by Marc Daniel
“Please do tell, don’t make me beg,” replied Sheila.
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”
He grabbed her computer and typed a name in the search bar. After a few minutes he found what he was looking for. He showed the picture to Sheila.
“You’re joking, right?” she exclaimed.
“Not even a little. Could you please print this picture for me? I’d like you to go and show it to someone.” As an afterthought he added, “It looks like Ez was wrong after all.”
Chapter 155
“What are you doing?” asked Clemens, looking at Katia with murderous eyes. She did not answer but quickly reached into her purse and pulled out what looked like a gun. The weapon’s chamber, however, had room for a single slug and was currently loaded with a small vial containing a colorless liquid. It took Clemens a second to identify the weapon as a dart gun.
“Are you trying to put me to sleep, Katia? Like some type of wild animal? Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten who you are?” he asked, laughing sardonically while walking deliberately slowly towards her.
She had the gun aimed straight at his chest, the largest target, the hardest one to miss.
“You have no idea who I am, my dear Peter,” she answered. All fear had disappeared from her voice. She knew he had arrived. She could feel his presence in her skin. “You never had.”
“Enlighten me… please,” he replied sarcastically, still moving towards her while Karl was slowly approaching from a different direction.
“I am one of the traitors, Peter, always have been, just like Axel... Do you really believe I would have bedded lover boy over there for any other reason than getting to you?” she asked amusedly. “But don’t judge me too harshly, Peter. I only followed orders; they just happen to have never been your orders,” she added provocatively.
“You’re dead, bitch.” Clemens lunged at her, but he was still ten feet away, and his anger and arrogance made him oblivious to the gun she was pointing at him. She pulled the trigger and the dart punctured his skin right under the heart. He immediately snatched the dart away, but the contents of the pressurized vial had already entered his bloodstream.
The poison hit him before he could get to her, but it wasn’t enough to deter his desire to strangle her. As he reached for her throat, she quickly stepped back and kicked him straight in the chest with the bottom of her foot, her stiletto heel puncturing his abdomen below the ribcage. He stared at her in shock, a look of utter surprise on his face—he hadn’t seen that one coming.
Clemens lay prone on the floor stunned by the turn of events. He was still wondering whether Katia was particularly strong or whether the dart had made him particularly weak—a more likely explanation—when Karl collided into Katia, sending her rolling to the floor.
Karl easily pinned Katia to the ground despite his diminished strength from the wolfsbane gas he had inhaled at the warehouse. Back on his feet, Clemens started walking towards them holding his bleeding abdomen with one hand. He smiled maliciously as he advanced with the intent of crushing the woman’s head under his heel.
“I grew fond of Katia, and I don’t think I will let you hurt her,” said a booming voice that startled both Clemens and Wilson. Clemens quickly turned around to find two men standing a few feet away from the trio. Diminished by the wolfsbane, the two wolves had not even sensed their presence. One of them was Axel Thompkins, the traitor, but the other one… Clemens simply could not believe what he was seeing.
“What are you doing here?” asked Clemens, bewildered, while Karl’s jaw dropped in astonishment. Katia took advantage of the situation to free her hands from under Karl’s knees and hit him simultaneously on both sides of the head with open palms, before pushing him away from her. An instant later she was standing by Thompkins and the other man.
“A fair question,” answered the man in an approving voice. “I guess one could say I am here for a succession of power… You see, Peter, you have been the top dog in town for a long time. One might even say too long. It is time for a change of leadership.”
“You may not have noticed, but there is no pack left to lead,” answered Clemens, still bleeding on the carpet. The wound should have completely healed by now, but it didn’t look like it was healing at all.
“Wrong again, my dear Peter, there is a pack—my pack. We have lived in your shadows for some time now, carefully preparing for the day we would snatch the control of the city from your incompetent hands. And that day has come… I am glad to say. But don’t worry, it is for the better good of the species. Under my leadership, wolves will be more powerful than they ever were under yours. My shadow pack has already infiltrated government organizations at the highest level, both in the city and in the state. But we won’t stop here, the sky is the limit. One day we might even have a wolf as President of the United States.”
“You are insane, completely insane. You aren’t even a wolf yourself. How do you expect to lead a pack?”
“Wrong again!” answered the shadow pack Alpha as he turned into a black wolf of about 250 pounds.
Astonished, Clemens tried to morph, but the wolfsbane flowing through his veins made the process extremely slow and painful. Wilson was able to morph faster but he still wasn’t at the top of his game, not by any stretch of imagination.
Wilson had just finished morphing when the shadow Alpha leapt on him. The two wolves tumbled on the floor in a deluge of fangs and claws, quickly joined by Clemens in his wolf form. Clemens’ wolf was significantly more experienced than the two others, but he was in such a diminished state that it didn’t matter.
The three wolves battled across the living room under the watchful eyes of Katia and Axel, destroying virtually every piece of furniture in the process. After only a few minutes, Karl Wilson was lying motionless on the ground, blood gushing from the severed artery in his torn open throat.
