The Frenzy War

by Gregory Lamberson

  Mace sipped his beer, savoring the flavor.

  “I hope you’re not about to put us all in an awkward position by confessing to a murder,” Karol said.

  The music and voices around them were loud, so Mace did not worry that someone might overhear them. “First of all, it was technically self-defense. Secondly, murder describes the homicide of a human being, and what I killed wasn’t human.”

  All the eyes of his audience remained riveted on him.

  “Then what was it?”

  Mace glanced at each cop in turn. “Except for Karol, every one of us sitting here heard Janus Farel, the perp in the Manhattan Werewolf case, kill Patty Lane. Willy and I even saw Patty’s remains. He tore her to pieces, her car too, and left his clothes behind in tatters. No one in Astor Place reported seeing a naked man running around. But several witnesses in the subway station reported seeing what they described as a giant black dog run onto the lower platform, where it tore off’ the head of a police dog that pursued it, and disappeared into a tunnel.”

  Landry looked around at his companions, his gaze settling on Karol. “We logged reports from other witnesses who saw the dog run past different stations as it headed uptown on the tracks. Only they called it a wolf.”

  “How do New Yorkers know the difference between a big black dog and a wolf?” Karol said.

  “Some of them even called it a werewolf,” Willy said.

  “Now wait a minute. I saw the photo that was released of the perp, and he didn’t look like a dog, a wolf, or a werewolf to me.”

  “That was a screen capture from the surveillance video shot from a camera hidden in Patty’s car,” Candice said. “During the attack, he was visible for only a few seconds, and then his back blocked the camera. We heard fabric tearing, snarls like an animal would make, and Patty’s screams.” She swallowed. “Then we heard worse sounds.”

  “Since Willy was Patty’s partner, I pulled him out of the field,” Mace said. “But I allowed him to help me and Landry at the squad room. The key to the case seemed to be a man named John Stalk.”

  “That upstate Indian cop,” Willy said.

  “He was a tribal policeman from the Chautuaqua reservation,” Landry said.

  “We brought Stalk in for questioning,” Mace said. “He wouldn’t cop to it, but I knew he believed in the skinwalker legends of his people. His rifle was also loaded with silver bullets.”

  “But we let him go,” Landry said.

  “Two FBI agents came to the squad room. I can’t tell you what they said, because they classified what they shared with me, and revealing that information would be a treasonable offense.”

  “We saw those same two feds today,” Willy said.

  Karol nodded. “They locked down the van that was used to abduct Rhonda Wilson before our people could even check it out.”

  “They might not have wanted anything to do with the Manhatttan Werewolf, but they’re running roughshod over the Lourdes and Wilson cases.”

  “Agents Norton and Shelly are part of this task force,” Mace said.

  “What?” Willy sounded as disgusted as he did surprised.

  “I’ll get to them in a minute. Stalk was staying with Angela Domini, the woman who managed the Synful Reading bookstore for her father, Angus Domini.”

  Karol glanced at Willy. “Gabriel and Raphael Domini’s sister.”

  “Angus died a day earlier,” Mace said. “His body was cremated at—”

  “The Domini Funeral Home,” Willy said.

  “I went looking for Stalk at Angela’s apartment below the bookstore. No one answered. I was about to leave when I heard screams from somewhere above … and howls. I ran into the street and looked up. On the fourth-floor fire escape of an abandoned building across the street, I saw something tearing Stalk apart. It was human in shape but covered with black fur. Fuck me if its head didn’t look like a wolfs.”

  “Four stories is pretty high up,” Karol said. “The perp could have been wearing a costume.”

  “The perp burrowed into Stalk’s stomach with its muzzle, licked the blood off’ its fingers, and threw Stalk’s head at me like a watermelon. Then it disappeared into the building. There must have been a dozen witnesses.”

  “I took some of those reports,” Willy said.

  “So did I,” Landry said.

  Mace felt everyone’s attention on him. “I reported what I saw to Commissioner Dunegan and his cronies. That’s when they suspended me. They also changed my report before they buried it.”

