Inside the house, Tom dropped the curtain and dashed through the back door and onto the steps. Then, fearing that he might startle Thor into action, he stopped himself and tried to act calm.

"Hi, Ted!" he said nervously.

Thor heard the apprehension in Dad's voice and thought Dad finally understood that Uncle Ted was a threat. But he did his best to pretend nothing was up while he waited for the last piece of evidence: the one that would confirm or deny everything.

"Good morning," Uncle Ted said. His voice and posture overwhelmingly proclaimed his guilt, but Thor still waited.

Uncle Ted continued down the stairs, trying not to be too obvious about watching Thor. Dad came up quietly behind Thor and reached down to pet him.

There was something artificial in Dad's touch, but Thor kept his attention focused on Uncle Ted. Uncle Ted stepped onto the cement walk and Dad slipped his index finger into the loop on Thor's choker. Thor noticed but pretended not to. He knew if he betrayed his intentions prematurely he would never get another chance.

He'd only succeeded in doing one thing right since the trouble started: He'd drawn blood from the Bad Thing's ankle. He couldn't afford to make another mistake. He sat perfectly still and tried to look normal.

Uncle Ted walked up to Dad and Thor, as guilty as any Bad Dog Thor had ever seen. Thor was certain Dad could see it - he'd always seen Thor's guilt.

Uncle Ted came into range, and Thor nonchalantly sniffed the bottom of his pants leg.

Underneath Uncle Ted's pants was a clean cotton bandage, the potent odor of disinfectant, and dried blood. Thor had no difficulty matching dried blood with fresh, but the unexpected disinfectant smell confused him for a second. He took a few deep breaths to numb his nose to the disinfectant. The blood scent came through, clear and strong.

It was the Bad Thing's blood. There was no doubt.

Smelling is knowing.

Thor glanced up at Uncle Ted for an instant to see exactly where his throat was. Then he leaped.

Tom felt his hand suddenly rise up into the air. It was halfway to Uncle Ted's neck before he realized what was happening and pulled back hard.

The chain closed painfully around Thor's neck and he felt his flight cut short as Uncle Ted brought an arm up to shield himself.

Thor snapped at Uncle Ted's forearm and his fangs sank into flesh, but Dad yanked him backward before he could clamp down and do any real damage. Uncle Ted stumbled back, stunned, as Dad slipped on the gra.s.s and fell backward, pulling Thor with him.

Thor found his balance, dug his claws into the ground, and pulled violently to get at Uncle Ted, snapping his head from side to side and choking himself in the process. Blood spread onto Uncle Ted's torn sleeve as Thor lurched at him with jaws open and fangs bared. Dad lay flat on his back, his index finger nearly dislocated but still in the choker, which he held onto desperately with both hands. The collar closed around Thor's neck and he gagged horribly as his teeth snapped uselessly on air.

Uncle Ted stumbled backward onto the stairs as blood ran down his arm, soaking his shirt sleeve and coating his hands. He squeezed his forearm to slow the bleeding as he chanted, "Oh s.h.i.t! Oh s.h.i.t!" over and over again. He ripped away the sleeve with his teeth and looked at the bite. It was only a flesh wound, just deep enough to bleed like h.e.l.l. He was okay. Still, he felt his blood pressure drop and he sat down on the stairs and started to put his head between his knees.

"Get upstairs!" Dad shouted, "Quick! I don't know how long I can hold him!" Uncle Ted stumbled up the stairs in a daze, leaving bright splashes of blood in his wake, Thor growled and snarled and snapped at him from the end of Dad's arm, but the attack was over and he knew it.

And once again, he had failed.

Dad struggled to his feet and pulled the choker with both hands. His index finger hurt like a b.i.t.c.h, but he dragged Thor back to the house with his front legs off the ground, retching and gagging all the way. Dad hated choking him like that, but he didn't dare let Thor's feet touch the ground. Thor was much too heavy and powerful. It was a miracle that Dad had managed to hang onto him this long.

Mom stood in the kitchen door with her hands over her mouth, panic-stricken. She quickly stepped aside as Dad hustled Thor through the kitchen to the cellar door. Thor struggled as hard as he could without attacking Dad, but once his feet were on the slippery kitchen floor, he gave up. He offered no resistance as Dad opened the cellar door and pushed him through. He tumbled down a few steps before his feet found the stairs, then continued down on his own. He headed straight for the darkest corner and dropped to the dirty cement floor.

He felt only guilt.

There was no question of the Badness of what he'd done. The attack, as necessary as it might have been, not only violated Dad's Law, but Natural Law as well. Any violence within the Pack was anarchy, a threat to the very existence of packs.

And Thor hadn't just committed violence. He'd tried to kill within his Pack.

His guilt was total. He felt the tightness around his chest, and the feeling of shrinking inside himself returned. He would not feel better. He was permanently and irrevocably alone, and he knew in his gut that he wouldn't live long without his Pack.

