Chapter 8

The search teams kept coming back empty-handed. It looked as if the park wasn’t going to yield any worthwhile clues. A bench covered with a slick of red ice— human blood.

Some tattered remnants that might have been the victim’s clothes. That was all. No body, no ID, no witnesses. And so far, no report of a missing person. The cops were waiting for orders to move them out. The precinct wasn’t going to spend much more time on this, it was just another one of those mysteries that the city tossed up. Obviously somebody had died here, but in the absence of anything except blood there wasn’t much that could be done to find the killer.

“Maybe it’ll tell us something,” the Medical Examiner said as a patrolman handed him a clear plastic bag full of tattered cloth.

Becky Neff said nothing. More vague evidence. Even Wilson’s experience last night was nothing but hearsay. Hell, maybe he got panicked by some dogs. The trouble was, you weren’t going to get headquarters to take a chance on the theory. The man who sanctioned an investigation of werewolves in this city was headed for early retirement if that investigation didn’t prove itself.

“Do you believe me?” Wilson said into the silence in the car.

“Yeah,” Becky replied, surprised at the question.

“Not you, dummy. The genius. I want to know if he believes me.”

“If it wasn’t delirium tremens, I’d say you saw what you saw.”

“Thanks.” Since relating his story Wilson had fallen into a silence. Becky didn’t know whether he was thinking something out or simply sinking into depression. If possible he seemed to be getting more morose.

When Wilson turned to stare again out of the car window, Evans raised his eyebrows.

“Listen,” he said to Wilson’s back, “if it makes any difference I really do believe you. I just wish to God I could do more for you than that.”

“Every little bit helps,” Becky said acidly.

“I’m sure. It must be hell.”

“Yeah,” Wilson said, “it’s that.”

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. A couple of park cops jumped on scooters; guys from the 20th Precinct piled into squad cars. Becky flipped on the radio to catch the activity. “—thirteen, repeat, thirteen to Bethesda Fountain.”

“Jesus—” Becky started the car and followed the others into the park. They slurried in the new snow, heading for the emergency. A signal-13 was the most serious call a policeman could put out: it meant that an officer was in distress. It would cause immediate response from all nearby units—and often some from farther away. It was the call that cops hated most to hear and wanted most to answer.

The area around Bethesda Fountain was once elegant. Once, during summer, there was an open-air restaurant where you could drink wine and watch the fountain. Then the sixties had come, and drugs, and Bethesda Fountain had become an open-air drug bazaar.

The restaurant had closed. The fountain had become choked with filth. Graffiti had appeared. Murders had taken place. Now the once-bustling spot was the same in summer as in winter: empty, abandoned, destroyed. And crumpled on the esplanade overlooking the fountain was a blue uniform, its occupant bent over almost with his forehead touching the snow. The scooter cops were the first to get to him. “Shot,” one of them shouted. An ambulance could already be heard screaming over from Roosevelt Hospital.

Becky pulled the Pontiac up behind the scooters and the three of them jumped out.

“I’m a doctor,” Evans shouted pointlessly. There wasn’t a person in the NYPD who didn’t know that the Medical Examiner was a doctor. Evans reached the wounded man, followed closely by Becky. He was a middle-aged cop, one of the guys who had been out beating the bushes for evidence, one of the searchers. “Fuckin’ dog,” he said almost laughing,

“fuckin’ dog bit a hole in my side.” The voice was anguished and confused. “Fuckin’ dog!”

“Holy shit,” Evans said.

“Is it bad, Doc?” the man said through gathering tears.

Evans looked away. “I’m not movin’ you till the stretcher gets here, buddy. You aren’t losing any blood out of it, however bad it is.”

“Oh, fuck, it hurts!” he shouted. Then his eyes rolled and his head slumped to his chest.

“Get some pressure on it, he’s passed out,” Evans said. Two of the man’s friends applied a pressure bandage to the gash in his overcoat. “Where’s that friggin’

meatwagon!” Evans rasped. “This man’s not gonna make it if they don’t hurry.”

