Full Moon Strays Ch. 06

"So there you have it," Tarloh said. "We need help finding this weak spot so we can fix it. Let us know if you're interested and how much . . ."

"I'll do it," Croc said quickly. " He leaned back. "The price is . . . well, you obviously don't have all that much money. So how 'bout we say y'all owe me one and leave it at that."

Tarloh looked suspicious. Talia looked surprised. Natasha looked confused. Croc was a high-priced player. Why was he waving his fee?

"Don't worry. The favor will also be . . . negotiable. Don't look so friggin' surprised. I stand to lose as much as any one 'uh you if what you say is true. How 'bouts I wait for y'all to get some sleep and we'll start this evenin'?"

"That sounds . . . acceptable," Tarloh said. Will you be staying here or . . ."

"Here's fine," the Croc said. He grinned. He liked pushing peoples' buttons, and these folks were edgy already. He could tell that no one could figure what to make of him. They knew that he killed people for a living, so his generosity was causing hell on their mental models. He wasn't an easy man to entertain, and this group looked like they could be fun.

Tarloh measured the man up. He seemed to be almost brutally open. The Croc didn't appear to holding anything back. Whether or not that was a good thing or a bad thing, he couldn't quite decide. He turned to Robbie.

"Well, we've got one piece of the puzzle then. I need you to work on the other. Take the three M's," he said, motioning to the lycanthrope siblings of Mindy, Michael and Matthew, "Chris, and Lothar, and go find the Raptors. Take Arthur too, just in case SOMEONE," he added pointedly, looking at Robbie, "gets himself hurt. Enlist their help, and bring us back the Heaven's Eye. Nathaniel, I want you to do scavenging duty. We're going to need the basics for setting up a new base, as well as food and the like. You're a sweet talker, so get what you can and steal the rest. Talia, I want you and Shield to find us a new place to live. The slaughterhouse is location number one, but keep your mind open to other possibilities. Johan and Anya, you two know the city as well as anyone. You help Croc. If the Dark One set up residence here, it probably came through near here. Spiral out from its former headquarters." He looked at Croc. "Is that acceptable to you?"

Croc had been staring appreciatively at Anya's long legs. "Ah think I can handle that."

"In your dreams, lizard boy," Anya replied with a smirk. Croc smiled back.

"Hey, big man," Nat said. "Forget someone?"

"Didn't forget. I don't have the right to tell you what to do. Not that you ever listened when I did, but . . ."

"I'll go down Mexico way with the gang. I'll even be so generous as to get them there," she said, punching Tarloh in the arm for his earlier comment. It was true of course. She had never been big on following orders.

"Any word from Red?" Talia asked of Robbie.

"Nope. I'm gonna head back topside and wait for her to call." Robbie grabbed a blanket and the cell phone and wandered out into the tunnels.

"Everyone get some sleep," Tarloh ordered. "We've got a long night tonight."

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The next evening . . .

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'Why did I volunteer for this again?' Natasha asked of herself as she hurled down the interstate in a rented minivan. Michael and Matthew were in the back with Chris between them. Chris had earned that spot because the two brothers had actually started to quarrel, in all seriousness, about who had crossed into whose side of the seat. Mindy, Arthur and Lothar were in the middle seat. Mindy and Arthur kept having their conversation interrupted by Lothar trying to explain why advanced Dungeons and Dragons was a better role-playing system than G.U.R.P.S. Robbie was in the passenger seat and, like Natasha, was gritting his teeth. On more than one occasion, he had tried to get the menagerie of passengers to "shut the hell up," but any silence achieved had the shelf-life of a frat-boy's promise to call in the morning.

"How does Red put up with this?" he muttered so that only Nat could hear. He hadn't gotten a call from her before they left, and found himself missing his sister more and more.

"I never understood that. I used to think she was just temperamental. Now, I think she needed to let off steam more often."

"I never want to be in a position of responsibility again." He looked back at his talkative passengers.

"Can we stop at the gas station?"

"I need to pee."

"Can we get a slushie and some beef jerky?"

"Hey, let's play a travel game! I spy . . ."

Natasha's heart sunk in her chest when she saw the sign that said how many miles there were to the Mexican border. She hoped Lothar would be able to pinpoint the Raptor's location quickly. Otherwise, she was killing somebody.

