4 Chapter Four

The blood dried before the tears. Cheruk's panting whine revved to a growl, then a roar,

drowning out his own sprinting footfall, his heartbeat, and his thoughts. Cheruk burned with rage.

Vemulus had done so much for a wretch like him, that Cheruk had believed him, if not his best friend,

his staunchest ally, and it was strange to have stood over the prince's gutted, headless ruin and not feek anything for the benefactor who had raised Cheruk up so high. Even as his hatred and resentment of Suvani fanned to a roaring blaze, even hotter and fiercer than when Vemulus had lived. Having often stood at attention, unblinking, watching the vile Queen's countless affronts to her brother, he now hungered for revenge so much he could taste the Queen's lily white neck and feel her vain black tresses in his clutches as he imagined dragging her full-sprint over tree roots and through thorns. Daydreaming regicide had become so habitual, and thinking violence upon Suvani so familiar, that seeing her face ruined in reality was a great comfort. Cheruk was not fooled by her magics. Smelling bitter blood, tainted flesh, the reek of spells, and the airy scent of ice, he had seen through the hodge-podge, helter-skelter hack work Suvani had inflicted on her own face. When his cackle had risen unbidden, he had passed it off as a tremor of fear, and glad she had not seen through his cowering to his glee. Or perhaps she had, he growled to himself morosely, scratching his head violently, then wiping away the blood. Regardless of how regicidal he felt inside, orders were orders.

Thoughts and feelings were the only way he could be avenged, having sworn himself in deed to Suvani. And in her smug glower, he saw she liked it that way, having no taste for grateful loyalty. She

savored his resentment, as terrorized obedience was all that she prized.

Quite a prize he was, he growled in self-loathing, detesting even his own paws. Having sold himself body and soul to Suvani, were they not her hands? Whose will worked now as he scratched a budding ear from his scalp? Those disloyal, forsworn ears, uprooted at Suvani's command. Even if she was not here to punish Cheruk herself, he was no double-minded beast, for all his dual nature, and he could tyrannize his own hide. Tearing one's own flesh was not unlike shape shifting, he mused, the blood trickling down his face, and the pain trickling lower, his whole body wracked by the excruciating agony of tearing out his own ears.

Arriving at the left flank, he cut on all fours past the Daikonese, slashing too-slow tree roots,

and nipping talking snakes and deer; he darted through the bears, daring to take a swipe here and there,

until a few lumbered after him before being bellowed back in formation by their hulking sergeants;

then he rode under karik bellies, leaving long gashes in a few ponderous beasts and slashing knights' saddle straps in honor of deplorable, departed Cortero. When he at last arrived at his battalion, he loped in upright, the fur fading from his human face. While werewolves are happy to mix with the prey of human society, when socializing with their own kind, they wear their wolf hide, it being not only more honest but more vital to acknowledge their inner wolf in interaction with each other.

His troops rushed in on all fours, then went on hind legs, panting like the begging dogs of human cities. "My lord!"

"Am I a lord, you cur?" Having clouted this one with his backhand, Cheruk snickered at the welt, which faded before his laugh ran out of breath.

"Your ears--yowtch!"

When this one clutched the side of his face, blood oozed through his fingers. Chuckling, Cheruk tossed up the plucked ear, then snapped and gobbled it down, drawing out a ghastly whine from hia werewolves. Seeing him do all that in human guise made them take a step back, avert their eyes, close their mouths, and whimper like blind, nursing whelps.

"You want some? There's more than enough bad wolf to go around." As Cheruk stepped near the loudest whiner, all cringed from his bloody hands, but the whimpering came to a hush. "Whichever cur so much as says the word ear, will hear only worms crawling through his skull. Will you bite back your words like wolves, or are you curious man-monkeys?" Once he was satisfied by their silence, he bayed out his orders. Despite their blatant puzzlement and confusion, he had cowed them so well

they dropped to all fours and scampered to all corners of his armies.

He froze. Suvani's orders. Suvani's armies, he meant to think. When he began to feel dizzy,

he brought a hand to his weary head, found a budding ear there, and ripped it out. Uprooting the offending ear also tore clean out whatever disconcerted him a moment ago, or at least so he could pretext his disloyal, treacherous thoughts. Despite his human half, he was a true wolf, through and through, and he had no illusions about who really led his pack. As there was little possibility of challenging a queen or a dragon, he must ferret out every traitorous thought or let them squirrel away.

He was no mere human schemer, no sly monkey or cunning rodent to undo his loyalty without claiming the chiefdom by tooth and paw.

"Face forward, double time." As the curs scampered and scurried, they gibbered, growled, and snarled, and the huskiest bayed such deep roars, their backs bent near double in drawing in enough wind, and their claws curled in fists that bit their bleeding palms. They rose in hybrid stance, faces wracked and twisted with the savage baying that stilled and quieted both armies all around; even the bears, too bloated and ignorant to know fear, became dumb as rabbits on their leftward flank

As Sucani's armies hustled and pounded the ashy soil, still warm from the dragon's breath, many slipped and slid in crumbled ash, and Cheruk seized two clumsy fools by the nape of their necks,

knocked their pup heads together, and threw them forward with such force and authority that their stumbling found shaky footing, and with the mighty momentum of his hurl still at their backs, these ungainly idiots soon led the charge.

As they drove through the woods, shadow lions loped near, then paused, puzzlement writ on their jowls. Stags trotted in, rearing their hooves and racks high, then stomping the ground in consternation.

None could make sense of the Alsantian rush, which was neither toward Oji's armies, nor beating a hasty retreat, but a rapid leftward charge through the woods, as if something lurked there that was an even greater threat to Suvani's sovereignity than Oji's sizable armies.

As his werewolves scampered past shadow lions, stags, and bears, Cheruk lifted his furred fist in a rude gesture, brought it to his head in salute, then tore out the ear flap his nails grazed and flung the wet, furry gobbet at the massing beasts.

If Oji's armies had descended then, they might have plowed through their flanks, but either being too curious, or having orders not adaptable enough to comprehend their current tactic, they waited too long, for just as Oji's grumbles were conveyed to the beasts at his back, a gigantic blue flash flooded the forest.

As his werewolves whined and hissed, Cheruk roared through his blindness, "face forward! Faster! Fear not for those who fall, but for your own skin, for any who fall back will have their tabards stripped, their skin flayed, and their names ripped out, not only from our Alsantian accord, but our pack, now and forever."

The Daikonese elders groaned, the bears rumbled, and armor clashed as cursing soldiers ran into each other to prove their zeal.

True to his word, those werewolves Cheruk bumped he flung sprawling, and those underfoot, he trampled, charging pell-mell for the blue light, which, being the only thing he could see--its afterimage still impressed on his blinded eyes--felt like the only reality on the battlefield.

As they sprinted toward the numb blue light, the ground trembled under an awful, whirring grind, buzzing and droning louder and louder, until the wave of werewolves slowed, and their backs pressed against Cheruk. "Face forward! Faster or be flayed, you cringing curs!" Their furry backs were now a blur, a mottled, silvery brown that shone with the blue as he shoved through to the head of the pack, the awful crunch, and an abject whine so pitiful, his eyes clenched, blinded for the second time, this time by pity.

Having a shallow supply of sympathy, however, pity did not close his eyes long, and Cheruk blinked, then squinted, taking in the sprawled body, more bloody puddle than solid flesh, bones sticking out awry under the wheel of a massive vehicle stained blue by the gleaming disc.

They had force marched to the end of an ugly clearing, its trees, shrubs, and grass blasted to ash and dust, not the smoldering, blackened gray of dragonfire, but the dead gray of the Sargan Vos. While far from that cursed forest, the blasted acre around the radiant blue disc was identical in nature.

Fraying clouds, swiftly drawn to the towering blue light, were just as quickly unraveled, and a fleet of armored vehicles buzzed like a stream of giant insects from its depths. While the locust-like Zalgynes had an iconic presence on the battlefield, these Earth machines were effaced of all personality, like so many spear points. As Cheruk's vision rushed back, they blurred even more, seeming only so many teeth bristling in a greedy, power-hungry jaw, and he took a step back in spite of himself, growling, "fall in, you fools!" He shoved at his werewolves. "Fall in ! These war machines are on our side."

"Whose side?" one angrily growled.

"Fall in where?" As they growled and snarled, the metal fleet battered aside Suvani's armies, until they made way for this otherworldly army.

"Are your eyes so bad you can't see a door? Is your aim so bad you can't fall through a hole?"

Cheruk sighed in exasperation, just as unwilling to pass to the other side. "You have your orders. Fall in, you curs!" It might have been easier to explain they were trading enemies, that Suvani's armies would conquer Earth, and her ally would make incursions into Alsantia, but Cheruk's head ached from pulling out his ears and from fighting off the nasty infection swarming his powers of regeneration,

leaving him neither energy for exposition, nor the stomach to take the constant buzz of their whines and rumors. Hearing without ears was like the muffled world had receded to a faraway itch. "Fall in, and go silent," he added gruffly, then snatched another ear bud, and tossed it at the nearest armored vehicle in contempt, so that it stuck to the metal, slid in a bloody trail to the ashy mulch, and was pulverized by grinding tire treads.

From the frenzy of their sprint, their falling energy had dwindled to a skulk, until their tails slunk between their legs as they meandered and moseyed between the armored columns. Cheruk fought his instincts hard, but even his own tail disobeyed him, clinging so cowardly to his buttocks

that he very nearly tore it out, for in tearing out his ears all day, he began to feel they were only the tip top of a churning trash pile, this dogged flesh, which didn't know when to stop sprouting ears, but let his jaunty tail wilt. From top dog to hangdog in a moment, cowed once again by magic.

When his shoulders hunched, sagging under the urge to fall on all fours, he had enough,

and by dint of mental force, shifted back to human.

In spite of himself, he began to feel that this frail, hideless flesh, denuded of instinct, appetite, and sense, was his better half. His wolfish side was hidebound, buried in fur, hungers, and the tantalizing world of scents. To a wolf, a scent was the delicious afterimage of flesh, lying in wait to tear down a wolf's self-worth layer by layer, reducing him to abject, insatiable hunger, the whining undertone of every snarl. Just as wolves could never be tamed, only broken in or hounded into place,

werewolves would always be feral, his hunger the truth consuming his flesh day in and day out, and

his humanity only a pretentious idea. As his human face grinned back from his reflection in a gleaming windshield, he saw not himself, but Suvani's mocking smile, as if her contempt had consumed any humanity in his self-image.

