"United Airlines flight 890 from Singapore, Tokyo, and Los Angeles is now arriving at Gate 2," the PA announced. The announcement continued but couldn't be heard over an eruption of yells and whistles. A row of security guards kept the shrieking fans from swamping the arrival area.
"Exactly who is this guy?" one of the guards asked his companion.
"Some big movie star from New Zealand," the other replied.
The first furrowed his brow. "What kind of movie star flies on a commercial airline?"
Just then the person in question emerged from the jetway. He looked handsome enough to be a movie star; not exceptionally tall or massive but having a firm, sculpted body. He kissed his hands and raised them to the crowd. He wore only a vented tank top- that left his midriff bare- and denim trousers that fit him like a second skin. He did a quick bump-and-grind, giving the assembled fans- almost all female- a good look at his buttocks, thighs, and the prominent bulge at his crotch that actually ran a ways down his left leg. The crowd shrieked so loudly they drowned out the sounds of jets taking off and landing.
"From New Zealand, you say?" the first guard commented once the noise abated some. "I guess that explains why he's a sheep."
The man was indeed a sheep, or to be technically accurate, a ram. A short, dun colored fleece covered his entire body except for his face, hands, and feet. His skin looked lighter, almost but not quite white. A pair of well developed horns adorned his head. Fans reached through the barricade; he moved along the line, shaking hands and occasionally kissing them. Three others- a short, pudgy rat and two grim looking Dobermans in suits- followed him. An electric cart whisked them away while screaming fans pursued on foot. In due course the cart arrived at a passenger loading and unloading area where there waited a long, black limousine with tinted windows. The driver opened the door so the four could enter, then got in and pulled out.
One person waited in the back. She was a large and voluptuously constructed German shepherd; sitting down she seemed to be as tall as the ram, if not the two bodyguards. Her gargantuan mammaries strained at the material of her tank top as if yearning to be free and her very short mini skirt looked as if only a liberal quantity of grease could have gotten it over her ample hips. "Did you have a good flight, darling?" she inquired in a strongly German accent.
"It was Hell," the ram announced cheerfully, leaning back and stretching. He spoke with an accent that an inexperienced listener might have called Australian. "Wellington to Auckland, Auckland to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to here. And y'know what's funny? 'Cause of the Date Line, I get to LA before I left Auckland." He shook his head sadly. "I know the calendar says it's the same day I left but after twenty hours in the air I'm completely knackered." He heaved a deep sigh and laid a hand on his face to emphasize his condition but managed to give the woman a friendly squeeze on the leg.
"Don't worry, Jaleel, we've got a hotel right here at the airport," the rat declared. He sounded American. "And we don't have to be in the studio 'till the day after tomorrow."
"That's a relief," Jaleel declared. If the rat noticed an overtone of irony in the comment he didn't let on.
"You'll be ready to perform, won't you darling?" the woman asked, laying a hand on Jaleel's crotch.
"For you, Fredrika dear, I'm always ready to perform." Jaleel gave her a more serious kiss.
"Now now, let's wait until we get to the hotel," the rat cut in hastily, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Ah, don't get your knickers in a twist, Ronald." Jaleel leaned across and ruffled the rat's hair.
The driver screamed and slammed on the brakes. All four wheels locked and the limousine's rear end slewed violently to the left. Something hit the left rear door, dishing it in and shattering the window; the car recoiled violently the other way. Jaleel's torso whipped back and forth; he'd only secured his lap belt, putting the shoulder belt behind him. His head struck the door frame, opening a pressure cut on his scalp and rendering him unconscious. The car's nose struck a concrete barrier lining the roadway and came to an abrupt halt, half on the shoulder and half in the rightmost traffic lane. When Fredrika recovered from the shock and noise she saw Jaleel slumped over, insensible, blood staining one side of his face. She let out a shriek and lunged for him, only to be jerked back by her lap and shoulder belts.
Fredrika shrieked again when the smashed door departed suddenly with a scream of tortured metal and a shock that rocked the car on its suspension. She screamed even louder when a pair of- of things reached in. They rippled through the air like snakes, though the skin on them was smooth, black, and leathery rather than pebbly scales. At the tip of each was a chitinous cap that tapered to a sharp point, like a beak of some sort. A sharp ridge ran back from the point, forming an edge like an axe blade and extending into a wicked, backward-facing spur. The lower, hinged part had a hooked tip and a sharpened edge like a pair of scissors. One coiled around Jaleel's torso, lifting him up; as that happened Fredrika saw a double row of octopus-like suckers, running along the underside of the limb. Paired with each individual sucker, outboard of it, was a small, finger-like polyp with a wicked, curved claw growing from it. The other limb snipped Jaleel's seatbelt with a single quick bite and gathered his legs; in a trice they had him out the door and gone, while Fredrika screamed, and screamed, and screamed...
A young man who looked like a coyote in a nondescript business suit stood by Gate 2. As passengers de-planed he held of a sign that said "Super Collie." In due course two of the passengers took more than quizzical notice and approached. The first wasn't a collie but rather a short, powerfully built bulldog. He wore a light blue shirt with shoulder boards, a dark blue tie and matching trousers. On his head rested a billed cap with a black and white checkered band. Behind him came a collie, a woman who looked significantly younger and prettier as well as taller. She wore a long, dark blue cloak secured by a gold clasp, which seemed to be her most substantial article of clothing. Blue calf boots with gold trim covered her feet and the lower parts of her legs; only a blue bikini, trimmed in gold like the boots, covered her amply built body. Gold bracelets circled her wrists and a larger one her left thigh. A wavy, nut brown mane spilled loose down to the level of her shoulder blades. She carried a short baton with a hooked head.
"Good day," the bulldog said, offering his hand. An Antipodean twang marked his speech but hadn't wiped away the sound of southern England in his voice. "You must be that chap from the embassy."
"Yes sir," the young man replied, tucking the sign under his arm. "Arlo Benjamin of the New Zealand consulate. On behalf of the ambassador and everyone else, welcome to New York."
"If I'm here to help rescue a famous movie star, why didn't the ambassador come in person?" the collie woman asked, looking up and down the concourse. People stared at her, in part for being a pretty woman in a revealing costume and in part for being an oddly dressed weirdo. Obviously no one else but Arlo had come to meet her and her companion.
"Well-" Arlo shifted uncomfortably. "You see... um... there was a bit of a mix up..."
"Are you saying there isn't anyone to rescue?" the woman demanded sharply.
"Not at all," Arlo assured hurriedly. "It's just that... well, it's just that when Mr. Bronson's agent contacted the embassy he, um, wasn't very coherent."
"Bronson?" the woman frowned. "That name doesn't sound familiar. Is he not actually a movie star?"
"Um..." Arlo looked desperate. "Actually yes, Jaleel Bronson is a movie star... but his films are usually released directly to video."
"What sort of movies does he make, exactly?" the collie woman demanded suspiciously.
"Ah..." Arlo swallowed nervously. "Pornographic ones."
The collie opened her mouth, then shut it with a click. "You mean to tell me," she began, "That I flew halfway around the bleeding world- and sat through no less that four lousy in-flight movies- to rescue a porn star?"
"Even people who make blue movies occasionally need the services of a super hero," the bulldog pointed out.
The woman sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Yes, George, you're right. I'm sorry." She lay her other hand on the bulldog' shoulder. "Please accept my apologies, Mr. Benjamin. It's been... a very long flight."
"I understand," Arlo said quickly. "Let me get you through customs and I'll introduce you to your liaison from the Department of Super-Hero Affairs."
At the inbound customs counter the collie woman stepped forward. "My name is Super Collie," she announced. "I am here on business at the behest of the New Zealand government to investigate the kidnapping of a New Zealand national by possibly super agencies. I plan on staying between two weeks and a month. My luggage contains only personal effects."
Considering how he looked at Super Collie the inspector might have processed visiting super heroes every day. "May I see some ID, Ms. Collie?"
Super Collie blinked. She started to speak but let it drop. Instead she pulled a card from the top of her right boot and presented it. The inspector took it, carefully comparing the picture to Super Collie's face. "This says you usually carry a shepherd's crook," he said in a tone that bordered on accusatory.
"I shrunk it so it would fit on the plane," Super Collie said, twirling her baton. It extended into a staff slightly longer than her height.
"Ah." The inspector nodded. "Now if I could just have you complete this form-" he presented a clip board with a printed sheet attached to it.
The bulldog set a briefcase on the counter and opened it. "We have our paperwork right here." He presented two stacks, one significantly thicker than the other.
The inspector flipped through the forms. He looked almost disappointed to find them in order. "And you are?" he asked.
"George Kremmin, Wellington Constabulary." He produced an ID.
Despite their careful preparations Super Collie and Constable Kremmin waited for some time while their and several inspectors conferred over the paperwork and referred repeatedly to their computer terminals. Finally- reluctantly, it seemed- the inspectors waved them through.
"Are US customs always this... complicated?" Super Collie asked as they headed for the parking lot.
Arlo shrugged. "Actually, this went pretty smoothly. How did you get all that paperwork done in advance?"
"I visited the American embassy in Wellington," Super Collie said.
Constable Kremmin chuckled. "Super Collie's too modest. She sat down with the embassy secretary and went over the immigration manual in detail."
Arlo's eyes widened. "How long did that take?"
"Ten hours, forty-seven minutes," Super Collie replied as if it were nothing at all.
Arlo shook his head. "I'm surprised they put up with it."
"If I have to play bureaucratic games then by God I'll play to win," Super Collie said shortly.
Arlo shuddered. "I'd hate to see you in the DMV."
"Yes, you would," George agreed.
An unremarkable government issue sedan with diplomatic plates waited in the passenger loading and unloading area. A policeman stared at it hatefully, longing to give it a ticket but stymied by its immune status. Arlo helped George and Super Collie load their luggage into the boot, then seated them in the back. He climbed into the driver's seat himself.
"Feels strange to see people driving on the wrong side of the road," Super Collie commented as the car pulled out.
Arlo shrugged. "You get used to it. Though when I go home for vacation I let a mate drive for a couple days until I get back in sync."
Super Collie looked out the window. Dense urban development marched right up to the motorway, which spanned eight lanes. Nevertheless traffic crept along bumper-to-bumper even though, according to the car's dashboard clock, local time was after ten in the evening. The air conditioner did little to control the hot, muggy air or keep out the cloying smell of vehicle exhaust. "You know," she commented, "I bet I could run to the hotel faster than this."
"Probably," Arlo agreed with a sigh. "The only practical ways to get around in New York are to fly or take the train. Driving... well, you can see what that's like."
"Where are we staying?" George asked.
"We have an apartment for you in Queens," Arlo replied. "It's not the best neighborhood but it's right near the F line."
"A flat?" Super Collie frowned.
Arlo looked stricken. "Well... you have to understand, hotels are awfully expensive in New York. What with exchange rates as they are it's actually cheaper for the consulate to put you up in an apartment, especially if you end up staying for a while."
In due course they abandoned creeping progress on the motorway and took to creeping progress on city streets. The numbers on the dashboard clock counted up; with the coming of midnight traffic thinned a little. Super Collie stared at the passing buildings without really seeing them; she didn't particularly want to and jet lag made it easy. What struck her was the shabbiness of it all. Buildings looked old, dirty, and poorly maintained. Trash blew in the streets or piled up in alleys. Graffiti, or where it had been painted over, marked a great many walls. Every documentary about urban decay she'd ever seen could have been shot right here. As such she didn't pay attention to a shabby, nondescript individual in a long coat who lagged behind while Arlo waited at a stop light. She did notice when he produced a shotgun and aimed it at Arlo's head.
"Getoutadacar!" the man screamed, charging his weapon. "Fucking now, shitheads!"
Arlo emitted a mewling sound. His eyes bulged. He threw his hands up, quivering violently.
"Better do what he says," George suggested, calm as ever. He opened his door and slid out. Super Collie followed him instead of getting out on her side, which placed them all on the same side of the car as the hijacker.
"Back, pig!" the hijacker shouted, swinging his gun to cover George. "What the Hell kinda cop don't carry a gun?" he demanded after a moment.
"In New Zealand the police don't carry weapons," George replied.
"Then they're fucking idiots!" the hijacker screamed. "On yer face, pig!"
George stepped back and lay, face down, on the street. The muzzle of the shotgun followed him and the hijacker kept his eyes on him, ignoring Super Collie. As the hijacker's attention swung away from her she flicked her wrist. The head of her staff shot out, smacking the shotgun up and away. It fired into the air; the hijacker stumbled back and Arlo screamed. Super Collie closed the distance in a blur and landed a vicious uppercut that knocked the hijacker back into the cross walk. She caught the shotgun before it hit the ground.
"Unfortunately for you, my friend, I have something much better than a weapon," George said, rising to his feet. "I have Super Collie." He frisked the hijacker, producing a box of shotgun shells and several knives.
Super Collie looked around. The attempted carjacking seemed to have attracted no attention whatsoever. Several drivers queued up behind Arlo's sedan honked their horns and shouted curses. George took the shotgun and, with it slanted across his arm, gestured peremptorily for them to go around. Seeing the weapon- and the expression on his face- they complied hastily.
"Where are the police?" Super Collie demanded.
"They probably aren't coming unless you call them," Arlo replied. "Around here people don't pay much attention to gun shots."
