by Marc Daniel
“Any progress?” he asked.
“Some.”
She started giving him a detailed summary of her findings as he slumped into a chair.
“It doesn’t sound like these guys have much in common with each other or with Sullivan… and even less with Steve,” commented Michael wearily as she finished her account.
“I agree, but there’s one thing most of them had in common,” she announced in a teasingly enigmatic voice.
“What?” asked Michael, not willing to play the game.
“Their rank… Sullivan was Chief Deputy for the Harris County Sheriff department, which means he was second in command of the largest Sheriff department in the state. Wilkinson was Executive Assistant Chief of Police for the Houston PD, which translates into: number two for the city’s largest police department. Elaine Blent was a captain in the Texas Rangers force, which signifies she was only two spots behind the force’s highest ranking officer…”
“Now that’s interesting information,” replied Michael thoughtfully. “It’s a bit too much of a coincidence for it not to be relevant. What about Brad Shatwell?”
“Shatwell was a Captain in Houston PD, so it doesn’t fit the pattern as well. A captain is more like middle management if you know what I mean.”
Michael nodded. “Steve had just been promoted Lieutenant, so it doesn’t work for him either… unless…”
“Unless what?” asked Sheila, interested.
“Unless…” But Michael did not voice his idea. He sat lost in thought an instant longer before adding, “I wonder if Shatwell was up for promotion.”
Chapter 145
The wolves were never to separate from their cell phones, their main communication device, and Axel placed his on the bathroom countertop closest to the shower stall before stepping under the spray. He had just finished washing his hair and was about to get started on the rest when his phone rang. He quickly stepped out of the stall, grabbed a towel to mop off most of the moisture from his hair and face, and answered the phone somewhere between the third and fourth ring.
“Thompkins.”
“It will happen today,” said the voice of the Alpha on the other end of the line. “Call the pack around noon and have them assembled at the warehouse by 2 p.m. Once everyone has arrived, give me the signal.”
“What about the wolfsbane extract?” enquired Thompkins.
“It’s being taken care of. Fanning and Maxwell are handling it. Just remember, everyone needs to be at the warehouse by two.”
Chapter 146
Michael was lying motionless next to Sheila, but unlike her, he was wide awake and had been for some time. He had never been able to sleep past six o’clock for as long as he could remember, and sleeping in a strange bed only made things worse. His head turned towards the sleeping journalist, and he admired the impeccable complexion of her olive skin, the soft curve of her neck, the impenetrable blackness of her hair.
His relationship with Sheila had taken an unexpected turn in Yellowstone, and he was still struggling with the realization. There had not been many women in his life since the passing of his wife Isibel, and although a few of them had tried, none had ever taken much space in his heart. It wasn’t their fault, some of them had been very decent human beings… they had simply never stood a chance. Michael’s heart had been locked inside an impenetrable fortress for a thousand years. A fortress he had built not only to protect others from the beast within him, but also for safekeeping of his terrible secret: a secret that had plagued his conscience with unbearable guilt for the past millennium. Now, against all expectations, the fortress had fallen to the gentle assaults of a cute journalist, and Michael simply didn’t know what to make of it.
He slipped out of bed and silently got dressed before tiptoeing his way out of the bedroom. It was time for his daily morning walk around Sheila’s subdivision.
The air felt nice and crisp, a rarity for the region, and Michael was enjoying it while he could. Walking around the small lake from which the subdivision took its name, he was thinking things over. Sheila had been a tremendous help so far and he felt grateful he could count on her to help him with the case. Her research skills far exceeded his, and, unlike him, she knew exactly where to look for information. After weeks of spinning their wheels on the case, he felt as if they were finally starting to get somewhere. The majority of the murdered cops had been high-ranking officers in various branches of law enforcement, and that definitely looked like a pattern. What they needed to find out now was who benefited from their deaths. Were these officers sitting on some sort of committee that could potentially impact on Ivanov’s business… or someone else’s? Michael was less and less convinced that the mob had anything to do with the assassinations. There were still many unanswered questions, but with Sheila’s help they were now definitely heading in the right direction. Olivia’s whereabouts was another matter. David Starks was actively working on locating Steve’s daughter, but so far his search had not turned up any new information. Of course he had been on the assignment less than two days, and Michael knew it would take the detective some time to find out Olivia’s location. Regardless, every minute she was still missing could be her last and this knowledge gnawed at Michael’s conscience like a dog at a bone. It was not in his nature to sit idle.
Suddenly, Michael felt a presence behind him. Already on the defensive, he started spinning around to swing at his opponent when his brain registered that the presence was familiar and unthreatening. He was back to his usual calm self by the time he completed his one eighty to face Ezekiel standing five feet behind him.
“You’ll get hurt sneaking up on people like that,” said Michael in a warning voice.
“Nonsense!” replied the wizard. “We both know you wouldn’t hurt an old man, you big teddy bear.”
“You can keep your fragile elder act for someone else, Ez,” announced Michael with a scorn. “Someone who might actually buy it.”