Just then it pulled up and the medics piled out with their equipment. They cut the coat away and for the first time the wound was visible.

It was devastating. You could see the blue-black bulge of the man’s intestine pulsing in the blood. Becky started to sob, stifling it as it came. They had done this! Just now, just minutes ago. They were right around here! She put a trembling hand on the M. E.’s shoulder.

“Leave me alone.” He was examining the wound. “Move him out,” he murmured to the orderlies. He looked up at Becky. “He ain’t gonna live,” he said simply.

They got the man on the stretcher and took him to the ambulance, heading for the emergency room as fast as they could go. There was an M.D. on the wagon so Evans returned to Becky’s car.

The other cops were still standing in a little clump, staring at the blood-smeared thrash marks in the snow. For a moment nobody spoke. What could you say? A man had just had his intestines laid open— and he claimed it had been done by a dog. The Precinct Captain came up puffing hard. For some reason he hadn’t made it into a car. “What the fuck— what the fuck happened?”

“Baker got hit.”

“What by? Hit and run?”

“Something took about nine inches of hide off his gut. Laid him open.”

“What the fuck—”

“You said that, sir. He says it was a dog.” Becky felt Wilson’s hand grasp her shoulder.

A sharp pang of fear ran through her. “Listen, kid,” he said in an unnaturally calm tone,

“stroll real easy-like over to those two scooters.” He breathed it into her ear. “You can ride a scooter?”

“I suppose.”

“Good, because you gotta. Just go real easy.”

“What about our car?”

“Stay the hell away from our car! And when you get on that scooter, move.”

She didn’t ask questions even though she didn’t quite understand why he wanted to do this. You get to trust a good partner, and Becky trusted Wilson more than enough to just do what he said without asking why. He’d do the same for her. Hell, he had often enough.

As she walked she noticed that he was meandering in the same direction, getting closer and closer to the scooters without making it particularly obvious. “Now, Becky!”

They leaped, the scooters coughed to life, they skidded onto the snowy pavement, Becky swayed, righted herself and headed straight down the Mall, which stretched to Park East Drive and the safety of the streets. She heard a shout behind, an incredulous shout from one of the scooter cops who saw the two detectives suddenly hijack his transportation. Then something else was there, a gray shape moving like the wind, a furious pulsing mass of hair and muscle. And she knew what had happened. “Oh God God God,” she said softly as she rode. She turned the gas all the way up and the scooter darted through the snow, bouncing and shaking, threatening from instant to instant to go into a skid. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Was the thing dropping back? She risked a glance. God, it was right there. Its teeth were bared, and its face, something unbelievable, twisted with hate and fury and effort—animal, man, something. She choked out a sob and just held on. The thing’s breathing was clearly audible for a moment, then it fell back, fell back making little sharp noises, sounds of pure anger! It was gone and the scooters bounded off the Mall, crashed through ripping naked shrubs, shot into the roadway and tore down toward the park entrance at Fifth Avenue. Ahead the Plaza Hotel and the General Motors Building.

General Sherman with his permanent toupee of pigeon droppings. Horse-drawn carriages waiting in rows, the breath of the horses steaming. Then stopping, bringing the scooters to a halt at the bustling entrance to the hotel. “We’re at the Plaza,” Wilson was growling into the scooter’s radio, “come get us.”

A squad car appeared. “What’s the problem, Lieutenant?” the driver said. “You just got reported for stealing two scooters.”

“Fuck that. We were under orders. We thought we saw a suspect.”

“Yeah. So get in. We’ll drive you up to the Twentieth.”

