A Copper's Instinct: Chapter 10
Title: A Copper's Instinct
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Characters/Pairings: Nicholas/Danny, Nicholas/OC, Doris, Bob, Andes, Saxon, Turners, OC
Rating: PG-15
Chapter 9
Doris had brought in cake. Cake was such a rarity nowadays in the station, so despite the wary circling of each other, people gathered in the break room, and passed around little awkward paper plates with pink flowers.
Andy Cartwright glanced guiltily at Andy Wainwright's black eye, who ignored him and served himself an extra large serving. Tony seemed to be trying to keep the table between himself and Doris, and when Bob finally came in, Saxon was uncharacteristically kept on a lead.
It was good cake, though, and by the time Kinnell arrived, there was only about three-quarters of it left. Fortunately, he didn't seem to be in any mood to care that much, or even notice. There was an uncharacteristic sort of edginess crystallizing on him, this morning, bringing a sharper, slightly less patient edge to the mellow manner he usually carried around with him. In this, it only matched the uneasiness of everyone else around him, but compared to his normal mood, it was odd, jarring even.
He paused in the doorway of the break room, counting them all with his eyes.
"Ey. Doris," said Cartwright, edging towards someone who was A. supplying cake, and B. didn't look like she was setting out to scratch anyone's eyes out. "Where's Butterball and Fishface?"
“Dunno.” Doris paused in the act of handing a plate to Evan, who, lured by the possibility of cake, had stayed past the end of his shift. His brother, who happened to be deadly allergic to all things cake-related and therefore not even happy to be in the same room as so much of it, malingered gloweringly in the doorway behind Kinnell, ready to dodge back to his desk if Nicholas showed up unexpectedly. “Think they're in the Chief's office.”
“Okay,” said Kinnell. He glanced down at his watch with something approaching impatience, then raised his head and his voice.
“Right. I'm afraid I've got something to tell you- all of you, if I could grab your attention for a sec?”
"Yeah?" growled Wainwright, already irritable and now flat-out annoyed at not knowing what the heck was going to be announced from his own department without going through him first. "So what's on the morning announcements, Battersea?"
Kinnell breathed in, uncertainly, then paused for a moment. When he started to speak, it was as if the strings of annoyance and impatience which he'd brought in with him this morning had been peeled painstakingly away, like cobwebs being dusted carefully from a fine-tuned instrument. Now he sounded concerned, measured, and a little reluctant, the soul of reason. It was hard to imagine that he'd seemed a bit off, just a little while earlier.
“I feel bad,” he began, “having to do this to you, especially considering that you've all already been through enough in this area. It's just that I feel you all have a right to know. You've got a right to be informed, 'cause there's nothing worse than rumour and misinformation in a situation like this.”
He sighed.
“Inspector Angel's... about to go on an unspecified leave of absence. I'm afraid I can't say who'll replace him, that's out of my hands. The long and short of it is, there's been some serious questions raised about his... integrity. There's something he's been concealing from all of us, and the bottom line is that his honesty and his ability to do his job- to lead you- are in severe doubt. He'll be coming with me to London, tonight.”
There was a brief, shocked silence.
"Well, no shit," said Andy Cartwright. "Everyone frigging knows about it, yeah?"
"Knows what?" said Tony, immediately. He was summarily ignored.
"Well, we do." Desperately, Andy glanced again at Andy, who was still investigating the layers in his cake. "Least he's not hackin' off people's heads, an' he's got the good sense to keep that nasty shit outta sight, because who the hell wants that fuckin' image in their heads, yeah?
Doris, amazingly, blushed.
Kinnell blinked. His expression, for a few moments, was not so much a single static thing as a succession of small frowns, each more confused than the last. “Y- ev-”
Pause. His face cleared itself, quickly.
“Yes- well, I'm not saying for a minute that he's in the same league as- as the previous administration. He's just made some mistakes- some really bad choices- and unfortunately, he's chosen to put his own priorities above the station's as a whole, and there has to be accountability.”
From the doorway, there was a gentle cough. Angel, unlike the previous administration, did not prefer to lean against surfaces, but stand straight and to attention, square in the center of the frame. Besides his posture- hands behind his back, elbows relaxed and face calmly ironed- filling the door, it was keeping Owen locked inside.
"Go on."
Kinnell turned, smiled, pleasantly and with barely a flicker. Behind him, there was a minor scuffle as Tony, with more perception than he usually employed, tried to edge towards the other door, only to be quietly foiled when Doris- keeping her eyes fixed anxiously on Kinnell and Nicholas- stuck out a hand and grabbed a very firm fistful of the back of his Viper belt.
