Wolf Killer (The Hammer Commission)

by John Van Stry

  "Yes, Father," Mark said.

  "What about the body?" Michael asked.

  "Start a fire in the clearing and burn the head. After that, drag the body up and burn that too," Mark said.

  "Burn all of those books!" Father Hess said, "but be careful to wear gloves, they may be coated with poisons or other foulness."

  "Sure thing, Father Hess," Mark said as they left the cave and emerged back into the sunlight.

  "There's a truck over there in under that lean-to," Helena said coming up to Mark. "Keys are in it."

  "Okay," Mark said following Helena over to the truck while carrying Father Hess. "Michael, you and Helena take Father Hess back to the hospital in town, then meet us back at the clearing, okay?"

  "Got it, Mark."

  Mark lay the Father down in the bed of the truck, "Thanks again, Father Hess. Ever think about moving to Spain?"

  "Pah! I'm too old for commission work!"

  "Funny, you don't look more than thirty-five to me," Mark grinned.

  "Do I look like a man who likes getting his legs broken, Mark?"

  Mark laughed and shut the tailgate and gave Helena a hug and a kiss.

  "See you in a while," he told her, then went back to Steve and Mary to start cleaning up the mess.

  "You know, we still have to Craig to deal with," Michael said as he got into the driver's seat as Mark walked away.

  "I know," Mark sighed, "I know."

  # # #

  Mark was at the police station, in a meeting room with Sheriff Clayton, Michael, Steve, and Mary. Agent Woods was on a speakerphone, they were using one of the FBI cell phones, which were at least somewhat secure.

  "So, you lost Craig," Agent Woods said on the phone after Mark had run down the events.

  "Sorry, Chief," Mark sighed, "But we were in no position to chase him when he ran off. I'd hoped he'd gone back to his mentor here, and that we'd catch him there. But unfortunately he didn't."

  "Do we know anything about their relationship?" Agent Woods asked.

  "Other than what he told us? Not really. The vampir was giving Craig power, and I guess gold or gems or something, in return for the bodies he was consuming. We're still looking into the stories of the old mage that was here a hundred or so years ago. I think it's a safe bet that this was the same guy."

  "What was so important about that cave?"

  "Some sort of natural energy flow, that the vampir was able to tap into I think," Mark shook his head, "I honestly don't know enough about it. The church might have people who could investigate it."

  "Personally I think we should just dynamite it and collapse the cave," Sheriff Clayton said. "Less trouble for all involved, if you ask me."

  "Well, you won't get any arguments from me, Sheriff," Agent Woods said on the phone. "If the government wants it, they can always dig it up."

  "So what's our next move?" Mark asked. "Man hunts aren't anything I have a lot of experience with."

  "The best tactic is to make him come to us," Steve said. "But in order to do that, we need a profiler, someone who can tell us what kind of bait we can use."

  "Steve is right," Agent Woods said. "I want all of you to write up everything you know about Craig, and whatever impressions you have. I already got us a profiler on loan, I'm going to run all of this by them, and see what they can figure out."

  "Assuming that they'll even believe this," Mark sighed.

  "Oh, they were assigned to your friend out in Vegas for a year. They'll believe anything after that," Agent Woods chuckled.

  "Thanks, Chief," Mark said.

  "I want you folks to stay up there for a few more days yet, incase Craig turns up. We found Ursula's car, dumped in Peterstown. We haven't found the owner of the truck you found yet, but we're pretty sure Craig killed him and took it. Probably just a crime of opportunity."

  "Well, at least we shut down the source of his extra power and his money," Michael said.

  "Yes, good job on that. Besides, who knows how many people that monster in the cave was preying on?" Agent Woods said. "I expect to see your reports before the end of the day. I have to go now; I need to brief my boss. Bye."

  The line clicked off, and Steve put his phone back in his pocket.

  "So, Bill," Mark said looking at the Sheriff, "What do the clan heads all say?"

