by N. P. Martin
“I didn’t know we had a team, but I’ll take it,” he said. “I mean, I’m never done saving your ass, am I?”
“Wait,” I said, stopping again. “Where are the Hellbastards?”
“I haven’t seen them,” Haedemus said.
Scroteface. Report. Where are you?
Still chasing down the drencher thing.
Haven’t you caught it yet?
It’s fast. We’ll get it, though.
You’d better. Report back when you do.
Yes, boss.
“Let’s go, Haedemus,” I said as we started walking toward the gates again. “I need a stiff drink or ten.”
“Yes, and I’m sure Mistress Hannah needs a stiff cock after all that excitement.”
“You’re vile.”
“Yes,” he said chuckling. “Haedemus the Vile. I like the sound of that.”
Hannah was mostly silent on the way to the city. She was driving the Dodge, since I wasn’t in much shape to do so. Now and again, I would glance at her to see that she was staring straight ahead, a deep scowl on her face. After a couple dozen miles, I finally asked her what was up. “There’s no justice anywhere, is there?” she said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean we did not save those girls. We just got most of them killed.”
“We tried. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“How can you be so casual about things?” She turned her head for a second to stare at me. “It’s like you don’t care.”
“I do care,” I said. “I’ve just been around the block a few times, enough to know that there is no justice in this world, not in the way you’re thinking. Bad people get away with shit all the time. That’s just the way it is. There’s no sense in beating yourself up about it.”
“What’s the point of this job then? What’s the point in being a cop if you can’t get justice for people?”
“Being a cop is not about getting justice, Hannah,” I said, scowling at her naïvety. “It’s about damage limitation, that’s all.”
“We didn’t limit much damage back there, did we? We caused more.”
I sighed, too tired and pissed off to think about it. “We stopped a cult from kidnapping any more innocent people, plus we took out their leader. Damage limitation.”
She went silent again for a long while and continued driving. Then, just as I was nodding off with my head against the window, she said quietly, “Maybe you’re right, Ethan. When God cast me and a hundred thirty-three million others of my kind into Hell, everyone thought it was justice being served, but now I see that it wasn’t. It was just the Creator using damage limitation. For how could it be justice to cast down so many of your subjects for merely doing what their heart told them to do? There is no justice in such an act—”
She may have said more, but I didn’t hear it. Thanks to the full bottle of Mud I hadn’t long consumed, I was soon fast asleep.
I stayed at Cal’s place after Hannah dropped me and the Dodge off, sleeping for several hours in the trailer before waking up feeling worse than ever. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw my whole body was just one giant bruise. My face wasn’t so bad, a few cuts and bruises here and there, but Jesus the rest of me looked like I’d been in a bomb blast. There was also a hunk of flesh missing from my left pectoral muscle thanks to the demonic drencher.
I sought out Cal’s assistance, as I always used to in the past when I got badly hurt. He took me down into the bunker and laid me on a table before applying a range of different treatments from his apothecary. The flesh wound on my chest he filled with a disgusting looking substance that was the color of vomit, a murky brown with a stench to match.
“Something I’ve been working on,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be interested to see the effects.”
“You haven’t tested it yet?”
“I’m testing it now.”
“That’s reassuring.”
When he applied a bandage over the wound, he told me I was done and that I should rest up.
“Can’t,” I said, wincing as I got off the table. “I got something I have to do first.”
“What’s that?” Cal asked.
“I have a location for the werewolf who killed Angela and Callie.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“A reputable source.”
“And you’re going right now?”
“I don’t think this can wait.”
Cal stepped toward me. “You’re in no shape to be fighting any werewolf,” he said. “You can barely stand.”
Managing a smile, I said, “Who said anything about fighting?”
23
Roughly six hours later, I was in the living room of a log cabin, located in the Great Woods a further forty miles past Redditch Village. The cabin had been hard to find, hidden amongst the trees deep in the woods, but I located it thanks to the directions Pike had written out for me.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if Pike had sent me on a wild goose chase until I spotted from a distance the person who lived in the cabin. Staying downwind of the place, I observed the cabin owner through the scope of a rifle as he stood outside chopping wood with a large ax.
Derrick Savage was tall and athletically built, sinewy muscles bulging as he brought his ax down on the logs, splitting them in half with one chop. He looked to be in his early forties, though his long grayish-brown hair made him look older. His dark eyes never stopped watching, even as he split the logs. Sometimes he would stop and sniff the air as if trying to pick up on any scents that were out of place. Such as mine, which is why I was careful to stay downwind from him.
I knew as soon as I saw the guy he was the one who had killed Angela and Maddie. Not just killed them but slaughtered them. I watched his dark eyes, and they told me everything I needed to know about him. He was a stone-cold killer, and even without his Lycan abilities, he was not a man you wanted to fuck with.
At least not directly.
Which is why I brought along a tranquilizer gun, the darts loaded with enough homemade sedatives to bring down King Kong never mind a werewolf.
