Chapter 1: Chicago

The littered alley behind the vacant convenience store was dark and still. Chad was only a darker shadow in the frigid night. He crouched behind a pile of old boxes, the eyes in his normally placid black face glowing with fierce anticipation. The Black Cats were almost here. Let them come! His fists opened and closed spasmodically. This should be a good fight. He was in the mood for it as the anger within him built higher and stronger. The way things'd been going lately, he needed a good fight!

"Chad!"

"What!" He jerked around, fists ready to lash out. He relaxed, recognizing the hoarse whisper from behind an overturned garbage can.

"Hey, Chad. You still there?"

"Sure, Pedro. Of course I'm still here. Where'd ya think I'd be, asshole? Home in bed? Take it easy. We got 'em cold, this time. Them Black Cats'll think twice afore sneakin' into Wolf territory again. Now, shut up!" Chad's voice, deep for his sixteen years, showed his satisfaction. This was his big chance to prove that he really was one of the Wolf gang's homeboys. Even if he was about the only Wolf who liked to read real books.

Rafe Hamid, King Wolf, hadn't thought much of his idea of setting up the younger kids on their home ground to run errands and act as scouts, but it'd sure paid off big this time. Word had sped through the night on sneakered feet that three of the Black Cat gang were headed their way on foot, daring to take a shortcut through Wolf territory. The Cats had been pushin' on the Wolves lately, testing their nerve. They needed a lesson. Not enough to set off a real rumble, though. Not yet. At Wolf headquarters in the basement of an abandoned apartment building, Rafe had taken only minutes to plan their backalley ambush and get the word out.

"Remember now, no knives or clubs," Chad growled. "Just fists an' feet. Rafe wants 'em to be able to tell their buddies about it. You pull a knife, and Rafe'll have ya singin' soprano!"

Before Pedro could answer, there was a faint noise from the mouth of the alley. They both froze, but it was only a foraging rat, scurrying for the safety of a broken sewer drain. No knives, not this time, and for sure no guns. The cops had sensors spotted all over the city. They could zero right in on a gunshot, and their sniffers could track down even the slightest smell of gunpowder. They'd get anyone dumb enough to do any shooting.

Once caught, the shooters got a fast hearing and an even faster oneway ticket offplanet. Over eighteen or under, it didn't matter. Only the cops had guns, real guns they could shoot things with. Cops and soldiers. Only governments could make cartridges, and you couldn't buy any. That had made any guns the Wolves still owned pretty much useless anyhow, even if they were dumb enough to risk shooting them in the first place.

Now Chad could feel the presence of strangers, along with that odd sense of danger that had kept his skin in one piece so many times before. He shrugged off a shiver that lodged between his shoulder blades and gave a wild yell, leaping at three shadows that loomed over him. Pedro moved right with him, coming at the Black Cats from the other side.

This was great! His meaty fists connected with heads and bodies, his blocky form shrugging off the wild blows they threw in return. Other pairs of Wolves closed in from both ends of the alley, making it six to three. Danger! Chad dropped to one knee, twisting sideways. A knife reached for his ribs, but only traced a line of fire down his bare left arm from shoulder to elbow.

He twisted farther to the right, out of reach of his attacker. Light flashed red from a knife held by someone he knew. Rafe Hamid! He had a knife, and the bastard had stabbed him! Chad rolled away from the fight and scuttled for the end of the alley, keeping piles of trash between him and the tangle of fighting bodies.

"Who's that?" A lowvoiced challenge from the end of the alley.

"Wolf. It's me, Chad. Got clipped a good one. I'll take over here. Go help Rafe."

Another shadow leaped eagerly toward the fray, and the sounds of battle got even louder. Chad waited a couple of seconds to be sure he was alone.

All right! That got rid of Mig Perez without a fight. Mig was real close to Rafe, stuck by him all the time. Nobody was around to see Chad duck out, to tell Rafe which way he went. He slipped off the fakefur wolf skin vest, his proud badge of membership in the Wolves. He'd been proud to wear it, but...

Anger surged at his momentary weakness. He tossed the vest far down a dark alley, hoping it wouldn't be found right away. The wind that cut at his bare arms was even colder without it, and snow mixed with misty rain prickled against his skin. He headed off down the dark street, hugging his wounded arm to his chest, keeping to the shadows. Which way to go?

Back home to Uncle Charley and Aunt LuAnne? No way! No help for him there. They'd been as good to him as they knew how, the five years since they'd taken him in, but they couldn't help him with this. They'd warned him enough times that he was headed for trouble. Anyway... "Don't drag them into this... ," he muttered under his breath.

