~*~*~*~*~
"Stay with me, Jack...."

Standing in the doorway of the Winterhaven hospital room, Michael watched Ta'ra twine her fingers with the still, bandaged hand of the drugged detective. Breslin's chest rose and fell, the slow, tentative rhythm of the deeply unconscious. The IV bag beside his bed dripped plasma and fluids into his veins, fighting off shock.

"Please, wake up." Ta'ra's hands moved near the detective's neck; Michael frowned. Was that acupressure? "They got it. They did get it; I've tested your blood, there's nothing left but antigens and the neurotoxin. We can beat that. All we need is the appropriate stimulant. Just hold on. Please hold on." The blonde head leaned against dark hair. "This is my fault."

Archangel lifted a blond brow. "Unless you possess precognition in addition to telepathy, Ms. Andulon, I doubt that."

Ta'ra started, whipping her head up to view him with wide, terrified eyes. "I - didn't hear you-"

"I know. No, please don't move him," Archangel added quickly, noting how her hand had disappeared under the covers. "Right now Detective Breslin's on enough antibiotics and anti-virals to make a full-blown case of bubonic plague curl up and die. We're not sure what was crawling through his system, but it digested a tunnel through skin and muscle almost close enough to his spinal cord to kill him. The septic shock still could, if any infection gets started. And there's some sort of toxin in his system we've never seen before. Don't move him."

Some of the fear faded as she scanned him. "You are... not a doctor."

Archangel's mouth twitched as he made his uneven way inside. "No." He listened absently to the approach of familiar footsteps. Careful. She's had enough frights for one day. "Michael Briggs. The physician in charge said they'd removed the entire... infection. Whatever it was. I'm glad to hear you concur." He lifted an inquiring brow. "I'd be curious to know just what was it we did get. Given that it took a flame-thrower to kill the damn thing once we removed it." Lucky Winterhaven was prepared for weird emergencies.

Not luck, Archangel reminded himself, feeling a glow of satisfaction. He might have raised three kinds of hell with String over dragging Caitlin into Airwolf, but now he wouldn't trade the young ex-cop for a dozen of the CIA's trained killers. Her quick decision just might have given them the break to get to the bottom of Yates' disappearance. Not to mention saved this man's life.

"I believe it was a detachable neural tendril. Very like a hydra's nematocyst. Meant to aid in a pre-digestive process. I think." Ta'ra leaned back in her chair, sunset painting gold over her weary face. "I'm sorry, I know you must have no idea what that could be...."

"I can make a guess." Marella stepped into the room, file folder under her arm and a tray of IV equipment in hand. "Sir. Results on the sample from Santini One match the foreign tissue removed from Detective Breslin's injury. The lab also did a quick and dirty cross-check on the protein analysis. You'll never believe what came up as a tentative match."

He took the file, flipped to the green-tabbed page. "The medusa H.E.A.T. drained out of the NYC reservoir?"

"Similar," Marella nodded, laying out equipment on the bed table. "Which would tend to give credence to your translations of Herr Wilhelm's claim that she melted when wounded."

"Damn! I'd hoped that was just raving."

Ta'ra seemed to draw in on herself. "He's dead?"

"Yes," Archangel answered frankly. If Caitlin and Airwolf were right, the analyst might as well know what they were up against. "Franz Wilhelm. Self-styled Hexxenmeister; in our terms, witch and werewolf hunter. A man with a positive gift for assaults, homicides, and mass havoc. He's killed no less than four innocent people that we know of, if you take drowning in the water test as proof of innocence. He'd have been in prison a dozen times over if not for certain connections with various intelligence agencies and an annoying tendency to skate through loopholes in European law. I know of at least three members of the German constabulary who will soon be visiting their favorite churches in scurrilous gratitude." He shrugged. "Apparently Dion got him in the chest. He died on the table, babbling about melting she-demons who tempt men with blood-stained flesh."

"A man who sought monsters." Ta'ra managed an ironic smile. "Only this time, he found one."

"Apparently," Marella nodded. "Preliminary findings from the bone fragments in Ms. Dion's apartment show distinct similarities to Yates' remains. And to the fragments in the cold cases you and Detective Breslin were working."

"Which is apparently what Yates - or rather, whoever or whatever appeared to be Yates - was looking for," Archangel added. "We've tracked his recent accesses. He's been searching for cases like yours for the past week. I don't suppose you'd know why?"

