Gabriel stood at the podium, measuring the audience with his dark eyes. His leadership skills had not been tested until this current crisis, and Angela sympathized with him. Their father had served as alpha for three decades before stepping down, and during that time he had never faced such a dire situation. Their younger brother, Raphael, sat at his right side. Gabriel’s eyes met hers, and she gave him a supportive nod. He gestured to Stanislov, who closed the door, then raised his hands in a call for silence.
The chatter in the room died down.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Gabriel said in a grave tone. “We obviously have a great deal to discuss in a short amount of time. Before we get started, I need to make an announcement which brings me great pain. My father has passed away.”
Audible expressions of sadness filled the room.
“He died in his sleep at the apartment of my sister, who cared for him during his final days. As everyone here knows, Angus chaired the Greater Pack for thirty years, through good times and bad, and served as my advisor after naming me his successor. He passed in Wolf Shape, and we’ve already cremated him. I regret that the circumstances in which we now find ourselves prevent us from holding a proper memorial, but I ask that you join me in a moment of silence.”
He bowed his head; then Raphael and Angela did the same, followed by everyone else in the room. Sweat beaded on Angela’s brow in the stuffy room, and she held back the tears that formed in her eyes. She thought of how many times she had sat in rooms like this, watching her father govern the pack, and how proud she had been of him. She hoped that Gabriel would lead as he had, with strength and respect.
She believed he would. A woman sniffled in the row ahead.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said, and the mourners raised their heads as one. “I’ve called this emergency meeting because of the Berserker stalking this city, a rogue who’s taken it upon himself to strike against mankind for past transgressions against our species. This rogue is no hero but a dangerous threat to our own security. He’s a terrorist whose actions threaten to destroy the delicate balance we’ve striven to achieve. He could prove to be our ruin.”
A man wearing a maintenance worker’s uniform stood up. “I say, let man have a taste of his own damned medicine!” He looked around the room. “It’s because of him that we abandoned the wilderness. He forced us out of our world and into his, to live in the shadows like jackals. It’s his fault that we wear these fragile husks of flesh. He deserves what he gets.”
A few people voiced their support of the man’s suggestion, and he sat down.
Gabriel raised a hand. “There isn’t a person in this room who hasn’t thought that at one time or another. But in our hearts, we know there’s no room for such sentiment in our world. To act on such thoughts would mean our own destruction. Remember the Inquisition? Our European brothers and sisters were all but extinguished when Torquemada discovered just one of our kind in his court. Thirty thousand of them were put to death. Do you honestly believe we could survive a second such onslaught? Look how far man’s technology has developed since we started living in his shadow.”
A black man who wore his hair in cornrows jumped up. “You mean guns? We can shoot guns too.” Two of his companions yelled their support, and he sat down.
Gabriel scanned the room. “You want revolution? You want war in the streets? That’s what this rogue wants: to provoke us into direct conflict from which we can never extricate ourselves. And we’re outnumbered a hundred thousand to one. So get these feelings out of your system now.” He waited for the crowd to settle down. “Six murders that we know of, one of them a policewoman. The city’s in a state of panic. We have to find this insurrectionist ourselves and put him down before he causes any more damage.”
Another figure rose, drawing attention to himself. Gabriel showed no surprise.
Joseph, Angela thought. Of course. Joseph Patterson, a pharmacist who lived on the Upper West Side, had been Gabriel’s chief opponent in the contentious election held one year earlier.
“Yes, Joseph?” Gabriel’s voice revealed no irritation at his former rival’s inevitable comments.
“You make a good speech with all your fancy talk, but what’s your plan?”
Gabriel pointed at a map pinned to the wall. “The grid. Every person in this room will pair up with another, and each team will patrol a small section of the city. We’ll concentrate on the Village and work our way out in a growing radius.”
“And when we find him?”
“We destroy him.”
Angela spoke across the room to her brother. “That plan poses danger as well.” Heads turned in her direction, and faces registered surprise. Gabriel and Raphael shot her sharp looks. She did not like challenging her brother, but she had no choice.
“Sister,” Gabriel said, “in this situation, every course of action poses danger.”
“It’s one thing to track this rogue,” Angela said, “but another to reveal ourselves to him. In the course of trying to apprehend him, we may still expose ourselves to mankind. Surely that will place us in even greater danger than we already face.”
Gabriel’s tone grew agitated. “What do you suggest? We can’t just sit around waiting for the police to stop him. We have to take action ourselves.”
“I’ve seen him. I’ve seen the Berserker.”
Palpable silence.
At last Gabriel said, “Who is he, then?”
“I don’t know. A stranger to our pack or someone who walked among us a long time ago. He visited the shop this morning.”
Rising, Raphael spoke for the first time. “You know his scent?”
Angela nodded.
“Then you have to lead us to him!”
The crowd murmured their agreement.
“No,” Angela said.
“Are you insane?”
Gabriel held his brother back with one hand, allowing Angela to speak.
“The hunter’s returned,” she said, anticipating the gasps that broke out around her. “He’ll kill the Berserker for us, and then there will be no threat of exposure.”
