The Wolves Among Us

  The Wolves Among Us

  Shawn Winstone

  Chapter One

  Chapter One

  In a moment, the headache would begin.

  Waking up in a strange bed was becoming a habit that Agent Calico Burns wanted to break in the worst way. Once, he’d woken up in the absolute worst fleabag hotel ever, somewhere in Tulsa. There were fleas, man. Actual fleas.

  That was it. No more drinking tequila. He was off that sauce.

  At least the sheets smelled clean, he thought to himself as he pushed up from the narrow mattress and stumbled into the bathroom. He was naked, but there was nothing new in that. Sleeping in the buff didn’t bother him. Sleeping in strange places for no good reason, now that bothered him. Not a good way for an FBI agent to earn the trust of the bureau.

  In the filmy mirror, his skin was dark as day old coffee. There had been a girl once who called his color warm chocolate. She’d been looking to get laid, though. Black was beautiful, after all.

  There were bags under his eyes and stubble on his chin. His dark hair had that slept-in look. Even with the razor-straight part on the left side, it looked…well, rumpled. His body was still toned and as strong as a twenty year old's, a fact he was proud of at thirty-five.

  What he wasn’t proud of, was his blackouts.

  Technically he was supposed to report any serious medical condition to his section chief. The problem with that was that once he put it out there, he couldn’t take it back. He’d be branded as unfit for duty and shuffled to a desk job if he was lucky, quietly retired if he wasn’t. There were plenty of things he could do in civilian life. Just nothing that compared to the work he was doing in the FBI.

  Until he got a handle on his drinking and what followed on his own, he wasn’t going to tell anyone about it. That’s just the way it was.

  The shower worked. The water ran hot and clear although it smelled faintly of copper. Well, well. He must’ve lucked out and found a high-end dive motel this time. When he felt clean and refreshed he stepped out and found his suitcase—there was always a suitcase because he wasn’t that stupid—and got dressed. Slacks and a crisp white shirt, and a black suitcoat to cover the holster at his side. After that, he took out his phone.

  Using the GPS he discovered where he was. Oklahoma City. Good. This time, he’d stayed local. He’d even be able to make it to work on time. If he hurried.

  His beat up red mustang was parked right outside his room. After he went to the front desk and settled up his bill, he drove down the road until he found the Interstate, and he was back on track.

  In the FBI field office, he didn’t even have time to set his bagel down on his desk before he got the word that his section chief wanted to see him. A great start to the day did not include a trip to the head office. Grabbing two bites from his breakfast he dropped the rest into his trashcan and headed up the hallway.

  This sure wasn’t helping his headache

  Molly Blake looked particularly hot this morning in her sharp pantsuit. She had started dying her hair a deep red just a few weeks ago. Usually, she was blonde. Calico was discovering that he was mildly attracted to redheads.

  “Got a case for you,” she told him, waving for him to take the seat on the other side of the desk from her. Shuffling through three separate stacks of folders, she plucked out two of them and handed them over. “Right up your alley.”

  Calico sighed. He knew what she meant by that. Early on in his FBI career, he had solved a kidnapping case where the suspect liked to encase his child victims in wax and mold them into statues. He’d saved two little girls, and killed the bad guy, and ever since then he’d had the reputation of having a knack for the “weird” cases.

  Opening the first folder she’d given him, he found that this one was no different.

  In a little community named Harvestfall just outside of the city of Blanchard, about half an hour away from where he was now sitting, there had been a string of grisly murders. The victims, three of them in all, had been shredded while still alive, something like claw marks tearing apart their flesh. Organs had been removed, and not surgically. Bones had been snapped.

  He read on, his stomach twisting a little around those two bites of bagel. No connection between the victims. Attacks apparently random. Each killing had coincided with…

  “Oh, now come on. You can’t be serious.” He held his finger under the one bit of data he’d just read and glared at Molly. “They were all killed on the full moon?”

  She nodded, leaning over to turn a page in his folder. There was a nice view down the neckline of her shirt when she did, but he was too busy reading what she had just pointed out to notice how her purple bra had peeked out. Well. Mostly.

  The report went on to say that a single witness had spotted something like a huge dog walking on two legs committing the second of the three murders.

  Full moon. A large, furry creature walking on two legs. All right. He was just going to call it. “You’re sending me after a werewolf, aren’t you?”

  “You can call it anything you like,” Molly answered with a smirk. “All I’m doing is sending one of my best agents to investigate a serial killing. Where the investigation takes you, well, that’s up to you.”

  “Fantastic. So what’s this other folder for?”

  “Same sort of crime committed four months ago in Tulsa. Two dead there. I thought there might be a connection. I’ll leave that up to you, too.”

  “So, I guess I’m going to Harvestfall.”

  “Yes,” Molly confirmed. “You, and your partner.”

  “Nope. No partner. You know I work alone.”

  “I’ve got six dead people who looked like they were torn apart by a monster from a bad horror movie. You’re one of my best agents, Calico, but you don’t do this one alone. That’s final.”

  “You know I hate it when you act like my boss.”

