Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) (33 page)

This was Brown’s cue. He spat the match to the floor and hunched across the table, staring directly into the suspect’s eyes. “You’re wasting your breath with this turd, Sid,” he said to Navas. “Call his lawyer and let’s book him. He’s not going to tell us shit.”

“I don’t know about that, Fred. I think Mr. Stevens wants to be straight with us.”

“You’re living in a fucking dream, partner. Not this piece of crap.” Brown leaned further across the table until he was only inches away from the suspect. “That’s what you are, isn’t it? Just a pile of lowlife shit.” As he spoke, Brown was exercising his
will
, overriding Stevens’s personal worldview and superseding his interface with the Net, replacing the suspect’s body image with a new semblance. Slowly Stevens began to melt, his arms and legs and head and torso losing their solidity and congealing into a mound of excrement the size of a man, soft and wet and with flies buzzing around it, stinking with such reality that Perusquia could smell it through the window. This was the same process, although to a lesser degree, that wolves used when hunting prey.

Brown said, “Look at him now, Sid. Much more true to life, don’t you think?”

Only Stevens’s eyes remained unchanged, peering desperately from one detective to the other. His lips and tongue were fecal sausages. “No lawyer,” he said hoarsely, having trouble with the words because of the texture of his palate. “I didn’t do nothing.”

“Mr. Stevens,” Navas said patiently, “you were observed at 10:22 AM on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Carmine Street by a Department of Sanitation intelligence engine on its rounds debugging the neighborhood wallpaper. At 10:22:31 you disappeared. You did not take a giant step. You did not log out. You used illegal stealth technology to evade surveillance for three minutes and twenty-eight seconds, until you were next observed on Perry Street. Unless you have a pretty damned good explanation, I’ll have to assume you’re the wolf we’re looking for.”

“Wolf? Is that what this is about? You think I’m a wolf?”

“You’ve heard, Mr. Stevens, about the recent series of attacks in the VVillage?”

“Sure. But that wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t. Look, I’ll tell you the truth. You know that boutique on Seventh?”

“The Pink Pudenda?”

“That’s the one. Does great business. Logs in thousands of customers every day. Tourists, mostly. They come for the erotic toys and lingerie and dirty e-mail, that sort of stuff. The place is a mint, I tell you, never a dull moment. Well, I got to wondering what kind of security they had and decided to check it out. Figured that maybe I could insert a small bug of my own into the accounts receivable programming, if you know what I mean. Skim off a few cents here and there from the sales register into my personal account. You’ve seen my files, officer. You know what I’m into. A little hacking, that’s all. Believe me—just don’t go thinking I’m a fucking wolf, all right?”

Perusquia minimized the window and turned to Salisbury. “He’s not
Lobo
.”

“Why do you say that, Loo?”

“Because we met. While this asshole was in custody. Tell you about it over lunch?”

“You’re on.”

It was a beautiful day outside, sunny and fresh. Like every day except Wednesday, when, according to mayoral decree, it rained between eight and noon. Taking baby steps, they strolled along the avenue, the street crowded and crazy with VVillagers and tourists, hucksters and musicians, beggars and mimes, prostitutes, AIs, and students from VNYU and the Newer School. Perusquia’s favorite restaurant was just off Mulberry, an unassuming place with nothing to recommend it except its proprietary culinary technology—the chef was a true genius with code. Salisbury ordered a burger; Perusquia started with Cajun black bean soup, followed by
paté maison
, tuna
sashimi
, and medallions of wild boar on a bed of field greens and smothered turnips.
Dios
! If only he could eat this well all the time and not only while virtual. But then he’d probably be fatter than he was already. Too fat to move.

“So you think you were chasing
Lobo
?” Salisbury asked, brushing a lock of cobalt hair from her indigo eyes.

“Don’t ask me to prove it. But who else could it have been? Particularly nowadays.”

“Maybe you’re right, Loo. But so what?”

