Warehouse 13
Good Dog, Bad Dog
By A. Rhea King

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: 'Inside of me, there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.' When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, 'The one I feed the most.'
―George Bernard Shaw

Chapter 1

Warehouse 13
South Dakota

"Inventory day!" Pete called as he came through the door into the office.

Right away Claudia, Steve, and Myka glared at him. He smiled, presenting them with a box of donuts.

"Which is why I brought sugar and lots of it – except for you, Mykes. Spoiled sport." He produced a wrapped granola bar from his back pocket.

That earned him forgiveness. The four dug into the breakfast and the box was half finished by the time Artie arrived. He stopped, staring at the box.

"Jelly roll," Pete pointed to the powdered one in the corner. "I didn't forget you."

Artie snatched it up without as much as a thank you.

"You're welcome," Pete said.

"We have a lot of work to do for the next few days. Let's get to work." He handed out a box of pens and pads of paper.

"Uh-uh. I got a better way," Claudia told him. She reclaimed his boxes and went to a box sitting behind Pete. She handed out tablets and stylus. "This way, everything is automatically uploaded to the computers and you, dad, won't get upset when there's two of everything due to my fatigue and your lack of bringing me a steady flow of caffeine. The App is simple. You enter your aisle, row, and shelf number, it gives you a list. If an artifact is there, you click the check box. If an item needs added, you click new, it asks for the information we need, you fill it in. If it's missing…"

"No writer's cramp this year," Myka said. "Thank you Claudia."

"No problem." She smirked at Artie. "Someone said it wouldn't work."

"Go. Get to work you four!"

They headed out the back door, talking as they left. Artie stood for a moment, listening to their voices disappear. He looked down when a cold wet nose pressed against his hand, and smiled at Trailer.

"Yes. The kids are gone. Do you want to go with them?"

Trailer wagged his tail.

"Well go on. Go." Artie pointed out the door.

Trailer dashed after them. Artie smiled as he sat down at a computer. He leaned back in his chair, munching on his jelly donut.

"I'm catching up," Myka called out.

Pete ignored her.

"I'm going to be on that row any minute now."

"Shoosh you!" Pete told her.

She side stepped, getting closer to the row he was working on.

"Hey, just cuz you go all Speedy Gonzalez on inventory, doesn't mean you need to rub it in," Claudia called out from somewhere else in the Warehouse.

Myka laughed.

In the distance they heard Steve add, "Is Myka gloating again?"

"Yes!" Pete and Claudia said.

"We should bronze her!" Steve called out.

Pete and Claudia both laughed, but Myka just shot Pete a dark look. Pete's laughter died as his head began to ache. He looked away and then rolled his head back and forth a few times.

"Done! I'm going to lunch." Myka announced.

"I hate you!" Claudia called out.

"You love me and you know it." Myka walked away.

Pete stopped working for a second to massage his left temple. These sudden, short lived headaches were getting annoying. He didn't tell anyone, but he did get a physical and the doctor ordered a CAT scan. He was fine – well, aside from the fact he was still a living artifact. He was beginning to wonder if that was behind the headaches.

"I'm starving. I'm going to take a break for lunch too," Claudia called out.

"Okay," Pete replied.

"Do you want anything?"

"Ham and cheese, and fries."

"Got it. Jinks, you want something for lunch?"

"I'll go with you," he called. He was closer. "I'll meet you outside."

Claudia appeared at the end of his aisle. "Be back in an hour."

Pete nodded. She disappeared again. Alone in the warehouse, Pete was left to his own thoughts. He was so distracted by his own thoughts that, like all the previous times, the event nearly went unnoticed by him.

Pete looked down at the tablet. He placed it on the shelf and froze. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped. For two seconds he was frozen. His eyes rolled back and the air hummed with the sound of electricity. His heart restarted, followed by his breathing. With stiff movement, he walked down the aisle. As he passed metal artifacts small bolts of electricity leapt from him and zapped the artifacts.

"Pete, I just realized I forgot to give you a message," Myka called out.

She came around the corner in time to see Pete turn down the next aisle. She trotted after him.

"Pete."

Myka caught up to him. "Hey. Genna called after you left for your jog and asked if you could come over for dinner. She said there's been some strange things happening around her house."

Pete didn't respond.

Myka reached out, touching his shoulder with her fingers, and was zapped. She jerked back.

"Must be a buildup in this area. Pete, did you hear me about Genna?"

He didn't answer.

"Pete, come on. You know I just move fast. It's nothing to give me the cold shoulder over."

Pete turned down a row and she glanced up at a sign as they passed: Speak to Artie before activating genie vessels.

"Pete, you aren't supposed to be in this row. Not until we—"

Pete stopped at the end, turning toward the empty vessels on the opposite side. He reached out and picked up a glass bottle with a glass stopper. He turned and started walking again, holding the bottle in front of him like an offering.

"Pete, what are you doing with that?"

He didn't answer. Myka jogged around in front of him, stopping in his path. She was shocked. He was pale, his lips were blue, and his eyes had rolled back. He didn't stop walking toward her. When they were about to collide, a jolt of electricity leapt from his chest and threw her out of the way. Myka hit the wall and then the floor. She quickly picked herself up and ran after him. She fished her cell phone from her pocket and dialed.

"Lost again?" Artie asked.

"There's something wrong with Pete."

Sounding tired Artie asked, "Is he mad you finished before him again?"