“Well, actually, sir, I think that's more or less it. I was just bringing everyone up to speed on your decision. Unless you've got anything to add?”
"Just one point."
Nicholas took a step forward into the center of the rough circle, revealing a Danny who was even more suited to filling doorways.
"Tony, I'm sorry for chewing you out over his paperwork, because, as he said, the mix-up was on his side, meaning there never was any, because he's not a detective at all. He's not even police. You see, Alex is a mole."
There was a moment of tenuous silence.
“Moaarl? Eeonnabowt, moaarl?”
“I knew it!" Doris jolted upright, nearly pulling Tony off his feet, arse first. “I knew it an' all! Smarmy KGB bastard!”
Kinnell ignored her. He was still watching Nicholas.
“Don't do this, Nick,” he said, quietly.
"-!!! Doris, leggo, christing ow!"
Saxon whined, shifting his weight uneasily on clattery paws.
There was no way Kinnell could top this bluff, not unless he raised the stakes to explain exactly what he was sent there to dig up, which sounded like the opposite end goal to this Alpha. And if he went there, Nicholas had the appealing option of pretending the man was crazy and a laughingstock, or upping them further to out Alex too. If Alex was so determined to have him... well, Nicholas could take a few chunks out of him in return.
This was his team- his pack- there were more of them than there were of Alex, they thought he was a good leader, or at least one who was better to have around than to have none at all, and amongst them he felt a million times stronger against the omniscient enemy of the unknown than he did cuffed and alone on his living room rug. And thus, with one assured sweeping look through his staff, and one particularly charged one at Danny over Kinnell's shoulder, Nicholas flipped a casual V.
"Alex, jog on. I'm not going to go with you. Go home and tell your folks we've got a lovely little device above our police station entrance called a security camera, and we'll send your picture and your name all over the world in a lovely little thing called an email, that'll warn practically everyone that you're a cheat, a liar, and a second-rate spy. Go and fuck yourself- Thank you Danny- on my white picket fence."
Kinnell flinched, clearly taken aback by Nicholas's 180-degree turn. His eyes flicked to Danny, then sideways, taking in the silent, startled faces of the others around them. Then he dropped his head forward, a gesture so surprisingly submissive on first glance that it took a second to catch on to what he was really doing, to the open grin, to the slight movement of his head and shoulders.
He was laughing.
Laughing, softly, and shaking his head, patently overwhelmed by the utter stupidity of it all. “All right, Nick. If that's the way you want to do it, fine. Got to admit I'm just about out of patience on this one myself, especially after your little foray into attempted physical assault this morning- not to mention that interesting little example of attempted sexual assault last night. Which is a shame, since we were getting along so well- sorry, what was it, again? I'm not like the rest of these fuckers? Sometimes you just want them to keep their mouths shut?”
He shook his head, relaxed, hands in his trouser pockets. “Well, you get your wish on that score, at least. I have a duty to caution everyone present that what you are about to see is classified under section C-17, paragraph 23, of the Supernumerary Public Safety Act, 1973. Full or partial disclosure of anything that takes place from here on out is illegal and is punishable by full individual investigation and dismissal. Sorry about that, have to get the blurb out of the way... now, here's the interesting part.”
Kinnell moved, so fast it was almost beyond following, from lounging inactivity to a blur, his right hand lunging easily from his pocket with something small and black and oblong folded up in his fist, something with a stubby little trigger and a couple of curious-looking prongs at the end, like a short-range pocket taser. One light, rapid step into the centre of the rough circle, his hand moving up underarm, and the little device jabbed into Nicholas's chest, through his shirt, close to his sternum, Kinnell's finger slamming back on the trigger.
Nicholas had already opened his mouth to protest, how he'd been drunk, no matter how pathetic the excuse would sound- but there was already Kinnell's taser pressed into his chest, and there wasn't time to say anything at all except to yell bloody murder.
It buzzed, unpleasantly, like a doorknob you expected to only give you a very painful shock and be done with it, but instead went on and on and on, clinching all the nerves shut and your skin itched like something wanted to crawl out of you and oh fuck the itch it was like-
Fur bloomed up his neck, under his clothes, and it was terrifying because it was all completely involuntary and all Nicholas could do was think That FUCK and knock away Kinnell's device with a hand that was already halfway to a paw and stumble to his knees and feel his ears climbing his head while his forehead flattened and red nose shunted forward- in his clothes, in front of everyone, and-
Doris squeaked, an involuntary scream curtailed sharply by her own hands clapped over her mouth. She'd let go of Tony- thankfully for him, because otherwise some serious damage might have been done to his belt area. Stunned eyes above her fingers, blank-shock eyes matched everywhere around the room, frozen bodies and the exact opposite of sound.
