by Steve McHugh
Once I'd removed the false panel of the wardrobe and tossed it onto the bed, I noticed a light switch just inside and above where the panel sat. I flicked it on, bathing the small room in light.
Once fully inside the room, I started my search. It took about three seconds before I found something wrong. Really wrong.
A desk had been placed under one of two lights, with a large pin up board behind it, leaning up against the wall. It contained pictures of women. "Tommy, do you have pictures of Neil's previous victims down there?"
"Yeah," he said. "You need copies?"
"Text them to me."
Sure enough, after a few minutes, several texts appeared on my phone, and my fears were confirmed. "He has pictures of every victim up here."
"Anyone new?"
I scanned the photos, dozens in all, each overlapping the one closest to it until it formed some sort of hideous collage of stalking. "Four new girls, their photos are the same."
"The same how?" Tommy asked.
"He stalked them from a distance like with his previous victims. If he's hurt any of them, I can't see any evidence to say he did it in here." I opened the drawers on the desk and found a large map, part of which was circled in red pen with the word 'farm' written beside it. I used my phone to take several close up photos before continuing my search of the room.
"I might be wrong," I said after finding some thick iron chains which were secured to both the floor and ceiling. "He's more than equipped to hurt people here."
"You sure?"
"There's a map with the word 'farm' and a circled area, that mean anything to you?"
"A farm, you're sure?" Tommy asked.
"Ask me again if I'm sure about something, Tommy. Yes, I'm fucking sure. No one has photos of people they've stalked and then a map of a farm in the middle of nowhere, unless they're doing something horrific."
"My client was informed that the police got a tip-off about some sort of suspicious activity taking place at an abandoned farm about thirty miles outside of the city. Apparently no one has had time to check it out yet; they've been getting crackpot calls about that serial killer in the news. Could the serial killer be Neil?"
"It's possible," I said. "It's worth looking into at any point." I stood and brushed my hands on my trousers, before switching the light off and leaving the room. The LOA, the Law of Avalon, would want to look into Neil's activities. Hopefully this time they'd make sure he couldn't get out again, preferably with a more permanent residency somewhere a little hotter.
I replaced the panel, ensuring nothing appeared too out of place, but as I stepped out of the wardrobe, I caught my foot on something and slipped back, landing with a bang. I stood to close the doors and paused when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being loaded. "Tommy, we have a much bigger problem."
Chapter 3
The blast missed me, and I hit the floor, rolling until my back was against the wall next to where the now ruined door sat.
A second later, when my ears stopped ringing, I heard the sound of smashing glass from the direction of the living room. I edged along the wall and peered through the hole in the wooden bedroom door into the hallway beyond, finding it empty except for a discarded shotgun on the floor.
I sprinted into the living room, only to find one of the dozen windows was shattered. Although acutely aware of how exposed I was standing in the middle of a large open room, I made my way to the window and stared out, looking down the hundred and fifty feet to the ground below.
Neil was hanging from a rope about fifty feet off the ground, moving very slowly down toward his escape. The rope was attached to some climbing gear, which had been built into the curtain frame. It extended along the entire length of the room. A small box behind the frame contained the rope, obviously strong enough to hold a fully grown man, but small enough that it was easily concealable. It was quite a clever idea; smash the window, grab the rope and rappel down the side of the building.
"We've got ourselves a rabbit," I said. "Right now he's hanging from a rope at the opposite side of the building to you."
"On the way," Tommy said.
"From the speed he's going, I could probably get to him before he hits the ground. I don’t think he’s tried this before." I grabbed the rope with both hands, and created a cushion of hardened air between my skin and the black rope. When I felt secure, I pulled myself up and through the broken window and began my decent.
I used the air magic to allow the rope to slide quickly through my hands without discomfort, while keeping enough friction there to stop me from falling without control.
It took all of five seconds for an almighty bang to sound from beneath me. I glanced down as Neil cursed loudly, while dislodging himself from the roof of the soft-top car he'd fallen on. Unfortunately, by the time I'd reached the ground he was already off across the road and heading toward a large park, although his limp made it impossible for him to sprint anywhere at meaningful speed.
Tommy and Sara came round the corner as I jogged across the road to catch up with my prey. I waited until they caught up—there was no way Neil was going to escape us, not with Tommy tracking him. "He's in the park," I told them.
"Take Sara with you," Tommy said. "I'll head through the wooded area and cut him off."
Tommy didn't wait to hear any objections and ran off toward the nearby dense trees.
"Be careful, stay close and do everything I say," I told Sara. "You going to be okay with this?"
Sara nodded. "After what he did to those women, I'm not sitting it out."
We both set off in a run, following the direction that Neil had taken into the park. He wasn't exactly difficult to spot as he had stopped and was talking to a large group of young, well-built men a few hundred yards in front.
"Has he stopped for a chat?" Sara asked as we both slowed to a jog.
"Apparently there's no urgent need to escape, either that or he's an idiot."
"What's more likely?"
"Well, he let himself fall forty feet onto a car; I'm thinking he's not much of a genius. Be careful, I get the feeling we’re about to have a new problem to deal with."
