The War Gate (35 page)

“He’s a goddamn Emmaus,” swore Sebastian, while he poured bullets into his front pocket. A pistol protruded from his waistband.

“What do mean by that?” Avy shrieked. “What are you saying, Sebastian?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking at her askance. “Forget it.”

“No! I want to hear what you have to say. What’s an e-mouse?”

He turned on her. “I told you to forget it. I’m just thinking out loud, okay?”

Nothing made sense, Avy decided. Still reeling from the nausea, she got to her feet to confront her boyfriend. “What are going to do with that gun? You heard what the detective said.”

He got in her face, his eyes bulging. “All bets are off. You saw what happened. That thing is a cop-killer. What makes you think we’re safe when he can dust cops out of his way like that? You think they can protect us against him?” He turned away, yanked his pack open and began to throw items in it. “The whole playing field has been changed, none of it in our favor.” He gave her a scathing glance. “Put that phone down. Chubby already called the cops. Detective Bulmer won’t be able to help you. He’ll get killed too.”

Avy cradled the phone receiver, then looked at Chubby with eyes more pleading than inquiring. She had never seen Sebastian in such a fit of rage. She needed a logical confidant right now. Not a raving lunatic. Something had to change.

She held her hands out in a pleading gesture. “Chubby, you’ve got to talk some sense into him.”

Chubby stammered, “I...I don’t know what to think right now. I can’t believe any of this is happening. I just know that we have to—I have to get my sidearm. I’m sorry.” He opened the door, then hurried to his room.

Avy persisted. “What do you expect to do, Sebastian? You know something about this, but you’re not telling.”

“You wouldn’t understand half of it.”

“I get it now. I’m just half of a real soul, so I should expect half of an answer. Is that it?”

He zipped up his small carryall bag, then glared at her. “That was a cheap shot. I love you because you’re special to me. I wouldn’t care if you were half succubus, or I was damned to hell for coupling with you. Right now, we’re in way over our heads. There’s just one way to deal with this. My way. Give me your keys. Now!”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Motel doors opened. Feet shuffled on the landing.

Avy handed over her keys. Sebastian told her to pack what belongings she had, because he wasn’t certain if they would be coming back. They met Chubby at the front door when they were ready to leave. The three hurried down to the vehicles behind the motel. Sebastian ordered that all of Chubby’s camping gear be packed in the small Suzuki Jeep. He said that they would not need two vehicles because they were riding together from here on out. Sebastian got behind the wheel, the pistol tucked under his thigh.

They drove to the alley where the officers had pulled in when they had received the call. Yellow barrier tape stretched across the entrance. Three uniformed officers stood guard, keeping spectators back. An ambulance sat further down the alleyway, its doors open. Several paramedics knelt over the two prone officers—one of them was repacking a defibrillator back into its case. One of the prone officers was naked, except for a small towel covering his lower half.

Sebastian pulled up, nosing the front of the Jeep into the barrier tape, almost snapping it. An officer waved him off. “This is a crime scene, clear your vehicle.”

Feigning ignorance, Sebastian said, “Sorry, sir. What happened? Are those police officers?”

Avy looked at Sebastian. She felt like slapping him. What kind of a ruse was he pulling? He knew what had happened.

“Two officer-related deaths. Move along.”

“Why is that one almost naked, sir?”

“He got stripped.”

“Who did this? Was there a suspect? Where did he go? Maybe I can help.”

“Look, unless you were a witness you have no business here.”

“I might have seen something, but I’m not sure.”

“A homeless man was seen leaving north up this street. Did you see him?”

“Ah, no. Maybe I was mistaken. Sorry for taking up your time. I’m very sorry about the officers.” Sebastian backed the vehicle up, then headed north. Avy watched his jaw cinch, his expression changing. He had gone back to being the angry boyfriend again, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, head swiveling side to side, watching the alleys and sidewalks.

“Keep your nose tweaked,” said Sebastian. “I know that son-of-a-bitch is close. He couldn’t have gotten too far. He stands out like a neon sign. Somebody must have seen him.”