They started walking side by side around the lake, teasing each other about their respective age and fragility.
“What are you doing here, Ez?” asked Michael finally.
“What a question! I’m visiting an old friend, of course,” replied the wizard, falsely offended.
“And the old friend appreciates your visit. But let’s face it, we hadn’t seen each other in over ten years and now I see you almost once a week. Which would be nice if not for the fact you only appear to foretell new calamities coming my way.”
“You’d rather I didn’t warn you?” asked Ez, but he knew the answer, so Michael didn’t bother responding.
“I’ll have you know, Michael, that you once again misjudged me,” started the wizard in a lofty tone. “No calamity coming your way this time, at least none that I know about.”
Michael looked at his friend for an instant, trying to assess the veracity of his statement, before answering, “I stand corrected. I guess you are giving me a courtesy visit after all.”
“That’s better, and since I am a magnanimous wizard, I forgive you,” announced Ezekiel, still using his most condescending voice. “There was the small matter of a witch trying to do away with you from the comfort of her home. However—”
“Here we go,” interrupted Michael, raising his eyes skyward.
“But since the threat has been dispatched, compliments of yours truly, it really doesn’t qualify as a foretold calamity. If you stop and think about it for a second, it’s technically a post-told calamity,” continued the wizard, almost managing to keep a grin off his lips.
“Is she dead?” asked Michael.
“No, she’s alive and well. But I strongly doubt she’ll try anything against you anytime soon. She knows you are under my protection and won’t dare cross me.”
Michael thought about that for an instant before asking, “How did you find out about this?”
“A simple sortilege really… If anyone attempts to cast a spell against you in a hundred-mile radius around Houston, I know abou
t it,” replied the wizard looking very happy with himself.
“And what if they cast it outside your hundred-mile radius?”
“Then you’re on your own. But don’t let that eventuality concern you too much. There are only five or six wizards who could cast a lethal spell from such a distance, and odds are none of them are after you.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know who paid the witch for her service?”
“I’m a wizard, not an oracle,” replied Ez dramatically, “but I suspect she wasn’t working for herself. I have her address though… if you’d like to go and ask her.”
Chapter 147
“Bring him in,” said Thomas Maxwell without preamble as he entered the room. Lewis and Salazar looked at each other enquiringly. It was the first time the Houston PD second in command visited them in their office, and they weren’t too sure what had brought him. They hadn’t heard from the executive assistant chief of police in over two weeks. The wolf-attack media frenzy had died down, and Maxwell had apparently started relaxing about the case.
“Bring who in?” asked Salazar after an instant.
“Clemens! Who else?!” Maxwell looked at Salazar as if he were simple-minded.
“And on what charges?” enquired Samantha Lewis skeptically.
Maxwell turned his attention towards her and replied sarcastically, “Yes, on what charges… tough to decide. How about the disappearance of Danko Jovanovich whose DNA was found near Clemens’ estate? Or what about the two hunters who, oddly enough, also disappeared near his house? Of course one could decide to bring him in for the fifty odd people he and his friends slaughtered not a week ago…”
Maxwell had so far always been professional, if somewhat pushy, towards the two detectives, but he had clearly gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today.
“We have no proof for the disappearances, and the search of his house uncovered no evidence that the slaughter of Ivanov’s men was anything other than self-defense,” retorted Salazar in a matter-of-fact voice.
“And you’re going to tell me that Ivanov’s being murdered in his mansion was another act of self-defense, maybe?”
“Once again, no evidence whatsoever, Sir,” answered Lewis.
Thomas Maxwell, still standing in the middle of the office, shut his eyes as he started slowly rubbing his temples.
“Detectives,” he started, “I am not telling you to arrest the man. I am simply asking you to bring him in for questioning. Maybe that way we can actually learn something useful for our case against him.”
Chapter 148
The house was located in the Heights, a neighborhood where old run-down houses from the twenties and brand new constructions intermingled amidst a patchwork of cute residential streets and industrialized sections. Whatever Michael had imagined, the witch’s house was not it. He hadn’t really expected to find a gingerbread house with giant candy canes serving as columns in front of a nougatine front door, but the clearly new three-story Victorian construction he was looking at was still a bit of a shock. Although Michael was no real estate expert, he knew the neighborhood’s reputation and a house like this had to run close to five hundred thousand dollars. Apparently, the witch was operating a profitable business.
Michael had dealt with witches in the past, mainly in association with the Native American tribes. The Dorset witches he had encountered in Labrador had been fairly powerful, much more so than those of the Potawatomi he had met later on in Michigan. The Lakota and Cheyenne tribes alongside which he had fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn had used witches as well, although only as medicine men and women. So far, his encounters with witches had been mostly peaceful, but this trend seemed about to rapidly change for the worst.
Given the circumstances, Michael did not believe that etiquette dictated he rang the front bell. No need to warn his wannabe assassin off… assuming she was stupid or arrogant enough to stick around in the first place. He turned the handle on the front door and found it locked. No surprise there. He gave a slow but firm push on the door and, with a barely noticeable cracking sound, the frame gave in around the deadbolt insert.