As we got closer, Neil turned to glance our way, and I could have sworn that he grinned, before sprinting off at speed toward the distant tree line, his werewolf healing ability already having taken care of his leg injury.
Sara and I increased our speed but the group of men whom Neil had been talking to stepped into our path forcing us to stop. "Can I help you?" one of them asked.
I ignored him and kept walking as the other six men slowly created a semi-circle wall of muscle to bar us from following Neil. The one who had asked the question was a few inches taller than me, and much bulkier.
"Do you shave your head because you're going bald, or because you think it makes you look like a badass?" I asked. "Because if it's the second, then you might want to lose the diamond stud earring, it sort of destroys the image."
The bald thug laughed.
"Fucking twat him one, Danny," another of the group said.
"Ah, so you're the leader are you, Danny?" I asked. "You want to tell me why you're standing in our way?"
Sara moved so that she was next to me, but turned to face the men that stood behind us.
"That bloke paid us five grand to make sure you don't follow him. We plan on doing that."
"Don't do this," I said to Danny.
"Five grand is more than enough for us to fuck you both up."
"I think the little lady might like to spend some time with us afterwards," the thug closest to Sara said.
He reached out to stroke her face, but she slapped his hand away and pushed him back which made him laugh. "You're a spirited little one aren't you?"
"Sara, the two on your left," I whispered without turning to look at her.
"No problem," she said.
"Well, I'm not getting any younger," I told Danny.
Danny cracked his knuckles. "Nice to see you're not going t
o run and hide."
The man on my right was the first to move, a hard right hand which would have taken my head off, if not for the fact that I saw it coming a mile away and was moving before it came even close to connecting. I ducked under his arm and slammed my forearm into his ribs. The air rushed out of him and I grabbed him by his t-shirt, spinning him around and releasing him at the exact moment so that he collided with Danny and Thug Four. The three of them fell to the ground in a tangled mess.
Thug Two darted toward me and, like his friend, tried to catch me off-guard with a fast punch to the head. I grabbed his forearm with one hand and twisted his wrist with the other, stepping toward him and using his own momentum to take him off his feet and dump him on his head behind me. The third thug tried a different tactic and ran at me full tilt. I ducked at exactly the right moment and shoved my shoulder into his stomach, lifting him up and over me. He landed on the ground with a loud grunt, and a swift kick to the head made sure he wasn't going to be getting up again.
Thug One was back on his feet and assuming a boxer’s stance, along with thug three, who'd thrown the first punch. A quick sidestep and push from me brought three's head directly into contact with an ill-timed punch from his friend, and after a second punch from me, three was down for the count.
Thug one soon followed after I kicked him in the solar plexus with enough force to bend steel. He dropped to the floor and stayed there, just as thug four grabbed me around the chest in a bear-hug, pinning my arms to my sides.
He had some strength in him as he easily swung me to face Danny, squeezing all the time. Danny came forward and threw a mean punch at my fac. I slammed my heel down on Thug Four's kneecap, which popped. He began screaming in pain, letting me go as he fell to the ground. Danny threw another punch, which I deflected, catching him in the nose with a punch of my own. A savage blow to his solar-plexus, lifted him from the ground and dumped him on all fours, sucking in whatever oxygen he could manage.
All five assailants dealt with, I turned my attention to Sara who had one man writhing on the floor holding his crotch, and a second whose chest Sara was straddling whilst she rained punches down onto his face. I tapped her shoulder and she spun on me, a rage in her eyes until she realised I was no threat.
"You done?" I asked.
She glanced down at the messy-faced asshole, who was moaning softly on the floor. She stood and kicked him in the crotch.
I assumed she needed a moment and walked back over to Danny, who was on his feet, a switchblade in his hand.
"Gonna gut you, fucker," he bellowed and came at me.
I caught his wrist in one hand and smashed my free forearm into his face again, and again, until he went limp and could no longer stand. When I was certain he'd taken all he could, I broke his wrist and left him to his whimpering, joining Sara a moment later. She was rubbing her hand, which had turned red from the multitude of punches she'd caught the thug with.
"When we get back to the car, we'll get you a cold compress," I said.
We continued jogging toward where we'd seen Neil vanish. Before we'd made it halfway, Tommy left the trees and came toward us. He looked annoyed, more so than I'd seen in a very long time.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He disappeared," Tommy said.
"What? How?"
Tommy shrugged. "I have no idea, I followed him into the damn woods, had his trail the whole way and then whoosh, he's gone."
"His trail ended?" I asked with more than a little curiosity.
"He jumped into a car and I lost it."
"Was someone helping him, or did he use his own car?"
Tommy shrugged. "Don't know. What happened to you two?"
"Neil paid of a few local thugs to try and stop us. Sara here took down two by herself, but she's hurt her hand."
"Let's get back to the car; we'll get something for it." Tommy must have noticed the change in Sara's demeanour. "That your first fight?" he asked as we made our way back through the park.
"Yeah,” she said. “I’ve never hurt someone before. Apparently I had some anger that needed to be expressed."
