by Marc Daniel
Chapter 59
The maze of shipping containers offered a multitude of aisles to run around but practically no place to hide, so Michael and David had little choice but to shoot whoever decided to show up in their line of sight while hoping they would not get shot first. Short of a focused fire on his neck resulting in his beheading, the Kalashnikovs’ 8 mm rounds would not kill Michael, but they still stung worse than a swarm of hornets.
After calling for reinforcements, David had quickly realized there was no way out of the maze and had decided to return to Michael’s side. They were now lying on the ground next to each other but facing opposite direction in an alley near the center of the containers’ lot. The wind prevented Michael from detecting enemies coming from the north, while the grid of cargo containers made it difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the men coming from the dock located at their south.
Another man appeared in front of David and was immediately shot in the head. Michael had been pleasantly surprised to discover David’s marksmanship. The detective’s aim was both swift and accurate, which was a definite bonus in their current situation.
“Time to move,” announced Michael in a whisper.
The two men stood up and, back to back, slowly started heading for a different location. The sound of gunshots and the accumulation of bodies were a dead giveaway of their location, and the two had to move each time another thug fell under their bullets. Michael, being substantially more bulletproof than his comrade, always led the way while David covered his back. He had been shot one more time, this time in the leg, but it was the only wound that still trickled blood. His arm had already fully healed, and his side was well on its way.
The truck had showed up on the dock in the middle of the mayhem and was now being loaded by a couple of Ivanov’s associates while the others were focusing their efforts on the man hunt, of which Michael and David were the coveted trophies.
Michael led David towards the western edge of the labyrinth in the hope of finding a way out, but as they got closer, he started smelling trouble in that direction. Had he been alone, Michael would have forced his way out of the maze using the shortest route, but since this strategy would have drastically increased the chances of getting David killed, he had decided against it.
The voices were getting closer and coming from all directions. This time they were effectively surrounded, and the net was closing on them fast. The first row of belligerents appeared in front of Michael a second later. Three men armed with assault rifles opened fire at the same time Michael did. He caught three bullets in the abdomen while mowing his opponents down with a semicircular motion of his own weapon. As the bullets were finding their way into his stomach and liver, Michael fell on his knees in pain. He could still hear Ivanov’s men coming from all directions as he stumbled back to his feet, grabbed David under the arms, and told him, “Lie down and be quiet.” A second later, the detective was airborne.
David landed on his butt on top of one of the containers before he even realized what was happening. He quickly came out of his flight-induced stupor and rolled to the center of the container as the mobsters rushed Michael from all sides.
Michael’s gun was out of ammo and he decided to use it as a club, which, in his hands, was just as lethal a weapon. He was surrounded by six of Ivanov’s men who had dropped their weapons for fear of shooting each other in the crossfire and were now holding knives. The pain in Michael’s stomach was slowly subsiding as the organs were working hard to regenerate themselves. The effort cost him a huge amount of calories, however, and this came at a price: slower reflexes and a significantly weakened state.
The thugs all rushed him at once and Michael had to draw on a thousand years of warfare experience to avoid the blades of his opponents, while bashing their heads open with powerful swings of his improvised club.
Sirens could be heard in the background, but it was not a sound of relief for Michael Biörn, who did not want to have to deal with the cops yet again. With the last of his enemies lying slain at his feet, Michael called for David, “I have to head out before the cops get here.”
David’s head appeared from above the container to ask “Why?” in a dumbfounded voice.
“Because my clothes are riddled with bullet holes, soaked in blood, and I will have no wounds to show for it by the time they get here,” replied Michael before sprinting away, albeit at a much slower pace than he would have managed had he not been shot six times in the past fifteen minutes.
Chapter 60
Although the temperature outside had already reached a toasty ninety degrees, inside Clemens’ house the climate was not nearly as warm. The temperature had seemed to drop twenty degrees at Ivanov’s arrival, and the six men of his escort had a lot to do with the atmosphere of passive hostility that prevailed in the room. The mob boss had decided six body guards was a high enough number to be taken seriously, but small enough to not be interpreted as a declaration of war.
Truth being told, Ivanov’s men and the large calibers they were no doubt packing would have made Clemens take notice had he himself not been accompanied by three of his wolves in their man form. Ivanov, who had hoped to catch Clemens off guard and alone by arriving unannounced, was not pleased with the balance of power in the room.
“You have to stop him!” said Ivanov vehemently. “You are the one who brought him into our business—”
“We’ve already had this discussion, Dimitri,” interrupted Clemens with authority. “I cannot be held responsible for your men’s incompetence.”
“You sent us after a…” But Ivanov did not finish his sentence. The expression on Clemens’ face left no room for interpretation. Certain matters were not to be discussed in front of non-initiates, and the six goons he had brought with him definitely belonged to that category.
“How do you know it was Biörn who attacked you last night?” asked Clemens.
“I showed his picture to one of my men who took part in the fight and managed to escape before the cops arrived to steal the dope away from me.” Ivanov sounded irritated.
