Song Of The Wolf

Leaving the water running, she quickly patted the dead tomb down; he had nothing on him but his knives. Not even a damn mobile phone.

She took the knives and left him where he’d landed. Sure, she could take his jacket, it would give her some much needed warmth; but she couldn’t stand the idea of anything of him touching her, not even a jacket. His scent would be all over it and even that seemed like hell to her.

Carefully, Alison stepped behind the door to the bathroom, bracing herself against the wall. Waiting for brute number two to make his entrance. It didn’t take long. These sick bastards were definitely without patience.

“Come on!” the black-haired tomb thundered from the other side of the door. “You’ve been in there forever. It’s my goddamn turn now.” She heard his hand land on the door handle.

“I’m damn well coming in. You better have washed her. I don’t want your stink all over her when it’s my turn.” His voice reverberated through the room as the door began to open…

“OI!” he shouted, opening the door fully, “I said…”

His sentence got cut short as he stepped into the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind him. “What the –”

Alison didn’t wait for him to finish, just leapt at him from behind, sending the tip of his companion’s knife straight into the back of his neck. The guy didn’t stand a chance; he fell forward, his body hitting the floor with a heavy crack. She’d killed him instantly, the second the knife had hit his spine. She repeated the process of cutting through his neck so his head was completely severed before scrambling back against the wall, choking down air as she did.

Adrenaline was still pulsing through her even as tears fell. She broke down sobbing in fear and terror. She was so stupidly lucky he hadn’t turned around. She hadn’t had the strength to fight him; she’d used up the very last of it lunging at him. Her body felt so weak she doubted she’d be able to stand.

And now she was a killer. She’d never taken a life before. And now she looked down on the two men that had taken their last breath because of her, she felt sick. Life was precious, something not to be wasted. And she’d taken it away from them.

The worst part of it was that she didn’t feel anything. There was no guilt, no regret, just nothing. These tombs had deserved to die, they had made her life a living hell and she had no doubt there were many females prior to her who had suffered the same abuse she had and perhaps had not come away from it alive.

Back in his ‘den’ as the others liked to call it, Dax was frantically performing search after search. The Internet was a wonderful thing these days; it gave unlimited access to the world’s secrets if you knew where to look. The sun was out and shining brightly, he’d been at this all night. It had been about five in the morning when he’d finally got home and the Djinn had gone straight to bed. He revelled in the warmth of the sun’s rays shining through his glass house. Though the entire building was built with bullet-proof reflective glass, some of the rays still seeped through and lit the entire house up. He was sat in his large leather chair at his desk, staring at his huge computer screen – which was, in truth, a floor-to-ceiling glass panel that had a graphics board hardwired into the glass, so not only could he see through it and watch the land behind but he could also bring images up on it. Not even the government had technology this advanced. Perks of being part of the council’s structure.

There was a loud digital ping as his phone went off next to him. He grabbed it, and hit ‘answer’ as he shoved it against his face.

“Speak,” he barked into the receiver.

“Dax, its Tam.” Her husky tones filled his ears.

“What have you got?”

“OK, I’ve been out to the beach where Alison was taken. You’re right, there was a boat that had been pulled ashore several weeks ago. There is still an imprint in the sand from the bottom of it, though it’s been so battered by the sea we can’t tell much from it.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he snapped, probably a little more harshly than he should have. It wasn’t her fault Alison had been taken. And to Tamriel’s credit, she was up and working on the case at five in the morning, as soon as Dax had texted her. She was one of the hardest working, most driven females he’d ever come across.

“Cool it, Dax, don’t be an arsehole,” she snapped back at him. He heard her shush Leyth who was growling in the background. Mated males could be ridiculously protective and Leyth was no exception.

“Sorry. I’m just –”

“Yeah yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” she snorted, cutting him off. “Anyway,” she continued, “after I’d been down to the beach I got on the net and I’ve been rooting through the Navy’s database.”

“Ah, you really think the Navy is going to be involved?”

“Hell no, but they do sell off equipment that has been discontinued.”

