Chapter 6: Meeting in a Were Bunker

"What does it mean?" asked Trixie about the flyer for the Courage Players performing The Merchant of Venice in a nearby Black Forest town, Her question went out through the speaker phone to the speaker phone listened to by her comrades in the werewolves' sausage factory building.

Still flushed from an orgy that morning wherein she awoke tied to Kat's bed using silk scarves at her wrists and ankles, tortured exquisitely by Kat's long tongue and sharp fingernails and teeth and fucked mercilessly by Jag and Leo using both holes at the base of her torso simultaneously while feasting on Kat's delicious cunt, even the shock of the flier didn't cut through her dazed consciousness.

"It must be Foxx," Kat growled.

"Who?" asked Trixie.

Wolf answered from the other side of the wire. "My boss. The Colonel. Seems like he's finally ready to pounce."

"It's my fucking play," Gretchen roared bitterly. "Mine and Karl's. We wrote it as mock propaganda. They're going to make it real propaganda."

Being extremely nervous, Michael turned on his usual defensive sassy and cynical sarcasm, "I thought hounds chased foxes."

"I'm sure the Colonel hopes so," Kat responded, "to set a trap."

"But who are the Courage Players?" asked Gretchen tightly. "It must be Kurt and the other fucking traitors."

"We'll know soon," Wolf told her. "They'll be rehearsing and performing on home turf."

"We're supposedly the traitors," Karen reminded her.

"Are there wolves in Nachtstadt?" asked Joseph.

"Well hidden," Nina nodded.

"And cats," said Kat. "The two races often meet there in friendly rivalry."

"This Foxx, he knows about you?" asked Trixie.

"I should have killed him," Wolf grumbled. "I would have if..."

"Wolf!" Kat shouted through the phone line. "Your mother took the bullet meant for you because losing you after losing her husband would have turned her feral instantly. Her beloved and her favorite son, the future alpha, she had nothing left."

"But we could have ... You fucking dragged me away!"

"To fight another day, Wolf," Kat reminded him. "Which we did. We killed all of those motherfucking SS were hunters!"

"Except Foxx," Wolf muttered.

"I don't understand," said Gretchen. "You worked under the man you nearly killed? And he knows what you are?"

"I only met him once," Wolf explained. "Maria acted as liaison. When we met, I recognized him and I could smell him. His blood was tainted by my saliva. Not enough to change him. It takes much more than spit to change a man completely. But he gained ... sensitivity. He smelled me, my wolf essence. And my hair ... He knew."

"But ... you worked for him."

"I ... had to be near him, to learn his moves so to speak. It was a game between us. He used my skills and I kept close. Kat too."

"I fixed his fucking torture victims," Kat spat. "And I ... fucked him when I was young and desirable."

"You're still desirable," Trixie remarked.

"I aged appropriately," Kat shrugged. "Put on latex. Looked fatter and uglier. To him I'm a sixty year old fat hag. But I helped with the research."

"Research?" asked Joseph.

"His private lab studying what makes us change," Kat explained. "It's a forensic lab, but he conspired with the head scientist as fascinated with the subject as him."

"So you fouled up the research?" asked Trixie.

"Didn't have to. Immortals made us. A test tube won't give him our essence. It won't make him one of us. He's a damaged man and not just his sadistic mind. He wanted to get healed of the lingering wounds Wolf gave him forty years before, scars that still make it painful to walk and remind him of the attack every time he looks in the mirror and sees the mark that turned his perfect Aryan face into a face only a whore could be paid to be attracted to."

"And you," Trixie reminded her.

"I guess I'm more like you than you thought, hunh Mistress Bea?"

"You dominated him?"

"No. He's strictly a sadist," Kat shook her head sadly. "He enjoyed giving me pain. Luckily I recover rather quickly. And no, sweetheart, I didn't enjoy it. I'm a cat. I only enjoy torturing my prey."

"I liked it better than I thought I would," said Trixie. "A lot better. But..."

"Like I said, I heal quickly," Kat smiled wickedly.

"But you won't enjoy it."

"I will because I enjoy giving you pleasure, my love."

