Wolf's Cut (The Nick Lupo Series Book 5) Read online

  WOLF’S CUT

  Book Five of the Nick Lupo Series

  By W. D. Gagliani

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2017 W. D. Gagliani

  Original publication by Samhain Publishing – March, 2014

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  W.D. Gagliani is the author of the horror-thrillers Wolf’s Trap (a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in 2004), Wolf’s Gambit, Wolf’s Bluff, Wolf’s Edge, Wolf’s Cut, Wolf’s Blind, and Savage Nights, plus the novellas Wolf’s Deal and both the original “The Great Belzoni and the Gait of Anubis” and the upcoming Acheron Books version. He has published fiction and nonfiction in numerous anthologies and publications such as Robert Bloch’s Psychos, Fearful Fathoms, Undead Tales, More Monsters From Memphis, The Midnighters Club, Extremes 3: Terror On The High Seas, Extremes 4: Darkest Africa, and others, and early e-zines such as Wicked Karnival, Horrorfind, 1000Delights, Dark Muse, and The Grimoire. His fiction has garnered six Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (one of which, the story “Starbird,” is also part of Amazon’s Story Front program). His book reviews and nonfiction articles have been included in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Chizine, HorrorWorld, Cemetery Dance, CD Online, The Writer magazine, The Scream Factory, Science Fiction Chronicle, Flesh & Blood, BookPage, Hellnotes, and many others, plus the books Thrillers: The 100 Must Reads, They Bite, and On Writing Horror. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Authors Guild. Additionally, the creative team of W.D. Gagliani & David Benton has published fiction in anthologies such as THE X-FILES: Trust No One, SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror, SNAFU: Wolves at the Door, Dark Passions: Hot Blood 13, Zippered Flesh 2, Malpractice, Masters of Unreality, etc., online venues such as The Horror Zine, DeadLines and SplatterpunkZine, plus the Amazon Kindle Worlds Vampire Diaries tie-in “Voracious in Vegas.” Some of their collaborations are available in the collection Mysteries & Mayhem.

  Contact:

  www.wdgagliani.com

  www.facebook.com/wdgagliani

  Twitter: @WDGagliani

  Books and Novellas:

  Wolf’s Trap

  Wolf’s Gambit

  Wolf’s Bluff

  Wolf’s Edge

  Wolf’s Cut

  Wolf’s Blind

  Wolf’s Deal

  Savage Nights

  Shadowplays (Tarkus Press; story collection)

  Mysteries & Mayhem (Tarkus Press; story collection, with David Benton)

  I Was a Seventh Grade Monster Hunter (Tarkus Press; Middle Grade, with David Benton, as A.G. Kent)

  “The Great Belzoni and the Gait of Anubis” (Tarkus Press; novella)

  “Jack Daniels and Associates: Hair of the Dog” (Kindle Worlds Novella; A Jack Daniels / Nick Lupo Thriller)

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  Dedication

  As always, I’d like to dedicate this book to my Mom and Janis, and in memory of my Dad. In memory also of a little dog who had the heart of a Wolf, our Toby (2003-2012).

  Acknowledgments

  As always some thanks are in order, for no novel is ever written by one person alone. Therefore, great thanks to: co-conspirator and collaborator David Benton (the Alpha of Beta readers), Tony D’Amato of The Gun Store (Las Vegas), all my friends and colleagues (you know who you are), and Don D’Auria (whose patience is legendary). Also the hard-working crew of the Oak Creek Starbucks at 8880 South Howell.

  I’d like to again acknowledge the stories my grandmother and parents told me of their childhood in Italy 1943-44, under German occupation and Allied bombing and the aftermath of the war. Some of those stories, experiences, and locations have made their way into this novel, as well as the previous one, Wolf’s Edge.

  This time around I would also like to acknowledge the work of composer Jerry Goldsmith for all his inspirational soundtrack music: The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, Masada, QBVII, and many more, but most especially for the musical scores of Our Man Flint and In Like Flint. It would be an understatement to say I listened to the Flint scores “a lot.” I had them on Repeat. I’ve loved them since I was a teenager and now they often spur my writing sessions at least as much as my progressive rock stalwarts.

  So many of our fellow writers have passed on recently…their untimely departures have left us poorer, sadder, and much emptier. Among them: Dr. Tom Bontly, Michael Louis Calvillo, David B. Silva, James Herbert, Rick Hautala, Richard Matheson, Gary Brandner, Philip Nutman… We will all miss them more than words can say.