“And?”

“And about six months ago they sold an ex-miniature submarine to an unknown bidder. They are nicknamed ‘midget submarines’ because they weigh less than 150 tonnes, can be manned by as little as two people and have no on-board accommodation.”

“So we think the Circle bought it?”

“Well, we’ve been looking into local harbour auctions too. They have sold over twenty boats in the last six months to an ‘unknown’ bidder too.”

“How do we know they are related?”

“Here is where it gets interesting. The submarine and the boats were all sold to an unknown bidder but they’re never untraceable, there are always accounts that the payments need to come from.”

“Not if they do it in cash.” She made a strange ‘ahh’ noise, making her sound like a teacher whose student had just got the right answer.

“True, however large payments like that don’t go unnoticed in bank accounts, the exact cash sum of each purchase was drawn out of the same bank account on the same day the purchase was made. From a bank not ten minutes away from the auction, the payment came from the account of one…” There was a shuffling noise as she shifted through what sounded like a load of paperwork; she’d obviously been researching this for hours.

“Jason Smith. Who is a high-flying investor for the fishing trade.”

“And he’s linked to the Circle how?”

“He’s not. But we went to question him an hour ago at his home in Whitstable. We’ve only just got back.”

“And…?”

“And we found him dead in his living room.”

“Crap. So no leads.”

“Dax, he’s been dead for a long while, we reckon about five months. He was well into the rotting stages when we got there, and there are no fingerprints at the scene but get this: the last thing he actually purchased and signed for himself was a disused oilrig off the coast of England but we haven’t found where exactly yet. It has been redundant for decades, apparently it was built on unreliable intelligence and when they found nothing, it was just left to rust. It’s little more than a pile of scrap that goes unnoticed these days. So why would he buy it?”

“Because someone forced him to.”

“That’s what we think. He is co-owner with a partner that is using a false name on the deeds, there’s a paper trail so vast that it’s nigh on impossible to trace it back to whoever it is. But we also know that this ‘partner’ is the co-owner of every single one of those boats and that submarine.”

“It’s got to be worth chasing up.”

“Definitely. There are some old dockyards in Chatham that Leyth and I are planning on investigating. That’s where the submarine was auctioned off. It might give us some useful leads, and if not we can see if anyone went with Mr Smith on the security camera footage. You want to come?”

“Count me in, I’ll get my stuff together, leave in ten?”

“Sure thing, we’re just going to go and brief Julian.”

Finally they had a lead that might work. Tamriel made a good private investigator; she and Carl had the right idea with their new firm. Dax was well educated and a frigging genius with technology and hacking but he would never have thought of a submarine, even now the idea seemed ridiculous. But hell, the Circle were everywhere, it made sense that they would take to the seas as well.

Dax hastily typed the name ‘Jason Smith’ into his computer’s search programme and then ran a separate search for redundant oilrigs on the coast of England and left his computer running. It would ping the results to his phone if it found anything anyway. Shoving his thick bomber jacket on and checking his knives and Glock were present, he stalked out of his house, clicking the alarm sensors on as he walked back to the mansion.

Tamriel and Leyth were already out front loading up Leyth’s beat-up old Range Rover and Julian was outside with them barking orders into his phone.

“I don’t give a crap how much it costs, Saph,” he was shouting as Dax came within hearing range, “we’re gonna need a boat, charge it to your pack credit card!”

He paused for a minute, presumably listening to her talking before adding, “Fine, just make sure it’s a subtle boat, nothing ‘spanky’, and make sure it’s fast. But big enough for all of us to get on.”

He spun on his heel and marched around the side of the car, hefting his huge muscular body into the passenger seat, muttering something about Sapphire wanting to buy a ‘damned pink boat’ and slammed the door.

“Dax!” Tam shouted as he approached them. “You ready?”

“Yup,” he grunted, sliding himself into the back seat of the car.

“Cool, let’s get moving,” Leyth growled, starting the engine as he slammed his door.

