The cop leaned forward eagerly. “Oh? What kind of scarring?”
The weasel swallowed again, getting close to polishing off the monster omelet, then answered.
“I’d say it’s most consistent with burns, really, but in weird straight lines, as if the burns were controlled. Very unusual. But they looked quite painful.”
“So you think he’s what, burning himself? What do those straight lines mean?” The cop was all ears.
So was Mordred. He had some idea where those scars came from.
“I can’t determine that by just merely glancing at them, Killian.” He pushed his plate away after hoovering up the last crumbs.
“Hm, I guess not.” Killian drummed his fingers on the table, and Mordred heard it almost as snare drum rolls through the earpiece.
“What kind of excuse do you need to examine them?”
The doctor shrugged, then leaned in and whispered, “I have made some inquiries along the lines of what we discussed recently. The incidence of animal attacks, the ME’s reports with all those errors they’ve acknowledged. And Lupo’s inordinate amount of time off, much of it backed up by his partner. His file’s getting thicker by the week, Killian. I’m learning some interesting things about this guy.”
“Well?”
The doctor looked at his watch. “Hey, I have to be going. There are intriguing details we can discuss, but it’ll have to be our next meeting.”
“Christ, Marcowicz, you’re fucking stringing me along!”
“I have to move slowly—”
Mordred left them to bicker over the check, paid his own and slipped out of the diner within two minutes. Neither of them saw him or paid any attention.
Marcowicz was worth prodding.
Sigfried
It had been a hell of a day.
Again.
More grandstanding by congressmen and that one woman he would like to have strangled.
More cameras and recorders in his face.
More allegations against Wolfpaw.
Tonight the bastards would get their photographs and start to think twice about what they were asking. Things would get better tomorrow.
But right now he needed release.
And now this. Margarethe was unavailable, for the first time since she had bought the dom business he almost single-handedly supported. (Well, he knew there were other high-powered clients, but they couldn’t possibly afford the services he used so often.) Her replacement in charge, Veronika was her name, was certainly well-proportioned and full of assets—among them her multiply pierced labia and nipples, which were even more desirable than Margarethe’s, but even so she was no Margarethe. For one thing, she had not been able to provide him with what he needed most, a plaything he could break that she would be willing and able to dispose of, after. He didn’t know how Margarethe did it, but she had been able to procure such a plaything every time he’d asked—and lately he was asking more often.
So he’d suffered through a sub-par sloppy blowjob, had paddled her ass half-heartedly until she pretended to come, then had taken her from behind and made her scream by pulling on her labial rings until the mascara ran down her face.
That he’d enjoyed.
He’d have to have a word with Margarethe when she returned…see about a refund. And he hadn’t felt generous with a tip, either—unlike the thousand dollars he routinely handed his favorite dom. He dismissed Veronika with a barely disguised frown.
Now he propped open his laptop and connected to the secure server, where he could download the latest Mordred report.
He enjoyed watching the cop and the lady doctor screwing themselves silly. They were supposedly on the outs, but they sure made sparks… In fact, it was more enjoyable than his own session had been, and it gave him another painful erection. He considered summoning Veronika back again, but then gave up and let it frustrate him all the more.
That lady doctor… She was something. Perhaps Mordred should bring him a memento of the mission.
He rewound the clip to the beginning and started touching himself.
Chapter Eleven
Prey
1944
Chelmno
Branches reached down from overhead like skeletal fingers groping for a victim to haul up into the dark maw at the center of the tree.
Jakov’s breath plumed around his head as he ran, his bare feet slit by the icy crust on the recent snowfall, his steps stuttering because the snow seemed intent on dragging him down into its frozen depths. At this point, his lungs burning and ready to burst, his skin as hard as marble in the frosty moonlight, he could not have decided which fate was worse. The branches slashed at his face with their Christmas-tree needles suddenly more like those of syringes, while the ice crystals below him cut his soles and ankles with scalpel-like blades.
