Wolf Killer (The Hammer Commission)

by John Van Stry

  "Find something?" Michael asked coming over to him.

  "They found the body here," Mark said. "And according to the pictures we got, the other sets of manacles were here, here, and here," Mark pointed to the spots on the floor, which had been numbered with chalk.

  "What don't you see?"

  "I don't see any manacles between the body and the next two. While the third set was over there," Michael said.

  "And the third set looks broken."

  "Think someone escaped?" Michael asked looking around.

  "That or they were rescued."

  There was a loud chirp from the forest, and Mark stood up. Helena was calling him.

  "Helena found something," Mark said to the others and started to trot down the hill, into the woods, towards her.

  The others quickly caught up and he saw her sitting on the ground with her tail curled around her.

  "What did you find?"

  "A wolf boy was here. He had a pack here with his clothing in it. There's another trail leading past here of him and a wolf female."

  "Think he rescued someone?" Mark asked.

  "You can understand that?" Mary said looking rather shocked.

  "Humans," Helena said and rolled her eyes. "It's possible. The trail is about a week old, so the timing is right. We should backtrack it."

  "What did she say?" Steve asked looking at Mary and rolling his eyes as well.

  "A lycan was here about a week ago with a female."

  "That would put it about the time of our fire," Steve said nodding.

  Mark nodded and pulled off his shirt, clipping the phone he'd been issued by the FBI to the cord he had his badge hanging on around his neck.

  "Where'd you get all those scars?" Michael asked, sounding a bit shocked.

  "Afganistan," Mark said kicking off his shoes, he started to undo his pants. "We'll track it from here to the other end, I'll leave the GPS on my phone on, so you can track us. Pick up Helena's clothes please?"

  Mark balled his own up and handed them to Michael.

  "Yeah, sure."

  "I'll call you, Steve, if we find anything along the way."

  "Sure you don't want to wait for bloodhounds?" Steve asked looking at Mark.

  "Bloodhounds won't track werewolves. Scares the hell out of them."

  "Ah."

  Mark shifted then, and followed Helena as she padded off into the woods.

  "Wow, he's hot," he heard Mary say as they disappeared out of sight.

  "Better not let his wife hear you say that," Michael laughed, "I have no doubt she could tear me to pieces without even breaking a sweat."

  "Well, looks like someone is learning," Helena said with a laugh.

  "They're not stupid, just ignorant," Mark replied.

  9: Forest outside of Marlington

  It took Helena several hours to follow the track through the forest, mostly because it was old and fairly scattered, but also because whoever had left it had been moving fairly quickly. Helena had found a couple of footprints, they'd been in human form, and as there were only the scents of the male most of the time, she figured that he must have been carrying the female.

  They were coming up the side of a hill when they suddenly encountered four wolves, sitting on their haunches, one of which was growling softly.

  Mark stopped and looked around, there was a clearing a hundred years up ahead with a house in it.

  One of the wolves made a noise, and Mark looked at Helena.

  "You speak wolf? I don't."

  "Nope."

  Mark shrugged his cougar shoulders and shifted back to human form, Helena doing the same. He noticed three of the four wolves started to stare at Helena, who he had to admit always looked good when she was standing around buck naked.

  "I don't speak wolf, so how about you shift so we can have this conversation."

  The wolf growled again, and Mark noticed that he was a rather large specimen.

  Mark shook his head and held up the cord with his badge and his phone. "FBI, we're investigating a murder, a kidnapping, and arson. And before you decide to do anything stupid, this phone is not only showing my current location to my office, but recording all of this conversation as well.

  "So, unless you've been killing and kidnapping young woman, I'd suggest you talk to me, Son."

  The wolf stood up as Mark watched and shifted into a young man, a rather large and strong looking young man.

  "I didn't kill anyone!" He growled.

  "Good, now where is the woman you carried here?"

  "What woman?" He growled again.

  "Son, if you don't start answering my questions, I'm going to call Sheriff Clayton, and him, me, and the head of your clan are going to be having a rather long discussion about respecting the law and the local customs.

