8. Doolittle Fights Off Dogs

Chapter eight

Doolittle Fights Off Dogs

" F ucker!"

"Attack. Attack"

"Intruder!"

I heard the words, but K would only hear barking. Either way, it was bad. "Shit, K. We gotta go."

At the same time, K said, "Do I hear dogs?"

"Yes, and they're going to rip us to shreds. Come on." I started scooting back into the shrubs, but it was too late. Two big German Shepherds appeared, growling and snarling.

"Come on, guys. Give us a break." I held my hands up.

"Break? I'll break your skin when I bite," one of them snapped.

I had a bad track record with dogs. Most animals didn't like me. They tended to ignore me. But dogs? Nope. They hated me. Man's best friend, my ass. "Guys, guys. Seriously. We're just hanging out. No harm."

"No harm?" The other one jumped forward, making K jump too. "No harm? You are not supposed to be here."

Both of their heads dropped, and they snarled, spittle dripping from their muzzles. "Go ahead, fucker. Run. Do me a favor. Run. Run." Menacing was an understatement. These bastards were psycho.

"No, no. We're not running. We can talk about this."

"Talking over!" One lunged forward but was immediately dive-bombed by a crazy pigeon.

"Docks?" I looked up and saw not one but three or four. Maybe five pigeons. They were dive-bombing the dogs. A few of them let loose actual bombs. They were laughing and taunting the canines and, more importantly, running them off away from the warehouses and where we were hiding.

"What the hell?" K asked, watching wide-eyed and open-mouthed. "Did? Did you?"

"Did I what?" But before I let him answer that. I huffed. "I didn't do anything. I can't summon animals to me. Don't confuse me with that Asian kid out in California." I shook my head. We'd all heard of the librarian who could summon animals. "Come on while their distracted." I didn't really want to get closer to the building. We weren't even supposed to be there, not that I would let rules stop me. But, since Docks got his friends to help us, I was sure as hell going to take advantage of that. Very few animals ever went out of the way for me. I could count them on one hand. Hell, I could count them on one finger. Yep. One. Also, fuck those dogs.

K followed me and we moved in, crouching low as we ran across the open field as if that would keep anyone from seeing us. But hopefully, with the distraction of the dogs running around like crazed beasts with birds attacking them, maybe we'd be overlooked.

Maybe I was wrong.

"I'm guessing you're from SPAM with that spectacle going on." I looked up to see one of the blonds standing over us, gun in hand. "Unless you're also bulletproof. Get up, hands in the air. And call off the fucking birds."

I grinned like a loon. "Sorry. Out of my control at this point."

"Useless," he muttered, motioning us inside toward the nearest door, shoving my shoulder a little. The inside was as nondescript as the outside. Big open area. A small office boxed in on one side. Everything was painted in drab gray and beige. We were bathed in a depressing atmosphere, since the few windows were high up near the ceiling and didn't let much light in. "Here." He shoved me over toward a pole near the center of the building. "Sit."

I sat without argument, but K didn't. He glared at the guy and crossed his arms over his chest. The guy huffed and shoved K toward the pole, making me growl. I did not like the idea of anyone touching my K. My K? Well, I was responsible for him out here.

"Fine," K finally muttered as he sank down beside me.

The other two blond guys came out and tied our hands behind the pole. This close, they had even more of a resemblance. They had to be brothers or very close cousins. When they were done, they stood together in a circle. "What are we going to do with these two?" one of them asked.

"Kill them," another answered.

One complained, "That's not a part of the plan." I didn't know which was which, but I was rooting for that one.

"They are SPAM. We can't kill them. The whole fucking agency will be on us. And who knows what power the little one has."

"Maybe we get him on our side." The one who spoke looked over his shoulder at us. "He could do our bidding."

"He fits the profile. Sort of. Maybe a bit older, but he still works. The other one, though? I don't know."

"He called the seagulls." Stupid fucker. They were not seagulls. And I didn't call them. But whatever.

"I don't know. Let's think about it." That one turned and stared at us. His eyes were hazel or green, hard to tell with this shit lighting, but otherwise, he looked more albino than just a blond guy. That hair was nearly translucent. His eyes flashed with a yellow light, then one of Dock's chickens came forward from where he'd been, unseen in the dark corner. "Sweep. And call out if these two move." It had been the asshole with the gun. But the chicken boy did exactly what the blond told him to. He grabbed a broom from near the office and started sweeping and every few seconds, he glanced over at us with a blank face. The blond brothers walked out of the building through the door we came in, leaving us guarded by an obviously hypnotized victim.

"K. K…if they come back and get you. Do not look in their eyes or listen to what they say."

