Ferret Power!

 
Athalon:
 
 
The deliciously hot and soothing waves of the spa lapped sensuously at 
Megan's breasts, teasing her shy nipples like impertinent tongues.   Loose 
and languorous, her full, mature bosoms floated and bobbed in the dark, 
roiling foam of the jets, gentle curves and enticing re-entrants appearing 
and reappearing, borne on the gentle caress of the current.  Her long and 
graceful legs - plump beckoning thighs, calves shaven smooth only that 
morning - passed seductively in and out of view.  They bobbed, tanned to 
perfection, in the soft and luxurious surf, obscured and revealed again and 
again by the wafting, capricious mist, the spa-steam fragrant with a sweet, 
though metallic scent.  Her nails were flawless, her beautiful hands wafted 
unwrinkled by experience or the smoking water.
 
Meg's eyes were closed, her lashes moist, and the tensions of her brilliant 
career and fast-paced modern lifestyle seem to drain from her veins, 
dissolving in liquid, thermal oblivion.  Her head lolled softly against an 
expensive foam pillow, and her voluminous blonde hair spilled in a warm 
golden cascade over the edge of the tub.
 
The late morning sun streamed placidly through the skylights of the poolhouse,
drawing scent and life from the flowers and ferns placed artfully about, or 
hanging from the rough, unfinished beam ceiling.  It was the only light in 
the room, and even at mid-day, cunningly subdued.  The door was locked, and 
her privacy assured.  It was quiet, too.  Only the steady masculine throb of 
the plumbing of the spa pump broke the garden stillness.
 
Just why it was called a poolhouse, Meg had always wondered.  It held 
dressing rooms, a wet bar, twin tanning and massage tables, and of course the 
large spa vessel - which could easily have accommodated a caucus.  But the 
name had somehow stuck, when she and her husband had the addition built.  
This last remodeling placed their sprawling, yet tasteful, elegant and 
child-free suburban home firmly in the competition with any of the neighbors' 
in their exclusive, upwardly-mobile residential community.
 
Meg always cherished a morning saved for herself.  Relaxing in the soothing, 
enveloping, embryonic embrace of the unseen currents which flowed under and 
over and through her soul was her idea of very heaven.  She moved not at all.
 
Rob used his key to let himself into the poolhouse that evening.  He found 
the rest of his wife - her dismembered torso - on the floor of the shower 
stall, with huge fans of blood spread on the walls above like gruesome wings. 
 He literally screamed until the police arrived.
 
Almost an hour later, Detective Lieutenant Phillip "Johnny" Johnson switched 
off the spa motor.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
"Cause of death... missing organs?" The detective thumbed through the autopsy 
report. "But nothing about the possible murder weapon... damn it, I told 
Jerkinsky to stop cutting corners on this sort of case."
 
Detective Johnson stomped back down to the autopsy chamber, recoiling from 
the stench of death. "Hey! Wiseguy! I'm here about the Kitterick case. Did 
you even bothre to do a..." he stopped, sensing an unusual silence. 
"Kachinsky?"
 
He made his way past the cluttered shelves filled with jars of chemicals and 
unfamiliar equipment, around the corner to the main section of the lab. 
Megan's body lay reassembled (more or less) on the table, but there was no 
sign of Kachinsky. Except...
 
He saw a slowly spreading pool of blood from around the table, and stepped to 
get a better look. There was Kachinsky, dismembered and disemboweled, just 
like Megan Kitterick. He drew his gun and stepped back against the wall, 
looking for any sign of movement in the shadows.
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
The room was quite all around.,.. the soft lapping of blood the only sound in 
the room worth hearing. He looked to the left and then the right... then he 
went over and leaned near Dr Kachinsky and touched his neck... looking for a 
pulse.... There was none and the body was still very warm.
 
*thump* He looks up fast and rasies his gun. There was nothing but the air 
vent laying on the floor... a bloody trail led up the wall. "Oh shit." He 
leaps for the phone and calls up dispact. "Hello.... get security down here. 
WE have a killer loose in the vent system!"
 
