A Cross to Bear

by M. J. Lovestone

  Gabby touched the front of the drawer again, and it receded into the wall. Terrified, excited, and curious, Gabby touched another. This one held four pistols and holsters. Another below it was full of ammo—silver bullets. Other drawers contained throwing knives and two long-barreled machine guns. Frantic and fearful of what this all might mean, Gabby checked each and every one. She found briefcases full of dozens of currencies, passports, and fake IDs. To her shock, she found ones in her name, as well as her father’s. She found silver and gold coins, a sniper rifle, silver nunchucks, throwing stars, daggers, and even a pair of katanas. There were many other guns, along with Kevlar body armor and an entire drawer of strange-looking jewelry.

  Gabby felt like she was going crazy. It made no sense. Why would Maggy have an armory of weird weapons, dozens of currencies of cash, and all those IDs and passports?

  “What the hell is going on?” Gabby yelled, frustrated and scared.

  Hoping that the last hidden compartment would tell her something more, she placed her hand on the glowing panel. It slid back, revealing a single keyhole. Gabby instantly thought of the strange key that Maggy had left her. It was upstairs in the bedroom.

  She went through the collection again, inspecting the weapons and documents for something, anything. Then she found it. Engraved on a plate on one of the pistols was a strange, swirling symbol. Excited by the lead, she checked the other weapons, many of which bore the same thing. She took her phone out of her pocket and snapped a couple of pictures of the symbol and hurried back out of the room. The iron door closed behind her silently as she reached the top of the stairs.

  “Shit!” she said, remembering that she had closed herself in. “What would Maggy do?” she asked herself. “Well, she wouldn’t have overseen getting locked in here.”

  She pushed on the door and felt the smooth walls. Finally, she kicked it. “Open up, damn it!”

  To her surprise, the door opened. A strange laugh escaped her, so strained and frightened that it scared her to hear herself. She quickly raised and lowered the crystal bottle, causing the door to close once more.

  As she ran up the stairs from the cellar, she thought that she would find an agent waiting for her. To her relief, she was alone. She hurried to the window and saw that all was as it had been before. In the bedroom, she locked the door and texted Darb from work.

  I need your help. Sending pics. Can you tell me what this is?

  Gabby waited.

  And waited.

  She nervously paced the bedroom. Every few steps or so, she was peeking out through the blinds, expecting to find Victor staring in at her.

  Had she really seen him out there in the alley?

  No, that was ridiculous.

  Now that the moment had passed and doubt had time to set in, she began to wonder how much of what she saw and heard had been part of the dream. The dogfight had sounded unlike any she had ever heard. Even the memory of it sent chills down her spine and awoke a primal instinct inside her.

  Gabby wondered if perhaps it hadn’t been dogs. She thought of the silver bullets and the wooden stakes.

  Her phone chimed, and she jumped.

  Cursing herself for having the volume so loud, she checked the message. It was from Darb.

  Hey, Gabs. Heard about your sister. I’m really sorry. I feel like I should call you . . .

  Her phone rang.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Gabby didn’t feel like talking about her sister right now. She wanted to know what the hell the symbol on the guns meant.

  The phone rang again.

  If she didn’t answer it, he would know that she was screening his call. She had just texted him.

  Another ring.

  Reluctantly, she swiped the call through.

  “Hey, Darb.”

  “Gabs . . . I’m really sorry to hear about Maggy.”

  “Thanks, Darb.”

  “I would have gone to the funeral, but I didn’t even hear about it until today.”

  “It’s all right. You hardly even knew her anyway.”

  “How you holding up? You need company?”

  Gabby knew that even if she wanted Darb to come over—which she didn’t—the feds wouldn’t let him in anyway. They had been pretty eager to get rid of Quip.

  “Thanks, but I’m all right. Just trying to wrap my mind around everything that has happened.”

  “Do you have someone? I mean, people with you?”

  “Yeah. I’m all right.”

  “I know you, Gabs. Not to be harsh, but you don’t really have a lot of friends. Is Derek at least being supportive?”

  Gabby sighed; she didn’t want to get into all of it right now. “Not really. He’s not in the picture anymore.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. He and I are done.”

  Another silence.

  Gabby knew that Darb harbored feelings for her. He was actually quite forward with her over the years, and she with him. He called her Big Tits, which she actually liked coming from him. He was harmless enough. She in turn called him Cock Ring, due to the fact that he had a Prince Albert piercing on the end of his helmet. Gabby had never seen it. She had never wanted to. In truth, she was just flirting. Darb had entered the friend zone years ago. It was just that he didn’t really know it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he finally said.

  He wasn’t.

  “Don’t be. He is a piece of shit.”

  “And it really is his loss.”

  “That’s right. Listen. That picture I sent you might seem a little weird. It’s just for a story I’ve been working on. I’ve found that I have to stay busy right now. You know?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you have a chance to look into it?”

  “Didn’t have to. It’s an ancient German symbol called the Wolfsangel.”

