Cloak of Wolves

by Moeller, Jonathan

  The mutual messages had been delivered.

  “Those cheese curds,” said Russell from the passenger seat, “really were amazing.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I hadn’t eaten all that much. Too much cheese upsets my stomach, and my digestion isn’t great at the best of times. Too much tension, I guess. I’m probably a high-risk candidate for ulcers.

  “Nadia,” said Russell. “Can I ask you something?”

  He had gone serious. Uh oh.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said.

  He took a deep breath and looked at me. “Why didn’t you kill Brauner?”

  A bunch of emotions went through me.

  Anger, first, that he thought I would do that. Then hurt, that my own brother thought I was some sort of ravening psycho. Then logic kicked in and pointed out that it was a reasonable question. Russell had seen me kill a lot of people. Granted, it had all been in self-defense, but still.

  “Did…you want me to?” I said, my voice tentative.

  “No!” said Russell. “I’m really glad we got out of this without anyone getting hurt. I was afraid it was going to end up in a fight. But…you know…”

  “Yeah, I understand,” I said. “Look. Brauner’s an enormous asshole…but he’s not as bad of an asshole as someone like him could be. He’s got rules. He was screwing with us, yeah…but nobody got hurt or killed. We were out a few thousand dollars in truck tires, and that’s basically it. Which sucks, but it won’t hurt us in the long term. Hell, Boyer didn’t even get arrested. Those Homeland Security officers could have made a lot more trouble for Boyer. If we were in China or Russia, the negotiations with someone like Brauner would have started with him sending us somebody’s head.”

  “Better the devil you know,” said Russell.

  “That’s basically it,” I said. “Also, Brauner is Duke Tamirlas’s shadow councilor, so we’d have trouble with the Duke if we killed him.”

  “Shadow councilor?” said Russell, frowning. “Is…that like you do? Like a shadow agent?”

  “No,” I said. “Remember our trip to Las Vegas when Nicholas had us rob that casino?”

  Russell snorted. “That’s not the kind of experience you ever forget.” He grinned. “I don’t think Riordan will ever forget it, either, not the way he was staring at you in that cocktail waitress outfit…”

  “For God’s sake, don’t be gross,” I said, but I laughed as I said it. Most people who knew who I was were afraid of me, and there were very few people who could tease me. “But remember how Nicholas said that Duke Orothor let the Las Vegas syndicate run the casinos in exchange for a cut of the profits?” Russel nodded. “It’s a formal arrangement. A Duke can pick someone to run the organized crime in his territory, a shadow councilor. The Elves are more interested in order than in anything else, and Brauner keeps things orderly and civilized.”

  Russell almost said that was elfophobic, automatically. I all but saw the thought appear, then he stopped himself. The indoctrination of the public school system was a powerful thing, though I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t been to an actual school since kindergarten.

  “Killing him would make a mess,” said Russell at last.

  I shrugged. “If Brauner dies, maybe someone worse will take his place. His sons aren’t as smart as he is.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Russell. “About the shadow councilors. Suppose I should have figured it out.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. We were drawing closer to the Milwaukee metro area, and I stopped talking long enough to concentrate on merging into the freeway. “But you and I already know all kinds of things we’re not supposed to know. What’s one more? And…”

  I paused. Russell let me work out my thoughts.

  “I’ve never just flat-out killed someone in cold blood,” I said. “I’ve been in a lot of fights, and I’ve killed people, but I never just killed anyone because they were in my way or because it was convenient.” I shuddered, remembering how I had almost killed Robert’s wife Alexandra for just that reason. That experience, and the nightmares and guilt I had felt after had been a turning point in my life, though I hadn’t realized it at the time. I hadn’t even been able to kill Lord Arvalaeon in cold blood, though God knows the asshole deserved it. “I’ve got too much power, Russell. I don’t want to abuse it. I mean, if Brauner comes after us, I’ll make him regret it, but if he’s willing to see reason and play ball…no. I’m not gonna kill someone over some money.”

  “I know,” said Russell. “I’m sorry you had to deal with this.”

