TB: Cry Wolf ch. 5

Chapter Five: Animal Matters

[Lance's POV:]

There are few things in life as intolerable as paperwork, and few do I detest more.  Still, I am a businessman, and I am well aware that there shall always, always be paperwork so long as Dragon's Blood, Inc. and the responsibilities of running a business empire rest upon my shoulders.

I was just getting through a stack of the damned paperwork when the intercom on my desk chimed, the light blinking, and it gave me quite a charge.  Surprising, to think I was so engrossed I jumped at a buzzing sound as familiar to me as my own hands.  Shaking the noise from my head, I pressed down on the button and asked, "Yes?"

"Mr. Pendragon, sir," came the calm, collected voice of my secretary, Gerard, "A Mr. Greene is here to see you.  He doesn't have an appointment—"

"Send him up, Gerard." I interrupted.  Robert Greene never needed an appointment to see me.

"Of course, Mr. Pendragon."  If Gerard was at all surprised by my response, he did an excellent job of not showing it.

"Gerard Montaine," I gave him my best attempt at a scolding mother tone, "How long have you been in service to me?"

"Thirteen years, Mr. Pendragon."

"Then why in the name of God are you still referring to me by my surname?  Have I not told you time and again you may call me Lancelot?"

"Old habits die hard, Mr. Pendragon."  He answered before dropping the line.

Harrumph.  As annoying as he can be, the man brings up an excellent point.  I shook my head and returned to the tedious signing of forms until the door to my office swung open and a young man not too many years my junior entered.

"Yo, what's up, Lancey-pants?" he drawled.

"Do you never knock, like a normal person?" I shot back.

Robert Greene, better known as Rook, the Riddler's gunman, is of average height and build, with black-and-white, spiked hair and warm gray eyes.  His shirt and tie also are black and white, checker-patterned like a chessboard, and he wears black pants with gun holsters on the belt.  He swaggered—he seems to swagger everywhere he goes when he's in a good mood—over to my desk, and I caught the faint whiff of alcohol coming from his person.

Robert Greene is the most foul, repressed, ill-mannered chit I've ever met in the long twenty-five years I've been alive.  He's a womanizing, hormonal buffoon who thinks with his genitals as often as he does his guns and has less than enough brains to fill an eggcup.  He's rude, unkempt, unwashed, disgusting, hardly educated properly, a greedy, begging freeloader with a taste for alcohol and cigarettes, and he gets on the very last nerves of generally everyone he meets.

Would it surprise anyone to learn he is the only man I completely trust with my life, and the only person I consider a brother?

I'm willing to take bets on that.

"Come on, man.  You know when it's me, so I don't need to!" he chuckled, looking so pleased with himself it took a great deal of restraint not to reach up and smash his face against the surface of my desk.  After all, there's no telling if I'd ever get the smell of blood out of the polished wood.

"Of course I know when it's you." I grumbled.  "You smell repulsive.  Have you ever heard of a miraculous invention called a shower?"

"Might've seen one once." he answered, grinning.

"And what about a good dental scrubbing?  Perhaps some mouthwash?" I growled, looking him in the eye.  "I can smell the beer on your breath."

"Geez, you tightwad.  You gotta learn to let loose and really LIVE every once in a while." Rook snorted, rolling his eyes at me.

"Not if it involves loss of inhibition, lack of hygiene, and numerous sexually-transmitted diseases running rampant through my body, ruining my testicles." I answered, signing another form and moving it to my completed stack.

Rook winced.  "DUDE!"

"What?" I asked, nearly snapping my pen in my grip.

"Dude, you need to get laid or something!  'Testicles?'  Really?!  Call them balls, stones, nads, family jewels, anything!  Just not that!" he groaned, covering his face.

"Why not?" I snapped irritably.  "It's grammatically accurate.  They are tes—"

"NO NO NO NO NO!  Don't say it, don't say it!" he cut me off, waving his hands wildly, "Just say balls!"

"Why should I?"

"Please, for my sake?"

"Robert—"

"Come on, just call them balls.  Just let me hear you say it at least once, so I know you're at least semi-normal.  Just say 'balls!'"

I let my lip curl as I gave a silent growl; he knows I am far from normal, by any standards.  Still, I knew he wouldn't let it lie until he was reassured, so better to give him what he wanted.

"Balls." I said boredly, rolling my eyes and signing two more forms.  He gave a melodramatic sigh and brought his hand down on my shoulder.

"Thank GOD!  What a relief!  You wouldn't seriously say something like that in front of the chicks, now would you?"

"Why in the world would I discuss reproductive organs in the presence of a lady?  It's simply inappropriate." I snapped.  What in the world was he thinking?  As if I would say something so…so…so like him!

"Oh, but it's okay to talk about that around me?" he snorted.