They kissed passionately causing Michael discomfort again. It wasn't the beauty of the two beautiful women making love. That he found pleasing aesthetically. It was the odor wafting from their liquefying pussies. He found it unpleasant, repellant. During the earlier orgy, that fact cemented his fate. Of the five ex-troupe members, he would be the only one not accepting the change. He could never lose himself enough in the mating to allow his body's enzymes to make it ready for change. If the transformational mating didn't kill him through loss of blood, the pain would definitely become too much to handle.

That fact made him sad. It also scared him. He saw the cage the bed had become to protect Trixie the evening before. And he saw the leers of these werecats when they edged towards their feline selves. The fear made him irrational. It made him want to escape even though a rational mind would reason that being in the middle of nowhere, a nowhere surrounded by man eating beasts, resembled being on an island surrounded by shark infested water. To escape meant nearly certain death.

In contrast, having found themselves in essentially a locked cage when they awoke the night before made Joseph and Karen curious rather than fearful over the weres' man eating nature. In the morning they had been released and left to their own devices while being introduced to a dozen strangers, two of whom glommed onto them and essentially seduced them. Even though the siblings had been beside them nearly the whole time, occasionally when some business had the two werewolves leave, the two humans found themselves free to escape if they wanted.

"We were locked in to protect us last night, weren't we?" Karen finally asked.

Nina smiled at the human and nodded. "From me in a way. Though the moon hadn't reached fullness, the females in heat tend to feel the pull a night early."

"So ... you might have eaten us?" asked Karen, gulping.

"Yes," Nina shrugged sadly. "Nothing personal. It's just that human flesh happens to be the most tender and delectable. We resist it, but the desire can become ... overwhelming."

"So when you threatened ... to eat me," Gretchen realized, "you weren't just being malicious and cruel."

"I wouldn't have let her touch you," growled Wolf, staring daggers at his best friend. Gretchen rubbing the small healed wound on her cheek made Wolf cringe. "I'm sorry, Gretch." He stroked it gently. "I didn't realize her jealous rage would transform her so quickly. In fact the jealousy surprised the shit out of me."

Two sets of eyes met, eyes of his two lovers. Their mouths curved upward wryly. "Males!" they both muttered, and they giggled.

"But," Karen continued her logical thought, "if you crave human flesh, what exactly are you using for meat for your sausages?" She and the other humans had seen the factory fully operational when they passed through it to enter the downstairs sanctum where they now occupied the communication/meeting room.

Chuckling, Lou answered, "Though occasional human flesh gets churned up with the rest of the meat, it's wild boar mostly."

"Occasional human meat?" Karen quivered.

"Not that you'd notice. It's pretty rare that an unfortunate human falls prey to us. People living around here learn to secure themselves inside during full moons."

"But ... human's can be cruel with their justice around here," Wolf added. "Premeditated murder of course, but even rape finds the local citizenry leaving the criminal out in the forest to become a feast for weres."

"What about some poor camper unaware of the danger?" asked Joseph.

"The villagers warn them," Reyna explained. "Either directly or with signs."

"How do they warn them?" asked Karen.

"Rabid wolves," Lou replied with a chuckle.

"Not so far off," mumbled Michael through the phone line.

Most of the weres bristled, but Kat chuckled. "In a way he's right. We're not foaming at the mouth or anything, but to humans we are sort of diseased, genetically perhaps or infected by our mate."

"More an inoculation," Leo differed. "A bacterium that improves our resistance, makes us infinitely stronger. Certainly not lethal like rabies."

"Except for your victims," Michael pointed out.

The werecats glanced at each other sadly and shook their heads.

Ever curious, Karen continued her line of questioning. "So there are enough wild boars in the forest to supply a factory?"

"They're domesticated," Lou answered. "We give them free reign because it's more sporting. Shooting fish in a barrel certainly wouldn't be much fun. But we control their mating and raise the offspring to assure their maturation just like any livestock ranch. A few we completely domesticate to use as truffle hunters."

"Being strong has its advantages," Reyna added. "No human could reign in wild boars. They're wonderfully pigheaded and powerful."

"On transformation nights we attack them, eat some of their flesh. The next day we pick up the carcasses and turn the remaining meat into sausages."

"Aren't they tainted?" asked Gretchen.

Smiling at his smart mate, Wolf informed her and her friends, "It's an attraction. Some imbibers of our product claim to feel a jolt of euphoria. Some even claim it to be an aphrodisiac. We encourage these notions of course, and it allows us to sell our product at a higher price. The fact that it's delicious doesn't hurt."

