The Frenzy Wolves

by Gregory Lamberson

  Then every light on the floor went off, including the monitors.

  “There go the lights,” Gabriel said across the street.

  “Norton must be leaving now,” Karol said.

  They waited.

  Pools of illumination from the emergency lights mounted on the walls cast eerie light on the ceiling. Looking around the squad room, Norton noted half the emergency lights didn’t work, resulting in a strange imbalance and swaths of darkness. She went to the windows and peered through the dirty glass at Chinatown below. Red and yellow lights splashed glare over the crowded sidewalks.

  No blackout, she thought. Maybe an internal failure?

  She put on her coat and walked into the reception area. The light in the inside alarm key pad had turned dark.

  Someone killed the power to breach security.

  As she reached for the knob, the metal door shook on its frame from what sounded like the impact of a body. Norton flinched and covered her mouth to prevent herself from crying out. A body crashed against the door again, and she drew her Glock. Another smash and she stepped back. The door bowed inward. Another crash. She ran back into the squad room, lit by lights outside. The door flew open.

  Central Alarm would notify Mace and the Fifth Precinct, which would dispatch a car. All she had to do was survive that long.

  Norton turned in a circle, looking for a hiding place. She dropped to the floor as silhouettes appeared near the reception area. With all the stealth she could manage, she crawled under the desk that had been Willy’s and pulled his chair close to hide her. She heard claws scrabbling over the floor and panting.

  A shadow passed on the floor before her and then a furry four-legged body.

  Thirty-Five

  A second four-legged creature covered with coarse black fur passed the desk, this one on Norton’s left-hand side. She took a slow, careful, deep breath. Two more Wolves appeared, crossing paths before her. Four in all.

  They moved toward Mace’s office, then rose on their hind legs. They seemed to melt, and Norton gaped at the pale legs of four naked human males. She lowered her head closer to the floor to see their faces. The emergency lights cast harsh shadows on their features.

  “Mace should have the most data on his hard drive,” a man with curly dark hair said, looking at Mace’s office door. Norton believed he was Elias Michalakis.

  “Grab it,” Raphael Domini said to one of the other men. “We’ll try to figure out which of the other ones belongs to the FBI.”

  One of the men entered Mace’s office, and the other three fanned out. Norton’s back and knees ached. The man in Mace’s office disconnected cables running from the monitor on the desk to the computer beneath it. She lost sight of Raphael, Elias, and the remaining man. Desk drawers opened and closed around her, producing hollow echoes.

  “Look at this,” Raphael said inside the conference room. Norton craned her neck to see Elias joining him at the wall where the task force team had posted several photos, maps, and charts.

  “That was taken in Philadelphia,” Elias said.

  “There are cameras everywhere,” Raphael said. “Maybe we should torch the place and set them back a day.”

  “That wouldn’t do any good. Whatever’s on these computers is also on computers at One Police Plaza and FBI headquarters. All we’d do is call even more attention to ourselves. They won’t publicly admit that we stole these computers.”

  A pair of hairy male legs stepped before Willy’s desk, and Norton held her breath, her eyes bulging. The man opened and closed the drawers, each movement ricocheting around Norton’s head like a bullet. He padded away as Raphael and Elias emerged from the conference room.

  “Any luck?” Raphael said.

  “There’s hardly anything in these desks,” the man said. “It looks like they’re cleaning the place out.”

  “Then we were just in time,” Elias said. “We were right not to wait.”

  “Let’s go,” Raphael said to the man in Mace’s office.

  They filed through the squad room, the fourth man carrying Mace’s computer. Norton listened to their retreating footsteps until the sound of her phone’s ringtone blocked them out and sent a spasm of fear through her body. Her heart did double time, and her phone rang in her pocket again.

  “What the hell’s that?” one of the men said.

  Norton reached into her pocket and closed her hand around the phone, which she turned off mid-ring.

  “We cut the power,” Elias said. “No phone should be ringing.”

