“No way. Tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,” Drake groaned, letting his head thud back against the wood frame of the open window.

“It usually is,” Trace muttered from where he sat on the bed. He was using the wall as a backrest and propping a tablet against a knee, the other thigh being used as a pillow by Slick. What Trace did on computers all day was a mystery. Drake’s bet was on games.

Tic and Toc were at the window immediately, twin chirps of “what?” echoing the patter of their feet.

“Down there.” Drake nodded to a stretch of the street below. The tarps shading the entrance to the main hall didn’t cover the lone black blob in the sea of tan and yellow that was their desert home. “Someone should tell the captain we don’t need to do charity work anymore.”

“It’s not charity work,” Trace cut in before the other wolf could dig himself into a funk over it. Slick shifted to more comfortable position at their voices. “You should know why he did it.” Trace lowered his voice and carded his fingers through Slick’s hair to make sure the other wolf stayed asleep.

“There’s no way that scrawny little thing is him,” Drake hissed.

“Him?” Tic asked, ears perking up.

“Him who?” Toc echoed.

“Who else?” Drake asked. “There’s only one him we really care about. But isn’t this going a bit overboard? Yeah, the kid down there is a fox, but he’s the wrong breed.”

“He’s a black fox,” Toc commented.

“And he’s not all black,” Tic informed Trace, who had yet to get up and look at the newcomer on the street.

“There aren’t as many foxes are there are wolves,” Trace pointed out. “There’s a chance he knows something, even if he doesn’t know he knows. The captain wasn’t going to let the opportunity to observe and question pass him by.”

“There’s more to this than you’re telling us, isn’t there?” Drake asked, scratching at his ear and frowning out the window. “No way this kid is the damned bastard, or knows about him. Where’d he come from, anyways?”

“I know, I know!” Tic said, raising his hand. Toc had his raised as well. “Black foxes come from the forest!”

“And forests are in the south and in the southeast!” Toc added. The twins had huge grins on their faces and seemed to be bursting with pride.

“You’d think, being a member of the captain’s pack, Drake would know that,” Tic said slyly.

Toc’s smile took on the same leering, creepy tone. “Didn’t you know?” he mock-whispered in his brother’s ear. “The captain took him in out of pity. He’s really a-”

“Out!” Drake hissed, grabbing both wolves by their collars and carrying them to the door. “Out before I poison your dinner and make it look like an accident! Or worse, you wake Slick.” He tossed the two pups into the hallway and shut the door behind them. “Geez, did the captain have to bring them in?” He muttered, going back to his seat on the window sill. “I get that you need runners and those two are your favorites, but really. They’re such brats.”

Slick peeked an eye open, proving he wasn’t as asleep as he was pretending to be, then closed it again when Drake gave an irritated swish of his tail. “Those so-called brats get me more footage in a day than you do in a month,” Trace reminded Drake. “If you want to do their job, be my guest.”

Drake slid down in his seat, pouting with the fox now gone from his view. “That’s too much like work,” he grumbled. He waited only half a beat before asking: “You really think this new kid might know something?”

Trace shrugged, looking up when the captain came in and started his usual inspection of the room and everyone in it. “There are… oddities with these particular foxes,” Trace admitted. “When we got the request to train him, it seemed like a good opportunity to observe and draw our own conclusions.”

“What sort of oddities?” Drake asked, tilting his head to the side as the captain scented all around his throat, then gave a small lick to Drake’s neckline.

“Well, first, he asked to train with us,” the captain said. He slowly started removing the more restricting aspects of his clothing, letting the colorful fabric fall to the floor as he pulled out his normal gear and switched to that.

“That’s odd?” Drake asked.

Trace nodded. “The Forest Fox clan keeps to themselves. Black Fox’s record is spotty at best. The official files we were given list him as succeeding at solo missions we would normally assign a rookie and nothing else. But our own records and unofficial reports have put him at additional, high-level missions with mixed success rates. He sometimes does extremely well, and sometimes fails spectacularly. Some of these missions should have required two or three people, yet he is listed unofficially as succeeding while solo.”

Drake frowned and shifted uncomfortably. “Victim of a honey trap?” he asked as he put his back to the outside world. “There are a few bears who still like that trick.”

Trace shook his head. “We won’t know until we get a closer look at him. There’s also the possibility there is another fox out there completing those missions, unrelated to our little rookie.”

“Not that many Black Foxes out there,” Slick yawned, turning on his side so he could watch the captain. “Two in one forest would be pretty damn coincidental.”

