SHADOW PACK (Michael Biörn Book 1)

by Marc Daniel

  Utterly out of breath, he stopped running. This was the end of the journey, and there would be no happy ending. Slowly, he turned around to face his executioners.

  Whatever he had expected to see, this wasn’t it. He could have sworn he’d find Clemens’ goons standing behind him, but instead there were five monstrous wolves of the type only seen in B sci-fi movies. So much for his coyote theory…

  Describing the beasts as gigantic would not have done them justice. Danko was pretty sure he’d seen horses smaller than these.

  The largest creature was standing in front of its fellow beasts, a mere ten feet from Danko. Its fur looked a solid black under the moonlight, unlike the other beasts that appeared mostly gray.

  One of the gray wolves took a few steps towards Danko, but a loud growl of the black one made him fall back in line, whimpering. At least it was clear who was in charge.

  There was something unnatural about the beasts, aside from their size, that Danko could not pinpoint. Maybe, had he been less terrified, he would have noticed the monsters’ eyes. These weren’t wolves’ eyes; they were human.

  As if answering a silent call, the pack started moving towards Danko in perfect synchronization. A second later, they had him surrounded.

  The back of the black wolf was as high as Danko’s belly button, which placed it around four feet. Its head was only a few inches below Danko’s, who could now clearly appreciate the size of the beast’s jaws.

  The wolf scent filled his nostrils. This was too much for his sphincters, which released their contents in his pants.

  The black wolf’s upper lip pulled apart to reveal three-inch fangs, but the beast wasn’t growling… he was smiling! A hideous, sardonic smile, which froze Danko’s blood.

  In a flash, the wolf lashed forward, sinking its teeth in the man’s belly. This was the signal the others had been waiting for. The feeding frenzy began.

  Chapter 16

  Steve was over an hour late. This was totally out of character, and Michael was growing increasingly worried. He picked up the receiver and dialed Steve’s cell phone for the third time. Still no answer. He replaced the receiver on the phone and right away picked it up again. This time he called information in hope of obtaining Steve’s landline number, but Steve wasn’t listed. Cops rarely were, for obvious reasons.

  **********

  Fifteen minutes later, Michael was in a cab on his way to midtown. He didn’t know Steve’s address, but he had been at his friend’s house once before. Having a photographic memory, he remembered exactly how to get there. It had been over ten years though, and he hoped Steve hadn’t moved in the meantime.

  The cab stopped in front of Steve’s place, a modest two-story wooden house built in the seventies, whose front porch harbored a swing in serious need of a paint job.

  Michael paid the fare and extracted himself from the cab’s backseat as fast as he could manage.

  He smelled the blood from the sidewalk. He ran towards the house and turned the front door knob. It was locked. Not bothering to ring the bell, he shouldered his way through the door. The frame gave in with a loud crack, and he rushed inside the house.

  The first floor was deserted, but he noticed bloody tracks on the stairs. He leaped upstairs in two strides and followed the bloody prints straight into the master bedroom.

  Steve and his wife, Marge, were in their bed—at least, what was left of them. Their bodies looked like they had been run over by a tractor pulling a chisel plow. Blood splattered the walls and soaked the sheets, pillows and mattress. The carpet had been relatively spared from the crimson shower, which indicated they had been killed in their bed without a chance to get up.

  Recalling the couple had two daughters, Michael ran to the girls’ bedrooms, but they were both empty and the beds were made. He remembered that both girls attended college, and he felt slightly relieved.

  He walked back into the main bedroom to look for a phone, but changed his mind when he found Steve and Marge’s cell phones lying in puddles of blood on their respective nightstands.

  He walked back downstairs, found a phone hanging on a kitchen wall and dialed 911.

  Chapter 17

  William and Brad Ferguson had woken up early that day and driven straight to Sam Houston Forest to hunt rabbits, the only thing one could legally hunt this time of the year. Given the choice, most boys in their late teens would have preferred being in bed to roaming the woods this early in the morning on a Saturday, but the identical twins belonged to a different class. They had arrived in the heart of the forest before sunrise, and it was still dark when they set out on their quest.