"Does it matter?" Determination flared in Ta'ra's gaze. "I must speak to the medical personnel in charge. The creature's toxin is in Jack's system; it's collapsing his synapses no matter what I do. All these supportive measures won't work if we can't stimulate his cortex-"

"None of the doctors here can clear the release of those drugs into your hands," Archangel said flatly, hands braced on his cane.

"Technically speaking, they can't even admit they exist," Marella put in. "The compounds you're asking for are supposed to be highly classified."

"Yes." Ta'ra winced. "I suppose they would be, here...."

Here? Archangel concealed his suspicions. Better to wait until he had the results of Ms. Andulon's background check. And given that wasn't in Marella's pile of paperwork.... "Angel," he murmured, too low to hear, "Did Marella upload anything new?"

No.
Pilot Caitlin states registered passenger Marella has moved background check, Ta'ra Andulon, to secondary priority. First priority, analyzing unknown biological hazard.
Pilots Caitlin and Hawke have expressed suspicion in regard to available info on Ta'ra Andulon. "Nobody's background is that empty."

Blonde brows drew together; Ta'ra regarded him with sudden comprehension. "You're... one of the Lady's," she said softly. "Like Caitlin."

Archangel smiled, covering a swift chill. "I assure you, I don't fly stunts, Ms.-"

"Please!" Ta'ra rose from her chair, beseeched him with empty hands. "Archangel. I know your bond is new; I can feel how young she is, how fragile your interconnections are. But you know what it would be like to lose a companion's mind. I can't lose Jack. Not now, not before we've even had a chance. I-" Tears glittered down her cheek; she turned away. "I've lost so many already...."

"You know," Archangel said softly, suspicion congealing into iron-hard conviction. He nodded to Marella. When you have eliminated the impossible....

"You brought it!" Ta'ra impatiently brushed off salt water, helped Marella add the orange fluid to the IV network. "Yet you said-"

"The doctors couldn't release it. I can." Archangel flipped the file to the red tab of classified medical results. "You'd better read this carefully. Even the best neural stimulant we have is highly dangerous. Dosage levels are critical. And I know of nowhere these drugs are prescribed medically." He met Ta'ra's gaze, level as a drawn sword. "Nowhere on Earth."

~*~*~*~*~
"Look, Detective Dion, last I heard this was Breslin's case-" the medical examiner made one last protest as he pulled the sheet off the body.

"He had an accident," the blonde shrugged, heels clicking over chill white tile. "I'll view."

"Okay. Here we go. Cause of death...." The medical examiner eyed the silver hilt sticking out between pale ribs, snorted. "Gee, that's a tough one." He reached for an autopsy blade.

"Aren't you going to pull it out?"

Newbies. "Oh, sure," the examiner said dryly, bending over the corpse's thorax. "Take the knife out, screw up the wound track and your case six ways to Sunday. Just love to give the defense wiggle room, huh, Detect-"

Flesh flexed into red tendrils, wrapped his throat in a constrictor's grip. "I said," Dion snarled, "Take it out."

He barely had breath to wheeze. "Wha- what-"

"Now!"

Gloved fingers fumbled over dead skin, gripped the silvery pommel. He pulled, silver sliding free in a gush of red that wasn't quite blood-

Dead eyes opened. Smiled, even as flesh and bone melted into a liquid flow of crimson that rushed over the examiner like an acid tide.

He barely had time to scream.

~*~*~*~*~
Took a lot to get screams at the LA County Coroner's Office, Detective Lieutenant Victor Maldonado knew, hunched up with his revolver beside the last autopsy room door and wishing he had a horde of uniforms behind him. Any place you got drownings, stabbings, bodies stacked up like cordwood after the gangs had a hard night - well, people who worked here just didn't scream.

And the poor sap in there... wasn't, anymore.

Sweat tricking across his bald spot, Vic risked another glance through the small window in the door. Man, I wish I'd skipped lunch.

The two red blobs were wiggling back into humanoid form, now; blonde hair squiggling into shape on one even as the other disgorged a rush of ragged bones. Blackened ivory snapped like kindling as it hit the tiled floor.

"Want some more?" Dion purred, voice just a touch gurgly. "I can find you another...."

"Maybe in a little while." William Yates - or something that was pretending to be Yates, if he could believe Ta'ra's phone call - caressed her furry muzzle. "You have lovely tendrils."

Dion giggled.

Great. The monsters are dating. That's it. That is it. This is the last time I check up on one of your bodies, Jack!