"What? Why? What are you not saying?"

"He has a power. I don't know if it's one or all three, but these people are hypnotized. So just don't."

"Uh…oh. Okay. Let's focus on how to get out of here, though."

"I'm working on that. But we need to figure out their plan. Then we can—"

The door slammed open as the three blondies came back in. "Shut it," one of them commanded while the other two untied K. They pulled him into their circle and shook his shoulders, jerking him around. K kept his head down, but one of them grabbed his hair at the back of his head and yanked, forcing him to lift his head. He glared at them, anger in those eyes, but as soon as he did, that flash of yellow light flared eyes—All three of them.

They let K go. One of them chuckled as he walked out, sounding entirely too evil.

Another said, "We should kill the other one. Dump him in the water. By the time they find him, we'll be gone."

"We may need this place again. And we have orders. So no. We'll call it in." They walked out, leaving K standing there in a trance. But they had orders . That meant they answered to someone else. We could figure that clue out later. Right now, I had to break K out of that trance.

"K. Special K. Dude, wake up." He didn't even flinch. "What the fuck? K. Come on. Listen to me. You're a SPAM analyst. You need to snap out of this." He wasn't waking up. He stood there staring off into space as if he couldn't hear me. I felt desperate and a deep sinking feeling in my chest ached. I'd never felt this way. Never had this type of panic. Never feared losing someone, never feared for my life. They didn't teach this in field training. And I could easily admit I'd led a privileged life. I came from money. My grandmother on my mother's side had powers and used them to her best advantage, making us rich. And none of that fucking mattered. All I had was a bullshit power that allowed me to talk to animals. But…

Humans were animals too, and maybe my power could break through to him. I tapped into the ability as if K were a dog or maybe a cat. I liked cats a hell of a lot better. And I pushed. "K. Wake the fuck up now."

At first, nothing happened. So, I pushed harder. "Come on, kitty. Wake up, K. I need you." I kept at it until finally, he shook his head.

He looked at his hands. "Wh-What?"

"K. Snap out of it."

His head jerked to the side. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

"Yeah. I've got a boot knife. Grab it and cut the ropes so we can get the hell out of here." I stuck my leg out and K ran over and found the knife to cut the ropes.

"Oh, Gawd. What do we do now?"

"I've already called for backup. I tapped the emergency call on my phone before gun man brought us in. So we need to hide. Okay?" We couldn't go outside because, by now, the dogs would be under control, and I couldn't rely on Docks and his friend to hit them again. Pigeons were generally unreliable with short attention spans. Docks had already surprised me, but I didn't want to bet our lives on his further assistance.

We scrambled across the open space, hiding behind a few boxes, but our escape was blown when the chicken boy started screaming. "No, no, no. Shut up." I pushed my power out to try and get through to him, but then everything started happening at once.

SPAM busted through the doors. The chicken victims rushed at them. Apparently, there were a few of them sitting around the room. And it sounded like something similar going on outside.

"Wait. Wait," K yelled, jumping up from our would-be hiding spot. "They're hypnotized. They don't know what they're doing. Don't hurt them." His soft heart melted mine, so I got up and joined in on his mission, keeping SPAM from hurting these kidnapped and hypnotized young adults.

It took a few minutes, but the order went out to subdue without harm. And within the hour, we had all of them woken up, using my ability to break the hypnosis.

But the triplets were nowhere to be seen. They escaped. But we saved a little over twenty people, between the ones trying to attack the agents and the ones that had already been loaded in the shipping containers. I couldn't help but wonder how many we didn't save. How many had gone out already. From the data K had shown me, potentially quite a few.

As soon as we turned the car into the motor pool, I took off. This adventure had been too much. Where had all these fucking emotions come from? And doing a good job? Saving people. Despite what it looked like, that wasn't why I'd joined SPAM.

I slid into the bar on the corner and ordered a vodka soda. Double.

The bartender served me with a smirk but, thankfully, didn't say a word. His knowing smile made me think I wasn't the first would-be hero sitting around this joint. He squirted a lime in my drink, then hooked it on the rim before sliding it in front of me. "Thanks. Keep ‘em coming." I rolled my hand, then grabbed the glass with my other, drinking half of it in one go.

"Doolittle? What the hell?" K called out as he made his way to where I sat on a beat-up stool in front of the back-lit bar.

"Drinking? What does it look like? Want one?"

"No…" His sarcastic whine was incredibly annoying. And that was a good thing. Going back to annoying worked better than melting hearts and feelings of all sorts. "Docks has been harassing people going in and out of the HQ building." He sat on the stool beside me, but I ignored him. He grabbed my arm. "I think he's looking for more bread. Or you. Or something. You have to get him to stop."

