Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Read online

  “Over here.” His voice, further up the road. She jogged up and he chinned at something on the asphalt. “Look.”

  The oxygen tube lay coiled on the ground, flecked with blood. Gallagher dangled it between his thumb and finger. Lara crunched over the gravel shoulder to the ditch. She plucked a strip of fabric from the weeds, the same pale blue as the ambulance gurney. Another step into the long grass and her foot slipped down the muddy embankment. The ground dropped steeply to a gulley and beyond that, dark trees. Lara kicked her way back to the crest of the ditch. “Here,” she panted. “Down this way.”

  He caught her hand and hauled her back up the grade. “Time to arm up.”

  From the back of the Cherokee, they took the two longhandled Maglites. Gallagher tore open the box of twelve gauge shells and Lara filled her pockets. She slid the Kabar into her belt and he found the carving knife, a dishcloth for a sheath.

  “What is that?” She eyed the knife with its crudely taped handle, took it from his hand. The sterling blade caught the light, unpolished as it was. An eyebrow shot up. “Silver? Seriously?”

  “Last resort,” he said. “You should see this bad boy cut turkey.”

  “You know silver doesn't work, right?”

  “Yeah. But does he know that?”

  She conceded the point. He shoved the trunk closed.

  THE slope was muddy, their heels slipping in the wet leaves all the way to the bottom. The flashlights threw short against the dark. Beams hitting a few mossy tree trunks but little beyond that.

  Gallagher fanned his light back and forth, already losing his bearings in that stygian pitch. He looked up at the sky, hoping to navigate from the stars but the night was overcast with clouds. Some cowboy you are, he scolded to himself. “Which way?”

  Lara arced her Maglite round but seemed no more grounded than he was. “I don't know.”

  “Best guess?”

  She aimed her beam north, then adjusted northwest. “This way.”

  They trudged off under that bearing, aligned with the pole star, their feet sucking into the muddy ground. Twenty sloppy paces in they found another strip of hospital linen. She pressed on, Gallagher following her lead. Thirty more paces and Lara stopped short.

  “What is it?” His hand went to the holster.

  She struck east, the beam of her light rolling over wildgrass until something pale poked up from the foliage.

  An arm, torn off at the elbow. The gnawed ligaments and protruding bone drenched with black blood. The pulse monitor remained clipped to the index finger.

  LIEUTENANT Vogel was supposed to be home an hour ago. This wasn't unusual for the commander of a homicide unit but his son was home from Washington State for the weekend and Vogel was looking forward to a big family meal and then a night of WWE on the flat screen. This was his son's second year at college and Vogel missed him dearly. His first year away had been a delight; the house was calm and there was no trail of dirty clothes. No one pilfering everything in the fridge. The novelty wore off by February and the house became too quiet, too clean. He and his wife found too much time on their hands without the trainwreck of their son to look after. This second year at college, the stillness was unbearable.

  The Lieutenant had moved with grace and efficiency that afternoon; returning calls, shuffling paperwork and putting out fires all around him. He was wrapping everything up when the phone rang and a boatload of shit poured out of the receiver.

  Correctional Supervisor Susan Dade called from the Rafton lockup and wanted to know why two of Vogel's thugs were not only still on the job but back here looking to have another go at the same prisoner. She was livid and Vogel asked her to back up and relay the details. His jaw set when he learned what had transpired. Vogel spoke calmly to Supervisor Dade, assuring her that this was a big misunderstanding and apologized for his officer's actions. He gave no details of their suspension from the unit, no information at all about the state of affairs within his department. He listened dutifully, said he looked forward to seeing her official complaint over the incident and promised to get back to her with some answers as soon as possible. When he got off the line, the roar issuing from his office echoed clear across the bullpen.

