Worlds Apart - 21. Holiday Plans and Pirate Plots

Siku paced the floor of the living room, waiting for word from the bears who had gone out to confront Colt. They had refused to allow him to come along, fearing that he would be too easily recognized by any of Colt’s friends, and would be a liability for the group.

He had his doubts that apprehending the big Kodiak was going to be as easy as using Mike to get him alone in a hotel room, and then have twenty bears break down the door, but Gunnar and the rest seemed confident in their plan.

Charlie sat in her usual spot atop his shoulder and occasionally batted at his cheek to draw his attention and break him out of his nervous mood. She heard the sound of car tires in the driveway a second before he did and leapt from her perch to run to the front door in anticipation.

Siku followed her to the foyer and was greeted with the sight of Gunnar bursting through the door, carrying an unconscious Mike wrapped in a bloody sheet.

“Oh, Odin!” Siku exclaimed, “Gunnar, I’m so sorry! Is Mike…?”

“Mike will be okay,” Gunnar said, reassuring his friend. “He just needs some time to rest and heal.”

Siku rushed over and took the bloody bundle from Gunnar’s arms, stroking Mike’s face with concern. He saw the bruises on the Cub’s neck and knew immediately what had happened.

“That fucking bastard,” Siku muttered. “He likes to choke guys when he fucks them. Does that mean…?”

“He had at least started raping Mike before we gained entry to the building,” Barry said, rubbing Siku’s arm as the polar bear embraced the unconscious cub. “I don’t smell any fresh werebear semen on Mike, so he most likely didn’t get a chance to finish. He apparently choked Mike unconscious and then tore him open with his fucking cock. He must have heard us coming because by the time we knocked the room door off its hinges he was already out the window via the fire escape.”

At that moment, Mike moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He looked up at Siku, holding him in his arms like a six-foot four baby, and reached an arm up to stroke the bear’s white beard.

“Siku,” Mike croaked through his crushed windpipe. “We got him, buddy. On tape at least. He bragged to me about what he did to you and Shivay, and my phone was recording the whole thing. We can take it to the Lycan Council and put that asshole away for a long time.”

“He’s never going to see the inside of a prison, Mike,” Siku said grimly, causing the other bears milling in the foyer to stop and turn to listen to what he was saying. “After what he did to both Shivay and now to you, I’m going to rip that fucking bear apart with my own paws.”

“Ice Bear,” Mike whispered, still resting his hand on the side of the bear’s face, “That is not the werebear way. We don’t kill in anger. We only kill when absolutely necessary in the defense of others.”

“I’m going to defend every man and bear who that fucking asshole is planning to rape next by ripping his cock off at the root, and shoving it back up his stinking cornhole,” Siku replied grimly, and Dom, Barry and Gunnar each laid a paw on his massive shoulders and nodded in agreement.

Despite the grim atmosphere of Siku’s warning, Mike couldn’t help but let out a croaking laugh.

“What’s funny about this situation, Cub?” Gunnar asked, rubbing Mike’s forehead.

“Oh, it’s just that Colt claims to be a total top,” Mike replied, the grating giggles dying down as his eyelids began to droop. “Shoving that monster cock of his up his own asshole will really teach him a lesson he won’t forget!”

Mike slipped back into sleep and the bears looked around at each other, slightly amused by the Cub’s reaction to the situation.

“I’ll take him upstairs,” Siku said finally, “I’ll get him cleaned up and put to bed. Gunnar, you should have a drink and try to relax. You look like you’ve been through hell tonight.”

Gunnar nodded and leaned forward to kiss his Cub one more time before Siku took him to bed. Charlie had been watching the scene from the hall table and leapt back to her bear’s shoulder as he turned to carry Mike upstairs. Gunnar waded through the sea of bears to the kitchen and asked the one closest to the fridge to toss him a beer.

He almost missed catching it, as he was startled by his cell phone ringing as the can sailed toward him over the heads of the crowd. He caught the can with his right hand and skillfully popped it open in one clean motion while fishing his phone from his pocket with the left. He glanced at the screen. It was a San Jose number, not currently saved in his contact list, but he had an idea who it could be.

“This is Gunnar,” he said, answering the call.

“Hello Mr. Bergan,” a quiet voice replied, “This is Nameer, Shivay’s father.”

“Hello doctor!” Gunnar said, summoning up a cheerful tone in his voice, “I assume since you’re calling me that you’ve had a talk with your son?”

“I have,” Nameer replied, “And he’s being a stubborn fool. He clearly still loves your friend Siku as a lover and Mate but thinks that it is now too late to turn from the path of marriage that his mother has destined for him.”

“You think he needs a nudge to put him back on the right path then?” Gunnar asked.

“Yes,” Nameer said, “And I believe that I know when the right time will be to give him that nudge. Do you and Siku and the rest of your bears have any Thanksgiving plans?”