“Well—” Perusquia swabbed up the last remaining bit of
sauce
Robert
from his plate with a hunk of
brioche
“—it convinces me that
lobo
’s territorial imperative is right off the scale. Right up there with his SQ. This guy’s so far gone, he’s not only marking his boundaries in the Net, he’s at it physically, too—scratching at trees, pissing on rocks, singing his heart out... doing the real animal thing. He’s a local, Flo, I’d bet on it.”

“And how does that help us?”

Perusquia shook his head slowly, mulling over the thought but unable to put it to good use. “I really don’t know...” he mused. “
No se.
” Then he picked up both checks and they logged out of the restaurant.

Instead of exiting into daylight, they entered into midnight, shadow, and darkness, the only illumination the soft silver cast of a full moon.

Mulberry Street was deserted.

From somewhere came an echoing wail.

“Jesus, Loo.” Salisbury pulled her gun out, as did Perusquia. “The fucking wolf tagged us at the frontier,” she said.

Another howl ripped across the imposed night, closer now, angry with hunger.

Perusquia squinted, accessing his second sight, contracting the surrounding visual detail to icons. There was Salisbury, a bright fluctuating symbol. On either side were the interface ports of the local establishments, pulsing graphic images close enough to touch but cut off from his influence by an impenetrable gray pall, which Perusquia knew to be the
will
of the wolf.

He activated his police override but the software had no effect. Perusquia blinked again and returned into moonlight.

“Pull your string,
amiga
,” he instructed Salisbury.

She nodded, flickered briefly, but was unable to ride the data trail out of the Net, slamming to a halt in the dark mist that was the universe of the wolf.

Again they heard the cry, terrible with rage. Then came the scrabble of claws on pavement, the whisper of fur, a droning growl that seemed to go on and on, punctuated by madness and lust.

Salisbury was circling in place, holding her gun outstretched with both hands.

Glowing amber eyes appeared in the shadows.

The wolf was hunched low, inching forward, larger than any wolf ever was or should be, heavy with bone and sinew. Only the very tip of its tail twitched as it advanced toward them. Rabid slaver fell in ropes from its jaws. Its teeth were pale knives.

“Aim for the chest,” Perusquia said.

Salisbury nodded, corrected her stance, and fired. The silver bullet struck the wolf just below the shoulder.

Virtual ammunition consisted of replicating algorithms contained in an inert jacket of ROM. Released upon impact, the viruses infiltrated their target and instantaneously multiplied a gigafold, overloading any data processing capability and causing the system to freeze.

Silver bullets were different.

The code they carried didn’t induce paralysis. Their algorithms were written to initialize a feedback loop between the
will
of the wolf and its own automatic nervous functions, turning its blood lust back upon itself in a vicious iteration. Psychosomatically-generated physical death usually occurred within seconds of contact.

But not this time.

The wolf screamed as a bright silver blossom of lethal code flowered around the point of impact. It writhed with impossible agility. And with a quick lash of its jaws ripped out its own substance, tossing the chunk away before the infection could spread, healing itself and becoming whole again.

Perusquia took his shot.
Missed
. Then it was upon them.

It crashed into Salisbury and bit three fingers off her right hand as she struggled to keep its teeth from her throat. She went down and the wolf leapt on top of her, worried open her wrists and forearms, leaving jagged lacerations.

It craved blood and so there
was
blood—thick red blood, spilling from Salisbury, staining the wolf’s muzzle, splattering the pavement.

Perusquia gathered his personal
will
, urging himself to grow, to become ten feet tall with talons of steel and the fangs of an ogre and the strength of a giant. The intention of the wolf denied him any control over the least part of the environment, including his own self image.

He remained himself. And threw himself upon the thing.

Its pelt was an electric bristle, stinking with an animal reek. The force of its snarl shook its massive frame as Perusquia locked his ankles around its belly and his arm around its neck, clamping its windpipe in the crook of his elbow, throttling desperately while the wolf twisted and bit at his face.
Tiempo
,
tiempo
—only time could save them now, Perusquia knew, clinging on with all his strength while it lunged back and forth in an attempt to unseat him, slobber whipping from its jaws into his eyes, its teeth clashing only centimeters away. How long had it been? Five minutes? He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell.
Not long enough!
And then he was jolted loose, sent flying until he was brought to a stop against the curb. The impact knocked the wind out of him. He lay heaving while the wolf stalked deliberately toward him, its eyes pale fire in the moonlight.

