I paused on a street corner to wait for traffic and caught a glisten of glass in the distance. The skyline of the city was dominated by a single capital I-shaped building of glass and steel that rose two hundred floors off the ground. That was the Indigo Towers. It housed the headquarters of Indigo Industries. Atop its steel frame was a stone castle and gardens, the extravagant residence of one of the richest men in the world, William A. Fox. It was rumored he had his hand in everything. Legal, illegal. Nothing was too dirty for him. My office had some lucrative contracts with one of his dozens of firms.
Standing on that dingy street corner among blaring car horns and shouting people, I wondered if it was quiet up there at the top. Maybe he was sitting there right then reading some boring paper and earning a million dollars an hour off his stock ventures. It must have been good to be a king of a small financial kingdom.
And did I mention he was the most eligible bachelor in the world? Men envied him, women adored him, and my best friend was one of the drooling masses who fawned over his pictures. Dakota's hobby was to collect any magazine that had his face on the cover and lock it away in her Drawer of Dreams. Seriously, that's what she called her filing cabinet full of memorabilia, all featuring the handsome Mr. Fox. Catchy name, I had to admit, but someone that available who wasn't married by thirty was definitely hiding something. Maybe he was gay, or maybe he was secretly married and kept his private life a secret. I'd once made that last suggestion to Dakota, and she'd nearly killed me for dashing her dreams.
The traffic subsided and I walked across the street to the next block. The sound of shouting and screams from behind me broke me from my reverie. I turned and yelped as something big and furry sped past me. The behemoth shoved against me and sent me tumbling into a mess of trash cans. Lids clattered in every direction and a box of used clothes fell onto my head. Through the thin cloth I glimpsed the large dog, or whatever it was, race down the street. A few seconds later two men sped by in hot pursuit of the drive-by canine.
My eyes widened when I recognized one of them as Mr. William Fox himself. If it wasn't him then the guy should've been out posing as him, not as some animal control officer. The guy with the Fox look-alike was a man of about thirty-five with black thick-framed glasses and a stylish blue business suit that looked horribly out of place among all the bums and my now-dirty attire. I couldn't ask them who they really were because they were gone as soon as I saw them.
I tossed the box and clothes off my head, and stumbled to my feet. I brushed off what I could of the garbage and looked down the street. Prey and predators were gone. The homeless and others like myself who were trying to get home went back to what they were doing.
I shook my head and proceeded down the street towards my apartment. There was half a block more and I needed to take a right into an alley. Then I'd be home free. My mind, however, went back to the run-in with the over-sized pound puppy and his pursuers. I was sure that was Fox himself. I'd seen him in the flesh.
"Dakota is going to be so jealous of me. . ." I murmured as I pulled out my phone. This was some juicy gossip that I couldn't keep to myself.
I turned right into the alley. Fifty yards straight ahead across a wide block was my street. I even had a slim view of the stoop of my apartment building, but my attention was on my phone. The buttons on my cellphone lit up in the darkness and I pressed in.
If I hadn't been paying so much attention to my phone I would have noticed the two shadows that rushed down the alley towards me. I heard a splash as something hit a puddle and looked up just as I pressed the Call button.
The giant dog from before leapt at me and opened his big mouth. I held up my arm and his sharp jaws clamped down on me. I let out a scream as his fangs broke through my frail flesh and sank deep into my arm. My cellphone flew somewhere into the dark edges of the alley. The dog dragged me to the ground and rung my arm in its teeth, raising the pain from terrible to excruciating.
The second shadow, who I barely recognized as Fox, was ten yards behind the dog and closing. He raised their arm and I heard a soft whoosh of air. The dog released me and jumped to the side. Something flew past it and over me, and bounced across the ground until it slid into a pile of garbage.
The dog turned to Fox, bared its teeth in a hideous growl, and jumped over me. I turned my head and watched it race out of the alley and across the road into the next alley. In a few seconds it disappeared. The only evidence it was ever there were my memories and the horrible bite mark on my arm. It burned like it was on fire. I grabbed the upper part of my arm and wished I could rip it off. Footsteps walked up to me, and I turned my head in the opposite direction.