"You are a man, you gun-slinging yahoo.  Men talk like this in each other's company or so I'm told.  And in any event, you started this whole thing with talk of how I need to 'live', if you will recall."

"You need to get laid." he repeated, shaking his head at me like I was a lost cause.  "Seriously."

"And on serious topics," I asked, remembering what I'd wanted to talk to him about, "I have something to share with you."

"Is it contagious pompous rich-boy tightwad germs?" he said warily, taking a step back from the desk.

"Of course not, you moron!" I was on the verge of yelling.  "I met a woman yesterday!"

Suddenly he was all ears, the disgusting little bastard.

"Oooooh!   Lancey met a girl?" he sounded like an immature high school boy.  "Come on, man.  Spill it!  Tell Rookie about your new lady friend!"

"You've the worst one-track mind I've ever had the misfortune to encounter." I muttered.

"Is she hot?  She's gotta be some kind of a bombshell to get your attention, you hard-ass dog!" he chuckled, letting his tongue loll out of his open mouth.

Disgusting.

And did I mention he has a one-track mind?

I sighed, praying for patience, and the image of Miss Harker came to my mind, letting me relax almost instantly.

"Oh, Robert.  She is the most beautiful, unmarred lady I've ever laid eyes upon in this dreary city." I answered, resting my chin on my hand.

He froze, looking at me with an expression of the utmost horror.  "Lance, I don't like that look on your face.  That goofy grin of yours is scaring me."

"Oh, do be quiet and listen a moment, Robert!"  I snapped.  "Perhaps you might learn to understand a thing or two concerning women.  Her name is Jeanette Harker."

"Sounds a little stiff-collar." he muttered.

"She is far from stiff-collar, my friend.  She is the absolute vision of loveliness.  Such pale skin and soft brown eyes!  Lo, she is the Juliet to my Romeo!  Attractive as the shell may be, the physical beauty cannot compare to the obvious lover of the classics on the inside, nor the incredible wit and sharp intellect produced as a result thereof!  And so observant, one might think the predators of the air had taken to walking among men in their likeness!  She noticed the speed with which I was able to move in order to catch her when she fell.  Rare has it been since I've met someone so sharp-eyed!  And yet, despite the blade she wields in place of a tongue, I sense a softer, more vulnerable woman underneath, a lover waiting for a white knight to which she is able to open her heart."

I sighed, breathless and lost in thought, dwelling on Miss Harker's look of absolute fury she was wearing when we parted ways yesterday.  Somehow it only made her all the more beautiful, and I was finding it very difficult to keep my mind from straying to her.  After all, she'd agreed to take coffee with me the day after tomorrow.

"Dude.  Speak English.  Seriously." Rook said in exasperation.

Oh, he was so lucky I didn't strangle him!

"She's amazing, Robert." I said slowly, "Did you get all of that, or did I use too many syllables?"

"She sounds a little too perfect!" he snorted, then he calmed down a little, and asked quietly, "What's her name again?"

"Jeanette Harker." I answered, sighing as I did, lost in thoughts of that beautifully furious expression again.  He made a non-committal noise and I added, having saved the best part for the last, "And she's agreed to share a coffee with me Wednesday."

Rook's reaction was immediate.  He had been examining on of my crystalline coasters and it slipped from his hand as he stared at me with wide, stunned eyes.  I reached out and caught the coaster as it fell, its weight barely moving my hand.

"She agreed to a date with you?!  You work faster than I thought!" he gasped.

"It's not a date," I growled irritably, "It's a simple chat over a beverage."

"Man, that's totally a date." he corrected, a grin working its way over his features.

" 'Tis the beginning of a courtship, Robert, not a 'date.'" I shot back.  "A 'date' would imply something a little more formal involving dinner and tickets to the theatre.  No, this is just a friendly chat."

"You're such a rich totty, Lance." was all he managed to throw back at me, and I almost smiled.  Perhaps under other circumstances—for instance, had he been raised properly and given the lecture of what delicate creatures women can be—he would understand the point I try to get at.

"Then why are you still friends with me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge.  He turned his stormy gray eyes on me, giving me a long, serious stare, and I nodded in response, letting him know I retracted the statement.  It hadn't been a fair question to begin with.

"Anyway, there's another reason I came to see you." he remarked, crossing his arms, his countenance darkening.  "There's been some disturbances in the sewer system lately."

I growled again, letting my lip curl up to show my displeasure.  If he even THOUGHT I was going to consider crawling about in filth for his amusement, he'd better start carrying silver bullets more often.

"Don't give me that, Lance!" he snapped, "I know you don't like the idea, but just listen a second!"

"If it involves disturbances and sewers, I should think the most obvious culprit is roughly seven feet tall, scaly, and Cajun." I murmured darkly.  I hate lizards with a passion, (there's one in particular I wouldn't mind offing,) and Killer Croc is no exception.  He mainly operates in the network of sewers beneath Gotham City, so I had no idea why Rook and his superior hadn't naturally come to that conclusion.