Andy Wainwright's unlit cigarette fell out of his mouth.
Owen, surprisingly, reacted the fastest of all, dropping Ian M. Banks to the floor to grab his twin by the collar and haul him up onto the only table in the breakroom, sinking up to his ankle in frosting. Evan choked, surprised and unable to breathe, and got cake on his knees.
The wolf on the ground took a stumbling step, tripped on the ill-fitting trousers and shoes still on its hind legs, fell forward headlong and crashed its head into one of the heavy metal dustbins.
“I think the best part,” Kinnell told it, “is you're always gonna know you could've avoided this.”
The taserlike device was still in his hand. With an idle sort of flourish, he indicated the wolf with it, with all the ironic showmanship of a carnival barker drawing back the curtain of his stall.
“Gents- and lady, of course... your chief.”
Danny unfroze at last, stumbled forwards.
“Nicholas!”
Nicholas bolted. One quick, awkward movement, ears against his skull, and he dodged past Kinnell, through Danny's legs, leaving nothing behind but his shoes.
Tony, folded under the raining-bits-of-cake table, whimpered, "Is it gone?"
Saxon started to bark and wouldn't stop, trying to get at Kinnell in short, furious rushes, straining at his leash. "Bad dog! Bad dog!"
Bob was nearly dragged out of his seat, but he managed to wrap the leash around his wrist and dug his heels into the carpet, narrowly avoiding running over Andy Cartwright's foot as his wheelie-chair skeeted across the rug. Not that Andy would have noticed if he had done. The transformation the Andes had just witnessed seemed to have accomplished what no other act of God or Man had ever had a chance to. They were speechless.
“Everyone stay calm,” yelled Kinnell, over the racket. He made for the door, took three steps, and met Danny coming the other way. A tiny bit quicker and he might have sidestepped him, but Danny was deceptively fast when he got moving, and he was moving now.
“You cunt,” he said, and punched him in the face.
WHACK.
Kinnell was knocked half a pace back and staggered, then looked up at him in disbelief, blood from his lip smearing over his fingers. He looked less hurt than utterly indignant that the universe could have allowed this to happen, but the stumble told a different story.
“Ow! You stupid a-”
Danny punched him again.
WHACK.
“-rse, tha'fuckin' h-”
WHACK.
Kinnell's head snapped back like a melon on a spring, and he fell to his knees. The taserlike thing went clattering over the carpet. Two pairs of hands grabbed for it, one bloody and much, much quicker-
The horror of the little device clutched in triumphant hands finally clicked for one particular detective.
"Oh shit!" screamed Andy Wainwright, pointing a shaking finger at Kinnell. To him, in the heat of panic, in a small crowded room, it was quite obvious what had happened, and the only one qualified to save them all had just run out the door on all fours. He would later come to regret the following statement for the reenactments sniggeringly executed in the pub. "He's a fuckin' witch!"
As if this highly infeasible statement was some kind of call to arms, or the weirdest battle cry in recorded history, everything went mad.
“Oh my God!” yelped Doris, lost in some parallel dimension of reasoning of her own. “Frisbees!”
“BAD DOG!” barked Saxon, frantic and completely unintelligible to anyone present. He lunged again, yanking his lead clean out of Bob's hands. Kinnell had just grabbed the device and started to scramble upright, inches ahead of the furious Sergeant at his heels, when a barking flurry of maddened police dog slammed into him and buried its teeth in his wrist. He went down again, yelling, and the device went on another little scurry over the floor. Saxon dragged him away from it by the arm, snarling through his teeth, until Kinnell twisted like a snake and and punched Saxon in the snout.
Bob growled, and unfolded himself from his chair, taking Tony's computer keyboard in both lined hands.
In the chaos, Danny had fetched up somewhere around Andy's knees. “C'mon, you twat,” he gasped, before lunging for the device again. “Fuckin' help me!”
"The fuck you want me to do? Play air hockey with that thing?" Andy made a half-hearted snatch, clearly just as scared of the object as he was of Alex.
Kinnell shook Saxon off his arm and got to his feet, or at least tried to. He got halfway before Bob smacked him hard on the back on the head with the keyboard.
"Twat."