“I’ve got the bastard, Loo.”

Salisbury had regained her feet.

The wolf spun around at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah, you,” Salisbury said. “You have no right to remain silent. You have no right to an attorney. It is immaterial that what you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” She held the gun in her left hand since her right one was a mangled fist of meat. Then her finger stroked the trigger.

The wolf leapt.

And suddenly they were in daylight, the sun blinding after the softness of the moon, surrounded by people again, the crowd scattering in panic as the wolf came down among them, its
will
collapsing, unable to sustain its envelope of invisibility. For a moment it glared wildly around; then it lunged forward, took a giant step, and disappeared.

Salisbury slumped to her knees unconscious, letting the gun drop. Perusquia snapped his fingers twice, double clicking an alert: officer down!

In seconds they were surrounded by police and emergency medical technicians. Without the
will
of the wolf to oppose them, the technicians were able to re-boot Salisbury’s personal worldview and heal her virtual fingers in short order. But it took far longer for their material counterparts to reach her physical body. The detective was almost dead from blood loss by the time the ambulance arrived.

Lobo
had refocused its
will
and reentered stealth mode. They monitored its progress in the diagram that the lanOp—Ralph Shakespeare 075-50-6905 again—nervously downloaded. “It was too fast for me,” the AI apologized as the icon representing the wolf winked out after having taken three giant steps from the scene, first to West Third Street, then to Jane, then to Washington Square East. Perusquia turned away.
Madre de Dios
, he was tired. There was no time for rest. Not yet. Not if he was correct about what
lobo
would do next. “Call out the unit,” he told Grevenberg. “ I want everyone at the precinct in half an hour.”

“Right, Lieutenant.”

“No, Art, you don’t understand. I mean at the
precinct
. Physically. Not virtually. In the flesh.”

Perusquia took four giant steps back to his own apartment and jacked out of the Net. The sluggish weight of his real body hit him with its usual immediacy; a second later he was feeling the effects of wrestling with
lobo
. Stripping off his clothes, Perusquia surveyed himself in the mirror, appalled by the amount of damage his mind had inflicted on his own anatomy, coerced by the
will
of the wolf. His arms were mottled yellow, blue, and black; his hands and wrists were criss-crossed with shallow gashes; there was one deep, almost bloodless puncture wound just below his right thumb. The small silver cross hanging from his neck was a bright speck against the dark bruises coloring his chest. Rage began burning in Perusquia as he showered, bandaged himself, dressed in loose slacks, a T-shirt, and running shoes. He got his Glock down from the closet shelf, brushing the dust off it and slotting in a full clip of ammunition, tucking three others into his pockets. Had it really been fifteen years since he’d last carried the gun? More like twenty. But today he’d need it.

Ten minutes later, breathless even after so short a walk, Perusquia stood on West Tenth Street in front of the Sixth Precinct.

The station looked—dilapidated.

Inside it seemed deserted except for the desk sergeant, an old man in a uniform a size too large, who was napping, his feet on the counter and his chair tilted back. A wheezy, rattling snore rumbled throughout the empty space. Perusquia slapped his badge on the desk. The noise woke the sergeant, who stared down at him in drowsy astonishment. “Yes?” he asked mildly. “May I help you?”

“Lieutenant Alphonse Perusquia. NYVPD. I’d like to speak with your commanding officer.”

“Well, sir, that would be Captain Faulkner. But he only comes in every other Friday. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s anyone here right now except for myself and, maybe, Shigemi Beatty—that’s Patrolman Beatty,” the sergeant explained. “He’s on second shift today. Which is to say, he
is
the second shift, you know. Ever since Jake Moses retired last year.”

“Loo—”

Perusquia turned around. Coming toward him was a pudgy young black man whom he didn’t recognize despite something familiar about the face.

“It’s me, Loo—Hennessy. Kevin Hennessy.”