15

Martin Fisher had never seen anything like this. Not in ten years in the Army, and not in eight with the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office. The crime scene, if you could call it that, was swarming with deputies, investigators, and crime scene techs from Arredondo, Grayson, and Cooke Counties, as well as the Rangers, and Fisher suspected the Feds wouldn’t be far behind.

It wasn’t just the grizzly and bizarre nature of the killings; it was that kid Larston’s statement. A giant dog had done it? Around here that was sure to engender some strong feelings. It had been five years since anyone had seen the last “giant dog,” and that still wasn’t enough time for everyone to quit worrying about it. But, if today was any indication, their fears had merit, though Fisher had a difficult time accepting the supposed risk the animals posed.

He rubbed his eyes in fatigue. He was getting way too old to be taking calls at four in the morning, but his new job produced those sorts of calls in spades, much to the often stated chagrin of wife and daughters.

“Hey sarge,” a voice spoke from behind Fisher, sounding as tired as the senior man was.

Fisher turned and shook the hands of Corporals Matt Bocker and “Jeb” Jebbins, both Arredondo County deputies, and both assigned to the tri-county Tactical Aerial Response Party, of which Fisher was second in command. “Have you guys gotten a look at the scene?” Fisher asked.

“Yeah,” replied Bocker. “What do you think?”

Bocker and Jebbins both only had about two years on the job, they hadn’t seen the aftermath of the Blackland High School Massacre. Fisher had been to the scene, but most of what he knew about the MO of the mass killing came from photos. Photos he had just decided his team needed to see.

“It’s gotta be that... thing, from the Massacre,” he said. “Nothing else could do something like that. Besides, that rookie said it was a wolf, or a dog, or something.”

“Mmmm,” Bocker nodded. “So, what’s our plan? Just keep sightseeing?”

“Gather intel,” replied the sergeant. “Anything that stands out about this scene, anything you hear that might be important, anything at all about this, remember it and let me know.”

“Will do.”

Before Fisher could add to this advice he was distracted by the familiar sound of a helicopter. He looked up and was surprised to see a Black Hawk, its markings revealing it to be from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Air and Marine. It circled once, flared, and then landed too close to the scene, spraying dust and pebbles over the ERT agents and blocking their curses with its roaring engines. Fisher watched as a man and a woman jumped out and walked towards the scene. As soon as the man was on the ground the helicopter revved up and took off once more. The new man walked up to an Arredondo captain, re-positioned a set of bags so that he could point to his belt, and stalked past the uniformed officer. The man wore faded blue jeans and a pair of cowboy boots, with a tan polo under a heavy ballistic raid jacket. His collar length blond hair was disheveled from rotorwash, and as he walked up towards Fisher the sergeant saw a three day beard, barely visible against the man’s skin. The woman wore tan cargo pants and a blue polo and windbreaker, as well as aviator glasses. Like the man she carried military style duffel bags.

“You Fisher?” the man asked as he stopped and faced the TARP members.

“Yeah,” Fisher answered cautiously. He now noticed a patch on the man’s sleeve that clearly read “BORTAC”.

“Ray Alvarez, CBP,” the man replied. “This is Alerie Michetti. We’ve been assigned to TARP in order deal with this...” he removed his sunglasses and surveyed the area before restoring them over pale blue eyes, “situation,” he decided to call it. Alvarez fished a folded sheet of paper out of a pocket inside his jacket and handed it to Fisher. “Short notice, I know, but it’s the federal government.”

Fisher opened the paper without reply and looked it over. It appeared to be a memo from a Supervisory Special Agent Rafael Ortez of the Border Patrol. It described the mission and goals of Operation Consistent Gale, explained that a federal agent was needed so that a federal task force could be created to combat the "lupine contingency," and blasphemously asserted that Alvarez was now in charge of tactics and strategy for his unit. It also outlined the addition of a biologist to assist in research into the animal threat. That must be who… he had already forgotten the woman’s name, but who she was.

None of this sat well with Fisher. It was extremely odd for the Border Patrol to get involved in something like this. The FBI, HSI, EPA, DEA, ATF, or even the USPIS could get in on the action if they wanted to. If anyone the federal agency involved should probably be FWS. But the Border Patrol? Obviously they were nowhere near Mexico, and there was no evidence of smuggling involved. So what was the deal? Truly though that wasn’t even what worried him. Neither was playing linebacker to the Feds. What worried him was the name Ray Alvarez. He’d heard that name a lot, just never with a positive connotation. “OK,” said Fisher, refolding the paper. “Why’d they send you?”

“Because,” replied Alvarez. “I’m the world’s only expert on these things.”

“Expert?” Fisher exclaimed incredulously. “What’s so special about these animals?”

“I’ll brief you and your team and explain it.” said Alvarez. “Where’s your vehicle? We can do it at your base.”

“Oh, we’ll go back to my base for sure,” said Fisher, controlling his voice. “We’ll talk to my lieutenant about this. Come on.” He led the two of them to a black Tahoe, and directed them to the back seat, where they waited while he rounded up his team.

The Tactical Aerial Response Party had existed for less than two years. The fact that it existed at all was owed to the tragedy that had befallen Blackland, Texas. When the high school students had been massacred, and the Sheriff Special Response Team had staged outside for over half an hour while four deputies battled things out inside the school with nothing more than their small arms, everyone had realized a better operational plan had to be developed, and the American public had cried out for one when the story became known. It was finally agreed that air deployment would be the fastest insertion method, and the two counties to the east and west of Arredondo, Grayson and Cooke, respectively, pooled their own resources to develop TARP, a rapid response element that could, with the use of a Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter, respond to provide both air and ground support to the SWAT teams, as well as medical evacuation of officers and citizens.

