Howling Dead

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3The apartment doorbell buzzed. Kira closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her eyes after having stared at the screen for so long. Her arm twinged — it was still painful from the mauling. The stitches were out and she was wearing a soft cast, but the pins would always remain in place. No doubt, she would set off metal detectors at airports from now on.

“Coming!” Kira grumbled as she glanced once more at the Denver Post jobsite. Today had been a new experience for her. She had received a phone call from Intermountain Telecom, telling her that her services as a contractor were no longer required. She filed for unemployment online and posted her resume on Monster.com. All-in-all, a new experience.

Kira peered through the security peephole and saw a man standing outside. He had black hair and was wearing dark clothes. A salesman? she wondered. “I’m not interested!” she called through the door.

“Ma’am, I’m Detective Walking Bear of the Denver police,” he called back.

Kira unlocked and cracked the door, still keeping the security chain on. “Walking Bear?” she asked in amusement as she peered out. No sooner had the words left her lips than she regretted them. Before her stood a man of about thirty with short black hair and dark eyes. His skin was the color of the sun-baked Arizona sand and his face and body were that of a warrior. Sharp-chiseled jaw — beardless, of course — with a strong nose, high cheekbones, and moderately arched brow, Kira could imagine this man riding a horse and hunting buffalo more than she could picture him riding in a police cruiser. He held out his Denver police badge for her to inspect. “I’m sorry, you’re Native American,” she said lamely.

A slight smile played across his lips. “May I come in? I’d like to get a statement from you.”

“Certainly,” Kira said, unlocking the chain on the door. “I’m sorry — I haven’t been in good form lately — I’m still on painkillers.”

The detective glanced around the apartment and Kira grimaced. Kira and Susan had rented a small apartment in LoDo (the fashionable term for lower downtown Denver). Empty Dominoes Pizza boxes still sat on the coffee table next to the brown couch (covered with newspapers) and the orange peel beef takeout from P.F. Chang’s from two nights ago was adding its aroma from the kitchen counter.

Kira nudged the pile of ubiquitous O’Reilly books with her toe to try to make room for the officer to come in and almost toppled the book pile near the door. TCP/IP Network Administration and Firewalls went skittering into a stack of UNIX Systems Administration Today. “I’m sorry — I’m not much of a housekeeper.”

“It’s okay,” Walking Bear said, carefully picking his way among the landmines of spare computer parts, books, and computer printouts. “You’ve been recuperating.”

Kira met his gaze as she cleared off the couch with her good arm. “Yeah, I should keep the sling so I’ve got that excuse when guests come by.” She paused. “You want coffee?”

The detective smiled and sat down on the only clear spot on the couch. “No, I’m fine.”

“So, you want to talk about the wolf?” Kira asked. She poured a mug of dark roasted coffee into a Dilbert mug, ignoring the growing biological experiment in her sink, and walked back into the living room. “The officer who took my statement said that it was a wolf or something.”

“That’s what we think,” said Walking Bear. “A wolf or wolf-hybrid of some sort. I was hoping you’d have more information, being the only one who has survived these attacks.”

“Attacks?” Kira repeated. She carefully balanced the Dilbert mug on top of the pizza boxes and shoved some papers on the floor from the chair. “Oh, hey! There’s that board,” she muttered. She held up a circuit board wrapped in a silver anti-static bag and tears welled up in her eyes. “Susan was big into Sun UltraSparcs — she was going to replace the motherboard in her Sun ‘cause it was kind of flaky.” She set it down. “I guess she won’t be needing it.” She turned her head and blinked away the tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t believe she’s gone.”

The detective shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry your friend died, but we believe that whoever was responsible for your attack has been responsible for the others.”

“There were others?” She took a swig of the coffee. It had been sitting too long in the pot and tasted burnt.

“I thought the police put it down as a wolf-hybrid attack,” Kira said.

“That’s what they say,” he said evenly. “But there have been four attacks in the past six months. You’re the only one who survived.”