  DETECTIVE Bingham sat in the makeshift task room comparing the big wall map to a corresponding map on his computer screen. He had put so much work into building a geographic profile of the suspect that had eluded two other detectives and now it just hung there mocking him. The profiling program had spit out nothing but erroneous estimates and the entire case had stalled out. His partner Latimer, refused to sink anymore overtime into this and went home on the shift change. Bingham had taken to simply staring at the map, waiting for God to drop a lead into his lap. He was still waiting.

  He flinched at the roar bellowing across the cubicles. He went to the door and spotted the Lieutenant issuing orders to detective Rowe. The veins on Vogel's brow bulged, and that was never a good sign. The Lieutenant eyed him in the doorframe and marched right for him.

  Shit. Bingham kept his smile light, his tone casual. “What's up, boss?”

  Vogel shooed him back and closed the door halfway. “We have shit to shovel.” He looked around the war room. “Where's Latimer?”

  “He went home. Family stuff.” Bingham didn't want to ask but knew he had to. “What shit are you talking about?”

  “You're friends with Mendes, right? Have you talked to her?”

  “No. Not since, you know, she got her walking papers. Why?”

  “She and Gallagher are up to something.” Vogel took a breath to calm the rage. “They tried to boost a prisoner from lockup. The one tied to this case.”

  “Kovacks?” Bingham blanched. That didn't sound at all like Lara. “Did they take him?”

  “No. The warder smelled a rat.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “They're playing vigilante,” Vogel said. “And digging their own graves in the process.”

  “Shit.” Bingham reached for his cell. “Did you call her?”

  “Neither one are answering their phones.” Vogel leaned against the desk, leveled a finger at him. “We need to find them pronto. And we need to do it quietly. If this gets out, the whole department is in for hell on a popsicle stick.”

  “No shit. Let's get some uniforms, start tracking them down.”

  “No uniforms. We keep this in-house for now. Rowe's coming with us. Call Latimer, have him meet you at Mendes's place. Rowe and I will hit Gallagher's house.”

  Bingham followed the Lieutenant out to the bullpen. Detective Rowe marched up fast to meet them. “This just got worse,” he said.

  “That isn't possible.” Vogel kept walking, making the detectives fall in behind him.

  “That Kovacks guy was being transported to hospital but the ambulance never showed. A 911 call came in about twenty minutes ago. The bus was in some kind of accident. One paramedic is seriously injured, the other one's shaken up. But he said there were two police officers on the scene. Plainclothes cops.”

  Lieutenant Vogel stopped cold. “What about Kovacks?”

  “Disappeared.”

  34

  THE SMELL OF DAMP EARTH FILLED the dying man's nostrils. The musk of rotting leaves and the tang of earthworms cleared his senses. After the godawful stink of antiseptic floor wash and old paint and unwashed blasphemers, the smell of soil and weeds was a boon.

  He lay face down in the dew, the restraints long gone. He clawed at the earth, trying to crawl away but the going was hard. The torn stump of his arm floundered in the muck like a tortoise's flipper. He was losing blood fast.

  He had to change, had to become the wolf one more time even though it might kill him. The other lobo was still out there, circling in the darkness. Choosing its moment to strike. The bastard Prall.

  Triggering the change took no effort at all. It was simply letting go, unclenching a muscle in the heart. Keeping the wolf down was the hard part. Any emotion could set it off, not just rage or anger.
Fear, lust, hatred or jealousy, all of them poked the monster to life. All Ronald Kovacks had to do was let go and let slip the wolf.

  The wolf's blood sang through his veins, pumped coarse through the ventricles of his venal heart. But it wouldn't be enough. The lobo in the dark circled closer and closer. At the first hint of the old man's transfiguration, it sprang.

  GALLAGHER couldn’t keep up. Even with the Maglite on the ground before him, the way was hard. The terrain was treacherous, jarring drops and dips hidden under the algae scum. Gnarled tree roots tripped him up. He'd already fallen once, scraping his palm bloody and losing even more ground on Lara.

  Lara ran effortlessly through the dark, sidestepping every obstacle like she ran this course every day. She was breathing hard but not winded. Wanting to run faster but holding back to keep from losing Gallagher. Why was he so slow?