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At the Den . . .

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"So how'd a nice girl like you end up in a place like this?" Croc asked.

Anya had heard that line a million times, but the Croc was making it over-the-top sleazy, which kind of made her grin.

"I liked the ambiance."

Johan looked over at them. "Would you two like me to leave? Or maybe you'd like to get a room?"

Croc had been picking at Anya all morning like a cat at its food, probably realizing that this mouse had teeth of its own. "What? Just makin' conversation." He stopped suddenly. They had arrived at what had once been the Dark One's headquarters. Strangely, there was no police tape around the scene. It was as if the human race didn't want to acknowledge a place seeped in evil. "This was it wasn't it?"

"Yep," Anya said.

"Still creeps me out," Johan said. Coming from a demon that was born of shadows, that was saying something.

"And one girl beat it?" Croc replied. He had heard rumblings from the mystical forces in the area, and knew that whatever had been here had put great strain on the world.

"Yep." Anya was more than a little proud and slightly awed by what her friend had done.

"Darn thing must've damn near killed 'er," Croc said.

"Almost did something a lot worse than kill her," Anya replied.

Croc looked around. Then he quickly vanished, disappearing into a ripple of . . . nothing. It was as if the air shimmered, then he was gone.

"That was interesting," Johan said.

Then, Anya felt someone pinching her butt. She turned to slap the intruder, but no one was there.

"Okay smartass, show yourself."

A pair of eyes attached to a translucent face appeared in front of her. The lines of the face seemed to stretch and fade. It was almost like Croc was pushing against plastic wrap, and only the parts of him that were closest were visible. The rest faded into obscurity. Finally, he pushed himself back into the Earth dimension.

"Cool trick," Anya said pleasantly, and then slapped him.

Croc grinned. He had deserved that. "Well, it didn't break through here, at least not from wherever it came from. It broke the barrier fer sure, but that was recent 'n all. Probably when it went after your friends. I'm willing to bet it just pushed through where it was until it formed its own little bubble between the dimensions. Kinda like I do, but a lot more powerful."

Anya looked confused, but Johan seemed to be grasping. He turned to his comrade.

"Think of dimensions as separate plastic bags. You push your hand through and it forms around it, but as you stretch out the area behind starts to retract. Except dimensions don't like getting stretched, so it just sort of seals behind itself. Pushing through one wall is hard but doable. That's what Croc here does. Pushing through two is what the Dark One did, or at least that's what I'm gathering from Croc. The thing we need to watch out for is something that pushes through all three."

"Like an Elder God?" she asked.

"Like an Elder God," Croc confirmed. "If it's as big and bad as you say, it could leave a hole that won't heal. Not only will we get that apocalypse you all are talkin' 'bout, but one dimension could bleed into the other. Total chaos."

"And with a ancient and powerful creature that thrives on chaos, it could be enough to help it win against order. It could actually beat God." Anya stopped. She had inadvertently realized how high the stakes could be.

"Shit," Croc said. There was a moment of awkward silence. "Anyway, I thought I saw which direction it had been stretched from. Let's head west."

"You know there's an ocean there, don't you?"

"Hope you brought your bikini."

"Silly Croc," Anya said, "I always swim naked." She walked off at a brisk pace.

Croc stared after her. "She's a devilish woman."

Johan clapped him on the shoulder. "Welcome to our world."

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Elsewhere . . .

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"Man, the slums around here have gone straight to hell," Tarloh said as they scratched another possible new home off the list. "I can't believe I said that and was actually surprised."

Talia and Shield had convinced the big man that he needed to get out and get some fresh air, so he had gone "house shopping" with them. They were trying to keep with Red's wishes of not removing themselves too far from the people they were trying to protect, but they hadn't found anything with the infrastructure needed to set up shop. They'd have to reroute power and water and keep both sets of tampering hidden.

"Maybe we SHOULD stay in the Den," he muttered.

"No, we need to get out," Talia reminded him. "We've been over this. You're just saying that because you hate shopping."

"True."

Shield shook his big head. "Listen, the slaughterhouse is still the best bet, but even it has problems. Eventually, someone will show up and want to build something else there. Also, it IS a bit off the beaten path."