When I was ready, I chose my moment and squeezed off a shot; the dart hitting Savage on the back of the neck. Upon impact, Savage froze and then dropped his ax as he felt behind him and then pulled out the dart, bringing it around to look at it. Still observing through the scope, I saw the look of surprise and then panic on his face as the drug started to take effect. My finger was ready on the trigger just in case Savage needed another dose, but I knew he wouldn’t. Not with the massive dose I had already given him.
Soon, Savage began to stagger as he struggled to maintain his balance. Through the scope, I watched his eyes roll up into their sockets, and then I watched him keel over like a fallen tree, his head narrowly missing the chopping block.
I continued to watch his unmoving body for a further five minutes to make sure he was out good and proper. When I was sure that he was, I moved quickly toward the cabin and dragged Savage inside the sparsely furnished living room. Leaving him on the floor, I found a chair in the small kitchen and brought it into the living room.
Setting the chair in the middle of the room, I lifted the unconscious Savage into the chair, positioning him so he didn’t fall back down again.
Then out of a canvas bag I’d brought with me, I took out a pair of heavy leather gloves and put them on. Also in the bag was a roll of razor wire, which I then wrapped around Savage’s prone body, starting at his waist and going to his upper chest, securing him to the chair at the same time. If he tried to escape when he woke up, the razor wire would cut him to pieces.
Of course, he could probably break through the wire if he transformed into his full wolf form. But just in case that happened, I had brought along one of Cal’s machete type blades, made from solid silver and designed specially to cut through a werewolf’s thick hide thanks to the blade’s partially serrated edge.
Once I had Savage secured, there was little else to do b
ut wait until he woke up. As I waited, I had a look around the small living room. There were a lot of photos hanging up on the walls, with some sitting on a bookshelf. Most of them depicted Savage in military fatigues posing along with various other soldiers. From what I could gather from the photos, Savage served with Delta Force before he became a mercenary for hire.
There were other photos. Group photos of various men and women who I assumed were part of the pack that Savage belonged to. Every werewolf had a pack, even ones who live alone in the woods.
Though not for much longer.
Soon enough, Savage would have nothing but cold, eternal darkness.
I would see to that.
I waited with the utmost patience and restraint on Savage waking up, which he did about two hours after I had secured him to the chair with the razor wire.
Sitting in a chair directly across from him, I watched as he opened his eyes and then groggily shook his head. It was only when he tried to move did he cry out as the tightly wound razor wire cut into him, slicing through his shirt and then his flesh.
“Fuck—” he growled as he looked down at himself, then stupidly tried to push against the wire, which only made the attached razors dig deeper into him.
A second later, he realized there was someone sitting across from him, and he snapped his head up to look at me, his large, dark eyes glaring, his nose creased as his lips peeled back so he could growl at me.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.
I stared at him for a moment longer before answering. “You don’t recognize me?” I said in a level voice as I cocked my head to one side.
“Why the fuck should I?” He leaned forward as he said it, causing the razors to bite further into his flesh, turning his face into a mask of pain and frustration.
“Because you killed my fucking family, that’s why,” I said as I leaned toward him. “You slaughtered my wife and little girl a couple months back in Crown Point. You remember that?”
Savage said nothing as he stared at me. Then his eyes turned bright yellow, and he started to smile, showing the beginnings of his fangs.
Standing up, I showed him the blade I held in my hand. “Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll cut your fucking head off before your claws even come out.”
Growling in frustration, Savage’s muscles appeared to increase in size for a few seconds, before shrinking back down again. Blood from the multiple slits and punctures on his body dripped onto the floor. Rivulets of crimson fluid ran over his thick forearms and down over his fingers. Almost to taunt me, he strained against the razor wire so it cut deeper into him, his eyes on me the whole time, showing me he didn’t care about the pain. He was used to healing fast, but he wouldn’t get the chance to this time.
“What the fuck do you want?” he said through clenched teeth.
“I want to know who hired you to kill my family.” I pressed the edge of my blade against his throat, forcing his head back as the silver burned into his skin, causing him to grimace against the pain. “Tell me, and I might kill you quick.”
“Fuck you!” he spat. “I ain’t telling you nothing!”
“Wrong answer.”
Removing the blade from his throat, I jammed the point of it into his left front deltoid, the silver blade pushing into his flesh slowly and deliberately until it had penetrated three inches.
Savage screamed with pain as I held the blade in him. “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll fucking rip you apart!”
“Answer my question. Who hired you?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
I pulled the blade out of him, causing him to scream once more. Then, from out of my trench pocket, I took out a small .22 pistol, the magazine of which held bullets containing silver nitrate on the tip. Pointing the gun at his right kneecap, I asked, “Who hired you?”
“I said go fuck yourself.”
I squeezed the trigger and put a bullet in his kneecap. The caliber was small enough not to penetrate right through his tough sinews, so the bullet stayed in him, embedded in his knee somewhere as it released silver nitrate into his system.
Savage bucked in the chair as if his innards were on fire.
