by Tom Bont
“The FBI’s okay with a lupus on the payroll.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Hell, no. That’s why they won’t know about it. And, truth be told, I’m not sure I like it either. But…I need a partner. That’s why, besides me, only three other people would know about him.” She nudged a stack of papers across the table. “We’re going to hide it in an interagency cooperation form. All you have to do is sign.”
He must have suspected she wasn’t giving him the full story. He ignored the papers and pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket and held it in his hand. He sat there and cocked his head, waiting for her to continue.
She caressed the front of her neck. “You’re the other half and not mine!” echoed through her memories from the Wichita burial mound.
“Cockroach Chills for 500, Alex.”
“And the answer is, ‘Something eviller than Skin Shifting Woman and a succubus.’”
Who is the “Master” Lilith mentioned? Is it coming after me? Skin Shifting Woman seemed to think so.
She shook her head. “Jim, there’s a Big Bad out there. I need more resources than the FBI can provide.”
“What makes you think we can help?”
“I found some reports on Lupus sapiens. I got an inkling of what you’re capable of.”
He squinted at her for a moment, put the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and signed his name. “I was hoping he’d replace me someday.”
“It’s not going to be forever. He’ll be back, I’m sure.” She took a deep drink of tea. “You think he’ll do it?”
“Yep,” he confessed as he relaxed into a chuckle. “Ever since he met you, the FBI is all he’s talked about. He wanted to apply to the academy, but the problem we have with full moons put a damper on his enthusiasm.”
“How did Evan handle it then?”
“He didn’t take the venom until late in life, after he was already established. Then he took a leave of absence so he could learn to control it.”
“Ah,” she mumbled, faking an understanding nod. “So, will you talk to him for me?”
“Don’t think I’ll have to.” He scanned the diner. “Small town. I’m sure the word has already spread. He’s probably packed and sitting on his front porch waiting for you.”
Episode 3: Twins
A ngela stared out across the green pasture at the pulpy lumps of cattle carcasses.
I always wondered who investigated mutilations like this.
Redstick police officer Danny McIver stood at her side, fidgeting and restless. The air was electric. “You okay? This isn’t that exciting—” The intense hunger on his face and his pale blue eyes cut her off.
Maybe teaming up with a werewolf wasn’t that smart after all.
She took a step backwards and pulled the flap of her jacket to the side, freeing access to her pistol. She was glad she’d chosen to carry silver rounds after her last couple of cases. “Danny. Talk to me. You said you were a Frenator.”
“I’m okay, Agent Hollingsworth.” He twisted around and showed her a big, dumb smile. “I’m still in control.”
“Just making sure.” During his interview, he swore under oath he had total control over his renovatio, his transformation, with the single exception being on a night of a full moon. Members of the werewolf ‘community’ referred to those who couldn’t control it as Defrenatus, who also, supposedly, were the root of all the horrific myths surrounding werewolves. In either case, he didn’t strike her as a braggart, but anyone who pined to wallow in cattle guts didn’t strike her as normal either.
He’s a werewolf, Angela! He ain’t normal!
She let her jacket slip back into place. “And stop calling me Agent Hollingsworth. Call me Angela.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am…I mean Angela.”
“That’s better.” She let a smirk through. “We’re going to be working closely with each other. Formality is the first thing we have to toss out the window.”
In an uncertain tone, he stated, “But you’re my boss.”
She put her hands in her pants pockets. “True, but we’re also equal partners. It’s like—” she scratched her nose “—we’re married, but without the sex. And we don’t live together. And we have to be brutally truthful with each other. Because if we can’t trust each other, we’re no good for each other.”
His ears turned red at the mention of sex, but he nodded. “Is Angie okay?”
“Angie—Hell, no! There’s only one person allowed to call me that, and you aren’t him.”
“Boyfriend?” he asked.
“No. Uncle Bill. He’s a Houston detective. Used to regale me with stories of bad guys at Christmas time.”
“I had an Uncle Bill, too!” he exclaimed. “He wasn’t a cop, though. He worked in a sawmill. Lost two fingers on his left hand.”
“See? We’ve already got something in common.”
He stood a little straighter and stared hard at her, probing her with his eyes. “Brutally honest?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you looking so young these days? You look ten years younger than you did when I first saw you.”
Oh, crap!
She quickly spun around and scanned the field, scrutinizing the men in white isolation suits inspecting the various piles of hamburger meat. “And hitting on your partner is not acceptable behavior either.”
“Aw, shucks, ma’am.”
She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. She glanced back into his hazel eyes from under her lowered eyelids. “If you must know, I hadn’t had a bath or put on makeup that morning. You caught me on an off day.” When he scratched his earlobe—typical body language for disbelief—she frowned. “And don’t call me ma’am.”
He took a few steps towards the nearest carcass. “I was just being polite. I call all women ma’am.”
“I guess I should have known that. I am a Texas girl.” She pointed towards the carcass. “I wouldn’t get too close. Not until we’ve been given the all-clear.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much. There ain’t too many bugs lupis can catch. None that I’m aware of anyway.” He kneeled down and took long sniffs of the air.
