Bite's Back [North downtime]

[Ulv]

He's been tracking this lead for days now, always one step behind the man that picks up 'free to good home' pups on Craigslist Denver and uses them for fighting, or worse yet, bait dogs. And this man and his deeds are not exclusive to the canine species. North has watched him use all manner of four legged beast in his fighting pens to teach these dogs how to kill and kill quickly. Without concern he pits two dogs against one another like Gladiators in the Coliseum in order to turn a quick buck. It carries with it no honour, no glory and yet they fight because he is their human and the act seems to please him.

The ring has moved on. The winners - or the dogs who lived to fight another day - were packed up in cages and hustled to another locale. But North can smell them just as sure as if they had been chained up right there at his feet. The scent though was stronger than just dog and he dropped to all fours and put his nose close to the earth where the dogs had been chained.

The scent was definitely dog, but multiplied by 1000. It wasn't the smell of a group of dogs or a pack of dogs or even a kennel of dogs that caught him unaware. It was the essential smell of wolf or something wolf-like, pure and concentrated in the air. It was dense with a whiff of wet fur and a back odour like urine.

And blood. There was also a bloody component to it, mineral and meaty.

His hood was pulled up over his head and his jeans had worn holes in each knee which meant that his bare skin was sinking into the wet dirt that had been soaked with piss and blood and spit. Slowly and as if each movement of his joints and muscles complained to him, he stood up and without bothering to wipe off his knees or the palms of his hands, he started walking back toward Downtown.

He needed to see a man about a dog.