  Karol folded her arms. “You expect us to believe the Manhattan Werewolf really was a werewolf?”

  “I believe it,” Willy said.

  “So do I,” Candice said. “I always have. It feels good to say.”

  Landry turned to Karol. “The evidence is there. A preponderance of it. It’s just too hard to believe.”

  “Actually, the evidence isn’t there,” Mace said. “The brass either buried it or destroyed it, or the FBI confiscated it. All that remains are a trail of unexplained dismembered and decapitated bodies, some YouTube clips, a lot of urban legends, and several ruined careers.”

  Landry turned back to Mace. “I’m sorry. You never said why … I assumed they wanted someone to blame for what happened to Patty.”

  Willy took a swig of beer and set his mug down hard. “I want to hear how you did the monster.”

  Mace gathered his thoughts, weighing how much to reveal. “I was out running along the FDR the morning the National Guard came to town. I saw the perp watching me, but he disappeared before I could get to him. Thanks to the media, he knew who I was. I believed he was following me, that it was me or him. But before I could get to him, he pulled a disappearing act. I sent my wife out of town right away.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Candice said.

  “Angela Domini went off the grid, but she reached out to me, and I met with her.”

  Landry raised his eyebrows. “There was an APB out on her …”

  “She was afraid the Manhattan Werewolf would kill her, but she was unwilling to turn herself in. She told me the name of the werewolf and where he lived. He was using the name Janus Farel, but his real name was Julian Fortier.”

  “You said he wasn’t human,” Karol said.

  “He was a wolf in human’s clothing,” Mace said. “I signed out two items from Evidence Control: the revolver Patty had the night she was killed and the Blade of Salvation.”

  Willy shook his head. “That damned broken sword Terrence Glenzer had …”

  “Why did you sign out that evidence?” Karol said.

  “Because I intended to kill Janus Farel. Angela told me the Blade would kill him—or at least that Janus believed it would, which was enough.”

  “How did she know that?”

  Willy frowned. “She ran an occult bookstore.”

  “Why did you take Patty’s revolver?” Landry said.

  “I needed a gun because they made me turn mine in, and I thought it would be poetic justice to use hers.”

  “Was it?” Candice asked.

  “Not exactly.” Mace’s heart beat faster as he relived the events he had tried to block from his mind for two years. “I broke into Janus’s house, a brownstone in the Village he’d inherited from his family. I searched the premises during a thunderstorm. There was no electricity, so I had to rely on my cell phone and the lightning for illumination. The floors were covered with dog shit. In the basement, there was a torture chamber filled with human skeletons. And I found a closet full of skulls …”

  “The heads he took from his victims,” Willy said.

  “Many more than we knew about. I was scared out of my mind. Janus came home, and I tried to hide, but he found me. He was naked and looked human enough. But his eyes changed, turning completely dark.”

  “Jesus,” Landry said.

  “I emptied Patty’s revolver into him at point-blank range.”

  “You mean you executed your perp?” Karol said. “What was your ev
idence that he was a werewolf? That a naked man’s eyes got dark during a storm?”

  “Did I say I killed him then?” Mace supposed it was a good thing to present his account to a nonbeliever, to see just how crazy his story sounded to an objective listener. “I saw the bullet holes in his chest and one in his head. No one could have survived that. But Janus opened his eyes and smiled at me. And then he changed … into a seven-foot-tall werewolf, the same monster that I saw kill Stalk. He chased me and we fought. I took the Blade out of my coat, but he bit a chunk out of my shoulder. I watched him eat my flesh. He would have killed me, but Angela showed up. She saved my life. They fought, and when he was about to kill her, it was my turn to save her life. I picked up the Blade and drove it into his heart, and that was the end of him.”

  “I hope he didn’t change back into a human,” Willy said. “Because that would make it hard for you to dodge a murder charge.”

  “No, he changed into a wolf. A giant black wolf. There was nothing remotely human about him.”

  “Angela Domini saw this too?” Landry said.

  Mace nodded.

  “Where is she?”

  “She went to Canada.”

