useless. She began to walk away when Hal’s voice stopped her briefly.

“Oh, by the way, you’re girl in White Mountain, she was bitten the other day, and I heard she’s really sick. Just thought you might want to know.”

He smiled, a façade of innocence playing across his face. Lilith barely remembered the girl, but she acted hurt nonetheless. She said nothing as she stepped through the fence and into the alley. All around her, she felt the stares of thousands of eyes, and the whispering of their plans. She lowered herself to the ground submissively and tried to crawl away from all of these horrible things as fast as she could, but her mind kept her completely surrounded, trapped…

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

The boiler room felt more uncomfortable than usual as an even greater amount of bodies packed in tighter than sardines in a can. The giant furnace greedily swallowed more coal and belched out flames, making the temperature rise further. The usual whispering and gossip that you would have expected was absent from the crowd of dogs. They had a feeling that this meeting, like the one’s previous since Henry had taken over, would be depressing or be just as insane as a circus gone awry. A completely black dog walked in from the snow-swept streets and took her seat behind Jenna and followed by her came the dog of the hour, their leader, Henry. He didn’t bother shaking the snow from his pelt before standing up in front of the assembly. His tail twitched as he cleared his throat, going over his speech in his head.

“Thank you for gathering here this evening. I’m sorry if I disturbed any slumber. But unfortunately, I must be the bearer of bad news once more. A few days ago, a girl was bitten in White Mountain, and it is thought that she caught the rabies virus… And today, another girl was attacked, but this time it took place in this very town.”

Now something like this did catch the attention of the onlookers, and they turned to each other, whispering quietly. Rabies? No dog had ever seen that deadly disease in action. They thought that it had long since disappeared and that it had no intentions of returning.

“This means that we have to be even more careful with who we trust than before, and no one is to leave their homes, unless I, or an associate of mine, comes and calls for you, most likely to be questioned… But this leads me to something else. The other night, one of my associates saw Balto, which means that he is in direct violation of his banishment. This made me think though. I think I found a connection. It’s very possible that Balto could be infected with this vile virus, giving reason to his recent violent actions…” Henry tried to hide a small smile, “And this is why I am stressing the suggestion of staying home… I don’t want to see a single one of you get hurt, or worse, infected.”

Kodi, who was now fully recovered and sitting by his mother, was by now trembling with rage. “Why that dirty, lowlife,” he growled quietly.

He felt another paw on his shoulder and he turned to Denali. His brother shook his head without any expression.

“Easy. You’re lucky you were even allowed to come. If you’re thinking about crossing Henry, don’t. You’re too hotheaded to hold an argument with him.”

The dog behind them perked her ears up for a moment, before realizing she was eavesdropping. Denali watched his brother’s frustrated face and sighed.

“Fine. If you must gain pleasure from stirring trouble, at least let me do this, so you specifically, don’t tick him off.”

Denali stood up and began to push through the whispering crowd, gaining some attention.

“Excuse me, Judge, but I have a question or two for you.”

“Aww, sit’own. Can’t we just have a meeting without a argument?” called an irritated voice from the assembly.

“Pardon me,” said Denali politely, “but isn’t a meeting meant to have some debate? Anyways,” he turned towards Henry, who was giving him an interesting expression, “how are you so sure that my father is the one to have this rabies?”

Henry smirked, “It’s one of the only ways to describe his recent violent behavior and-”

“That’s just an inference from very shaky evidence and your own opinions,” he interrupted, “next, are you even so sure that this virus is indeed active?”

“Well, I heard that a girl got bitten by-”

Once again Denali cut him off. “Children are bitten all the time by dogs if they don’t learn how to treat them right. Common knowledge that any respectable dog would know. Moving on, why are my brothers and mother being locked up in their homes? Your real reason please.”

“Because they would not listen and-”

“Who could blame them? No one in their right mind would believe half of the insane logic that you spit out.”

Henry was starting to fume by now. “Listen here you, you better start listening and stop interrupting me or else-”

“You’ll what? Put me under ‘house arrest’ because you don’t like being proven wrong? Well, that seems rather logical to me.”

