The Frenzy Way

by Gregory Lamberson

  “Diondega says you’re studying to be a shaman.”

  “I’m studying with a shaman. There’s a difference.”

  “That’s hard to imagine in this day and age.”

  “I’m just trying to learn about the world. I bet you think Manhattan is the center of the universe, but it isn’t.”

  Mace glanced at his notes. “Tom Lenape.”

  “Tom’s a good man.”

  Mace studied the man before him. With short hair, no one would even suspect his heritage. “Why would someone who’s grown up in this society want to study with a shaman?”

  “Have I asked you about your culture?”

  “You’re not asking the questions.”

  Stalk looked around the room. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. Innocent women and children blown to pieces for no good reason. Body parts strewn across plazas. Good men bloodied and killed by IEDs. This whole world is bullshit. I study the old ways with Tom to try to make sense of it all.”

  Mace closed the folder. “Have you ever seen a skinwalker?”

  A slow smile formed on Stalk’s lips, and his gaze flicked to the mirror. “Can’t say that I have. How about you?”

  “I understand some have been sighted on reservations.”

  Stalk maintained his smile. “I’ve heard that too. The new folktales.”

  “Our research shows that tribal police on reservations all over the country have recorded reports by Native Americans who claim to have struck skinwalkers with their cars at night.”

  “You know us Indians. We can’t hold our liquor. That leads to all kinds of accidents and crazy stories.”

  Leaning across the table, Mace lowered his voice. “Did you come here because you believe a skinwalker is stalking Lower Manhattan?”

  “I only believe what I read in the papers and see on the TV,” Stalk said in an even voice.

  “Do you think our killer is someone who believes in skinwalkers?”

  “You mean an Indian? Why do you keep saying skinwalker? I saw the word written on Miss Lee’s wall, remember? Ulfheonar is no Indian word. Shouldn’t you be looking for a big white guy with horns on his head carrying a spear?”

  “That you can even pronounce that word, let alone know what it means, tells me we need to sit on you.”

  Stalk’s smile faded. “You haven’t charged me with anything.”

  “No, but I could. Just to keep you out of my way. We don’t take kindly to out-of-town policemen driving around our city with rifles, and we frown on them aiming those weapons in our subway stations.”

  Stalk sat back. “You should have let me fire. Then you’d have a real reason to lock me up. This isn’t Tombstone, and you’re not Wyatt Earp. I didn’t see any signs at the edge of town telling me to check my guns at the border.”

  “We’ve already collected two from you. Which reminds me …” Mace reached into his pocket. “How do you explain this?” He set a small plastic bag onto the tabletop.

  Barely glancing at the gleaming silver bullet in the evidence bag, Stalk shrugged. “I overheard some of your uniforms calling me Tonto, but I’ve always fancied myself more like the Lone Ranger.”

  Cute, Mace thought.

  The door opened and Gibbons entered, beckoning to Mace.

  Rising, Mace shot Stalk a hard stare even though he knew it would have no effect. Outside, Landry and Willy joined Mace and Gibbons.

  “We got trouble,” Gibbons said, offering Mace an index card. “Uptown.”

  Mace glanced at the address, then said to Landry, “I’m on this.” Facing Willy he said, “You’re not.”

  “What?” Willy’s face darkened. “Patty was my partner!”

  “You’re not working this in the field. You want to help? Do it from your desk. So far we’ve got two dozen witnesses who claim they saw a wild animal covered in blood running uptown on the train tracks. Start processing their statements, and do everything you can to keep them from speaking to the press.”

  Willy clamped his mouth shut.

  “What about him?” Gibbons nodded at the closed interview room door.

  “Leave him in there overnight. Maybe he’ll be more cooperative in the morning.”

  On the sidewalk, Mace squinted in the storm of video camera lights and camera flashes. It was impossible to count how many media people had gathered outside, but it took six uniformed officers to hold them back.

  “Captain!”

  “Captain Mace!”