"Too fuckin' right!" said Cartwright, who suddenly thought it was okay to breathe again. "Danny, what the fuck!?"
Danny got up far too fast, and had to lean on his own knees, fighting the nausea. “Lissen. Nicholas- Nicholas can turn into a wolf, alright? An' don't tell me it's stupid- you jus' saw it happen. You all saw it. I know what it sounds like, but even when things sound really daft it don't mean they en't true! Look what happened last time!”
He glared at them, all around the rough circle, daring any one of them to reject what they'd just seen happen with their own eyes. He was still, solid undeniable, and a shaking mess of nerves inside, horribly conscious of every passing second.
“An' he's not an it, Tony. He's not an animal- he's Nicholas! He'd never do anythin' that'd hurt any've you, an' you know it. An' his whole life he's been fuckin' terrified of people findin' out, an' now this little bastard's gone an' made him wolf out right in front of all you lot! 'F we don't go after him now, we'll prob'ly never see him again!”
There was a moment where nobody seemed to know how to react. The shock was abruptly snatched away by further, ongoing panic.
"Oh shit," said Evan, catching his collapsing brother, "Oh shit. Tony. Tony where are you? Someone get the med kit, will you?" He kicked the remains of destroyed cake to the ground, where it splattered, messily. "Sorry Doris, he's all... swellin' up really bad."
Owen wheezed, eyes fluttering, face blotching red. Evan, though, was looking at the book his twin had dropped near the door, then back.
Tony scrabbled, banging his head sharply on the underside of the table as he emerged. Later, he would swear blind that he'd never been under it, and that the rising bruise on his forehead had been acquired in some other, measurably more heroic, manner. “M'on it, hangon-”
It took him a bare handful of seconds to grab the medkit off the inside of the kitchen door and pass it back to Evan. Owen continued to wheeze and choke, and everyone else tried to give them space.
“Ey!” said Doris, suddenly, happening to glance down at the cake-and-bits-of-keyboard-covered carpet. Saxon was anxiously hoovering up pieces of cake, in between apologetically licking a slightly dazed-looking Bob's hand, but apart from that, the floor was empty.
“Where's 'e gone?”
*
He couldn't change back. He'd tried, and it was like trying to change back during a full moon. Hurt, and it strained at the receding fur on his paws and he'd finally given up and slunk into the hedge nearest the station dumpster, ears laid flat, and as quietly as caninely possible, ripped apart his uniform.
And it wasn't even important anymore, because, obviously, he couldn't go back. Nicholas had been right all along- They would, and had found him and were hellbent on dragging him in, and second, once one person found out, everyone would. (And Christ that had, by far, been the most painful experience in his life, topping drunk Santas and dying Dannys any day.) He couldn't even run on foot, because Alex's superior tracking skills would find him before sundown. Stupid Danny, for thinking that Nicholas would be fine, be safe, that he even stood a chance of protecting Nicholas, and now his mum was probably at risk too- stupid, stupid Nicholas for even thinking he could protect anybody at all.
He was fairly certain Kinnell wouldn't be able to scent him here, half lying in a puddle oozing from under the dumpster. There were too many interlocking Nicholas scent-trails exploding out from the station in winding loops- surely Kinnell wouldn't be able to make out the real one for quite some time, wouldn't he? He'd expect Nicholas to bolt as fast as he could, which would be the easiest to track, because Nicholas would be one giant pink-green highlighter mark of FEAR blotting across Sandford hills and tilled earth and he'd be pounced before he could make the treeline. But he wouldn't expect him to stay, and certainly wouldn't be prepared for Nick lying in something that was probably best not to think about to mask his scent. He'd wait. And then he'd bolt. And save his mum. And send Danny an apology note.
If he ever got his thumbs back, that was.
*
Not that long after Nicholas's exit, Kinnell nosed his way through the station's double doors. Having slipped out from underfoot while everyone was preoccupied (well, everyone except the dog, but thankfully dog's brains are very linear creations, and the abundance of nearby food and the presence of its master had made this particular specimen temporarily forget his existence) he jogged up the lane which ran easterly from the station, and stopped around the curve to check his bitten arm. It wasn't anything too serious.
Kinnell looked around. His nose flared, and he took a deep breath of mid-morning air. In all directions, the scent of his quarry crossed and recrossed the road, both directions, none particularly strong or tellingly urgent.
He paused for a moment, then grinned to himself, despite his bruised mouth. Loosening his tie, he trotted away up the lane, climbed a fence at the side of the road, and headed away across the fields. Heading for the hills.