Gunnar grinned.

“No sir,” he replied. “I think I know where you’re going with this, and I like it. Nothing like a good old-fashioned Thanksgiving holiday knock-down-drag-out fight to put all one’s family troubles into perspective.”

“Indeed,” Nameer said, “I’ll text you the address and the time you and Siku should arrive. I’ll pack a bag for my son in secret in case he needs to make a hasty exit.”

“Maybe you should pack a bag for yourself as well,” Gunnar suggested, “I’m sure we can find room in this big old house for one more, unless you’d prefer that your wife turn your hide into a throw rug!”

“I…” Nameer began so say in response, “I may just do that. Thank you, great bear. I appreciate all that you are doing to set things right for my son.”

“Just doing my job,” Gunnar replied. “This is the kind of ‘interference’ that the Lycan Council has come to be known for lately. Good night doctor. I look forward to our encounter on Thursday!”

****

Colt paced back in forth in the living room of his apartment on Noe Street. He had sounded the alarm though his communication pipeline to the other bears in the City that he was calling an emergency gathering to discuss the status of the current situation.

Now, as he paced, about thirty bears, most of whom had attended the fateful party on Saturday night, were gathered on Colt’s shabby living room furniture and in the adjoining dining room waiting for their leader to give them his orders.

“We know for sure that the group of cubs who we spotted this morning in the Castro and Mission districts are aligned with the other older bears who arrived in the City in the last couple of days as well. From my encounter this evening with the blonde grizzly cub, Mike, I now know that these bears are here representing the Lycan Council and think they’re going to put us on trial for our little fun the other night with the polar bear’s Mate, the tiger.”

“Lycan Council?” one of the bears sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch with a beer asked incredulously, “What gives them the right to come into our territory like they’re the Lycan Police or some shit?”

“Because they are the Lycan Police, genius!” Colt shot back, shutting the bear up. “Siku apparently has influential friends on the Council. We’ve managed to keep this City to ourselves for so long by flying under the Council’s radar. Doing as we pleased as long as we didn’t attract too much attention. Well, now the cat is out of the fucking bag.”

“You mean Siku’s orange cat is on the Council too?” another bear asked from the dining room.

“No, you fucking…” Colt said with a sigh, and stopped, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose until he got his anger under control. “It’s just a figure of speech.

“Look, the bottom line is that these new bears in the City have the power to bring the hammer down on our whole operation here if we let them report back what they know to the rest of the Council in Calgary. Which means…”

“It means that those bears can’t leave the City,” a bear growled from his seat in the recliner. “At least not alive anyway.”

“Right, Shane,” Colt replied, “I’m glad somebody in this room gets the gravity of the situation. We have twenty bears intruding in our territory, boys, not counting the polar bear, Siku, and they appear to be ten Papa bears and their cubs.

“The cubs, I want taken alive. They can prove to be useful as fresh meat to trick out. I’m sure some of you wouldn’t mind being relieved from hooker duty, am I right?”

There was a general grumbling of agreement from the bears in both rooms. They were all getting tired of the career path that Colt had forced upon them for the last few decades.

“And once their Papas are dead meat,” Colt continued, “I’m sure they’ll be more pliable to do the jobs we have planned for them.”

“Yeah! Blowjobs!” Shane exclaimed with glee, emboldened by Colt’s praise earlier.

“Right,” Colt said, shooting Shane a glare indicating he should shut the fuck up. “Just remember, the blonde grizzly, Mike, is my personal property until I say otherwise.

“So how are we going to dispose of ten pesky Papa bears?” he asked. “Hank, I put you in charge of tracking the older bears’ daytime activities today. What did you learn?”

“Well sir,” Hank said from his seat at the end of Colt’s dining table, “We know that five of the intruders went with the polar bear to work on his fishing boat this morning, and the other five left the City, headed south on 280, but were back by the late afternoon.”

“Since this is all about Siku,” Colt said, “I’d bet that the five who headed south were looking for his pet tiger trying to track him down and mend fences. The tigers in San Jose are notoriously secretive with anyone outside of their little caste, so good fucking luck there, bears.”

“We know they’re all at Siku’s fucking house right now!” the bear sitting next to Hank shouted, “Let’s go burn the fucker to the ground and kill ‘em all!”

‘“A’ for enthusiasm, but ‘F’ for strategy,” Colt replied. “Do you think that the humans in Sea Cliff wouldn’t notice a fucking werebear war going on next door? We’d completely blow our cover and reveal the existence of were-creatures to the world. That would really have the Council breathing down our necks. No, a full-force attack on Siku’s home is not the way to go… yet. But I think I know how we can eliminate both Siku and half of the pesky Papa bears quickly and easily tomorrow…”

****

Captain Ron parked his car at the Wharf at 5:45 on Wednesday morning and grabbed his travel coffee mug from the cupholder. He walked around the corner of the warehouse building and broke into a wide grin, as he saw Papa Bear and his five friends from Wisconsin already hard at work loading the totes and ice into the boat.

