Apex Predator

by S. M. Douglas

  “Whose orders?” Kateryna said.

  “Figuring that out will be the trick, won’t it?” Brody said. “Because if there’s one thing I know about operations gone bad it’s that you don’t want to be caught in the middle, and that’s where we are right now.”

  Kateryna stood, returning a moment later with an old leather pouch. She motioned to Ernie. He released the pouch’s brass clasp and a locked wooden box slipped from inside.

  Kateryna handed him the key. Ernie opened the box, the mildewed aroma of ancient paper wafting from inside as a small stack of yellowed handwritten documents spilled out on the table; seals of all shapes and sizes marking the official stamp of Kings, Queens, and Princes from across Europe, handwritten texts marching across each page in a variety of languages - French, Polish, German, and more.

  “Invoices, Bills of Lading, Receipts, Purchase Orders,” Ernie said, flipping through the documents. “Are these from the library’s collection?”

  “Yes,” Kateryna responded. “I found them hidden in a corner of the vault.”

  “Silver musket balls, daggers, swords, lances, pikes, arrows, crossbow bolts, even a silver battle axe and maul for one German prince. It goes on and on, with tons of gold paying for it.” Ernie said, pausing in thought. “My God, the first waves of fifteenth century explorers weren’t just looking for a shorter trading route to the east. They were paying for the silver used to fight the werewolves.”

  More howling filtered through the thin window panes and into the cramped kitchen.

  “Hey that’s wonderful,” Brody said, glancing outside. “I like history too. When this is over we can have a hoot of a time going over it all. But for now, how about we focus on what’s going to keep us alive.”

  “We can’t forget about Owen,” Ernie said.

  “I’m not,” Brody said. He was pretty sure it was a gathering pack of wolves outside, but he eyed the bullets anyway, “If those papers that Kateryna just dumped on the table mean what we think they do then those silver bullets take on a whole new meaning. Or they don’t. For all we know silver might be as effective at killing werewolves as if I waved a magic eight ball around and shoved a lit candle in my ass while chanting some sort of crazy spell.”

  “That’s a heck of an image you painted there,” Ernie said, shaking his head. “As much as I’ll try to forget it, in your own way you’ve made a point.”

  “True,” Cindy said. “However, it’s not like we can test them out.”

  “After visiting Vadoma I found a gunsmith who knew the old ways.” Kateryna reloaded the magazine, holding each round up in the light before pushing it home with her thumb. “Did you know that silver is less malleable than lead? This makes the bullet unstable because it’s harder to impart spin. That means you have to get so very close to be sure of hitting your target.” She slapped the full clip into the pistol’s handle.

  Ernie watched, the sick feeling inside him worsening. Whether she knew it or not Kateryna was ready to explode. Regardless, backing out on saving Owen wasn’t an option. He had seen too much bad in this world. About the only thing out there that was worth a damn was love.

  Outside, the wolf pack howled again.

  This time something howled back, its voice deeper.

  It sounded angry.

  Very angry.

  Chapter 25

  March 1944 – The Western Ukraine

  Dietrich took point, the spruce’s claustrophobic nearness enveloping the killer’s winding path through the primeval maze of twisted branches. Dietrich’s eyes tracked back and forth, white with tension as he rounded a corner. He stopped.

  A headless raccoon lay across the path, blood staining the snow pink.

  Dietrich read the implicit message broadcast by the animal’s pointless death. The forest had frozen into a painted landscape. His senses strained to pierce the dense green needles, the hairs lining the back of his broad neck standing on edge…

  What was that?

  He snapped his rifle to his shoulder, his free hand up in a fist.

  DANGER.

  The silent command flowed down the line. Every other one of the eight soldiers faced the opposite side of the trail, weapons ready.

  Dietrich held his breath.

  Seconds passed.

  He swiveled his head to the right, branches rustling as a large object rippled past.

  Or did it?

  A freezing whisper of wind shook snow off the leaden branches.

  Dietrich held his position.

