Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (29 page)

She had begged Mhumhi to take Tareq, too, for
fear she would bite him again, but Mhumhi had not thought that
there would be any trouble there. Tareq was staying as far away
from her as he could now, pressing himself against the wall
opposite where she was lying and keeping himself deeply buried in
his nest of blankets.

"Look!" said Maha, bringing him back to the
present. They were standing on the concrete platform next to the
water rushing through the grate. Maha had put her hand up in a
gesture Mhumhi was beginning to recognize as pointing, indicating a
round circle on the ceiling. Affixed next to it was a gray plastic
box.

"Is that a manhole?"

"Yes," said Maha. She went over to the wall
and started climbing- there were metal rungs like there had been
underneath the manhole in their room. Mhumhi watched her go up,
nimble as a gray fox. His tail waved slowly.

"Are you saying
I'll
be able to get to
that manhole? I don't think I can climb like that."

"You won't need to!" said Maha. She had
gotten up the wall and was now moving, hesitantly, entirely upside
down on the ceiling. Mhumhi licked his lips and couldn't stop
himself from running back and forth underneath her, craning his
neck back.

"You be careful, Maha!"

"I'm fine!" Maha replied, though there was a
nervous quaver in her voice. She wrapped one elbow around a rung
and reached out, fingertips trembling, for the plastic box. Mhumhi
couldn't stop a nervous whimper bubbling up after she missed her
first attempt and grabbed the rung again.

"Don't do that," Maha said. "You're making it
worse."

Mhumhi tried to keep quiet, though he was
still pacing in circles underneath her, staring up. She reached out
again, and this time her fingers connected with the little clasp on
the front of the box.

"Look out, Mhumhi!" she said, which was all
the warning he got before the box fell open and a ladder clattered
down loudly as it unfolded.

It was lucky he hadn't been standing more to
the right, Mhumhi thought, tucking his tail, for the ladder had
banged down on the floor there and partially folded back up from
the force of it.

Maha now made her painstaking way back down,
rung by rung, looking very relieved to be back on the ground
again.

"There you go, Mhumhi," she said, wiping her
dirty hands on her wrappings. "You can get up that ladder,
right?"

Mhumhi went over and gave the thing a
hesitant sniff. It was true that it was at much more of an angle
than the metal rungs, but he did not like those huge gaps between
the steps.

"I'll go open the manhole," said Maha, and
she pushed in front of him to tug the ladder down the rest of the
way, straightening it with a loud clang. He eyed the ease with
which she scaled it rather enviously.

"Come on," she called, as she activated the
hissing, rattling mechanism that moved the manhole. "Come- oh!"

"What, what is it?" Mhumhi asked, practically
running circles around the ladder's base. She had stiffened
suddenly.

"I think something saw me," she said. "It ran
away…"

"Come down, Maha," Mhumhi urged, and she came
quickly back down the ladder to go put her hands on his neck for
reassurance.

"Will we have to go hide now?" she asked,
fearfully. "What if it tells the police?"

"Don't worry about it," said Mhumhi, who was
already thinking rapidly. "I have an idea. But you run back to the
den right now, understand?"

"But… you don't want me to wait for you? What
about the manhole?"

"Leave it open," said Mhumhi. "Dogs can get
in here anyway by swimming; it makes no difference. You run back
now and stay with Kutta and shut the door. You'll be safe."

"But…" Her eyes were wide. "What if that
hyena hulker comes back?"

"Then don't open the door unless it's my
voice," said Mhumhi, licking her hand, and then pulled out of her
grip. "I've got to be quick now, and so do you. Hurry back!"

Maha went, her flat feet slapping loudly on
the concrete, pausing only to give him a frightened glance over her
shoulder. Mhumhi tried not to look at her, for his instinct had
been to tense and want to chase her.

He was sorry to have to make her go back
alone, but they had never seen another dog in that part of the
sewer, and if the hyena hulker came back, well…

He forcibly put the image out of his mind. He
had no time to envision horrors. He needed to chase down whoever
had seen Maha, first of all.

