The cold gnawed at Tom Marl's cheeks and nose. Even with a heavy woolen overcoat buttoned over his uniform, his jaw was clenched, muscles tight, in defiance of the night air. Clad all in black, he was a shadow amongst the shadows cast by the tall buildings of Lavender City. Out in the open air of the city's main street, a full moon smiled down and tall streetlamps glowed merrily, such that a traveler in the night could walk alone with ease, but Marl did not walk the main street tonight, he was not a traveler, and he was not alone.
The towering halls of the university were made of the pale bricks that gave the city its name, and in this part of town they were so numerous as to create a winding network of alleyways between them. Marl walked in silence. His soft leather boots were well worn, and passed over the uneven cobblestone street with a level of stealth and assurance bought by many such passages. Lavender was a sea town, and the roads had been laid with ballast brought here in the bellies of ships. Even when Marl had been a child, the streets had been old, and they were chatty old hags. The stones always called out what they saw: the many pattering of soft-soled nurses walking home from a late shift at the hospital; the weary but urgent tit-tit-tit of a small man's shoes as he walked home from the office, thinking only of his dinner – cold, wrapped and waiting; the clop-clop-clop of a man who wanted the world to know of his passing, looking for trouble. Marl heard these sounds and more.
Stopping at the dark mouth of the alley he was walking, he looked out at the street that ran like a river of light through the heart of the city, and waited. Behind him the stones spoke of no one's passage, but Marl knew better. Letting his right hand, numb in the cold, drop to his side and open slightly, he felt the dog glide silently under his hand and stop at a heel. Wuthrad, his eyes and ears. His strong right arm. His partner.
The growlith's burnt orange coat was slashed with black, but Marl knew that in the dark of the alley he was invisible. Wuthrad's head bore a shock of thick tan fur styled in a mohawk of sorts that Marl buried his frozen fingers in. The warmth of the dog seeped through his leather gloves and into his bones. The man's jaw unclenched in relief. No words passed between the partners as they watched the road. Silently, Marl glanced at his left hand to check his watch. The hands glowed out at him. 2:26 AM.
The tip had been anonymous, but specific.
Under his hand, the muscles that ran along the dog's skull danced and grew tense. He stood nearly three feet at the shoulder, and was his volumous tan tail not dipped low in stealth, he might have stretched four feet from its tip to his nose; enormous for his breed. Ears perked, Wuthrad's head turned to gaze westward down the street. The man followed suit. He had long learned to trust the animal's senses over his own.
Soon the man detected the cause of the dog's angst. A motor's guttural groan as it pushed up the hill that lay under Mauve Street. The groan grew louder as the vehicle neared, and by the time Marl could see the large truck itself, it was a cacophony in contrast to the muted tones of the night. Hard rubber tires squeaked against the smooth cobblestones as the truck came to a halt on the far side of the street, just opposite Marl's alley, and from its passenger door stepped a man clad in an overcoat with a collar so tall it covered his ears. A tweed newsboy's hat was pulled down low over his eyes, so that he appeared to be more clothes than man. Wuthrad edged forward slightly as the man turned his back to the partners and made to open the back of the truck.
"Wait," Marl breathed.
The man had half his body in the back of the truck, fiddling with something that clinked gently, metallically. Marl watched, transfixed. Wuthrad backed up, fidgeting angrily. Marl felt the muscles under the dog's fur move to pull back its lips and bare powerful jaws made razors by a row of gleaming teeth. The heat rising from the animal was growing fiercer, such that Marl's hand was becoming uncomfortable on its head.
"Wait," Marl said again, still watching the man. What is he doing? What's taking so long? He's exposed in the street. This didn't feel like a robbery, or even the precursor to one. It felt wrong.
Finally pulling himself from the back of the truck, the man stood holding what looked to be a bouquet of flowers. Lavender and some white pedaled things. Perplexed, Marl watched as the man strode calmly over to the stoop of a nearby residence, one of the more affluent in the city, and placed the flowers gently down at the foot of the door, with a card or tag of some sort laid out on top of them. He whistled as he made his way back to the truck's driver seat, passing out of view behind the vehicle. Now Marl tensed. Then where's the driver?