Super Collie sighed heavily. In light of her experience at Customs she didn't relish the prospect of explaining her situation to the police. She grabbed the hijacker by the scruff of the neck but found herself trapped by vehicles roaring by in both directions. George solved that problem by stepping into the oncoming lane and gesturing sharply. Maybe he looked enough like a local policeman or maybe no one cared to argue with a man carrying a shotgun. Either way traffic came to a screeching halt. Super Collie dragged the hijacker to the sidewalk and left him. Back at the car George handed the weapon to Super Collie, then scooted Arlo over and took over driving himself. Eventually they reached the apartment.
"Here's the keys," Arlo said dully. "There's a security door at the lobby. Don't open it if there's anyone hovering around nearby. The apartment itself has three locks, each with its own key. You should set them all when you go out and probably when you're home, too."
"Are you all right, Arlo?" Super Collie asked. "Would you like to stay with us for the night?"
Arlo shook himself. He looked up- and straightened up. "No," he announced firmly. "Thanks all the same, though. And... Super Collie, if you need something... anything at all... just let me know. I'll get it, one way or another."
"Are you sure about that, Arlo?" Super Collie asked quietly.
Arlo nodded. "Yes ma'am. You... you reminded me why I'm here."
Super Collie smiled. Then she enfolded Arlo in her arms and gave him a hug. "I'm glad I could help," she said. "And I do need something. Could you help us get our luggage up to the flat?"
"Gladly!" Arlo grinned broadly.
"Oh," Jaleel moaned, stirring weakly. He lay on a bare single bed mattress lacking a box spring. Over the years he'd become something of an expert on mattresses, in both senses of the term. He opened his eyes... then blinked several times because he couldn't tell the difference. Either he'd gone blind or he occupied a place with no light whatsoever. He sat up, intending to rise, but didn't. His head ached.
"You're better off staying on the mattress for now," a voice said. "There's a lot of junk on the floor. You'll trip over something and hurt yourself."
Jaleel froze. The voice sounded deep and resonant but with a decidedly feminine cast. It spoke English with a Slavic accent. "Where am I?" he demanded.
"A bomb shelter," the voice replied. "Built back in the fifties but abandoned since the eighties. I found it and made it my home."
"Who are you?" Jaleel asked.
"Kratinka. You can call me Tinka if you like."
Jaleel licked his lips. He recognized that tone of voice. "Why am I here?" he asked cautiously.
"Because you're the Ram," Tinka replied. "The man with the fifty centimeter cock."
Jaleel swallowed. It sounded like one of Ronald's crazy movie ideas.
"I've been living down here by myself for... rather a long time," Tinka continued. "Recently I've... I don't know. Maybe I'm going into heat or something. Being alone... isn't enough. I stumbled across that warehouse complex your pal Ronald lined up for the movie. I heard your lady friend- Fredrika- talking about you. She mentioned when you'd be in and on what flight. When she went around to pick you up I followed."
"You- you didn't-" Jaleel stammered.
"Fredrika's fine," Tinka replied. "The limo's not in good shape, though."
"Well, then... what happens now?"
Tinka snorted. "I'm surprised you even have to ask."
"Bugger me," Jaleel breathed. If not for the darkness he'd be looking for a hidden camera. It was just the sort of prank Ronald would love.
"You got that backwards, I think," Tinka put in.
"Do we have to do it in the dark?" Jaleel asked.
"Not if you don't like," Tinka replied. "There's a box of matches by your right hand. Farther... farther... there. To the left of you- no, don't grab for it! If you knock it over and break it you'll have to sit here in the dark until tonight when I can find a replacement. If you're thinking you can escape while I fetch a new lantern I suggest you reconsider. The door to this room weighs a ton- literally- and the hinges are broken. It's like a vault door. Only way to open it is to pick it up and I doubt you're strong enough. Assuming you did get out you'd end up stumbling around through a maze of dark, partially collapsed passageways that open into all sorts of nasty places. There aren't any alligators living in the sewers of New York- it's too cold for them- but there's plenty of other unpleasant types."
"Like you?" Jaleel ventured.
"Yes," Tinka replied. "And I'm far from the worst. I don't hunt and kill for the fun of it. To continue, there's a Coleman lantern and a can of fuel to your left. You'll need to fill it, install the mantles, and light it yourself."
"Why didn't you do all that?" Jaleel wanted to know.
"My fingers are too big. I was afraid I'd break it accidentally."
Jaleel found the lantern and the can of fuel. He struck a match, revealing an expanse of dirty, cracked, concrete floor. Nearby he saw a pile of rubble and a stack of boxes. He seemed to be at the end of a long room with an arched ceiling; he couldn't tell how long or how high because the match's feeble glow didn't penetrate any meaningful distance. Fueling a lantern by match light didn't seem like a particularly good idea but he knew he couldn't possibly do it by touch alone. That consumed several matches. Getting the mantles properly installed left a dozen burned out matches on the floor and Jaleel's lips painfully singed as a result of holding matches in his teeth so he could use both hands. Pressurizing the lantern also required two hands but could be done in the dark. At long last he struck yet another match... and the mantles lit. As a bright, cheery glow sprang forth Jaleel finally realized the dimensions of the shelter. The ceiling peaked about six meters above the floor, which spanned about twice that distance. The walls were partially vertical, partially sloped, like those of a finished attic. The far end of the chamber lay around thirty meters distant. Cracks marred the roughly finished concrete; in places it had scaled off, exposing badly corroded reinforcing rods. Water and rust stains marred the walls. Lugs and sockets, some with pipes or wires still trailing from them, suggested where fixtures of various sorts had once been. Barrels, crates, and bits of unidentifiable machinery stood about, though mostly it had been shoved into the corners or against the long walls, leaving the center floor and end walls open. Jaleel's mattress occupied an alcove of sorts formed by a number of such items.
"You know," Jaleel observed, "For a place where people're supposed to hole up during a nuclear attack, it hasn't held together very well."
"There's been a lot of construction around here which wouldn't have been permitted were the shelter still in use," Tinka replied. "Besides, it really doesn't matter. No one in the know seriously expected the public to survive. These shelters were just a sop to prevent general panic."
Jaleel opened his mouth to respond, but in so doing turned his face toward the voice... and for the first time actually saw his shelter mate. He screamed and almost kicked over the lantern.
Tinka sat with her back against the end wall, because sitting against the side wall would have forced her to hunch forward. She resembled a panther; silky black fur covered every part of her and a long, black mane hung down past the middle of her back. The ample swell of her breasts and the sharp flare of her hips left no doubt as to her sex but thick slabs of muscle covered her arms, shoulders, belly, and legs. Her feet were cat's paws, complete with retractable claws. Her fingernails came to sharp points and dagger-like fangs a Smilodon might have envied protruded from her mouth. A long tail curled around from behind her, the tip of which flicked idly.
None of that particularly bothered Jaleel; he'd starred opposite a number of feline leading ladies and many of them had been tigers, lions, and jaguars. More than a few had been taller than him; he wasn't especially large, except in one particular way. Tinka, on the other hand, loomed over him even while sitting. Standing, he guessed her height at around three and three quarters meters. On top of that two long, muscular tentacles sprang from either side of her belly at waist level, for a total of four. Each tentacle measured a bit more than her height in total length, say four meters. Normal fur covered the first quarter of that length; from there on out was only smooth, supple hide, like a gorilla's palm. A double row of octopus-like suckers lined the underside of each tentacle for the other two thirds of its length; outboard of that ran a second double row of small pseudopods, like the last joint of a finger, each with a curved, retractable claw growing from it. A bony, cone-shaped cap terminated each tentacle; a sharp ridge along the top of each cap formed a sharp, forward facing point, a backward-pointing spur, and a blade-like edge in between. Opposite that was a hinged dactylus like the lower half of a bird's beak or the movable part of a lobster's claw; as in both cases the tip hooked upward, mating to a socket. The edges looked sharp enough to cut.
"W- w- w-" Jaleel stammered. The tentacles by themselves discomfited him more than everything else combined. While he watched the hooks on one tentacle extended and retracted in a wave running from base to tip, then the claw end opened and shut with a snap.
"The fellows at the lab called me a Darkstalker," Tinka replied, rolling onto her hands and knees and starting in Jaleel's direction. She stopped right next to Jaleel's mattress, sitting back on her heels.
Jaleel gulped. Despite everything he couldn't help staring at Tinka's nipples, which were large, clearly defined, and attached to a pair of exceptionally well formed breasts. Exceptionally large, too; when Tinka got on hands and knees her nipples pointed straight at the floor and hung about even with her elbows.
"Are you a tit man, Mr. Bronson?" Tinka asked, cupping her own and pointing them at him, arching her back to increase the effect.
"Ah..." Jaleel managed. His gaze dropped to Tinka's belly, then her crotch. She had a broad, heavy pelvis, as her size and build would require, and ample but nicely smooth thighs. Though he couldn't see them directly he'd bet his pension that her buttocks were big but firm and attractively curved, what the Greeks called callipygian.
"You must be, if that lady friend of yours is any indication," Tinka continued, leaning her torso forward and massaging her breasts. "What do they call her?"
"B- Blitz Knockers," Jaleel managed. He decided that if Tinka and Fredrika had been the same height then Fredrika's breasts would be bigger, but not by a whole lot. Which brought to mind the realization that if Fredrika had been before him, doing what Tinka was, he wouldn't be cowering away from her. Quite the opposite, in fact. But Fredrika wasn't built like a Russian shot-putter; Tinka might have pleasantly soft hips, breasts, and thighs but the rest of her body looked about as hard as tool steel. Her wrists and hands in particular were thick, powerful, and conspicuously lacking in feminine delicacy. Tinka at normal size would still be more than strong enough to break him into tiny pieces without so much as breathing hard.
Most importantly, Fredrika didn't have tentacles. The rest Jaleel could handle; over the years he'd performed with quite a few partners chosen to suit the audience's interests rather than his. He'd taught himself to find the beauty in any person, and Tinka actually had quite a bit going for her. Even her size might be considered an advantage; on more than one occasion he'd fantasized about making love to a woman considerably larger than himself. From the look of things she might even be able to fully accommodate him, which no normal sized woman could do. But he simply could not get past the tentacles; even as he stared at Tinka's admittedly fascinating body he saw the tentacles in the corners of his eyes, curling and swaying like snakes. Completely aside from finding himself held prisoner in a dank, dark, underground cave, even a fleeting glimpse of the tentacles killed off his desire as effectively as imagining Margaret Thatcher in the nude.
"You'd better undress yourself," Tinka suggested. "If I try taking off your clothes I'll rip them."
"Uh, okay." Jaleel fumbled with his boots. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him; here he was with a woman who wanted him in the worst possible way and he- the porn star- was dragging his heels. "Look," he exclaimed, "I- I don't mean to be a wowser but all this-" he waved his hand at the chamber- "It don't do much for the mood, y'know?"
Tinka leaned forward. Her eyelids hung about half open, one slightly higher than the other. The eyes underneath were a strange, mottled white, devoid of irises or pupils. "Do you mean this place or me?" she asked.
"Well-" Jaleel found himself reluctant to offend a woman who looked like she could crush him to death simply by laying on him. Which, he realized belatedly, was an answer in itself.
"There isn't much I can do about the tentacles and all," Tinka commented. "Even if I cut them off they'd grow back." Two of them coiled around Jaleel's arms, hoisting him into the air; the other two cut the shirt off his back, snipping through the material like scissors. The cutting tentacles then seized his ankles while the other pair snipped away his trousers. "As for the rest of it... I'm sorry, I really am," Tinka continued. "But I'm in something of a desperate situation. I expended a lot of time and effort getting you here and took some dangerous chances." Jaleel wore no under things; he'd given that up at puberty when his male organ grew too large for them. Tinka coiled the tip of one of her tentacles around it, squeezing gently. Jaleel hissed; the suckers felt like a dozen pairs of teasing lips. "I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this but the situation's really very simple. If you won't satisfy one of my appetites, you can satisfy another." She licked her muzzle, in the process giving Jaleel a close up look at her dental equipment. "Sharp hole or soft, your choice."
Jaleel grimaced. If he went in the sharp hole he'd come out a soft one in due course, after a day or so. "I... don't think I'd care to be digested," he said.
"Smart boy." Tinka lay Jaleel down on the mattress, then leaned forward and licked his crotch. He closed his eyes; if he focused only on the sensation and didn't think intellectually about his situation he could allow himself to get excited. It occurred to him also that he'd never really believed that a man could be raped, at least not by a woman. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was about to discover otherwise.
When he entered the bathroom the next morning to shower Constable Kremmin found that the room appeared to have been recently and thoroughly cleaned. The aged tile work gleamed as much as it possibly could and the grouting had not only been carefully cleaned but, in places, repaired. In fact the whole flat seemed to have been recently scrubbed, dusted, and vacuumed- which, in fact, it had. Twenty-two hours in the air and two connections weren't nearly enough to make Super Collie willing to spend the night a place that hadn't been cleaned in, oh, probably five or six days. That no one had occupied the place in the meantime mattered not at all, at least not to Super Collie. George wondered briefly how often she must clean her own home and quickly decided that he'd rather not know. After bathing he took the brush by the sink and gave the tub a quick going over. It didn't look any different to his eyes and Super Collie wouldn't say anything... but she'd clean it anyway. She might have more energy than a Pomeranian on amphetamines but he didn't. Just watching her work exhausted him. He struggled briefly with his chivalrous instincts as he prepared himself breakfast from the generously stocked pantry and ice box. He had, however, been specifically warned against trying to fix meals for Super Collie. The only thing she obsessed about more than cleanliness was food.
