After much too short a time, I came back out and toweled off. A low growl and a shot of silver eyes kept a couple of jokers away from rat-tailing me on my way to my locker. I dropped down on the bench next to Jimmy and started dressing. "Nice shot."
"Thanks." He smiled at me. "Sorry to rob you of your stolen base, but when you went, Fitz hurried his delivery. Came in a bit higher than I like…"
"Not that you could have noticed from the hit."
His grin broadened. "Yeah, I suppose. I did kinda nail it, didn't I?"
The pure, unadulterated joy in his question brought a big smile to my face. I nodded and tightened my kevlar vest. "I'd bet one side of that ball is squashed flat."
"Maybe. All that counts, though, is that we won. Best the Jags can do now is tie us and we have a playoff to move into the pennant series."
"I'll slot that and run any day." I pulled my turtleneck on. "I'm thinking of heading over to see how Ken is. Want to go with me?"
"I was thinking of doing the same thing, and was going to take Thumper-he said he wanted to go." Jimmy jerked a thumb in the direction of the media office. "I have to go talk to the newsleeches, which will take a little while. Thumper's off changing a bulb in the Scoreboard-he says it's bad bulbs we're getting, or a bad socket needs replacing. He wants things perfect for the Jags."
"All right, I'll round Thumper up and we'll head over there after you get away from the media frenzy." I glanced at my watch, then slid it onto my left wrist. "I need to call Raven anyway. Twenty minutes?"
Jimmy nodded. "Works for me. If I'm not out by then, come in shooting."
"Full-auto." I finished dressing by pulling on a pair of jeans, and then some steel-toed boots, the right one with a slender stiletto sheathed in it. I shrugged my shoulder holster on, then pulled on a leather jacket over that. In my only concession to team spirit I wore the team cap, twisting the brim around so it covered the back of my neck.
I headed out into the network of internal corridors that allowed staff access to every nook and cranny of the Dome and found a public telecom. I briefed Doc on what had happened. He said he'd head out to the hospital immediately and make sure someone was with Ken around the clock. I asked him to exempt Val from that duty and, laughing, he said he would. I said I'd see him at the hospital, hit the Disconnect, and started looking for Thumper.
I asked around among the clean-up crew if they'd seen Thumper, and I was pointed in several different directions. None of those leads panned out, so I headed for the Scoreboard, which is where I should have been going in the first place. After a couple of false starts, I found the passageway to the area behind the Scoreboard and hurried along it. With the game over and the crowds clearing out, the lights had been reduced by half in the corridors and only a third of them still burned on the field. The air conditioning systems that handled the playing area and pretty much everything save the locker rooms had likewise been shut down, giving the Dome a warm closeness that made it easy to remember we were really just standing in a big hole in the ground.
As I came into the area behind the Scoreboard, everything looked normal. The space had been shaped into a little amphitheatre used to store rakes, shovels, a turf roller, and seats waiting to be repaired. The black outline of the rear access hatch to the Scoreboard and the Megatron indicated it was open, but I expected that. In the dimness at the base of the Scoreboard I saw the six short, organ-pipe style mortars that shot fireworks into the sky for a home run. A chair sat next to them, but it had been knocked over onto its side and I saw something half-hidden by the mortars.
In an instant I called upon the Old One to give me his senses. As my nose opened up, I caught a heavy whiff of blood and a hint of Atomic balm. I also smelled a couple different colognes and started to reach for my Viper.
A piece of shadow moved to my right. The truncheon my attacker wielded arced down fast. I tried to move with the blow, but was too slow. It caught me at the base of my skull and would have dropped me cleanly, but the bill on my cap absorbed some of the impact. I crumpled to the left and rolled a bit, ending up on my back, with my throat exposed.
Given the phase of the moon and my being somewhat stunned by the blow, this was not the best position I could have ended up in. The Old One immediately determined that I was in jeopardy and already defeated, since I'd left my belly and throat vulnerable to attack. With fierce disgust echoing through his howl, he exerted himself, filling my limbs with energy.
/will save us, Longtooth.
I had all I could do to prevent him from warping me into a wolfoid monster, which meant my control over my actions wavered. The Old One spun me around and lashed out at my assailant with a foot. We managed to trip her up-the Old One snarled about fighting a woman- but the way she bounced up from the trip told me she had more wire in her than the sprawl power grid and that she had to be slotting KillaKarate 2.3 activesofts, Black Belt edition.
Unfortunately for her, there really aren't that many katas dealing with the fighting style Man-Who-Fights-Like-Wolf. The Old One bounded me up from the ground and drove me at her very quickly. She brought her hands up in defense, but I just lunged forward, my mouth opening for a bite that would crush her windpipe. Not having a muzzle, I knew that wasn't going to work too well, but the Old One didn't care. He jammed my face in at her throat, which meant I got her chin in my left eye, but her jaw did snap shut.
She fell back and managed to flip me over a hip, but I rolled into a crouch that kept me well below the sidekick she snapped at my head with her right foot. The Old One again lunged me forward and we went for her left leg. I got a mouthful of synthleather and hamstring, but, more important, managed to knock her off balance and to the ground. She landed on her belly and the Old One popped me up into a pounce. I landed on her back, with my knees hammering her kidneys and my hands mashing her face against the floor.
A kick to my ribs from her partner picked me up off her and sent me flying. I would have howled, but the kick knocked the wind out of me. I landed hard and rolled, but he came in at me and clipped me with a kick to the head. That twisted me around and dumped me by the mortars.
And into the pool of Thumper's blood. His blood covered me and the Old One went berserk. Here someone I had identified as being in my pack lay dead. My mission had been to protect him and the others, and these attackers had killed one of the pack members. This was not a crime, for the Old One had no sense of criminality, this was just an offense, an aberration. It was something that violated the way of things, and all reality cried out for things to be set to rights again. And set them to rights again the Old One would do.
Though the Old One had often lent me his senses, never had I seen things so clearly through his eyes, as I did now with our attacker closing with us. I saw the man coming in-a simple gillette, nothing special-as a collection of weaknesses and dangers. The flashing feet, the gloved hands, these could hurt us, but they could be avoided. I ducked my head beneath one kick, then, on all fours, leaned away from another. The gillette pulled back, preparing for a new flurry of blows, dancing around to cut me off from his partner, allowing her to recover, and further cutting me off from any avenue of escape.
Had I been a man, thinking like a man, that would have disturbed me. Had I been thinking strictly like a man, I would have pulled my Viper and drilled both of them, but the Old One had called the tune and he was leading, so all I could do was follow.
The Old One proved to be a master of the predator waltz. In his first attacks he directed me as he would have directed a wolf, having me fight as a wolf would. Now he shifted things, using my advantages to account for my shortcomings. While his inventory of my shortcomings would max countless chips, the one thing he does like about me is that I have a weapon he does not: a hand. Moreover, that hand comes equipped with a thumb and can be made into a fist.