Chaper 11
Fandom: Hot Fuzz
Characters/Pairings: Nicholas/Danny, Nicholas/OC, Doris, Bob, Andes, Saxon, Turners, OC
Rating: PG-15
Chapter 9
Doris had brought in cake. Cake was such a rarity nowadays in the station, so despite the wary circling of each other, people gathered in the break room, and passed around little awkward paper plates with pink flowers.
Andy Cartwright glanced guiltily at Andy Wainwright's black eye, who ignored him and served himself an extra large serving. Tony seemed to be trying to keep the table between himself and Doris, and when Bob finally came in, Saxon was uncharacteristically kept on a lead.
It was good cake, though, and by the time Kinnell arrived, there was only about three-quarters of it left. Fortunately, he didn't seem to be in any mood to care that much, or even notice. There was an uncharacteristic sort of edginess crystallizing on him, this morning, bringing a sharper, slightly less patient edge to the mellow manner he usually carried around with him. In this, it only matched the uneasiness of everyone else around him, but compared to his normal mood, it was odd, jarring even.
He paused in the doorway of the break room, counting them all with his eyes.
"Ey. Doris," said Cartwright, edging towards someone who was A. supplying cake, and B. didn't look like she was setting out to scratch anyone's eyes out. "Where's Butterball and Fishface?"
“Dunno.” Doris paused in the act of handing a plate to Evan, who, lured by the possibility of cake, had stayed past the end of his shift. His brother, who happened to be deadly allergic to all things cake-related and therefore not even happy to be in the same room as so much of it, malingered gloweringly in the doorway behind Kinnell, ready to dodge back to his desk if Nicholas showed up unexpectedly. “Think they're in the Chief's office.”
“Okay,” said Kinnell. He glanced down at his watch with something approaching impatience, then raised his head and his voice.
“Right. I'm afraid I've got something to tell you- all of you, if I could grab your attention for a sec?”
"Yeah?" growled Wainwright, already irritable and now flat-out annoyed at not knowing what the heck was going to be announced from his own department without going through him first. "So what's on the morning announcements, Battersea?"
Kinnell breathed in, uncertainly, then paused for a moment. When he started to speak, it was as if the strings of annoyance and impatience which he'd brought in with him this morning had been peeled painstakingly away, like cobwebs being dusted carefully from a fine-tuned instrument. Now he sounded concerned, measured, and a little reluctant, the soul of reason. It was hard to imagine that he'd seemed a bit off, just a little while earlier.
“I feel bad,” he began, “having to do this to you, especially considering that you've all already been through enough in this area. It's just that I feel you all have a right to know. You've got a right to be informed, 'cause there's nothing worse than rumour and misinformation in a situation like this.”
He sighed.
“Inspector Angel's... about to go on an unspecified leave of absence. I'm afraid I can't say who'll replace him, that's out of my hands. The long and short of it is, there's been some serious questions raised about his... integrity. There's something he's been concealing from all of us, and the bottom line is that his honesty and his ability to do his job- to lead you- are in severe doubt. He'll be coming with me to London, tonight.”
There was a brief, shocked silence.
"Well, no shit," said Andy Cartwright. "Everyone frigging knows about it, yeah?"
"Knows what?" said Tony, immediately. He was summarily ignored.
"Well, we do." Desperately, Andy glanced again at Andy, who was still investigating the layers in his cake. "Least he's not hackin' off people's heads, an' he's got the good sense to keep that nasty shit outta sight, because who the hell wants that fuckin' image in their heads, yeah?
Doris, amazingly, blushed.
Kinnell blinked. His expression, for a few moments, was not so much a single static thing as a succession of small frowns, each more confused than the last. “Y- ev-”
Pause. His face cleared itself, quickly.
“Yes- well, I'm not saying for a minute that he's in the same league as- as the previous administration. He's just made some mistakes- some really bad choices- and unfortunately, he's chosen to put his own priorities above the station's as a whole, and there has to be accountability.”
From the doorway, there was a gentle cough. Angel, unlike the previous administration, did not prefer to lean against surfaces, but stand straight and to attention, square in the center of the frame. Besides his posture- hands behind his back, elbows relaxed and face calmly ironed- filling the door, it was keeping Owen locked inside.
"Go on."
Kinnell turned, smiled, pleasantly and with barely a flicker. Behind him, there was a minor scuffle as Tony, with more perception than he usually employed, tried to edge towards the other door, only to be quietly foiled when Doris- keeping her eyes fixed anxiously on Kinnell and Nicholas- stuck out a hand and grabbed a very firm fistful of the back of his Viper belt.
