by Marc Daniel
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked, when, after the third ring, he had not made a move to pull his phone out.
“No. Whatever it is, it can wait.” He had spent his whole very long life without a cell phone and wasn’t about to turn into one of those ill-mannered phone junkies, the type who answered their phone at the first ring under any given circumstance. The voice mail picked up after the fourth ring and the phone fell silent.
“What about the monsters who attacked you last night? They were werewolves, right?”
“Yes.”
“But they looked like regular wolves, just way bigger. I thought werewolves walked around on two legs, you know, like in most movies…” This time she spoke with more surprise than skepticism.
“Only in movies. In real life, they look just like what you saw.”
She filed the information in her mental database and moved on to her next query. She was no longer in skeptic mode; she had switched to her investigative reporter mode.
Chapter 72
The clock on the dashboard indicated quarter past twelve when Michael got back in his car—no wonder he was getting hungry.
He had spent the entire morning answering Sheila’s questions on praeternatural beings, and they had barely touched the tip of the iceberg. He hoped for her sake that she would be true to her word and not try to publish anything she had learned. Her life depended on it. The praeternatural and supernatural beings did not like publicity. Humans who had learned too much and could not keep quiet did not live long happy lives.
Sheila had also questioned him relentlessly about the series of murders targeting police officers. On that subject, he hadn’t had much to tell her though. All signs indicated werewolves were involved—which in Houston meant Clemens—but that did not prove the wolves were behind the whole thing. Clemens could simply be the muscle and not the one pulling the strings… but in this scenario, who was the puppeteer? Ivanov was an obvious suspect, but maybe a bit too obvious. In addition, the Houston pack had not been present to protect the drug shipment at the docks, which seemed to indicate Ivanov did not routinely rely on Clemens’ wolves for protection.
Michael was about to put the car in gear when his phone rang again. He tried to reach for it inside the front pocket of his pants, but his seated position and the size of his hand prevented his fingers from retrieving the device. In the end, he had to get out of the car to extricate the phone.
“Hello?”
“Michael?” said the voice of Olivia Harrington.
“Hello, Olivia.”
“I need to talk to you, Michael,” she said anxiously.
“I’m listening.”
Olivia had initially thought of going to see Michael in person, but what she had to tell him had good chances of alienating the man, and she preferred doing that over the phone.
“Clemens is coming after you,” she blurted out without preamble.
“What?” he replied in shock. “How do you know that name?” He didn’t mention that Clemens’ pack had come after him the day before.
“The details don’t matter,” she said dismissively. “What matters is that he is coming after you, and I want you to know about it so as not to be caught off guard. I am sure he is the one who killed my parents.”
Michael remained silent for an instant.
“Of course, if you prefer fleeing… I would understand,” she added unconvincingly.
“Olivia, you need to tell me where you got this information,” he said with authority. “I am a lot more concerned about you than I am about myself at the moment. How do you know all this?”
She pondered her answer for a moment before deciding to tell the truth. “I found a file with your name on it locked inside his desk drawer.”
Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing, “How did you get access to his house? What was in this file?”
“I only saw a picture. His wife came into the room and I had to put the file back in place before I had a chance to read anything from it,” she replied with obvious disappointment.
Under different circumstances, Michael would have been relieved to hear she hadn’t had a chance to read the file—whatever was in it probably wasn’t something he’d want Olivia to know—but he was too flabbergasted by her snooping inside Clemens’ house to feel thankful.
“How did you get inside his house, Olivia?” He struggled to keep anger out of his voice and only partially succeeded.
“I took a job with the company that cleans it, and I talked the guy in charge of the assignment into sending me there,” she answered, clearly proud of her accomplishment.
“You are never to return to his house, Olivia. Do you hear me?” retorted Michael, no longer trying to keep his anger in check. “This man is more dangerous than you could ever imagine. If you had been caught, you’d be dead or worse right now.”
“What’s worse than dead?” she asked defiantly.
He almost answered her but caught himself in time.
“How did you know who was cleaning his house, how did you know the man?”
She considered telling him she found the address while snooping in his own motel room, but decided against it. In some cases, honesty simply wasn’t the best option.
“It’s not important.”
“It absolutely is! I cannot protect you if you don’t tell me the whole story,” he replied vehemently.
“I don’t need your protection Michael. I only need you to catch my parents’ murderer,” she answered. Now it was her turn to be angry. “I’m not some child you need to worry about.”
“Go back to school, Olivia. I’ll call you when I find something,” he said in a non-confrontational tone.
“I’ll go back to school when I goddamn choose,” she retorted, hanging up.
Chapter 73
It was the middle of the afternoon when Michael walked through the door of the Houston PD main office downtown. He walked decisively to the front desk where the officer on duty greeted him with an automatic, “How may I help you?” despite the obvious uneasiness he felt in the presence of Michael’s impressive physique.
“I am looking for Detective Lewis,” Michael answered. “She’s expecting me.”
“Fifth floor,” replied the officer with a hint of relief in his voice.