He took the ladder at a run, which might not
have been the best plan, for it rattled and shuddered unnervingly
under his feet. At least his paws did not slip, and he was able to
leap straight out of the manhole and onto thankfully solid
concrete.

He put his nose to the ground at once. There
was little scent in the area, and few pawprints had disturbed the
layer of crumbling plaster dust. But there was a single, distinct
splash of urine against a wall a few meters away. It smelled like
fear. Mhumhi ran to it and inhaled deeply. It had been from a
medium-sized animal, a male, and he had left a wet pawprint behind
in his flight.

He was still sniffing with the intent to
track it, but he needn't have bothered. The very same individual
came back around the corner while Mhumhi's head was still down and
froze at the sight of him.

It was a culpeo, a large fox, but nothing
compared to Mhumhi's size. Mhumhi straightened and raised his chin
very high.

"Fox, come here!"

The culpeo stared at him a moment, curling
his luxuriant tail underneath his legs, and then slunk over to
him.

"Yes, police?" he said, keeping his eyes
down. Mhumhi was relieved; he'd been counting on the
assumption.

"Did you see a hulker here just now, near the
sewer?"

The culpeo squirmed a moment, the muscles
around his lips tensing, perhaps trying to gauge the answer that
would please Mhumhi the most.

"I think so- I think I saw one peeking out of
the manhole on the bridge-"

"You think, or you
know
?" said Mhumhi,
and the culpeo cringed.

"I- I think I know! I think it was a
flat-headed hulker! It looked right at me!"

"Right," said Mhumhi. "Very good. You've
helped me. Stand up straight, it's all right."

The culpeo backed a few steps away from him
and looked up. "I've helped you?"

"Yes," said Mhumhi. "If you do one other
thing, I'll be sure you get a mouthful of warm hulker meat in the
next few days."

Now the culpeo's eyes were starting to look
very bright and sharp.

"Other thing, what thing?"

"Don't mention it to anybody," said Mhumhi.
"It's my prey; I don't want any other police taking a snap at it.
You understand?"

"I understand," the culpeo said promptly. "I
won't say a word!"

"Good," said Mhumhi. "Then get out of here at
once. I'll be patrolling the area and I don't want you
underfoot."

"I understand," the culpeo said again,
backing away rapidly, then paused. "Don't you want my- my name? So
you can give me the-"

"I'll find you again when I
need
to,"
said Mhumhi, letting his canines show slightly at the end, and the
culpeo spun around and dashed down an alleyway at top speed.

Mhumhi allowed him a moment to gain some
distance, then gave a little bound and a play-bow, tongue hanging
out with laughter.
That
had been more fun than he'd thought.
Maybe he should try to be intimidating more often!

He did not let himself get distracted for too
long, though; he shook himself and trotted up the street, in the
opposite direction towards Wide Street. It was a roundabout way to
get to the school, but there was a certain area- a certain light
post- that he wanted to avoid.

He made good time. The streets near Wide
Street were emptied out for the morning dispensary run, but he
could smell the aftermirage of hundreds of strange dogs, large and
generally frustrated. They must have been the new squatters. He
didn't see a hair of a fox anywhere; Sacha must have been right
about how the balance of power would shift. He thought back to
Lisica and wondered if she and the other foxes planned to act soon.
Would they turn their anger against the police, or the domestics-
or had they realized about the existence of the hyenas?

He was almost glad that he'd been confined to
the sewers the past two days; if there was going to be fighting in
the streets, he did not want any part of it.

He skirted round the part of Wide Street that
aligned with the dispensary. There was a trickle of dogs leaving
it, and a trickle of dogs arriving, but none gave Mhumhi more than
a glance. As far as these strangers were concerned, he was a member
of the police, and not someone to tangle with. Mhumhi had never
felt so glad for his dappled coat before.

He was half-entertaining the idea of going
straight up to the dispensary and getting his meat by the time he
reached the school. He ducked through the gap in the fence around
the playground, feeling the wood chips under his paws. What could
the police do to him, really, if he said he was part of the crowd,
just someone from another district…? Ah, but that would be so
risky.