  He pushed through the crowd to the squad car waiting for him at the corner.

  “Tony!”

  “Is it true you have a suspect in custody?”

  “When will the name of the slain officer be released?”

  Christ, what a circus.

  PART TWO

  THE FRENZY WAY

  PROLOGUE II

  Windows shattered throughout the cabin, and heavy footsteps padded through the darkness toward Stalk. With nothing but the flames in the fireplace and the frosty moonlight for illumination, Stalk raised the Winchester’s stock against his right shoulder and sighted on the grayish wolf that stood staring at him a dozen feet away. Before he could squeeze the trigger, blackness filled his vision, and a powerful shape seized the rifle’s barrel and jerked the weapon out of his hands. As this second beast landed on all fours and dragged the Winchester across the floor, Stalk backed toward the futon where the woman lay, his eyes locked on those of the gray wolf. He intended to protect the woman, though he had no idea how.

  Wind swirled through the cabin, causing the flames in the fireplace to dance in frantic patterns. The room came alive with the sounds of wet panting. The gray wolf rose on its hind legs, which appeared to change their shape. The creature’s front legs shifted as well, assuming a humanoid configuration. As Stalk gaped at the manlike wolf beast that stood a head taller than him, he glimpsed similar shapes rising around him in a half circle. Dark eyes reflected the firelight, which glintedoff bared canine teeth. A low, unified chorus of growls rose above the wind outside and the crackling flames to his right. Then the gray wolf took a step forward, and the others did the same, five of them in all.

  Surrounded, Stalk thought as the monsters closed in on him. With his left hand, he reached behind him, groping for the woman. He contemplated diving for the Winchester on the floor, but even if he could reach it, he would leave the woman exposed, and he felt certain that the creatures had come for her. But how could he protect her unarmed? He knew he couldn’t. The best he could do was throw himself over her, delaying the inevitable. And for how long?

  As the bipedal wolves advanced on him, the spaces between them shrank, and the fire cast orange light over their taut, furry bodies. Saliva drooled from between their powerful jaws, and the black flesh above their gums quivered with ferocity. A single thought imprinted itself upon Stalk’s disbelieving mind: werewolves.

  Smooth fingers grasped his outstretched hand. He dared not turn his head even long enough to glance at the woman. Turning his back on these things meant immediate death, and he planned to fight until he could fight no more. Her flesh felt warm, and he felt an odd connection to this stranger. The bond of two people about to die together? The growls around him became vicious snarls, and Stalk realized he was squeezing the woman’s hand hard enough to break it. The creatures drew into themselves, crouching, ready to spring into action. Stalk’s heart beat faster, and he clenched his free hand into a fist.

  “No!” The voice possessed anger, not fear.

  When he heard the woman’s shout, Stalk thought the wolf creatures had already leapt for him. Instead they halted in their tracks, though their snarls grew even louder in protest. Unable to control himself, Stalk turned his head as the woman stepped beside him, the firelight accentuating her curves in the darkness. He felt heat radiating from her flesh.

  A black werewolf standing beside the gray one barked at the woman, a deep, throaty sound that caused Stalk to wince.

  “I said no,” the woman said in a firm tone.
>
  Stalk wanted to recoil and pull his hand free of the woman’s, but at that moment he knew she was the only thing separating him from death.

  The black werewolf roared and moved forward, and before Stalk could react, the woman stepped in front of him, shielding him from the creatures. Her black hair smelled musky. As the black werewolf continued forward, Stalk heard a growl rising from her compact frame.

  My God, she’s one of them!

  Leaning forward, the woman spread her legs apart and crouched as if preparing to strike.

  The black werewolf glared at her, its teeth jutting out at deadly angles. Those teeth could shred its prey in seconds….

  The woman threw back her head and unleashed a howl that made Stalk cringe. He recognized the sound, which had awakened him earlier that night. Now he questioned everything he had accepted as fact in his life. The world was a far different place than he had thought it only hours ago.

