Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (23 page)

"Did she say anything else?"

"No," said Maha, and she shook her head from
side to side. "Only that they were dumber than dogs. So it wasn't a
big deal if one saw me, cause it wouldn't be able to tell anyone
about it."

"Oh," said Kutta, and she and Mhumhi
exchanged a look. "A hyena, was it? I think that's what they must
have been. How come we haven't heard of them before?"

Maha had no answer for them; she merely
blinked. In the corner Tareq snuffled.

"I'm hungry," he said.

"Sorry, little one, we have no food tonight,"
said Kutta. "But we'll sleep here with you."

"Why are you sleeping here?" asked Maha. "Why
don't you have food?"

"We'll talk about it in the morning," said
Kutta, and Maha pulled her lips down. "We will, really. Mhumhi and
I just need to sleep now, understand? We're very tired."

Maha seemed displeased, but she nodded, and
crawled over to pull half of the quilt up off the floor to drape
over them. Mhumhi and Kutta ferreted their heads out over the edge,
Mhumhi feeling a bit startled. Maha went over to the wall and
flicked the light switch, blanketing them all in darkness.

"Goodnight," she said, which was a word
Mhumhi wasn't familiar with. They heard her rustling around near
Tareq.

In the dimness Mhumhi got up and felt Kutta
do the same, the blanket sliding away from their backs. They walked
together over to where the hulker puppies lay.

Maha sat up in the darkness when Mhumhi
brushed her cheek with his cold nose.

"We're supposed to stay together, puppy,"
said Mhumhi. "Aren't you a dog? Don't you know the proper way to do
things?"

He was teasing, but she sniffed a little and
put her forelegs around his neck when he lay down. Mhumhi was
suddenly glad for it. Her bare hulker skin radiated heat, and the
cold of the sewer was starting to settle in his bones.

Kutta huddled on his other side, and Mhumhi
felt unusually cozy, almost too warm, especially when Maha pulled
the quilt over top of them. He heard Tareq shifting and whimpering
on her other side for a little while before he finally went quiet
with sleep.

Mhumhi did not know if it was really morning
when they all woke up, as there were no windows in the sewer, but
he did feel a great deal more rested. The pain in his leg had
dulled to an aching soreness, certainly more manageable. Maha's
arms were no longer around him- he could feel her hard back on one
side and Kutta's paws on the other.

He was still debating whether he should wake
Kutta or just let her sleep when Maha sat up, the quilt falling
back as she did so.

"Mhumhi?" she whispered, in the darkness.

Mhumhi gave a little whuff of
acknowledgement. Beside him Kutta coughed.

An answering cough came from Tareq, and he
began to whimper himself into awakeness.

"I'm hungry, Maha…"

"Mhumhi, will you go get us meat today?" Maha
asked, sounding hopeful. Mhumhi swallowed.

"I don't know," he said. "We might not be
able to get to the dispensary."

He was feeling very nervous abut the whole
thing; they might be more or less safe from the police at the
moment, but going to the dispensary was a sure-fire way to get
caught. They'd stick out in the Oldtown dogs like a sore thumb, and
the police would be on alert for them. He turned and licked the
side of Kutta's muzzle.

"Kutta, wake up!"

Kutta coughed again, and when she spoke, her
voice sounded raspy. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter, only we should figure
out what we're going to do," Mhumhi said to her, keeping his voice
soft. "Should we go to get the meat, or…"

Kutta coughed again. It was a dry, hacking
sound.

"I'm not sure, Mhumhi… I'm very tired.
Perhaps we should rest some more."

"Come on, Kutta," said Mhumhi, impatient, and
pulled out from under the quilt to shake himself. Maha got up too
and he heard her fumbling around in the darkness.

"I don't know," said Kutta. She did not try
to get up; Mhumhi only heard her slow breathing. "Meat… I don't
know. They'll see us, surely, or we'll get tracked back here… and
to get out, we'd have to go by those
things
again…"

It was unfortunate timing that it was then
that Maha found the light switch and turned it on. Mhumhi jumped
about a foot into the air. Maha giggled at him, and he gave her a
dark look. He'd landed hard on his injured leg.