Sebastian pulled over to the side of the street. A half block ahead, a uniformed officer stood on the curb interviewing pedestrians, scribbling notes in his report book. When the officer reentered his cruiser, he pulled ahead to continue down the street. Sebastian followed the cruiser. The cop hung a right at the next intersection. Once again, he pulled over to interview some people who were sitting under an umbrella at a sidewalk cafe. One of the witnesses pointed to a small alley across the street. The cop waved to the group, then took off in that direction.

Avy’s car trailed behind at a comfortable distance. More patrol cars merged into the area, evidence that they were following a “hot” lead.

Avy noted that Sebastian continued to keep from following too closely, apparently not wanting to arouse attention. He was using law enforcement for his own personal radar. She guessed that Sebastian, knowing that the police were closing in on their suspect, intended to be in the area for the final take-down. But then what? She didn’t understand why he didn’t tell the police what he knew.

“They’ll show us the way,” said Sebastian. “They can’t cover all the ground. Knowing the Wax Man, he’ll just give them the slip again. Then we’ll be right there, waiting for him.”

“Now there you go again.” Avy said, flustered. “Wax Man? What’s got into you? If you know something, spill it. If you have personal knowledge about this character you should be blabbing everything you know to the cops.”

“Yeah, what gives?” Chubby asked over the engine noise.

Sebastian ignored their questions. His mission was set in stone. He drove on, hiding the Jeep behind corners, slowing down when he had to, then speeding up. Avy could tell he had nothing on his mind but the breadcrumb trail, the maze through the streets and alleys.

###

Evening came with a pinkish sky laced with sheet-like clouds. After hours of driving, Sebastian slowed to park by the side of a street that bordered a large field. A dozen officers occupied the field, beating the weedy bushes with their batons. A few had their weapons drawn. This was where the leads had taken the police, who had now set up a perimeter in a concentrated search area.

“They’ve run the bastard to ground,” said Sebastian. “They think he’s in there.” He looked to his left toward a small warehouse district surrounded by chain link fences, storage garages, and rental yards. “Nobody is looking over there in that jumble of buildings. He wouldn’t be caught out in the open in a field again. He’s looking for cover.” Sebastian took off his t-shirt and tore it into three large strips. He said the cloth strips would make rudimentary masks. Avy and Chubby donned the makeshift masks, both questioning him about the reason for using them. He refused to answer.

They continued on, driving around the many lots near the unkempt storage buildings. Whenever Sebastian found an unlocked gate, he drove onto the property and checked every square-foot. He left the vehicle several times to search inside suspect buildings. Chubby always stayed in the vehicle with Avy, panning his flashlight between the shadows.

The search lasted late into the night. They were about to call it quits when Chubby reared up from his seat and jumped from the Jeep. The high beams illuminated a scampering figure running the course of a rain gutter on the top of a building. Avy couldn’t make out the identity of the creature, but believed it to be nothing more than a stray cat. She changed her mind when she got a better look—it looked like a giant rat.

Chubby ran ahead of the creature, stopped in a combat stance and raised his gun. When the scampering creature passed over his head, he fired three shots. The opossum flipped into the air, then somersaulted onto the oil-soaked ground. Chubby fired two more shots point blank. Blood splattered the aluminum warehouse wall. “That’s for Gretchen.” he told it, picking it up. He swung it by its tail, bashing its head into the wall. Satisfied that it was dead, he dropped the mangled glob of fur on the ground.

Chubby yelled at the top of his lungs
,
“I just killed your precious little pet. You hear me? Come get me, you filthy bastard. I’m waiting for you.”

At first Avy thought Chubby might have lost his mind to grief, guessing that he had killed just one of the many opossums that might have been in the area. When she went to examine it with Sebastian, she changed her mind. The animal stank like no other. It reeked of that cadaverous, fetid odor. Chubby had indeed snuffed out Harry’s little partner in crime.

Sebastian swung a piece of pipe against the warehouse wall sending up a deafening clang. He yelled at the night. “Come out and fight, you coward. I know you’re in there. You can have a piece of me now.”