  She got up, slowly, and came around to his side of the desk. Her hand trailed along the back of his neck just like she used to do on those warm nights at his apartment. Whispering in his ear now, she told him, “I’m not acting like your boss. I am your boss. Maybe this weekend…I could be something else.”

  Well, when she put it that way.

  “Fine, boss lady. I get a partner, and then we go catch ourselves a werewolf. When do we leave?”

  “Tonight,” she told him, leaving him to go back to her big, comfy chair. “The full moon is in two days. You don’t have much time.”

  Down in the parking garage, he waited by their issued car, a black sedan just like every other sedan lined up in the row. He checked his watch. Three p.m. This mysterious new partner of his was supposed to be here by now…

  “You ready to go?”

  Calico looked up to find a tall woman in a black pencil dress standing there, one hand on her hip, the other holding a blue duffel bag over her shoulder. Her Black skin wasn’t quite as dark as his. Her brown eyes were intense under honey-brown curls that fell down below her shoulders. Beautiful, was the first word that came to Calico’s mind.

  “Well?” she snapped. “I don’t have all day to sit here and let you undress me with your eyes. Let’s go.”

  She put herself in the passenger seat of their car and shut the door.

  Arrogant, was the next word that came to him.

  Well. This was going to be a wonderful assignment. What more could go wrong?

  Chapter Two

  The coroner’s office in Harvestfall was tiny enough that Calico and Bridgett had to stand back against the wall so the little gray-haired man doing the autopsy on the latest victim had room to move around the single metal examination table. Calico had been inside compact sedans with more room than there was in here.

  Sp
eaking of being cooped up inside of cars, the ride here had been almost like torture. Bridgett hardly spoke. She kept her eyes facing out the passenger side window. Calico counted himself lucky that he’d gotten her name out of her. Bridgett Pearson. Special Agent of the FBI.

  Well, la-di-da.

  “As you can see,” the Coroner was saying, “there’s almost nothing left of the internal organs. From sternum to crotch, our victim is hollow.”

  Calico had seen it. That’s why he was staring at the wall. No one should die like that. No one. “What about the head wound?” he asked.

  “Secondary to the other injuries,” was the answer. “Probably from falling down while attacking. The bite marks on the edges of the wounds, in the flesh, indicate a canine was responsible. I’d say you’re wasting your time, Agents. I’m marking this down as an animal attack.”

  Bridgett made a rude noise in her throat and then stalked right over to the body. Calico nearly reached out to stop her but instead, he just watched as she spread the victim’s legs apart and pointed at one of his thighs. “Did a dog do this?”

  There, scratched into the skin, was a word. “Rapist.”

  “I’m pretty sure dogs can’t spell,” Bridgett snapped, going over to the sink squeezed in between filing cabinets and washing her hands. “Let alone brand a man.”

  The Coroner glared at her. “That could have been inflicted before death.”

  “Look at the edges of the wound, Doctor.” Bridgett wagged a finger at the dead man’s leg. “That wound is post-mortem. It happened after he died.”

  “Well, then, it could have been put there by a vagrant passing by the body afterward. Agent Pearson, you can not honestly expect me to hold up this investigation. There are claw marks and bite marks on this man. Someone ate his internal organs if you missed that part. Now, you asked if I was suggesting dogs could spell. Let me ask you this. Are you suggesting a man ate the raw kidneys and liver and heart right out of this chest?”

  Calico felt his gorge rise and had to leave the room. The door slamming behind him was loud in the empty hallway of the lower levels of the Harvestfall medical center. It wasn’t much more than a doctor’s office but at least they had the facilities to do an autopsy.

  He leaned his ass against the wall and bent over with his hands on his knees, panting for breath and fighting the urge to get sick all over the polished floor. That was nasty. What he’d seen in there…that was going to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

  When Bridgett finally came out, he looked up, just in time to see her roll her eyes. She came over to stand next to him, leaning against one shoulder, watching him shake and sweat. “You going to be all right, Agent Burns, or what?”

  “You have a heart in that chest,” he retorted, “or did you sell it along with your soul?”

  “Very funny. Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  Unfortunately, she was right. There was no way a dog did this. No matter what the Coroner wanted to believe, there was no way that anyone other than human hands had carved the word rapist into that leg. “How’d you know to look for that?” he asked her.

  She didn’t need him to explain what he meant. “Because, I read the files on the victims.” She said it like an accusation, like he wasn’t doing his job because he hadn’t done the same thing. “I’ve been investigating this one for a long time. It’s…personal. That victim in there was arrested three times for raping women. Each time, he got off on a technicality. Somebody was looking for some payback. Someone who knew what he’d done. It was all right there in his FBI file, Agent Burns.”

  When he was finally sure that he wasn’t going to vomit all over the place, Calico stood up and started following her out of the building. He had to give it to her, that was a solid piece of investigating. Not that he was about to tell her that. “So, our other two victims…?”

  “Both with arrests for rape. In both cases, the charges were dropped. And before you ask, yes the victims in Tulsa also had criminal records, also for rape.”