  I shrugged. “Eh. Stuff happens. And there are some benefits. If another shadow councilor comes sniffing around the company, we’ll be able to get Brauner and his goons to run them off. Or if we have actual problems with actual criminals, we can get Brauner to deal with it. No one would dare to steal from him.”

  Russell snorted. “You did. Though why’d you steal his toothbrush?”

  “Seemed like a good choice. Showed I could get in and out of his house whenever I wanted, and it wouldn’t really hurt him.”

  Russell laughed.

  “What?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Russell. “It’s kind of absurd when you think about it…Nadia MacCormac, master thief and shadow agent to the High Queen, steals a toothbrush.”

  “Yeah, maybe gum disease will get Brauner,” I said, and it was so absurd that I did laugh.

  “I am sorry about this,” said Russell when I calmed down. “That you had to deal with it. It’s just so…egregious.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “That Brauner can get away with stuff like this,” said Russell. “It isn’t right. I mean, I know he’s not as bad as he could be like you said…but still. It bugs me.”

  I shrugged. “The world’s a shitty place full of shitty people. Isn’t that what they say at your church every week?”

  “The pastor doesn’t phrase it quite like that,” said Russell. We came to our freeway exit, and I took the offramp and came to the stoplight. A lot of traffic – with the Great Gate nearby, Milwaukee would need some more freeways soon. “It’s too bad we can’t just call Homeland Security and have him arrested for racketeering.”

  “What?” I said, incredulous. “Homeland Security?”

  Why on earth would he think that?

  Oh, right, public school. Russell had probably seen videos of friendly Homeland Security officers standing on corners and helping little old ladies cross the street. Or for adults, there were all those TV dramas and novels about intrepid Homeland Security officers hunting down serial killers or Rebel terrorists or drug dealers or whatever, usually with moody atmospheric lighting, dramatic music, and tempestuous romances.

  The United States’ national police force wasn’t anything like that in reality.

  “They’re useless,” I said. “I know their motto is to protect and serve, but none of them are like that. There are only two kinds of Homeland Security officers. The thugs who get off on bullying people.” My encounter with Officer Kirby came to mind. “Or the timeservers who want to sit in their chairs, do nothing, and keep their heads down until they can collect their pension.”

  We drove in silence for a while. Our warehouse came into sight, and I turned into the parking lot.

  “There must be at least some good Homeland Security officers,” said Russell.

  “I concede it’s possible,” I said. “But if there are, I’ve never met one.”

  ***

  Chapter 2: The Detective

  Colonel Owen Quell got dressed for an execution.

  Owen didn’t like going to executions. No one in Homeland Security did. In fact, showing too much interest or enjoyment in attending executions put a red flag for a psych evaluation in an officer’s record. But it had been Quell’s murder case, he had gathered the evidence, the prosecutor had presented it to the jury, and the sentence had been given.

  And Owen was entirely certain of the man’s guilt. The legal standard for conviction was “be
yond reasonable doubt” but thanks to Owen’s unique gifts, he had absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Dean Osmond was guilty of three murders.

  Still, Owen didn’t want to attend the execution, but it was necessary. The families of the victims would be there, and the literature claimed it would give them closure and help them move on with their lives. Owen supposed that was true enough.

  But as the High Queen had told him, more than once, justice was covered in blood and tears.

  Owen donned his dress uniform in his office and checked his reflection in the mirror on the back of his door. He was slightly annoyed that he had grown a small gut that he seemed unable to lose. Still, he was forty-six, so he supposed it could be worse. At least he had all his hair, though it was more gray than brown now.

  And the dress uniform…

  In his opinion, the Homeland Security dress uniform was overdone. Navy blue trousers, with a gold stripe up the sides, and shiny shoes. His uniform jacket had too much metal on it – the badge, the various service ribbons, the colonel’s eagles, the thunderbolt emblem that marked him as a former member of the Wizard’s Legion. The face beneath the uniform cap with its badge didn’t look like a colonel’s face. It looked like the face of a bar brawler, with an oft-broken nose, dark eyes, and a scar down the right side of his jaw that looked like a knife strike but had come from an anthrophage that had tried to rip his head off.