"Listen, we know about Croc—"

That was a surprise.

"But Riddly's not so sure it's him.  Or at least, that he's alone.  We ran into a tight situation the other night, the details of which you are not allowed to know—"

Thank heaven!

"And when we were in the sewers, we found claw marks, but they don't match Croc's.  Too close together and the rents were too long.  And here's the big clincher—boss found wolf hair nearby." he whispered this last part, looking thoroughly impressed, as he knew he had my attention now.  It was unlikely that true wolves would get loose in the city, much less the sewer system, and there was very little down there that their claws could leave depressions in.  This left one conclusion for us.

"Another?" my voice left me in a gasp.

I'd never seen another one like me, let alone met one here in Gotham.  To think there was now one running here, almost literally right under my nose…

"Yeah.  We don't know how long he's been here or what his connection to Croc is, but I'm dead positive that our guess is right." Rook said quickly and quietly, "Lance…you're not alone anymore…and if all the urban myths are true…you two could end up in a turf war, like some of the mob bosses around here, fighting for territory.  I say you need to go down there, find this guy, and show him who's top dog around Gotham."

"No force," I snapped, rising from my chair, "In heaven or on earth…will make me enter those tunnels."

"What about Miss Harker?" he asked slyly.

"What about Miss Harker?" I shot back.  What was he playing at, dragging her name into this?

"What if this newb threatens your little lady in order to get to you, to assert dominance?  That's typical, right?  Or what if he has the same taste in women?  You don't go down there and asset your position as the alpha when you've got the chance, you could lose more than just your dignity." he pointed out.

And by God, it was such a sensible suggestion coming from him that it was precisely why I lowered myself to skulking about the sewers with him come sundown that same evening.

"For the love of mud, Lance, quit wrinkling up your nose like that.  It's getting on my nerves!" Robert muttered angrily, shining the flashlight in my eyes.

"Thou shouldst try having a nose like mine sometime, and then tell me not to wrinkle it in displeasure!" I shot back, "Would thee enjoy having the smell of rotting cabbage and stale urine assaulting thy senses with every inhale?"

"Ugh.  Please don't say urine." he groaned.  "I really don't want to think about what we might be wading through."

Hmph.  So the idiot had some sense of hygiene after all.  Who knew?

Personally, I didn't want to consider that line of thinking either, which is precisely why I had the foresight to dress in black pleather clothes.  Plastic leather not only cleaned easily, but it could also be disposed of, and I doubted I would want to wear these again after tonight.  For several long minutes we traversed the underground, Rook having me stop occasionally and sniff at places, trying to find the scent of this newcomer.  However, the odds weren't in my favor to begin with since the smell of the sewers was so strong, and I was having terrible trouble trying to find another other scent than the one native to this squalid underground.

"Here's the place where we first saw the marks!" Rook said at one point, charging down a passage.  Reluctantly, I followed, and we came to a stop at a wall that was covered in graffiti.  Underneath some of the more illegible script, I was able to make out five long gashes in the surface of the cement.  I crept a little closer, lowering my face, and inhaled.

Blood.

Blood and wolf.

And something else, something far less pleasant and twice as deadly.  I sniffed again to confirm.

Silver.

"Lance, what's wrong?" Rook asked.

"I smell silver.  This bodes ill for us all." I murmured, pulling away from the wall, and catching a whiff of something else.

"Yah got that right, city-boy."

It never ceases to amaze me how Rook and I manage to swear in tandem.  He spun first, pulling out his guns, but the lizard-man already had him by the shirt collar.

"Checkehs!  Nevah thought I'd see yah scopin' out my turf." He growled.

"Eh heh…Croc, old buddy, old pal…" Robert chuckled in a nervous way, "You aren't still mad about the whole accidentally shooting the tip of your tail thing?"

The flashlight went flying from his hand and went out as Killer Croc slammed him against the sewer walls, roaring.

"I'll take that as a yes….ohhhh…." Rook groaned, struggling in his grasp.

"Cease and desist at once my good reptilian fellow, if you please!" I finally sighed, brushing my bangs aside in vain.  One might think it suicide to attempt talking sense into a seven-foot handbag that still boasts its teeth, but it certainly seemed to give him enough pause.

"Huh?" he turned and looked at me, and in the darkness, our eyes met, gold to green.

"Lance, are you nuts?" Rook squawked at me, and Croc pushed him a little further against the wall.

"Shuddup, Checkehs.  I dun like talkin' food." He growled before swiveling his great reptilian head to look at me, nostrils flaring as he began to sniff in my scent.  "You—you ain't human!"

"Look who's speaking." I answered dryly.

