Chapter 25 #7
Butch jerked awake and struggled for a moment to get his four legs to support him. He gave himself a good shake, then nudged Stick and the other two guys who were slowly coming around.
He remembered having fun, running through the park, chasing down females and ripping flesh from that still-living prey. And then…
The little female who should have been so tasty hit him with something that knocked him on his ass. Bitch. And then…
He gave himself another shake and looked around. Where were they?
He caught a scent in the air, heard a quiet whine.
A bitch in heat. What could be better?
Stick came up beside him, sniffed the air, and growled.
Yeah. What could be better?
Albert Palmer jerked awake to what sounded like a war in his backyard.
Dog fight. And the pedigreed bitch he’d recently bought—a bitch that had just come into heat and was ready to be bred to a champion—was yelping. Almost screaming.
How the fuck did dogs get over that fence to go after his bitch?
Albert grabbed the gun he’d tucked into the drawer of the bedside table and hurried through the house to the back door.
He’d put his useless wife and the female brat on a bus to Lovecraft yesterday so they could spend a few days with the wife’s equally useless sister.
Which meant she wasn’t home to wring her hands about him not securing the gun properly when their children were in the house.
Well, there weren’t any children in the house now, were there?
There wasn’t the son, the child that mattered.
He unlocked the back door, flipped the switch for the outside lights, and stepped out into that war.
Four fucking dogs tearing at his pedigreed bitch. Ruining her, since he wouldn’t make any profit from any pups that came out of her from them.
One of the dogs noticed him and stopped savaging the bitch. It stared at him and snarled—a sound that Albert thought held triumph and vicious glee.
He released the safety and shot the bastard twice, dropping it where it stood.
The other three dogs abandoned the bitch and lunged at him.
He shot them, too, firing and firing until he almost emptied the magazine. One of the dogs still twitched, but it would be dead soon.
Albert walked over to the bitch and looked at her. She whimpered. Too far gone to save, not far gone enough to die quickly.
He shot her in the head, ending her misery and his investment.
Hearing multiple sirens and cursing the neighbors who must have called the cops on him, he went inside, removed the magazine from the gun, and set both on the coffee table in the living room.
Figuring he had a couple more minutes before he had cops banging on the door, he hurried into the bedroom and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.
Returning to the front of the house, he unlocked the door and walked out with his hands up as armed police officers spread out and approached the house.
Shit. They’d brought enough fire power to level the whole fucking street.
“I have a right to defend my property,” he said in a loud voice. Loud but civil, because he was sure they would side with him once they saw what those dogs had done to his bitch.
“You were firing at an intruder?” a female cop asked.
“Four of them.” Who was the insane fuck who thought it was a good idea to let bitches be cops and carry guns? “They’re in the backyard.”
“Step away from the house.”
He took a few steps down the front walk. A cop eased around him and went inside.
“The gun is on the coffee table,” he shouted over his shoulder. “It’s registered.”
The cop returned a minute later and said, “Detective? We have a problem.”
Cops converged on Albert and handcuffed him. The female holstered her weapon and went inside.
She returned a minute later with a strange look on her face. “Sir? You said there were four intruders. Can you describe them?”
“Dogs. You blind or something? I shot four dogs that were savaging a pedigreed bitch I purchased a few weeks ago. She was so torn up, I had to put her down.”
Another strange look. “Come with me.”
Cops held on to him as they walked through the house. The female cop opened the back door and stepped out. Albert followed her, ready to tell her what he thought of cops who couldn’t figure out the obvious.
Then he looked and almost knocked down the cops holding him in his effort to back away. “No. I shot four dogs.”
“Have you been drinking, sir?” the female cop asked. “The nine-one-one call came in just before sunrise. The light…”
“Don’t tell me what the fuck I saw!” Albert shouted. “I shot four dogs. Four dogs!”
“You shot what you may have believed were dogs, but you killed four boys.”
Albert stared at Butch, at Stick, at the two young guys he’d recruited from work to help him…“Where’s Forrester’s boy? Where is he? He was with them.”
“We should continue this down at the precinct,” the female cop said. “You’ll be able to contact your attorney at that time.”
“Where is he?” Albert shouted as the police escorted him to a cruiser. “You ask Forrester! You ask those freaks across the river.”
