The Cynic and the Wolf by Julie Steimle (ebook voice reader TXT) 📕

"Alright," Audry said. And they cheered.

They sat at breakfast together, most of them rushing as they ate cooked cereal with fruit. Jean was not a vegan, so they also had boiled eggs and milk. When they left, Audry had the house to herself.

She decided to go online before sorting out her files. Her dreams had left her feeling utterly disoriented, and she still needed to destress. Audry first went to YouTube, looking for funny videos, but a nagging voice in her head said she really just ought to put her questions to rest so she could focus. So, finally Audry opened a window to a search engine and typed in: Deacon Enterprises manufacturing

Up came a list of various speculative sites. A number of the sites about the company criticized the pipeline controversy involving Mr. Deacon's reneging on his agreement after incriminating evidence of destruction of wildlife and the ecosystem had come up—which Audry had thought was admirable of him. Another was about the rancher's scandal years back where a few wolves had killed cattle and ranchers from other farms protested while the local ranchers had 'taken care of the problem' and kicked the protestors off their land. And the third was about the Alabama factory walkout and temporary closure of that factory. But most of the sites listed were about the family rather than information about the company. 

A lot of the links about the family were about the divorce, which had been not only high profile scandalous, but also involved the disappearance of Mrs. Deacon. A number were about invented scandals involving Mr. Deacon and his son partying in various places around the world and getting women pregnant there. A few speculated over the rumored addiction and rehab Rick Deacon was said to have been going to. But most of the sites were full of conspiracy theories about werewolves. Thankfully, at the top of the list was the webpage for the company itself. Audry clicked on that. If she wanted truth, she had to get it from the horse's mouth.

Their business webpage was, of course, professional. It listed all the companies under the umbrella of Deacon Enterprises, each with different business names manufacturing different products. Audry recognized a few, surprised they were subsidiaries to Deacon Enterprises. They produced everything from ceramics to paper to Christmas tree farms. They had connections to cattle ranches in Colorado, which Audry had known about and had checked out briefly, to Russian logging, which she hadn’t known about. The Chinese and Japanese tech companies connected to Deacon Enterprises were surprising. They weren't huge companies, but she recognized their names. And the businesses they were connected to in Nigeria were entirely unexpected as they were buying up cocoa plantations and working on a joint venture with a local company to end the hidden slavery in the coco plant and palm oil business. The company was international and actually quite generous. In fact, looking at some of the businesses Mr. Deacon supported, one would think he was losing money. Strangely enough, there was no French company connecting Deacon Enterprises to Paris, or any sign of one that she could see.

She closed that page and went to another, this time picking a conspiracy site. She chose one that looked a little more objective and less werewolf based. At the header it said Mysteries of the Deacon Family.

Against a black background was a list of various conspiracy theories about the family, starting with the infamous divorce, another on how Mr. Deacon the First got his money and where he came from, another listing all the mysterious deaths connected to that family, and the last about the werewolf rumors and the pet wolf rumors.

Audry clicked on the one entitled: Mysterious Deaths.

The page had a list of several people who had died either violently or under mysterious circumstances who were connected to the Deacons, starting with the death of a man known as Richard Howard Gannon. She started at the top.

Richard Howard Gannon was a deacon in the Catholic Church living in Worchester, Massachusetts. A kind and generous man, he was known to help the lost and downtrodden. But in his sixty-third year he was savagely mauled to death by a wild animal. The animal was assumed to be a stray dog, though no stray dog was ever found. Not even a year later, a priest at the same church, Lemuel Gulinger helped young Howard Richard Deacon (who was a virtual unknown before then) get a job and then later start the business which would be the beginning of Deacon Enterprises. Richard Howard Gannon was a close friend of Lemuel Gulinger, and the priest had greatly mourned the death of Deacon Gannon. But the coincidence of the names of Deacon Richard Howard Gannon and Howard Richard Deacon suggest some kind of connection between the people. The first claim is that Pastor Gulinger merely wanted to honor his friend by giving a lost soul that name. But if one looks at the photographs of both Deacon Gannon and Mr. Deacon the First, one can see a resemblance between them.