  One last thing: Please join Defenders of Wildlife… Because in reality true evil always originates with humans, not wolves.

  Author’s Note

  The real Eagle River is located in Vilas County of northern Wisconsin. The real Milwaukee is located in the far southeast corner of the state on the shores of the great Lake Michigan. As always, I have altered these places as needed (geographically, socially, and with regard to local city and police department organization) in order to suit my purposes. All characters in these alternate versions of Eagle River and Milwaukee are either fictional or used fictitiously and in no way resemble their real-world counterparts. However, some things will always be true. If you drive up into the North Woods from Milwaukee, especially after dusk, you might notice lean shadows keeping pace with you just outside your view inside the tree line. And later, if you look up you might see the moon’s silvery sheen filtering through the swaying treetops. Don’t roll down your windows – and never, ever stop the car on a dark, lonely road…

  WOLF’S CUT

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter
Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Aftermath

  Other books

  Prologue

  Rabbioso

  Las Vegas

  He chuckled as he drove out to the desert, straight out of town on the 15 and heading toward faraway Los Angeles, enjoying the way the city lights and the traffic thinned the farther he went from the Strip. Of course he wasn’t going all the way to Los Angeles.

  Soon he was leaving headlights behind and his eyes were no longer being stabbed by oncoming high beams.

  This was where he realized how much he had come to love the desert, with its temperature swings of hot, dry days and cold nights. With its unusual flora and fauna that reminded him of how he was different, the desert seemed to have become the best decision he had ever made. He’d had good reason to make it, and his finances had vastly improved, too.

  He’d thought about retiring when the leadership changed, sure, but the fact was that he liked his work and he wasn’t sure he wanted to give it up yet. He’d been almost free to call his own assignments before, and whenever he took an assignment he’d mostly set his own hours. His schedule was so much his own that, except for the recent occasional problems of fealty and respect, he might as well have been retired. He sensed he’d have to revisit the idea soon, but not yet.

  Driving in silence with only the occasional interruption, he nevertheless hummed a tune in his head he hadn’t been able to chase away all day. He’d heard it in the back room at Paolo’s, where they had discussed things with the idiot who had figured on holding out a portion of his week’s take for the last five years. They always cranked the music way up back there while one of Paolo’s specialists fired up the torch. Today it was just a length of rubber tubing, no torch necessary, and the guy had cracked after just a couple nicely delivered blows to the side of the head and one to the stomach. First he’d puked up his guts, then he had spilled them. They’d found a bagful of money inside a self-storage locker on Tropicana.

  Joe Rabbioso flew, piloting the Lincoln another few miles into the desert, the song all the while stuck on infinite repeat in his head. “Start spreadin’ the news…” He had developed a love of the Rat Pack’s fifties and sixties output while out here. He could have played most of it from his iPod, but there were times it was just too nice to ruin a perfectly good silence with music, and now he wished he wasn’t hearing the replay in his head. The occasional thump also broke his concentration…

  He reached his usual turnoff and slowed, noting the lack of other lights in front of and behind him. The Lincoln turned smoothly onto the rutted track and he followed the rock markers that seemed randomly placed but weren’t, until he reached the place.

  There was another thump from the car’s rear, a lot more audible now that the motor was ticking down.

  Rabbioso smiled at the vast silence of the desert around him. He left the window powered down and inhaled the sweet smell of the night desert. His nose twitched. There really was nothing better.

  He got out and stretched, cracking his spine with satisfaction. Then he stripped, first unbuttoning the baby-blue silk shirt and placing it on the driver’s seat. He followed it with the vintage .45 Colt he always carried in the small of his back. Then he shucked off his jeans and his shoes (no socks), laying them all neatly on the seat. Naked now, his skin tingling in the night breeze, he plucked a sharp folder, thumbed it open, and went to the trunk. He reached it just as yet another thump echoed through the night air.

  He opened it and grinned down at the figure curled around some random trunk debris. The guy couldn’t complain, as his mouth was covered by a double strip of duct tape. The silvery tape also bound his hands and feet. His muffled voice shouted what sounded like pleas, but his eyes widened and he quieted when he realized that the man who had opened the trunk wasn’t wearing a shirt. The sweat that had soaked his clothes (and stunk up the trunk, Rabbioso noted with distaste) now started to roll down his forehead and cheeks again.