The two Alphas circled each other for an instant before clashing once more. In the end, Clemens was simply too weak to triumph, and the shadow Alpha dispatched him the same way he had finished his Beta.
Morphing back into his human form, the shadow Alpha looked at the mess in the room and said to Axel and Katia, “Discard the bodies and get a witch to clean up this mess. I need to find some fresh clothes.”
Shirtless, he walked towards the staircase. His pants were ripped and hung from his waist. He was the only Alpha left in Houston. Things were finally the way they were supposed to be. He only had one more problem to address: an 800-pound problem.
Chapter 156
The warehouse looked like any other warehouse Michael had ever seen, and nothing from the outside hinted that the building was used for anything other than storage. The place had a pedestrian entrance on its side in addition to roll-up industrial doors large enough to allow eighteen-wheelers in and out of the building.
Michael slowly turned the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked. This was suspicious if anything ever was, and he decided the odds for this to be a set-up were high.
Sheila had been able to dig out the address after an entire afternoon spent almost equally on the phone and on her computer. The journalist was well connected and one of her connections happened to specialize in financial investigations through means whose legality could sometimes be questionable. An in-depth search of Clemens’ finances hadn’t turned up anything interesting, but when Sheila and her connection had started looking into Karl Wilson’s assets, they had noticed a large withdrawal made from an account in the Cayman Islands. Following the money trails, they discovered the wire had been used to purchase a warehouse some years ago. The warehouse had been bought under an assumed name, which explained why they had been unable to find it earlier, but Sheila seemed pretty confident it belonged to Wilson.
Michael carefully slipped through the open door and was immediately convinced Sheila had been right. He was equally convinced something had gone very wrong in the warehouse. He recognized immediately the acrid smell a
s it started burning his nostrils and irritated his throat. The odor was the one he had smelled in the Chemist’s laboratory: concentrated wolfsbane extract. Apparently, someone had managed to disperse it as an aerosol into the room.
He cautiously started circling the ground level, making as little noise as possible. It wasn’t long before he discovered the first body… and then another one. Immediately, his heart started pounding; preparing for the worst, his mind unconsciously got ready to discover Olivia’s lifeless body. When he tripped over a pair of shackles wrapped around a pillar in a dark corner, however, he wasn’t sure whether to feel worried or relieved. The shackles indicated that the pack had recently held someone captive, and Olivia was a likely candidate for the position. It also meant she was probably lying dead somewhere in the room… On the other hand, she might have escaped or been dragged out of the warehouse before the attack, for Michael was now convinced there had been an attack. The Houston pack had fallen victim to a chemical weapon that had laced the air with volatilized wolfsbane. Since the traces left in the air were potent enough to seriously irritate Michael’s throat, no doubt the concentrated version would have been lethal.
After convincing himself Olivia was not lying dead anywhere on the ground floor, Michael carefully walked up to the loft level where he discovered four more bodies. Thankfully, none of them belonged to Olivia. The loft level was a lot easier to search and it only took Michael a couple of minutes to make sure there weren’t any additional bodies hidden out of sight.
Wilson and Clemens were not among the victims, which meant they had almost certainly been absent during the attack and were probably still alive. The mastermind was getting close to his goal, however. The Houston pack was on the brink of extinction.
When he got back to his car, Michael noticed he had a voicemail on his new cell phone, the one Sheila had purchased for him earlier that morning. He had left it in his car to make sure it did not ring at an inconvenient moment while he was searching the premises. In retrospect, it was unlikely the ringtone would have alerted the corpses inhabiting the warehouse, but he hadn’t known that before walking in.
The message was from Sheila, which was to be expected since she was the only one who knew his new number. It simply said: You were right… again. I showed the picture to my “friend”, and she positively ID’d him. See you at home. Kisses.
Chapter 157
Michael had driven straight back to Sheila’s from the warehouse, only to find the place empty upon arrival. He’d spent the whole drive back thinking about what his next move would be. If Olivia were still alive—and he was starting to believe she probably was—he needed to find a way to rescue her as soon as possible. The rescue mission needed to be well planned. It had to be both swift and conducted in a way that would minimize potential harm to Olivia. After careful consideration, he’d finally come up with an idea which had a reasonable chance of success. It was far from perfect, but time wasn’t on his side.
Waiting for Sheila to return, he walked to the kitchen and picked up his old cell phone from one of the countertops. He dialed David’s number. The detective answered on the second ring. “Michael! What’s going on?”
“I have news,” replied Michael. “I have found the warehouse where Clemens used to hold Olivia.”
“Used to?” answered David inquiringly.
Michael told him about the bodies he had found in the warehouse, the scent of wolfsbane extract in the air, and the empty pair of shackles lying on the ground.
“What the hell is going on? Who went after the pack?” asked David, bewildered.
“I believe we’ve been looking at it the wrong way from the beginning. Clemens was never responsible for the wolves’ attacks or the cops’ assassinations. He was framed. The whole Houston pack was framed.”
“Who by?” David sounded clearly unconvinced.
