Seven ways to die

40

Halloween Night

Jake Sallinger got out of the shower, careful to navigate his balance on the slippery porcelain that had, more than once, ushered him to a painful slip.

As he reached for his towel, he contemplated with excitement the evening’s entertainment. Waiting for him at the Lotus Club would be the woman who described herself as a “strawberry blonde, green eyes, wicked smile” in the Metro Magazine personals ad. Who knows? Tonight might be his lucky night. It was certainly overdue. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten laid.

But something was off.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand to clear them from shower fog.

Where his towel should have been a manila envelope was propped on the rack.

More than puzzled, he reached for it without thinking, disturbing the white powder that covered the flap.

As his eyes automatically began to scan the first page, Jake found himself sneezing uncontrollably. He doubled over from the sneezing attack-just as the bathroom door pushed open.

Cynical laughter he’d recognize anywhere, then: “Thought you might appreciate it more by manual delivery,” Hamilton said.

But Sallinger had fainted from the effect of the mysterious powder. The last things the editor’s eyes saw were Hamilton’s clear plastic gloves and green surgical booties.?

Careful not to slip on the wet floor, Hamilton dragged Sallinger’s naked body toward the bathtub. He lifted the still-breathing editor into the tub. Taking a deep breath to recover from the exertion, he grabbed his editor’s head with both hands-and slammed it repeatedly against the brass towel rack, until he was satisfied Sallinger was dead.

To be doubly certain, Hamilton took the man’s pulse, and nodded to himself when he found none.

Deftly, and quickly before rigor mortis set in, he arranged Sallinger in a sitting position.

Taking another calming breath, Hamilton reached for the wall telephone and dialed 9-1-1.

“You’d better send someone to 155 E. 49 ^ th St. #3D,” he said to the operator. “The best crime article ever written has just been delivered to its former editor. Right on deadline.”

Before the operator could respond, Hamilton hung up and, as he headed for the service entrance, grinned at himself in the dining room mirror.

It was seven-thirty p.m. The wolves in the zoo were howling again. Hearing them, Hamilton thought about Detective Cody-and grinned.?

Way south in Cody’s apartment, Charley was hearing them too. “I know, pal,” Cody said, as he emerged from the shower, “they’re calling us. And this time they mean business.”

Using his hunting knife, he went through the ritual movements of preparing a venison stew, chopping the cranberries in half the way Old Man had taught him. This was the hunter’s meal, the meal he’d first eaten on the Reservation so many years ago on the night before his walk-out. When the simmering was done, the fruit and vegetables crisp and the venison still rare, Cody carefully divided the savory mixture between his own and Charley’s bowls. “I need you for this one, old friend,” he said.

Charley, licking every drop of the stew from his bowl, greeted him with a grunted bark of acknowledgement.

Just as Cody took his last bite, his cell phone rang.

It was Amelie. She heard the wolves too, Cody thought. “Don’t even think of arguing,” she began. “I need to see you now.”

“I honestly can’t,” Cody said. “I’ve got a job to do.”

“If you want to see me again, ever,” Amelie said, a strange tone in her voice Cody couldn’t identify, “You will give me one hour. That’s all I’m asking.”

Cody looked at the time on his cell phone. It was seven forty-five. If Androg stayed true to form, nothing would happen until midnight. “One hour,” he said. “This better be important.”

“It is,” she said.

Instead of canteen, flint, matches, and blanket, he rummaged in his socks drawer, found his ipetes, the eagle feather he’d carried with him from adolescence. On this quest, it would suffice.?

Somewhat against his better judgment, but somehow not wanting to over-analyze it either, Cody headed for Amelie’s apartment. Trust your head, a voice from the past was telling him. Everything you have learned. The answers will be there.

As for Charley, “It’s on the way, after all,” he told his sidekick.

Charley’s look said he wasn’t quite buying it.

“I know, I know,” Cody responded to the shepherd’s baleful stare. “But she said it was important, and she’s a potential witness after all.”

He left Charley in the SUV. No sense in having them sniff each other out unnecessarily.?

He heard the piano as he approached her apartment. Something by Gershwin? And she was good.

But the music had stopped abruptly and Amelie opened the door before he could lift his hand to knock. “I will help you prepare,” she said, as though he’d told her what he was about to do.

She led him toward the massage room. Her voice was businesslike. “Take your clothes off and get on the table.”