They left the scooters for the men from the park precinct who were approaching in another car. Wilson and Neff were silent as they rode toward the precinct, Wilson because he had nothing to say, Becky because she couldn’t have talked if she had wanted to. It felt funny to her to be alive right now, like she had just broken through a wall into a time she was never intended to see. “I was supposed to die back there,” she thought. She looked at her partner. He had figured it out just in time—a trap. God, what a clever trap! And they had slipped out just as it had been sprung.

“You know what happened,” Wilson asked.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, silent for a few minutes. The squad car wheeled up Central Park West.

Wilson touched the door lock; the windows were closed. “They’re very smart,” he said.

“We knew that”

“But that was a very neat trap. Wounding that guy… knowing that we would respond…

setting an ambush. All very smart.”

“How did you figure it out? I’ve gotta confess I was completely taken in.”

“You oughta start thinking defensively. They wounded that guy, didn’t kill him. That’s what tipped me off. Why wound, when killing is easier? It had to be the same reason a hunter wounds. To lure. When I figured that out, I decided we ought to go for the scooters. Frankly I’m surprised we made it.”

The squad car pulled up to the precinct house. After a long look up and down the street the two detectives got out and hurried up the steps. The desk sergeant looked up.

“Captain’s waiting for you,” he said.

“Must be antsy as hell,” Wilson muttered as they walked into the Captain’s office.

He was a trim, neatly turned out man with steel-gray hair and a deeply wrinkled face.

But his movements, his posture, belonged to a younger man. He had just taken off his overcoat and sat down at his desk. Now he looked up, raising his eyebrows. “I’m Captain Walker,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”

“We saw a suspect—”

“Can that bullshit. Everybody saw those dogs come out from under your car and chase you halfway to Grand Army Plaza. What the hell was that all about?”

“Dogs?” Wilson was no actor. The fact that he was hiding something was perfectly clear to Becky. But maybe she underestimated him.

“Yes, dogs. I saw them. We all did. And Baker said it was dogs that laid him open.”

Wilson shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me.”

“Look, I don’t know quite what’s going on here— I mean you two are some kind of special team, that’s OK by me—but I got a guy hurt bad down at Roosevelt and he says a dog did it. I saw you two light out like you were runnin’ from death itself. And you were chased by two dogs. Now I’d like to know what the fuck’s goin’ on.” His phone rang. A few muttered words, a curse, then he hung up. “And so would the New York Post. They got a photographer and a reporter waiting out front to see me right now. What do I tell them?”

Becky stepped in. Wilson had tucked his chin into his neck, squared his shoulders, and was about to blow it. “Tell them what’s probably true. Your man was wounded in an unknown manner. I mean if somebody’s colon is lying on the sidewalk they might get a little delirious. He passed out right after his statement, didn’t he? And as for dogs chasing us, it might have happened, but it was a complete coincidence.”

The man stared at them. “You’re bullshitting. I don’t know why but I’m not gonna push it. Just get one thing straight: I don’t owe you two a Goddamn thing. Now take off.

Go wherever you go.”

“What about the reporter?” Becky asked. That was important. You couldn’t leak this to the press, not unless the problem could be solved.

“So I’ll tell the reporters what Baker said. And I’ll tell them that he was delirious. Is that sufficient?”

“What do you mean, sufficient? How should we know?”

“You’re the people keeping this thing under wraps, aren’t you? You’re the ones who go around and make sure no shaggy dog stories get into the paper, aren’t you?”

Wilson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We got better things to do.”

They left the precinct and hailed a cab. Obviously there was no point in asking the precinct for transportation back to Bethesda Fountain where their car was waiting. As they approached the car Wilson craned his neck out of the cab window to make sure nothing was under it. But he needn’t have bothered. The car wasn’t going anywhere.

The doors were open. The interior of the car was ripped to shreds. And it was full of bloody pulp. “Jesus,” the cabdriver blurted, “this your car?”

“Yeah. It was.”

“We gotta get a cop.” He gunned the motor. “Who’s in there? What a fuckin’ mess!”

