30 LONDON
The first drop of rain hits my nose with a cold splat, followed immediately by the hundreds of its friends.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.
And that’s a good thing. Anything to help drown noise and smells, though I’m one hundred percent secure in Kitten’s anti-musk-magic.
With a push of my thighs, I launch myself from a thick birch branch, swooping like a swallow before landing on a high pine bough thirty feet above the forest floor. Seeing as my hooves don’t have claws, I’m pretty chuffed at how they still manage to grip so well.
And up here in the canopy, the trees sway, as though they’re nudging me along.
Alright, alright, I’m moving.
But first. I tilt my head, my ears twitching and chest vibrating as I scan the gloom below.
There.
Fixed to the trunk of a massive oak is a black cylinder with a blinking green light. Something tells me it’s not a nest, not even a cuckoo’s.
It has a small camera lens angled towards the forest floor.
Not for long.
Slipping through the upper branches like a shadow, I drop onto the oak, then hang upside down like the battiest bat. But I’m not being batty at all. I know what to do.
Breaking the camera would let the watchers know something's gone pear-shaped. Instead, I reach out and gently swivel the mount. I don’t know if these things have sound, so I blow out a breath, like the wind is shifting it. Slowly, carefully, I click the camera upward by three millimeters.
Perfectamondo.
Now they’ll get a lovely view of the woods, eight feet above the ground.
Burt, who’s been hiding in the underbrush, looks up with his big doggy eyes and I give him a thumbs up.
His wolfy-head does a shake, which is the opposite of a human yes, but probably an agreement in canine terms.
So on to the next one.
I push off the trunk, ascending back into the high canopy, leaping from branch to branch as I head closer to the center of the woods.
Suddenly, the ping-pong-pulses in the air change.
The scent of pine and wet loam is cut by vibrations that are thick, bitter, and entirely human.
Fear.
They shudder through my belly, making me feel awful and sad; awfully sad in fact. I don’t like that at all.
Scurrying along, I drop onto a heavy mossy branch directly above a small clearing. My stomach twists at what I see.
A heavy iron post is driven deep into the mud, and next to it a girl.
I’ve always had a hard time guessing ages, but this poor lass can’t be older than sixty, but most likely around sixteen. She’s shivering violently in a thin silk nightie that is already soaked through by the rain.
Why is she just standing there?
I angle my head to one side. Yikes.
A pair of cuffs clamp her wrists tight behind the post. Not the police kind or the fluffy sex kind, but ones with a big, glowy digital LED display on the band.
The ferns split near the edge of the clearing and I’m not surprised to see Burt there, low on his belly. He looks from the girl, to me, then around the glade. Right, cameras.
There.
One is trained on the sad girl, so I immediately hop over to move it.
That done, I somersault down, landing in the mud next to her.
She lets out a shriek, knees giving out completely as she tries to shrink into the ground.
“Hush, now,” I whisper. She looks like a broken bird. I once found a pigeon with a mangled wing. He liked it best when I spoke low and slow, so I do the same now. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“They’re coming,” she sobs, her teeth chattering so hard I can hear the ivories click. That’s when I notice the numbers changing on the electronic cuffs. I watch them go from 00:07:42.
00:07:41
00:07:40
A countdown.
“When the horn blows, the cuffs undo and I have to run,” she moans. “They’ll catch me.”
“Not on your nelly,” I tell her comfortingly. “Let old London think for a mo’.”
I could shatter the restraints with my mighty faun-hand, but I figure that might send an alert to someone nasty.
Oh, I’ve got it.
I grip the iron post and with a mighty heave, I rip the entire thing straight out of the earth with a wet, sucking pop. The girl, post and I topple over.
I flash her a reassuring grin, then wrap one arm around her waist, hauling her flush against my chest. Then I launch us straight back into the air.
We rocket up into the branches, the girl giving little peeps of excitement. Once we’re forty feet above the ground, I deposit her onto a wide junction of oak boughs. Her, and the iron post that is still cuffed to her wrists.
“Stay hidden up here in the leaves,” I tell her, wiping the rainwater from her forehead. “Nobody ever looks up. I’ll come back for you when the coast is clear. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
My pigeon-friend nods frantically, her tear-streaked face pale. “Thank you… oh gods, thank you.” Pigeons are super at directions, and that gives me an idea.
“Do you know where a girl called Sky is?” I ask, leaning close because the howling rain and wind keeps trying to butt in. “Is she out here too?”
Pigeon’s eyes widen in what looks more like horror than surprise. She points a shaky finger toward the heart of the deep forest.
“She got picked as the special prize,” the girl gasps. “Took her out hours ago then came back laughing. We heard what they said. They…they…”
“They what?” I try a couple of gentle coos to see if that puts her at ease.
“They buried her. She’s in a box, under the mud.”
My heart stops dead in my chest. That is not OK. Not OK at all.
Boxes under the mud are coffins. Kitten’s friend is in a coffin?
“Is she dead?” I ask, feeling sick about what I know the answer is going to be.
“No, not yet. But if no one finds her, she’ll run out of air.”
Somewhere out across the forest, a distant wail sounds, echoing across the valley like the starter siren of the worst race in history.
I pat her on the head then drop down to the ground, flipping once to clear my mind, before landing right in front of Burt’s Burly wolf.
He immediately presses his wet nose against my chest, huffing and chuffing.
“I know!” I tell him. “It’s awful.”
Burt growls, agreeing with me.
“So what do we do?” I look upward. “Pigeon told me to head to the center. Or, if I’m being accurate, she pointed in that direction.” I frown and think for a second. I cannot for the life of me remember if she used her words or her pointing finger.
“Anyway, if they’ve planted her like a potato with eyes, I don’t think there’s any time for her to sprout, right?”
Another growl demonstrates that Burt concurs. His head tilts slowly to the side, then blinks.
The air around him suddenly shimmers and warps, making the fur melt away. An odd choice in this weather.
He glares at me, straining the plaid button-up with his angry shoulders. “London, what the fuck are you talking about? Use normal human words. What did you learn?”
“Oh, couldn’t your wolf-brain understand?” I blink. It’s not insensitive to say that I hope. “I’ll talk slower next time. So what should we do?”
“Do about what, you fuckwit?”
“About Sky being buried alive, of course. Burt, I know you’re the skipper, but is it a good idea to be wasting time talking? Like, her coffin probably doesn't have much air.”
Burt’s face goes a funny white color. “Buried alive?” His eyes track in the direction Pigeon had pointed (or told me). “Gods… the evil motherfuckers.”
“Soooo?” I twist a hoof in the mud, feeling a bit rubbish that I can’t come up with the answer myself. “How do we find her?”
Burt’s expression darkens even further. “There are miles of fucking forest, I don’t have her scent on lock, and if she’s six feet under? FUCK!”
My heart drops to my hooves. Burt never gives up, he plows on like a plow-horse, cutting through the fields to make everything right. But right now?
I echo his sentiment.
“FUCK!”