Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3)

by Brad Magnarella

  13

  Berglund jumped out of the van when he saw us returning and ran up. “I heard the gunfire. Were you fighting the thing that took Caitlyn?”

  “No,” Takara said, tossing him his spent rifle.

  He bobbled it for a moment, the barrel nearly whacking him in the face, before he finally clamped it in his gloved hands. Takara continued past him and climbed into the driver seat of the van. She wasn’t happy about Berglund’s earlier comment that she be stuck on the roof, and I guessed she was even less happy about having to chauffeur Yoofi back to the lodge. Yoofi, who hadn’t said a word during our return, climbed meekly into the passenger seat with his staff.

  I stopped in front of Berglund, whose face was turning blotchy again. He looked wildly between us. I wasn’t going to bring up the clusterfuck with Yoofi’s gods, so I ignored his question about the shooting. “We have a lead on what might have taken her, but it means a trip to town. Can you give Sarah and me a lift?”

  “Town?” He stared at me. “Town? Town is the wrong direction, genius. That thing didn’t take her to town. It took her out there. Into the wild.” Spittle flew from his lips as he flung out an arm. “What about the werewolves? I thought you were going after them. I thought you were going to hunt them down and kill them. That’s what I’m paying you assholes for.”

  “You’re paying us to recover your girlfriend,” I snarled. “And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

  “Captain Wolfe made contact with the wolf shifters,” Sarah said, stepping forward. “We have reason to believe they’re not the killers, but they do appear to have information that will aid the mission.”

  I hadn’t planned to bring that up either, but it was out of the bag now.

  A sound escaped Berglund that sounded like a cross between a bark and a laugh. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” He rounded on me. “You’re telling me you had the wolves in your sights and you, what, you talked to them? And now you’re running to town on their say so?”

  Put that way it sounded crazy, but that was the gist.

  “The reps who spoke to you gave you assurances they shouldn’t have,” I said. “The wolves were a false lead. If we’re going to recover Caitlyn, it starts with finding out what took her.”

  Berglund narrowed his eyes past me, then checked the chamber of his rifle. “Give me some ammo.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re wasting time.”

  “Give me the silver ammo, goddammit. If you’re not going to do your job, then I am.”

  “You’re not getting silver ammo.”

  He threw his rifle to the ground and reached beneath the skirt of his jacket for a pistol he’d holstered to his thigh. Pulling it free, he marched past me.

  “They didn’t take Caitlyn,” I said to his back, “but if you go looking for a fight, they’ll rip you apart without thinking twice.”

  After twenty meters, Berglund stopped and stared into the dark trees. Snow fell silently around him. He stood there for a full minute, and then as if reason had finally taken hold, he turned and walked back toward us. Another case of needing to get an outburst out of his system.

  He headed toward his vehicle, but at the last moment he spun, face in a fist, and grabbed the handguard of my MP88. He jerked it while aiming the pistol at my head.

  “I’m paying you, now give me your fucking weapon!” he roared.

  I seized his pistol, twisted it from his grip, and cracked it across his face. He staggered back, a hand to his bleeding mouth.

  “Don’t you ever point a weapon at one of us again,” I said.

  When I took a step forward, he stumbled backwards and fell against the side of his SUV. He slapped himself upright, then ran around to the other side and climbed in. The engine roared. The tires churned up snow, sending the vehicle into a fish-tail. After several meters, the tires caught and the Suburban tore away. Sarah and I stood and watched the dwindling taillights.

  “I suppose we’re looking at end of mission,” she said.

  “We’ll see what he does,” I replied, doubting he’d hack off his nose to spite his face. We were his best chance, and I think somewhere inside all of that Type-A rage he still knew that. “But we should assume that our window to find Welch just got a lot smaller. We’ll drop Takara and Yoofi off at base, then head straight to town. Are you seeing anything, Rusty?”

  “No lady wolves,” he answered.

  “Keep looking. And have you been following the action?”

