Close Enemies

by Marc Daniel

“So she was attacked by a weretiger and a weremountain lion?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  The precaution was hardly necessary, given that the closest customers sat a good twenty feet away, actively arguing in Chinese. Michael had picked the restaurant—one of Sheila’s favorites—because he knew from experience that in this part of Chinatown most patrons wouldn’t be speaking English: a definite advantage for the kind of matters they had to discuss.

  “And you think the Chinese or Mexican traffickers have hired them to kill her?” Samantha said.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore. Things don’t seem to add up. Especially now that Sheila’s sister appears to be missing.”

  After finding the blood on Stephanie’s door frame, Michael had spent three more hours searching the house and the yard but hadn’t come up with anything useful. He’d called Samantha first thing the next morning to ask for help in locating the missing woman. Samantha had called him back an hour later asking him to meet her for lunch.

  “I have some bad news about Stephanie, Michael.”

  By the look on the detective’s face, Michael understood that Sheila had lost her sister. “What happened?”

  “A body was found floating in the bayou three days ago. It took a little while to get a positive I.D., but we finally got one yesterday morning. It’s definitely Stephanie Wang. I’m not assigned to the case, so I wasn’t aware of it when you called this morning.”

  Michael thought of how he was going to break the news to Sheila once she woke up. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “How did she die?”

  “It looks like she drowned. She had a large amount of Estazolam in her system. It’s a prescription sleeping pill. So, in theory, this could be a suicide or an accident. But none of her regular doctors seem to have prescribed the drug to her.”

  “That’s because she was drugged against her will prior to being held under water,” replied Michael, struggling to keep his rising anger at bay.

  “That’s also what I suspect. But we have no proof for any of this.”

  “How long had she been in the water by the time she was found?”

  “About twenty-four hours according to the pathologist. That’s also how long she’d been dead.”

  “So she was killed four days ago.”

  “She died four days ago,” replied Samantha cautiously.

  “That means she died on the same day we were attacked in St. Lucia. That’s another interesting coincidence.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything yet. But I find it a bit odd.”

  “There’s something else you should know. Nobody had seen her for a week prior to her death. She’d taken three weeks off work to supposedly go to China on vacation.”

  “But never made it there…”

  “She never purchased plane tickets either. My colleagues checked with every airline flying out of Houston.”

  “I see…”

  “We’re still interviewing her coworkers and neighbors, but one thing is certain: in her ten years working for this law firm, she’d never taken more than four days off in a row.”

  “And all of a sudden she’s taking three weeks… What was she up to?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “She’s also the one who bought us the St. Lucia vacation.”

  Samantha seemed to ponder this for a minute before asking, “Do you think she was working with the guys who attacked you?”

  “I don’t know. It sure seems strange when put in perspective. But why would she want to cause harm to Sheila? And why would they kill her if she worked with them?”

  “Maybe to silence her… She may have known too much and became a liability. Maybe they used her to set the trap and had no use for her afterward.”

  Michael looked at Samantha in silence for a moment. “That last bit would make sense,” he said finally. “This whole thing is starting to stink to high heaven. At this point there’s only one thing certain.”

  “What is that?”

  “I don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. I’m not even sure who’s the real target here.”

  “You don’t think the fact Stephanie is lying on a tray at the coroner’s lab would make her the real target?”

  “That’s not what I meant. She could be collateral damage. They could have gotten to her to hurt Sheila, for instance.”

  “Maybe for once things are just what they look like. No hidden motives or secret adversaries,” suggested the detective.

  “That would be too simple.”

  Chapter 33

  A.D. 1675

  Michael was gathering wood around his cabin when a panicked Taima ran to him and raised the alarm. The young Potawatomi was a friend of Wawetseka and the two of them had been looking for roots and other medicinal ingredients with Nikan when a group of trappers had stumbled upon them with less than pure intentions. They’d captured Nikan and her daughter, but Taima had managed to escape.

  Michael dropped the arm load of wood and departed at a hurried pace.

  The sun had long set by the time he entered the small settlers’ camp. It had been years since he’d last set foot in the place and he was surprised to see that it looked more like a small town now and less like a bunch of tents haphazardly thrown together. Buildings made of rough boards lined both sides of something resembling a main street, and several dozen pioneer shacks had sprouted a stone’s throw away from the larger constructions.

  The main street was surprisingly busy and bustling with activity. This suited Michael just fine—the less attention he attracted the better. Small groups of men stood here and there chatting while sharing a smoke. Kids were running around, chasing each other. Michael did turn a few heads—mostly belonging to women—but no one had tried to stop him, or even talk to him by the time he reached the last few houses at the end of the street. He hadn’t found what he was looking for. Even in his human form, his nose would have been able to pick up his friends’ scents had they been held captive in one of the dwellings lining the street. This meant they were somewhere else.

  Starting with the buildings on the south side of town, he quickly moved from door to door, sniffing the air in the process. He identified an amalgam of cooking smells, body odors and the putrid stench of latrines, none of which were relevant to his quest.

