Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

Notes: This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

Songs are written in throughout the story to help maintain the appeal and flow of the chapter. (You should listen to them. =3)

Chapter One

Devil in Disguise

Song: Shutting Down Grace's Lab by James Horner in the Avatar Soundtrack

They say that wolves are destined to open the gates of Paradise. They say that only they are capable of entering the world beyond those gates; a world that is meant to be a better place.

It's a world where the days are warm and pleasant and the sun shines high in the sky, but not too brightly. It's a world where the nights are cool and smell strongly of damp earth. It's a world where the fireflies come out and set the petals of flowers and blades of grass aglow and tiny mimicries of them skate along beneath them on the water.

Paradise is a world where the game is slow and fat and the water is never polluted. It is a world where the crickets sing long into the day and the butterflies dance long into the night. The stars swarm the skies until the constellations overlap and the days are neither too hot nor too cold. Only wolves may partake of this world, and only they may find the path that leads there.

The only thing is…I don't ever want to find Paradise.

I like my world, and I like it just the way it is. Cobwebs of cracks run the length of every sidewalk, or jut up where the old oaks protest to their confinement. Squat little houses sink a few inches every year and the wayward winds rip up their tiles. Uptown the alleyways are wide enough to walk two abreast, and dark enough to hide the secrets of the city. Graffiti art overtakes any free space from billboards to restaurant walls and tagging scrawls gang territory on every overpass and stop sign.

The dealers haggle in bullets or not at all; the addicts worm their way into the system, desperate for a fix; the drivers in the sharply angled yellow and black cars would sooner run you over just for the kick of it.

You're ten times more likely to slip in a puddle of oil rather than a puddle of water. Gobs of year blackened gum crust the sidewalk and the rats could very well make a snatch at young unattended children to carry them off and raise them as their own. Didn't you ever wonder how thugs were born? I suppose that now you know.

You could spend your days sleeping under newspaper, watching the world flicker by in smears of car-colored streaks. Or you could let your ambition drive you to clamber to the top of the gang system and to lord over the world below the guidelines of living.

Every gang has a set of rules and ours is no exception. There is a keen honor system here that an outsider would hastily overlook: you care for your kin and if someone saves your life you're indebted to them. That means closing your lips and doing time when they pry for names. It means sticking your hands in the sky or behind your back when they catch you. It means finding a metal bat or ending up in metal chains.

It's all about getting the job done here. Those who do it well are valued as the closest of brothers. You're held close like the big stick or the angry dog so your master has the benefit of having a crowd when he speaks. The only thing about this industry is the competition, and the larger the crowd that gathers the more competition you get.

Also…the larger the jealousy grows.

Song: Why So Serious? The Dark Knight Soundtrack

The car door slammed shut behind them with a snapping click and the prisoner stumbled forward, shoved by his irate captor. Blinded by the coarse brown sack tied onto his head, his foot exchanged quick greetings with a sharp rock and he tumbled down. Unable to break his fall with his hands tied behind his back, he went down with a heavy thud. His groan was muffled and he curled in on himself. This time he didn't get back up.

"Finally staying down, eh?" grumbled his keeper, Jeric, who sported the stubble from a shaved head and a scowl that could have boiled water. He took his time loading the handgun as his comrade knelt beside their captive and yanked off the sack hood. He forced his prisoner's chin upward roughly so that he stared up at him.

"He's got green eyes," Benny noted curiously, as though murdering the competition was an everyday occurrence. Apparently it was, especially when you could just as easily excuse it for the recent popularity of capitalism.

"Weird," Jeric mumbled, glancing down at the defiant gaze staring back at them. "You sure this is the right one? He's sort of a kid."

"Boss said not to let that distract us." Benny grunted as he got up. "Stop staring at me," he snapped. When his prisoner didn't respond immediately, he snapped his leg out into his shoulder, which served the purpose of turning him away.

"Freaking me out," he grumbled. He turned away and slipped around the car to the trunk, touching his fingers to the inking of an XV on his wrist for good luck.

"Such a crybaby," Jeric mumbled as he planted his boot on the prisoner's chest to keep him from wriggling and throwing off his aim.

"Jeric, wanna help me figure this out first?" Benny asked from behind the car. Jeric grunted, furrowing his brow as he turned and followed after his comrade.

Cailean twisted on the ground, tucking his knees as close to his chest as he could manage. The wire bit into his wrists as he tried to squeeze them lower down his back, drawing the slick warmth of blood down his palms. He was keenly aware of the seconds as they ticked by—could hear their conversation as they argued about what font to use for the message they were about to send. His muscles creaked as he slipped his bound wrists past his feet, carefully ignoring the taste of blood as he chewed the wires into obedience. He fought with a wild desperation to untangle them.

"Just choose whatever. I'm going to take care of the whelp," he heard Jeric say. Time's up. He forced himself to his knees just as Jeric rounded the corner. "What the-" He stopped, confusion wrinkling his face. He had left a boy lying on the ground and returned to find a dog? "Ben-" he managed to yell before the dog lunged at him.

His teeth seized Jeric's arm—skin tore between his jaw and the taste of iron filled his mouth. He hadn't been fortunate enough to grab the right hand, though and the muzzle of the gun pressed against his chest. A single snarl of defiance escaped his throat before it went off.

