by Marc Daniel
Katia observed Michael a brief instant before turning her attention to the uniformed cop watching the door. “It’s all right, officer. Detective Starks will be happy to see Mr. Biörn.”
The officer nodded and with a ceremonious “Yes, Ma’am” stepped away from the door. Katia was leaving and did not follow Michael back into the room.
David Starks was sitting in bed wearing a hospital gown that clearly showed the multiple bandages covering his arms and torso. He also had a very large piece of gauze taped over his left shoulder, which went all the way to the base of his neck. His face had not been spared by the ordeal either. Long claw marks were visible on his right cheek and forehead, and one of his eyes had turned an ugly yellowish color.
Overall, he looked beaten and tired, but nonetheless Michael saw his probing eyes studying him intently.
“Michael. How kind of you to come visit. Please have a seat,” said David in a voice made drowsy by the painkillers.
Michael picked a chair that had been used by Katia Olveda a few minutes earlier and, after drawing it a few feet away from the bed, sat on it.
“How did you know I was here?” asked David.
“After Steve and Marge were murdered, I tried to get in touch with you. I went to the police station, but your Captain refused to tell me where you were. It took me four days to finally convince him to tell me what had happened to you. I only found out this morning that you’d been attacked the same night Steve had been murdered.”
“I heard you were the one who found them?” said David, almost apologizing for asking.
“Yes. And it wasn’t a pretty scene,” replied Michael. “Could you tell me what exactly happened to you?”
“I could, but why do you want to know?” asked David, who already knew the answer.
“I want to find the bastard who killed Steve.”
“This is not a Park Ranger’s job, Michael,” replied David without irony.
He was staring into Michael’s eyes in a way Michael did not like at all—a way that made him feel nervous, agitated, dangerous. Once again, Michael had an uneasy feeling in the presence of David Starks. He could have sworn the detective was trying to hide something from him, except that now, he didn’t really seem to be trying anymore.
“But you’re not quite a simple Park Ranger, Michael, are you?”
Michael did not say a word; he just stared the detective down until David eventually dropped his gaze.
“I am not your enemy, Michael, no matter what you think. We want the same thing out of this, but we need to be honest with each other.”
“I’m listening,” replied Michael cautiously, letting his tense muscles relax a little.
“Let’s start by answering your question.” David readjusted the pillow behind his back, bringing a rictus of pain to his bruised-up face. “It was about 4.15 a.m. I was lying in bed awake when I heard some noise downstairs. I grabbed my gun and went to check it out. As soon as I got to the bottom of the stairs, I could smell it, like a dog smell but stronger. I walked to the living room and there it was. I didn’t get a chance to pull the trigger. It pounced at me and sent me flat on my back—”
“What was it exactly?” interrupted Michael.
“It looked like a wolf on steroids!”
Michael seemed to be pondering David’s answer while the latter resumed his story. “I had let go of the gun in my fall but it had dropped close enough that I could reach it. That’s what I did, and it saved my life, for at the same time Wolfy was going for my throat—” David paused for an instant, visibly agitated.
“Are you all right?” asked Michael.
“I’m fine. Would you mind pouring me some of that water?” David pointed at a bottle on the bedside table.
Michael obliged and David took a couple of sips before continuing. “My reaching for my gun made the beast miss its target and instead of my throat, he shattered my collarbone.”
Michael’s eyes were instinctively drawn by the bandage around David’s shoulder.
“You can’t put a cast on a collarbone.” David had followed his gaze.
“How did you get out of this alive?” asked Michael with just a hint of suspicion in his voice, which David did not seem to notice.
“I got lucky. He had his teeth sunk into my shoulder, but I now had my gun in hand. I emptied the magazine in the animal’s side. That got its attention.”
“What happened next?”
“It was visibly hurt, but not hurt enough. It got off me and ran, shattered the nearest window, and then it was gone.”
“How did you get to the hospital?”
“The gunshots woke up the entire neighborhood. The neighbors called 911 and they found me on the floor, unconscious.”
Michael considered David’s tale for a minute. It sounded plausible enough, but didn’t make much sense. He had the definite impression David was holding something back.
“So that’s the whole story?”
“It’s the whole story, and the way you’re staring at me as if I just made it up is starting to get on my nerves, Michael.”
“I’m just not of a very trustful nature, and you have to admit, the whole thing sounds fishy,” replied Michael without apologizing.
The two men were silent for a few minutes, lost in their respective thoughts.
“Michael.”
“Yes?”
“I know what attacked me, and I know it wasn’t a simple wolf,” said David very seriously.
Michael was suddenly very attentive. “What was it then?”
“You know what it was as well as I do, and probably a lot better… It was a werewolf.”
Michael looked at him skeptically and then, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, said, “I assume your gun was loaded with silver bullets then…”
“Drop the act, Michael!” answered David. “You know very well that silver has no particular effect on praeternatural beings.”
This time Michael took him seriously. The fact that he even knew the word praeternatural was a sign David Starks was to be taken seriously. Most people would have called a werewolf supernatural, but they would have been wrong.