"These effects," asked Gretchen tentatively, "are they real?"

"We are a randy race," Kat answered with a laugh joined by the weres both at her house and at the wolves' factory.

Claiming a need to use the toilet, Michael separated from the werecats and snuck out of the house. After forty-five minutes and not smelling human feces or hearing the shower running, Leo investigated and found the bathroom empty. Further investigation found Michael's coat gone. The garage hidden under the house, big enough for four cars, still had the four cars in it, though the door of one had been flung open. The garage door had been left open as well and outside they found tracks in the snow. Leo noticed the wide distance between footprints.

"He looks quite healthy," Leo inquired. "How long do you think he can keep running?"

"He's a vain man," Trixie sighed. "He jogs most mornings for several miles."

"Shit!" Jag exhaled sharply.

"If he reaches the road... ?" Trixie asked.

"Not much traffic this early," Kat responded.

"Not much," said Trixie, "but not none."

Seconds later she and Kat backed away from the driveway to let Leo and Jag drive past in the ambulance. A couple minutes later the ambulance returned, driving in reverse. Jag bounced out of the driver's side. "He headed into the woods," he sighed. "Leo's following his tracks."

"Gods and goddesses," Kat cursed looking up at the late afternoon sun encroaching the horizon as it filtered though the canopy of tall trees, the air crisp and cold, the sky nearly cloudless. "We haven't got time for this. If Leo doesn't get back, he'll miss the meeting."

Obviously aware of this, Leo soon emerged from the line of trees surrounding the house. Stopping beside them, he leaned down, panting, hands on knees.

Kat chuckled. "A human in better shape than you my lazy friend?"

"I ... ran ... fast," Leo breathed. Finally catching his breath, he stood. "He's headed the wrong direction to catch the road. I followed his tracks to a creek. They disappeared. I figure he'll follow it until it reaches a river or some bigger mass of water."

"And does it?' asked Kat.

"I think so. A small lake. Won't be anyone there. A couple summer cabins if I remember right."

"Well, maybe he'll have shelter at least," said Jag. Everyone nodded.

"Put the ambulance away," Kat commanded. "If Foxx is nearby, we won't want him seeing that. We'll take the van."

Nodding, everyone returned inside the warmer house, put on coats, got in the VW van, Jag driving, and headed out to the meeting.

After passing through the small, quaint town of Nachtstadt surrounding the road and travelling another five kilometers, they took a left through the bank of snow that lined the road into what Trixie thought was a thick grouping of trees. She braced for impact when they stopped and waved at a pair of thickly muscled brown haired men emerging from the trees with shovels. They waved back and shoveled snow over the track the van had made. A narrow path just wide enough for the van seemed to appear out of nowhere. They followed it through the trees.

Emerging into a clearing, the road seemed to disappear, but the van kept driving. Suddenly they descended into the earth and entered a garage with several cars and small trucks parked.

"We built the bunker during the war," Kat explained. "It remained the home of wolves and cats until we could safely return and rebuild, or in our case," she smiled at Leo, "build a really cool house. Now it's our main meeting place. It still gives me the creeps."

"I bet," said Trixie, making Kat chuckle, albeit tightly.

Following the werecats, Trixie entered though two sets of heavy swinging doors and into a large darkly lit room with several pews occupied by an assortment of men and women, mostly looking to be in their twenties or thirties and all looking strongly built and handsome or beautiful. Across the room and in front of the stage, she saw Wolf busy chatting with a beautiful dark haired woman, male and female blondes and a silver gray man looking very much like his brother. She looked for Gretchen and found her in a place that surprised the shit out of her. Right beside her. Embracing her side. She turned and embraced her fully.

"How are you?" she breathed after ending a passionate kiss, not so much a lover's kiss but a kiss of deep friendship and relief.

"I'm good, Trix. You?"

"Very good," she replied, receiving another kiss, this time from Kat.

"I need to head up front," Kat told her. "Just find a seat whenever you're ready."

"See you," said Trixie.

After another brief kiss, Kat smiled at Gretchen. "So you agreed. That's awesome," and she immediately walked towards the stage.

