Wolf's Gambit

by W. D. Gagliani

  Snarling, tearing, ripping, swallowing.

  Tef took his fill from the carcass, paying special attention first to the withered genitals, then to the entrails. Then he sat to lick his whiskers clean.

  You’re too much like a cat, Schwartz sometimes mocked him.

  Only in the good ways, Tef would respond.

  This was good.

  He finished throwing a few spadefuls of dirt and pine needles over the shallow grave. Then he picked up the camera and returned to the van, which he drove and parked on a side street. This town wasn’t very large, so it still stood out, but at least it wasn’t prominently on display.

  Back behind the motel, he sat in the garish green-and-white-striped Geo Tracker foisted on him by Alpha—

  “You must fit in with the locals, and this car is perfect because it almost stands out,” Tannhauser said. “Therefore it’s the perfect disguise.”

  Tannhauser was an idiot.

  —and waited for the news chick to emerge. When she did, clad in an expensive leather jacket and tight jeans, her hair freshly washed and her face made up, he followed discreetly. Keeping her in sight easily, he whistled tunelessly as he drove and felt his desire rise again.

  Where the hell was she going?

  Abruptly she halted and looked around nervously, then entered a bar festooned with the usual neon beer signs in the window.

  He swore, found a parking slot farther up the main drag, and headed for the bar on foot. As he reached it, she surprised him by bursting out the door and brushing past him, her exotic scent lingering in his nostrils.

  He could still smell the sex on her.

  She had to be working, perhaps pumping the locals for information or background. She entered another tourist bar a few doors down, and he followed. Ten minutes and she was out, heading for the next.

  Tef liked this town. Plenty of places to get plastered. And the people here tasted good, too—maybe it was all that fresh pine air. But he was in no mood to keep this up. From across another tourist bar, he watched her. All male eyes were on her. Whether they recognized her or not, she simply absorbed their attention. No other woman in the place could compete with the package—her smile, her perfect features, her lively eyes. She was a tasty one.

  His desire grew.

  To own her, to be inside her, to pleasure her, and—when the time came—to devour her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lupo

  1977

  “Che cosa fai?” Frank Lupo’s first recourse when angry was always Italian.

  What are you doing?

  “Stai spiando come un ladro? Ma cosa hai in mente, eh?”

  “I wasn’t spying—” Nick began.

  But he had been.

  The first cuff caught him across the face, shocking him into silence. The second was expected, so he rode it. Praying there would be no more.

  “Vai in casa e dammi quei binocoli!” Frank Lupo held out his hand and Nick gave up his binoculars. As he headed for the side door, beaten and exposed, he saw from the corner of his eye that both Leo and Beth Ann had disappeared, probably spooked by the ruckus across the street. Or Leo had finished his disgusting business and moved on. There was no way to tell now, but the image of Beth Ann in tears filled his head.

  Nick skulked toward the door. His father helped him along with a half kick in the buttocks more designed to humiliate than hurt.

  It worked.

  Nick escaped inside, his face burning.

  No way to tell how much the old man had seen of what occupied his son’s attention. Chances were that Frank Lupo would keep silent about this infraction, punishing both Nick and his mother with the silence brought by her son’s disgusting behavior. Nick had no doubt that he would never see the binoculars again.

  But he would see Leo Sokowski again.

  Nick was sure about that.

  From the Journals of Caroline Stewart

  December 1979

  Last time I wrote it was like a case study.

  I really didn’t convey the depth of feeling between Nick, young as he is, and me—wounded as I am. I thought relationships were never going to work for me. Too much baggage, thanks to my screwed-up family. That’s the way things were going, until Nick came along. For the first time, here was someone whose tortured soul connected with mine. His baggage was more extraordinary than mine—that’s an understatement!—but we were both people who needed to deal with our pasts and with our afflictions. It didn’t hurt that he liked sex, and, when we finally reached that level, that he was so good! I’d always had a problem in that area, or at least potential problems that manifested themselves in strange, destructive ways. But taking on Nick’s burdens seemed to free me of mine. Oh, and what burdens he carried!