Raphael looked at Gabriel and shook his head, and Gabriel said, “So that’s your purpose in providing this information: to plead for your lover’s life. How dare you bargain with us, Angela. We can’t allow him to reveal our existence any more than we can allow the Berserker to do so.”
Ignoring the other members of the pack, Angela focused her attention on Gabriel. “It’s been three years, and he hasn’t said anything to anyone.”
“We can’t take that chance.”
“John’s already set his trap. He’ll kill the Berserker, or the Berserker will kill him. If he wins, I want your word that you’ll leave him alone, no matter where he chooses to live.”
Gabriel glanced at Raphael, who shook his head, then measured the faces in the crowd before turning once more to Angela. “If your hunter kills the Berserker, we’ll allow him to live. But he’ll have to leave this city again.”
“Agreed,” said Angela. She had already decided to leave with Stalk.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Eight years earlier
When Julian heard the door crash open below and a multitude of footsteps on the stairs, his first thought was, police! He tried to sit up, but the heroin coursing through his veins prevented him from doing so.
After dropping out of college, he had traveled to Rome and London and Tokyo, just like Brooke had wanted, only without her, in search of the extremist Wolves she had suggested existed. He did not wish to rejoin the pack in Boulder or return to New York City. From time to time he wondered about his childhood crush, Angela, and his boyhood friend, her brother Gabriel. But he had no desire to see them or to seek company with the Wolves he knew. Brooke had been right: he was monogamous. Without her, he lost his desire to live and lived for only one thing: to kill. After slaying his mate’s murderer, he had incinerated his love’s body. He left the university a week later, enjoying the fear
that had settled in the small town after one of its residents had been torn to pieces by a wild animal. Some citizens speculated that the culprit had been a bear. No one suspected a wolf.
Nowhere in his travels did he find others of his kind. He wandered the streets and alleyways of cities and towns, searching for someintangible purpose. When he found none, he descended into a self-pitying mélange of alcohol and drug abuse. If you can’t eat them, join them. Here in the city of Patras, Greece, he had decided to kill himself with the needle. The days and weeks became months, and he lived in squalor with a household of human drug addicts in the ruins of a neoclassical mansion that had been abandoned following an earthquake. One half of the mansion, located near the city’s western seafront, admitted sunshine and wind through the gaping holes in its walls. The other half provided cool darkness for its emaciated denizens.
Three shadows entered the living room, where Julian and five others lay strewn across the floor. The room reeked of body odor and human waste. Julian gazed at the men through clouded eyes. They wore dark clothing, not uniforms, and carried rifles.
Not police …
One of the men, sporting a beard, barked orders at the other two.
It’s Greek to me, thought Julian, who had picked up only bits and pieces of the native language.
The men fanned out, kicking the semiconscious occupants.
Just let them try to do that to me. He would tear the men’s heads from their shoulders. Then it occurred to him that it might not be possible for him to Change in his current state. He had never attempted Transformation while high on drugs. We’ll just have to see.
One of the men towered over him, staring straight down at his eyes. The man leaned forward, a look of disgust on his features. Then he shouted to his comrades, who ran over to join him. The three men gazed at Julian, who smiled and muttered something in English that he didn’t even understand himself. They hauled him to his feet. He wanted to fight them—to dismember them!—but his body would not cooperate.
Two of the men supported his weight and dragged him from the room. In the doorway, a shirtless addict with long hair and a beard asked the men a question, and their leader fastened his fangs over the man’s exposed throat. The addict screamed, and Julian laughed asblood sprayed the wall to his left. They carried him down the stairs, and at the halfway mark the addict’s head rolled past them like a bowling ball. Julian laughed again.
Julian awoke lying on the floor of a cargo van that bounced along a road. The two men who had removed him from the drug den sat on the wheel hubs, guarding him. One of the men shook his head in disgust. Their leader sat up front next to the driver. Sunlight flooding through the windshield blinded him.
Then the white turned black again.
Bars on the windows.
Consciousness came and went. So did his visitors. Only the pain remained constant.
Julian screamed. He howled. He wept. He cursed. Finally, he slept.
“How long have I been here?” Julian said when his body had expelled the poison.
“Two weeks,” the leader said in English. “You were a difficult patient.”
“Good.” Julian gulped water. “I’m Elias Michalakis, the leader of this cell.” Julian focused on the man. He had been unable to focus on anything for such a long time. “Julian Fortier.”
“I know who you are. Other cells have reported your presence in their countries.”
Julian fixed his host with a stare. “You mean other ‘packs,’ don’t you?”
“Not packs. Cells. Each cell usually consists of four to six Wolves. Our purpose isn’t social; it’s revolutionary.”
“Tell me more.”
“First, tell me why you did this to yourself.”
Staring out the window at the blue Aegean Sea, he told Elias about Brooke.
“How did it feel to avenge her murder?”
Julian considered this. “Sloppy. I’d never killed a Man before.” He still remembered the German shepherds’ frenzied barking as he’d devoured their master.
