Lupine Unit #3 By Strega "It's very simple," said the manacled man in the interrogation room. "You pay the ransom and cut me loose, and I'll tell you where they are." "That will not happen," said the police lieutenant with an equal lack of emotion. "We found seven bodies buried at your farm. You're not going anywhere until we have the two you kidnapped back alive and well. We let you go before then, you'll just laugh and watch the clock tick down until they die." Randolph smiled. "They have, oh, I'd say about three hours of air left. Depending on how shallowly they are breathing, you know. I'm sure there's a compromise to be had here. Say, half the ransom, set me loose, I'll call with their location and where I want you to leave the other half. " "I'll take it under advisement," the lieutenant said as he pushed his chair back. "Tick tock," the smiling man said as the lieutenant left the room. A moment later he was with the sergeant running the recording equipment on the back side of the one-way glass. "I hate this," the sergeant said. "I just want to go in and beat it out of him. Those two may still be alive and he knows where but we have to just ask questions and hope he cracks." Another officer entered the viewing room and handed a paper to the lieutenant. For the first time the officer smiled, and when he showed it to the sergeant she smiled too. "Ever work with a lupine unit?" the captain said. The sergeant had only been at the precinct two days. "No," replied the sergeant. "But I'm looking forward to doing just that." The lieutenant nodded and tapped a number into the desk phone. He put it on speaker for the sergeant's benefit. "Three? I know you're on convalescent time, but if you feel well enough there's a perp in need of your special brand of questioning...." Randolph tapped his foot impatiently. It was about all he could do, manacled and tied to the chair. Sooner or later the cops would be back. He perked up as there was a scrape on the far side of the room's other door. Must be his lawyer, long overdue, or the cops come back to negotiate. There was a squeak as someone tried the knob and found it locked, followed by a sound - a whine of frustration? - and the knob turned until there was the sudden snap of metal giving way. Randolph's eyes went wide as the whine turned to a snarl. Something scrabbled at the door and the whole thing shifted in the frame. It was a thick, strong metal door. It lasted about five seconds. The tips of black claws appeared in the narrow gap on one side of the frame and with a tortured shriek of metal the door bent, pulled outward by the grip of the claws and something with massive strength. With a final yank the door was pulled right off its hinges and dropped, and he saw the scarred face of the werewolf that did it. White fur and bandages. It limped into the room, the side of its head, one eye and most of one flank covered with torn, bloodstained linen. One clawed hand fell on the steel door and it absently tossed the thing aside as though it didn't weigh more than he did. He got a glimpse of the thing's ratlike tail, the fur shriveled and burnt and as bandaged as the rest of it. Sheds of a police uniform clung to it, the standard werewolf shorts still mostly intact but the black vest present only in tatters. Enough of the front remained to work out that it once said Lupine Unit 3. "Hurt," it whined, and sniffed the air. Only now did it seem to notice him. "Hungry." it padded closer, its one good eye focusing. The other was covered by a thick gauze pad. "Food?" Its bandaged foreleg didn't work right and it almost fell as it reached for him with the other but even on all fours it was five feet tall at the shoulder and at least three times his mass. The long-clawed hand pulled and the zip ties holding him to the chair snapped like twine. That just left his manacles and it didn't bother with those. It just pulled him close and sniffed. "Food," it growled, and Randolph tried to squirm free as a broad pink tongue moistened its chops. Randolph shrieked as it yawned, its jaws creaking unnaturally wide and then still wider as some joint popped free. He was staring into the purple chute of its gullet when the other door flew open. "Officer Three, what the hell are you doing?!" The werewolf wasn't listening. Its head lurched forward and its huge clawed hand shoved and suddenly he was down its throat to the armpits, wrapped in slick gullet and scraped on back and belly by the hungry werewolf's fangs. Randolph screamed as it swallowed, a great contraction of its throat muscles squeezing him even deeper. With one toss of its jaws it took him to the waist and he felt strong hands grab his legs as the cops tried to yank him back out. The injured werewolf wasn't having any of if. It stumbled as it turned away from the cops, protecting its meal from those who would steal it and trying to snarl through a full