SHADOW PACK (Michael Biörn Book 1)

by Marc Daniel

  At no point during the conversation was Macfly’s death mentioned by either party.

  Chapter 88

  After getting off the phone with Katia Olveda, Peter Clemens wasted no time in rallying his troops. He sent a mass text message summoning his wolves, and with the exception of two of them who were out of town, the whole Houston pack had made it to his house by the time the clock struck noon.

  It had been almost a week since a small pack delegation had first fought Biörn. The confrontation had proven fatal for six of his wolves, and Clemens had since spent every waking hour thinking about Michael Biörn’s imminent death.

  While he had been right regarding the true nature of their opponent, Peter had underestimated Biörn’s power, and the pack had paid dearly for this mistake. Not a single one of his wolves had even hinted at the Alpha’s responsibility in the death of their brothers, but it did not matter to Peter Clemens who felt guilty nonetheless. Killing Michael Biörn would not erase the guilt from Clemens’ conscience, but hanging the werebear’s head as a trophy in the living room would go a long way towards easing the pain.

  Peter Clemens had to raise his voice in order to carry above the loud grumbling that prevailed inside the second floor assembly room where the pack had gathered.

  “You all know why we are here,” started the Alpha in a commanding voice. “I was informed this morning of the whereabouts of our hereditary enemy. Our kind fought his kin for millennia until we finally prevailed a few centuries ago. We believed we had exterminated the bears, but we were obviously wrong… At least one of them has survived.”

  The grumbling started growing louder again as the wolves debated between themselves whether Biörn was the sole survivor of his species or just one of many. When Clemens’ booming voice started once again, they all fell silent.

  “This bastard killed six of our brothers, and for this we will make sure he suffers before he dies. But let us not repeat the mistakes of our fallen comrades. Let us not underestimate our enemy. Not one of us would have a chance against him alone, not even me. We need to work as a pack, bring him down as a pack, and slowly kill him as a pack!”

  Clemens paused an instant to let his words seep into his wolves’ minds.

  “Where is he?” asked a wolf in the back of the room.

  “He has spent the morning at the journalist’s house, and according to my source, he was still there fifteen minutes ago. We will take this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Sheila Wang has become a problem and needs to be silenced once and for all.”

  “Won’t he be expecting us?” asked another wolf.

  “It’s unlikely,” replied Clemens. “But Wang lives in a residential area and we cannot go through the door in our wolf form. We’ll have to shift inside the house, and at this point we will be vulnerable. This is why we need to storm the house as a group.”

  The particulars of the offensive were explained and re-explained in details to the pack until everyone understood his role. It was one o’clock when they finally left Clemens’ property in a nine-car convoy.

  Chapter 89

  “Would you like some wine?” asked Sheila as Michael walked back from answering the door carrying two extra-large Hawaiian pizzas.

  “No, thank you. I’d better not drink if I want to keep my ideas sharp.” He put down the two pizza boxes on the kitchen table. “I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.”

  Sheila gave him a dubious smile before pouring herself a glass of Pinot Grigio.

  “The cops are gone by the way,” said Michael. “They probably got tired of watching your front door without any way to be sure you were still alive inside.”

  Sheila pulled a slice of pizza from the top box and placed it on the plate in front of her. “Good riddance,” she answered, before sinking her teeth into the pizza. “As I told you this morning, you are much better company.”

  Michael noticed the compliment, but he chose to ignore it. He had the feeling Sheila might be flirting with him, but he was so out of practice in that department that he couldn’t tell for sure whether it truly was the case.

  They had spent the whole morning talking, about the case mostly, but not exclusively. The journalist had asked a multitude of questions regarding what she referred to as his gift. She had even tried prying into his personal past, but Michael had shut like an oyster and had remained silent a long while after she had asked if he had ever been married. His silence had been more eloquent than any words could have been. Sheila had rapidly changed the subject, but not rapidly enough. She had managed to make him think about Isibel once again, and this was a part of his past Michael definitely did not want to think about. He had finally come out of his prolonged silence after a couple minutes, and she had carefully avoided mentioning anything remotely related to marriage from that point forward.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” said Sheila, opening the second pizza box—Michael had made quick work of the first one—“why didn’t you change into your bear form when the wannabe assassin turned into a werewolf the other night?”

  “Time was one factor,” answered Michael. “It takes me a few seconds to morph and I wasn’t sure how long I had before he killed you.” A fugitive smile of appreciation passed over Sheila’s face, but Michael was too oblivious to notice it. “In addition, a single wolf is not typically a big threat to me. A pack is a different story, but a lone wolf doesn’t have the mass or the strength to go one on one against me.”

  Sheila was about to ask him how much stronger than a wolf he really was when Michael’s cell phone started ringing. He looked at the caller ID, wondering if David Starks was trying to reach him, but he was shocked to see Ezekiel’s name on the tiny screen.

  For one thing, Michael was certain he had never entered Ez’ number in the cell phone David had given him, but that was beside the point; these sorts of tricks were no more difficult to Ez than uprooting a sapling was to him.

