"Lone Wolf"
                    copyright 1996 by Dave Van Domelen
            situations and characters TM Daedalus Entertainment
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     Coughing, the bearded man staggered through the mist as he shed the
outer layers of his bulky clothing.  After a few moments of this, he leaned
against the tunnel's wall and took several deep, ragged breaths.
     "Cursed fiends," he spat.  "Only they would be so amoral as to use
nerve agents in a crowded marketplace..." his accusation of the empty air
was cut off by another round of coughing.  He sank to his knees and
surrendered the contents of his stomach to the cavern's floor.  The burning
did seem to be ebbing, only to be replaced by a new kind of intensely
unpleasant sensation.
     There was a reason neither he nor his comrades entered this place, he
thought to himself as the baying of his wolfen soul howled for freedom from
the cage of manflesh it wore.
     He had escaped one horrible death only to leap into the arms of
something far worse.
     And it had been such a good day, too....

               *              *              *              *

     In an organization as vast and powerful as the Lodge, no one man could
hope to personally oversee every project, every asset.  Not even he whose
name is not to be spoken possessed that ability, although the lower ranks
believed him capable of any feat.
     No, sometimes a project will continue for years after it has become
worthless, or one will be started without hope of success because, simply,
no one knew there was a problem.  Specialists concerned with their own
fields, managers concerned with their own jobs, accountants concerned only
that all the numbers added up right...none had the wider view needed to see
when a promising idea must be abandoned.  Or when an idea was no longer
promising.
     That was where he came in.  He was a generalist, trained to see the
big picture.  He'd put this ability to great use in the later days of the
Soviet Union, diverting resources no one would miss and acquiring stock in
privatized industries few others knew would be worth anything.  Now that
the pretense of the Cold War was over, however, he was free to range far
and wide, adjusting Lodge interests wherever he went.
     Of course, most of the time he stayed behind his desk in Hong Kong,
killing projects at the press of a key and ending careers without any
remorse...like a bombadier in the stratosphere, he regularly did his job
without seeing the faces of any of those he destroyed.  Not that this
bothered him...he was doing it for the best interests of the Lodge.
     But sometimes he did leave his office behind.  Oft times the project
in question was important enough to merit more scrutiny than simply reading
reports, or the situation was not readily (or accurately) condensed into
a single page.  Other times, he simply took the excuse to travel for his
enjoyment.
     This was one of those times.  A minor asset in Murmansk, near the top
of the world, it really didn't need his personal attention.  But Murmansk
was the place he called home before he found his true home in the Lodge.
And it was sometimes good to see the old city...and remind himself of why
he was glad to have left it.  Only one thing from his childhood held any
value at all for him, and that thing had just sat down across from him at
the marketplace cafe.
     "Vladimir, you old wolf, you look well!  You must not have aged at all
in the years since we last drank together!" shouted the large, bear-like
man.  Yuri Gregorovich was the kind of man you'd think were descended from
the bears he resembled, unless you knew better.  Vlad knew better...Yuri
was merely human, although he would have done the bear spirit proud.
     "Pah, Yuri...if I haven't aged, where did these grey hairs and this
gut come from?" Vlad asked, patting the soft roll of fat around his middle
that was the result of too many hours at the desk and not enough in the
gym.
     Yuri made a show of peering carefully at Vlad's stomach, as of looking
for something hidden.  Then he sat back and roared, "I've seen larger guts
on stray cats!  You've been watching too much American television, my
friend, it's making you vain!  Next thing you'll tell me is that you've
bought a 'Gutmaster!'"
     Vlad laughed along with his friend, and for the first time in ages
actually relaxed a little.  When he'd wiped the tears out of his eyes, he
noticed the shifting chi patterns in the marketplace...normally he tried
too hard and missed them, but something about a good laugh let him loosen
up enough to just feel the flow.  The vodka certainly helped.
     It would be a good day, he felt.  The marketplace had very good
geomantic qualities, you could feel the luck and prosperity.  He made a
mental note to have the local operation purchase space on the square, it
would be a useful addition to Lodge holdings.
     "So, Yuri, still playing the cops and robbers game?" Vlad joked.  He
knew exactly what Yuri'd been doing, of course, but no need to let his old
friend know how highly placed Vlad actually was.
     "In a way, in a way.  The police cannot cope with the Organization,"
he referred to what westerners called the Russian Mafia, "and sometimes I
think half of the police are mobsters anyway."  He was almost right, Vlad
mused...latest estimates put 36% of all police positions and 48% of high
ranking positions in Russia firmly in Organization hands.  "So I founded a
private security agency with some men I could trust.  We do a good business,
although we need to avoid looking too big to the Organization."
     Vlad nodded.  "Yes, things are bad all around here...I simply left the
country completely to get away from the mob."
     Yuri chuckled.  "You went to Hong Kong to escape organized crime.
That's like coming here to escape snow.  Tell me...wait."  Suddenly, Yuri
was alert, his bulk looking ready to move in an instant.  Vlad looked
around him, cursing himself for not asking his spotters stay back.  If
Yuri had seen one of them....
     No.  Vlad spotted his man, and it was not in the direction Yuri was
looking.
     "Over by the rug weavers," Yuri hissed through his shaggy beard.
     Vlad carefully looked in that direction without turning his head.
Three men in parkas were pretending to shop, but any fool could see they
were not locals, nor tourists, nor shopping.
     "They aren't mobsters, they stand wrong for it," Yuri muttered.
     Vlad knew who they were, but knew Yuri wouldn't understand it.  "Yuri,
I think maybe we should find somewhere else to finish our meal.  Those men
are trouble.  Americans, possibly CIA," he lied.  Americans, probably.  But
from where they came from, the CIA was a footnote in the textbooks.
     "No, I've seen CIA men...these are more like soldiers.  Still, I agree
we should move elsewhere.  I have no contracts to protect this place, and I
know enough not to start a pointless fight at my age.  Twenty years ago,
I might have started an argument with one just so see what they were made
of, but...."
     And you would have lived twenty less years, Vlad thought grimly as he
and Yuri stood.  Vlad pulled his coat up around his face.  They were
probably seeking to purchase the marketplace themselves, in which case he
needed to contact others among the Pledged, but they may also have been
seeking his head.
     Vlad and Yuri had almost made it to the anonymity of the main street
when Vlad's beeper vibrated twice and then stopped.  One of his spotters
must have seen the strangers heading for him.
     "They are following us," Vlad whispered.
     "I know.  We are downwind of them, I can smell the gun oil...and some
other hideous stench to them," Yuri replied.  "I am armed, but it is only
a pistol.  You?"
     Vlad shook his head.  He cursed himself for falling out of the habit
of always carrying his 9mm Tokarev with him.  "They're probably wearing
armor anyway, we'll need to use fists."
     "Fair enough.  NOW!" Yuri shouted as the two whirled as one to face
the trio of coated men.
     Yuri grabbed one in a bearhug before he could get a shot off, and then
smashed the man against a stone lamppost, breaking his skull open under the
soft hood.  Vladimir drove a rock-hard fist into the throat of a second,
smashing his windpipe and sending him into a choking fit.  The third pulled
on his helmet first, which saved his life from Vlad's followup roundhouse
kick.
     The armored man flew back into a wall, but recovered quickly and
brought up his pistol, which had odd growths on it.  Vlad recognized it as
arcanotech, probably some kind of hideous mutagen or poison in the bullets.
This also meant this group was more than a simple group of Buro operatives,
but rather an elite strike team.  Such teams always had at least five
members, so where were the others?
     The answer came as four more armored figures ran out of the square
towards Vlad and Yuri.  Vlad quickly dispatched the nearby striker with a
kick to the face, shattering the weakened armor and stunning the man.
     Yuri roared and ran towards the men, hoping to rattle them into making
a mistake.  They simply broke ranks and tried to get around him.  He caught
one on the arm and slammed him into the ground, but the others kept running.
     Vlad's mind started to set off alarm bells.  Those men were not
running TOWARDS, they were running AWAY.  But he could hear no gunfire or
other commotion from the square that would cause a highly trained team to
flee...nor did they seem to be panicked.
     That could only mean they knew something WOULD be happening in the
square.
     Then the screams started.  Short gasps that cut off quickly.  The
Buro men ran past Vlad and he started to run along with them.  "Yuri! RUN!
GAS!" he shouted, but didn't dare waste time to look back.
     When he heard Yuri's gurgle of pain, he knew he wouldn't be able to
outrun the gas.
     Wait.  What was that?  A faintly glowing doorway in the middle of a
wall...it matched the descriptions he'd heard of entries to the mysterious
Netherworld.  He could reach it in time...but then he'd be in a world
soaked in magic, with all that this implied for his kind.
     Death or dishonor.  In a second the choice would be made for him.  If
he died, it would at least not shame the Lodge.  But if he lived, he might
be able to avenge Yuri.
     As the fringes of the gas started to reach him and cling to this
clothes, Vlad leapt through the portal.