“What do you know of praeternatural beings?” asked Michael.
“Enough to be able to recognize one chewing on me,” replied David without humor. “Enough to tell that you know them too. From the minute I saw you, I knew you weren’t human.”
Michael neither denied nor confirmed the claim. He just did what he had always done best. He listened.
“Look, Michael, I don’t ask you to trust me with the truth. Just listen to what I have to say.” David reached for his glass of water. “I never knew my real dad, he left my mom when she was pregnant with me, but she married a man who raised me as his own. This man was a werewolf. I was raised by a werewolf. Do you really think you can fool me? The way you walk, the way you look at people, the way your attention gets caught by sounds and odors nobody else can detect. I can feel the animal inside you as clearly as if I saw it, Michael.”
Michael looked at David. Not a challenging gaze, just a tired look, the look of someone weary of having to hide his true nature day in and day out.
“I am not a werewolf, David,” said Michael finally.
“Maybe not,” replied David, “but you’re not human either.”
Chapter 23
Detective Edward Salazar did not particularly shine in the intellect department, but he was dedicated to his job and relatively good at it. He could find the apparently irrelevant piece of evidence that would eventually break a case. He just typically wasn’t the one doing the breaking.
His partner, Detective Samantha Lewis, on the other hand, was as sharp as the stiletto shoes she wore off duty. She was also good at getting confessions. The cute demeanor she could fake had tricked scum into confiding in her more than once.
Today, however, her wits and cuteness were of no help. Lewis and Salazar had been reviewing the evidence for over an hour, and they were getting nowhere fast.
>
After Lieutenant Harrington’s murder and the attempt on Detective Starks’ life, Lewis and Salazar had been assigned to the investigation, which also included Sullivan’s assassination. The modus operandi common to the three cases was original enough to guarantee a connection between them. Now they just had to find it.
The mob angle was still being favored but didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Over the past two years, half a dozen high-ranking police officers had been murdered at home. The majority of victims had belonged to the Houston PD, but the Harris County Sheriff Department and the state police had also suffered casualties. The last two victims, Harrington and Starks, had been the officers in charge of the investigation. Up to that point, the mob hypothesis made sense. Organized crime going after cops, although unusual, was not without precedent. The recent shift of modus operandi, however, was harder to rationalize.
One could perfectly picture a hitman shooting a cop at point blank range in his living room. On the other hand, imagining a mobster taking the time to train wolves simply to kill cops in the most gruesome manner was just a bit farfetched.
“Maybe the mob’s trying to send a message,” said Salazar, still staring at the evidence board where pictures of the various crime scenes were pinned. “That would be their style… trying to scare us out of their business.”
“Unlikely,” replied Lewis. “For one thing, Sullivan, as far as we know, had never worked on a case involving the mob, so why would they kill him? In addition, mobsters kill cops when they have no choice, not just for fun. It’s bad for their business. It raises too much attention and motivates us to go after them.”
Salazar didn’t reply. As usual, Lewis’ arguments made sense. The phone rang and he picked up the receiver.
“Salazar. Yes… Are you sure? Different ones, for sure? OK, thanks for letting me know.”
He took a small notebook out of his coat pocket and scribbled down a few lines before turning to Lewis who was staring at him with a questioning look.
“It was the lab. Biörn was right. The wolf tracks found at Sullivan’s and Steve’s belong to two different wolves. It was confirmed by the analysis of the hair found at both crime scenes.”
“After all, he is the wolf expert…” she replied pensively. “What about the blood found at Starks’?”
“The lab didn’t get to it yet. They think they’ll have the answer within a couple days,” responded Salazar as he placed the notebook back in his pocket.
“If it belongs to a third animal, I swear I resign and sell my services as wolf hunter,” interjected Lewis. “That’s got to pay better than a cop’s salary anyway!”
Chapter 24
Lying on the bed in his hotel room, Michael was reflecting on the discussion he’d had with David Starks in the afternoon. He was feeling less suspicious towards the detective now that he knew about his past. If David had been raised around werewolves, he was an initiate: a human without special abilities, but who was aware of the existence of praeternatural and supernatural beings. Michael knew from his past as a berserker that it was possible and even likely an initiate would be able to sense the animal nature hidden inside his human body.
A thousand years had passed, but Michael remembered vividly the initiates who had fought at his side in the streets of London in the year 995 during the raiding of England. The berserkers’ corps of Olav Tryggvasson’s army had been composed of a few praeternatural beings, but the majority of the warriors had been purely human… initiates. Over the centuries, many theories had been put forward by scholars of all eras and nationalities to explain the enigma that were the berserkers of Norway, to explain the lethally destructive fury of these men who waged battle with such bestial ferocity that they were feared well beyond the borders of modern-day Scandinavia. Some historians had postulated the berserkers used drugs to induce their uncontrollable trance, while others believed they had simply donned beasts’ pelts and worked themselves up into a destructive trance prior to battles. None had gotten it right. The truth was that the initiate members of the berserkers’ corps were simply able to feed upon the raw animal power of their praeternatural brothers in arms. This borrowed energy gave their troops a sense of cohesive rage in battle where the initiates wreaked havoc almost as much as their beastly brothers. In the end, the initiates spent so much time in close quarters with their praeternatural counterparts that any one of them would have been able to recognize the praeternatural nature of a stranger on first encounter.