“Well, actually, sir, I think that's more or less it. I was just bringing everyone up to speed on your decision. Unless you've got anything to add?”
"Just one point."
Nicholas took a step forward into the center of the rough circle, revealing a Danny who was even more suited to filling doorways.
"Tony, I'm sorry for chewing you out over his paperwork, because, as he said, the mix-up was on his side, meaning there never was any, because he's not a detective at all. He's not even police. You see, Alex is a mole."
There was a moment of tenuous silence.
“Moaarl? Eeonnabowt, moaarl?”
“I knew it!" Doris jolted upright, nearly pulling Tony off his feet, arse first. “I knew it an' all! Smarmy KGB bastard!”
Kinnell ignored her. He was still watching Nicholas.
“Don't do this, Nick,” he said, quietly.
"-!!! Doris, leggo, christing ow!"
Saxon whined, shifting his weight uneasily on clattery paws.
There was no way Kinnell could top this bluff, not unless he raised the stakes to explain exactly what he was sent there to dig up, which sounded like the opposite end goal to this Alpha. And if he went there, Nicholas had the appealing option of pretending the man was crazy and a laughingstock, or upping them further to out Alex too. If Alex was so determined to have him... well, Nicholas could take a few chunks out of him in return.
This was his team- his pack- there were more of them than there were of Alex, they thought he was a good leader, or at least one who was better to have around than to have none at all, and amongst them he felt a million times stronger against the omniscient enemy of the unknown than he did cuffed and alone on his living room rug. And thus, with one assured sweeping look through his staff, and one particularly charged one at Danny over Kinnell's shoulder, Nicholas flipped a casual V.
"Alex, jog on. I'm not going to go with you. Go home and tell your folks we've got a lovely little device above our police station entrance called a security camera, and we'll send your picture and your name all over the world in a lovely little thing called an email, that'll warn practically everyone that you're a cheat, a liar, and a second-rate spy. Go and fuck yourself- Thank you Danny- on my white picket fence."
Kinnell flinched, clearly taken aback by Nicholas's 180-degree turn. His eyes flicked to Danny, then sideways, taking in the silent, startled faces of the others around them. Then he dropped his head forward, a gesture so surprisingly submissive on first glance that it took a second to catch on to what he was really doing, to the open grin, to the slight movement of his head and shoulders.
He was laughing.
Laughing, softly, and shaking his head, patently overwhelmed by the utter stupidity of it all. “All right, Nick. If that's the way you want to do it, fine. Got to admit I'm just about out of patience on this one myself, especially after your little foray into attempted physical assault this morning- not to mention that interesting little example of attempted sexual assault last night. Which is a shame, since we were getting along so well- sorry, what was it, again? I'm not like the rest of these fuckers? Sometimes you just want them to keep their mouths shut?”
He shook his head, relaxed, hands in his trouser pockets. “Well, you get your wish on that score, at least. I have a duty to caution everyone present that what you are about to see is classified under section C-17, paragraph 23, of the Supernumerary Public Safety Act, 1973. Full or partial disclosure of anything that takes place from here on out is illegal and is punishable by full individual investigation and dismissal. Sorry about that, have to get the blurb out of the way... now, here's the interesting part.”
Kinnell moved, so fast it was almost beyond following, from lounging inactivity to a blur, his right hand lunging easily from his pocket with something small and black and oblong folded up in his fist, something with a stubby little trigger and a couple of curious-looking prongs at the end, like a short-range pocket taser. One light, rapid step into the centre of the rough circle, his hand moving up underarm, and the little device jabbed into Nicholas's chest, through his shirt, close to his sternum, Kinnell's finger slamming back on the trigger.
Nicholas had already opened his mouth to protest, how he'd been drunk, no matter how pathetic the excuse would sound- but there was already Kinnell's taser pressed into his chest, and there wasn't time to say anything at all except to yell bloody murder.
It buzzed, unpleasantly, like a doorknob you expected to only give you a very painful shock and be done with it, but instead went on and on and on, clinching all the nerves shut and your skin itched like something wanted to crawl out of you and oh fuck the itch it was like-
Fur bloomed up his neck, under his clothes, and it was terrifying because it was all completely involuntary and all Nicholas could do was think That FUCK and knock away Kinnell's device with a hand that was already halfway to a paw and stumble to his knees and feel his ears climbing his head while his forehead flattened and red nose shunted forward- in his clothes, in front of everyone, and-
Doris squeaked, an involuntary scream curtailed sharply by her own hands clapped over her mouth. She'd let go of Tony- thankfully for him, because otherwise some serious damage might have been done to his belt area. Stunned eyes above her fingers, blank-shock eyes matched everywhere around the room, frozen bodies and the exact opposite of sound.
