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"Death Is But a Dream"
"Death Is But a Dream"
9/22-9/25/2011
I.
As soon as he saw the first few bodies lying on the estate grounds, Bane stopped his car and called the police. He got Lt Montez by chance, described what he was seeing and said he was not leaving the scene. The Dire Wolf turned off the engine, opened the driver door and immediately slammed it shut again. He got in touch with the same dispatcher and advised that all officers coming to the scene be equipped with gas masks. The reek of ether in the air had almost choked him. What exactly had been going on here? From an inner pocket of his black sport jacket, he unfolded a clear membrane that clung tightly over his nose and mouth, held on by tabs which fit over his ears. The Trom membrane was mostly designed to provide enough oxygen underwater for survival, but it was excellent in smoky or toxic conditions. Its one drawback was that it did not allow him to breathe deeply enough for vigorous activity but he had to accept that.
Opening the door to his Subaru Outback, the Dire Wolf stepped out into the chill night and surveyed the area. H was parked on a gravel drive that led up twenty yards to an impressive four-story mansion which was lit by only a few scattered spotlights on the lawn. Dead bodies were scattered in a loose line across that lawn, lying where they had fallen when a single bullet had caught each one in the head. The men were in tailored dinner jackets, the women in gowns, and they were all middle-aged or older. Walking slowly up that driveway, his left hand behind him on the hilt of his long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 revolver, Bane remained cold and detached. He reached the front of the house and began to wonder about some details. Where were the cars? He counted nine corpses at what seemed clearly to have been some sort of upper-class party but there was not a single car in sight. They wouldn't have all sent their drivers away to come back later, and certainly whoever lived here would have had a few vehicles on the grounds.
Bane knelt before one of the male corpses, careful not to get within reach. The man's pockets had been turned inside out. He glanced over at a stout dowager in a burgundy gown. No jewelry on her at all, not even earrings. Was this all just a particularly brutal and thorough robbery? It seemed incredible but that explained everything. He gazed at the house, but he had been keeping an eye on it from the moment he had gotten out of his car had not seen any sign of movement. Flashing red and blue lights came up the driveway behind him as four police cars sped his way. The Dire Wolf straightened up, holding his open hands up in plain view in case some cop got too agitated by the situation. Uniformed officers poured out, some holding their sidearms and some bending over the bodies. All were wearing regulation gas masks. Bane remained where he was.
From an unmarked Accura, Lt Joseph Montez hauled his considerable bulk out out of the front passenger seat. If he had ever managed to keep his weight down, he would have been a good-looking man with regular features, wavy black hair and a nice smile, but he couldn't get below two hundred and sixty pounds for more than a week or two. As he took in the scene, he cursed loudly through his own gas mask and gestured for Bane to come down the driveway and join him.
"What are you doing here?" Montez demanded without preliminaries.
"Almost by chance." Bane gestured with a thumb toward the mansion. "I didn't know Donald Lambert at all but I get a lot of tips from my army of observers. Most don't pan out, but I follow some of them just in case. Someone told me that they had heard something bad was going to happen to Lambert and I wasn't doing anything tonight."
Montez grunted. "Too bad you didn't get here earlier. I bet if you had been here, all of this might not have happened. Come on, let's go up to the house. Crime scene boys will be here in a few minutes and once they start digging and measuring and taking snapshots, we'll be shoved aside."
They headed up toward the front of the mansion. Two uniformed officers had positioned themselves on either side of the front door, which hung wide open. Montez and Bane stepped inside the high-ceiling ballroom just inside and stared at another five corpses. "God-DAMN," the lieutenant breathed. "It's a massacre."
Jeremy Bane stood with folded arms, scowling more than usual. "I don't know anyone who operates like this. Nobody I've ever come up against. This is more like a military raid than a criminal act. The ether. The way everyone was executed. You noticed all the cars are gone?"
"Of course I noticed," Montez grumbled. At this point, five men in suits and gas masks appeared behind them, wearing blue latex gloves and carrying metal cases of equipment. "Yep, here's the CSI crew. Let's step aside."
Bane shook his head. He really wished he had been given time to search the scene by himself first, but he had grudgingly learned to cooperate. Montez shifted into gear, snapping orders to the various officers on the scene to try to find wallets on the bodies, identify the vehicles the dead men had owned and then immediately put out All Points Bulletins for those cars. This was just the first of several searches he got started. Watching this, the Dire Wolf kept trying to come up with a likely mastermind behind this atrocity. No one came to mind. Someone new, then?
Standing near the doorway, Bane noticed all the blank spots on walls where paintings had hung, the empty spaces where statuary had stood. The looters had acted according to a plan, which suggested they had known what to go after. Someone had cased the building. A member of the staff? Someone who knew Lambert socially? That was a likely avenue to explore. He mentioned all this to Montez when the beefy lieutenant came back toward him.
"Sure, we're going to be following all that! What do you think about the gas?"
"Smells like ether to me," Bane said. "Pretty soon, it'll dissipate enough that the masks can come off. Where would someone buy ether in quantity like that? How was it dispersed?" The Dire Wolf's pale eyes were narrow and angry. "Some much planning went into this. The mastermind brought enough men to have them drive the cars away. They must have brought a van or two to carry away some of this loot. Look at the space there on the wall.. that painting took up too much room to throw in a car's back seat."
Montez clapped a hand on Bane's shoulder a little more emphatically than necessary. "You've got your own connections, your own approach. I want you to get on this as if nothing else mattered. We're going to have to start phoning next of kin now. You know how much I hate that!"
"I know," Bane said quietly.
II.
It was seven in the morning before everything had been examined, the bodies taken away, the scene sealed. Over thirty people had been there before it was all over. An exhausted Montez told Bane to keep him informed of anything he learned, then had gotten in his car and been driven to headquarters to continue his day.
The Dire Wolf went to his Subaru, started it up and made a three point turn to head back down toward the main road. They were up on the border of Westchester County, just outside the city limits. Driving south, mind working furiously over a thousand details, Bane went straight to 40th Street and the IMPERIAL GARAGE where he left his car. The city was already going full blast at this hour. At 44th, he swung over to Third Avenue and entered the four-story yellow brick building where his office was located. Past the walk-in clinic EMERGENCY ONE, he strode quickly down the narrow hall made by the staircase leading up to the second floor. Here was the plain wooden door with the brass plaque DIRE WOLF AGENCY.