  Norton drew her hand from her pocket.

  “Someone else is in here,” Raphael said.

  Norton tightened her grip on her Glock. She sensed, rather than heard, movement around her. Did she hear paws padding toward Willy’s desk? Her breathing grew shallow and labored. She wanted to run.

  Shadows moved on the floor.

  Norton felt a scream rolling around the inside of her throat and mouth, trying to claw itself free.

  A reverberating thud behind her meant one Wolf had leapt onto a desktop. A thud to her right told her another one had done the same thing. Then a third banging to her left. The Wolves jumped from desk to desk. One remained on the floor somewhere, she thought.

  Something large and heavy landed atop Willy’s desk, the thundering impact echoing around Norton, who stifled a cry. With her heart jackhammering, she raised her Glock in one hand, her view obstructed by the office chair. A long, furry arm knocked the chair over, and an upside-down lupine head lowered into view, eyes trained on her and canines bared as the monster growled a sound not unlike laughter. Norton stuck her Glock in the beast’s face and pulled the trigger twice, destroying the eye and cheek on the left side of its face. The beast issued a strangled gasp and toppled to the floor in front of her, blood gushing from its face.

  Norton scrambled out from under the desk and clambered over the kicking beast’s form. She didn’t have time to consider its immense size and fled to the cubicles near the conference room. She didn’t look for the other monsters, but she glimpsed raging shadows leaping to the floor.

  As she reached the end of the cubicles, a second werewolf leapt before her, and she knew it had stayed behind in case she attempted to flee. Her body jolted, and she heard herself cry out. The creature roared at her, and she stopped in her tracks, raised the Glock in both hands, and fired at its chest four times. It howled in pain and fell to the floor. Claws scrabbled on the floor behind her.

  Norton bolted into the reception area, stopping only to pull the fire alarm on the wall, and a clanging filled the building. Then she scurried over the fallen door, brushing aside a piece of the frame that dangled before her. The Wolves had left their shoes and clothes near the elevator. She knew the elevator wouldn’t be working, so she opened the emergency exit door, stepped into the stairwell, and slammed the metal door behind her. Emergency lights cast a harsh glare everywhere, and the fire alarm rang here as well. She rushed halfway down the first flight of concrete steps, then leapt to the landing, the impact echoing.

  The door flew open above her and slammed against the wall. Claws scraped concrete overhead, growing louder.

  Norton hurried to the next landing and opened the door, emerging into the third-floor sewing shop. A hundred workstations for seamstresses stood empty, and she zipped between the rows toward the back. A howling merged with the fire alarm. She continued toward the rear of the floor, wondering if she could double back to the front, where the windows offered access to the fire escape. Two werewolves chased her on all fours, and she ran faster.

  She stopped at a wooden gate over a freight elevator shaft. A handwritten Out of Order sign had been pinned to the gate. After holstering her Glock, she pulled the rattling gate upward and stared into darkness broken only by the freight elevator cables. Cold air met her face.

  The werewolves panted behind her, their claws slipping on the tiles.

  Without turning to see their proximity, Norton took off her blazer and held it in both h
ands. As she dove into space, a claw raked her back. For a moment, she wondered if she would plummet three floors to her death, but she caught the taut cable. Her right leg slammed into the cable, the impact eliciting a pained grunt, and she almost lost her grip.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the two werewolves, silhouetted and snarling within the gateway, just eight feet away and four feet above her.

  Mace had just left the Fifth Precinct parking lot when his cell phone rang. The words Central Alarm appeared on the screen. Frowning, he took the call.

  “Captain, this is Central Alarm Station. Can you give me your password?”

  “Gypsy One,” Mace said.

  “We have an alert at your Mott Street location, probably caused by a power failure. Do you wish us to report this issue to the police?”

  Mace’s heart thumped in his chest. “Yes.”

  “Shall we contact you with their findings?”