The team had been formed quietly; it was small, currently only six men, but they were the most highly trained law enforcement officers in the region. They kept a low profile, working in civilian clothes, remaining unknown to most local criminals, as their missions up to date had mainly involved providing support for raids. They were led by Fisher, with Lieutenant Ralph Ketchum of ACSD providing their direct management and a link to the higher-level supervisors of the agencies that made TARP up.

TARP had its own building, a squat, gray, concrete structure far away from towns, houses, and trees, which was colloquially known as the “Airbase,” due to the DPS EC-135 there. The building itself was essentially an office, with a small collection of cubicles for the team, a conference room, separate offices for Fisher and Ketchum, and lockers for the team’s weapons and equipment. Each man had an assigned vehicle, though when working they mainly rode together in SUVs. As Alvarez, sitting next to Michetti in the back of one of those SUVs, looked around, he took all of these details in. He was grateful for the office, he had no desire to work out of the county justice building, where he would weather the stares and gossip of those who had not quit after he himself left. There couldn’t be many of the old ones remaining, though.

Raymundo Esteban Ademar Alvarez had ten years of law enforcement experience. Unlike many cops, who came from the military, he had essentially fallen into it after college. The only child of two professors who had immigrated to Austin from Mexico City to teach for more money, he had no interest in academia, and so he had signed on with the first agency that would hire him as a twenty-two-year-old with only a college degree and no relevant experience. The first two years as a rookie brought a roller-coaster of experiences that threatened to overwhelm the inexperienced officer. But after several pursuits, fights, and an officer involved shooting, Alvarez found his footing and was starving for more. Things stagnated for him at this juncture; the Sheriff Special Response Team had no interest in him, for reasons he could never fully discern. He had taken a backhanded promotion to corporal and with it an assignment to Blackland High School as the School Resource Officer. It was a low risk, mainly boring, and extremely frustrating position whose only advantage was the seven to three shift that allowed him to practically camp in the nearest gym by night, leading to a weight gain of nearly thirty pounds.

The proximity to the school staff, and the normal work schedule also brought the mutual attention of school administrator Carol Denning and himself. After a brief, fast moving relationship that was a distraction from their unpleasant workplace as much as anything, they entered into an ill-advised marriage. Both were cold, sometimes cruel and brutal people, who clashed whenever an opportunity presented itself. Alvarez had never truly considered what he could do about their match made in hell, nor was he ever forced to confront it during her life. Six months after her death, after the scandal and scrutiny of the townspeople and the department, after the FBI investigation and pushing himself to the edge of madness in physical therapy, he was accepted into the Border Patrol Academy, and quietly left Arredondo County. And for five years he had waged his own clandestine war against the things that had destroyed his life, trust, and health, a war he knew beyond doubt he was to one day become a casualty of. But Alvarez was not one to die without making life very hard for his opponent, and he vowed to take as many of them with him as possible when the day came. If he was right about the county now, that day was very near.

Presently they arrived at TARP’s facility on the Arredondo/Grayson County border, and Fisher used a keycard to open the door for everyone. As they filed in Alvarez spoke. “I need to brief your men.”

“Now hold on,” said Fisher, raising a hand in protest. “We need to get all of this straightened out first. Just stand by here, both of you, until I get my lieutenant.”

“Fine,” said Alvarez, with a lack of emotion.

Fisher sailed off and down a short hallway, where his supervisor sat in an office, practically inhaling coffee in an attempt to deal with being called in an hour before. His door was open, but despite this Fisher decided to knock on the jamb, driving his lieutenant’s throbbing headache through the roof.

“L-T, I need to talk.”

“Come in, Martin,” Ralph Ketchum rubbed his temples. “What did you have out there?” he asked.

“I’ll get to that,” said Fisher curtly. “First, look at this.” He thrust the paper from CBP into Ketchum’s hand, and the TARP commander read over it quickly, stopped, reread something, then finished skimming the paper before looking up in confusion and annoyance. “This is not right at all,” he said.

“You going to push this to higher?”

“Yeah, yeah I am,” said Ketchum. “Do you have the CBP personnel?”

“In the big room.”

Ketchum planted his hands on his desk and heaved himself up. “I need to see them.”

They walked out and found Alvarez and Michetti standing near the door, keeping their distance from the rest of the team members. Ketchum stopped cold when he saw them, and almost blurted something out. Instead, he stared for a couple of seconds, then said, “Ray?”

Alvarez looked up, stared himself, then grinned. “Ralph? Well I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch! I didn’t know you were here.”

The two walked up to each other and, somewhat awkwardly, shook hands. “So they finally promoted you,” said Alvarez. Unlike the others Ketchum wore his Class B uniform, and the gold bars on his shoulders were immediately recognizable.

“Yeah,” said Ketchum. “Well, just after you left. I’d heard you went federal; I didn’t know it was actually true.”

“Yeah,” Alvarez nodded. “Yeah, five years on the border now.”

“No kidding. So, what’s this all about then?”

“I’m sorry about all of this,” Alvarez waved toward the memo Ketchum still held. “We’ve been on this operation for just under a year now. Those dogs are back, and they’re spreading. They’re all over the Southwest; we’ve recorded them as far north as Utah. So the Feds are sending out advisors to local and state agencies to deal with them before the population gets too crazy. We’re here I guess because I started here, and someone figures your team is the best fit for this. Probably better than the SRT, at least.”

Someone snorted from the other side of the room. “Fucking Feds. Idiots don’t know their ass from their elbow,” the snorter muttered.

Ketchum ignored him. He lowered his voice. “So, you weren’t sent here just because of... you know, Jenny?”

“Not specifically,” said Alvarez, keeping his voice measured. “What’s your position here, exactly, L-T?”