Entering his office, Bane felt no weariness. His enhanced metabolism, which gave him his abnormal reflexes, filled him with restless energy at the best of times. Lately he had been wondering if his enhanced healing factor contributed to this. Decades of a tagra tea diet had left him able to recover quickly from trauma that would be instantly fatal to a normal Human. Maybe that healing factor also disposed of fatigue toxins as they built up in his body.He seldom slept more than four or five hours a night, and now he was keyed up with the urgency of finding who had been behind that massacre. He started pacing back and forth, arms behind his back as he went through one possible suspect after another. It was too early to start phoning his network of observers. When his stomach audibly rumbled, Bane shrugged and headed back out again. He was always hungry in any case, his body burned calories remorselessly, and he had been up all night.
Going to the deli on the corner, Bane bought a twelve inch ham and cheese sub with mayo and pickle chips, a big bowl of macaroni salad and a bottle of iced tea. It was all devoured before he got back down the block to his office but at least he felt better. He disposed of the debris, returned to his office and dropped down behind his desk. While he had been eating, his subconscious mind had been working on the case and he had a few ideas. Using his Link to patch into the Verizon network, the Dire Wolf started leaving text messages with some of his observers. As he worked his way through his mental list, the office phone rang and he snatched it from its charger on his desk.
"Bleak? I'm surprised you're up. You've always been so nocturnal," he said.
"Yeah," came the familiar sour voice. "I saw your message. Maybe there's something going on that's related to the slaughter last night. A new guy in town has been hiring. Real discreet but I got ears everywhere. He pays good and he has a track record. Maybe you heard of Sepulcher?"
Bane sat up straighter. "Oh yes. He's here in the city?"
"Seems to be. I don't know exactly where he's setting up headquarters but he operates on a good-sized scale. He's from Texas, you know."
"I remember his story," Bane said. "Well. Thanks, Bleak, I'll keep him in mind. Anything else stirring I should know about?"
"Nothing supernatural," snapped the bitter old voice. "Midnight War is quiet right now. Personally, I think you have been wiping out the creatures of the night so fast that they headed for California or something."
"That's okay with me. Next time we meet, I'll give you your retainer. I might be busy for a day or so."
A sharp barking laugh sounded over the phone. "Hah, I love your confidence, Jeremy. You aim to tackle the most dangerous madman alive and you think it might take a day or so. See you later!" There was a click as he hung up.
Bane replaced the phone to its charger and allowed a faint predatory smile to flicker across his face. Sepulcher. About time their paths crossed. Now to find out where he was holed up. This would be handled better in person. He left his office again, decided not to get his car and started heading north. On foot, the Dire Wolf walked so quickly that he usually would beat a car in traffic. When he reached 51st Street, he swung left and stopped at a building on the corner of Madison. The ground floor had a travel agency and a real estate firm, but he entered a side door and trotted quickly up two flights of stairs to a landing with three doors. The one to his left had the number 303 in small decals, and he knocked sharply on it. There was no immediate answer, so he waited a few minutes and tried again.
Finally, a groggy voice yelled, "Go away!"
"You'll want to talk to me, Marcus."
The door creaked open two inches and a bleary eye examined him unenthusiastically. "Oh damn. Trouble on two legs." There was the sound of a chain being unbolted and the door swung open. "Fine. Come in and ruin my life."
A middle-aged black man in a dark red bathrobe stepped aside and closed the door after him. Bane entered a cramped apartment cluttered with too many stacks of clothes, piles of DVDs and CDs and loose newspapers. Two ashtrays were filled with butts and the air stank. In one corner, a tiny TV was playing some war movie with the sound off. As he walked in, the Dire Wolf was as alert as if he was walking into a known ambush, his eyes searching the room instantly and his hand ready to go for his gun. It wasn't that he had any reason to distrust Marcus, who had also been reliable; it was just the world that Bane lived in, the Midnight War that never ended. The bathroom door was closed and he eyed it suspiciously even after Marcus had plopped back down on a couch piled with pillows and a blanket.
Moving around the apartment, Bane took his Link from a pocket and adjusted a few of its controls. Once, the Trom-made device had been incredibly advanced but recent Human technology had been catching up. "I'm not picking up any mikes or recording devices," he said finally.
"Well, I should hope not!" Marcus picked up a white coffee mug and seemed surprised it was empty. "What is you doing out in the daytime, Jeremy? I thought you slept during the day like the things you hunt!"
Clearing a dozen magazines off a chair, Bane seated himself. "Yeah. Well, I make exceptions. You realize I'm here for information, Marcus, strictly between us as usual."
The black man exhaled and his voice softened. "I still owe you, Jeremy. What you did for me, the night that Samhain had me in the trunk of his car, well I can't repay you no matter what. So ask."
Bane filled him in on the massacre of the night before, the planning that had gone into it, the organized execution and the cold-blooded way no witnesses had been left. "I mean to find the man who planned that, Marcus. I intend to see him dead."
"Can't say as I blame you. Got a name in mind?"
"I have a suspicion," Bane answered in a low voice. "Ten years ago, the State of Texas screwed up an execution. The formula for the lethal injection was contaminated somehow. The condemned man died, all right, the doctor examined him and called the time. But on the way down to the morgue, the stiff jumped up off the gurney.."
"Sepulcher!" gasped Marcus in genuine panic. "Oh my God. Don't tell me that lunatic is in New York."
"I have reason to think he is," Bane said. "I have to admit I can see why his mind snapped. New evidence proved he was innocent and he was released but Sepulcher HAD been executed and he had expected to die. It doesn't matter now. For the past few years, Sepulcher has definitely murdered at least a dozen people. And he has been hiring good drivers and shooters. That's why I need to be pointed in the right direction by you."
Unexpectedly, Marcus shuddered and wrapped his arms tightly around himself as if freezing. "I'm afraid. God's truth, Jeremy, I'm afraid to say anything. Sepulcher! He's not like other people, not even like other killers. I knew Samhain. I met Golgora once. But Sepulcher..." his voice trailed off.
