Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4)

by W. D. Gagliani

  Giovanni felt the gush of hot blood and intestines wash over his chest and pried himself out from under the dying partisan and the savaging monster. He rolled out from under the two and saw as he did so that Turco was already dead.

  “Bastard, shoot him now!”

  Manfredo snapped out of his trance and leaned in close enough to put the pistol mere centimeters from the back of the wolf’s head. The beast had succumbed to his frenzy and paid no attention.

  The crash of the pistol deafened Giovanni. Manfredo fired again and again, hot brass splattering from the breech. The slugs tore through the wolf’s skull and exploded through Turco’s head.

  Unaffected, the wolf snarled and turned its blood-spattered muzzle toward Manfredo.

  Before the big man could retreat, the wolf lunged and clamped its jaws on his gun-hand. Manfredo screamed as the wolf shook his head and tossed the severed hand and the pistol into the darkness.

  Manfredo desperately tried to stem the bleeding from his jagged stump, but by then the wolf had leaped off the dead Turco, and now its jaws closed on the giant’s groin and shook him violently like a child’s doll, blood gushing into its mouth and scattering like raindrops over the ground beneath them.

  Without time for any thought and operating solely on instinct and self-preservation, Giovanni scooped up the dagger from the ground near Turco’s savaged body and slid it out of its wooden sheath.

  In the darkness, the blade seemed to glow as if with a moonlit sheen.

  Growling incoherently, he attacked the frenzied wolf.

  He drew the wolf’s attention from Manfredo, but before pulling away, the beast ripped into the wounded giant’s groin once more. Giovanni knew enough anatomy to figure he’d nicked a major artery, judging from the jetting blood.

  Manfredo would bleed out if he didn’t kill the wolf.

  Quickly.

  But as soon as the werewolf’s attention was focused on him, Giovanni questioned his own sanity.

  The monstrous wolf’s eyes glowed with supernatural intelligence and, very likely, much experience in savage combat.

  What did Giovanni have?

  A touch of madness, desperation, and a damned dagger from the Vatican—or so the old drunken priest said.

  And he had a son to find…

  No time to consider a course of attack, because the wolf took all choice away by advancing straight for him. His bloody muzzle seemed to smile as Giovanni took small steps backwards, leading the wolf to the nearest brick wall.

  The wolf advanced, snarling, its jaws bracing for a lunge. Giovanni felt the wall with his back and used it to regain his balance. Before he could refine his spontaneous plan, the monster was in the air.

  Giovanni feinted left, the wolf went for him, then Giovanni sidestepped to the right. The wolf was on him now, the stench of blood and offal in Giovanni’s nostrils. And at the last second he brought the glowing blade up and jabbed it into the wolf’s side before sawing with heart-clenching fury.

  The wolf shrieked in unholy pain and surprise and crashed into the wall.

  Giovanni was also taken by surprise by the ease with which the blade furrowed the beast’s fur and skin, parting its flesh as if he were made of dough.

  The stench of burning flesh and fur and blood rose up along with a plume of disgusting smoke.

  The wolf fell in a heap and flipped, attempting to simultaneously lick his blackening wound closed and snap at Giovanni, who’d stepped away in surprise.

  The wolf’s side was split, its organs and intestines were spilling out in a bloody jumble, and the smoking continued as if its insides had caught on fire.

  Holy fire?

  Could it be true?

  Giovanni managed to avoid the snapping jaws and stabbed the beast in the side, the blade sinking in to the hilt, and the wolf screamed out, obviously mortally wounded. Pressing his advantage, Giovanni then slid the blade from the smoking, putrefying flesh and plunged it through the beast’s right eye and into its brain.

  It died as soon as the blade slid out again, collapsing in a smoking heap at the bottom of the wall.

  Its body quivering like a hooked fish, the wolf seemed to blur, and Giovanni watched in wonder as it flipped from animal to human and back again until it finally took the form of a naked human. A dead one, with horrific wounds where Giovanni’s blade had struck.

  Gulping air he hadn’t realized he needed, gasping and wheezing, Giovanni stumbled away from the horror.