"Can we actually just . . . buy it? How much would the property cost?" Tarloh asked.

"You have been out of it for a while, haven't you?" the defense expert said. "This is California. The property would cost what we in the business like to call a 'shit load' of money."

"And we're not asking Natasha for any more help," Talia interjected. "She's already done more than she needs to, and she's probably only stuck around this long to prove that she's over Red anyway."

"She is kind of transparent about that," the leader of the Strays admitted with a chuckle. He looked east. While the slaughterhouse was isolated, it wasn't so far that most of the lycanthropes couldn't cover the ground quickly. The ground was heavily wooded but also quite rocky, making it unlikely that it was going to be developed. But it was still a risk. If they could buy it somehow . . . "Just in case, find out who exactly owns or controls the land."

"Oh, that's easy," Shield said, putting on his spectacles and looking at his clipboard. It helped that he used to be a cop, because he knew how to track down information. "A woman and her 'domestic partner' own it. Her name is Rose McGuire. She inherited a whole lot of land a couple of years ago. Now she's one of the richest land-owners in the state. She's picky about who she sells to and she's also donated a lot to nature preserves and wilderness areas."

"Sound like a great person," Tarloh said appreciatively. "Maybe we could tell her it's a commune . . ."

"Which would be kind of true," Talia said.

" . . . that would be animal friendly . . ."

"Again, kind of true."

" . . . and would actually help patrol the wilderness."

"But we have no money. Certainly not enough to buy that much land."

Tarloh sighed. "Let's go look it over again."

Shield looked at his watch. "Actually, I'm gonna go see if I can find some more info on this land owner. I'll catch up with you back at the Den."

Tarloh and Talia started the long trip to the outskirts of town. Once in the woods, they morphed into their animal sides and made rapid progress on their way to the abandoned building.

It was really quite large. It had been cleaned before being abandoned, hoping it might help attract a buyer. There were a lot of rooms, including a wide-open area, a room where the meat had been washed which could easily be converted into showers, and actual smaller rooms that could be used as living quarters. It was perfect except for the distance from town.

The two of them wandered around. They enjoyed spending time alone with each other. They checked out the surrounding area and actually found a small cave nearby, embedded in a rock outcropping. It was about thirty feet deep with relatively smooth walls, with a smaller ten foot enclave off towards the back right-hand corner.

"This is so cool," Talia said. "Look," she added, pointing up. There was a spot in the ceiling that had a small hole in it. "That would work as a chimney."

"For what?"

"So that Red could live out here. You know, have her own space again. Something for her and Jane."

"Always looking out for her, aren't you?"

Talia wrapped her arm around his. "You too. Both of you forget to look after yourselves sometimes, but Red's worse. You sometimes take time to smell the roses. Red . . . Red needs to have a mission. She needs something to occupy her all the time. At least now she's occupied with Jane, and that girl needs some looking after no matter HOW powerful she is."

The two of them strode from the cave and back down to the main building. "What about us?"

"What ABOUT us?"

"Should we consider getting our own space?"

Talia was a little surprised. "Well, we've never been completely exclusive," she replied. "Either of us."

"And we wouldn't have to be," he said. "We're both a little too wild. But we DO keep ending up together, and I kind of like it that way."

"Me too," she replied, kissing the big man on the lips. "I think we could find our own little corner. Maybe a little far removed since . . . you know," she said throatily, "we tend to make a little more noise than most.

"WhatEVER do you mean?" he ask, feeling her hands drifting down his front and stroking his staff to its enormous height.

"What I mean," she responded, "is that I'm a loud fuck."

"Care to put your money where your mouth is?"

"There's something else I'd rather have where my mouth is," she said, pushing his pants down, bending over and started sucking on his mammoth meat.

"That's my girl," he sighed happily, pulling his shirt off.

"Good Daddy," she said. She was in a playful mood.

"Treat Daddy good, and he'll give you some candy."

Talia was sucking on the head like a lollipop already, so the candy reference almost made her laugh. She could never down much of his rod, but she enjoyed stroking his hardness with both hands anyway. It felt so good having it between her lips again.