  They pressed on like this for a while, Lara chasing ahead and Gallagher splashing slow through the marsh. He cursed her each time he fell, called out for her to stop but she was too far ahead. He trudged on and he thought he could hear the river up ahead. And then he saw her.

  Lara stood in a hollow of black oaks. Her back to him as he caught up, her gaze fixed on the ground. Gallagher swiped a palm over his brow. She was still, not panting and heaving the way he was. Then he saw what held her eyes, the thing on the ground.

  There was little left that could be identified as Ronald Kovacks. Or even human. What was there, in the mud and rotting leaves, was a butchered carcass, some godforsaken thing rendered into obscene pieces. Bone and meat and fur and all of it sopped in an impossible amount of blood. Webs of fur strung white with flecks of grey, the coarse coat of the wolf. The thing's entrails were strewn and scattered, its ribcage broken and snapped. Strung between the meat and splintered ribcage were shreds of orange cloth, prison scrubs rent over the gore like webbing.

  The stink of it steamed into Gallagher's nose. It was all he could do to keep his stomach down. Lara hadn't moved, still as the oaks around her. She didn't even blink.

  He turned away from it and spoke her name. Nothing. He touched her arm. She flinched like she'd been tasered, snapping out of her trance. Her eyes looked confused, like she didn't recognize him.

  “Don't look at it,” he said.

  “It's nothing.” She knelt down for a closer look, unfazed by the smell or the horror of it. “It's less than nothing.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  Lara rose and stepped through the gore and knelt again. Studying something round nestled against a tree root. “Look at this.”

  The head. Neither the man nor the monster but some profane misalignment of the two. The thing's snout but the man's eyes, agape in what could only be terror. The jaw piece was missing, shorn away whole at the hinge. Lara reached down and gripped it by the hair and raised the dripping mass up to eye level.

  “Jesus, don't touch it,” he spat. “Put it down.”

  Her eyes met his and Gallagher saw nothing familiar in her gaze. She seemed some other person and her eyes put a chill down his back. She turned the head back and forth, inspecting it, then let it fall. It rolled onto its side in the mud, one wet eye staring up into the night sky.

  “Get out of there, for Christ's sakes!” He barked at her the same way he barked at Amy when she was little. His anger coming out of nowhere. He stepped into the blood, snatched her arm and pulled her from the mess. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  She jerked out of his grip and stepped forward, eye to eye. “Keep your hands off me.”

  Her eyes seemed all wrong again. That weird flicker exploding in her irises. “Something is wrong, Lara. You should go back to the truck.”

  “No. He's too close.”

  He squeezed her arm again, he couldn't help it. “Take five.”

  All she meant to do was push him off but the shotgun was still in her hands. She crossbeamed it across his chest and he flew back as if hit by a bus.

  “Oh God.” It happened so fast, it didn't seem real. How could she have done that? This wasn't her. She wasn't violent, she didn't have fits of rage like this.

  Gallagher rolled onto his hands and knees, the wind punched out of him.

  “I'm sorry.” She went to help him, to do something but her spine froze up and she became still. Something washed over her and tweaked the nose of her rage again. It was so alien to her senses that it took a moment to register.

  She could smell Prall.

  Turning her head, she could almost pinpoint the direction it was coming from, wind or no. Prall or the wolf, one and the same to her.

  Gallagher kept his head down and gulped oxygen back into his lungs. He hated getting the wind knocked out of him, hated that moment of panic when you couldn't breathe like you're drowning. It had happened plenty of times, playing football or dust-ups on the job, but every time it spooked the hell out of him. When he looked up, Lara was long gone. But he knew she would be.

  That sting of panic came back. Mendes had teetered on the edge but now she was slipping down the far side and he had no idea how to help her. He couldn't stop her, couldn't even keep up with her.

  He was in way over his head with no clue of how to stop any of it. Who would? He was just a cop and his only real skill was threatening and pummeling people who were weaker than him until they told the truth. Or the truth he needed at that moment.