  He cried dry tears for the two partisans who had given their lives to help him find his son.

  Franco!

  What might have happened to him?

  Giovanni found the scabbard he had dropped to the ground and bent to retrieve it.

  Suddenly his right upper chest felt as if it had been split open, and he gasped in horror and pain and straightened so quickly he almost fainted. He patted his destroyed clothing—it was covered in a grotesque, mad artist’s palette made of blood and worse—and realized that some of the blood on the slit fabric was his own. He riffled through the ruined shirt and hissed in pain as he found the source, a series of deep gashes and a ragged, round wound.

  Gesu’ e Maria, he whispered, I’m wounded.

  Fangs or claws?

  Did it matter?

  His skin was black and rippled around the ragged wounds, the flesh beneath bruising into a series of plum-colored circles. The bleeding appeared to have stopped. A blackened crust of blood and pus was already hardening around each laceration.

  Hastily he rearranged the torn clothing to cover the hideous wound, hissing at the excruciating pain he felt as the scratchy fabric dragged across his flayed skin.

  Gently he bent again, wincing, and retrieved the scabbard. Then he sheathed the dagger.

  Did it hum in his grip?

  He gathered his wits, found his bearings, and realized he was only a couple of buildings away from his own. He retrieved the Breda and slung it painfully over his shoulder. One of his friends’ pistols went into a pocket. The dagger remained in his hand.

  Hunched over in pain and fearful of being spotted by another German patrol, either human or monstrous or composed of both, he hugged the shadows and found his way home.

  The building seemed unfamiliar, a stranger, and he had to check the address plate twice to make sure he had indeed reached his own home. His family’s airy apartment was one of four located on the fifth floor. The lights were out, but there was moonlight filtering through the skylight way above him.

  He shuffled up the stairs, the preternatural quiet frightening, each scrape threatening to send him running for cover. The marble stairs and corridor allowed him to muffle his steps, and soon he was on his own floor. In the near-darkness, he saw that his apartment door was ajar.

  Inside, the foyer was dark, and he tripped on a chair Maria had insisted should be there for guests to take off their shoes if they wished. The chair legs scraped on the floor. His heart beat rapidly, a prisoner in his chest but not resting quietly. His wound throbbed, and he resisted the urge to touch it.

  “Franco?” he whispered hoarsely. “Franco, are you here, it’s your father.”

  After checking the small bedroom off the foyer, he advanced down the long corridor along which there were two more rooms. Franco’s room was empty, though at first he thought his boy was lying in bed. But it was jumbled bedclothes. The next room was the bedroom Giovanni shared with his wife, and Maria’s penchant for oversized furniture gave him pause, as each piece looked like a German in hiding or a wolf-man about to pounce.

  But there was nothing there, either. And no one.

  The last two rooms were a long, narrow bath, which was empty, and the kitchen, a huge, old-fashioned room beside the bath. Standing in the kitchen, he swore he could hear a small heart beating nearby.

  “Franco?” he called out in a whisper that threatened to become weeping. His heartbeat throbbed in time with his wound.

  A tiny whisper came from a cabinet he had built below the large
ceramic sink in the corner.

  “Papá?”

  “Franco! Dio mio, is it you?” He ignored the pain in his chest and sank to his knees, crawling toward the sink, sobbing the whole way.

  The boy’s face that peeked from behind Maria’s frilly curtain was Franco’s, all right, but his eyes had aged since Giovanni had last looked into them so many hours-days-years ago. It was only early on the same day, but a lifetime had happened in the meantime. Apparently for Franco, too.

  “Are you all right, my son?” He didn’t let him answer, but instead gathered the boy in his arms and they rocked together, tears flowing, for a few minutes.

  “I’m okay,” Franco said. “Mamma?” His voice trembled.

  “She’s fine, she’s fine! We’re in a shelter.”