“I’m the commander,” said Ketchum with some visible pride.

“Well, congratulations,” said Alvarez.

“Look Ray,” said Ketchum, noting Fisher’s glare. “This sounds well and good, you explained it better than this paper anyway, but I have to go get this all straightened out. I’m going to turn you guys over to Mr. Fisher while I call up headquarters, all right?”

“Sounds good,” said Alvarez.

“All right, all right, good. I’m going to go take care of that. Good to see you again.” Ketchum did not actually mean it, of course.

Fisher now found himself in the disagreeable position of dealing with the two as Ketchum walked away. He turned to face them. “I guess they want you to use our vehicles too?”

“That’s what I gathered they wanted,” said Alvarez.

Fisher thought for a second. Without speaking he walked over to a desk with a stack of cubby holes on top and extracted a key fob. He walked back, turned it over to Alvarez, who handed it in turn to Michetti.

“It’s the Charger straight through the door,” said Fisher. “I guess you know where the motel is?”

“Yeah,” Alvarez nodded. “Thanks. Can you get me Ketchum’s number before we leave? I’ll call him to schedule when we come back.”

Fisher scribbled the number on a piece of notebook paper from his jacket. “I wouldn’t unpack,” he advised.

The gatecrashers turned and walked out, while Fisher also turned, and walked back to Ketchum’s office. It was stupid to give them vehicles, he thought. They would just end up returning them later today but giving them a car got them away from him for now, and he had to admit a certain perverse satisfaction in the idea of gloating when they returned to give the Charger back. Everyone wanted to get stupid over these dogs it seemed, but Fisher would not allow that to happen. Not in his jurisdiction.

Ralph Ketchum walked into his office and shut the door behind himself, barely managing not to slam it. He sunk into the swivel chair behind the desk, removed his glasses, and planted his face in his hands. He wasn’t sure why Alvarez was back, but he didn’t like it. He had been friendly enough to the man, but that was a combination of genuine surprise and masking near panic at seeing a ghost.

Ketchum was old. Not extremely old, perhaps, but certainly old in cop years. He was fast approaching fifty, although his close-cut hair was mostly still brown, and his wire frame spectacles tended to mask the wrinkles under his eyes. Increasingly they did not mask the dark bags which besmirched his face, revealing the sixty to one hundred full hours he tended to work in a week. He had been an eternal sergeant once, and that as much as anything had influenced his decision regarding Alvarez.

Fisher poked his head through the door without a word.

Ketchum replaced his glasses and glumly beckoned the sergeant in. Fisher cleared the path from the door to the desk in two strides. His height made for a gait few could keep up with, and despite a normally laid back demeanor he constantly appeared to be in a hurry.

“Ralph, what the hell is this?” he demanded.

Fisher was an intense man, and dogmatic in his views of team dynamics and structure. This was going to be a giant pain in the ass, Ketchum thought. He silently swore at the federal law enforcement machine that had opted to flex power they technically did not have in order to upset both his personal and professional life. He sighed, sitting up in his chair to face his sergeant. “I don’t know, Martin. I didn’t get any advance notice on this. Well, obviously I would have told you if I had. They sprung this on me. I’ll make some calls and figure it out. Maybe Davis knows something about all this.”

“Fuck,” groaned Fisher. “Why do the Feds care about this? It’s a damn animal attack. I get it’s not like your typical dog mauling, and I know about what happened with the high school, but, not to speak ill of your dead, we’re a tactical team, they didn’t have theirs there until it was all done with. So why is this Alvarez so worried, and why did they send him back here? It seems like a powder keg if you ask me. Maybe you know something I don’t L-T, but I’m not seeing the logic here.”

Ketchum did not reply immediately. He knew a good bit that Fisher didn’t, he reflected. But now did not seem like the time to give voice to that part of the story, and the FBI wanted all of that to remain classified at any rate. Ketchum had signed a stack of NDAs, and admitting to the credence of Alvarez’ fears would involve admitting to his own less than innocent part in the whole affair, something he didn’t wish to deal with even in his own mind. Less than innocent, he wondered? Was it? He couldn’t decide if inaction was the same as guilt, at least in his case. Or was that all simply another failed attempt to rationalize his tactics in garnering a long coveted promotion? The thought of Judas’ silver in the form of lieutenant’s bars flashed across his mind for a brief second, but he buried that thought just as quickly. He wanted those pangs to subside into his subconscious once again, but now the resurgence of Alvarez would force them to burn their way back into the forefront of his mind, no doubt shunting away sleep and any form of rest in the near future. “Goddammit,” he muttered out loud. “What do you know about Alvarez?” he asked.

“Just the stories from Bocker and Jebbins. And they weren’t even here when all that happened. I always assumed I hadn’t heard everything.”

“Yeah.” Ketchum nodded. “Yeah, you assumed right. I was his supervisor at the time.”

“Oh,” said Fisher. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. I was his sergeant and when everything happened he was at the school. He was the SRO. So he was the first deputy on scene and got the business end of that animal. “And so that injury almost killed him. I noticed he’s on BORTAC, and I have no idea how. I didn’t think he would ever be able to use his arm again, let alone pull a trigger or do anything physical, but he has quite an iron will I guess. But I also guess that injury, and almost dying from it, have given him a very one track mind on this whole issue.” Ketchum paused momentarily. His previous statement was all fact, but this seemed as good a jumping off point as any to fudge some of the details. “I mean, he’s making more out of this than there is. He’s paranoid, he’s worried that everyone will perform as badly as he did, and it’s coloring how he works now.”

“What was he armed with at the school?”

“His sidearm, of course. And I think, yeah, he kept a shotgun in his office.”

“And how many kids were killed?”

“Fifty,” Ketchum replied. “And two school staff. Including his wife.”