He flopped to the ground, but never felt the rocks dig into the sides of the raw, broken skin of his wrists. He watched Jeric's wild eyes as his lips flapped wordlessly—or maybe he was speaking and he simply couldn't hear the exchange past the ringing in his ears.

"What the hell is that thing?" Benny seemed on the verge of panic as he stared at the monstrosity. Jeric did his best to wrap his arm in a towel to staunch the bleeding. "That's one big ass dog!"

"That ain't no dog, Benny," Jeric said, his face uncharacteristically pale. The brown fur was matted with blood where the front legs were tied together with a crude wire, which had been bent as though chewed on.

"What is it then?" Benny wondered aloud. Jeric dared to venture forward, though only to nudge its limp haunches with the toe of his boot.

"I think it's a wolf," he said.

"I thought wolves were hunted to extinction?"

"I guess they missed some."

"Well…we know why they call him the Mascot, then," Benny said as he leaned over to peer at Jeric's arm. Jeric grunted, but quickly took a step back as the wolf growled. The sound was barely existent, but still there nonetheless.

"Can't believe it's not dead yet." He lowered his gun on the creature.

"Don't waste the ammo. It'll be dead soon anyways." Benny turned and slid into the driver's side of the car, starting up the engine with a low grumble. Jeric shrugged and found his seat on the passenger side and the tires crunched on the rocky path as they swung a u-turn and made their exit.

Song: Catatonic by Hans Zimmer in the Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack

"What is that?" Cailean struggled to open his eyes, but the world looked like it had been squished into a tunnel. Or maybe it didn't just look that way? Something smelled sweet, and it mixed pleasantly with the wet earth beneath his face and the scent of the tree roots that hovered over him. Hadn't he fallen in the middle of the road? Maybe he had crawled beneath a tree semi-conscious and fallen asleep.

"Mister Doggie? Are you alive?" He snapped back to focus, blinking away the bleariness. A heart-shaped face and its wide brown eyes stared in at him. A smile touched her bow-shaped lips when she realized that he was staring back.

"Oh, you're hurt!" Was that dismay in her voice? His nose wriggled, trying to catch the source of the sweet scent. It was captivating his limited capacity for attention at the moment and he wanted to ignore the persistent girl. There was a pressure on his head—or was that in it?—that slid down across his ear and back up again. The air felt lighter; the scent of the earth was less than it had been. He pulled his lips back and did his best to growl—to appear fierce and unyielding. He was the Mascot after all.

Tate hesitated, feeling the slight vibrations that signified the dog's response. Dogs didn't purr, so he must have been growling. A frown marked her pink lips and she gently lifted his head off of her lap and slipped out from under it. Wadding up her blue cardigan, she tucked it under his head. She had to find him some help.

Her yellow and purple-laced tennis shoes carried her across an unmarked path through the trees, up the rocky slope that signified the edge of the town's limits and straight to the doctor's house. Balling her hand into a fist she rapped on the door. It opened before she had had the chance to finish the customary three beats.

"Tate? What're you doing up so late?" Doctor Mockic rubbed his eyes and focused on her, trying to glean some manner of information from her expression.

"Mr. Mockic, I found a dog and he's hurt. Can you help him?"

"One of the village dogs?" Tate shuffled her feet and folded her hands behind her back, her eyes swinging down to the porch floor.

"No," she mumbled. "I found him out by the road."

"Tate!" the doctor sighed exasperatedly. "That's beyond the town limits. You know what your father said about that."

"But he's hurt Mr. Mockic! Please help him!" She peered up at him from beneath her lashes—Daddy had always had trouble saying no when she did that. He said it was something her mother had passed on to her.

"Oh, alright," the doctor sighed after a few moments of silence. Pulling his jacket off of one of the hangers he slid it on and snatched up his medical bag. He clicked off the lights and shut the door behind him softly. "I'll see what I can do."

Tate tried to keep herself from cheering—they still had to find the dog again, after all. She slid down the slope and dashed into the trees.

"Wait up, Kiddo! These old lungs ain't what they used to be," she heard the doctor huff behind her. She obliged, though really she wanted to kick up her heels and get back to the dog as fast as she could.

He was still lying where she had left him, despite her panic. Part of her worried that he might have died while she was gone. She quickly kneeled down next to him and put her hand over his mouth and felt the gentle warmth of his breath tickling the palm of her hands.

"He's still alive," she said with a grin as Doctor Mockic sidled up to her, his bones creaking and snapping as he knelt down next to her.

"But not for much longer," he said breathlessly, and her smile faded.

"Save him!" Tate demanded, grabbing a hold of Mockic's arm and staring up at him. "Please," she added unhappily.

"Tate, you're too sensitive. You can't save every animal that dies, you know. Death happens. It's natural."

"But guns aren't," she shouted, in spite of herself, and tears formed in her eyes. "Someone shot him, Mockic," she whispered as her fingers brushed the blotched brown fur that matted around the bullet's entrance. "Shot him and left him to die." Her fingers crept across the mud black fur on the dog's crown. A droplet quivered on her lashes to plop on his temple and bead on his fur. The silence crept in; uncomfortable and surreal all at once.

"Alright," the doctor finally said. "I'll do my best, Tate."

"You'll save him?" she asked quietly, her brown eyes flickering up at him from beneath her eyelashes. Mockic sighed mournfully and glanced down at the dog. It was certainly a beast of a canine. Perhaps that was why it was still alive; perhaps it could pull through, after all.

"Yes, Tate," he answered. "I'll save him."