For a moment, Cody hesitated. Then he saw that she was doing the same-unbuttoning her blouse, zipping down her pants.

His eyebrows went up, partly because he was admiring her perfect athletic figure, partly because he was admiring the audacity of her invitation. “I thought you didn’t do this kind of massage,” he said, stupidly, as he unbuckled his belt and kicked off his loafers.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” she said, impatiently reaching out to help him with his shirt buttons. “Just had to be the right man at the right time.”

She waited for him to be face down on the table before removing her bra and panties.

Turning his head to watch her, he was rebuked.

“Focus on your breathing,” she said. “It will loosen you up.”

The massage that followed redefined sensual. Her hands were strong and experienced and both relaxed and excited him to a point he’d never experienced before.

“Turn over,” she said, after kneading his legs, lower back, and shoulders.

Without a word he complied, and let her work her will on the front of his legs and abdomen, careful to keep the towel positioned in his midriff.

Although inevitably the towel betrayed him.

“Did I miss anything?” Amelie asked coyly.

“You missed the main attraction,” Cody responded. “And you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Her laugh only ignited the heat between them.

“Lose the towel,” she said, “and join me in the sauna.”

And he did.?

She was in his lap facing him. He was inside her. They sat unmoving, staring deep into each other’s eyes.

Always look at the creature who looks at you, he remembered. The doorway to the truth is in the eyes. Listen.

Finally, when she began to move, they moved together as though they had been moving together all their lives. They made love slowly and thoroughly, and Cody flashed back to that sweat house he entered as a young man before embarking on his walk-out.

It was nothing like this.

She reached up and undid his ponytail, so that his long hair fell down to envelop them both.

“How did you know I needed this?” he said.

She chuckled as she reached her third orgasm. “I could tell from the way you danced with me,” she said. “Now go out there and catch the bad guys. But do me one more favor.”

His eyebrows went up. “Another favor?”

“Come back,” she said, looking him again in the eyes.?

The all-forgiving Charley by his side again, a fully-empowered Cody quickly drove the SUV down Fifth to E. 59 ^ th Street, and was now parked across from Hamilton’s building, settled back to stake out the lobby which was the only way out of the structure.

A handful of residents left the building, the only one Cody recognized being the wealthy composer Paul Ketty, tall, full head of black hair, in the company of his two matching Corgis. The doorman’s smile at Ketty told the detective he treated him handsomely at holiday time.

It was ten-thirty. He’d been sitting here for over an hour-an hour he could have spent with Amelie in the sauna.

He used the time to reflect on the Androg case. Trust your head…The answers will be there. The only one he’d shared his theory with was Wolfsheim, who had reported back that Hamilton had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer two years ago.

“How did you find out?” Cody had asked.

“No questions asked, remember?” had been Wolfsheim’s response.

“How long does he have at this point?” asked Cody.

“Months at best, more likely weeks. And here’s something: He’s refused all treatment.”

In a radical departure from his customary procedure, he’d placed Wolfsheim in command for the night shift tonight.

Wolfie hadn’t said much about Cody’s hunch by way of approbation, but he hadn’t denied the possibilities as Cody outlined them either. “Watch your ass, Chief,” was all he said.

“Don’t worry about my ass,” he replied.?

Freshened up from his visit to Jake Sallinger, Hamilton walked back out the double doors at eleven forty-five. Tonight he was not wearing his usual frumpy white suit. He was wearing a red devil’s costume and, indeed, smiled devilishly at the doorman as he stalked away into the night toward Fifth Avenue.

Cody noticed two other details.

Once Hamilton’s back was turned, the doorman flipped him the finger.

And the asshole was carrying, slung on his shoulder, what Cody recognized as a Flambeau crossbow case.

Cody realized Hamilton was heading northwest toward Central Park, the place that, on this one night, was filled with not only the extraordinary beasts of prey that populated Manhattan but also ordinary citizens acting out their fantasies that would, had they been real, have turned the metropolis into a nonstop nightmare.

Maintaining a safe distance, Cody “walked” his white German shepherd among the crazy-costumed Halloweeners making their way from one bar to another. He wondered where Hamilton’s consort Victoria was. Was Hamilton en route to a rendezvous with her?

The detective knew he was facing his ultimate challenge, the very reason that had led him to become a cop and felt deep in his bones that it was his destiny had led him to this night.