The doorbell rang as George finished cleaning and putting away his dishes. He undid the multiple locks and opened it to find two very official looking individuals of indeterminate age waiting for him. One was a black dog, the other a white cat. Other than that- and the fact that the dog stood a couple centimeters taller- their identical dark suits and glasses concealed pretty much everything about them.
"Good morning Constable," the cat began briskly.
"You should be careful about opening your door to strangers, by the way," the dog suggested.
"I'm Agent William Jones and this is my partner, Agent Tommy Smith," the cat continued, indicating first himself, then his companion. "We're your liaisons with the Department of Super-Hero Affairs."
"Ah, you're here!" Super Collie exclaimed, appearing suddenly at George's shoulder. "Can we get started with the investigation now?"
"That's why we're here," Agent Smith said. "On behalf of the Department, welcome to America, Super Collie. Constable."
"One moment, please," George interjected gently. "May I see your identification, gentlemen?"
"Of course." Agent Jones produced a badge folder. He didn't try to flash it; he held it open until George had examined it and nodded. Agent Smith did the same.
"Ah, have you eaten, Super Collie?" George asked.
"Oh yes," Super Collie replied brightly. "I was up hours ago."
George suppressed a grimace. He'd slept in and he still felt logy.
"We'll show you the evidence we've collected so far," Agent Jones said. "We have a car downstairs."
You mean you didn't park it in the hall? George thought. He gestured for Super Collie to precede him, then closed and locked the flat's front door.
A sedan that exactly matched the color of the agents' suits sat, double-parked, in the street. A line of honking cars with screaming, cursing drivers stretched out behind it. Agent Smith and Agent Jones ignored them completely as they installed Super Collie and Constable Kremmin in the back seat, taking the front themselves.
"What information do you have so far?" Super Collie asked. Though almost bumper-to-bumper the traffic moved along briskly, if not rapidly. When drivers wanted to turn or merge they just did it, apparently irrespective of other vehicles. Agent Smith, who drove, did the same.
"Mr. Jaleel Bronson, under a screen name 'The Ram,' came to New York to star in a film being shot by Cinema Perversio, a local production company," Agent Jones reported. "He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport with his agent, Mr. Ronald Abbot, and two bodyguards, Mr. Reginald Pearson and Mr. Carter Stevens. His co-star, Ms. Fredrika Von Braun, who uses the screen name 'Blitz Knockers,' met them in a rented Cadillac Fleetwood limousine at approximately twenty-three hundred hours. As they left the airport's grounds and approached the Belt Parkway interchange something appeared in the roadway directly ahead. The driver applied full brake and swerved, which caused the car to depart into a spin. It sideswiped the object, sustaining heavy damage to the left rear door. After the car stopped the door was torn from its hinges and a pair of what Ms. Von Braun described as 'enormous black tentacles-'" he annunciated the phrase clearly and precisely- "removed Mr. Bronson from the vehicle. Mr. Abbot used his cell phone to notify the police."
"Did anyone see anything but the tentacle?" George asked.
"No," Agent Smith replied. "The passengers didn't notice anything out of the ordinary before the incident. The chauffeur only said that something huge and black appeared suddenly in the roadway. After that he was stunned by the airbag, which also blocked his sight line. No one left the vehicle afterward, not until removed by rescue personnel."
"Where's the car?" Super Collie asked.
"We're taking you to it now, ma'am," Agent Smith assured. "It's being held in a police garage in Queens."
"We haven't received any messages from the kidnappers, nor has our investigation to date revealed any likely suspects," Agent Jones added.
George cleared his throat to conceal a snort. What did you do, inspect the staff to see if any of them had tentacles? His levity vanished almost at once. People who looked normal most of the time but transformed into monsters weren't unknown in super heroing circles.
An hour and a half later- during which George didn't think they'd gone more than thirty kilometers- the car arrived at a bulky, stone faced building that looked as if it might have stood since before the turn of the century. The previous century, that was, George amended hastily. Being somewhat more than middle aged he still had some difficulty with the idea of living in the twenty-first, as opposed to the twentieth, century. Agent Smith pulled into the entrance to an underground parking garage; a guard in an armored booth inspected his credentials then pressed a button. A heavy barrier lifted, allowing the car to proceed. Three levels down another guard inspected Agent Smith's ID, then unlocked a gate and waved the car through. The entire floor seemed to be filled with motor vehicles of various sorts that had suffered violent catastrophes. "Here it is," Agent Smith announced, stopping the car.
"Blimey," Super Collie breathed as she exited the sedan. Force of impact had not only dished in the limo's side but kinked the frame so that the nose and tail were no longer aligned.
"It looks like it ran into a bridge pier," George commented. He'd seen his share of motorway accidents during his time as a police officer.
"The object was plastic," Agent Jones said. "That is to say stiff but flexible, like plastic, as opposed to hard like metal or concrete. It appears to have fur, too; our forensics people recovered several hairs from the wreckage. The hairs are currently undergoing analysis but our experts tentatively classify them as feline."
"Unfortunately, the combination of cat hairs and tentacles doesn't match anything in our database of super entities," Agent Smith added.
"Where's the door?" George asked, walking slowly around the wreck.
"It wasn't recovered," Agent Smith replied. "We theorize that the perpetrator carried it away, probably with the intent to confuse the trail."
"How big were the tentacles?" Super Collie asked, approaching the side of the limo and inspecting the damage up close.
Agent Smith checked his notebook. "Ms. Von Braun said they were bigger around than her arm, but smaller than her thigh. But then her thighs are- ah-"
"Generous?" George suggested.
"Yes."
"Did the tentacles reach or slither into the car?" Super Collie asked, ducking her head through the doorway and surveying the interior. She picked up what had been Jaleel's seatbelt, rubbing the frayed end with her thumb and forefinger. It had clearly been cut; not as neatly as a sharp pair of scissors might have done, but fairly cleanly nonetheless. Say, a pair of blunt scissors wielded by someone immensely strong.
"I.. didn't think to ask," Agent Smith admitted. "Ms. Von Braun said reach, though."
"Did the tentacles touch anyone else?" Super Collie inquired. She ran her fingers along the door frame, not quite touching the metal.
"No," Agent Jones said. "That we did ask. Everyone agreed: the tentacles moved in a very determined fashion, directly to Mr. Bronson. They did not hesitate or grope."
"How was the seatbelt cut?"
"The tentacles apparently had some kind of bony grabber on the ends," Agent Smith explained. "Ms. Von Braun called them beaks; Mr. Abbot called them claws. I'm afraid we don't have a very detailed or consistent description."
"So." Super Collie straightened up. "We have a cat. It was large enough that the chauffeur called it huge, and strong enough that it survived the collision without injury. It left its hairs in the wreckage, but no trace of blood. Unless some was found elsewhere at the scene?"
"There was not," Agent Smith put in.
"It's heavy enough that it wasn't knocked flying," Super Collie continued. "It recovered from the crash quickly enough to rip the door off almost immediately."
"We think it pounced from about thirty feet- ten meters- short of the point of contact," Agent Jones said.
"Nine point one meters," Super Collie corrected.
"Anyway, we found marks in the pavement that might have been left by the creature's claws when it leapt," Agent Jones continued, a bit testily. "They were-"
"Sketch them for me, please," Super Collie interrupted.
Agent Jones knelt, drew a pen from his breast pocket, and used it as a pointer to describe four parallel lines, each about forty centimeters in length.
"That's the actual spacing?" Super Collie asked.
"Give or take a bit," Agent Jones allowed.
Super Collie rubbed her chin. Assuming that each furrow had been cut by a single claw, the lines indicated a foot more than twice the width of her own. "One set or two?"
"One," Agent Smith said.
"Then I theorize that our cat monster is a biped," Super Collie announced. "He launched himself from a set." She dropped to a crouch, as if readying for the start of a sprint race. "A quadruped would have taken off with both hind legs at once."
"It would have to be an awfully large cat monster," George observed.
"Something on the order of three and a half to four meters in height, eight hundred kilograms mass," Agent Jones put in.
"Forgive me if I seem obtuse, but I'm having difficulty imagining how a giant black cat monster with tentacles could toddle up to the scene of the crime, then toddle off with Mr. Bronson tucked under its arm without anyone remarking it."
Agent Smith scrubbed his face. "I'm afraid you've hit right on the most annoying part of this whole case, Constable. As far as we can tell, that's exactly what happened. We have absolutely no idea how the perp arrived at or departed the scene."
"Surely there were witnesses?" George ventured. "In an area this built up I shouldn't think the motorway would be that dark, even at night."
Agent Smith cleared his throat. George looked at him quizzically- then realized suddenly that the man looked embarrassed. It took George aback because, to best of his knowledge, this was the first time he'd seen Agent Smith exhibit any emotion whatsoever. "I'm afraid in New York people have a history of not seeing things," he said.
Super Collie blinked. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."
Agent Smith sighed. "Living in New York City is known to be... hard on people," he said. "Some years ago a woman was mugged, in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of witnesses. People watched the attack from the street and their apartment windows but no one moved to intervene and none of the witnesses came forward until contacted by police. That, what with the number of super beings operating in and around the greater New York area..." He shrugged. "I'm afraid people have become rather jaded about the whole thing. These days no one comes forward unless there's a reward or they get on television."
Super Collie's jaw dropped. The notion that people would ignore human suffering unless it somehow profited them shocked her to the core. Then, with an air of determination, she turned to the limo and started sniffing it. She began around the missing door, worked her way through the rear compartment, the front seat, and all around the outside.
"Find anything?" Agent Jones inquired, somewhat facetiously.
"Indeed I did," Super Collie pronounced firmly. "There's a scent, right here at the impact site." With a fingertip she circumscribed an area including the front post of the rear door. "It's definitely feline, but there's... something odd about it. It's distinct enough that I'm sure I could track it if I could examine the wreck site."
"That can be arranged," Agent Smith said. "In the meantime we'll provide you with all the crime scene data we have to date and introduce you to your associate."
Super Collie began to answer but caught herself. "Associate?" she inquired suspiciously.
"Yes," Agent Jones said. "In addition to ourselves the Department has selected a super hero who will assist you with the investigation and lend aid during encounters between yourself and other super entities."
"I... see," Super Collie replied, slowly and with more than a little trepidation. "Is my... associate here, now?"
"Yes," Agent Smith replied. "If you'll come this way we'll introduce you."
"Yes," Super Collie agreed. "Let's get... introduced. Yes." George strongly suspected that she might have meant to say let's get this over with.
An elevator whisked the four to a higher level of the building and opened onto an office bustling with activity. Agents Smith and Jones led their charges through a maze of partitions and cubicles to a small room separated from its neighbors by frosted glass walls. Agent Smith opened the door and gestured for Super Collie and Constable Kremmin to precede him. Inside they encountered a tall, trim, and reasonably muscular young man wearing a bulky suit that resembled nothing so much as a knight's mail. The metal had even been buffed to a high finish. A massive backpack attached to the rear of the suit and stuck up above the top of his head. A pair of short fins jutted out to either side; at the end of each was a fat, open cylinder like a miniature jet engine. A selection of smaller fins, on his shoulders and hips, presumably enhanced the suit's stability. A short, wide-barreled weapon attached to the top of his right forearm. The man himself appeared to be some sort of deer; light brown fur covered most his long, narrow face, with touches of white around his eyes and on his chin and throat. A pair of slender, black, ribbed horns corkscrewed up and back from the top of his head.
"Oh, Super Collie, it's such an honor to meet you!" he gushed, rushing forward and offering his hand. As he moved one of his jets knocked over a chair. When he spun to catch it he slammed his other jet into Agent Smith's belly. When he spun back the other way, apologizing profusely, he would have smacked Constable Kremmin had not that individual set himself against the impact. The armored man bounced away, looking quite surprised. Though well into his fifties Constable Kremmin's squat body was every bit as solid and powerful as it looked.
"Super Collie, allow me to present Jato Impala, who will be your associate for the duration of your stay here," Agent Jones said, grabbing the fallen chair and freezing the hapless super hero with a hard look.
"Jato Impala," Super Collie responded with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm. "It's always an honor to meet a fellow crime fighter," she added, stepping forward and offering her hand with the air of a person determined to be pleasant no matter how trying the circumstances.
"It's my pleasure, ma'am," Jato Impala replied, grinning happily. "I can't say what a delight it is to be working alongside such a famous super hero for my first case!"
"Charmed," Super Collie replied. Her smile, which had seemed rather forced, now looked more like the rictus of a person being strangled.
"How did you happen to become a super hero, Jato?" George asked.
"I won a contest," Jato Impala replied proudly.
"A group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology built the suit as part of an Advanced Science contest sponsored by the Department," Agent Smith said. "With the suit in hand the Department decided to look for a suitable candidate to use it. Jato here was selected out of a hundred and fifty applicants on the basis of his physical fitness and his responses to the essay questions."