“You got something?”
“Maybe.” He took a few more sniffs and stood back up. “Smells kinda like lupus, but there’s something else there.” A small gust of wind picked up. He took off left. “This way.”
She followed him for a few hundred yards before he stopped and surveyed the ground in the immediate area. “You would’ve been handy to have around during our…my last case.” The image of Clint’s aged and infirm body lying in Lilith’s bed still plagued her.
“Why’s that?” He dropped back to one knee and studied some sort of animal print.
“Three bodies with their skin missing, and the trails all went cold into the brush.”
“Why didn’t you bring in some hounds?”
“We probably would have had it taken longer to follow the blood trails.”
“How’d you solve the case?”
“The Pizza Slice Intersection Method.” She ignored his confused expression. “What did you find?”
He peered back at the print on the ground. “Not sure. Looks kinda like a dog, but these critters got an extra toe. See?”
“Can you track it?”
He stood and pointed towards the setting sun. “That way.”
They followed the tracks for another hundred yards or so until they ended at a black top road below a small rise. Danny stuck his nose into the air before they scrambled down, and he eventually led them to a small copse of trees surrounding an old, abandoned church. “Mount Trinity, Est. 1932” read the carved sign out front. The peeling white paint on the sides and the boarded-up steeple told them this church hadn’t been used in quite some time.
Danny’s nostrils flared slightly. “The smell is strong here,” he revealed. “Whatever got them cattle probably holes up here during the day.”
Angela scanned the horizon.
“Call in animal control?”
Danny dropped his hands to his side, cocked his head, and raised an eyebrow. “You really gonna stand there and tell a werewolf he needs animal control to come take care of a critter problem?”
Well, when he puts it like that. “Not what I was thinking. We aren’t equipped to tranquilize them.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Forgot I wasn’t back home.”
Angela tried three times to get a cell signal but couldn’t. “Never mind. I’ll cover the back.” She eased around the church, trying to peek through cracks in the boarded windows as she passed them. Near the back, tree line sat a five-gallon bucket, upside down but held off the ground with a couple of bricks. As she made for the door, it opened, and Danny stuck his head out.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked incredulously. She grabbed him by the arm and pointed to the trees. He followed her.
“What’s going on?” he asked, genuine confusion on his face.
“You don’t fucking clear a structure without your partner!” She hated being the asshole senior agent, especially after their earlier conversation. “Don’t move faster than me like that again. You copy?”
“Um, I, uh, don’t understand.” He scrunched his eyebrows together.
“We clear together. You may think you’re Superman, but I’ve dropped one of you with a single shot to the head. You’re not invulnerable. We back each other up. We work as a team, or I’m shipping your ass back to Redstick. This is your last and only warning.”
He bristled, but he took her lead and tersely nodded.
She empathized with him. She’d been on the receiving end of one of these ass-chewings shortly into her first assignment, only hers was much worse. No one liked them.
But we all move on, or we move off.
“So what did you find in there,” she inquired.
“The front and back doors were pushed shut. No doorknobs. Nothing inside that I could see, but the smell is definitely strong. They either just left or they’re invisible.”
“Or there’s a basement.” She kicked a bucket over. A pipe with a small cone rain guard on top of it stuck up from the ground. “Ventilation pipe.”
The inside of the church resembled any other country church constructed in the late 1800s or early 1900s. The only three pews left were stacked against a wall. The pulpit was missing. The wall behind the stage was faded except for where the cross had hung in the distant past. Disintegrated doors led to back rooms.
They scouted for an entrance to the basement for a solid ten minutes before Danny discovered a hatch under the desk in one of the rooms. A trail led from it to the back door through the dust and dirt scattered everywhere. Angela crinkled her face. “I don’t need your nose to detect that.”
She pulled her pistol and followed Danny into the basement. The steps creaked and groaned as she crept further into the darkness. The stench of rotten meat flowed up and punched them square in the face.
Angela shined her flashlight around. “This looks like something out of an old Frankenstein movie.” Beakers, bottles of various chemicals, Bunsen burners; everything a mad scientist desired was laid out along the shelves and workbenches. A bloody operating table sat in the middle of the floor, a centerpiece for the house of horrors.
“What the hell is this place?” Danny asked under his breath.
Angela stepped around two large, copper spirals mounted to wooden stands. “Are these Tesla coils?”
“I don’t kn—shh…Did you hear that?” Danny swung around and pointed at a ratty sheet hanging on the wall.
Angela readied her weapon. A woman whimpering. She stepped back quickly and nodded at Danny. While he pulled the sheet to the side, she shined her flashlight and pistol into the opening. “FBI! Announce yourselves!”
A weak, female voice cried out from the darkness, “Help us, please!” Angela’s light revealed the long, dank corridor before them. Steel cages with doors touching the low ceiling stretched along both sides for roughly thirty feet. Moist earth, human excrement, sickness, and death molested her like a sour dish rag. Something stirring restlessly echoed up to her.
“We’re over here!” A dark, slender hand slipped through the bars about halfway down.