  The black werewolf cut an angular path across the floor, attempting to drive the woman away from Stalk. She turned on one heel, facing the attacking beast and using her left arm to keep Stalk behind her.

  The other monsters remained motionless, except for the gray wolf, which barked at the black shape trying to get at Stalk. Every pair of eyes turned to the gray wolf, which sat on its haunches, a regal look in its eyes. The other werewolves followed the gray wolf’s lead, sitting on their haunches. Their limbs withdrew, assuming canine form. They stared at the black beast, which huffed its disapproval before joining them.

  Stalk’s chest rose and fell.

  Standing erect once more, the woman faced him with her back to her fellow creatures. Perspiration glistened on her features as her dark brown eyes met Stalk’s. “You’re safe for now. But we have a lot to discuss. All of us.”

  As the wind howled outside, Stalk watched in stunned disbelief as the wolves changed shape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Bounties forced upon Indians by the U.S. government in essence required them to murder their own gods, and the heads of slain wolves were nailed to the exteriors of trading posts. Can you imagine what that did to the psyche of an entire people?”

  —Transmogrification in Native American Mythology, Terrence Glenzer

  Matt Schwaebel had served his country well. He had enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and had served three tours in Iraq until an IED disabled the transport he drove. He awoke in a VA hospital with a concussion and loss of hearing in his right ear. The doctors diagnosed him with brain trauma, but he refused to accept that he suffered from a disability even after multiple operations, CAT scans, and prescriptions for seventeen different medications.

  Now he lived on the street, without his meds, barely able to fend for himself. On most days, he could not remember how he had gotten into his current predicament. He recalled staying with his mother, who hadcared for him, and then after she died he had stopped taking his pills. For a while it had felt good to be able to have an erection again. But then he started hearing things: not voices—he wasn’t crazy—but deep, reverberating sounds, like those he had heard as a boy while submerged in his family’s swimming pool. And then the visions had plagued him, followed by memory loss.

  Somehow Schwaebel had survived the summer without help from anyone. Oh, he had spent his share of nights in homeless shelters, mainly to get some hot food, but he had been unable to relax in those accommodations. Too many predators. Lately he had been sleeping in the bowels of the 181st Street subway station near Broadway in Washington Heights. The elevators that delivered commuters from street level to the underground station were so slow that he could relieve himself in them anytime he needed to without fear of someone invading his privacy.

  Tonight he slept on a wooden bench at the southern end of the cavernous number one downtown platform. Lying on his side with his back to the rails, he did not see the black shape that leapt out of the tunnel onto the platform, moving toward him on four legs, like a great panther.

  Awaking with a start, Alberto Santana thought he heard glass breaking. Lying faceup in bed, with his chin on his chest, he held his breath and listened with great concentration. Hearing nothing, he reached over to the bedside table and put on his thick horn-rimmed glasses. He had lived in this neighborhood for thirty years and remembered when it had been called “up-and-coming,” a euphemism for ghetto. But in the last decade, it up and came—gentrification had set in, driving out brown faces and welcoming in white faces. The racial ratio was even now, something he wished his wife, Evedania, had lived to see.

  But crime plagued the neighborhood, which was why he had analarm system installed in the brownstone he had purchased at a time when even Manhattan real estate was at an all-time low. He knew he could sell the property for a small fortune now and retire to Puerto Rico, but since breast cancer had claimed his beloved Evedania, the people who brought their pets to his practice meant more to him than anyone else. He didn’t know what he would do without them, and if he wished to remain in his home, he needed to continue working. The property taxes were too high for him to contemplate retirement.

  His heart skipped a beat when he heard glass crash to the floor. That was in the basement!

  Bolting upright, Alberto shifted his gaze to the telephone on the nightstand. He lifted the wireless phone from its cradle. No dial tone. Could that be why the alarm hadn’t alerted him to a break-in? Had someone cut the lines coming into the house? Or was he being paranoid? He tried the switch on the tableside lamp, and soft light illuminated the bedroom. The brownstone still had power, just not a working telephone.

