Wolf Killer (The Hammer Commission)

by John Van Stry

  "You're mine now baby, you're one of mine!" He heard a male voice say.

  "He just bit a woman," Mark whispered and then kicked in the door.

  The room was fairly large, there were no lights on, but the large windows on the far wall let in enough of the outside light to illuminate the room. The first thing Mark noticed was the four-poster bed sitting in the center of the room, the sheets were a mess of course, and the room reeked of sex. The next was the two people on the bed, there was a young blonde woman laying on her back, naked, holding her arm with her other hand; kneeling between her legs and wiping the blood from his lips was a man, twenties looking, black hair, slender but well defined muscles, also naked.

  "Contact," Mark said as he brought the gun up shooting Craig twice in the back.

  The woman screamed and Craig grabbed her, rolling off the bed onto the floor. Mark had to move around the bed to keep Craig in sight, when he did the woman was still on top of him, he was holding her as a shield.

  "FBI, you're under arrest!" Mark said loudly.

  "You shot me!" Craig yelled.

  "Roll over and put your hands on your head, or I'll shoot you some more!" Mark growled.

  "I can't! I'm wounded!"

  "Cut the crap! You're a werewolf. Roll over!"

  "But she isn't," Craig said, laughing, "Can't shoot me, without shooting her."

  Mark circled left, trying to get a better angle on Craig, the bastard was right, he may have just bit her, but it would take a while before she was fully changed. Right now, if he shot her, he might kill her.

  The girl was struggling and screaming, trying to get away from Craig, who was holding her by the upper arms and moving her to keep her between Mark and him.

  "Send a few of the wolves up here," Mark said into the radio, "I need help!"

  Hearing that, Craig threw the girl at Mark then, and jumped to his feet. Mark dodged the girl's body as she flew past him and hit the wall, and started shooting again, as Craig ran to window and dove through it, shattering it and sending shards of glass everywhere.

  Swearing, Mark ran after him, and dove through the window behind him. Craig was already shifting as he fell, Mark could see agents Walters and Timms staring at Craig in surprise. Mark held the trigger down and emptied the magazine into Craig as he hit the ground, a large black wolf now where the man had been a minute before.

  "Shoot him!" Mark yelled and charged Craig, dropping the rifle and pulling his machete out, swinging at the wolf as it staggered away from him.

  Craig continued to stagger away, as Mark hit him again, the machete sinking in rather deeply, but the wounds healed almost as fast as Mark was causing them, surprisingly leaking very little blood. He needed to do more damage if he was going to get ahead of the Craig's ability to heal them, and Craig seemed a lot stronger than any lycan that Mark had ever dealt with before; thirty rounds of three-oh-eight hollow points should have done a lot more than just stagger him.

  Mark swore again as Craig turned a corner and then turned to snap at Mark, so Mark hit him in the head with the machete, causing Craig to step back and growl.

  "What puppy, not used to fighting another were?" Mark said and stepped forward and hit Craig again. That wound at least drew a little more blood, so Mark charged and attacked again, but this time Craig turned and fled.

  "He's running!" Mark and took off after him, "Get one of the cars!"

  Mark dashed after Craig, as the black wolf started to pick up speed. Dropping the machete, he started to tear his own clothes off; hopefully he could slow Craig down until someone else caught up with them.

  Shifting as he undid his belt buckle, Mark kicked his pants free and took off in a dash after Craig. Wolves might be distance runners, but cougars could sprint pretty damn fast, especially werecougars.

  Mark started to make up ground, as Craig dodged down side streets and alleyways. Mark would have smiled if he wasn't breathing so hard already, cats cornered a lot better than canines, and every time Craig dodged, Mark picked up another couple of feet.

  Finally as they came around a corner, Craig had to dodge some late night driver in a car, and Mark jumped to the roof of the car, then using its momentum he landed on Craig's back and started to tear into him with his claws.

  Craig howled and spun around, dislodging Mark, and snapping at his head.