  Nothing.

  Dietrich’s finger eased off the rifle’s trigger, hand opened, fingers extended.

  CLEAR.

  As one the men rose, crunching deeper into the wilderness.

  The trees parted. They spilled into a clearing ringed by towering pines nearly blotting out the sky. In the middle of the glade squatted an enormous tree stump. On it sat the half devoured remains of Erich’s head. The man’s bristly scalp had been peeled back and a scoop carved from the brain cavity. The remaining pulpy purplish gray matter formed a glutinous frozen mass.

  Dietrich swallowed hard and glanced around, his eyes widening as he counted to himself. One, two, three, four…

  “Where’s Peter?” He said.

  Karl reacted first. He swept Erich’s head off the stump and unlimbered the long barreled MG-42, its belt of ammunition jingling in his hands. Capable of ripping off over one thousand metal jacketed rounds per minute, each slug could knock a grown man from his feet. A three second burst from “Hitler’s bone saw” would cut a person in half. In the right environment no weapon could match it. However, the dense trees diminished the machine gunner’s otherwise murderous field of fire. The men recognized the weakness in their position, but with no instructions to the otherwise they fanned out to Karl’s right and left.

  With a nod Dietrich sent Heinrich and Franz doubling back to find their comrade. They spread out into a sweep search pattern. The five remaining men squatted down in a rough firing line, tendrils of fog snaking around their snow covered boots as they laid out grenades and spare magazines for their weapons. Dietrich knew something was off but logic, reason, and experience overpowered his instincts. He shouldered his rifle, his finger slipping inside the trigger guard just as he felt something moving fast and close.

  Behind them—

  A low rumble filled the air, its deep resonance conveying a homicidal intent as old as the forest itself. Dietrich struggled against ancient terrors welling up inside. He heard his grandmother’s voice scolding him. Silly boy, you stepped off the path did you now? What did you expect?

  The crack of a rifle report reverberated through the woods.

  Dietrich whipped his head around.

  Two more shots rang out, the rifle fire coming from Franz’s Mauser.

  It was followed by a staccato burst from Heinrich’s machine pistol, then silence.

  Dietrich’s breath caught in his throat.

  Time stopped.

  The tree branches bent and swayed.

  It howled. A savage expression of triumph, the blood curdling sound rose up through the forest canopy. The men wilted. Even the trees shrank before the expression of bestial violence.

  Karl sobbed. Dietrich elbowed the rattled soldier into silence and grimaced savagely, his breath rattling. The sound was like a wolf, but ersatz. If not for the volume and depth it could have been considered human. The soldiers closed ranks. Two men turned to face behind them. Whatever was out there would not be shooting back. Dietrich’s chattering teeth rattled in his head, one last flash of white hot rage steeling him for impending battle.

  A single crow took flight, snow shedding off a branch.

  Something stepped from between two trees.

  Murder hung in the air, pregnant with anticipation.

  Dietrich couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the
most terrifying thing he had ever seen. It was huge, it looked like, no, it couldn’t be—

  Karl moved.

  Time accelerated to a blur.

  Karl squeezed the trigger even before the heavy barrel fully came around, the weapon’s discharge deafening in the enclosed space. Bark sprayed from exploding tree trunks, branches stripped away by the high velocity rounds. The machine gun swung toward its target, the ripping noise of hundreds of bullets shattering the morning air as the big weapon annihilated everything within its field of fire.

  The barrel suddenly swung up. Every fifth round a tracer it arced a red diagonal line across the forest canopy. Karl’s scream choked off before it began, his throat ripped open, blood spraying skyward as if from a high pressure hose as his perforated body was propelled through the air by an enormous force.

  Dietrich squeezed off a single round at the fleeting shadow that disappeared back into the trees. Automatic weapons fire echoed through the clearing accompanied by frantic yelling and inhuman snarling. A fragmentation grenade exploded, throwing up powdered snow and clumps of dirt to mingle with the haze of gun smoke. Dark shapes flitted about as bullets zipped through the air.