No time for that. He had to think. Shoot them? No; the uniforms who'd checked out the call of shots fired at Dion's apartment had found Jack's bullets. Say what you want about Breslin, and sometimes he'd said a lot about Breslin, Jack was a fair shot. No way would he have let that many rounds go and not hit his target.

That's why you brought backup. Reluctantly Vic holstered his revolver, took out one of Ta'ra's pulse blasters. Not nearly the firepower of a pulse rifle, according to Jack, but you didn't need a trench coat to hide it, either. So. Here goes.

He slammed open the door, lighting the room with the high, ruby thrum of pulse fire-

The burned, smoking, empty room.

What the heck?

Vic quartered the seared room like the uniformed cop he'd once been, searching for any sign of life, any trace of the tentacled things that had been in here. Bones, silver knife, remnants of clothing-

Running footsteps. "Vic!"

The lieutenant lowered his borrowed blaster, muttering Italian maledictions under his breath as an all-too-familiar blonde sped through the doorway, hands out and empty. "Ta'ra. How-"

"The passenger seat of a white Ferrari, I think. It was fast-" Quick eyes locked on something near the foot of the table. "There!"

The lieutenant whirled on the glint, aim steady as it could be when his heart wanted to climb into his throat. Something small, quivering on the tiled floor. Something ivory, just tinged with crimson.

One lone, acid-etched tooth floated in a pool of red; gory fluid even now slipping into the round grate set into the tiled floor. A grate meant to catch the unspeakable liquids that sometimes overflowed from the coroner's work... which had apparently failed to catch something much, much worse.

For a long moment Vic just stood there, toting up disasters. One coroner, toasted. One autopsy room, also toasted, with nobody to blame for it but him if other cops coming to the screams ignored common sense and looked at the facts. And the one detective he had who seemed able to tangle with weirdness and come out in one piece was currently flat on his back in some kind of government hospital.

And a pair of monsters had just - gone down the drain.

Could things get any worse?

"Come on!" Ta'ra seized his arm. "We've got to catch them!"

I had to ask.

~*~*~*~*~
"I could be home, helping my kid untangle my wife's spaghetti," Vic grumbled, barreling down the boulevard; glancing back at the thin traffic behind them before checking his street map. "Kind of an exercise in frustration, but at least you get to eat the problem. But no. I gotta be out here, in the middle of the night, chasing monsters with the department's resident illegal alien. Werewolves, no less. What's the matter, you two run short on extraterrestrial creeps?" His hand moved toward his turn signal; hesitated; he shook his head, drove past the exit. "Where is Jack, anyway?"

"In competent medical hands," Ta'ra said firmly, holding onto that thin sense of other they'd followed from the coroner's office. Cross-checking it against the map of L.A. storm drains she'd pulled from the glove box; like Jack, the lieutenant had never quite been able to rid himself of the fear they might have to hunt down a Xenomorph all over again. Steady. I've done what I can; Jack would tell me himself to go. "And I'm not certain these creatures are native to your planet. Though from the Internet research I was able to accomplish, they do sound akin to some of your old folklore... that could simply mean they've been present for some time. Their compounds appear similar to those found in certain terrestrial organisms, but your world has a diversity of biological and ecological systems I've never heard of elsewhere."

"Hurray for the ecology. Competent medics, huh?" Vic snorted. "The same guys that dumped you out of a Ferrari and took off?"

"I'm certain they had their reasons." Many of which might have to do with how she'd frightened Michael.

Archangel would never say she'd frightened him, of course. Anyone in such a position of power in an Earthling intelligence agency - and that was precisely what he was, no matter how neatly he might skirt the question - could hardly admit he'd been so much as startled by a mere crime scene analyst.

But while his thoughts might be closed, his emotions were clear - and terrified - enough.

For a moment Ta'ra tried to place herself in his position. An Earthling, who'd lived all his life in one lone mind, deaf to all thoughts about him save what he deduced from words and gestures. Who likely thought of psychic abilities as Jack had first thought of aliens; an interesting, but ultimately fictional, concept. To go from that to suddenly finding yourself bound, one-of-many....

I can't imagine it, Ta'ra admitted silently. She was telepathic; she did miss the sense of being part of a greater whole, of being known and loved just as she was. Though Jack and Vic, and even Norton, in his own, alien way, filled some of those gaps.