  Throwing back the covers, he climbed out of bed and lifted a wooden baseball bat from its hiding place behind the end table. He crept to the bedroom door and down the stairs, dressed in pin-striped flannel pajamas and a red plaid bathrobe. His descent caused the steps to squeak, but he heard no other sounds.

  Perhaps he had only heard a bottle smashing outside. After all, his hearing had stopped serving him well long ago. At sixty-seven, he felt physically fit, but his body had been in decline for several years now. At the bottom of the stairs, he stood facing the front door with the living room behind him. A streetlight shone through the curtains. He had a difficult choice to make: should he go outside and search for a pay phone that still worked or investigate the basement himself? Clutching the bat’s handle in both hands, he chose the latter. If anyone had broken into his office, it was likely a crackhead searching for medications. He had never bowed to vermin, and he did not intend to start now. This house belonged to him.

  Alberto padded to the kitchen, opened the basement door, and gazed into darkness. Wishing to keep his presence a secret from anyone who might be down there, he refrained from flipping the light switch as he descended the wooden stairs, his knees making more racket than his footsteps. Outside the door to his office, he waited, listening again. He thought he heard the sound of metal scraping against metal, but he couldn’t be sure. Then he noticed the fluorescent light outlining the door from the other side.

  Someone really is in there! Steeling his nerves, he released the bat with one hand, gripped the doorknob, and flung the door open.

  A figure clad in bloody rags, hunched over the far counter with his back to him, tore through the contents of a drawer.

  Just as I suspected, he thought, readying the bat.

  The intruder whirled around, and Alberto gasped. The Caucasian man’s features twisted into a snarl, lips pulled back to reveal his gums, and the taut fingers of his left hand clawed the air. His right hand clutched his left shoulder, dark blood flowing over his fingers. For an instant, Alberto doubted the ragged figure before him was even human. Then the man stood straight, a full six feet tall, and bounded toward him. Alberto swung the bat at the man’s head with all his strength, but the man snatched it from his hands and hurled it against a wall, splintering its wood. The man seized Alberto’s throat with his left hand, and Alberto gagged on the rancid stench emanating from his attacker’s clothing.

&nbs
p; “What do you want?” Alberto managed to say.

  The intruder shoved Alberto into the office, standing between him and the doorway, trapping him like a rat. He removed his hand from his wounded shoulder and said, “I’ve been shot. I want you to remove the bullet.”

  Alberto stared at the man in disbelief. “But I’m only a veterinarian!”

  The intruder moved closer, a menacing expression on his perspiring face. “You’ll do just fine.”

  Alberto took an instinctive step back. “W-who shot you?”

  “A very bad man.”

  Alberto swallowed. “What if I refuse?”

  The intruder smiled. “It’ll be the last mistake you ever make.”

  Alberto recoiled as if he had been struck. What could he do? He was a prisoner in his own home. “Very well. Get on the examining table.” He gestured at the stainless steel table, which the man leapt atop with surprising grace. Then Alberto reached for a syringe and a bottle of clear fluid.

  “What are you doing?” the intruder said.

  “Preparing a local anesthetic.”

  The man shook his head. “No anesthesia.”

  Alberto could barely believe his ears. “But the pain—”

  “No anesthesia!” As the man snarled the words, the brown irises of his eyes expanded, blotting out the whites.

  Diablo! With a terrified shriek, Alberto dropped the syringe on the floor and fled across the room. Before he could reach the doorway, however, the terrifying man threw himself inside it, blocking Alberto’s escape route. The man grabbed Alberto’s throat and dug his fingers deep into his flesh, then hurled Alberto against a wall.

  “Please,” Alberto said, gasping, “just get out …”

  Grinning, the intruder snatched a scalpel from a nearby tray and raised it for Alberto to see. He flipped the instrument into the air and caught its blade, extending the handle to Alberto with its tip aimed at his own heart. His grin stretched wider and his teeth flexed. “Now do it.”