The Frenzy Wolves

by Gregory Lamberson

  “Carl Rice went on TV and showed video of our HQ and Gabriel and Raphael Domini turning into Wolves at some meeting in the Bronx.”

  Oh no, Karol thought.

  “We’ve also got four stiffs in a wrecking yard not far from your place. Hector and Suzie are heading to the crime scene now. Tony wants you on point.”

  “Copy that. Text me the address?”

  “As soon as we hang up. Don’t forget to clock in.”

  Karol hung up, turned on the light, and dressed. Then she went into the living room, turned on the TV, and sat at her computer. She logged on to the NYPD website and signed in. As a member of the task force, she didn’t have to leave her weapon at work. Carl Rice’s report came on Manhattan Minute News, and she watched it in dumbfounded silence. She had never seen footage of Wolves before; as far as she knew, none existed. But there were Gabriel and Raphael, fighting in Wolf Form on television for everyone to see.

  A strange ringing filled the house: one of the burners Gabriel had given her. She returned to her bedroom and took the call.

  “Have you seen it?” Gabriel said.

  “Just now.”

  “Rice followed you to Kim’s deli this afternoon. He must have stayed and followed Kim when he left.”

  Karol felt as if she had been slapped. “Oh, God, no. It’s my fault?”

  “Whose fault it is doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Rice didn’t name you in his report, but he’s going to. You have to run tonight.”

  “I just got called to a crime scene. Gomez killed four people not far from here.”

  “Forget it. Let someone else handle it. I want you gone. Kim’s already left town with his family.”

  Karol swallowed. “Even if Rice connects me to the deli, he can’t prove I’m a Wolf. There’s nothing they can do to me.”

  “They can make you disappear and torture you until they learn what they want.”

  “Right now, I’m your only source in NYPD. You need me where I am. The whole pack does.”

  “You could become a liability at the drop of a hat.”

  “You’ll have to trust my instincts. I’ll know when I need to go, if I need to go.”

  “Unfortunately, Rhonda’s in your care. Rice’s report stopped just short of branding her a Wolf. People will reach that conclusion anyway.”

  Rice is the problem, Karol thought. Then she dismissed the thought as quickly as it had formed. “If Rhonda runs, it will be an admission on our part.”

  “Either way, your new relationship with her spells trouble.”

  “I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Throw this phone away.”

  “I will.”

  Karol glanced at Rhonda’s door. She cared about the young woman despite her petulant attitude, which Karol understood. In the kitchen, she wiped her fingerprints from the burner phone, then put on her coat and gloves and slipped the burner into one pocket and her cell into the other.

  Outside the building, she ignored the teenagers loitering near the door. One of them howled like a wolf, and the others laughed.

  Mace and Norton sat in a conference room with Colleen and Rice while they waited for the footage to be produced for them.

  “Why do you even want this footage?” Carl said. “Aren’t you just going to deny its authenticity?”

  “There’s no such thing as werewolves,” Mace said. “But your broadcast made other assertions regarding the Brotherhood of Torquemada. That makes it relevant to our investigation.”

  Carl pointed at Mace. “There was nothing in that report related to the Brotherhood that you didn’t already know.”

  “We’ll be the judge of that,” Norton said.

  Mace looked at Colleen. “I’m surprised at you for running that report. It was irresponsible. If people believe what they saw in that footage, it could cause a panic.”

  “If it was such bad reporting, why did all the other channels pick it up?” Carl’s voice grew louder. “No one is shying away from the truth. It’s a new day and age, courtesy of yours truly.”

  “I have to agree with Carl,” Colleen said. “There were no edits in that footage. We checked it out thoroughly. It was valid reporting.”

  “When Cheryl worked here, that story never would have reached the air. I think you’ve lowered your standards. Do you honestly believe the men who chloroformed you and kidnapped Cheryl were chasing werewolves?”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Colleen said. “I only know that what’s on the memory card is real.”

  “Why were you staking out that delicatessen in the first place?” Norton said to Carl.

  “I don’t have to answer that. Freedom of the press. I don’t have to name my sources. I won’t name them.”

  “We’d like you to come downtown to answer some questions,” Mace said.

  “Downtown to your task force?”

  “You know the address.”

  “I’ll consider your offer in the morning. I have a lot of communications to send first.”

  A production assistant entered and set two DVDs on the table. “Here’s the broadcast version, and here’s the unedited footage.”

  “Thank you, Brian,” Colleen said.

  After Brian exited, Norton slid a pair of documents across the table. “Please sign these, and I’ll note your compliance with the warrants.”

  Mace looked at Rice. “May I speak to you alone for a minute?”

  “Two years of dodging my calls, and now you want to talk?”

  “I let you into my office yesterday.”

  “I don’t have an office yet.”

  “You can use mine,” Colleen said.

  Carl rose and held the door open for Mace. “After you, Captain.”

  Mace exited the conference room and entered Colleen’s office. Carl followed and closed the door. They remained standing.

  “What’s on your mind?” Carl said.