“We’ve got a meeting with the auctioneer first,” Tam explained, sliding into the back seat next to him. “They have given us permission to do a thorough search of the dockyard but we have to be subtle because it’s open to the public today.”

She bent down to pull something from one of the bags she had at her feet, shoving a plastic container onto his lap.

“Eat.”

“Not hungry,” he grumbled.

“Don’t care. Eat.” She grinned at him. Damn that female could be a pain in the arse, but he did as she asked anyway. It was just easier not to argue. Cracking the lid on the Tupperware container he found four thick beef sandwiches sat there neatly stacked up; protein and lots of it. He bit them down quickly, barely tasting the meat as it hit his tongue. His stomach reluctantly accepted the sustenance.

It took about an hour in total to get them down to Chatham’s Historic Dockyard. The drive was tedious. Dax found himself drifting in and out of sleep; a belly full of beef would do that to a wolf. Maybe Julian was right. He really should get some proper sleep soon.

As Leyth pulled the car up to the main entrance to the dockyard, Tamriel leaned out of her window and explained who she was, showing them her new private investigator’s licence and ID card. The guards let them straight through and directed them to the car park, explaining how to find the main office.

“Dax, you and Leyth go take a look around, see if you can find anything while Tamriel and I go talk to this auctioneer and look at the CCTV footage, cool?”

Everyone nodded in agreement as Leyth pulled the car into a parking bay. He helped his female out of the car, and landed one hell of a kiss on her lips, leaving her a little flushed as she walked away with Julian.

“Come on, man, where do you want to start?” Leyth nodded at Dax.

“Not sure, let’s find an area map.”

It didn’t take long for them to find one of those huge boards with the ‘you are HERE’ arrows on it. The dockyard they were in was huge. There was a museum and a large boat you could walk around. There were also rope-making warehouses and some privately owned warehouses too, as well as a small café and several car parks.

“OK, they hold the auctions in the museum most of the time. It would make sense to hold this one there too as they were selling off boats, the museum is near the water.” Dax glanced that way; it was indeed close to the water, yet not close enough. There was a replica of the ‘midget submarine’ on display, and little else.

“I need to look at their private rentals information, we need to know who else is renting space here.” Dax started walking towards the café.

“They’re not going to let you see those documents, that’s private for a reason!”

“They don’t need to let me.”

Leyth snorted as he waked over to the counter to order some coffee as Dax plonked his arse into one of the spindly plastic chairs. Damn thing felt like it was going to bend and break under his weight.

Tugging his laptop out of his bag, he set it on the table in front of him and turned it on. It scanned his fingerprint on the mouse pad and allowed him access. A message popped up notifying him that the search he’d started at home was still in progress. No surprise there!

Hitting the Wi-Fi on he scanned the area, quickly finding the dockyards network. It was of course password protected but hell, like that mattered. He clicked the little cursor onto his encryption software icon and set it into motion. The software in question was something he’d designed years ago; it was pretty basic, but that’s all it needed to be. It ran through the millions of number and letter password sequences in a matter of seconds, leaving no digital ‘fingerprint’ in its wake. As it briefly touched the network, it deleted all trace of itself as soon as it had made it. As the word ‘accepted’ finally flashed up on the screen, the programme made a note of the password and stored it in the depths of its hard drive for later use if ever needed. Now he was logged on to the network, he opened up another of his own software programmes; he’d called it ‘The Eraser’ because that’s exactly what it was.

As Dax quickly stalked his way through the dockyards database, ‘The Eraser’ deleted any record of his IP address, any evidence that someone had accessed the network or anything in it. Simple.

It took only minutes before he was rifling through the documents stored on the computers in the ‘property’ department. Finally he found a list of tenants, their names, contact details and a company description. Dax of course made a copy of the information, storing it on his computer and pinging it across to his home desktop as well.

There were several different companies. Mainly they had something to do with fishing or boats. There was quite a large events company that had rented two of the larger warehouse spaces and an office, though they checked out after his thorough background search.

“Anything?” Leyth grunted, pulling him out of his little technology bubble.