"No. I don't. I didn't have another deal with him, and he's not my problem."

He flashed his phone at me. "Someone at SPAM says he is."

That made me glance at what he was showing me. Someone with a bronze—top-level—clearance was ordering us to stop the bird. "Whatever. Fucking bronze clearance."

"Ass. Hole." He left.

Good.

"Who was that?" the bartender asked, sliding me another drink.

"It's one of those things." I waved my hand. "SPAM thinks I need a minder, I guess." I finished my first drink, slid it away and grabbed the fresh one, taking a healthy swig. "I guess he's my assistant."

"Assistant?" I knew that whiney voice. Shit.

"K…" I turned to see an angry face with green eyes and floppy hair scowling at me.

"I'm your assistant. After all of that?" He waved his hand frantically around. "Fuck you. We're partners."

"K. You don't have powers. You're an assistant. A sidekick." I probably shouldn't have said that. Analyst was the proper term, but in this situation, even that would probably have been insulting.

"Fuck you." He pointed at me. "Drink up, buddy. But I'll fucking show you who's the assistant and who's the agent." K stormed out. And I knew I was in trouble.

"Responsibilities suck." I tossed some bills on the counter.

"That be true, my man."

I headed out. First stop HQ to find out what the hell was going on with Docks. As I crossed the street, I saw him dive-bombing a guy in a suit coming out of the building. He threw his hands over his head and jogged back into the building without dropping his old-fashioned briefcase. I was impressed.

"Docks!" I called as I approached. "What's going on, bird-face?"

"Fuck you, agent man. Where's my bread?"

"I don't owe you more bread. We didn't make a deal."

"I helped. I got my buds to help. You wouldn't have done your agent shit without me. I deserve bread. Deal or not, fucker. Pay up."

"Or what?"

"I'll make your life hell. You saw what we did with the dogs. Multiply that times a whole city full of disgruntled pigeons. You and your agent friends won't be able to go outside in this city without a headfull of shit. Agent Shits."

"You threatening me?"

"Yeah."

"Well. Okay then. Didn't know you had that in you, Docks. I'm impressed. Come on. Let's go get you some bread." There was a Publix about a block over. "Don't poop on me along the way, and I'll make it whatever you want. What's your favorite?"

"Italian. Big loaf, man. I'm from Chicago."

I walked toward the store. "Chicago? How'd you get here?"

"Flew. Asshole. How the hell do you think I got here?"

"Yeah, but that's a long way. Did you come straight here, or was it like you ended up here? What's the story?"

"It was fucking cold in Chicago, so I kept moving south until I found a place I liked."

"Cool. I should do that. Here we are. One loaf of Italian coming up."

"Hurry up. All that shitting and flying made me hungry."

I chuckled, beginning to like Docks a lot. I kind of hoped he'd stick around.

There weren't a lot of animals I liked. I'd never been an animal person, so ending up with this stupid power was a particularly horrible punishment. I'd managed to get through most of my life being ordinary and being happy with that. When my parents finally admitted I didn't inherit anything special, the expectations dropped. Floated away. Left me free to do whatever the hell I wanted. And that was not animals. It was archeology. Years and years of study, but I loved it. I didn't need anyone else. Simply digging into all that ancient history and I was satisfied.

But the stars had other plans for me. Now I had the ability to talk to animals, and ninety-nine percent of the time, it was a stupid, worthless power. It did give me a chance at another career, but I didn't give a fuck about being a SPAM agent. It was something I was forced to do, and it became somewhere to hide.

Until today.

I'd done something to make a difference to those poor hypno-kidnapped people. And if I hadn't had that power, K would have been one of them. I didn't like how that sounded. Not on my watch. Nope.

I entered my apartment and set my bottle of vodka on the table with a sigh. I might have done something good, but I was still alone. Until I heard the scratching at the window and the accompanying howl. The cat was back.

With a huff, I opened the window. "Took you long enough, peon," he snarled as he rubbed against the top of the window then jumped on the floor.

"I feed you, you disrespectful beast."

"Exactly." He rubbed against my leg, leaving his hair all over my pants.

"Monster."

"Stupid human." As if that was the worst insult a cat could give someone. It probably was, though. "Feed me. Now, peon."

"Fine," I huffed again but grabbed a can from the cabinet and popped the top off. The cat was annoying, but at least he wasn't a dog. "I had a very weird day today."

"I don't care. Feed me."

I sighed and dumped the food into the bowl I'd bought for him. "Here."

"Yes. Food." He started eating, totally ignoring me. I kind of liked that about him. At least he knew what he wanted and went after it.