"Very commendable, son," George said, seizing Jato Impala's gauntleted hand and shaking it heartily. "Can you tell us a bit about your powers?"
"The jet pack allows me to fly," Jato announced, turning back and forth. Agent Jones leapt out of the way. "The armor itself is a special light-weight alloy with active shock cancellation. Conventional armor can stop a bullet, say, but force of impact goes right into your body and bruises the heck out of it. Better than being dead, sure, but after a round or two you're out of the fight anyway 'cause you've been pounded silly. The lining of this suit contains special gel packs that absorb and dissipate the shock wave generated by high-velocity impacts with the outer shell. I can take a dozen hits and stay on my feet." He grinned. "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking." No one laughed; his grin slipped a little. "Anyway, my primary weapon is the grenade launcher, here." He raised his right arm. "It's a clip fed semi-automatic that holds three rounds. I have four spare clips here on my belt." He tapped his midriff. "The grenades are the latest in non-lethal incapacitating ordinance. Instead of using a traditional explosive they're charged coils of room-temperature superconductor. The triggering mechanism shorts the coil and the flux released vaporizes it. That generates an extremely powerful shock wave but no shrapnel to speak of. Having one of these babies go off near you is like getting clocked by the toughest boxer that ever lived. Regular body armor doesn't help, either. You need shock canceling armor, like I have." He thumped his chest. "Last but not least, the helmet includes millimeter radar and a two-way radio." He lowered his face shield. "It's better than infra-red, even, because it works regardless of light conditions, as well as in smoke and even rain."
"How's the resolution?" George asked.
"So so." Jato wiggled his hand. "It's no good for reading, for instance, but I don't have any trouble seeing where anything is. In fact, I can even blank the visor completely and use only radar imaging." He touched a control on the side of his helmet; the visor over his face turned silver. "Even with only that I can see just fine." He reached out and put a hand on George's shoulder. Unfortunately, in so doing, he almost clipped Super Collie with one of his jets. She hopped back just in time. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed, spinning to face her. That swept the other jet straight at George, who this time didn't merely brace to receive it, he shoved back. Jato stumbled backwards and almost fell; Agent Jones leapt clear and dragged a chair out of the way so Jato wouldn't trip over it.
"I gather the suit doesn't enhance your strength any," George commented, rubbing his forearm.
"Ah, no," Jato admitted. "I understand there were plans for a servo-boost mechanism but it went over budget."
"How did you end up with the name Jato Impala?" Super Collie inquired.
"Um-" Jato shifted his feet uncomfortably. "Well... I wanted to be the Rocket Deer but apparently that's taken. One of the students on the design team suggested Jato Impala as an alternative."
"We checked our database and found that it wasn't in use by any registered super being," Agent Smith put in. "So our boy got it free and clear." George had to say that Jato himself didn't seem entirely thrilled, however.
"Can you carry someone when you fly, Jato?" Super Collie asked.
"Ah, up to a point," Jato qualified, raising his visor. "The suit jets are pretty powerful but I can only hold what I can lift."
"Won't be a problem," Super Collie replied briskly. "I can hold on plenty tight. I want you to fly me to where the accident happened. Do you know where it is?"
"Yes!" Jato replied excitedly. "My visor has a GPS-"
"Good," Super Collie cut in. "Let's be off, then."
"Ah, Super Collie-" Agent Jones began.
"What?" Super Collie cut in, more sharply than before. "I'm here to investigate this case. Jato here is my associate, which I assume to mean that he's here to assist me. If he gets me to the wreck site in less than three hours he'll be assisting me to no end."
"My pleasure, ma'am!" Jato exclaimed, saluting smartly and grinning hugely.
Agents Smith and Jones looked at one another. Agent Jones shrugged. "As you wish," Agent Smith said. "I'd suggest using the roof exit."
"Right this way, ma'am!" Jato exclaimed, moving to the door. He caught one of his jet pods on it and staggered into the jamb. In the end Super Collie was forced to twist him sideways and shove him through. A chorus of shouts and curses followed them across the office as Jato bumped into people, swept papers off desks, and knocked over waste baskets. He apologized profusely and would have stopped to help clean up the disturbances had not Super Collie kept him moving with a firm hand on the shoulder. At the elevator Super Collie found herself once again forced to steer Jato Impala through the doorway to keep him from bashing into things.
"Please, Super Collie, let me say what an honor it is-" Jato began as the car rose toward the roof.
"Yes, thank you," Super Collie cut in. "I really can't say what an honor it is to be given an associate of your caliber."
George frowned briefly. It occurred to him that Super Collie's comment seemed rather deliberately ambiguous. Jato Impala took it as a compliment and beamed happily.
"So, ah, how do we do this?" Jato asked as the party emerged onto the building's roof. He practically slavered as he contemplated putting his arms, even armored, around Super Collie.
"Not a problem," Super Collie said briskly. She spun Jato Impala around and leapt onto his back, wrapping her legs around his jet pack and gripping his shoulders with her arms. Jato grunted and staggered, almost loosing his balance. He triggered his jets; they came on with a piercing scream and a cloud of debris kicked up from the roof. He converted his stumble into a shambling run; just at the point he seemed about to go off the roof edge and plunge into the street he achieved liftoff. The suit seemed capable of carrying the weight but Jato had trouble balancing it; he wobbled erratically through the canyons between buildings until lost from sight. The scream of his suit jets remained somewhat longer.
Constable Kremmin remained on the roof, distractedly picking at his lower lip, long after the newly paired super hero team disappeared. "You know," he commented to no one in particular, "I get the feeling this is going to be a very interesting case."
Agent Jones took off his glasses and buffed them with a handkerchief. His blue-green eyes were narrowed, his face set in hard lines. "That is for damn sure," he muttered.
"Thank you, Mr. Apple," the pretty young customs inspector said, returning his passport. "Welcome to America and we hope you enjoy your stay in New York City."
Albert Algernon Apple grunted noncommittally and took his passport carefully from the young woman instead of snatching it. A liter of Vodka from the duty free shop in Auckland helped ameliorate the fact that he'd been forced to fly to bloody Sydney before catching a connecting flight to Los Angeles. Distributed more or less evenly through his twenty-six hour journey the alcohol left him more or less functional. Somewhat less than more, it seems, he thought darkly, successfully returning his passport to its place in the vest pocket of his ratty brown sports coat on the second try. With his camera- an ancient, battered, 35mm Pentax SLR- around his neck and an equally battered briefcase in hand he shambled off toward baggage claim. Physical activity- and sea level atmospheric pressure- helped clear the cobwebs from his mind. At the baggage carousel he pushed through the crowd in a fashion befitting a man of his height and prodigious girth. People cursed and elbowed him as he forged stolidly ahead like an ice breaker moving through a field of growlers. He ignored the abuse; he was used to it. If anything he was rather disappointed; New Yorkers were supposed to be some of the surliest people in the world but the vitriol around him felt lukewarm at best and the curses yawningly mundane. At least by Albert's standards they were. He had, after all, been cursed and vilified all over the world.
The press in the passenger loading area in front of the terminal made the crowd at baggage claim seem downright civil. Albert waded in, using the added mass of his suitcases to aid his progress. Now the curses came hot and heavy. He stopped a cab through the simple expedient of stepping in front of it. His mass- over a hundred and sixty kilos- probably halted it as much as the look in his small, bloodshot eyes. "Take me to the Carlton House Best Western," he ordered in a naturally gruff voice made even harsher by fatigue and alcohol as he loaded his bags into the cab's trunk. The camera, of course, stayed with him. The cabby gabbled back in something that might charitably be called English.
"This is so much better," Albert sighed, settling into the cab's rear seat. Cramming his ample behind into what airlines laughingly called seats was pure Hell, made worse by the fact that he was fundamentally too cheap to spring for first class. The cab smelled like sweat and exhaust fumes with a touch of vomit for flavor but Albert cared not, luxuriating in the sensation of being able to spread out. Thus he was intensely annoyed when he cab screeched to a halt on the motorway leading into town. He sat up, looking around quickly. Traffic on the outbound side inched along while the inbound side moved along normally. "What the Hell?" he exclaimed.
"Some super dickweed holding up traffic!" the cabby exclaimed, adding a string of vile curses in what was no doubt his native language.
"Super-" Albert grabbed up his camera, peering over it as he looked around like a sniper hunting for a target. Super folk were what had brought him to New York in the first place. On the other hand, the city was lousy with them. What were the chances that the one super hero Albert so desperately longed to see would be here?
A deer in a suit resembling nothing so much as a knight's mail attempted to direct traffic. A bulky backpack with fins and jets jutting from it made him look somewhat hunchbacked. Despite his reasonably imposing presence and imperious gestures he had little luck in his self-appointed mission- because of the other costumed individual casting about on hands and knees on the highway's concrete verge.
"Oh dear God," Albert breathed, probably the closest he'd come to an honest prayer in years. He tried to roll down the window but there wasn't a handle. "Stop the cab!" he bellowed. The cabby shouted back in his native tongue. "Because I said so!" Albert slapped a fifty- American- against the partition separating back from front. The cabby stared at it- instead of the road- for a long time, then swerved off onto the shoulder. Albert kicked his door open, snapping the Pentax's shutter even as he rose from his seat. From long practice he could shoot almost as fast with the old manual winder as another photographer could do with a power winder.
"Sir! Sir!" the deer hurried over. Albert side-stepped quickly so the idiot wouldn't block his view. "Sir, this is an official crime scene investigation-"
"Shove off!" Albert snarled. "I happen to be an official member of the press, bullet-head!"
Super Collie heard the voice and glanced back over her shoulder. Her jaw dropped, her eyes widening in shock and horror. She'd turned almost directly away from Albert as she sniffed the concrete, giving him a beautiful view of her buttocks. That, combined with her absolutely astounding expression, was more than Albert could have dared hope for. The deer reached for the camera, either to grab it or block the shot. Albert swung it down and to the side before tripping the shutter, firing almost from arm's length. He felt something like the sense of giddy excitement and transcendent joy he'd experienced that fateful day in Nagasaki. This wasn't anywhere near that good... but it was enough to make Albert believe, at least for a moment, that there was a God and He loved his son Albert. A photo of Super Collie on hands and knees with her ass in the air- and that expression on her face- was front page material for sure.
"Just what the bloody Hell are you doing here, Squid?" Super Collie demanded. In an instant- literally, a blur- she'd gained her feet and closed the distance between them. Albert recoiled; he couldn't help it. He knew that super running was one of her powers but intellectual appreciation did nothing to prepare him for the reality of her practically materializing in his face. Especially not when she looked angry enough to chew nails and spit tacks.
"Is this person bothering you, Super Collie?" the deer demanded icily.
Super Collie turned the full force of her gaze upon the deer. "Jato, will you please can the 'gallant gentleman' routine?" she thundered. He wilted like a flower in a blast furnace.
"Who's you're boyfriend, Super Collie?" Albert asked, unable to keep a smirk off his face.
"He is not my boyfriend, you overweight glob of suet!" Super Collie shrieked, grabbing Albert by the lapels and shaking him violently. "By God I'd rather-" she faltered, perhaps realizing suddenly what she was about to say. "Ah, Jato, I-" she began, glancing somewhat fearfully at the deer.
A mirrored visor hid the deer's face but Albert could imagine his eyes brimming with tears behind it. His lip quivered.
"Look, Jato, it's not like that," Super Collie said hurriedly, dropping Albert and taking one of the deer's hands in both of hers. As she opened her mouth to continue Albert stepped back and snapped a picture of the touching scene.
"You motherless bastard!" Super Collie shrilled. Her staff came around-
Albert cringed. Once again he couldn't help it. The head of Super Collie's staff had stopped only a few centimeters short of smashing the camera out of his hands. It vibrated as her hands quivered. She bared her teeth. "Aarhh!" she snarled, spinning away. "Go away, Squid," she said shortly.
"Yes, your cab is holding up traffic," the deer interjected. He extended a hand to Albert's shoulder.
"And just who are you?" Albert demanded, pulling back and raising the camera.
"I happen to be Jato Impala, officially accredited super hero," the deer replied archly. "Who might you be?"
"He calls himself Squid Vicious," Super Collie replied before Albert could speak. "He writes stories for gossip rags and takes embarrassing photos to go with them." She glanced over her shoulder; if looks could have inflicted wounds Albert would have died a gruesome, horrible death. "He seems to have made me a special project of his, too."
"Oh, my!" Jato Impala's mouth dropped open. Despite his nom de plume the man was a walrus, not a squid; rough, ruddy skin as rumpled as his clothes enclosed his thick, corpulent body. Coarse, scraggly hair sprouted from every visible part of him except his hands, which were smooth and webbed. The stiff, bristly whiskers jutting from his fleshy cheek pads drooped in the characteristic "walrus moustache" pattern. His head, with its low, sloped forehead and small, piggy eyes, sat on his rounded shoulders apparently without the benefit of a neck. "You're the one who took that picture of Super Collie in Nagasaki!" Jato exclaimed, glancing at Super Collie- and even with his visor lowered Albert had no trouble reading Jato's face. He was imagining Super Collie in a skimpy sailor suit of the type Japanese schoolgirls are known to wear, after she'd slid a dozen meters on her face. The Mystic Power of the Shepherd saved her from injury... but it didn't prevent the pavement from stripping off the front of the suit, so when she picked herself up-
Super Collie's face lost all expression. She read Jato's face as clearly as Albert did. Without a word she turned about and ran off along the highway's shoulder.