“Nah, everything checks out.”

“What now then?”

“Well, I guess we should take a look around.”

In minutes the two of them were up and walking away from the little café towards one of the warehouses. The large wooden and brick structure towered over them as they came to it. The two huge wooden doors looked big enough to cater to a giant. The interior of the warehouse was beautiful, heavy wooden floors and large windows. The air was tinted with the distinct scent of metalwork and rubber, which made sense, it was absolutely brimming with the latest in technology.

Dax let out an impressed whistle as he stalked through the doors into the warehouse.

“’Allo? Can I help you?” A beasty-looking bloke sauntered over; he was huge, easily matching Dax and Leyth for size, though he was most definitely human.

“We’re with Chambers private investigators and we’re doing a check on the dockyard, have you noticed anything unusual lately?”

“Unusual how?” A slightly smaller brunette man swaggered over to his huge companion.

“We’re looking into the sale of some boats at the auction a few weeks ago.”

“You mean that submarine that got sold?”

“Yeah, what can you tell us about it?”

“Well, it got sold didn’t it?” The big man looked down at his friend, then yelled over his shoulder, “OI, BOYS, anyone know anything about that submarine that got sold the other week?”

There was a collection of ‘nah’s’ in return.

“Sorry mate, can’t help you. We’re pretty busy preparing for our next job anyway so we’re gonna crack on if it’s all the same to you.”

“No worries.” Leyth nodded at him, turning to leave.

“Wait –” Another man with long wavy blond hair stepped from behind one of the huge shelves dominating the room. “It wasn’t docked here, they sold it but it was shipped out from somewhere else – Will?!”

‘Will’, the man in question, stepped out from behind the large rack of shelving. He was smaller than the blond with messy hair and baggy trousers.

“What?”

“Where did that submarine get shipped from?”

“Uh, there’s a little dock in town, it’s tiny, big enough for maybe one car to tow one boat. Probably there.” He grunted, nodding at Leyth. “Mate, you are huge.”

“Thanks.” Leyth nodded back. “And thanks for your help, boys.”

As the two of them left, the beasty man stalked back to the kettle and continued with the tea he was making. Dax could have sworn he was singing Whitney Houston as he did so. What a sight that made.

Dax made quick work of texting Tam to let her know what was doing, and she hit him back instantly, letting them know they were reviewing CCTV footage, and to ping her the address when they found it.

With that they went on a small harbour hunt. Google maps showed only one likely option; it was quite literally a gap between buildings that led to the river running through Chatham. It was tiny on the map yet when they arrived at the spot there was nothing but shops and houses.

“Are you sure this is it?”

“Yup. Our GPS dot is literally on top of it.”

“Well, crap. Looks like it lied,” Leyth snorted, eyeing the building in front of them. It was fairly nondescript, brick walls and a wooden door. The windows had heavy curtains behind them and that was it. The walls were covered in the soot and grime of age and they looked as though they had stood there for decades.

Dax swore in frustration leaning against the building, cursing again as his shoulder came away covered in black.

The wall had smudged where his shoulder had been, the dirt coming away easily. The brick underneath was bright red.

“Now why would a building be covered in oil?” Leyth said, running a finger across the cement holding the bricks in place. That too was clean as a whistle once the oil came off.

“To give the impression of age?” Dax grinned, eyeing the door.

“Why would anyone want a house to look old and grimy?”

“Only if they didn’t want anyone to notice it.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Leyth glanced over at Dax, who eyed the street they were on. There were no CCTV cameras, it was a fairly old street, and most of the buildings looked deserted, the shops empty.

“Do it,” Dax barked. Leyth didn’t wait a heartbeat and in one swift movement sent a heavy kick at the wooden door, smashing the lock and sending the thing splintering open.

Only then did all hell break loose.

Chapter Three

The two of them thundered through the door, slamming the rickety wood shut behind them. Leyth barked out a curse, falling into a defensive crouch and sliding his nine-millimetre pistol out. Dax hit the floor, blood welling steadily from a gunshot wound on his shoulder.