  The blade in Rabbioso’s hand flashed and the man whimpered, but was surprised when the duct tape from his hands and feet fell away into the bottom of the trunk.

  Before the guy could even react, Rabbioso had hauled him bodily out of the trunk and slammed him to the hard-packed dusty ground of the parking area. He stood over the guy, whose name he didn’t know, and waited patiently with his arms crossed.

  The guy wasn’t sure whether to undo his gag or get up and run, first reaching for his face and then realizing that he could attempt to stand. His muscles were stiff and he probably ached from the beating, but the scent of freedom spurred him to his knees with a series of muffled groans. If he wondered why he’d been freed, he didn’t make an effort to ask. He struggled to his feet, supporting his weight on the Lincoln’s rear deck, breath wheezing from his flared nostrils, and then he turned to face his…benefactor?

  Rabbioso always felt a stab of delicious enjoyment.

  The guy’s clothes were business casual, but they were soiled by blood and spilled liquor and sweat, and rumpled or torn beyond repair. He looked like a bum who’d hitched a ride, maybe stowed away in the trunk on purpose. His face was covered by patchy stubble, the result of having been on ice for a few days before they’d taken the tubing to him, but otherwise, except for probable bruising, he was none the worse for wear. He’d elected to keep his gag and collect himself before making a move, rushing the driver, or at least breaking into a run. Rabbioso could feel the guy’s muscles start to coil for action, whatever shape it would take.

  But then the guy squinted a little and his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the desert night after the pitch darkness of his trunk prison. His eyes seemed to focus all at once, and then they widened again.

  Rabbioso could almost read his thoughts.

  What was this guy doing, standing there naked?

  And what the fuck, why was he…?

  “Why am I sportin’ wood, eh?” Rabbioso asked the guy, who clearly could not answer, but whose face was undergoing various transformations.

  “Did you ever see the movie Deliverance?” Rabbioso chuckled when the guy started to sweat and tremble. He moved slightly, indicating he was about to bolt, knowing full well what the reference meant.

  Rabbioso smiled. “A classic, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The guy couldn’t help himself. He stared at Rabbioso’s raging erection, which might have been impressive in other circumstances, but here and now was just…bizarre.

  And very frightening.

  “One of my favorites…” Rabbioso began.

  The guy made a groaning kind of growl behind the gag and feinted left, then dashed away from the Lincoln, heading to the right. He shuffled at first, then picked up the pace as he caught his balance and started to find his way over the pebbly ground. He was ten yards away, the sound of Rabbioso’s laugh in his ears.

  He watched the guy run straight toward the rocky riverbed just beyond the f
lat area. When he’d almost reached it, he started a ragged zigzagging motion, probably thinking to avoid bullets. At this point, he was desperate without really knowing why.

  Rabbioso let him reach the edge of the ravine, then he visualized himself transforming.

  And in a second or two, he started to give chase. On four massive paws.

  A short howl escaped his long snout.

  Rabbioso loved this part.

  He closed in on his prey.

  It was over very quickly. And then the feeding began.

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Lupo

  Near Eagle River, WI

  Nick Lupo fed the growing fire with another small log and watched as one edge blackened and caught. In a minute, it was snapping as the flame began to engulf the bark and reach for the meat inside. Soon the fire was tossing out a new wave of rippling heat, beating back the night’s chill.

  The flame licked upward and its flickering lit the pines that stooped over the tiny clearing.

  Lupo gazed across the fire pit. The shadows there changed their shape and then he was looking at Sam.

  Ghost Sam.

  “Well, what do you expect?” the ghost said, with smiling querulousness that only he could pull off. “I’d rather not be a ghost, you know, but we all have to play the hand we’re dealt.”

  “What, are you turning into DiSanto now? Leave the clichés to him, he’s got you beat.”

  “Ah, he’s a piker.” The Indian’s shape moved closer to the fire.

  “I’ll tell him to amp up his game.” He flicked another short split log onto the fire and watched the sparks shoot up. “You cold? Can ghosts feel cold?”

  “Man, we’re always cold. I think that’s the worst part.”

  “Worst part of being a ghost?”

  “Of being dead, Nick. Dead, remember?”

  “How can I forget? How many of us have our own ghosts?”