The Frenzy War (18 page)

“We need killers now,” Gabriel said.

“Why's he here?”

“He came to warn us about the Torquemadans, too late.”

“Then he should go back where he came from.”

“The Torquemadans have killed his people there and in most of Europe, it seems. He has nowhere to go, so we can't turn him away. Besides, he has information that's useful to us. We need him.”

“I don't like it.”

Gabriel took her in his arms. “I knew you wouldn't.”

“Don't trust him.”

“I'll try not to.”

She leaned her head against his chest. “I'm not looking forward to this trip.”

“You'll feel better knowing the boys are safe.”

“But I'll worry about you.” Gabriel stroked her hair.

M
ace led his party through the Irish pub to the back corner, where a black woman wearing a leather jacket sat nursing a mug of golden beer, a half-full pitcher on the table before her.

“Hello, Candice,” he said, standing beside her.

Candice raised bloodshot eyes to Mace. “Captain.”

Mace sat beside her, Landry beside him, then Karol and Willy.

“De-
tec
-tive
Smalls”
Willy said, filling an empty mug. “Detective Willy.” Candice nodded to Landry. “Hello, Lieutenant.”

“Candice,” Landry said.

Willy gestured to Karol. “My partner, Karol Williams.”

Candice raised her mug to Karol in a toast. “Williams.”

“Karol,” she said as Willy filled her mug.

Mace looked around the table. “Candice is joining us from DATR.”

“Kramer's just thrilled about that,” Candice said.

Rod Kramer, the head of the Digital Audio Transmission Recording, and Candice had monitored radio transmissions when Patty Lane had gone undercover at a nightclub called Carfax Abbey II to lure the Manhattan Werewolf into a trap. Instead, Janus Farel had killed her in a department issue vehicle during a high-speed chase through the Village.

“Are you thrilled?” Willy said.

Candice shrugged. “I'll finally get my promotion to detective sergeant, right?”

Willy rolled his eyes.

‘Am I the only person at this table not getting a promotion out of this?” Karol said.

“I'm not,” Landry said.

Raising one hand, Mace motioned to the server on the floor, indicating they wanted another pitcher. “If we do what the bosses want, we'll all be in a better place than where we are now.”

Making a skeptical face, Landry poured the last of the beer into his mug. “And if we screw up, we'll wind up in far worse positions.”

Willy rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “Okay, Captain. What exactly is our mission?”

“I'll explain in a minute. First, I want a drink. Then I'm going to tell you how I killed the Manhattan Werewolf.”

Silence hung over the table for a moment.

“I fucking knew it,” Willy said.

Mace sipped his beer, savoring the flavor.

“I hope you're not about to put us all in an awkward position by confessing to a murder,” Karol said.

The music and voices around them were loud, so Mace did not worry that someone might overhear them. “First of all, it was technically self-defense. Secondly, murder describes the homicide of a human being, and what I killed wasn't human.”

All the eyes of his audience remained riveted on him.

“Then what was it?”

Mace glanced at each cop in turn. “Except for Karol, every one of us sitting here heard Janus Farel, the perp in the Manhattan Werewolf case, kill Patty Lane. Willy and I even saw Patty's remains. He tore her to pieces, her car too, and left his clothes behind in tatters. No one in Astor Place reported seeing a naked man running around. But several witnesses in the subway station reported seeing what they described as a giant black dog run onto the lower platform, where it tore off' the head of a police dog that pursued it, and disappeared into a tunnel.”

Landry looked around at his companions, his gaze settling on Karol. “We logged reports from other witnesses who saw the dog run past different stations as it headed uptown on the tracks. Only they called it a wolf.”

“How do New Yorkers know the difference between a big black dog and a wolf?” Karol said.

“Some of them even called it a werewolf,” Willy said.

“Now wait a minute. I saw the photo that was released of the perp, and he didn't look like a dog, a wolf, or a werewolf to me.”

“That was a screen capture from the surveillance video shot from a camera hidden in Patty's car,” Candice said. “During the attack, he was visible for only a few seconds, and then his back blocked the camera. We heard fabric tearing, snarls like an animal would make, and Patty's screams.” She swallowed. “Then we heard worse sounds.”

“Since Willy was Patty's partner, I pulled him out of the field,” Mace said. “But I allowed him to help me and Landry at the squad room. The key to the case seemed to be a man named John Stalk.”

“That upstate Indian cop,” Willy said.

“He was a tribal policeman from the Chautuaqua reservation,” Landry said.

“We brought Stalk in for questioning,” Mace said. “He wouldn't cop to it, but I knew he believed in the skinwalker legends of his people. His rifle was also loaded with silver bullets.”

“But we let him go,” Landry said.

“Two FBI agents came to the squad room. I can't tell you what they said, because they classified what they shared with me, and revealing that information would be a treasonable offense.”

“We saw those same two feds today,” Willy said.

Karol nodded. “They locked down the van that was used to abduct Rhonda Wilson before our people could even check it out.”

“They might not have wanted anything to do with the Manhatttan Werewolf, but they're running roughshod over the Lourdes and Wilson cases.”

“Agents Norton and Shelly are part of this task force,” Mace said.

“What?”
Willy sounded as disgusted as he did surprised.

“I'll get to them in a minute. Stalk was staying with Angela Domini, the woman who managed the Synful Reading bookstore for her father, Angus Domini.”

Karol glanced at Willy. “Gabriel and Raphael Domini's sister.”

“Angus died a day earlier,” Mace said. “His body was cremated at—”

“The Domini Funeral Home,” Willy said.