Michael thanked him, walked past the elevator and headed for the stairway.
The phone call he had missed while visiting Sheila had been from Detective Samantha Lewis. Only three people had Michael’s cell phone number, and Samantha Lewis wasn’t one of them. Michael doubted Olivia or Sheila would have given the number away to the detective, so that left only David Starks as the culprit.
Samantha Lewis’ voice had been unusually friendly on the message she had left, asking Michael if he “would be so kind as to return her call”. He had met Lewis and her partner twice since he had arrived in Houston, and she had been anything but friendly on those previous occasions.
Out of sheer curiosity, Michael had decided to return her call to find out for himself what this change of attitude was about. He had been more than surprised when Lewis had come just short of apologizing for her past behavior and had requested his help as a wildlife expert.
He landed on the fifth floor without breaking a sweat and asked the first officer he met where Lewis’ office was. The man pointed him in the right direction and a minute later Michael was in the detective’s office, sitting in a chair which was, in fact, even more uncomfortable than it looked.
Salazar and Lewis shared a small windowless office furnished with cheap-looking metal furniture. The carpet had been a shade of taupe in a remote past, but now the stains of coffee and other unidentifiable substances covering it formed an uneven pattern best described as filthy.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Biörn,” said Samantha Lewis as soon as he had sat down. She was facing him from the other side of her desk while Salazar stood against the wall behind her.
“As I explained over the phone, we would
like to ask you a few things in your capacity as wolf expert,” she said in a soft voice ill-fitted to her personality.
Michael managed to suppress a smile. “Should I understand that you no longer consider me a suspect?”
“You have a knack for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and we know you can kill an entire mob execution squad and walk away unscathed,” started Lewis in a scolding voice which suited her better than the honeyed tone she had used earlier. “You definitely qualify as a suspect, Mr. Biörn.”
“We just don’t think you are a suspect in the case we are working,” intervened Salazar.
“I see,” answered Michael neutrally. “So what can I do for you?”
“Well, you see, Mr. Biörn, we have received various forensics evidence which seem to corroborate your opinion regarding the wolf attacks,” said Lewis. “There would seem to be several distinct wolves responsible for the killings after all.”
She expected some sign of condescension to come from Michael, but he simply kept silent, his face an unreadable mask.
“We have a hard time explaining this fact,” said Salazar. “When wolves go after police officers in the heart of Houston, we are clearly dealing with assassinations. This point at least is clear.”
Michael nodded in agreement but did not offer any comment.
“When Harrington and Starks were in charge of this investigation, they were favoring the organized crime hypothesis,” explained Lewis in a matter-of-fact voice. “But this was before the wolves’ attacks. Now, with the wolves coming to complicate the case, we don’t understand why the mob would have changed their modus operandi.”
Salazar stepped forward to sit on the corner of Lewis’ desk, not three feet from Michael.
“I don’t suppose you expect me to give you an explanation for this?”
“Of course not,” replied Lewis. “But could you tell us if there would be any reason for three different wolves to be used in these attacks? Why can’t they use the same wolf every time?”
Michael of course knew the answer to that question but could not give it to the detectives without raising more questions: questions of the type he definitely couldn’t answer. There was more than one wolf involved simply because there was more than one killer.
“I can’t think of a good reason for that,” he answered unconvincingly.
“How hard would it be to train three wolves to kill humans?” asked Salazar.
Michael thought about the question for a minute before answering, “It would be pretty difficult. For one thing, wolves aren’t dogs; they’re not easy to approach, let alone train. In addition, wolves do not typically attack humans, they are naturally scared of us. Turning a wolf, or several for that matter, into killers would require a lot of time and effort. The easiest way would be to raise them from pups for that purpose.”
“That sounds like too much trouble for the mob to bother with,” said Salazar pensively. “They usually have a more direct approach.”
Lewis looked at Michael. “Although I would tend to agree with my partner, we have to live with the fact that you, the wolf expert, were attacked by a mob delegation.” She looked questioningly at Michael, who wasn’t displaying any sign indicating that he’d even heard the question.
“Do you have any explanation to offer for this?” she asked finally, slightly irritated.
“Not in the least. Are you positive these were mobsters and not random thugs?” he asked innocently.
“Don’t fuck with us, Biörn!” warned Lewis threateningly. “We know you’re not telling the whole story, but since we found nothing implicating you in this mess and since Harrington trusted you enough to ask for your help, we are not holding it against you… yet! But don’t push your luck…”
Michael got up to stretch his legs and looked down upon the two detectives, who were still seated.
“I honestly don’t know why these guys tried to kill me,” he answered authoritatively—for he was telling the truth, mostly. “I would be happy to help you as best I can with any question you might have regarding wolves. But if you try to use my offer as an excuse to question me on unrelated matters, I will walk away.”
Chapter 74
Jack had a grin on his face when he shut his cell phone and replaced it in his pocket. Ever since the debacle at Chief Deputy Sullivan’s where he had left bloody paw prints and pieces of shredded Rottweiler all over the floor, Jack had had no contact with the Alpha. A painful punishment since Omegas craved praise and recognition from their Alpha and suffered when kept outside pack business.
