Warren patted the side of the metal construction. “Here she is. I’m glad I kept her around. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Gabriel and George set the guitar cases on a motionless conveyer belt and flipped their latches. They opened the cases at the same time, revealing the silver gleaming inside: six swords divided between the cases.
Warren moved closer to the cases, a mixture of dread and awe on his features. “The symbols of our persecution. I know they have no real power, but I’m afraid to touch them. How many of our kind have they killed over the centuries?”
Gabriel clasped the handle of one sword and raised the heavy blade. “That’s why they have to be destroyed. Their symbolism is their power.”
The six Blades of Salvation had been forged during the Spanish Inquisition and had been wielded by the Brotherhood of Torquemada. Hundreds of Wolves in human form and hundreds of humans accused of being Wolves had been executed with them.
Funded in part by the Catholic church, the secret, modern Brotherhood had wiped out the Wolves in Europe, then set its sights on the US. A group of six men and women had entered New Jersey with the swords in their possession. They murdered Jason Lourdes, his parents, and the parents of Rhonda Wilson, Jason’s girlfriend, and they kidnapped Rhonda. NYPD assigned Tony Mace to head a joint task force with the FBI to stop the Brotherhood and prevent the public from discovering the Wolves’ existence. The swords had come into Gabriel’s possession after the battle in Newark.
Warren gazed at the silver blade in Gabriel’s hands. “If the Brotherhood’s really finished . . .”
“The Brotherhood’s assassins are dead, and the church has publicly denied any association with it,” George said. “But a society that’s functioned in secret for centuries has supporters and believers. These must be destroyed now.”
Warren nodded. “Let’s get on with it, then.” He slid open the heavy front door on the oven.
Gabriel tossed the sword into the oven, and George and Warren carried the rest of the Blades and threw them clattering inside the metal box. After Gabriel gave the weapons a last look, Warren pulled the door down. He threw a series of switches, and the oven rumbled to life.
“Silver melts at 1,763 degrees,” Warren said. “I’ve set this oven’s temperature at 2,000.”
The room grew hot.
“What should I do with the melted silver?” Warren said.
“Bury it,” George said.
“No, sell it,” Gabriel said. “We’re going to need all the money we can get our hands on.”
Four
After Willy’s burial, Mace strode into One Police Plaza as if he worked there, flashing his shield at the police guards, and made his way to the elevators. It wasn’t long ago that he had been treated like a pariah in these halls of power, banished to Floyd Bennett Field to administrate the K-9 Unit.
Mace rode the elevator to the seventh floor and walked along the corridor, the squeaks of his rubber-soled shoes echoing on the tile floor. He opened a door and entered a wide anteroom where a civilian female with red hair worked at a computer.
“Can I help you?” the woman said in a thick Long Island accent.
“Tony Mace to see Jim Mint.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“He’ll see me.”
The woman picked up her phone and pressed a button. “Mr. Mace is here to see you.”
“Captain Mace,” Mace said. He wore his dress blues, for Christ’s sake.
“Yes, sir.” She hung up. “You can go right in. Do you know the way?”
“I do.” Mace crossed the room to another hallway and opened an office door.
Jim Mint rose behind his desk. “Tony, what are you doing here?”
Mace entered and closed the door. “It’s all over the news that I led the raid in Newark. The task force isn’t a secret anymore.”
Jim sat. “That’s only fair, isn’t it? You were the golden boy until the Manhattan Werewolf came along. Now you’ve redeemed yourself. You and your people did well.”
Mace eased himself into a chair facing the desk. “I didn’t take the assignment to reignite my career. I was pretty happy living a simpler life. I took it because my experience with Janus Farel made me the best man for the job.”
“Well, it paid off. In a sense, you’re vindicated.”
“Why, because my superiors now know I told the truth? You guys didn’t make me the face of this investigation to throw me a bone. You did it because there was no way to cover up what went down this time. When sword-wielding maniacs blow up New York City buildings, the public demands answers. My team provided a convenient solution.”
Jim spread his hands apart. “There’s nothing wrong with that. You had a job to do, and you did it.”
“And Diega and Shelly got killed in the process.”
Jim’s expression turned serious. “That’s the chance we take every day. It comes with the job.”
Mace looked around the office. The bosses didn’t risk their lives. “My wife’s involvement only sweetened the pot.”
“It’s a sensational story; I’ll give you that. How is she?”
“Resting.”
Mint’s voice softened. “That was some send-off, wasn’t it? I always get the chills during the salute.”
“Since the whole world knows my team took down the Brotherhood, there’s no reason to continue this cloak-and-dagger routine any longer, is there? If my banishment’s been lifted, I should be free to walk in and out of here as I please.”
“Not so fast. You’re still on assignment, and that assignment remains classified.”
“Spying on Class Ls.”
“Identifying them and tracking their activities.”
“What if we can’t find any?”