  Mark smacked him in the face with one of his heavy forepaws, letting his claws rip the side of Craig's head open. Wolves fought in packs, Cougars fought solo, Craig's only advantage here was his superior healing as a full blood.

  Craig lunged again, and Mark jumped up, Craig got his left leg and bit down hard, Mark yowled as he came down on top of Craig and dug into his back with his claws, and bit him hard on the rump, drawing blood as he felt the bone in his own leg snap.

  Craig started to spin in circles trying to dislodge Mark as Mark continued to savage Craig's back, the pain from Mark's own leg as Craig chewed on it was excruciating, but he continued to hold on, shredding Craig's back with his claws.

  Suddenly something slammed into the two of them and sent them both flying. Twisting his body in the air, Mark saw a car with some terrified co-ed behind the wheel as the car screeched to a halt.

  Landing on all fours, Mark yowled rather loudly, as his broken leg hit the ground. Craig hit, slid a few dozen feet, then scrambling back onto all fours he started to stagger down the street. Mark took off on three legs; his hind leg was healing, but slowly, along with the several broken ribs he'd gotten when they were both hit by the car. By the time his leg was strong enough to pick up speed; Craig had already started to run again and was almost out of sight, while Mark's chest was now heaving in exhaustion from both the fight and the healing.

  He slowed to a walk, and started to track Craig by scent, continuing down the street for several minutes until he spied a police car, light's flashing, heading his way. Ducking into cover he watched as the car drove slowly by, he could see they were looking for something, and he suspected it was probably a wolf or a cougar called in by the gal that had hit them.

  Closing his eyes and ducking deeper into cover he swore again and waited for them to slowly drive off. Less than a minute later one of the team's black SUV's came down the street, lights also flashing.

  Mark popped up out of hiding and trotted over to the vehicle, jumping through the back window as it came down, and landing on the back seat.

  "Local police got a call about a wolf and a cougar fighting," Michael said from the front seat. So we figured it was you."

  Mark shifted back to his human shape and sighed, "Some stupid college girl hit us with her car!" He growled.

  "Here are your pants," Mary said, from the front passenger seat.

  "Thanks," Mark said grabbing them and putting them on.

  "He got away, didn't he?" Michael asked.

  "Yeah, dammit, I might have had him too. I was trying to hold him there long enough for someone to catch up and shoot him or something."

  "The report said that you two were tearing into each other something vicious," Mary said.

  "Full bloods heal faster; it takes a lot of damage to wear one down. I think I was finally starting to get to him when she hit us. "

  "You okay?" Michael asked.

  "Leg's still healing, but it'll be fine by the time we get back to the house. Where are the rest of my clothes?"

  "Steve has them."

  "Did Walters or Timms say why they didn't shoot when Craig came out?" Mark asked, "I mean, that was the plan, right?"

  "They didn't want to hit you," Mary said.

  Mark sighed, "Right instinct, wrong time."

  Mark got the rest of his clothes back from Steve after they pulled up outside of crime scene. The deputies were still there, though he could see they were getting ready to leave.

  "How many?" Mark asked softly, walking up to one of them, Hank was his name.

  "Six, counting the one he just tried to turn."

  Mark looked at him confused, "What do you
mean, tried?"

  "Zeke re-bit her, so his bite will be the one taking effect."

  "You can do that?" Mark asked surprised.

  "If you bite them right away like four or five times. It's an old alpha trick," Hank said.

  "Why would you do that?" Michael asked.

  "Whoever bites you has a certain relationship with you," Mark explained. "Especially when you're first turned. Makes you more tractable, more agreeable, unless of course you hate them, nothing can ever change that. And I bet right about now, she's hating Zeke."

  Hank laughed, "Hardly. Zeke's got a way with the women; he is an alpha after all. He explained it all nice and sweet and then did his thing."

  "What about the others?" Michael asked.

  Hank sighed and shook his head, "They're all pretty beat down, but none of them have been there more than four months, so we're pretty hopeful about helping them."