"Wait!" Jato shouted, but by the time he got the word out noting remained of Super collie but a blue-gold streak vanishing in the distance. Jato spun around- and one of his jets smacked Albert right in the back. He pitched forward from the unexpected impact- and the camera flew from around his neck as he fell headlong on his face. For an eternal instant the Pentax spun through the air- then smashed on the pavement, the lens shattering and breaking off, the film compartment flying open. "Terribly sorry, sir!" Jato called as he ran after Super Collie, triggering his suit jets. But as he roared away into the sky he giggled.
"Bugger me," Super Collie muttered, coasting to a stop. She'd left the motorway some time ago; for a while she'd been running on city streets, turning randomly this way and that. Now, on top of being saddled with a useless sidekick and having to cope with an annoying reporter she was thoroughly lost in this filthy, stinking Hell hole of a city. "Bugger me!" she repeated, with more feeling. Yeah, and wouldn't Jato Impala just love to do that, she thought darkly.
Reflections on buggery turned Super Collie's thoughts in the direction of her boyfriend, John. she couldn't help imagining the sensation of his hand upon her hip, while his fingers gently spread KY jelly between her buttocks. Then he'd lean his hips against hers, guiding his penis into her anus with one hand while reaching around with the other and stroking her vulva-
John's imaginary touch was sufficiently vivid that Super Collie shivered in reaction. She drooped her head in embarrassment as if the people nearby might have seen her thoughts. She leapt onto the roof of a market because she didn't want to deal with them. Sitting on a ventilator with her chin on her palm and her staff across her lap wasn't exactly comfortable but it was comparatively private. Before John she'd never even thought of anal sex, much less actually considered it. John never suggested it until Daughter Night got ahold of him. Now... when she thought about it Super Collie wasn't sure she cared for it but somehow every time John made an overture- he never asked in so many words- she ended up giving in. She couldn't honestly say she didn't enjoy it, either; somehow his just being himself made everything she and he did together exciting and pleasurable- even when, viewed in the cold light of reason, it was shockingly unconventional. She dabbed at her face, wiping away the tears brimming in her eyes. She wished John were here with her instead of far away in Wellington. His gentle touch never failed to wipe away her sorrows. His warm smile made all her travails worthwhile. But if people found out he was Super Collie's boyfriend-
A high-pitched scream broke into Super Collie's thoughts. She looked up as saw Jato Impala zooming over the buildings. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that, without her weight to upset him, he handled himself fairly well. He lacked experience, sure... but who was she to cast aspersions? He, at least, had training and the guidance of the Department of Super Hero Affairs. She'd started super heroing completely cold, without even knowing the full extent of her powers. She'd learned the hard way- and made no small number of mistakes in the process. Sure he was naive, annoying, and clumsy- at least on the ground- but underneath it all he seemed genuinely dedicated to being a super hero. Perhaps their pairing was more fortuitous than it appeared. If her influence turned Jato into a real hero then she would have accomplished something significant even if she did nothing else.
Jato's suit jets blasted up a storm of dust and gravel as he dropped onto the rooftop. "Thank goodness you stopped," he said. "Even with being able to fly straight instead of going around things like you had to I could barely keep up."
"I'm sorry, Jato," Super Collie sighed, rising to her feet. "It's just... Squid's been a thorn in my side for a long time. It seems like every time something embarrassing happens he's there to turn it into a fiasco."
"Ah." Jato nodded. "Like taking pictures of your butt."
"For example." Super Collie clenched her teeth to avoid snarling.
"Well, then I guess it's lucky he dropped his camera," Jato said. "Though of course as an accredited super hero I regard any injury to the public as unfortunate, no matter how minor."
"He dropped his camera?" Super Collie asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yep. Terrible thing. Lens broke, film everywhere. Terrible." Jato shook his head but a huge grin split his face.
"The film was exposed?" Super Collie asked breathlessly. "You mean he lost all his pictures?" Suddenly the world seemed like a brighter, happier place.
"Yeah." Jato repressed a giggle. "I'm afraid I, I sorta bumped into him. Knocked him right on his mug, in fact." He clasped his hands over his mouth, his shoulders heaving. "I mean- you know I wouldn't do anything like that on purpose!" he snorted several times. "But- you know- how clumsy I am!" He couldn't contain himself any longer and broke down, howling with laughter.
For a long moment Super Collie stared at Jato in mute wonder. Then she grabbed is face and gave him what was probably the longest, most passionate kiss he'd ever received in his life. When she finally let him go he almost collapsed. "Take me back to the crash site," she directed, shaking him gently. "There's something I still need to check." She even let him put his arms around her instead of riding on his back. When they arrived she leapt over the concrete barrier lining the shoulder of the motorway and surveyed the patch of ground between the two roads and the various ramps connecting them. Somewhere else this area might have been landscaped with grass and shrubs but here was nothing but slabs of dingy concrete- with a storm drain in the middle to collect runoff. Dropping to hands and knees Super Collie sniffed carefully, continuing what she'd started earlier: that is, looking for the scent she'd detected on the wrecked limo.
Unfortunately, big cities in general and this one in particular were bad places for scent tracking. Motorways always stank: of motor fuels, lubricant oils, hot rubber, tar, and exhaust fumes. In a place with lots of roads, and heavily traveled ones at that, the effluvia would overwhelm noses considerably less sensitive than Super Collie's. But even so there was always the chance that she'd get lucky-
"Bingo," Super Collie whispered, crouching to bring her face right up against the grate without actually touching it. Over the years a certain amount of mud and debris had collected in the gap between the grating and the frame in which it sat. Some of that mud and debris had been lifted out of the gap and left in little piles on top of the outer rim. Sometime, not too long ago- recent enough that runoff hadn't washed away the evidence- the grate had been removed from its frame, then replaced. And indeed there were a couple fine, black hairs caught in the rusty metal. Super Collie would bet her eye teeth that, once analyzed, they'd match the ones taken from the limo.
Jato perked up. He'd been watching closely- or, at least, watching Super Collie's buttocks closely. When she made her discovery she hiked up her tail, wagging excitedly, at the same time raising her hips, lowering her shoulders, and shifting her knees apart. Jato's suit wasn't very comfortable to stand around it, being heavy and bulky, but just then he was profoundly glad of it; the rigid mail- especially in the area just below his midriff- saved him from doing something that would be shockingly improper as the official liaison to visiting super being. "Have you found something?" he asked.
When Super Collie glanced over her shoulder to respond Jato was still looking at her rear end. It struck her rather forcefully that her current position could be considered... suggestive, to say the least. It also It also occurred to her that despite his shortcomings Jato was a quite pleasingly fit and handsome young fellow. His handy disposal of Squid, accidental or otherwise, had gone a very long way to mitigating his shortcomings; so far, in fact, that she didn't begrudge him his free look. In fact, she wondered fleetingly what he'd look like without his armor. If only he wore spandex instead. That brought on a sharp pang of guilt; John wouldn't go chasing after other women while she was away. She sat back on her heels, shaking her head to clear her mind. "Yes," she pronounced, rising smoothly to her feet. "This grate was opened recently." She inverted her staff, fed it through the grate, hooked one of the crosspieces, and, after bracing herself carefully, lifted the grate out of its frame. Despite that the grate was cast steel and must weigh a good hundred kilos she lifted it easily, needing care only to insure that she didn't overbalance. She shuffled backwards, pulling the grate behind her, then peered down into the hole.
The grate capped a narrow concrete tube with metal rungs set in one side. A ways down it opened into a much larger horizontal passage. Super Collie gathered her cape, held her staff against her body, and jumped. She landed with a splash in a few centimeters of water; a large, rectangular storm sewer- easily enough to accommodate five or six people walking abreast- stretched away into the distance, running approximately diagonal to both motorways. Dirt washed down the drains formed swirling patterns on the floor and trapped small pools of stagnant water, whose smell masked the odor she sought. Heavy darkness concealed everything but a small patch of floor illuminated by sunlight coming through the drain opening.
"Jato!" Super Collie shouted. Her voice echoed along the sewer. "Do you have a torch?"
"Huh?"
Super Collie grimaced. Separated by a common language, she thought sourly. "I mean a- a-" She struggled for the word. What did the Yanks call it? Oh yes: "A flash. Flashlight."
"Oh. No, but my helmet has a light. I'll be right down."
"But-" Super Collie began. Yet here came Jato's armored boots down the ladder. He hove into view- without his jet pack, which clearly would not have fit down the hole. "Oh. I didn't realize you could take it off."
"Yeah." Jato pointed out lugs on the side of his chest and waist. "The jet pack locks to the armor suit so I don't flop around while in flight. The pack doesn't have any control surfaces, I aim it by shifting my balance, and even tight straps would have too much slop, especially during hovers. But there's a quick release so I can take it off and put it on without too much trouble." He indicated what Super Collie had thought to be a decorative belt buckle, though she had wondered why it was red instead of bright metal like the rest of his suit. Now that she looked closely she saw the words "Emergency Release" stenciled on it.
"Cracking." Super Collie pulled Jato to her side. "Now here's what I need you to do. Switch on your light. Aim it straight down, then move it along the floor out that way." She pointed down the sewer.
"If you need to find something, it might be easier for me to use my radar vision," Jato suggested.
Super Collie licked her lips. "That's a good idea but I'm not sure you'd recognize what I wanted to see."
"No problem." Jato pressed a latch at his throat. The helmet of his suit detached from the plastron. He reached up- then hesitated. "Um... Super Collie, I hope you won't take this wrong but-"
"No, I understand," Super Collie cut in gently. "You have a secret identity, don't you?"
"Uh, yeah."
Super Collie giggled. "I won't tell if you won't."
"Aw, what the heck. If you can't trust your partner, who can you trust?" Jato lifted off his helmet and for the first time Super Collie gazed upon his face. She resisted the urge to sigh; from the neck up at least he was quite handsome. Definitely super hero material, she decided. Unfortunately he also seemed also to be about a decade younger than her. "I've already set it to radar mode," he continued. "All you have to do is look." He reversed the helmet and set it on Super Collie's head.
Super Collie turned slowly and looked down the tunnel. The helmet didn't fit well; her face seemed to be shorter and wider than Jato's. For present purposes, she decided, it really didn't matter. The visor showed her a strange scene painted in eerie, slightly hazy electronic green. Surfaces lacked color, texture, and shading. The floor looked strange until she realized that the swirls of dirt weren't distinguished from the concrete on which they lay. Seeing nothing of interest she turned about and looked the other way. Just as she opened her mouth, intending to ask Jato to switch on the helmet lamp, something did catch her attention. In fact, if the soil were as dark and murky down the way as it was right under the drain she might have overlooked it.
"See something?" Jato asked, sensing Super Collie's excitement.
"Yes," Super Collie replied. She took a step-
And jumped back with a ragged gasp that was almost a scream. The feeling had been like a cold draft ruffling her fur, and icy fingers tripping down her spine. Except that it couldn't have been a draft, because she felt it through her clothes as if she'd been naked. She whirled, convinced that there was someone behind her. There was, but it was Jato, not the nightmare phantasm she'd expected. She tore off the helmet, even though doing so plunged her into darkness, because it seemed to be hampering her senses rather than enhancing them.
"Super?" Jato asked, stepping forward quickly. He looked worried. "Are you all right?"
Super Collie took several deep breaths to calm her nerves and slow her pounding heart. It's just a sewer, she told herself. There are no ghosts down here. "Step here," she commanded, putting a hand between Jato's shoulder blades and pushing him forward.
"Yes?" Jato waited expectantly.
"Don't you... feel it?" Super Collie asked, struggling to keep her voice level. It was all she could do to keep from running; whatever she'd felt had gone straight to the dark basement of her mind, where monsters lurked in closets, under the bed, and crept from the shadows when the lights went out. Reminding herself that she was an adult, and thus above such childish fears, didn't help in the least.
"Apparently not," Jato replied. "Or if so, it seems perfectly ordinary. There's nothing about standing here that's different from standing over there."
Super Collie grimaced. She hated admitting it, even to herself, but Jato's presence went a very long way to helping her conquer her fear. Gritting her teeth tightly, she reached out a hand and put it on his shoulder.
The feeling came back... but only in a very local area. Super Collie moved sideways, groping along; the chill seemed to occupy a region of precise boundaries, as if she were putting her hand into cold water, except that the surface was vertical and there wasn't any water, only air. She managed to edge around the zone by pressing against the opposite wall of the tunnel. "Turn on your light and point it here, at the floor," she said.
Jato came up beside Super Collie, put his helmet back on, locked it down, and operated some controls on his left forearm. A pair of small but intense lamps, one on either side of his head, came on and cast pools of light on the floor of the tunnel. "See this?" Super Collie asked, pointing to a shallow ridge in the greasy, dark soil. "This is a footprint."
Jato cocked his head. "I'm sorry, I don't see it."