  It’s a good thing these journals are private, because what I’m writing could get me committed.

  After hinting around about a strange “condition” and even pretending it was an acquaintance of his rather than him, Nick blurted out that he thought he was a werewolf. It’s strange still to write it! A victim of lycanthropy.

  He didn’t just think he was, there was no doubt in his mind. He rented a video camera and a huge professional video deck in order to show me. Then he was able to capture the Change on videotape. Just like in the horror movies, Nick Lupo turns into a wolf when the full moon rises.

  There, I wrote it, and it doesn’t feel too bad.

  I would have been the first to doubt his story, but I had done a fair amount of research into unusual phenomena ever since my own “incident” (more in a later journal), and I was already predisposed to believe in the unusual/bizarre because of my brother and our father’s depraved ways (more on this in the journal marked Private)—and their abuse. My study of psychology included some work with multiple personality syndrome (MPS) cases, and I was researching a book on the subject, bolstered by numerous articles I’d authored in my few years in the profession. Nick Lupo may or may not have known I would be receptive, but somehow he sensed it. As he himself has said, the irony of his last name ( lupo =wolf in Italian) might well be a sort of manifest destiny instead.

  When he showed me his first attempts to record his Change, he made a believer out of me. We’d already become lovers—an inappropriate relationship, but one neither of us could resist. While I might have been predisposed to believing him, his awkward, amateurish videotape attempt was convincing enough. This kid didn’t have a George Lucas special effects studio at his disposal, so what I saw was either real or badly faked. I just knew it wasn’t faked. His embarrassment, his discomfort—all of it was real. I think he wanted me to throw him out. He expected that kind of reaction. But what he didn’t know was that I had already begun to see things—his insatiable appetite for rare meat, sporadic hair growth that seemed based on mood, involuntary growling when angry or excited. And the sex…well, there was some level of animal intensity to it, that was for sure. Even as young and inexperienced as he was, and as gentle as he tried to be, his lovemaking often ramped up to increasingly intense, almost dangerous, eroticism. Sometimes, in the heat of our second or third nightly lovemaking session, his strong but gentle hands would guide me to the brink, then urge me to turn over onto my knees, and he would enter me from behind in the most satisfying yet bestial way possible. Yet I was always there with him, ready by then to receive him and sway with him until our sweat-covered bodies united as one and his face would touch the back of my neck, his tongue lapping the salt from my skin even as my own rapture cascaded into a series of explosions, his hardness still large and embedded deep inside me. (Just trying to describe this feeling makes me wet.) Sometimes after all the intensity I’d roll over under him, and I could see the coarse patches of hair suddenly recede and disappear, and his skin would once again look normal. His sweat, musky in nature, seemed to arouse me further and we might then begin again. We were like sex-starved teenagers!

  Sometimes, in the dark, I swore I saw him blur a little, as if he straddled both the human and magical worlds
he inhabited. I don’t know how much was magic and how much was DNA, but there was no doubt in my mind about the truth of what he was.

  None of this lessened our love.

  And I resolved to understand what Nick is and what he might be capable of, and to see if I can help him overcome this “disability.” Not only overcome, but to help him harness it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mr. XYZ

  The young woman was one of a dying breed.

  He chuckled.

  Dying breed.

  He’d picked her up that morning, hitchhiking on 45, something her parents must have warned her never to do. Yet there she was. Unzipped ski jacket, tight jeans, maroon cotton sweater showing off her assets, long blond hair tied in a neat ponytail. Not beautiful, with acne scars covered by makeup. Dark-rimmed eyes for that starved-model look. Glossy lips made fuller than they were. But she added up to more than the sum of her parts.

  Now she awoke. Her eyes widened when they focused on him.

  “Sleep well?” he asked, smiling. He didn’t expect much of an answer. He saw her realizing, slowly, that a large rubber ball stretched her lips open and prevented her from speaking. Or screaming. Her eyes wanted to jump out of their sockets. She struggled, but the leather bonds held.