He had no wish to go upstairs and seek forgiveness. He couldn't face the Pack. He didn't deserve their love, their companionship, their food or their home. He was a menace to Natural Order.

Sounds from upstairs reached his ears, but he heard nothing. Even his sense of smell seemed to fade away. He stared without seeing, and thought only about the terrible thing he'd done.

He remembered biting Teddy, he remembered Kitty, whom he'd shamefully failed to protect, he remembered his disobedience, culminating with the way he'd fought with Dad only moments ago.

But worst of all, he remembered how he'd enjoyed the taste of Uncle Ted's blood - the final proof of his Badness. Only a Bad Dog could enjoy the taste of a pack member's blood. Only a Bad Dog could know what it tasted like.

He expected to die in the cellar, and hoped death would come soon. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but wait.

All sense of time faded out, along with the details of the cellar around him. He felt nothing but emptiness and Badness. He felt ugly and misshapen and was glad no one could see him.

He didn't hear the frantic conversations and scurrying around upstairs; they were none of his business. The Pack was no longer his concern - he no longer had concerns. He was totally alone, totally separate from the Pack. He would never go home again. He had no home to go to.

Janet held Uncle Ted's arm over the kitchen sink as cold water washed over the gash.

"You'll need to see a doctor," Tom said.

"No I won't," Ted said. "It's just a flesh wound. No veins or arteries or tendons cut, nothing I can't handle."

"You're going to need a teta.n.u.s shot," Tom said.

"I'll give myself a teta.n.u.s shot," Uncle Ted insisted. "You think I can go into the Amazon rain forest without a first aid kit? I have sutures, I have local anesthetic, I have disinfectant and I have penicillin. I have everything I need and I've had plenty of practice using it. This won't be the first teta.n.u.s shot I've given myself." He paused for a moment and added quietly, almost ruefully, "Besides, I don't like doctors. Believe me, it's no big deal."

"Okay," Tom said. There was something terribly disturbing about Uncle Ted's comments - or was it his att.i.tude? Tom couldn't put his finger on what it was.

There was nothing else for Tom to do but make the phone call, the one he dreaded making. The one to the pound. He wished someone else could do it, but there wasn't anyone else. He picked up the phone book and looked up the number.

He felt like s.h.i.t.

Chapter 14.

Time stood still in the cellar. Hours went by unnoticed as Thor waited for nothing, his pain punctuated by darting, uncontrolled, random memories of times spent with the Pack. Already, he missed the Pack desperately.

His depression was so deep that he didn't react when the cellar door finally opened. Ordinarily, he would have been thrilled. Ordinarily, it would have meant a chance for redemption. But those days were gone forever.

He hoped no one would come down into the cellar. He didn't want to be seen in his current state. He was a Bad Dog. Why didn't they leave him alone?

He recognized Dad's footsteps on the stairs - the worst of all possibilities.

Did Dad want to tell Thor what a Bad Dog he was? Why? Thor knew.

Unfamiliar footsteps followed Dad halfway down the stairs, and Thor experienced an odd sensation of understanding.

Dad found him in his Bad Dog corner and approached him cautiously.

Seeing Dad's fear made him feel even worse. He'd done what he'd done to protect the Pack, but his Badness was so profound that the Pack not only rejected him, they feared him. Was there no limit to his Badness?

Dad held a knot of leather in his hand. Thor watched impa.s.sively as Dad cautiously, nervously knelt next to him and slipped the thing over his snout and fastened it in place with metal couplers. At least Dad didn't look at Thor's eyes while he did it. Dad acted almost as ashamed as Thor, though Thor didn't notice it. He was just glad to be spared another confrontation. As soon as the muzzle was in place, Dad hooked a leash to it and stood back to make way for the two men who waited on the stairs.

They wore white suits with an emblem on their shirt pockets. Thor couldn't remember having seen the before, but there was an awful familiarity about them that terrified him.

One of them tugged gently on the leash, then tugged again a little harder after Thor failed to move.

"C'mon, Thor," the stranger said. Something told Thor his suffering would end faster if he went with them. He listlessly got to his feet on trembling legs, and followed the tugging leash without looking around at his former Pack Leader.

Dad stayed in the cellar as they took Thor upstairs. That figured. Thor was no longer Dad's dog, no longer anyone's dog. Why should anyone follow him?

The man with the leash led Thor through the kitchen and out the back door. His partner followed, carrying a shotgun.

There was no one in the kitchen, and no sounds in the house. The Pack was gone, except for Dad. The Pack's car was gone, too. In its place was a small white truck with no windows on the back.

The man with the leash opened the back of the truck and led Thor inside with surprising gentleness. Thor made no attempt to sniff either of the men, but their scents reached his nose nonetheless. They were totally unfamiliar.

