Read Online Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan - Free Book Online

to—”
    â€œIt is Abend you are looking for. Dominic Abend. It is he who has butchered these people.”
    Zach slowed to a stop, a live wire of excitement snaking in his belly. He was near the elevators but turned his back on them, narrowing his focus to the voice on the phone. “You know Abend?”
    â€œI know him. I know everything about him, more than you do. He will do worse than this, much worse, before he is finished. You cannot understand how bad. You must come to Freiberg. You must come talk to me, listen to me, see what I have to show you. You must find Stumpf’s dagger before Abend does. Otherwise all is lost. All is lost. Your city. Your country. All the world.”

5
    THE WEREWOLF’S DAGGER
    M odern Europe began and ended in Germany, was born when Martin Luther shattered the unity of Christian truth, and died amidst the atrocities of the Third Reich. At the beginning and at the end, at the birth and at the death, was Stumpf’s Baselard.
    When the jet lifted off, Zach had just begun reading the translated article Professor Dankl had sent him: actual printed pages she had sent him by overnight mail, strangely enough. She had refused to e-mail him any kind of electronic file. He glanced up from the words, looked out the window, saw the Newark runway let go its hold on the 767’s retracting gear, saw Manhattan’s jagged density of soaring stone fill the twilit window, the scene distant and unsteady as an old silent movie—and he was startled by his feeling of relief, startled by its strength and sweetness—startled, but not entirely surprised. These last two days on the earth below had been nothing for him but round upon round of trouble and unease. He suspected he had argued so forcefully for this trip to Germany in part because of his eagerness to get away. He likewise suspected that Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell had freed the two grand from E.C.’s budget as a way to get back in his good graces after her accusations against Goulart. Well, fine. He was damned glad to be airborne whatever the reason, glad beyond telling that for the next eight hours—all night long—he would be out of reach by phone or e-mail, out of touch with the troublesome world.
    He lowered his eyes to the pages again:
    The man who would become known as Peter Stumpf was born Peter Griswold in the village of Epprath near the country town of Bedburg in the electorate of Cologne. Though records of his birth were lost during the chaotic bloodshed of the Thirty Years War, the date was doubtless some time in the mid 1500’s.
    The son of a well-to-do farming family, young Griswold was said to have devoted himself to sorcery and evil from an early age. After “acquainting himself with many infernal spirits and fiends” (according to his trial transcript), the necromancer managed to raise the Devil himself, who promised to give him “whatsoever his heart desired during his mortal life,” presumably in exchange for his soul. Griswold’s request of Satan was that “at his pleasure he might work his malice on men, women, and children, in the shape of some beast, whereby he might live without dread or danger of life, and unknown to be the executor of any bloody enterprise which he meant to commit.” The Devil agreed, and gave him a magic belt which, when worn, transformed Griswold “into the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like brands of fire; a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth; a huge body and mighty paws.”
    Even now, airborne and all, Zach found it difficult to concentrate on the paper. Those accusations against Goulart were still on his mind, for one thing. Words that couldn’t be unsaid, thoughts that couldn’t be unthought, following him up into the stratosphere. Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell had motive to slander his partner, yes. But that didn’t