  Finally he picked up Wawetseka’s scent near a ramshackle house on the very north edge of town.

  He pushed at the shack’s door and found it blocked from the inside. He didn’t bother knocking, instead smashing through the rough-sawn boards as if they’d been made of paper.

  The flickering light provided by two candles resting on a table near the center of the dwelling’s only room projected sinister shadows on the faces of the four men dining around the table. Michael noticed Wawetseka standing tied with her arms raised in a corner of the room but kept his focus on her captors who were starting to recover from their surprise.

  The most imminent threat came from the man at the far end of the table. He was raising a shotgun in Michael’s direction and would need to be neutralized first. The second priority was the man nearest him. This one was in the process of pulling a pistol out of his belt holster. The two others just stared frozen at the newcomer with their spoons halfway between their plates and their mouths: probably too drunk to comprehend and definitely too drunk to react.

  Michael grabbed the nearest thing he found and threw it at the man with the shotgun. The cast-iron frying pan hit the poacher’s face with a low thump, immediately followed by the sound of breaking cervical vertebrae. Threat number one was dead before he hit the ground.

  The man with the gun was pulling back the hammer on his pistol when Michael pulverized his trachea with a punch to the throat. It took him about a minute to choke to death. By the time he finally collapsed, Michael had dealt with the remaining kidnappers and was standing beside Wawetseka.

  The young woman was unconscious. The rope bindin
g her wrists had been passed above a ceiling beam and was the only thing that kept her in a vertical position, arms outstretched above her head. Her face and arms were severely bruised, but her clothes looked intact. This gave Michael some hope; it didn’t look like the thugs had had their fun with her yet.

  As he removed the dirty rag tied around her mouth, she opened her eyes, instinctively jerking away from Michael. She recognized him a second later and her eyes instantly filled with tears. He untied her and caught her in his arms before she collapsed to the ground.

  “Where’s your father?” he asked. But she didn’t answer. She just shook her head and let the tears pour freely down her cheeks.

  They left town quietly under the cover of darkness and Wawetseka led Michael to her father. They found Nikan’s body outstretched in a cross position between two trees. The signs of mutilation on his flesh left little doubt as to the suffering the Potawatomi man had gone through before death had finally freed him.

  “They’ll pay for this,” whispered Wawetseka.

  “They have paid for it, Wawetseka, they’ll never hurt anyone again,” said Michael.

  She stared at him with a strange intensity and he realized she hadn’t been speaking about the four kidnappers. Her thirst for revenge wouldn’t be quenched so easily.

  Chapter 34

  “You have a gift for attracting trouble, Michael Biörn,” said Ezekiel. Michael could tell the wizard was only half joking… and for good reasons.

  “That’s also what I’m starting to think.”

  The wizard wrapped his long cloak around his frail-looking body as they walked on the side of the road in front of Michael’s cabin. The spring night had grown chilly and, unlike Michael, Ezekiel didn’t enjoy freezing temperatures.

  “We can go back to my cabin, if the cold’s getting to you.”

  “Thanks, but we both need this stroll, Michael. You’ve been on planes most of the day, and I, too, have been… flying.”

  Michael suspected the flying Ez referred to was of a different kind than his, but he wasn’t in a mood to enquire further.

  “I am truly sorry about Sheila, my friend. But Gweven is confident she’ll recover fully.”

  “You’ve talked to Gweven?”

  “That’s where I’m coming from.”

  “You were with the elves this whole time?”

  “No. I only just got back in the country, but I wanted to go see Sheila for myself before coming to you.”

  “Yes. Checking on your little spy,” said Michael ambiguously.

  “I never meant to put her in harm’s way, Michael. You know that.”

  “I do, Ez. But still, using my girlfriend to spy on me is stooping pretty low.”

  “She was only to let me know if you went anywhere outside Yellowstone. So, I could communicate the information to Lady Leana—”

  “Who in turn was to inform Leka’s team,” interrupted Michael.

  “Yes, though I didn’t know she’d chosen Leka to lead the team. A dangerous choice since you’d no doubt have recognized him had you spotted his team.”

  “If it weren’t for the elves, Sheila may very well have been killed in that jungle, Ez. My reflexes weren’t what they should have been. It took me ages to morph and I didn’t smell our attackers before they were on us. So, for this, I will always owe you. Even though you could have told me you were giving us a security detail instead of playing spy games with my friends.”

  They reached an intersection and decided to turn around. The wind had picked up and Michael suspected snow was on its way.

  A patrol cruiser appeared over the hill. It approached slowly before rolling to a stop beside them.

  Michael had recognized his boss’s car long before the driver-side window came down. “Howdy there. Everything OK, Michael?” Jason Parrish was staring at Ezekiel. He wasn’t trying to hide his puzzlement at the wizard’s appearance.

