CORRECTION NOTICE: A geographic stuff-up on my part: thanks to the lovely Laminaria Lutra for pointing out entirely correctly that if Dean wanted to study authentic raqs baladi, he would of course have to go to Egypt. I blame the fact that I'd had a very nice dinner of Turkish take-away, and clearly had it on the brain.
Meanwhile, Randolph is on a roll! Dean's not doing a belly dance - he must be doing a bunny dance! Gooooooooooooo Randolph!
Chapter Fifteen
"Where the hell is he?" muttered Sam anxiously, pacing up and down the room. "God, he could be anywhere! Where do I even start?"
"Wait a minute," Kelly broke into his desperate monologue and turning back to Miss Polly, looking thoughtful. "When he asked you 'Where is he?' you said 'I don't know'. You didn't say 'Who?', you said 'I don't know'. And you sounded worried, like you already knew. How did you know that Dean was missing?"
"I didn't know that Dean was missing," Miss Polly had rapidly recomposed herself – it took a bit more than an angry knife-wielding apparently-homicidal giant to really rattle a woman who had presided over the basic obedience instruction of as many Beagles, Basenjis, West Highland Terriers and Chihuahuas as she had. "He can't have gone far; he caught me in the carpark just as I was leaving for my appointment, to tell me that he would be travelling overseas, and he asked me to help find Lemmy a good home if you didn't keep him."
Sam swore quietly under his breath.
"When you burst in here, waving a knife at me, Mr Page," she gave him the sort of glower that had once made a veteran police dog hide behind his handler, "I was on the phone to a local dog shelter, making a report of a missing dog."
"Whose dog has gone missing?" asked Sam.
"Mine!" wailed Miss Polly. "Max has just disappeared!"
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"Max?" Dean's jaw actually dropped.
The dog gave him a happy bark, and a wink.
"You're... you're... what the hell are you?" he demanded. "Some sort of cross between a shapeshifter, and, what, a skinwalker?"
Max whuffed happily, and nodded.
"So, are you a shapeshifter who found a skinwalker to impersonate?"
Max shook his head.
"Okay, how about a shapeshifter who got bit by a skinwalker?"
Max yipped, and nodded.
"Oh, just peachy," grumbled Dean, "Another damned Jefferson Starship, a cross between Lassie and Mystique, and you're not even a hot chick."
Max curled his lip, then turned to trot out of the darkened room.
"Just so you know, I am going to give you such a swatting with a rolled-up newspaper!" Dean called after him.
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"Look, I'm sorry that Max has gone missing, but I gotta worry about my brother right now," Sam told Miss Polly apologetically, "We have good reason to believe that he's been abducted by a... person who intends to do him harm."
"Whatever for?" asked Miss Polly, as her face morphed from mystified to disapproving. "He's not involved in... drugs, is he?" she frowned.
"No, no, nothing like that," Sam assured her hastily, "He's probably been, uh, targeted by, um, a, er..."
"A rival dance troupe," intoned Kelly ominously.
"A dance troupe?" Miss Polly echoed doubtfully.
"Oh, yeah," Sam nodded vigorously, "Dean a talented practitioner of traditional male belly dance, yeah, and he, uh, he's one of the star performers for this group, called, er, they call themselves... Tut's Nuts."
"Because they're all totally nuts for this style of traditional Egyptian dance," added Kelly helpfully. "And their audiences just go nuts for them when they perform."
"Yeah, totally," Sam confirmed, "Anyway, you'd be amazed at the sort of rivalry that can exist between these groups. They kind of have to compete for market share, you know, for audiences, and, well, it can get really, really nasty. There's this other troupe, the, er, Raqs On Raqs Off troupe, and they are like the arch rivals of Tut's Nuts."
"Think Hatfields and McCoys," confirmed Kelly. "Think Jets and Sharks. The Doctor and The Master. Republicans and Democrats. Coke and Pepsi. iPhone and Android."
"Yeah," Sam nodded, "And, and, they've tried to, uh, sabotage Tut's Nuts before..."
"Think Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan," said Kelly grimly, "With coin belts, testosterone, and tiny little sharp finger cymbals."
"Yeah, so, we think that one of them might be trying to, uh, put Dean out of action," finished Sam. "So, I have to find him." His features fell into his Sad Puppy-Dog Face. "It'll break his heart and mine if he can never perform again..."
It had, however, been a number of decades since puppy-dog eyes had worked on Miss Polly. "But you said this person had eyes that glowed like mine," she recalled.
"A lot of them wear tinted contacts," Sam replied. "It's an artistic thing."
"You called me a shapeshifter!" Miss Polly went on, "What on earth were you talking about?"
"No I didn't!" yelped Sam, "I said, uh, I said 'You're a fake, sister!'. I thought you were in collusion with the, er, Raqs On Raqs Off guys!"
"Just because of my corrective contacts?" pressed Miss Polly.
"Well, I didn't know you wore them for an eye condition!" Sam protested.
Miss Polly gave him a look that he imagined she must have used before, perhaps when gazing in disbelief at a dog that insists of growling at its own hind leg while trying to scratch an ear, but subsided.