  “I thought you were dead! Killed by those…things.” Franco sighed, laying his head on his father’s shoulder. “Hey, there’s a lot of blood! Papá, are you—”

  “I’m fine. It’s the blood of some brave men who helped me, God rest their souls.” He slowly shifted Franco’s face so he could see him better. “What about your friend Pietro?”

  The boy suddenly started to weep. “We were great, we took them on, we saw them turn to wolves, we saw them kill that pilot, and then we ran and ran, but—oh, it was terrible! He caught us by surprise, and it took Pietro, then he did terrible things to him. I ran away, Papá. When I could have helped him, I ran away, I ran all the way home and I hid like a baby.”

  Giovanni couldn’t imagine what his boy had gone through that day, but from the little he’d said it sounded as if it had been more than enough for a child.

  “No, Franco,” he soothed, “you couldn’t have helped him. If you saw the wolves, you know you couldn’t have fought them.”

  “But you did, didn’t you?” The boy had always been sensitive.

  “I had help,” he said. “I had lots of help.” He touched the dagger in his pocket.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and they stood up. “We can be with your mother in a short while, if we’re careful.”

  He retrieved his submachine gun from the floor, checked to make sure it was cocked, and then took Franco’s hand. “We have a lot to talk about,” he said.

  As they walked out of the building and into the dangerous night, Giovanni wondered why his wound hadn’t bothered him in a while.

  Endgame: Fourth Day

  Chapter Nineteen

  Killian

  He padded to the door with vague thoughts of the paper, a breakfast burrito, and then yet another day of trying to find something he could pin on Nick Lupo.

  He’d heard the telltale thump of the paper hitting his condo door, but it was later than usual. Killian was always one of the first cops on the job, but today he’d lain in bed longer, both thinking about Lupo and dreading going to work.

  The Grim Reaper having a crisis?

  Nothing a few minutes under the shower wouldn’t help, then a pasty burrito with today’s headlines, and finally a thoughtful drive in to work.

  He opened the door.

  And jumped back, startled, when a bloody head that had been propped against the door flopped inside and landed on his bare feet, leaving them bloody.

  “Jesus Christ!” he burst out.

  It was David Marcowicz, but barely recognizable.

  Killian crouched and reached down to touch the corpse. Marcowicz’s head had been partially scalped, and several abrasions were still leaking blood. He was missing his fingertips and the tips of his toes, and Killian could see various cuts, jabs, slashes, slices, spread out here and there on the white-skinned doctor’s pear-shaped body.

  “Lupo!” he whispered, fury making his veins cold.

  The fucking bastard had killed Marcowicz and dumped him on Killian’s door, literally on his doorstep.

  My God, what won’t the bastard do to get me?

  First there had been the Tom Arnow blackmail, and taking the blame for an accidental shooting that wasn’t accidental. Now Lupo was upping the ante. The rogue cop would do anything to get him, Killian realized.

  There was still no one in the hallway.

  He stumbled back inside and snatched his cell from the foyer table. He started dialing Bakke’s direct number to report the crime, but his finger halted after five numbers.

  “Goddamn it!”

  He dropped the cell back inside and instead grabbed poor Marcowicz under the armpits, dragging him inside his place. The stumps of the sheared-off fingers and toes leaked a small amount of blood—he’d been killed hours ago, fortunately—and Killian made sure no one had seen him with the body, then closed the door, gathered up some cleaning supplies and scrubbed the hallway carpeting as best he could with a light bleach mix.

  The smell of death and bleach cloyingly in his nose, Killian locked his door and looked down at the psychologist, who’d never break confidentiality on anyone else.

  Clearly, Lupo had learned of the doctor’s indiscretions and paid them both back in the only way a thug knew—with murder and a murder charge.

  “Fuck him,” Killian muttered.

  Lupo

  He had a fucking appointment with that idiot, Marcowicz, and although he’d intended to blow it off—blame the task force work, of course—part of him had to admit that talking about some of his problems had been helpful. Even talking to that idiot, who did say all the right words.

  Marcowicz hadn’t laughed in his face when Lupo had confessed that he sometimes saw and talked to that ghost version of his friend Sam Waters. Well, he’d low-balled the number of occasions, of course. He’d said he sometimes saw Ghost Sam, when in fact it was fairly often.