  Gabby thought of the sound of dogs fighting outside her window and shivered.

  “A what?”

  “Wolfsangel. Basically, an ancient insignia of a wolf. What kind of story are you covering?”

  “Oh, just something for the blog,” said Gabby, jotting the word down on a piece of paper.

  “Gabby Gabby? Have you decided to publish it?”

  “Not yet. Still playing around with what exactly it will be about. Can you do a search for any companies here in the US that have that insignia as their corporate brand?”

  “Gimme a sec.”

  Gabby could hear his fingers flying over the keyboard and waited patiently.

  “Huh . . .” said Darb.

  “What is it? What did you find?”

  “Well, there is one company out of Montana that has the Wolfsangel as their logo. They appear to be a weapons manufacturer.”

  “Yes!” said Gabby. “That’s it! What is the company called?”

  “The company’s name is Lycaon.”

  Another chill ran down her back, and goose pimples sprouted on her arms. “Did you say Lycan?”

  “Yes, only it’s spelled L-y-c-a-o-n. The name derives from King Lycaon and is the root of the word lycanthrope, as in werewolf.”

  Gabby’s throat went dry.

  “Gabby?”

  “Yeah . . . awesome. Thanks, Darb.”

  “Wait. Look, Gabs. I think that you should think twice about writing anything about these people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I had to dig pretty deep to get to this stuff. Nothing came up on the usual servers, so I searched for it on the dark web.”

  “The what?”

  “The dark web . . . it’s the Internet below the Internet. Think of it as the underbelly of the World Wide Web. The black market of the digital world.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “There is no okay about it, Gabs. Everything about this company is weird. For instance, they don’t come up on regular search engines except for random blog posts or cryptic mentions that I do not doubt are code. It is clear t
hat they produce weapons of some kind, but none of this makes sense.”

  “Is Lycaon in any way associated with Lunaris or Michael Steele?”

  “The billionaire?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  Another silence filled the line.

  “Gabs, what are you up to? Wasn’t Maggy’s body found outside of Steele Tower in Chicago?”

  Shit!

  “I don’t want to get you into it, Darb. The less you know, the better.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m already balls deep here. If something is going on, I need to know.”

  “I’ll explain it all, but not now. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

  “I can be there in half an hour.”

  Gabby peeked out the window and went back to pacing the bedroom. “You can’t. They won’t let you in.”

  “Huh? Who?”

  Gabby sighed. “The feds. Listen, you’ve just got to trust m—”

  “The feds!”

  “Yes. Please. This isn’t the time. Is Lycaon associated with Lunaris or not?”

  It was Darb’s turn to sigh into the phone. “Gimme a sec. I’ve been checking into it since you mentioned it.”

  Gabby sat on the edge of the bed and waited with the phone in the crook of her neck and a pen and pad at the ready. On the other end, Darb’s fingers were flying over the keyboard.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Hold on . . . almost got it . . . fuck you, dude! Got it. All right . . . Jesus, Gabs, what are you getting into here?”

  “What did you find?”

  “Funny thing happened. I started digging deeper into Lycaon, and someone attacked my computer. Tried to hack it. They sent a plethora of viruses my way, but I beat them down like the little bitches they are.” Darb laughed. “He’s still trying. Fuck you!” His fingers moved so fast over the keys that it sounded as though more than one person were typing. “Boom! Deal with that!”

  Gabby waited as Darb ushered a chorus of profanity and typed like someone had a gun to his head.

  “What’s going on?”

  No answer was forthcoming from Darb for what seemed like forever, then finally he gave a cheer.

  “You still there, Gabs?”

  “What the hell is happening over there?”

  “Oh, just an epic hacker battle. You are never boring, are you, Big Tits?”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “This dickhead was trying . . . hold on . . . shit! Son of a bitch!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My whole system just crashed,” Darb said in utter astonishment. “How the hell . . .”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Of course it’s bad!”

  “I’m sorry. I should have never gotten you into this.”

  “Well, you did, babe. I got some info before the uber dick shut me down. It seems that you were right about Lunaris being somehow associated with Lycaon. I found a few clues, just mentions, but still, given the lengths that someone went to in trying to stop me, I know it’s something. I followed the rabbit hole from Lycaon, stumbled across a dozen fake companies and sister companies, and pinned the tail on the donkey. Unless I’m mistaken, Michael Steele owns Lycaon.”

  Chapter 25

  Gabby finally hung up the phone with Darb, promising that she would explain everything shortly. It was a lie. She had no idea what was going on, and the more she dug into Michael Steele, the stranger things became.

  Frustrated and wanting to get to the bottom of it all, she called Steele Tower and asked to speak with the CEO.

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Steele is out of town at a convention. He isn’t taking any appointments for the next week,” said the secretary.

  “May I ask what convention he is attending?”

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Steele is a very private man. May I take a message?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Gabby hung up with a sigh. She was going to have to do more digging.