Bane hesitated. Surprising himself, he stood up and kept his voice gentle. "All right. I'm not going to push you, Marcus. You've been a big help over the years but I guess this is asking too much."
"I'm sorry," the man mumbled at the floor. "I hate to let you down."
"Ah, it's okay. I'll see you later, Marcus. Don't take it so hard." Bane turned and left the apartment feeling more uncomfortable than he had in a long time. It wasn't like Marcus to be afraid of anyone, no matter how gruesome. As he reached the bottom of the steps, he froze motionless. Maybe he had heard something, maybe it was a lifetime spent being aware of danger, but abruptly the Dire Wolf spun on his heel and raced back up, two steps at a time. There was a low cracking noise from the apartment. Bane seized the doorknob and yanked the door open hard, his other hand swinging his revolver up into line. There was a split-second glimpse of a nightmarish grinning face, a flash of white light and unbearable pain as he tumbled backwards. He had been shot in the face.
III.
Even as he slid roughly back down the stairs, Bane did not completely lose consciousness. He wasn't thinking clearly at first, but soon he became aware he was lying in a heap on the floor. Something hot and sticky was all over. The Dire Wolf did not touch his face at first, he fumbled in his inner jacket pocket and came out with some large gauze pads in paper wrappers. He clumsily ripped one open and pressed the pad to the left side of his face. His Tel Shai training came to the surface. Taking deep slow breaths, making them slower and deeper as he concentrated, Bane fought down panic and tentatively explored how badly he had been hurt.
The bullet had gouged along his left cheek, leaving a hole through it about the length of a finger. He pressed the edges of the wound together and stayed sprawled where he was. The bleeding slowed in a few minutes. For a while, his hands shook and he knew it was shock, but that passed too. Still pressing on the wound, he got to his feet but slid back down again despite his best efforts. Not many people in such a situation would have had his reaction, which was to be exasperated that he needed help. Waiting as minutes crawled by, he finally felt that the bleeding had stopped. Carefully, trying to kept the wound closed with his one hand, Bane felt for his Link and managed to call the NYPD headquarters on 20th Street.
To his relief, Joseph Montez was still on duty, just preparing to punch out and grab some sleep. He had been Bane's liaison with the NYPD for a decade now. Bane told him plainly what was happened but he made his injury sound like a trivial scratch that certainly would not need an ambulance. The pain had already subsided to a throbbing ache across his entire head. As he waited for the cops to arrive, Bane gingerly checked his wound. The edges were beginning to seal together.
Over the years, the tagra regimen which was only available at Tel Shai, had enabled him to recover from so much. All the beatings, the explosions, the stabbings and the poisonings and the falls that no normal person could survive had just been painful setbacks to him. Not that he couldn't be killed. Other Tel Shai knights had proven that. If Sepulcher's bullet had gone just an inch to the side and into his brain, Bane would be as dead as anyone else. It had been terrifyingly close. The Dire Wolf managed to get the blood-soaked gauze pad replaced with a fresh one without opening the cheek again. His hands were so sticky with blood that everything was more difficult than it needed to be.
To his left was an open door to a janitor's closet. Mops, buckets, plungers, a galvanized steel sink. Managing to get up and over to it, Bane leaned on the sink and ran the water as hot as it would get. He got the drying blood mostly off his hands and face. The discarded blood gauze pad went into a pocket, he wanted to make his wound seem as minor as possible. He was still swabbing steaming water on his clothing when two uniformed officers appeared in the door behind him. Montez was with them.
"Cripes, buddy, what happened to YOU?" Montez demanded.
"Just a scratch," the Dire Wolf said, making himself stand upright to face the cops. "There was a shooting on the second floor. 203. I haven't been up there." Bane lessened the pressure of his fingers against his cheek experimentally. At least he could talk.
"I'll have a look," Montez said. He had a scruffy two day's worth of beard and the same suit that he had been wearing the past 48 hours, so he did not look his best. "Finley, stay with this man here. We'll need a statement from him before he goes to the hospital."
This was fine with Bane. Every passing minute, he felt better. Gingerly touching his tongue to the inside of his cheek, he decided that the edges of the wound had sealed. His healing factor was beyond what medical science could explain. In fact, one reason he never went to the ER when injured was his fear that the doctors would want to use him as a human guinea pig because he healed so impossibly fast. Ten minutes went by. Officer Finley watched him stoically, saying nothing, and Bane was debating with himself how to get something to drink. He felt dehydrated.
Eventually, Montez came back down the stairs, out of breath and red-faced. That extra weight worked against him. "You knew Kevin Marcus, I take it?"
"Yeah," Bane answered. "Just business. He got information for me sometimes. I figured it was Marcus who got shot. Too bad I wasn't there to intervene."
"He got it right where the eyebrows meet. Smallest bullet hole I ever saw, maybe an .18 calibre at point blank range. Who do we know who uses trick guns that small?"
Bane growled, "Sepulcher. Of course. I heard he carries five or six tiny handcrafted derringers no bigger than pencils. I'm sure he was behind what happened last night."
Lt Montez insisted on getting a look at Bane's wound. As the bloodied gauze pad was pulled away, he peered closely. "Whew. Nasty gouge you got there, son. That's gonna leave a scar. Now, when the CSI boys get here, I need you to file a statement with them. They carry all the paper work. Then I'll let you go. I think you might want to get a stitch or two."
"All right," Bane said. "I'm mad I didn't get a good look at the killer, just a glimpse of a grinning face. When I got hit, I fell down and didn't see him escape."
Montez stepped closer. "I know all about you and your weird healing. Don't forget, last year I saw you get hit by a truck so hard you skidded across the street but you got right back up as if nothing happened. You're like a cartoon or something the way you bounce back." He glanced up as an official van came to a halt outside. "Ah, here we go with yet another hour of these guys taking photographs and samples. You might as well sit down outside on the stoop if you want."
"Thanks," Bane answered. He touched the outside of his face and found only a deep trench across his cheek now, but he didn't feel quite his normal self yet. "I'm okay. I want to listen to what they find out. Why did Sepulcher kill Marcus? Was he trying to hire Marcus for a job and got turned down?"