"Are you Cheruk?" The voice was firm and crisp, but somewhat sweet, as if laced with flattery.

A human aristocrat, no doubt, Cheruk could hear his jaw's oily squeak. High-bred humans were always soft with fat, no matter how lean they seemed--this Cheruk knew for a fact, having chewed through the soft, flabby necks of human lords. While they had never known what it was to be hungry, in their last gasp they knew what it was like to be food.

While werewolves were always hungry, not only born hungry, buy dying with unsatisfied cravings for flesh, he realized now just now how hungry he was. Usually human shape served to suppress his hunger. He had learned to prefer human shape and manners when dining with human commanders, for he did not want to be despised or feared for his monstrous appetites, but renowned for his prowess and comportment, like any other soldier. Which is not to say that Cheruk would ever be immune to the succulent appeal of flesh, just as this fat voice would always cave to a tray of cupcakes.

What you whip in shape will always crouch in your shadow. He was a werewolf, through and through,

and would die in his wolf shape with a bellyful of undigested meat. Moments ago,his wolf side had been so possessed by rage and self-loathing that, for once in his life, he had forgotten his undying appetites, and remembered it only when the wolf side had ebbed from his soft human form.

"Are you Cheruk? Excuse me, it's General Cheruk, isn't it?" As the voice fattened to a delectable juiciness, Cheruk realized not only that it was just over his shoulder, but that his ears had grown in. Tasked with punishing himself, he had failed even in this petty order. While Cheruk was a wolf, he was also an alpha wolf, and his rising annoyance dispelled his disobedient hunger.

Rounding savagely, Cheruk shifted to hybrid form, and snarled so wide and feral that he saw his fangs' yellow glimmer in this man's eyes. This was the only trace of yellow in the man, who, for all his slenderness, reeked with the fatness of indolence and leisure, even his eyes aglow with fat complacency, but had no trace of fear, not even a shiver. Emblazoned on the breast pocket of his glossy black uniform was an insignia Cheruk did not recognize, a three-headed dragon, the tripartite emblem embroidered in silver, gold, and emerald.

"If you were werewolf," Cheruk growled, "I'd have half your head in one bite for not honoring me. If you were human, I'd have your hide to wipe my..."

"Very droll." When the slim man cocked an eyebrow, it had an air of menace, like cocking a crossbow or loosening a sword in a scabbard. "You no doubt smell my humanity, being a lycanthrope."

"It's what I don't smell, strange one. It's like you've taken things out of your humanity."

"Like forgetting the thyme when roasting a hen?"

"I never said you smelled overcooked, and I eat my meat raw, as nature intended."

"Not time, thyme. It's an herb. Nature is full of herbs, as well as fire." The man's fat eyes crinkled in amusement as he cleared his throat, "Before this becomes a comedy sketch, let's talk about why I'm here."

"You're from the other side."

"Yes."

"Do you have new orders?" While the slim man had not yet been intimidated by Cheruk's bestial manner or savage allusions, at this question his brow knit in worry, and the bridge of his nose wrinkled.

"Were you expecting new orders?"

"If you have nothing important to impart, why waste my time?"

"Well..." The man paused. "What are your current orders?"

"I was to lead our armies here, and seek out one in our queen's image."

"Yes." When the man cleared his throat again, Cheruk hissed in irritation at his pussyfooting mannerisms. "She is unavailable at the moment, I'm afraid. I'm the one you'll be dealing with."

"No, you're not."

"I'm afraid I am."

"No," Cheruk insisted. /"You're not."

"Why are you being so stubborn?"

"You keep saying you're afraid, but you're not. Just like all the other parts missing from your recipe, you lack even a dash of fear. It's very strange."

"Oh." The man chuckled. "When I said I was afraid, it was only a manner of speaking."

"Sounds like a manner of beating around the bush. Say what you mean." Cheruk snarled. "Look, half-man. While I don't mind running you around your bush, we now have even less time before the shadow lions fall on our flanks. Let me take a stab at what's next. While you engage our enemies, who are unprepared for your vicious machines, we bring our magics, talking beasts, and monsters to bear on your world."

"Yes," said the tall man with relief. "That's it, precisely."

"As that much was obvious," growled Cheruk, "why have you come?"

"It's only that your soldiers aren't going through the portal."

As white hot ire boiled up, Cheruk's flesh melted all the way down to wolf, bayed loud, and loped for the front.

"Wait!" the tall man called, "Watch out for time dilation!"

However much he would have liked to glower into those plump, watery eyes, turning now would dignify his gibberish, so Cheruk shrugged and sprinted faster for the front. Whatever time dilation was, it could not be as important or troublesome as cramming tens of thousands of soldiers from one world to another.

It was even worse and stupider than he had feared. While the enormous blue portal shimmered and rippled so uncannily, it was hard to look at straight on, it wasn't that the soldiers feared passing through to Earth. They argued about who deserved the honor of going first, human or werewolf. Then a massive bear lumbered over to throw his considerable weight around, and throw his hat, so to speak, into the consideration.

Ulgof--who Cheruk could not deny was taller, broader, and more musclebound than himself, not to mention young, impulsive, and shamefully stupid--argued the werewolf case, which is to say that he had shifted to hybrid form, leaned over Alturio, the human commander, and bayed so blaringly loud, his lips flapped, blasting threads of saliva, until the bear's shoulder bowled him over, to land face first at Cheruk's feet.

Cheruk shifted to human, brushed back his general's ribbons, and fixed his sneer on Ulgof. "So much for representing the werewolf cause."

"Your lordship..."

"Not a lord," snarled Cheruk, treading on Ulgof's knuckles as he stepped over his subordinate, grinding down so hard they cracked underfoot.

Grumbling, he turned to Alturio and the bear, whose name he could not pronounce. As there was little honor in passing through first when those who should bear witness to your glory were still on this side, he was inclined to let the bear go first, and, hopefully, absorb the trouble and damage waiting for them there, serving as a shield for his more versatile shock troops. Werewolves and humans he could reassign all day, but not bears, who lazed around when not doing their overbearing best. If only this bear had the good sense to be born with a pronounceable name.

"The honor, such as it is..." Cheruk sneered down his nose. "...is yours."

Alturio beamed with pride and turned to the portal.

"Not so fast. Did you forget something?"

Alturio half-turned and scowled. "What?"

"You're no scout, Alturio. You're a general."

"Ans so are you. Your point?"

"My army's at my back. Why isn't yours?" Seeing Alturio's sudden consternation made the torments of Cheruk's long day worthwhile. "You thought to mosey in for a looksee, then shimmy back the way you came? No, Alturio. We're committed to this war."

"So Ephremia lies on the other side?"

"Think of it as one of your frilly officers' dances. We're only changing dance partners."

"More of a blind date, I'd say."

"Not for me," beamed Cheruk. "Not thirty minutes hence, when you tell me who me face. See you soon, Alturio."

"But we're not shock troops..."

"You are now."

"Her majesty would not want..."

"She would and she does. She left me in charge, Alturio."

"With respect, this honor is too big for me, General Cheruk."

"Yes, Cortero was a big act to follow, but your engagement awaits. As do I." Cheruk shrugged and turned from Alturio.

"Where are you going?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but I have a bet to place." Cheruk sighed theatrically and raised an eyebrow. "You still might be described as bold and courageous."

"I beg your pardon."

"In my report. To her majesty. It would be dishonest not to write cowardly in five more minutes."

Cheruk walked back to his honor guard, basked in their cruel, madcap laughter, and even indulged himself by laughing at their capering mockery of Alturio's strutting, barking, orders to his troops.

Once the humans had marched stiffly through the portal, Cheruk sighed. When no one noticed,

he swatted his scrawny flag bearer, Uhelfi, his second cousin's son. "Won't you ask why I'm melancholy, Uhelfi?"

"Melon Collie?" Uhelfi parsed the word so comically that Cheruk clutched his sides and brayed a mighty laugh. As Uhelfi's white knuckles clenched the standard, worry wrinkled his face, for while they were relations, Cheruk's protection was also relative, so far keeping his cousin's fur in one piece,

but not above landing a bruise or two, or three.

Hearnig Uhelfi's uneasy, sheepish titter, Cheruk backhanded his ear. "I'm happy to hog a whole laugh at your expense, cousin, but I'm not the sharing kind, not even a laugh."

"Uncle?"

This time Cheruk cuffed him with nails, drawing long scratches on Uhelfi's cheek that laid it bare to the cheekbone. As the wound popped and bubbled back into shape, Cheruk vented more cruel laughter. "I'm not your uncle, you half-wit beagle. Thank the Stranger our bloodlines are so loosely tied, or I should fret for my own future whelps, should I survive Suvani." He sighed. "I ought to promote you, Uhelfi, so your line stops here, and mine might continue."

"A promotion, unc--c-c-cousin?" Uhelfi's ears folded in such a fawning cringe that Cheruk became queasy, even if his own ears folded neat as a bedsheet in Suvani's shadow. This time, when he imagined tearing her throat out, he tasted the sticky pungency of raw queen so vividly, that his jaws clamped on Uhelfi's neck before he could bring his instincts to heel, and he could not draw back until he had tasted blood. As the punctures welled with dark blood, Uhelfi's neck shuddered, heaving against Cheruk's fang, and drew another long scratch, as if Uhelfi was not done with being bit, his flesh begging Cheruk to take a whole mouthful. "Forgive me, cousin. I did not mean to presume on your favor."