  “I won’t waste your time. I just want to make sure you’re cognizant of how many people were killed by the Brotherhood of Torquemada.”

  “So? You and your people killed them all.”

  “Did we? What makes you so certain?”

  “Even if you didn’t, terrorists love publicity.”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say that Gabriel and Raphael Domini are what you say they are. Do you think they love publicity?”

  “I think you just warned me that werewolves might have something against me.”

  “I didn’t say anything about werewolves. I only want you to be careful, okay? Seriously. I’ve seen too many bodies.”

  “If Gabriel and Raphael pose a threat to me, you’d better arrest them.”

  “According to your story, we have a lot more people to worry about than them. I’d hate to be the one to tell my wife if something happened to you. I’m offering you police protection.”

  Carl burst into laughter. “Oh, really? You mean police spies, don’t you? Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll pass. Say hello to Cheryl for me. Tell her I said barred windows don’t suit her.”

  Mace turned and left.

  Karol dumped the burner phone in a Dumpster ten blocks away from the wrecking yard, then circled back to the crime scene. She saw four police cars parked around a garage and recognized the Crime Scene Unit van that Hector and Suzie drove. She parked her SUV, got out, and showed her shield to a PO near the crime scene tape. A dozen spectators stood on the sidewalk across the street, even at this hour and with nothing to see.

  “Back inside the yard,” the PO said.

  Snow fell as Karol walked around the garage to the field bordering Pelham Bay Park. On the other side of the fence a Doberman crossed the pavement, then stopped in its tracks and turned tail. Karol had grown accustomed to strange reactions from dogs ever since she had been a child.

  Flares burned on the ground at the mouth of the wrecking yard, and another PO stood watch there. Karol showed him her shield and followed more flares between rows o
f stacked vehicles until she reached a clearing. Hector and Suzie measured a blood spatter near a smoldering rusted barrel. On the perimeter of the scene were two POs and two DATF detectives. Snowflakes descended onto the corpses on the ground and turned red.

  “Hola, Karol,” Hector said. “I guess they called in the hometown home girl.”

  Karol entered the perimeter. “I see four vics.”

  “One female and three males,” Hector said. “The female was just a girl, thirteen or fourteen.”

  “Who were they?”

  Hector aimed a thumb over his shoulder at the DATF detectives. “According to these guys, they ran with Big Kwamie’s gang.”

  Karol stared at a man whose head had almost been chewed off, his dreadlocks splayed out on the ground around it like the petals of a flower. “Jamaicans.”

  “Maybe our boy Gomez likes his gonja,” Hector said.

  Karol crouched at the man’s side, her nostrils flaring as she sniffed around his corpse. She smelled Wolf scent, but it didn’t belong to Gomez. She didn’t recognize it.

  “What are you doing?” Hector said to her.

  “I’m trying to empathize with the vic. Maybe I can understand why the perp killed him.”

  Hector glanced at the moon in the cloudy sky. “Yeah? You can do that? I think we all know why Gomez killed him.”

  Karol rose and crossed to another corpse. This one belonged to another man with dreadlocks, but he had only half a face. His right forearm had been snapped in two and relieved of its flesh. His chest had been ripped open and his throat ripped out. A Glock lay on the ground, spattered with blood. She kneeled beside the dead man, and it took only seconds for her to recognize the scent lingering around the wounds.

  Oh, my God, she thought. Rhonda.

  Twenty-Four

  Carl and Colleen sat in Colleen’s office after Mace and Norton had left.

  “Do you want to go out for that drink now to celebrate?” Carl said.

  “To celebrate or mourn my career?” Colleen said.

  “Your career isn’t over, darling. It’s just beginning.”

  “Stop calling me that. It’s reverse sexual harassment. I think I’ve made a colossal mistake.”

  “Learn to live with regret and bask in success.”

  Colleen gave him a serious look. “Why were you staking out that deli?”

  “I’d rather not say yet.” Carl stood. “It’s part of my next big story, information to be revealed when this one dies down a little.”

  “Oh, God.” Colleen poured herself a drink.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. What time shall I come in?”

  “Let’s say noon. But call first, in case we’ve both been fired.” Colleen gulped her scotch.

  “I’ve got a contract.” Carl draped his coat over one arm. He turned in the doorway. “Do I get an office?”

  “No, you get Cheryl’s old cubicle.”

  “I’ll take it. I think we should do a live remote from the community center. In the daylight, of course.” Carl whistled as he walked through the newsroom and kept whistling as he waited for the elevator. Then his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he took it out. “Hello, John,” he said in a cheery voice. “What can I do for you?”

  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?” John Beaudoin said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for two hours.”

  The elevator door opened, and Carl boarded it. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been busy. What’s doing?”

  “I want you to rewrite your article to include your little adventure tonight. Congratulations. You’ve made the front page. We’re running your story as is, with a transcript of your broadcast.”

  “Which broadcast are you referring to?”

  “Do you want to play games, or do you want to make this work?”

  “I love playing games, but I like working more.” The elevator door opened, and he walked through the lobby.