               *              *              *              *

     Pain wracked his body.  While not pureblooded wolf, neither was he
pureblooded human.  Given enough time, his will would be overcome and his
body would revert to a more bestial state.  A state that his ancestors had
striven to rise above, the secret shame of all who called themselves Lodge
members.
     Perhaps he would only become slightly lupine...a little fur, longer
teeth, vestigal claws.  But the fact he could physically function as a man
after such a transformation did not matter, nor did the possibility that
normal plastic surgery could undo most of the changes.
     No, it wasn't the final form, it was the shame of being anything less
than human.  If he couldn't retain the form of man, he would be honor bound
to kill himself to atone for the disgrace.  If he did not do so, the Lodge
would seek him out and force this atonement.
     He staggered along, clinging to his humanity like a life preserver in
a storm-tossed sea.  He could not simply use the portal he'd entered
through...death lingered over the city like a shroud.  He had to keep
moving, find another exit, before the...CHANGE...happened.
     Memories of another time flooded his consciousness.  Of the day when
a transformed turtle from the old imperial days attempted to reach the
present day via the Netherworld.  All the Lodge's agents in that longago
time had been found and killed, and only she was left.  By the time she
arrived, she was more turtle than woman, a horrible sight to behold.  She
gave her warning, then begged for a sword on which to fall.  She was given
one.
     Would Vladimir have the honor to ask for the sword?  He hoped, of
course, that he would have the will to emerge unscathed.  But if he did
not, would he try to cling to a shameful life, half man and half beast?
     Then his silent prayers were answered, as he stepped out of the warm
mist and into a biting cold wind.  He squinted against the bright, low sun
and looked about.
     He was in a graveyard.  The lettering on the headstones was Cyrillic,
and many of the dates of death were the same.
     He was still in Murmansk...or, rather, in the tomb that the city had
become in the wake of the Buro's cowardly assault.
     It took hours, but he finally found Yuri's headstone, one of the few
which had a name on it.  It was weathered and aged.  Vlad was no longer in
the 20th Century, he was on the home ground of the Buro, the Architects of
the Flesh.  To return home would require another trip through the horrors
of the Netherworld, and he knew the Lodge was no more than scattered
survivors in this day.
     He might attempt that trip eventually.  But in the meantime, there was
no shortage of opportunities to avenge Yuri....