 
Dogfire:
 
 
Odd and wierd to see police tape roped inside the coroner's office and exam 
room. Stunned workers scrubbed and collected samples while another shined a 
light up the opened ventilation hood.  Johnson listened to the belt radio 
crackling, "Found the roof vent opened, who ever did it, was pretty skinny."
 
Johnson looked at the blood trail, it slid up the wall, ropelike but then 
turned helical and blobby. He looked at Linday, shining a flashlight up the 
vent shaft, "Anything?"
 
"I see prints."
 
"Made by the blood, " She said clincally. She had been the calmest of the 
staff when they heard their boss had been left on the floor, evescurated. She 
had told the staff to buck up and start doing their jobs. It had the effect. "
 
Linday looked at Johnson, face puzzled, "It's rat footprints, I can even see 
the trail left by a tail.."
 
"Rats?" Johnson stared at her, "No, that cant' be. 
 
"Well unless someone else walked out the dooor, all the blood's been confined 
to this room and leads up the shaft.."
 
Johnson's belt radio crackles, "Hey Lietenant, we got prints made from the 
blood trail on the roof vent hatch."
 
Johnson hit the mic, "Animal?"  
 
Johnson looked into the vent shaft, Hardly 8 by 8 inches in wide, the smears 
of whoever left ratlike prints trailing off into the gloom."
 
Johnson spoke into the mic, "How big?"
 
The radio voice crackled, "YOu won't believe this, but it's a rat print. 
And...I've seen New York rats, but this print is about the size of my hand."
 
Johnson's jaw dropped, agape, how could a rat that huge fit up a shaft?
 
 
Athalon:
 
 
A rat, Johnson thought.  Yeah... No goddamned rat killed Kachinsky.  This is 
just a long piss up a short rope.  
 
He lit a cigarrette.  Trying to quit for two years.  Ever since his wife 
left.  Like today it'd make any difference.  
 
Linday bent over, assiduously gathering samples, evidence.  DNA, sweat, any 
of the thousand sorts of spoo a body might leave behind.  Her white lab coat 
had rucked up on her back, and he took a moment to admire her own behind.  
Yeah... two years is a long time, he thought.
 
It was windy outside.  A Chicago rain, dark and close as the ceiling of sky 
brooded over all.  He'd rather be eating lunch, a greasy kielbasa gobbled 
standing at the dego's cart around the corner.  Instead, he was up on the 
roof of the police station, watching the last faint traces of gore smear and 
puddle and wash away onto the sidewalk below.
 
A rat...  Yeah.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
All the results came in inconclusive. As far as anyone could tell, Kachinsky 
and Kitterick had been gnawed to death by giant rats. Case closed. But 
Johnson didn't buy it.
 
"You've got to be out of your mind," he told Linday. "That wasn't no rat. I 
don't know who did it or how they got in the station, but there's a human 
mind behind this. Whatever the captain says."
 
"Maybe there is a human mind," she replied, "but the body is a rat, and I 
think I know how to track him down. I couldn't present this officially, it 
was too wierd, but there were some... irregularities in the blood."
 
"What kind of 'irregularities'?"
 
Linday paused, shifting a knapsack onto her back, like a giant purse. "It was 
radioactive. *Highly*. Radioactive." She adjusted the hard hat, smoothed out 
the wrinkles on the rain slicker, and picked up the maglight in one hand and 
a geiger counter in the other. "And if I get close enough, I can track it."
 
Johnson puffed his cigarette. "I can't let you go down there alone."
 
"Yeah, that's what I was counting on."
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
The counter gave off a serious of softly chirps as they slowly made there way 
through the wild part of the park together. "It came this way Johnny. It 
can't have gone any other way. This little trail is just to fresh."
 
Jonney followed and frowns... looking at the counther over her shoulder and 
shake shis head. Not really understaning that kind of technology. He just 
followed her into the dark. Tell they arrived at a dark and forbidding cave 
mixed in amoung dense bushes in the park.
 
"You know... I have never seen anything like that in the guild book before." 
Said Jonney.
 
