The Frenzy Way (46 page)

Nice job
, he thought, examining the debris.

Then he crossed the wreckage to another archway. The next room was twice as wide as the living room and held twice as much broken wood and pieces of drywall. The main hall also led into this empty room.

A music room once, perhaps?

Mace passed beneath yet another archway, this one leading into a dining room, also empty.

Lighting his way with his cell phone, he opened a white paneled door on his right. He leaned through the doorway and craned his neck to the left. A narrow servants’ stairway led upstairs. Closing the door, he continued on, pushing the door at the end of the dining room. He had only set one foot inside what he assumed was the kitchen when a sudden cacophony caused him to jump: flapping wings, frightened hisses, and groaning wood.

Dropping into a fighting crouch, he aimed his cell phone across the room with his left hand and his .38 with his right. Terrified eyes reflected the blue glow back at him as a dozen wire mesh pens stacked on top of each other came into view. Imprisoned cats, pigeons, and chickens cowered before him. Lightning flashed, outlining the kitchen. A moment later, thunder boomed, driving the animals into a panicked frenzy. Sliding his gun hand along the wall behind him, Mace found a light switch and flicked it.

Nothing happened.

No electricity.

As the animal shrieks grew louder, he opened the blinds over the window above the sink, admitting gray light through the rain hammering at the glass. He counted three cats, two pigeons, two hens, and three empty pens. Pools of dried blood had stained the floor.

Janus likes his midnight snacks raw
, he decided as he photographed the livestock.

A refrigerator occupied the corner next to the pens. Passing the animals, he opened its metal door, braced for God knew what. The contents had been removed, and no light came on. Closing the door, he opened a pantry: also empty. His gaze settled on another door.

The basement.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he took a deep breath. Opening that door, he shined his cell phone down wooden stairs. The darkness swallowed the faint glow. Rooted to the spot, he stared into the deep blackness below. Was it his imagination, or did he feel heat rising toward him? He slowly registered a concrete floor and a cinder-block wall.

Only one exit …

Mace did not want to go down there. Every instinct in his body told him to remain upstairs. Swallowing, he descended the stairs. Unable to grasp the railing with the cell phone in one hand and his gun in the other, he moved with great caution, testing each stair before setting his full weight on it. Who knew what traps Janus might have set for inquisitive visitors?

With sweat slicking his face, he reached the bottom of the stairs and aimed the cell phone around the basement. The blue light revealed several large objects he could not identify. Lightning flashed through glass block windows, which offered Janus privacy. Mace stood near what appeared to be a large wooden slab tilted at a forty-five degree angle. On closer inspection, he saw that it was not a slab at all but twocross boards designed to support a person’s head and buttocks, with giant wooden rollers above and below them and knotted ropes threaded through the rollers. A crank wheel protruded from the base beneath the torture rack.

Good Lord. He’s recreated his own Inquisition right here in Lower Manhattan.
Peering at the bloodstained ropes, he realized the torture rack had been put to use. He photographed it—long shot, medium shot, close up—and continued on. Moving through the darkness, he banged his knee against what turned out to be a cast-iron, wood-burning stove with two pokers protruding through its open door. With pain flaring through his knee, he examined the pokers. A congealed substance, like egg yokes, had oozed down the metal rods from their points.

Eyeballs.

His stomach twisted, and he experienced a flash of nausea.

Get a hold of yourself!

Next he came to a metal cage the height of a human being, two feet wide at its circular base, which hovered a foot above the floor, and three feet wide at shoulder height, suspended from a thick chain anchored in the ceiling. His shoulder brushed against the cage as he passed it, causing it to swing away from him and then strike his back, which made him flinch.

Jesus Christ!

Stilling his pounding heart, he approached the hellhole’s far corner. Chains with manacles hung from the wall. Even before he pointed his cell phone at the restraints, he registered the foot-deep pile of human bones on the floor. Stomach acid burned the back of his throat as he went closer, the cell phone casting its blue glow over the human remnants. He saw no skulls in the dense pile, but he saw teeth marks all over the bones. Had Janus eaten his victims alive or dead? Taking a horrified step back, he raised the cell phone for another snapshot. Lightning flashed outside.

How many people had Janus tortured to death to produce such aspectacle? Ten? Twenty? He recalled documentaries he had viewed in high school history class of the corpses uncovered in Nazi concentration camps. He had been unable to comprehend such evil then, and he experienced a similar bewilderment now, despite all the atrocities he had viewed during his years as a homicide cop. Human or beast, Janus Farel was a monster who had to be stopped.

If Stalk had been unable to slay Janus, what made Mace think he could do it? Thunder exploded outside, reverberating the building, and his fear bubbled to the surface and seized control of him. Spinning on one heel, he bolted forward and shoved the suspended cage out of his way. He managed to avoid the stove but crashed into the rack. Before he knew it, he had dropped his cell phone. The device’s lid closed when it struck the cement floor, shrouding him in darkness.

