Yesterday's Guitars
Part four:
As far as Oz knew, the bar didn’t have a name, and if it did, he didn’t care to know it. Frankly, he was surprised to be let back in the door—last time he was here, Faith ended up busting up the place. But Riley called, and so he came.
Riley had a Miller ready and waiting for him, and it was obvious he was still sheepish about how the last big mission had gone down. “Not a good quality to show to a werewolf,” thought Oz. He slid in across the booth from the military man. But then, he supposed, he was a military man too these days.
“Hey,” said Oz.
“Good to see you,” said Riley.
The two sat in awkward silence for a moment.
“Not bad,” said Oz. "They’re gelling a lot better and faster than I thought they would.”
“Well, most of them have connections.”
“True, but most of them haven’t actually worked together before, and the connections are mostly ‘hating Wesley.’”
“Yeah,” said Riley, taking a pull off his beer. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”
“You roped me into working for the First Evil in a mission that nearly destroyed the world and lost us two team members,” said Oz. “It’s not exactly endearing.”
“It was more complicated than that,” said Riley.
“Yeah,” said Oz. “It was.”
“You could walk away,” said Riley. “No one would fault you.”
Oz sipped his beer and said nothing.
“I’ve read the mission reports,” said Riley. “You’re good at this.”
“Maybe,” said Oz. “And you’re still mission liaison, so why the secret spy routine?”
“What,” said Riley, “you don’t like ambience?”
At the bar, a biker who weighed nearly 300 pounds chugged a mug full of Budweiser as his buddies chanted, “Chug! Chug! Chug!” The biker slammed the mug down dramatically onto the bar, shattering it and belching loudly.
“Well,” said Oz. “You could take me somewhere nice for a change.”
“How’s about Europe?” said Riley, handing Oz a file. Inside the slim, manila folder were spectrometer readings and meteorological surveys which Oz could barely decipher, along with red-dotted maps of Europe and several photocopied police reports.
“What is all this?” said Oz as he read.
“Seemingly unconnected phenomena,” said Riley. “An upswing in mystical energy readings, culminating in shifts in weather patterns. They seem to converge on these points,” Riley pointed to London and Venice on the map, “with the third vector being here.”
Riley flipped to a map of the world, and pointed to the far, left-hand side.
“Los Angeles,” said Oz. “So shouldn’t there be something here to do?”
“Maybe,” said Riley. “but the action seems to be in Europe.”
Oz flipped to the police reports—a series of unsolved slayings over the preceding year or so. The first in Los Angeles, then New York, London, Paris and finally Amsterdam. The victims had all been sliced open and flayed alive.
“Flaying seems to be becoming a theme in our lives,” said Oz, his voice even and unexpressive. “What do you think that says about us?”
“I don’t know,” said Riley. “But take a look at the dates.”
Oz scanned over the papers, but had already deduced what he was going to see. The first murder was the same day Angel disappeared. The London murder the day Amy Madison died.
“What’s going on here?” said Oz, putting the papers down on the table. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“When Angel and his team disappeared,” said Riley, rubbing his forehead, “something happened concurrently. Something’s out there and killing people.”
Oz didn’t have to be a werewolf to know that Riley was keeping something from him. But the patterns were clear. He sipped his beer quietly, pondering the repercussions.