With his left hand, Jason reached over and caressed Patty’s right thigh, just above her knee. His electric touch quickened her heart rate. Swallowing, she looked in the rearview mirror. The Cavalier and the van were moving again. Jason slid his hand up her thigh, stopping as it touched the hem of her skirt.
My gun, she thought with alarm. But his fingers stopped short of her blue steel weapon. “Much farther?”
Astor Place loomed ahead; young people crisscrossed the intersection and taxis discharged passengers.
“No,” Jason said, sliding his fingertips beneath her skirt and rubbing the inside of her thigh, millimeters from the barrel of her gun.
She swallowed, then slowed down, pulse racing. As soon as he touched the gun she would have to slam the brake, draw the weapon, and be ready to fire it.
Jason squeezed her thigh, and she regretted glancing down at his hand as soon as she did it. In the blink of an eye, the fingers upon her flesh changed.
“Jesus Christ!” Willy said as Patty’s scream came over the speaker.
Mace raised his hand radio. “Take him down! Take him down!”
Patty disbelieved her eyes: in the span of seconds, Jason’s hand had transformed into a long claw that raked her flesh, drawing blood. She screamed not from the razor-sharp pain in her leg but at the sight of the horrible thing beside her.
“Oh, my God!” Mace said as the screams continued over the speaker and the Rabbit weaved from lane to lane ahead of them. They heard the sound of fabric tearing.
“Jesus!” Willy said again.
Mace floored the gas pedal and held down the horn, alerting the pedestrians crossing the street.
“Holy shit!” It took Mace a second to identify Candice’s voice over Kramer’s and to remember that she had a visual of whatever was happening. “What is that?”
Patty flailed her arms and kicked her feet as Jason’s clothing burst at the seams. He had become a wild creature, all fangs and fury, bearing down on top of her. She clutched the steering wheel with her left hand while groping for the butt of her gun with her right. The black shape descended on her like wrath personified, and she felt its teeth tear into her stomach. As she thrashed from side to side, she saw blood splatter the windshield, obscuring her view, and she knew that it had once belonged to her.
Oh, dear God, she thought. Please save me!
But she knew it was too late for that.
Mace thought he glimpsed a hulking shadow inside the Rabbit, but then dark red sprayed the car’s back window.
“Don’t do it! Don’t do it, you bastard!”
And then they heard it. Growling. Snarling. Snapping. Tearing.
“Get her out of there!” Kramer yelled over the radio.
The Rabbit jumped the curb of the concrete island in the middle of Astor Place, scattering startled onlookers in all directions. The car crashed into the Alamo, a massive statue known to New Yorkers as the Cube. Metal impacted steel, and the front end of the car flattened. Steam billowed from the Rabbit’s hood, and people encircled the car, staring at its bloodied windows. Then the driver’s-side door exploded from its hinges, and a mass of sinew and black leapt out after it, provoking a chorus of screams.
“What the hell?” Mace said, speeding into Astor Place. Citizens stampeded in all directions from the Cube, where Patty’s crushed Rabbit belched steam. A taxi heading the wrong way sped toward them, forcing Mace to change lanes. The taxi roared past them, and they heard a thunderous crash.
“That asshole hit Landry and Morrissey!” Willy said, looking over his shoulder.
Mace witnessed an SUV crash into a Jetta at the intersection ahead. He stomped his brake pedal just in time to avoid smashing into the ruptured vehicles and heard another collision beyond them. Switching off the ignition, he jerked his door open, and cool night air flowed into the car. Willy did the same on his side, and they ran into the street, dodging people running for their lives. Mace drew his Glock and waved it over his head, clearing a path through the stampede. By the time they reached the island, the pedestrians had evacuated, though car horns continued to honk all around them.
With his heart thudding in his chest, Mace absorbed the sight of a battered car door laying in the street, its shattered window covered in crimson. Beside it was a man’s shoe, its black leather streaked with blood. He and Willy circled the Rabbit in opposite directions with their guns aimed at the car’s interior. They heard a dog barking in the background but ignored it. The streetlight at the end of the island shone directly on the Rabbit, causing the blood, which prevented the light from illuminating the vehicle’s interior, to glow the color of a candy apple.
