The Frenzy Way (49 page)

“We ask the Creator that wolves may be allowed to run free again, that they be able to live, to be a part of us, to be a part of our land, to be a part of the creation for which they were intended.”

—Horace Axtell, tribal elder and leader of the ancient Seven Drum religion, at a ceremony honoring the reintroduction of fourteen wolves to the state of Idaho

Willy took the Manhattan Bridge to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, heading toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. He exited at Belt Parkway, merged onto Flatbush Avenue, then turned left onto Aviation Road, which he followed to Floyd Bennett Field, once New York City’s first municipal airport, now home to NYPD’s Aviation and Emergency Services units. The entire drive took just thirty-five minutes.

Passing the old administration building now used by the National Park Service, he drove alongside a closed airstrip to the NYPD’s leased property, where he saw a Bell JetRanger helicopter rise into the air fromits helipad. Sunlight streamed through the windshield of his unmarked car as he located the parking lot for the Emergency Services Unit, where he got out and breathed in the warm May air.

He circled the building to the kennels out back, where he found a uniformed man wearing a cap playing with a young German shepherd.

“Sit, Sniper!” Mace ruffled the obedient shepherd’s fur, and the dog rubbed his head against his hand. “Good boy.” Looking up, he saw a face from his past approaching him through the grass. Standing straight, he said, “Well, well. If it isn’t Lieutenant Diega.”

Willy beamed at him. “Look what the cat dragged out. Or should I say the dog?”

They shook hands, then embraced.

“Congratulations on your promotion. I’m sure you’ll make captain in no time.” Mace hadn’t seen Willy since Patty’s funeral.

“After what you went through? Forget it.”

Mace chuckled. “Oh, this isn’t so bad, running the K-9 Unit. I like dogs and I get plenty of fresh air, even though my real duties keep me behind a desk.”

“Yeah, especially in the winter. How’s Patty?”

Reaching into his back pocket, Mace removed his wallet. “See for yourself.” He showed Willy a photo of his beautiful one-month-old daughter.

“She’s gorgeous. Thank God she looks like her mother.”

“You’ll get no argument from me there,” Mace said, sensing the parallel scars that divided his face into five parts. “How’s your new captain?”

“I’m making life difficult for him, but he’s learning.”

Smiling, Mace said nothing. When the NYPD never apprehended the Manhattan Werewolf, Dunegan made scapegoats of Chu and Hackley, but the mayor had still demanded his resignation. Mace had come out of the debacle relatively unscathed. He had returned the Blade and Patty’s gun to Property first thing the morning after he had slain Janus, and no one had ever questioned him about them.

“Hey, check this out,” Willy said. “Some muckety-muck from the Vatican claimed both halves of that damned sword.”

“You don’t say,” Mace said in a deadpan voice. Willy shook his head. “I should have known.”

“What’s that?”

“You know something about that too, don’t you?”

Mace shrugged. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

“You ever going to tell me what happened to our unknown subject?”

“Nope.”

Willy nodded at Mace’s arm. “How’s that shoulder?” Mace massaged it. “I’ll never swing a baseball bat again; that’s for sure. Guess I’ll have to forget my dream of making the majors when I retire.”

Willy sighed. “I give up.”

“Good. Worry about the future, not the past.”

“Okay, whatever you say.” He looked at the buildings in the distance. “You think that thing will ever come back?”

Mace noticed Willy had not called their unknown subject a perp. “I’m sure it won’t.”

“Okay, then. Glad to hear it.”

As Mace watched Willy drive back toward the city, his mind turned first to Monsignor Delacarte and the Blade of Salvation and then to Angela Domini. He had never heard from her again, and he wondered if she had moved to Canada as she had suggested she might. NYPD continued to list her as “missing.” Synful Reading remained open, managed by her brother Raphael, but Mace stayed clear of the occult bookstore. In fact, he avoided the Village altogether. He was happy tolive and work in Brooklyn, where he and Cheryl had bought a house, and he tried to put the Wolves and the Brotherhood of Torquemada and their secret war behind him. It was hard, though; his shoulder ached whenever it rained, and he had developed an unshakable fear of thunderstorms.

As the sun set, he led Sniper back to the kennels.