Free Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman by Duncan Eagleson

given case whether they were nonsense babbling or had some actual relevance. Comments about fathers were more rare, and I wondered about “She told him father would be proud. The evil one is not for you, not yet.” Was Adams telling us that we couldn’t stop the Beast yet, or was the “evil one” someone else? Could this have been addressed to the Beast himself, by the “she” who told him Father would be proud? It seemed to me that the victims were getting a little closer to Roth with each subsequent killing, and I wondered if the Beast was maybe working his way up the food chain to the City Boss. Was Roth the “evil one” in the Beast’s mind? “Father would be proud...”
    “ Wait a minute,” I said. “Run the recording back a bit.” Morgan backed it up, playing bits and pieces until I heard my own voice ask, “Who killed you?”
    “ Right there,” I said.
    “ The sun is set,” Adams’s scratchy voice told us. “Set on it.”
    Maybe Adams hadn’t meant “sun,” but “son.” Suddenly, something clicked in my brain. The son was set on it... Father would be proud...
    I grabbed the phone and called Roth. When he picked up, there was no “Hello,” only, “It’s nearly three A.M. This better be damned important.”
    “ Did Wendell Crichton have a son?” I asked.
    “ Railwalker Wolf? What? No, no children.”
    “ Are you sure?”
    “ Absolutely sure. It was one of the real tragedies of the Takeover. Crichton and his wife had problems having children. She’d finally gotten pregnant, but she was killed in the fighting, and the baby died with her. Why is this important?”
    “ I guess it’s not. Sorry to have disturbed you.”
    “ Oh, no problem. I had to wake up to answer the phone anyway.”
    I hung up on Roth’s sarcasm.
    “ You were thinking the Beast might be Crichton’s son?” Morgan asked.
    “ Or connected to him somehow, working for him or something. But Roth says Crichton had no kids. His wife was pregnant at the time of the Takeover, but she and the baby both died in the fighting.”
    “ Figures,” said Morgan. “That would have been too easy.”
     
     
     

8. WOLF
     
     
     
     
    Morning sun streamed in the large windows to paint gold across the ranked desks of the investigators’ bullpen. There weren’t many people there at this time of morning, three or four of the investigators drinking coffee at their desks and doing paperwork, Sergeant Robles talking to one of them. We crossed the room through the bands of sunlight to where Rainer Auden’s desk sat.
    “ Morning, Investigator Auden,” I said.
    Auden eyed us from behind his desk. “Roth called you guys in,” he said without preamble, “and the Chief says we all gotta cooperate with you. I’m a paid employee of the city, and orders are orders. I’ll do what I’m told, but I don’t have to like it. The guard can look after its own.”
    “ Well,” said Morgan, “two of you killed, the Chief right here in your own wardroom. I’d say you’ve done a bang-up job so far.”
    Auden sat forward in his chair, fists balled, and for a moment I thought he was going to stand up and take a shot at her. Then I saw something shift in his eyes. He knew that however much he hated the truth, Morgan was right.
    “ Look, man,” I said, “we’re only interested in finding this guy. We don’t have any agenda about making the collar. If we can find him for you, you’re welcome to bring him in or take him down.”
    Auden raised a skeptical eyebrow. He didn’t say anything, though, so I continued. “You need our help to find him. We’ve got ways and means you don’t, but to use those skills, we also need all the information we can get. For us to be able to help you, you’ve got to help us.”
    “ You’ve got copies of my reports.”
    “ Reports are nothing but facts. We need more than that. You saw this Beast face to face. You can tell us things the written report can’t. As an investigator, you’ve gotta know