He gapped as she headed right into the dark cave... he could only but follow. 
Now they started to come accross trails in the made by a very large rat. The 
trail of its tail leaving a weving pattern. It was joinned by six others as 
they went deeper into the dark dank place.
 
 
Dogfire:

 
Linday and Johnson paused, studying the trails, suddenly she gasped as 
something griped her wrist...
 
She looked down and glared at Johnson, "Let me go Lietentant."

Johnson gruffed, "Before we plunge on into the great dark, I want some 
answers."
 
Linday looked at Johnson, "Answers?"
 
Johnson snorted, "That meeting between you, the Captain and the visting 
commitee from City Hall, plus a rep from ComFed Corp...I'm not as dump as I 
look Linday."I can read and access records from the receptionist. 
 
Linday shrugged, "Okay, you win. I had a talk, it was all about Damage 
control. ComFed Corp and the captain and the Mayor's rep hammering out what 
to do to keep a lid on it."
 
"A lid on what?"
 
Linday's lips pressed into a thin line. "Damn corporations, corpses and mafia 
hoods don't bother me, but corporate lawyers and disclosure agreements scare 
the hell out of me."  She looked at Johnson, figure almost framed by the 
drips from the tunnel ceiling. "I used to work for them on a project. Human, 
mouse DNA combos, just to grow cell cultures for gene studies."
 
"They're just cells cultures in a dish, till one day someone accidently zaped 
it with a radiation source and those cell cultures started to form...embryos. 
I was present when they brought them to term...but I resigned shortly 
afterwards."
 
Johnson snorted, "Picked up a shred of ehtics."
 
Linday shook her head, "No I had a run in with the CFO of the company over 
Lab finances. You should know him, Hank Stram and his chopped up corpse of a 
wife Megan." She barely gave notice to Johnson's astonished look, "Yep they 
are'nt very bright, just were looking for a man and woman to kill.  Megan 
they got."
 
Linday swayed looking almost giddy, "But they go into torpor and they can 
hide, shrink..hide in bloody recesses. I'd forgotten they hibernate by day. 
And Kachansky happened to be the first to the table..."
 
Sputtering clicks erupted from the Geiger counter. Johnson turned around, out 
of the darkness scraping sounds echoed around the pair, "And now.." Linday 
murmored, "More damage control to control..."
 
 
Athalon:
 
 
The bar was familiar, the darkness welcome.  Two inches of ash clung from the 
tip of his latest butt.  At which he'd congratulated himself:  he wasn't 
shaking nearly so bad as when they'd first come in here.
 
The bourbon tasted like water to Johnny.  His eyes were perfectly dry as he 
gulped his seventh, Linday matching him shot for shot.  Their glasses rapped 
the counter simultaneously, and he caught a glimpse of her form the corner of 
his eye.  Which, he realized, he'd been avoiding.

Her fingers gripped the round, padded edge of the bar, nails deeply indenting 
the faux-naugahyde.  Her face was equally taut, fear pulling the tiny lines 
around her eyes into smoothness.  Vomit, dried now and odorless, flecked the 
front of her blouse.  She swallowed hard, tears leaking out between her 
lashes.
 
His own shirt was only now drying.  His ego had taken comfort that she'd lost 
it first, kneeling over the...
 
His gorge rose again, and he took tight rein.  It wouldn't be macho to puke 
again.
 
Damnit, some things you just weren't meant to see.
 
Johnson belted down the double scotch in front of him.  He couldn't remember 
ordering it.  Didn't like scotch, anyway.  He felt an erection begin: scotch 
always made him horny.
 
Linday was hanging onto the bar beside him, courageously refusing to mention 
it, what they'd found.  Johnson admired her.  Her strength.  Hell, most 
broads would've gone to pieces by now.  He was _still_ about to.  And her ass 
still looked so...
 
When the bartender dropped the bottle, it exploded like a bomb. 
 
"Fuck!", she screamed.  She was trembling, now, despite her efforts.  "Yes, 
it was one of ours.  We made them... we made them to..."
 
Linday rounded on Johnny.  "I watched it die, too.  I HEARD it scream!!  Do 
you think I didn't..."
 