  “Hello, this is Michael,” he finally answered.

  “Way to state the obvious, my friend,” replied the wizard’s sarcastic voice. “What are you guys up to?”

  “Having lunch,” replied Michael without asking how Ez knew he had company. “Do you care to join us?”

  “Naah, I hate pineapples on pizza. It’s just wrong! I was just calling to make sure you had plenty to share because I heard the whole Houston pack was coming to join you for lunch.”

  The statement caught Michael off guard and it took him a second to grasp the implications of the tip.

  “I assume the information is reliable?” he asked finally.

  “I wouldn’t bother calling otherwise.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “They should reach your current location in the next forty-five minutes or so, but I wouldn’t stick around to verify the accuracy of my prediction if I were you.”

  “Thank you for the warning, Ez, I owe you one.”

  “You owe me a lot more than that, but who’s counting?” retorted Ez.

  Michael replaced the cell phone inside his pocket and turned to Sheila. “Pack a bag with a toothbrush and clothes for a few days. Be quick about it, we need to be out of here in five minutes.”

  Chapter 90

  The front and back door of the house were kicked open within a fraction of second of each other. The Houston pack stormed Sheila’s house in a perfectly synchronized offensive. Once inside, the wolves immediately morphed before spreading out like a tidal wave through every single room of the one-story habitation, but to no avail… Biörn and the girl were gone.

  A small group was sent to check out the attic, but besides a couple of dusty boxes not nearly large enough to hide the bulk of the 300-pound giant, the place was empty.

  “It looks like they are gone,” said Karl Wilson, the pack second in command, in what seemed like a painfully obvious assertion. Clemens cast him a dark glance but did not say anything. Instead, he grabbed his phone and dialed Katia Olveda’s number.

  The assist
ant DA answered on the fourth ring. “Hallo? This is Katia.”

  “Biörn is gone,” said the Alpha in a voice shaking with anger. “Do you know his current location?”

  “I don’t,” replied Katia in a cool voice. “He was at the journalist’s all morning, but it’s hard for me to enquire again about his whereabouts without raising suspicions…”

  “I trust your lying skills can overcome this obstacle, Katia. Get me the information I need.” Clemens spoke threateningly.

  “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  The pack left the house as quickly as they had come in, and they were already exiting the subdivision when Katia called Clemens back.

  “I tried obtaining his location for you, but no one seems to know where he is,” she said slightly apologetically. This was not a completely true statement, however.

  Chapter 91

  Dimitri Ivanov walked out of the racquetball court a few steps ahead of his defeated opponent to find Igor Petrovich waiting for him beside the always silent but highly deadly Stanislas Erzgova.

  The mob boss grabbed the towel his lieutenant was holding out for him and started mopping his sweat-covered forehead and neck. Ivanov was an excellent racquetball player, but the fact that few of his opponents were stupid enough to try and actually beat him did not hurt his winning record.

  “We concluded our investigations,” announced Petrovich without preamble.

  “And what did you find?” enquired Ivanov, replacing the racquet into his gym bag.

  “Not much, boss. Everything seems pretty normal. No new girls on the street, no new bookmakers, no drugs we can’t account for. We even looked into the gun market, and only found the usual suspects.”

  The three men started walking towards the locker room, which, like the rest of the gym, was deserted. Ivanov owned this particular club, and the place only opened when the mob boss did not feel like using the facility. As a result, the place was not doing particularly well financially, but this was the least of Ivanov’s concerns. The fitness business was not where he made his money.

  “If Clemens is selling something other than his services, it’s not in the greater Houston area, or at least it’s not illegal,” concluded Petrovich.

  Stanislas went to check the showers for potential threats. Upon his approval, a naked Ivanov stepped into the closest shower stall and drew the curtain.

  “There is still something fishy going on,” said Ivanov, stepping out of the shower a few minutes later with wet hair and a towel wrapped around his midsection. “Have we looked to see if they are selling products outside Houston?”

  “This isn’t easy to check, but as far as we could tell, they aren’t. The only thing remotely unusual we could find concerned Victor Grey.”

  “The Chemist?” asked Ivanov surprised.

  “Yes, the Chemist.”

  “What the fuck did he do? I thought the little shit was dead or retired or something…”

  “He hasn’t done anything as far as we can tell, but his finances are a bit healthier than they should be for a retiree, if you know what I mean.”

  Ivanov was dressed and ready to go by now. He closed his gym bag and handed it to his lieutenant who accepted the burden without trying to pass it onto Stanislas. He had tried doing that once before, but Ivanov had chewed his ass to pieces. Stanislas was a bodyguard and as such, couldn’t afford to have his hands busy carrying bags when he could be required to draw his gun at any time.

  “I think it’s important we find out exactly what new source of income our old friend found to supplement his retirement fund,” said Ivanov as they exited the gym.

  Chapter 92

  Michael placed Sheila’s suitcase next to his own in the trunk of the rented Chevrolet and walked back to the house where David and Sheila were amiably chatting around the kitchen table.