"The foot was here." Super Collie traced a circle just above a patch of bare concrete next to the disturbed soil. "When it came down the dirt oozed out from under it, forming this ridge. The side of the ridge is curved instead of sharp, meaning the foot was bare. Unshod. These brush marks along the top were made by dragging hairs. Now, here's the clincher." Super Collie placed her foot on the opposite side of the dirt patch and bore down. Her boot left a sharp edged mark considerably shallower than the other. "Notice how little the dirt moved when I stepped on it. Whatever made this mark weighed a lot more than I do."
Jato's jaw dropped. "You mean... like a giant cat!"
"I mean exactly that."
"But-" Jato looked behind and up at the tube leading to the drain. "It couldn't possibly have fit down that hole."
Super Collie straightened up, brushing the dirt from her knee. Unfortunately the force field which protected her from harm didn't protect her from soiling. "As to that... I know this may sound a little crazy but I think it somehow turned insubstantial and passed through the concrete."
Jato frowned. "You're right," he said flatly. "It does sound crazy."
"Jato, not too long ago back in New Zealand I dealt with a... being who could do that. Whenever she passed through a solid object it left... a creepy feeling. Like a chill. I felt that same thing here." Does that mean this monster is somehow connected to Daughter Night? she wondered. It wasn't a pleasant thought. "Come on," she said, turning and starting down the tunnel, extending the line from the entrance to the footprint. "Let's see if we can find any more evidence."
Jato followed, keeping his light aimed at the floor, widening the beam from a spot to a flood. "You're sure he came this way?" he asked.
"I am," Super Collie replied. "This tunnels' big enough for him, though he'd have to stoop. But why use it, if he can pass through the ground?"
"Why, then?" Jato countered.
"Because he can't carry Mr. Bronson with him. If so, it would have been easier and safer to grab him out of his hotel room. Our cat critter staged the grab here because it lets him get himself and Jaleel underground, and out of sight, as quickly as possible. If he used this tunnel on the way to the snatch he would have stopped directly under the road; there'd be no reason to walk all the way to the grate."
Super Collie's exposition took long enough that at its conclusion she and Jato were in fact under the motorway; traffic noise came down to them, muted by earth and concrete but still distinct. Jato looked up, panning his light across the ceiling, but there wasn't anything of interest to see. For her own part Super Collie looked down; any evidence to be found would be on the floor. Concrete wouldn't take tracks but the dirt covering it might, especially if the perp had stood in one place for a while. Holding perfectly still was very difficult; most likely there'd be scuff marks in the dirt-
As she bent over to look closely at the floor Super Collie did in fact discover markings, though not the kind she'd expected. Her nose found it, not her eyes; not too long ago someone had let a fairly generous quantity of vaginal fluid drip on the concrete. The odor was strong enough that it easily overcame the musty, stagnant smell of the sewer itself, at least in Super Collie's nostrils. A vision flashed into her mind: of the kidnapper, caressing his lady friend's vulva with one hand, holding a bottle with the other to collect her passion sweat. A patently absurd notion, to be sure, but it brought to mind another vision, one not so easily banished: of John doing the caressing and holding the bottle to collect Super Collie's love juice. Surely just as absurd a notion, since she couldn't imagine John doing such a thing... but she couldn't stop thinking about it. In particular, what it would feel like as John's fingers stimulated her labia. The ugly truth was that if by some happenstance John did ask, she'd almost certainly let him. Simply as an excuse to have him touch her, if nothing else. She gritted her teeth, shaking her head to clear it. If she'd understood that taking the spirit of Bast into herself would turn her into such little horn dog-
Super Collie heaved a sigh and let her head droop. If she'd known she would have done it anyway. It was the only hope she'd had of stopping Daughter Night without a terrible loss of life. Nor had she been a nun, or anything like one, beforehand. The spirit might have sharpened her desire and deepened her passion, but both had already existed in a well developed form.
The second thought which came to Super Collie regarding the fluid stain was nearly as disturbing as the first, for all that it was much more carefully thought out. That a man would bring the fluid and deliberately dump it made no sense at all; it was far more reasonable to suppose that the stain had been left by someone equipped to do so: that is, a woman. Moreover, it made more sense to suppose that the woman in question was the kidnapper, rather that some random individual who just happened to wander down into the sewers to masturbate. But that led to a rather unfortunate conclusion: that the kidnapper, a woman, had lingered down here pleasuring herself for some time before rising up to kidnap a fellow with a gigantic tonker. The thought of trying to explain that hypothesis to Agents Smith and Jones made her want to curl up into fetal position and suck her thumb.
Fortunately Jato had spent his time looking at the tunnel walls and ceiling so he didn't notice Super Collie struggling with her inner demons. He did eventually notice her apparently staring intently at the tunnel floor. "Found something?" he asked.
Super Collie bounced to her feet. "Yes," she announced briskly. "An important clue. Our kidnapper is female."
"Really? How do you know?"
"The scent," Super Collie replied. Not a lie, since Jato hadn't asked which scent.
"Can you track it?"
"I believe I can. We'll want a map of the tunnels and a professional guide before continuing, though." She returned to the entrance and mounted the ladder. As she emerged into sunlight she blinked and looked around. "Say, Jato, where'd you leave your jet pack? I don't see-"
The roar of an over-revved engine and the squeal of spinning tires cut off the rest of Super Collie's question. A battered Ford pickup fishtailed slightly as it pulled away in a cloud of rubber smoke. Two young men, both birds of some sort, rode in the truck. One, in a denim jacket, drove; the other, in leather, rode in the bed- along with Jato's jet pack.
"Shit a brick!" Super Collie exclaimed, scrambling out of the hole and breaking into a run. By the time she reached the motorway's shoulder the pickup had rejoined traffic, by the simple expedient of swerving into it. Several vehicles dodged or braked, laying on the horns. Despite this Super Collie closed range quickly; heavy traffic trapped the pickup but Super Collie ran between the cars. As she came up astern of the pickup the fellow in back picked up a rim and prepared to heave it. "No you don't!" Super Collie shouted and leapt. The driver swerved, sideswiping a sedan and driving it into the barrier lining the roadway. The guy in back toppled; fortunately for him the rim didn't land on any part of his body when he dropped it. Instead it fell into the truck bed with a horrendous crash. Super Collie came within a hair's breadth of eating pavement but managed to catch the edge of the bed with the fingers of one hand. The guy in back leapt forward, perhaps thinking he might break Super Collie's grip. She swung her staff- and hooked it around his neck. He shrieked in terror as she jerked him forward but all she did was pin him against the side of the truck while she swung her leg up and scrambled on board. The driver let out a yelp and stomped the accelerator as if he might outrun her. Super Collie glanced forward in alarm- and saw the truck closing rapidly on the vehicle in front. She grabbed the guy in back and leapt. While she hung in the air the pickup collided with a low rider Cadillac Eldorado, a vehicle nearly as big and massive as the truck. With the majestic, terrifying grace of an ocean liner hitting an iceberg the Ford and the Cadillac each broke away, spinning in opposite directions. Drivers around them dodged frantically but with traffic so tight there wasn't anywhere to go. Super Collie landed just ahead of the shock wave, ducked onto the shoulder, and stopped. As she turned about a cacophony of tearing metal, howling rubber, shattering glass, and blaring horns erupted forth as more than a dozen vehicles briefly demonstrated Brownian motion. Super Collie could only watch as the entire mass slid to a halt. A dozen more vehicles collided with the already stopped ones before traffic came to a complete halt. In the blink of an eye a hundred meter stretch of pavement had turned from a motorway into a wrecking yard.
At long last Super Collie actually looked at the man she held. His head and shoulders were black, his chest and belly white. "Bloody magpies," she growled, heading off toward the mess with the hapless fellow dragging behind. "It'd be just my bloody luck for Squid to figure out some way to make all this my fault too," she continued. "Welcome to bloody America, land of the hoon and home of the loopy. Revolution my hairy backside, I bet King George was glad to be quit of the lot of you." She released the magpie and dropped to one knee over him. "I'm going to help clean up this mess you and your mate caused," she said, jabbing her finger so close to his face his eyes crossed trying to follow it. "If you even think of running off I will track you down even if it takes a hundred years. I will track down all your descendants. If you die I'll dig up your lifeless corpse! By the time I get through with you you'll be begging to have the Terminator chewing on your arse! Do you understand me?" He nodded frantically. "Good!" She spun away, her cape billowing out behind, and started pulling people out of the wreckage.
Tinka lay on her belly, purring contentedly, her head cradled on her arms. Jaleel lay on his belly also, draped across her buttocks, gasping for breath. He guessed that Tinka weighed as much as nine or ten normal sized women. He felt like he'd just slept with nine or ten normal sized women.
Jaleel kept running into men- who weren't in the business, that is- who go got all gooey at the notion of being the only man at an orgy. He always wanted to throw them in with, say, a dozen of the women he knew, then see what they thought. For one, making love to porn stars was likely not what the average person thought it would be. Being in the business radically changed one's attitudes and perceptions about sex. For another, making love to many women was a Hell of a lot of work. In Jaleel's experience one was nice, two excellent, and three about the practical limit. A bloke with lots of stamina might successfully handle four. Beyond that you'd have to be Superman, or take periodic rest breaks.
Tinka hadn't permitted any rest breaks. Jaleel got the feeling she'd been saving up sexual frustration for a long time. He'd used his mouth, his dick, both his arms- fingers meant nothing to her; she was, after all, as big as a horse- until he felt like he'd completed a Decathlon. What annoyed him the most was that he liked fisting- and here was a woman who could take his arm up to the elbow. If only she didn't make him keep at it until his shoulders felt like they were on fire inside. He liked busty women, too... and he wasn't likely to ever see breasts larger than Tinka's, not in real life. There was a rack he could really tit fuck. Straddling her torso, with one arm around each breast, the entire length of his shaft lay within her warm, furry cleavage. A foretaste of Heaven, surely. But while she allowed him to do it she didn't share his enthusiasm. Instead she wanted him to massage her breasts and suck on her nipples. Providing her with adequate stimulation required him to press- and suck- hard. His lips felt as if someone had smacked him in the face with a mallet. That's not to say there wasn't plenty of more conventional intercourse. Tinka on her back, Tinka on her belly, Tinka on her knees- for which Jaleel had to stand- and finally, Tinka standing up. That seemed to be her favorite position, which she accomplished by supporting Jaleel under the shoulders and buttocks with her hands. That bothered him because it basically reduced him to nothing but a human dildo, existing only for her pleasure. That not so few men he knew regarded women exactly that way only made the situation more uncomfortably ironic. If his erection gave out before she was finished she stimulated it either orally or with her tentacles. Like any man he couldn't bring himself to object outright to fellatio but the proximity of her enormous fangs to a particularly tender, delicate, and intimate part of his anatomy gave him the willies, especially in light of her initial threat. The tentacles weren't too bad purely on the basis of physical stimulation but they were shockingly alien- and the suckers could suck hard. Even through his fleece he ended up with hickeys all over his body. Last, and far from least, was the purring. Felines did that, Jaleel understood, as a comfort mechanism: when they felt happy, wanted to feel happy, or wanted others to feel happy. Tinka might feel happy but Jaleel didn't- and the sound didn't make him want to, either. It wasn't the gentle sound one usually thought of; Tinka's purr was a basso profundo rumble that reminded him of an idling dump truck. It only served to reinforce how terrifyingly big and powerful she was. Against all that, she was the only female he'd ever met who took him all the way in, not counting a horse he'd done once on a drunken dare. That fact complicated the issue more than he cared to admit. He felt like God was punishing him for his lewd and lascivious lifestyle by taking what he claimed to like and throwing it back in his face.
Tinka stirred, rising to hands and knees. Jaleel remained where he was even as his feet left the floor, lacking either the strength or will to move. Her buttocks felt soft but supportive, like a nicely stuffed- but not overstuffed- couch. Nothing at all like the rippling sheets of muscle on her back, shoulders, and belly. And chest, beneath her breasts. Probably on her hips and thighs too, though far enough beneath the fat to keep her from being too firm. She plucked him off with a tentacle and lay him gently on the mattress. They hadn't used it for sex; she would have smashed it flat. "Hungry?" she asked.
"Yes," Jaleel replied, staring blankly up at the ceiling. The lantern still burned; he wondered how long it would last before he had to refuel it.
"There's a gas stove in a box next to where you found the lantern," Tinka replied. "Next to it you'll find another box full of MREs."
"Sorry?" Jaleel frowned. "Emarees?"
"Meals, Ready to Eat," Tinka explained. "Civilian version of military rations. They have the advantage of being fairly compact, easy to store, quick to prepare, and reasonably tasty. Down at the other end of the room you'll find a tank full of water you can use for drinking or bathing. There's no bathtub but there is a bucket; you can heat water on the stove and pour it over yourself. You'll find soap and shampoo in one of these boxes. There's a bed pan sitting next to some pipes coming out of the floor; make sure the waste water goes down them. Bodily waste goes in there too; if you take a dump made sure to sprinkle some of the white powder down on top of it. Use the scoop and keep it covered; if you get it on your bare skin it'll burn you up right quick. Enjoy." She rose to her feet.
"W- where are you going?" Jaleel stammered.
"Out to get my dinner," Tinka replied.
"Can- can I come with you?" Jaleel asked. "I- I won't try to escape, I promise ." He didn't at all like the idea of being alone in this dank, dark cavern.
"Hm." Tinka rubbed her chin. "I'm not sure you want to do that, Jaleel."
"Why not?"