“I went looking for Stalk at Angela's apartment below the bookstore. No one answered. I was about to leave when I heard screams from somewhere above … and howls. I ran into the street and looked up. On the fourth-floor fire escape of an abandoned building across the street, I saw something tearing Stalk apart. It was human in shape but covered with black fur. Fuck me if its head didn't look like a wolfs.”

“Four stories is pretty high up,” Karol said. “The perp could have been wearing a costume.”

“The
perp
burrowed into Stalk's stomach with its muzzle, licked the blood off' its fingers, and threw Stalk's head at me like a watermelon. Then it disappeared into the building. There must have been a dozen witnesses.”

“I took some of those reports,” Willy said.

“So did I,” Landry said.

Mace felt everyone's attention on him. “I reported what I saw to Commissioner Dunegan and his cronies. That's when they suspended me. They also changed my report before they buried it.”

Karol folded her arms. “You expect us to believe the Manhattan Werewolf really was a werewolf?”

“I believe it,” Willy said.

“So do I,” Candice said. “I always have. It feels good to say.”

Landry turned to Karol. “The evidence is there. A preponderance of it. It's just too hard to believe.”

“Actually, the evidence
isn't
there,” Mace said. “The brass either buried it or destroyed it, or the FBI confiscated it. All that remains are a trail of unexplained dismembered and decapitated bodies, some YouTube clips, a lot of urban legends, and several ruined careers.”

Landry turned back to Mace. “I'm sorry. You never said why … I assumed they wanted someone to blame for what happened to Patty.”

Willy took a swig of beer and set his mug down hard. “I want to hear how you did the monster.”

Mace gathered his thoughts, weighing how much to reveal. “I was out running along the FDR the morning the National Guard came to town. I saw the perp watching me, but he disappeared before I could get to him. Thanks to the media, he knew who I was. I believed he was following me, that it was me or him. But before I could get to him, he pulled a disappearing act. I sent my wife out of town right away.”

“I don't blame you,” Candice said.

“Angela Domini went off the grid, but she reached out to me, and I met with her.”

Landry raised his eyebrows. “There was an APB out on her …”

“She was afraid the Manhattan Werewolf would kill her, but she was unwilling to turn herself in. She told me the name of the werewolf and where he lived. He was using the name Janus Farel, but his real name was Julian Fortier.”

“You said he wasn't human,” Karol said.

“He was a wolf in human's clothing,” Mace said. “I signed out two items from Evidence Control: the revolver Patty had the night she was killed and the Blade of Salvation.”

Willy shook his head. “That damned broken sword Terrence Glenzer had …”

“Why did you sign out that evidence?” Karol said.

“Because I intended to kill Janus Farel. Angela told me the Blade would kill him—or at least that Janus believed it would, which was enough.”

“How did she know that?”

Willy frowned. “She ran an occult bookstore.”

“Why did you take Patty's revolver?” Landry said.

“I needed a gun because they made me turn mine in, and I thought it would be poetic justice to use hers.”

“Was it?” Candice asked.

“Not exactly.” Mace's heart beat faster as he relived the events he had tried to block from his mind for two years. “I broke into Janus's house, a brownstone in the Village he'd inherited from his family. I searched the premises during a thunderstorm. There was no electricity, so I had to rely on my cell phone and the lightning for illumination. The floors
were covered with dog shit. In the basement, there was a torture chamber filled with human skeletons. And I found a closet full of skulls …”

“The heads he took from his victims,” Willy said.

“Many more than we knew about. I was scared out of my mind. Janus came home, and I tried to hide, but he found me. He was naked and looked human enough. But his eyes
changed,
turning completely dark.”

“Jesus,” Landry said.

“I emptied Patty's revolver into him at point-blank range.”

“You mean you
executed
your perp?” Karol said. “What was your evidence that he was a werewolf? That a naked man's eyes got dark during a storm?”

“Did I say I killed him then?” Mace supposed it was a good thing to present his account to a nonbeliever, to see just how crazy his story sounded to an objective listener. “I saw the bullet holes in his chest and one in his head. No one could have survived that. But Janus opened his eyes and smiled at me. And then he changed … into a seven-foot-tall werewolf, the same monster that I saw kill Stalk. He chased me and we fought. I took the Blade out of my coat, but he bit a chunk out of my shoulder. I watched him eat my flesh. He would have killed me, but Angela showed up. She saved my life. They fought, and when he was about to kill her, it was my turn to save her life. I picked up the Blade and drove it into his heart, and that was the end of him.”

“I hope he didn't change back into a human,” Willy said. “Because that would make it hard for you to dodge a murder charge.”

“No, he changed into a wolf. A giant black wolf. There
was nothing remotely human about him.”

“Angela Domini saw this too?” Landry said.

Mace nodded.

“Where is she?”

“She went to Canada.”

“There goes your alibi if you ever need it,” Willy said.

“I don't need an alibi. As far as I know, there's nobody left. Angela called her brothers and told them to dispose of the body at the funeral home. Then she took me to the ER, and after I signed myself out, I drove her to a car rental agency. That was the last I saw of her.”

“So Gabriel and Raphael Domini destroyed evidence related to several homicides, not to mention an earth-shattering scientific find,” Landry said.

“I don't know for sure if they did or not. She never mentioned me to them. She told them she killed Janus.”

“What I want to know,” Karol said, “is how this Angela Domini saved your life from a supposed werewolf.”

Mace met Karol's gaze. “She was a werewolf too.”

Four pairs of eyes blinked at him in unison.