“If they’re out there, you’ll find them. I have faith in you. Jason Lourdes was in mid-Transformation when he was killed. His parents were in Class L form when we found their corpses. Begin with the parents’ friends and coworkers, any organizations they belonged to. Build a list, then start bringing people in for genetic testing.”
“You promised me more men.”
“That’s what this is about?”
“Norton’s in D.C. I’ve only got three people, and Williams needs a partner for any fieldwork.”
“Assigning more people to your task force means bringing them into the fold. We’re trying to minimize the number of people who know these things exist. Norton will be back.”
“I need more people.”
Jim sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, but it isn’t as easy as you think. This is a joint task force. I’m not calling the shots. FBI has a say in this too. I’m sure they’ll assign a new partner to Norton, and then you can pair Williams with Smalls.”
“We’d also like to know if there’s an end date for this assignment.”
“What do you think? If you’re to be believed—and the feds sure seem to—there’s a secret species of shape-shifters walking around under our noses, and we’re standing on the front line. If you’d never voiced your theory about Janus Farel, you wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
It always came back to Farel. The monster’s killing spree had attracted the Brotherhood in the first place.
“Any word on the Domini brothers?” Jim said.
“No.”
“They’ve disappeared just like their sister. Convenient, isn’t it? Find any of them, and you’ll find more Class Ls.”
Mace remained silent.
“How’s the Wilson girl doing?”
Mace knew Mint had an ulterior reason for asking. “She’s still in hiding from the press. I’m told she’s staying with friends.”
“You heard this from Detective Williams?”
“That’s right. I assigned Karol to be her liaison.”
“I don’t like it. We should know where she is at all times.”
Mace didn’t like it, either, but for different reasons.
“The Brotherhood came here to kill Class Ls,
and they took that girl prisoner.”
“Rhonda’s DNA test shows she’s 100 percent human. What remained of her parents’ corpses after the Brotherhood blew up their house was human.”
“Then why take her?”
“She witnessed Jason Lourdes’s execution. Maybe they didn’t want to kill a human. They kidnapped Cheryl too. Do you think she’s a Class L?”
“Of course not.”
“Williams took the genetic test. Every member of my team did. We passed with flying colors.” Karol had explained to Mace that if a Wolf provided materials for genetic testing while in human form, the DNA would appear human. He kept that to himself.
“Find the Dominis.”
Mace parked his Jeep Cherokee in the lot of the Fifth Precinct headquarters on Elizabeth Street and walked through the crowded streets of Chinatown to a four-story brick building on Mott Street. He unlocked the door, then punched in a code on the alarm keypad and boarded the elevator.
On the fourth floor, he used a key card to open a gray metal door. He had grown to hate this place as much as Candice did. Passing the empty reception station, he entered the bull pen. Karol looked up from her cubicle, and Candice and Landry looked up from the desks in the office they shared. Shelly’s cubicle and Willy’s desk served as grim reminders of their losses. Space heaters hummed.
“You look lonely out here by yourself,” Mace said to Karol. He needed to speak to her alone.
“I’m getting used to it,” Karol said.
Landry came out of his office. “Any word on reinforcements?”
“I’m working on it. Mint wants us to compile a list of all the Lourdes’s known friends, coworkers, and associations.”
Landry held his gaze as if waiting for additional information. “We’ll get right on that.”
Mace walked into his glass-faced office, hung his coat, and sat at his desk, where he opened his e-mail and called Cheryl. “What’s happening on the home front?”
“I just put Patty down for her nap.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t call earlier.”
“How could you? I saw you on TV.”
“They carried the funeral live?”
“Manhattan Minute and every local station. I think the networks may have too; they carried Shelly’s. It’s the story of the day.”
Mace’s stomach tightened again. The increased press coverage, especially in the national media, made his covert operation harder to run.
I’m going to get an ulcer.
For as long as he could remember, he had suffered pains in his body when he grew tense or excited, but no doctor had ever been able to diagnose them.
“Are you sorry you weren’t in on the action?” he said.
“I couldn’t have gotten any closer to the real action.” Cheryl kept her tone light, but Mace knew her experience with the Wolves and Torquemadans had left deep emotional scars on her psyche. “I told Colleen I won’t be going back.”
“How did she take the news?”
“She told me to take a six-month leave. I told her I’d made up my mind.”
Before her abduction, Cheryl had wanted Mace to resign from NYPD. Now that wouldn’t be possible. She wouldn’t even be eligible for unemployment benefits.
In the bull pen, Candice crossed the squad room and disappeared into the reception area.
“You were working too hard anyway,” he said.
“I haven’t told Anna yet.”
Anna Sanchez, the twenty-year-old daughter of their downstairs tenants, worked as their nanny.
“Why don’t you hold off on that for a while? You need some rest, and I’m sure you could use help around the house.”
“If I’m not working . . .”
Mace stiffened as Candice led Carl Rice into the squad room. “Cut her down to part-time, then. She can leave after you put Patty down every day. Our savings account can handle it while she looks for other work.”