He nosed around the roundabout, but the
family of Rüppell's foxes that had once lived underneath had moved,
it seemed. He could see the dark space of the den they'd dug gaping
empty. He got up on his hind legs and pushed the roundabout, for
fun, hopping on his hind legs until it spun lazily.

He jumped up on it and sat a moment, tongue
hanging out as he spun, before he remembered he was supposed to be
police and anyone who happened to see him would think his behavior
had been very un-police-like.

He hopped down, wobbling a bit from the
ground staying still, and trotted nose-down over to the side of the
school building. To get in, there had to be a door or hole
somewhere around on the wall. He hoped it wasn't another bit of
hulker trickery, like a smooth doorknob, but that big brute of a
domestic had to get in as well, so there was some hope…

He hopped back over the playground fence,
wincing a bit as he landed on his injured leg, and then hugged the
wall, searching. He found several doors, all of which felt heavy
and metal and did not yield to his pushing.

He was almost starting to get worried when he
turned yet another corner and saw the ladder.

It was leaning up against the wall at a very
steep angle, but up at the top he could just glimpse a window that
looked open. Mhumhi's tail, which had been waving gaily, slowly
went down. He did not like ladders at all- why did they keep coming
into his life?

But there was nothing he could do. He braced
himself and took the ladder at a run, as before. This turned out to
be a terrible mistake- this ladder was not affixed to anything, and
as his paws hit it bounced off the brick and wavered backwards.
Mhumhi hooked his paws over and hung on for dear life, heart
hammering, as the ladder eased back and thumped back against the
wall.

He took it more carefully, though it hurt his
leg a bit, step by step, feeling each wobble with trepidation. It
was a relief when the open window finally came into view, just
ahead of him. He put one paw on the windowsill.

The face of the blue-eyed domestic suddenly
appeared before him, full-sized, and with a growl the dog reared up
and shoved the ladder backwards.

Mhumhi gave a kind of shriek as the ladder
pitched backwards, his paw scraping off the windowsill. More by
instinct than anything else he pushed off the rungs and sailed
through the window and on top of the domestic.

They were both very startled, and Mhumhi
actually had a moment to sit there, on the other dog's thick furry
side, catching his breath. Then the domestic growled and twisted
out from underneath him.

He was quite different from when Mhumhi had
last seen him- no longer was he cringing and whimpering, now he was
giving quite a terrifying display of aggression, barking rapidly,
his teeth gnashing. Mhumhi backed up against the wall, panting, and
had to leap for it when the domestic lunged at him. He landed on a
desk- there were a great number of them in the room- and jumped
again when the domestic slammed his thick body on it, growling and
snapping.

"Wait!" Mhumhi cried, putting his ears back
and his tail down. "Wait! I'm not here to-"

The domestic leapt at him, slamming the desk
so that it shrieked and slid against the linoleum, and Mhumhi fell
off and hit his shoulder hard on the floor.

At once the domestic was on top of him, his
teeth flashing for Mhumhi's throat, and Mhumhi shoved his head away
with his forepaws and rolled and got to his feet, gasping. When the
domestic whirled to lunge at him again he met him with a snap of
his own, catching him by the nose and drawing blood.

The domestic backed up at this assault,
panting, blood gleaming on his nose.

"Now listen to me for a moment," said Mhumhi.
"I'm not here to fight with you or your hulker-"

"What hulker?" snarled the domestic dog,
baring his teeth again. "There is no hulker here!"

"Well, if there was, I wouldn't be here to
bother him," Mhumhi stressed. "I'm not police. Don't you- don't you
remember me? You were in a fight with a golden jackal, and I came
out and helped you…"

The domestic stared at him, his pale eyes
uncomprehending, but at least he had stopped growling. Mhumhi
decided to press on.

"I was with my sisters then- the dhole and
the- and the bush dog- we asked you about our mother-"

"
You
," growled the domestic, putting
his thick ears forward. "You- with the orphan pack."

"Yes, that's right," said Mhumhi, giving his
tail a nervous wave. "So I'm not police- I'm not here to arrest
you, or anything. It's the opposite, actually… I wanted to ask you
something. Well, ask your hulker something."