A Werewolf In Under-Town

The apartment complex where the safe house was located was a four story brick building on the corner of a short block. It was in the northwest district of downtown Austin, next to a defunct laundromat. If Shaggy hadn’t known that the place was an APD safe house, he would’ve thought it was an abandoned tenement building. His pack groaned at the sight of it as Sybil pulled the car into an alleyway next to the building.

“It’s not that bad,” Shaggy lied.

He felt their doubt through the pack link and shook his head. Mostly at himself. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but an abandoned apartment building wasn’t it. Luckily, Sybil found a small parking garage around the back of the building. It was clearly made for tenants to park their cars. But it was now filled with trash and other junk.

“Small miracles.” Sybil muttered as she parked the car and turned off the engine.

Shaggy silently agreed. “Okay, first things first. When we get in there, I want everyone to be on the lookout for any listening or recording devices. These are the cops and I’m a known criminal. So I wouldn’t put it past them to want to monitor us. But we don’t want that. So every camera, every electronic bug, or anything else like that. Take it out.”

“Cops ain’t going to like that.”

“Fuck’em.” Shaggy said as he slid out from the SUV and into the early sun.

Thanks to the car, they had made good time in the city. The roads were clogging up with people heading into and out of work. Hover cars whizzed by over head between office buildings and other vehicles. Shaggy kept his nose up and ready for any foreign or mysterious smells in the air.

Shaggy got the faint smell of body odor, beer, and piss from the surrounding parking area. He suspected the garage had a homeless population at some point. But they must of ran off or were somewhere in the city. Piled up trash filled the tiny road leading behind the apartment complex, and the smell of wood rot and mold permeated the apartment building. Shaggy sighed as they collected their things and walked around to the front of the complex.

“Two on the street.” Vick muttered.

As one they turned to look and Shaggy heard Vick sigh. They weren’t a stealthy lot, his group. Shaggy smirked as he saw two people walking northward along the sidewalk, carrying briefcases and dressed in business suits.

“Not an office building for a few blocks in any direction, is there?” Rita asked.

“NOPE,” Shaggy and the others replied at the same time.

The two men froze as they noticed the group’s gaze. Shaggy saw the shoulders on both of them tense up, and he was sure they were going to either introduce themselves or hurry down the street. Instead, one man pulled out a disc-communicator and made a call. Shaggy snorted as Tom shook his head.

“Not very covert, are they?”

“That’s probably the point.” Said Vick. “Put us on the back foot. Let us know they are watching us all the time.”

Shaggy groaned but started moving again. “Like I said before: Fuck’em.”

They pushed their way through the creaky old front door of the building, and Shaggy was surprised to hear the sounds of footsteps and conversation. There were people living in the building. Shaggy had been sure the damn thing was abandoned. Then again, that wouldn’t stop most people if there were warm rooms and no one to tell them to leave.

Sharing a look with his pack, Shaggy hurried down the hallway and toward the stairs. The one elevator in the building’s lobby had a big yellow ‘out of order’ sign placed on it. He heard Tom groan as his pack mate remembered they were going to the fourth floor. The door to the staircase stuck a bit as Shaggy pushed, so he put a bit more strength into it.

CRACK

There was a loud snap as Shaggy stumbled into the staircase and came face to face with four people. Two were seated on the stairs and another was standing. The fourth was seated on the staircases handrail and all four were staring at them. Shaggy sighed as he looked over at the four young people. Their hands were all hurriedly jammed into their pockets and they looked at him and his pack like they had just been caught. Shaggy glanced down and saw that a wooden broom had been jammed against the door. He had snapped it when he forced the door open.

“Can’t you take a hint, shortstack?” A voice said.

Shaggy turned and saw the standing guy glaring at him. Shaggy snorted as he took in the kid’s sneer. It was full of bravado and the false confidence that comes with being young. The young man was wearing torn jeans and a gray leather jacket. Blue highlights crisscrossed his dark hair and Shaggy was sure he saw some gold fillings in the boy’s teeth.

“Public stairwell, kid. Not a good place to do business.”

The other three young people bristled at his words, but blue hair looked outright pissed. There was a shift in the air and the temperature in the stairwell seemed to drop. The boy’s eyes shone blue and his skin started taking on a light blue hue. Shaggy sighed again and waited for whatever the kid was going to do. He felt his pack tense up like a muscle ready to be used. Soon the kid finished his transformation and an ice-covered young man stood in front of Shaggy, posturing menacingly.

The ice looked thin and pale as the boy moved forward, towering over Shaggy.

“Who you calling kid?”

Shaggy shifted his right hand and raised his claws to poke at the boy’s chest.

“Neat trick. But how thick is that ice?”