  “I’d like fifteen hundred words by noon tomorrow.”

  “How about three o’clock? I have an engagement in the morning, and I have to report to MMN at noon. Three will still give you plenty of time to make the afternoon edition.”

  “I guess I don’t have any choice.”

  “No, you don’t. And fifteen hundred words is fine, but I want fifteen hundred words every week.”

  “A column?”

  “It’s that or nothing.”

  “Agreed, you extortionist. With one provision: if this story of yours is proven a hoax, the deal is off. Capisce?”

  “I’ll expect a contract before I deliver my piece.”

  John hung up.

  Laughing, Carl exited the building and hailed a taxi.

  Mace drove uptown to the Bronx.

  “Rice is a real charmer,” Norton said beside him. “What did you say to him?”

  “I offered him police protection, which he declined.”

  “You don’t think he’s in danger, do you?”

  “From Gabriel’s people? No way. But I don’t know Raphael, and now Gomez is in town.”

  “If any of them kill him, it will only convince people he was right.”

  “Then we’d better keep the arrogant sleazeball alive.”

  Parked emergency vehicles appeared in the distance.

  “Who’s working this?” Norton said.

  “Hector, Suzie, and Karol.” He switched off the engine and got out, then showed his ID to a PO, who nodded toward the wrecking yard.

  A pair of police officers carried a gurney toward them from the field.

  Mace raised one hand. “Just a minute.”

  The POs stopped.

  Mace unzipped the body bag, allowing snowflakes to land on the features of a teenage black girl. “Jesus.” He zipped the bag again.

  The POs carried the gurney away.

  “Let’s not forget what we’re dealing with,” Norton said.

  “I never do.”

  A Doberman unleashed a series of loud barks from a few feet away on the other side of the fence. Both of them flinched before resuming their trek.

  “What was it like facing Janus Farel?”

  Mace felt snowflakes melting on his cheeks. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “Worse than what we faced in Newark?”

  “We faced men and women in Newark. The only Wolves there helped us.”

  “Until Raphael and his mini-pack showed up. I don’t mind telling you that scared me. They could have torn us apart.”

  “Seeing them is scary; fighting them is worse. I still have nightmares about Farel. I don’t ever want to fight one of those things again. It was a miracle I survived. They’re strong, fast, and ferocious.”

  “I did see Gabriel and Karol in action.”

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like to have one of them in your face. Pray you never do.”

  They entered the wrecking yard.

  “And yet you want to save them,” Norton said.

  “I owe Gabriel my life. So do you. Never forget that.”

  “Gabriel and Karol, yes. What about the rest of them?”

  “They’re benevolent.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because Gabriel and Karol say they are.”

  “Have you met any others?”

  “One. Gabriel’s sister.”

  “And where does she fit on the Domini scale of benevo-lence?”

  “She saved my life too.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been lucky.”

  “Maybe.”

  The glare of work lights brought them to the crime scene. Three bodies remained on the ground.

  Hector came over to them. “It’s our boy, all right. It has to be. These bodies are just like the ones from the Manhattan Werewolf case and like two of the three at Sing Sing.”

  “Four of them,” Norton said. “All armed?”

  “Nines all around,” Hector said.

  “Who found the bodies?” Mace said.

  Karol walked ove
r to them. “A neighbor reported gunshots coming from this area.”

  Mace noticed Karol appeared shaken. “Any line on the victims?”

  “DATF says these are Big Kwamie’s boys,” Hector said. “This may have been a drug spot.”

  Mace frowned. Why would Gomez attack drug dealers in the Bronx?

  “May I speak to you alone, Captain?” Karol said.

  “Sure.” Mace turned and led Karol back the way he had come. Once out of earshot of the other cops, he faced her. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Gomez didn’t do this.”

  Mace raised his eyebrows.

  “His scent isn’t on any of those bodies. It was Wolves. As many as five of them. But Gomez wasn’t one of them.”

  “Do you recognize any of the scents?”

  Karol shook her head.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Gabriel wouldn’t order an attack like this. It wouldn’t make sense for Raphael to, either.”

  “Maybe it was self-defense. Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Anything else?”

  Karol seemed hesitant. “It’s my fault Rice got the footage. I went to that deli in his report to relay a message. Rice must have followed me from the squad room.”

  “We just picked up Rice’s unedited footage.”

  Karol stiffened. “If I’m on it . . .”

  “I know.”

  She hesitated. “Is there any chance it can disappear?”

  “It’s only a copy. The footage still exists.”

  Karol’s features wilted. “Will you give me a heads-up what you find on it?”

  “I’ll do my best. Maybe you should consider running now.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You might want to pack your bags to be safe. Tell Rhonda to do the same. Even if you escape this, she may not. It’s just a matter of time before we have to bring her in.”

  “Can we go to the station now and watch that footage?”

  “That’s my plan. Maybe you should stay here. I’ll call you. Even if you’re not on it, Rice still knows you went to that deli.”

  “I know. But if he doesn’t have proof . . .”

  “I hope you paid for whatever you bought there with cash.”