Karol rose from her desk, and Landry exited his office. Karol moved to Carl, who said something to her and gestured to Mace. Karol and Landry turned to Mace, who raised his hand palm out.
“I’ve got to run. Something just came up,” Mace said.
“Something serious?”
“No.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” Mace hung up and walked into the bull pen.
Carl stood with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat, smiling. “So, this is where you do whatever it is that you do.” He looked around the squad room. “It’s very humble.”
“You followed me from the funeral, didn’t you?”
“Nice to see you’re allowed back in One PP again. Did you meet with the big man himself?”
“No comment.”
“Probably not. He needs plausible deniability, so you probably deal with a trusted middleman. How does that line go in The Godfather? You needed a buffer. Is Seely your buffer? Or does he need plausible deniability too?”
Mark Seely was the chief of operations. Jim was the deputy chief.
“No comment,” Mace said. “Except you’re thinking of The Godfather II. How did you get into the building?”
“You’re not the only tenant. Your neighbors have limited English, or at least they pretended to when I asked about a police operation in the building, so your secret is safe. For the moment.” Carl nodded at Mace’s subordinates. “Is this your whole team? You’re kind of shorthanded.”
Mace said nothing.
“I thought this was a joint NYPD and FBI task force.”
“The task force is closed. This is a mop-up operation. All we’re doing is working with federal agencies to make sure they know everything they need to know about the Brotherhood of Torquemada. Any information related to what we’re doing here is classified. Contact Craig Lindberg if you have any burning questions.”
“I tried several times. The esteemed commissioner of public information isn’t very keen on sharing information with the press.”
Mace shrugged, which caused pain to flare in his left shoulder, where Valeria Rapero, a member of the Brotherhood of Torquemada, had stabbed him with her sword in Newark.
“I guess I can understand why no one wants to go on the record about werewolves,” Carl said.
Damn it. Mace showed no reaction.
“Would you like to invite me into your office?”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Then I’ll do all the talking.”
Keeping his eyes on Carl, Mace motioned to his office. As Carl proceeded in that direction, Mace looked at Candice, gestured at her dress blues.
“What could I do?” she said. “We need a civilian receptionist to keep inquiring minds away.”
Mace followed Carl into his office and closed the door. The reporter didn’t wait for an invitation to sit.
“Jesus Christ,” Carl said, unbuttoning his coat. “It’s freezing out there and boiling in here.”
“You have five minutes,” Mace said.
Carl smiled. “It hurts me that you haven’t been returning my calls.”
“Why should I start now?”
“Touché. I’m sure your wife told you about the conversation she and I had the day of her big interview with Rodrigo Gomez, right before her abduction.”
“You mean when you stalked her?”
“We just share an affinity for overpriced coffee. How is she, anyway?”
“She’s fine.”
“That interview was pretty hairy, if you know what I mean. She must have told you that I know you met with Gomez two years earlier during the height of the Manhattan Werewolf scare.”
Mace feigned a bored expression.
“What a coincidence that in your wife’s big televised interview, the Full Moon Killer announced he was a werewolf.”
Mace checked his watch.
“But he wasn’t the Manhattan Werewolf. How could he have been? He was already in Sing Sing, where you put him. But isn’t it funny how those killings just stopped?”
“I understand you theorize I had something to do with that.”
“You were hot on the case and at the top of your game. The next thing the world knew, you were sent to the K-9 Unit on Floyd Bennett Field. Why would a rising star like you suddenly get benched? And why would the killings stop at the same time?”
“Don’t forget the National Guards came to town.”
“Just like they did last week. And now they’re gone again. The difference is, this time we know that the people they wanted were stopped—by you.”
“I had more than a little help.”
“If you say so. The thing I wonder is, why were you put in charge of this operation? What did you do to earn a reprieve? Why did the powers that be pull you out of mothballs?”
Mace stared without answering.
“I have other questions, of course. We’ve been led to believe the Brotherhood of Torquemada was a terrorist organization, but no one’s revealed their objective beyond decapitating a teenage boy and kidnapping his sweetheart.”
“They blew up and torched two buildings, two houses, and an SUV and decapitated several people, not just the boy. I’d say their objective was clear: to cause a panic.”
“May I quote you on that?”
“How can you quote me when I made no comment?”
“The buildings they blew up were co-owned by Gabriel and Raphael Domini, the brothers of Angela Domini, who’s wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of John Stalk two years ago. The Manhattan Werewolf case again.”
Mace sat silent.
“Coincidentally, several witnesses claimed to have seen a wolflike creature disembowel and decapitate Stalk on the fire escape of a building across the street from the Dominis’ bookstore. You were at the scene of the crime, though I’ve been unable to find any statement from you on the record.”
“I have no comment.”
“Did a werewolf kill John Stalk? Or any kind of wolf, for that matter?”
“No comment.”
“Did you kill the Manhattan Werewolf?”
No answer.
“Why were you put in charge of this secret task force to stop the Brotherhood of Torquemada?”
The Frenzy Wolves Page 3