Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4) Read online

  WOLF’S EDGE

  Book Four 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 – January, 2011

  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)

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  Acknowledgments

  As always, I’d like to dedicate this book to my Mom and Janis, and in memory of my dad. Also my good friend, the writer Joel S. Ross, who was taken from us suddenly and much too soon.

  I’d also like to acknowledge the stories my grandmother and parents told me of their childhood in Italy 1943-44, under German occupation and Allied bombing. Some of those stories and experiences have made their way into this novel.

  Thanks for various reasons due to: Regina Allen, Jim Argendeli, Gary A. Braunbeck, Judy Bridges, John Everson, Gary Jonas, A.G. Kent, Don Kinney, Edward Lee, Jonathan Maberry, Lisa Mannetti, Len Maynard, David Morrell and Hank Wagner, Keith Petersen, Brian Pinkerton, Tim Powers, Michael Slade, the Starbucks at 8880 South Howell Avenue, Tamara Thorne, Christopher and S-A Welch, and Mark and Jennie Zirbel, among many others.

  Special thanks to Don D’Auria and to David Benton for going above and beyond the call of duty…

  I will always miss the lyrics Eric Woolfson would have written… I’m glad I had the chance to tell him how much his work meant to me.

  Author’s Note

  The real Minocqua is located in Oneida County, and the real Eagle River is 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. Once again 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 Minocqua, Eagle River, and Milwaukee are either fictional or used fictitiously and in no way resemble their real-world counterparts. However, some things are unalterably true. If you drive up Highway 45 or 51 from Milwaukee, and find yourself entering the North Woods, after dusk you might notice the shadows keeping pace with you just outside of your view in the thick undergrowth that crowds the shoulder. The shadows seem to move effortlessly between the tightly packed pines. If you look up you might see the moon’s silvery sheen filtering through the swaying treetops. Don’t roll down your windows—you might hear the howling.

  Never, ever stop the car when you hear the howling…

  “He who fights with monsters should beware lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”

  —Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

  WOLF’S EDGE

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Endgame: First Day

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Endgame: Second Day

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Endgame: Third Day

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Endgame: Fourth Day

  Cha
pter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Endgame: Fifth Day

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Prologue

  Somewhere between Minocqua and Eagle River, WI

  The keys clicked lightly under his fingers, and he watched the short paragraph take shape on the laptop’s screen before him. The light it emitted was enough to cast a blue-white glow across the room and over his shape. He hunched over slightly, refocusing his eyes and positioning the bifocals to give him a clear look at the text he was leaving behind. He moused over a phrase, adjusted it, cut another word here and added several words there.

  He was very quiet. His family slept, and he didn’t want to complicate things by awakening them. Karina snored softly in the adjacent room, her form stretched under the sheet in the sideways position she preferred. Down the hall, the nearest room was where Katerina slumbered the innocent sleep of the six-year-old, a favorite bear watching over her from one side of the pillow and an animal—a jolly looking dog from the latest Pixar movie—was crushed in her sleepy embrace. The boys slept in the far room, across the hall from the main upstairs bath.

  He smiled sadly as he thought of his family, asleep and unencumbered by what ate at him like acid. His smile turned into a frown and then a grimace as he tasted the acid column that rose in his throat. Real or not, he felt the vomit push its way into the back of his throat, and he fought to swallow it down.

  Hands shaking, he typed a few more words, reread the six lines or so he had written into the blank file, then he moused over to the Print command and heard the sheet work its way through the elderly Epson below his desk. Then he highlighted and copied the text, clicked into the open browser, scrolled to where the text box sat waiting, empty, its cursor blinking like a clown’s evil wink. He pasted the text and Submitted it, then closed the page and clicked into the Preview function. There it was, his text posted on his website’s main page where the counter would soon begin to click upward as his regulars checked his blog and news.

  He closed the browser but left the computer on. It really didn’t matter.

  Behind him, where the bottom of the built-in bookcase met the lower cabinets, their shelves hidden behind cherry-wood doors, he flicked the disguised switch and waited for the upper bookcase to disengage from its lock. It hissed open a few inches, and he reached between its edge and the frame and opened wide the secret compartment. Behind the movable bookcase were several shelves of items and a built-in safe. He ignored everything but one item. He took it from its resting place inside the red velvet-lined case, then pushed the compartment door shut again.

  He took the object and held it up where moonlight entering the wide picture window could illuminate it. The huge, silver disk above shed light over the lake and its surroundings, leaking into the living room and over his hands. The heavy object shone in the light. It was a dagger perhaps nine inches in length, sheathed in lightweight wood criss-crossed with carved symbols. The dagger’s grip was set with several irregular shaped jewels in a line above the straight cross-guard. The moonlight blackened the jewels so they looked like pools of darkness in the hilt.

  His eyes suddenly filled, and he tilted his head as if tears could be coaxed to clear his pupils on their own. His motion achieved nothing, and the tears swelled up until they were heavy enough to seek their own ways across his cheeks. He repressed a sob.

  He had decades to sob over.

  He tucked the sheathed dagger into his belt, leaving his hands free.