His hand fell short of her shoulder as she pulled away.  Her hair was soft, 
though.  "I didn't say that..."
 
"But I don't know what the hell it was that tore it apart!  That WASN'T one 
of ours!"  She was weeping, now, shaking and making awful keening noises.
 
Johnny fumbled for another cigarette.  Yeah, they'd watched it die... what 
was left of it.  A monster, by all counts.  Yet it wailed and cried and 
begged... BEGGED - Oh Dear Jesus... in English.  The disgusting dying thing 
spoke!
 
He fought for control.  Death couldn't be that bad.  he'd been a cop for 
longer than... than... But it was the faces he remembered, faces of the 
victims.  Tiny tots with their brains bashed out by their crack-smoking 
mothers.  Teens taking the 5-bullet tour of the morgue.  Naked old ladies 
found bloated and swollen, dead for days in the bathtub of their cold-water 
flat.  Death shouldn't affect him this way...
 
But it wasn't a monster.  The beast looked intelligent.  Looked... Johnny's 
mind reeled.  Behind his eyes, he watched a cute and harmless, soft and furry 
stuffed animal torn to shreds.
 
Torn to shreds by what?  What could tear a man-sized wild animal, and 
genetically-engineered rat, to bits suitable for frying?  It was only three 
seconds between the time they'd first caught a glimpse of the rat-beast, and 
the screaming from inside the cave started.  In three seconds, someone or 
something had shredded, crushed and ground it to morsels.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
Suddenly, Johnny and Linday jerked at the sound of a her cell-phone ringing. 
Johnny nodded, and she answered it. "What? How did you... yes, but... you 
don't understand. There was something *else* there... What? No, I'm alone. I 
didn't have a chance to..." She turned to Johnny. "It was the captain, but he 
just hung up."
 
Johnny dropped his cigarette and leaped on Linday, knocking her to the floor. 
"Ah, shit!" she screamed, "What did you do that for?"
 
He shushed her and motioned her under a nearby table, but nothing happened. 
"Huh. I must be watching too many movies."
 
"I thought it was suspicious too, but I don't think they're going to just 
come in here and shoot up the place."
 
"Still," Johnny said, "Something's wrong. Where is everyone? We're the only 
ones in here now..."
 
The two of them kept quiet for a few seconds. Johnny's heart stilled as he 
heard soft squelching noises coming from behind the bar.
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
Linday pushes at Johnny as he listened to the sounds. "Nothing is going to 
happen Johnney and move over a little. Your pokeing me with something down 
there."
 
Johnney really blushed and moved to the side.... damn scotch always did that 
to him. He mummbled something about being sorry and went back to listening. 
"Nothing is happeneing Linday... I am sory.
 
Linday nodded and picked herself off of the floor.... she was brushing her 
cloths off as John slowly got to his feet when her side exploded in a spray 
of blood and parts of intestens.... she fell back to the floor a moment 
later. 
 
"Linday!" His gun was out a momment later... but the shoot had been quiet. 
Some sniper had taken her out at long range. He looked around and then shoot 
the lights out.
 
Linday was still awake but the look on her face said that she was well into 
shock. He looked up and shot the lights out with his own pistal. "God damn 
it. What have I gotten myself into."
 
------------------------------------
 
Hours later.
 
Linday was only half awake in the bed as Jonney looked down on her. He wasn't 
sure if she was fully awake. "I will try and find out what went on here 
Linday. I will be back."
 
 
Dogfire:
 
 
Johnson cautiously glanced out the apartment window, he looked at Macy, one 
of the original city employees, even knew Daley, old man Daley by name. 
"Thanks for letting me bring her to your place Macy."
 
"No Prob Johnson, yer dad was bit like you, just as hasty. Anyone out dere?"
 
Johnson shook his head, "No." Odder still, he could see the lights to the 
bar, a block and half away in the drizzle, but no police lights or even an 
unmarked car.
 
He heard Macy chortle, "Ya lucky Johnson, dis new generation into fancy high 
tech rifles and survellance. In old day, dey would have gotten one of your 
buddies to led ya into an alley on a call and Iced ya there with a planted 
knife."
 