"Suit yourself," Montez said. "I gotta make some calls to my so-called superiors. Captain Rivas is gonna love this." He pulled a cell phone from his pants and went down the hall to start talking. Bane waited where he was and listened to snatches of conversation as the forensic experts went back and forth. He was not even mad about Sepulcher at this point, he felt a cold determination that went beyond anger.
IV.
The two-story red brick house on the far southern shore of Long Island still reeked of ether. Every window was open and the overhead fan in the high cathedral ceiling of the living room spun quickly to dispel the fumes even more. The gunmen had removed their gasmasks, wincing a bit at the stench but not wanting to seem less hardy than their leader.
Pacing back and forth, Sepulcher stared at the floor and none of his men dared make a sound. Thin to the point of seeming frail, the madman was dressed strangely all in white- flannel trousers, sneakers, dress shirt with the collar open, lightweight jacket, all white. Sepulcher could not help grinning. The hideous smile was frozen on his bony face from the muscles having tightened up during his execution and never relaxing again. The thinning brown hair was combed straight back. With the sharp pointed nose and wild hazel eyes, Sepulcher was an unsettling man to confront.
He had been pronounced dead by the prison doctor after a lengthy resistance against the lethal injection in that Texas prison ten years ago. It was eight minutes after that, whilr being unstrapped from the gurney to be placed on the stainless steel autopsy table, that the man who would call himself Sepulcher had convulsed, sat up and started yelling. He was returned to his cell after a day under observation and it was then that his lawyer presented new DNA evidence that cleared him entirely. He had been executed for crimes of which he was innocent. Soon enough, Sepulcher was released with profuse apologies and financial compensation but his face was frozen in a permanent mocking grin and his mind had deeply changed. The killings started a few months later.
No one could explain what had happened to him. An investigation showed that the serum injected into his vein had been improperly mixed, but it still should not have produced the results it did. The facial rictus that left him with a permanent grin, the loss of all pain responses, the heightened muscular strength... none of this could be explained. Sepulcher himself said it was because he had refused to stay dead that he had changed so much.
Now he stopped short and the hideous leer fixed on his six men. They froze in place. "This is quite the disappointment," he told them in his silky gentle voice. "Obviously this house was rented furnished. The refigerator is well-stocked with nothing opened. The bathrooms have fresh toiletries in place. Yet I expected more."
None of them made a sound. They had learned not to offer opinions unless asked. Sepulcher paid very well and was generous when a job went smoothly, but his temper could flare up without warning and he killed as easily as a normal man says good morning. After an uncomfortable silence, the grinning man raised his hands in a dismissive gesture. "Very well then. Close all the windows and turn off the lights. We will wait outside for these singers to arrive. Whatever loot they have with them is all we may expect tonight."
As the thugs hurried to carry out his orders, Sepulcher sighed. He had expected more of a payoff. These rock stars usually had all manner of luxuries prepared for their arrival, including drugs he could have sold and electronic toys that would be valuable. Annoyed, the grinning man stalked through the front door and out onto the patio. Not far away, the sound of the Atlantic could clearly be heard. As his men scrambled to join him, Sepulcher glanced back to assure himself the house was as they had found it.
"Conceal yourselves," he commanded. "The Plungers were supposed to have left the airport an hour ago. My agent told me the flight arrived on time, so they should be arriving here shortly. Stay hidden until I open fire." With that, he stepped into a cluster of birch trees and was abruptly gone from sight.
Half an hour dragged by. One of the gunmen walked further back into the woods to relieve himself and crept back to find Sepulcher in his spot. The ghoulish grin was never more frightening than in the midnight gloom, but the madman did not punish his thug other than startling him that way. "Let me know when you need to leave your post," he whispered before stepping back into the shadows. Then headlights came up the narrow access road that led to the highway five miles beyond.
A white stretch limo pulled up and came to a stop directly in front of the house. It was a cream-colored Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows and an extended wheelbase. The headlights turned off and the car just sat there. Minutes passed with deadly slowness. Nothing stirred. Finally, Sepulcher stepped out of concealment to fire a single shot from a tiny derringer, and this unleashed a holocaust of gunfire from every direction. His men mostly had AR-15s, but one carried a shotgun. The night was sporadically lit by the muzzle flashes and the racket was horrendous as hundreds of bullets tore into the limo. Every window was shattered, the body of the car was battered out of shape and all four tires went flat.
As the gunmen reloaded, Sepulcher stepped out into the open. His white clothing shimmered in the weak light of a thin crescent moon. He swung both arms to indicate everyone should approach the car. Forming a circle, the six thugs closed in, clicking fresh magazines into place. As one reached out to touch the limo, its driver door slammed out and a fast-moving black blur somersaulted out. In the next two seconds, six pistol shots rang out so closely they sounded like one. Every gunman dropped where he stood with a slug in his head or chest, their own weapons clattering to the driveway.
Straightening up, the gaunt figure in black jammed his revolver into a side pocket of his waist-length jacket and drew an identical weapon from its holster behind his right hip. He was wearing a black helmet with a dark visor, and scuff marks showed where bullets had glanced off it inside the limo. Aiming directly at Sepulcher, the man in black stepped over a dead thug and approached the grinning man.
"I need you alive for the moment," came a calm, steely voice from the man in black. "You have another dozen goons working for you and your loot is stashed somewhere. That needs to be tied up. That's the only reason why you're still breathing." With his free hand, he unfastened the helmet and tugged it off. Bane had a narrow gauze pad taped to his cheek, but no blood had seeped through it. "Remember when we met a few days ago? You used one of your little trick guns."
"The Dire Wolf," chuckled Sepulcher. "Of course. This was all a trap for me?"
"And an expensive one. I had to call in some favors to plant the story that the Plungers were coming here to party after ending their tour. They're actually in Los Angeles right now, keeping out of sight." He gestured with his helmet at the shapeless limo. "I'm going to have to pay for that car. It's worth it."
"Let them take me," Sepulcher said with amusement in his voice. "Let them try to execute me again. Death is not so bad. I've been dead, you know. Death is but a dream."
Bane reached behind himself to produce a pair of handcuffs. "Yeah right. Let me know how well that works out next time."