  The brothers moved slowly, stealthily through the thickets, their lanky bodies skillfully avoiding the branches and thick brush whose rustling could have betrayed their presence. They knew the place well and had no problem orienting themselves in the morning twilight. This early in the day, the forest was teeming with wildlife. Squirrels, armadillos and deer were a dime a dozen. They had even seen a couple raccoons, but so far, no rabbit.

  They had been creeping through the woods for about thirty minutes when William suddenly cried out, “Shiiiit! What the fuck!”

  The first light of dawn had lifted the uncanny, surreal atmosphere of the woods brought upon by the moonlight, but Danko’s mutilated body did not require special lighting to unnerve anyone.

  Brad, who had been following William at a short distance, came running, alarmed by his brother’s scream. Brad liked to think of himself as a tough guy, but the view of the bloodied mess that had been Jovanovich was too much for his stomach. Before he had a chance to turn around, he regurgitated his breakfast on Danko’s remains.

  William’s stomach was a bit stronger, and he managed to fight back the urge to be sympathetic to his brother. He pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911.

  “911, what is your emergency?” answered a composed female voice.

  “We found a body in Sam Hou—” started William. His words died in the receiver but were quickly replaced by a gruesome gargling sound as blood started spurting out of his torn throat. The wolf could have decapitated him easily, but he chose to let him bleed to death instead.

  The beast then turned its attention to the brother who, quickly recovering from his stupor, was aiming at him. The bullet caught the animal in midair but didn’t slow him down. Before Brad could pull the trigger a second time, the wolf was on him, ripping him apart with claws and fangs.

  The werewolf had never liked hunters, but he had to admit, they tasted really good. He looked around and sniffed the air to make sure no one had witnessed his little snack. He then retreated to his hiding spot behind a couple of thick bushes and waited for the cleaning crew. They had better hurry if they didn’t want to spend the day picking up pieces.

  Chapter 18

  The forensic team was passing the entire bedroom through their fine-tooth comb, looking for fingerprints, hair, and other potential clues in the oddest places. They had, of course, noticed the bloody animal tracks on the carpet and immediately drew a parallel with those found at Chief Deputy Sullivan’s domicile.

  In the meantime, Michael was the subject of intense questioning by homicide detectives Lewis and Salazar. Cops were always very suspicious of people who found bodies. Finding a fresh body avoided the whole nuisance of needing an alibi and made murderers’ lives much easier.

  “Why did you bust open the door instead of calling the police?” asked Salazar.

  “For the third time, I just reacted on instinct. I knew Steve well, and when I saw his car in the driveway, I knew something was wrong,” replied Michael, who couldn’t tell the officer he had smelled blood from the middle of the street.

  “And you and Harrington knew each other how?” asked Lewis, a semi-attractive thirty-something woman with auburn hair held back in a short ponytail.

  “We were in the army together before he joined the police. He called me a couple days ago asking me to come to Houston. He wanted my opinion on
some tracks found at a crime scene.”

  “Ah yeah, that’s right… you’re the tracks expert,” said Salazar sounding utterly unconvinced. “So, Mr. Expert, what’s your professional opinion. Is this the same killer that killed Sullivan?”

  “No,” replied Michael simply.

  “No?” Salazar sounded genuinely surprised this time. “And why do you think that?”

  “Because the paw prints are different. They still belong to a wolf, but a different one.”

  Michael would have preferred keeping this piece of information to himself, but the forensic team would reach the same conclusion sooner or later, and then he would have even more questions to answer.

  “So we have two homicidal wolves, working as a team, who target cops at their domicile. That’s your story?” asked Lewis visibly irritated.

