Wolfkind

by Stephen Melling

  Unsure which was the right direction, Joshua tried desperately to home in on the nearest sound, turning left and right along a maze of corridors, moving deeper into the structure. All he found were corpses, the blood still flowing, the echo of screams not quite faded into silence. Joshua was barely a whisker behind them. Fresh bullet holes criss-crossed the institutional-green walls. Dust from the blasted masonry ghosted across the bodies, eddying away from Joshua, as if still in the slip stream of the elusive killer.

  The corridor he was in terminated at a t-junction. On the right hand wall, ten-feet from the junction, hung a pair of doors leading to bulk storage. Riveted to the lintel above the doors a dented tin sign read: Authorized personnel only.

  A blaze of muzzle-fire illuminated the left hand branch of the t-junction. Joshua moved cautiously toward the corner. He smelled fear in the air. The terror as tangible as the solid walls that hemmed him in. A thick, coppery sensation, like blood and sweat. The atmosphere bled mortal terror.

  At the end of this corridor he found another body, a Jamaican who appeared little more than a teenager. Eyes wide open, dreadlocks fanned around his head. Everything from his nose to his throat was missing. A gold necklace, which had somehow escaped undamaged, lay stretched across his lacerated throat. His hands were charred and smoking. It looked like the guy’s weapon had exploded. Then Joshua saw why. The barrel was bent at a right angle.

  The rapid, shallow respiration of someone driven half mad by fear reached Joshua’s ears and jittery footsteps approached. A flashlight beam flicked through the darkness beyond the next corner. A human for sure – a renegade needed no flashlight.

  Joshua stepped into view and found himself face to face with a Jamaican wearing a pair of thick-lensed spectacles. Sweat beaded on a forehead that reached to the top of his cranium, where tightly beaded plaits bounced and swayed. The waft of fear he radiated felt so potent that, for a moment, Joshua stared at the wide-eyed at Delbert Johnson. An almost comic question rose in Joshua’s mind. I guess this means you’re not a renegade.

  Though scared and confused, Johnson still moved quickly; swinging his assault rifle, squeezing on the trigger even before he drew a bead, backpedaling, firing and screaming.

  Joshua stepped up accordingly, swatted the weapon, deflecting the shots into the wall. Then he snatched at the barrel, which burned his skin, jerking the weapon from the Jamaican’s grasp. Still backpedaling, Johnson reached to his side and produced a pistol. His hand had barely touched the stock when Joshua struck him smartly on the temple with his palm. Johnson grunted and went limp. Joshua lowered him to the floor.

  Sirens, distant at the moment, closed inexorably on the warehouse. Soon the place would be surrounded and if he didn’t hurry, Joshua would be trapped.

  He abandoned caution for haste and moved recklessly down the last of the corridors. In the rear quarters of the warehouse he found a steel door smashed against a wall, the hinges busted and the wood splintered. Several wicked claw marks scarred the plate steel. Bullet holes riddled the masonry surrounding the doorframe. Though no bodies lay in the doorway, small droplets of blood speckled the floor and one of the walls. Joshua touched the blood and brought his fingers to his nose.

  His nostrils twitched fiercely. It was not human. It was the blood of a renegade. He wiped his fingertips on his jeans.

  Farther along the corridor he came to another door, smashed and splintered like the first. Beyond the ruined door were overturned armchairs and tables. In one corner, an elaborate computer workstation, on which the monitor displayed a star-field screensaver. At the back of the room two bodies were stretched over a leather couch. Gun smoke hung in the air, mingling with steam from spilled entrails.

  Somewhere up ahead a violent crash sent a shockwave through the floor. Then a triple or quadruple burst of sustained fire. Something roared, first in pain and then in rage. The Jamaicans were putting up a fight and clearly were having some success. Though it did not last long. The gunfire petered out and the screams which followed were clearly human.

  Joshua sprinted down the corridor toward the pitiful pleas. All too soon the cries ended and Joshua stopped moving, listening hard, yet still unable to pin-point the source. He was all but out of time. From outside came the first in an endless series of tire screeches as more and more patrol cars arrived.

