“Why are we here?” Shel asked as Wolfe pulled into the parking lot outside ‘E mett Investigations.’

Wolfe parked out front and turned the car off. “I don’t understand how Emmett got all his information without making the connection to Worldwide Decurion—he has all these files where he has the victims listed, but I don’t see anything about Worldwide in the files. I want to know what Emmett knows and how he knows it.”

Wolfe opened the door and swung his feet out.

“You could call him,” Shel said.

Wolfe stopped, half in the car. “That would be the easy answer. Sorry, given my history I guess I’m not the most trusting type. I should have done that. But we’re here now—I’ll check his place, see what we can learn, and perhaps we’ll find something. If not, we can call him after.”

Wolfe stood next to the car, then walked over to the door, took his key out, put it into the door, and turned to unlock the door. He met no resistance, and shifted down and turned the knob. The door opened.

Wolfe stepped inside. All the old magazines were missing.

"Fuck,” Wolfe muttered. Someone had been here.

Or is here.

“Pull your deck,” Wolfe whispered, touching his own chest. A second later, his deck came out, and Wolfe dropped Brimstone into his hand. He ignored the notification about Shel’s deck.

Sorenia appeared behind him.

“Thank y—” Sorenia began.

Wolfe held his finger up. “Ssh!”

Although being quiet was probably pointless as a surprise tactic. Any other deckbearers certainly knew they were coming, and any ordinary thugs had probably heard them in the tiny building anyway. But it wouldn’t help to give away their position constantly.

Wolfe moved forward cautiously and kicked the door to the back office open.

It was empty of enemies, which was easy to tell because every box and scrap of paper was missing entirely, and the desk had been turned over.

Wolfe dismissed Brimstone and his deck.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck. Someone must have come and cleaned this place out. If there was any more information, its long gone.”

“You think Damian did it?” Shel asked.

Wolfe pushed the deck back up and pushed the chair back under it. “Damian, or these Worldwide Decurion people, or maybe the corrupt cops Emmett talked about… I’ve got no idea. There is a lot of reason for a lot of people to cover this up.”

The door slammed open in the front room. Wolfe grabbed Shel and pulled her down behind the desk, touching his chest again as he did. She yelped as he shoved her down underneath it.

Then an aggravating voice he remembered all too well yelled out, “Dunn!”

Shel picked herself up off the floor as Suit busted into the room, a briefcase in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. He walked up to Wolfe like he owned the place.

Then he thrust the paper into Wolfe’s face. “This is worthless, Dunn! Complete, utter garbage that I can’t use! You need to get off your lazy, incompetent ass and go back and do it right!”

“What?” Wolfe asked, staring at the half-filled page. It was the statement he had gotten from Ms. Timo on her son’s manslaughter case. “What’s wrong with it?”

Shel glanced at it, then glanced at Wolfe.

“It’s incomplete—and done improperly. It’s completely inadequate, inadmissible… pick your favorite word that means ‘useless and worthless.’ Now we paid you for a gods damned statement, and I expect a good one, or I’ll report you to the licensing board myself!”

Wolfe was about to pop Suit in the nose, but Shel put her hand on his arm. “Well get this taken care of, Mr., umm…?”

“You better!” Suit said, still angry. “You damned well better.”

Then he looked around. “I see you at least cleaned this dump up. Now you better clean your act up.”

He threw the paper down on the desk.

Before Wolfe could decide how to handle the situation, Suit turned and flounced from the building.

“What. The. Fuck,” Wolfe ground out.

Shel sighed. “Actually… he has a point, even if he’s an ass. The statement needs to be very detail oriented, preferably with specific times, it needs to be on court paper, it needs to be signed…”

Wolfe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why the hell does it need all that? It says here, on the paper, plain as day, what the hell Ms. Timo did.”

“Look… I can help you make a better statement,” Shel said.

“I don’t need your help,” Wolfe ground out.

Shel reached her arms around him and hugged him. “Wolfe, when something needs beating or killing, do I ever, and I mean ever, try and stop you from doing it your way?”

“No.”

“Because I know you’re the best ass-kicker in three counties,” Shel said, with the air of someone quoting a famous line, although Wolfe had no idea which one. “But I’m the one taking the police courses—including the one on statements that the prosecutor can use. Let me help, please?”

