The Frenzy Way (34 page)

Julian studied each man at the table. They were so unlike the Wolves he had known in the United States, so unlike Brooke. These Wolves were killers. “I want to join you.”

Elias clasped his wrist. “You already have, friend.”

“No drugs,” Damon said in a harsh tone. “Give us a reason to distrust you, and you’ll simply disappear without a trace.”

“I already have,” Julian said with a wry smile.

“You’ll need a new identity,” Otis said.

Julian glanced at Elias, who nodded. “Otis is correct. You need an alias for your new life. What shall we call you?”

Chewing on another hunk of bread, Julian thought back to the day when he had met Brooke. He had been reading a book on Roman mythology. “Call me Janus. Janus Farel.”

“Tomás de Torquemada served as confessor to Queen Isabella, who appointed him Spain’s first Inquisitor General. He expanded the Spanish Inquisition from one tribunal to two dozen ‘Holy Offices’ and became so reviled for the torture and executions committed under his direction that he required 50 bodyguards and an army of 250 men to protect him. Because of his role in the Inquisition, his name has become synonymous with religious fanaticism. During the Inquisition—which occurred between 1478 and 1834—3,750 trials were held regarding ‘superstitions.’”

—Transmogrification in Native American Mythology, Terrence Glenzer

Kneeling on the floor of his temporary quarters, Pedro prayed to God for strength and perseverance on his holy mission. He had been dispatched by Monsignor Delecarte to recover the lost Blade of Salvation, and instead he had discovered the Beast in New York City.

Hombre lobo.

With God’s divine guidance, he would slay the monster.

He knew this was his destiny.

Pedro was born in the Dominican Republic, located on Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean’s Greater Antilles archipelago, west of Puerto Rico and east of Cuba. His parents had supported themselves by providing boat and automobile tours to visiting U.S. citizens. Pedro recalled sunny mornings, beachside walks, and waving palm trees.

He envisioned clear blue water that mirrored the sky above. And he never forgot the ferocious mental pictures of Hurricane Georges that lingered in his mind. The hurricane had killed over two hundred people in the Dominican Republic, including Pedro’s parents.

In Santo Domingo, a priest named Jonas Tudoro, visiting Hispaniola as part of a relief mission organized by the Vatican, discovered Pedro huddled in an alleyway, starving and covered in his own feces. Tudoro arranged for Pedro, whom he estimated to be ten years old, to be bathed and clothed and fed. Pedro spent nine days in a shelter before Tudoro placed him with a foster family. The Ortiz family cared for Pedro in exchange for a stipend from the church. When Pedro turned twelve, Tudoro returned to the island and accompanied him to Rome, where Pedro was placed in a Catholic boarding school. Throughout this period, Pedro obeyed Tudoro in all things. At fourteen, he was assigned private tutors. Oddly enough, Tudoro also encouraged him to participate in sports, especially weight lifting and martial arts. Pedro excelled at both. At sixteen, Tudoro introduced him to Monsignor Delecarte, his true benefactor.

Pedro expressed to Delecarte his desire to enter the priesthood, but Delecarte shook his head.

“You will serve the Lord,” the monsignor said. “But you will not do so in robes. You are a special boy with a special destiny.”

At eighteen, Delecarte and Tudoro indoctrinated him into the Brotherhood of Torquemada.

“We are not an arm of the church,” Delecarte said. “But we do serve the Lord and His will, albeit in secret. If you join us, you must take a vow of secrecy just as we have.”

Pedro did not hesitate to swear his allegiance to the monsignor’s cause—whatever it was. So began four years of intensive training with international security experts. Pedro mastered hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and blades, including swords. He pushed his body and his soul to their limits, all for the sake of his sponsors, his church, and his God.

“I’m proud of you,” Tudoro confided one day as they drove through the Italian countryside. “You’ve performed better than we could have dreamed.”

“You saved my life, Father. I’ll do anything to repay the debt.”

Tudoro drove him to the ruins of an ancient church. “It’s time you learned the identity of our sworn enemy.”

At last
, Pedro thought.

Inside the ruins, Tudoro led Pedro to a locked door. He handed a skeleton key to his servant. “You must make this journey alone.”

Nodding, Pedro unlocked the door. In the darkness ahead burned a torch mounted on a stone wall. As he entered the cool, dank corridor, the door slammed behind him. He proceeded to the torch and removed it from the wall. Peering ahead, he saw another torch beckoning to him in the distance. He moved through the darkness to the second torch and discerned a wide, curved stairway leading below. Following the stone steps, he froze when he heard what sounded like a wild animal growling. In that moment, he recalled the hours he had spent studying European mythology and superstitions. With his heart slamming in his chest, he descended the remaining stairs.