6/30/2015
9/22-9/25/2011
I.
As soon as he saw the first few bodies lying on the estate grounds, Bane stopped his car and called the police. He got Lt Montez by chance, described what he was seeing and said he was not leaving the scene. The Dire Wolf turned off the engine, opened the driver door and immediately slammed it shut again. He got in touch with the same dispatcher and advised that all officers coming to the scene be equipped with gas masks. The reek of ether in the air had almost choked him. What exactly had been going on here? From an inner pocket of his black sport jacket, he unfolded a clear membrane that clung tightly over his nose and mouth, held on by tabs which fit over his ears. The Trom membrane was mostly designed to provide enough oxygen underwater for survival, but it was excellent in smoky or toxic conditions. Its one drawback was that it did not allow him to breathe deeply enough for vigorous activity but he had to accept that.
Opening the door to his Subaru Outback, the Dire Wolf stepped out into the chill night and surveyed the area. H was parked on a gravel drive that led up twenty yards to an impressive four-story mansion which was lit by only a few scattered spotlights on the lawn. Dead bodies were scattered in a loose line across that lawn, lying where they had fallen when a single bullet had caught each one in the head. The men were in tailored dinner jackets, the women in gowns, and they were all middle-aged or older. Walking slowly up that driveway, his left hand behind him on the hilt of his long-barreled Smith & Wesson 38 revolver, Bane remained cold and detached. He reached the front of the house and began to wonder about some details. Where were the cars? He counted nine corpses at what seemed clearly to have been some sort of upper-class party but there was not a single car in sight. They wouldn't have all sent their drivers away to come back later, and certainly whoever lived here would have had a few vehicles on the grounds.
Bane knelt before one of the male corpses, careful not to get within reach. The man's pockets had been turned inside out. He glanced over at a stout dowager in a burgundy gown. No jewelry on her at all, not even earrings. Was this all just a particularly brutal and thorough robbery? It seemed incredible but that explained everything. He gazed at the house, but he had been keeping an eye on it from the moment he had gotten out of his car had not seen any sign of movement. Flashing red and blue lights came up the driveway behind him as four police cars sped his way. The Dire Wolf straightened up, holding his open hands up in plain view in case some cop got too agitated by the situation. Uniformed officers poured out, some holding their sidearms and some bending over the bodies. All were wearing regulation gas masks. Bane remained where he was.
From an unmarked Accura, Lt Joseph Montez hauled his considerable bulk out out of the front passenger seat. If he had ever managed to keep his weight down, he would have been a good-looking man with regular features, wavy black hair and a nice smile, but he couldn't get below two hundred and sixty pounds for more than a week or two. As he took in the scene, he cursed loudly through his own gas mask and gestured for Bane to come down the driveway and join him.
"What are you doing here?" Montez demanded without preliminaries.
"Almost by chance." Bane gestured with a thumb toward the mansion. "I didn't know Donald Lambert at all but I get a lot of tips from my army of observers. Most don't pan out, but I follow some of them just in case. Someone told me that they had heard something bad was going to happen to Lambert and I wasn't doing anything tonight."
Montez grunted. "Too bad you didn't get here earlier. I bet if you had been here, all of this might not have happened. Come on, let's go up to the house. Crime scene boys will be here in a few minutes and once they start digging and measuring and taking snapshots, we'll be shoved aside."
They headed up toward the front of the mansion. Two uniformed officers had positioned themselves on either side of the front door, which hung wide open. Montez and Bane stepped inside the high-ceiling ballroom just inside and stared at another five corpses. "God-DAMN," the lieutenant breathed. "It's a massacre."
Jeremy Bane stood with folded arms, scowling more than usual. "I don't know anyone who operates like this. Nobody I've ever come up against. This is more like a military raid than a criminal act. The ether. The way everyone was executed. You noticed all the cars are gone?"
"Of course I noticed," Montez grumbled. At this point, five men in suits and gas masks appeared behind them, wearing blue latex gloves and carrying metal cases of equipment. "Yep, here's the CSI crew. Let's step aside."
Bane shook his head. He really wished he had been given time to search the scene by himself first, but he had grudgingly learned to cooperate. Montez shifted into gear, snapping orders to the various officers on the scene to try to find wallets on the bodies, identify the vehicles the dead men had owned and then immediately put out All Points Bulletins for those cars. This was just the first of several searches he got started. Watching this, the Dire Wolf kept trying to come up with a likely mastermind behind this atrocity. No one came to mind. Someone new, then?
Standing near the doorway, Bane noticed all the blank spots on walls where paintings had hung, the empty spaces where statuary had stood. The looters had acted according to a plan, which suggested they had known what to go after. Someone had cased the building. A member of the staff? Someone who knew Lambert socially? That was a likely avenue to explore. He mentioned all this to Montez when the beefy lieutenant came back toward him.
"Sure, we're going to be following all that! What do you think about the gas?"
"Smells like ether to me," Bane said. "Pretty soon, it'll dissipate enough that the masks can come off. Where would someone buy ether in quantity like that? How was it dispersed?" The Dire Wolf's pale eyes were narrow and angry. "Some much planning went into this. The mastermind brought enough men to have them drive the cars away. They must have brought a van or two to carry away some of this loot. Look at the space there on the wall.. that painting took up too much room to throw in a car's back seat."
Montez clapped a hand on Bane's shoulder a little more emphatically than necessary. "You've got your own connections, your own approach. I want you to get on this as if nothing else mattered. We're going to have to start phoning next of kin now. You know how much I hate that!"
"I know," Bane said quietly.
II.
It was seven in the morning before everything had been examined, the bodies taken away, the scene sealed. Over thirty people had been there before it was all over. An exhausted Montez told Bane to keep him informed of anything he learned, then had gotten in his car and been driven to headquarters to continue his day.
The Dire Wolf went to his Subaru, started it up and made a three point turn to head back down toward the main road. They were up on the border of Westchester County, just outside the city limits. Driving south, mind working furiously over a thousand details, Bane went straight to 40th Street and the IMPERIAL GARAGE where he left his car. The city was already going full blast at this hour. At 44th, he swung over to Third Avenue and entered the four-story yellow brick building where his office was located. Past the walk-in clinic EMERGENCY ONE, he strode quickly down the narrow hall made by the staircase leading up to the second floor. Here was the plain wooden door with the brass plaque DIRE WOLF AGENCY.