  He knew exactly what I was getting at: I was not going to let Beam shut us down.

  “Sure have, boss. I’ll get on it.”

  The town of Old Harbor was little more than a rutted intersection. One road headed straight for the piers, where a row of tackle shops and guide posts stood. The other paralleled the shore. Only a few people were out and about, the rest no doubt taking refuge from the weather. I’d half expected to find Berglund here, but I wasn’t picking up him or his vehicle.

  “Anything?” Sarah asked.

  I’d been sniffing the air as we drove in, but had caught no hint of the she-wolf. If we didn’t find her in town, I’d go back to where she had split from the pack and pick her scent up there.

  “Not yet,” I said. “But since we’re here, why don’t we go ahead and talk to Mayor Grimes, see what he knows.” I was also thinking about the sketchy vibe Yoofi had picked up earlier. His intuition was rarely wrong. Though I was still annoyed by the animal battle—a huge waste of time and ammo—I knew it would pay to follow up on his suspicions.

  Sarah pulled in front of a small house that served as the mayor’s office and we got out. We locked our large weapons in the cargo space and carried holstered sidearms. As we walked up to the front door, I opened my senses. The air smelled of salt water, gutted fish, and the metallic scent of the gathering storm.

  At the top of a short flight of steps, I reached over Sarah’s head and rapped a knuckle against the door. The young man who answered couldn’t have been older than eighteen. His gaunt face was smooth except for a dusting of stubble on his chin. He stared up at me in a way that said, I’ve never seen someone so frigging huge in my life, but I’m going to pretend like I’m not scared.

  He swallowed dryly. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m Sarah McKinnon—we met earlier. This is Captain Wolfe.”

  His head bobbled more than nodded at me. “I’m Sean.”

  “My meeting with your father was cut short and we have more questions,” Sarah said. “Can we speak to him?”

  “Yeah—I mean, no.” He finally pried his gaze from me and blinked at Sarah. “I mean he ain’t here. He and Shane are over at the Mustang.” I guessed he was referring to Shane Wabberson, the warden.

  “Where is that?” Sarah asked.

  Someone had been moving around behind the door, loading a wood stove. Now he pulled Sean from the doorway and stood in his place, a larger, more solidly built version of Sean. His older brother, from the looks and smells of him. He was wearing a thermal top pushed over his elbows with bits of wood and bark clinging to the front. His hair was matted, as if he’d recently woken up.

  “Just wait a few and he’ll be back,” he said.

  “It’s important we talk to him now,” I said.

  The young man’s mouth stretched into a grin that rivaled his dark eyes for recklessness. Unlike his brother, he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t scared. There was no fear in him.

  “My dad keeps a schedule, and if you’re not on it, you wait.”

  I remembered what Sarah had said about the locals not caring for outside authorities, and I was pretty sure that’s what we were dealing with. I pulled out my tablet and accessed the satellite map of Old Harbor. With a tap, lines demarcated properties, complete with business names and owner info. From there, it took all of two seconds to locate the Mustang.

  “It’s around the corner,” I said to Sarah.

  “What’s so fucking important that he can’t take a late lunch in peace?” the older br
other asked.

  “That’s our business,” I said.

  As Sarah and I descended the steps, I could sense him standing in the doorway behind us, muscles tense, eyes glaring at us. After another moment the door slammed shut. I could hear him chewing out his brother and even caught the sound of a head smack.

  “Interesting family,” I said to Sarah.

  “Sean assists his father in the office. I don’t know the story on his brother. There’s a photo of him in the file Centurion sent, but no info. His name’s Austin. Seems like a hothead.”

  “You think?”

  We walked toward the pier that stretched into Hudson Bay, the water choppy beneath the dark sky. The falling snow grayed out two fishermen hunched in heavy coats farther down the pier.