  He pushed a button on his remote.

  “Jennifer. Nice name, though it’s a little commonplace, don’t you think? Well, can’t blame you for your parents’ lack of imagination, can we? Jennifer, meet Heather.”

  He pointed, and Jennifer stopped struggling so she could look. He smiled at that—a brainwashed consumer. There was a commercial playing on the flat-screen TV, a clearance on snowmobiles. Then the local news came back on, and Heather Wilson took up the whole frame. She was talking, but the sound was off, so all he could do was look at her lips. He stopped the tape just as they formed a perfect O. Her wide-set eyes shone above her thousand-watt smile. Whatever the news was, it was good. Heather seemed to say so with her face. Her chin was pointed, but not too much. Perfect for her slightly oval face.

  Mr. XYZ looked back at his guest. Jennifer paled in comparison.

  He sighed. Maybe he could change that.

  He leaned over and uncovered a silver serving tray.

  “Let’s see. Maybe something more subtle today.” He selected a long scalpel from a set of a half dozen. It caught the light. Jennifer’s eyes bulged. She shook her head, thrashing. Her lips paled on the ball-gag.

  Whistling, he went to work.

  On the TV, Heather watched, motionless.

  He took his time. Jennifer turned out pretty good after all. But messy.

  Lupo

  Daytime made the North Woods Bar less dingy. Now, at dusk, the light faded from the one small, dusty window, but the bar had already been dim for hours. Dark woodwork complemented the old-fashioned L-shaped bar that spanned the length of the narrow storefront squeezed between a cluttered antique store and a sewing machine repair outfit that had to be a mob front because Lupo had never seen anyone inside. Bare minimum lighting hid the cracked alternating gray and green linoleum tiles that probably covered a once respectable wood floor. The bric-a-brac behind the bar itself was dated, dust-crusted, and generally uninteresting. The bartender, Stu, was dull and uninterested. The taps were mostly local—Rhinelander, Point, Spotted Cow from New Glarus down south Madison way, Leinenkugel Red, and the usual Miller Lite and MGD for the rabble.

  The North Woods was the antithesis of a tourist tavern, serving mostly locals in search of less light and no conversation. It had no atmosphere to speak of. The antique bowling game had broken down in the seventies. The one nod to modernity was a darkened Frogger game. The radio played country or sports talk, or sat silently pouting.

  What the North Woods Bar did have was the finest Bloody Mary in the North Woods, and the greasiest, tastiest, most fulfilling double cheeseburger ever fried on a griddle, covered with fried onions and dumped in an oily basket piled high with hand-cut spuds.

  Right now, two Bloody Marys with their Spotted Cow chasers and two of those heart-stopping cheeseburgers sat in front of Nick Lupo and Sam Waters. Lupo’s was barely cooked, smothered in mustard. The drinks were impressive, served in beer mugs, with celery stalks protruding from the thick red liquid, pickles and olives hiding beneath. When Stu could be tricked into conversation, he’d allow that his Bloody Marys were a meal unto themselves.

  Lupo and Sam took a break midburger, wiping grease from their hands and faces.

  “I like Daniel Craig, don’t get me wrong,” Sam said after swallowing. “I just don’t think he looks like Ian Fleming’s Bond as much as others.”

  “So who looks the best?”

  Lupo and Sam never tired of sparring over Bond.

  “Maybe an unpopu lar choice, but I think Lazenby looked right and brought the most human quality to the role. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is my favorite, and a lot of the fans think so, too, in retrospect.”

  “I hear you there,” Lupo said. “I like Dalton, too. Way underappreciated.” He picked up his burger again, looking for purchase points.

  “Sure he was, but he wasn’t well served by the scripts. Had he gotten better scripts and another chance, and had Lazenby been given Diamonds Are Forever, they might each have done as many Bonds as Connery and Moore.”

  “We’re in the minority, Sam.” Lupo grinned around a bite of his burger.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Sam lifted his mug. “Stu should put forks in these.”