throat to warn them away. Randolph felt the gripping hands tear free from his pants and before they could get enough men in to overpower a wounded fellow officer as strong as ten of them the werewolf bolted him down. Once, twice, three times it tossed its muzzle and he felt fingers brush his shoes as Three got its jaws closed and swallowed. Helpless and manacled, though he would have been just as powerless to defend himself with his hands free, Randolph slid down the werewolf's throat. Muscle creaked and ribs popped as he squeezed past into the horribly sloshing pocket of its stomach. The stink of bile burning his nostrils told him where he was and what was about to happen to him but just as all hope seemed lost the wolf went rigid, shuddered, and collapsed. Its great heart still beat but slower, and if it was conscious at all it was capable of only the smallest movements. Through the thinly stretched pelt of the were wolf's swollen belly he heard more shouting, not that it mattered. Even unconscious or incapacitated its belly began to gurgle, and though he couldn't see it he felt the hot droplets of acid trickle down the sides toward the growing pool at the bottom. He could practically feel his skin soften as the acid soaked through his clothing. Just before things became truly unbearable, though, something changed. The sauna-like heat and wetness of the belly dropped a notch, then again until it was almost comfortable, if you ignored the tingle of acid slowly starting to dissolve him. It worked much less rapidly without the heat and no new acid seemed to form. What in the world was going on? Was that light? It was. A glimmer of light appeared in the darkness of the werewolf's stomach as some sort of narrow tube forced its way through the same sphincter that admitted him. There was an LED lamp on the end of what must be an endoscope and he could now see the pink, wrinkled walls of the stomach that was trying to digest him. Glistening wetness surrounded him, thin-stretched but too strong to break out of without help. The natural strength of the werewolf's body kept him squeezed into a feral ball. To his joy he discovered the endoscope brought air with it and he sucked in his first breath of good air in a minute. There must be an oxygen line and as fast as the werewolf burped it up more air arrived. He could also see a tiny camera eye and, if turned out, the thing had a microphone and speaker. "... Hear me," said the lieutenant's voice. "For God's sake, say something if you are alive in there." "What the fuck," Randolph swore. "What the fuck, man. How do you let this happen in your own station house?" "Injured [i]-skkkk-[/i] look, Lupine Units that get badly hurt need food to regenerate, we had someone getting meat for Three but they [i]-skkkt-[/i] her and she went hunting. We have her tranquilized and have ice [i]-skk-[/i] her belly to slow down her digesting you until we can [i]-skkkt-"[/i] "Just cut me out of your pet monster already!" Randolph squirmed, but it was impossible to get any leverage with nothing but mucus-covered stomach wall to press against. There was little profit to struggle anyway. The only reason he wasn't being digested was the ice packs or whatever they were using to cool the werewolf's belly and he wasn't getting out under his own power. "Can't. She's [i]-skkt-[/i] can't take another injury. Could well [i]-skkkkt-"[/i] "Its her or a woman and child, you fuck. Get. Me. Out." They must have turned off the mic at their end but though he couldn't make out the words he could hear a muffled argument through the werewolf's thin-stretched belly. Eventually the lieutenant came back on. "Randolph, Three is awake enough to reason with but she's half feral from her wounds and protecting her [i]-skkt-[/i]. That's you. I think I can talk her into throwing [i]-skkt-[/i] need proof the hostages are alive. I'm not going to kill an officer so it's [i]-skkkt-[/i] or nothing." He stared at the slimy pink wall of the stomach. He'd give up his bargaining chip if he did it, but the alternative was a short trip through a werewolf's digestive tract. Jail or digestion, it was that simple. He should be able to escape a death sentence from cooperating. Hell, the case might get thrown out because of this whole werewolf thing! "Randolph, we have to [i]-skkt-[/i] ice off her pretty soon or she'll get hypo-[i]skkkt-"[/i] "210 freeway, by the golf course, old storm drain under the Wentworth underpass," Randolph said tersely. "Go look." For a worryingly long time there was just the muted thump of the werewolf's pulse and the other wet sounds of the body wrapped around him. He imagined the police cars and ambulances speeding toward the overpass. Even with the werewolf's digestion slowed down he could feel a sliminess to his skin that he was sure meant it was gradually dissolving. Any second now. Any second. "[i]-skkt-[/i] got them, we got