“We are the police.” Becky held her shield against the bulletproof glass separating the passenger seat from the driver’s compartment. The driver nodded and headed for the Central Park precinct house on Seventy-ninth Street. A few moments later they pulled to a stop in front. Neff, Wilson and the driver got out and approached the desk sergeant through the worn double-doors of the building. “Yeah,” he said looking up. “You two. I hear you’re a couple of mean motherfuckers on a scooter.”

“Get your guys back over to the Fountain,” Wilson rasped. “The Chief Medical Examiner just got himself killed.”

Becky felt the blood drain out of her face. Of course, that must be who was in the car.

It had to be. Poor Evans, he was a hell of a good man! “Goddamn it,” Becky said.

“We were stupid,” Wilson said softly. “We should have warned him in advance.” He laughed, a bitter little noise. “They missed out on the main event. So they went for the consolation prize. Let’s get Underwood on the phone.”

Wilson took on Underwood. Becky watched him, annoyed that her usual role was being usurped. “Look,” Wilson said into the phone, “you got problems. You got a cop on critical at Roosevelt with his guts laid open. Says dogs did it. You got that? Dogs. Plus you got a reporter from the Post on it, and more to follow. So listen, dummy. You got one Chief Medical Examiner just murdered out by Bethesda Fountain. And you’re gonna find it was done by claws and teeth. And if you want this one wrapped up real good—”

“Oh my God, what about Ferguson!”

“—just sit on your can and wait for it.” He slammed down the phone. “You’re right!

Let’s go!” They headed for the motor pool.

“Get a car,” Becky snapped at the dispatcher.

“Well, you gotta—”

“Matter of life and death, Sergeant. What number?”

“Let’s see—two-two-nine. Green Chevy, you’ll see it against the wall out near the gas pumps.”

They headed for the car. To the south the sorrowful moan of sirens sounded their dirge for Evans. “Lot of fucking good they’ll do,” Wilson said quietly. “That guy was just goo.”

“You’re sure?”

“What?”

“It was him.”

“Just drive the car, Becky.”

God, he was a condescending bastard. Even if it was self-evident to Wilson, she could still hope. Evans was a great man, a civic institution in New York City for forty years.

Probably the best practitioner of forensic medicine in the world. Plus he was a good friend. His loss left a damn big hole. And the manner of his death was going to stop the presses even over at the Times.

“This story’s gonna get out.”

“You don’t say. By the way, Ferguson’ll be at the museum.”

“Look, I don’t give a damn how bad things are, it’s no excuse to pretend I’m some kind of a dummy. I know where the hell he is.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Well nothing, just keep your jerkoff opinions about lady cops to yourself and do your Goddamn job.”

“Oh, come on, Becky, I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, but I don’t mind. I guess I’m just nervous.”

“That’s funny. Can’t imagine why.” They got to the museum, stopped the car right in front of the main entrance and ran in as quickly as possible. It was necessary to go through the drill of getting downstairs to see Ferguson. When they were finally on it the elevator seemed to take hours to reach the sub-basement.

The room was full of people working on the birds. There was a smell of glue and paint, and an air of quiet intensity. Ferguson’s office door was closed. Becky opened it and stuck her head in.

“You! I’ve been trying to call you all over town!” They went in, closing the door behind them. Wilson leaned against it. “I wish this cubicle had a ceiling,” Becky said, “it’d be more secure.”

“Secure?”

“We’d better fill you in. I’m afraid you’re in great danger, Doctor. Evans—the Medical Examiner—he’s just been mauled to death.”

Ferguson reacted as if he had been hit. His hands moved trembling to his face. Then he slowly lowered them, staring into them. “I’ve found out a lot about the werewolves this morning,” he said almost inaudibly. “I’ve been down to the public library.” He looked up, his face impassively concealing the determination he had formed to try to communicate with the creatures. “It’s all there, just like I thought it would be. The evidence that this species is intelligent is pretty strong. Canis Lupus Sapiens. The Wolfen. That’s what I want to call them.”