"Standard bearer is enough honor for the likes of you," grumbled Cheruk. "But I'm sad, Uhelfi, not because of your feeble, mindless cowardice, not because we're going to Earth, not because we're leaving Alsantia behind, and not even because I graciously let Alturio go first, grace being as of yet a very foreign concept to me." Grace was not a word in either the wolf or werewolf languages. "I'm sad because I've climbed as high as I can." He growled a huge sigh. "It's not a good feeling for an alpha, Uhelfi." He spat on Uhelfi. "Not that you could ever empathize, you bone cracker." While ranking werewolves had the choicest meat, the bottom feeders sucked marrow from bones, or squirreled off to bring down birds or hares, rather than hunt big game with the pack. "On second thought, maybe you can, Uhelfi. Think of it this way. Just as I've kicked you to the bottom of my legions, Suvani will never let me climb any higher. She sits atop a pedestal of cringing curs, fat and complacent in her power." He eyed Uhelfi carefully. "Never think of me as fat or complacent, cousin--that would be dangerous." He snarled. "Hands and knees." Uhelfi sniffled and whined, but shrank down on all fours, and his back bowed even further under Cheruk's weight as he sat on his back. While by no means the largest werewolf, only the most savage, Cheruk was much larger than Uhelfi. "That's better," Cheruk snickered, but snorted his displeasure before continuing. "Once I would have happily led the charge to this strange mudball, Earth. I might have eviscerated Alturio for the honor. But now, honor just isn't enough. Perhaps you can imagine it. Should you find the fire in you to challenge me, the sheer luck to succeed, and the friendship of all who now despise you, you would become the alpha of my werewolves. But after a few months, or perhaps a few years, given the void of your imagination,

your taste for choice meats would pale, and your thrill for fresh kills would fade."

"Never," panted Uhelfi. "As you say, your honor is too great to conceive."

"It's good to hear you say so." Having kow-towed to Suvani, torn out his own ears, and felt his tail skulk between his withers, it was good to feel this warmth in his gloating heart. Squatting on Uhelfi nearly felt the top of the world. He supposed that if Alsantia spun underneath them, even Uhelfi was on top of the world. But even as his mind wandered, Cheruk's thoughts were not so free as that, possessed by three demonic drives: the chase, killing, and being top dog, Snarling, he picked his legs up, and sat cross-legged on Uhelfi's back, bringing a more grueling, grudging weight to bear on Uhelfi. The more he bore down, the more he propped up his smile. Let Uhelfi be on top of the world, for he was on top of Uhelfi. It was a teeny tiny pinnacle next to what Suvani surveyed, but it would serve as the first step to seizing this greater throne.

As he dared think the unthinkable, his fur and fangs grew in, and the greater bulk of his hybrid body made Uhelfi cave, spilling both werewolves to the ground.

"Forgive me, cousin...."

"I don't think I will." Cheruk allowed himself a smug smile. "But I will thank you, Uhelfi. If not for you, I might not have found the perspective I have long desired."

When Uhelfi groveled even more under this ominous assertion, ashy soil stuck to his tabard and begrimed his neck, until Cheruk lifted him by the scruff of his neck, shook him with as much ceremony as you might shake a towel, and set his second cousin on his feet. "Buck up, cuz. I'm giving you a singular honor. It might hoist your petard so high, you would no longer suffer the reek of marrow breath."

"My lord?"

"Not a lord." Cheruk sighed. "Well, why not? Why can't I be a a lord." Clapping both hands to Uhelfi's shoulders, Cheryk patted his scruffy, mangy fur, feeling what he hoped were not lice or some other fur-roving insect.

"Yes, my lord. Please spare me this honor."

"I wouldn't dream of it," snickered Cheruk. "Every dog has their day." Shifting his grip to the scruff of Uhelfi's neck, Cheruk sprinted to the portal, dragging his cousin as he went, until he flung Uhelfi through the shimmering blue. As Uhelfi twisted and flailed, he scraped and clawed the air, and went through bottom-first to Earth.

"All beasts, fall in!" Cheruk bayed. "Werewolves, then bears, then Daiko. As to the rest, I'll flay the beast who comes through last!"

Having shifted to all fours, the werewolves bayed back and loped for the portal, their eyes glinting bright in the dark rush of fur and snapping fangs.

Cheruk turned, drew his shoulders as far back as hybrid form allowed, and took stock of the gigantic portal. With his full attention on managing this sorry lot, he hadn't had a moment to appraise it until now. Moreover, it had been hard to bring his mind to bear, having already stamped otherworldly on it, the easier to file it with what did not concern him, But given his new ambition to sit on the whole heap, and use Suvani for his throne, he supposed he must have an opinion on this strange stuff. And he had to admit, as a bead of sweat slid under the fur of his snout, it was quite daunting. It towered to the sky--a fact he had already noted, but not truly appraised, not when doing so would make him conscious of his insignificance compared to the powerful magics that conjured said portal.

As he glowered, its gossamer blue shimmered and rippled, and these undulations rose alongside a keening thrum, building and building until its sibilance sounded like singing. Singing to Cheruk. Not like the portal was beckoning him to the other side, but like the other side was caressing him with its otherworldly song. As if it had reached out, and found like to like. He basked in the blue brilliance,

but bided his time, hearing the rushing werewolves crush up behind him, their baying snarls building their own savage, chaotic music. Until now, he had only thought of his werwolves as noise, as noisemakers, as so many firecrackers to toss into a melee. Now he heard their music. It was the song of war.

Cheruk lunged through the portal.

With each step, Alsantia was stripped back by layer, first slashing away the ash white soil, then shedding the charcoal clouds, the dingy violet skies, and the few remaining tufts of green, then unraveling Cheruk to nothing but senses, a raw soul stumbling into a run, his instincts no longer cloaked in mind, but breathing in some strange, noxious air, a smog more tainted than the dragon fumes, but with teeming undertones of flesh that roiled his hunger just as color swirled back one layer at a time, starting with the rewind of his small intestines, then his heart's nework of arteries and veins,

then skin, fur, and tail until he was wrapped and wound together,

When his paw smacked in a puddle, he drew back the damp fur. When had he shifted, falling down to pure wolf? He hurried forward, not wanting to be overrun by his overeager forces, when the blue light warbled, then burst like a popped bubble, vanishing utterly in an instant.

As seconds became minutes, Cheruk's grumble became a growl, then baying at the silent shadow that had swallowed the blue disc. It had been smaller here, he realized. While it had been miles high in Alsantia, here it hadn't topped the roof of these brick buildings.

Were they houses? They seemed much too large to be habitations. Perhaps they were businesses. Maybe warehouses? Drawing in a deep breath through his nostrils, Cheruk smelled only the rank stench of rain water, and tainted smog, so much smog that it felt baked into the air, enough that breathing tickled the back of his throat, and he growled without thinking. For nearly a minute, he hadn't stopped growling, trying to clear this irritation at the back of this thoat, until, with a snort, he blasted upright, clawing through his wolf form, past his hybrid form, all the way to his weak humanity, which--perhaps this was only imagination, or his contempt for all things human--felt more lived in, as if he was more at home here on this strange world.

While Cheruk had heard only rumors from those who had traveled there, he knew the overpowering stench of Earth at once. Imagine a human world, in which everything human, but especially the blight of humanity, could spread without check, without ogres to punch down their delusions of omnipotence, werewolves to curb their wanderlust, and wicked talking beasts to taint their forests and frontiers with fear; a world in which humanity had festered in its birthrights, its blessings become cursed privileges, its desire traded for greed.

The alley's shadowy back wall glistened, damp and dripping, as roving lights flashed in the alley, sweeping past with the whoosh of sprayed puddles, which spattered the backstreet with the bursting stench of mud and rainwater, as well as roasted nuts and something buttery and salty. Whatever it was, it smelled better than the army mess hall tent, so he strode toward the street, picking up his heels as more smells breezed by, like the slow roasting pork making his human mouth water

for all that his inner wolf snarled at the ruined flesh, mangled by flame and sauce, that sickeningly sweet substitute for real blood.

While his human nose had superhuman scent, he was drawn on not by this silly snub snout

than by his everpresent memory of wolfish scents, a living scroll cataloging every scent he had ever despised, savored, feared, or anticipated. The humans had it wrong, of course--a werewolf wasn't human with wolf smeared on; a werewolf was, at root, a wolf, and its human image a trick, like a chameleon. Even now, he could blend in. Even on an alien world, wearing Suvani's tabard, he could pose as one of their pack of invisibles.

The humans were not so independent as they thought, but pack animals of a more pathetic stamp, pitiful, helpless followers that could not smell the shape of their own pack, and lived as a pack of invisibles. Not only were all unseen by the unknown others of their phantom clans, they could scarcely see the shape of their greater lives, the shape of their fearful society.

Lycanthropy, like all blending-in, was a matter of belonging, and belonging a matter of owning and taking, not pleasing and being pleased. Humans believed their society an economy of favors, a mutual exchange of respect, when really society was only the ripples made by domination, the aftershock of those who acted like they owned the place. You didn't make friends, you took them, like anything else you wanted, and taking Cheruk could do all day, as easy as breathing.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, Cheruk cursed the fat-eyed Earth man. Had he been less polite, Cheruk might have minded his warning, and asked his own questions. What was time dilation?

Had not Suvani also mentioned this? It sounded achingly familiar, but he racked his brain without fathoming the term. But even if dilation was an unfamiliar word, he certainly understood time. How did dilation affect time? Acceleration into the future, or rewinding into the past?

While the street wasn't utterly deserted, only one vehicle chugged down the block, its yellow lights flashing on business facades. The few stragglers on the sidewalk were outnumbered by profuse lampposts, blue metal boxes, and street signs until sunrise brimmed over the buildings, when walkers emerged from side streets, and dozens more disembarked from the enormous green bus. It was truly gigantic, longer than three chariots end to end, and it coughed up the tired people of this gray city in a seemingly endless stream, until its last, drunken, crosseyed passenger stumbled out, and the tremendous green machine chugged away, still streaming noxious gray from its tailpipes.

And that was not the strangest thing, not by far.

Cheruk could read the signs.

Delnor Avenue. Montoli's Deli. Esquilar's News Agency. While logic would dictate his chances of reading Earth signs were astronomical, why guess the odds where magic was at hand?

He followed the buttery, salty scent to a white cart topped with a glass enclosure, stuffed with white, fluffy puffs vaguely like cotton. His human stomach gurgled as he gazed through the hazy glass.

"Sample?" Though he smelled perfectly human, the vendor had a wolfish look. Perhaps it was his salt and pepper chin fur, or that he seemed too lean and muscular to work a food cart.

