This wasn't just more random trash. The clothes spilled from a duffel bag, a bedroll next to it. Beer cans, drained and crushed. Something crunched under her heel and the Maglite found kibble scattered on the floor. More dog feed spilled from a bag in the corner.
He's here.
Lara backed up and the light arced over the wall. Carved into the old plaster was another pentagram.
19
THEY WERE LOSING, trailing the visitors by fourteen points. Seven minutes left in the quarter. Amy's knee throbbed, her limp becoming more pronounced. The coach benched her and she turned around to find her dad. He looked worried.
Gallagher hollered down, asked if she was okay. She gave him a thumbs up but her face was flushed and she didn't smile. That's okay, he told himself. She's focused on the game. She needed to be, the visiting team was handing them their asses on a plate. He gave back an enthusiastic thumbs up. You can still turn this around. Miracles happen.
His phone went off and he ignored the first five rings before looking at the display. He cupped his palm over his other ear. “Mendes?”
“He's here.” Her voice was shrill, all wrong.
“What?”
“I'm at the halfway house. I wanted to see it.” Her voice choked, gulping air. “He's here.”
“You went alone? I said we'd go tomorrow—”
“Shut up.” She cut him off. “His things are here. He's camped out in this house.”
She broke in. Gallagher couldn't believe it. Mendes was such a straight arrow. “Get out of there. Call the precinct, get some uniforms out there right now.”
“Oh shit.” Her voice crackled, fading in and out of reception. He jammed his palm harder into his free ear.
“Mendes? I can't hear you!”
The line crackled back to life. “He's here! Oh shit. He's—”
“Lara?”
The line went dead. He lost her.
Gallagher hit the return-call. He gripped the elbow of the woman next to him. Her daughter was on the team, a friend of Amy's. The woman startled but he blurted past her protests, saying he had an emergency and would she please drive Amy home. The woman agreed, seeing the urgency in his face. Gallagher hustled down the row, bumping into the other parents.
The coach pushed Amy back onto the floor and she took her position as the ball was thrown. She glanced up just in time to see her dad race for the exit. Where was he going?
Boom. She got slammed again, landing ass-first on the hardwood.
LARA debated who to call when she saw the pentagram on the wall. Gallagher or backup? She'd broken in without a warrant so Gallagher it was. He had a knack for justifying rash actions after the fact.
He had just picked up when noise broke from outside. She swept aside the tattered drape in the window and looked down. Dogs trotted back and forth over the driveway, skulking around her car. One marked its scent on a wheel, another lunged up and stood square on the hood. These were Prall's dogs. The animals dashed for the house, disappearing from her eyeline under the eaves.
Frost etched up her backbone. Not the dogs. The phone went silent, the screen winking out like a snuffed candle. Her fingers had white-knuckled around it, inadvertently killing the connection.
Something else moved down in the yard. Ivan Prall lumbered out of the shadows. He looked down at the car then swiveled his head up and looked right at her.
She ran for the stairs but everything seemed wrong. Her feet were numb, like dead clubs at the end of her ankles. Clumsy and slow, she staggered through the corridor to the stairs. The dogs were already inside the house. They surged forward at a dead run and hit the landing. Bounding up the steps. Gnashing teeth and foaming maws.
She backpedaled along the wall. Pulled her weapon.
The dogs tore up the stairs, one leaping over the other to get at her. She swung the gun up and fired. One dog yowled but didn't drop. The forerunner balked at the sound of gunfire but the rest pitched forward. Too many, too fast.
Lara fell backward into a room and kicked the door, slamming it into the frame. The dogs thundered into it. The door rattled as the animals slammed against it. Lara shoved back with both heels.
The flashlight rolled an arc over the floorboards. She dug in and leveled the Glock in both hands. Her guts told her to fire straight through the door but the old door might splinter apart, letting them in. Did she have enough rounds to put down all of the dogs? No.
The phone. Where was the phone? It was in her hand but all she held now was the gun. She must have dropped it. Out there.