Wolfe sighed. “Alright, fine, just this once to help me learn.”

Shel smiled. “Perfect. Lucy will be over tomorrow to start the month with us, and Ms. Timo asked if Shannon could come play—I said yes. So, I’ll help you get ready tonight, and you can get it from her tomorrow, while everyone is over and I’m at class. No one will even know I helped.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Wolfe nodded. “We’ll do it your way.”

Then he glanced around again. “I wish I did know who raided this place—Damian, the police, or someone else.”

Wolfe pulled his phone out and dialed Emmett.

After the fourth ring, Wolfe hung up.

“No answer?” Shel said, raising an eyebrow.

Wolfe shook his head no, then dialed again. This time, he waited for voice-mail, but when it kicked on, he got a falsely cheery lady telling him the mailbox was full.

He hung up again, then glanced at Shel. “What was the name of the hospital?”

“The one Emmett’s at?”

Wolfe nodded.

"Uriel’s Sacred,” Shel said, glancing around the room they were in nervously, as if the people that had raided it might come back at any time.

Wolfe knew that people committing crimes rarely hung out where they had done so once they were done, and wasn’t too worried about it. He finished looking up Uriel Sacred and dialed.

A series of menu choices led him to placing a call to floor two, room twenty-three—but no one picked up again.

Wolfe, feeling like something might have gone south, dialed the main line again and went through the menu until he was connected with an operator.

“Hi, how may I help you?” A tired, feminine voice asked.

“I’m looking to talk to Emmett Dunn… he was brought in two days ago. I work for him and need some assistance with a job we’re doing.”

“Dunn, Dunn…” the voice said, along with the clackity-clack of a keyboard. “I’m sorry, Mr. Emmett Dunn is no longer with us.”

“He died?!” Wolfe exploded into the phone, and Shel’s eyes went wide.

The woman chuckled, the coughed. “Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh. No, he was discharged early this morning, with a clean bill of health, basically. I’d look for him where you normally find him.”

Wolfe glanced around the empty office. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”

He hung up.

“He’s not dead, he was let go,” Wolfe said. “Maybe he took the files.”

“Thank Raphael,” Shel said, sighing. “Do you think he came and got the files himself?”

Wolfe shook his head. “No. But he might have. It still bothers me that he’s not answering. It’s not even close to the end of working hours—why wouldn’t he answer?”

Shel nodded, tapping her fingers together. “So, he might still be in trouble?”

Wolfe nodded.

“What should we do?” Shel asked.

“Well, I’m a private investigator now. I need to do some more investigation. I think it’s time we investigate in a different direction. Let’s go see Miriam, and learn about what’s been going on with Damian.”

Shel snorted. “Ought to be an experience, at least.”

Wolfe dialed for Miriam.

***

Wolfe pulled to the front of the Ekron Eternal, past the garden and fountains around the main entrance, up to the steps. Once, the garden had been filled with statues of flies and demons, but now it had been redecorated with numerous barely decent vampire statues.

Wolfe shook his head. He had been here a couple times since Miriam had assumed control of the place, but it always felt weird to Wolfe to see the new décor. He thought it was weird for people that had never seen the old décor, but it was extra weird for Wolfe.

What was different, however, was the front line. The last time Wolfe had been to the Ekron Eternal, there had been almost no line to get into the club—the lack of criminal support and the gunfight nine months ago had made the Ekron Eternal a dying institution, and despite being appointed to run it temporarily by the probate courts, Miriam hadn’t been able to turn that around.

Now, however… The front had a huge line, filled with men Wolfe recognized from all the different crime organizations, that were waiting for their chance to ascend the ramp and enter the club.

Plus, the guys working the line were completely unfamiliar.

“What has Miriam done?” Wolfe asked.

Shel glanced at him, not understanding, but he shook his head. He would ask her soon enough.

Wolfe took a deep breath. This was the final moment of truth, when his presence would be known, openly, to the underground again. Entering publicly, in front of so many of his old associates, was tantamount to declaring that he had returned.

Time to do this. I’ve returned to hunt, and I guess they’ll know they’re being hunted. Feels right, somehow.