“You’re going to spoil my regular crew,” he called out cheerfully, and the fishermen waved back with grins on their faces, not slowing down their work one bit.

When the regular crew did arrive fifteen minutes later, they were greeted by the visitors and were happy to see that the boat was completely prepped and ready for launch. Charlie ran to her position in the wheelhouse and the captain called for the men to cast off the mooring lines for their day of fishing.

A short distance across the water at the Hyde Street Pier’s charter boat docks, a group of ten large men crouched in the shadows within one of the boats. They watched the commercial fishing boat leave the Wharf and one went to work hot-wiring the boat’s engine. He soon had it started and the stolen boat left the dock, following the fishing boat at a safe distance.

The bears continued the jocular fun with their human fishing companions, telling tales of their Papa Bear’s escapades in Sturgeon Bay for the few months he lived there and causing the big man to blush shyly. This delighted the fishermen even more, knowing now which of their new friend’s buttons to push to give him an occasional tease, without getting him angry enough to rip one of them in two.

When the boat reached its fishing grounds, the crew began their choreographed dance to cast the net and begin their first trawl for the morning. One of the regular crew spotted a charter fishing boat headed directly in their direction and called to the pilot house.

“Hey Cap’n,” the crewman called, “Somebody is headed straight for us at pretty high speed, do you recognize the boat?”

Captain Ron pulled a pair of binoculars from a cubby-hole in his console and looked at the approaching boat.

“That’s Ian Andrews’ charter boat,” the captain replied to his crew, “But that’s not Ian driving it. He doesn’t lend it out to strangers either, so it must be stolen. We could have a pirate situation on our hands boys,”

“Pirates?” Barry asked one of the crew, “What the fuck would pirates want with a fishing boat?”

The crewman shrugged his shoulders but flipped open a previously locked compartment on the deck and began handing out rifles to the rest of the crew.

“We don’t run into them very often,” the crewman replied to Barry, “But it does happen. They could be looking to steal the boat to sell on the black market down in Mexico for profit. They could be looking to kidnap one of you visitors and hold you for ransom. Or they could be a fringe environmentalist group seeking to strike a blow against the fishing industry. Whatever their reason, we’re not going to go down without a fight!”

Siku and the five visiting fishermen refused to take a rifle, and instead began shedding clothing. They had a good idea who might be on the attack this morning.

“Papa Bear,” the captain called from the pilot house, “Unless you and your friends are planning to fuck these pirates to death, I suggest you pick up a rifle and get ready. Now!”

“We have our own fighting methods, sir,” Siku yelled back without turning his head away from the approaching boat. He and his companions now all stood nearly naked, clad only in white briefs and jockstraps. “Clothing only gets in the way.”

The smaller charter boat slowed only a little as it approached the fishing trawler and ran alongside it with a bump. The ten large men aboard used the continued momentum to leap into the air as their boat struck the trawler, springing nimbly over the side and landing on the larger boat’s deck.

“That’s a new move,” Captain Ron mumbled to himself and to Charlie, who stood at attention now, keeping close tabs on the danger to her person and his friends on the deck below.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,” the captain called over the bullhorn, “But I’m giving you exactly five seconds to get your asses back onto your stolen boat and off my ship before we open fire! One…two…”

The captain’s count didn’t get any farther than two, before the bodies of the ten men suddenly expanded, ripping the seams of the black clothing they wore, and sprouted fur and claws.

The human crewman looked on in shock as the ten large men who had boarded the end of their boat became ten giant bears in a matter of a second before their very eyes. The bears and the humans stared at each other for a few agonizing seconds before the captain interrupted from the wheelhouse again.

“Fire!” he shouted into the bullhorn, “Mow those motherfuckers down!”

The armed fishermen opened fire on the ten bears standing on their hind legs as a group at the back of their boat. As the bullets pierced their chest and limbs, the bears jerked with the impact and roared in rage but did not fall. After shooting a volley of bullets into each of the bears on the deck, the crew ceased fire and the bears took that moment to advance.

“Captain!” Siku shouted to the wheelhouse, “Get your men below deck! We’ll handle this lot!”

It was that moment that Captain Ron’s human crew received their second surprise of the morning as Siku and his five fiends also transformed before their eyes, their Papa Bear becoming a towering polar bear, flanked on each side by massive grizzlies.

The opposing groups of bears charged each other and met in the middle of the deck in a flurry of teeth, claws and fur. Siku’s group were outnumbered almost two to one, but it was apparent that the invading bears had not been properly trained in bear fighting tactics by either their Papas or by Colt. Before long, Siku’s team had the ten bears bloodied and quite literally on the ropes, as they were backed against one of the ship’s fishing nets.

