Killer Moon

by Hermione Stark

  Storm grabs his phone to call Leo and Remi for an update. Leo answers on the first ring. “Hey boss.”

  “Any update?” Storm asks.

  “No sign of him. He hasn’t left his house. His curtains are still shut. It seems like he might still be sleeping. We’ve confirmed that all the people who have entered and exited the house are his tenants.”

  “Okay. Stay on him. Let me know if anything changes.” Storm hangs up the phone.

  Monroe knocks on Storm’s office door, and Storm calls for him to come in.

  “Hey boss, about that information on the Wolf-Claw Killer case that you asked me to look up again. I’ve put together that list of lone wolves that Agency branches have been watching. I sent it to your email.”

  Storm finds the email in his inbox and opens up the file. Monroe has created a neat spreadsheet with names and aliases, known addresses, historical whereabouts, images, notes on criminal history, known associates, and anything else that might be of interest. It is very detailed, exactly what Storm needs. He scans it for anything that might jump out at him.

  Despite the presses claims, there had been no shred of evidence to indicate this case was linked to the Wolf-Claw Killer in any way. Now Storm has begun to wonder if there might be a less obvious link that has been missed.

  Instead of looking at the case and seeing if it points to Wolf-Claw, he wants to look at the Wolf-Claw suspects and see if it points to this case. He’s seen this list of names before, almost committed it to memory in fact, but he wants to read it again in case anything pops into mind with all the fresh information on hand.

  Monroe is hovering by the door. “Is there any reason you wanted that list?” he says curiously. “Is there a link with this case?”

  “I’m not sure yet. On the surface it doesn’t look like it. The Wolf-Claw Killer has never abducted a girl before as far as we know. Certainly none of his victims have been werewolves. Plus Rachel Garrett’s a brunette, not blond, and she was attacked with a knife. All the Wolf-Claw victims were attacked with wolf claws and teeth. But something’s been nagging me and I don’t know what it is yet.”

  “India and Rachel are a little older than his previous victims, aren’t they? In their twenties, not their teens.”

  Storm nods, continuing to scan the list. He had asked for all known lone werewolves in the UK. He sees that Monroe has included ones from Europe too.

  “Talk me through the timeline of the attacks again,” says Storm. He knows it, but he also knows it helps his brain think of things differently to hear someone else say it and to talk it over.

  Monroe taps his tablet and pulls up the required information. “The first attack happened eleven weeks ago on a full moon at the end of May. The victim was blond, eighteen years old. The second attack happened on the next full moon towards the end of June. This time two victims, both blond. One fifteen years old and one eighteen years old. Sisters.”

  “First one victim and then two,” says Storm. “He was escalating. After that second attack we had thought that the next attack would be on the July full moon which is due ten days from now, and that it might escalate by the number of girls he chose to attack. Instead it escalated by him beginning to attack outside of the full moon.”

  “The first of those attacks was seven days after the full moon,” says Monroe. “One victim, blond, sixteen years old. And then four days after that came a second attack. One victim, blond, seventeen years old”

  “Again escalating, possibly devolving,” says Storm. “The times between the attacks became shorter, the last attack was particularly frenzied. If he had followed that pattern his next attack should have happened already.”

  “But it didn’t,” says Monroe. “It has now been nine days since the last attack.”

  “Exactly,” says Storm. “He’s changed his pattern. Rachel was killed in the early hours of Saturday morning. That was five days after the last attack. What if the Wolf-Claw Killer not only changed his pattern but also changed his modus operandi? What would cause that change?”

  “He clearly had a preference for blonds. That doesn’t just change. Rachel had black hair. Why would he pick her?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t a random victim.”

  “You think he knew her? Or you think it was a copycat trying to pin his personal murder on Wolf-Claw?”

  “It would have had to be a forensically very naive copycat if he thought we would mistake knife slashes for werewolf bites, and the killer struck me as smarter than that.”

  “Okay, so not a copycat,” says Monroe. “But someone who maybe knew Rachel.”

  “We originally theorized that Wolf-Claw attacked because he couldn’t control his urge to kill,” says Storm. “We thought the fact that he began to attack outside of the full moon meant his compulsion to kill was overwhelming even when in his human form, so he resorted to using magic to transform into his wolf form during those last two attacks.”

  “In Otherworld alpha werewolves and highly dominant wolves can transform at any time of the lunar cycle,” observes Monroe. “Do we think that there is some way that might have happened here in our world?”

  “There have been no recorded instances of that ever happening in our world,” says Storm. “So logically we have to assume that if a werewolf did transform outside of the full moon in our world, he forced it through using magic. He chose to transform because he wanted to attack.”