Andy Wainwright's unlit cigarette fell out of his mouth.
Owen, surprisingly, reacted the fastest of all, dropping Ian M. Banks to the floor to grab his twin by the collar and haul him up onto the only table in the breakroom, sinking up to his ankle in frosting. Evan choked, surprised and unable to breathe, and got cake on his knees.
The wolf on the ground took a stumbling step, tripped on the ill-fitting trousers and shoes still on its hind legs, fell forward headlong and crashed its head into one of the heavy metal dustbins.
“I think the best part,” Kinnell told it, “is you're always gonna know you could've avoided this.”
The taserlike device was still in his hand. With an idle sort of flourish, he indicated the wolf with it, with all the ironic showmanship of a carnival barker drawing back the curtain of his stall.
“Gents- and lady, of course... your chief.”
Danny unfroze at last, stumbled forwards.
“Nicholas!”
Nicholas bolted. One quick, awkward movement, ears against his skull, and he dodged past Kinnell, through Danny's legs, leaving nothing behind but his shoes.
Tony, folded under the raining-bits-of-cake table, whimpered, "Is it gone?"
Saxon started to bark and wouldn't stop, trying to get at Kinnell in short, furious rushes, straining at his leash. "Bad dog! Bad dog!"
Bob was nearly dragged out of his seat, but he managed to wrap the leash around his wrist and dug his heels into the carpet, narrowly avoiding running over Andy Cartwright's foot as his wheelie-chair skeeted across the rug. Not that Andy would have noticed if he had done. The transformation the Andes had just witnessed seemed to have accomplished what no other act of God or Man had ever had a chance to. They were speechless.
“Everyone stay calm,” yelled Kinnell, over the racket. He made for the door, took three steps, and met Danny coming the other way. A tiny bit quicker and he might have sidestepped him, but Danny was deceptively fast when he got moving, and he was moving now.
“You cunt,” he said, and punched him in the face.
WHACK.
Kinnell was knocked half a pace back and staggered, then looked up at him in disbelief, blood from his lip smearing over his fingers. He looked less hurt than utterly indignant that the universe could have allowed this to happen, but the stumble told a different story.
“Ow! You stupid a-”
Danny punched him again.
WHACK.
“-rse, tha'fuckin' h-”
WHACK.
Kinnell's head snapped back like a melon on a spring, and he fell to his knees. The taserlike thing went clattering over the carpet. Two pairs of hands grabbed for it, one bloody and much, much quicker-
The horror of the little device clutched in triumphant hands finally clicked for one particular detective.
"Oh shit!" screamed Andy Wainwright, pointing a shaking finger at Kinnell. To him, in the heat of panic, in a small crowded room, it was quite obvious what had happened, and the only one qualified to save them all had just run out the door on all fours. He would later come to regret the following statement for the reenactments sniggeringly executed in the pub. "He's a fuckin' witch!"
As if this highly infeasible statement was some kind of call to arms, or the weirdest battle cry in recorded history, everything went mad.
“Oh my God!” yelped Doris, lost in some parallel dimension of reasoning of her own. “Frisbees!”
“BAD DOG!” barked Saxon, frantic and completely unintelligible to anyone present. He lunged again, yanking his lead clean out of Bob's hands. Kinnell had just grabbed the device and started to scramble upright, inches ahead of the furious Sergeant at his heels, when a barking flurry of maddened police dog slammed into him and buried its teeth in his wrist. He went down again, yelling, and the device went on another little scurry over the floor. Saxon dragged him away from it by the arm, snarling through his teeth, until Kinnell twisted like a snake and and punched Saxon in the snout.
Bob growled, and unfolded himself from his chair, taking Tony's computer keyboard in both lined hands.
In the chaos, Danny had fetched up somewhere around Andy's knees. “C'mon, you twat,” he gasped, before lunging for the device again. “Fuckin' help me!”
"The fuck you want me to do? Play air hockey with that thing?" Andy made a half-hearted snatch, clearly just as scared of the object as he was of Alex.
Kinnell shook Saxon off his arm and got to his feet, or at least tried to. He got halfway before Bob smacked him hard on the back on the head with the keyboard.
"Twat."