  The two of them were clearly trying a bad cop-worse cop variation of the famous good cop-bad cop routine. Michael just wasn’t sure which one was playing the part of the worst cop. Of course, the intimidation technique would have probably worked better if he had been guilty of something, or if he hadn’t been a good foot taller and 150 pounds heavier than his interrogators. At 5’7’’, Salazar wasn’t much taller than his partner and appeared in significantly worse shape. While Lewis looked to be in good shape despite her two pregnancies, Salazar’s belly gave the impression he was expecting a child of his own.

  “I don’t need to come up with a story, lady,” replied Michael finally. “I’m not a homicide investigator. It’s your job to come up with something that makes sense. I am not even saying the wolves had anything to do with the killings. I’m simply telling you the wolf tracks at Sullivan’s and those found here belong to two different animals.”

  Lewis and Salazar clearly weren’t used to being spoken to that way by a suspect. It took them a second to recover from the shock.

  “Listen to me, sir. We are investigating a murder here, and if you do not cooperate, we’ll have you arrested for—” started Lewis.

  Michael, who was not in a mood to be threatened, interrupted her in mid-sentence. “No! You listen to me! The people slaughtered in there were my friends. They had two daughters. Someone should call them and let them know. Someone should also call Detective Starks and tell him his old partner was murdered.”

  Chapter 19

  The Alpha ached all over. He had had very little sleep lately—particularly the night before—but he wasn’t complaining. He was working towards his great scheme, and the physical pain was a minor nuisance that would soon go away. It always did.

  The killing had been worth staying up late. The fear he had glimpsed in his victims’ eyes was reward enough. The Alpha thought he might even have seen a flicker of recognition in those eyes at the very end. He wondered… but that didn’t really matter anyway.

  Things were starting to look better. With a little help from providence, he had found a way to use Jack’s mess to the pack’s advantage. The art of improvisation had always been one of the Alpha’s strong suits. He was maybe not the strongest wolf out there, but he was one of the brightest, and none of his wolves dared to question his leadership.

  Chapter 20

  Michael parked his rented Chevy Malibu in the parking lot of Memorial Hermann Hospital. The only two cars available when he had visited the rental agency had been the Malibu and a Toyota Matrix. Since the Matrix did not come with a can opener, he had opted for the Chevy. The Malibu cost $10 a day more than the Matrix, but this was of little consequence to Michael, who had been able to put aside a nice emergency stash over the past thousand years. A good thing, too, for with Steve dead, he probably wouldn’t be reimbursed for any of his travel expenses. This was the very least of his concerns however. Steve and Marge had been murdered, and that was the only thing he could think about. Of course, the fact that their killer, in all likelihood, was a werewolf only added fuel to the scorching fire that roared inside him. Michael hadn’t been concerned with the wolves in many years, more years than most people would see in the course of their lives, but that didn’t mean he had forgotten. He would never forget.

  The hospital smell had hit him as soon as he had parked the car, but as he entered the building the odor became almost unbearable. With a sense of smell seven times better than a bloodhound’s, Michael was overwhelmed by the amount of olfactory information available to his nose. While a mere human would have simply noticed the characteristic antiseptic odor associated with medical establishments, he detected the undertone fragrances the industrial strength disinfectant attempted to cover. Hospitals smelled of blood, urine, sweat, feces, fear, anxiety, and pain.

  Michael asked the receptionist for David Starks, and she directed him to the fifth floor. Once on the fifth floor, he walked straight to the nurses’ station. A nurse, busy transferring information from a clipboard to a computer, answered his query without lifting her eyes from her work. “Last door on your left, the one with the officer standing guard.”

  Michael walked to the uniformed cop, introduced himself, and asked to see Starks. After the cop replied that no one outside medical staff was allowed in the room, Michael had just started explaining his connection with Lieutenant Harrington when the door was opened by a stunning brunette. Steve’s comment about Starks being a ladies’ man came back to his mind as the woman extended a hand towards him.