Cheruk growled, then seized not the tiny white cone proffered by the food vendor, but a heaping red bag on top of the glass. As he crammed fistfuls in his mouth, his hands, lips, and chin became slick with butter. The seller glared at him, but said nothing, for all that Cheruk could smell his rage rising. As the scent of human anger was Cheruk's favorite seasoning, he wolfed down the salty snack with glee.

"You're one of them," the food vendor said moodily. "You could pay me, you know. I don't care who runs things."

"What do you mean, 'one of them?'"

"Look, I'm not starting anything." As anger gave way to fear in the lean face, the frown quivered. "I didn't mean anything by it. Have another bag."

Cheruk knocked the bag to the ground, spilling out a white heap. "Just tell me. I can't imagine what you meant. I'm new here."

"Don't hurt me!" Seizing the handles, the seller shoved the cart to a roll, then trotted as fast as he could, nearly clipping two bundled-up old women.

While Cheruk could have easily caught the vendor, and exacted whatever revenge he wanted,

he was in a foul, lazy mood, and moreover, disemboweling a merchant on a street corner would scarcely pass for human here.

He would find out some other way. 'One of them' sounded like public knowledge. In Alsantia, the best place for local news was a bar, whether humans, werewolves, or beasts were its proprietors or patrons, and he guessed it would be the same way on Earth. In Alsantia, there were more bars than churches, and it must be the same way on Earth, for he found a bar not three doors down from the spilled popcorn.

In fact, the bar felt very familiar to Cheruk, for all that he was on a strange world. The windows were cracked, no doubt from a fight, and placards taped over the shatter lines, advertising local music bands. Even at this early hour, cars were parked out front, and the open doors vented smoke, the stench of booze, and the aroma of deep-fried food.

Cheruk froze. It was a little too familiar to his taste. He walked slowly down the block, passing the row of parked cars, until he came to the chariot. Two karik grazed on baskets of cabbages and other greens, their hulking hides heaving, and their horns poking holes in the baskets as they noshed the vegetables.

An Alsantian chariot. Parked outside an Earth bar, as if it happened every day.

Well, that cleared up some of the mystery of 'time dilation.' Clearly he had traveled not only to Earth, but to its future. How far? While the chariot would not have passed inspection, being streaked with muddy rainwater, smoke, smog trails, and oil spatters, it was scarcely damaged in any way. If there had been a battle, this chariot was not in it.

Cheruk growled, then fumed even madder. How had he missed everything? This did not look like a conquered city, even if he had cowed a skittish merchant. He wanted answers. Squaring his shoulders, Cheruk let a fuzzy trace of wolf creep along his jaw and forearms until his teeth lengthened just slightly, and his fingers were tipped with a tinge-too-sharp nails that would not look out of place unless you knew what to look for, then headed for the front door.

Behind the bar, bottles glittered in every color of the rainbow, and Cheruk smiled in spite of himself, instantly curious to down these otherworldly liquors. Drinkers clustered at the bar, not only grubby drunks who hadn't made their way home last night, their shirt tails out and pant legs muddied with rain water, but crisp, functioning alcoholics in suits and ties, here for a drink to jumpstart their day.

As Cheruk pressed through the mob at the bar, his puzzlement evaporated in his heat to tour the bottles.Then cold whispers cut through, putting the chill on hjs curiosity.

"...the General."

"Shhh!"

"What do we do?"

"You know our orders!"

The large hand clapped to his shoulder familiarly, a little too familiarly for Cheruk's taste, but when he reached up to scratch it away, his wrist was seized and dragged down--at first gently, but when he fought back with all his strength, he only prolonged his hand's humiliating descent to his side.

"There's no need for that, General. You're among friends."

Cheruk's lip curled into a snarl. He knew and loathed that jocular, confident voice.

However he twisted, the savage grip held him fast, grinding his ribs into the bar beside Ulgof, that bland grin beaming down, all trace of Cheruk's fist and heel erased from his face. Not that it was any indication of how much time had elapsed, given werewolf healing.

His forearm was wrenched high between his shoulder blades one more time, then released, and another, even burlier werewolf slid to his other side. He groaned. He knew this musclebound fool too.

This brute was so brutal, though, his foolishness proved foolproof, and he was promoted quickly through the ranks, even though Cheruk could never remember his name despite his unsurpassed skill for war, having a taste for battle that consumed everything else, leaving him a most unpleasant, forgettable person whom Cheruk began to dispatch into even bloodier battles the instant he had returned from the fray.

Flanked by two brutes suddenly and suspiciously unconscious of their alpha's rank and superiority, Cheruk slipped back into his hybrid skin. Expecting an outcry from the humans thronging the bar, he was mystified when they only boomed louder for their liquid breakfasts, and even those who batted a sidelong eye at their subtle altercation only talked out of the corner of their smug mouths, as if sharing their qualified appreciation, mixed with unqualified criticism, of some decadent human artwork.

Then one unkempt drunk held up two fingers to the other, and Cheruk became incensed--he knew a bet when he saw one. He would not come out the loser before any feeble human bystanders,

not if he had anything to say about it. Not that he would bother with mere words, not with these brutes,

who had long passed the point of court martial and demotion, far past buck private, all the way past unranked cannon fodder, down to mere karik fodder. While they held him firm, Cheruk was not only strong, but limber and wiry, and shapeshifting came so easily, he could, in the space of one breath,

change to all three points on the werewolf compass, and back again, and while it is one thing to hold firm to a human wrist, it is another to gain a grip on a limb shifting from hand to hybrid claw, then tapering to slippery paw, sliding out of Nameless's grip, hulking back to hybrid nails, and slashing out that bobbing flesh fruit this world called the adam's apple, to spray the whole row of drunks with his anonymous blood, some of the gore splashing in whiskey neats, vodka tonics, and Manhattans.

Cheruk's eyes flashed, his mouth crumbled, and the small of his back cracked so loud and violently that he thought he had been cut in half, and with a snip in the back of his mind--which whizzed around in circles as it struggled to keep the lights on--his traitorous flesh puddled down,

punched down all the way to wolf. As Cheruk swayed to all fours, his shapeshifting skin already padding the bruises and the tears in his lips, Ulgof stooped, his piledriver fist rushing to crush Cheruk flat. Seeing Ulgof still in soft human shape, Cheruk bayed from the back of his mind all the way out of his mouth, blasting flecks of saliva over Ulgof's cruel glee, which was yanked down to agony by the clench of Cheruk's jaws, rending fist from gory stump, which sprayed the ceiling as Ulgof hastened to backpedal, one second too late, looking comically as if he was in terror of his own lost limb, laying grossly on the floor in a patch of its own blood.

When the other werewolves erupted from their table, snarling curses with snapping fangs,

Cheruk hulked up to his hybrid form, and glowered in rage. "Fall in, you curs!"

They turned to each other with stiff, uncertain looks, until a scowl passed from one to the other and all again converged on him as they would a great bear.

No sooner had one stepped to block the door than Cheruk's paws planted to his chest and bowled him over, and he was sure to slash his hind paws through the traitorous cur's eyes before hurtling through the door.

He got as far as the street before a red car, darker than red wine, rode the curb and clobbered him ten times harder than Ulgof. This time when his mouth crumbled, his mind dissolved to a grainy, grey point, no bigger than a pencil point, and it was with this sluggish gray nub, this eraser-head residue of his waking mind, that Cheruk scratched at awareness. What he heard he would not grasp until later, but the smells hit without intermediary, his conscious mind peeled all the way down to instinct. He was pinched by small hands smelling of lavender, coffee, salt, and deep-fried potatoes,

dragged across stone, then hauled up cold, smog-tainted metal onto carpet smelling of oil, polish, window cleaner, and fox fur. With a clack and a thump, the brisk, smoggy air was bottled away, and the carpet shook and shimmied as he faded in and out of the gray point, one moment a tiny gray pup, curled in his comfy spot, and the next the bruised and battered general, too strung out on pains and needs to dream of waking, so he settled into the dream of the gray pup.

At first he didn't recognize himself in the dream, having long ago rewritten the reality of his whelpdom: the runt of the litter, kicked away from the teat, not only by fat brothers and sisters, but by mother's brusque paw, to curl against the cold wall, find warmth in himself, and some small sustenance in the warmth, and wait out the greedy hunger of his enormous litter to crawl in and smack his tiny lips on what drops mother deigned to allow with a scornful but magnanimous snarl, caressing him not with her paws, but the tips of her nails, so that he bled near as much as he drank in. As he thrived under this cruel attention, her attention and cruelty increased, never having seen this speed of werewolf healing,

quicker than shutting an eyelid. But in the dream, mother wasn't there, only a lonesome gladness suffusing into him, as he rose on quivering paws to nose around the small, gray dream. When it reeked of dust, lint, and dried oil rags, he brought a paw to his blurry eye, and it came away dry. Not a whelp's paw, but a huge, drunken paw. Not that he had drank anything. If only he had made it to the bar before the brawl. As he clutched at these ticklish hairs at the underbelly of his consciousness, pain flexed through his body, and he shuddered all the way back to pup, wandering the dusty, carpeted cave.

He had never missed mother; he hadn't even thought of her for years. While such a helpless pup should need his mother, seeing her nowhere in sight, and knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was nowhere else, fanned a lonely joy that warmed him more than mother ever had, and even as the contracted, gray nub of instinct craved the taste of her sour milk, he fought the urge to retch, padded into the back of his mind, and found another wolf curled up in his spot, sucking up the warmth he had left there only moments ago.

The whelp was so lean there were more shadows than fur. As he glowered and growled,

trepidation gave way to recognition. It was himself, or rather, his shadow, curled up in his place, so insubstantial that as he followed his instincts, and circled his own warmth, his fur mingled with the shadow, and the gray nub of Cheruk shaded to black, then welled to fathomless night, blacking out the cave until stars winked and glittered.

There was a jolt, then a shudder, and Cheruk staggered to all fours, bonking his head on the low ceiling. When his paw came to his jaw, it was gingerly tender, but felt none the worse from being blasted to bits twice in an hour.

Was it an hour? How long had he slept?

Where was he?