  “Yeah.” They clinked.

  They shared an amicable quiet for a few minutes, unwilling to broach the serious issues. But the troubles hovered over them.

  Finally, Lupo sighed. “Tell me about the council.”

  Sam inspected their reflection in the dusty mirror behind the bar. “Christ, it’s a mess. Two members dead, and we’re still arguing about the casino vote.”

  “Think they’re connected?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but I sense a connection. Both victims were yes votes. I was a no.”

  “One of the two wasn’t really a member, though, was he?”

  “No, Blackthorn was like a ringer, brought in to stack the vote and drive the work.”

  “So what else makes you think they’re connected?”

  “There was a rash of so-called accidents at the site, early on.”

  “Accidents?”

  “You know, falling lumber. Broken generators. Loose connections. Faulty equipment of all kinds. A few small fires. A couple broken legs. Nothing too serious, except maybe financially.” Sam took a long drink and plucked out the pickle spear. “Looks to me like somebody tried easy, less harmful ways of stopping the work, but when it barely caused a slowdown, they graduated to the serious stuff.”

  “Murder.”

  “Makes a twisted kind of sense, don’t it?”

  “Hm.” Lupo nodded. Then he fixed Sam with his dark eyes, his eyebrows raised. “Jessie’s been avoiding it like the plague, but what about the fact these could be animal attacks? Wolf attacks, to be exact.”

  Sam nodded. “You can imagine the rumors that have started up. Some tribal voices are raising that old chestnut, defender of the tribe and so on, and questioning why he’d be turning against his people.”

  “Shit. You realize, I hope, that it’s not me. I’m not working my way through your damn council.”

  “Well, I don’t think so, but then I know a lot more than the average person. Or Indian. Plus, I know Jessie Hawkins, and she wouldn’t take up with somebody who’d do that.”

  “Thanks. Any thoughts?” He finished his cold burger in one bite.

  “Yeah, I guess. Both the Blackthorn kid and Hector were yes votes on the casino question, but Blackthorn had to be—it’s what he was there for. Still, it’s the only thing they had in common besides sitting on the council. Oil and water. Those two didn’t agree on anything.”

  “So do we wait for murder number three before deciding we have a trend?”

  “What do you mean we,
Kemo Sabe? You don’t have jurisdiction here. What can you do?”

  “I met Arnow today.”

  “Good man.” He waved to Stu. “Two more.”

  “Undoubtedly. Too bad he’s got a thing for my girlfriend.” Lupo’s half smile held no mirth.

  “What? You kiddin’? He’s sweet on the good doctor?” Sam shook his head.

  “Naw. He kept it in check, but I could read him. She’s fantastic, so what’s for him not to like?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But it might complicate things. He wants her to consult. Play coroner, assist, help profile. Anything. He says he needs her help, but maybe he just needs her. Around.”

  “Like I said, he’s a good man.”

  Lupo sighed. “Yeah, I sense that. Maybe he’ll get fascinated by this Wilson woman in from Wausau.”

  “I’ve seen her on the tube. She is fascinating, even to an old man like me. What about her? You met her yet?”

  Lupo nodded.

  “She called me today with a lot of questions about our past. Questions about you and Jessie, too. And questions about the council.”

  “Crap. What did you say?” Lupo slid the new Bloody Mary Stu had brought closer and hefted it to his mouth.

  “I spoke many words and said few things, Nick, but she was very inquisitive.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Sam drank, too, smacking his lips. “Watch out for her.”

  “Indian wisdom?”

  “Something like that.”

  They attacked their new drinks.

  “So, you gonna ask?” Lupo finally said.

  “Sure. You go out last night?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “You know I more or less have to with the moon. Yeah, I was out.”

  “And?”

  “There’s a bunch of new scents out there. It was confused.” It was the Creature. Lupo still hated to consider it part of him. “Thing is, I’m not getting the message. Can’t tell whether they’re just wolves, or…” He paused.