  A burst of gunfire to Dietrich’s right was cut short as something heavy slammed into his side. He staggered on unsteady feet as Hans fell away, arm ripped from its shoulder socket, his throbbing heart glistening and exposed, the man’s life sickeningly spurting from him with each weakening beat.

  Dietrich stood helpless. Screams echoed through his head, the sharp smell of cordite assaulting his nostrils, Rolf’s machine pistol chattered away and then stopped, the soldier pitching forward into the snow. The side of his head had been caved in, pieces of his steel helmet driven into his brain. Dietrich felt blood dripping down his face and into his right eye, vision hazy through the red filter of his men’s death. The coppery fluid and acrid gunpowder created a sickening smoky flavor in his mouth. He broke, fleeing from a fight for the first time in his life.

  The darkest recesses of Dietrich’s mind propelled his panicked legs away from the murderous presence putting to shame any vision Grimm or Aesop could have conjured, his only thought to put distance between himself and whatever hell had been unleashed behind him. He burst free of the forest and past a large oak tree, the sun peeking orange over the horizon, its warm embrace reaching out, eyes registering a strangely familiar looking farm house.

  He could hear screaming. It was his voice. One of his arms lifted up and reached forward, but his legs wouldn’t move. He thudded into the ground as something heavy blasted the air from his lungs. Hot breath washed over the back of his neck, his vision dominated by the wrecked remnants of a cellar door. Sharp pain radiated through his skull as if the back of his head and neck were crumpled in a vise. Oh god no, not like this! The crushing pressure gripped tighter, sharp knives slicing into his readily yielding flesh, bones popping, cracking, and splitting. Dietrich’s life bled into the snow as his consciousness faded to black.

  Chapter 26

  August 2016 – Lviv, The Ukraine

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Brandner said into his smart phone. A burned out Mercedes smoldered in the street behind him. Three recently filled body bags had been lined up by the wreck. Blue lights from multiple police cars flashed under the mid-day sun.

  “C’mon, man,” Roberts sighed in response. “Surveillance cameras pick up our favorite special agent passing through the lobby of a hotel and library, each not far from the scene of the wreck. The MVS has identified the driver’s body as a local hired gun and you still somehow think Brody has nothing to do with this?”

  “NSA intercepted Brody’s calls. They were scrambled, but we know that they were made to and from his supervisor at Quantico as well as an agent in Detroit and done so at multiple times each day,” Brander responded. “For what you’re implying to be true would mean that the Bureau is involved in some sort of clandestine operation without noticing up anyone else, and I ain’t buying it. That’s not how they work. So, like I said, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not unless Brody’s free-lancing,” Roberts pointed out, well-aware of the Bureau’s full-court-press to figure out who was behind the banker murders as they were being called in the reports he was reviewing daily.

  Brandner paused before responding, “I pulled Brody’s file. There’s no way. He’s old-school, a throw-back-purist who believes in justice and the law to his core. Shit, the only time he got in trouble was for attempting to do something that should have been done a long time ago.”

  “Sounds like you admire him,” Roberts warned.

  “Maybe a part of me does,” Brandner said. “But I’ve put down plenty of men like Brody.”

  “Good,” Roberts replied. “Now, find him, and find out what he’s doing. I need to know for sure.”

  “How sure?”

  “Easy boy,” Roberts said, ignoring the fact that Brandner was at least a decade older than him. “We’ll take care of it once you locate your target.”

  Brandner hung up, wondering if Brody had any idea as to what kind of trouble he was heading toward.

  ------------------

  August 2016 – Dibrovno, Western Ukraine

  Owen rolled over, sensing Tanya’s presence before she tiptoed into the room.

  “I don’t do apologies well,” She said, sitting down next to him. “You have every right—”

  “I’m sorry,” Owen cut her off as he sat up, this time hardly noticing the slight ache lingering from his wound. “You don’t need to help me, Tanya. I can figure things out on my own.”