Wilson didn’t say anything; Becky didn’t want to. She stared at the scientist. Wolfen indeed. They were killers. Ferguson’s expression betrayed his innocent excitement at his discovery. It was obvious that he still didn’t understand the extremity of his danger. She felt sorry for him—sorry in a detached, professional way like she felt sorry for the people left behind after murders. Residue, Wilson called them, the red-eyed wives and numbed husbands who were usually found slobbering over their victim’s body. Most murder is a family affair. But far worse were the cases where you had to call some frantic soul who had been waiting hours for a loved one to come home—somebody who wasn’t on the way anymore. “Hello, Mr. X, we’re detectives. May we come in? Very sorry to tell you, Mrs. X

was found murdered at blah blah,” the rest of it said into a fog of grief beyond communication.

“Join the hunted,” Wilson said, “and welcome. Maybe we’ll form a co-op.”

The humor was strained but it seemed to get a positive reaction from Ferguson. “You know,” he said, “the damn thing of it is, these creatures are so murderous. That’s what makes them unusual. Canines are a notably friendly race. Take the timber wolf—all the legends, the Jack London stories, that’s mostly crap. I mean, you threaten a wolf and you know what’ll happen? That wolf will turn over on its back like a dog. They aren’t dangerous.” He laughed. “It’s ironic. Science just figured that out about the wolf in the past few years. Here we were so sure that the great canine predator was just a myth—and now this. But I think we have an extraordinary chance here—there must be some point of communication between us and them.”

“To a deer, Doctor Ferguson, the wolf is incredibly dangerous. No wolf is going to turn turtle if it’s threatened by a deer. The wolf isn’t dangerous to man because he doesn’t count us among his prey. But look at the deer—to them the wolf is a scourge from hell.”

Ferguson nodded slowly. “So these… things are to us as wolves are to deer. I agree.

They are also an intelligent species and as such represent an extraordinary opportunity.”

Wilson laughed out loud. The sound sent a chill down Becky’s spine. It was not the laugh of a normal human being but that of somebody deeply frightened, bordering on hysteria. She wondered how much longer she would have his help. And his mind! He had saved them in the park by bare seconds. How many more times would he do it? Or could he? Would the traps just keep getting more and more subtle until finally the hunted were down? As far as Ferguson and his ideas about communication, she dismissed them. He hadn’t seen what these creatures did to people.

“Let’s plan out our next moves,” she said. “We’ve got to be very damn careful if what just happened is any example of what’s on the way.” Ferguson asked for the details of Evans’ death. Wilson related the story, very factually, very coldly, how the werewolves had wounded a patrolman out searching for evidence, how this had lured them into an ambush, the escape on scooters just at the moment Wilson pieced the thing together, the subsequent discovery of the M. E.’s body in the car.

“So they missed you and took him instead.” Wilson was silent for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said at last, “I wish to hell I had realized—but I didn’t I just never thought of him being in danger.”

“Why not?”

“In retrospect I suppose it’s obvious. But I didn’t think of it then. That’s the damn truth.” He breathed a ragged sigh. “The old s.o.b. was a good man. He was a hell of a pro.”

Coming from Wilson that was a soaring epitaph indeed. “Let’s plan our moves,” Becky said again. “Plan what! We haven’t got anything to plan!”

“Oh come on, Wilson, take it easy. We might as well try. I thought we were going to try to take pictures tonight. Let’s plan that.”

“How about planning how to survive until tonight? Wouldn’t that be a better thing to plan, since it looks kind of hard to do?”

She shook her head and said nothing. He was a petulant bastard. Up to now she had relied on him, had always assumed that he would pull them through. And be had. This morning was an example. But he was cracking now, getting closer and closer to the edge.