“That’s what took me some time to figure out,” answered Michael, “but I believe I finally know the answer to that question. Everything fits.”
“Who?” asked David impatiently.
As if to build suspense, Michael remained silent an instant before slowly articulating, “Detective Ed Salazar.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’m afraid I’m not. This morning I sent Sheila with a picture of him to the garage where Jack Moore used to work. The lady at the desk recognized him right away. Salazar was the cop who befriended Moore.”
Michael spent another five minutes explaining to David how he had found out Salazar was behind it all. By the end of his explanation, the detective sounded at least partially convinced.
Sheila walked through the door at the same moment Michael was hanging up. He quickly told her what he had found at the warehouse and let her in on his plan.
“You are a sneaky one, my big Teddy Bear,” she said, smiling. “But it just might work.”
He did not particularly like it when she called him a teddy bear, but he hadn’t particularly liked any of the other pet names she had tried on him either.
The wheels had been set in motion. He had just one more phone call to make before rescuing Olivia. He picked up the receiver and dialed Detective Samantha Lewis’ number.
Chapter 158
Katia was staring at her visitor from across a large cherrywood desk, which had been stained a dark crimson. The temperature in the room had plummeted ten degrees the second Samantha Lewis had entered the assistant DA’s office.
“To what do I owe this honor?” asked Katia, barely hiding the sarcasm in her voice. Lewis did not take the bait and simply answered in a weary tone, “I need both an arrest and a search warrant and I thought you might be able to help.”
Lewis had received a phone call from Michael Biörn an hour earlier. She had been very surprised to hear from the man in the first place, but after she had heard what Biörn had to say, there was simply no word to describe accurately Samantha’s blatant astonishment. It had taken some serious convincing for her to even admit the possibility he might be right—as opposed to simply out of his mind—but in the end she had agreed to do as he asked.
“Possibly,” answered Katia in a more professional voice. “Who are we arresting, and what evidence do you have?
A part of Samantha was praying for Biörn to be wrong; this was simply hitting too close to home. However, if he were wrong, Salazar would never forgive her for listening to him in the first place. She did not even want to start considering what would happen to her career in the case Biörn actually was full of shit. As if implicating a fellow officer of her pay grade was not bad enough, she was also involving Executive Assistant Chief Maxwell as a suspect in this affair. This of course was equal to career suicide and she knew it, but it was simply too late to change her mind.
Lewis presented Katia with all the pieces of the puzzle Biörn had given her and demonstrated to the best of her ability how well they all fitted together, all converging to point towards a same and unique individual: the mastermind of the whole scheme.
Katia Olveda switched from laughter to chuckles to impatient sighing before finally falling completely silent as Lewis got further and further into her surprisingly convincing demonstration.
“You do realize what this will do to your career if you are wrong?” asked Katia once Lewis concluded her demonstration. The concern in her voice sounded as fake as it was.
“I do,” replied Lewis, who was vividly aware of the consequences she was facing, and facing alone. Following Michael’s request, she had presented the evidence as if she had been the one to unearth them.
“At any rate, this is all circumstantial evidence Detective. You will never find a judge willing to deliver a warrant based on this heap of speculations,” said Katia in the voice of the one who knows. “I am sorry, but I can’t do anything for you.”
Chapter 159
After Lewis left the room, Katia waited three excruciatingly long minutes before jumping on the phone and dialing the Alpha’s number. She kept a prepaid cell phone in h
er purse for just this type of emergencies: one whose number could not be traced back to her.
“Hello?”
“She knows. Lewis knows. I don’t know how, but she figured it out!” erupted Katia over the phone.
“Calm down and tell me exactly what you mean.”
“I mean she knows everything. She knows about Maxwell, she knows about Fanning, she knows how you befriended Moore, and she knows you’re running the show,” answered Katia in a worried voice.
There was silence on the other end of the line while the Alpha tried to understand what had gone wrong. His plan had been perfectly executed; everything had fallen nicely into place. Jack’s mishap on the Sullivan assignment had been troublesome, but they had managed to use it to their advantage by turning Biörn and Clemens against each other. A great idea if ever there was one, since Biörn had wiped out three-quarters of the Houston pack by himself, effectively clearing the road for the shadow pack by making the task of finishing off the remnants of Clemens’ wolves a mere formality.
“How did you find out?” asked the Alpha after a while.
“Lewis just walked out of my office. She wanted a warrant for your arrest,” answered Katia nervously. “I told her the case was too weak. That I couldn’t do anything for her, but it will only buy you a little time. She’ll try to go over my head and convince a judge.”
“I wonder how she found out,” said the Alpha pensively.
“Never mind how she found out. You need to get out of town, and get rid of the girl. If they catch you with her tied up on your bed, they’ll add kidnapping to the charges against you and their case will be airtight. Trust me on that one.”
The Alpha knew Katia was right, but he still couldn’t comprehend how quickly things had gone so wrong. How had Lewis figured it out when she had been so oblivious until now? It simply made no sense.