  The Mustang stood at the end of a line of businesses along the waterfront. Voices whooped above the sound of country music. As we approached, I could smell spilled beer, warm bodies, and the hot, oily drift of fry baskets. I opened the door for Sarah. We stepped into the damp heat of a typical roadhouse, a bar opposite us, pool tables and dart boards to one side, and dining on the other.

  As heads turned, the locals’ bearded and weather-beaten faces ranged from dull to inquisitive to hostile. Too many of the last for my comfort. I marked them in my mind.

  “Over there,” Sarah said.

  I looked toward a corner booth and recognized Mayor Grimes’s clean-shaven face, dark hair pulled into a ponytail. I couldn’t see the face of the man across from him, but I guessed it was Shane Wabberson, the warden.

  Grimes looked up from a burger and a can of beer as we approached. He had the same eyes as his older son; the recklessness was just better hidden. “Sarah,” he said, hesitating an instant before breaking into a smile that also looked a lot like his older son’s. He turned to me. I was used to people reacting to my size and the bulky apparatus concealing my head, but he didn’t flinch. “And I’m guessing you’re Captain Wolfe. How’s it going out there? Finding anything?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” I said, accepting his handshake. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “No, but I’ll make a few,” he said.

  He came off as friendly on the surface, but I picked up an edge of aggression. It was written in the thin lines around his eyes. Grimes didn’t want us here. More than that, he resented our presence.

  “Shane,” he said, “would you mind?”

  “Not at all.” The big, blond-bearded man gathered his plate and beer can and stood.

  As he sidled past, I asked, “How are your aerial sweeps going?”

  “They’re going,” he said and continued past me.

  Make that two officials who didn’t want us here.

  Sarah scooted into the booth where Wabberson had been sitting. I squeezed in after her. Not the most discreet meeting place, but the rowdy noises buffered us.

  “So what’s up?” Grimes asked.

  I had a couple of questions for him, but I decided to wait until Sarah had exhausted hers. Mine had a good chance of being meeting-enders.

  “You said your wife was Old Harbor’s resident historian,” Sarah said, “that she’s interviewed old Cree?”

  “That’s right.” He looked between us as though trying to guess where this was going.

  “Did she ever come across anything about a curse?” Sarah asked.

  “A curse?”

  “Yes, a legend about a curse.”

  “Nothing that I’m aware of, but I can sure ask her.”

  “How about anything in the history having to do with serial killings, mass killings—anything of that nature?”

  A light went on in the mayor’s eyes and he grinned in a way I was already starting to dislike. “Oh, I get it. You’re trying to tie the recent killings with something in Old Harbor’s past, aren’t you?”

  “We’re exploring all avenues,” Sarah said.

  Grimes took a swallow of beer and sucked his teeth in thought. “Can’t say that rings a bell either. But like I said, I can ask her. Waste of time, though. Already told you what we’re dealing with.”

  A rabid bear, my ass, I thought.

  “Can we talk to her?” Sarah asked.

  The mayor’s eyes hardened, and he lowered his voice until it verged on menacing. “I’ve already opened Old Harbor to your organization, and I’m sitting here now willing to talk to you. But my wife is off limits. Do you understand?”

  I felt my hackles bristling at the challenge in his words.

  “But you’ll ask her?” Sarah pressed.

  “I already said I would. Twice now.”

  “Call us as soon as you do,” she said. “You have our number.”

  “Sure, sure. Now if that’s all …” I could see he had no intention of talking to his wife or calling us. He raised a hand, his tongue curled behind his lips in preparation to whistle Wabberson back to the table, but I spoke up first.

  “It’s not.”

  Grimes’s tongue relaxed into his mouth and he lowered his hand. His chuckle was without humor. “I was wondering if you were going to say anything, or if you were just the hired muscle.”

  “What do you think is killing people in your town?”

  “I’ve already been over this.” When I kept the visor of my helmet trained on him, he sighed. “A bear. A big bear, probably a Kodiak, probably rabid. This is wild country. It happens.”

  “Not according to Centurion.”

  He gave a skeptical snort. “So they say.”