He was ready.

The crowd in front of the Plaza Hotel was so thick that for a moment, Cody lost sight of his quarry on Central Park South.

And Charley lost the scent in the onslaught of horse manure from the lined-up tourist carriages.

But it wasn’t long before Charley got them back on track, picking up the man’s scent again on the north side of CPS. Cody had to race to keep up with the big shepherd, who was leading him to the entrance to the Park that Hamilton had chosen.?

The moment they entered the Park, he heard the call.

“Oo-oo-whoee,” the owl cried twice.

It will rain. Soon.

Cody could smell rain in the air. He glanced at the sky. Storm clouds were indeed gathering.

They were now walking alongside the Pond, the dilapidated fence around it marred by jagged gaps because the city couldn’t afford to keep it in repair. At its northwest branch, they lost sight of Hamilton again.

As Charley sniffed back and forth at the fence, bewildered, Cody squatted down to figure out how Hamilton had disappeared before their eyes.

If you are not sure which trail to take, think about who you are. Think of it as a crossroads with four directions. Maybe a creature will talk to you.

High in the air above him, the peregrine falcon issued a screech, and Cody looked up and listened, seeming to understand. “Listen with your eyes,” he repeated Old Man’s words from his boyhood-the words that had led to his career as the most successful detective in New York.

“Thank you, brother falcon,” he said.

Then he felt Charley pulling at the leash, wanting to go through the gap in the fence.

The falcon shrieked again, and Charley pulled all the harder.

The creatures talk to each other, Cody remembered, his eyes continuing to scan every inch of the terrain.

Then he saw them.

They were tucked beneath a low-lying bush: Hamilton’s highly-polished black shoes. The writer had crossed the wire fence, left his shoes where they would stay dry, then continued to skirt the circumference in his stocking feet.

Cody knelt to study the footprints in the nearly-dried mud. He brushed the leaves away from the faint tracks.

His pulse quickened as he spotted the miniscule green fiber left behind in one of the prints.

Hamilton wasn’t in stocking feet; he was wearing surgical booties stolen from the Bellevue supply closet where Kate and Rizzo found the body of Dr. Song Wiley.

Now Charley was on the hunt in earnest, heading north to the end of the Pond.

Suddenly the wolves howling from the zoo added eeriness to the dark night that was filled with the shadows of Halloween revelers haunting the Park in all directions. They are telling us we’re on the right track, Cody thought.

Cody’s eyes picked up Hamilton’s faint footprints as they turned into a narrow path into the heavy brush.

Charley was barking, and nothing Cody could do would stop him until he was satisfied Cody got his message.

Another set of footsteps, these significantly shorter and smaller, mixed with Hamilton’s. Cody’s hunch was right. Victoria had arrived in the Park to join her lover. Tonight would be two for the price of one.

Somehow Cody could interpret Charley’s excited low growl to mean that his sensitive nose had picked up this second scent before. It would have to be the same scent he’d followed to La Venezia’s parking lot on the morning after Uncle Tony’s murder.

Charley stopped barking and looked at Cody to follow.

Cody’s eyes listened to the footsteps.

The larger ones were slightly fresher than the smaller. The woman’s prints were firmly set, and dryer; whereas minute water bubbles were still seeping into the man’s.

The two people whose trail he and Charley were following were not walking together.

Ward Lee Hamilton was tailing Victoria Mansfield, the larger prints trailing behind the smaller.

Judging from the prints, about eighty feet behind. Stalking her!

There was no longer a single doubt in Cody’s mind that Androg had been the two of them, working together.

And that now their deadly game had turned into a final stalking contest in Central Park!

The detective well knew the TAZ procedures. After all, he had written them.

He knew he should call for backup.

He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

And turned it off.

Because the warrior also recognized that this was personal.

The murders had been orchestrated specifically to test him.?

As they moved from the bushy terrain into a tiny clearing Charley’s barking reached a new peak of intensity.

From the east and uptown, the wolves howled in response.

Cody studied the ground until he saw what they were telling him.

The tracks were diverging. Ward was no longer following Victoria. His moved off to the right as hers continued to the left.

What did that tell him?

He stood still for a moment, breathing in the sensations of the night-the distant cacophony of traffic, the slight rustle of leaves, the earthy smell of foliage greeting ozone-allowing his instincts to sharpen.