As his eyes adjusted to the dark compartment, he realized it was some kind of carriage trunk,

having only a metal tool stinking of oil and grime, a dusty chest that rattled when he brushed it, and a small white box emblazoned with a cross.

"It's awake." The muffled voice echoed through the roof into the dark compartment. "And scampering around."

"Then drag him out." Cheruk froze as that voice triggered an awful recognition. Surely she wasn't here already? "Be as rough as you'd like, but be polite. As no one likes to be called it, for now, you will address him according to his rank."

"Yes, ma'am."

For now? A sad note plummeted into the abyss of Cheruk's confused feelings. Was Suvani retiring him, or demoting in some even more painful way? Why would she--this thought was shredded by an alarming realization. My ears. Perhaps she was in a generous mood? Even as the lie shuddered inside, Cheruk fervently clung to this hope, centered on the thought that he had never heard this tone in her before. Perhaps her sense of humor had entered a less malicious and more whimsical phase?

He snorted at the thought of a charitable and whimsical Suvani. No, whatever looked like hope where Suvani was concerned was only another cruel joke. Just as he raised his paws to his ears, the carpeted compartment was cracked open.

Bright light blasted his eyesight utterly white, leaving only a glimpse of his captor--tall and rail-thin, his watery eyes smelling of fat indolence for all his lean muscle. As Cheruk never forgot a scent, his hackles rose, marking the man he had met briefly before coming to Earth.

"Take it easy." His tone was too patronizing to be soothing.

Cheruk growled. "To take it easy now, I should have had better advice. And I should have known you were her servant, human."

"Of course I am. In this day and age, we call ourselves 'employees.' Moreover, if you don't call me human, I won't call you werewolf. Better yet, call me Emory."

"I could never be so familiar with your ilk."

"You know me for ilk on two meetings?"

At the snarky tone, Cheruk nearly lunged, but curbed himself to a growl. "I don't like your smell, human."

The tall man made a humorous show of sniffing his armpits, then wrinkled his nose. "It isn't roses or cinnamon, but I bathe. More than I can say for the esteemed general."

"Do not mock me," growled Cheruk. "I heard you--you mean to tear me down from my position. She could at least have the decency to do it herself. Where is she?"

By now, the utter whiteness had filled in to a hazy blur, until everything seemed made of shifting, tinted sand. Craning his neck, Cheruk looked around the chamber at a dozen humans uniformed in insipid monochrome, some garbed in red head to toe, and others blue, while Emory was clad in black. They clutched dull instruments that stank of oil and steel, no doubt this world's weapons.

"Not here, General. However, you do have an appointment this afternoon."

"How long has it been?"

"We found you this morning."

"Not how long I was in there! How long have you been here? Were you so soon victorious?"

"So soon?" Emory whistled. "That's a red flag, Cheruk."

"You mean a white flag. Oji's armies folded immediately, if you returned so swiftly."

"I see. Counter question. What happened after you passed through the portal?"

"You well know what happened, having passed through twice yourself."

"Oh, dozens of times by now. Humor me, General."

"I have never humored any beast, not even myself, and especially not a human I cannot take seriously. I might think you a joke, human, but I would never humor you."

"A joke. Here's one for you. A werewolf walks into a bar." Emory tittered.

"What's so funny?"

Now he groaned and sighed. "I suppose it is in poor taste to laugh at your misfortune, General."

"What misfortune? There was never a werewolf so successful."

"I think not. Your reluctance and consternation to give up even the most cursory details tells me these events are so fresh and painful for you, that they likely just happened."

"As you know they did."

"Do I?" When Emory laughed, the other humans snickered, and those in the back row shared a whisper. "In truth, I've expected this day for some time now."

"I should scratch that smug smile off your face."

"You could try. You overestimate yourself as much as you underestimate me, Cheruk."

"I see you only too clearly." As he felt the urge to mirror Emory's smug authority, Cheruk shifted to human form.

"How can I trust you to see anything, when you know neither the where, nor the when, nor the how." Emory steepled his fingers pompously under his chin. "I did warn you."

"You told me nothing! What even is 'time dilation?'"

"Ah! Even if you don't understand, you do remember."

"Why wouldn't I? It was this morning."

"You've already said it. This couldn't have happened in mere hours. If I was dispatched to Alsantia with Ivanu's army this morning, you wouldn't expect to find me here hours later, in a crisp, clean uniform."

"I agree. You're a deserter."

"No, I'm a 'just desserter.' As in, it's quite amusing to see you get your just desserts."

"This sounds like an admission of guilt, human." Cheruk growled. "You've betrayed us!"

"Water under the bridge."

"What?"

"Do you not know that idiom? We have another you might understand: ancient history."

"You beat around the bush, more rabbit than man." Cheruk rippled to hybrid form, nails extended and fangs bared. "Just like yesterday, liar."

"I didn't say yesterday. I didn't say last year, or even last month. Regardless, after some reconnaissance of your own, I think you'll agree the time for grudges is past. Once something is done,

it isn't so easily undone, even by a werewolf determined not to see past his own snout."

"You lie and you lie. All you do is lie. If what you insinuate is true, you would never let me wander off on my own."

"Of course not. But not for the reasons you think. I wouldn't want to see you lynched by your own troops."

Cheruk had enough of this fat-eyed, deceitful human. But when he slashed out, Emory stepped in, scraping just past his claws, clasped Cheruk's other wrist, and with a vicious snap, twisted Cheruk around until his arm was halfway up his back. Having slain foes so quickly that their eyes dimmed before they could flash with the shock of death, Cheruk was accustomed to being at least a hair quicker than those he faced, and usually a whole swath of fur faster. But Emory had outraced him, not only entangling his arm, but pinning him to the floor before the others could swing their rifles, then joining his wrists behind his back so tightly that his shoulders bent back.

It took a moment to find his footing, for with both arms locked up behind his back, he had to roll onto his knees, lift one leg to a kneel, then wobble up, at which point, Emory kicked out a long, flimsy-looking but unbelievably strong leg, swept his feet out from under him, grabbed the tight patch of fur at the small of his back, and dragged him across the floor.

No matter how Cheruk bayed, snarled, snapped, or kicked his hybrid hind legs, his efforts were frustrated by Emory, who did not seem nearly so soft now--in fact, the slim man was so unyielding that his arms were like rigid implements, his fingers cut cruelly into his fur, and his pace, even while dragging Cheruk, was as graceful as it was mechanical, reminding the general of Teriana's mechanical beasts. While humiliation and resentment welled up in Cheruk, he felt neither fear nor respect for this human automaton, smelling a cheat in the scent of oil, metal, and something cloyingly and artificially sweet. The thought that he was undone by a mad science thing infused Cheruk with so much anger.

that every time he roared his demands, the roar drowned out the demands, until his caterwauling was all holler, all vowel, and no consonants at all. Self-loathing consumed Cheruk as he heard in himself more cat than werewolf.

Still Emory dragged Cheruk, banging through door after door and hall after hall onto a wide concourse marketplace that overlooked, through a glass half-wall, a long arcade of shops. The vaulted ceiling ran high, like a church, to glinting chandeliers and skylight windows showing the storm had given way to white clouds and blue skies. Having stopped struggling, Cheruk rolled on his back and stared morosely at these happy heights, until his eyes settled to the concourses, both levels bustling with brightly garbed shoppers laden with even brighter bags, as well as, here and there, more strangely monochromatic guards.

"Is the whole world in on your joke?"

"The time for jokes has passed," said Emory. "This is the serious part. Let's hope it's not deadly serious, for your sake."

"You're a weak man, for all your strength."

"How so?"

"You keep making threats. The strong don't have to do so."

"But I so rarely follow through on my threats, Cheruk. And just as often, I act, even kill, without preamble of word or thought. I am more deed than man. What speaks and thinks in me is a small part of this animal called Emory."

Cheruk's laugh wheezed, for Emory's hand was still twisted in the tight patch at the small of his back, and it hurt even to take a shallow breath, let alone let rip a belly laugh.

From the market aisle, they turned into a dining hall reeking of salted meat, oil, fried potatoes, baking bread and cheese, and the under-stench of years layered on years of human body odor, now mingling with the homey but overpowering stench of wet wolf.

Their eyes raked his as he was dragged past more nameless werewolves he knew mainly by function, or, if he despised them, by their descending level of uselessness, a few more or less well-groomed, but most venting the stench of wet dog, their bedraggled fur sticking out in clumsily-dried patches. While many had been caught in the rain, none were marked by battle: no wounds, no scars, no blood-flecked garments, not a trace of exhaustion in their smiling eyes.

Emory's claw hand released Cheruk mid-step, so that he flailed forward with the dying momentum of the long drag, and rolled into a snarling, snapping ball, that came to a sprawl just under Ulgof. This time when Cheruk lunged for the grinning face, Ulgof's eye twinkled, and six boots of Ulgof's honor guard came down upon his shoulders and ribs, pinning them there in that squalid floor, stuck with scattered salt, ripped and littered packets of some rancid Earth condiment, and the mud streaked from boots and paws. As he wheezed there, struggling against his own cracked ribs to catch his breath, his eyes smoldered, still cooking that image of Ulgof's twinking eye. It was as he had long said--no one could be that stupid, not even Ulgof. Ulgof had been only playing a part, the better to be Cheruk's understudy, and seize the command. His bones shrieked and whined into place, even the protruding collarbone under heel submerging into his healing flesh.

"Why do you wait?" he growled. "The pack is yours."

"As if you could regift my gifts so easily." The voice was familiar, but icier, so icy the cold crept along the hackles of Cheruk's neck, which, try as he might, he couldn't crane far enough from under foot and paw. When he whined, whimpered, and slacked down so far, those pinning him with their boots stumbled, he surged hard, blasting up and over the staggered honor guard, his claws slashing gory tracks through faces and flailing forearms, to land on his dripping nails.

As the humans rumored and crowded near, her frigid steps seemed to crack each icy moment with her heels, until she towered over Cheruk.

Whereas she had preferred black, burgundy, and violet in Alsantia, now she wore furs so white they screamed affectation, as if she wished to whitewash her vile soul with the pure, glossy skins of whatever beast had died so carefully as not to fleck its bright fur with a drop of blood. Her high heels were even brighter, a lunar white so immaculate, the floor crumbs stood out starker in their reflected light. Even the peak of her black hair was striped white.