  She went online to search for the elusive Mr. Steele. Three hours and many cups of coffee later, she found what she was looking for. A convention in Yellowstone was held annually. Lunar Circle, as it was named, turned out to be quite the hush-hush affair. She found only a few references to it, but the dates lined up. The group met every year in late spring during the week of the full moon at a place called Aurora Lodge in Wyoming—owned by one Michael Steele.

  She googled the lodge, finding that it was part of a one-hundred-thousand-acre forest next to Yellowstone National Park.

  This has to be it.

  Gabby bit her nail as she considered what to do. The secretary had said that Michael would be out of town for a week, but that was too long to wait. She wanted answers now.

  What would Maggy do? She would fly to Yellowstone and confront Michael.

  Finding her resolve, Gabby called the nearest airport and booked the first flight to Yellowstone. She was informed that the first flight out of Chicago to her destination left at 6:00 p.m. That gave her three hours to prepare. She glanced out the window, wondering how she was going to elude the feds. In her bedroom, she packed a small bag of clothes and another bag with her recon supplies, in case she had to do any spying.

  An hour later, a knock came at the door. She found Agent Jones standing on her porch.

  “Ms. Cross. We have canceled the flight that you booked at 3:15 to Yellowstone. Your credit card has been reimbursed.”

  “You what? You can’t do that.”

  “Of course we can,” he said dryly. “You are under our protection until this investigation is over. You cannot leave the county. If you wish to leave the house, we will provide you with an escort.”

  “I want to talk to the police. There’s no way this is legal.”

  “I assure you, Ms. Cross, it is quite legal.”

  She turned from him angrily and slammed the door.

  Chapter 26

  Gabby paced the house furiously. She didn’t have time for this. She considered telling the feds about Michael Steele, but she knew that she could not. There would be no way to explain the armory of strange weapons downstairs, and she knew that once the feds got involved, she would be left in the dark.

  Somehow she had to sneak out of the house and get to an airport. With the feds monitoring her like they were, it would be near impossible to buy a ticket under her name.

  She stopped abruptly in her pacing and remembered the fake IDs in the secret room downstairs. There were credit cards as well . . . and the key!

  Gabby ran down to the bedroom and grabbed the key out of the nightstand. She then flew down the stairs and lifted the bottle on the rack. She went down the secret stairs to the white room and found a file with her name on it. It held a driver’s license and passport, along with a credit card. The name on the documents was Melinda Stark.

  “Hello, my name is Melinda, Melinda Stark,” she said to herself, practicing.

  Now that she had what she needed to purchase tickets and get through TSA without notifying the feds, she set her mind to the task of sneaking out of the house. For good measure, she grabbed one of the many cell phones and an iPad in a leather attaché case. They might come in handy.

  “What would Maggy do?” she wondered aloud.

  She fingered the key in her pocket and looked around the sterile, glowing room. Knowing her sister, Maggy would have an escape route to get out of the house unseen. The strange assortment of weapons suggested that she was into some big-time shit. An escape route seemed only natural.

  Gabby remembered the keyhole in the final drawer. She strode toward it slowly, tension and excitement building in her with every step. She opened the drawer, took the key from her pocket, inserted it, and gave it a turn.

  Gabby jumped when a sound came from behind her. She whirled around and found that one of the floor panels had slid back, revealing a metal ladder that descended into darkness.

  Cautiously she pocketed the
key and inched her way over to the hole in the floor and peered down. It was too dark to see the bottom, so she took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight app. The drop proved to be no more than ten feet, with the ladder leading to a concrete floor. Gabby considered going down it to see where it ended up; she had to be sure that it led somewhere useful and not just to another room. She moved to the door and glanced up the stairs and listened. No sounds came from the house. With any luck, no one would come calling for some time. Before she lost her gumption, Gabby hurried to the hole and began down the ladder.

  At the bottom, a tunnel led to the left. She followed it, flashing her light on the surrounding walls and ceiling. The passage was made entirely of concrete. Gabby found herself wondering how in the hell her sister had managed to build it.

  Feeling very much like she was in The Twilight Zone, she continued on down the tunnel. It went on for perhaps twenty feet before coming to yet another ladder. Shining her light up, she found that the hatch had a circular handle, one that reminded her of a vault-locking mechanism. She climbed the ladder and turned the wheeled handle with one arm, while hooking the rung and trying to hold the phone with the other. After some coaxing, the wheel finally turned. A latch disengaged, and she pushed up hard.

  The room above was pitch-dark. Gabby shined her light up into it and saw an aluminum ceiling. She carefully peeked her head out, looking this way and that quickly. When she found no one lurking in the shadows, she focused the light on the only object in the small room—a black Hummer. She climbed up into the room, which she deduced was one of the public storage sheds on the other side of the fence across from her house.

  “Maggy, you clever, clever girl,” she said, laughing to herself.

  A quick search of the Hummer revealed that not only was it unlocked, but the keys were under the visor as well. She had the documents and credit card, and now she had a way of escape. But first she had to get her things, and she couldn’t let the feds find the secret room. She would have to mislead them somehow.