"That's true," he said to Kutta, and then
stopped. In the light he could see that she looked absolutely
wretched. Fluid was leaking from her eyes and black gunk had made
trails down her scarred muzzle. Her nose, when he touched it to
his, was bone-dry.

"Kutta, you're sick," he said, feeling
stunned.

"I'm not sick," she said, but the words were
feeble in and of themselves. Maha came running back over the
blanket.

"She's sick? Like Tareq?"

Mhumhi looked over at the other little
hulker, at
his
yellow-rimmed eyes, at the way he shrank back
into his nest against his gaze. "Tareq got her sick!"

"No he didn't, it isn't his fault," said
Kutta, trying to rise, but Mhumhi stood over her to stop her.

"Don't get up," he said. "Unless… are you
thirsty?" He felt at an awful loss. If Kutta was sick, what then?
What was he going to do? What if she died? What if… what if he was
left all alone?

He got the shakes then, briefly, and Kutta
whined and tried to tell him she wasn't sick again. He ignored
her.

"You should drink some water," he said,
latching on to the only suggestion he could think of. "Your nose is
so dry… if you can stand, and get to the sink-"

"I can bring the water to her," said Maha,
and she ran again up to one of the shelves and took a yellow
plastic bowl from it. She padded on two legs over to the sink in
the adjacent bathroom.

"She's bringing you the water, Kutta," said
Mhumhi, just to have something to say, because he was really not
sure how someone could carry water, unless hulkers could
regurgitate it like dogs regurgitated meat. Except if they did
that, how would one lap it up again?

"I'm not sick," said Kutta. Her head was
lolling slightly to one side where it was laying on her paws, her
eyes half-closed. Mhumhi whined and licked at the gunk on her face,
trying to clean her.

Maha returned with the yellow bowl between
her hands and knelt down in front of Kutta. Mhumhi realized it was
full of water. So that was how she could do it.

"Kutta, lift up your head, there's water," he
said, pawing at her shoulder until her eyes opened all the way.

Maha set the bowl down in front of her and
she raised her head just enough to drink, sloppily, getting half
the water on the quilt. Mhumhi found himself exchanging an anxious
look with Maha, of all things, as Kutta lifted her dripping muzzle
away from the bowl and laid it back down on her paws.

"I'll just rest now," she said, sounding
groggy, licking her lips. "That's all I need, some rest."

"All right," said Mhumhi, licking around her
ears. Maha picked up the bowl again and offered some to Mhumhi, who
took a few mouthfuls before backing away. Maha raised it to her
mouth and drank the rest herself, in a queer fashion, tilting it
directly through her lips.

When she had finished and wiped her mouth
with the back of her hand, Mhumhi rose from his sitting position
and said, "Come with me a moment, Maha."

Maha looked surprised, the small hairy parts
over her eyes rising up, but she stood to put the bowl on a shelf
and followed Mhumhi just outside the door.

Outside in the cold concrete corridor, Mhumhi
turned to face her, feeling very nervous, and not a little bit
helpless. He was down to his last threads of hope now; if he could
not keep this strange and fragmented pack together, he'd be
entirely lost.

"I don't think I'll be able to get meat from
our dispensary today," he told Maha. "The police are looking for
us- we don't know why, exactly-"

Was it because of his mother? Or had they
discovered Kebero? Either way, it was all wrong...

"And it's better for us not to be seen in
this district. I think if I can make it to another district's
dispensary, though, I might be able to blend in the crowd and at
least get my meat. We can try to divide it between us."

He felt a bit hopeless as he said it,
thinking of the meager portions it would yield, even if he saved
none of it for himself.

"Kutta and Tareq should get most of it," said
Maha. "They're sick."

Kutta should get
all
of it, thought
Mhumhi, then chastened himself. He needed to start treating Tareq
like he was part of the family.

"The problem is, I only know two ways out of
this place," he told her. "And both of them are bad. If we were
starving I would risk swimming through our old way, but…" His leg
seemed to twinge at the thought. "The other way is surrounded by
those hyena monsters. So I'm asking you- you've explored these
tunnels, haven't you? Is there any other way out?"