them, Randolph. No thanks to you, they are still alive." "Right then, get me out of here, you fuck." The next voice that came over the speaker had a growl to it. "Your cooperazion izz much appreciated. Enjoy your ztay in Hotel Three, azzhole." "Wait, what?" The endoscope suddenly sucked out of sight, pulled back through the sphincter, and like an engine suddenly bursting to life the belly wrapped around him began to churn and gurgle. The last glimmer of light from the LED faded and he could feel the acid once against trickling down the walls in fat, greasy drops. Seemingly in seconds the sweltering heat rose once again, and the walls squeezed in, forcing the acid into every crevice of his curled-up body even as the air left in a rush. "We had a deal!" were his last words, and the last thing he heard was the long belch as the werewolf vented the sips of air that had kept him alive for so long. After that there was just the hot dark and the gurgle as the beast's gut went to work with unnatural speed. The lieutenant had seen it before, but it always filled him with awe. A weird rumble rose from Three's distended gut as her battered body sought out resources with which to heal itself, and her flesh and fur began to regenerate right before his eyes. She lay still, conserving her strength as she healed. Over the course of just a few minutes her visible wounds knitted closed. The badly burned foreleg that barely supported her weight grew once more strong and sleek-furred. A werewolf's regenerative powers were always amazing and never more so than when a badly hurt one had a good source of protein and minerals to draw on. By the time she pulled the gauze pad off her newly healed eye the bulge made by two hundred pounds of serial killer and kidnapper was almost gone, consumed by the furnace of her body as it rebuilt and renewed her bruised and battered frame. This was not how a werewolf operated on a day to day basis. Like the other Lupine Units Three ate and pooped and did natural things no more rapidly than any any other creature. They ate a lot but it took that many calories to power their huge bodies and it was consumed and processed at a normal rate. Only when hurt did their metabolism go into overdrive and any food in their bellies when that happened was absorbed at incredible speed. They could run out of regenerative resources and Three had nearly died when the burning building she'd pulled a family out of came down on her head. She had eaten every scrap of food the station house could scrape up just to survive and even now Officer Valdez pushed a shopping cart full of hams in the door, only now back from his mission of mercy to the supermarket and unaware that Three had another source of food. "Iz all right," she growled as she saw him. "Thank you, Mario, but thiz izz enough food for now." Her restored tail flicked and the lieutenant finally let his true emotions show as he hugged her great head to his chest. "I'm sorry," he said, blinking back tears. "I should have let you rest, called someone else." "Izz my job, honey," she growled, but a powerful clawed hand hugged him tight. "Izz all our jobz, and time was zhort." Tough and fast healing as the Lupine Units were they weren't invulnerable and Unit Seven died only a month after going on duty, filled full of so many bullets even a werewolf could not survive. But he'd died stopping a six man team of terrorists shooting up LAX and he'd torn them apart, going down with his fangs buried in the throat of the last one. There was a painting in his honor now at Terminal One of the airport and a lot of the public fear went away when it happened. The werewolves were big, powerful, predatory, and they did eat people, but they are also unflinchingly loyal to their cause. And that cause, for the nine (now eight) Lupine Units, was to protect the public. The other cops found things to do that let them ignore the strictly against the rules fraternization happening right in front of them. It was was never easy maintaining command objectivity when you sent a lover out potentially to die on a daily basis but you couldn't help who you fell in love with and the rules were blurry in a lot of ways when it came to the Lupine Units. There were important things to do, anyway. Two officers were installing a new steel door and hinges from the spares they kept around for just this purpose. Another gathered up the ice packs they used to slow down her hungry belly, for willpower alone would not have stopped her digestive system from going to work when she was so hurt. Others were doing paperwork. Finalize the "By any means necessary" warrant they got to question the perp, let the guy's lawyer know his services were no longer required, cancel the arraignment, fill out the witness forms and the by now standardized (though so far only used three times) "Perp digested during questioning" form. You know. Paperwork.