“And what do you think?” the captain asked as he settled the short sword across his back.

Slick took his time thinking, letting his eyes slide closed and just feeling the warmth of the room. They all knew he was listening to them breathe and move, organizing his thoughts to determine what exactly bothered him. The other wolves let him take his time and let the silence drag. The captain had finished changing and was lingering by the small shrine they had to the desert fox god when Slick finally spoke up: “Trace, this Black Fox… is he the same one who lost his brother 15 years ago?”

Trace tapped away at his tablet, then showed the screen to the wolf still laying on his lap. “Here. He is the son of Albert, a red fox in the forest who had quite a good run terrorizing the rabbits into serving him. His wife gave birth to two sons, twins, both black foxes.”

“Was their momma a black fox?” Tic asked. Drake scowled when he saw the twins had wormed their way back into the room and were peeking up over the foot of the bed to stare adoringly at Trace.

“No,” Trace said. “Like sometimes there are white wolves born when neither parent is white, sometimes a black fox is born from red wolf parents.”

“And according to Trace’s data, 15 years ago both the mother and the younger brother died of illness,” Slick said, tapping at the screen. “Which means that fox has been alone all that time.”

“A lone wolf?” Toc asked.

“Nah, kid, foxes ain’t like wolves,” Drake said. “Ch’. Damn.” He turned to look outside again. “Coulda said so. When do I need to take a look?”

“Explain to the twins first,” the captain said. “They only know we’re looking for one, they need to know all they can before we get our revenge.”

Drake leaned back against the window frame, shifting so the shade covered his arm a bit more and he could have a better view of the village. “Wolves are pack animals. We like to be in groups. But if we have to be, we can be alone too. For years at a time. Foxes form smaller groups called skulks. Most people think they can live alone, too, because they look just like animal foxes in their fur.”

“Animal foxes?”

Trace took over. “When you’re in your fur we call you a wolf. You look just like the animal, but you aren’t a wolf. We’ve had hundreds of years of evolution to be better than animals, and we’ve become different. Wild wolves don’t live as long as we do, or eat the same things, or communicate the same way. Foxes also have differences. For one thing, wild foxes are nocturnal. They are awake at night, when a lot of other creatures are asleep. They also live mostly alone.”

“But this isn’t a wild fox,” Slick said, finally sitting up. “And being alone is bad for them. Drives them a bit mad if it goes on too long. They need a pack. That poor fellow lost half of his in one go. That’s why we didn’t question them until later; they were grieving.”

Drake growled, and punched a fist against the wall. “He wasn’t alone. He had his father and all those bunnies to terrorize, right?”

“It’s not the same,” the captain said. “And Slick is right. That boy is remarkably well adjusted for a fox who was supposedly alone all this time.”

Drake slumped. “Damn. We really think he might know something about the bastard, don’t we?”

“Don’t call him that,” Tic scolded.

“It’s disrespectful,” Toc said with his nose in the air.

“He was disrespectful. He wants me to call him something different, he can damn well tell me so himself.” Drake stood and shook off the sand that had blown into his hair. “If you’ll excuse me, my lord, I have a brat to look after.”

“I’m surprised half the city doesn’t know who the captain is with you calling him that all the time,” Trace huffed.

“Better than you calling him ‘boss’ all the time,” Drake spat back, sticking his tongue out at his packmate.

Trace scowled, but switched his focus when Slick took the tablet from his hands. “Come on, now. The captain didn’t come here to listen to you two bicker. He’s got a fox to scent.”

Trace swatted at Slick and reached for the tablet. “Fine, but give that back. I have work.”

“Hey, before you start with the foreplay, what’s this brat’s name?” Drake asked.

“Black Fox,” Trace said.

“You’re joking.”

“No he isn’t,” Slick perked up as Trace tackled him to the bed.

“He’s a black fox… named Black Fox,” Drake repeated, just to be clear.

“Yep!” Slick seemed unusually happy about it.

Drake turned pleading eyes to the captain. “We really think this is worth looking into? Really?”

The captain didn’t flinch, and didn’t give in to the doe-eyes being aimed at him. “We look into all leads. Always. We’ve done it for years, we will do it until our mission is complete.”

“Right, right,” Drake sighed, turning away from the sight of Trace and Slick mock-fighting. He couldn’t block out the sound of Trace’s yip as Slick landed on the other wolf, pinning him to the bed. “You all have too much energy right now. I’ll be in my office.” He blew a kiss to the shrine to the desert fox, just in case. Grant us luck, little one, he added silently. We may need it.