  So there was a connection. All five victims were criminals. “Did the other autopsies find anything carved into their victims?”

  She stopped at the door leading out, her smile smug. “Yes, they did. Glad to see you’re finally catching up.”

  Oh, he did not like this woman. Not one little bit.

  Back in the car, he started the engine and backed out of their parking space. “So what now? Do we have any leads to follow? Anything that brings us to a suspect?”

  “So glad you asked.” Her skirt was riding up her knee, and Calico was having a very hard time paying attention to anything other than the perfect shape of her, and her flawless skin. When she snapped her fingers in front of his face he braked the car hard, nearly forcing the driver behind to run into them. “Eyes up here, big boy. If we mark the location of each victim on a map and run it back to a central location, it just happens to mark the spot on the map where a roadside bar is doing business. Lots of tough guys hang out there.”

  “Sounds like a good place to look for a suspect,” he said, while his eyes darted one more time to the hem of her skirt. Damn. What the woman lacked in people skills she made up for in pure lust factor.

  Ahem. Right. Eyes on the case, he told himself. Besides, she’d already made it clear she wasn’t going to give him the time of day.

  He followed her directions, finally ending up in the middle of a County road where a squat building with a slanting roof sat, neon signs in the windows advertising beer, and a handpainted sign attached to the front that proudly announced this was the Skunk’s Nest.

  Sometimes, Calico worried for the future of the human species.

  Motorcycles were lined up outside, along with a few rusty pickup trucks. Music blared into the parking lot from the open front door.

  “This must be the place,” Calico said. He’d been going for a laugh. Bridgett just looked at him, and then got out of the car. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To do our jobs,” she retorted, already halfway across the parking lot.

  Grumbling to himself, he got out and went after her. “The Federal government don’t pay me enough to put up with this. Crazy, psychotic, stick up her ass little…”

  He trailed off when he stepped through the doorway and into the bar. Bridgett was surrounded by three guys who were head and shoulders taller than her, wider than Mac trucks, and obviously looking for trouble. One of the men, a tattooed and pierced dude in just a leather vest, reached out a hand and cupped Bridgett’s ass. She slapped him away, her eyes flashing red.

  “Aw, damn,” Calico muttered. Launching himself forward he slammed his fist into the chest of the man on the right of the group. It was meant to shock and surprise the guy, not hurt him, which it did. When he stepped back, Calico followed up with a hard chop from the blade of his right hand to the guy’s throat. He crumpled down to the dirty floor at Calico’s feet, choking and gasping for air.

  “What the hell?” said the guy in the leather vest. He went to push past Bridgett like she wasn’t even there, his eyes glaring holes through Calico.

  Bridgett swept a leg out between his and forced him to fall on top of his buddy. When he went to get up Bridgett flashed her badge at him, although where she’d been hiding it in that skin-tight dress Calico couldn’t say. She sure didn’t have a gun under there…unless it was between her thighs…

  Damn. He was staring again.

  Macho guy stayed down. The only one still standing backed away, his hands in the air. “Now that we have your attention,” Bridgett said to them, “let me ask everybody in here a question. We want to talk to anyone who has information about the werewolf killings.”

  Calico grimaced. “Do you have to call it that?”

  “It gets people’s attention.”

  Nobody said anything. The whole place was silent, except for the music, and the man on the floor still sucking in each breath.

  Calico had learned how to read a room a long time ago. He knew when a cr
owd was turning. The bartender reached under the counter for something. Several patrons shifted in their seats. The glower of the man that Bridgett had tripped got darker by degrees.

  Time to go.

  He took her by the elbow and started walking them out backward. “Well. Thank you for your help, everyone. We’ll be in touch.”

  “What are you doing?” she sniped angrily.

  “Keeping this from becoming a major incident. Let’s go.”

  She wasn’t happy about it, but she saw the same warning signs he had, finally, and followed him out to the car. In another minute they were headed back into Harvestfall to the motel they had booked for the night. Or longer, depending on how long the investigation took.

  Oh, please God, he thought to himself. Don’t let this take too long. He didn’t know how much longer he could stomach being this woman’s partner!

  At the hotel, they got their keys and found their rooms, which were right next to each other. Calico couldn’t say goodnight fast enough, even though it was only the middle of the afternoon.

  As he was about to shut his door, Bridgett’s hand slammed against it, keeping it open.

  He was surprised to see her there. He was even more surprised to see the look in her eyes.

  “The way you rushed into that fight today,” she said, her voice huskier than he remembered. “That was…really something.”

  “Uh, thanks. Just doing my part.”

  She laughed, a brief sound that faded into a sigh as she put her hand on his chest and pushed him back inside. “I don’t need saving, Agent Burns. Let me show you the only thing I need you for.”

  Shoving the door closed behind her she pulled him in close, right up against her, and then wrapped her hands around his strong shoulders. He was drawn into the kiss before he realized it, and the way she moaned against his lips left no doubt about what she thought he was good for.

  “Take me to the bed,” she ordered him.

  “Tell me why, first. You don’t like me. You don’t know me. Why?”