  “Why would he want to attack someone? He must have known that the Agency would hunt him down if he did that.”

  “Which means he must’ve attacked out of sheer desperation. What if the attacks happened not because of a compulsion for killing but a compulsion for something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “A compulsion he would have felt even in his human form. The desire for pack. A compulsion for companionship.”

  “So you’re saying the attacks were not about killing the victims?” says Monroe excitedly.

  “They were about changing the victims,” says Storm. “Maybe he wanted to create another werewolf. He was hoping the girls would survive the attacks.”

  Monroe’s face looks like Storm feels. The team has not considered this possibility before. It feels like a small epiphany, like his entire thinking of the Wolf-Claw case has turned on its head. He is sure it changes everything and yet he cannot see how it changes the facts of the Rachel Garrett case. It means something, but his brain just hasn’t reached it yet.

  Something else is still nagging at the back of his head. He is now convinced there is a link between these cases, though it makes no sense. Rachel Garrett had been attacked with a knife. A werewolf would have had to attack her with his teeth and claws if he had wanted to change her into a werewolf. He didn’t do that.

  While Storm had been talking with Monroe his eyes had continued scanning Monroe’s list. He has reached its end. He frowns, and scans the list very quickly again. The thing that has been nagging him drops into place.

  “Is this all of the known lone werewolves that the Agency is aware of?” he says.

  Monroe nods. “It’s everything. I double checked it.”

  “Hank Lowry isn’t on this list.”

  Monroe frowns. “Hank Lowry? That’s the sergeant who works for Detective Inspector Zael, isn’t it?”

  “Werewolf alphas rarely allow pack members to work for the human police. I’d assumed Lowry was a lone werewolf. He should be on this list. Find out why he isn’t.”

  Monroe leaves Storm’s office. He returns fifteen minutes later. “There is no record of a Hank Lowry up until four years ago. I’ll see if I can find a record of him before that.” Monroe leaves.

  Storm’s heart starts beating faster. Hank Lowry is either someone other than he claims, or he has changed his name. A man only changes his name if he has something to hide. What is Hank hiding?

  Storm scans through the list of lone werewolves again. He finds three instances of omega werewolves who left their packs in the last four to six years.
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  One in particular jumps out at Storm. Stephen Manners, an omega werewolf who had left his pack four years ago. There is no reason on his file for why he left his pack, which is a highly unusual act in itself. The pack bond is strong. Werewolves never leave their packs without good reason.

  Storm wonders if as an omega werewolf, Stephen Manners had done something that had made his packed drive him away. Omegas are the least important members of packs. A pack is more likely to kill a rogue member than drive him off, especially an omega. So maybe Stephen Manners had run. If so, he would have wanted to change his name.

  Storm calls Leo. “How hard is it for a lone werewolf to spend life without a pack? Is it manageable-hard or impossible-hard?”

  “Is that a personal question,” says Leo. “Or a professional one?”

  “Professional.”

  “It’s not easy,” says Leo shortly. “I imagine it varies for each individual werewolf.”

  Storm nods, even though Leo can’t see it over the phone. He had suspected this would be the answer, but he’d wanted Leo to verify it.

  It is well known that a werewolf’s need to be part of a pack is not just for safety reasons. The pack bond is in a werewolf’s fundamental nature, a core desire that is unshakable. They yearn for it like a hungry creature yearns for food. It takes a pretty strong werewolf to choose to live alone, and even that takes its toll over the years.

  “Is it more difficult for an omega wolf than for a dominant wolf?”

  “The problems are different,” says Leo. “For an omega, every more dominant werewolf he comes across, which would be most of them, is a threat to him. I imagine it would be a constant burden.”

  “Fear as well as loneliness?” says Storm.

  “Yep,” says Leo shortly.

  “What are the chances,” he asks Leo, “That a lone omega werewolf would be savaging women to try to turn them into werewolves? Is it possible that he might be trying to create his own pack?”

  “That’s unlikely,” says Leo. “Even if he did manage to change a female, if he was an omega werewolf then there is a higher chance that the female would be more dominant than him. She would become his pack leader.”

  “Do you think India Lawrenson is an omega werewolf?” asks Storm. “There’s no information on it in her file.”

  “Sure,” says Leo. “From her interactions with me and the fact that she’s lived with a human family all her life and what her foster parents said about her, I think it’s highly likely that she is an omega. A dominant werewolf would never have managed to live so long in relative harmony with a human family.”

  Storm nods. “Hank Lowry is an omega werewolf. He would have known that if he wanted a female that he could control he needed an omega female. And if he found out about India Lawrenson then suddenly he has a ready-made omega. He didn’t have to make one himself anymore.”

