The Pack (17 page)

“Those weren't their masters,” Shep growled.

“We know,” woofed Dover. “That's why we stayed.”

“Blaze?” Shep yipped hopefully.

“She-got-captured-by-a-human-Shep-I'm-sorry,” whimpered Snoop.

Shep winced, then licked his jowls. “It's not your fault, Snoop,” Shep woofed. “Don't be sorry.”

Shep jumped onto a broken block of wall. “We have one thing left to do,” he barked. “We have to save our friends.”

“Like Lassie?” yipped Ginny.

“Just like Lassie,” woofed Shep. “It's what an alpha does.”

The thrilling conclusion to the Dogs of the Drowned City trilogy!

Read on for a preview of
THE RETURN

 

About fifteen stretches of open pavement separated Shep from the first cage. In it lay a strange dog, big and brown — and asleep, though it was fully light out. On top of that cage was another, and another small crate rested on top of that. There were two cats in the second cage, a rabbit in the topmost. From this corner, the cages ran toward the cold winds and also toward sunset, farther than Shep could see. The smells of dog and cat and rat and rabbit and bird and Great Wolf knows what else bombarded his nose.

Oscar slumped beside Shep's forelegs, jaw slack beneath his jowls. “It's so big,” he moaned. “How can there be so many dogs?”

Shep sat, unsure what else to do. This was too much, this kennel. How could they search all these cages? It would take a lifetime to sniff each one, to find all his packmates … to find Blaze … to find Callie.

“Fuzz look closer,” the cat barked and burst from beneath the last bird-Car. He stopped alongside the corner cage, then sprang onto the top of the first, then the second, and finally onto the roof of the third. The rabbit squealed and scrabbled around its little crate.

Fuzz raced along the tops of the cages and disappeared. Shep dug through his brain for how they could possibly invade this maze of crates, how best to find and free his friends.

“Down!” Oscar cried.

A small bus rumbled toward them along the space of pavement between the winged Car and the cages. Shep ducked deeper into the shadow, hiding himself. The bus drove halfway down the row of cages toward the building, then stopped. A door on its side slid open, and several humans in loose, colorful clothes stumbled out onto the pavement. This bus was followed by others — Cars (open-backed and regular types) and all sorts of machines roared past, dropping off humans and a few dogs and other animals.

“This place is crawling with people,” Shep mumbled to himself.

“But not at night,” Oscar woofed. He squinted at the cages as if peering into the depths of the maze. “Everything is quieter at night. We could come back then and free all the dogs.”

“Oscar, even if we worked from the heartbeat the sun set to when the first tails of dawn wagged, we couldn't open more than a snoutful of cages.”

The pup glanced up at Shep, then back at the maze. “A snoutful is better than none.”

 

The sun baked the pavement. Heat rose in steamy waves from the stone. The dog in the corner cage finally woke and lapped up some water. Shep and Oscar stared at his bowl every time he slurped up a snoutful, their mouths dry as sand.

“Could you spare a drop?” Oscar barked to the strange dog. His tiny tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, distorting his woof.

The dog glanced at him, then at the bowl. “Sorry,” he yipped. “The human only comes by once a sun, and I only have enough water for me.”

“Can you tell us anything about this place?” Shep woofed. “How many humans are here? How many dogs?”

The dog sniffed the air, then sat. “So many that I never see the same human twice, and more dogs than I've ever smelled. They brought me here in this cage, and I've been in it ever since. Every afternoon, they take me for a walk by the edge of the fence, but other than that, what you see is what I see. Sometimes, strange humans walk by to peer into my cage, but not my girl. Not my family.” Suddenly, the dog's ears pricked. He stood and waved his tail. “Have you seen my family out there?”

Shep sighed. “Sorry,” he woofed. “I wouldn't know them even if I had seen them.”

“But I'm sure they'll be here soon,” Oscar added with a cheerful yip.

The dog's tail drooped. He lay down and rested his snout on his paws. “Yeah,” he groaned.
“Soon.”

It was nearing midsun when Fuzz dropped down from the piles of cages and raced across the pavement to where Oscar and Shep lay panting in the shade.

“Took you long enough,” Shep sighed. “We have to find some water.”

“Fuzz find Callie-dog!” the cat meowed. “Callie-dog in building. Have tube in leg.”

Shep sprang to his paws. “I'm going in,” he woofed.

“Don't be a fuzz head,” Oscar barked. “You'd be captured in a heartbeat.” He bit Shep's foreleg for extra measure. “We have to find some water, meet back with the others, and come up with some plan that doesn't involve getting caught the heartbeat we set paw in the kennel.”

Shep shook his fur, knowing Oscar was right but not liking a woof out of his snout. Callie was here! Callie was in trouble! He had to save her!

“Small-snout right.” Fuzz flicked Shep in the nose with his tail. “Shep-dog wait. No help to Callie-dog with fur-for-brain.”

 

They made their way as fast as their paws could manage back to the fence. As they walked, Fuzz explained what he'd seen in the complex.

“Cages in rows, piles of cages. Rodent on cat on dog on dog.” His disgust at the arrangement was evident in the tone of his hiss. “But in building, less cages and less dogs. More people. Callie there.”

Shep pressed Fuzz for better details of the space, but the cat had little to offer.

“Fuzz no have time to scratch out plan of whole space,” he meow-barked. “If Shep-dog want explain better, he go sniff out building himself.”

“Then that's what I'll have to do,” Shep grumbled.

The others were waiting on the other side of the fence around the toppled tree trunk. It looked like in all those heartbeats, they hadn't moved a paw.

“What did you —
snort
— find?” barked Daisy.

“Yeah-Shep-did-you-find-Callie-and-can-we-go-home-yet-huh?” Snoop leapt against the metal rings of the fence and sent the whole wall shivering.

Rufus nipped Snoop in the hind leg. “Get down before you set the whole mess of humans on us!” he snapped.

Shep smelled that the pack was feeling equal parts anxious and excited. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

“Humans,” woofed Dover. “A few drove by in one of those open-backed Cars. They marked the tree.” He waved his nose, and Shep saw an orange X painted on the trunk.

Daisy pawed closer to Shep, chest out like she was trying to appear taller. “I ordered the pack to jump into a bush,” she grunted. “We stayed hidden.”

Daisy was all that was left of Shep's defense team, and apparently she thought this meant that she was in charge when he was away. If the others didn't raise their hackles over the arrangement, Shep wasn't going to make anything of it.

He wasn't sure why the humans painted a mark on the tree, but it couldn't be for anything good. Shep had to get his trapped packmates out of this place and fast.

“We found Callie, so the others can't be far,” barked Shep. “Our pack will be back together by sunrise.”

DAYNA LORENTZ
is a graduate of the MFA Creative Writing program at Bennington College. A former lawyer, Dayna is now a full-time writer and lives with her husband, daughter, dogs, and cat in Vermont. Dogs of the Drowned City is her first series.

Visit her online at
www.daynalorentz.com
.