“Oh God.”
The cell phone lay on the floor in the corridor. It spun around, kicked about by the berserk dogs. A hand reached down, batted the animals away and picked it up. Ivan Prall flipped it open and then snapped it in two.
GALLAGHER tore into traffic, swerving crazily between lanes. Cars honked, one driver thrusting a hand out the window to give him the finger. The dashboard beeped nonstop for him to put on his seatbelt.
He hit the speed dial. Her phone rang three times then went dead. He tried again but this time it didn't even ring.
He called dispatch and barked at someone to get the address for the Gethsemane halfway house. He spelled it for her. The dispatcher came back with an address and he repeated the number to himself. He briefed dispatch on the emergency, any unit in the vicinity to respond to that address.
He hung up and tried Mendes's number again. Nothing. He gunned the engine harder and lay on the horn for everyone to get the hell out of the way.
THE dogs ceased ramming the door, stopped barking. No sound at all from the other side. She dropped her feet from the door and rolled to her knees. Nothing happened.
Lara held her breath to listen. Wind rattled the window but that was all. She gripped the knob, said a prayer and flung the door back, ready to blow the hell out of the first thing that moved. Nothing did. The corridor was empty.
She retrieved the Maglite and threw the beam down the hallway. Her phone lay on the floor, snapped off at the hinge. Moving forward to the landing, the light beam rippled down each step to the bottom. Nothing to see. No noise at all.
The car was in the yard, the keys in her pocket. She had let off one round, still a full clip if she needed it. Move.
Down the stairs, each step groaning louder than the last. More darkness at the bottom of the stairs, the hallway empty. Ten paces to the door and she'd be outside, then a dead run to the car.
Counting strides, she crossed through the front room toward the door. She heard the dogs before she saw them. Panting in the dark. A dozen eyes glinting in the dark, blocking her path. None of them moved nor did they bark. Waiting for something to happen.
“You. You busted up my den.”
Her heart failed. The voice behind her. She swung around until both the beam and the gun barrel found him.
Ivan Prall stood in the doorway, watching her. His teeth shone through the foul beard, eyes thatched under stringy hair. Shirtless beneath a tattered green raincoat. Two dogs at his feet, one a crossbreed pit and the other a pale-eyed husky.
Lara lost and then found her voice. “Get on the ground. On the ground!”
The dogs barked, reacting to the threat. Lara felt them close in behind her. Revulsion inched bile up her throat, made her knees quake.
Prall didn't move. “The cousins don't like guns.”
She notched the barrel from his torso up to his face. “Call off the dogs. Do it now.”
“I got shit to do, sister. Go hunt somebody else.”
He didn't move, didn't react to having a gun aimed at his head. Lara gritted her teeth. One eye on him, one on the damn dogs. Not enough guns to go around. Try something else. “Prall,” she scaled back the tone. “Listen to me. You're sick. You need help. I can help you. But first you have to call off the dogs.”
“You know, don't you?” His nostrils flared, sniffing the air. Smelling her. He stepped forward. “You know about the wolf.”
“I swear to God,”
she hissed. “I will blow your brains out. Call off the dogs!”
“You scared, little piggy. I can smell it on you.”
He grinned in the light, teeth wet and stained. Another step closer. “You ain't gonna shoot. Don't got it in you.”
Lara swung the barrel down, drew a dead aim at the pit bull and shot the animal through the head. It flopped back, blood spattering the other animal. Prall went crazy.
“YOU PIG!”
And then it all went to hell. The dogs lunged at her back. She spun and fired and fired and fired.
God knows what she hit, not a single animal fell. The dogs scrambled away and then circled back. Teeth popping, eager to kill.
Lara fought back the raw urge to blast out the entire magazine. She steadied and drew a bead on the nearest animal, an enormous mastiff, but the dogs turned and ran. Bounding away like rats across the floorboards. Slipping into the dark.
She wheeled the gun back to Prall but the corridor stood empty. The dead pit bull on the floor, its legs kicking as it died.