The tension between the two men was contagious and placed everyone in the room on edge. Inch by inch, the mobsters were slowly moving their hands closer to their guns, while the wolves, fully aware of their opponents’ intentions, waited on a sign from their Alpha to pounce on them and shred them to pieces.
Clemens pondered the situation in silence for an instant before saying decidedly, “We will take care of Biörn for you. You can consider him dead.”
As the Alpha saw relief wash over Ivanov’s face he added, “We can discuss payment for our service once the job is done.”
Chapter 61
The Clemenses’ house was as big on the inside as it looked from the outside. It was decorated in a rustic style that fitted perfectly with the wooded surroundings and conferred to the house an atmosphere of extra temporal comfort.
Olivia had applied for a job with the Houston Dirt Removers the day after her visit to the woods surrounding the Clemenses’ house. She had been in luck. The company was hiring, and they had hired her the same day. She had spent the next few days cleaning houses all over town. It was not exactly what she had gone to college for, but the gamble had paid off. After a bit of flirting with the guy in charge of assignments, and a lot of lying about the part of town she was from, she had been sent to the Clemenses’ residence, which was supposedly very close to her place. She had been surprised and disappointed to see a woman answering the door. She had not expected anyone to be home and had thought she’d be free to search the house in peace without having to worry about someone walking in on her at any moment.
For the most part, the woman who had introduced herself as Isabella Clemens was doing her best to avoid the rooms Olivia was cleaning, but the threat she posed was nonetheless omnipresent. If she walked in on Olivia sticking her nose where it did not belong instead of industriously scrubbing the floor or the windows, her career as a maid would be short-lived, and the conseq
uences likely dire. If these people were responsible for the death of her parents and the attack on David Starks, they wouldn’t think twice about eliminating a potential threat. Olivia found reassurance in the fact she could probably get the better of Isabella Clemens in a fight if it came to that—but in that respect, she was very wrong.
After finishing the kitchen, Olivia moved to a large office whose walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves. Old books covered the shelves, many of them written in languages and even alphabets she did not recognize. Some of the covers had cabalistic scribbling which looked to her like Elvish, except that Elvish was a language invented by the fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien and had no historical meaning. In addition, many of the books looked like they predated Tolkien by quite some time.
A dark mahogany desk stood in the middle of the office; the ornamental hand carving was of the finest quality, and a clear indication of the value of the piece of furniture. One thing was for certain, the Clemenses had not suffered too much of the recent recession. The desk had a total of seven drawers, three on each side and one in the center. Every one of them was equipped with a keyhole, but only two of them were actually locked.
From behind the desk, Olivia had a good view of the living room through the wide opened double French doors of the office. She was pretty sure Isabella Clemens was upstairs but it was hard to be certain, as the woman moved so quietly it seemed as if she glided over the floor like a ghost. So far, Olivia had not found anything truly suspicious. She had picked a couple of long hairs from the living room floor, but they could have belonged to a dog just as well as a wolf…
She drew in a long breath before slowly and very quietly pulling a small lock-picking kit out of her back pocket. Her dad had taught her the ancient skill when she was just a kid. She had not practiced it in some time, but she was confident she could still do it. She threw a glance towards the living room to reassure herself it was still empty and started working on the lock. The lock was ancient but surprisingly difficult to pick, and it took her a good five minutes to finally unlock the first drawer, which contained a dozen manila folders labeled with what looked like family names. The first one, titled Ivanov, contained a few pictures, a list of properties and some verbiage Olivia did not have time to read. The second file on the pile immediately caught her attention. It was labeled Biörn. She opened it to find a close-up picture of Michael, but did not get a chance to take a look at the remaining documents as from the corner of her eye she saw Isabella’s silhouette back in the living room. Olivia immediately replaced the folder in the drawer before quietly shutting it just as Isabella was coming through the door.
“Is this going to take you much longer?” Isabella sounded displeased. “The other girls don’t usually take this long.”
“I’m sorry,” apologized Olivia. “I’m new at this job and it takes me a bit longer. I’ll be out of your way in thirty minutes at most.”
Isabella checked her watch, sighed heavily, and left the room without saying another word, but since she seemed intent on staying in the living room, Olivia did not dare to reopen the drawer and just busied herself dusting the bookshelves.
Chapter 62
When Michael got back to his motel in the middle of the afternoon, a dark blue Austin Mini with tinted windows was stationed in front of his door, forcing him to park a few spots down from his room.
Michael was frustrated with his investigations and was running out of leads to follow. Actually, he had officially run out of leads after the Port of Houston stakeout, which had ended in a bloody confrontation with the Russian mob. David Starks was still explaining the exact circumstances of the incident to his superiors. According to his version, it had been a settling of scores between mobsters, but it was a tough sell, and they weren’t really buying! Michael had been in Houston almost a month already, and he was still nowhere close to linking the Houston pack to the death of his friends, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe he was wrong about Clemens and his men, maybe they had not done it after all…
He pulled his key out of his pocket and was about to unlock the door when a woman stepped out of the Mini. Michael’s nose told him the young woman standing in front of him was Sheila Wang, but it took a minute for his eyes to actually agree. Her usually olive skin was mostly purple and turning yellow in some places, notably under the eyes. She was wearing a white plastic corset above her clothes and walked with a limp.
