"Morning, boys. Everyone have a restful Saturday?" Dr. Laura Hobson approached the two detectives as they emerged from Lewis's Vauxhall. The Coventry Wildlife Park was quiet; it didn't open until noon on Sundays.

Lewis flashed ironic eyebrows in response, but his eyes sparkled at her. His subconscious noted that Hathaway didn't respond. "What have we got, Doctor?"

She put her hands up, one on the chest of each man, stopping their forward progress. Her eyes dropped to the ground.

"It's, erm . . . a bit more gruesome than usual." She glanced up, checking to see that they were paying proper attention. Both men halted, recognizing the seriousness of her tone. "A lot of blood."

Lewis cocked his head. "Laura?" She knew as well as he that they'd seen "a lot of blood" plenty of times before.

"It looks ritualistic." She stared at Lewis until she was certain he understood what she was trying to tell him. This one is nasty. Lewis nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Right." Very quiet. "Erm . . . maybe you should describe it to us before we have a look?" He noted her raised eyebrow. "So we know what to expect." His half-smile and hopeful expression easily overcame her resistance.

Hobson took a deep breath and then dove in. "He's lying face down and he's been cut—well, 'hewn' might be more accurate—along his spine with something heavy. An axe? Ribs severed at the point where they join the spinal column and pulled apart to each side—" she gestured, opening her hands as in supplication. "—like opening a book. His lungs were pulled out through his back, past the spinal column and upward, each lobe up toward the shoulder, like wings." She gestured again, and then studied the two detectives, seeing if her words had meaning to them. Their pale faces satisfied her. But she wasn't done describing the suffering of the deceased.

"And salt was poured into his wounds. The pain would have been most severe."

Lewis concentrated on her. Laura did not speak lightly of pain, and the control she exercised over her voice told him volumes.

"He was alive during this? He bled to death?" His tone hinted at a concern for something other than the deceased's mode of dying.

She touched his arm. "Yes. Or—" She hesitated. Lewis waited. "He might have had a heart attack from the pain and stress. I'll know more after the PM." Then she added quietly, "Some time between ten and eleven p.m. last night." Then, all businesslike, "I should have your results by . . ." she consulted her watch. "Three. Don't be late."

"Thank you, Doctor." Lewis put a hand on her shoulder and then cast his eyes around, taking in the surroundings. "Can we do something about . . ." He gestured toward a fenced enclosure, behind which six or seven mottled grey wolves flinched and offered muttered howls, their yellow eyes staring at the bloody corpse lying not three feet from the fence. As he watched, they danced toward and away from it, as though alternately fascinated and repelled.

A man stepped forward, clad in a uniform that identified him as an employee of the Coventry Wildlife Park, and he moved past the PCs who were keeping the other zoo staff out of the way. "They're upset by the closeness of the dead body. They'll calm down once it is removed." He did not sound as certain as his words might indicate.

Hathaway's attention snapped to him. "And you are?"

"Tyrone Battle, Sir. I'm curator of canids, Sir." He looked even more nervous than his voice indicated.

Lewis flicked his eyes toward Laura. "You can move him." He didn't say another word to her or to Hathaway for the moment, moving instead toward the wolf enclosure and studying the animals there.

Hathaway sidled toward the knot of huddled employees and volunteers, but his steps slowed when he recognized a woman with flame-red hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"Freyja? You work here?"

She looked almost apologetic. "Erm, yes. I'm a keeper."

He could tell she was shaken.

"You know this man?" He waved vaguely toward where Hobson's team was preparing to move the body.

"I know he volunteers here. Erm, that's all I know. I've seen him here but I've never spoken to him. Don't know his name." She pursed her lips and her forehead furrowed. "Sorry, that's not much help."

"'S'okay." He put an arm around her shoulder and felt her shaking. Without a word, he guided her toward the fence, behind which the small pack of wolves, hackles raised, still uttered low noises. James wondered if there was any connection between the murder and the weird events of the day before. Obvious answer, James, is 'yes'—Her. He pushed the thought away.

With the corner of his eye, Lewis caught their motion away from the locus, but he said nothing to his Sergeant. Instead, he began methodically questioning the rest of the staff of the wildlife park.

The chilly breeze picked up speed, becoming a steady wind, and Hathaway steered Freyja past the wolves and toward one of the exhibit buildings. As they reached it, James heard a deep growl, coming from around the stucco corner. He stepped back and looked for the source of the sound. A furry, black dog with a massive head was enclosed in a chain-link run. His ears were pulled back, his teeth bared, and his eyes narrowed as the fierce rumble continued.

James turned to Freyja. "Is this one off-exhibit?"