And yet he felt he knew them and where they were going. He got into the empty truck. The man put the free end of his leash through a slot in the door, so he could grab it from outside before opening the door again. The inside of the truck was all metal, with no padding or upholstery. Thor lay down as soon as he was inside, and waited to leave.

In the cellar, Dad sat in the dark with his face in his hands, his body shaking with silent, bitter sobs.

Thor couldn't escape the feeling that he knew where the truck was going. It filled him with a mixture of relief and unspeakable dread.

As the truck b.u.mped and swerved its way through the streets, Thor became restless. Something in the distance worried him. Something he thought he heard over the sound of the truck's engine.

After a short drive, the truck slowed to a stop and Thor began to tremble. The moment the engine died, he heard what had bothered him. It was the distant, m.u.f.fled howling of a hundred dogs and cats.

One of the white-suited attendants opened the back door, and the living music of despair filled Thor's ears. He trembled horribly as they dragged him out of the van. Ahead lay a squat, cinder-block building. Animals wailed from inside.

A horrible deja vu came over him: He knew this place.

He knew what he would see and hear and smell inside the blocky, featureless building. He struggled to get away and yet . . . he felt a strange attraction for the building, almost as if it were . . .

They pulled him to the front door, opened it, and dragged him into a small lobby. Then one of them opened a second door, and they took him into the holding area.

He caught a whiff of the interior and fear swallowed him whole. His legs felt like they would give way, the blood drained out of his face, and the tightness in his chest threatened to suffocate him on the spot.

He had known what the place would smell like, and sound like and look like.

He'd seen the wire cages before, hundreds of them, covering the walls, stacked up to the ceiling, each one occupied by an animal waiting to die. He'd heard the voices of the condemned animals rise in a symphony of despair. He'd smelled the acrid soup of urine and feces, dirty dogs and cats, and above all and beneath all, the smell of death.

This was the House of Death.

This was the place where the Angel of Death walked, taking animals from their cages every day. And every day, the voices of fear and misery were silenced. And every day, new voices of fear and misery replaced them. And the smell of death was always strong and fresh.

Thor whimpered and clawed at the smooth concrete floor, trying to get a grip, trying to find some way out. But there was no way out. The men pulled him steadily to his cage to await the Angel of Death. His bladder emptied on the floor, humiliating him further, though he was almost too deep in shock to notice what he'd done.

And yet it wasn't death that he feared. It was knowledge. Some unthinkable memory that had been locked away forever was getting out. He wanted to run from it, but there was no escape.

He knew this place because he was born here. This was his true home.

His original Pack, his real Pack, had all been pups. He'd cried and wailed with them in their tiny cage, and the Angel of Death had answered their cries. One by one, the Angel of Death took them from the cage and into another room, where their cries were stilled and they joined the other Bad Dogs in silence. One by one they left, until only Thor remained - nameless, unloved, alone and terrified. His time was coming - the Angel of Death was on his way - but something happened, someone intervened.

A pack of humans visited the House of Death, and all the Bad Dogs somehow knew the visitors could save them. All the Bad Dogs howled and yelped at the visitors to get their attention, to tell them of their sadness and loneliness, to beg forgiveness for their Badness, and to beg to be taken away from the House of Death.

The visitors were Mom and Dad and Teddy and Brett.

Janet hated the pound from the moment she set foot inside. She looked without seeing, stunned by the misery around her, the hopelessness of the animals, and worst of all, the animals' apparent understanding of their situation. These creatures knew they were doomed.

She'd thought it would be like a trip to a pet shop. It was more like a tour of a concentration camp.

While Janet tried to shut herself off from the reality around her, Tom carefully examined the dogs. He didn't like the pound either, but he didn't want to waste the trip, and he didn't want to have to come back. His eyes met Thor's for an instant, then pa.s.sed on to the next cage. Thor whimpered to him, but he didn't look back. Janet followed Tom blindly down the row of cramped cages. They stopped about five feet from Thor's cage and turned to face each other.

Janet told Tom she wanted to leave. She didn't like being here for even a short visit, and she didn't like the kids being here, either. She wanted out, and right away.

But while Janet and Tom talked, Teddy pressed his face to Thor's cage, looked in, and said, "b.i.t.c.hin'!"

Thor looked up and their eyes met, and Teddy saw the loneliness there and looked away, but he'd already made up his mind.

"Let's get this one!" Teddy cried, startling his parents.

Brett ran to see what his big brother had found. Teddy was eight and Brett four. Teddy was Brett's G.o.d. Anything Teddy wanted, Brett wanted. As soon as Brett was sure he knew which dog Teddy meant, he yelled, "Yeah! Me too! Let's get this one!"

Janet and Tom came back to Thor's cage and looked again.

"I don't want a German shepherd," Tom said. "They're over-protective. Besides, Teddy, look at the size of his feet! And those ears! He's going to be a giant! I don't think we can afford such a big dog."

Teddy looked like he might start crying at any second.