Gretchen shook her head and smiled in wonder at the weirdness she now occupied. She knew exactly what Kat meant. Then she frowned, noticing an absence. "Where's Michael?"

"He fucking ran away," Trixie sighed.

"What? Why?"

"He's ... too gay, Gretchen. He can't mate and change. I think he doesn't believe he'll be safe. He thinks ... they'll eat him."

"Wolf's village has protective cells," said Gretchen, confused.

"Yeah. Kat's house does too. You should see her bed when it's protected. It's really ... wild."

"Uhm ... Michael?"

Grumbling, Trixie forgot her brief horny recollection. "Fucking faggot."

"Trixie!"

"I'm sorry. It's just ... He could have ... Why didn't he ... Fuck! I mean, it's really fucking weird and scary and everything, but kind of ... amazingly great. And him running away like a fucking scared rabbit just soured everything. Even he got the best sex of his life with Kat's brother and best friend, two hunks fucking him silly. He could have had more and then they would have let him escape to the West! What was he thinking?"

"He was too scared to think, Trixie," said Gretchen, pulling her friend's head down and kissing salty tears oozing from her eyes.

"Yeah," Trixie sniffled.

Exchanging introductions with Reyna and Sensei, Trixie noticed the intimate closeness of her friends. "Mated, hunh?" she smiled, studying Reyna especially and noting her tall luxurious body similar to her own. Reyna noticed it too. Only the hair color differed, a stark contrast between Trixie's midnight black and Reyna's pale wheat blonde. In truth it didn't differ at the roots: Trixie's profession and her punk rock attitude led to her dying her golden locks black. Shaving her pubic hair kept the truth hid.

Both Amazons glared at Joseph. "I see where you got your model for body type," Reyna sniped at him.

"Is that why I found myself talking to the top of your head?" Trixie added. "And I thought you were the shy type."

Joseph blushed and sought refuge in the friendly eyes of Karen, but she smiled wryly and tucked herself in closer to her beautiful Japanese lover. Sighing, he confessed, "Yes, Trix, I had a major crush on you, but to tell you the truth, you scare the shit out of me."

His friends, old and new, laughed with abandon. Joseph adding his laughter escalated theirs. Weres surrounding them couldn't help but notice, and the comfort between these humans and their kind pleased most of them enormously. Big smiles on remarkably handsome and beautiful faces, faces on beings the humans knew would become wolves and big cats that very night, and Gretchen had witnessed them at their most ferocious, felt calming and embracing to Gretchen and her fellow actors. She noticed an occasional glance that tightened her again, glances of fierce hatred.

"We best be seated," Sensei suggested when they finally calmed down.

Noticing the quieted conversations and the soft thuds of butts meeting seats as the pews filled with weres, Gretchen nodded and followed her friends to the front pew left open for them. No way to hide in the back seats. She calmed when Wolf, standing front and center on the raised dais, smiled down at her. Even Kat, standing beside him so close their sides touched, didn't dampen Gretchen's smile, especially with Kat's sweet face and those gloriously sparkling golden eyes.

All it took to quiet the murmuring conversations of the audience was a simple, conversational, "Okay," from Wolf. He'd informed Gretchen of the sensitivity of were's ears and sitting up front she realized had been a good choice.

"Good news and bad news," Wolf began. "The gods have at last relaxed their spell of infertility brought on by the Nazi scourge. Laika? Could you stand?"

In full blush, the exotic beauty stood a few pews back from the humans. Wolf explained, "It seems we still need a tinge of human blood to procreate successfully at least for now, but our darling Laika has been knocked up by my little brother." His brother sitting behind him as his beta also blushed. Applause and catcalls and wolf whistles shook the underground room. It shifted to quiet laughter and went silent.

"With that in mind," Wolf continued, "we have found humans as mates and their seed or their wombs should begin a road to recovery for our races. Gretchen, my love, could you and Joseph and Karen and Beatrix please stand and let my friends get a look at our future?"

Nervous, they stood and turned and caught a complexity of emotions on the were audience's faces: happiness, curiosity, relief, and, frightening, contempt. The humans shared their concerns briefly before turning and sitting. Wolf caught the fear in Gretchen's eyes and mouthed, "We'll talk." Gretchen nodded and took in a deep breath to calm herself.