A noise, unnatural and out of place. Low, guttural. Something moved in the dark. The air pressure in the room dropped. She swung the light around to find it.
Teeth flashed in the beam. Big and sharp. The snout massive and terrible like some prehistoric thing.
It slammed into her midsection, folding her in two like paper. Her back hit the floor. Lara screamed.
She pulled the trigger. Bang. Bang. Bang. The thing backed off. She blasted another round but it was gone.
Heels dug in, propelling herself away from the damn thing. Her stomach withered against the pain. One hand instinctively clutching her belly, coming back hot and wet. She was bleeding. How bad? Jesus, how bad?
She had lost the flashlight. It rolled across the floorboards, spinning its beam around and around the room. It strobed past the thing. It was colossal, its dark hackles crested into razor points along its back. Muzzle low to the ground. A wolf and yet not a wolf. A monster dredged up from primeval memories and the grimmest of fairy tales.
Lara raised the weapon but her arm was numb, the gun a dead weight in her hand. She fired, it went stray. The beast sidled forward and grunted, a vile sound like nothing she'd ever heard before.
It launched at her. She fired. Jaws clamped her arm, jerked her back and forth like a rag doll. She clubbed at it. The monster let go of her arm and dug for her guts, pushing her clear across the floor.
Don't pass out. That was all she thought. Don't pass out. Don't die.
GALLAGHER had dinged two bumpers and picked up one cop cruiser speeding on his tail with full lights and siren. Whether this was the backup he called for or a uniform chasing a reckless driver he couldn't tell. It didn't matter.
The Cherokee fishtailed as it hit the gravel road, tires spitting stones at the police vehicle behind it. Gallagher stomped the accelerator, looking for the house. It rose out of the trees, Mendes's car out front. Dogs swarmed over the tilting porch, eyes swinging up to the vehicles. They charged away at the blare of the sirens.
Gallagher sprinted for the door, hollering her name. No response. Something moved inside, crashing and thudding.
He charged in, gun out. A flashlight on the floor. Framed in the cone of light, Mendes. Something big pinning her down, hovering obscenely over her. Too big to be a dog, more like a bear. He aimed and fired.
It spun and loped away. He fired and fired but it was long gone. Whatever the hell it was.
He dropped to Mendes, called her name again. Mendes didn't move, did not respond. A wet gurgle bubbled from her throat. There was blood and a lot of it. He couldn't tell where it came from. He didn't know what to do. He gripped her hand.
“Hang on, Lara. You're gonna be all right. Just hang on.”
He didn't know what else to say so he just kept repeating it.
The uniform burst into the house. Gallagher screamed at him to call an ambulance. Officer down.
20
DETECTIVE LARA MENDES was jostled hard on the stretcher as the paramedics scrambled into emergency. Gallagher was stopped by a nurse who told him to stay back and let the doctors do their job. He watched the gurney disappear behind a set of double doors and someone stuck a clipboard of forms in his hand. Said the best way to help her now was to provide them with her information. The officer who had chased him into the house stayed with him now, prodding Gallagher to a chair. His name was DiMatteo and when they waited for the ambulance to come, officer DiMatteo had had the presence of mind to pull Mendes's bag from her car. The officer sifted through the bag and pulled up a wallet of credit cards and ID, placed it in Gallagher's hands and turned to the exit. The detective watched the officer leave, making a mental note of the kid's name. He'd look him up in the roll and thank him later.
He rooted for his phone and called home. Amy was fine but a little freaked seeing him book from the gym so fast. He apologized, said it was an emergency but did not mention Mendes's name. He told her everything was fine but he'd be late and hung up. Looking down at the forms, he realized he hadn't even asked if they'd won the game.
Some of the information he had to leave blank. He simply didn't know and couldn't find anymore info in her bag. He should call somebody, a boyfriend or family. He leaned back in the chair, realizing he didn't know anything at all about Lara Mendes.