While Cheruk thought he couldn't have cowered any deeper, as he froze, his cringe was sharpened by her strange scent: like, but unlike; the same, but subtly deviating; the familiar, but otherworldly. How could she feel so familiar, and at the same time, a far cry from Suvani?

This was not Suvani, but the doppelganger. Her stripe was not white, but blonde, and the rest of her locks too lustrous for human hair. Couldn't his wolves scent her duplicity? He growled, then accelerated the growl to a roar so rapid that the honor guard, still circling for an opening to seize him,

stumbled and backslid as one, their ears flattening and their hands quivering.

On the verge of tearing her throat out, Cheruk's eyes fell on Ulgof, whose twinkling eyes had faded to a placid and cowed fear for this lookalike. Whether or not he knew this was not Suvani, his terror of this doppelganger outmatched his fear for their rightful queen.

Why not take a page from Ulgof's playbook? He would play along.

"Your majesty."

"Why does a wolf snarl in my food court?"

"It is he, your majesty." Ulgof stooped so low in his obsequious fawning that Cheruk couldn't suppress his sneer, which then stretched to a vicious, snickering snarl.

While she was by no means the real Suvani, to her credit she did not give an inch, but stepped forward and scowled, standing so close he might have torn her to bits five different ways. As his last bone splinter fused in place, his wheeze became a chuckle.

He poured up into human form. "Forgive me, your grace." He bowed deeper. "I mean, your majesty. I shall bring my troops under heel."

"Your troops? What troops? You mean my diplomatic guests? And what do you mean yours? Everything you see is mine."

Ulgof whispered in her ear.

"General Cheruk. You'll forgive me if I don't remember every deserter who absconded from his post."

Cheruk growled. "Who dares call me that, your majesty? It was time dilation. Ask your machine man..." As her frosty glare--so much like Suvani's--gave him pause, his sentence died in the lull.

"I know about time dilation, having created it in the lab every other day. Regardless of the cause, your lateness will not be excused." As her demeanor relaxed, she beamed an impish grin. "What do you think, Cheruk?" Spreading her arms wide, the impostor spun in a half-circle.

"What do I think? Being no aristocrat like her majesty, I can't dart like a ferret from one thought to another. My mind is more prone to sulking in caves, and still dwells on the desertion charge you so off-handedly flicked on me." Perhaps her poor acting had emboldened him, for he began to entertain the idea of slaying this doppleganger to rehearse the regicide he truly anticipated. Having the impostor before him was like wanting a delicious slice of cake he was saving for later.

Having to gaze on Suvani's hated image only whetted his appetite for vengeance, until he desired not only to slay her, but to down this appetizer before the full course of his revenge on the real queen. The thirst for revenge could only be washed back with blood.

"No, silly! What do you think of my castle?" She laughed. "Okay, it's a shopping mall. But it's all mine."

Cheruk's lips curled with a burning contempt, until his fangs pricked his grin, and he tasted his own blood.

"He knows, Ulgof." The doppelganger sighed. "What gave it away?"

Ulgof blinked and his jaw dropped as he struggled to answer her question.

"Not you, you furry buffoon," the doppelganger snickered. "You. What's your name--Sharif?"

"Cheruk," he glared back. "General Cheruk."

"Maybe not a general. Let's see." She tapped a finger to one cheek as her eyes rolled upward, as if consulting heaven for an answer. Then she bent near, whispering in Cheruk's ear, so loud a whisper that every werewolf in the clamoring mall, and even a round-eared human or two, could hear. "Can you keep a secret?"

"As you say," he growled, "I already know your secret."

"But can you keep it? You see, I'm playing a complicated double role." As she clasped her hands, she flexed and cracked her knuckles. "And it's not just the two parts I have to play. It's a big gamble, betting on two worlds." She paced around Cheruk. "You could be a big help in that regard.

It would be easier to be Suvani if her dog let me scratch his head.""

The anticipation of her blood became so overpowering that his mouth filled with the phantom scent of blood. "I don't even know your name," he said thickly, bringing the back of his hand to the corner of his snout to wipe away a bead of drool.

"Stupid!" she scoffed. "The whole point is that you call me Suvani." She crossed her arms, turned her head, wrinked her nose in disgust, and sighed.

"How do I pretend, not knowing the real you? That's bad lying, not good acting."

"Fine. If telling us apart helps you play your part, I'm Ivanu."

Cheruk dimly remembered Suvani mentioning Ivanu during war councils. In hindsight, it was probably important. But he had never aspired to play a part in Suvani's shady schemes, happy to be her leader at the front lines.

"Just what are you offering me? This food court?"

"This is the tip of the iceberg," Ivanu said. "You don't know."

"He can't know." Judging by Ivanu's eyes shooting heavenward, Ulgof's groveling tone nauseated her as much as Cheruk. "It's not his fault he's a bad wolf, your majesty. He wasn't here."

Ivanu swatted Ulgof. Then she kicked him. Then she stomped his paw with her heel. "You're not fooling anyone."

"But if he wasn't here, where was he?" Ulgof yammered on as if she hadn't phased him at all, and being large enough to contain two of her, it was likely the rain hit him harder than Ivanu. "But if he wasn't here, where was he? Was he stuck between, your majesty?"

When Ivanu swatted, kicked, then stomped Ulgof again, it was like watching the first time at a higher speed. This was no reflex, but well-rehearsed violence, as articulate a language as Ulgof was capable of comprehending. "Can you believe him, Cheruk." She glowered. "Don't even think about answering. That was hypothetical. I'll tell you when I expect an answer." Seizing Ulgof's beard, Ivanu dragged him down so furiously--putting her back into it and clutching with white knuckles--that he shifted to hybrid form by reflex, so that it looked for a moment like she yanked the werewolf out of the man. As this slavering beast stared fearfully back, Cheruk wondered as to the source of her hold on Ulgof. Was she also a witch? If so, it was strange. He smelled magic here, but it stank of stagnation, as if it had not only lay untouched for centuries, but become tainted with resentment as it waited on the world to rediscover its mysteries. "Bring him." She spat so scornfully that spittle flecked Ulgof's face and made him blink. Being a werewolf himself, Cheruk picked up on subtle signs of anger that Ivanu no doubt missed, like Ulgof's ingratiating grin doubling down and creasing his dimple, his hackles rising, and the nails of his paws erect. If she kept pushing Ulgof's buttons, his instincts might cross from fear to slaughter; a werewolf might let ambition swallow his pride, but never his instincts.

As she walked briskly down the aisle she shot a glance at Emory. "Get the car."

"Give a man a moment, won't you?" muttered Emory.

When Ulgof lunged, Cheruk raised his arms defensively, but when Emory circled to the other side, he opened his hands and raised his arms higher. "She might have said bring me, but she didn't say be rude about it. Besides, I might be your boss." Cheruk snickered.

"Fine," Ulgof's snarl splayed his snout into a feral grin, all pretense of the simpering fool gone,

then jerked a nailed finger toward Ivanu, whose heels click-clicked as she receded into the crowd, which ebbed from her nervously, as if she was truly the queen of this shopping arcade. Breaking into a trot, Emory passed alongside the werewolves, then Ivanu, then disappeared into the milling shoppers.

As Ivanu's heels click-clacked monotonously and his former honor guard padded relentlessly,

Cheruk had the sudden, hateful thought that they were more of a dishonor guard, their current commission being to prevent his heeding the call of the irrepressible instincts surging from hind paw to fore paw and quivering in his whiskers as he struggled to tamp down gory, voracious desires to devour Ivanu, and Suvani through her, as if Ivanu was only a salted, battered breading covering the meat of his ambition.

Even though Suvani was not here, he smelled her; while this polluted Earth was on the brink of total corruption, her schemes had tainted it even darker. From a world away, her influence had transformed this world a shade closer to Alsantia's likeness.

Ivanu's click-clacking trail was laden with the scent of roses, the disgusting musk of some Earth beast, and the faint trace of Suvani's fearless sweat, that subtle taint of iron and salt which preceded the arrival of his hated queen. Hunched over his raging hunger for vengeance, he did not notice shifting subtly to his hybrid, bowlegged gait until they reached mechanical stairs to the lower level, automated stairs made for human legs, from which his hybrid legs recoiled, being unable to match their gait to the grinding, downward tread of the steps. It puzzled him only for a moment, as he backed up to the lowering stairs, and walked down backwards.

As fur bunched up under his pants, his hands scratched at it idly, being still human from the waist up, save for the fangs his tongue idly tapped, counting down the clock until he could feed on his revenge, and as the itch spread higher and higher, a nervous contagion spreading from the bunching fur

to the pale skin that burned in repressing the beast itching to come out, he could barely hold out any longer, and longed to tear away the false face, the human duplicity by which he was achieving his worthless, human objectives. It felt good to feed the greed of the wolf at last. If these queens had humbled him that morning, one had fallen into his hands, the other was in range of his scent, and both might soon be a fang's length from death.

As they walked the long hall of shop windows, Earth people sidled from their path, and their noses wrinkled in confusion and distaste, but Cheruk smelled no fear.

While none met Ivanu's gaze, a few dared look in Cheruk's eyes and smirk smugly at his growls, as if baiting a caged beast, and when one young girl thought to touch his fur, it took all his resolve and thirst for revenge not to snap her fingers to bloody bits, but he suffered her fingertips with a strangled growl, squeezed his eyes shut, and bolted past, heading for Ivanu's strutting step. His dishonor guard picked up their pace until their brisk reflections blurred the shining windows. For a moment, it looked like they were hunting in the shopping arcade.

"Keep to your place," growled Ulgof, but Cheruk batted his paw aside, and brought his whiskers so near Ivanu's cheek that she darted a sidelong glance, then picked up her pace. Ivanu was stubborn, but no doubt when she saw that the stilted arch of her heels could not compete with the nearly prehensile arch of a werewolf's hybrid paw, which seized the distance as much as sprinted it, did she subside to a slower walk.

"I could have you killed."

"Not quick enough for my taste,"

Seeing Cheruk's insinuating glance at her white throat, she laughed.