“Your efforts to find us were also sloppy. You spoke to several of our members, but you were so indiscreet that they could not trust you. Instead, we monitored your activities from one country to the next.”
“You’re … organized?”
Elias nodded. “We can teach you discretion, to move in the shadows.”
“What else can you teach me?”
“How to kill Men and cover your tracks.”
Julian smiled.
Elias introduced Julian to Arsen, Damon, and Otis, the other members of the cell. They shared a small house in the hills.
“There are few packs left in Europe,” Elias said as the five of them ate dinner on a wooden table. “Most of our species were killed during the Inquisition, and the Brotherhood of Torquemada has continued the genocide. We’ve learned to avoid each other out of self-preservation. Our women raise our pups to continue the species, and we men join cells like this one to fight the war.”
“It’s different in America,” Arsen said. “The Wolves there have assimilated into Man’s culture to such a degree that they have no wish to Change. They’ve grown soft—‘civilized.’ There’s no room for pacifists in war.”
Julian gnawed on a loaf of bread. “Tell me more about this war.”
“It’s a secret war,” Elias said, “between Wolves and the Torquemadans. For the most part, we carry out covert operations. The challenge is to make it appear as though the Men we kill were really killed by their own kind.”
Julian studied each man at the table. They were so unlike the Wolves he had known in the United States, so unlike Brooke. These Wolves were killers. “I want to join you.”
Elias clasped his wrist. “You already have, friend.”
“No drugs,” Damon said in a harsh tone. “Give us a reason to distrust you, and you’ll simply disappear without a trace.”
“I already have,” Julian said with a wry smile.
“You’ll need a new identity,” Otis said.
Julian glanced at Elias, who nodded. “Otis is correct. You need an alias for your new life. What shall we call you?”
Chewing on another hunk of bread, Julian thought back to the day when he had met Brooke. He had been reading a book on Roman mythology. “Call me Janus. Janus Farel.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Tomás de Torquemada served as confessor to Queen Isabella, who appointed him Spain’s first Inquisitor General. He expanded the Spanish Inquisition from one tribunal to two dozen ‘Holy Offices’ and became so reviled for the torture and executions committed under his direction that he required 50 bodyguards and an army of 250 men to protect him. Because of his role in the Inquisition, his name has become synonymous with religious fanaticism. During the Inquisition—which occurred between 1478 and 1834—3,750 trials were held regarding ‘superstitions.’”
—Transmogrification in Native American Mythology, Terrence Glenzer
Kneeling on the floor of his temporary quarters, Pedro prayed to God for strength and perseverance on his holy mission. He had been dispatched by Monsignor Delecarte to recover the lost Blade of Salvation, and instead he had discovered the Beast in New York City.
Hombre lobo.
With God’s divine guidance, he would slay the monster.
He knew this was his destiny.
Pedro was born in the Dominican Republic, located on Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean’s Greater Antilles archipelago, west of Puerto Rico and east of Cuba. His parents had supported themselves by providing boat and automobile tours to visiting U.S. citizens. Pedro recalled sunny mornings, beachside walks, and waving palm trees.
He envisioned clear blue water that mirrored the sky above. And he never forgot the ferocious mental pictures of Hurricane Georges that lingered in his mind. The hurricane had killed over two hundred people in the Dominican Republic, including Pedro’s parents.
In Santo Domingo, a priest named Jonas Tudoro, visiting Hispaniola
as part of a relief mission organized by the Vatican, discovered Pedro huddled in an alleyway, starving and covered in his own feces. Tudoro arranged for Pedro, whom he estimated to be ten years old, to be bathed and clothed and fed. Pedro spent nine days in a shelter before Tudoro placed him with a foster family. The Ortiz family cared for Pedro in exchange for a stipend from the church. When Pedro turned twelve, Tudoro returned to the island and accompanied him to Rome, where Pedro was placed in a Catholic boarding school. Throughout this period, Pedro obeyed Tudoro in all things. At fourteen, he was assigned private tutors. Oddly enough, Tudoro also encouraged him to participate in sports, especially weight lifting and martial arts. Pedro excelled at both. At sixteen, Tudoro introduced him to Monsignor Delecarte, his true benefactor.
Pedro expressed to Delecarte his desire to enter the priesthood, but Delecarte shook his head.
“You will serve the Lord,” the monsignor said. “But you will not do so in robes. You are a special boy with a special destiny.”
At eighteen, Delecarte and Tudoro indoctrinated him into the Brotherhood of Torquemada.
“We are not an arm of the church,” Delecarte said. “But we do serve the Lord and His will, albeit in secret. If you join us, you must take a vow of secrecy just as we have.”
Pedro did not hesitate to swear his allegiance to the monsignor’s cause—whatever it was. So began four years of intensive training with international security experts. Pedro mastered hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and blades, including swords. He pushed his body and his soul to their limits, all for the sake of his sponsors, his church, and his God.
“I’m proud of you,” Tudoro confided one day as they drove through the Italian countryside. “You’ve performed better than we could have dreamed.”
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