Mace closed in on the exposed doorway. The driver’s seat had become dislodged and lay over the backseat at an angle. Patty had shoved her left leg through the steering wheel, and her calf dangled over its rim, splattered with a spiderweb of blood.
Oh, no …
Her right arm, ripped from its socket, lay contorted around the steering wheel, her hand still clutching her revolver, the appendage’s flesh shredded and bloody.
Jesus, no!
Moving closer, he saw that the dashboard glistened and blooddripped from the ceiling. His strength evaporated, and he wanted to sink to his knees. “Ah, Christ …”
Patty’s corpse was the crushed car’s sole occupant. Leaning inside, Mace saw that her belly had been torn open and her entrails piled onto the floor. On the passenger seat and floor below it he saw tattered clothing: slacks, shirt, and another shoe. He followed the trail of blood from her torso to her head, still attached to her neck. Crimson crisscrossed her face, and her eyes and mouth remained open. She had spat up blood over her breasts, visible through her slashed top, and her dyed hair had turned red again.
Patty …
Sirens wailed as Willy joined him and looked over his shoulder at the carnage inside the car. “Ah, mi dios!” He punched the rear window with his gun hand, smashing glass over Patty’s face.
Mace dragged him away from the Rabbit. Landry and Morrissey caught up to them, their faces pale and mouths open. They saw the tears streaming down Willy’s face and the blood on his hand.
“Look!” Landry pointed at the sidewalk.
“What the fuck?” Morrissey said.
Mace and Willy tracked the direction of Landry’s finger to the large, bloody prints on the concrete leading into the street. Releasing Willy, Mace moved closer to the prints, as long as a human foot. Following the trail toward the numerous car collisions, he spotted a Jeep Wrangler parked on the sidewalk across the street, blocking the subway entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Although Stalk lacked the benefit of information that might have led him to Carfax Abbey II, he possessed maps and a compass, and it was easy enough for him to approximate the skinwalker’s territory. He had spent the evening driving in concentric circles—smaller and then larger—and was on Broadway and Fourteenth when the call came over the police band radio. Within minutes he was bearing down on Astor Place, a block of shops and apartments overlooking a bizarre intersection that had been created prior to Manhattan’s famed grid. Several streets funneled into Broadway, with one island displaying the steel Cube sculpture and another providing one of several entrances to the Astor Place subway station.
What he saw upon his arrival caused his mind to race: at least three collisions had occurred, and a Volkswagen Rabbit had crashed into the sculpture. Panicked East Villagers ran screaming in all directions, and traffic had stopped on each street, with drivers frantically trying to back their vehicles in the opposite direction. As he slowed down, he saw two men running through the stampede with guns raised in the air. For a moment he thought a terrorist attack had shocked the masses.
Then he recognized the two men circling the Rabbit as the cops who had spoken to him the previous night, one of them a captain.
Out of the corner of his left eye he glimpsed a German shepherd race toward the isolated subway station at full speed and vanish down the stairs. He turned the
steering wheel to his left, and as he sped toward the station and away from the chaos surrounding the Cube, the Wrangler’s headlights pinned a uniformed police officer chasing after the animal, his Glock drawn. The officer charged down the stairs.
Stalk drove the Wrangler over the curb and onto the island. He slammed his brakes, and the Jeep screeched to a halt at the subway station entrance, blocking the stairway. He grabbed his Savage 110 hunting rifle from the seat beside him, snatched his keys from the ignition, and leapt from the vehicle’s passenger side. Landing on the third step down, he saw a crowd of terrified commuters running up the stairs in his direction. He twisted sideways, gripping the scoped rifle in his locked hands, and waited for enough of the crowd to pass for him to continue. He rushed down the remaining steps without turning around to see how the crowd fared circumnavigating his Jeep.