David’s experience as an initiate didn’t seem to extend past werewolves, however. He looked at Michael with a mixture of curiosity and speculation, apparently unable to place his true praeternatural nature.
There were many questions Michael had wanted to ask the detective: questions that required answers. He had refrained, however. He simply wasn’t ready to trust the detective just yet... which left him in a conundrum. He still needed to understand how werewolves were connected to the case, but he hoped someone other than David could provide answers on the subject.
He sat up on the bed, picked up the phone on the nightstand and dialed a number he hadn’t used in ages. The phone rang three times before a female voice answered. “Hello?”
“Heuu… Hello?” Michael hadn’t been expecting a woman to answer the phone. “I’m looking for Ezekiel.”
“Sorry, you have the wrong number.”
Michael was pretty sure he had dialed the correct one. His memory was as good as they got. After a second of reflection, he asked, “Were you recently assigned a new number by chance?”
“No. I’ve had this number almost five years.”
“Well, sorry for the bother,” said Michael, hanging up.
He was distraught; now he had no way to contact Ezekiel. It had been over ten years since he had last spoken to his friend, and for all he knew Ez could be long dead. Unlikely though… wizards weren’t particularly easy to kill.
The phone rang, interrupting his train of thoughts. He picked up the receiver.
“Michael Biörn! What do you want from me, stranger?” boomed a familiar voice.
“Ez? Is that you? How did you know I was looking for you? I thought the lady who answered the phone didn’t know you?” asked Michael, surprised.
“Oh, but she didn’t,” replied the wizard mischievously.
“So how did you know?”
“Michael Biörn, I am a wizard of the second circle. Do you really think I need someone to forward my calls in order to know you’re looking for me?” Ezekiel sounded falsely hurt. “The spell allowing this miracle, which seems to amaze you so much, is about as difficult to master as blowing on a rope to make a knot disappear…”
“Sorry, Ez, I guess I had forgotten I was talking to the greatest wizard in history,” replied Michael in his most humble voice.
“Flattery will lead you nowhere, my friend!”
“It was worth a try... I’m in Houston. Do you think we could meet somewhere for dinner or a drink? I have a couple questions I’d like to ask you.”
“Are you buying?” asked the wizard who, in truth, had even fewer money concerns than his eon-old friend.
“It goes without saying.”
“Then I will try and see if I can free my schedule for you.”
Chapter 25
Peter Clemens parked his Dodge Viper next to the only vehicle on the lot, a black Mercedes limousine with windows so dark one could not see through them from the outside. The parking lot belonged to a church, and since there was no service scheduled for the evening it was deserted.
Clemens got out of his car and nodded to the large man who was opening the Mercedes’ back door for him.
“Good evening, my friend,” said Ivanov in the slight Russian accent he always had when he spoke English.
“Good evening, Dimitri,” answered Clemens, settling down next to the mobster on the limo’s back seat.
“I hope the traffic wasn’t too bad. Not easy to get around town this time of the day.”
“No,
it isn’t. But surely you didn’t ask me to drive all the way here to talk about traffic?” Clemens’ cordial voice contrasted with the nature of his question.
“You are right, we are business men. Time is money. Let’s cut the bullshit,” replied the mob boss. “I wanted to see you because I hear things from my informants… things I don’t like. Maybe you already know what I am talking about?”
“Maybe I do, but just to be safe, why don’t you tell me?” answered Clemens in a neutral tone.
“There are rumors on the street that three cops were murdered in less than a week. Have you heard about this?”
Clemens seemed to contemplate the question for an instant before saying, “Why don’t you ask your driver to go check the pressure in the tires?”
Ivanov looked at him for a second.
“Very well. Sergei, go keep Stan company.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the driver, exiting the car and closing the door behind him.
“And now, can you tell me what you know about this?” asked Ivanov in a slightly irritated voice.
“I probably know as much as you do, no less, no more.”
“Have you heard that the cops believed some wolf was the killer?” enquired Ivanov.
“That’s the rumor, yes.”
“So, what can you tell me?”
“I can’t help you, Dimitri. I know nothing about these murders, and if I did, I still wouldn’t have to tell you anything.” Clemens spoke in an amicable voice that wasn’t enough to veil the threat in his answer. “But out of courtesy and respect for you, I would probably let you know anyway.”
Ivanov looked Clemens in the eyes for just a few seconds before lifting his gaze back to the man’s forehead. He didn’t like looking into Clemens’ eyes. There was something scary about them. They were the eyes of a predator.
“Do you have any idea who is behind this?”
“I don’t. Maybe the Italians… Who knows?” Clemens didn’t sound convinced.