He made his decision.

He followed the woman’s tracks, careful to keep eyes in back of his head as he moved forward. If he was flanking his lover, Cody would encounter them both at the ambush.

Or be lured into a pincer trap.

A surprise is not a surprise if you know about it in advance.

Cody thought of signaling Larry Simon for backup, but, once again, left his phone in his pocket.

He would finish this alone.

For this game of stalking was meant to involve him as well as them.

If he was right about Androg’s m.o., Number One was Raymond Handley, not Melinda Cramer; she was nothing more than practice. Androg’s numbering system was meant to be sequential, an Unholy Week of Death. Number Two was Uncle Tony, Number Three Steamroller Jackson, Number Four Song Wiley, and Numbers Five, Six, and Seven? Well, Cody himself would probably count for one of them in Androg’s demented calculus that, like it or not, Androg had involved him in.

The next victim could be Cody, or one of them. He reached inside his pocket and ran his finger along the edge of his knife. It was razor sharp. A dull knife’s about as a good as a broken leg.

Sometimes the hunter is better served by waiting than by chasing.

But who was the hunter here?

Was Hamilton waiting, waiting for his prey, expecting him-or his lover-to follow. Expecting them to walk into his trap?

The tracks had been almost too clear, too easy.

Maybe he was the cheese in the trap, and Hamilton was circling behind him-stalking into the mouth of death?

Both bent on making Cody Number Five.

He was confusing himself, forced himself to stop thinking. To see, hear, smell, taste, touch-nothing else.

Victoria’s tracks led to an opening burrowed beneath an arcing tupelo about ten yards away.

He waited. Listened. Reached his hand out to touch the oak’s dry bark which was thirstily enjoying the winter rain.

Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

He waited while above him storm clouds continued to gather. Though it must be near dawn by now, it was getting even darker.

A massive jagged flash of lightning was followed by a loud crack of thunder so close it startled even the flapless Cody. He was sure it must have hit a tree nearby.

But he kept his focus on the hole. Perhaps the rabbit had left her house? Perhaps he was wasting his time. But his instincts told him the rabbit was waiting patiently for the fox. If he waited, he would catch them both.

Then he heard a sound.

The rabbit peered over the edge of the hole. Victoria looked around, stuck her head up a little farther. He could see her now clearly above the hole.

He waited. A minute, two minutes passed. Then the woman rose up just a little farther, and he could see the flash of bright satin red from her costume as she crawled out on her hands and knees.

Was she another devil?

And stood up.

But then why was her right breast bare?

She reached for her quiver, and Cody pulled his hunting knife.

The wolf howled soulfully, as though it were not far off. She and Cody both reacted.

In the same instant, they both heard the subtler sound as the arrow whirred toward its target.

Victoria turned her head sharply.

But she was too late.

Hamilton’s arrow had already found its mark. It pierced his lover’s neck, pinning her to the ground at the edge of the hole.

Marking the direction from which the arrow originated, Cody rushed forward.

He had no doubt it was Victoria, her face pressed into the damp earth.

The arrow was embedded up to its shaft in the back of her neck-an almost superhumanly perfect shot, between the occiput and C-1, cleanly severing the spinal cord. Cleanly transecting the heart-shaped tattoo.

Cody did not expect to find a pulse, and in fact did not.

Victoria Mansfield had died instantly. She was Number Five!

He thought of turning her over, but knew that he’d never hear the end of it from Wolfsheim-or Kate, for that matter-for disturbing the victim’s body. He could see from the side that the nipple on her exposed perfect breast was hard as a pebble.

And that the costume she was wearing was not that of a devil after all, but more likely that of an Amazon. That would explain the exposed breast.

The perfect evening wear for death by archery.

The arrow could only have issued from a cross-bow like the one he found next to her body. She had been lying in wait-for Ward Hamilton? Or for him?

Cody noted that the flap button on the woman’s sheaf was opened. She was about to reach for an arrow of her own-too late-when she was struck. Cause of death: Slashing/stabbing/puncturing with a sharp instrument?

Or did Hamilton’s arrow only conceal another mechanism of death?

Exactly what kind of satanic game was this he’d found himself in the middle of?

Cody had concluded that the socialite and the writer were just a pair of self-infatuated lovebirds, their own dual species of creatures of the night.

Now it appeared what they had constructed was an autoerotic euthanasia pact.?

