by Craig Zerf
He nodded. ‘Thank you.’
Em smiled, ran to the end of the alleyway, leaped onto a second floor balcony, turned, waved and disappeared.
On top of the roofs once again she opened her mind, felt the pull and moved.
Within the next two hours she had stopped two more muggings, thwarted a car theft and prevented a smash and grab robbery at a jewelry store.
She was busy looking down at two armed men as they approached a late night pawn shop when Troy appeared next to her, materializing out of the dark in full Wolfman mode. He said nothing but his unblinking golden eyes spoke volumes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I needed some time alone.’
Troy growled softly and pointed at the two approaching men. They had both drawn sawn off double barrel shotguns from beneath long coats and were about to enter the pawn shop. The Wolfman drew his paw across his throat.
Emily nodded, and they both leaped from the building and landed behind the armed thieves. A blur of movement and the shotguns had been turned into steel and wood pretzels and the thugs were unconscious on the sidewalk, their arms in a similar condition to their weapons.
Emily opened the door and beckoned to the shopkeeper. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she called. ‘Could you call the police? There are two men out here with shotguns. Not to worry, my partner and I have taken care of them, I doubt that they’ll be a problem for at least a few hours but they need to be cleared away.’ She waved goodbye and blew a kiss. ‘Bye, now. Have a good evening.’
By the time he got to the door there was no sign of Emily or Troy.
***
Emily sat at the kitchen table. In front of her a large mug of Tag’s steaming hot, syrupy sweet tea.
‘You need to tell us when you are going out,’ said William.
‘If I did, then you would send someone with me,’ countered Em.
‘Only for your own safety,’ insisted William. ‘We need to protect you. I’m afraid that I must insist.’
Em stared at the Omega, her expression blank but her eyes betraying her emotions. Her anger. ‘Protect me? Insist?’ She asked. ‘Poor little Emily needs protecting by the big strong men. Can I please have the big strong men’s permission to take a walk by myself? Excuse me, sir, but could I have permission to leave the room?’ She stood up. ‘I think that we had better get one thing straight here, mister male chauvinist Wolfman. If I want to go out by myself, then I will. I don’t need your permission or your protection.’
‘What if you run into a group of vamps?’ Asked William as he stood up to face her. ‘What then?’
Emily slatted her eyes and pushed her jaw out. ‘I will take care of them.’
‘Oh, just like that,’ snapped William.
Emily growled and unleashed the full force of her coercion. William was slammed back into his seat and the rest of the men around the table could not stand up either, even though they shook with the effort.
Then Deathwalker appeared in Emily’s right hand. She walked up to William and held the axe in front of his face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just like that.’
Then the axe disappeared and Emily shut her coercion down, allowing the men to move once again.
Tag laughed out loud. ‘Man,’ he said. ‘That was scary. I tell you what, I felt like a child strapped to the naughty chair. Couldn’t move a muscle.’
‘Sorry,’ said Em. ‘But I needed to prove a point.’
‘That wasn’t the point that needed proving,’ said Troy. ‘We all know how formidable you are. We know how powerful you are. We know all of those things. But when we don’t know where you are it worries us. If only for our sakes, Em,’ he asked. ‘Let us know when you’re going out. I know that you need some alone time but don’t shut us out. Please.’
‘What he said,’ added William. ‘And I’m sorry if I sounded condescending, it’s difficult for me. I mean, I am the Omega, after all. I’m used to obedience.’
‘I’m not Pack,’ said Emily.
William laughed. ‘Yes you are,’ he said. ‘You’re just different. But whatever you do or say, you cannot stop us trying to protect you. So you’re just going to accept it and tough it out.’
‘Well you know where I stand, girly,’ said Tag. ‘I be your bodyguard so I do have to insist on knowing where you are. It’s part of my job description.’
Em shook her head and then smiled. ‘Thanks guys,’ she said. ‘It’s good to know that you all care. I’ll try harder. When I need to be alone, I’ll tell you.’
The men nodded their agreement.