At the bottom he again heard the growling, low and menacing, coming from the floor. Holding the torch before him, he saw the wrought-iron bars of a cell door set in stone. Inching closer, he peered through the bars at a dense silhouette. He raised the torch. The enormous shape hurled itself at the bars, its great muzzle snapping powerfuljaws at his face, and tried to rake him with its claws. He recoiled but stood his ground and gazed into a pair of hate-filled eyes.

Outside the steel door, he emerged from the darkness and faced Tudoro. Bowing, he said, “I understand, Father.”

Five years later, Pedro kneeled on the floor of a guest bedroom in Queens, New York, with no one to rely on except for a priest barely connected to the Brotherhood. He had spent half a decade serving the Brotherhood, carrying out secret missions for his Lord. But he had neither seen nor slain any creatures like the one he had witnessed in the darkened prison beneath those church ruins, and executing such demons was his stated purpose.

Hearing a knock at the door, he crossed himself and rose, then admitted Father Hagen. The priest carried a long, narrow box into the guest quarters, and Pedro closed the door.

“This was just delivered by personal courier,” Father Hagen said. “It’s from Rome.”

Pedro made a slight smile. Monsignor Delecarte had fulfilled his promise. “Thank you.” Pedro took the package from Hagen and laid it on the table. Producing a pocketknife, he slit the strings and paper wrapping on the package. The pine box bore a cross engraved in its surface. “Do you have a hammer?”

“Right here.” Hagen opened a kitchenette cabinet and returned with a hammer, which he handed to Pedro. Using the hammer’s claw, Pedro pried the lid open. Then he removed the packing materials, revealing the contents to Hagen, who stared down with awe in his eyes.

“Tomorrow,” Pedro said, “we save your city from the Beast.”

By commandeering half a dozen desks, clearing them, and shoving them up against each other, Mace, Landry, and Willy converted the squad room into a command center. Maps, file folders, scattered reports, and numerous photographs littered the oval shape they’d constructed. They permitted each detective stationed in the bull pen to retain one corner of his desk, along with his chair and landline. With their jackets off, their sleeves rolled up, and their ties loose around their necks, they coordinated the investigations of twenty pairs of detectives and interfaced with Operations and Dispatch to arrange increased patrols in Lower Manhattan.

Mace had returned from Sing Sing with a gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He felt more certain than ever that Gomez was somehow connected to the Manhattan Werewolf, but he was no closer to figuring out how. Chu was so grateful to have him back in the line of fire that he hadn’t even questioned him about his field trip before he left. Mace had showered in the locker room and changed into a fresh set of clothing.

Now he glanced at his watch: 1600 hours. The day shift was ending, but with all the overtime he had assigned, it didn’t matter. One shift would bleed into the next without depleting manpower. Despite the effort and expense put forth by the department, no real progress had been made. The Imaging technicians had created a startlingly photorealistic representation of the killer’s face based on the night-vision footage taken during Patty’s murder, and they were dispersing copies through every possible outlet. But no new leads had developed, and Mace felt the clock ticking on his career.

A man and a woman dressed in crisp black suits entered the squad room. Their rigid posture and serious expressions cried FBI to Mace.

“Think they’re taking over?” Landry said.

“We can only hope.” He stepped over to the newcomers. “I’m Captain Mace. This is my lieutenant, Landry. Can I help you?”

“Special Agents Norton and Shelly, Captain.”

“I’m Norton,” the woman said. She wore her strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that reminded Mace of Patty.

“Which makes me Shelly,” the man said.

Mace shook their hands.

“Can we speak in your office?” Norton said.

“Certainly. Right this way.” Mace led them to his office, opened the door for them, and followed them inside. Closing the door, he said, “Now what’s this about?”

“We’ve brought the results of the bureau’s tests on our crime scene evidence,” Shelly said. “Your forensics lab shipped samples to Quantico.”

News to me
, Mace thought. “I haven’t seen either of you around before.”

“I’m based in Virginia,” Norton said.

“And I live out of a suitcase,” Shelly said.

Norton handed a file folder to Mace. “This is eyes-only, print-only material. There are some things we don’t like to save on hard drive for obvious security reasons. Even the bureau’s computers aren’t completely safe from hackers, and we wouldn’t want to start a panic if certain sensitive information got out.”

Mace looked at the folder in his hands.

“Consider the information in that folder classified, Captain. Divulging that material to subordinates or leaking it to the media would constitute an act of treason against the United States.”

Are you kidding me?
Mace stared at the agents, then opened the folder. The scientific jargon he read was gibberish to him. “I couldn’t remember half these terms if I
wanted
to divulge them.”

“Let me simplify things for you,” Norton said. “The blood, saliva, and hair samples found in the apartments of your first three victims, the car of your murdered detective, the subway station, and that veterinarian’s home office are identical. There’s no question it was the same perp.”

Closing the folder, Mace held it out. “That’s classified? Respectfully,
Special Agents
, that information has already been deduced by the media and this department.”

“Speculation. I’m confirming it.”

“There’s more,” Shelly said.