  “I’m not helping because I pity you, or out of some sense of moral obligation.”

  “Sure. A beautiful woman like you has nothing else to do but play nursemaid to a guy like me.”

  “I care about you.”

  Owen swallowed hard, hugging her tight.

  After a long moment he broke their embrace, a questioning look on his face.

  Tanya headed him off, “Your concerns are important, and I will answer as many of them as possible. But first, just know that you can die.”

  “You mean like with silver bullets blessed with holy water and—”

  “No, I mean yes. I mean, it’s possible to survive silver, though just touching it hurts worse than getting kicked in the tits by a mule. The point is that though you have new powers, you also have new boundaries.” She had witnessed her fair share of tragedies. Including one young pup who recently had wandered east and been fatefully challenged by a Siberian Tiger.

  “This power you have, I liken it to a gift,” Tanya said, taking both his hands in hers. “Your first change will be so overwhelming you’ll feel like a god. When you return to human form, life, no matter what form you are in, will seem richer and…” her hand dipped under the sheets and into his lap, “We will have much fun in the meantime.”

  Owen’s next question died in his throat, replaced with an appreciative moan.

  The theme from Magnum P.I. blasted from the nightstand.

  “It’s Ernie!” Owen said, pointing at his smart phone.

  Tanya bit her lip, motioning for him to answer it.

  He snatched it up and pressed it to his ear, “Hey, how’s Lviv? What? You’re back? No, that wouldn’t be a problem…Yes, I’m at Tanya’s…I’m fine. It’s easy to find…Yes, that trail…See you soon.”

  “We’ll meet them on the path,” Tanya stood.

  Owen threw back the sheet, his erection waving in the air.

  A wave of dizzying lust swept through Tanya. She glanced at the table-side clock, then at Owen, “Lay back, this shouldn’t take more than a minute.”

  Tanya overestimated her talents. It ended up taking five minutes.

  ------------------

  “Everybody get ready,” Ernie shouted.

  Brody looked up from the specialized equipment that had confirm
ed the location of Owen’s phone while in turn masking their location. He stood and pulled Ernie aside, “There’s something you should know.”

  Ernie raised an eyebrow.

  “The investigative work the three of you have done is incredible, but it’s not good enough.”

  Ernie’s emotions summersaulted between feelings of elation that Owen was unharmed balanced against the danger they still faced.

  “Even if the Bureau takes Anna’s testimony, and looks at everything else we’ve gathered, and does so with all facts and inferences weighed in favor of the existence of werewolves there’s simply not enough here to make a case, no less prove it.”

  “Don’t forget Anna’s recording. Anyone who listens can tell that howl is different than a normal wolf.”

  “Yes it is,” Brody said. “However, the available data suggests to a reasonable person that werewolves don’t exist. That’s what the Bureau’s analysts would defer to in lieu of relying upon the circumstantial clues we’ve gathered that they do exist.”

  “Meaning what? We need to get a picture or something?” Ernie asked uneasily.

  “Maybe in a different era,” Brody said, shaking his head no. “That’s not how things work today. Even if we took a picture of a werewolf and delivered it straight to the TV networks every black-helicopter-nut-job out there would be screaming it was a fake. No, we need to catch a live one.”

  “Forget it,” Ernie said, turning and striding down the hallway, shaking his head as he went.

  Afternoon sunlight streamed through the parlor’s front window. Cindy sat on the couch alongside Kateryna, flipping through one of the books they had spirited from the library. Both women looked up when Ernie entered, Cindy’s hand absentmindedly flipping the page one last time…

  “Okay you two, let’s—” Ernie stopped in mid-sentence, staring at the book. “It’s her!” He exclaimed, pointing at the book in Cindy’s lap.

  The page lay open to a black and white shot of Dibrovno’s main square. The caption stated it was taken at the 1941 Soviet May Day parade, just before the German invasion. The photograph captured a crowd watching as a Red Army rifle platoon marched past in formation.