  "Now, I'm willing to take your side on going up to the cabin, but only if you produce the woman. Otherwise, I see a very long absence in your future," Mark growled back.

  "This ain't a game, Son. This is for real."

  "How do I know you won't hurt her?"

  Mark sighed and pulled the phone off the cord around his neck and dialed the sheriff.

  "Sheriff's office."

  "Sheriff Clayton," Mark said replied, "We got a survivor, she's at this young man's house. Would you be so kind as to tell him I won't kill her?"

  "What? Where are you at?"

  "Ask him," Mark said and tossed the young man his phone.

  "Sheriff Clayton?" he said after catching the phone, "It's Trevor. Deke's son. What? Okay, yes, Sir. No, Sir. Yes, Sir. Right away, Sir." He tossed the phone back to Mark.

  "Sheriff?"

  "I'm on my way."

  "Okay," Mark said and hung up the phone. He looked back up at Trevor. "Satisfied?"

  "Yessir. Come on up to the house."

  "The rest of you can stop staring at my wife, got that boys?" Mark said as he and Helena walked up the hill.

  Helena laughed as the other three wolves all slinked off. "Friends?" She asked.

  "Brothers," Trevor sighed. "Listen, Mister. I didn't mean to cause no trouble, but I'd heard some of the humans in town saying that they saw a guy headed up to the cabin with a couple o' hot college girls, and I thought maybe I'd go take a look."

  "Call me Mark. So what happened?" Mark asked as they entered the clearing and walked to the house.

  "I heard a girl moaning in pain, and well, I kicked in the door and she was hanging from the ceiling, she was all bloody and bruised and the girl next to her," he swallowed and lowered his voice, "the girl next to her was dead."

  "So, you burned the place down, and brought her back here."

  "Son, who are you talking to?" An older man said coming out of the house, looking angry.

  "Cops, dad. They're here for Susan."

  "What?!"

  "FBI," Mark said holding up his badge.

  "Since when are there lycan feds?" He said looking Mark and Helena over.

  "What, do you think regular humans would be able to catch someone preying on were's?" Mark asked looking at him, he figured this was Deke.

  Just then a woman came out with a couple of robes, handing one to Mark and another to Helena.

  "Trevor, go put some clothes on, boy. We got company and I hear a car coming down the drive."

  "They're with me," Mark said, "And they're human, so don't expect them to know our ways."

  "How many of you are there?" Deke asked.

  "Just three. My partner and a team I'm training."

  "No, I mean lycans. How many lycans are working for the FBI?"

  "Not nearly enough. If you know anyone who wants to apply, let me know. I'm Mark by the way. Mark Levin," Mark shook hands with Deke, who seemed to be settling down now. "This is my wife, Helena."

  "Deke Styles, this is my wife Margaret."

  Mark nodded and shook hands with Margaret as well as he heard the SUV pull up out front and the doors open.

  "Well, let's go around and I'll introduce you to the
others, and Helena and I can get dressed. Then you can tell us what happened, and let us talk to Susan."

  Deke nodded, and led them around the front of the house.

  They were sitting in a small bedroom; Susan was sitting up on the bed against the headboard, with her legs drawn in close and her hands around her knees, looking rather lost. Helena was sitting near the foot of the bed, Margaret near the head. Mark was sitting in a chair on the far side of the room, with Michael sitting next to him. They were both wearing their FBI ID's. Steve and Mary were downstairs with Sheriff Clayton talking to Trevor and his father, Deke.

  "So, Susan," Mark started, speaking slowly, not wanting to spook her, "What is your full name, and where are you from?"

  "Susan Meyers, I'm a freshman at Virginia Tech," Susan sniffed a moment and looked down at her knees, "I'm not going back there, am I?"

  "Probably not this semester, but you can go back," Mark continued in the same slow and soft voice.

  "But, but I'm no longer human, I, I can't go back there!" She said looking miserable.

  "Who told you that?" Mark asked, "Was it somebody in this house?"