Shaggy raised a black and red claw up to the ice and pressed inward. There was a quiet crinkling as the ice gave easily, but the boy didn’t back down. Even as Shaggy’s claw pierced the ice and blood appeared as Shaggy broke skin.

“Luis…” said a girl’s voice.

Shaggy looked and saw the girl on the stair railing looking worried. He withdrew his claw and looked up at the young man. Luis was still covered in a thin sheet of ice, but Shaggy thought the kid looked scared. The kid had stepped up to a threat in front of his crew and now, if he backed down, it wouldn’t look good. Shaggy could appreciate that. He shifted his hand back to normal and curled his fist.

Without another word, he slammed a punch right into Luis’ face and started moving again. The boy collapsed like a bunch of dead weight and the kids started shouting angrily. The girl rushed over to Luis and Shaggy saw Sybil move to stop her, but a quick mental tug and his pack left things alone. Shaggy started up the stairs again, ignoring the rest of Luis’ friends.

The worried noises and shouting died away as his group made it to the third floor and kept climbing. Rita moved up next to Shaggy and smiled.

“Your a kind soul. Did you know that, boss?”

“Pfft. Yeah, I’m a regular upstanding citizen.”

“Why not just claw the bastard?” Tom voiced.

Shaggy wondered if Tom could feel the irritation coming from the others as well as he could. They all seemed to understand what he had done. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to handle things, but it meant he didn’t have to deal with a body so soon after deciding to help the police. Instead of saying anything, Shaggy turned to Vick.

“Watch them?”

Vick snorted. “On top of everything else? Sure thing, boss. I got it.”

Shaggy groaned as he continued to the fourth floor. “That goes for everyone. We don’t need a bunch of kids butting into our business.”

“So we should just… ACK!”

Shaggy heard a loud thump as someone smacked Tom. A whispered conversation behind him told Shaggy that someone was explaining things to his grouchy pack member.

Upon entering the fourth floor, Shaggy sighed as he realized they had the floor to themselves. All the doors along the hallways were open except the last one all the way down on the end on the right side. Shaggy waved a hand and sent an order through the pack link. His pack broke a part each taking a room and searching.

Shaggy walked to the far end as his pack tore into the floor’s rooms. Trash and debris were thrown out into the hallway as they cleared out everything. Coming to the far door, Shaggy placed his hand on the palm scanner and mentally crossed his fingers. The red glow of the scanner pulsed angrily for a few seconds before a loud beep filled the halls and the scanner turned green. The door unlocked and Shaggy pushed his way in, holding his breath.

The apartment looked just as crappy as the rest of the building. A ratty black couch filled the center of the room and a small kitchenette was off to his right. As well as a hallway leading to three more doors, Shaggy guessed, were a bathroom and a few bedrooms. But what took up most of Shaggy’s gaze was a large gray-metal case sitting right in front of the couch.

He guessed it was the gear Xelthub had promised him. They had packed up the vests the demon cop had given them, but they also were going to need surveillance equipment, along with a way to get their jobs. A thin data-tablet sat on top of the crate, and Shaggy gingerly picked it up.

It flared to life under his touch, and text scrawled across its surface.

Shaggy,

This is the agreed upon equipment. The brass were a little uncomfortable handing so much of this over to a known criminal. So, as you probably suspect, it’s all magically and electronically bugged. I know you understand. This tablet will convey your objectives to your team. The tac-vests I gave you will activate as soon as you accept a job and be active till the job is complete. Job completion will depend on the job’s objectives. Also, while you are operating under the auspices of the APD, I feel I should remind you that you are an outside of the normal police operation. Which means that if you get arrested while fulfilling your duties, things will get messy. We’ll be able to help, but we don’t want too many eyes on what we are doing. That is all.

P.S. Yes, there are a ton of bugs and cameras throughout the rooms. Good luck finding them all.

Shaggy smiled and set the tablet down on the ratty couch. He ignored the squeaking that sounded from the couch as the tablet hit the couch and turned slowly. Taking in the room. There were no obvious cameras or bugs, but Shaggy didn’t trust the light fixture at the center of the living room. So instead of playing hide and seek, he jumped while shifting his hands. A loud crash and a quick slice later and he was standing in a darkened room surrounding by broken glass.

In the darkness of the room, he could see a small red light hidden behind where the light fixture had been. Shaggy grinned and jumped again, grabbing for the small light. He came away with a small camera barely an inch big. Smiling into the camera, Shaggy held up a singular claw and mouthed.

“That’s one.”

What followed was an hour-long game of hide and seek. His pack tore the fourth floor practically to pieces, searching for anything that could be a camera or listening devices. They discovered a variety of objects, from small buttons to a modified toaster-camera. Cekrass had found that one. Apparently, the lizard could hear a buzzing from some of the listening devices.