Oh, God, no!

With his heart slamming in his chest, he dropped to all fours and slid his left hand along the cold cement, his fingertips contacting textures that stirred revulsion within him. Refusing to pocket his .38 and search the floor with both hands, he crawled around the rack and sighed with relief when his hand closed around the cell phone. Opening it once more, he launched himself forward on the balls of his feet, charging in the approximate direction of the stairs. His right shoulder slammed against the two-by-four that served as the stairway banister, and his body rebounded against the wall to his left.

As he scrambled up the stairs, his right foot caught beneath one, and he pitched forward, smashing his left shin. He tightened his grip on the cell phone and his gun, determined not to drop either one as he jerked his head back to avoid driving his face into the wood. His chest absorbed the impact. Pedaling his fisted hands over each other, he regained his momentum and dived through the open door into the kitchen, sending the animals into another frenzy.

Mace ran through the dining room, grateful for at least some natural light. In the music room, he suddenly found himself slidingthrough plaster dust and his feet flew up from beneath him and he crashed onto the floor. Rolling over, he pocketed his cell phone and reached up with his free hand, searching for the wall he knew to be there. His palm grazed a doorknob, which he grabbed for leverage to get to his feet. Halfway up, the door came open and dozens of heavy objects rained down on him from the closet’s shelf. The objects struck the floor like bowling pins and rocked back and forth. One of them smashed against his head, and he raised his hands to shield himself, dropping his cell phone and .38. Standing, he backpedaled away from the closet as the last of the objects hit the floor.

Empty eye sockets stared up at him. Crooked teeth leered at him. His temples pulsed as his mind absorbed the sight of the human skulls. Fully three dozen of them had poured out over him, many of them shattering on the floor, and he recalled Special Agent Norton telling him the FBI believed their killer had murdered over twenty people before coming to New York City.

Holy Christ!

Janus had packed the skulls in the closet as another security measure. If he failed to see Mace’s footsteps in the petrified shit, he couldn’t miss these skulls. Unless Mace packed them out of sight again. Then he realized that his cell phone and gun lay buried somewhere in the grimacing pile at his feet. Some of the skulls pulsed faint blue light, and he reached toward them.

Fuck this
! He intended to get the hell out of here. He’d call in backup after all, and
they
could retrieve his gun. Staggering into the front hallway on wobbly knees, he raced past the curved staircase to the inside front door, which would lead him into the foyer and freedom beyond it.

As he reached the door a lightning flash illuminated the silhouette of a figure standing on the other side of the stained glass. Mace stutter-stepped to a stop, and thunder exploded around him.

Holding an umbrella, Janus trotted up the stairs outside his brownstone. He despised the rain, especially when it doused cities, freeing the stench of Man to rise from the sidewalks along with other offensive odors. Entering the foyer, he took out his keys and came to a sudden stop, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air.

Someone’s been here.

His gaze shifted to the stained glass ahead.

The mailman?

No. He smelled fear.

Smiling to himself, he inserted the key into the door lock and turned it.

Life is full of surprises.

Mace struggled to form a plan of action fast. If he had retrieved Patty’s gun, he could have fired at the silhouette. Taking a step back, his eyes zeroed in on the dead bolt. Rather then wait to see it turn, he turned around.

I’ve got to get that gun!

Completing his pivot, he faced the curved stairway instead of the hall. Animal instinct took over, and he dashed up the stairs, one hand grasping the polished wood railing. Halfway up he remembered the Blade in his inside coat pocket, but he needed to be close—and
ready—
to use it. Lightning flashed above the skylight, illuminating the top of the stairs as he reached the second floor. Even as he darted behind the hallway’s curved wall, he glimpsed an elongated shadow at the open foyer door. With his back pressed against the wall, he took a deep, tremulous breath.

How could he have been stupid enough to leave his gun behind? What had he been thinking? He couldn’t even remember now.

Pull yourself together.

His heart pounded in his chest so hard that he thought Janus would hear it.

Screw your head on straight…

His brain throbbed.

Think!

If he could just escape before Janus realized he was there, before Janus saw the skulls on the floor—

“Hello?” he heard Janus call out at the bottom of the stairs.

Standing in the open doorway with a cocksure smile on his face, Janus set his open umbrella down, pocketed his house keys, then closed the door behind him and turned the lock.

“I know you’re here,” he said, scanning his lair’s interior. A trail of footsteps led through his dung to the living room. “I smell you. I smell your fear.”

An adult male, he thought. An alpha, despite his fear.

Following the footsteps into the living room, he said in a singsongvoice, “Come out, come out, wherever you are—or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll tear your head off.”

As he passed through the archway into the music room, he saw the skulls strewn in a haphazard fashion before the open closet and a faint blue glow shining through some of them. Walking forward, he peeled off his jacket.