This is just a very small story, which will probably post in its entirety in a week or so. It started as a practice throw-away scene, but some very naggy women that I write with insisted that there was more there and that I should continue. Of course, as always, they were right. So this is dedicated to them. ED - March 2004

Intro

"You take the perimeter - I'll go in. Looks like a dead end anyway. Why is it that informants always give tips in the middle of the night - never, say, right after lunch?"

Cheryl grinned. "Because they hate to be seen. Because they're usually criminals ratting on other criminals. You're just mad because you didn't get your beauty sleep."

"Don't be silly," Steve reached for his regulation flashlight. "I got a good two and a half hours. What more does a guy need?"

"It's the choices of location that I like." Cheryl wrinkled her nose fastidiously as she glanced around the broken down auto repair shop. "Dumps. Alleys. Why can't anybody find a good lead someplace nice and clean and sanitary?"

"Not to mention well-lit." Steve pulled the car behind a rusted out pickup and turned off the engine, tripping the car door handle. "Would it be a crime to have a few leads someplace where you could actually see?"

They both fell silent as they stepped out of the car and looked around. Cheryl signaled the path she intended to take around the perimeter and started off to the left. Steve headed toward the darkened building. Cars and trucks in varying degrees of disrepair sat hunkered everywhere, hulking shadows in the dark. Well, at least there was lots of cover.

Ducking behind the autos, he made his way to the corrugated metal drop-down door. It was fastened with a rusty padlock. He sighed through his nose. And me without a search warrant. Well, maybe just a peek. He peered into a small, fly-specked window, but could only make out more shadows. What a waste of time.

He crossed around behind the building, flashlight held out to the side. There was a small yard here, and what looked like discarded auto pieces. He toed at a cracked water pump, checked out the windows on the other side of the building. Nothing. With another sigh, he turned to examine a tumbled stack of pipes and metal so old that their origins were unidentifiable. He played the flashlight over them, wishing he had some idea exactly what it was he was looking for anyway. He was so engrossed that the low sound that suddenly broke the silence of the night caught him completely off guard. He raised his eyes to look.

The low, menacing growl came again, deeper and longer this time. Just on the other side of the stack of pipes, blocking his egress from the yard, stood a dog of some kind of mixed parentage - bull mastiff, maybe? Or bull terrier? with a broad chest and wide jaws, standing stiff legged, his ears back and his tail stuck straight out behind him. Steve stood still.

He needed to get around him, but the dog didn't look very willing. In the beam of the flashlight, his eyes glowed almost red.

Something rattled softly and Steve shifted the light to the chain dangling around the dog's neck. All right, all he needed to do was to figure out how far that chain reached. Before he got chewed to bits, that is. The dog growled again, more aggressively this time, and Steve took a careful, calculated step backward and to the left. He wondered where Cheryl might be. The dog's shoulders hunched warningly. Steve took another step back, slowly, trying to get a better look at the end of the chain. He spotted it, and his stomach slid down into his shoes. It wasn't fastened to anything. He was delicately reaching across to his holster when the dog sprang.

It was like being hit by a missile of knotted muscle and bone, the world a nightmarish glimpse of fangs and steaming breath. He hit the ground with a force that punched the breath out of him, felt stubby claws sink through his shirt and into his chest, scraping, over a hundred pounds of weight clawing for a grip. He instinctively raised the arm that had been reaching for the gun to protect his throat, pushed at the flat, massive head with it. The iron jaws closed over it like a steel trap. His own cry of pain echoed in his ears.

The world flipped upside down, a red and pulsing landscape of agony. He could feel the teeth grind deeply into muscle, scrape against bone, felt the warm splash of his own blood and the dog's saliva against his face. He hit at the head with his heavy flashlight, but the dog shook it off like a landing fly, shaking Steve's arm too, so that everything twisted into a tight spiral of darkness, shot through with a sickening wash of hot and noxious colors. Bone and muscle seemed to separate from each other and a humming blackness rushed to smother him. He tried to swing again with the flashlight, at the shoulder this time, but even adrenaline wasn't enough to give him the strength he needed. The flashlight dropped from his hand, rolled a few feet away. Blood thundered in his ears.

"Mijo!"

The sudden bark of a human voice barely registered - what did register was the stiffening stillness of the scrabbling claws on his chest.

"Mijo! Bastante!"

The crushing grip on his arm loosened, the sensation of the blunt teeth pulling back through his flesh almost more agonizing still. The rugged jaws gave his arm a last shake that almost sent him under, then, with a sullen growl, dropped it. The weight disappeared from his chest. He didn't even care where to; he curled protectively around his savaged limb, choking on the urge to throw up, his brain burning with pain. He felt a hot wetness dampening the remaining scraps of his shirt - from the bite on his arm, or the clawed chest? Who could tell? - was just barely aware of deliberate footsteps crossing the ground in his direction. Some trained part of his mind recognized the sound of a gun cocking - something semiautomatic, he catalogued rotely, or even automatic - even as something cold and solid nudged the area behind his ear - rested there.

"So, Ese," began a voice in a growl infinitely more menacing than the dog's. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

TBC