Shadow Of The Wolf

Ky shook his head, wincing a little at the pull of the tape. “I’m fine. They’ll just give me a tetanus shot and tell me to see my doctor in the morning. Had one last month and I will, first thing. Okay?”

The young EMT looked unhappy. “I’ll have to put you down as ‘refused treatment.”’

“You do that.”

Ky touched the bandage gingerly as he stepped down out of the ambulance. His shirt was still damp with blood and his fingers came away sticky. He felt a little sick as he thought, He knows the smell of my blood now…

“Is this character giving you trouble, buddy? Don’t take any of his lip, he’s known for it.”

Ky turned to meet Detective John Handley Sentime the Third, known to friends and family simply as Trey. Ky and Trey had been partners for the last three of his ten years on the police force.

“So they’re sending you down to the slums now. Who’s wife did you get caught with?” Ky said.

“Yeah, very funny, Londen. Your sense of humor was always the thing I loved best about you. You okay?” He gestured to the bandage.

“Just a scratch. I’ve gotten worse in barroom brawls.”

“What’d he get you with? A switchblade?”

“Could have been,” Ky replied evasively as they walked away from the ambulance. He didn’t like to lie to a colleague, and he would never have done anything to hinder a police investigation…not if he had thought the police had any chance at all of catching his assailant.

He knew there was no switchblade. The only weapons the man who had attacked him possessed were his hands…and his teeth.

That was all he needed.

Ky asked, “Are you taking statements?”

“Trying to. You want to sit down? You’re not looking your usual chipper self, if I may say so.”

Ky’s reply was a little dry. “Well, it’s been a full day.”

But when Trey gestured him toward the police car parked at the head of the alley, Ky shook his head. He wanted to stay within easy hearing distance of the crime scene investigators…and he didn’t want to lose sight of the woman. Amy.

The little building and the half block surrounding it had been cordoned off with police tape, keeping back a curious crowd, although there were not as many onlookers as one might expect. In this neighborhood, people stayed as far away from the police as possible, even when the trouble the cops were investigating was someone else’s.

The area was bathed with strobing blue-and-white lights, and the red counterpoint pulse of the ambulance gave the whole scene a surreal air. Flashbulbs popped from inside the building where Amy had been held as investigators gathered evidence. Ky was quite certain nothing they would find would put them any closer to catching the killer than they had been before.

Amy was sitting in the back seat of an open police car, her feet resting on the ground and her back toward the interior of the car so that she could see everything that was going on around her. Ky was dimly amused to note that she, like he, couldn’t stand to be cut off from the action, although he suspected their reasons were far from the same. Amy was being interviewed by two detectives, a male and a female. Ky knew the female—he had, in fact, dated her once—but he didn’t recognize the man, who appeared to be in charge of the case.

Trey said, “So what were you doing down here?”

“What do you mean, down here? It’s only a few blocks from my place.”

“If you don’t mind getting a knife between your ribs taking the shortcut home. What are you, working a case in the neighborhood or something?”

“I was on my way out for Thai food,” Ky said. “I got cut off by the parade. I cut through the alley to circle around and I heard a woman scream.”

“You hear women scream every hour on the hour in this neighborhood,” commented Trey. “Men, too. Go on.”

“I heard a woman’s scream,” repeated Ky, “coming from that building. And a crash, like she was being knocked around. Well, you know my Good Samaritan instincts…”

Trey gave a grunt but did not look up from the notes he was taking.

“So I tried the door, and it was unlocked. I opened it. She was in the shadows, on the floor, I think, crying or screaming. He was wearing a black turtleneck, black boots, black gloves, black tights. A costume. Black cape. The mask was one of those full-head things, glass eyes, fur-covered, big snarl—a wolf.”

“Jeez.”

“Not something you want to meet in a dark alley,” agreed Ky. “Which I guess was the point. He was about my height, minus the ears, and slim built. One-sixty, I’d guess. Moved fast.”