The Frenzy War (14 page)

Cheryl blew into the third-floor office of Manhattan Minute News on West Thirty-second Street and tapped her cameraman on the shoulder. “Don't get too comfortable.”

“Discomfort is my middle name.”

Turning, she walked backward, keeping Ryan in sight. “I hope the Batmobile's all gassed up.”

“Where are we going?”

“Rosedale!”

When she turned around she stood in the office of Colleen Wanglund, her executive producer.

“We already covered Rosedale,” Colleen said as she keyed in a story on her computer.

“
I
dn't cover Rosedale.”

Colleen's eyes never left her monitor. “I assume that's because you were home asleep. O'Hear covered Brooklyn. He covers the night beat, remember?”

Cheryl set her hands on Colleen's desk and leaned forward. “That was last night. This is today. We need to keep the news fresh, and that fire is part of my story.”

“We don't do stories; we do minutes. And there are plenty of minutes right here in Manhattan to go around.”

“I saw O'Hear's report. He downplayed the connection between the fire and yesterday's murder—”

“He addressed the connection. What do you expect in a minute?”

“—and he said arson is suspected. We need to follow up and connect some dots.”

“So follow up, connect.”

“Thank you,” Cheryl said on her way out the door.

Gabriel spotted Raphael standing in front of the Domini Funeral Home with Lawrence and Leon, two members of his crew, as Micah slowed to a stop before the East Thirty-third Street business. He also saw Eddie and David standing page_112]farther away at opposite ends of the funeral home's boundaries.

“You want me to wait?” Micah said.

“No, that's all right. I'll call if I need you.” Gabriel got out and approached his brother as Micah drove off. “Were you out here all night?”

“No, but I did have people here. We need to protect our interests. You heard the news?”

“It's all over the TV.” Gabriel opened the front door, which Raphael had unlocked, and they entered the lobby together. “I'm thinking about sending Melissa and the boys to stay with Angela. I need to focus on this crisis, and I need to know they're safe.”

“Crisis? We're not talking about some disaster. We're under attack. Six of us have been killed in twenty-four hours, and Rhonda's still missing. We need to call a war council.”

They walked along the polished floor. “I agree. Call the delegates in right away. We'll be ready.” He entered the office and turned on the lights with Raphael close at his heels.

“How can you be so calm?”

“Losing my cool won't help the situation.”

“You need to be fired up if you're going to lead this fight. Show some
passion!”

Gabriel turned to Raphael. “We live every day of our lives repressing our true nature. Today's no different. We're not animals; we're Wolves. I'll lead as I always have, as
my
nature dictates.”

Raphael's nostrils flared. “Three of us weren't enough to protect Jen and Rodney. They're dead.”

Gabriel clasped his brother's shoulder. “You're right. I underestimated our enemies. I won't make that mistake again.”

He waited for Raphael to argue further, but his brother just glared at him, his chest rising and falling.

Landry read the report filed by Willy and Karol on his monitor. The two detectives sat before him, as they had an hour earlier. Willy stared at the floor while Karol looked straight at Landry, waiting for his reaction.

“We're fucked,” Landry said.

“I told you,” Willy said.

“Why do we have to be fucked?” Karol said.

Landry drummed his fingers on the desk. “Because this is going to be a big deal, and it's not going to end well, and someone's going to hang for it.”

Willy looked at his partner. “‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for
thee'
And me.”

“And me,” Landry said.

“Let's just dump the whole bag of shit on Brooklyn DATF,” Willy said.

Karol looked from Willy to Landry. “Am I missing something? We're murder police. And we caught a murder, probably two.”

“Don't forget the animals,” Willy said. “Whatever they were.”

“We have a duty to investigate this as aggressively as we can, and you two are already acting like we can't solve it. It's only been twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, and our only leads in that time have been six more bodies, toasted like marshmallows, and forensics evidence page_114] linking our DOAs to a case that buried some juicy careers.” Willy turned to Landry. “When the ax falls, I do
not
want to end up in K-9.”

Landry loosened his tie. “What makes you think I'll have any say in the matter? The higher your rank, the greater the fall.”

The door opened and Aiello entered, wearing a brown suit and a gold tie. He walked over to a filing cabinet, which he leaned on, and stood taller than anyone in the unit. “Okay, here it is: the FBI's seized all the forensics evidence related to both of your cases.”

Willy grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

“Oh, you're still on the case,” Aiello said. “We just have limited access to that evidence.”

“Maybe we should wear blindfolds while we're at it.”

“Can we get the evidence back?” Karol said.

“Not a chance,” Aiello said. “It's en route to Quantico as we speak. I've been asked to relay to you that no information that CSU or the ME reported can be shared with anyone … including me. I'm being shut out. Conduct your investigation. Make your reports. Do the best you can.”