He trotted toward where he’d marked Hamilton’s ambush position through the thick brush-deeper into the unforgiving wilderness in the darkest heart of this untamed city.

He came to the cold stream that fed the Pond.

Listen. Sometimes when you are alone it is okay to think about what has gone before. In your life, I mean. To understand why the past has become the present. Sometimes it is okay to think about where the trail will lead you, and why you are following it at all. Old Man’s words haunted him.

But Cody was too focused for further reflection. Tonight he was hunting in earnest, hunting for a hunter who enjoyed the hunt.

He followed the invisible trail, the only clues instinct alone. Ahead of him he could hear a waterfall, and moved faster through the trees. His instincts led him downward, into a small ravine. His night vision was sharper than ever, no need for infrared.

It was beginning to rain.

He would have to find a decent shelter. A cave, perhaps, to keep the weather at bay.

Any tracks he might have detected were now disappeared with the rain.

Charley was whimpering. Charley didn’t like the rain. It rendered his prodigious nose impotent.

Counter-intuitively, Cody decided to follow the stream farther down the hill. His eyes moved constantly in the darkness as he trotted through the woods. Always walk an inch off the ground so nothing will hear you.

Charley barked, his whine becoming eager again. He pulled Cody toward the stream, which was at this point barely three feet wide. They both leaped across, Charley returning his nose to the ground.

Cody knelt down to inspect the rock. No footprints, but a tiny fiber caught in a fissure so small only a nose like Charley’s could have found it. A blue-green fiber.

Barely visible, beneath a fallen elm a few yards away, he saw where Charley was heading. Nearly concealed by the elm and the surrounding brush, was an opening under an overhang.

It was the entrance to a cave. Charley made a bee-line for it, but Cody held him back.

He pulled his knife out. And signaled Charley for silence.

Listen. Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

There was a rumble of thunder. Cody watched the cave opening. Perhaps Charley was wrong. But Charley strained at his leash, not to be dissuaded.

In the distance, the wolves resumed their warning howls.

Charley responded with a low howl of his own. When Cody moved toward the entrance, Charley held his ground. He had mistaken the shepherd’s signals as urging him to go in. Instead, Charley was trying to keep him back, trying to protect him from what lay in wait inside the cave.

But the warrior would not be deterred. “Stay,” he commanded.

Charley whined in protest, but obeyed his master, hunkering down to wait beneath the sheltering tree.?

The opening was small but large enough to crawl through. On his hands and knees, he entered the cave. He looked in, sniffing the stagnant air.

Once he’d cleared the entrance, he found the cave enlarged. It was almost tall enough to stand, so Cody moved to a half-upright crouch as he headed forward into the pitch darkness.

The odor was feral, but the cave was too dark even for his sharp eyes. He sniffed the air again. Was it fur? A fox perhaps? Was he intruding on its domain?

The cave was long and Cody was walking into its inky recesses blind, and even more vulnerable because he was backlit by a distant light in the Park.

But his steps on the slippery stone pavement were firm, instincts strong enough to tell him he was not alone.

He was aware he was being watched. An overwhelming sense of evil washed over him, and Cody walked toward the presence as though under its control.

Then his nose identified the smell. It was perspiration, mixed with an expensive cologne. He flashed back to the Ladies Auxiliary Ball, recalling where he had smelled it before.

A bolt of lightning startled him and cast a blue glow through the cave opening. His ears ringing from the crack of thunder, Cody was startled to hear the hesitation in his voice. “Hamilton?”

By answer Cody heard the feathery whisper of his death flying toward him. His mouth dried up.?

Before he could duck, the arrow had missed him by an inch.

Cody immediately realized that this was intentional.

He heard the writer’s ghastly laughter.

“Woops. Missed!” Hamilton emerged from the depths, eerily illuminated with a hellish orange light. He was carrying a child’s flash light shaped like a jack o’lantern.

“Detective Cody,” Hamilton said. “We have got to stop meeting like this. One would think you were stalking me.” The outlandish laughter again.

“You missed me on purpose,” Cody said. “Cliche or not, you’re a writer. You need to talk.”

This time the laugh was more like a cackle.

“You killed your lover!”

“Oh, don’t fret your handsome head about her. It was instantaneous. I couldn’t bear for her to suffer. She doesn’t want to live without me, you know. Fiercely loyal to the last.”