Angela crept along the passageway, heel to toe. “Ma’am, are you alone?” she demanded.
“No,” the girl answered back. “My brother needs help.”
Angela looked into each cage as she stalked by. “Jesus wept,” she muttered. Dog, pig, and human bodies rested in weeks-old feces and moldy straw.
“Where are the people who put you here, ma’am?”
“I don’t know.” *cough* “We call him the Doctor.”
“It’s just one man?”
“That’s all we’ve ever seen.”
Angela got to the cage with the young girl. She was black, late-teens perhaps, and malnourished. She wore nothing more than the ragged remains of a dress. Angela took the girl’s hand while Danny continued past her, finishing his visual assessment. “I’m Angela. What’s your name?” She holstered her weapon and tried to unbolt the cage. Locked, she quickly scanned the immediate area for a key.
“Felicia, ma’am. Felicia Jefferson.” She indicated a young boy laying on a bed of moldy straw in the cage beside her. “This is Ja’son. He’s my brother. I think he’s dead, but I don’t know. He ain’t talked today.”
Angela grabbed his wrist and took his pulse. She let out a huge breath and nodded gently. “He’s just sleeping.” Without taking her eyes off Felicia, she urged, “Danny, I need the keys.” She studied both of the kids. “You look alike. You twins?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Danny yelped, triggering a shot of adrenaline to tickle her face. He sprang backwards, batting at something in front of him. Angela snapped her hand around to rest on her pistol. Whatever had spooked him though, had toppled to the floor. He stomped on it and glanced at her, a nervous frown on his face. “What? I hate spiders.”
Angela’s heartbeat slowed to thundering. “Dammit, Danny,” she grumbled as she shook her head.
He pointed into the cage in front of him. “You’ve got to see this.”
“I’ll be right back, Felicia,” Angela told her.
As Angela stood up, Felicia’s hand shot out and gripped her arm. “Don’t leave me!” she screamed.
Angela smiled, and every dead child she’d investigated crouched behind those bars. “I’m going right down there to look for some keys.”
“No! He’ll come back!” Felicia sobbed. “He does things to us!”
She gripped Angela’s arm tight. She stooped back down. “Felicia, I’m a twin too.”
“Really?”
“Yep. And you know what?”
“No, ma’am.” The tears still flowed, but the panic had backed off a heartbeat.
“Well, Ja’son knows you’re here.” She took Felicia’s finger and pressed it against Ja’son’s neck. “You feel that bumping? That’s his heartbeat. As long as you feel it, you’ll know he’s just sleeping.”
Hope radiated from Felicia’s face as her eyes dried up and her mouth formed a firm line.
“He needs you to be strong for him, Felicia. I won’t leave you down here. I promise.”
She crept back towards Danny. The cages along the way contained either dead dogs, pigs, or humans. When she stopped next to him, she took a sharp breath as the strongest sensation of deja vu she’d ever encountered washed over her. “Woah! What was that?”
Danny’s head snapped around to her. “You felt that too?”
“Yeah.” In the cell in front of them, a live animal, what appeared to be a cross between a hairless German Shepard Dog and a pig, stared back at her. Without warning, it charged the cage door, snarling and growling. They both hopped back a step. Long, sharp teeth tried to bite through the steel bars. “What the hell is that?” she asked.
“Other than ugly, mean, and pissed off? No idea. This is what killed them cows though.” He pointed to the ca
ge behind them. A pile of dirt and a hole in the back headed towards the surface showed how—whatever it was—got out.
Angela realized she was in the zone when she lifted her empty coffee cup to her lips for the third time. And each time she’d stood up to go fill it, another gruesome piece of evidence held her attention hostage. She finally transferred all the pictures taken from the church to the conference room’s media table, stretching them out and arranging them in the order she experienced them. On the wall in front of her were pictures of Felicia and Ja’son alongside images of 14 dead dogs, nine dead pigs, and eight dead people from the cages. None of the human bodies had identification on them. It would take months to determine who they were, if they could at all.
Danny paced back and forth in front of the pictures of the dead. His temples bulged in and out as he repeatedly clenched his jaw like he was chewing gum.
Speaking of which.
She slipped a stick into her mouth. Danny’s frustration stood in contrast to her own attitude. She’d witnessed it in dozens of other agents in the past, including in the mirror after spending a long night staring at a murder scene. Helplessness. Anger. The only cure was taking down a bad guy. In his current state of mind though, she knew he’d likely strike out at any suspect with a facial twitch he didn’t like.
“Angela,” he burst out, “who would do something like that?”
His voice thunderstruck her calm. She rested her hands on the table as she pressed herself onto the stool. “Sit down, Officer,” she ordered.
He stopped pacing and stared at her. When she refused to break eye contact, he flared his nostrils and took a seat.
Humph. Just like my Chris’s hunting dogs. They all need to know who the big dog really is.
“Danny, I believe what we’re dealing with here is the classic Visionary Murderer.”
“What do you mean?” He shifted on his stool, hooked his cowboy boot heels onto the lower rung.