‘On the plus side,’ continued William. ‘Between Em and the Pack we prevented or interceded in eleven separate incidents last night. That pretty much means that we took care of around ten percent of the crime in the city. We keep that up and it’s going to have an effect on Nathan and his plans. Also, as word gets around, I reckon that we’ll find that quite a few criminals are going to be looking for easier work that doesn’t involve the risk of the night coming alive and beating the crap out of them.’
Chapter 25
The next night Em went out with Troy and Bastian to keep her company. The rest of the Pack roamed the streets as they had the night before.
Em found that she was not as efficient when working with others. The two men distracted her thought process and she was less able to sense the sources of trouble and fear. Nevertheless, they still managed to put a stop to two muggings and a car theft, leaving the perpetrators bent and broken on the sidewalks.
One of the Pack teams, however, came across a crime of far greater magnitude and their response was vicious and overwhelming.
It was just before midnight and the two young girls were taking a shortcut through St. Mary’s Church Yard. They climbed through the broken wire fence and turned left into Biggleswade Passage, a short, unlighted alleyway that led to Elliot’s Row where Charlotte lived.
Both her and Susan shouldn’t have been out that late, both of them had yet to see their thirteenth birthdays but Charlottes single-mum worked nightshift and Susan’s parents were well drunk by ten o’clock almost every night. So she tended to stay at Charlotte’s most of the time. Her parents didn’t actually seem to even notice that she was seldom at home.
The two girls had both popped out to see a movie and missed the night bus so had to walk home, turning a ten o’clock arrival into a midnight one. From a safe stroll into a nightmare.
There were four of them. Grown men. The youngest, twenty-two years old. The leader in his mid-thirties. They had nicknames. Stomper, Masher, Switchblade and Hammertime. Collectively they had spent over thirty years in juvenile court or prison, graduating from petty theft, up through the leagues to GBH and armed robbery. They had been drinking heavily, and it was now time to move to the next level. Rape and, most possibly torture followed by murder.
They snatched the girls as they exited Biggleswade Passage, bundling them roughly into the back of a white van, slapping them hard as they did so in order to stifle any cries for help. Then they drove for a short while, stopping outside an industrial storage unit in the Stopford Industrial Center behind the station. The girls were muscled inside a storage area and the doors slammed behind them.
A single large room. Concrete floors. A few standing floor lamps creating pools of shadow in the large cavernous space. Two broken sofas and two single, steel canteen chairs in the center of the room. The men took a roll of duct tape and bound the girls to the chairs. Legs taped to the chair legs and arms strapped behind their backs.
‘Right,’ sneered Stomper. ‘Time for some fun, hey lads?’
Masher giggled, his voice high and loud. Switchblade pulled out a knife and flicked it open. The blade gleamed dully in the lamplight. He moved forward and ran it down Charlotte’s cheek. She started to scream, but he backhanded her, splitting her lip and bruising her cheek. ‘You make a noise, sweetheart,’ he said, as he placed the tip of his blade in her left nostril. ‘And uncle Switchblade with cut your friggin nose open.’
Mashe
r giggled again. High. Strident. Almost like a train whistle.
‘Please,’ whispered Susan.
‘Oh very polite,’ said Stomper. ‘Please. Okay, as you asked so nicely, I’ll do you first.’ He stepped over and tore at Susan’s blouse, scattering the buttons and tearing the fabric to expose her training bra. ‘Oh, sweet,’ sneered Stomper. ‘Pink. With a butterfly on.’
Susan started to whimper, too afraid to cry out.
‘Hey,’ called Stomper. ‘Switchblade, come over here and cut that bra of, will you. And don’t be too gentle, nothing wrong with a few surface cuts to spice things up a bit.’
Switchblade swaggered over and extended his knife hand. But before he reached Susan, there was a blur of movement and he disappeared as a huge shadow smashed into him and carried him off.
Then the building was full of the sound of growling. Low and deep and visceral. The windows shook and you could feel the timbre deep in your soul. A sound that connected directly to your Amygdala and spoke to your survival system. And it said – All Hope Is Lost.