The cell came back out and he called into precinct, told the desk to patch him through to whoever was working night shift homicide. He got Varadero, who immediately assaulted him with questions about the Bendwater file. The security guard at the animal shelter. Gallagher told him to shut up and briefed him on the assault on Mendes. He asked Varadero to look up her personal info and find her emergency contact info.
He listened to Varadero bitch about sharing info as he pulled up the profile. “Got it,” said Varadero. “Marisol Sparks.”
“Marisol?” Gallagher dug into Mendes's bag for a pen. “What's the relation?”
“Sister. You want the number?”
He wrote it down, thanked Varadero and put the phone away. A sister? Lara had mentioned once that she had family down south but that was all. He dug though the wallet and slipped out a photo webbed with creases. Lara with her arm around a dark haired woman at a backyard barbecue. A boy of about four or five with his head sandwiched between them. He could see the resemblance between Lara and her sister Marisol but could not tell which one was older, which one the younger.
He looked at the phone number Varadero had given him for the sister. A New Mexico prefix. He looked at his watch. What time was it in Albuquerque? No sense calling the woman up in the middle of the night with no clue as to her sister's condition. He'd call tomorrow when he knew more.
Why had she never mentioned a sister? Maybe she had and he just wasn't listening. Gee, how unlike him. He'd been hard on her, bullying her into requesting another partner but Mendes hadn't caved. She stuck it out, took the punishment and look where it got her. He had put another partner in the hospital. Great frigging work, Detective Gallagher.
The forms went back to the nurse and he asked about Mendes's condition. The nurse couldn't tell him, the doctors were still with her. She promised to let him know as soon as she heard anything.
So he waited, slumped in a chair and looking around at the other people waiting. He went through the course of events, mentally drafting his incident report, but he kept stumbling on one image. The thing that was attacking her. He had no more than a glimpse of it but it was huge. More like a grizzly than a dog. What the hell was it?
People came and went, the injured and the concerned. He grew tired of figuring out what he had seen and what would go down in his incident report. It was a dog. Just a big flipping dog.
THE dogs ran and ran, a full quarter mile before slowing down or even looking back. Every animal feverish after the sprint, tongues lolling from their chops. The wolf paced and trotted, striking out at the lesser animals. These dogs whined and squatted submission. The others hung their tails low. The pack lead was
unappeasable, furious at having been run out of another den. The bitch leaned into the alpha, offering her rump. The only female left in the pack now. The wolf sunk its teeth into her scruff and chased her off. The pack backed away and kept their heads down.
All except the Pincer. An immature male that had joined them three nights ago. It was young and ignorant of hierarchy. The Pincer kept its tail up and crossed broadside before the lead. An affront by a pup who confused agitation with bravado.
The alpha stopped cold at the mutt's boldness. The pack slunk away, sensing what was coming.
The wolf struck without a sound and without warning. Its hellish jaws snapped the Pincer's snout bone into splinters and the animal shrieked. The wolf released and dug into its neck, teeth puncturing to the spine. It rent the dog's throat violently, almost shearing the animal's head from its neck. Blood geysered out to steam on the cold ground. The wolf tore at it until its hide was slick with offal. Then it loped for the trees, a mist of blood clinging to it, and the others chased after it.
IT was two hours before someone came out to talk to him. The doctor, a woman who looked no older than his daughter, stated that Mendes had suffered trauma to her abdomen and left arm and right leg. The puncture wounds were severe and there was some blood loss and the small finger on the left hand was broken. The doctor asked what had happened. Gallagher said his partner had been attacked by dogs. The doctor didn't know what to make of that, having treated dog bites before. She said they would monitor Mendes for twenty-four hours before treating her for rabies. He asked if that was necessary but she thought it better to err on the side of caution.
Gallagher winced at the thought of twenty needles injected straight into the navel, asked if that was wise given the wounds to Mendes's abdomen.
“Oh, we don't do that anymore,” the doctor said. “Rabies treatment is much easier now. We'll monitor her for infection from the dog bites. The real risk now is sepsis.”
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 13