"This person wouldn't have taken Max, would they?" Polly asked with concern. "It's just so unlike him to wander. He's such a good boy."
"I don't see why they would," Sam shrugged, "He would have no reason to be protective of Dean, so I can't see why he would get in the way..." he looked down, straight into Lemmy's big brown worried eyes. "Don't you worry, fella," he reassured the pup, "We'll find him."
"What if they thought he was Dean's dog?" Miss Polly argued. "Dean didn't have Lemmy with him when he spoke with me. If Max was out then, they might've grabbed him too..."
"It's highly unlikely, Miss Polly," began Kelly, "He's a smart boy – Max, I mean, not Dean – and he'll probably come home by himself. Are there any other premises associated with the Perfect Pooches Canine Academy? Do you have a storage lock-up somewhere in town? Have you been looking to expand?"
Polly shook her head. "No, we have all the space we need here," she replied.
"The last place we know the culprit was, is our room," reasoned Sam, "Whoever it is left the car there. That's where we'll start."
"Keep an eye out for Max!" Miss Polly implored.
"We will," Kelly promised as they headed out to their vehicles.
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Back at the Winchesters' room, Sam was still at a loss as to how to proceed.
"You can't track his phone?" asked Kelly.
"Already tried," answered Sam glumly, as the pups sniffed anxiously around the room, "It's turned off, or run out of juice."
Kelly looked thoughtful. "The shifter must've left here on foot, if it left Dean's car here," she began. "We've got that piece of skin from the shifter - we could wrap it in a shirt or something, then take it back to the Canine Academy, and see if we could get one of the people who does tracking competitively could give us a hand. We can spin them some story – actually, I kinda like the one about Tut's Nuts. I'd pay money to see your brother wiggling around in a coin belt..."
"If my brother was wiggling around in a coin belt, I'd pay money to have my eyes poked out with a spork," Sam muttered distractedly. "No, that's not an option; we can't risk civilians getting involved with whatever happens when we find this thing."
"Well, we can't expect our pups to do it," she pointed out, "They've only had their first lesson today! No ordinary pup could possibly track after only one try at it. A real tracking-oriented breed, like a Bloodhound maybe, one that has been bred to get the scent and then think of nothing else once it's got fixated on that idea, might make a pretty good try, but only a breed with very strong instincts and drive to find its target, wherever it is..."
As she spoke, Sam stopped his agitated fidgeting, and slowly smiled.
"I have an idea."
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Kelly sat behind the wheel of her truck, engine idling, and turned to Morgan, who sat in shotgun. "I don't think of myself as being particularly slow on the uptake," she said to her pup, "But I got nothing – have you got any idea what he's doing?"
Morgan did the head-tilting look-of-confusion thing as only a German Shepherd can.
"Maybe we should just assume that the oxygen is so thin up there, it's starting to affect his brain. Disorientation and irrationality are symptoms of hypoxia."
Morgan tilted her head the other way.
"Well, it was a theory," Kelly shrugged, rolling down the window and leaning out. "Are we ready to, uh, do whatever we're going to do yet?"
"Just about," Sam replied. He was kneeling next to Lemmy, fiddling with the pup's collar, whilst Lars unhelpfully nosed at it to see what was happening. "I'm just putting him onto a piece of rope that's longer than his lead, so he can pull out."
"And we're doing this because...?" she prompted.
"Because I think Lemmy has the breeding and the talent to find Dean," Sam answered, not looking up, "We just gotta let him do it his own way."
"Okaaaaay," she said, "And what way is that?"
"If this works, I'll have to go with him, wherever he goes," Sam told her, "Follow me if you can, track my phone if you have to."
"But... where the hell do you expect him to go?" she asked as Sam stood up
"I expect him to take me to Dean," Sam stated firmly.
"How?" she demanded.
"Because once he gets an idea into his fluffy, boofy little head, it's very difficult to dislodge," grinned Sam.
He stopped grinning and pulled a face of disgust with a mutter of "Oh gross," as he pulled an item from his pocket and offered it to Lemmy, who sniffed intently at it.
"What's this, Lem?" he said in a bright chirpy voice, waggling the item for the pup. "What's this? What's this?"
Responding to Sam's tone, Lemmy began to bounce on the spot, and snap at the offering.
"You got it? You got it?" asked Sam. "Okay, Lemmy! Good boy!"
Lemmy woofed with excitement, eyes dancing.
"Now... seek seek seek seek SOCK!"
Oh, it's so satisfying when a shy plot bunny finds its self-confidence, and stands up for itself...
Go and Google-images 'German Shepherd head tilt', and tell me you didn't go 'Awwwwww'.
Reviews are the Adorable Pups Gambolling In The Suns`hine Of Life!
...
What?
Oh, all right. For the more depraved of the Denizens:
Reviews are the Adorable Winchester Of Your Choice Gambolling In The Sunshine Of Life!
...
Oh, what now?
Le sigh. Very well.
Reviews are the Adorable Winchester Of Your Choice Gambolling In The Jacuzzi Of Life!