  “There goes your alibi if you ever need it,” Willy said.

  “I don’t need an alibi. As far as I know, there’s nobody left. Angela called her brothers and told them to dispose of the body at the funeral home. Then she took me to the ER, and after I signed myself out, I drove her to a car rental agency. That was the last I saw of her.”

  “So Gabriel and Raphael Domini destroyed evidence related to several homicides, not to mention an earth-shattering scientific find,” Landry said.

  “I don’t know for sure if they did or not. She never mentioned me to them. She told them she killed Janus.”

  “What I want to know,” Karol said, “is how this Angela Domini saved your life from a supposed werewolf.”

  Mace met Karol’s gaze. “She was a werewolf too.”

  Four pairs of eyes blinked at him in unison.

  “They call themselves Wolves. They’re shape-shifters who have lived here and on other continents for centuries, their existence predating Cro-Magnon man. When the Europeans invaded the continent, the Wolves adopted the forms of those men. They’ve been living among us ever since.”

  “Begging your pardon, Captain,” Karol said. “But that sounds like bull to me.”

  Willy never looked at his partner as she spoke but continued to stare at Mace. “Either you’ve had too much to drink, or I haven’t had enough.”

  “I know what I heard Janus Farel do to Patty,” Candice said. “He wasn’t human. And like you said, witnesses saw this wolf man or werewolf or whatever he was. But what you’re telling us now … an entire race?”

  “They’re peaceful,” Mace said. “They’re also endangered. All they want is to be left alone.”

  “Janus Farel had a strange way of showing it,” Landry said.

  “He was a renegade,” Mace said. “For reasons Angela didn’t know, he broke with his society. His goal was to expose their species and start a war between us and them.”

  Karol leaned forward. “If she was part of a secret species of werewolves, then Gabriel and Raphael—”

  “—are our links to that society.”

  “And Jason Lourdes and Rhonda Wilson—”

  “Probably belong to the same species and society. Why don’t you and Willy tell everyone about the bodies found in the Lourdes’ home?”

  “You mean the ruins of the Lourdes’ home,” Willy said. “Six bodies, only one of them human. The rest were canine … and decapitated.”

  “Like Jason,” Karol said.

  “I’m willing to bet two of those canine carcasses belonged to Jason’s parents,” Mace said.

  “Even accepting that Janus Farel was some kind of monster, this is more than a little hard to believe,” Landry said.

  “Really? Maybe for someone who hasn’t spent two years contrasting werewolf legends to what happened here. Except for Karol, I’m sure we’ve all read Terrence Glenzer’s book.”

  ”Transmogrification in Native American Mythology” Willy said. “I read it twice.”

  “Janus made believers of us when he killed Patty. The other murders, from Glenzer to civilians to cops, just made that belief irrefutable.”

  “And the bosses covered everything up,” Candice said.

  “They tried to save their careers. It didn’t work. None of them even live in the state anymore.”

  “But the forensics … the eyewitnesses … the photos and videos …”

  “Buried, discredited, and ridiculed. As far as the world is concerned, the Manhattan Werewolf retired when the National Guard came in.”

  “I’m not saying I believe you,” Karol said. “In fact, I’m telling you all right now that I don’t. But just for the sake of argument, you say these creatures want peace.”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s consider them human beings with highly unusual DNA. Our own government calls them Class L humans.”

  “You believe they’re victims in whatever’s going on?”

  “They are victims. Someone’s declared war on them.”

  “Who?” Landry said.

  “The Brotherhood of Torquemada.”

  Understanding settled over Landry’s face. “The ones who fashioned the Blade of Salvation in the first place.”

  “An order of self-proclaimed knights who served Torquemada during the Spanish Inquisition, executing witches and werewolves for him. Glenzer wrote about them, but I’ve spent so much time doing my own research the last two years that I could teach a college class on that period in European history. When the Inquisition fell out of favor, the knights formed a secret society—the Brotherhood ofTorquemada—and continued their war against the Wolves.”

  “And you believe they still exist?” Landry said.