Entering his office, Bane felt no weariness. His enhanced metabolism, which gave him his abnormal reflexes, filled him with restless energy at the best of times. Lately he had been wondering if his enhanced healing factor contributed to this. Decades of a tagra tea diet had left him able to recover quickly from trauma that would be instantly fatal to a normal Human. Maybe that healing factor also disposed of fatigue toxins as they built up in his body.He seldom slept more than four or five hours a night, and now he was keyed up with the urgency of finding who had been behind that massacre. He started pacing back and forth, arms behind his back as he went through one possible suspect after another. It was too early to start phoning his network of observers. When his stomach audibly rumbled, Bane shrugged and headed back out again. He was always hungry in any case, his body burned calories remorselessly, and he had been up all night.
Going to the deli on the corner, Bane bought a twelve inch ham and cheese sub with mayo and pickle chips, a big bowl of macaroni salad and a bottle of iced tea. It was all devoured before he got back down the block to his office but at least he felt better. He disposed of the debris, returned to his office and dropped down behind his desk. While he had been eating, his subconscious mind had been working on the case and he had a few ideas. Using his Link to patch into the Verizon network, the Dire Wolf started leaving text messages with some of his observers. As he worked his way through his mental list, the office phone rang and he snatched it from its charger on his desk.
"Bleak? I'm surprised you're up. You've always been so nocturnal," he said.
"Yeah," came the familiar sour voice. "I saw your message. Maybe there's something going on that's related to the slaughter last night. A new guy in town has been hiring. Real discreet but I got ears everywhere. He pays good and he has a track record. Maybe you heard of Sepulcher?"
Bane sat up straighter. "Oh yes. He's here in the city?"
"Seems to be. I don't know exactly where he's setting up headquarters but he operates on a good-sized scale. He's from Texas, you know."
"I remember his story," Bane said. "Well. Thanks, Bleak, I'll keep him in mind. Anything else stirring I should know about?"
"Nothing supernatural," snapped the bitter old voice. "Midnight War is quiet right now. Personally, I think you have been wiping out the creatures of the night so fast that they headed for California or something."
"That's okay with me. Next time we meet, I'll give you your retainer. I might be busy for a day or so."
A sharp barking laugh sounded over the phone. "Hah, I love your confidence, Jeremy. You aim to tackle the most dangerous madman alive and you think it might take a day or so. See you later!" There was a click as he hung up.
Bane replaced the phone to its charger and allowed a faint predatory smile to flicker across his face. Sepulcher. About time their paths crossed. Now to find out where he was holed up. This would be handled better in person. He left his office again, decided not to get his car and started heading north. On foot, the Dire Wolf walked so quickly that he usually would beat a car in traffic. When he reached 51st Street, he swung left and stopped at a building on the corner of Madison. The ground floor had a travel agency and a real estate firm, but he entered a side door and trotted quickly up two flights of stairs to a landing with three doors. The one to his left had the number 303 in small decals, and he knocked sharply on it. There was no immediate answer, so he waited a few minutes and tried again.
Finally, a groggy voice yelled, "Go away!"
"You'll want to talk to me, Marcus."
The door creaked open two inches and a bleary eye examined him unenthusiastically. "Oh damn. Trouble on two legs." There was the sound of a chain being unbolted and the door swung open. "Fine. Come in and ruin my life."
A middle-aged black man in a dark red bathrobe stepped aside and closed the door after him. Bane entered a cramped apartment cluttered with too many stacks of clothes, piles of DVDs and CDs and loose newspapers. Two ashtrays were filled with butts and the air stank. In one corner, a tiny TV was playing some war movie with the sound off. As he walked in, the Dire Wolf was as alert as if he was walking into a known ambush, his eyes searching the room instantly and his hand ready to go for his gun. It wasn't that he had any reason to distrust Marcus, who had also been reliable; it was just the world that Bane lived in, the Midnight War that never ended. The bathroom door was closed and he eyed it suspiciously even after Marcus had plopped back down on a couch piled with pillows and a blanket.
Moving around the apartment, Bane took his Link from a pocket and adjusted a few of its controls. Once, the Trom-made device had been incredibly advanced but recent Human technology had been catching up. "I'm not picking up any mikes or recording devices," he said finally.
"Well, I should hope not!" Marcus picked up a white coffee mug and seemed surprised it was empty. "What is you doing out in the daytime, Jeremy? I thought you slept during the day like the things you hunt!"
Clearing a dozen magazines off a chair, Bane seated himself. "Yeah. Well, I make exceptions. You realize I'm here for information, Marcus, strictly between us as usual."
The black man exhaled and his voice softened. "I still owe you, Jeremy. What you did for me, the night that Samhain had me in the trunk of his car, well I can't repay you no matter what. So ask."
Bane filled him in on the massacre of the night before, the planning that had gone into it, the organized execution and the cold-blooded way no witnesses had been left. "I mean to find the man who planned that, Marcus. I intend to see him dead."
"Can't say as I blame you. Got a name in mind?"
"I have a suspicion," Bane answered in a low voice. "Ten years ago, the State of Texas screwed up an execution. The formula for the lethal injection was contaminated somehow. The condemned man died, all right, the doctor examined him and called the time. But on the way down to the morgue, the stiff jumped up off the gurney.."
"Sepulcher!" gasped Marcus in genuine panic. "Oh my God. Don't tell me that lunatic is in New York."
"I have reason to think he is," Bane said. "I have to admit I can see why his mind snapped. New evidence proved he was innocent and he was released but Sepulcher HAD been executed and he had expected to die. It doesn't matter now. For the past few years, Sepulcher has definitely murdered at least a dozen people. And he has been hiring good drivers and shooters. That's why I need to be pointed in the right direction by you."
Unexpectedly, Marcus shuddered and wrapped his arms tightly around himself as if freezing. "I'm afraid. God's truth, Jeremy, I'm afraid to say anything. Sepulcher! He's not like other people, not even like other killers. I knew Samhain. I met Golgora once. But Sepulcher..." his voice trailed off.
