The Frenzy Way (41 page)

So they did.

Fifteen minutes later they stepped out of the car, and Pedro plied the meter with more quarters. Then Father Hagen opened the trunk, and they removed their equipment. They crossed Fifth Avenue to Sixty-fifth Street, where they located the entrance to the Central Park Zoo, which had closed for the day. Vines crept up the sides of the brick-trimmed granite buildings, and lamplight outlined the wrought-iron bars of the gates that sealed off the entrances for the night. Thick clouds obscured the three-quarter moon. They found a spot one hundred yards away from the zoo that afforded them a view of the surrounding park and waited. Animal odors lingered in the air.

Francis Hagen had been raised in Beloit, Wisconsin, the fourth and final son born to married college professors. He had been ordainedat a young age and had performed missionary work in Nicaragua and South Africa. During his travels, his views of the world and world religions evolved. While he never doubted his faith, he grew to believe that a greater darkness occupied the world. It was while in Rome, before his return to the States, that he had sought an audience at the Vatican with Desmond Lamont, a legendary priest who served as the church’s premier exorcist. The two men enjoyed a pleasant dinner together, and Lamont listened to Hagen’s tales of his adventures.

It was Lamont who referred Hagen to another priest John Tudoro, who in turn introduced him to Monsignor Delacarte. Thus began years of correspondence with Delacarte. Hagen was fascinated by the Brotherhood of Torquemada but declined Delacarte’s offer to join. He pledged his silence and volunteered to assist the Brotherhood’s cause—which he didn’t fully believe in—if ever the need arose. As a result, he now found himself chauffeuring a man he believed to be an enforcer, if not an outright assassin, for the monsignor around New York City.

The park darkened and crickets chirped.

“He’s late,” Father Hagen said, the relief in his voice unmistakable.

“No,” Pedro said. “He’s been watching us for several minutes. Here he is now.”

Father Hagen saw a figure appear in the distance, walking along a path illuminated by lampposts. His eyesight remained strong at the age of forty-seven. The figure approaching them stood six feet tall and wore dark clothing that matched his hair. His face appeared ghostly white in the lamplight. A minute passed before Father Hagen was able to discern the man’s features. He appeared normal, though his tight mouth and serious eyes conveyed haughty amusement. Pedro’s instincts were correct: this was their target. Or were they his targets?

Surely werewolves had never existed and were merely the creation of storytellers with fantastic imaginations. But Father Hagen supported recovering the Blade of Salvation, if for no other reason than its historical value. He had to wonder, though, if he would havesuffered Terrence Glenzer’s fate had he been permitted to physically obtain the Blade for Delacarte. Father Tudoro had insisted on sending Pedro to execute the transfer of ownership, which Father Hagen now appreciated. In the week since Pedro’s arrival, the murders in Lower Manhattan, all seemingly connected to Glenzer’s, had made him increasingly frightened of the possibility that the monsters hunted by the Brotherhood were literal rather than metaphorical. He thought of his meeting with Mace earlier in the day and wished the policeman stood here with them now.

The man stared straight at them as he approached, eyes moving from Father Hagen to Pedro, who moved sideways until ten feet separated them. Father Hagen could not hold the man’s gaze. Instead he surveyed the park around them. The joggers and strollers had disappeared, leaving them alone except for the distant, out-of-sight animals. The air grew thick, and Father Hagen’s palms became moist.

Bowing his head slightly, so the moonlight cast shadows that masked his eyes, the man stood the same distance from them as they stood from each other, forming the third point of a triangle.

A Mexican standoff? Father Hagen wondered.

The man’s head turned in his direction. “I’m Janus Farel. I’m seeking salvation.”

“Salvation or absolution?” Father Hagen said in an arch tone.

Pedro extended his left arm in a silencing gesture, then lowered it. “We have what you’re looking for. Did you bring the money?”

Janus tugged at his shoulder bag’s strap. “Right here.”

Pedro’s focus never left Janus’s shadowy eyes. “Let’s see it.”

Janus’s lips tightened even more. “Let me see the Blade first.”

Pedro said nothing, and Father Hagen drew in a deep breath. He felt trapped between two immovable forces. Then Pedro used his left hand to peel back one flap of his coat, revealing a gleaming length of silver inside.

Janus formed a thin smile, then tossed his shoulder bag onto theground. It landed with a thud.

Pedro turned his head in Father Hagen’s direction, but his eyes remained locked on Janus. “Check it out.”

Father Hagen hurried to the bag. Crouching, he snatched it in both hands and stepped back. A foul odor rose from the bag when he unzipped it. He tilted the bag toward the light and peered inside at the black and purple mass, streaked with pustulant white. Slowly he discerned the facial features of a human being within the rotting flesh. Crying out, he dropped the bag and retreated several paces.

Janus’s smile broadened when Pedro didn’t react to Father Hagen’s disgusted outburst. “I brought Glenzer’s head instead.”