“Begging your pardon, Captain,” Karol said. “But just how in the hell are we supposed to make our case without forensics?”

“I'm working on it. Be patient. I have to go through channels, and that isn't easy.”

A clerk knocked on the door, and Landry waved him inside. The paunchy man handed Landry a report.

“Patrol thinks they found the van used in the abduction page_115]yesterday,” the clerk said.

Landry looked at the form. “Five blocks from the scene. Thanks.”

The clerk exited.

Landry handed the form to Willy. “I suggest you move fast.”

Willy and Karol rose in unison.

Mace entered his office on Floyd Bennett Field and tossed his coat aside. Jim Mint and the two FBI agents had stirred up old emotions within him, and he felt his anger at the brass returning. Mint and the feds knew the truth about the Wolves, but the bureaucracy would never allow them to take effective action against the creatures' enemies.

The Vatican,
Mace reminded himself. He knew exactly who was behind the Brotherhood of Torquemada and had been for centuries. He had made it his business to learn as much about the secret society spawned by the Spanish Inquisition as he could over the last two years. It had become an obsession with him. The Wolves were in danger, and there was nothing he could do to help them, nothing anyone could do to help them. He wished he knew how to reach out to Angela so he could warn her, but he had never heard from her again after they had killed Janus Farel together, and he had feared that trying to find her in Canada would only put her at further risk, the very thing she had gone there to avoid.

Sitting at his desk, he unlocked the bottom metal drawer and took out a DVD that he loaded into his computer. He page_116]kept a copy of his files on the Manhattan Werewolf case at home as well. Skimming the records, he copied a name and pasted it into his browser, with no results. Then he located a phone number in the file and entered it into his cell phone.

A female voice answered after the third ring. “Chautauqua Reservation Tribal Police. Marion Morningstar. How may I direct your call?”

“Chief Diondega, please.”

“Who's calling?”

“Captain Mace from NYPD.”

“One moment.”

Mace had called Chief Roy Diondega twice two years earlier, the first time to inquire about John Stalk, one of Dion-dega's officers who had insinuated himself into the Manhattan Werewolf case, and the second to notify him Stalk had been killed. Stalk had come to New York City from the Indian reservation in Western New York to slay the rogue Wolf, and Mace discovered he was romantically involved with Angela Domini.

From the street outside Angela's apartment below Synful Reading, Mace had witnessed Stalk's savage murder on the fourth-floor fire escape of an abandoned building. The murder had been committed by a creature Mace would never forget: a seven-foot-tall werewolf who used the alias Janus Farel. The monster decapitated Stalk and hurled his head at Mace, then disappeared inside the building.

“Captain Mace,” Diondega said. “I never expected to hear your voice again.”

Mace had never expected to have a reason to speak to page_117]Diondega again, either. “Hello, Chief.”

“What can I do for you? All of my officers are accounted for. You got more skinwalker trouble down there?”

Janus Farel had scrawled the Indian word
skinwalker,
which meant werewolf, on the condo wall of Terrence Glenzer, a New York University professor he had killed. Glenzer had come into possession of the Blade of Salvation, a sword used to slay suspected werewolves during the Spanish Inquisition, and Farel wanted the Blade for himself.

“I'm trying to locate Tom Lenape, but I can't find a listing for him.” The shaman Lenape had instructed Stalk in the ways of Indian mysticism.

“The medicine man? I don't remember him ever owning a phone.”

Picking up the remote control, Mace powered the TV, which he left tuned to Manhattan Minute News. “Is there some other way I can reach him?”

“The only way I can think of is through a medium. Old Tom died from cancer last year.”

Cheryl appeared on the TV, standing before the ruins of a burned-down house.

“I'm sorry to hear that. Is there another shaman on the reservation I could speak to?”

“Tom was the only real medicine man we had. The others are what you would call theatrical. What do you need a shaman for?”

“I'm just doing some research, and I'd hoped to speak to someone who shared John Stalk's beliefs.”

“Tom believed in the old magic, and he passed that on
to John. Now that they're both dead, I guess that magic died with them.”

“Thank you, Chief.” Mace hung up and raised the volume on the TV.

“… detectives are reportedly investigating the possibility that Jason Lourdes and his family were executed by drug dealers over a deal gone wrong. This is Cheryl Mace, live in Queens.”

Drug dealers,
Mace thought. NYPD's Office of Public Affairs at work: leak a false lead to the press with just enough insinuation to sell it, and the rumor becomes “news” by default. Leaving the volume raised, he turned his attention to the paperwork that should have been completed that morning.