We reached the still prone men, one of whom jumped to his feet and fled when he saw us. The two Sara had taken down were still out, and I took a moment to check on them and put them both into the recovery position, just in case. I might not give a shit if any of them died, but I knew that Sara would. "Broken nose, ribs, maybe a jaw, and they'll have some nasty bruises, but other than that they'll both live."
Sara appeared noticeably relieved.
"So, what now?" she asked a few moments later.
"We get you something cold for your hand, then we go to the farm on that map and figure out what's going on," Tommy responded.
"Something odd is what's going on," I said to Tommy. "It feels off. More so than usual."
"What is it?" Tommy asked.
"Not sure, but something feels wrong. Neil is a dumb bastard who has enough power to kill and hurt people and somehow instead of being executed, he's released early from prison and given a posh place to live."
When we reached the car, Tommy handed Sara a first-aid cold pack, which he'd wrapped in a bandage so that it wasn't too cold against her skin. She winced as it first touched her red hand, and I considered the possibility that she'd broken a bone. But hopefully it was just bruising and would go down before too long.
"I want to come with you to the farm," Sara said to me. "I want to help."
"So long as you're sure. I don't think it's going to hold any real dangers, but that's what Tommy said about this place. If you like we can drop you back at the office. Tommy has some trained medical staff, they can take a look at your hand and you'd be safe there. You have nothing to prove to either Tommy or me."
Sara shook her head. "I have to prove it to myself. If I work for Tommy, it's only fair that I know the kind of jobs his people will go through."
Tommy was busy placing plastic covering all over the rear seats of the truck. "Fine with me,” he called from inside the vehicle. "But this time we go in ready, no pissing about. If we need to, we level the damn place. Deal?"
"Let's go then."
Once we were all in the car, Sara swivelled round to look at Tommy who had sat in the rear again. A puzzled expression crossed her face. "Why is the back of the car covered in plastic?"
I adjusted the rear view mirror, catching a glimpse of Tommy removing his top. "You trust me?"
Sara nodded immediately.
"Then don't look back, no matter what you hear back there."
Her concern was easy to spot. "Why?"
I started the engine. "Because once you see the change that he's about to go through, you will never get to unsee it."
Chapter 4
Thomas's grunts and groans of pain only lasted for a short time, a minute at most. Silence soon descended and remained for a few seconds, before the muzzle of a large wolf popped between the two front seats. Sara screeched in surprise, and Tommy rumbled a sound that was suspiciously close to laughter.
"Evil bastard," she chastised, tapping him on the nose with her hand.
"Have you seen your boss in his wolf form before?" I asked, as Tommy's head vanished from sight.
"But never in a moving vehicle." She turned back to her boss and tutted, before going a little green. "There's blood all over back there."
"The change from man to wolf is a hard one, there's always a bit of body fluids left over. It's why he covered the back seat in plastic."
A short while later, the Sat Nav suggested we'd reached the end of our journey. I stopped the car and switched off the engine, before getting out into the cold. The bare ground outside was rock solid.
I opened the rear truck door, allowing Tommy to jump out. The big grey wolf sniffed the ground in a few places and wandered off.
"Why did Tommy go all wolf, instead of turning into his wolf-man form?" Sara asked as she joined me, hugging herself as tightly as possible with one busted-up hand. The winds whipped arou
nd the exposed farm, and although there were trees in the distance, the amount of open ground allowed the wind free rein, despite the dilapidated farmhouse and barn.
"The wolf-man form is better for fighting, but the beast inside still tries to get out. The beast is less of a concern in full wolf form, and it's also better for tracking."
"So why not change when we were trying to find Neil?"
"Too many humans around. They tend to notice giant wolves roaming the place."
Tommy stalked past, moving methodically, and occasionally raising his muzzle to sniff the air. He turned his head to one said and darted off toward a small pile of old, rusty metal.
I moved to the still-open rear door and adjusted the plastic, before pulling out a briefcase. I inputted the code; one-four-one-four, the year Tommy had been turned into a werewolf, and popped the locks. I opened the case, and a gasp from Sara reminded me that not everyone was as used to seeing guns as I was.
I picked up one and showed it to Sara. "This is a Glock 22," I said. "It's a Smith and Weston version of the Glock 17." I ejected the magazine and showed it to Sara. Tommy changed the ammo every evening, a habit he'd gotten into after he'd left a magazine full for too long and it misfired.
"This gun has fifteen bullets, all silver tipped.” I grabbed a spare bandage and strapped the ice-pack to her injured hand, before placing the gun in the working one and showing her how to hold it. She was lucky that her injured hand wasn't her dominant one. While Sara was nervous, and her hands sweaty, she complied without complaint.
"Does this have a safety?" she asked, aiming the gun off into the empty distance.
"It's part of the trigger. You pull the trigger, the safety disengages.”
Tommy made an appearance before I could explain more. "Anyone here?" I asked.
Tommy barked twice.
Sara raised an eyebrow in question.
"One bark means yes, two means no," I pointed out. "You find anything else?"
Tommy barked.
"Something bad?"