“Fucking hell,” exclaimed Fisher. “How do you manage that? That’s some next level incompetence.”

“I think he got cut early on,” said Ketchum, in a semi defense.

“Well, still.” Fisher could concede that point, though he felt that something was being left out of the story.

“Look,” sighed Ketchum. “Just let me call Davis. I’ll get this worked out. Just get him out of here for today, and we’ll sort this out.”

“I already got rid of him. Let me know as soon as you find out something. This is bullshit.”

“OK,” said Ketchum.

Fisher walked out of the office, and Ketchum was glad that the sergeant closed the door behind him. He sat back down in his chair, sinking into the brown leather, letting it envelop him as he reached for the phone on his desk. Will Davis was the current captain over the Arredondo County Special Operations Division, as well as Ketchum’s former patrol supervisor. Ketchum desperately hoped that Davis would have some sort of good news about this whole bungle. Ideally he could get Alvarez simply sent away, back to whatever federal office he occupied these days. The call was answered almost immediately.

“Davis.”

“Will,” Ketchum began, “what do you know about Alvarez showing up here?”

“Alvarez? As in Ray Alvarez? What do you mean? What do you mean ‘here’?”

“I mean he’s in my office. Showed up at the crime scene this morning with a piece of paper from CBP demanding that we give him logistical support and put him on the team.” Ketchum debated if it was a Freudian slip to refer to the spot by the highway as a ‘crime scene’, and whether that was another revelation of guilt or simply force of habit from attending to countless human crime scenes over the years. Well, it didn’t matter, he supposed. Davis was privy to everything himself.

“When hell freezes over!” the captain roared. “Where is this piece of paper?”

Ketchum leaned forward and retrieved the form from his desk. “I’ve got it with me here.”

“Bring it down to headquarters. We’ll find an assistant or someone and straighten this out.” By ‘assistant’ he meant an assistant sheriff, one of the top deputies under Sheriff of Arredondo County Nate Coleman, the incumbent for the past five years.

Ketchum was already standing up, phone still over one ear as he replied. “I’m on the way now. Give me about twenty minutes.”

“OK.”

Ketchum hung up, grabbed the paper and a jacket, and headed out the door. As he walked past the cubicles that formed the main office of the team he saw Fisher, apparently sulking in a chair, and explained the situation.

“OK, great,” said Fisher. “I’ll let everyone know what’s going on when you get back.”

“I’ll call as soon as I find something out.” Ketchum promised. The drive was shorter than he had expected, mainly due to his less than concentrated attention on his speed. He was anxious to settle all of this as quickly and painlessly as possible. Ketchum had been a cop for fifteen years, and while it had taken its toll on his health, his sanity, and his marriage, nothing had prepared him for the fallout of either the investigation into Jenny Ledbetter or the destruction that had resulted. He still dreamed of the night he and Alvarez had spied on her, night vision scope pointed into her bedroom, knowing something was wrong, but not taking the action, no, not receiving the authorization to take action until it was too late to save anyone. That sort of thing was a job hazard in law enforcement, but Ketchum had never seen such destructive effects result from the often snail’s pace of the legal system. He cursed the fatass judge they had dealt with just as often as he cursed Alvarez, Evans, Losa, and Sheriff Delroy Heis, whom the entirety of America had cursed those five long years ago. His own role in the torrid affair was not something he let himself think about anymore. He had repeated that night enough in his head.

The Arredondo County justice center was a nondescript two story building of red brick. The flags of the USA, Texas, and ACSD sat still on this cold morning in front of the large structure, which housed the courts, the jail, the dispatch center and the sheriff department. Ketchum slid his unmarked Charger into a supervisor’s parking spot and walked briskly up the stone steps into the public entrance, one of the only unsecured doors in the building. After the massacre, and the deaths of every dispatcher working at the time, the entire affair had been refortified, and now everything was just as secure as the jail.

Ketchum used his keycard to buzz himself into the sheriff’s wing and made a beeline for Davis’ office. But as he approached, he could see from all the way at the end of the hall that he would not have to enter. Davis was standing outside, talking quietly but quickly with Assistant Sheriff Rudolph Deltain. Ketchum approached them without word and waited for one of them to finish speaking and acknowledge him. The conversation was quiet enough that Ketchum could not make it out even as he walked close, but it didn’t matter, because Davis quickly said, “OK,” and turned to Ketchum. Deltain eyed the paper Ketchum held limply in his hand. “Hell of a way to find out,” he said.

“Find out what?” demanded Ketchum.

Davis answered the question. “Sheriff Deltain just got off the phone with CBP in Dallas. Alvarez is authorized as an addition to TARP. He’s assisting you in becoming part of that federal operation named in your paper.”

“On whose authority?” Ketchum asked. “The Feds?”

“Yes, but Sheriff Coleman approved it,” said Deltain.

Coleman. It figured, thought Ketchum. It made sense. Coleman had only taken over after Alvarez left. It had been... what? Six months? Eight months? before Heis had resigned, unable or unwilling to deal with the scrutiny, buckling under the attention of both official and media eyes. It had been perhaps the most honorable thing he had ever done in his fifteen years as sheriff, or at least the smartest. With the scapegoats, for that was in truth what they were, gone the sleepy community of Blackland had once again slipped into the flyover abyss that confounded understanding by the coastal dwellers Ketchum tacitly looked down upon.

“I don’t like it,” said Ketchum flatly.

“Neither do I.” Davis replied. “Alvarez is the last person we need working on this.”

“Well CBP disagrees and Coleman seems to agree with them,” said Deltain.

“I’ve heard his spiel,” Ketchum protested. “But they either don’t know or don’t care what they’re talking about. He’s a time bomb. He looks terrible, like he aged twenty years since he left. I can’t work with him.”