Wilson had always been afraid of life, now he was afraid of death when it came close. And how did Becky herself feel? As if she didn’t intend to die. She was afraid and not sure that any of them would survive—least of all herself—but she wasn’t about to give in. Wilson had taken charge of this case so far and he had done fine. But he was getting tired. It looked like her turn now.

“Wilson, I said we were going to plan our moves. Now listen. First, we’ve got to let Underwood know the score. We’ve got evidence that’s going to be Goddamn hard to ignore. I mean, Evans getting murdered is international news. They’ve got to say something about it. And you can be damn sure the TV stations and the papers are on the scene. How are they going to take it? Medical Examiner mutilated beyond recognition.

It’s going to require a damn good explanation.”

“Don’t breathe a word of this to the papers,” Ferguson said, suddenly understanding the significance of Becky’s statements. “You’ll cause all kinds of trouble—panic, fear, it’ll be hell. And the Wolfen will be threatened in just the way we don’t want— grossly, by idiots with shotguns. Some might get hurt at first but they’ll adapt quickly, and when they do they’ll be that much harder to find. Our chance will be lost—maybe for generations to come.”

“How hard to find are they now?” Wilson asked bitterly.

“Well, obviously hard. I wasn’t saying that they were easy to deal with at all. But you might not realize it, Detective Wilson—if these creatures get it into their heads to completely disappear, they can do it.”

“You mean become invisible?” Wilson’s voice was rising. He seemed about to lunge at the scientist.

“For all practical purposes. Right now they’re being very careless. Witness the fact that you’ve seen them. That’s a sign of carelessness on their part. And there’s a reason.

They know that it’s a risk to allow themselves to be seen by you, but it’s very limited because they also know that you will in all likelihood not live to describe them to others.”

“Maybe and maybe not.”

“They’re predators, Detective, and they have the arrogance of predators. Don’t expect them to fear man. Do we fear hogs and sheep? Do we respect them?”

“We damn well aren’t sheep, Doctor! We’re people, we have brains and souls!”

“Sheep have brains. As for souls, I have no way of measuring that. But we know every possible move a sheep might make. There is no way a sheep can fool a man. I suspect that the analogy holds true here too.”

“Wonderful. Then what am I doing alive? Wouldn’t they have killed me last night in the alley of Becky’s building? Wouldn’t that make sense? But they didn’t. They weren’t fast enough. I got my gun out before they made their move.”

Becky broke in. “I hope they are arrogant, frankly. It’s our only chance.”

Ferguson raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Yes,” he said, “unless they’re playing a little game with you.”

“A game,” Wilson said, “what do you mean a game?”

“Well, they’re intelligent, they’re hunters, creatures of action. Most of their hunting must be pretty damn easy. You’re different, though, you’re a challenge. They might be spreading it out for fun.”

Wilson looked as if he would like to throttle the scientist. “Fine,” he said, “if they’re playing games with us let ‘em play. Maybe we’ll get the fuck out of the trap in the meantime.” He spat. “Who the hell knows?”

They ran, desperate for cover. Humanity was pouring into the park, policemen by the hundreds swarming down every path, passing over in helicopters, roaring along in cars and on scooters. The sharp scent of human flesh exposed to cold air mingled with the suffocating sweetness of exhaust fumes. And they came from every direction. All around the park the sirens shrieked, the tone causing sharp agony in the ears of the fleeing pack.

Voices called back and forth over radios; men shouted to one another. And then there was a new smell, thick and putrid—a parody of their own scent. It was dogs. The pack stopped, cocked ears: three dogs by the sound of their claws clattering on ice; eager to be unleashed by the exciting rasp of their breathing. Three dogs, heavy, strong, excited. And they had the scent, the pack could practically feel them yearning on their tethers, choking themselves with eagerness to give chase.

Very well, let them come and die. Dogs could no more hunt the pack than chimpanzees could hunt men. Defense against these animals was based on established procedures because the pattern of the animals’ attack never varied. The only trouble was that it meant more time wasted in this accursed park— more time for the swarm of policemen to get closer, more time for their luck to run out.

