“So what do we got?” Shaggy asked as his pack got dressed.

“We got a warehouse full of fucking animal shit and rancid meat.” Tom complained.

“They were going to fake another stampede through the neighborhood. These were all the animals they were going to use.”

Ephemara smirked as she waved a tablet around. The tablet’s screen lit up the area and Shaggy was reminded that they had gone through the fight in the dark. Which wasn’t a probably for him or his pack. But was probably why the HLO troopers were so scarce. Shaking off that thought, Shaggy moved to look at the tablet in Ephemara’s hand. As he moved close, he noticed she was favoring her side.

“You alright?”

“A damn cat broke my back, boss. No! I’m not alright. But I’ll get there. First, though, we need to empty this warehouse of anything important.”

“I hate to agree with Tom, but I don’t think there’s anything else in here.” Sybil said.

“Yeah, all I smell is animals and food.”

Those same animals were going nuts currently in their cages. The warehouse was alive with sights and sounds of the animal kingdom… and it was giving Shaggy a headache.

“What about the HLO troopers? They had to have a room or something, right? Let’s find and clear that out, then we can go.”

Shaggy and his pack were nodding when Stanley raised a tentative hand. The lanky boy was wearing a shirt two sizes too small for him. So the movement made the shirt rise up his torso.

“Why don’t we call the cops?”

The entire pack shifted their heads in the kid’s direction. To his credit, Stanley didn’t even flinch as he looked each of them in the eye.

“I just mean, we’ve found proof of some shady shit. Why should we go through their stuff and sort this whole mess out? Let’s just call the cops and see what they shake out?”

Shaggy tapped his chin with a finger as he felt his pack try to find problems with the kids’ plan. Sybil and Tom felt like they wanted to reject the plan outright. But Vick and Rita were fairly proud of the guy. Ephe was still in pain, which was another point in the kids’ corner, really. They were injured, tired, and in need of food. Why should they deal with this shit?

Shaggy nodded to himself. “Do a quick search of the warehouse for credits and other valuables and then let’s get out of here. We can call the police on our way out.”

The pack nodded as one and started to move further into the darkened warehouse. Shaggy stepped in front of a limping Ephemara and shook his head.

“Nope. Your job is to find us a nearby restaurant and find a phone.”

“Boss…” Ephemara whined.

“Don’t you ‘boss’ me, you just had your back broken. Your healing will take care of it, but until then, you need food.”

“Hey! What about the rest of us that were injured?” Tom’s voice shouted indignantly.

Shaggy could see the pale man pretending to limp in the dark of the warehouse. Before he could say anything, Rita moved over to Tom and pulled him away by the ear. She was saying something about the main office as they walked away. Shaggy did a quick mental check and found that besides some bruised ribs and a lot of scratches, his pack was in good shape. Except for Ephe, who was still glaring at him. Shaggy reached over and poked her in the side.

“OW! Fuck, Boss! Fine, I get it. But where am I supposed to find a phone?”

Shaggy shrugged. “I don’t know. Just get some food in ya. If we need to, we’ll set something on fire in front of the warehouse. They can’t ignore that.”

Ephemara sighed as she moved toward the open warehouse door. Shaggy spun back around and sighed as he took in the vast sea of metal cages and the screaming animals. Some of them were beating against their cages, while others were simply howling. Echoing Shaggy and his pack’s own howls. It had felt right in the moment, but now Shaggy was a little embarrassed by the raucous howling. A snort echoed in his ears and Shaggy turned his mind inward.

His wolf was awake strangely enough and was happily rolling through Shaggy’s void. It scratched its horns on the floor and Shaggy wished he could make some toys or something for the enormous beast. The thought seemed to solidify in his mind and a bunch of enlarged dog toys appeared in his mindscape. Shaggy wanted to punch himself. Of course, he had control over his own mind. With a quick mental wave of his hand, Shaggy created a large green field for his inner wolf, complete with a bunch of trees. Although the wolf’s cage was still there. He had tried to shift it into a doghouse. But it didn’t work.

Focusing on the large metal cage, Shaggy tried again. But another force in his mind stopped him. His inner wolf lazily yapped at him, making the noise echo in Shaggy’s mindscape.

“Alright, ya big idiot. You wanna live in a cage, then go ahead.”

Shaggy brought himself out of his mindscape and found himself halfway across the warehouse. Apparently, his body had kept moving. Which was both a useful trick and a dangerous thing. He joined in with the others, looting and searching. But they couldn’t find much. The HLO Troopers had been ported out with Ryall, even the bodies. So all they were left with were a few filing cabinets and digital storage towers. Most of which they couldn’t access because of the lack of power. Tom and Sybil had found a safe built into the floor of a manager’s office, but Shaggy stopped them from opening it. An open safe would make it pretty obvious that someone else was here and Shaggy was still obsessed with doing things quietly.

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They were in the middle of an argument about the safe when Ephemara phased into view next to Shaggy.

“Boss, the cops are on their way.”

Shaggy stopped, glaring at Sybil. She held a single finger up. A green flame blazing on its tip. She wanted to blowtorch the damn safe open. But Shaggy was afraid of what kind of evidence that would leave behind.

“Good. Did you find us a restaurant or something nearby so we can watch the show?”

Ephe shook her head. “No, boss. I mean, there are cop cars two blocks away. Someone else called them. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Damn it!” Sybil shouted as she doused her finger.