  After Ez’ warning, Sheila and Michael had spent a good part of the day strolling around a local State Park, trying to figure out what to do and, more particularly, where to go next. Troubles seemed to follow the two of them no matter where they were, and they were starting to run out of places to hide. After considering their options, they had decided to accept the hospitality David had graciously offered and had headed for the detective’s beach house where they had spent the night.

  Although David had had his problems with the wolves as well, his troubles hadn’t followed him to his beachfront property. It was highly unlikely the pack had not figured out by now that David owned a house on the beach, but since no other attempts had been made against the detective’s life in the past month, it seemed Clemens or whoever was behind the attacks had lost interest.

  Their interest in Michael, however, was at an all-time high. How quickly the pack had found out Michael was at Sheila’s was particularly worrisome. Michael hadn’t told anyone he was going there, not even Olivia Harrington or David Starks. He supposed the pack could have been watching Sheila’s house, but he hadn’t noticed any wolves around the place and he could typically smell them from a mile away.

  “Would you like more tea?” asked David as Michael entered the kitchen.

  “No, we’d better get going if we don’t want to miss our flight.”

  Sheila finished her last sip of coffee, got up and extended her hand towards David. “If I’d been told a month ago that I would spend the night at your house, Detective, I would have never believed it,” she said with a smirk, shaking his hand. “Thank you very much for your hospitality.”

  “The pleasure was mine,” replied David, smiling. He turned to Michael. “I will keep you posted on anything new happening here, just make sure you don’t trash your cell phone as soon as you get back to your wildlife paradise. I need a way to contact you in case of emergency.”

  “I won’t. And try to keep an eye out for Steve’s kid, Olivia. I’m afraid she’s asking for trouble.”

  “Will do, don’t worry.”

  “OK, time to go. Thanks again for last night,” said Michael.

  They walked out to the car and Michael squeezed himself behind the wheel of the Malibu.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” asked Sheila. “You look like a freemason in a tiny car parade.”

  Michael ignored the mocking tone. “I’m sure.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they had reached I-45 and were on their way to the airport. Michael had been in Houston for over a month and had hardly made any progress toward breaking the case, but he didn’t really need to be in the city to stay on the case anyway. He simply needed to start thinking harder; he needed to understand the hidden part of the problem. For he was more and more convinced he was missing an essential element, the key to decipher the apparently senseless series of events that had occurred in the past few weeks. Any new pieces of information could be fed to him by David Starks, and there would always be time to go back and deal with Steve’s murderer once the bastard had been identified with certainty.

  After weighing their options, they had decided to go to Michael’s house in Yellowstone until the dust settled down a bit. This option presented numerous advantages. For one thing, a pack of werewolves would not go unnoticed in the park. If he had to fight the entire Houston pack, Michael preferred the confrontation took place on his own turf, where he would have the advantage of knowing the terrain. He was also sick and tired of sleeping in those lousy motel beds and was looking forward to sleeping in his own bed for a while. It had been easy to convince Sheila to come with him; her life was clearly being threatened in Houston, and she would be a lot safer in the middle of Yellowstone National Park where Michael’s cabin was located.

  There was only one problem with the plan: his cabin only had one bed.

  Chapter 93

  It was ten past four, which meant the man was already ten minutes late. Olivia was playing with her cell phone. It was a way to kill time as much as to avoid making eye contact with the other patrons of the distinguished diner where she was sitting waiting for the
guy. The diner was not in the best part of town, and the lustful glances in the eyes of some of the surrounding customers did not make her feel any more comfortable. She had never thought of herself as particularly attractive, but it probably didn’t matter for men like these.

  A twenty-something-year-old male, dressed like a professional rapper, stepped into the diner and, after surveying its occupants, walked over to her table. “Olivia?”

  She nodded and he sat on the other side of her booth. Gang tattoos were visible on the man’s forearms and neck. Not exactly the type of individual Olivia typically gravitated around.

  “Do you have the money?” he asked in a low raspy voice. She nodded and reached inside her purse.

  “Pass it under the table,” he added quickly in the same hoarse voice. She complied with his request and handed him an envelope containing a thousand dollars in fifties. The man counted the money discreetly and placed the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket before pulling out what looked like a dirty rag. He passed her the package under the table in a cautiously casual motion.

  The object was heavier than she had anticipated. She carefully unwrapped it on the seat between her and the wall to discover a thirty-eight special.

  “It’s loaded,” said the guy, “but if you need more ammo, it’s extra.”

  “This is all I need,” replied Olivia.

  She had made up her mind a few days ago and the voicemail Michael Biörn had left on her phone had only reinforced her decision. Michael was on his way back home. He had given up on catching her parents’ murderers. The man was not what she had thought him to be... he did not care about justice.

  Since nobody cared besides her, the onus was on her to see that the man behind her parents’ assassination paid for his crimes. She already knew where he lived. As a matter of fact, she was scheduled to clean his house the very next day… and now she had a gun. Peter Clemens’ hours in this world were numbered.