  Inside the warehouse now all was quiet. The gunfire had ended with almost jarring abruptness, as did the chilling cries of terror. This surely meant the renegades had completed their business. The assassins had carried out another hit. They would be seeking their escape.

  Joshua rushed through a doorway into the rearmost room. Sensing a presence, he held himself motionless as a startled deer. At the far end of the room, a dark and silent shape flew wraith-like across the floor toward the stair well. The displacement of air caused by the fleeting presence whipped up dust and bits of waste paper.

  Joshua reacted almost as quick, and the Beretta spat fire. Three rounds slammed almost simultaneously into the plaster of the stairwell wall, missing their target by less than a foot.

  The echo died. Joshua followed the point of his gun across the floor to the base of the stairwell, halting at the first step. At head height in the wall he saw the three Beretta rounds, each no more than an inch from the last.

  Above him, the whisper-quiet sound of swift feet ascended.

  “Freeze!” A flashlight beam poked in at the far end of the room, swung left and right, trying to pick him out. Then the effulgence found and briefly dazzled him. He sprang into the stairwell and ascended to the first landing. Several other flashlights joined the first, their beams converging at the foot of the stairs. Voices called to one another as half a dozen or more policemen entered the storage area.

  He turned and rushed upwards, footfalls echoing, the Beretta thrust out in front of him. A sudden and deafening crash from above thrummed through the stairwell. A moment later fresh night air swept downward. Joshua cleared each flight with hardly a stride, quickly eating up the ground. At the top he found the stairwell door lying on the asphalt surrounded by splinters and chunks of concrete. The breeze blew flakes of paint and masonry dust in his face.

  Voices echoed from below. “Standing here…must have gone up…”

  Staying vigilant, set to defend against an attack, Joshua moved out on to the roof, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees, the Beretta held high. He saw movement to the left of the door and he snapped the gun in that direction.

  A young Jamaican, blood staining the left side of his face, cowered on the floor clutching an automatic weapon. Whimpering and trembling, he smelled of vomit, urine and feces. Joshua frowned in pity and in horror.

  “Which way did they go?” Joshua said.

  The kid shied away, curling into a fetal position.

  Joshua went to the edge of the roof and peered over. The forecourt was a car wreck of swirling blue and orange lights below; dozens of sirens competed for dominance. The previously dark façade now boasted brighter lights than a football stadium. SWAT teams converged on all corners. Someone bellowed orders into a bullhorn. In the distance he saw the searchlight of an approaching helicopter.

  Joshua looked farther afield, his eye piercing the gloom of the neighboring streets and serviceways. In a darkened alley running ninety degrees to the warehouse, he spotted two dark shapes, moving swiftly away from the scene. One of the figures looked back – right at him it. Two malevolent eyes glowed red in the darkness.

  In a micro-second Joshua drew a bead with the Beretta, but realized the range was too great.

  Footsteps and voices neared the top of the stairwell behind him. He turned around and saw flashlight beams from the ascending troop. He turned left and right like a caged animal. None of the adjacent buildings stood within reasonable jumping distance. The Jamaicans had obviously planned ahead – no neighboring buildings reduced the likelihood of a rooftop assault by a rival gang. The nearest structure, another derelict storage building, stood sixty or seve
nty feet away, but thirty or forty feet lower.

  Joshua drew a lungful of oxygen, coiled his muscles, and sprinted to the edge of the roof. Underfoot, the asphalt yielded and cracked under the pressure of forward thrust. At the lip of the roof, he stepped onto and kicked off the low wall, and for what seemed minutes rather than seconds, was airborne. Wind roared past his ears. Swirling blue lights swam far beneath his feet.

  As he sailed toward his target he started to lose height, and for one horrible moment he feared he would slam into the warehouse wall. But he remained aloft just long enough to clear the warehouse’s parapet. Both feet touched down heavily, the asphalt shattered, and his momentum pitched him across the smaller roof in a series of forward rolls. Like a wrecking ball he struck the far wall, his weight dislodging slabs of coping.

