Lupine unit #6

By Strega

Leo was walking down the street toward his apartment, shopping bags in hand when it happened. First a dark car whizzed by, moving so fast it barely seemed under control.  That impression was reinforced when it clipped a curb, sliding into a weedy vacant lot and miraculously neither rolling nor bursting into flames.  A figure burst out of the car and disappeared into the shadows of the nearby trees.

Not five seconds later a police cruiser arrived at almost the same speed but much better driven. It screeched to a stop next to the abandoned vehicle and two cops got out, scanning the area. One talked into a handheld radio. Out of curiosity and a sudden desire to appear neither furtive nor threatening Leo stopped and watched. That meant he was there when their backup arrived in the form of a black van with Lupine Unit written on the side.

That was a weird thing to write on a van.  He'd heard of K9 units, but lupine? Lupine.  Didn't that mean wolf?

It did.  The rear doors of the van flew open with a crash as the driver stood well back and almost too fast to follow a huge, dark shape came at Leo.  It was long legged and almost gaunt but as Leo went rigid in the grip of a huge clawed hand big enough to wrap halfway around his chest he felt the immense strength that could tear him apart if it so chose.

It was a wolf man, or werewolf.  Easily eight feet tall on two legs, equally comfortable on four with a long tail that flowed behind it as it sprinted at automobile speeds.

And male. It - he - wore a black armless vest with LUPINE UNIT 6 stenciled front and back and a pair of shorts that did little to conceal the lengthy bulge of a wolf's sheath. Leo's eyes went back up to find pale yellow eyes in a black-furred face looking him over with dispassionate interest. It sniffed him, its long muzzle prodding into the join between his shoulder and neck before it drew back.

"Not the zuzzpect," the werewolf rasped through its fangs.  "Carry on, zitizen."

Leo's weight returned fully to the ground as it let go and just that fast it was back on all fours and off like a shot to join the small crowd of cops by the abandoned car.  After a brief discussion the werewolf dropped to all fours a third time and trotted off into the shadows, sniffing as it trailed its quarry.

Leo's heartbeat had just about returned to normal when the van driver wandered over and offered him a smoke. Leo waved away the offer and noticed that his hand was still trembling.  The driver noticed, too.

"Six is pretty scary all right," he said between puffs.  "Just get out of the way and let him take care of business, is my philosophy."

"Six? Does he have a name?"

The driver shrugged.  "Guess so.  Maybe he's human sometimes too.  Werewolf, right? So he must be human sometime.  I just see him show up, snooze in the van, chase down gang bangers or whatnot, 'ccasionally eat someone."

"Eat?"

"Sure.  Six'll take 'em alive and he heals real fast but healing is a lot of work. If he's hurt bad he needs to eat.  One time a guy ran him over, Six gets up, pulls the door off the car and swallows the guy whole."

"You're kidding, right?" Leo glanced after the werewolf, but Six was nowhere in sight.

"Nope.  He's a werewolf.  Tough, flexible.  He gulped the guy down clothes, shoes, cell phone and all.  Not easy to question 'em after that.  Next day Six shows up with some half digested credit cards to ID the perp and just growls 'Anyone azzks how I got these gets to find out the hard way.' And that was that."
"Did he get in trouble?"

"For what?  You shoot at a cop, you get shot.  You run over a werewolf cop, you get digested.  He gets yelled at more for dogs.  Last week a German Shepherd went right for his face. Six just yawned and -"

"Shh!" Somewhere close by was a pop-pop-pop of gunfire and a moment later the werewolf appeared, effortlessly holding a man clear of the ground as he went along on three legs.  Or two legs and a hand, Leo supposed. Pondering which of those things it was became secondary when he noticed Six was limping.

The van driver was suddenly all business and went to tend to his partner.  Leo managed to follow in his wake without the cops seeming to care and saw Six wave off the first aid kid even though there was blood on his fur.

"Iz all right," he growled.  "Already healing, thanks."

And it was.  Leo watched the bullet hole shrink and close.  Maybe the old movies were right and it did take silver to hurt a werewolf. Six washed the wound clean with a remarkably long and powerful tongue and suddenly Leo knew he wanted to see more of the towering wolf.