  Susan shook her head sharply, "No. It was Craig, Craig told me that. After, after he changed me and Kerry. He said we weren't people anymore, we were bitches, we were just dirty bitches to be used like the dogs we were."

  Mark heard the sharp intake of breath by Margaret, who reached over and patted Susan gently on the shoulder.

  "Was Kerry the girl you were found with, by Trevor?"

  "No," Susan said and sniffed loudly, closing her eyes, "I don't know who she was. She was already chained to the wall when we got there; she was gagged and barely alive."

  Mark sighed and leaned back a bit, "How did all of this start?"

  "Are you going to kill me?" Susan sniffed again and looked up at him, she was quietly crying, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  "Why would we kill you?" Mark asked.

  "Because I'm not a real werewolf, because I don't listen to my alpha. Craig said I wasn't taking to the change, I wasn't behaving, and that meant he'd have to train me to know my place. That the other wolves wouldn't accept me otherwise, that they'd kill me. He said he'd made a mistake when he bit me."

  "I see," Mark said thinking about that a moment. "Did you ask for this?"

  Susan shook her head, "No, I didn't. I don't want this; I don't want any of this. I just want to go back to school."

  "We're not going to kill you," Mark told her. "Now, how did this happen?"

  "A few months ago," she sniffed and hiccuped, "I met Craig. He was a nice guy, he had a lot of nice things, and he treated me well. He had a photography studio, and he asked me to model for him. I'd seen other girls doing it already, if you had the looks, you could make decent money and you didn't have to do anything crude."

  Susan sniffed again and taking a tissue she stopped talking a moment and blew her nose.

  "After a month, he started taking me out to dinner afterwards, he'd buy me drinks, and he, he seduced me. He told me that he loved me." She sniffed and started crying softly again.

  Margaret and Helena both spent a couple of minutes comforting Susan, until she settled down. Once she'd recovered her composure, she started talking again, a wad of tissues in her hands now as she stared down at them, looking miserable.

  "A couple of weeks ago, he, he bit me. I knew right away he'd done something to me, but, but I didn't know what," Susan shivered, "and, and he changed. He went from being nice and caring to being hard and demanding. Violent even! He started making me do things, he started to abuse me, and, and I couldn't resist him or even say no!

  "That was when he told me I was his bitch, and he wouldn't let me leave. Ever. I had to live in this little dorm room with his other bitches, there were like six of them and they all looked scared and beat down, like, like me," Susan sobbed softly a moment, blew her nose and continued. "The next day, he tossed Kerry in with us, she'd been working for him too, and had come looking for me. She was my roommate at college."

  "How did you end up in the cabin?"

  "I, I wasn't getting along with the other women very well, and I wasn't doing everything he told me to. Kerry, Kerry could resist him, and she told me one night that I could resist him too. That he wasn't an alpha, we weren't bitches, and we weren't his."

  "I bet he didn't take that at all well," Margaret chuckled.

  "The next time Kerry resisted him, he beat her, he beat her hard, and he put her in chains. The other women told him that Kerry had been talking to me, and corrupting me as well. So he beat me next, and then he put me in chains too, chains that, that burned!

  "He said it was time to for him to visit the sage's home, and rather than take one of his old used up bitches, that we'd go instead.

  "So he had the other women carry us out into his car, then he drove us up to the cabin. He chained me to the wall, next to the body of the other girl, and left with Kerry. He, he came back later, I don't know how much later, without Kerry, and he started to beat the girl next to me, telling her that she'd have to wait another day for her reward, because he'd found someone so much better.

  "I, I think he killed her then, because he suddenly screamed out in rage about being 'cheated' and he turned on me next and beat me until I passed out. The, the next thing I remember was when Trevor burst in and freed me. I, I was so scared, I told him that Craig would be coming back, and that he was going to kill me!"

  Mark watched as she started to cry again.

  "Trevor said he'd protect me," Susan looked up at him, "I don't want to die, I just want to go home, I want to go home!"