She smiled a little. "That's Harmer, he's the night watchman." She turned and noted Hathaway's puzzled expression. "He's allowed free run of the reptile house at night. He can cover the area much more efficiently than a human and he knows which sounds belong and which don't." She noted his quizzical expression. "There are poisonous snakes in that building. Very valuable and very dangerous. It's worthy of a special guard." She shivered again.

James hugged her instinctively. "Let's get you out of this wind." They entered the nearest exhibit building, but James hesitated just inside the door. It was clear they were now in the reptile house. "Oh."

She smiled at him broadly now. "What's this? A homicide detective afraid of a few snakes and spiders?"

"Spiders?" His swallow was audible.

She gestured toward one end of the shadowy building. "The invertebrates are housed in here temporarily while their exhibits undergo renovation. You also don't like spiders?"

"I especially don't like spiders."

She chuckled softly.

He wanted to ask her more about what happened at the laundromat, but held back. She seemed fragile in some way, and was only beginning to calm down after the morning's horror. So instead, he sighed. "I should get to work. You have an office or staffroom or something?"

She nodded, and wordlessly turned and guided him out of the building and toward the front of the park. As they walked, Hathaway asked her basic interview questions, how long she'd worked there (three years), whether anything like this had ever happened (it hadn't), and if she knew anything about the dead man (she didn't).

"He's worked here almost as long as I have, and I don't even know his name, isn't that awful? We go about our lives so unaware, it seems."

James didn't answer the question. "Let's get you some tea."


Lewis studied his notepad. He'd talked to everyone of interest, except that redhead Hathaway had wandered off with. Left him to do all the legwork, hadn't he? Lewis snorted to himself. Not like Hathaway to abandon his duties just because of an interesting woman.

His attention was drawn by movement inside the wolf enclosure. A keeper had brought the largest of the wolves into a small side pen, and he was restraining it with a length of cord. Lewis turned to Tyrone Battle.

"What's goin' on there?"

"Ah, that's Greyback. He's the leader of our little pack. Unusually large for a Mexican Wolf."

"Mexican Wolf?"

"A very rare subspecies of canis lupus, Inspector. We participate in a program to advance the controlled reproduction of these animals. We're the only zoological park outside of North America to have more than one in our collection. Our keeper, Freyja Godwin, specializes in their reproduction. Her business is to match Greyback with suitable mates and promote successful copulation. She's very good at it."

"Ah." Lewis felt himself blush slightly.

Battle chuckled. "It's important work, Inspector. Greyback has already sired ten genetically valuable pups. They've been sent to other zoos all over the world to enhance the genetic variability of the species."

"So why is he being tied up?"

"It has a calming effect on him. If he's calm, the rest of the pack is calm. It might take a while before he stops fighting the restraints. We've had special Kevlar lines made. They're incredibly strong. He can break everything else we've tried. But by tomorrow morning, when the smell of the body has dissipated, everything should be back to normal around here. In the meantime, we have a sign posted at the exhibit to reassure zoo guests that he's not being punished or abused in any way."

"I suppose you'd get a lot of questions otherwise?"

"Yes, people always think anything unusual at a zoo is some sort of problem."

"But it's not?"

"Inspector." Battle gave Lewis a broad, toothy smile. "Almost everything that happens at a zoo could be considered unusual or unnatural. And almost none of it is a problem."

There was a sudden burst of activity from the small pen. "Oi! Get back here!" The keeper had lost his grip on Greyback, who swirled and juked, easily evading recapture.

"Please excuse me." Battle nodded his apologies at the interruption, and entered the small pen, his swift and certain movements a stark contrast to the tentative actions of the junior keeper. He soon had Greyback under control, and held him still while the keeper replaced the bindings. Lewis frowned when he realized that Greyback's cooperation was won, at least in part, by Battle's willingness to place his own right hand in the great animal's jaws, as though proving he was trustworthy by demonstrating he trusted the wolf.

But Battle's trust was misplaced. Without warning, Greyback clamped his jaws down hard, and Battle yelped in pain and leaped away from the wolf. But the bite came too late. Greyback had been secured. Apparently sensing this, he immediately settled down, turning his head away from the humans.

Lewis was already on his phone, summoning emergency assistance. He helped the curator bind his injury to staunch the bleeding.

"Don't tell me this is either not unusual or not a problem."

Tyrone Battle recognized the irony of the situation and allowed himself a pale smile. "Point taken, Inspector."


By this time, Hathaway had returned, flipping through his own notepad as though he had written copious notes there. But Lewis knew it for a ruse, having caught a glimpse of the empty pages.

Gazing away from James, Lewis kept his tone flat. "Well, I think we've about finished here, don't you, Sergeant?" He watched the ambulance drive off, Tyrone Battle within.