And the pack was divided now: on one side were the two old ones and the second-mated pair. On the other was the third-mated pair. This pair, the youngest, had run after the two humans who had escaped just an instant too soon, and given up the chase a few moments early. Another breath, another footstep and the quarry would have been down. The beautifully laid plan was wasted—or almost wasted; the old man in the car had been all they could kill. Very well. Certainly he had known of the pack. They had heard him in the car, his booming old voice muttering human words with the others…

words like wolf… wolf… wolf…

Human language, so complex and rapidly spoken, was hard to follow, but they all knew certain words that had been handed down from generation to generation. Among these was “wolf.” Traveling between cities the pack sometimes encountered these gentle things of the forest. They had soft, beautiful faces and sweet eyes, and the blank expressions of animals. Yet one almost wanted to speak to them, to wave the tail or knock the paw, but they had not the brains to answer. They would trot along behind a pack for days, their empty smiling heads wagging from side to side— and cower away when the pack took a man for food. After that the wolves would slink out of sight, fascinated and terrified by the ways of the pack. But wolves were wild and never accompanied the packs into the cities.

Among men only the packs were safe— and so safe! Such a huge quantity of food in the cities, all of it blankly oblivious, as easy to hunt as a tree would be.

The wolf looked not unlike the werewolf. And in the car they had been saying the word over and over —wolf… wolf. So the little old man was contaminated by the other two, the two who knew. He died instantly. They had crept up to the car the moment the other cars had left in search of the two on the scooters. They had crept closer and closer, and one of them had opened the door. The man’s hands fluttered up before his face and his bowels let loose. That was all that happened. Then they were on him, pulling and tearing, ripping full of rage, spitting the bloody bits out, angry that the two important ones had been missed, angry that this one also dared to confront them with his evil knowledge. They had cracked open the head and plunged their claws into the brains, plunged and torn to utterly and completely destroy the filthy knowledge.

And in their anger they had also shredded the interior of the car, ripping at the seats for sheer hate, feeling the red pulse of their frustration well up inside them as they tasted the very salt of the two that were to be killed. They tore the interior of the car apart, and would have done more to it if they had known how. Somehow the humans made these things move, and they made other similar things fly in the air. Humans flew in these. And then one of them caused this thing to make a noise. They abandoned it at once, afraid that it would begin to move with the pack still inside. Man was of two faces: naked and weak, clothed and powerful. The same man who had no defense on his own might be completely invulnerable in a car with a gun.

The pack had speed and hearing and eyesight and most of all smell to protect itself.

Man had metal and weapons. They envied man his big flat paddles that could do so much more than their hands. The things looked clumsy but they were flexible. It was with his paddles or hands that man fashioned these mysterious objects that rolled and flew, and the guns that shot. And it was because of them that man had been able to inhabit the cities. No pack knew how these cities came about, but man inhabited them, keeping for himself the warmth they produced in winter, and the dryness that was not affected even by the most violent rain. While the sky poured water or snow man sat comfortably in the cities. How these things grew and why man possessed them nobody could say.

Just as well—it kept the herds of men closely gathered so that hunting was easy.

But hunting could also be fun, if, for example, you left the city and went into the forest during the season of dead leaves. Then you would find men armed with guns, men stalking deer and moose, men who could be dangerous if you let them. It was a good game—you made a little extra noise and let the man become aware of you. Then you hunted him, letting him see just enough so that he would try hard to escape. And they tried so hard! They swam into rivers, climbed trees, covered themselves with leaves.

They tried all manner of stratagem, doubling back, leaping ravines, swinging through forests in the tree-tops. And all the time their scent followed them like a blaring noise. But the pack made conditions for itself during these hunts. If the man got to a certain point, he couldn’t be chased again for a hundred heartbeats. If he got to another point, two hundred. So the better he was, the harder they made it for themselves. Finally, with the very good ones there was a last desperate chase before he reached his car, a chase that ended with him rolling up useless windows, fumbling with keys, and dying there, being eaten while the blood still pulsed through his exhausted heart.