“Just have your sergeant take care of everything,” offered Deltain. “You’ll barely have to deal with him.”

That was unacceptable to Ketchum and they all knew it. Davis was silently scrambling to think of something. He didn’t want Alvarez around anymore than Ketchum did. Still, he couldn’t think of a good, objective reason to send him packing. His eyes burned as he looked at Deltain, but he dropped his head low as the assistant sheriff glanced his way. Ketchum’s eyes darted between them as he waited for Davis to say something. But as the silence dragged on he realized he was fighting solo. “I don’t want this dropped,” he demanded, voice directed toward Deltain. “We can’t let him stay, my men won’t stand for it. I’ll tolerate him for now if I have to, but-”

“You have to.” Deltain’s voice was emotionless but nevertheless unambiguous. “Any change hinges on what the sheriff wants.”

“He doesn’t know what he wants! Alvarez is going to fuck my team up! You have to listen to me and talk some sense into the-”

“Careful, Lieutenant!” Deltain barked. He glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one had noticed the outburst. “If you want to ride out this whole situation with a suspension I’ll get the form for you to sign right now.”

Ketchum considered the possibility of spending a week or thereabouts with his wife and felt his stomach turn. And all while his team floundered and tried in vain to figure it all out, to understand something they could not, because it was all from before them. The innocent parties would suffer the most, as often seemed to happen in both the criminal and natural world. He felt like cursing again, but held back, the restrained profanity forming a knot in his stomach. His brown eyes smoldered like oak wood behind the glass and steel of his spectacles. “No,” he replied. “No, sir. I’ll take care of Alvarez. I’ll do whatever they want.” Ketchum was slow to anger, his temper flaring on occasions so rare he could remember nearly all, the intensity of his emotions ensuring they were etched into his personal character. He was flushing, hot as the core of a sun in his indignation. He had rolled over, to another asshole assistant, and probably future, sheriff, and to the CBP.

Deltain sighed, possibly in relief. “You’ll get an email later today with everything in it. Give him whatever cooperation he needs.”

Ketchum nodded, and turned to walk out, the paper now a crumpled, wrinkled, and sweat soaked mess in his hand.

“Ketchum.”

He turned back to Deltain.

“We need this thing with these animals taken care of as quickly as possible. And we need it done quietly. Alvarez and the Feds can help us do that. They’ve been doing it for several months now. Just go along with this and then we’ll get Alvarez out of here as fast as we can. I’m sure your sergeant will understand that.”

Ketchum nodded again. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass for everyone,” Deltain agreed.

Ketchum walked off as Deltain and Davis walked back into the office. He pondered whether he would receive a less than complimentary email or, just as likely, a phone call from one or both of them later. It didn’t matter. They needed him, so for now he was safe from any serious discipline. He doubted they could truly get an insubordination charge on him simply for disagreeing. Dealing with Fisher and the others was another matter entirely. Not only were they not going to understand or care about the why behind the orders, they were going to forget that they were supposed to make things as smooth as possible after about five minutes. The office was going to turn into a veritable elementary school tomorrow, and he would have to deal with it. He doubted if Fisher would be any help. He decided not to call the sergeant on the drive back. He didn’t feel like dealing over the phone with the angry questions that would be engendered. Fisher would simply have to wait, while Ketchum would try to explain as patiently as he could just what the situation was, and why and how things had changed so drastically so fast.

Ketchum nearly slammed into the sign in front of his parking spot when he returned. He did slam the entrance open, and the door slammed again behind him as he ignored it, letting it fly freely into the jamb. He strode up to Fisher’s desk, and the sergeant watched his boss’ shoulders collapse, the crestfallen expression speaking volumes.

“What happened?” he asked, standing slowly.

Ketchum’s voice was nearly monotone, only wavering slightly as he reigned his emotions and spoke simultaneously. “Hell just froze over.”

Alvarez was not sure why he was going to the school. Why should he go back? he wondered. Maybe it counted as a form of exposure therapy. He drove slowly through the town in the Dodge Charger TARP had issued him, meandering past the stores and restaurants of what amounted to the main street in this sleepy hamlet. On the outskirts, past the suburb of houses and the only supermarket, he found it almost the same as when he left: Blackland High School. It stood forlornly and passively, refusing to belie its horrific past.

They had torn the gym down, he saw. Probably couldn’t get all the blood out, he thought. A monument stood at the front entrance. Besides that, the school looked the same. He found the doors locked, which made sense. Class was still in session, but the locks presented him with no problem. He entered the building quietly, and eased the door shut. The halls were still and cool, the floors alternating between wood and linoleum. He walked slowly, unconsciously trying not to make noise, just as he had all those years ago. He stopped as he approached a hallway, sliced his way around it slowly, expecting an attack from any quarter, and in that second he thought he saw something: a humanoid form at the dead end. Alvarez paused for a second, something in him not feeling right, then he cleared his head and passed the corridor.

He heard a wood panel creak under his boots, then the texture changed, abruptly morphing into an unexpected and unwelcome squish. He looked down, and saw a dark liquid, discreet in its location under him, and seemingly without origin. He looked up; no leaks, no tracks on the floor, just that puddle, except now it was larger. It was easily a meter across, and he stepped wide across it and away, farther down the hall. Now he smelled something strange: copper. The metallic taste in his mouth and odor in his nostrils was unmistakable. He’d never smelled that much blood outside of a crime scene, outside of the last time... he was at this school. And with that Alvarez was flooded with memories he wanted like hell to forget. He half jogged, half ran down the hall, towards what, he didn’t know, away from what, he wasn’t sure, but as he neared the end of the hallway everything suddenly became cold, not freezing, but easily ten to twenty degrees below the rest of the building. This made him stop; as he looked around, searching for the source of the cold front, he saw her: a pale figure, in a cloud of mist, staring at him, staring through him, dissecting his soul. And Alvarez stared back, as his voice came out in a course whisper, “Jenny Ledbetter.”