There was a whistle of surprise from the crowd. Dogs on either side of Denali began to push farther away from him, not wanting to get caught up. Others stared in awe and their mouths hung open at his insubordination. Henry was visibly shaking at this point, while Denali was on the opposite end of the spectrum, completely calm and straight-faced. Henry looked over Denali and at Jenna.

“Jenna, please control your little… scoundrel.”

“Ooh, hoo, hoo, resulting to name-calling now. Very mature,” Denali retorted.

Jenna gave a wide smile. “Sorry Henry. No can do. He’s more like his grandma than I could ever hope, and besides, I’m sure a lot of us are thinking the same things.”

Everyone could see Henry grinding his teeth angrily. Haida thought it was his time to enter the arena. He got up and stood beside Denali.

“Oh come on! Denali does this to us all the time and you can’t handle a little taste of it? Psh, anger management is definitely going to be your thing,” he smirked.

There were a few giggles from the crowd and you could swear that steam was pouring out of Henry’s ears. He suddenly straightened his posture. He had forgotten something… but what? He put a paw to the back of his neck and pulled it back, seeing black on his pads. He didn’t have time to fool around with these idiots!

“Silence!” he commanded and the crowd immediately fell silent. “I will not lower myself to their level and I expect you all to do the same... I want to keep the importance of this meeting clear, however. I wish that you all stay inside unless we call on you, whether or not the rabies virus is indeed here. This is just to stay safe. Now if you excuse me, I have other places to be right now.”

Without another word, or a gesture of departing, he rushed off from the front and out the door, leaving the assembly still silent. As the moment got more and more awkward, they filed out. Saba walked up to Denali and saw a somewhat smug expression on his face.

“Wow, who knew you could be such a rebel?” she giggled.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

A black dog trudged through the blinding snowstorm. The soot covering her paws melted away and soon, a greater amount of the artificial covering disappeared from her pelt and soaked into the snow below until she was completely clean. She looked wearily over her shoulder and shivered from a sudden gust of bone-chilling wind. The red bow around her paw bobbed uncaringly about, its bright red color now returned. She pressed herself closer to the side of the nearest building as she pushed her way on. The iced over wood siding did nothing to add protection, but it gave her a false sense of security. From above she heard the familiar sound of a creaking sign and the jingle of icicles. She felt her way around a tight corner and stumbled to the other side of the alley. She paused for a moment and her ears perked. She could swear that she had felt someone behind her. She turned her head slowly and her eyes squinted... No one. She felt a growl resonate from her throat. She knew that she wasn’t alone… The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her tail was straight as an arrow. The wind whipped around her unflinching face, singing merrily and mocking her. Her pupils narrowed to slits and she bared her razor-sharp teeth. She looked behind her… The presence was there. She could feel it… She snapped her head back forward and yelped in surprise, jumping back quickly. Hal had been literally nose to nose with her.

“B-but h-how did you-” she stuttered.

“Please, Sister Dear, you know that I’m always keeping a protective eye on you,” Hal laughed giddily, “but please, do come inside. You must be… frozen.”

He wrapped a bushy tail around her neck and led her towards the entrance to their home. Lilith bit her lip as she tried to think. There was something she wanted to ask him, something she needed to know… But what?… A name? Henry?… That was it!

“Ugh… Hal?” she started to ask.

Hal turned to her as they were engulfed by darkness and warmth. He gave her a toothy smile and uncurled his tail from around her throat.

“Yes?”

“I-if I remember right… Isn’t Hal, a short name for… Henry?”

“Hmm, could be,” he said curiously, “but what would it matter to you?”

“N-nothing but… didn’t your old master call you Henry, and he gave you a collar too… T-there’s this dog who has the same name, and the collar looks familiar.”

“There is, is there? Well how about that,” he smiled with a sinister sweetness and delicately patted her on the head, “but I don’t think that it’s something you should have to worry about now Sweetie. Now, how about going to bed, we have plenty of things we need to do to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

“You’ll find out soon enough Sister Dear.”

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

Henry waltzed through the blizzard as if he were dancing, the lashing wind having no effect on him whatsoever. His black fur began to run, covering the rest of his

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