Wolfe stepped from his car, and Shel followed on her side, staring up at the ostentatious club. Wolfe was about to head up the steps next to the ramp and enter when a man in his young twenties walked up to Wolfe. He was shirtless and covered in make-up to make him look incredibly pale. He glanced at Wolfe’s Subaru and sneered.

“Do you want me to valet… this, sir?” the man asked.

Wolfe tossed him the keys and resisted the temptation to punk the kid. “Yeah, handle it.”

Wolfe strode up the steps, past the huge line of people that stared at him as he walked straight up to the bouncer and his two backup men. The bouncer was even larger than Wolfe, about six-six and built like a linebacker. He held his hand up to Wolfe, palm out.

“What the hell are you doing, chump? Get in line.”

Wolfe leaned in. “I’m William Madison. I believe Miriam had special instructions.”

The man nodded, but didn’t remove his hand. “You said a name I’m going to pay attention to, but now provide some I.D.”

Wolfe fished into his pocket, pulled it out, and showed the man.

He lowered his hand, removed the rope, and ushered Wolfe inside. “Miriam is waiting in the back, at the V.I.P. table, sir. Do you need an escort?”

Wolfe shook his head no. “I know my way.”

Wolfe and Shel strode past, with a few angry exclamations and one guy shouting, “Who the fuck is that guy?” from behind them. Wolfe didn’t want to admit that it mattered to him, but he did like getting the respect he would have been given back in the day, when he was the Grimm head enforcer. He was getting damn tired of being a trainee P.I.

Shel chuckled. “Enjoyed that, did you?”

Wolfe gave a half-smile to his girlfriend, but didn’t reply directly.

The club was, but for the same statue change Wolfe had seen outside, about the same as he remembered from his days as head enforcer—which was a huge upgrade from what it had been a couple weeks ago. The club was dark but lit by flashing lights that swirled through a machine generated fog, which swirled around the statues of vampires—many of them actually nude now that they were inside the club. The twenty-somethings that danced through the club were barely more dressed, and loud, beat-heavy techno music played through the club, reverberating through Wolfe’s teeth.

He wove his way around the outside of the huge dance floor, avoiding any chance of collision with the various dancers, and made his way to the back, along a path he knew quite well.

He reached the end of the club, where the V.I.P table was. It was exactly as Wolfe remembered it, down to the fact that the bullet holes in the top of the giant oak table, from when Wolfe had used it as a shield, were still there. He slid into the giant leather booth on the left side of the table, past Harry, who was still acting as guard a year later for the Grimm family. As always, he didn’t bother Wolfe when Wolfe took his seat, but in a change from the past, he also said nothing when Shel slid into the booth on the right side.

Wolfe glanced around at the other three occupants.

The first was Derek, who had helped Wolfe in a couple of his final fights, including taking out Javier Garcia, the old lieutenant of the Cobras. Derek was shirtless, with his umber skin oiled, and he had an honest-to-the-gods pitchfork upright in the booth next to him.

The second was a new man, Ahmed, who had been hired by Miriam after her father had died—with cards from the Frozen Cairn dungeon they had done together. He was also young, in his late twenties. But he was dressed almost like an Egyptian pharaoh—although still shirtless. He was very tan of skin, six feet tall, and had been both a model and a military man before Miriam had cut a deal with him.

Lastly, there was Miriam herself. She was dressed in a diaphanous silver dress that just barely hinted at her dark underthings beneath, and hung very low on her frame. She had in red contact lenses, with black make-up around them, and lounged back in the booth with her arms on the backrest behind her, both accentuating her sensuality and heightening the space she took up.

Miriam always managed to take up a lot of space, whether in attention, conversation, or just actual, physical space.

A purse beside her, black with white skull clasps, completed the image.

Wolfe glanced around. “You always manage to look like a supervillain team, Miriam. Why?”

She smiled and then licked her lips blatantly. “It’s good to see you too, Wolfy. What can I do for you this beautiful evening? I was positively intrigued when you actually asked to come see me for once.”

"Well, before I answer that, tell me what deal with the Infernal you’ve made to turn this around.”

Miriam’s smile slipped, and she grimaced, but leaned in toward Wolfe conspiratorially.