"No. He's pale, his lips and fingernails are blue, and his eyes are rolled back in his head. He acts like he doesn't hear or see me. He also shocked me when I tried to stop him. He went to the genie aisle and picked up one of the empty vessels, one we freed a genie from. I'm following him still."

"Where are you at?"

"I don't… I have no idea. These shelves back here are empty. I don't know where we are."

"I do. Stay with him. I'm on my way."

Myka hung up.

"Pete," she said again. "Pete stop walking and look at me."

He stopped walking. Myka stepped around him as he turned to face the wall. Then she saw it. There was a padlocked door that covered the bottom of a ladder – it was a back way out, but only Artie and Claudia had the key to it. That apparently didn't stop whatever was in Pete.

He put his hand on the lock and it clicked. Pete pulled the lock off, pulled the latch away, and hooked the lock on the hoop. Then he started climbing the ladder faster than she'd ever seen Pete move up a ladder.

"Pete!" Myka grabbed his belt, trying to pull him back.

Electricity sent her flying back. She picked herself up and looked up. He was half way up the ladder. Myka grabbed a rung and started climbing. She glanced back down when she heard a soft squeak and found Artie at the bottom of the ladder. He sat in his cart, staring at them – there wasn't much else he could do. She looked away, following Pete. He was already at the top. She hurried as fast as she could on the vertical climb. The ladder came to a platform. She stepped off and ran into the exit tunnel to catch up to Pete. He was just exiting the tunnel when she finally saw him.

Myka dashed out, almost running into him. He stood outside the door, muttering something under his breath. Myka watched his face. In the sunlight, he was so pale his veins were visible. Pete pulled off the stopper and a blackness began to rise from it.

Myka grabbed the stopper from him and slammed it down on the blackness, closing the bottle back up. Pete grabbed her hand and jolts of electricity shocked it. She gritted her teeth, determined to keep whatever was in the bottle inside. The jolts intensified but she held on. Pete let her hand go and grabbed the bottle with both hands. He squeezed until it burst.

"PETE!" Myka cried out, watching a black cloud fall out of the bottle.

It stopped above the ground and grew four feet tall. A face took shape in the cloud, one she recognized. The face looked at her, grinning like Gollum.

In a raspy voice it told her, "I won't forget you, sweetie."

It laughed sadistically as it bolted into the sky and disappeared.

She jerked back when Pete moved. He crouched, putting a hand on the ground before him. The ground trembled and beneath his hand a deep hole opened up. He dropped the part of the jar he held into it. The pieces of the broken glass vibrated and started zipping into the hole. Myka moved fast, snatching up the pieces she could. But the glass was determined to go into the hole, and slipped through her hand, slicing it as they escaped. The hole closed up.

Pete returned to the tunnel. She followed him back inside, back down the ladder, to where Artie was waiting. Pete walked past him. Myka climbed in the golf cart next to Artie and he followed at a distance behind Pete.

He noticed blood dripping from his hands, and glanced down at the blood dripping from Myka's hands.

"What happened to both of your hands?" Artie asked.

She noticed blood was dripping from his hands. Her own hands were bleeding.

"He broke the bottle to let it out," Myka answered.

Artie turned the cart around and followed beside her. "Let what out?"

Myka handed him the pieces she'd managed to save and then pressed her hand against her shirt. "He let out whatever else lives in genie vessels. The thing in the dark. That bottle was the one Turk Kiser was in. You remember him? The blonde man from Russian who told us Rasputin cursed him when he attempted to tell the Czar about Rasputin's plan."

"I remember."

"This thing, whatever it is, took on his face and… It escaped."

Artie looked at her. Then her hand she was holding.

"What happened to you?"

"Pete opened a hole in the ground and all the glasses pieces were called into it. I grabbed what I could."

"He called the glass into the hole?"

"Yes."

Artie didn't ask any more questions.

Pete returned to the row he'd left from. He faced the shelves, staring at them for a minute.

Artie stopped the cart in the next row and they watched.

Pete held up his hands and the wounds closed. The droplets of blood on the floor rolled along the cement floor, finding cracks to disappear. With no evidence left on him that something had just happened, Pete picked up the tablet and stared at the screen. For several seconds he was frozen like that. Suddenly Pete animated and resumed doing inventory. He didn't notice Artie and Myka.

"We should tell him," Myka said.

"Tell him what, exactly?" Artie looked at her. "Pete, your eyes go white, you release something from the genie vessels into the world, and we don't know how to stop you or why you're doing it?"

"He's an artifact."

"Which has no bearing on this."

"You don't know that."

"I know that, Myka. We are not telling him anything. Do you understand? Not until we know what to tell him."

"Hey," Pete called.

Both looked up. He finally had noticed the two were there and stopped working. Myka forced a smile.

"I haven't gotten to that row yet," Pete told Artie.

"Oh. Yes. We were just discussing a discrepancy Myka found," Artie lied.

Pete looked confused. "She didn't check that row. It's on my list to check."

Myka looked up and faked surprise. "Oh. Yeah. Artie, we need to go over another two rows. Guess my mind was on something else."

Artie laughed it off and drove away before Pete could ask questions. Two aisles down and four rows away Artie stopped.

"I want you to grab Claudia when she gets back, go down to the genie aisle, and move all the empty vessels to an unmarked location. Don't tell me where they are, and don't put it in the computer."

"He may still find them."

"We have to try something, Myka."

She frowned, but she did see the point.