She was as white as the ghost she was, naked, and covered in blood, either hers or her victims’, he wasn’t sure which. Her dead eyes remained completely motionless for a few more seconds before she spoke. “Kill me,” she rasped.

“What?”

“Kill me,” she repeated. “The wolf has to die so I can too.”

“You’re- what the hell are you then? A ghost?”

“I’m everything that was Jenny. Her thoughts, her consciousness, her soul. The wolf is... well it’s an animal. It’s what my body is now, and as long as it’s alive I’m here.”

“That sounds terrible,” said Alvarez. “It looks it too.” He scanned her up and down, averting his gaze from her more intimate areas as best as possible, though she made no attempt to cover up, and he supposed a ghost had no interest in modesty.

“It’s fucking torture,” she said. “You have no idea.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” he replied. “It’s not exactly great living like I do.”

“I wouldn’t call what you do living. You look like hammered shit; more dead than I am.”

“I’ve been dead for five years,” he pointed out. “My body’s just going to keep going until all of you are dead I guess.”

She smiled, the slightest, tight movement of cracked, cyanotic lips. “That’s what I’m counting on,” she said. “I can’t stay here like this, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen Heaven. Only once, but it was so beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Kill me and die yourself, and we can both see it.”

“Heaven doesn’t have any place for me,” said Alvarez.

“But I do,” she said. “You know us better than anyone. No one has managed to kill a wolf here yet, and now we’re running all over hell’s creation. A whole pack.”

“I’ll fix that,” he said, nodding.

She smiled again. “I know you will. Good luck, Mr. Alvarez.”

And just like that, she was gone, the rise in temperature hitting Alvarez like some sort of quilt. He staggered around, dizzy and disoriented. “What the hell?” he muttered. He never remembered her being like that. There was a granite edge to her now, a mean streak that, while he understood it, made it easy to forget that she had “died” at eighteen. He’d never interacted with her much, never had a reason too. She wasn’t a bad student, just the opposite in fact. But Alvarez had always believed the good were doomed, and now he had just seen the proof.

He stood still for a minute, glancing this way and that, when he saw a new figure out of the corner of his eye, and turned to face this potential menace. He saw a familiar face as he did so. “Losa?” he stammered.

The man smiled and walked up. He stared for a minute, then smiled as well, as he took Alvarez’ hand.“Ray, you’re back?”

“For a little while.”

“Why’d you come here? To the school I mean?” asked Juan Losa.

“I don’t know,” said Alvarez, shaking his head.

“Well, it’s great to see you.”

“Thanks,” replied Alvarez. “I wish everyone felt that way.”

“Not a warm welcome, huh?”

“No,” said Alvarez, “not really.”

“Hmm, not really surprising,” said Losa, ruefully.

Why Losa was here was no mystery, as Alvarez noticed that, under his corporal stripes, were the letters “SRO”.

“So they gave you the job?” asked Alvarez rhetorically.

“Yeah, can’t have anyone involved in a decent position.” He paused for a second. “It’s not too bad though. I could be doing this in Harris County.”

“True,” Alvarez nodded.

“Ray, I don’t want to be an asshole, but you look terrible. You look like you’ve put on some muscle since you left, but other than that, shit man. How old are you, again?”

“I thought I was the only one who noticed.”

“How’s the arm these days?”

Alvarez extracted a cigarette pack from his pants, and shook out the lighter and a plain white slim. “You mind?”

Losa shook his head, trying to remember if Alvarez had smoked as a deputy.

“I still can’t feel these two fingers.” Alvarez held out the ring and little fingers of his right hand and moved them to show that they still worked, even though, as he said, he experienced no sensation. “I itch like hell a lot,” he continued. “Could be worse. I still have an arm, after all.”

“You could be dead,” said Losa.

“So things could also be better,” said Alvarez.

Shit! Losa thought. Alvarez was doing terrible. Perhaps he had meant that as a joke, but such jokes often revealed more than was intended. He was worried now, truly worried. Losa had seen more than one of the responders to the scene here take their own lives, and suicide was all too common in this profession. He didn’t say anything, however. He had no idea what to say. How was he to even know whether Alvarez was better off alive to begin with? He looked like death. There was still a strength behind the bag decorated eyes, but it was one of anger and despair, it was the volition of a man who lived only because he presented as the vexation of someone else’s existence. Alvarez was living to hurt someone, a path that invariably did equal damage to both parties. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked the former deputy.

“No, actually.”

Losa was glad to hear it. He wanted to catch up, he wanted to learn more about what was going on, and he wanted to further observe Alvarez’ obvious decay. He didn’t want to talk about it, which led to another blessing of Alvarez’ negative response, it changed the subject Losa had regretfully brought up and quickly wanted to forget. “Let’s get some breakfast,” he suggested.

“Is MacDonald’s still it?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Losa. “I don’t know what you were expecting but the town hasn’t grown any these few years.”

“No, I can’t see why a place like this would,” said Alvarez.

They walked outside, into the cool, still spring morning. The day was heating as lunchtime approached fast, but for now the fresh atmosphere outside the school seemed to purge Alvarez of the feelings the encounter with Jenny’s...spirit? had wrought. They would return, but for now he was with a friend, he was seeing familiar surroundings, and things almost felt as though they would be fine. Nothing would, but somehow everything was almost pleasant for this brief moment.

Losa led him to an ACSD patrol car. It was one of the new models of Dodge Charger, a Drug Abuse Resistance Education paint scheme model. The red D.A.R.E. acronym stood in contrast to the more subdued military green and dark gray paint of the car.