Whoever was here had been waiting for them, silencer and all. They hadn’t even heard the shot, it was only when something small and hard hit him in the shoulder that he knew something was off. Way off.

“Fuck,” Dax screamed, snapping his Glock free and training it on the interior of the room, all from his position on the floor.

It was one hell of a building. There were no rooms or floors, just the shell of a house, cement floor and brick walls. It was completely empty but for an enormous boat dominating the middle of the room. Dax’s eyes slowly began to adjust to the gloom of the building. Picking out a small table and chairs on which stood bottles of beer and what looked like a half played game of poker. At the end of the room stood two huge wooden doors, big enough to fit a boat through no doubt, and he would put money on the fact that those doors led out to the water. There was no one else in sight, but there had to be someone here. That damn bullet hadn’t come from nowhere. Unless they had run out through those massive doors, they had to be on the boat. There was nowhere else to hide.

The thing itself was absolutely huge, and had been painted black, recently if the stench of paint was anything to go by. It was stood on top of a large metal trailer, with a large cabin and a rail running the entire way around the deck. There were two ladders stood next to the boat on both sides, and no doubt a set of steps at the back.

Dax glanced briefly at Leyth, who signalled them forward. They kept to the underside of the boat, the girth of the thing allowing them shelter from the shooter above. When they came to the ladders, Dax ran out so his back was against the brick wall, pointing the muzzle of his Glock up at the cabin. He awkwardly waved a hand at Leyth, letting him know it was clear for the moment. Gritting his teeth and biting back a curse, he held his injured arm tightly against him. It would heal in no time, but damn that shit hurt!

Being the injured party, he was better shooting from the ground rather than being caught on a ladder, so he was smart enough not to argue the point as Leyth quickly climbed the metal steps. Dax held his breath, waiting for any sign of the enemy. Utter silence. Unnatural silence.

Leyth scanned the top of the boat with the muzzle of his gun. When nothing happened, he carefully stepped onto the surface of the boat, the thing rocking slightly and creaking with the motion. It took several seconds for him to check the deck and cabin. And another few painstakingly quiet seconds for him to check the belly of the boat. When he reappeared, he walked casually over to the side and leaned down.

“Nothing,” he barked, lowering his gun. “The boat’s empty, and I can see the entire room from up here.”

“Well, crap.”

“You don’t think they went out of those –” The rest of the sentence was cut off as something huge and black fell from the ceiling all but covering Leyth. Dax barked out a curse as another huge black beast dropped on top of him at the same time. Hand-shaped talons scraped at his wounded shoulder as a beak the size of his thigh snapped dangerously close to his jugular.

Dropping his gun as he fell to the floor, Dax swore. Rolling out of the way as those huge talons grabbed at him again.

“What the HELL?!” He bit out as the black thing flew off, circling the roof of the building and aiming itself at him once again. Should have checked the damn ceiling! he thought, reaching for the knives strapped to his chest.

He knew he wouldn’t have time to get to his Glock; the weapon had clattered well out of reach. The huge black bird screeched, the noise all but bursting his eardrums as it flew at him. It was an ugly bastard, human shaped from head to foot, with black-feathered bits of flapping skin that might pass for wings stretched from the man-bird’s arms down to its legs. Those ugly wings seemed to flap awkwardly, unnaturally. The crow’s deformed face still looked human but had a large beak in place of its mouth and sharp claw on its still human looking hands and feet.

Dax rolled onto his back, not daring to stand. He needed to be a small target not a tall one. The crow flew directly at him, picking up speed. As it came within range, Dax could smell death and rot. Definitely a tomb, and yup, there they were, huge completely black eyes. Bastards.

Shifters that had joined the Circle and become tombs could only shift-shape if the Magi running the band of rebels willed it. And the fact that the tomb’s eyes were black meant that the Magi was still possessing the tomb’s body. The soulless black pits acted as mirrors, so they could see what was happening through the tomb’s eyes from whatever corner of the Earth they were hiding in.