"What do you think I eat?"
"Well, meat, obviously."
"Considering my mass and metabolism, about thirty kilograms per day," Tinka responded. "That amounts to approximately an entire cow every three weeks. Where do you suppose I'll find that in the middle of Manhattan?"
"Ah... there's got to be meat lockers around."
"There are. Quite a few, as a matter of fact. The citizens of Greater New York consume an ungodly amount of food. So every three days or so I sneak into one and carry off a side of beef. Let's say I'm careful and spread my raids all over the city so each warehouse only loses, say, one or two a month."
"Oh," Jaleel said hollowly. "That's... still an awful lot of meat to go missing, especially on a regular basis."
"Quite," Tinka agreed. "First they tighten up security. Which, if it drives me off, means I go hungry. If it doesn't they call in the police, private investigators, the FBI, super heroes, and all sorts of people I'd rather not meet."
"But-" Jaleel frowned. "Then where do you find food?"
Tinka seemed to stare at Jaleel. Her deformed, half open eyes made the expression disconcerting, to say the least. "There's so much meat in this city no one can keep track of it all. What I take... that's not to say it isn't missed, but usually only by a few and not in any organized way. The authorities don't notice because my portion blends in with what turns up missing every day. So, you might say, I get to eat as much as I can stomach." The corners of her mouth turned up in a way that might be called a smile but which Jaleel found horrifying.
"But..." Jaleel still couldn't see what Tinka was getting at but suddenly wondered if he really wanted to know. The only meat he could imagine that wouldn't be tracked was pigeons. He tried to imagine thirty kilograms of pigeon carcasses. It would be a veritable mountain. In his mind's eye he saw Tinka eating them by the handful, like popcorn. Thirty kilograms a day. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how she'd catch them he wasn't sure there were that many pigeons, even in all of New York.
"You still don't get it." Tinka shook her head. "I'll leave you to think about it. Don't worry, I'll be back early tonight."
"What's so special about tonight?" Jaleel wanted to know.
Tinka stepped up to the wall. "I'm having Italian," she replied. "Delivered." Suddenly an oily, inky blackness seemed to ooze from her, swallowing up her fur and all the other details of her body, leaving nothing but an impenetrable shadow, a hazy outline of her form- but one that stood by itself away from the wall. Jaleel swallowed convulsively; one feature of hers remained. Her eyes, now pale, bloody red, gazed at him from the darkness. Then she stepped into the wall. The shadow flowed into the cracks and angles like water running down a drain. For a very long time after Jaleel sat on the mattress, his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering violently even though it wasn't particularly cold.
Barry "The Blade" Muldano drove a green-gray 1992 Chevy Lumina. He wore a Navy blue Sears mail order suit, which rather offended his sense of style but it, like the car, was anonymous. In fact, Barry the Blade himself was pretty nondescript. A victim of the Great American Melting Pot, despite his name he didn't look particularly Italian or anything else. That was, in point of fact, his greatest asset to the Family. (Only outsiders ever called it the Mob or any of those other popular names.) Barry could knife someone in the middle of a crowded street and no one would notice a thing, other than that some apparently random individual suddenly collapsed.
Tonight Barry was driving to yet another execution. Roger Tadesky arranged exchanges between dealers and suppliers of various illegal substances. When one of Roger's dealers ratted him out to dodge a mandatory minimum sentence Roger, in turn, fingered a highly placed member of the Family. Completely aside from the disruption it would cause to Family business it was an act of shocking disloyalty that could not be tolerated. A few judiciously placed bribes revealed where Roger was hiding out. Protective custody was, in Barry's opinion, a joke. The Witness Protection Program- which he thought of as the Witless Protection Program- was even more a joke. Bribes and influence, properly applied, penetrated it every time. With an endless supply of narcodollars backing the Family's efforts no bribe could be too much to pay- and Family honor was something upon which no price could be placed. These days, what else was there? Without it a person wasn't any better than the teenage punks roaming the streets, blowing each other way for what the Family regarded as table scraps or just for the Hell of it. They weren't even smart enough to see that the Family got rich while they ended up doing time or, more often, slabed.
In time Barry reached his destination. He pulled off the street and parked in an alley. Manhattan's Upper East Side wasn't a nice place, not even close, but Barry didn't worry. He carried his knives- one in his shoe, one in his waistband, and a third in his sleeve- plus a holdout pistol in a shoulder holster. The local punks knew him, knew why he came, and stayed away- which was the only intelligent thing they ever did, in his opinion. He got out of the car, walked around to the trunk, and opened it. Inside lay Mr. Tadesky, bound, gagged, naked, and very much alive, at least for the moment. He looked up at Barry in wide-eyed terror. He thought he knew what was coming. He didn't; assuming all went as planned none of Barry's weapons would leave their holsters. "Hey Tinka," Barry called quietly into the deserted alley. "Dinner is served."
Inky, impenetrable blackness oozed from the cracked, worn brickwork at the end of the alley. It flowed together into a pool of shadow so thick it masked everything behind it. Then it separated from the wall, freestanding in the air like a miasmic cloud. Barry struggled to keep his face impassive, tried to ignore the icy feeling in his gut, telling himself over and over that he didn't believe in all that metaphysical crap. Tinka was merely something that had escaped from a mad scientist's lab, or perhaps even been deliberately inflicted on an unsuspecting world. She wasn't a demon from the blackest pits of Hell. Surely not.
Tinka turned solid. "Evening, Barry," she said.
"Evening." Barry nodded and stepped aside. In this form she bothered him less. Physical threats- even overwhelming ones- were something he could understand.
When he saw Tinka looking down at him Roger tried to scream. Through his gag he only managed a muffled whine. Barry turned away; he'd performed dozens of executions and assisted with many more but this bothered him in a way he didn't care to articulate. Getting shot or knifed- even at an execution- seemed at least like an honest, even decent, way to go. This-
Roger's feeble screams- which never wavered in tone or intensity- ended suddenly with a wet crunching sound. The crunching continued for a few minutes. When it stopped Barry turned back. Tinka licked her muzzle and dropped a tangle of bloody rope into the Chevy's trunk. Her powerful jaws and sharp teeth sheared through bone as easily as flesh, allowing her to consume the entire body. No waste- and no evidence. A liner in the trunk made of plastic bags caught the ropes and any spillage- of which there wasn't much; Tinka was a fastidious eater, only to be expected from a cat. The plastic and the ropes would go into an incinerator.
"See you next time." Tinka waved, turned to shadow, and melted back into the wall.
"Yeah." Barry forced down a lump in his throat, closed the Chevy's trunk, and drove away. Intellectually it was a beautiful arrangement; the Family disposed of embarrassing corpses and Tinka got a free meal, delivered. Barry couldn't help wondering what would happen if someone talked. Tinka dealt with him only because he'd managed to convince her that the Family understood her desire to remain hidden. He told her about omertà, the Silence. In the Family you never talked to outsiders, no matter what. If you had a problem the Family dealt with it.
But the Silence wasn't perfect. For a variety of reasons people broke it: greed, revenge, fear, or even as a calculated ploy to defeat a rival. Barry decided that if anyone ever questioned him about Tinka he'd deny everything. Even if he went to prison, even if he were sentenced to death. He and Tinka worked together so well precisely because she understood the Family's take on betrayal- and revenge. She could walk through walls, even prison walls. If he broke the Silence she'd find him, no matter where he ran. He believed that in a way he professed not to believe in God. Dying by lethal injection would be a blessing compared to following Roger Tadesky and the many others who'd gone down that road.
Because of his preoccupation- and because he'd done this so many times without a hitch- Barry wasn't paying as much attention to his surroundings as perhaps he should have been. When a small caliber bullet shattered the driver's side window of his car it caught him completely by surprise. Breaking glass slashed up the side his head- and deflected the .22 hollow point just enough that it creased his skull instead of punching into it. He slumped over, insensible and bleeding profusely but not dead.
"Barry, Barry, Barry," Tinka muttered, shaking her head, watching from the roof of a tenement. She wasn't the trusting sort; she doubted Barry realized it but she always followed him a ways to make sure he got away all right. Her eyes weren't completely useless; she could tell if it was night or day though nothing much else. Her incredibly sharp ears painted an image in her mind as clear as if her vision were perfect and the scene lit by full daylight. Thus as two crows in gang colors ran out, tossed Barry into the street, and prepared to drive away in his car she knew exactly what was happening. She also knew that the crows probably wanted the car for a robbery, a drive-by shooting, a drug delivery, or some other idiocy that would bring them into intimate contact with New York's Finest. That wouldn't bother her in the least except that the car might be connected to Barry and the mess in the trunk would certainly attract unwanted attention. These brain-dead gang-bangers couldn't be trusted to dispose of the car properly even if they found the mess and understood what it meant, a very unlikely occurrence. She didn't think Barry would talk but it wasn't fair of her to leave him hanging. Bracing herself carefully on the stone facing- the only part of the roof that would carry her weight- she leapt. Her seven hundred and sixty kilogram mass arced through the air, fell five stories, and came down on the car's roof like the hammer of a drop forge. The gang morons never knew what hit them; the force of impact converted them to paste and flattened the car like a squashed bug. Tinka jumped up, folded the car in half, threw it to her shoulder, dashed to where Barry lay, scooped him up as she passed, and leapt to the roof of a nearby building. Getting out of sight quickly was essential; even at night in a cruddy neighborhood there were people out and about. Being careful to step only on copings, beams, and other load bearing structures she dashed across the rooftops, leaping over streets and alleys. Her padded feet made relatively little noise but structures reverberated with the force of her steps. To the people sleeping below it probably sounded like an earthquake, a train wreck, or some other calamity, but in New York weird shit happened all the time. Besides, she needed to ditch Barry and the car as quickly as possible and get underground; the night sky over Manhattan was full of unfriendly eyes. Wouldn't it be great if she had to fight some idiot super hero now?
Fortunately the East River wasn't far. Tinka ducked under the expressway, tearing aside the fencing with a casual swipe of her hand, and lobbed the car like a giant shot-put. It sailed through the air, hit with a tremendous splash, and vanished into the dark water. With luck the police wouldn't find it any time soon. Still hidden under the road she turned to shadow and put her hand through Barry's head. In that state she could actually feel inside his body; she sensed that the bullet hadn't penetrated his skull but he bled profusely from a badly lacerated scalp. He wasn't in immediate danger but wouldn't last without treatment.
For a moment Tinka dithered. What did she really owe Barry Muldano? She'd come across him one evening while he prepared to dispose of a soon-to-be corpse. She'd planned to eat him and the victim both but he talked her out of it. Since then... well, it wouldn't be fair to say she hadn't profited by the arrangement. Barry provided her with goods and information as well as the occasional meal. He'd obtained everything she needed for the abduction of Mr. Bronson, from the camping gear to the license number of his limo, no questions asked. He directed her to good hunting grounds and away from official scrutiny. In short, having a Mob contact was extremely useful. (Though she and Barry were relatively close she wasn't by any stretch a part of the Family.)
When it came right down to it Barry was probably the closest thing Tinka had to a real friend in this bitter, urban jungle. Without him... as bad as things were she wouldn't care to contemplate how they might be worse. Turning solid she scooped him up- gently- and moved as briskly as possible along the waterfront. She didn't know any of his contacts, for his, her, and their protection. That wasn't to say she didn't know where to find help. After several years of watching mobsters, drug runners, gang bangers, burglars, murderers, muggers, rapists, and taggers ply their respective trades she probably knew the New York underworld as well as anyone. She knew, for example, where many of the street doctors did their work. (Family men didn't use street doctors; the Families kept real physicians on retainer.) North of Central Park Tinka cut west, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and occasionally ducking into alleys when choppers or patrolling super heroes ventured too close. Not for the first time she wished she could take people when she turned to shadow. Finally she reached a particularly dilapidated tenement; she left Barry on the roof, turned to shadow, and dropped down inside. The apartment she wanted was on the second to the topmost floor. By laying down on her belly she was able to materialize inside it and distribute her weight enough not to fall through the floor. She tapped the bedroom door with her finger. On the third try someone started awake and scrambled for something, probably a gun. No lights came on; her eyes wouldn't detect anything that dim but she'd hear the switch being thrown.
"Doctor Frost," Tinka called softly. "Come out. I have a job for you."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" a voice exclaimed from within.
"Don't play games with me, Doctor," Tinka replied. "I'm not going away. My friend needs help and you will provide it. For which you will of course be handsomely compensated."
The bedroom door opened hesitantly. Tinka sniffed; no alcohol, thank goodness. The doctor appeared to be clean this evening. Chances were in her favor, around three out of four, but it would be just her luck to find him smashed. The doctor- a basset hound and a reasonably attractive fellow discounting the ravages of alcoholism- stood in the doorway, blinking in perplexity at what probably seemed to be an inexplicable dark mass in his living room. A pistol- a .38 revolver- dangled from his right hand.
Tinka twined a tentacle around the doctor's torso, clapping the tip over his mouth. "Don't shoot," she commanded. "Don't scream. If you do I'll have to kill you. Do you understand?"
The doctor tried screaming anyway. He beat at Tinka's tentacle with his fist and the revolver, it apparently never occurring to him to fire it. Which was perhaps just as well; the slug wouldn't hurt Tinka- unless he hit her in the eye, say- and with his arms trapped at his sides he'd most likely shoot himself in the leg. After a while he relaxed.