"Oh yes," Maha said at once, then paused.
"Oh. Maybe not."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I can get out in lots of places, but
maybe not you. You can't climb ladders, right? Like the rungs going
up to the manhole cover by our room?"

"Oh," said Mhumhi, thinking of the vertical
climb. "I don't think I could do that, no."

"Then there's not many ways. There's lots of
ways I can get out, but… I don't know how you'd do it." She chewed
on her lip, which Mhumhi found weird and distracting. "There might
be one way, but it leads to a scary district. Lots of police."

"That's perfect," said Mhumhi, and when she
gave him a startled look, added, "The police around here know me,
Maha, and have smelled my home, but the police in a big district
like that won't have any idea who I am. And if they feed from the
local dispensary, I'll blend right into the crowd."

He thought he sounded very confident, saying
it, and wished he felt that sure in reality. Maha was paying rapt
attention to his words.

"That's a good idea!" she said. "I didn't
think of that. And the grate isn't very far from here."

"Grate?"

"Yes," she said, scratching her scalp with
her blunt nails. "It's a storm drain. You have to crawl up through
a little pipe, but the drain has a lot of trash and things in it,
so you can climb out of it if you lift the grate."

"Lift the grate?" The sound of that made
Mhumhi nervous, but he pressed on. "All right, then. All you should
do is tell me how to get there, and I can be off." If he was lucky,
it'd still be early enough for him to catch the morning
distribution.

"Tell you how to get there?" She pulled her
lips down. "I can show you, can't I?"

"No, Maha, it's too dangerous-"

"But hardly any dogs go down that way! And
how will you lift the grate without me? I don't think you can get
it up just by pushing on it yourself." She flashed her teeth at him
in a swift grin.

Mhumhi's tail twitched in annoyance. "I can't
risk bringing you with me-"

"I go down that way all the time without
you," she cut in.

Mhumhi breathed a sharp sigh through his
nose, but she had a point.

"Fine. But you'll stay behind me and keep
quiet, understand?"

She bobbed her head up and down, which he
couldn't make head or tail of, but her face looked pleased. He took
it as an affirmative.

"I'll tell Kutta where we're going," he said,
"and you can talk to Tareq, if you want. But we must be quick
now."

She bobbed her head again and ran for the
door, taking his words a little too literally, but she
was
a
puppy. He followed her more sedately and went to nose Kutta.

"Kutta," he said, nosing her ear. She was
asleep. He hated to wake her, but he more hated the thought of her
waking up while they were gone and not knowing where they went.

Her eyelids fluttered open. "Sacha?"

He froze, a jolt going straight through his
heart, and swallowed.

"It's Mhumhi," he said. She tilted her head
to the side a little to look up at him blearily.

"Maha and I are going for a walk," he said.
"We're going to get some meat. We'll be back in a little while. You
understand? Don't you or Tareq leave this room."

She looked at him for a long moment, and he
was afraid she was too delirious to comprehend, but then she said,
"You are talking very rudely to your older sister."

He gave her a swift lick on the ear. "We'll
be back soon."

"Mhumhi?"

He turned to look back at her, for he'd
already been padding to the door. "What is it?"

"She's not really dead, is she?"

He was silent for a long moment, feeling like
he was teetering on the brink of a terrible precipice, a terrible
yawning chasm on each side.

"I keep falling asleep and waking up," said
Kutta, "and sometimes she's dead, and sometimes she's alive. I
don't know which one is real. I can never find her."

"She's…" Mhumhi struggled with his choice of
words. "Right now, she's not here, Kutta. Go back to sleep. You'll
feel better."

"All right," said Kutta, in the peaceable way
of the delirious, and closed her eyes.

Rat
Pups

Mhumhi led Maha out through the concrete
hallway after instructing her to shut the door behind them,
shutting Tareq and Kutta safely inside. Maha had brought with her
something lumpy that she slung over her bony shoulder. When he
questioned her about it, she explained that it was a bag.

"See, it's got all kinds of stuff in it that
I can take with me," she said, reaching inside the lumpy sack and
showing him the candle Kutta had found. He could still see her
teeth marks in the soft wax.

"Why do you need to take anything with you?"
Mhumhi asked, and Maha blinked.