“Just a minute,” said Losa as he unlocked the door. He tossed some boxes and a plate carrier in the back seat. This vehicle lacked a cage, just as Alvarez’ Crown Victoria had when he was the SRO. With the extra equipment out of the way Alvarez climbed in and pushed the laptop aside, the steel mount squeaking as he did. The interior was still mercifully clean, and Losa was not a dirty cop, he saw. It was not uncommon for the patrol cars’ passenger side to look like the inside of a garbage can, and Alvarez had no patience for anyone who treated their equipment in such a way. It appeared that Losa was even smart enough to keep his rifle and shotgun in the trunk. He should be, Evans trained him, Alvarez reflected. He and Evans had never gotten along, and Alvarez considered the man as dumb as a brick, but he was a decent cop. Being a law officer wasn’t, or shouldn’t have been, a difficult job most of the time. It was fairly straightforward. Some people just liked to make it difficult. Alvarez suspected most of those who did still worked here, and he wondered how promotions, transfers, and new hires had all gone after his rapid and nigh clandestine departure.

Losa pulled out of his space, turned onto the road for town, and made it to the main street MacDonald’s in less than ten minutes. Everything was quiet and subdued, even for a town of just over two thousand. It struck Alvarez as odd. He couldn’t think of a reason it should be like this, even as he tried to ascertain what could be happening. He mentally shrugged, realizing as they turned into the parking lot how long it had been since he had actually eaten. Alvarez had ingested more antibiotics in the past seventy-two hours than solid food, and he had managed not to notice only due to a combination of nausea and alcohol. Each digestive transgression had fed into the others, until his own body no longer knew what it should be absorbing or when. But now, as he smelled the fast food, he knew it was time to rebuild himself. The three-day bender the situation here had interrupted was over. Throwing himself back into work might actually be what he needed to let go of the past month, to render it as merely another painful memory rather than the raw hole in his psyche it currently was.

His cigarette was only a smoldering nub now, and once he flicked it out the window he felt the shaking resume. With all his mental strength and as much stealth as he could manage, he fought back the rage and tears without Losa suspecting a thing. Now was no time for any of it. He needed to eat, needed to hydrate, and needed to start moving, to do something physical. He would work all the feelings, and the stress chemicals the body naturally produced due to them, out of his system as efficiently as if he were a machine. Because that was how Raymundo Alvarez had trained himself his entire life.

They walked in without further conversation, ordered, and sat down at a booth. Alvarez had some difficulty convincing his stomach that the greasy biscuit he ate would do it any good, but he was pleased with the feelings of energy and raised blood sugar it presently brought.

“So,” said Losa, leaning back in the seat and taking a drink of his coffee. “I can’t believe I didn’t ask this before, but I guess I was just surprised to see you back at the school; what are you doing here? Is this a job thing? I see the patch.” With his cup he pointed to the Border Patrol patch on Alvarez’ jacket shoulder. Losa, like many at the department, had never known where Alvarez had gone, or what his new job, if any, even was.

“Well, it’s about that killing last night.” Alvarez didn’t think of it as a homicide, as that implied the action of a human. It was a murder as far as he was concerned, but he tried to keep his language strictly legal for now, and the law didn’t see an animal killing as murder, of course.

“Una escena horrible,” said Losa, nodding.

It occurred to Alvarez that they could have this whole conversation in Spanish, if they so desired. He didn’t see any reason to, but it was something to keep in mind.

“Or so I guess. I didn’t go out there. Hell, I wasn’t even up then,” said Losa. The normal shifts for patrol were six AM to six PM for morning, with night shift naturally taking over afterward and both shifts rotating their hours every month. Most support divisions worked eight to five. For Losa, despite being assigned to patrol, the hours were seven to three during the school year, since working with the students and school staff was his primary job. “No one called me when it happened, thank goodness. Got to keep sleeping like a normal human. But I got no doubt it was bad. And the dog that did- well I guess it wasn’t any dog, huh?”

“You guessed right. So they woke me up early and got me down here to, uh, assist that TARP group with making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“They’re using TARP to kill one animal?”

“There’s a lot more than one,” said Alvarez.

“You’re sure on that?”

“Positive.” Alvarez was about to say more when a sudden wave of nausea churned his stomach. He would need more antibiotics when he got back to the motel. And more water. He clenched his teeth and let his response stay curt.

“You know.” Losa mused. “For the past...eight or nine months, maybe even a year now, we’ve done something like fifty missing persons reports. The majors have been pissed about it, trying to get the detectives to close ‘em. They probably got relatives calling ‘em every day about it. You think these wolves have been eating those people?”

Alvarez simply nodded, then said, “yeah, that’s probably it.” The truth of what had actually happened was obvious to him, much worse than what Losa suspected, but Losa didn’t need to know what that entailed. That truth brought the nausea back with a rush. Alvarez flinched as he stifled a bout of retching. Losa didn’t seem to notice.

“So they have you doing this because you’ve fought the bastards before?”

“Something like that,” said Alvarez.

“Shouldn’t take long then,” replied Losa. “You got shafted. I know a lot of people think different around here but I was there. You didn’t stop it then, none of us did, but your whole arm was cut open, man! I know you’re a good enough fighter you could’ve killed it if things had been different.”

“Tell that to Evans.”

“Evans is full of shit. He trained me, he was a good FTO, yeah, but he was there too, and I don’t know what he thinks you could have done. I think he just feels guilty. Evans is from around here, he knew more of those kids and their parents for longer than either of us. I’m not saying you didn’t care, you worked with them every day after all, and of course I’m not saying I don’t feel some kind of way about all of it, but maybe Evans just feels like he owed them more and couldn’t deliver. Which is bullshit, of course, he tried as hard as all of us, but he’s his own harshest judge.” Losa stopped, and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just playing psychiatrist, which is what that guy really needs.”