Captain Ron saw the chance to end the conflict and shouted a nautical phrase over the bullhorn that only a true sailor would understand.

“Prepare to jibe!” he shouted, and the six fisherman bears immediately ducked their heads and dropped to their bellies, seconds before the trawling boom came swinging across the deck and impacted with the ten invaders, knocking them out cold and backwards into the fishing net.

Siku and his companions quickly shifted back to their human forms, securing the ends of the net, and hooking it to the arm of the boom, which they swung out over the side, suspending the ten unconscious bears who had now shifted back to naked men out over the water.

Siku, Dom, Barry and their companions heaved a collective sigh of relief and strode back across the dock to fetch their clothing, giving Captain Ron a respectful nod for his quick-thinking assist. They all knew that a jibe is a sailing maneuver when the mainsail boom is swung from one side of the boat to the other in a swift motion to catch the wind and change course, and that seasoned sailors know to watch their heads as the boom swings over the deck.

The human crew crept up from below-deck in awed silence, seeing the ten naked invaders hanging in a net from the boom, and their six mysterious fishing companions getting dressed once again.

“You guys are…bears,” one of the crew said, looking at Siku and his group cautiously, “And not just in the gay use of the word, either.”

“Why can’t it be both, Laddie?” Dom replied cheerfully, buckling his bib pants over his chest once again. “Now that you know our secret, you may as well know the whole story.”

The six bears gave the human crew a brief overview of the lycan world and explained that they were in San Francisco at Siku’s urging, to take care of the rogue bears in the City before they became too sloppy in their criminal enterprises and revealed the existence of lycans to the human population at large.

Once the fishermen were convinced that Papa Bear and his friendly crew were not going to attack them, and were only there to help, they finally put their rifles back in the storage locker and shook the bears by the hand.

“Hey, you lot,” Dom shouted to the bears in the net, prodding them with a gaff hook on a long pole. “What was the plan, today? What did you think you were going to accomplish by attacking us on our boat out to sea?”

“We’re just following Colt’s orders,” one of the bears whined, “Please don’t kill us or drown us.”

“But you were prepared to kill and drown all of us, weren’t you?” Siku asked angrily. Charlie had left her post in the wheelhouse and was now sitting on his shoulder once again as he addressed the captives.

“Colt wants you all dead, and what Colt says, goes,” another of the captives piped up. “If we didn’t go along with his plan, we’d end up dead too. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, since we’ve lost and you’re most likely going to kill us anyway.”

Siku seethed and pulled a heavy knife from his boot, ready to cut the rope to the net and drop all ten bears into the open ocean, but Charlie chose that moment to rub her body against his cheek and get his attention.

“Meow,” she said after he turned to look at her.

“I have no sympathy for these bears,” Siku replied to the cat. “Look at them! At least half of the ones in that net were at the party on Saturday.

“Those two,” he continued, pointing with his knife at two of the captives, “Kept me distracted by shoving both of their cocks in my mouth at the same time while their buddies were busy raping Shivay in the basement! I’m putting an end to them once and for all!”

He reached his arms up to the rope suspending the net and prepared to cut it so that it could carry their corrupt catch to the bottom of the ocean and out of his life forever.

“Meow,” Charlie said again, and as he turned his head toward the cat, she touched her nose gently against his.

Siku dropped his arms and sat heavily on the deck, dropping his knife, and sobbing into his hands.

“Lads,” Dom called to the ten bears in the net, “If we pull you back aboard and put you down in the hold for now instead of dumping your flea-bitten asses to the bottom of the sea, do you vow to behave yourselves until we get you back to shore?”

“We’d rather not die today,” one bear replied on behalf of them all, “And we’re not in any hurry to get our asses kicked again. It’s going to be bad enough for us once Colt finds out that we failed our mission.”

“You leave Colt to us,” Barry replied, “That troublesome cur has caused enough trouble already. It’s time for his reign of terror to end.”

“If you think you can get rid of Colt,” the captive bear said, “More power to you. We’ll do whatever you say. Without Colt calling the shots in the City, I think you’d have most of the bears here ready to do whatever you tell us to do.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Dom said, and swung the boom back over the deck, unhooking one end of the net so the ten naked bears spilled out like a haul of cod. “Get your asses down there in the hold and don’t cause any more trouble for us today. We have a full day of fishing to do, and you’ve already wasted an hour of prime daylight.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” one of the captives asked as they filed into the hold.

“We’ll find a secure place to keep you until the Lycan Council gets here to take you into custody,” Barry said. “You should be joined by the rest of your friends before the week is out!”

“Just please,” the bear said, before the door to the hold was closed and secured, “Keep us safe from Colt, or else when he finds out you’re all still alive, we’re all dead.”