  Sheriff Clayton shrugged, "They're going to scout their areas for any interlopers and will let us know what they find. They're also going to keep their communities under surveillance, if anything goes missing, anything strange happens, they'll let my office know."

  "How did you know that cold iron would kill him?" Michael asked.

  "And just what is cold iron?" Mary asked.

  "Cold iron, cold steel, basically it's any weapon with a lot iron in it. For some reason iron affects certain monsters," Mark said.

  "Like silver affects turned lycans?" Mary asked.

  Mark nodded, "Precisely. It just occurred to me that he was dodging the blade more than the artifact. I could see that the artifact was hurting him, because its holy and he's evil. But it wasn't doing him any real damage.

  "I do want to thank you Michael for hitting him in the back with the rifle."

  Michael nodded, "Thanks. I figured that because it was blessed, it might cause him some troubles. We should have thought to have our pistols blessed as well. Then he probably couldn't have taken them away like that."

  "Huh, hadn't thought of that. But you're right, he never stripped the guns from us, but he did the pistols."

  "For all the lack of damage the rifles did, I'm surprised he cared," Mary said.

  "Oh, they hurt him. He was just so full of power that we didn't see it," Mark said. "And with whatever that natural power source was down there, taking him down by sheer attrition probably would have taken longer than we would have survived."

  "Well, I know one thing," Mary said.

  "What's that?"

  "I'm getting one of those machetes!" She laughed, "We should probably see about getting steel bullets as well. I know the military makes them for armor piercing."

  "More things for Woods to add to the armory," Steve said, making notes.

  "Well, I promised the wife to take her out for dinner tonight," Sheriff Clayton said, standing. "You all have my cell if anything comes up. Or you can call the office."

  Mark and the others all nodded.

  "Dinner definitely sounds like a good idea, talk to you tomorrow, Bill," Mark said and getting up decided to go track down Helena and head over to the diner with the others.

  21: Marlington

  Mark stretched and yawned, "Man, it's bad enough that they make you guys work forty hour weeks, but now weekends as well?"

  "You don't work forty hours for the church?" Michael asked, sipping his coffee as they sat around one of the tables that had been set aside for them in the sheriff's office.

  "We work a job when we have one, then sit around and drink when we don't," Mark said stifling another yawn. "I've got open bar tabs in two dozen pubs across England and Europe."

  "Must be nice!"

  "Normally, it is. Especially as a lot of our work is done at odd hours anyway."

  "Well, let's call Woods and see what he has for us," Steve said.

  Mark nodded and yawned again, "Have at it."

  "Agent Woods here," came out of the speakerphone.

  "Chief, it's Mark and the team. Got any new leads for us?"

  "Actually, yes. I just went over the report the profiler sent me this morning."

  "This morning? Chief, it's nine a.m. What did they do, work all night on it?"

  "Apparently," Agent Woods replied. "Of course I did tell them it was a priority."

  "So, what did they have to say?" Steve asked.

  "A lot of things, actually. I'll email a copy to all of you; you can look at it later. But one of the keys is she's pretty sure that this Craig guy can't take responsibility. Nothing is ever his fault, it's always someone else's and that they must be made to pay wh
en things go wrong."

  "Sounds typical," Mark yawned. "Did they have any idea on how to make that work for us, Chief?"

  "Actually, Mark, yes, she did. You know the first girl that kid saved? Susan Meyers?"

  Mark nodded, "Yeah, what about her?"

  "Well, she's obviously the reason the cabin burned down, and the reason that all of us found out about him, and then destroyed the nice little thing he had going."

  "So, our profiler is pretty certain that he holds her responsible?" Steve asked.

  "She gave it a very high percentile," Agent Woods confirmed.

  "So, how do we use that?"

  "Simple, we let him know not only that she's alive, but where she is."

  "And just how do we do that, Chief?" Mark sighed. "We have no idea where he is, what he's doing, or even where he's going."

  "Mark," Agent Woods said with a chuckle, "You're working for the FBI now, that's easy. We hold a press conference."

  Mark looked around at the others on the team, they were all nodding.