His group operated in silence, relying mostly on the pack link to push and tug at each other. After the fourth camera was found in the headboard of a broken bed, Shaggy grew annoyed and started chucking things out the windows. Pretty soon, his entire pack joined in and everything on the fourth floor was tossed. Tables, chairs, beds, bits of carpet, even the ratty couch were sent flying. Over the course of a few hours, they had emptied the entire fourth floor of everything.

Shaggy was tearing up the carpet of the actual room the APD had given them when he saw something different for the first time. A red, yellow, green, and blue symbol was drawn onto the floor just below with glittery paint. The colors seemed to shift and move with the light and Shaggy let out an audible groan. The first sound any of them had made in hours.

Cekrass and Tom, who had been helping him, also sent annoyance down the pack link. None of them were really magic-literate and Shaggy was sure that if he messed with whatever magic was pulsing through the symbol, he was sure it would hurt. He needed his wife. She was the magic one in the game. Cekrass tapped his wrist and Shaggy stared curiously at the big lizard. But he merely did it again. Shaggy focused on his pack link and realized the lizard was talking about the time.

Shaggy moved to the tablet the APD had given them and checked its clock. But a messenger app was open on the tablet. Apparently, the APD had been sending messages. But they had been so busy they missed them. Shaggy chuckled at the series of messages obviously from Xelthub.

X: That wasn’t a challenge to find all the bugs

X: Stop! You are damaging police property!

X: Okay. You’ve found them all.

X: Don’t throw things out the window!

X: Answer me!

X: You are going to hurt someone!

X: Leave the carpets alone!

Shaggy grinned as he swiped a hand over the tablet’s keyboard and started typing.

S: You could save us the time and just get rid of all the bugs and trackers in here.

X: I can’t do that.

S: Then your safe house is getting remodel. But first we’re going to lunch.

X: Well, keep the tablet on you. We might have something for you soon.

S: No way. This thing is probably bugged too. We’ll get to it after we finish our spring cleaning. Bye-bye now.

Shaggy threw the tablet to the floor and sent a mental tug to his pack. The others had been tearing up the fourth floor as well. As they all came together in the hallway, Shaggy saw that they all looked sweaty and tried. He sent a message of food down the link and smiled as they all seemed to perk up.

Walking into the hallway, Shaggy smiled as he saw Luis and his cronies standing on the stairs. He had grabbed a few more young people, and they were obviously psyching themselves up to storm the fourth floor. Shaggy heard a few guns cock behind him and he sent calming thoughts to Sybil and Vick. Thinking quickly, Shaggy put a hand out to Rita. The older woman seemed to understand his meaning because soon his hand was filled with a few credit chips. Shaggy held the silver sticks up and waved them at Luis.

“No one goes on the fourth floor. Got it?”

Luis glared at the money for a full ten seconds before he snatched them out of Shaggy’s hand. The young man waved and his friends cleared the stairwell. Shaggy and his pack continued downward, and Luis started giving orders.

“Was that smart, boss? They could rob us blind. Our gear and the stuff the you-know-who gave us are still up there.” Tom said.

Shaggy shrugged. “Yes, but if the shit turns up missing, we know who to look for, don’t we? Now hurry. I have a lunch date with my wife.”

“Did y’all find the symbols too?” Sybil asked as they arrived on the first floor.

Shaggy nodded as Cekrass muttered. “Magic.”

“Yeah, boss. We are going to need your old lady and maybe some other equipment if we want to clean the entire floor. That’s also, considering they didn’t bug the other floors.” Sybil said.

“We can talk about it at lunch. We can also see about getting the car code scrambled while we are out.”

His group circled the building and made their way around the collection of broken furniture they had hucked into the street. A few people were scattered about looking, but Shaggy ignored them all and went straight for their newly gained SUV. A few people were crowded around the parking area, but Shaggy pushed through and soon they were all in the vehicle and off toward the diner.

“Boss, do you think the cops well let us get away with all this? I mean, they are probably going to rush the fourth floor and replace all the shit we just got rid of,” Rita asked.

Shaggy shrugged again. “Don’t care. If it comes down to it, we can move locations and work on Obadiah’s stuff.”

“But you said having an in with the local cops would be a good thing.”

“Sure, but not if it interferes with our business. We need to set the terms of the relationship early and if they don’t agree, we walk. Not like we don’t have other business to attend to up here.”

General agreement met his statement as Sybil drove the car down the road. He didn’t know why, but everyone had taken their old seats and he was once again all the way in the back. Shaggy shook his head and the busy Austin traffic made Sybil start and stop repeatedly. Sighing, Shaggy checked the time and then groaned. He knew he was going to be late and Levy would never let him hear the end of it.