  Almost without realizing how he had gotten there, he stood in front of a door down the hall. Now holding the dagger in one hand, he used the other to edge the door open just enough to slip inside, where his daughter slept among stuffed animals and at least one doll. Her golden hair was made into a silver halo by the moonlight filtered through the blinds. She was tucked in all the way to her chin, her tiny hands wrapped around the plush dog.

  He let his tears fall onto her pillow for a moment, looking at her one last time. Then he swiftly slid the blade from its scabbard, placed one hand over the top of her face and pressed down hard, effectively preventing her scream and keeping her from seeing what he was about to do.

  Forgive me, he prayed as he quickly drew the blade once across her throat. He wasn’t sure who would grant the forgiveness, however.

  Dodging the hot spray, he held her head down on the pillow until it and the bed were sodden, and her tiny struggles were finished.

  Not long. It didn’t take long at all.

  Sobbing quietly, snot bubbling from his nostrils, he left his daughter’s room and entered the next, where the boys slept.

  Thankfully they had given up the bunk beds, preferring two individual singles set perpendicular to each other. He approached the closest, his younger son, and said his quiet good-bye.

  Then he repeated the procedure with the heavy hand, pressure downward holding his son’s neck in position and keeping him quiet and blind. The blade sang through the young skin with nary a hitch, but this time the blood gush half-caught him as he swayed to evade it. His older son grumbled in his sleep, muttered, and snored after shifting sideways on his pillow. In a moment the large hand, the father’s hand, was holding the small head down, and the other hand was doing the deed almost as if they were independent of each other and of his control. He barely moved this time, letting more of his son’s blood bathe him as he suppressed the struggling boy beneath. This son had been his favorite.

  He waited again for the bleed-out, snot now coating his chin. He was unmindful of the snot and tears and saliva that ran freely from his open mouth.

  Then he headed for the master bedroom, where his wife waited.

  Her eyes were open and questioning when he approached, apparently having heard either his walking or the children’s struggling. She probably hadn’t processed what she’d heard, because her instinctive alarm had not forced the issue and fully awakened her fear.

  “What—” she began, but his hand covered her lips and eyes, and his one motion took the blooded silver blade through her neck. Even as the curtain of blood jetted out from her, he could feel the scream under his hand, the accusation, the terror.

  “Why?”

  It didn’t matter whether she asked the question, it was what he heard. His body covered hers, lovingly, feeling her struggles diminish until finally it went still beneath his. He was drenched with his family’s blood now, a symbolic sacrifice of everything he had ever loved.

  Carefully, he replaced the blooded dagger in its hiding place. The box contained two dagger-shaped cradles, and his filled one of them. The other cradle was dusty—it hadn’t held its dagger in decades.

  Then he took a pistol from its hooks above where the case holding the blade lay among other items. He closed the secret compartment’s door.

  He dragged himself through the hallway and to the living room, with its view of the woods and the lake. He surveyed the moonlit scene one last time.

  He felt nothing, really. Did he?

  His family’s fresh blood soaked his clothes and clogged his nostrils with its sweet, metallic stench.

  No time for regrets. It was too late. Better decisions would have led to better outcomes.

  The pistol in his hand was an antique, but he had kept it oiled and in good condition. And the magazine was filled with his best home loads. He pulled the toggle and cocked the German war-issue 1908 Parabellum model, which most people knew as the Luger. He felt the weight of the pistol, its superb balance, and he allowed himself one small, sad smile.

  He stood with his back to the wide, white wall. Twisted the gun around in his grip. Rested the oily barrel on his forehead.

  When he squeezed the trigger, the last thing he saw was the frozen face of his wife, asking Why? Her stari
ng, accusing eyes registered for a fraction of a second, and then it was over.

  His body spasmed once against the wall now ruined by the shower of blood and bits of skull, spasmed then slumped to the hardwood floor. A lake grew quickly below him like a crimson outline.

  One hour later, the sound of breaking glass washed over the frozen tableau inside the house. Heavy boot falls marked the intruder’s trek through the rooms, one by one, ending at the wall where a man’s body lay slumped, his head collapsed like a deflated child’s balloon.

  The blood was black in the reflected moonlight.

  The intruder shook his head, then set about the search, which had just become more complicated.

  Another hour passed, and the intruder found what he knew was there to be found. Not much effort had been made to keep the secret storage area truly hidden. With a laser measuring device, the intruder quickly located the several discrepancies that signaled secret compartments behind false walls.

  Still almost two hours before dawn, the intruder found the main gas valve in the rear of the basement, the portion behind a door located in the cedar-paneled bar area dominated by a regulation pool table and various rich man’s toys. Behind the door, the house’s systems were ensconced in a room with walls of reinforced poured concrete. The intruder flicked on the lights, located the gas line and took a few moments to follow it with his eyes, then he took a wrench from his waist pack and loosened a couple connectors. He waited for a minute until he could smell the gas quickly escaping the pipe, then retreated through the open door.

  Back upstairs, he set an innocuous-looking cell phone housing on a hallway table near the back door and basement entrance. Inside was a tiny, remote-operated device that would ignite upon receipt of a certain signal text. When it did, it would at the same time provide the needed spark and destroy itself. It would be indistinguishable from the kind of slag left by any sort of cell phone upon melting.