She let Tarloh unfasten her top, only ceasing with her suction long enough for him to pull it off of her. Then her lips went straight back to the head. She thrust her tongue underneath, caressing the spongy skin on the bottom of his member as she worked the first few inches in and out of her throat. When she pulled away, she tongued the little pee slit with the tip of her tongue, then downed what she could again.

"Good girl," Tarloh said. "Show Daddy what you've got. Show Daddy your love."

Talia stopped and stepped back. She was topless already, so she made a show of slowly peeling her pants down, her slightly bubbled butt pointing towards her man. She kicked her clothing away, then sat down on the ground. She lifted herself up with her legs and one arm. With her other hand, she started to masturbate.

Tarloh was licking his lips. Talia was in rare form that evening. He was stroking his own cock as he knelt next to her. Their gazes met as his free hand joined hers between her ebony thighs. While she rubbed her clit, he slid two large fingers inside her warm depths. He slid them in and out, then stretched her opening a little before pushing them back inside. He was searching for that magical button that would make this spectacular woman so very, very happy. When her hips gave an involuntarily jerk and then slammed against his hand, he knew that he had found it.

"Give it to me Daddy," she crooned, closing her eyes and smiling. He had big fingers, and he knew how to use them. She couldn't help but buck her hips and he twanged her g-spot. "I'll be your good girl," she added. "Or maybe your bad girl."

She laid her shoulders against the ground, freeing up one hand to reach out and ensnare his member. She couldn't do much from the angle she was at, or even get her hand all the way around his cock, but she held it gently and anticipated its upcoming entry into her body.

But Tarloh was going to make her wait just a little bit. He wanted her to be the first to achieve release. She pressed her thighs together against his hand and cried out, "That's it Daddy!" She let go of his cock and grabbed his wrist with both hands, holding it there while his piston-like fingers made her body ebb with ecstasy. It was one of those perfect, glowing, lose-track-of-time kind of orgasms. It was one that she would remember.

Tarloh sat back. "Why don't you sit on Daddy's lap and tell him what you want for your birthday?"

Talia laughed. Her birthday was actually just a week away, and the big man had remembered. She crawled towards him, stopping when her head reached his enormous manhood.

"I'd like a big lollipop for starts," she said, licking his shaft excruciatingly slowly from balls to crown, then popping the head into her mouth. She couldn't get more than a few inches in her mouth. Its girth was just too prohibitive, but she loved to try. She wrapped both hands around the rod below, rubbing it up and down. She let it loose from her lips so she could lick every square centimeter before downing enough to make her gag. She let the spit dribble out of the corners of her mouth.

"And I'd like a pogo-stick," she continued, crawling forward until his waving cock brushed against her abdomen like an antenna against a low-hanging branch. "Or a pony. I just want something I can ride until I'm satisfied."

The head of his cock was resting between her slick inner labia, held there by the barest of pressure. One tiny bit forward and it would fall away. But Talia wouldn't let that happen. She eased back slow, letting half the head penetrate, then stopping.

"But Daddy, it's just so big," she said slyly. She sat back, squeezing her pussy muscles as she did. The head was captured and in a death grip, and Tarloh was at his wits end. He wanted inside her, but she was going to make him wait.

She started a slow slide downward and was completely enjoying the ride. She was feeling every inch and every vein and every change in width. She spent a full minute lowering herself down that rod. But with that part of the journey out of the way, she decided to make some progress towards the destination.

She got her feet under her and started bouncing on his cock. At first, she raised herself all the way up to the crown then slammed herself back down. But after a while, she developed a smoother rhythm.

His big paws caressed her breasts as she road him. He could be so gentle when he wanted to be. Sometimes she forgot that. Particularly when he had her bent over something and was hammering her like a railroad spike.

But that wasn't they way either of them wanted it. Tarloh did hold her off of him, stand up and then pick her up, slowly placing her down on his cock like his own personal velvet glove. He pushed her back against the dirty metal wall of the room and their lips met just as gently as their bodies had. Talia's legs wrapped around his thrusting hips . . . his hands cupped her buttocks and helped support her body weight.

He stopped, completely embedded inside her and let her squeeze and clench her vaginal muscles while they kissed. It was the kind of kissing that was so intense it required actual concentration and no shortage of lung-power. Of course, Talia's lungs failed her when she came again, clinging to him like wet towel as she leaked her love onto his dick and balls.