Two of the surviving gangsters drew knives. Hammertime drew a six shot 38 special. All about them shadows moved. Impossibly fast, seeming to disappear and then appear in another completely different place.
All the while the growling continued. A choir of insanity.
Both Susan and Charlotte were almost comatose with fear.
Then the wolves struck.
Stomper and Smasher went down in a welter of blood and Hammertime pulled off a few shots, missing with all of them.
And then one of the wolves walked slowly up to Hammertime. He was huge. As big as a horse. Hammertime pointed his pistol at the great animal and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Click, empty. Both shots struck the wolf in the center of its chest. It didn’t even blink.
Then it walked up to the would be child rapist and calmly bit his head off.
Finally Charlotte screamed.
But the wolf walked over and, with a deftness that seemed impossible from such huge teeth, it stripped the tape from both of the girl’s arms and legs. Then it lay down in front of them and put its head on its paws.
When the girls looked around, they saw four more wolves. All of them lying down, heads on the floor. Relaxed.
‘They’re not going to eat us,’ whispered Charlotte to Susan. ‘I think that they’re friendly.’
‘Oh yeah,’ breathed Susan. ‘Tell that to the pervert with no head.’
‘Doesn’t count,’ argued Charlotte. ‘He’s a baddy.’
The wolf shuffled forward on its belly until it was next to Charlotte then it raised its massive head up, opened it jaws…and licked her face.
Charlotte giggled. ‘Stop it, that tickles.’
Then the wolf nudged her with its nose, pushing her towards the door.
‘They want us to go. It’s telling us that it’s safe,’ said Charlotte.
The wolf nodded.
So, on rubbery legs, the two girls left the building. The wolf followed them to the road. Charlotte looked at him for a moment and then threw her arms around his neck. ‘Thank you, mister wolf,’ she said.
The wolf looked at her with his big golden eyes. Then he winked once and was gone.
***
Once again William stared out of the window at the revolving sign that read ‘New Scotland Yard’. Behind him, seated at his desk, head in his hands and breathing like he was suffering from an asthma attack, was sir Jasper.
‘Okay, Jasper, old man,’ said William. ‘You wanted to see me and I can tell that there is a problem. Best get it out in the open before you rupture yourself.’
‘I honestly do not know where to start,’ said sir Jasper.
‘Obviously it has something to do with the way that my Pack are handling things. Come on, spit it out.’
Jasper shuddered. ‘Your Pack. Good God, man. Can’t you at least call them your chaps, or your fellows? Pack is just so…’
‘Primeval,’ suggested William. ‘Primitive. Visceral. Honest. They are wolves. They are Pack. And the last time that I looked they had dropped the crime rate in the city by over ten percent. More than that, they are spreading fear amongst the thieving classes that will, very soon, develop into an exponential drop in crime. The night no longer belongs to the criminal element – it belongs to us. You cannot hide in the shadows if you suspect that those self-same shadows may very well come alive and eat you.’
‘But it smacks of pure vigilantism,’ argued Jasper.
‘Rubbish. The Pack are registered agents of MI7. We are a legitimate arm of Her Majesty’s Government.’
‘But last night was too much,’ said Jasper.
‘Why?’
‘Good God, William,’ spluttered Jasper. ‘Your Pack killed and dismembered four adult men.. Then they threw the dismembered body parts over the walls of Belmarsh prison. Each piece had a hand written note attached. It read, “On all wrongs, swift vengeance waits”.’
‘It was a warning,’ countered William. ‘Those men were well known bandits, and they were about to rape, torture and kill two little girls not quite into their teens. Pack law states that the children are sacrosanct. No evil against them will be accepted. All child molesters will be dealt with in the harshest possible manner.’
Jasper stood up. ‘William,’ he said. ‘Please, we live in a civilized world.’
‘Do we?’ Asked William. ‘Tell that to those young girls.’
***
Later that evening Troy walked into the kitchen in the penthouse apartments. As usual everyone was sitting around the table, drinking tea.