Shaggy nodded and gave the order for everyone to leave. “Clear out! The cops are incoming. Use the north exits and meet on the roofs opposite. We need to see what’s going on.”

“I hate this spy shit.”

“Sybil, I promise tomorrow you can skip the nightly patrol and go set some poor gang stronghold on fire. But right now, git!”

The small blonde woman huffed angrily but hurried toward the exit. Shaggy watched as Cekrass, Stanley, Tom, Vick and Ephemara all left. Then Rita stood by the door and tried to wave him through. Shaggy shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“I’m the first one in and the last one out, Rita. Get used to it.”

The older woman growled, but walked through the open exit door. “You are impossible.”

Shaggy chuckled. “I’m a damn demon werewolf who has an ancient Blood God as a patron. Of course I’m impossible.”

He felt mirth come from his pack link as his entire pack heard his words. They climbed over the northern fence and headed to the stack of buildings on that side of the block. As Shaggy cleared the fence, the sound of police sirens and drones filled his ears. It sounded like a lot of them.

Vick found them a tall four-story apartment building, and they all started to climb. Even as the drones buzzing picked up. The building was slightly further back away from the warehouse, but Shaggy could tell it was another storage space for animal food. The smell was a big clue. Shaggy and his pack could smell all sorts of meat and kibble being stored within the building.

“Shit, boss. What did you do to us? Why do I think some of that smells good?” Tom asked as they climbed up the side of the building.

“I made you capable of ripping angry tiger-chicks in half. So what if you think a little raw meat smells good?”

“Actually, that was the kid and Cekrass. They caught one of those tiger-women between them and pulled her apart.”

“Which pissed the others off like crazy.”

“It makes sense.”

There was a brief pause before everyone silently nodded. Shaggy didn’t really want to experience losing a pack member. The way Ryall had reacted made him think that not only was it emotionally devastating, but it seemed to hurt like a sonofabitch, too.

They made it to the top of the building fairly quickly. Sharing tidbits about their fights. They were most happy with how things went. But a few wanted to be even more powerful, which was an instinct Shaggy could get behind. He and Rita pulled Ephemara the rest of the way up the roof and turned to watch the cops.

Over twenty cop cars were surrounding the enormous warehouse. Cops were spilling out of their cars like ants as the drones circled overheard. But there was a problem.

“Why aren’t they going inside?”

“They’re circling the place enough.”

“They ain’t even checking the nearby buildings. One whiff of those places and they’d find out they’re empty.”

Shaggy and the others kept their heads low as they watched the cops mill about. Some of them went up to the warehouse’s fence, but none of them went inside. Shaggy was getting more and more confused until Rita tapped his shoulder. She had a tablet in here had and was pointing down at a search she had run.

“The company that owns that building is a subsidiary of the HLO. They are afraid of going in without probably cause.”

Shaggy and his entire pack hissed in annoyance. He racked his brains for an idea when Sybil lit up a few fingers again.

“I could give them a reason to go inside.”

“It’s a good idea, but are you confident in sneaking close enough? They’ve got drones all over the place.”

Sybil bit her lip in thought, but Shaggy could feel her doubt. So could the others, which is why Vick pointed to a building further to the west.

“I can make a ruckus in that direction. Draw some of those drones away. Then Sybil get in close and light up the warehouse or something.”

Shaggy nodded and then turned to Sybil. “A small fire Sybil. Small. We don’t want to burn the building down.”

“Or the animals.” Stanley added.

A few of the pack turned to him with confused looks.

“What? Those animals are innocent.”

“They’re giant hybrid creatures bred to be killing machines.”

“And that ain’t their fault. You try spending your entire life in a cage with everyone around you, telling you’re only good at hurting people. See how you turn out.”

Shaggy nodded idly as unbidden memories of his youth tried to pull themselves to the forefront. He squashed them down and fed them to his wolf. But his sudden melancholy struck all of his pack. Rita put a hand on his shoulder as Ephemara leaned against his side. He could feel how his mood suddenly hit all of them. Shaggy waved them all away angrily.

“Get out of here, damn it. Go set a warehouse on fire while Vick takes potshots at drones. Tom, back up Sybil. Stanley, you go with Vick. Cekrass, please drag our second in command to a damn late-night restaurant or food cart or something!”

Shaggy’s pack snapped to work with bemused smiles on their faces. Shaggy could feel Rita’s smug smile even as she simply stood next to him and watched the cops working below. Soon, the older woman sighed and whispered into the night.

“They were just…”

“I know.” Shaggy interrupted. “But those demons are gone, Rita. Dead and buried.”

Shaggy could feel her disbelief as Vick got into position and opened fire. The drones headed in that direction as several cops got into their cars. Soon after, Sybil did her job and a green glow lit up the night on the northern edge of the warehouse. Mayhem and chaos were soon everywhere as the fire quickly spread.

The drones started fire-suppression operations as Vick and Stanley snuck off into the night. Shaggy stood on the roof until he felt Sybil and Tom sneak away. Then, with a sigh, he turned away from the warehouse. The cops were already rushing into the building to help the drones put out the fire. Soon everything would be revealed.

Shaggy sighed and rubbed his hands together. “Alright, Rita. Let’s go join Ephemara and Cekrass and grab a bite. Then we can all go home.”

The tall swordswoman by his side nodded quietly, and they both jumped off the roof and disappeared into the night.