By now one of the other cops had noticed him and took down a witness statement. That gave him an excuse to ease even closer, close enough for a good looks at Six's dense black fur and the lean, but strong musculature under it.  His lanky arms, extra long for running  on all fours, only looked slender due to their sheer size. Six's biceps were in fact as thick as Leo's thighs and each of his footpaws was bigger than a man's head.

Fully upright the werewolf must be closer to nine than eight feet tall and at least five hundred pounds. The excuse of the witness statement let Leo creep close enough to actually smell Six's animal musk and highly inappropriate thoughts began to run through his head. The fact that he didn't need to look down much at all to ogle the forearm-sized bulge in the werewolf's shorts didn't help.

Suddenly those pale yellow eyes with their round black pupils were on him again. Six sniffed, and long furry ears swiveled around to point at him.

The other cops were thankfully busy except the van driver, who pointedly looked away and whistled casually as Leo held out a business card in a shaking hand.

"I appreciate your service, keeping the public safe," Leo mumbled.  He hoped the other cops weren't listening but if anything they seemed to be going out of their way to be otherwise occupied.  Maybe when you worked with a werewolf you learned to keep your nose in your own business. "I'm proud to provide a service to the police in return."

Claws three inches long grazed his fingers as Six took the card, sliding it into a belt pouch without looking at it. "It is an honor to zerve, zitizen," the wolf growled, and the other cops seemed to be done handcuffing the perp. The whole lot of them disappeared in a roar of engines and a puff of exhaust.

As the van motored away the driver spoke through the little sliding window that led.  "Good catch, Six." If he noticed the werewolf looking at the back of the business card and the number written there, he kept his mouth firmly shut.

That night Leo sat bolt upright in bed at a sharp tap-tap-tap on his window.  He was on the third floor! A shadow moved across the window and he recognized the silhouette of the werewolf's upright ears. Without hesitation he slid the window open and there was Six, clinging to the wall like a spider with his claws dug into the cracks between the brickwork.

"Um, come in?" He backed up as the lanky werewolf came headfirst through the opening.  His cheek ruffs and ears brushed the edges and at first it appeared impossible but his chest was long and narrow like a true wolf's.  He did have broad muscular shoulders but he fit one arm through first and the rest followed after, shaggy black fur bristling out as  a nine foot tall werewolf somehow squeezed through a two foot wide window.

A last great footpaw came to rest, a sweep of tail curled around the werewolf's flanks and the little apartment bedroom suddenly seemed an awful lot smaller than it'd been a moment before.

"Um, don't take this wrong," Leo said as Six's bulk forced him into a gap between the wall and his little computer desk.  "But that was just my phone number, not my address."

"Cop," growled the werewolf.  He wore nothing at all above the waist now and a different set of shorts, size X-who-knew-what-Large held to his narrow waist by a thick belt.  His musk was strong in the small room and Leo found the massive, shaggy creature impossibly attractive.  Six sniffed, alert yellow eyes with their dark rims looking Leo over. He knew.  He could smell Leo's interest. He reached into his pocket with two claws and pulled out the business card.

"Zzo, you are a mazzeuze," he growled.  

"I am," Leo said weakly.  "I work next door during the day, in the parlor."

Six sniffed again.  Without saying anything he made it obvious that with those few sniffs he could identify every person Leo had into his room for weeks, maybe longer, and probably every thing those people had done with Leo.  If the fact that they'd all been men bothered him the man-eating werewolf made no comment.

"Have you ever worked on a werewolf," he growled.

"No, but I'd like to," Leo said. This close to the werewolf, he longed to touch Six's fur.  And, if possible, other things.  "Usually my clients are -"

"Naked," Six growled, and his claws nimbly undid his belt buckle.  A long, long ziiiiip followed as he put a clawtip through the hole in the zipper pull and drew it down.  "Requezt accepted."

He'd looked around for cameras but not said anything.  Leo, who had on occasion filmed things here, had a pretty good idea what would happen if footage of tonight's activities escaped onto the Internet.  All he took away from the night was memories.

Memories, a limp, some scratches, and intimate knowledge of werewolves that he'd never dare share with anyone for fear that it would literally come back to bite him, or maybe even swallow him whole.