Stalk ran along the tiled walls of the subway station corridor, boots slapping cement. He heard horrible barking in the distance, followed by a sudden wail and silence. Emerging before the token booth, he registered the faces of commuters too frightened to move. The woman stationed in the booth spoke into her phone, a frantic expression on her face. Still running, Stalk hurdled the turnstile. He made a perfect landing on the grimy concrete and turned, scanning the upper level. The commuters stood wide-eyed, their backs pressed against white-tiled walls and movie posters.
Stalk was following their gaze to a stairway with a yellow metal railing descending to a platform when he heard gunshots: a burst of semiautomatic gunfire he recognized as coming from a Glock. Then he heard an agonized howl that chilled the dense air around him and caused the hair on his arms to stand on end. He followed the continuingreports down the stairs. Over the left railing, he saw the uniformed cop standing on the tracks, feet planted between the rails, both hands locked on the firing Glock. The skinwalker was trying to escape into a subway tunnel!
Reaching the platform, Stalk intended to leap onto the tracks behind the cop and bring the beast down with his Savage 110. Instead, the toe of his left boot caught on something, and he found himself diving headfirst over the platform’s edge. He held out his left hand to break his fall, but his left shoulder absorbed the impact, sending a blast of pain searing through his body.
The cop continued shooting, oblivious to Stalk, who stared into the unblinking eyes of the German shepherd, its head laying on the tracks only inches from his face. Springing to his feet, he saw that he had tripped over the animal’s headless carcass on the blood-splattered platform.
Hearing a commotion upstairs, Stalk turned to the cop, who stopped firing, out of ammo. The officer fumbled for a reload cartridge tucked into his belt.
Stalk elbowed the cop aside. Seeing no sign of the beast in the darkness ahead, he leveled his rifle at the black tunnel entrance.
Just need one second, he thought, his heavy breathing interfering with his aim. As his finger tightened on the trigger, he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him.
“Don’t you fire that weapon!”
Damn it, Stalk thought, biting his lip. He recognized that voice: the Italian cop.
“Officer, collect that rifle.”
The cop next to Stalk reached out and took his rifle from him.
Raising his hands, Stalk looked over his shoulder at Mace, who stood at the edge of the platform with another detective. The wild-eyed men held their Glocks aimed at him, and their breathing was even heavier than his. Worse, he saw adrenaline-fueled rage in their expressions that made him fear for his life.
What the hell happened out there tonight?
The fire faded from Mace’s eyes, and he swallowed. “I take it you left your truck unlocked again?”
Stalk nodded. “That’s always been a problem of mine. I’m too trusting for the big city.” Stepping forward, he extended an open hand to Mace.
Relaxing his stance, Mace holstered his Glock, stepped to the edge of the platform, and grasped Stalk’s hand. He helped the younger man scramble onto the platform.
“I hit it,” the PO said. “I know I did. I heard it howl.”
All four men shifted their gaze to the yawning blackness ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The bright green image spilling from the monitor illuminated the darkened audiovisual room. Mace, Landry, and Willy stood behind Kramer and Candice, who adjusted the contrast and volume on the monitor. On-screen, Patty climbed into the Rabbit, her eyes appearing like two lumps of black coal. The man calling himself Jason got in beside her.
“That’s him,” Willy said in a dead voice. “That’s the motherfucker right there.”
Mace and Landry remained silent.
The wide-angle lens on the fiber-optic camera viewed the entire front seat of the car with a fishbowl effect that curved the image. Jason leaned forward, catching Patty by surprise, and kissed her on the mouth. Silence filled the room as the man leaned back and said, “I have an idea. Let’s go to my place instead.”
“Can you do anything about the color?” Mace said.
“It’s green or black and white,” Kramer said, demonstrating their options. “Given time, we could introduce flesh tones. It’s hard right now because Patty has that pasty makeup on.”