Bane hesitated. Surprising himself, he stood up and kept his voice gentle. "All right. I'm not going to push you, Marcus. You've been a big help over the years but I guess this is asking too much."
"I'm sorry," the man mumbled at the floor. "I hate to let you down."
"Ah, it's okay. I'll see you later, Marcus. Don't take it so hard." Bane turned and left the apartment feeling more uncomfortable than he had in a long time. It wasn't like Marcus to be afraid of anyone, no matter how gruesome. As he reached the bottom of the steps, he froze motionless. Maybe he had heard something, maybe it was a lifetime spent being aware of danger, but abruptly the Dire Wolf spun on his heel and raced back up, two steps at a time. There was a low cracking noise from the apartment. Bane seized the doorknob and yanked the door open hard, his other hand swinging his revolver up into line. There was a split-second glimpse of a nightmarish grinning face, a flash of white light and unbearable pain as he tumbled backwards. He had been shot in the face.
III.
Even as he slid roughly back down the stairs, Bane did not completely lose consciousness. He wasn't thinking clearly at first, but soon he became aware he was lying in a heap on the floor. Something hot and sticky was all over. The Dire Wolf did not touch his face at first, he fumbled in his inner jacket pocket and came out with some large gauze pads in paper wrappers. He clumsily ripped one open and pressed the pad to the left side of his face. His Tel Shai training came to the surface. Taking deep slow breaths, making them slower and deeper as he concentrated, Bane fought down panic and tentatively explored how badly he had been hurt.
The bullet had gouged along his left cheek, leaving a hole through it about the length of a finger. He pressed the edges of the wound together and stayed sprawled where he was. The bleeding slowed in a few minutes. For a while, his hands shook and he knew it was shock, but that passed too. Still pressing on the wound, he got to his feet but slid back down again despite his best efforts. Not many people in such a situation would have had his reaction, which was to be exasperated that he needed help. Waiting as minutes crawled by, he finally felt that the bleeding had stopped. Carefully, trying to kept the wound closed with his one hand, Bane felt for his Link and managed to call the NYPD headquarters on 20th Street.
To his relief, Joseph Montez was still on duty, just preparing to punch out and grab some sleep. He had been Bane's liaison with the NYPD for a decade now. Bane told him plainly what was happened but he made his injury sound like a trivial scratch that certainly would not need an ambulance. The pain had already subsided to a throbbing ache across his entire head. As he waited for the cops to arrive, Bane gingerly checked his wound. The edges were beginning to seal together.
Over the years, the tagra regimen which was only available at Tel Shai, had enabled him to recover from so much. All the beatings, the explosions, the stabbings and the poisonings and the falls that no normal person could survive had just been painful setbacks to him. Not that he couldn't be killed. Other Tel Shai knights had proven that. If Sepulcher's bullet had gone just an inch to the side and into his brain, Bane would be as dead as anyone else. It had been terrifyingly close. The Dire Wolf managed to get the blood-soaked gauze pad replaced with a fresh one without opening the cheek again. His hands were so sticky with blood that everything was more difficult than it needed to be.
To his left was an open door to a janitor's closet. Mops, buckets, plungers, a galvanized steel sink. Managing to get up and over to it, Bane leaned on the sink and ran the water as hot as it would get. He got the drying blood mostly off his hands and face. The discarded blood gauze pad went into a pocket, he wanted to make his wound seem as minor as possible. He was still swabbing steaming water on his clothing when two uniformed officers appeared in the door behind him. Montez was with them.
"Cripes, buddy, what happened to YOU?" Montez demanded.
"Just a scratch," the Dire Wolf said, making himself stand upright to face the cops. "There was a shooting on the second floor. 203. I haven't been up there." Bane lessened the pressure of his fingers against his cheek experimentally. At least he could talk.
"I'll have a look," Montez said. He had a scruffy two day's worth of beard and the same suit that he had been wearing the past 48 hours, so he did not look his best. "Finley, stay with this man here. We'll need a statement from him before he goes to the hospital."
This was fine with Bane. Every passing minute, he felt better. Gingerly touching his tongue to the inside of his cheek, he decided that the edges of the wound had sealed. His healing factor was beyond what medical science could explain. In fact, one reason he never went to the ER when injured was his fear that the doctors would want to use him as a human guinea pig because he healed so impossibly fast. Ten minutes went by. Officer Finley watched him stoically, saying nothing, and Bane was debating with himself how to get something to drink. He felt dehydrated.
Eventually, Montez came back down the stairs, out of breath and red-faced. That extra weight worked against him. "You knew Kevin Marcus, I take it?"
"Yeah," Bane answered. "Just business. He got information for me sometimes. I figured it was Marcus who got shot. Too bad I wasn't there to intervene."
"He got it right where the eyebrows meet. Smallest bullet hole I ever saw, maybe an .18 calibre at point blank range. Who do we know who uses trick guns that small?"
Bane growled, "Sepulcher. Of course. I heard he carries five or six tiny handcrafted derringers no bigger than pencils. I'm sure he was behind what happened last night."
Lt Montez insisted on getting a look at Bane's wound. As the bloodied gauze pad was pulled away, he peered closely. "Whew. Nasty gouge you got there, son. That's gonna leave a scar. Now, when the CSI boys get here, I need you to file a statement with them. They carry all the paper work. Then I'll let you go. I think you might want to get a stitch or two."
"All right," Bane said. "I'm mad I didn't get a good look at the killer, just a glimpse of a grinning face. When I got hit, I fell down and didn't see him escape."
Montez stepped closer. "I know all about you and your weird healing. Don't forget, last year I saw you get hit by a truck so hard you skidded across the street but you got right back up as if nothing happened. You're like a cartoon or something the way you bounce back." He glanced up as an official van came to a halt outside. "Ah, here we go with yet another hour of these guys taking photographs and samples. You might as well sit down outside on the stoop if you want."
"Thanks," Bane answered. He touched the outside of his face and found only a deep trench across his cheek now, but he didn't feel quite his normal self yet. "I'm okay. I want to listen to what they find out. Why did Sepulcher kill Marcus? Was he trying to hire Marcus for a job and got turned down?"