  "Why four months?" Michael asked scowling.

  "Yeah," Mark asked, "Why four?"

  "Because he'd drag one of them off every five weeks or so, never to be seen again, and replace them with a new one. Sometimes he'd take two."

  "Did any of you see him as he ran, or at least catch enough of a scent to identify him?"

  "Yeah, we did. He's not from around here; Zeke thinks he's a Russian wolf."

  "Damn, that's going to make things difficult," Mark said shaking his head.

  "Not my problem, thankfully," Hank said. "Well, we're gonna head back to the hangar, and move these gals into the van we brought down here. Gotta say though, every single one of those gals is a looker. This guy must have a pretty magnetic personality. You'd think someone would have noticed all these pretty gals disappearing around him."

  Mark nodded slowly; if Craig was taking a girl off the campus every four or five weeks, someone should have noticed. Especially as most girls in a college town pretty enough to be working as models probably had dozens of guys chasing after them. Someone should have noticed these girls disappearing, and would have been bound to make a complaint, or at least ask some questions.

  "Yeah, that is strange," Michael agreed. "Maybe he had someone helping him on campus."

  "More things to look into," Mark sighed shaking his head. "Let's go inside and see what's up."

  Mark followed Michael inside, the entire team was in the building, searching everywhere for clues.

  "Where's Woods?" Mark asked.

  "Upstairs," Agent Waters said.

  Mark nodded and went up the stairs and found Agent Woods in the bathroom searching the medicine cabinet of all things.

  "Why are you in here?" Mark asked, surprised.

  "Werewolves shave, right?" Agent Woods asked.

  Mark nodded, "Yeah, we all do everything the same as people do, why?"

  "Most men decide on such things as shaving cream, razor type, blades, aftershave, hell even their brand of soap, when they're still teenagers. So no matter where they go, they'll try to get the same things they grew up with."

  "Huh," Mark said impressed. He'd been using the same brand of blades and shaving cream since he was a kid himself.

  "So, what have you found?"

  "He's either Russian, from one of the former eastern block countries, or grew up in a household with a father who was." Agent Woods said and pointed to a tube of shaving cream, "Tet A Tet. Not too hard to get here, everything else seems local."

  Agent Woods turned and looked at him, "I heard he got away, and I heard that Walters and Timms hesitated. I also heard you got hit by a car, you going to be alright?"

  Mark nodded, "Yeah, but thanks for asking."

  "When we get back to the rallying point, I want you to change for everyone and back, let them see it, and get used to it."

  Mark nodded, "That sounds like a good idea. I probably should have changed for them back in the office. I'm so used to it, that I never once considered how others might react to it.

  "By the way, he didn't have a Russian accent or really any kind of an accent at all that I could tell."

  "Okay. Go look around a bit, see if anything stands out. I've already got the rest of the team bagging and tagging the usual stuff. But you have a different perspective from your Interpol work; you might see something the others miss."

  "Sure," Mark nodded and leaving Agent Woods, he gave the place the once over himself.

  The upstairs was pretty typical as far as Mark was concerned, just living areas. Yeah, they smelled of werewolf, and the others wouldn't pick that up, but from the scent and the looks of things, Craig didn't walk around his rooms in wolf form very much, if ever.

  Mark searched around for a vacuum cleaner, and when he found it, he took the bag out and put it in an evidence bag. He tagged it to be searched for wolf or dog hairs and then put it with the rest.

  The main floor was the photography studio. There was the small front room with the front door, where the customers were greeted. Other than a counter and a few chairs, there wasn't much there.

  Next was the office, again, a desk with a computer, a couple of large monitors, one of which faced the chairs in the room. The machine was turned off; no doubt Agent Woods would get some sort of forensics computer team in to look at it. Going through the drawers of the desk, there were a lot of memory cards, big ones too. Obviously Craig did everything on digital media.

  Next to the office there was a small changing room, with very little in it.