But she'd never taken a companion. She was still young, after all. Though certainly not seven, Jack, really! She had decades to search out a good match, a mind that fit with hers like hand in hand, a life walking the same path. A love steady as a heartbeat; not the vivid, sunset riot of romantic passion painted by Earthling fiction, but joyous and subtle as waves at dawn.

Mine. My friend. My help. My own.

She'd felt it around Michael, around the others; though still new, fragile as cobweb. A far cry from the deep rivers she'd sensed between some of her own race.

Give them time. Hope they have time....

Vic sighed. "So. How do we stop the blood-drinking lovebirds?"

Ta'ra frowned. "Many of its essential compounds would be detrimentally affected by silver. I suspect the one in the morgue was in some sort of... shock-induced stasis, I think. It must use some internal organs, at least when it's in humanoid form; and a knife does tend to create massive trauma."

The lieutenant rolled his eyes. "No, really?"

"Couple that with your legends' claim that a slain werewolf may rise as a vampire, the strict injunction not to remove the stake from the heart until the corpse can be burned, and Michael's assertion that the tendril could only be properly dealt with via flame-thrower...."

"Great. We gotta torch these things. Just the thing to light up my night." Vic bit out a few Italian curses. "Tell me this isn't why you tossed those bottles from pathology in my trunk?"

"If we can add those chemicals to petroleum in the proper proportions, it should exceed napalm in temperature," Ta'ra nodded.

"Terrific." The lieutenant scanned the road. "You got any idea where we're heading?"

"We're close."

Vic implored the car roof. "Close as in miles, or close as in reach out and bite you?"

"Under a kilometer." Ta'ra pointed them east, toward a wide driveway. "A... quarter of a mile?"

"Great." The lieutenant pulled up to the slim bar blocking the drive, hauled out his wallet to snatch out bills for the teenager in the lighted booth. "Not enough I gotta hunt monsters, I have to pay admission...."

Admission? Ta'ra glanced up from her map of the storm drains, toward the high hunting calls of the flying mammals Jack called bats, dark shapes of fur and wings chasing fluttering insects drawn to the flickering sign overhead.

Ventura Drive-In
Double-header: American Werewolf and Psycho
Welcome Alpha Theta Pi!

"Frat party," Vic grumbled, shaking his head at the raucous crowd of intoxicated young men, giggling bleached blondes with fake knives stabbed into skimpy outfits, and various grungy types in leather and wolf makeup gathered around a swarm of SUVs and Mercedes. He pulled into a space nearby, got out and locked his door. "I say we let the monsters eat them."

"Lieutenant!" Ta'ra followed him out, shocked; he halfway meant that. "You can't-"

"Hey, pretty lady." A blast of boozy breath; a heavy hand on her shoulder. A bombardment of vicious images, as the slimy creature that gripped her imagined himself inflicting himself on her in a multitude of unclean ways-

Three blows left him gasping and gagging in the dust; she drew away with a shudder, retreating behind Vic. Jack was right. Human self-defense courses are handy.

Hand on the blaster in his pocket, the lieutenant glared down two smaller bozos who'd leapt to their fallen comrade's defense. "See what I mean - Ta'ra!"

Crunch.

"Oh no." She gazed down at fragile, blackened ivory shattered under her feet. "Oh, no...."

"Santa Maria - did you see this?" Vic demanded, snaring the nearest bozo. "Did you see what did this?"

"Hey, chill, man." The young man in expensively torn jeans tried to pry Vic's hand off his collarbone. "It's all part of the party! Garou rule!"

Too late, Ta'ra caught the scent of spoiled meat, the whisper of stalking prey.

Tentacles whipped around the med-tech's throat, dragged her back. She fought, uncaring how it might appear to the Earthlings mobbed about her; using all her kind's native agility to slip her living bonds.

And failing.

"Let her go!" Vic, blaster in plain sight now, aiming at the creature's center of mass. Only to jerk it around, just before a second furry form could come into arm's reach. Yates snarled, stayed just out of reach.

"When you're the only ones who'll believe?" Ta'ra barely recognized Dion's voice from the tendril-wreathed muzzle by her ear. "The only ones Jack knew would follow us? To hunt us all down, even our brood, no matter what the cost?" A liquid chortle. "Go ahead. Fire. Light will never harm us. You might give us indigestion, but your companion will make a fine brood-host...."

Wind howled, tearing at Ta'ra's hair, ripping at tendrils with a wolf's cold fury. A shape of darkness and rotors rose over the rippling movie screen, lean and deadly and hunting as a night-patterned shark.