Wuthrad growled a mean growl, hot and deep and full of anger. Marl smelled the smoke that curled from his maw well before he could have seen it. Backing away from Marl, the growlithe growled again, crouched low with his shoulders arched and wooly head on a swivel. The truck pulled away, and behind it stood a tall man in black. Something flashed in the man's hand, and Marl's felt the bullet tear through his side and out of his back before he heard the shot.
Marl felt an intense heat wash over the right side of his body such that he had to close his eyes. When Wuthrad wanted to be quiet, he was a cloud moving through the sky. When the dog wanted to be loud, when he loosed the great fire he kept down inside of himself; he was the roar of a bonfire in the ears of an ant. Fire and fury.
Slumped against the wall of the alley, his blood painting the pale bricks dark, Marl watch the man be consumed by Wuthrad's anger. The jet of flame caught him in the chest, breaking on him like water on a rock. The torrent of flame pouring from between the dog's fangs was white hot and turned ten different shades of red before it exploded onto the man in a plume of orange and yellow – his screams where high and terrible.
"No!" Marl rasped wetly, blood in his mouth and lungs. "Enough!" From the corner of his right eye he saw something dark coming at them fast. A half-second later a ball of purple black wings slammed in to Wuthrad's side, the fire-dog's flamethrower twisting and then ceasing as he was knocked bodily against the opposite wall of the alley as Marl. The zubat bit the dog, his fangs sinking deeply into a furry orange shoulder. Wuthrad roared in pain and surprise. Something exploded on the building across the street. Windows shattered. Marl looked back down the alley they had come by to see two more men sprinting towards him and the dog.
Hands fumbling and numb, he wrenched at his hip for his sidearm, giving the bat on Wuthrad the best kick he could muster in the process. Ripping the black revolver from its holster, he dropped one of the men unthinkingly. It was an easy shot at fifteen yards. So why am I not dead?
Squeezing off shots wildly, the second man took a round to the shoulder at close range and dropped the pistol he was carrying, but managed to kick Marl's gun from his hand a moment later. Standing over a wounded Marl, it was an easy thing to crack the prone man across the face. The man was big, and his fists were hard with callouses. Marl's head whipped to the side with the impact of the blow. Heat and pain shot up his leg.
Jerking his head back to his foe, he saw the man transfixed in pain, his arms stretched out above his head. The bat was gone, and Wuthrad's fangs were sunk deep in the meat of his calf, holding it in place while the dog cooked it with a spout of bright flame. It washed around the blackening flesh and had caught Marl's leg aflame as well. Rising as quickly as his wounds would allow, adrenalin slamming through his veins, Marl let loose a hook that took the screaming man on the sweet of his jaw, crushing the bone underneath and ending the man's wailing.
Wuthrad released the unconscious and badly burnt assailant, and went to sniff at the one dead by Marl's revolver. Coughing up blood as he patted out his smoldering trouser leg, burnt to the knee, Marl stooped to pick up his revolver, which strewn out in the street. Lights were coming on up and down Mauve. Sirens began to wail in the distance. How long had it been since the flower truck left? 60 seconds? Across the street the burnt man wheezed and struggled to pull air into his scorched lungs.
"Wuthrad, here." He called into the alley. The big dog trotted out. Tail up. Ears perked. The burnt man's eyes locked on Marl's, and a ridiculous smile split across his hideously charred face. It stayed there until Wuthrad wrapped his jaws gingerly around the man's throat, eyes on Marl for the command.
"You're out of your league, cop." The man breathed, trying not to move. Wuthrad growled lowly as smoke began to wisp from the corners of his lips. The man whimpered pitifully, and the acrid smell of urine filled Marl's nostrils.
"I'd lay quite now, if I were you," Officer Marl said, holstering his pistol. Police cars were arriving on the scene. Men in dark uniforms were exploding from their cars. One shouted orders. Walking over to the flowers on the stoop, pristine and lily white under the moon and streetlights, Marl could see the dark lettering on the small, cream colored envelope plainly.
"You're Invited!"