"You smell like Eva!" he said in astonishment, dropping Rook unceremoniously into the slime beneath our feet.  I raised an eyebrow.

"Eva?" I prompted.

He growled in response for a moment, and lunged out, snapping his maw just short of my face.

If he thought I was going to flinch and back away, he had another thing coming.  Certainly he was taken aback, and relaxed a little.

"Eva." He repeated firmly.  "Say…if you're the same as her…mebbe…mebbe yah can help her.  She…she's hurt."

Aaaahhhhh….suddenly it made sense.

"I can guarantee nothing, my aquatic friend.  But perhaps I can determine what must be done, or at least how she is hurt." I answered calmly.

"No hospitals!" He snapped suddenly, as though I'd suggested it.

"Of course not." I answered.

"No doctahs either." He added for safe measure.

"Perish the thought." I replied. "Lead the way."

He gave me a skeptical growl, then turned and slowly started to amble down one of the tunnels, tail whipping behind him in agitation.  Rook was slowly getting to his feet beside me, a wary eye still upon the lizard-man, and he clapped a filth-covered hand upon my shoulder, which I tried to resist shrugging off.

"Dude, you're totally crazy!  He's going to eat us!" he whispered.

"Ah heard that, Checkehs." Came the call, and I started to stride after him, undaunted.  There was someone who needed my help, and such a call rose above Robert's petty concerns at this point.  I gave him a quick jerk of my head, and he followed, albeit reluctantly.  Killer Croc led us down several winding tunnels, weaving his way through a vast underground labyrinth only he was familiar with enough to navigate, giving me a twisted sense of vertigo after a while.  The smells, the darkness, the unbalancing nature of the monotonous sewer walls…I growled, feeling a ripple run through my body, shaking my head to clear it of the building nausea.  There was work to be done.

Finally the tunnels opened up into a decent-sized antechamber, half the floor sunk beneath dark water.  The other half was raised, and there were a decent number of tables lining the cracked floor.  Clearly Killer Croc was attempting to furnish the place.  Then, off in the furthest corner from us, I saw a pallet made of threadbare, patched blankets, and a young woman lying upon them.  Dark brown hair fell just below her shoulders, and amid the tangled locks, I could see two wolf ears lying flat, brown fur matching that of the tail coming from her back.  Panting slightly, her skin was sickly pale and drenched in sweat, as though fighting off a fever, and as we drew closer, she opened eyes that were already phasing between a soft brown and a piercing yellow, her werewolf immune system trying to fight off whatever had her this ill.

"Found her like this half-way down a tunnel tryin' ta get home.  Ah dunno what's wrong…" Croc said in a voice that was oddly tainted with worry.

"C-Croc…" the girl whimpered, "I-is that you…?  A-are you back…?"

"Eva!  Ah'm here, Eva!" he said, rushing over to her.

"I…I smell someone else…" she said, wincing in pain and confusion.

"Yeah, um…" Croc started to say, and I joined him at his side, leaning down to examine the girl.  Her eyes flicked over to me and she sniffed, then her eyes widened as she let out a small gasp.

"Don't move," I said as calmly as I could manage, crouching down and reaching out to touch her forehead.  She snarled a little, then lunged for my hand.

"Eva!" Croc yelled, and she winced again.

"Just relax, Miss Eva," I whispered.  "Be calm."

She gave me a distrusting glare, then slowly relaxed still panting, and allowed me to touch her forehead, which was burning and slick with sweat.  I leaned in a little closer, smelling, looking at the veins visible on her temples and neck, a vibrant, loathsome blue.

"Silver poisoning." I murmured.

"Silver?" Croc gasped.

"I take it you know what silver means to our kind?" I asked, and he nodded, yellow eyes wide.  "Very well then, you also know she will die if she doesn't get help."

"Ah said no hospitals!" he snarled.

"We have no need of one." I answered smoothly.  "I have suffered silver poisoning myself, and I know someone who can help.  He'll come if I call him.  But we need to get her out of here, and quickly!  No telling how much time she has left."

Croc and Eva exchanged a look, measuring my words and whether or not they ought to place their trust in me, making me nearly howl in frustration.  Didn't they see how important this was?!

Finally, Eva turned and looked me in the eye, sighing.

"Okay.  I'll trust you."

"Thank you for that, Miss Eva."

"What's your name?  You don't act like any other werewolf I've ever met." She said slowly, raising an eyebrow.

"My name is Lancelot Merlynnis Pendragon, Miss Eva.  You may call me Lance, for short.  Now we'd best be moving.  If you cannot stand, I recommend you get a ride from the walking handbag."

"Watch it, pretty-boy!" Croc growled, "Just 'cause yah can help Eva, doesn't mean ah won't bite."

"I recommend you don't, because you're incorrect." I answered coldly.  "Right now, I'm the only one who can help her.  Now pick her up."