  “To hell with you.” He lowered his head until it touched the ground. He gave up. “I can't fix this so to hell with you.”

  Go get your kid. Go home. Lock the doors.

  IVAN Prall knelt under the awning of a willow, its tendrils swaying over him like a jellyfish. The breeze that riffled the leaves cooled the sweat on his flesh and the earth was cold under his knees. Of that he felt nothing, only the hot tears on his face registered at all. The lecher Kovacks was dead and he emerged triumphant. He had spilled the blood of the old beast and its blood had cleansed him, washing away the sin of the wolf. He looked down at the object still clenched in his fist. The jawbone ripped from the head of the Kovacks-wolf, still warm in his fingers. A relic to verify the redemption of his sins.

  He touched his fingertips to his tears, tasted the saltiness of it. Wolves cannot cry and Ivan Prall hadn't wept since his transfiguration all those years ago. Praise God.

  Yet the tears didn't last long and his eyes dried and he wept no more. The flame of triumph flickered and snuffed, leaving a cancerous hollow inside him. He tried to remember the last time he had seen the bastard Kovacks. Some three months after he'd been attacked and fled the hospital. He had transformed twice in that time. His baptismal change had left him racked with guilt and shame. After the second transformation, he realized what had happened and what he had become. He had gone back to the Gethsemane house, that hateful pit for the wretched, to confront Ronald Kovacks. The man had chased him from his door like some rabid dog. He had never meant to pass the curse onto him, Kovacks had said. He had meant to kill him. He blamed Prall for his own circumstances, for being too stupid to just die. Prall ran alone and ashamed into the wilds of the mountain. And every day after that, he had cursed himself for not killing Kovacks on the spot, not gutting him with the knife hidden in his belt but the old man still held power over him and he ran away frightened. He didn't know it at the time but he could have ended the curse then and there. It wasn't until years later when he hit upon the solution, the ablution of the curse after so many attempts at other cures and still other redemptions. All that time wasted, all that suffering endured. His cross to bear.

  So why did his heart ring hollow now?

  Kovacks had begged for his life at the end. Like a mouse, like a woman. Caught halfway through the change, Kovacks writhed between man and lobo and begged like a leper. He tried to bargain for his life, promising that there were further mysteries to be divulged, hinting that there were others like them. Whole packs of their kind, running free somewhere north. Unafraid and unashamed of what they were. Prall was too far gone t
o hear. Even his wolf half knew Kovacks to be a snake and a liar, willing to say anything to purchase his life with thirty shekels of lies. His wolf showed no mercy, granted no clemency. How else could it be? The end had been written since the beginning and neither could deviate from their role. Only a snake could think it could slither out from under the paths God had set for them.

  His ears picked up the thumping of pads and the dogs burst from the underbrush and circled him. The wolf had left them behind but when they saw Prall they nudged him with their snouts and licked his back and pawed his hands. Did they realize the wolf was gone? Couldn't they sense the alpha was dead and he was no more than a man now? If they did, the pack gave no hint of it. They nuzzled into him and leaned their ribs against him.

  The Siberian came up last of all, trailing his clothes in its maw. It dropped the bundle at his feet, sniffed at him and suddenly jerked back. Prall reached out to scratch its ruff but the Siberian shied away. He wasn't surprised. The husky was the most intelligent of the pack, the beta. He would be the one to smell the change in him before the others. A sting of sadness pricked his heart at the thought, how the distance would grow between them now.

  No time for that now. He pulled on the filthy jeans and rancid jacket. He was cold now, so vulnerable to the environment like all the other weak humans. The price to pay.

  The wind blew harder, tossing the willow branches around him. The Malamute chomped at the dipping vines, playing. He smiled at its play, its youth but then something fired through his brain and knotted his guts. One single smell burned above all the million other odors in his nose. The tang of the woman, the one still hunting him. She was closing in fast through the grove.