“She was the vampire woman in red at the Yellow Door,” Cody said.

Hamilton nodded. “Good, Micky. Now you’re thinking. She met Handley there to pick up the key and to make sure she passed muster. He was picky about his illicit rendezvouses.”

“Why Handley? Why did you pick him?”

“The town will read all about him and his sister when they find my masterpiece on Number Five’s body.”

“His sister? What do you mean, Number Five? Isn’t Victoria Number Five?”

“Read the article.” Hamilton’s life was indeed diabolical.

“Melinda Cramer was Handley’s sister, wasn’t she? The DNA match I ordered will come back positive.” He read the slightest wrinkle of Hamilton’s eyebrows as a confirmation.

“Stop the cat and mouse,” Cody said. “I know you’re going to tell me who Number Five is.”

“Jake Sallinger, my erstwhile editor at Metro,” Hamilton answered in a coy tone. “By now your boys have found his body-and my article. Alas, this is one piece I’ve written that the bastard won’t get to mark up with his illegible scrawl. They’ll decide to run it, of course, after a perfunctory wringing of their limousine liberal consciences.”

“What about Handley’s sister?” Cody pressed. “Why did you go after the two of them?”

“Victoria was right. You aren’t that good, are you? You’re a good clue man, but you stink at research. Read the article.”

“So thanks to your marksmanship, Victoria became Number Six…”

“She wanted to be the one to do you,” Hamilton said. “She always told me I get all the luck. I only wish I could have fucked with you a little more,” he added, “for all the aggravation and delays your reluctant cooperation caused me.”

“Your luck has run out, Ward.” Cody reached for the cuffs in his jacket pocket.

But his hand never got there.

Distracting the detective’s attention with the plastic lantern, Hamilton’s free hand had concealed something behind his back.

A distinctly marine odor made Cody cry out. He moved to block the man but was too late.

With a single fluid motion Hamilton lurched at him, using the arrow as a hand-held weapon, and stabbed him savagely in the leg, puncturing his pants behind and two inches above his knee.

Then he compounded the wound by yanking it back out.

Saxitoxin. Cody’s brain identified the odor, recognizing it from one of Max’s forensic pathology demonstrations. He broke into a sweat. The marine secretion was neurotoxic to mammals and caused a respiratory paralysis known as paralytic shellfish poisoning.

“Which leaves you,” Hamilton said, “as the very probable Number Seven. Though, of course, I always believe in backups.” There was the coy tone again. “Either way, I win, you lose.” His voice now sounded like a hissing snake.

Then, howling in ghoulish laughter, Hamilton watched Cody fall to his knees.

The detective lost control over his legs.

Echoing from outside the cave was Charley’s angry howl, backed by the distant chorus of the wolves.

“I’m not sure your canine pals can help you now,” Hamilton said, shoving Cody’s back against the wall of the cave and pulling his legs in front of him.

“Sit up! Sit up! That’s a good boy,” Hamilton chuckled-and disappeared into the darkness from which he came.

There must be another entrance was what Cody thought as the numbness rose through his midriff.?

Cody could think of only one thing: The poison’s effects would progress upward, finally paralyzing his heart. He must cut the toxin from his body while he could still use his arms.

His fear was replaced almost immediately by action. He remembered the words of Old Man.

Do not panic or you will die. Be calm but do not hesitate. Move slow like the possum, but do not waver. Do what you must do before the sleep comes.

Charley rushed onto the scene, yapping mournfully. Fending the dog away with one arm, Cody moved resolutely but in slow motion, using his hunting knife to slice open his pants and expose the puncture wound that was already reddening and beginning to swell.

Unflinching, he leaned over, cut a v-shaped incision an inch deep, and scooped the flesh away with the sharp blade. He could smell the venom as he discarded the scoop of bleeding flesh, and sliced two long strips of cloth from his pants. His teeth began to chatter. Pain overwhelmed him. His thoughts were a jumble of images flashing through his head:

Amelie’s face as he entered her in the sauna.

Handley in his death seat.

A shaft of blue sunlight.

The rattlesnake striking in the cave.

Uncle Tony’s frozen rictus.

His Pa vomiting in the bathroom.

The beautiful Song Wiley, serene in death.

The white wolf pointing him the way.

Hamilton’s infernal sneer.