They spent the next hour driving around the property, searching for any conceivable hiding place. They found nothing. The cops had seemingly disappeared from the area, not even alerted by the gunshots. Wherever Harry had gone, he had tucked himself away real good. Avy spoke with the two men, trying to convince them that the enemy had lost his small bloodhound and the probability of finding the three of them again would be impossible. After having run out of rage-induced adrenaline, Sebastian calmed. He allowed Avy to suggest their next move, which seemed to be a form of apology. At last, he would listen to reason.

“We call detective Bulmer,” she said. “He can furnish us with a safe house or protective custody. It’s the right way to handle this. I think you should tell him all he needs to know about your so-called Wax Man. For God’s sake, people are dying. More might end up dead if we don’t get this out in the open.”

Chubby said, “She’s right, man. That’s our best option right now.”

###

Avy made an urgent call, rousing detective Bulmer from sleep at his residence. He told her he had just arrived home after investigating the two officer homicides but he would meet them at the entrance to Police Headquarters. The detective met them at the station entrance at three in the morning, looking disheveled. But his eyes were bright, senses obviously aroused. There was no mistaking his interest in what they had to say.

“Sebastian has some new evidence about who this man is,” said Avy while they walked down the hallway.

“I’ll take anything I can get,” said the detective.

Bulmer sequestered the three in a large conference room, locked the door against entry then started a tape recorder. It soon became evident that a city detective could have a “hell hath no fury” attitude about being left out of the loop concerning a major homicide investigation, when Sebastian began to open up about what he knew.

Bulmer glared at him. “Why didn’t you speak up about this before? Two officers died in the line of duty during a time that you had full knowledge about what killed them.”

“I wasn’t certain at first,” said Sebastian. “I didn’t know the identity of the assailant until after I witnessed the deaths. It was the way they were killed that tipped me off. I’m sorry I didn’t know sooner.”

“Just what or who
are we dealing with here?” Bulmer pressed.

“According to a story I heard from a friend,” Sebastian began, “there was a race of plague victims in the beginning, lepers that originated out of northern Jerusalem. They were called Emmaus. Which translates to ‘The Despised Ones.’ They were people who carried a variety of diseases that had no known cures at the time. They were rounded up to be quarantined in small isolated villages and outposts. They were shunned by society. All of the afflicted were cloistered together.”

“Didn’t they all die from their diseases?” asked Bulmer.

“Ninety-nine percent of these communities died out never to be seen again. But a few survived. By some biological miracle, the remaining victims developed antibodies against the pathogens. From one generation to another they became immune, even after picking up additional diseases from other sources. They scattered into the population, forming secret communities. They were once known as the ‘shadow people’, sometimes the ‘dispossessed.’They became common outcasts, synonymous with the homeless, gypsies, vagabonds, transients—call them whatever you like. Their bodies processed all the viral forms into one all-powerful plague—a master plague. But this plague was so lethal it could transfer through the pores or get picked up through the lungs.”

Bulmer sighed. “You’re talking about instantaneous death.”

“Yes. Just being close to the person with the contagion can make you sick as hell. There is no cure for it. Death is certain with direct contact.”

Bulmer looked incensed. “Why don’t they die from their own contagion? I mean, what keeps the line going?”

“Like I said, the few who have survived are immune. They don’t live past their late twenties—in fact, the teenagers of the species, I guess you would call them, are the most active. They breed within their own bloodline.”

“It doesn’t sound plausible. How is it that we’ve never seen them before?”

“They’re masters of stealth,” said Sebastian in a mystic tone. “It’s a small network of individuals who always keep hidden away. Look, you can’t find something that won’t show itself.”

Detective Bulmer appeared woozy for a moment, like he was trying to shake off a bad drunk. “How do they survive? How do they live?”

“They’re dumpster divers—they eat out of the trash. Sometimes they kill livestock or domesticated pets. Some prey on the homeless—robbing or murdering them. They kill our homeless people because they can get away with it. The homeless are never missed. You have to admit, sir, that even prostitute homicides get better investigations than our homeless population.”