"Macy, I need to think, can the history lesson."
 
He turned to Linday, lying, chest and lower abodment patched, "Thanks for 
helping me bandage her."
 
Macy grunted, "She'll need to go to the hospital."
 
"I'll be back Macy in two hours, call this number, he handed Macy a card. The 
old man's dark eyebrows lifted high and his aged dark skin almost turned 
white. "Wat da hell do ya want to be calling dis dude!"
 
"Trust me Macy, you have to fight fire with fire." 
 
"Ya, " Macy muttered, "But this bunch...they was left alone for a reason, as 
long as they go der 'tribute'."
 
Johnson muttered, "I always figured they were just stories till you and Dad 
took me on a call to see them.."
 
"Okay Johnson, dey don't get much, but they'll want something in return."
 
"I know, Macy, just call them and use the protocol. By the station, under the 
tunnels."
 
He needed a cigarette, had ran out this afternoon, but canned it, calm, keep 
your fear and body odor mellowed out. Cigararette smoke confuses them and 
they could..."
 
A shoe scraped against the lit tunnel, old rails, the remains of central 
Chicagos tram system for city workers. So well sealed, few rats even lived 
here. Perfect for meetings. 
 
Johnson turned, one man looked like one of Gambino's men, except he was 
dressed too well. Heavy, the man next to him looked like a Lawyer, Comfed. 
And the third, Pearson, the city's council's mole in the police force. 
 
Pearson growled, "Don't waste my time Johnson, you said you can give us what 
your Linday took from my collegue." He nodded to the ComFed man.
 
Johnson looked at them, moles and plants, every last one of them. Worse than 
stinken rats and working for each other. Contact people, without them, few 
hear about it.
"I do."
 
The heavy looked hard, no doubt carrying what was needed to ice Johnson. 
"Where is it. The data tapes."
 
Was'nt the heavy, he was into just body disposal, but the ComFed man, lent 
the high tech stuff and Pearson to guide the sweeping of things under the 
station of the Rug. "You
 
"You're a right triple threat to deal with. Here it tis, he tossed a black 
box, shaped like a VCR tape on the floor in front of them.
 
"But I forgot, you're invited to Dinner..."
 
The stunned trio looked as Johnson, hoping his voice could sing the tones 
Macy taught him, started to sing in an eerie howling voice.
 
Howls answered back, booming in the tunnels, and red eyed forms with claws 
and triangular ears, man high barreled out from the darkened side tunnels and 
converged on the gathering...
 
 
Athalon:
 
 
Linday and her set weren't the first.  Chicago, city of a thousand stories, 
had its history, too.  And beneath the sleeping streets, secrets lurked.  
Secrets no man dared face.  Secrets no one could control.
 
Macy, and Daley, and Johnny's own dad (who was a cop in his day) knew about 
it.  Before the advent of genetics, before cows were cloned and alligator 
embryos made to grow wings, in the city known for the worst crime in the 
world, an experiment had taken place.
 
When Model A's and horse-drawns crowded the streets; when flappers danced the 
Charleston, and the Tommy gun in the violin case was as common a sight as the 
crack dealer in the school yard, the police of Chicago had searched for a 
weapon.
 
Johnny and three of the lowest scums on the force stood before that weapon, 
now.  Men of the Chicago Police Force, crossbred with wolves.  Police dogs, 
in the best and worse sense. 
 
The alpha beast moved forward.  "Have you what we agreed upon, Master 
Johnson?" it crooned in a raspy, canid voice.
 
"Yes, Tiberius," Johnny replied.  "Behind that column there, against the 
wall.  Seven-hundred fifty kilos.  All there."  he held his voice firm as 
best he could, near on the brink  of trembling himself.
 
"Of course," the beast known as 'Mr. T.' muttered.  "Why should I question?  
It hasn't been like we've been mistreated..." he ininuated, irony sneaking 
into his odd voice.  "Not like we haven't been here, waiting.  Waiting upon 
you up top for a cure.  Slinking around in the dark like... wolves."  Irony 
had turned to anger, turned to rage.  "No reason at all..."
 