He laid a piece of paper on the table.
‘Wassup?’ Asked Tag.
Troy gestured at the paper.
Tag picked it up. ‘It’s you,’ he said to Emily. ‘It’s a drawing of you.’
‘Where did you get it?’ Asked Em.
‘The Pack,’ answered Troy. ‘On the street. They’re finding them on most of the criminals that they take down. There’s hundreds of copies out there. It’s like someone has put a criminal APB out on you.’
‘Oh crap,’ said Bastian. ‘That’s what this is all about. Nathan is recruiting the underworld so that he can get to Em.’
Everyone turned to look at her.
‘Damn,’ cursed Em. ‘I suppose that this is the last time that I get to be alone for a while.’
Chapter 26
Betty Grant, the manager of Madame Petunias House of Fun, heard an almighty crash as the front door was smashed off its hinges. She looked up at her row of CCTV screens to see a slightly built, dark-haired man with a hat and a large Jamaican-looking man carrying a heavy-looking rucksack.
She pushed the panic button under her desk, calling her two Nigerian security guards. They ran into the office, both carrying sawn-off shotguns and she merely pointed at the screen. They nodded and headed for the front door in order to intercept the gate crashers.
Betty followed them down the corridor and stood behind them as they challenged the two strangers.
‘Hey,’ shouted Anuli as he brandished his shotgun. ‘You can’t come breaking things here. Get out.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Bako. ‘What he said. Get out.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the smaller man. ‘We’re looking for Miss Grant. Betty Grant.’
Betty waved. ‘That’s me. What the hell is going on here? Do you have any idea who protects us?’ She shook her head. ‘Obviously not. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. I mean, I work for the guy and I don’t even want to be here anymore.’
Sylvian raised his hat. ‘Greetings, my lady,’ he said, smiling at her.
Betty was hit by the full force of his Gallic good looks and sultry French accent and she actually felt her knees go weak.
‘I’m afraid we do not arrive with good news. Actually, we’ve come to close the place down. Permanently.’
Betty shook her head. ‘I can’t allow that,’ she said. ‘The Capo would go mental. And then he’d eat one of us. No,’ she continued.
‘I think that you had better leave right now or I shall be forced to let my boys fill you with buckshot.’
Sylvian smiled again. ‘Tag,’ he said. ‘Take care of the boys, won’t you?’
‘Sure,’ rumbled the big man. He stepped forward and grabbed Anuli’s shotgun by the barrel. As he did so, the Nigerian pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and Tag’s shirt was shredded as sixteen .38 lead balls impacted his chest with the same force as a burst from a 9mm sub-machine gun. Tag grunted, ripped the weapon from Anuli’s hands and bent it into a horse shoe shape.
Then he turned to face Bako.
The second Nigerian simply dropped his shotgun and put his hands up. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I want nothing to do with this. Bloody vampires eating people and big Jamaicans with superhuman strength that don’t mind getting shot with two barrels of double-aught buckshot. This just be too freaky man. I’m going home, back to Lagos.’
Tag nodded. ‘Both of you. Go, before I change my mind.’
The two security men scuttled out the broken front door and disappeared around the corner, running like rabbits from a fox.
‘Now, Miss Betty,’ instructed Sylvian. ‘Please could you call all the girls and the customers to the front of the house?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I will give them ten minutes, and then anyone left inside the building will probably be killed in the fire. Come on, time is wasting.’
Ten minutes later a small group of people stood outside the house of Madame Petunia and watched the flames take hold.
The rucksack that Tag had been carrying had contained a number of incendiary grenades plus five gallons of a Napalm-like substance that the Prof had manufactured for them. So the building had gone up like the proverbial Roman Candle and had burned down to ground level in mere minutes.
So, by the time the fire department arrived there was nobody there and the house was a smoldering wreck. Betty Grant and her girls had vacated the area, as had the clients, so the fire department had no one to question. They hosed the place down to prevent the fire spreading, left a guard and went back to the station.