With blinding speed, Pedro drew the broken sword blade from his coat and fell into a fighting crouch. He had wrapped canvas around the blade’s broken end, in place of its missing hilt, two and a half inches wide where he gripped the two-and-a-half-foot long blade. Janus’s eyes widened at the sight of the Blade. Pedro swung it before him, slicing the air, until it became a silver blur. The ends of his pencil-thin mustache turned up as he said in a challenging tone,
“Hombre lobo!”

Janus fell into an altogether different crouch, leading with his head and clawing at the air with both hands.
“Torquemada swine.”

Father Hagen watched in astonishment as the opponents circled each other. Pedro had made his intentions clear to him, but because he disbelieved the central premise of their goal, he hadn’t believed this moment would actually arrive.

Pedro continued to swing the broken blade, lunging forward at intervals, trying to get within striking distance. Janus snarled and reached for Pedro with open hands, closing them into fists. His expression appeared animalistic, and Father Hagen swore he possessed no shred of sanity. Pedro swung the sword in a high arc, but Janus movedto one side, evading it with ease, and the Blade bit into the earth. As Janus leapt at Pedro, Pedro aimed a kick square in the man’s chest and sent him flying backward. Pedro freed the Blade from the ground as Janus rolled over grass.

The men glared at each other for a moment, then charged at full speed. Pedro swung the Blade overhead, but Janus came in low and sprang up, seizing Pedro’s sword hand at the wrist with one hand and Pedro’s taut throat with the other. Pedro drove his left knee high into Janus’s solar plexus, then attempted to wrest the Blade free. Janus ignored the blow, and Pedro’s arm trembled as the sword remained poised straight in the air. Pedro drove his left fist into Janus’s face, dislodging his lower jaw with a snap. Then he channeled all of his strength into his right arm.

Dear God in heaven, he thought, give me the strength to slay this Beast now!

And then his arm brought the Blade down, but it was useless because Janus had stepped forward and sideways, twisting Pedro’s wrist until it snapped. Grimacing, Pedro refused to release his grip on the Blade. Pulling Pedro’s arm forward, Janus positioned himself behind him and pressed his left palm against Pedro’s elbow. Jerking Pedro’s forearm down, Janus shattered the man’s elbow, its bone protruding through flesh. Screaming, Pedro dropped the Blade.

Father Hagen made a feeble attempt to retrieve the Blade, but Janus picked it up and drove it through the Dominican’s sternum with such force that he lifted Pedro off his feet, the Blade emerging from his back. When Pedro’s feet touched the ground again, he doubled forward, mouth open in a silent scream. Then Janus jerked the sword from his enemy’s torso, the silver blade coated with crimson. Pedro sank to his knees and coughed up blood.

Janus glanced at Father Hagen, immobilizing him with a cruelstare. With his grin revealing a mouthful of fangs, he gripped the Blade with both hands and swung it in a powerful arc that hacked Pedro’s head from his shoulders. Pedro’s body slumped, blood pumping out of its open neck, and his head rolled across the ground. Tipping his head back, Janus howled at the night, a triumphant and inhuman sound that triggered animal calls from the zoo.

With his blood chilled, Father Hagen turned and fled, pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could. There was no helping Pedro now—he had failed in that respect—but maybe he could escape with his own life and tell the police what had transpired. He would go to Mace. The heels of his shoes dug into the earth, kicking up grass as he scanned the terrain for the asphalt path that would lead him to Fifth Avenue. Buildings towered above the trees, but he knew that to run straight on would lead him into a wooded area just dense enough for him to lose his way.

Over the sound of his own tortured breathing, he heard footsteps behind him, followed by heavy panting. Fearful of what he might see, he refused to look over his shoulder. His feet struck asphalt and he ran in a half circle, stutter-stepping as he veered onto the pathway. Then he saw headlights appear on the winding road to his left, heading toward him, and he felt a surge of hope. God would protect him!

Father Hagen struggled, off balance, and realized that something had seized his right ankle. A moment before he collapsed, he felt razor-sharp pain in his tendon. He struck the ground hard and the beast was upon him, shredding his back to pieces. As his own scream filled his ears, white light blinded him.

Edgar Perez had been looking forward to clocking out at the end of his eight-to-four shift when his CO informed him he had to pull a double. So much manpower had been diverted to Lower Manhattan to protectcitizens there from the Manhattan Werewolf that other precincts had been left shorthanded. He typically spent his shifts patrolling Museum Mile—in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Carnegie Hill—in his enclosed, three-wheeled Interceptor scooter. But tonight he had been ordered to cover Central Park. After five hours of zipping around the landscaped area, he was glad that only three hours remained of his second shift. Along Museum Mile, he would talk to more people than he could count. But the only stops he made in the park late at night were piss breaks.

As he zoomed past the Central Park Zoo, he glimpsed one man kneeling before another on a slight incline near a rock outcropping.

Two more queers, he thought.

The parks were alive with them at night. As he angled toward them, he was shocked to see the standing man raise something into the air—a golf club, maybe?—and then decapitate the kneeling man.

Conjo!

The headless body fell to the ground, and the head rolled away. As the headlights of his scooter pinned the action, a third man appeared from the darkness, heading straight toward him.