He stopped running, mind almost too blank from shock and pain to choose whether to risk entering the dark grove or stick to the open. The grove would be somewhat protected from the snow, but the needles covering the ground would prick his feet, and the branches would continue slashing his face and arms. But the snow slowed his progress. And his tracks made his pursuer’s work easier.
Barely stopping to consider, he gritted his remaining teeth against the pain and struck out through the trees. Several kilometers to the east, he knew, was a huge hole half filled with fresh corpses. Perhaps he could manage to do what he had been told was impossible.
The loose-fitting clothing, rough on his skin, concealed the pistol he had found just before breaking out of the charnel house the camp sadist called a laboratory.
They called him der Schnitter.
The reaper.
Jakov, already nearly frozen to death, shuddered to think of what he had seen.
And when the howling began behind him, he shuffled to a halt. He fumbled the pistol out of his clothes, wondering just then why it had been so easy. It had just been lying there, as if set out for him to find.
He’d been a military man once, long ago. He dropped the magazine into his palm and even in the shadows he could see it was empty. He snarled and almost threw the gun away. But then he pulled back on the toggle and looked and there was one cartridge, seated in the breech.
They wanted him to commit suicide?
He angled the pistol just right and squinted at the bullet, and it gleamed silver in the moonlight that filtered down on his hand.
One bullet.
Jakov understood then that he was a pawn in some fiendish game. What they had done to him wasn’t even the end.
He had grown up in a land infested by wolf packs in the winter. He knew their long, mournful howls. While they had frightened him as a child, the howling he now heard from nearby chilled the blood in his veins even more than the snow and ice could.
Gripping the nearly useless gun in one hand, he started running again. Or, rather, shuffling along on his bare feet, made bloodier by the ice. He left red splatters behind on the pointed needles that jabbed his soles until he could no longer keep from screaming with the pain. When he did open his mouth and screech hoarsely, the sound was drowned out by the howling behind him, bare meters away in the woods.
A creature crashed through the shadows of the pine branches just behind him. He heard large paws scrabbling for purchase on the slick forest floor.
The gun.
A silver bullet?
He turned to face the monster that had tracked him from his easy escape in the woods.
The slavering jaws were the first thing he saw, fangs bared and very bright in the moon’s intermittent beams. The eyes above those jaws glowed red. A wolf, twice the size of any of the undernourished specimens he had seen near home. The beast’s howls turned to mad snarling as he bore down on the helpless human.
Jakov had faced a charge before, and he had not broken.
He waited a second more, until the monstrous creature was almost upon him, then—with a steadier hand than he had any right to have—he fired the one shot he had been grante
d.
He saw the bullet punch the beast between his glowing, rage-filled eyes and explode a portion of the skull in a cloud of red gore. The beast’s snarling was cut off, and it ground to a halt at Jakov’s feet.
A perfect shot.
Jakov lowered the gun. The wolf was dead.
He resumed breathing, his lungs wracked by the cold and the exertion.
Suddenly, impossibly, the wolf’s eyes opened again and fixed his killer with a red glare.
A wailing scream of pain mixed with rage escaped the snapping jaws even as the beast’s entire body leaped up off the ground and landed on Jakov’s chest as if he’d not been shot, fangs ripping tender throat flesh before going for the man’s unprotected belly.
The last thing Jakov saw before the darkness cut off his own futile scream of frustration was the wound his one bullet had made, mending itself both in front and on top of the wolf’s head. In seconds, all signs of the wound disappeared.
Then Jakov was no longer human, just food.
And reward.
Chapter Twelve
Lupo
There was someone standing near his car. No, leaning on his car.
“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself, easing the Glock from its holster and quickly, quietly racking the slide as he approached the Maxima, which he’d parked on the street.
He glanced back, but DiSanto had disappeared in the opposite direction.