  “No, I’m going to the site now.” Mace hung up and stomped on the brake, then stepped on the gas pedal. He had to drive all the way around the block to reach Elizabeth Street and drive north toward headquarters. He honked his horn at the vehicles ahead of him and pressed autodial for Landry.

  “Is everything okay?” Landry said.

  “No. The power’s down at base, and I left Norton there alone. Call in the marines.”

  “Copy, copy.”

  Mace hung up. Halfway across Canal Street, traffic reached a standstill. He banged on his horn. “Come on, you morons!” He had not felt so helpless since sitting in an undercover van listening to Janus Farel tear Patty Lane apart in a moving vehicle. Horns honked around him, and he saw the lights of the buildings around headquarters three-quarters of a block uptown. Twisting his steering wheel, he eased his SUV into a throng of pedestrians crossing the street, scattering them, and drove onto the sidewalk. Civilians jumped out of the way and shouted at him, but he only increased his speed on the narrow sidewalk.

  When he reached the dark building, he parked the vehicle and jumped out. The fire alarm clanged inside. Drawing his gun, he ran inside and unlocked the inside door. The alarm pad was dark, and emergency lights cast an eerie glow over the lobby. He bypassed the elevator and went straight to the emergency stairwell.

  “What’s that alarm?” Karol said.

  Gabriel pointed out the window. “Look!”

  A black SUV sped along the sidewalk and screeched to a stop outside the building across the street. Mace jumped out and sprinted inside.

  “Let’s go,” Karol said.

  They ran for the door.

  Gomez stepped out of his shoes, kicked them aside, and removed his socks. He peeled off his coat and allowed it to bunch at his feet, then pulled off his shirt, unbuckled his trousers, and dropped them. He didn’t wear any underwear.

  He crept up the carpeted wooden stairs. At the top, he set his hand on the doorknob and gave it a slow turn. The door creaked open, and he stepped into the hallway. Facing the door to the first-floor apartment, he listened for signs of movement on the other side, his nostrils flaring. He left the basement door ajar and moved to the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor.

  Norton turned away from the werewolves and loosened her grip on the cable just enough to slide down it, her jacket protecting her hands. The fire alarm sounded quieter in the shaft, and the wolves howled in anger. Looking below, she saw only blackness. She passed the second-floor gate, visible because emergency light shot through its slats, and gained speed, the wolves’ howls echoing around her and the alarm continuing. Glancing up, she saw the silhouettes of the creatures, smaller now.

  Just when she wondered how much longer it would take to reach the top of the freight elevator, she passed the first-floor gate, and her feet slammed onto metal. The impact sent a shock wave through her bones that caused her to lose her balance, and she let go of the cable and crashed onto the elevator’s top.

  Lying on her back and wincing in pain, Norton squinted up at the third-floor gateway. She drew her Glock and aimed it at the patch of dull light, then fired a series of rounds at the wolves, which howled in protest. The sound of the gunfire ricocheted off the walls. She ceased fire and waited for a reaction.

  One of the werewolves jumped into space and grabbed the elevator cable, and then she lost sight of it.

  Mace took the stairs two at a time. He knew the intruder had waited for him to leave before killing the power in the building to shut down the security alarm. Norton had pulled the fire alarm, which meant she was alive or had been just minutes ago.

  Gomez, he thought. It ends here.

  Gabriel and Karol ran through the narrow lobby of the hotel, which consisted of nothing but a cashier window, a garbage can, the stairway, and ratty furniture by the door.

  At the door, Gabriel caught Karol’s arm. “You go first. I don’t want any security cameras in the neighborhood recording us together.”

  Karol was about to argue when she saw the wisdom in his decision. Without commenting, she turned and sprinted across the sidewalk to Mott Street.

  Keeping her eyes and Glock trained above her, Norton rose on one knee, then stood. She fired the gun several times, glimpsing the descending werewolf through the muzzle flash that dazzled her eyes. The monster had reached the second floor. With a better idea of its location, she opened fire in a continuous burst. The gunfire grew deafening and blinding, and she couldn’t tell if she had hit her predator or not.