  Leo pauses, realizing what Storm is getting at. Storm can almost feel Leo’s anger radiating through the phone. “You think Hank Lowry is the Wolf-Claw Killer?” Leo says.

  “Yes,” says Storm. “We need to find out whether he has an alibi for each of the other murders.”

  “And his current whereabouts,” says Leo grimly. “Because if he has India, that means she could still be alive.”

  Storm hangs up and instructs Monroe to call DI Zael and ask casually for Sergeant Lowry’s availability. He does not want to call himself as that will immediately make DI Zael suspicious, and the man has been hostile enough already.

  Monroe makes the phone call. When he hangs up he turns to Storm. “He said he hasn’t seen Sergeant Lowry today. Lowry messaged in this morning saying he was sick.”

  Chapter 24

  DIANA

  By the time I arrive at the hospital I have talked myself out of sinking into despair. India can’t be dead. She can’t be.

  My search of India’s room reveals no clues as to what happened to her. The nurses I question fall into two groups. The first were not present when India went missing and are eager to speculate but have no useful information. The second were present but are tired, irritable and disinclined to answer, saying they have already given statements to the police and Agency people.

  I do my best to speak to some of the other patients in India’s ward, starting with the two in the neighboring rooms, but after one man complains, the nurses send me away, making it clear that they perceive my behavior as harassment of their patients.

  It is all I can do not to snap at them that they should have been looking out for India. That it was their responsibility to care for her. She was their patient too. But I know that they are not really to blame. It is just my anger at myself talking.

  I wander down from India’s room towards the exit, wondering how someone could have possibly removed her forcibly from the hospital. Did they drug her too? Did they wheel her out in a wheelchair?

  The hospital is enormous. They could have taken so many different exits, but only if they knew how to navigate the maze-like wards and departments and corridors without getting lost. It was probable the killer is as unfamiliar with this place as I am, and so would have just taken her out of the main entrance on the ground floor. I take the elevator down to take another look at it.

  The main entrance is a wide thoroughfare with patients and staff and visitors constantly walking through it. It would have been so easy to take her through it.

  Right next to it is the extremely busy accident and emergency department. The waiting room is full to the brim with people waiting to be seen by hospital staff. Every chair is occupied. It is sectioned off by a floor-to-ceiling plate glass wall. Some of the seats look directly onto the passageway leading to the main exit.

  I wonder if one of the patients waiting there, or even the staff on duty there last night, will have seen India being wheeled out. As I stand there staring into the waiting room, debating how annoyed these sick people and busy staff are likely to be if I start going in and asking them questions, my phone rings.

  It is Storm. I answer it, my stomach twisting in anxiety, sure it will be bad news.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask immediately.

  “Are you at the hospital?” he says.

  “Yes, but I haven’t found anything.”

  “I’m sending a photo to your phone. Tell me when you get it.”

  My phone beeps. I check the image that has arrived and am surprised. “Isn’t that the cop that is always with DI Zael?”

  “His name is Sergeant Hank Lowry, but I need you to keep the name quiet. Just ask around in India’s ward if those who were present yesterday saw him there. Can you do that?” His voice sounds urgent.

  I nod. “Okay, I’ll do it now. Why? Do you think he has something to do with this?”

  “We’ll discuss that later. Please just ask. Let me know if anyone has seen—”

  But I have stopped listening. I have seen something that has made my heart stop.

  “Oh my gosh,” I whisper.

  “What is it?” Storm says, his voice suddenly sharp.

  “Storm,” I say in a strangled voice. “I’ll have to call you back.” I hang up, still staring at the thing I saw.

  It is in the waiting room. It is a head of curly blond hair tipped in a pink dye bright enough to catch my eye. Its owner is sitting with her back to me on a waiting room chair, her head leaning against a concrete pillar.

  My heartbeat begins rocketing. I tell myself that pink-dipped hair is all the rage these days and it is just a coincidence, but all the while the adrenalin is surging through me. I am quivering with a sort of foresight that I would have said was psychic if my gift had still been working.

  The girl with blond-pink hair is not moving. She is so still that she is either sleeping or dead. The people sitting nearest her are concerned only with their own cares and pain. One of them is called by a nurse and when she stands up, another woman hurries to take the now vacant seat before someone else snags it. No one looks at the girl with pinked tipped hair.

/>   I hurry through the door to the waiting room, my body beginning to shake and jitter with nerves. I mutter, “Excuse me,” and squeeze past a bunch of waiting patients. I navigate to the girl with pink hair and touch her on her shoulder. She does not react.

  Her head is angled downwards and I cannot see her face but already I know. I kneel down beside her. I look at her face. Her eyes are closed. But she is warm. She is breathing. And she is India.