Tiberius was on Johnny before he could pull his piece.  The fangs latched 
round his throat, seeking purchase for strangle.  At the same moment, the 
pack awaiting in the shadows struck.  The muscleman had time to fire twice at 
the ceiling, before he was disembowelled.  His cronies, softened by years of 
desk jobs and ease fared no better.  Johnny listened to them scream and die, 
and his hands shredded themselves between the teeth of the wolf, as he fought 
to save his own throat from being savaged.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
Gradually, though, the screams and growls took on a different tone. Just as 
Tiberius's teeth and claws shredded his arm enough to make if flop uselessly 
to his side, exposing his throat, the wolf-man's weight and slavering maw 
lifted away from him, a surprised look on his face.
 
Johnny sat there, unable to move, as the THING hovered over him, the hapless 
wolf held immobile in its jaws. Bits and pieces of the moles and the other 
wolves were strewn behind it, forgotten as it worked on its latest morsel. As 
easily as a cruel child pulling the wings off flies, it's misshapen limbs 
plucked off the wolfman's arms and legs, dropping them forgotten to the 
ground. Tiberius howled in agony as the cruel claws turned next to his head. 
A pop! and a shower of gore, and it too joined the litter of discarded pieces.
 
Then it noticed him. It almost casually tore out and devoured Tiberius' 
intestines in a single bite as it approached, tossing the empty carcass 
aside. Johnny fumbled for his revolver with his good hand, but his nerveless 
grip was too shaky to even remove it from its holster as the monster hovered 
over him, dripping blood and other juices onto his face as its fetid breath 
washed over him.
 
It leaned down, and the horrible muzzle actually TOUCHED him, leaving a smear 
of gore... it snuffled... then turned and shuffled off down the tunnel, 
leaving him alive.
 
And as Johnny tried to decide whether to die from shock or relief, he heard a 
faint voice whimper, from the pile of body parts and rent flesh that had been 
the tussle between wolves and men, 'mygodmygodmygod...'.
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
Johnny moved over to the pile of bodys with his one useless arm hanging at 
his side and looked down. One of the wolfmen was playing there holding their 
own guts in with bloody paws. Someone the other creature haddn't ripped the 
poor creature limb from limb. He sat down by the former cop and touched him. 
"It is time to take you home. Don't worry. I will take care of you."
 
Johnny had to call in every favor he ever had but it worked as Dr. Tibs came 
out of the backroom taking off a set of bloody gloved. "This just isn't the 
ideal place to take care of the seriously wounded John. I think that they 
will both live though. It will be a close thing for that wolf creature. I 
have never worked on anything like it before."
 
Phillip nodded and looks at his own torn arm. "That is alright Dr. Tibs. 
Right now it would hurt them more to be in a better room then just being 
here. Do you know when Linday will wake up? I have a few questions for her 
about just what kind of experiments they have really been doing."
 
"What is it that you saw down there Phillip?"
 
John frowned. "I don't know... it.... kind of looked like a giant ferret. 
Though it didn't seem as smart as the rats or the wolves. I don't know what 
to make of it but I think that I have an idea of what to do about it. It is 
time that I found out what is really going on.
 
"Good luck friend. I will take care of these two."
 
John nodded and left. Heading for the Feds lab and the files he needed.
 
 
Athalon:
 
 
Johnny returned to the Kitterick residence the next day.  The house was 
quiet, with no one home, and he had to climb the redwood fence to get near 
the poolhouse when Megan had taken her last dip.  And since no deadbolt can 
keep out a determined policeman...
 
The room was much the same as it had been during the investigation.  Johhny 
was careful no go nowhere near the shower, with its peacock-tails of rusty 
gore now dried to a disgusting matte.  What brought him here was at the other 
end of the room.  
 
He searched carefully, balancing a magnifying glass, his maglite, and a white 
index card between two hands.  The search was more fruitful than the police 
lab's investigation, in large part because he knew what he was searching for. 
 When he found it, a few minutes work with a screwdriver laid open the base 
of the spa, its plumbing exposed like the guts of a plastic beast.  And long 
the crack where the service panelpanel swung free, he found clumps of grey 
hair.  Wolfhair.
 