“Sheila? What happened to you?” he asked, bewildered.
“Long story,” she answered with a forced smile. Her pronunciation was off too. “May I come in?” She was trying to appear peppy in spite of the fact she sounded like someone with a hot potato in her mouth, but Michael wasn’t fooled. The smell of fear emanating from her body was unmistakable and Michael had to concentrate to keep his predatory instinct in check. Predators could sense fear, and it triggered some of their most primal instincts, such as a thirst for blood.
He invited her in and poured her a glass of water after she declined his offer of tea. The motel room furnishing being Spartan, he let her sit on the bed while he took the only chair present in the room and sat facing her.
“You have to leave,” she said before he had a chance to open his mouth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You have to leave, Michael, or they’ll kill you,” she repeated, sounding both convincing and scared.
“What are you talking about, Sheila? You’re not really making any sense,” replied Michael soothingly, hoping his voice would calm her down. “We’re in no hurry. Why don’t you start from the beginning? By telling me what happened to you, for example…”
“I was attacked,” she uttered in a low voice, tears coming to her eyes.
“Who attacked you?”
“The Russian mob… I wrote an article about—”
“I read it,” interrupted Michael. “Detective Starks told me about it the day it came out.”
“Well… the next day, I was running in Memorial Park and I was attacked by two men who spoke Russian and told me very convincingly to not put my nose in their business,” she managed to say, mostly intelligibly. The pain caused by her talking was visible on her face.
“I have a dislocated jaw…” she answered apologetically to Michael’s inquisitive look.
“What else did they do to you?” he asked, trying hard to battle the internally growing rage that gnawed his guts. He viscerally hated thugs who went after defenseless women almost as much as he loathed werewolves.
“Not much… a couple of ribs… I lost consciousness while they were beating me up, but according to the doctors I wasn’t sexually abused.”
The tension in Michael’s muscles relaxed a little at the news, but he was still picturing Sheila on the ground overwhelmed by her aggressors. He had to drive the image out of his head, or the anger would make him lose control. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the moment. He realized he simply could not stomach the idea of Sheila being in distress and wondered what that was about. He had not felt this angry in ages. Even Steve’s death had not triggered such a reaction in him.
“These people mean business, Michael. Whatever is going on with the wolves’ killings, the mob is involved and they don’t want anybody snooping around in their affairs,” she said in an agitated voice.
“You might be right, but the mob doesn’t get to decide when I leave or where I go.”
“Don’t be obtuse, Michael. You’re no match for these people. You were lucky last time, but it won’t happen again. Take it as a sign to leave this city and forget about it,” she said vehemently.
Michael didn’t feel offended by her remark. From her point of view, she was perfectly justified in her logic and had no reason to suspect things were the other way around… That the mob was no match for Michael.
He was about to tell her she’d better worry about her own safety when the phone rang. Still sitting on his chair, he extended his arm and picked up the phone.
“Michael?” asked
the voice.
“Yes?”
“It’s me, Starks. You have to get out of there... Quickly!”
What was it with all of them today? wondered Michael. Why did everybody want him to leave town all of a sudden?
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Why should I leave town?”
“I’m talking about your room, Michael. You need to leave your room now. The pack is after you. They’ll be at your door any minute now. You need to get out right away,” answered David frantically.
“All right!” Michael hung up the phone. He stood up, grabbed Sheila by the hand and pulled her off the bed. “Trouble is on the way. We need to go now!”
She looked at him with terror in her eyes and nodded. As they passed the threshold of the room, two cars were already pulling into the motel parking lot. Michael immediately recognized his ancestral enemies as the vehicles’ occupants.
Chapter 63
The wheels had been set in motion; the confrontation was now unavoidable. In a few minutes, Michael Biörn would be facing the Houston pack, or at least a sizable portion of it.
The Alpha had a grin on his face. There was no positive way to be certain of the outcome of the battle, but one thing was sure: his enemy would be badly wounded at the very least. This thought was satisfactory in itself, but not as satisfactory as attending the battle would have been. Unfortunately, being present for the confrontation was a luxury he could not afford. The risks were too high; he could not afford to jeopardize this long planned enterprise so close to reaching the objective.
Biörn’s intervention at the Port of Houston had gone beyond expectations. Ivanov had lost many men in the encounter and was now significantly weakened. Biörn had been, against all expectations, useful to the Alpha’s plans, but he was also a serious liability, and the time had come to take this variable out of the equation. He should have stayed hidden in his park, kept his nose out of wolves’ business. He had brought this on himself, and it was time to face the consequences.