Fox stood over me. He had dark brown hair and cold blue eyes that looked down on me with an interest I didn't like. The man knelt by my side and lifted my wounded arm. I let out a yelp and tried to pull it from him, but he kept a tight hold on it.
"Are you all right?" Fox asked me.
I grimaced and shook my head. "Does it look like I'm all right?" I growled. That got a smile off him.
I heard footsteps and the spectacled man came from the direction I'd entered the alley.
"I'm sorry, sir, but the beast appears to have gotten away," the man told Fox. "Did you want me to call for air surveillance of the area?"
"There's no need. I believe we've found what we were searching for," Fox replied.
The spectacled man looked down on me and raised an eyebrow. "A new one, sir?"
Fox pulled out a small, white handgun with a fat, round barrel. "She will have to do. And who knows? This may turn out to be more educational for us."
He pressed the barrel against my arm and I felt a needle prick me.
"What are. . .you. . ."
That was all I could get out before the world went black.
CHAPTER 3
The next thing I knew was waking up with a hangover like I'd spent the weekend with Dakota. I sat up in bed and rubbed my head.
"What did I let her talk me-" Then I realized it wasn't my bed. Hell, it wasn't even Dakota's bed.
My eyes widened as they tried to take in the full view of the strange environment around me. I was in a cell that was twenty-feet by fifteen. The rear, side walls, and even the floor were made of single sheets of thick-looking, cold gray metal like steel. The front of the cell was made of a thick glass. I sat on a cot attached to the wall and suspended two feet off the floor. On the opposite wall was a sink and toilet. The only source of light came from beyond the glass.
I stood and caught the wall. My head swirled like I'd drank one dozen too many vodka shots without chasers. I glanced down at my wounded arm and saw that it had a tight, white bandage around the wound. I tried flexing the muscles, but only once. They burned like I'd lit a lighter to my skin.
I shook my head, clutched my arm, and stumbled over to the glass. I placed one palm against the glass and looked beyond the glass at a long, wide hall that ran to my left and right. The light was from overhead florescent lights that stretched down the hall in either direction. The floor was the same metal, and on the opposite side of the hall were more cells like mine. I could see three other cells, but there wasn't movement in any of them. The cell opposite me didn't appear to have anything different in it from mine except a large wooden rectangular box.
I couldn't see a door knob or release latch, even on the cells and walls opposite me. I pounded against the glass. The stuff didn't even quiver.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" I yelled.
I heard a heavy metal door open and shut, and footsteps walked down the hall. Fox came into view and stopped in front of the glass.
"Good evening," he greeted me. "I'm not sure if you know who I am. My name is William Fox." He gestured to my cell. "I brought you here after your little mishap in the alley."
I glared at him. "What the hell am I doing here? Let me out!" I demanded.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," he refused.
"Why not?" I growled.
"You see, you've become what's commonly called a supernatural creature, or, more precisely, a werewolf," he explained.
I leaned back and looked him over. He didn't look particularly insane, but his calm, even voice gave me the shivers.
"Listen, I don't know what you're thinking, but it's wrong," I insisted. "My name's Gwenneth-"
"Gwenneth Rogers, age twenty-eight. You live at 112 North Second Avenue. Would you like me to recite your social security number?" he asked me.
"No, what I want you to do is get me the hell out of here!" I insisted.
He shook his head. "Like I said before, I can't do that. You're now a danger to the-"
I slammed my fist into the glass. That vibrated it. "I'm not a werewolf, now let me out or the police are going to come and-"
"The police did come," he revealed.
"And?" I questioned him.
"They asked me about my being seen with a large dog. I merely told them I was doing the city a favor by ridding it of a dangerous dog, and they left. A small donation to the officer's fund with patch up the rest," he told me.
My fist opened and my hand slid down the glass. There went my last hope of outside help. Now I had to convince the psycho in front of me to let me out.
"I can see I haven't convinced you of your new changes," he mused.
"The only thing you've convinced me is you're nuts," I quipped.