A wave of dizziness caught him. His slashed arm wasn't the scratch he'd thought it was! He braced himself against the nearest wall for an instant, turned and staggered down an alley moments before a pair of armored patrol cars drifted silently past. Someone lurched out of the gloom, followed by a blast of light and music that shut off as a door slammed. Chad tensed, poised to attack as a stranger weaved toward him down the alley.

"Jush anozzer li'l drink! Thash all I ashked for." The man stopped and leaned against the wall of the alley, peering vaguely about as though seeking the light and warmth he'd been so unceremoniously booted out of, then sagged to the icy pavement.

Chad rolled him expertly, cursing as he found only turnedout pockets. No wallet. No change. Not even a pocket knife. At least the drunk's shirt would make a bandage for his arm, even if the jacket he stripped off the flaccid body was too small around the chest, too long in the sleeves to fit. Too bad, it would have been at least the start of a disguise. Disgusted at his luck, he rolled the drunk onto a nearby metal grate in the pavement that leaked a few tendrils of warmth into the frigid night, tossing the useless jacket over the prone form. The drunk would survive, or else he wouldn't. No skin off Chad's nose, either way.

He muttered a few more raging curses at himself as he sneaked down dark streets and darker alleys. "You so damned smart, why din't ya see this coming?" He mumbled the words half aloud, wiping sweat from his eyes with his good hand as the world around him blurred in and out. "No, y'gotta play the big man, spite of all the warnin' ya had."

Even Nora, Rafe's girl and leader of the SheWolves, had warned him just the other day in plain enough language.

"Chad, why don' you git outa here while you still walkin' round on y'own two feet?" He could hear the concern through her soft Jamaican lilt. "Rafe, he gonna fix you right, you stick around. You a pretty big man here, since you pulled alla the little kids in for to be scouts. He sceered you gonna take the Wolves away from him. He'll knife you inna back, an' he git half a chance!"

"Don' worry. I kin take care of m'self. You tell Rafe not to git antsy. I ain't about to tangle with him. Don't have to, nohow. 'Nother six months, he's eighteen'n outa here. He'll be old enough to vote, to buy pot legal, and to sign up with the Mannies. The way the big comp'nies are beggin' for men, he'll be sent out to some frontier planet afore he kin wink an eye. He jus' better sign up when the time comes, an' play it cool. The Office of Manpower Management ain't nothin' for nobody to fool with. Anyhow, why you care what happens to me?"

"You too nice a boy to end up onna slab," she'd evaded, soft brown eyes in the delicate oval of her face looking appreciatively at his short, broad frame. "Why'nt you cut outa here? Find you a good job? You can pass fo' eighteen, easy. They so hungry fo' men here on Earth, you find work inna minute."

He shook his head angrily. She'd been right, no maybe about it. He'd just been too stubborn. As usual. Dad had... Dad had always said that he could raise stubborn to sell. Anyhow, he hadn't cut out, and now he was on the run. Rafe would have scouts fanning out, the same scouts he'd recruited and trained. Checking abandoned condos and empty apartment buildings in their halfdeserted stretch of Chicago. He'd better be outa Wolf territory before they caught up to him. Else, he'd have had it for sure! Rafe'd have some kinda story all figured out ahead of time, to put him in bad...

Chad caught himself as he stumbled over a curb, leaning dizzily against the side of a building. He was panting. The rough bandage had started to come loose, a slow trickle of blood dripping from his lax fingers. He pulled the torn cloth tighter, using his teeth when his fingers kept trembling in spite of efforts to hold them steady. Ahead, the dark streets held a dubious promise of safety.

"Chad! Hey, Chad!" The voice whispered out of the darkness, seeming as loud as a shout in the silence of the night. He whirled about, his back to the side of a building. His good hand dove for a pocket, then he remembered that his switchblade had been left behind tonight. Rafe's orders, damn him! He braced himself against the expected attack.

"Who's that?"

"It's me. Kenny. Chill out, man! I ain't gonna tell 'em I seen ya." A skinny tenyearold edged warily out of the shadows, staying well out of Chad's reach. "What's really goin' down? Rafe's cussin' an' stompin' up an' down, handing us a big line of shit about you goin' ape, cuttin' them Black Cats up an' runnin' for it. Sure sounded bent to me!"

"Yeah. He blowin' shit fo' sure!" Chad relaxed slightly, but kept a wary eye on his surroundings. This still could be a trap, but Kenny'd always been straight with him. "Rafe cut me from behind when we was beatin' on them Cats. I had to run. Left my knife behind like a good little homey, just like Rafe said to. Figgered if I stuck around, he'd git more'n just a slice off'n my arm, him an' his friends."