  "A press conference?" Mark said a little unsure.

  "Well, we have to explain to the locals all of the fuss that went on yesterday, so we tell them that we tracked down a dangerous serial killer, who took refuge in that cave, where we were forced to kill him after hours an hours of a very long standoff. We then introduce Susan, a survivor who had the strength and the courage to come forward and tell us about this vicious killer."

  "But Craig's not dead," Michael said.

  "But if he believes that we think he is, he won't hesitate to come back and get retribution, that's the idea, right Chief?" Mark said thinking about it and nodding slowly. It made sense. Craig had gone to the trouble to try and ambush him and kill him, when the smart thing would have been to run. So Mark didn't doubt Craig would come back for Susan.

  "Exactly," Agent Woods said.

  "Do you think he'll hear about it?" Mark asked cautiously.

  "We're the FBI; we'll make it the biggest story of the year. Around here, especially in a slow news cycle, everyone will pick it up. Even more so if we give it some nice graphics. Like 'Interpol agent works with FBI in tracking down international killer' and we put the girl in a nice outfit to encourage pictures."

  Mark laughed, "You know, I'm so used to working with a complete press blackout, that the idea of finally being able to use them to help me for once, never even entered my mind. Thanks Chief! If this doesn't draw him in, nothing will."

  "Okay, I'll get the press people to work on some press releases, write up a script for all of you, and schedule the event. I'll call Sheriff Clayton and ask if he wants in on it, if you could go visit Miss Meyers and ask for her help, Mark?"

  "Sure thing, Chief. Where do we tell him she's staying?"

  "We don't, we don't want to make it too easy for him, or he'll suspect it's a trap. We just give him enough clues so that he can figure it out himself. We just mention during the press conference that she's staying with some local relatives. Then we just create a fake family at a convenient location outside of town, and ask Google, Yahoo, and all of the other search engines to load it up, so when he searches on the Meyers name, he gets the results we want."

  "You can do that?" Mark said rather shocked.

  "Of course!" Agent Woods laughed over the phone, "We're the FBI, we do stuff like this all the time. I just need you to find us a good location for the takedown. Rent a house if you have to, I want to wrap this guy up as soon as possible, and I'll need that address at least an hour before the press conference so we can have our people load the fake records into the search engines."

  "Will do, Chief," Mark said. "Anything else?"

  "Not right now. I'll have Marylyn fax the scripts for everyone to the sheriff's office as soon as we have them done. Bye."

  "Bye," Mark said as Agent Woods hung up. He looked around at everyone. "I had no idea you guys could do something like that."

  Steve shrugged and Mary laughed, "It's like he said, we're the FBI, we have the power of the whole federal government behind us, and when it comes to catching a killer, the folks at Google and Yahoo, and all the rest are more than willing to help us out."

  "Also, when they need a favor, say when Congress is looking to pass some new regulations or something, they can point to the fact that they cooperate with us," Steve added.

  Mark nodded, "Something to keep in mind. Okay, I'll take Michael and we'll go visit Susan Meyers and ask for her help at the press conference. You two get in touch with Sheriff Clayton and ask him for a house to use for this mythical Meyer's family. Call me before you talk to Woods, okay?"

  "You got it, Mark," Steve said.

  Mark pulled into the driveway, and wasn't surprised when Deke met him as he and Michael were still getting out of the SUV.

  "Can I help you, Mark?" Deke asked walking up to him.

  "I was hoping to talk to Susan," Mark said.

  "What about?"

  "Actually, that's for Susan..." Michael started, but Mark put his hand up and stopped him.

  "We want her to appear at a press conference. Craig, the guy who abused her, got away when we took care of that mage who'd been using him. We figure that Craig blames her for all of his stuff falling apart, and his losing everything. My boss is pretty sure that Craig will see the press conference, get enraged, and come after her."

  "So you want to use her as bait, is that it?" Deke said.

  Mark nodded, "That's about it. We're going to set up a fake address for him to go to, and set up a trap there for him."