Had, Mace thought. They watched for several minutes, and hisgaze kept jumping from Jason’s black eyes to Patty’s, trying to read their expressions. Jason seemed overconfident, almost haughty.
“The good news,” Kramer said, punching buttons, “is that with this high-definition image we can enlarge any detail we want without losing resolution.” He composed a red outline around Jason, struck a key, and Jason’s face filled the screen. “There’s our man.” He struck another key, freezing the frame, and pressed Print Screen while the audio track continued. An eight-by-ten photo whispered into the printer tray, and Mace examined it: a perfect image, except for the distortion created by the wide-angle lens.
Kramer returned the image to full screen. On the monitor, Jason kept glancing at the Rabbit’s side mirror.
“He was onto us the whole time,” Mace said.
“Much farther?” Patty said.
“No,” Jason said.
And then Patty screamed.
The police in the room could not see Patty or Jason below their sternums. They could not tell what he had done to her, only that she was in pain. Jason turned to his left, facing her, so that he was seen in profile. And then he turned his back to the dashboard, completely blocking the camera so the screen turned black, with only streaks of green appearing at the outer perimeter of the frame. They heard screams, snarls, and fabric tearing.
“Jesus Christ,” Willy said.
Then they heard the Rabbit crash. For a second, Jason was thrown out of frame, revealing Patty’s terrified features, her face spotted with blood. The front of the car folded in on itself, aiming the camera at the floor, and they heard metal twisting.
“Freeze it there,” Mace said.
Kramer froze the image and toggled it backward frame by frame until he reached the point Mace desired.
“Keep going.”
Kramer did as he was told. For a total of four frames, they saw the massive black shape as it was thrown aside by the impact. The camera shook, obscuring the action even more.
“What is that?” Candice said, repeating the words she had spoken during the actual attack.
“We found men’s clothing in Patty’s car,” Mace said. “A shoe, socks, trousers, shirt. All of them split at the seams and covered with Patty’s blood. Nothing in any of the pockets but loose change and a transit card. Hector lifted prints from the card, and we’re investigating when and where that card was sold.”
The room turned quiet.
“Run it again.”
Stalk sat at the metal table, gazing at the lime green cinder-block walls. Mace sat before him on the other side of the table, a folder open before him.
“Four people have been murdered,” Mace said. “One of them a cop.” He couldn’t shake the image of the ruptured Rabbit s
oaked with Patty’s blood.
“I’m sorry,” Stalk said. “Really, I am.”
“The cop was a homicide detective from this unit. Detective Lane. You spoke to her last night.”
Stalk nodded, saying nothing.
Mace looked him in the eye. “I need to know why you came here and what you know about this killer.”
Stalk’s eyes lighted on the mirror overlooking them. “I don’t know anything.”
“I find that hard to believe. I called Chief Diondega. He told me you took a leave of absence yesterday.”
“Two days ago,” Stalk said. “It’s past midnight.”
“So it is. He says you’re stubborn and headstrong and don’t doanything haphazardly. He wouldn’t say why he thought you took off the way you did, except to say it must have been urgent.”
Stalk shrugged. “Diondega’s a bureaucrat. I’m sure he’s no different than the COs you have to deal with.”
Mace tapped the folder. “According to your record, you had trouble in your previous position on the Niagara Falls police force. One of your fellow officers even accused you of assault.”
“No charges were filed.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“You ever been to Niagara Falls?”
Mace nodded. “Once, when I was a kid.”
“Rough town, real blue collar. They can’t develop the American side of the Falls the way Canada has because of the corruption. A lot of drug trafficking over the border too. I wanted to be Super Cop, but I kept butting heads with people who were in the business of doing favors for other people, you know? It was a whole lot of bullshit. I like the reservation better, but there’s bullshit there too. The whole world is bullshit.”
“I see you served overseas.” Like Vince, Mace thought, picturing his brother, who would have been Stalk’s age.
“I went to Afghanistan to take down the Taliban. Then they sent my ass to Iraq and kept it there. Like I said, the whole world is bullshit.”
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