He knew he'd recognized her.  Years of good living on her part had almost 
erased the familiarity of her face.  Years of drinking, dulled his memory.  
But Megan Kitterick had once been Megan Margaret Kowalski, the mousy fat girl 
who lived in the walk-up above his own family's apartment.  And her father 
had been a cop, too.
 
Evidently, someone else had been holding commerce with the hairy man-beasts 
which dwelt in the bowels of the city.  The maglite cut the darkness behind 
the spa's plumbing weakly.  If he crawled back there, Johnny was sure, he'd 
find them.  The weres.  If there were any left. 
 
And the ferret.
 
 
Terrycloth:
 
 
But there was only one way to be sure. It was a tight squeeze, but he made 
it, no thanks to the thick bandages on his arm. Trying to be quiet, he made 
his way down the service tunnel, his footsteps and gasping breath echoing in 
his ears.
 
As he made his way down, the stench of rotting flesh from the poolhouse was 
overwhelmed by a strong musky odor. Crudely dug side chambers held pitiful 
nests and the personal possessions of the hapless werewolves. This wasn't 
just someplace they came to trade... they'd been living here, probably for 
years.
 
And there were smaller chambers, less well furnished, if that was even 
possible. The rats lived here too? But he pushed on.
 
Finally, the tunnel opened into a circular chamber, ringed by pipes and 
conduits. In the center was a vertical pipe opening, probably leading down to 
the tunnels. And on the walls... in spray paint, but almost cave-painting 
style, stylized figures of rats and wolves danced, and hunted, and fought, 
and... worshipped. Worshipped the ferret.
 
Bones littered the floor. From their size, and the shape of the skulls, they 
were mostly rats... and had been dismembered before death. Johnny leaned down 
and picked up a skull, staring into its empty eye-sockets... then grunted and 
tossed it into the pipe.
  
It clattered as it went down, then stopped. There was an angry squeak, and 
rustling noise. Johnny backed up against the wall as something came up from 
below...
 
 
And this time, as the ferret's fearsome head popped out of the pipe, he had 
his revolver ready.
 
Linday looked up as Detective Johnson walked into the room where she lay, 
recovering, with a haunted look on his face, the stench of blood and death 
following him in a cloud. He stared her in the eye, and said, "It's over."
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
Later....
 
Linday socked in the tub and enjoyed the steam drifting around her body as he 
brests floated just below the waterline. She her the door open and close as 
someone came into the appartment. "Welcome home honny!" There was an 
accnologing grunt from the other room and Linday relaxed again. The scares 
along her side and belly left a horrible patter over here but her husband 
didn't care. The ones on his arm matched up nicely.
 
Cold hands slipped around from behind her and cupped her brests while cold 
fingers played with her nipples. She eeekkss and battered at them. "John! 
Your hands are cold!"
 
John laughed. "I can't think of any better way to warm them up then with you."
 
Linday laughed and kissed John... "Get in here you!" A moment latter they 
were both in the tub and snuggling with a few soft touches here and there.
 
Someone cleared their throat from the doorway. "Excuse me Mr and Ms Johnson."
 
They both jumpped almost out of their skins and hunkered down into the tub, 
his hand still not removed from her brest. There was someone, well something, 
standing in the doorway. A warewolf looked in at them.
 
There was more movement and a set of of small noses with beedy eyes and 
whiskers looked in as well. "Hello." they chirpped. Another wolf looked 
around the corrner of the door.
 
The other wolf spoke up. "We are sorry for catching you like this... but you 
killed the ferret Mr Johnson?"
 
John could only nod fearfully... nude as he was in the tub with his wife.
  
All the animals turnned to each other and whispered. Then looked over at them 
and reached out and slowly closed the door. "Thank you Mr Johnson. I hope you 
don't mind but we have dibs on your attic." A soft click the only think 
marking the closing of the door.
 
Linday looked at John and he looked back. "Attic?" They both said together.