"Suit yourself," Montez said. "I gotta make some calls to my so-called superiors. Captain Rivas is gonna love this." He pulled a cell phone from his pants and went down the hall to start talking. Bane waited where he was and listened to snatches of conversation as the forensic experts went back and forth. He was not even mad about Sepulcher at this point, he felt a cold determination that went beyond anger.
IV.
The two-story red brick house on the far southern shore of Long Island still reeked of ether. Every window was open and the overhead fan in the high cathedral ceiling of the living room spun quickly to dispel the fumes even more. The gunmen had removed their gasmasks, wincing a bit at the stench but not wanting to seem less hardy than their leader.
Pacing back and forth, Sepulcher stared at the floor and none of his men dared make a sound. Thin to the point of seeming frail, the madman was dressed strangely all in white- flannel trousers, sneakers, dress shirt with the collar open, lightweight jacket, all white. Sepulcher could not help grinning. The hideous smile was frozen on his bony face from the muscles having tightened up during his execution and never relaxing again. The thinning brown hair was combed straight back. With the sharp pointed nose and wild hazel eyes, Sepulcher was an unsettling man to confront.
He had been pronounced dead by the prison doctor after a lengthy resistance against the lethal injection in that Texas prison ten years ago. It was eight minutes after that, whilr being unstrapped from the gurney to be placed on the stainless steel autopsy table, that the man who would call himself Sepulcher had convulsed, sat up and started yelling. He was returned to his cell after a day under observation and it was then that his lawyer presented new DNA evidence that cleared him entirely. He had been executed for crimes of which he was innocent. Soon enough, Sepulcher was released with profuse apologies and financial compensation but his face was frozen in a permanent mocking grin and his mind had deeply changed. The killings started a few months later.
No one could explain what had happened to him. An investigation showed that the serum injected into his vein had been improperly mixed, but it still should not have produced the results it did. The facial rictus that left him with a permanent grin, the loss of all pain responses, the heightened muscular strength... none of this could be explained. Sepulcher himself said it was because he had refused to stay dead that he had changed so much.
Now he stopped short and the hideous leer fixed on his six men. They froze in place. "This is quite the disappointment," he told them in his silky gentle voice. "Obviously this house was rented furnished. The refigerator is well-stocked with nothing opened. The bathrooms have fresh toiletries in place. Yet I expected more."
None of them made a sound. They had learned not to offer opinions unless asked. Sepulcher paid very well and was generous when a job went smoothly, but his temper could flare up without warning and he killed as easily as a normal man says good morning. After an uncomfortable silence, the grinning man raised his hands in a dismissive gesture. "Very well then. Close all the windows and turn off the lights. We will wait outside for these singers to arrive. Whatever loot they have with them is all we may expect tonight."
As the thugs hurried to carry out his orders, Sepulcher sighed. He had expected more of a payoff. These rock stars usually had all manner of luxuries prepared for their arrival, including drugs he could have sold and electronic toys that would be valuable. Annoyed, the grinning man stalked through the front door and out onto the patio. Not far away, the sound of the Atlantic could clearly be heard. As his men scrambled to join him, Sepulcher glanced back to assure himself the house was as they had found it.
"Conceal yourselves," he commanded. "The Plungers were supposed to have left the airport an hour ago. My agent told me the flight arrived on time, so they should be arriving here shortly. Stay hidden until I open fire." With that, he stepped into a cluster of birch trees and was abruptly gone from sight.
Half an hour dragged by. One of the gunmen walked further back into the woods to relieve himself and crept back to find Sepulcher in his spot. The ghoulish grin was never more frightening than in the midnight gloom, but the madman did not punish his thug other than startling him that way. "Let me know when you need to leave your post," he whispered before stepping back into the shadows. Then headlights came up the narrow access road that led to the highway five miles beyond.
A white stretch limo pulled up and came to a stop directly in front of the house. It was a cream-colored Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows and an extended wheelbase. The headlights turned off and the car just sat there. Minutes passed with deadly slowness. Nothing stirred. Finally, Sepulcher stepped out of concealment to fire a single shot from a tiny derringer, and this unleashed a holocaust of gunfire from every direction. His men mostly had AR-15s, but one carried a shotgun. The night was sporadically lit by the muzzle flashes and the racket was horrendous as hundreds of bullets tore into the limo. Every window was shattered, the body of the car was battered out of shape and all four tires went flat.
As the gunmen reloaded, Sepulcher stepped out into the open. His white clothing shimmered in the weak light of a thin crescent moon. He swung both arms to indicate everyone should approach the car. Forming a circle, the six thugs closed in, clicking fresh magazines into place. As one reached out to touch the limo, its driver door slammed out and a fast-moving black blur somersaulted out. In the next two seconds, six pistol shots rang out so closely they sounded like one. Every gunman dropped where he stood with a slug in his head or chest, their own weapons clattering to the driveway.
Straightening up, the gaunt figure in black jammed his revolver into a side pocket of his waist-length jacket and drew an identical weapon from its holster behind his right hip. He was wearing a black helmet with a dark visor, and scuff marks showed where bullets had glanced off it inside the limo. Aiming directly at Sepulcher, the man in black stepped over a dead thug and approached the grinning man.
"I need you alive for the moment," came a calm, steely voice from the man in black. "You have another dozen goons working for you and your loot is stashed somewhere. That needs to be tied up. That's the only reason why you're still breathing." With his free hand, he unfastened the helmet and tugged it off. Bane had a narrow gauze pad taped to his cheek, but no blood had seeped through it. "Remember when we met a few days ago? You used one of your little trick guns."
"The Dire Wolf," chuckled Sepulcher. "Of course. This was all a trap for me?"
"And an expensive one. I had to call in some favors to plant the story that the Plungers were coming here to party after ending their tour. They're actually in Los Angeles right now, keeping out of sight." He gestured with his helmet at the shapeless limo. "I'm going to have to pay for that car. It's worth it."
"Let them take me," Sepulcher said with amusement in his voice. "Let them try to execute me again. Death is not so bad. I've been dead, you know. Death is but a dream."
Bane reached behind himself to produce a pair of handcuffs. "Yeah right. Let me know how well that works out next time."
6/30/2015