eyed universe. This newcomer could be a threat
as easily as a friend.
Alan looked at Meow. She looked back, her gaze
unfocused, and belched loudly.
Alan looked back at the stranger. The new
arrival had removed his cloak and laid it across the table, out of the
way. He was a green-furred caninoid with a head like a german shepard,
a greenish-black mane that ran to mid-shoulder, and large golden eyes.
He wore a torn chain mail baldric over a black leather jerkin, and purple
leggings ended in black leather boots that rode to mid-calf. A weasel
skull hung from a cord around his neck like a primitive trophy.
A single strip of blue terry cloth, like something torn from a robe,
was tied around his upper left arm.
When he sat, the chair groaned
under the press of over three-hundred pounds of muscle and steel. The dog
stretched his legs out in front of him, took his cup in both hands and
began to nurse his drink slowly.
Alan got up.
"What are you
doing?!" Red hissed in alarm, but he waved her down. He crossed the floor and
stopped, grinning, in front of the caninoid.
"So this knight
walks into a bar, and behind him comes this huge german sheppard--"
The
caninoid shifted his gaze from his mug to Alan's eyes, and the brit stuttered to
a stop. The two locked stares for a long moment and Red was half out of
her chair before the caninoid looked away, returning his attention to
his mug.
Alan knew a staring contest when he was in it, but this
wasn't how it was supposed to go. When your opponent looked away first,
you were supposed to win. But Alan didn't feel victorious - he felt
dismissed.
Trying to regain the offensive, he said, "So, you ever play
Duel Monsters?"
The dog sipped his stout, then said softly, "After a
fashion."
About then, enough of Meow's brain cells rescusitated from
their vodka-induced shock to realize somebody else was in the bar. She
got up and wobbled towards the pair before Red could stop her. She lurched to a
halt, leaning hard on Alan's head, and said cheerfully, "It's my
birthday! Happy birthday to me!"
The dog looked at her, raised his cup in
salute and nodded. Meow straightend up, plastered a somber look on her
face, and raised her own hand in imitation of the gesture. The effort
proved too much, and she toppled backwards, crashing into Red, who had
slipped up behind the others. Both of them landed on the floor, Red cursing,
Meow laughing hysterically.
Alan grimaced. He was getting
irritated with this uppity mutt. He turned back to the dog and said, "This is
a writer's club, mate. Writers only. Do you write? Do you know HOW to
write?"
"You want a story?" the dog asked. He looked past Alan to the
bar, where Silverkat had her hands clasped. She seemed to be praying.
He looked at Red and Meow, still tangled on the floor in a heap.
The cur
looked back at Alan and Red. A hint of a smile touched his
lips.
"Alright. I'll give you a story."
********
The
land car was nothing special to look at, a typical family vehicle, typical
styling, painted a typical shade of beige. The driver, like the car,
was average, with dishwater blonde hair in a typical style. Average build,
average looks. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But a deeper look
inside the vehicle would reveal heavy armor plate welded to the exterior panels,
an advanced suspension, and an engine with more horses than the
Kentucky Derby. And a look inside the driver would reveal
the calculating, precise thought process and incredibly honed skills of
TCATGR's most lethal killer.
Axelle held the accellerator to the floor,
pouring on the speed. Her mind was still ringing from the phone call
that had snapped her awake just minutes earlier.
"Axe? It's
Zhy." His voice was strained, filled with pain and fear.
"What do you
want, Zhyan? Aren't you supposed to be in Madrid with Sparky?"
"We... we
need you at Cat's Lair," he said. Then he broke down, weeping openly into the
receiver.
Obviously, something was wrong, probably with Spark, and
obviously, she wasn't going to get any useful information out of the
distraught archangel.
"Who else is with you?" she demanded.
"Tygra
is here, he says..."
"Give the phone to him, Zhyan. It will be easier on
all of us if you aren't playing middle-man."
She waited a moment,
then the felinoid came on the line. "Axelle? Lion-o sends his regards," he
chuckled.
"I bet he does," she said. "What's happened?"
Axelle
abandoned her reverie as Cat's Lair came into view. She stomped the pedal again,
shot across the drawbridge and into the vehicle bay. She stopped the
car, grabbed the leather case on the seat beside her and ran from
the vehicle, through the Lair and back to the infirmary.