And a banshee wailed in Ta'ra's mind, keening for those it meant to slay.

~*~*~*~*~
"Chain-guns."

"I don't see anything but people," Caitlin argued, watching their EM emissions like a hawk. The last thing they needed was hysterical Air Force commanders worried about a night strike on L.A.

"Check IR. Chain-guns. Now."

"We gotta be sure, String," Dom stated, even as he armed weapons. "The Lady's good, but she ain't exactly a bloodhound!"

"Comes to mass destruction, she is."

Matrix scanner, chemical and radioactive "sniffer" sensors allow detection/tracking of NBC weapons, source components, construction sites, transport, Airwolf agreed. Part of original Firm specifications: ability to locate and neutralize NBC threats.
Psionic transceiver allows PKE detection. "Werewolf" previously identified as having low-level anomalous PKE signature.
Cross-reference of PKE signature with unique biochemical markers provided by pilot Caitlin allows successful target location.
Targets located.

String's eyes narrowed, fixed on the two inhuman creatures highlighted on Airwolf's tactical screens. And their unwilling hostages. "Let's clear out the bystanders."

~*~*~*~*~
Sand stung her eyes, hurled by the raging winds; Ta'ra tried to shield her face. Stars, the howl, the fury; the will-to-slay, cleaner and crisper than the pulsing hunger that held her. Why won't it strike-

Thunder and fire spat from the dark, missing by inches. She cringed from heated air, sensing the cold, crystal aim that guided heavy-metal slugs. Sensing how close she was to death.

Yet not a round struck.

What?

The gale continued to howl, shattering windshields, overturning SUVs in groans of tortured metal. A thick reek of gasoline whipped past her nose, there and gone in the punishing wind.

And the pressure of other minds, other fears... retreated. Leaving her, and Vic, alone with the monsters.

Deliberate miss. Deliberate.

And in an instant, she knew what the wind-wolf's plan was. What it had to be.

Stars - aim true! "Vic, down!"

And fire thundered once more.

~*~*~*~*~
Vic picked himself off gritty asphalt as that howling wind backed off, shaking like he hadn't shook since he knew that psycho Eddie Fiori was loose with a blaster and a suit that stopped bullets. What the hell was that?

It was... sort of like a helicopter. It looked like a helicopter, what he could see of it in the wavering light from the shredded movie screen; a flash of silvery blades, a shape of night and ivory vicious as a killer whale.

But no chopper he'd ever seen could bowl over cars.

Red oozed near his hands; Vic leapt back. Huge lumps of silver-gray metal dotted crimson liquid, slowing its flow. "They melt."

"Come on!" Ta'ra yanked open his trunk, dashed bottles into the red blobs' path with frantic haste. "They won't be stunned long!"

Stunned? That - that thing overhead had just cut loose with military-issue artillery, and she said they were just stunned? "Thought you said we had to mix this with gas!"

"We have!" She snagged his hand. "Run!"

"What d'you mean we-" He caught the reek of unleaded, rising now that the chopper was lifting away. Did a lightning estimate of just how many cars were about to go to that Great Junkyard in the Sky. And bolted.

Ta'ra passed him effortlessly; stopped and turned, aiming true down her blaster barrel. Fired.

Red lanced out from the alien weapon's muzzle, shattering night with a high shriek. Touched off flame and fury-

Ow. Trying to catch the breath asphalt had blasted out of him, Vic brushed fire-hot sweat out of his eyes and started assessing the damage. Four or five cars totaled, looked like the parking lot was catching fire, who knew how many dead or injured who hadn't run fast enough....

"Don't bother." Ta'ra, kneeling beside him. Barely even breathing hard. "They're coming back."

He followed her gaze, just in time to catch a dark-on-dark movement in the night, a white gleam of launched fire-

Down!

Thunder shook the lot, shattering flame in a thousand pieces.

Vic held onto Ta'ra, letting her shake against him. Wanting to shake himself. Missile. That was a missile.

The banshee keen dimmed with distance, vanished.

Who throws missiles around in the U.S.?

Ta'ra gazed into the empty night. "I doubt they mean to allow us to ask."

"You don't know?"

"I couldn't read their minds," she said softly, barely audible over the crackling flames, the wail of sirens as someone finally woke up to the mayhem going on in their drive-in. "Which means... I may know who they are, after all."