The Keepers Story 01 - The Gatekeeper

bones found in the desert. They might have been the result of an accidental death—and the surefire way the desert had of cleaning up the dead. A forensic examination of the bones had been inconclusive. There were no chips or marks on them to indicate that a bullet or a knife had been the cause of death. There were tooth marks on the bones, but while the ME considered them likely to be postmortem, Saxon had his own theories on that. The dead man had been about six feet tall, between forty and fifty years old—and somehow he had managed to die ten miles out in the sand, where vultures, coyotes, beetles and whatever else had pretty much taken care of all his soft tissue. His dental records had led nowhere. He’d been wearing a denim shirt and jeans, size-nine boots, and a buckle that advertised a Tennessee country rock band.
    He’d died minus a wallet or any other identification—or someone had intentionally removed them.
    Saxon had attended the autopsy, because the bones had indicated a possibility that the victim had been one of the Elven, who had strong, elongated bones.
    But in the end the ME had determined that the skeleton had belonged to a man—just a man, and nothing more. A dumb man—traveling in the desert on foot with no wallet—but a man. Except that Saxon didn’t think that little of humanity. And no mortal man could have gotten that far out in the desert on foot. It was too convenient to think he’d simply lain down in the sand to die, then was fortuitously consumed by the local wildlife. No, someone had taken him out there and left him to die, or killed him elsewhere and dumped him in the desert for the body to be eaten and the evidence destroyed.
    Murder number one, he thought. At least that he knew of.
    Then there had been the craps dealer. Rutger Heinz. He had come to Las Vegas because he’d been entranced by what he’d seen and read about the city while growing up in Bavaria. He’d arrived just five years earlier, attended the University of Nevada, then taken a job.
    At Monty’s casino. Which was mostly owned by Carl Bailey.
    Security cameras recorded Rutger’s exit the night he had gone missing. He could be seen getting into his car and driving away. And then, somewhere in the congested traffic of the Strip, he had disappeared. And he hadn’t been seen again.
    Not long afterward, Angela Sanderson had disappeared. Exquisite, beautiful, Elven. Young, talented, ready to take on the world. With everything to live for.
    One thing he’d noticed on the casino security footage of both Rutger and Angela before they’d disappeared was that there had been a very high proportion of werewolves around. It was a tentative connection to the murders, but his gut told him it was real nonetheless, that werewolves were involved in the disappearances as well as the killings.
    Then, yesterday, the half-chewed body of the Oregon tourist that had caused a disaster on Fremont Street.
    Two officially dead—and his concern as a homicide detective.
    Two missing and, he feared, most likely dead.
    The dead man found right there on Fremont Street seemed to be a sign that the murderer wanted to be noticed. It was like a cry for recognition.
    Why would a killer make such a point of calling attention to himself? One possibility: it could be a cry for help. Maybe he abhorred the killing, but couldn’t stop himself and was hoping the police would catch him. Or maybe he was showing off for someone.
    Another possibility: the killer was so mentally deranged that he was certain he wouldn’t be caught; as a narcissistic personality, he considered his own desires of uppermost importance and couldn’t imagine that he could be caught.
    Yet no matter what else was true of the killer’s psyche, the validity of this was not in question in Saxon’s mind: the killer was a werewolf. A werewolf acting as pack leader, as alpha, and trying to convince the rest of the pack that it was time for the wolf pack to take their place as kings of the city.
    Las Vegas was one of the pleasure capitals of the world, a neon-lit paradise where every vice known to man—and Others—could be indulged. Where money—and women—changed hands from minute to minute. A city where Carl Bailey was already the de facto king.
    What more could the man want? Saxon wondered. Why would he kill—or, more likely, have someone else kill for him? He had money, and hundreds of people working for him, worshipping his name. He had power, scores of mistresses,