  Then she ran out of ammo.

  Mace emerged from the stairwell onto the fourth floor, his breathing heavy. He swept his Glock from one end of the hall to the other, then gazed at the floor, where four piles of clothing lay.

  That meant the Wolves were from Gabriel’s or Raphael’s faction, or they were the rogues who had attacked Kwamie and his soldiers.

  Not Gomez.

  Sitting at the dining room table, Cheryl spooned mush into Patty’s mouth. She’d feel better when Tony got home, but she knew she wouldn’t feel safe until learning Gomez had been killed.

  “Dada!” Patty said.

  “Yes, baby, Dada will be home soon.”

  A low growl rose from the floor, and she turned her head. Sniper stood near the door, staring at it with an intensity Cheryl had never seen in the animal before. The dog gave a warning yelp. Someone—or something—lurked on the other side.

  Oh no, Cheryl thought, fear spreading through her veins as she stood.

  The doorknob turned, and Sniper barked.

  Norton ejected the cartridge from her Glock, took another from her pocket, and slapped it into place. The sound of the wolf landing a few feet away in the darkness joined the cacophony disorienting her.

  With spots still dancing in her eyes, she opened fire, the muzzle flashes illuminating the wolf like a dancer in a strobe light. Dark splotches appeared in the hyperintense flashes. Once she had found her rhythm, she continued to fire at her assailant, moving closer to her attacker but keeping the elevator cable somewhat between them.

  The wolf howled in pain. Norton ran out of ammo again.

  Mace entered the reception area with his gun drawn. Four Wolves prowled the premises somewhere. He moved through the short hall leading from the reception area into the squad room, where he conducted a perimeter sweep. The clanging alarm prevented him from hearing even his own footsteps. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer.

  Mace headed toward his office, his arms outstretched with his Glock clenched in both hands. He had emptied a .38 into Janus Farel at point-blank range, and the bastard had transformed into a Wolf before his eyes and chased him down. Only Farel’s blind faith in the Blade of Salvation had saved Mace’s life. Mace didn’t have a sword now, and these Wolves didn’t believe in the Blades of Salvation anyway.

  He stopped in the middle of the floor and conducted another perimeter sweep. The emergency lights and the glare of the buildings across the street cast long shadows across the floor, and the patches of darkness between the pools of light felt palpable.
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  One shadow charged at him, and as he jerked his head, it snatched his gun by the barrel, almost taking his fingers with it. He jumped back and watched the Wolf merge into the shadows once more. Spinning on one heel, he glimpsed a Wolf stand erect on a desktop a dozen feet away, silhouetted by the light outside. On his left-hand side, a second Wolf rose on another desk. On his right, the Wolf that had snatched his Glock stepped into a pool of light.

  Janus Farel times three, he thought.

  The Wolves growled, their thick fur bristling. They licked their chops, slathering saliva over their sharp teeth.

  Cheryl unclasped the straps that held Patty to the high chair and lifted her out of the seat. Sniper barked a challenge at whoever stood on the other side of the door, and the noise caused Patty to squirm in protest. If Cheryl could just make it to the window in the living room and get the attention of the police outside . . .

  Maybe.

  The home invader struck the door, and Cheryl heard wood splintering.

  Sniper leaned forward, then drew himself back for a launch.

  I’ll never make it.

  Holding Patty in her left arm, Cheryl reached on top of the computer hutch and took Tony’s .38 revolver from her purse just as the door exploded off its hinges.

  Sniper leapt right, avoiding the door as it fell to the floor. A figure seven feet tall and covered in black fur stood in the doorway, its pointy ears touching the frame. Sniper barked in a frenzy, causing Patty to cry. Opening and closing its claws, the wolf snarled at the barking dog. Cheryl turned her body so Patty couldn’t see the monstrous creature that had come to kill them.

  Gomez, she thought.