  Still, he had to concede that the jacket and the broad belt did an excellent job of concealing his gut.

  On his left hand was his wedding band.

  On his right…

  Only Owen could see the golden ring with the blood-colored stone on his right hand. Well, only Owen, the High Queen, and her other shadow agents.

  He had worn that ring for sixteen years. Almost seventeen now, come to think of it. The twins’ birthday was coming up in December. Seventeen years and Owen could still remember the day of the twins’ birth, the day he had gotten the ring.

  “Anything you want,” Owen said in his memory.

  “That’s right,” said the High Queen. “You will.”

  Owen pushed aside the thoughts and stepped out of his office, closing and locking the door behind him. His office overlooked the homicide bullpen of Milwaukee’s Central Office. The bullpen held a dozen desks separated by low cubicle walls, the working space of the detectives. Owen’s rank rated him an office of his own. His title was technically Head of Special Investigations. In practice, that meant he often helped the other departments within the Central Office with their overflow. Homicide tended to get overloaded during the hot summer months and right before the holidays. It also meant that Owen received the high profile cases, the hard ones, and sometimes Homeland Security flew him around the country as a troubleshooter.

  Given his specific talents, it made sense.

  Most of the detectives were at their desks, doing paperwork. It had been a quiet week with no murders. But it would pick up. Thanksgiving was coming, and people could only stand their relatives for so long.

  Owen exchanged greetings with a few of the detectives, then crossed the room to the elevator. Another man in a blue Homeland Security dress uniform waited there, a major’s insignia on his collar. He had dark skin and dark eyes and the thin, gaunt build of a distance runner.

  “You’re coming to this?” said Owen, hitting the button for the elevator.

  “Yeah,” said Major Jacob Giles. “Head of Homicide. Have to put in an appearance.”

  The elevator door opened, and they stepped inside. Owen had known Giles for almost thirty years, ever since they had both been men-at-arms for Duke Tamirlas. In boot camp and training they had been bitter rivals. Then during their first battle in the Shadowlands, Owen had almost gotten his head ripped off by an anthrophage, but he had saved Giles’s life in the process, and they had been friends ever since.

  Giles was one of the few officers in the Milwaukee branch of Homeland Security who knew the full extent of Owen’s abilities.

  “Surprised you got that case,” said Giles as the elevator doors slid closed. “Seemed pretty open and shut.”

  “It was,” said Owen. “Osmond was a vicious dumbass with a drug problem. But one of the victims’ brothers was a Rebel, died in New York back in July. The branch commander thought the killer might be a surviving Rebel, wanted to jump on it right away. It took us all of one afternoon to find Osmond, and he still had the money and the murder weapon on him.”

  “You get all the easy ones,” said Giles.

  Owen grunted. “Oh, yeah. I’m taking naps in my office.”

  “Well, next time you get an easy one, pass it on to one of my guys,” said Giles.

  Owen grunted again. “You mean Lieutenant Warren. Isn’t he busy with the Doyle murders?”

  “Yeah,” said Giles. “That’s some weird shit. Warren hasn’t made a report yet, but he thinks something from the Shadowlands did the killings.”

  “Hell,” said Owen. That was always messy.

  “We’re probably going to have to talk to the Elven nobles about this one, or they’ll have to call in the Inquisition or the Wizard’s Legion,” said Giles. He grinned, his teeth white in his dark face. “Or they’ll have Special Investigations look at it.”

  “Right,” said Owen. “Then I’ll get to call the Inquisition.”

  “Hey, they gave you those colonel’s birds for a reason,” said Giles. “What’s the point of having rank if your subordinates can’t hand you problems?”

  “You’re always an optimist.”

  The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Owen and Giles walked down a short corridor and into the punishment yard.