“Well, thanks,” said Alvarez. “I’m glad someone back here doesn’t hate me.”

“People just shoot off their mouths, and make assumptions that don’t actually have any evidence,” said Losa.

“Perception is reality,” said Alvarez. He sighed. “And emotions were high, they probably still are, so it combines and you get what happened here.”

“You’re not the only one who quit over that either,” said Losa. “Several of the guys, ones with like seven or eight years on left. We’re not too popular around here anymore.”

“Makes sense,” said Alvarez.

“What ever happened to old Hernando, anyway?” asked Losa.

“He went to somewhere around Lubbock,” said Alvarez. “I ran into him down at supply the same day I turned my stuff in. He quit like me, as soon as the investigation was over he got picked up and lit out.”

Losa nodded thoughtfully. “Probably couldn’t take living here anymore. Who knows, I might give it another year or two and try DPS or Oklahoma,” he shrugged. “See what my wife says.” He shrugged. “Or Arizona. Her family’s from there.”

Alvarez smiled slightly and nodded. “I wouldn’t stay here, personally, especially if they’re going to put you somewhere like the school for twenty years.” He considered Hernando Corval, the fourth man in the school. The old corporal had been the only one without a long gun, and he had quickly exhausted his Glock’s ammunition. Out of the four of them, he came out the most unscathed. He had ten years on, was well liked, and known all around as a good cop.

When he and Alvarez talked in the supply room while the quartermaster sorted through their returned gear, Alvarez had wondered how much cajoling was used attempting to induce Corval to stay. But it would have destroyed him as it would have Alvarez. Corval had been offered a better job in a larger department, as far away from the trauma as he was able to get; there was no force around that could have bound him to Arredondo County by that point. So the two had said their goodbyes, walked out of their station for the last time, and disappeared from the town, though not its memory. Two weeks later Alvarez found himself in Artesia, his arm on fire, the sun cooking his pale skin, hating life in a new academy, but determined not to give up, as he had by this time formed his new life purpose. The Border Patrol gave him what he needed to fulfill it, and after five years with them progress was finally being made. And now that it was, it was moving very fast. He hated to return, he hated the people here, and it was mental torture to deal with cops who didn’t want you, but he would find what he needed here. The ghosts he could somehow communicate with might help him, the bitch who had destroyed his life would be killed, and he could move on with life and ensure nothing like the Fifth of May ever happened again.

After the meal Losa took him back to the school and dropped him by his car.

“Good to see you, Ray. Hopefully we’ll run into each other again while you’re here.”

“I hope so,” Alvarez shook the younger man’s hand through the window.

“By the way, you should get some rest,” said Losa, like a stern mother.

Alvarez nodded, thinking that Losa was right, and he walked to his vehicle as the SRO parked his car around the front.

Blackland had only one motel, a one story, run down, family owned place that was good only for collapsing for a night before getting up and rushing out for something resembling civilization. That was Alvarez’ opinion on the place, at least. It was no better than the fleabag inn he had occupied in Laredo over the past few days, but it lacked the proximity to Daniella that one had, which made this one slightly preferable.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, turned on the air, and lit a cigarette, hating the thoughts of Daniella and the pain they brought. The tightness in his chest, the feelings of organs ripped away, was eased, but only slightly, by the nicotine rush. He exhaled slowly and sighed in temporary relief, then walked over to the bathroom and turned on the light. He turned to the sink, dropped his smoldering cigarette butt into the toilet, washed his face and hands, and tossed his jacket on the bed. Next he brought in a twenty four pack of cheap beer, sat down next to the small table, and went to work on the alcohol.

He thought more about the place, about his work, and about the reappearance of Jenny. It was outright angering to be confronted with her. The girl’s very existence was a profanity, not that he was surprised by it or attempted to reject it. Alvarez had known for years now of the supernatural and its true depth, especially in the Southwest, where the most dangerous of creatures he encountered were to be found. He had fought his share of ghastly nightmares, but Jenny Ledbetter was almost an assault from inside himself, and that was infinitely worse than an external foe.

He hardly ever dealt with her in life, it was not even fair that she would haunt him of all people. But he knew life to be innately unfair in spades, and Jenny seemed to be fixated on him as some hero here, or at least a vessel of retribution and deliverance, and it was possible that only he could communicate with her. Why this would be he had no idea. She was the one who had crippled his arm, and though she could not have infected him, or else he would be in her same position, perhaps something had been formed between them in that split second.

He considered a tangent of that train of thought: if Jenny wanted him to kill her, would her death set the course of his life right? Or at least repair its trajectory to some degree? He doubted it. Alvarez was very cynical, but the possibility of some kind of benefit and closure from wiping out Jenny Ledbetter’s earthly form brought him some pleasure. He smiled at the idea. For I am Mars, the god of war, and I will cut you down, he sang in his head.

Tomorrow they would start their work. Planning for the operation had to be meticulous and take every known and unknown into account. He knew it would not actually work out like that. The idiots here thought they could accomplish their task in a week at the most. He knew it would take longer, and the thought that there was not enough time gnawed at him. He wasn’t sure how many there were, but he suspected at least fifty. He needed to go over the missing persons reports Losa had mentioned.

He would start it all tomorrow, and resume the killing that now defined his life. It all had to be done with an aggression and speed no one here could appreciate, but he would make them realize their foolishness. He had to bring about a conclusion to the unspeakable chapter of this county’s history, a conclusion which had to be even more violent than the event that started it all. Ultimately the violence did not trouble him as much anymore. It was the state of operations in the land of wolves.