Hathaway swallowed. He knew he hadn't done his share of the legwork. "Sir, I—"

Frowning, the inspector waved him off. "Save it, Hathaway." He gestured toward their car. They drove the whole way to the office in silence. Hathaway could not come up with a way to break into conversation.

When they were sitting at their desks, Robbie offered some willingness to give a little. "What do you make of all this? You kept a rather low profile out there at the zoo."

"Wildlife Park, Sir."

Lewis shot his eyes at his sergeant. "Just answer me."

James recognized the mandate. "I . . . I'm not sure I know how to answer. The killing was . . . rather gory, compared to our usual blunt trauma death. Like something from a TV show. Remember that Messiah cop show? The killings always seemed to have a text." He attempted an expression of injured honesty.

It fell flat on his senior officer.

"What do you know that you're not telling me? What did Freyja Godwin tell you?" Lewis's gaze was harsh. He knew his sergeant was aware of how he disfavored secrets between them.

"I . . ." Hathaway staggered, unable to express his suspicions. "I don't know anything. I didn't even know her last name. Honest."

"What, Hathaway?" The shout was like a slap, and Hathaway physically recoiled from it. "What do you know?" Lewis fixed him with his steely eyes, daring him to insouciance. Hathaway met his gaze, staring back, unable to answer. "What do you think, then." Not a question, and again, said with insistence. But it was a step away from the hostilities Lewis had implicitly threatened.

James breathed deeply, trying to marshal his wits. What did he really know, anyway? Not much of significance.

"I know nothing, Sir. Just suspicions, coincidences, nonentities. Let me look into things for a day, right? And I'll report on what I've worked out. Okay? Once I know something, I'll be happier about it."

The senior officer glared. "No. We work together, or not at all. What you would tell me with assurance tomorrow, tell me with uncertainty today." He studied the younger man, glowering. "Wisdom doesn't make a man happy. You'll find that out when you have enough of it." Then, feeling a little guilty at lecturing his sergeant, his tone softened. "Unlike you to shirk your duties for a pretty face. What is it about her?"

James felt himself reddening, and he took his time answering. "I met her yesterday, doing the washing. She needed change for the machine, and I had plenty, and . . . well, we started talking."

Lewis cracked a crooked smile. "You don't have to make up an excuse for talking to her."

Hathaway frowned at his tone. "There's something about her, something . . . I dunno. Wise?" His eyes narrowed as he thought back. "And something weird happened. The earthquake. Did you feel it, Sir?"

The quake had been all over the news. Not that it had done any damage, but it was a pretty unusual phenomenon.

Lewis nodded. "Yeah, I was up the ladder when it started. A bit unnerving, I think the ladder emphasized the effect. Got down as quick as I could." He was relaxing now that James was beginning to talk sensibly.

As Hathaway described the odd occurrences he experienced at the time of the quake, Lewis's brow creased in concern. "And what did she say at the zoo today?"

"Wildli—" Hathaway caught the start of a glare and managed to stop himself. He coughed a little and began again. "She didn't say much. Didn't know the deceased other than recognizing him as a volunteer. But I could tell she was really upset by it."

"Upset." Lewis mulled over the word. "By the gore? By the identity of the victim? By yesterday's howling dog? What?" Lewis stared at his sergeant, willing him to remember things important to the case.

"She was really shaken." He thought some, then. "She's probably seen that reaction to violence the wolves showed, though I'll need to check on that. But assuming she has, it must have been the condition of the victim that upset her."


They had made little progress by the time they were due at the mortuary. Laura Hobson could unerringly sense the tension between the partners, and that sensibility set the tone of her report. She always was especially objective and accurate when she knew "her boys" weren't exactly getting along.

Hathaway always watched when his boss encountered the doctor, sometimes he caught a bit of a sparkle between them. But this time, Lewis was all business.

"Do we have an ID?"

She gave a short nod, handing him an evidence bag with a wallet inside. "Joseph Baldwin. Here are his details." She passed him a typed report.

Lewis bent over the body, peering closely at his neck. "What's he got there?"

"It's a tattoo of a bird of some sort. Crow or raven, something like that. Thunderbird, maybe." She continued, staring at the back of Lewis's head. "As I said earlier, these injuries would have been extremely painful. However, his cooperation as a victim was no doubt facilitated by the fact that he was sky high on morphine by then." She ended her explanation with a cock of her head.

Lewis straightened and his brow began the slow furrowing she expected it to take.

"Sssooo . . ." He stopped and exhaled.

"Did the overdose kill him or did he bleed to death?" Hathaway supplied, his temper seemingly as short as his question.

Laura looked at him sharply. "He bled to death." She waited a beat before continuing. "But he wouldn't have been very aware of the pain by then."

"Doctor, have you ever seen another killing like this?" Lewis seemed unable to take his eyes off the body.