"Are you finished?" Tinka asked. He nodded. "Do you believe that whether or not you live through the next few minutes depends entirely on whether or not you do what I say?" He nodded again. "Good." She released him, propping him up when he started to fall. "Get your tools and go up to the roof. You will find there a man who has suffered lacerations on the left side of his head as a result of flying glass and a bullet wound inflicted by a small caliber handgun. You will clean and dress his injures so he doesn't bleed to death. Understood?" The doctor nodded. Tinka turned to shadow and moved into a neighboring apartment. So long as no one got up and walked through her everything would be fine. In shadow form she made no sound but her touch felt like ice. A advantageous side effect was that she could "hear" through walls as well as moving through them. Thus she sensed the doctor gather his equipment, leave his apartment, and head up to the roof. He found Barry easily enough, laid out a clean cloth, set up a small light, and set to work. With reasonable skill he picked hair, glass, and bullet fragments out of the cuts, cleaned them, stitched a few particularly bad ones, and finished up with bandages. By the end of it Barry looked like a mummy from the neck up.
While the doctor worked Tinka rose through the roof and solidified behind him, kneeling. Once he finished and put away his tools she grabbed his head and twisted. His spine snapped like a dry twig. His body spasmed once and went limp. For a time afterward she held the corpse, convincing herself that the doctor's death was necessary. He was an alcoholic; he'd lost his medical license because he couldn't stay off the sauce and lost his driver's license after killing a little girl in a DUI accident. Now he earned a living collecting welfare and patching up gang bangers. Every so often he maimed or killed one because he was bombed. Through it all he resolutely insisted that he had everything under control. No matter what Tinka said to him, sooner or later he'd blab: either while drunk or for the promise of a drink. There were people who'd take great interest in stories of a giant black cat-monster with tentacles. Only by killing him could Tinka be absolutely sure that Doctor Frost wouldn't reveal her existence to people she'd really rather not meet.
Now Tinka had to dispose of the evidence. Stripping the doctor's corpse wasn't hard; he wore only a robe, underwear, and slippers. Out of habit she started with the head and worked her way down. He wasn't very satisfactory as a meal, being little more than skin and bones and awful damn stringy to boot. Decades of alcohol left his flesh with an unpleasant aftertaste. Having begun, though, she forced herself to finish. His robe caught the spilled blood; she bundled up his bag and the rest of his clothing in it. Taking the bundle in one hand she picked up Barry in the other, cradling him in the crook of her arm like a baby, and headed south. In an alley she lifted a sewer grate, feeding Barry and the bundle down the hole. After replacing the grate she turned to shadow and slipped through the ground. She couldn't stand in the storm sewer but her tentacles made crawling relatively easy. Working her way south through a maze of tunnels under the city she finally reached the abandoned bomb shelter. The massive steel door, now badly rusted, stood propped in its frame. She moved it just enough to feed Barry and the bundle through, then put it back and passed through in shadow form. She found Jaleel not on the mattress but sitting against the wall, a MAC-10 submachine gun laying across his lap.
"After washing up I noticed these boxes along the wall here," Jaleel said, raising the weapon. "They're full of interesting stuff. Like this. With a full clip, even. I don't suppose if I emptied it into you it would make any difference."
Tinka shrugged. "It might sting a bit," she allowed. "You'd really need something bigger. A fifty caliber, say, with armor piercing bullets."
"Figures." Jaleel set the gun down. "It didn't help the bloke who owned it, did it?"
Tinka shook her head. "No." She walked over to the boxes and dropped the doctor's things into one atop a pile of clothing.
"I finally figured out what you meant by there being so much meat what you took wouldn't be noticed," Jaleel continued. "You were talking about people."
Tinka sat down against the opposite wall. Somehow Jaleel's calm delivery was far more damming than open anger.
"So who's that?" Jaleel pointed at Barry. "A snack for later?"
"No." Tinka looked up sharply. "He's my- my friend." She realized suddenly that this was the first time she'd ever articulated that thought out loud, even after knowing Barry for more than two years. It struck her so profoundly she felt like the world had gone over a speed bump. "He got into trouble because of me. I brought him here so he'd be safe until things calm down." Her eyes narrowed; Jaleel's accusation banished the melancholy which had hung over her since killing the doctor. "You think I'm some kind of vicious monster. Worse, a cannibal and a murderer. Well, let me tell you something, mister high-and-mighty. I only kill to survive. I only hunt as much as I need to eat. I don't go around blowing away every animal in sight and leaving their carcasses to rot in because I'm only doing it for the fun of the kill. That's one reason I'm here. There isn't enough wild game anywhere within a thousand kilometers to support me... unless you count people. So I kill a few. I kill a man who beat his wife to death with a baseball bat. I kill a fellow who pounded a little old lady's skull into paste for twenty bucks and a cheap watch. I kill a woman who drowned her baby in boiling water then left the corpse in a dumpster to be devoured by rats. I kill a man who chopped a woman's arms and legs off with a fire axe, then raped her and left her for dead. She didn't die, by the way. I checked. I kill a teenager who sells cocaine laced with rat poison. I kill a bunch of young men who drive down the street shooting random people and video taping it. I kill a guy who kidnaps children, butchers them, and eats them." She leaned back, placing her hands on her knees. "All that and I'm the bad guy."
Jaleel stared at Tinka for a moment, then once again picked up the MAC-10. He lay it across his lap, running his hand over the smooth metal of the receiver. He had to admit Tinka's words put the weapon's presence here in a new light.
"The fellow who owned that had just used it to gun down three rival gang members and five random bystanders," Tinka said. "I grabbed his head and broke his neck with a flick of the wrist. He never felt a thing. Unlike the people he shot, who lay screaming in pools of their own blood."
"Is there so little evil in the world that you have to add to it?" Jaleel demanded.
"Am I?" Tinka demanded icily. "Maybe all I'm doing is cleaning the slime out of the gene pool."
"That justifies it, then?" Jaleel countered.
Tinka sat for a long time without speaking. "No," she finally replied. "It doesn't. And thank you, because it's better that I don't start thinking that way. I might... I might stop regretting that I kill them and that... would be unfortunate. For them and me." She went to the boxes, turned to shadow, and walked along the line, trailing her hand through them. Finally she stopped, turned solid, and pulled a blanket out of one. Carefully she wrapped Barry in it and lay him on the mattress.
"I do wish she wouldn't do that," Jaleel whispered, lowering his head.
"What else can I do?" Tinka inquired. "I can't see in the boxes and the stuff in them doesn't make any noise. The alternative is to go through unpacking each and every one."
"What are you, Tinka?" Jaleel asked. "And don't tell me you're a Darkstalker. I know that already."
Tinka sat by Barry, stroking him gently. "I was created in a secret lab, by people wanting to learn how to create... super creatures. I don't know who or why. I know I'm not what they wanted. I'm not supposed to be blind or have tentacles. They were going to, to kill me. I escaped, stowed away on board a ship, and ended up here in New York."
"That's why you stay here," Jaleel stated. "The city hides you."
"Uh huh." Tinka lifted her hand from Barry; her fingers clenched and opened. "And now, Jaleel, it's been a short but stressful evening for me. I have a lot of tension I need to work off."
Jaleel sighed. In one of the boxes he'd found a pair of trousers that fit reasonably well and weren't in too bad a shape. He took them off and walked over to where Tinka sat. It wasn't as if he had a choice... it wasn't as if there was anything else to do... and though it annoyed him to no end to feel that way he wanted to feel his penis sliding into Tinka's vagina. Before now he'd managed to convince himself it didn't matter that he couldn't ever really penetrate a woman. (The horse didn't count; technically it was only female, not a woman. He'd decided he wasn't into that. More to the point, he'd decided he didn't want to be into it.) But, he found, that resolve came from the same place as a person who'd never tried sex- or a particular sexual practice- loudly insisting that they knew they wouldn't like it. The reality of the experience made a liar out of his convictions. Worse yet, aside from simple physical capacity, the strength of her vaginal muscles were, like those on the rest of her, tremendous. The degree of stimulation she could give him was- to say the least- astounding. But the more he thought about it the more convinced he became that this little tryst could only end in tragedy. What could he do, take her home and marry her? Stay here for the rest of his life?
Before he'd crossed half the floor Jaleel's penis had stiffened to more than half erect. He found it disturbingly easy to put the whole matter off. Until after his next sexual encounter, for instance. Only when he sat alone in this gloomy man-made cave could he think about his family and friends. Fredrika, mainly. The skin business was notorious for treating performers like hunks of meat though, in his experience, no worse than any other entertainment industry. In the face of all that Fredrika at least treated him like a human being. That he found himself seriously considering turning away from her- probably never seeing her again- bothered him worst of all. As Tinka picked him up and guided him into her he squeezed his eyes shut. If she noticed he hoped she thought him overcome by pleasure and not self-loathing.
"He was such a kind and gentle soul. I mean- how could something like this happen? You read about it in the papers, sure, but you never think it'll happen to someone you know!"
"There there, darling." Fredrika patted Ronald on the shoulder while he sobbed noisily into an already sodden handkerchief.
"I do think it's a little premature to start referring to him in the past tense," the woman seated to Ronald's left rather pointedly commented. She seemed to be a skunk, though only physiologically. Her base fur color was white, with black tiger stripes on all visible portions of her body- which amounted to quite a bit; she wore only a halter and shorts. She lacked Fredrika's awesome mammaral development but not by much. A black blaze covered the bridge of her nose and ran up onto her forehead, where it vanished under her voluminous white mane. A pair of thin white lines ran up from her nose, zigzagging apart over her expressive, intensely blue eyes into a curious double lightning bolt pattern. Her tail looked like a skunk's but reversed, white with a wide black stripe on top. Diagonal white lines broke the black into slightly S-shaped chevrons. Furthermore, she enhanced this already striking appearance with lavender eye shadow and cherry red polish on her long, impeccably sculpted nails. "I mean, that is so, isn't it, Super Collie?" she added, perhaps just a tad worriedly.
"It is," Super Collie declared, with more assurance than she felt. "I've found absolutely no evidence that she's harmed him in any way." So far.
"She?" Fredrika cocked her head. "You're sure it's a woman?"
"You are?" Agent Jones chimed in, raising an eyebrow.
"I am," Super Collie replied, more vehemently than she'd originally intended. Agent Jones' remark sounded not so much like a request for clarification as a snide comment on her professional competence. "I discovered scent marks in the vicinity of the abduction that were clearly female in character."
"What did she do, drop a load of spunk?" inquired a third woman, an attractively built vixen with traditional red fox fur patterning, seated to the left of the tiger striped skunk. Her eyes widened when Super Collie flinched visibly. "You mean she did?"
Fredrika started upright. "Do you mean to tell me this- this person grabbed Jaleel and then stopped to- to-"
"Tickle her taco?" the vixen suggested. "Go clam digging? Do a few one-finger pushups?"
"Heel, Wanda," the skunk commanded sharply, gently drawing Fredrika back down. "Let's hear what they have to say first."
"A number of important clues have surfaced," George began, speaking with a calm, unwavering certainty that commanded attention even though he kept his voice at a conversational volume. "Hairs taken from the wrecked limousine, claw marks in the pavement near the accident site, and footprints in the storm drain suggest that our kidnapper is a black furred feline, and quite large: we estimate around three and a half to four meters in height, seven hundred and sixty to eight hundred kilograms mass. She stopped the car by pouncing on it."
"Holy crap," Wanda breathed.
"She walked away," Fredrika said quietly. "The limo didn't."
"But what could someone like that possibly want with Jaleel?" Ronald wailed.
"A giant cat woman," the vixen said, "And a porn star with a huge cock." She rolled her eyes. "I'd say you just answered your own question." She giggled.
"Yes, but not everyone thinks with their crotch, dear heart." The skunk smiled, patting the vixen on the head. The vixen stuck out her tongue and made a face.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your names," Super Collie said. Agent Jones' briefing for the interview hadn't mentioned these two. The agent himself didn't look entirely pleased to see them.
"ZigZag." The skunk rose, leaning forward to offer her hand. Super Collie found herself presented not only with a hand but an up close and personal view of ZigZag's cleavage, enough to see that ZigZag's breasts seemed to be entirely natural and, despite their size, unconstrained by support garments. Super Collie took the hand; ZigZag shook firmly and confidently. "Wanda, here-" ZigZag gestured to the vixen with her free hand- "is one of my performers." Wanda grinned and waved.
"May I ask how you came to be involved in this affair, Ms. ZigZag?" George inquired in a polite and friendly but nonetheless firm tone.
"Just ZigZag, please. Though if we're close you may call me Zig." The look she gave George definitely suggested the possibility of physical as well as emotional closeness.
Super Collie kept her expression carefully neutral. She couldn't easily tell ZigZag's age; not so young as Wanda, clearly in her early twenties, but not so terribly old either. If the numbers broke right George might very well be old enough to be her father.
"Double Z Studious is collaborating with Cinema Perversio on this film," Wanda amplified.
Agent Jones glanced at a notebook. "Rocket Man part three," he said. "Starring Jaleel Bronson as Commander Ramrod, ZigZag as Zada the Spider Queen, Fredrika Von Braun as Dr. Luna V