  “Why don’t you want our help?” I asked.

  “Do you know how much your people were charging?”

  “I’m talking about now, with someone else paying.”

  He looked around and let out a sigh. “It’s not me, it’s the people. They came up here to be left alone and do for themselves. The only reason I got Shane is to keep the feds off our backs. That’s what the people elected me for. So how does it look now with me letting paramilitaries come in and run amok? Listen, I want the killings to stop as much as anyone. Hell, my son Austin was best friends with Connor Tench.” He was referring to the first victim, the young man in the military.

  “But better us than the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, right?”

  Grimes blinked at me one too many times. “What are you talking about?”

  Earlier I’d believed his reason for playing down the killings and rejecting Centurion’s offer was so as not to scare off the fishing and hunting tourists. That might have been part of it, but something in his answers, his body language, the defensive scents emanating from him were telling me that wasn’t the whole story. This felt more like self preservation.

  “Why would I call in the Mounties for a bear attack?”

  “But you don’t really believe it was a bear attack,” I said.

  “Why in the hell would you say something like that?”

  “Because it’s true.” I didn’t know that for sure—a lot of people doubted the existence of Prod 1s—but I had him backpedaling. I leaned forward. “What’s really killing those people?”

  When he narrowed his eyes at me, the recklessness in them began jumping like a live wire. “I don’t know what the hell kind of game you’re playing, but I can play it right back. You’re only here because I gave the okay. I can throw your asses right out of Dodge. How does that sound?”

  It sounded like he was hiding something.

  Sarah nudged me hard with her leg. “Thank you for your time, Mayor,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I growled. “Thanks.”

  I got up and led the way back toward the door.

  “What was that?” Sarah demanded, catching up.

  “Wanted to rattle his cage. See how he’d respond.”

  “Are you sure you’re not trying to get the mission canceled?”

  “Just the opposite. I’m trying to…” My voice trailed off, and I held up a hand for silence. Through the noise of the joint, my hearing picked out a man’s raspy voice from the direction of the bar.

 
“…come about the killings,” he was saying. “And I, for one, welcome them. There’s a killer out there, all right, and it ain’t no rabid bear.”

  I turned enough to scan the bar in my peripheral vision until I spotted the man. He was sitting with his stool turned toward us. Long, knotted gray hair merged into a beard that fell halfway down the chest of a dirty parka. Though there were others around him, none of them were listening.

  “Saw the thing with my own pair of eyes,” he announced, and threw back a shot of whiskey.

  Sarah, who couldn’t hear what I could, finally asked, “What is it?”

  “Wait for me outside,” I said, and made my way toward the old man.

  According to the files Centurion had sent us, no one in town had any information on the killings. Made me wonder how hard they had looked. By the time I reached the old man, he had twisted back toward the bar and was waving a hand at the bartender. The hard-bitten woman seemed to make a point of ignoring him. I sidled into a slot beside him.

  “Get you a drink?” I asked.

  He turned and blinked up at me, his bloodshot eyes swimming into focus. The man smelled horrible, like something shot in the woods and left to die. “Oh, hey, you’re one of them.”

  “Captain Wolfe,” I said. “And you’re…?”

  “Jasper,” he said, clasping my offered hand. “Jasper St Croix.”

  I held up a twenty, and the bartender came over. “Another shot for Jasper,” I said.

  She looked my helmet over with slanted eyes but took my twenty. She returned with my change and a shot glass sloshing with whiskey. She left both on the bar and moved off, never having said a word.

  “What about you?” Jasper asked me. “Why not lose the helmet and wet your whistle?”

  A wolfman pounding shots? Yeah, Old Harbor would love that. “I’m good, thanks. Hey, I caught you saying something a minute ago about the thing we’re hunting. You saw it?”

  He’d brought the shot glass partway up his beard, but now he stopped and set it back on the bar. “Damn right I saw it. Saw it with my own pair of eyes. And it wasn’t no bear.”