"No doubt your teeth are faster on the draw than my mouth." She sighed, "Do you think I would arrange for our meeting without establishing contingencies?"

"I have never thought of you at all, and am scarcely likely to do so now, even after you hire me to my old job." He snarled. "Nothing against you. I rarely thought of Suvani until she began to look down her pretty nose."

"Think of it as your new job, Cheruk, for our relationship couldn't be different than your subservience to your queen."

"You think so? You think your world more enlightened than Alsantia, but I can smell the difference."

"Look beneath the surface, Cheruk. You fight every day for freedom we take for granted. Have you ever gotten in this many words with Suvani?"

Cheruk scowled back, but could not suppress the no booming within. What the doppleganger did not understand was that to werewolves, wolves were only stand-ins, cut-outs, tokens of the things, feelings, and instincts they represented. Werewolf words were quite unlike the human words that were so often taken for the things themselves, the realities they represented. To Cheruk, their banter was only the surface play of nasty appetites which cried out to feast on her heart, and not in a romantic sense. Even the booming no would die in echoes unheard by the constant, noisy onslaught of his instincts. If Cheruk liked words, and was good with language, it was just another false skin, best suited for feigning, fawning, and rising in the ranks. While he had forged such a facsimile of human self-importance that he had deceived everyone, even himself, for his entire military career, the slavering beast forever roared, an irrepressible force that he must always hold at bay.

And sometimes, when no one was looking, he let the beast out to feed his monstrous appetites,

after which Suvani would always shine her smug, knowing glance on him, as if she had indulged his devouring those unfortunates he met in the dark. He snorted his wolfish mirth, wondering if Ivanu would beam the same smug, indulgent smile as he chewed off her head, that magnanimous smirk that deigned to tease the beasts she let in her fold. Thinking of their doubled grin incensed him, for indulged desires don't taste of game. They taint your instincts. If he was entertained at a queen's expense, his kills were no longer a hunt, he was being tamed. He would be a woodmouse before he conformed to the doppelganger's whim.

"Just kill me," snorted Cheruk. "I would suffer less than I do bearing up under your indulgence."

"That wasn't a threat--I was only making a point. You don't know me. I have layers."

"Like an onion?" Cheruk bayed a loud, obnoxious laugh.

"No. Like a werewolf."

He brayed an even cruder laugh, fist-pumping and drawing in such a deep breath to prolong his hollering hilarity that his chest hulked, his stomach tightened, and the exploding guffaw rattled on endlessly, sputtering here and there out the sides of his mouth as he pretended to hold it in, until his mirth died in a wheeze. "That's where you're wrong. Even if you're as deep as you imagine yourself,

there is no surface level to werewolves. We're all instinct. When our bodies shape according to that instinct, it's no different from you reaching for a snack, blinking, or lying. Wolf, human, and hybrid are one beast, flowing from shape to shape as we live and breathe. Don't think we have layers, when it's all one beast. You humans have a habit of seeing the forest for the trees."

"Then you don't hide anything?"

At her knowing glance, the dream cub stirred inside, curling in a little ball of fear. She looked so much like Suvani. How could she know?

"At times we hide ourselves. What we don't hide is from ourselves. I know what I want."

"So do I." She looked at him daringly. "Know what you want, that is."

"How could you know my desires, Earth girl?" At her cold stare, he groused, "Oh, please. It's not like you're a real queen."

"You want her." She chuckled as the rage enflamed his eyes lividly. "I'm not saying you want her for your true love."

His snicker was more of a snarl. "That's a fact."

"Nor do you hate your queen."

"Don't I?" His panting became labored as he struggled to rein in the bloodlust. How could she not notice?

"If her flesh calls to your hunger, can we really call it desire? She's just a cookie waiting in the jar. You only want to scratch an itch."

"That's what I want, is it?" The girl was shrewd but arrogant, and he hated her even more.

"No. One morsel can't feed the monster in you. Suvani's not enough. What you want is power. Same as me."

"And you have power?"

"Can't you see how they look at me?" As glass doors slid left and right, Ivanu led her retinue to the curb, where a long, dark car waited, not unlike the war machines that came through the portal, except longer and lower to the ground, a chug-chugging thrumming its strange glassy surface. In the smoky windshield, Cheruk spied Emory's tall, slim silhouette. Ulgof dashed to the side, opened the door, then bowed to Ivanu and Cheruk. "It's not unlike how they look at you. Fear and cruelty are just two shades of aggression." At his ugly glare, she favored him with a soothing smile. "When they respect you again, they'll fear you as well."

A cavalcade of armored tanks, hulking even huger than those that had punched through to Alsantia, rolled down the the parking lot, lining up behind the long sedan.

"Get in." Ivanu's command was imperious, and her smile frosty, but the inside of this long sedan was far from uninviting, having a low table laden with fried snacks and the smell of booze.

"Don't mind if I do," snarled Cheruk, then bowed his head to enter the sedan. While he presented an aloof demeanor, his heart was pounding, and his whiskers quivered. It was one thing to watch bristling tanks roll in to Alsantia, and it was another to ride in the convoy, even if this long motorcar was stocked with am icebox, a concealed music machine, silk throws, and pillows. In the windshield and rear window, the gun-mounted vehicles grumbled and growled, and Cheruk slid down,

the plush seat so yielding as to envelop him, his goosepimpled fur shuddering in its downy caress.

To his feral instincts, the weakest link to this chain of tanks was Ivanu herself, although he had never seen a frostier, calmer expression.

As he glared, Ivanu submerged her rapt interest in a tiny glowing screen, thumbing it, flicking it, or tapping it with pinched finger and thumb. As the long moments stewed in the long sedan, she continued to disregard Cheruk, until it felt like looking in a soundproof window, so impervious was her narcissism and egotism. When she looked up at last, Ivanu flashed a frosty smile topped with cruel amusement flicking from her eyes. "Take in the sights, Cheruk. I'm only updating my status. Celebrity is a neverending battle with the rabble, and a queen's work is never done."

Cheruk clenched his fists and wiped the blood his nails drew from his palms into his fur.

While Ivanu had the face and profile, she was as unlike Suvani as possible, and less a person than an abyss. His true queen would never let her mouth go on autopilot. With her mind drowned in this strange device, the doppelganger yammered neither here nor there, her sense and meaning who knows where. To rein in his disgust with this would-be queen of the mall, he glared at his bloody paws, then out the window.

Unlike the depressed merchant quarter where he had arrived, this district was possessed by a festival atmosphere, the streets not only strewn with flags, banners, and signs, but littered with the remnants of many parades, not only streamers, ribbons, downed banners, and tattered signs, but snack bags and more of that strange white snack crushed into the sidewalk, as well as splintered nut shells and pulverized candy.

"So Suvani was victorious?" Wishing to speak as neutrally as possible, Cheruk summoned his bland, human voice and shifted to human form. While he kept his head turned to the window, he observed Ivanu from the corner of his eye. Like most werewolves, Cheruk's peripheral vision was as keen as his forward vision.

"What makes you say that?"" Ivanu tittered.

IN SUVANI WE TRUST, read one sign in bold, black capitals; on a dangling banner, letters streamed top to bottom:

L

O

N

G

L

I

V

E

S

U

V

A

N

I

A flag flying from an awning proclaimed REBELS ARE THE REAL MONSTERS while another was emblazoned with LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR, having grinning bears, wolves, and foxes posed among the letters, the I in neighbor a werewolf pointing his finger at the reader.

When cars in the side lanes came to a stop at a bright red light, Ivanu's motorcade barged against traffic through the crossroads, and the cars ahead veered left and right, some double parking to allow the Queen of the Mall a slow but steady progress.

As they passed through a market square, gigantic screens topping department store marquees flashed from chaotic, jingly advertisements for lotions and boxed foods, barely held together by nonsensical music and illogical aphorisms, to more Suvani propaganda, such as STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY, UNITY THROUGH STRENGTH, a slogan stamped under scenes of cooperation:

a talking wolf flying paw first into a purse-snatcher, then beaming a toothy smile at the screen; a woman smiled across her desk at a werewolf in suit and tie, applying himself for a job or house; and, a firefighting team comprised of heroes of both worlds, risking their skins and hides to plunge into an apartment building inferno.

RECLAIM LIFE. RECLAIM THE FUTURE. This commercial opened on a graveyard at night,

the full moon beaming morosely on tombs and mausoleums where the homeless had clustered near a pitiful fire. As night faded, so did the graveyard, the sunlight shining on clean, bright housing tenements, happy, playing children, and the poor who had thronged the mausoleum, now emerging from perfect apartment buildings with well-fed, smiling faces. The scene changed to a white stone building, manned by people in white suits with beaming, plastered smiles. Cheruk recognized that building immediately, for Suvani had many like it in Alsantia. This was a civic crematorium, an unending funeral fire to make room for the living. When she had become old enough and bold enough to dismiss and execute her advisors, this was the first policy she instated. TRUST YOUR HIGHER POWER. TRUST THE FIRE. While Cheruk believed disposing of burial grounds was a sage policy,

leading to expanded living space and real estate wealth, humans invariably railed against it due to the pathetic feelings which had transformed their instincts to sentiments. How had Suvani brought these humans to her side so quickly?

"I should have listened to your man," Cheruk growled morosely, slouching in the strange, shifting cushions. "It's been months. If not years."

"Hardly," snickered Ivanu. "It hasn't even been two weeks."

When Cheruk's jaw dropped, his guard dropped also, as well as his pretense of looking out the window. As he rounded on her, hissing "Impossible!", his soft, lumpy seat seemed to crawl, and a growl not his own shivered the windows and clinking the ice in Ivanu's bubbly drink.

"All things are possible. Especially when you work smart, not hard." Cooing to Cheruk as if he was an imbecile, Ivanu clucked him under the chin so swiftly that he snapped back just as swiftly, and might have bit off her fingers, had a sinuous, ropy tendril not detached from the shadow, wrapped around his wrist, and dragged it up his back, revealing that the comfortable mounds were not, in fact, pillows and cushions, but luxuriantly furred beasts, the dim overhead light glinting darkly on their hides.

"Impossible," Cheruk sputtered again. "Suvani could hardly conquer a world in two weeks, even with your help."