  Chapter 21

  Dressed in a blue Armani suit and matching tie, Dimitri Ivanov looked nothing like the Hollywood stereotype of a Russian mobster. And unlike your stereotypical Italian mobster, the headquarters of his villain empire weren’t located in the dimly lit back room of some family-owned restaurant. Dimitri Ivanov was a businessman who officially ran a successful import-export enterprise from the fourteenth floor of a modern-looking building in downtown Houston. His cropped curly black hair, close shave, flat stomach and erect posture successfully projected the middle-aged professional image he was cultivating for the world to see.

  Ivanov’s staff was better armed than the local S.W.A.T. team, but this was Texas after all, and an honest citizen was entitled to the right to bear heavy artillery to protect his interests.

  A knock on the door interrupted the mob boss in the middle of his discussion with Igor Petrovich.

  “A package for you, Boss,” shouted a voice on the other side of the door.

  “Let him in,” Ivanov told the giant who watched the door.

  The giant was Stanislas Erzgova, Ivanov’s personal bodyguard. Stan had been in the Russian Special Forces for a few years before deciding that, if one was going to be in harm’s way, organized crime was a more lucrative venue than the military. As far as muscle men were concerned, Stan was one of the brighter ones.

  The door opened on a shaggy-looking man in his mid-twenties. He was holding a thick envelope that he dropped on the boss’s desk.

  “It’s been checked, Boss. It’s clean.”

  “Thank you, Vadim, you can leave us now… and go get a haircut!”

  Vadim departed with the look of a schoolboy who had to take home a bad report card.

  The envelope was unmarked. Dimitri opened it using the penknife he kept at all times on his person and pulled out a small book: Danko’s accounting records. A card was accompanying the book:

  With Compliments,

  P. C.

  The inscription had been left by a laser printer, and Ivanov was sure no fingerprints would have been found on the note if someone had cared to look. Peter Clemens was a prudent man.

  “It looks like our friend Danko was reunited with his maker,” said Ivanov.

  “Sleazeball,” commented Igor Petrovich, who was sitting across Ivanov’s desk.

  Petrovich had quickly risen through the ranks of the organization to become Ivanov’s official second in command. As cunning as he was ruthless, Petrovich was a man people feared for good reason. He wore his dirty blond hair cut above the collar in an attempt to cover the scar which started below his left eye and went all the way down to his jaw—a souvenir
left by the razor of a well-intentioned Mexican competitor who had exhaled his last breath on Petrovich’s shoulder with the Russian’s knife buried deep in his guts.

  “I have to give it to him, Petro. Clemens gets shit done.”

  “I could have done it myself just as well, Boss, or sent one of the guys… and it wouldn’t have cost you a dime,” replied Petrovich.

  “I know, Petro, I know. But I can’t afford to risk losing you for a scumbag like the Serb. You’re too valuable to me. Using Clemens makes good sense from a business point of view. I’ve explained it to you before.”

  “I know, Boss, but I still don’t get it. He charges 50K a pop. You don’t think we could get it done for much cheaper?”

  “Probably, but I like his style,” replied Ivanov, smiling.

  Clemens’ style was not the reason Ivanov used his services, but Petrovich didn’t need to know that. Knowledge was power, and Petro was powerful enough already. Igor didn’t need to know Ivanov employed Clemens’ services because he couldn’t afford not to. He didn’t need to know that Clemens and his friends were the single largest threat to Ivanov’s organization… and he sure as hell didn’t need to know that Clemens was the reason Ivanov never went anywhere without silver bullets in his gun.

  Chapter 22

  “Mr. Biörn, I presume?” The woman’s skin displayed a pleasant natural tan common along the Mexican border. Her silky hair was black as ink and flowed in waves over her shoulders down to her mid-back.

  Katia Olveda was used to seeing men lose their composure when they first met her, but her looks did not seem to particularly affect Michael. He shook her extended hand and simply replied, “How do you do?”

  He didn’t bother asking her how she knew who he was. His sheer size was a dead giveaway. He had been described on several occasions as “The Hulk without the green”.