Holding the gun half hidden at his side, Lupo came up on the guy who leaned on Lupo’s car from behind. Seemed like a tall, muscular type. Military or ex-military haircut, wide of body with sleeves filled by huge biceps. Wearing a navy sweatshirt, much too light for the late fall chill.
Lupo was quiet, but the guy turned to face him just as he almost reached him.
Face on, the sweatshirt was a U.S. Navy logo with SEALS stenciled on it. The guy’s face was wide and flat, almost Slavic, his jaw strong and heroic, like a comic book hero. Dark, haunted eyes stared at Lupo, noted the drawn Glock, and then smiled widely.
“Detective Lupo, I presume?” He reached out a hand.
Lupo recoiled slightly, turning aside in case this was a set-up. If the guy wanted to attack him, though, why wait for him at his car? Why not try to grab him from behind?
“Yeah, I’m Lupo,” he said guardedly. He kept the Glock in hand.
“Sorry, don’t be alarmed.” The big guy nodded at Lupo’s gun. “Careful is good. I could be anybody.” He kept his hand out. “Name is Simonson. Geoff Simonson. G-E-O-F-F. I was a Ranger in Iraq.”
Still Lupo didn’t shake hands. “Your shirt—”
“Says SEALS on it, I know. I had buddies in the Navy. Marines, too.” Finally he dropped his hand, now it was obvious Lupo wasn’t going to shake.
“Okay, that explains the shirt, but what do you want? I get nervous when guys lean on my car. In my experience, that’s somebody about to try and deliver a message. Are you?”
Simonson nodded. “Sure, makes sense. I wasn’t sure if I should call and make an appointment. I know you’re busy.”
“How do you know what keeps me busy?” Lupo narrowed his eyes. This guy was a cool customer.
“Paper today quoted a Lieutenant Bakke as having named you to head a task force. That’s always a time-sink.” He smiled, as if hoping to increase the potential camaraderie.
“Okay, Simonson,” Lupo said, uncocking the Glock and reholstering. This guy had balls, but if he was going to attack, would he do it within sight of the cop shop? “Tell me your story? You want to be a source?”
“Partner, maybe.”
Lupo snorted. “I got one of those. I could use information, though. There’s some bad shit going down, and if you know something about it…”
“I do know something about it. And I know some of your history with Wolfpaw.”
Shit, should have kept the gun cocked and ready.
And: Shit, I knew all those were connected.
Simonson held up his hands in surrender when he saw Lupo’s flinch back toward his holster.
“Hey, they’re my enemies too.”
Lupo almost went for the gun anyway. He didn’t know anything about this guy, who looked him in the eye with absolute openness.
“All right, Simonson. Two minutes. What you got?”
“Oh, it’s not that simple. I’ve got a lot. A whole lot. But I’d need more than a couple minutes on the sidewalk to get to it all. How to play it? If you don’t want to hear what I’ve got, I’ll walk away. I thought we might have some common objectives, man, but if you have trust issues…”
Lupo barked out a laugh. “Trust issues? That’s a good one. If you even know anything at all about Wolfpaw, you’d know how funny that is.”
“It’s because I do know that I said it. You see, I used to work for them. Until I saw way too much, and I got out. Now I’m off the grid.”
“You worked for Wolfpaw?”
“Fuckin’-A. Been there, got the T-shirt. Falluja, Basra, I was one of those guys half Western, half native you’d see in those press pieces on the evils of war contractors. I was just doing my job. Left the military and went to work for Wolfpaw making about a thousand dollars a day.”
“So why talk to me? What makes you think I have any connection to Wolfpaw?”
Simonson’s eyes shifted left and right, checking for listeners. “Maybe it is best we’re having this talk here. Too many ears. Wolfpaw has bastards everywhere.”
“Again, why talk to me?” Lupo’s hands tingled, and he felt ridges of fur sprouting along his spine. The Creature wanted to growl.
Who is this guy?
“You think just because they’re sitting in front of some bloated congressmen they’ve forgotten about you? Man, you’re nuts then.” The guy wiped a big hand over his head.