"Under two weeks," she repeated. "And who says I helped anyone? You make too many assumptions of my character. You see me as this flimsy facsimile of your vile queen."

Cheruk's eyes narrowed. "Vile? Once I might have taken your heart for that."

"And two years ago, I was a high school student, walking the halls with idiots three years older.

People change. Now you hope to tear her heart out." She smiled smugly. "Don't deny it. We're only the funhouse mirrors of our past selves. Soon you'll see that even your queen has changed."

"Fat chance," spat Cheruk, flinging off the eerie, shadowy limb. "So she did this herself? And you're just reaping the benefits of being in the right place at the right time."

Ivanu sighed. "You have a listening problem." She shook her head and waved her hand, as if she could erase the bafflement wrinkling his brow and nose. "It's OK. I hire so much muscle that the muscle between your ears didn't stop me from recruiting you."

"When did you recruit me? I haven't agreed to anything yet."

"You weren't in a state to disagree when I threw you in my trunk." Her eyes glinted as she chuckled. "Yes, that was me. Sorry, not sorry. I likely saved you, as the next car wouldn't have stopped either."

"You also hit me with your chariot!"

She hooted out loud. "Here we call that a car."

"You're missing the point!"

"Are we keeping score? You've missed so many points, I'm batting a no-hitter."

This idiom confused Cheruk, but her condescending tone pinched so hard that he growled anyway.

"Don't mind me," she sighed. "Take in the sights."

"I've had my fill of your world. So you won. You can't say you won without me, not when my discipline was felt in every cub, cur, and idiot man-child that served under Suvani's banner."

"I thought the same thing!" gushed Ivanu. "You're the best bully ever! You bullied them so hard they did exactly what you wanted when you were a world away." She clucked her tongue. "Well, technically, being in the limbo of time dilation, no one knows where you were, having entered the portal then and there, and exited here and now, not that there isn't enough wiggle room in your grunts' puny minds for more than today and tomorrow. Wouldn't you agree?"

Who's the best bully? Cheruk thought, but said nothing, and did not even growl, not wanting to feed into more of his own embarrassment, so he simply shrugged his shoulders, turned to the window,

and puffed out an irate breath that misted the glass, then faded, as he struggled to get comfortable in the purring, shadowy contours of the beast. Before, it seemed as luxurious as the best divans in Suvani's palace, but now that he felt it breathe and pulse, his elbows and hips rattled on its bones.

As she smiled smugly and stared at him almost tenderly, it became obvious she waited for him to see something, and was hoping for an amusing reaction, so he mastered his irritation, crossed his arms, and took a deep breath as he strove to smooth his scowl, composing his most unaffected expression for whatever wonder lurked ahead.

The signs and banners continued wherever they went.

"She has never cared for public opinion," Cheruk groused, "all this advertising is a waste of effort."

"That is how wars are waged on Earth." She sniffed. "Don't get me wrong, we go in for land wars, religious wars, economic wars, civil wars, and cold wars, but conquering hearts sidesteps all that."

"Conquering hearts?" He laughed savagely. "She's up to something. She would never stoop so low, not even to conquer a world."

The motorcade drove down the central lanes of a four-lane avenue, heading for an enormous building. While Suvani's palace was famed far and wide for having the tallest pinnacle anywhere in Alsantia, this gigantic pillar towered three times higher. As he skimmed floor after floor of lighted windows, here and there peppered by gargoyles gripping dark ledges, they came to rest on a gigantic clock face. At first, he thought the dials were missing or fallen, but then saw four tiny clock arms, each slender as a hair, pointing northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast, as slim and spare as the shadows they cast.

"Having been up in arms so long, I gave Suvani a well-deserved rest. So she's not up to anything, not anymore, although she is up. So up that one up doesn't fly. If she put up her arms of her own free will, well, she's played games of one-upmanship her whole life." She snickered. "She's so good at one-upping that now she does it one-handed."

On the eighth up, Cheruk couldn't help himself, looked to the clock by reflex, and lost his composure in a flash of bewilderment. As this thunderclap of astonishment shuddered in his face, Ivanu cackled, and the creeping couch roared so loud that Cheruk sprang up by instinct and pressed his cheek to the window.

It couldn't be. The how and the why were even more incredible than the who. For nearly a minute, he refused to believe it.

The Earth witch had beat him to it. By her passive-aggressive ways, she had risen to the top

before he knew he was hungry for the throne. Despite having her face and form, and a witchy personality, Ivanu did not even have magic. She smelled not of red blood or green woods, but reeked of gray fringes, her connections to magic and nature deadened. She was like every other human, only better at their game of erasure, dissolving self as easily as matter or meaning. By some skill or art, she had quickened her evil impulses, until they quickened in beasts cobbled together from things living and dead.

While he must accept what he saw, he still could not bring himself to believe it. It was beyond belief. Ivanu had grabbed the scruff of every werewolf and talking beast, seized every Alsantian ruffian by the pants, and won them over not by kindness or niceness, but by an unfathomable, diabolical principle. Through science and philosophy, she had overthrown enchantment and usurped Alsantia's crown.

But what was most unbelievable was that she had laid hands on Suvani. Even if she hadn't used her real hands, but the hands of turncoat werewolves, or the claws of her mutants, how had she managed it?

Suvani had stared down a god, stolen the Stranger's thunder, and clutched Alsantia in dragon claws. She had wielded fire, lightning, and death magic, caged griffins and unicorns, and rattled the heart of a sphinx. And this doppelganger, who mimicked Suvani's face but none of her mighty feats, had nonetheless trapped her like a fly in amber, not unlike Cheruk snared in the gray, dilated time of the portal, caught between two moments.

Ivanu's brows knit with bemusement. "Can't you see her? I assumed you would be proof to the illusion like the rest of your werewolves."

The clock's faint hands were not metal hands, but human hands.

Suvani's hands.

For that was Suvani mounted on the clock face. Like a skewed compass, her stretched limbs pointed not to Earth's directions, but to points buried between this world's poles. One limb was grotesquely mangled, as if northeast had been tried, and its terrors had conquered the compass, and denied that direction forever to the world.

Cheruk's nostrils flared. "That's no illusion. I know my queen."

"The illusion is what everyone else sees."

"What do they see?"

"They see a clock face. We are not savages that nail our enemies on clocks."

"I might respect you more if you were," growled Cheruk. "Then there would be a point to this display. If no one sees, it's just pompous vanity."

"Oh, there's a point. She's an important component."

"To a spell?"

Ivanu snickered. "To a sciencey thing, but it amounts to the same thing, as I get what I want, and she gets what she wants."

Cheruk restrained himself for a moment, but as he dearly wanted to know what on Alsantia or Earth Ivanu wanted, his curiosity and incredulity trumped his restraint. "What could Suvani want in this?"

"Perspective. The best view in two worlds. The world dissolved to nothingness at her feet."

"And what's in it for you?"

"In this? This is nothing. Do you know that I destroyed a world? Not just any world, but the prime world, the center of all reality. Earth and Alsantia were only the shadows of Havala." As she brought her right hand to her temple, her eyes froze forward so icily that Cheruk felt crystallized by her frozen vision. "Having sparked the fire that sundered Havala, should I play second fiddle to a would-be goddess who doesn't have the gray matter to question her gifts, who has no sense of wonder at the awesome absurdity of her enchanted reality? No, I will not even take orders from a goddess. And you are wrong when you say she hangs there to no effect. Torture and despair are good effects from where I sit, Cheruk. For there is one who does see." She chuckled as he squirmed. "Not you, or any of your werewolves. It would be quite gracious if I did all this for your benefit, wouldn't it." She barked a mad little laugh. "No, Cheruk. I see her. I can see her whenever I wish. Not only can I show her off to those few who see, but whenever I want, my chauffeur will drive me here to recharge my satisfaction."

Cheruk still knew very little, but as the world of instincts was his comfort zone, this ignorance did not cloud his mind or impair his judgment, a split-second rationality comprised of snap judgments,

folding forward like sliding dominoes from the gray pup's earliest fears to the growing jaws of his consciousness, which had encompassed many ideas, often embodied by the tasty flesh of the idealist.

Even now, he looked for the wedge of opportunity where his fangs might slip in, eyeing cannily the coiled mutant's restless, thrashing tail. Was her monster still tenuously tethered to nature? Did it sense Cheruk's angry hunger? There should be a word for this heated appetite in human speech. It elevated both feelings with a delicious tinge of iron, the taste of blood. But this time, when his hunger and anger fused, he melted. Even as his brow burned with anger, his tongue curled with blood-thirst, and his stomach roiled with hunger, his brow ebbed into a dizzy swim, his tongue felt fuzzy, and his stomach lurched

"I'm no fool, Cheruk. I know you hunger for more than I can give you. And you are not the only one who can take."

His blurry eyes fell on his glass, drained to the watery nubs of ice infused with the golden liquor. As stiffness set in his limbs, his neck, and his eyes, it was all he could do to flick his eyes to her glass, which also contained a boozy slush.

"Of course I had some!" she jeered, her eyes twinkling. "I destroy and conquer worlds, what's a little underage drinking, Cheruk?" She chuckled. "And mine had the antidote. Strawberry flavored."

"You lied!" he hissed between his numbing lips.

"I did not!" she pouted. "Well, I did. Here and there. I won't say when. But my intentions for you were true." She sighed. "You'll just be more tractable after the treatment, that's all." She crawled across the space and laid her cheek on his jaws. While his hunger was dying, and his senses blurred and mushed, the smell of her blood made him dizzy and pushed him onto the verge of unconsciousness. As he strove in vain to summon the strength to bare his fangs and sink them into her throat, his eyes blacked out, his cheek numbing under the caress of Ivanu's cheek, and his hearing and scent tightening with his breaths.

"This close, I can see what's driving you now, Cheruk." Her voice was warm, but cruel, like a werewolf amused by the pleas of their prey. "I have to admit, once you have the power, it's hard to resist the taste." When her tiny teeth pinched his ear, the rage spiraled up, but sputtered out just as fast, only the tiny grey pup in the back of his mind spinning and whining as her teeth bit down and tore. and then even that trace of Cheruk dissolved in the blackness.