  It was a square courtyard at the rear of the Central Office and behind the parking ramp. The concrete walls were twelve feet high and topped with barbed wire. This wasn’t so much to keep prisoners in as it was to prevent people from taking unauthorized recordings of judicial punishment. Homeland Security reserved the exclusive right to post videos of judicial sentences on Punishment Day. The courtyard was empty, save for a wooden post about ten feet high with a long wooden arm extending from it.

  The ground sloped at a gentle grade to a drain in the center of the courtyard.

  There was a crowd of about forty people already. The officers in charge of operating the camera had set up, their equipment and microphones pointed at the wooden post. The families of Osmond’s victims stood against the wall. Some of them spoke in quiet voices, a few others wept in a mixture of grief and anger, but most watched in stony silence. One of Duke Tamirlas’s executioners, an Elven noble named Sir Caulomyth, stood near the door, smoking a cigarette. Caulomyth was tall and pale, with the sharp ears and alien features of the Elves, his eyes a vivid shade of green. The eerie eyes seemed all the starker against the black clothes he wore. The Elf saw Owen and Giles approaching and put out his cigarette and tossed the butt to the ground.

  “Lord Elf,” said Owen.

  “Colonel,” said Caulomyth, and they shook hands. “Osmond one of yours?”

  “That’s right,” said Owen. Caulomyth’s title was technically Executioner to the Duke of Milwaukee, but Owen knew another law enforcement officer when he met one. The Elves were alien, but Caulomyth talked like a law enforcement officer, with the same black sense of humor.

  “I thought they gave you the hard ones,” said Caulomyth. “Osmond, he’s a little shit. Dumb as a dog and mean as a starved rat.”

  Owen shrugged. “Homicide was busy that month. They needed the help.”

  “I did him a favor and gave him an easy one,” said Giles. “Figured he could use the break. The colonel’s getting up there.”

  “I’m three weeks older than you,” said Owen.

  “And don’t you forget it,” said Giles.

  Caulomyth laughed once and then sobered. “Well, it’s time. We’d better get started. Keep an eye on the families, will you? Wouldn’t want Osmond to die two minutes earlier than planned.”

  The executioner walked to the door lead
ing to the holding cells, and Owen took a few moments to speak with the families of Osmond’s three victims. Their gratitude was almost painful, and he didn’t like it. He knew watching the execution would not make them feel better, would not ease the grief. Still, it would bring at least some closure. And justice was better than no justice.

  Owen understood. He had been there, in their shoes, before he had been a Homeland Security officer or a soldier of the Wizard’s Legion.

  “Remember,” reminded Giles, “stay behind that line.” He pointed at a yellow line spray-painted across the concrete. “That will keep you out of the camera feed. We won’t arrest you if you cross it. But we will have to restrain you.”

  “We’re going to start,” said the officer operating the camera.

  The door to the holding area opened, and Caulomyth returned, holding a leather whip. Two Homeland Security officers followed, dragging a man wearing a paper jumpsuit, his hands shackled before him.

  Executions had rules and procedures, and Caulomyth started speaking, detailing Dean Osmond’s crimes for the camera. Five months earlier, Osmond, high on a variety of illegal stimulants, had robbed a convenience store. The clerk hadn’t resisted, but Osmond had shot him to death anyway and emptied the register. Two elderly women had come into the store as he escaped, and Osmond shot them both.

  All of it had been caught on camera. It had taken Owen only two hours to find someone who knew Osmond, and another hour to find his address. Three hours after the murder, he had found Osmond sleeping off his drug binge in his apartment, the murder weapon next to his stained mattress. It had been a simple, straightforward arrest, and one of the easiest cases that Owen had worked.

  And he knew, beyond all doubt, that Osmond was guilty.

  That was both the gift and the curse of the mindtouch spell.

  Some law enforcement officers – the honest ones, at least – worried about arresting and convicting an innocent man. Owen had known a detective who had arrested a man for murder, got a conviction, and then an execution. About two years later, evidence had emerged proving the executed man innocent. The detective had gone home, put his children to bed, kissed his wife, and then went out to the garage and blew his head off with a shotgun. Since he had been a homicide detective, he had known just where to put the shotgun to kill instead of accidentally maiming himself.