But not many of them were fun to hunt. For the most part it was the same routine as it would be with these eager, stupid dogs. Certainly the humans were closing in, but it was very hard to believe that a man not encased in metal was a threat. Killing the three dogs would waste a little time, but in the end the pack would escape from these human beings.

Only if the whole city was aware would humanity become dangerous. Everybody knew that this was possible, that the two enemies could contaminate all the men of this city with the dirty knowledge. Then the pack would be endangered, then the pack would flee.

But it wasn’t necessary just yet.

The dogs were released. Their voices pealed, communicating the crazed, heedless excitement that was characteristic of the creature. Their breath began to pulse, their feet to pad faster and faster as they ran madly toward the pack.

They had chosen their stand carefully. A tree overhung the path, which was itself choked by heavy underbrush. The only way to the pack was up a slope, through this brush. The second female went down to the base of the low hill. She sat on her haunches, waiting to trot into the trap as soon as the dogs saw her. They were stupid animals, and you had to make it very clear what they were supposed to do if you expected them to do it.

They swarmed up the path howling, saw the female, who growled and leaped to make sure, then ran into the underbrush. The dogs were hot behind her when the rest of the pack dropped out of the trees onto them. Their bodies writhed, the howls of excitement changed to shrieks of agony, and then nothing. The carcasses were hurled deep into the brush and the pack moved quickly on.

They went in the direction where the smell of man was the least, coming out onto a snowy roadway and moving to the stone wall that surrounded the park. A short trot down the wall was where they had made their kill the night before. Already it was afternoon and their minds were turning to food. But they would not kill anywhere near their last hunt—that might awaken man’s understanding. Best to spread the kills far apart, as far as possible.

As one the pack stopped. They raised their muzzles and inhaled deeply. Across the street was a large building with a statue in front of it. And in the air was the faintest whiff of… the two.

Had they passed by here recently or were they just possibly inside that building? It was hard to tell by the quality of the odor, it was too faint. Just the slightest trace, not enough to tell even whether the body was hot or cold, indoors or out.

They crossed the snowy street and went into the grounds around the building. Yes, that scent was now a little stronger. Caution! These creatures were not dumb and they knew that they were being hunted. Better be very slow and careful. They trotted around the building, three in one direction and three in the other, easily leaping the small balustrades that surrounded the place. In this way they identified by scent which doors were in use and which were not. Without even needing to converse they came together again, then spread out to watch the doors that might be used. They hid themselves wherever they could, crouching along fences, curling up in the small clumps of bushes, lying behind stone retainers. And the scent hung here, that distinctive sweet smell that went with the woman, the denser smell of the man. And there was another familiar odor, lighter and more salty: one they had smelled near the two before.

Each human’s distinctive odor separated him from all the others, and the pack separated these three from the great mass of odors around them. And they settled down to wait. Waiting was easy for them. It added the excitement of anticipation.

Sam Garner pulled his car to a stop in front of the Museum of Natural History. He got out, relying on his press ID in the window to ward off the tow-away patrol. He paused before the imposing building, looking up at the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. The Great White Hunter with a guilt complex. Sweet guy. Sam trotted up the stairs. Two detectives were in there whom he wanted to see. He didn’t know exactly why he wanted to do this.

He didn’t especially like detectives, and it hadn’t been easy to track these two down. But here he was and here they were, and he wanted very much to find out how they would react when he gave them a certain piece of information.

He had it planned. He would say, “You understand that Medical Examiner Evans was mauled to death in the park this morning.” They would say yes to that. Then he would say, “The incident occurred in your car.” He was very interested in watching their reaction to that. Somewhere along through here there was some kind of a story, maybe big. And these two just might have some idea what it was.