As he entered the house Michael caught a glimpse of the bottom of a black robe as it disappeared around a corner. It would appear the witch hadn’t fled after all… He rushed in the direction she had taken but stopped when he reached the kitchen. The sliding door to the backyard had been left ajar, and Michael wondered if this was a trick or if she had truly escaped through the door.
He cautiously stepped out onto the patio and immediately caught a whiff of the familiar aroma: magic. A spell had just been cast. The deck was a mere two feet above ground level and a quick survey of the back yard revealed no trace of her. The odds she had disappeared into thin air were slim. This type of spell was typically above a witch’s pay grade, but so were killing spells, after all. More likely, she had made herself undetectable to his senses and peacefully made her way to the street.
Back inside the house, Michael conducted a thorough search of the rooms, one by one. Satisfied the witch was gone, he returned to her laboratory. He had discovered it on the third floor during his exploration, and was hoping the room contained some clue about the identity of her employer.
A few fading scents still lingered in the room. None of them were familiar to Michael, which in itself was odd. He had expected the place to be stinking of wolf, but could detect no trace of their stench. He supposed the witch could have erased their odor, but why would she? The most persistent scent in the room was also found everywhere in the house, and Michael concluded it belonged to the witch herself. There was also an aroma he could not place, which seemed vaguely familiar.
The laboratory looked disorganized at first glance, but it was just an illusion to throw off visitors. Although the room appeared messy, everything had its place. The potions were scattered on a shelf, but kept together. What Michael would have called, for want of a more technical term, the dry ingredients were spread out on the fireplace mantelpiece. The cooking utensils were strewn around a small wooden altar in the center of the room. The floor was coated with dust, feathers, hair, and a variety of crumbs of all sizes, but the mess looked more staged than the result of poor housekeeping.
Michael had been hoping for a scent he’d recognize to put him on a trail, but having been unlucky in this department, he resorted to old-fashioned snooping around. It didn’t take him very long to go through the entire lab and decide there was nothing useful there. He was about to leave the lab when the vaguely familiar odor that had been tickling his nostrils since he entered the room finally found a match in his subconscious. Not an exact match, however. The smell was definitely reminiscent of wolfsbane, although not quite the real thing. It was wolfsbane with a twist. Michael would probably not even have linked the two together had he not smelled wolfsbane the day before in the Chemist’s laboratory.
In an instant he realized the implications of this discovery: he had just found a link back to the wolves, back to Clemens. The scent of one of Clemens’ wolves had been all over the chemist’s lab, and it was therefore hard to imagine the two labs weren’t somehow related. It would have implied two distinct factions in Houston were plotting to use wolfsbane as a weapon at the same time—since there really wasn’t any other use for it. What were the odds?!
Chapter 149
Of late, Karl Wilson had been working from his home office, where he spent more time helping Clemens plan the future of the pack than he did on the work for which he was actually getting paid. He still had to go to his downtown office from time to time for meetings and other tasks he simply couldn’t accomplish from home, but he tried to make these trips as short as possible. Peter simply hadn’t been himself since Isabella’s death and Karl worried about both his friend and the pack. The pack needed a strong leader, and he wasn’t sure Peter was still up to the task.
Returning from a meeting he had to attend that morning, Karl found the house empty. Peter had not mentioned he was planning on leaving
the house, so he started looking for a note Peter might have left him… to no avail. This was somewhat out of character since Peter typically kept him informed.
He had reached the conclusion the Alpha had simply gone to grab something to eat when his cell phone rang.
“Karl?” asked Axel Thompkins’ voice.
“Yes. What’s going on, Axel?”
“Peter called me a few minutes ago; he wants the whole pack to be assembled at the warehouse by two o’clock this afternoon.”
“And he called you? Why didn’t he call me?” asked Karl, surprised.
“I don’t know, he didn’t say. Maybe he tried to call you and couldn’t get through?”
Karl thought about this eventuality for an instant. He had been in a meeting all morning, but his phone had been on vibrate in his pocket, and he hadn’t missed any calls. Still, he supposed it was possible. Weirder things had happened with cell phones in the past.
“Maybe,” he replied finally. “Did he tell you why he wanted us to gather?”
“No. I thought you would know,” answered Thompkins in a surprised voice.
“I don’t.”
Chapter 150
By quarter to two, every wolf had made it to the warehouse with the exception of Clemens who was still conspicuously absent. He wasn’t going to show up, but this only one of them knew.
The pack leader had been picked up at Wilson’s house earlier in the morning by Detectives Lewis and Salazar, who had brought him in for questioning. Despite the lack of evidence against Peter Clemens, Thomas Maxwell had insisted he was brought to the station. In the end, the two detectives simply couldn’t say no to Houston PD’s number two.
“Are you positive Peter meant today?” Karl Wilson asked Axel Thompkins inquisitively.
“Of course I’m sure,” replied Thompkins, discreetly searching for his phone inside his pants front pocket.