Drawing on his last strength, he leaned forward to suck the venom from the wound. But the angle was impossible even for an agile man. No matter how he tried it, he simply wasn’t flexible enough to reach beneath and above his knee.

Reading his master’s dilemma, the shepherd’s lifesaving instincts instantly took over.

Cody’s heart jumped. “No, Charley,” he grunted from his near-delirium. But it was too late.

His faithful sidekick, whose life Cody had saved long ago, was settled on his haunches beside Ka-Wan’s leg, his rough tongue licking at the wound as though attacking one of Waldo’s bones, aggressively sucking the venom from it.

Never give up hope. Hope is a test. When you think all is lost, an answer will come to you. A solution will be found. A gift from the Creator?

It was working.

Though Cody was beginning to shake, and the pain that numbed his lower legs was intense, the numbness was not climbing higher. He looked straight into Charley’s eyes. The flashing download of thoughts slowed. He began a nimiipuutimpt chant to himself, slowing the words, lowering them deep in his throat.

He felt himself recovering, felt the blood flowing in his legs again.

Charley finished his licking. He stood up, stretched his legs and shook himself. He staggered across the cavern floor, looked back at Cody, put his head back and howled, a single, sustained, note.

A few seconds passed and, off in the distance, his song was answered with the same call.

Then Charley crumpled at his master’s feet.

Helplessly Cody watched the fire flicker out of his canine friend’s eyes until they were flat and cold and still.

Charley had taken Number Seven for himself.

The howl from the outside came again, this time mournful, echoing the sorrow Cody was experiencing.

Quickly Cody did his best to bind his wound with the strips he’d sliced from his pants. Reaching down to place his hand on Charley’s head, Cody held back his tears and stumbled after Androg.?

The far exit of the cave opened into a clearing in the woods. As Cody left the shelter, a flash of lightning made it clear that the clearing was empty. But his eyes instantly spotted Hamilton’s wet tracks, moving north.

Wincing at the pain of his cut leg and wobbly from the temporary paralysis, he followed the tracks till they entered the woods on the far side of the cave clearing.

Then lost all signs in the bramble bushes. Cody ducked and wove his way through, checking every inch for clues of passage. But without Charley along and his prodigious sense of smell, he was coming up empty-handed.

He’d gone half a mile when he stopped, squatting down behind a pin oak. He studied a bare circle of earth in front of him where the bushes had died out from what looked to have been a quickly-contained brush fire.

On one side was a mini-cliff, a sheer granite face dropping ten feet. If his night-vision had not been so keen he might have tumbled to his death.

Above the cliff were more tracks.

He needed to catch his breath anyway so he forced himself to be patient, studying the tracks for direction and estimating they were no older than a few minutes.

Where was Hamilton going? What kind of merry chase was his demented psyche leading him on?

Cautiously he stood up and, careful to avoid the precipice, walked across the bare circle back into the brush on the far side.

The bramble abruptly ended. A branch of the meadow was on the other side, and he could see the tracks clearly again. He was feeling stronger by the minute.?

The howls came again, answered from the direction of the zoo. It was as though one of the wolves had broken free and the other was still in Dave’s compound.

The animals were speaking to him, though he couldn’t imagine how they knew where he was. The wound in his leg throbbed to remind him. Of course, they can smell my blood. He could see it was bleeding through the makeshift tourniquet.

He howled back.

And then, limping along, he navigated between their responses, as though they were his own personal GPS system, until he knew he was closing in on Androg.

Back across the meadow, back through the brambles-as the howling from both sides warned him he was almost upon his quarry.

Back to the bare circle above the cliff in the midst of the tangled brush-that was no longer empty.

The howling ceased.

Oblivious to the rain, Wade Hamilton was waiting for him, leaning against an oak tree. A flash of light illuminated the red-suited devil.

“I was going to give you another minute,” the man said in a voice that no longer sounded even remotely human. The smile he flashed at Cody was a blood-curdling glimpse into the heart of darkness. “Can’t get enough of me, hunh?” he taunted. “I thought I’d made you Number Seven back at the cave. So I guess that number is still up for grabs.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Cody said. “You killed my dog.”

“Yeah, I’m a real prick,” Hamilton said. “I figured the faithful sniffer was your only shot, but it was a helluva long shot. I congratulate you. I hate dogs.”

“You also killed your favorite Amazon.”