She shook her head. "No. But I have heard of it. Some sort of pagan ritual, I believe."

Hathaway cocked his head. "Pagan? Can you be a bit more specific?"

She frowned a little. "I'm sorry, Sergeant, that's all I know. And I wouldn't even swear to that much."


When they were back in the office, Lewis went back over his notes from the morning.

"That George Sutter was a bit odd, I thought."

Hathaway didn't look up from what he was doing. "Hmm?" Distracted by his computer.

"George Sutter, at the zoo. That bloody mountain of a man, didn't you see him?" When Hathaway shook his head, Lewis looked at his notepad, frowning. "Herpetologist."

That got his sergeant's attention. "A reptile keeper?" Eyes very beady.

"If you say so." Lewis smirked.

Hathaway twisted his mouth, having been reminded of his near absence at the Wildlife Park. "Well, you would be odd, wouldn't you, in that line of work." He softened his tone then, adding a hint of apology. "Anyone else strike you as strange?"

Lewis reviewed the notepad. "Fred Godwin." He emphasized the surname and saw with secret satisfaction that he now had James's full attention.

"Freyja's . . . ?" James couldn't bring himself to say husband.

"Brother. But blond, rather than ginger. Very . . . full of himself." Lewis managed to suppress a grin at James's obvious relief.

Hathaway cocked his head, questioningly. "Full of himself?"

"Very virile."

Furrowed brow. "How do you mean, 'virile'?"

Lewis avoided pointing out that if the sergeant had been properly attending to his duties, he'd know. "Tight t-shirt, well filled out with rippling muscles, tight jeans, well filled out with . . . y'know. That sort of thing. Strapping lad for his height. Like a wrestler."

Hathaway snorted.

"You'd better be careful around his sister." Lewis finished, satisfied with the scowl his comment drew.


After working at their desks for nearly an hour, they headed for the incident room, where they began to draw up the details on the big white board there, every now and then interrupted by a constable bringing a follow-up report of some detail or other. When they were done, there were a lot of lines going nowhere and question marks without answers.

"Investigation not proceeding at the usual pace, gentlemen?" DCS Jean Innocent had come up silently, and she observed their work with an unpleasant expression of impatience.

Lewis looked hurt. "We only just started this morning."

"Be that as it may, it's made the front of the evening paper." She waved the offending article in front of them. It sported a very lurid, very gruesome, full-color photo of the dead man. "A Real Zoo Story," the headline read.

"Zoo Story?" Lewis didn't get the meaning of the title.

"The Zoo Story is a play by Edward Albee, Sir. There's a bloody and rather shocking death at the end. Though it's nothing like this, I must say."

Lewis gave him one of those I'm really glad I have no idea what you're talking about looks.

"Boys?" Innocent retook control of the conversation and their attention. She pierced them with her eyes. "Solve this." Then she spun on her heel and left the room.

Lewis rolled his eyes at her departing back, then turned to his sergeant. "Any ideas?"

"Yeah, one or two. But they're a bit, erm . . . out there."

The inspector shook his head and sighed. "If that's the best we can do, let's have them. This entire case is 'out there.'" He slumped resignedly toward their office.

When they found their respective desks, he looked the younger man in the eye. "Well?"

Hathaway swallowed. He'd always had a problem with expressing himself in front of others, but he was by now comfortable enough with Inspector Lewis to speak his mind if he steeled himself.

"I've been doing some research into pagan rituals. This method of killing, Sir. It's called a 'blood eagle' and it's done as a sacrifice to the Norse god Odin."

Lewis blinked only once. "That's consistent with what Laur—er, Doctor Hobson said, right? A pagan rite?"

"Correct. Now, it turns out that Baldwin, our victim, was a member of a religious group called the Odinist League. Neo-pagans, who worship the ancient Norse gods. There are branches all over the UK."

He smiled at the gaping expression Lewis provided, along with the inspector's question. "Baldwin was a member of this group?"

Hathaway couldn't hide the smugness from his expression. Or perhaps it was only the unfortunate shape of his face. "Yup. And so are Freyja Godwin, Fred Godwin, and George Sutter, among others."

Nor could Hathaway stop the smile that was triggered by the spreading satisfaction on his boss's face. And he could almost imagine the quiet Well done, James! But he knew he was not going to hear that, and the younger man's smile faded as Lewis continued his questions with no praise forthcoming.

"So . . . is there any connection between Baldwin's membership in this, erm, League, and his death?"

James shook his head. "I don't know that yet, Sir."

"I guess your work is cut out for you, then, isn't it?" Lewis considered Hathaway's dismay for a while, then stood. "Ah, g'wan, I'll see you tomorrow, eh?" He gathered his things.

"G'night, Sir." James grinned at the implied permission to quit for the night.