Before the cops drove him to the precinct, he had the satisfaction of seeing the female cop shudder.
10
Beth Fahey walked into the team’s area of the 13th precinct promptly at five o’clock in the morning.
The food trucks didn’t arrive that early to set up and start their business, so she made do with the last cup of coffee in the pot in the break room and started a fresh pot for the next people to report to work.
Captain Forrester wasn’t in yet. That surprised her. Then again, he probably hadn’t gotten much sleep after telling his wife that their son was lost somewhere on the Isle of Wyrd.
Ian Kuhn and Tom Castelletti walked in, carrying mugs of coffee.
“Did you set up the fresh pot?” Kuhn asked, lifting his mug.
Beth nodded. She stared at her desk phone, willing it to ring, wanting to hear from Lucas Frost that the wild dogs had been captured and were secured somewhere in Penwych—and that the Arcana had found Colin Forrester.
Captain Forrester walked in and looked at her. She shook her head. The men knew Lucas Frost would call her rather than any of them, and no one was willing—yet—to ask why that was so.
She was glad they didn’t ask, since she didn’t have an answer.
A phone finally rang, but it wasn’t her desk phone or her cell phone. Castelletti answered it, listened, and promised that members of the team would get there as soon as they could.
Forrester stepped out of his office. “Well?”
“Detective Amanda Gibson from the twelfth precinct needs our help,” Castelletti said.
“Armed response teams arrived at Albert Palmer’s residence shortly after sunrise because neighbors called nine-one-one and reported hearing gunshots.
Palmer came outside, unarmed, and informed the police that he’d shot four dogs that were killing his bitch. ”
“God, no,” Kuhn breathed.
Castelletti kept his eyes on Forrester. “Detective Gibson found four young, naked human males dead at the scene from multiple gunshot wounds.”
Forrester closed his eyes.
“Palmer mentioned your son, Captain, and the…people…across the river,” Castelletti continued. “Detective Gibson would like us to look at the crime scene and provide…insights…before she returns to the twelfth and questions Palmer.”
Another phone rang. Kuhn answered it.
“Fahey and I can liaise with Gibson, Captain,” Castelletti said. “It’s better if you steer clear of the Palmer residence.”
“Agreed,” Forrester replied. He looked at Kuhn. “Was that Frost?”
Kuhn shook his head. “A woman’s voice, but someone from over there. She said the first ferry will be crossing the river soon, and we should send someone to pick up the possessions of the transformed boys.”
“A few minutes, maybe less,” Beth said. “If the dogs had been a little slower to attack Palmer’s bitch, if Palmer had been a couple minutes slower retrieving his gun from the lockbox and loading it, he would have stepped out after sunrise and seen the boys instead of…” She couldn’t finish it.
Had the Arcana known this would happen? Or was this a moment when five individuals made choices that determined their fate? If she asked, would Frost tell her?
“Come on, Fahey,” Castelletti said. “Let’s go talk to Detective Gibson.”
“Why choose me?” she asked when they were driving toward the Palmer residence. “Kuhn has more experience.”
“Because Lucas Frost didn’t call me or Kuhn or even the captain when the shit hit the fan over there yesterday.
He called you. I’m not real comfortable with that.
Neither is Kuhn. You seem a little too friendly with the Arcana for anyone’s comfort.
” Castelletti glanced at her as he pulled up behind an unmarked car.
“But you get answers, and you get assistance the rest of us don’t get.
” He shut off the car and turned to look at her.
“And I’m guessing that what you don’t get is nightmares about what you see when you cross the river—unlike the rest of us. ”
No, she didn’t get nightmares, Beth thought as she followed Castelletti up the front walk.
But last night she’d drunk the second serving of the special tea and dreamed about Maxine Greenwood as a teenager—and almost saw the reason why someone had given her Arianna Greenwood’s sketchbook of drawings of the Arcana.
Beth listened to Detective Gibson’s report. She looked at the four boys and the dog that was actually a dog. All dead.
“Palmer didn’t indicate he knew any of the intruders,” Gibson said.
“He knew them,” Beth replied quietly. Before they’d met Gibson, Castelletti had told her to take the lead on this. “What goes around comes around.”
“Meaning what?” Gibson didn’t look pleased to be talking to the special team’s junior detective.