  "That's a lot to ask of the girl, after all she's been through," Deke said in a low voice, Mark could tell he didn't like the idea at all.

  Mark nodded again, "Yeah, it is. But it's her decision to make. Not mine, not my boss's, and not yours. This guy is insane, and he's a lycan. We need to take care of him, the sooner the better.

  "So, I'm asking you to let me talk to her, and see what she says."

  "Where are you planning on setting this trap?" Deke asked.

  "We don't have an address yet. I got the others working with Sheriff Clayton on finding a place."

  Deke growled a moment, but then shook himself. "You're right, come on in. But if she agrees to it, we'll do it here."

  Mark was momentarily taken aback by that. "Here? You sure?"

  Deke nodded, "If he's turned any others since you lost him, you're going to need all the wolves you can get, between me and my sons, that bastard won't get anywhere near that girl. Also, she's been all over the place here. Her scent is everywhere. You try to set up a trap somewhere else; he just may notice the lack of her scent."

  "That's a very good point," Mark agreed. "Well, let's go see if she's up for it."

  Deke led Mark inside; Susan was sitting in the living room with Deke's wife Margaret.

  "Agent Levin, right?" Susan asked looking up at him.

  Mark nodded, "And this is my partner Michael. I was hoping to ask you for a favor."

  "Of course, Agent Levin, I'd be happy too," Susan smiled.

  "You might want to hear what he wants first, honey," Margaret said to her.

  "Margaret is right, you might not like this," Mark agreed. "We found out why Craig was coming here, to this area. There was an old mage living in a cave who had turned into a rather evil creature, and the long and short of it is that while we were getting rid of that, Craig got away."

  Susan's eyes got wide when Mark said that, and Margaret put an arm around her.

  "Now, we believe that Craig blames you for all of his schemes failing, and him losing everything."

  "Me? Why would he blame me?" Susan said, confused.

  "Because you stood up to him, you got away," Mark said.

  "But he doesn't know I'm alive!"

  "Yes, we know that. But we want to have a big press conference, announce that we killed him in the big fight at the cave, and we'll introduce you as the brave survivor who told us all about him, and helped us catch him. He'll see if of course, and when he comes aft
er you, we'll get him."

  Mark noticed Susan's eyes getting wider and wider as Mark talked.

  "Will, will Trevor be with me?" She asked in a small voice.

  "Yes, Trevor will be with you. So will his brothers, Deke, and several FBI agents. Understand, we're not trying to arrest him, technically he's already dead. We're going to kill him."

  Mark was surprised when Susan's eyes narrowed and she made a noise like a growl.

  "I'll do it," she said. "After what he did to Kerry, he needs to pay!"

  "Oh, he'll pay alright," Mark told her. "The press conference is going to be later today, so dress up in something attractive. We want the press to flash your picture around so Craig sees it, and seeing as you are a rather pretty girl, I think it's a safe bet that the papers will put it on their front page all over the area."

  Susan nodded, "Sure thing, Agent Levin."

  "Call me Mark, please," Mark said and pulling out his phone he went outside to call Agent Woods and give him the address of Deke's house.

  Mark smiled and nodded to the assembled members of the press. Agent Woods had flown in by helicopter to run the press conference that was taking place in front of the sheriff's office. Sheriff Clayton had rather surprisingly agreed to take part in the whole affair. Well, surprising to Mark at least. Both Woods and Clayton had each gotten up and spoken rather well, each of them handled the press with surprising ease.

  Of course everyone had a script that the public relations people at the FBI had provided, along with suggestions on how to deal with any possible questions. While both Woods and Clayton had strayed from that script several times, both seemed to be rather comfortable with what they were doing, and knew what to expect.

  Mark however, was not, and it was now his turn under the spotlight.

  "Agent Levin, it says here that you work for Interpol, in their Rome office?" asked a reporter from one of the local papers.

  "Yes, that is correct," Mark said, hands behind his back in his best parade rest stance as he tried to not act as nervous as he felt.