“I hear it burns bad,” I said. “Is that true? Let’s see what another dose does to you.”
I pointed the gun at his left thigh this time and shot him again; the bullet staying lodged in his leg like before. “How does that feel now?”
“I swear to fucking god,” Savage snarled between screams. “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you!”
The more he writhed against the burning silver nitrate, the more he sliced himself open with the razor wire, twisting and turning so he was almost sawing at himself. It wasn’t too long before a length of intestine slipped out through the wire.
“You better calm down there,” I said. “Before you saw yourself in half.”
Savage continued to struggle for another few seconds before he finally stopped, closing his eyes as he fought against the pain, just like he’d done hundreds of times before no doubt. The man was no stranger to pain. He knew how much he could take, and how fast he could heal, given the chance—a chance I had no intention of giving him.
“Look, man,” he said. “I’m sorry about your wife and kid, alright? It was just a job. You understand, right?”
The balls on this guy, trying that tact with me. Did he think he would gain my understanding, one brother in arms to another?
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said, trying my best not to swing the blade at his neck just to get it over with. “If you don’t answer me this time, I will empty the rest of this gun into your chest, and we both know that’s gonna hurt like fuck. Pain beyond pain, right? We also both know you’ll survive it. Death won’t be any escape for you. So—” I spoke the next sentence in a slow, deliberate voice. “Who hired you to kill my wife and daughter?”
Looking down at the state of himself, at the blood dripping off him, at his innards slipping out, Savage sighed and shook his head.
“Alright, man,” he said, done with resisting now, perhaps thinking he needed to buy time so he could heal and think of a way out of the situation he was in, even though there was none for him. “Some woman contacted me on the dark web. I met her, she explained the job, and I did it. That’s all.”
“Bullshit, that’s all,” I snapped, my anger rising to the surface. “Who’s the woman? I need a name.”
“I don’t do names, man,” he said. “I meet them, get the details of the job and then give them an account number. Once the money is in the account, I do the job. That’s it.”
“You’re lying.” I pressed the tip of the blade against his throat. “There’s more to it than that. Tell me what it is.”
“Alright, alright, just take that fucking blade away.”
I took the blade away from his throat. “Speak.”
“For my own security, and in case anything goes wrong, I film the meetings with a hidden camera.”
I froze for a second. “You have the woman who hired you on video?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Some Asian woman.”
Once more, I froze, this time for much longer. “Asian woman?”
“Japanese I think, I’m not sure.”
A horrible feeling found its way into my stomach, and for a moment, I thought I would be sick.
There’s no way, I thought. It can’t be. I’m just jumping the gun. There’s no way it could be her…
“Where’s the video?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“Are you gonna let me go?”
“Where’s the fucking video?”
He stared back at me. “I should explain something to you first. Your scent is all over those woods out there, and my pack, they’ll pick up on it when they come here looking for me. If they find me dead, you’ll have a whole pack of angry as fuck werewolves after you, and believe me, this is one pack you won’t want after you. They’ll not just kill you; they’ll kill everybody you know. But if you let me live—after
I give you what you want—I can make sure no one comes after you. We can let this go.” He paused to stare at me. “So if I give you what you want, will you let me live? You’ll be saving yourself as well.”
“Just tell me where to find the video,” I said as if he’d said nothing at all.
“Jesus fuck.” He shook his head, perhaps realizing his plea to stay alive had fallen on deaf ears. “At least consider what I’m saying, man. If you kill me, my pack will kill you and a lot more people besides. Is that what you want?”
“The video. Where is it?”
Savage smiled slightly as he stared at me. “God damn, you don’t even care, do you? I guess I did a number on you, huh? Only out for revenge now, is that it? Well, I’m telling you, you won’t live long enough to finish it if you kill me. Just think about that.”
“I will. Now for the last time, where’s the video?”
“The bookcase,” Savage said, looking resigned now. “On a flash drive inside one of the books.”
Quickly, I went to the bookcase. “Which one?”
“The Call of the Wild by—”
“Jack London. I got it.”
Taking out the old book, I opened it up to find most of the pages hollowed out, and inside the resulting square hole was a black flash drive. I didn’t need to ask if he had a computer, for I already saw one earlier sitting on the kitchen table.
Without saying another word, I walked into the kitchen and opened up the laptop on the table, inserting the flash drive into one of the USB ports.
A moment later, I was looking at dated files. Scanning the list, I found a date that was just a few days before Angela and Callie were killed.
Almost holding my breath, I clicked on the folder to find a video file inside, which I immediately clicked to play, pausing it again a second later.
What if it’s her? I thought, swallowing, at the same time thinking, There’s no way it could be Hannah. She would never do anything like that. She had no reason to.
After taking a breath, I clicked play on the video again, my chest tight as I viewed the screen. The video showed the inside of a cafe in the city somewhere, maybe downtown, it was hard to tell. Savage was sitting at one of the tables, the camera hidden on his person somewhere.