Kira ran her left finger along her jaw line. Bruises still marked where the stitches had been. “Four?”

“At least four that we could see a pattern in.”

“And you didn’t do anything about it?”

The detective hesitated. “That’s what we’re doing now. Who do you know that owns a wolf or wolf-hybrid?”

Kira stared at him for a moment. Did he think she had something to do with all this? “No one.”

“What about Ms. Baker?”

“Susan came with me from So-Cal. I don’t think she knew anyone except me and the people we worked with.”

A silence ensued as the detective took notes on a white pad of paper. He looked up expectantly. “Is that all?”

“What more can I say?” Kira tasted the coffee again and found it just as bitter. Those dark eyes continued to stare at her; unnerving her. Why was he making her feel so uncomfortable? Wasn’t she the victim? This wasn’t her fault — it couldn’t be. Maybe he was trying to get her to admit that they shouldn’t have gone down that alley. Okay, maybe they shouldn’t have — but that wasn’t the point, was it? Who’d expect a wolf to attack?

“Why were you out so late?”

“Ten-thirty on a Friday isn’t late.” She snorted in disgust. “Unless you believe they should roll up the sidewalks after six.”

“Seems a little odd you’d be working so late.”

“Look, we were fixing the systems at Intermountain, okay? We’re admins, okay? We have weird hours. It was ten-thirty and we were hungry and made a dash to the mall. Some wolf-thing attacked us. There’s nothing more than that!”

Another silence ensued and Kira realized she had stood up and was yelling. She fell silent and felt the tears well in her eyes again. She dropped back in the chair.

“Easy, ma’am,” the detective said, meeting her gaze. He had the darkest eyes Kira had ever seen. Kira took a deep breath. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he continued. “I simply want to get a full description, that’s all.” He stood up. “We’ll talk more in a few days. In the meantime, here’s my card — if you remember anything.”

He handed her his card and picked his way through the piles of computer printouts, books, and parts. “I’ll call you in a few days.” He let himself out and Kira locked the door behind him. She stared at the mess and then returned to her computer.

Kira sighed and shuddered as she tried to find a place on her desk to put the detective’s card without it getting lost. Her outburst must have been due to the pain and the painkillers, she decided. She didn’t usually have a hair-trigger temper, but there had been something in the way Detective Walking Bear had asked the questions. She glanced at his card. Sergeant James Walking Bear. James. She wondered if he went by “Jim.” She pulled a piece of tape from a dispenser and taped the card below the 20-inch monitor.

Kira’s computer was a PC running Red Hat Linux. She glanced at the table next to it, and at Susan’s old UltraSparc. Susan hated PCs — said they were works of the devil — and insisted on a Sun. Kira hadn’t been quite as picky but chose a less standard operating system. Kira and Susan had networked the computers together and were running a T-1 link to the network off of the Intermountain Telecom backbone. Her mailbox indicated new mail, so she flopped down in the chair and double-clicked the icon.

Two new messages and spam. Kira opened the spam and smirked — Mrs. Jewel Taylor was offering her Liberian husband’s bank account of 15 million dollars to be shared, of course, with to whom it may concern for just a bank account number. Kira noted the address, tracked it through the headers and found it came from an address she hadn’t blocked yet. Too bad she no longer worked at Intermountain — their customers could benefit from the blocking.

The next message was from bmarks@intermtntel.com. She opened the message:

I cleaned up your desk — come by and pick up your stuff. Bob.

Kira grimaced. Not even, “Sorry you lost your job.” Not “Hahahaha! b***h!” Nothing.

“Asshole,” Kira muttered as she deleted it. It was just like Bob to be unfeeling and uncaring.

She paused at the last message. The subject was blank and it held a curious address: wolfbane@den-wolfpack.com. Rather than dismissing it as spam, she opened it. A chill ran down her spine as she read the message:

WATCH YOUR BACK AND STAY INDOORS ON FULL MOONS.

Kira caught her breath and shivered. Pinpricks ran along her injured arm where the wolf’s teeth had torn in.