  After a quick look back, he ran along the wall until he came to a drain. He swung himself over the edge and slid down a section of corroded downspout, fortunately leeward of the crime scene. When he got halfway down, dust and flakes of rust in his eyes, the pipe came away in his hands.

  He hit the ground running in order to avoid being buried under the ton of old metal following him down. The noise was enormous, deafening, even with the dozen nearby sirens and shouting police officers.

  Joshua crept through the graveyard of deserted buildings and made the two blocks back to his Camaro unseen. The door still hung open from his hasty departure only minutes ago. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he looked through the windshield. On the roof of Johnson’s warehouse a dozen silhouettes waxed and waned against the backdrop of sweeping flashlights.

  Leaving the headlights off, Joshua keyed the ignition, put the car in reverse, and drove quietly away.

  Genna Delucio arrived at the Hollywood Jewel and stopped the BMW on the tiny parking lot. She turned the key and the engine died, leaving behind a heavy silence. Looking through the windshield at Joshua’s motel room, she swallowed thickly. Beyond the window blinds a light burned. Had Joshua left it switched on this morning before they left for Huntington Beach? She couldn’t remember. Nor could she discern any movement beyond the orange glow. Fat raindrops struck car.

  Genna drummed her fingers on the steering while two scenarios played on her mind: In the first, Joshua lay collapsed in a street somewhere. In the second, though severely injured, he had somehow made it back to his motel. If the latter were true, then he was in there right now, sprawled on the floor, maybe breathing his last.

  She grimaced inwardly, climbed out of the car, and crossed the rain-spotted tarmac to Joshua’s unit. In the shelter of the awning she pressed her ear against the door. Over the clunks and hisses rising from the bowels of the ice machine to her left, she heard nothing.

  The leaden sky unleashed a series of gust-driven showers at the motel. The breeze picked up with the abruptness of a wind tunnel, almost knocking her off balance, snapping the calf of her jeans against her skin.

  “Joshua!” Genna banged on the door. “Are you in there?”

  Waiting, she thought not only of his injuries, but also the photographs of him snooping around her car at the hospital. This of course raised questions regarding her safety.

  A car sluiced along Santa Monica Boulevard, dragging spray and the thump-thump of bass along with it. A dervish gusted through the tract of shrubbery bordering the parking lot. An empty soda can skittered across the sun deck, performed a serious of tumbles, the final one sending it into the swimming pool.

  Genna looked over her shoulder. The windswept border was a mass of writhing, glistening foliage, reflecting glare from a million facets. She saw nothing particularly sinister, yet got the feeling she was being watched. Flags clung desperately to their poles. Strings of water trailed from their tips.

  On the verge of fleeing, Genna turned, but instead of knocking, tried the door. To her surprise the handle turned easily in her grasp. The moment the lock mechanism disengaged, the door was yanked out of her grip, pulling her into the room. She almost screamed, half expecting to see Joshua standing there, ashen faced, close to death, accusing her of getting him shot.

  But the room was empty. The storm, which rushed past her into the room, left a darkening calling card on the welcome mat.

  Genna gave a quick glance up and down the promenade. None of the neighboring doors swung open, no curious slits appeared at the blinds. Reception was obscured by the swaying fronds of a palm tree.

  She slipped into the room and secured the door.

  Inside was several degrees cooler than outside – the air-conditioning gave off its varied hum, and a cool draft of refrigerated air played with the loose corners of a large map, which hung from the wall by only three tacks, the fourth corner hung loose, obscuring half of the chart.

  Genna wiped the rain from her face and stepped deeper into the room, her boots squeaking, and her chest thumping. To her right the double bed was clearly unslept in, the sheets tucked neatly under the mattress. On the spread were a hold-all and a pile of newspaper-clippings. By the nightstand, a wastepaper basket, tipped on its side. Hanging half in half out was the shirt Joshua had been wearing this evening. The fabric stained with blood.

  A finger of ice pressed against her heart and for a moment, eyes glued to the blood-stains, she couldn’t breathe. He had made it home – maybe still was home.

  “Joshua?” she said, startled by her own voice. She forced herself to walk to the far side of the bed, certain she would find him there, face down.