Zhyan
stood up as she came through the waiting room door. "Thank God!" he exclaimed.
"Please, you have to do something!"
"I'll do my best," she said,
patting him reassuringly on the shoulder. Then she pressed by him and into the
ward beyond.
The ward was a circular room, with four beds
arranged like spokes towards the center. On the bed nearest the
window, lay Spark. The azteca was pale, her breathing governed by a
ventilator in the corner of her mouth. IV tubes stuck out of the backs
of both her hands. An EKG machine by the bed emitted beeps at intervals too far
apart for comfort.
The sight of the latina shook her. When Tygra had
described his test results, she hadn't wanted to believe it :
a cocktail of deadly poisons coursing through the young woman's body,
responding to anti-toxin for just a few moments before some new, more
virulent substance appeared. Tygra had been dumbfounded, but to the professional
killer, it was entirely too familiar.
The Cat's Lair medical
officer came into the ward just as she finished drawing blood from the shunt in
Spark's neck.
"She's in a deep coma," he said. "She's healing as
fast as ever, but the poisons keep beating her down. I've
tried everything in my knowledge to get a diagnosis, and I thought,
given your specialty, that you might have some ideas."
Axelle did not
answer. She took an empty bottle from her kit and drained the blood sample into
it. Then she took a dropper bottle of clear solution from the same
place and drew some into the tube. She took the blood sample, held
it before her eyes, and began to count drops into the blood, pausing
after each.
"One," she said. "Two, three, fo- oh hell."
Tygra
stared in amazement as the blood in the tube began to smoke and bubble. In
seconds, it was reduced to a dry powder in the bottom of the
bottle.
"Pantoxin," she said quietly. Her face was inscrutable as ever,
but inside, she quailed. Her worst fear had
been realized.
"Should I get Zhyan?" Tygra asked.
"We'll
go out there," Axelle said, and led the tiger from the ward. He closed the
adjoining door and went and stood beside the young groom.
"Do
you understand how the HIV virus works?" Axelle asked.
"She doesn't have
bloody HIV!" Zhyan yelled, livid.
"No, of course not," Axelle said
neutrally. "But it's simpler to explain pantoxin if you understand the AIDS
virus, because they work in a similar way."
"Pantoxin is a
synthetic poison with a loose molecular base. When introduced to a living body,
it mutates periodically, changing it's formula and how it acts on the
victim. Sometimes it imitates other poisons, like strychnine or
arsenic. Sometimes, it's completely random."
Tygra nodded grimly. "No
anti-toxin will work, because it keeps changing form."
"But why would
someone use it on my wife?" Zhyan agonized.
"Pantoxin does one thing
very, very well," Axelle answered. "It kills regeneratives. Every time the
organism's immune system figures out how to counteract the poison and
begin repairing the damage, the toxin changes form and attacks from a
new direction. Eventually, the organism's body runs down too much to
recover."
"Is there a treatment?" Tygra asked.
"Normally, we would
destroy her body and Zhyan could write her back in, hale and whole. But thanks
to the crazy rules we operate under, the poison would be present in her
system upon reappearance." She paused and shook her head. "Whoever did
this to her knew exactly how to do it."
Zhyan was almost
hysterical.
"That's not what I'm fucking talking about!" he yelled. "I
mean, why would somebody want to hurt HER?! Everybody likes Spark!
WHY?!" The angel reeled, then fell onto the floor, sobbing
uncontrollably.
Axelle looked on while Tygra helped Zhyan into a chair.
The thundercat left, then returned a few moments later with an
injection, which he put into Zhyan's upper arm. After a few more minutes, the
angel began to calm down, although he continued to cry
quietly.
Tygra put the hypo in the sharps container and turned back to
Axelle. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked quietly.
"The poison can
be detected by it's core makeup, the mutagenic array," the assassin answered.
"There's never been a successful anti-toxin designed to attack it, but
perhaps--"
She was interrupted by a ring from the wall phone. Tygra held
up a finger and answered.
"Hello? Yes? I...see. Mm-hmm. We'll be waiting
for you."
He hung up. Axelle looked at him and raised an eyebrow in
query.
"That was Nakur Na Chanur," the felinoid answered. "He's bringing
in TygrisHawk. It seems she's been poisoned."