  On the other side of the hall that bisected the first floor, there were two very large studios with lighting rigs set up. The first one had a number of props and set pieces, nice chairs, some neutral backgrounds hanging from the ceiling; this was most likely where the standard studio work was done.

  The second room was different. There was a bed, a couple of couches, some patio furniture, and outdoor backdrops. Mark guessed this was where the more risqué and cheesecake photos were taken. A number of the props had drop cloths thrown over them, so he pulled a few back.

  "Shit," Mark swore. It was a Saint Andrew's cross. He'd seen these before, and he'd never seen one used for a good purpose. Bringing his nose close he took a deep sniff, and then sneezed, the scent of bleach was overwhelming.

  He pulled the covers off of all of the other props, half of them were bondage gear and all of them had been bleached clean. That did not look good.

  Moving back to the center of the room, he pulled off his cloths and shifting into his cougar form he slowly scented the room.

  He could smell fear, terror. Someone had died here, he was sure of it.

  Shifting back, he put his clothes back on, and stopped a moment to catch his breath. After the night he'd had so far, he was definitely getting tired.

  Heading down to the basement, things were just a little bit different than the rest of the very clean and professional looking building. It was cooler, a little bit damper, and there was a line of dog's food bowls along the wall in the hallway that led to the dorm.

  "He didn't," Mark said looking at the food bowls.

  "Yeah, he did," Steve came up and pointed to a door, "That's the closet, go take a look."

  Mark could already smell it, but he had to look for himself. Sure enough, when he opened the door there were bags of dog food, one was already open.

  "He fed them dog food, and made them eat from dog food bowls," Steve said, "kind of sick, isn't it?"

  "You know what's even stranger?" Mark said looking it all over.

  "What?"

  "That he was still screwing them, even though he thought of them as animals. Says a lot about what he thought of himself as well."

  "You sure he was? Once he kicked them down here, he may have stopped," Steve pointed out.

  Mark thought about that, he'd have to get Zeke or someone to check with the women they'd just rescued.

  "Good point, I'll look into it. Have you seen any fur or hair down here at all?"

  "Women's hair, yeah, quite a bit. No fur though, why?"

  "Lycan's like to shift, new ones especially. Ye
t I can't find any evidence at all of anyone shifting anywhere around here."

  "And so that's strange?"

  Mark nodded, "Very. I'm starting to think that Craig has issues with his wolfness."

  "So he's crazy then."

  Mark looked down at the food bowls, and then over at the door to the dormitory and thought about what he found upstairs. "Yeah, I think we can make that assumption."

  Two hours later Agent Woods rounded everyone up.

  "Okay people, our suspect got away, but we know he was naked. So that means no cash, no credit cards, no ID, nothing. So he's not going to be getting very far. I've talked to the local police; they'll keep a couple officers posted in case he comes back. They've been told not to engage him, but to call us.

  "What this means for us however is a change of plans. In the morning we're going to have to start canvassing the neighborhood, looking for anybody who may have noticed a naked man running around, or a black wolf. Also, with the number of women he's apparently kidnapped over the last year, it's pretty obvious that he's been getting help from somebody over at the college. So we're going to have to do some investigating over there as well."

  Agent Woods looked around at everyone. "I got us a block of rooms over at a hotel by the airport. We'll all head there for some shuteye after we regroup at the command post. I told the air force guys that we wouldn't need them to haul our stuff back for a few days, so they went back to Andrews.

  "So let's get the doors sealed up and head back to the command post."

  "Agent Woods," Mark said and waved Woods off to the side, "a moment please?"

  "Sure, Mark. What did you find?"

  "I think you're going to need to get a forensic team in here," Mark said softly. "All of that bondage gear in the one studio has seen use, serious use. I'm pretty sure he killed someone in there."

  "Why?" Woods asked softly.

  "I could smell it."

  "Everything in there was bleached," Agent Woods pointed out, Mark hadn't realized he had gone through the room as well.

  "Maybe not everything," Mark said, "There's an overall scent of fear, terror, and death in there."