  With his pointy hat and gray cloak, Ez looked as if he’d come straight from Middle Earth—the Lord of the Rings’ mythical world—or more likely straight from the closest psychiatric ward. Michael had asked Ez several times to dress a bit more discreetly when around humans, but the wizard repeatedly ignored the suggestion.

  “Good evening, Jason. Everything’s fine. This is an old friend of mine, Ezekiel. Ez, this is my boss, Jason Parrish.”

  “A good evening to you, sir,” said Ezekiel in a seventeenth-century accent that made Jason’s eyes even wider. Michael wasn’t amused.

  “What are you doing here, Jason? Looking for me?” said Michael, trying to shift his boss’s attention to him.

  “No, not particularly. I was just patrolling. Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. You probably haven’t heard everything since you’ve been away quite a bit, but you’ll be briefed tomorrow if you’re back at work.”

  “OK,” said Michael, unsure of whether this had been a reproach or a simple observation.

  “Enjoy your stroll, gentlemen,” said the ranger before driving off.

  “That was a bit strange,” said Michael.

  “I know! He didn’t even compliment me on my hat.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Anyway… what were we talking about?”

  “You were complaining I went behind your back.”

  “I wasn’t complaining. Just saying that you could have told me you were getting us bodyguards.”

  “I wasn’t giving Sheila any bodyguards, Michael. They were all for you. And I know that you’ d have never gone along with that. Michael Biörn doesn’t need bodyguards. Michael is the bodyguard. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  Michael kept silent for a long minute. He was thinking back to his discussion with Leka. It would appear the elf had understood correctly. Michael was the one needing protection. “What’s going on, Ez? I’m confused. I thought you were trying to protect Sheila and I was to benefit from the protection simply by being with her.”

  “You remember the Fida’I commando I was investigating the last time we talked?”

  Michael nodded.

  “I made some progress with this investigation. I now know for a fact that they’re in the country for a hit.”

  “And you believe I am the mark?”

  “No, Michael. I don’t believe it. I know it for a fact.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because the type of curse I cast to obtain the information doesn’t tolerate lies.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Some small fish, nobody of interest.”

  “Where is he?”

  “It’s a she, for one thing, and she was in Austria. I have no idea where she might be now. It’s irrelevant anyway.”

  “Do you know who wants me dead?”

  “Not yet, but I’m not done investigating. At this point I don’t know much about the commando either or who their boss is.”

  “What do you know, Ez?” asked Michael, sounding more irritated than he meant to.

  “What I do know is that their boss operates out of Western Europe. I still don’t know how many assassins he sent after you.”

  “It looks like I’ve already met two of the killers. And, thanks to Leka, one of them will no longer be a problem. I wonder how many more there are.”

  “You might already have met a third one, actually.”

  “You mean that because of my messed-up nose? Good point, I could have been passing one on the street without realizing it.”

  “That’s a possibility, but that’s not what I meant. Are you familiar with chameleons?”

  “I suppose you aren’t talking about the lizard type.”

  “How perspicacious of you. I meant the type of fae called chameleons.”

  “I’ve heard of them. I know they can change their appearance, but since all faes can do that, I don’t see what’s so special about them.”

  They’d reached Michael’s cabin and the two of them went in.

  “I’ll light a fire for you, old m
an,” said Michael teasingly. “Please carry on.”

  Ezekiel settled in the lone chair by the foyer. “Most faes use glamour to hide their true appearance and show the world whatever they want to look like. That means that an ogre still weighs six hundred pounds and looks like hell. He just tricks your mind into seeing something different. A chameleon on the other hand has very limited magic outside his or her one specialty.”

  “Which is?”

  “Morphing. A chameleon can adopt the shape of any creature, human, animal, you name it. A chameleon effectively becomes the model he emulates. Exact same appearance, same weight, same voice, everything. You’d have to be extremely familiar with the original to notice something’s amiss. And even then, it would likely take a while. A dog would get fooled by a chameleon copying its master. That’s how good they are.”

  “And I guess you’re telling me all this because one of the Fida’I happens to be a chameleon?”

  “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “So, I could basically be working side by side with one of the assassins and never be able to tell.”

  “Exactly. And I suspect that’s precisely what you’ve been doing for some time.”

  “Wonderful!”

  Michael wasn’t particularly happy with the revelation. Too many things were happening at the same time and he couldn’t understand why or how. Who wanted him dead? He’d ruffled quite a few feathers these past couple of years, and the list of his enemies was quickly expanding.

  “I need to find out who these assassins are, Ez. More importantly, I need to find out who hired them. How do I go about it?”

  “I will head back to Europe as soon as I take care of a couple of things around here. I’ll find out who’s at the head of their organization. That person will know his client.”

  “And you think he’ll tell?”

  “I suspect he will,” said Ez, smiling confidently. “In the meantime, I may be able to help identifying the chameleon. It’s time we do some teambuilding with your coworkers.”

  Chapter 35

  Michael was brushing his teeth when the knock on his front door surprised him. A quick look at his watch confirmed that it was barely 7 A.M.