Lupo itched to grab his Glock and stick it in this guy’s eye. “Tell me why I should listen to you and then tell me what you have to say. No games.”
Simonson surrendered again. “No games, Lupo. You hurt Wolfpaw pretty bad. Killed a whole Alpha Team. Well, minus one guy. He’ll show up soon, bet on it.”
“Goddamnit, lower your voice.” Lupo felt sweat colliding with the Creature’s manifestations. A growl started way down low. How the hell had this happened?
Simonson smiled as if it caused him pain. “Now you want to go somewhere?”
“Shit, what’s your game?”
“No game.” He twirled like a model. “See, no guns. Feel free to frisk. Just talk. I’m on your side. I saw what they did there. I did some of those things myself. But most of all, I saw what they did that was…moon-related. And I saw you take out half a training team down in Georgia.”
This was getting out of hand. Lupo wanted to just find a reason to shoot this guy. He knew way too much, and he seemed casual about it. He knew about the wolves, and he seemed to know about Lupo and his Creature.
Jesus.
The club kept getting larger. Pretty soon everybody and his brother would know.
“You know John Hawk’s Pub?” Lupo asked.
“On the river, downtown? I think so.”
“It’s big, noisy, and has dark corner booths. Meet me there in a half hour.”
“Not setting up some sort of ambush, are we?”
Lupo sighed. “If I really wanted to, I’d kill you right here and worry about it afterwards. You know that, don’t you?”
“Took my chances, man. We got a common goal. We both hate these Wolfpaw fuckers.”
“John Hawk’s, a half hour. Three of the corners are dark, and there’s even a smaller room with a fireplace that’s rarely used. See you there in thirty.”
“Sounds fair.”
Simonson stepped away from the Maxima and, for one crazy second, Lupo wondered if he’d wired up a bomb. But why hang around, then? He clicked the remote and climbed in, keeping the big military guy in his sight at all times. Simonson waved as Lupo drove off.
No need for back-up yet. Certainly not dragging DiSanto into anything
. He was already coming too close to taking care of this problem in a final way.
He left Simonson on the sidewalk, an imposing and mysterious figure.
And fucking dangerous.
Mordred
From his vantage point, the meeting between Lupo and the military guy seemed too short and innocuous to mean anything. But Mordred knew he’d seen the big guy around, and he was almost certain there was a Wolfpaw connection.
Was the guy an informant?
He hadn’t been prepared right at that moment to capture an image, so using his employer’s resources to ID the guy would have to wait.
Big military guy. Looked familiar in a weird way.
He followed Lupo and made up his mind right then and there to terminate the other guy—whatever he had to sell, he couldn’t be allowed to sell it to Lupo. He could defer to Sigfried, of course, but Mordred was certain he knew what orders would flow from the office in the command center.
He stuck to Lupo like glue and wondered if he’d spot the big guy again. Maybe they were meeting? Maybe that was what they’d set up?
Mordred hated having to catch up on anything. Sometimes he felt as if his mind was going to burst, his brain leak out of his ears.
The sessions in the lab usually loomed large in his memory during those times. They’d sure messed with him a lot. He rubbed the back of his head.
He hung back as Lupo went through some half-assed counter-intelligence moves, like maybe he’d learned them from a movie or a thriller writer. He watched from afar as Lupo ascertained no one had gotten there before him and found a spot to survey from, but he himself watched Lupo until Lupo came back and parked on the street farther away.
Okay, that was a good move. Unless he needed to get to his car fast. He’d be getting there early, which was a good way to beat a hit—beat the hitman to the meet.
Must be meeting in that big corner building, bank-looking light peach color exterior, about ten stories. Revolving door into big, high-ceilinged marble lobby. Mordred was only watching, so it didn’t matter.
He shot some video with the highly advanced, fifteen megapixel camera and zoom hidden in his standard-looking cell phone.
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