  "Would it make you feel safer if Trevor was up here with you?" Helena asked her softly.

  "Wh... What?" Susan sniffled looking up at Helena surprised.

  "Do you want Trevor with you? You trust him, right?"

  "I..." Susan paused and thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I trust him."

  "And he's a big strong young man, tough, fierce, caring. He'd keep you safe from Craig, wouldn't he?"

  "But, but Craig's so strong."

  "Strong enough to run ten miles through a forest, while carrying you?"

  "Trevor, he, he did that?" Susan said looking hopeful.

  "This Craig sounds like a right bastard," Margaret spoke up, "my Trevor would beat him to within an inch of his life if he showed up around here."

  Mark remembered when he had first been turned, how he'd needed someone to hold on to, someone to reassure him that he hadn't gone crazy, and that things would be okay. Helena and Hope had helped him a lot in those first few weeks and he realized what Helena was doing, she was giving Susan someone to help her adapt to the change. He turned to Michael, "Go get Trevor, and bring him up here."

  "Sure, Mark," Michael said and left, returning less than a minute later with Trevor who immediately zeroed in on Susan, looking concerned.

  "Is everything alright?" he asked looking around the room.

  "Trevor, I want you to curl up with Susan and hold her," Helena said.

  "Okay," he nodded and kicking off his shoes he joined her on the bed putting an arm around her rather protectively.

  "Susan, you know what you are now, right?" Helena asked.

  "I'm, I'm a werewolf?"

  "Yes, but it's not like the movies," Helena smiled.

  "Is there a cure?" She asked looking worried.

  Helena shook her head, "No, once done, this is something that can not be undone."

  "But, but I don't want to be a werewolf, I didn't ask for this!"

  "I didn't ask for this either," Mark spoke up, drawing Susan's attention, "but it happened, and once I got used to it, I found I was rather happy with it."

  "You, you were human once?" She asked hesitantly, looking at him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

  "Yes, I was. Trevor, his mother, my wife, they were all born lycans, unlike you and me, who were turned into one. I work in law enforcement now, for the government actually. My wife and I have a fam
ily. Life is good."

  "This isn't the end, Susan," Helena said picking back up. "Being turned, and not born a lycan can be tough, I won't lie to you, it's going to be hard for you at first. You're going to have to learn a bunch of things, and you're going to need a good teacher."

  "How, how long?"

  Helena shrugged, "I taught my Mark there most of it in only a few months, though I still can't get him to put the seat down on the toilet."

  Mark sighed loudly, but Susan gave a weak giggle.

  "But the point is, if you want to get through this, you will get through this, that young man with his arm around you will turn himself inside out to help you, if needs be. Won't you, Trevor?"

  "Yes, Ma'am," Trevor said nodding.

  "What, what do I have to do?" Susan said looking up at Helena with determination in her eyes.

  "I want you to move into his room, I want you to sleep with him at night, and spend your days with him too. Until you feel safe and comfortable with what you are, you stay with him."

  Mark noticed Trevor's eyes get wide in surprise, even Susan looked shocked.

  "But, he's still in high school!"

  "Two years is not that big a deal, Mark there is two years younger than me, just makes them a bit more frisky in bed," Helena smirked and winked at Susan who blushed.

  "Look, Susan, I said it wasn't going to be easy, but I know from me and Mark what does make it easier, and that's having someone to hold and someone to love. Even if it's just a summertime romance and you part come next fall. There aren't many men in the world who will risk their lives to save a stranger, and Trevor did. A man like that deserves more than just a reward, a man like that deserves a long and careful look. A man like that will always do fine by you."

  Mark noticed that Susan was looking at Trevor rather thoughtfully, and Trevor was caught between blushing and looking rather proud.

  "One last question," Mark asked as he stood up to go.

  "Yes?" Susan asked suspiciously.

  "Do you have Craig's address?"

  "Oh, of course," Susan said and told them where his shop was in downtown Blacksburg. Apparently he lived above the shop, which she believed he owned.