  But he was not on the floor. Nor was he slumped against the wall. She licked her lips. Only the bathroom left to search. Her heart thudded in her temples. This would be where she found him, submerged in the calm, cold bath water, sightless eyes aimed skyward. Ah yes, she thought grimly. Wasn’t Hollywood the place for bodies in bathtubs?

  But the bathroom was empty and very quiet. She pulled the light cord, her fingers sliding on something wet and sticky. Under the naked bulb she saw blood on her fingers. More of it stained the sink and the floor. She quickly ran the water and proceeded to wash her hands when she noticed three dull objects on the back of the sink. She stood hunched over the basin with her hands submerged, staring at the objects, and saw they were spent rounds, misshapen from impact. She picked one up and held it before her eyes. It was dark red and tacky.

  Part of her mind tumbled back to the moment she knocked Joshua down with the BMW; the subsequent examination by Sam Harper. Then she thought of the shooting itself. Although she had not actually seen Joshua shot, she had heard the weapon’s report, she had seen his blood. But instead of falling down clutching his chest, Joshua sprinted off as though late for his own wedding.

  Body armor? Perhaps, she rationalized; a bullet-proof jacket that the rounds penetrated deep enough to make him bleed, yet not deep enough to disable him. But if that were so, where was the jacket? Why didn’t she feel it under his shirt when they embraced?

  Genna left the bathroom and searched the bedroom. On the table she found a scrapbook with a blank cover. A few news-clippings poked out from the center pages. Two words printed in bold type caught her attention. Salvatore Durant. She stared at the headline. Then pulled out the loose clipping and held it under the light.

  It was an old news-story detailing her father’s alleged involvement in a mob war with Fletcher Regan. The accompanying article was a brief, thinly disguised accusation of ‘local businessmen’ and their links with drug cartels, racketeering, and corruption of local government. The clipping, dated eight months ago, came from a New Hampshire newspaper called the Conway Daily Sun.

  Sensing she was on the verge of a revealing insight into the strange man who had wandered into her life, she sat on the edge of the bed and opened the book. The stiff pages were crammed with news-clippings, many of them aged-yellowed. They chronicled gangland slayings and mob-wars. A large section of clippings, she noted, detailed her father and the other principal Los Angeles crime syndicates.

  Tucked away in what she deemed her father’s ‘pile’, she found three pi
ctures of herself. These clippings, she noticed with mounting distress, bore pin holes in the corners.

  Her mouth went dry.

  Clearly the book represented a news-clipping history of the Invisible Assassin murders. Each killing carefully catalogued and documented in chronological order. In the index, names of the major players and their probable connection with the killings; gangsters who were possibly using something or someone referred to only as renegades.

  Her fear for Joshua’s safety was replaced by an equally unsettling disquiet about his true identity. He had lied to her from day one. Evidently, his story was a sham. His being here in LA no accident. Nor his ‘accidental’ meeting with her.

  Crack!

  Someone was outside.

  Genna whirled on the door, dropping the scrapbook. It was Joshua coming back. If he saw her car parked outside he would know she was inside. She thought briefly of the evening Joshua came to her apartment. Her father’s men showing up, telling her Joshua had killed one of their men.

  She fumbled to unzip her purse. Delved inside and pulled out the P7 pistol. Ten feet from the door, she adopted a shooter’s stance, aiming at chest height. Aim for the breastbone, Suzanne once told her. That way if you’re off target chances are you’ll at least wing ‘em. She wished Suzanne were here now.

  Above the sound of the rain she heard footsteps. The silhouette of a hunched figure fell across the window; a silhouette she did not recognize as Joshua’s. This person looked shorter and squatter.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then the door flew open and smacked against the wall hard enough to bury the handle in the plaster. She let out a shriek. Her first impression was that a giant had appeared, like he of the Beanstalk. Wind and rain and dead leaves punctuated the intruder’s gatecrash.

  The giant carried a gun.

  Genna finally recognized the saturated, wild-haired man as one of her father’s bodyguards. But during those furious, highly-charged seconds in which her panic surfaced, she pulled the P7s trigger three times, each successive report dragging a scream from her lips.