  Lupo was a little worried that Marcowicz was feeding Killian information. He’d suspected it, but couldn’t prove it. Part of him wanted to catch the good doctor at it. Part of him just wanted to talk. He’d been able to talk to Jessie before, but lately they were bickering too much. The sex was still great, but it was starting to become a rarer and rarer occurrence—too often they weren’t together, and when they were they didn’t talk for fear of each other’s problems.

  He stood at the doctor’s office door and knocked. He’d sent off the dozen officers Bakke had assigned him on various tasks, one of them to haunt the ME’s office until paper came out of it. Others followed up minor leads for which Lupo had little hope, and otherwise he was free until DiSanto tracked him down.

  No Marcowicz. No note, no email, no voicemail, no hand-written “be back shortly” note on the door.

  Shit, he’s blowing me off.

  That was too funny.

  Okay, he decided he’d leave the doc a what-the-fuck voicemail and get on with his day’s work. Bakke had popped in to ask about progress. Lupo stonewalled. Bakke said he’d hold off the pressure a while longer, but soon it would hit the fan. He hoped no other little old ladies got themselves butchered in the meantime.

  Lupo knew he had a day or two at most, then they’d feed him to the wolves.

  All he could do was pray the enemy wolf wouldn’t be one of them.

  Killian

  Fuck!

  He couldn’t take the chance of calling Bakke. He’d be nuts to accuse pretty-boy Lupo of this fucking murder without any proof, and in the meantime he looked pretty good for the murder himself.

  After all, he couldn’t explain it other than being Lupo’s handiwork. And Bakke had already made clear that he’d take his homicide cops’ word over that of the IA guy.

  Goddamn that bastard Lupo.

  All Killian’s work, achieving his status, doing his bit to clean up a spotty department, all turned to shit.

  Maybe his Grim Reaper days were over here in Milwaukee.

  As soon as he figured out how to get the body out of his place, he was going to return Lupo’s favor.

  Somehow.

  Lupo

  Simonson and Lupo were standing on the corner near the downtown precinct. Simonson had called Lupo just after Bakke had implied how little time they had before the story b
lew up. Lupo wouldn’t have given Simonson the time right then, but since he was convinced his interest in Wolfpaw and the current murder cases were connected, he decided to listen to what the guy had to say.

  “I got some inside intel on the big guy’s visit to the Washington compound,” Simonson said, his voice rising to beat the cold wind that had arisen suddenly. “We might have a window of opportunity without part of his protection detail. He’s got an Alpha Team permanently assigned to him, but he gave them an assignment out of state.”

  He huddled in his coat, the tip of his neck tattoo peeking from his collar. The time he’d spent in the desert had spoiled him, he admitted, and the blustery cold of the winter’s early arrival was hard to take. His breath bloomed in a cloud around his ruddy face.

  “How do you know?” Lupo rubbed his face in unconscious skepticism.

  “Man, I was highly placed, for a while. I still have contacts.”

  “That you can trust?”

  “Rock solid. Not everyone in the company likes to see the wolves terrorizing innocent people before butchering them. There’s others like me, getting ready to do some damage. I latched on to you ’cause you’re already responsible for doing some. Man, they hate you.”

  Lupo smiled thinly. “I tried, but not hard enough. I miscalculated. Thought there were a few wolves in the ranks, not that the whole outfit was based around them.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a shitload you don’t know, and it’d take us a month to get you on the page. But all that matters is taking down the head. The snake dies, man.”

  Lupo nodded. “I see it, but I’m kinda busy right here with these murders. You gotta give me some time.”

  “Time’s running out. The window I mentioned will close. Sigfried’s gonna walk from the hearings clean as the snow on Mt. Everest. And when he does, he’ll be free to deal with you, with me, and with every other wart on his ass.”

  “Okay, okay. Let me clear my desk. We’ll talk—”

  “Well, well, Lupo, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  Shit.

  “Heather. I was just pointedly not thinking about you.”