Hamilton shrugged. “I’m not surprised you’re not more observant. I always thought your investigatory skills were wildly exaggerated by the fawning press. She wasn’t an Amazon, dear boy, she was dressed as my private Cupid. Designed the costume herself, especially for tonight.”

“You’re under arrest,” Cody said. “You have the right to remain silent-“

Hamilton’s demonic laughter overrode Cody’s attempt to Mirandize him. “There’ll be plenty of time for silence later,” he scoffed.

Then, in a torrent of words, he rushed on to boast about Androg’s murderous exploits.

He confirmed that the original idea was for it to be a contest between them. The survivor would get to kill the ace detective-or be killed by him. Hamilton shook his head. “I’d planned it from the beginning that I would get her before she could get me. If you want something done right, better do it yourself.”

Cody had lost track of the madman’s logic but saw there were now actual tears in Hamilton’s eyes.

The writer stared at him and held out an arrow. “Turns out, I don’t have the heart to live without her either,” he said. “Please.”

“Well, I’m not about to do you any honors,” Cody said. This criminal egomaniac man needed one way or another to pay for the lives he’d taken, starting with Charley’s. “I’m taking you in.”

“Are you indeed?”

This time Cody was ready. Before Hamilton could move his hand toward his bow, the hunting knife was in flight.

Its aim dead-on, the sharp knife pierced through the palm of Hamilton’s hand and pinned it squarely to the oak.

As Cody reached for his cuffs, Hamilton howled in pain and, with his free hand, yanked the knife free. This time the sound he emitted was more like the savage grunt of a wounded bear.

Grimacing through his pain, Hamilton brandished the knife at Cody. “Want it back?” he asked, his hand dripping blood.

In a lightning move Cody whipped the cuffs toward the writer’s knife hand, causing him to wince and howl with pain as the metal connected with his wrist. Then Cody pulled the chain forward, wrenching the knife free.

It fell to the soggy ground and Hamilton bent to retrieve it.

But not before Cody made his move, head-butting him and knocking him backward.

Still reaching for the knife, Hamilton fell on his face with a grunt.

Cody kicked the knife five yards farther into the tiny clearing. Then he turned back to the supine writer, and grabbed his left hand to cuff it.

He’d managed to click shut the cuff when Hamilton, with preternatural strength, reached for Cody’s belt with his right hand and pulled himself to his feet.

He spit in Cody’s face.

Hamilton spun his body and managed to let loose a roundhouse that caught the detective square in the solar plexus.

Caught off guard, Cody doubled over with the pain and surprise of the blow.

But only for a moment.

Grabbing hold of the cuffs he wrenched with all his strength and turned Hamilton back around so his back was toward him.

Hamilton was ready for this, reached back to catch Cody’s butt, and flipped him over himself like a circus act.

Cody landed on his feet, gnashing his teeth from the pain from his wound.

Hamilton attacked, raining blows first into Cody’s abdomen then concentrating his fury on Cody’s wounded thigh.

Cody, holding on, turned Hamilton’s strength against him. He allowed himself to be backed up, inch at a time. He could hear the crack as his elbow broke one of Hamilton’s ribs.

Bellowing, Hamilton charged again-and the two men plummeted together from the cliff.

This time the surprise was Hamilton’s, and Cody had the advantage as he twisted the writer’s heavier torso so that he landed on his back-knocking the air from his lungs-but cushioning Cody’s fall on top of him.

Which further took away the killer’s breath.

As Hamilton lay gasping, Cody moved to grab the writer’s right arm and force his hand into the remaining cuff.

But Hamilton, despite his pain, was too fast. With a heroic contortion, he grabbed an arrow from his quiver and wielded it at Cody, causing the detective to roll off and keep his distance.

Before Cody could stop him, Hamilton placed the tip of the arrow into his mouth and sucked on it.

“You don’t think I’m giving you the last laugh?” he gasped. Then he stabbed himself in the side.

Well, Cody thought, in its own bizarre way, this was classic “depression phase,” the last of the serial killer’s psychological phases as defined by psychologist Joel Norris. He watched Ward Lee Hamilton’s paroxysms, making no effort to come to his assistance.

This time the howl was only yards away, making the hair on Cody’s arms stand up. But he was weyekin. He understood the language of animals.

This time it was a welcome howl.

Cody waited for the man’s paroxysms to end before he reached for his cell phone.

That was when he saw the wolf.