Jack had been tempted to contact the Alpha numerous times over the past month, but he had never dared act on his impulses. Every member of the pack knew the rule: extreme emergencies aside, contact was to be initiated by the Alpha exclusively. Since no emergency had emerged, Jack had been condemned to suffer alone and in silence, waiting patiently for the pack leader to contact him.
But this time had passed; Jack was now back in the Alpha’s good grace and he had been trusted with a most important mission. A mission he would execute with perfection to prove the Alpha he had placed his confidence in the right wolf.
The mark this time was a woman. Jack had never killed a woman before, but it made no difference. One way or another, the bitch had crossed the Alpha and it was all that mattered. The fact the woman needed to die simply because she had witnessed things she shouldn’t have had not been mentioned. Jack had not been told anything, and he had not asked. It had never been his place to ask questions. All he knew was that within the next twenty-four hours, Sheila Wang would be dead.
Chapter 75
In spite of Michael’s warning, it had not taken Sheila long to start writing another article. She had spent the better part of the afternoon in front of her computer and was now proofreading her piece. She felt slightly uneasy about ignoring Michael’s advice, but only slightly. After all, the article did not even mention werewolves… or were-anything, for that matter. It simply related the aggression towards her in the park and drew obvious conclusions as to who was behind the attack. All in all, wolves were merely mentioned in passing, not enough to seriously upset the “praeternatural community” as Michael had called it.
The Russian mob, on the other end, had not been spared by her quill. Dimitri Ivanov’s name was mentioned no less than four times in the one-page article and never in flattering terms.
Sheila re-read her last paragraph for the fourth time, making sure all t’s were crossed and all i’s dotted. That will teach them to try and intimidate me, she thought as she hit the Save key. It was now time for the truly difficult part. Writing an antagonistic article against the mob was one thing, publishing it was another. As long as the piece remained comfortably nested on her hard drive, no harm was done, but as soon as she pressed the Send key, the article would be on its way to her editor-in-chief and in the paper the following day… and from there, all hell would break loose.
She stood up from her computer and paced the length of her living room a few times to stretch her legs. She had spent several days in the hospital after her last article targeting the mob and still had broken bones to show for it. What were they going to do to her next time? Sheila was a brave woman, but that did not mean she had no fear. She knew full well the distinction between the two; being brave implied overcoming one’s fears, while being fearless was a luxury reserved to foolhardy idiots… and Sheila was no idiot. Despite the risks, she was too young a journalist to let herself be intimidated by bullies, even bullies who used killer werewolves to do their dirty work. If she backed out of the story just because she was scared of reprisals, she might as well change careers right away and not bother. Sheila did not know any Pulitzer Prize winners personally, but she was pretty sure none of them were of the type who surrenders at the first roadblock encountered.
She sat back down in front of her computer, took a deep breath and pushed the Send key. Alea iacta est, she thought.
Chapter 76
Located in
the heart of the city, halfway between Memorial Park and the downtown area, River Oaks was Houston’s most exclusive neighborhood. Dimitri Ivanov’s private residence, one of the largest in the area, occupied the center of a three-acre lot bordered by a ten-foot wall.
Surrounded by row after row of Texas oak trees, the house was virtually invisible from the street, despite being the size of a small castle. To a passerby, the property was indistinguishable from others in the neighborhood, but a more acute observer might have noticed that the state of the art cameras perched atop the surrounding wall were both more numerous and less stationary than those watching over neighboring estates. In addition to the sophisticated video surveillance system watching over the entire park, the grounds of the property were walked twenty-four hours a day by armed guards with Dobermans and German Shepherds. All in all, the mob boss was well protected.
Ivanov was in the habit of getting up slightly later than usual on weekends, and although it was nearing ten o’clock, he was still drinking his morning coffee in front of CNN when Igor Petrovich entered the drawing room and dropped the latest issue of the Houston Post on the coffee table in front of him.
“You’ll want to read this.” Petrovich pointed at an article on the front page. “It continues on page two.”
Ivanov grabbed the paper and started reading the article entitled: “Two broken ribs and a dislocated jaw courtesy of the mob. By Sheila Wang, investigative reporter.”
He read the entire piece without saying a word, but a throbbing vein on his forehead betrayed his anger to Petrovich who recognized the sign. Once finished, he closed the newspaper, folded it in two and handed it back to his second.
“The bitch doesn’t learn,” said Petrovich in a matter-of-fact voice devoid of emotion. “What do you want to do about her?”
Ivanov remained silent for a moment weighing the possibilities in his mind. The journalist had gone too far this time. She had been warned to keep her nose out of his business, and she should have listened, for one warning was all she would get. Naming him in her article was a mistake she would not live to regret. Unlike her first article, this one was not about the wolves but about his own organization. The wolves were just a side-note this time, not enough to threaten Clemens. It was therefore unlikely the wolves would save him the trouble by dealing with the nosy bitch themselves.