"Too fuckin' right!" said Cartwright, who suddenly thought it was okay to breathe again. "Danny, what the fuck!?"
Danny got up far too fast, and had to lean on his own knees, fighting the nausea. “Lissen. Nicholas- Nicholas can turn into a wolf, alright? An' don't tell me it's stupid- you jus' saw it happen. You all saw it. I know what it sounds like, but even when things sound really daft it don't mean they en't true! Look what happened last time!”
He glared at them, all around the rough circle, daring any one of them to reject what they'd just seen happen with their own eyes. He was still, solid undeniable, and a shaking mess of nerves inside, horribly conscious of every passing second.
“An' he's not an it, Tony. He's not an animal- he's Nicholas! He'd never do anythin' that'd hurt any've you, an' you know it. An' his whole life he's been fuckin' terrified of people findin' out, an' now this little bastard's gone an' made him wolf out right in front of all you lot! 'F we don't go after him now, we'll prob'ly never see him again!”
There was a moment where nobody seemed to know how to react. The shock was abruptly snatched away by further, ongoing panic.
"Oh shit," said Evan, catching his collapsing brother, "Oh shit. Tony. Tony where are you? Someone get the med kit, will you?" He kicked the remains of destroyed cake to the ground, where it splattered, messily. "Sorry Doris, he's all... swellin' up really bad."
Owen wheezed, eyes fluttering, face blotching red. Evan, though, was looking at the book his twin had dropped near the door, then back.
Tony scrabbled, banging his head sharply on the underside of the table as he emerged. Later, he would swear blind that he'd never been under it, and that the rising bruise on his forehead had been acquired in some other, measurably more heroic, manner. “M'on it, hangon-”
It took him a bare handful of seconds to grab the medkit off the inside of the kitchen door and pass it back to Evan. Owen continued to wheeze and choke, and everyone else tried to give them space.
“Ey!” said Doris, suddenly, happening to glance down at the cake-and-bits-of-keyboard-covered carpet. Saxon was anxiously hoovering up pieces of cake, in between apologetically licking a slightly dazed-looking Bob's hand, but apart from that, the floor was empty.
“Where's 'e gone?”
*
He couldn't change back. He'd tried, and it was like trying to change back during a full moon. Hurt, and it strained at the receding fur on his paws and he'd finally given up and slunk into the hedge nearest the station dumpster, ears laid flat, and as quietly as caninely possible, ripped apart his uniform.
And it wasn't even important anymore, because, obviously, he couldn't go back. Nicholas had been right all along- They would, and had found him and were hellbent on dragging him in, and second, once one person found out, everyone would. (And Christ that had, by far, been the most painful experience in his life, topping drunk Santas and dying Dannys any day.) He couldn't even run on foot, because Alex's superior tracking skills would find him before sundown. Stupid Danny, for thinking that Nicholas would be fine, be safe, that he even stood a chance of protecting Nicholas, and now his mum was probably at risk too- stupid, stupid Nicholas for even thinking he could protect anybody at all.
He was fairly certain Kinnell wouldn't be able to scent him here, half lying in a puddle oozing from under the dumpster. There were too many interlocking Nicholas scent-trails exploding out from the station in winding loops- surely Kinnell wouldn't be able to make out the real one for quite some time, wouldn't he? He'd expect Nicholas to bolt as fast as he could, which would be the easiest to track, because Nicholas would be one giant pink-green highlighter mark of FEAR blotting across Sandford hills and tilled earth and he'd be pounced before he could make the treeline. But he wouldn't expect him to stay, and certainly wouldn't be prepared for Nick lying in something that was probably best not to think about to mask his scent. He'd wait. And then he'd bolt. And save his mum. And send Danny an apology note.
If he ever got his thumbs back, that was.
*
Not that long after Nicholas's exit, Kinnell nosed his way through the station's double doors. Having slipped out from underfoot while everyone was preoccupied (well, everyone except the dog, but thankfully dog's brains are very linear creations, and the abundance of nearby food and the presence of its master had made this particular specimen temporarily forget his existence) he jogged up the lane which ran easterly from the station, and stopped around the curve to check his bitten arm. It wasn't anything too serious.
Kinnell looked around. His nose flared, and he took a deep breath of mid-morning air. In all directions, the scent of his quarry crossed and recrossed the road, both directions, none particularly strong or tellingly urgent.
He paused for a moment, then grinned to himself, despite his bruised mouth. Loosening his tie, he trotted away up the lane, climbed a fence at the side of the road, and headed away across the fields. Heading for the hills.
Chaper 11