  “Glenzer came into possession of one half of a broken Blade of Salvation. I believe he contacted the Brotherhood and tried to sell his half of the sword to them. He discovered who they were from his own research, or maybe they contacted him. The night that chopper crashed in Central Park—chasing a wolf——two men who weren’t cops were also killed. One was a priest named Francis Hagen. I spoke to him shortly before he was killed. He admitted that Glenzer had arranged to give the Blade to a monsignor in the Vatican, and this monsignor had contacted Hagen to assist in the transfer of ownership.

  “The other man killed was Pedro Fillipe, a Dominican who was conveniently raised in Italy after his parents died in a hurricane. Fillipe arrived in the US the same day Glenzer was murdered. I think he was sent here to retrieve the Blade for the Brotherhood. In Central Park, Hagen was torn to pieces, but Fillipe was killed with the blade of a broken sword—the other half of the Blade of Salvation.”

  “You believe this mysterious monsignor belongs to the Brotherhood?” Willy said.

  Mace nodded.

  “And Janus Farel already had one half of the Blade?”

  “More likely, Fillipe brought it with him to kill Janus.”

  “The Vatican claimed both halves of the sword,” Landry said. “I remember them saying it was some sort of—”

  “—religious artifact.”

  “The Vatican. Shit.”

  “I’m Catholic,” Willy said. “Are you telling me that my church has its own army of werewolf killers? Because that sounds pretty cool.”

  “Not necessarily. This monsignor that Hagen told me about may have only been acting on the Brotherhood’s behalf.”

  “Or maybe he’s funneling cash to them,” Landry said.

  “That’s a savvy speculation, Ken.”

  “The church is one of the biggest corporations in the world; it just isn’t classified as such. And the Vatican is its home office. Depending on his clearance level, a monsignor working there could divert funds to another entity.”

  “A secret entity. Torquemada had six Blades fashioned. Six knights did his dirty work for him
, and each knight had an apprentice. So conceivably, twelve men formed the Brotherhood, and twelve may exist today.”

  “You still haven’t told us our objective,” Willy said.

  “As I said, Norton and Shelly are working this with us. Who knows how long the FBI’s been sitting on evidence that these Wolves exist. Norton and Shelly told me they know the Wolves are peaceful. They supposedly want to make contact with them, possibly study them. Whatever their motivation, they want to prevent a panic. Our job is to do just that. We need to make sure no one else discovers the Wolves’ existence and makes it public.”

  “That cock-and-bull story about Jason Lourdes and his family being killed because they crossed drug dealers …” Landry’s voice trailed off.

  “Are we just a mop-up crew?” Candice said.

  “No. Our objective is also to stop the Brotherhood from assassinating these Wolves, by any means necessary.”

  “That sounds specific and vague at the same time.”

  “The feds and the brass don’t want these men to stand trial for obvious reasons. If we take them alive, the FBI will make sure no one ever hears from them again. And if we can’t capture them alive, the FBI will take custody of their bodies. Either way, we’ll never get famous for this investigation. We’re sworn to secrecy.”

  “National security?” Candice said.

  Mace nodded.

  Willy finished his beer. “We’re a secret task force hunting a secret brotherhood that’s targeted a secret species in a secret war. None of us had better change jobs, because that will look whack on our résumés.”

  “I’ll lay out the operation tomorrow morning, but I wanted to have this get-together without our colleagues to make a few points. First, we don’t have to worry about interference from the brass. But on the flip side of that coin, we’re on our own, so don’t expect any backup from the department. The only other people assigned to this task force are Hector Rodriguez and Suzie Quarrel, and they don’t know any of this. They’ll continue to work from their department. If any of us reveals the nature of this task force to anyone, the bosses will deny it, and I promise their wrath will be swift and thorough.

  “Second, you’re not to trust our federal partners. We have to involve them, but they’re here to keep tabs on us while pretending to share information. Be careful with your e-mails, phone calls, even conversations with each other at our new home. I’ve just told you more than I’ve told them. We don’t know what secrets they’re keeping.”