The two pictures were posted side by side. Audry could see a slight resemblance. Their faces had a similar shape, as did some of their posture. But their hair and eye color were entirely dissimilar, and Deacon Gannon was much older.

Looking at these photographs, one can surmise that either Deacon Gannon was Mr. Deacon's illegitimate father, or less likely Mr. Deacon had in fact killed Deacon Gannon and had attempted to take his place (see werewolf rumors). If the latter were actually true, one would have to assume that either Pastor Gulinger was complicit in Deacon Gannon's murder, or (more likely, according to the werewolf tales) as a priest he forgave Mr. Deacon and was helping him redeem himself.

Audry halted on that. She stared at the words 'werewolf tales', cringing. She didn't want to touch those. It was ridiculous to even think about werewolves as real.

What is certain is that since then Lemuel Gulinger (who passed away peacefully last year) had worked with not only Mr. Deacon the First in the founding of a number of youth hostels and homeless shelters, but he also helped found Gulinger Private Academy, which is an exclusive private school for special needs students connected with government protection agencies.

Audry stared at that one. Special needs? Those people she had met at the lodge with wealthy Selena Davenport were special needs students? They didn't look like it. Hyper, some of them. Peculiar, yes. But special needs? That Tom Brown wasn't albino. And none of the others seemed to be impaired in anyway. And what did it mean by government protection agencies?

She scrolled down to the next death connected to the family. The death of Mrs. Cora Epslin Deacon—Howard Deacon the First's one and only wife. Her picture showed a sweet young woman with bushy blonde hair and shining blue eyes. Pretty typical, actually.

Cora Epslin Deacon was introduced to Howard the First through a business colleague. Their romance was long and somewhat rocky, and they had broken up twice before they finally married in Worchester by the priest Lemuel Gulinger. Cora was an active advocate for human rights and had volunteered frequently at her local homeless shelters and charities. She was married to Mr. Deacon the First for two years before she gave birth to their only child. And when Howard the Second was only three years old, she died of gunshot wounds, which entered through her back.

One theory is that monster hunting fanatics had come to their home in an attempt to kill her child, and she shielded him with her body.

The other theory (according to werewolf rumors) is that it was the full moon and while her child was transformed into a wolf, she shielded her child with her body from hunters.

Same story, really. In both cases, Howard the Second was rescued by his father and their family steward, but they were unable to save Cora. Her family had ordered an investigation, but the killers were never caught.

Staring at the webpage, Audry felt sick. Rick's grandmother had been murdered while protecting his father because crazy people thought they were werewolves. No wonder his father was paranoid.

Death Three included a man who was a known FBI agent who had vanished in a 'black hole' while following Mr. Deacon the First into a Russian village where he was doing business, which to Audry did not quite make sense. Were they talking about literal black holes, or a figurative one? But then the writer explained:

According to the SRA website (and there was a link), black holes are places on the world map where it is unwise for singular monster hunters to enter, as some sort of supernatural force exists within those spaces that are too powerful to take on alone.

Audry stared at that. She read it again—the words supernatural forces making her eyes itch. Then she clicked on the link. It took her to a website hosting an organization called the Supernatural Regulator's Association—a monster hunting union. Her eyes raked over that page as it had posts and links all about handling different kinds of 'monsters' including vampires, werewolves, elves, demons, and the occasional witch. It had to be a troll site because such things were ridiculous. Werewolves and vampires and all that were not real. The funny thing was, there was link called 'Werewolf Watch' which posted the whereabouts of the Deacon family.

And on the site it also posted the phases of the moon with a tag that said:  Hunting hour is over.

She clicked on the link for 'Werewolf Watch' to see if it had the actual location of Rick or his father.

Howard Deacon II—current location, Middleton Village—Unreachable

Winter Lodge Four had to be a code name, because that was not what the place she had been at was called. But what were ghoulies?

Then it clicked in Audry's head. Rick's friends were from Gulinger Private Academy. A Gulinger student or alumnus might be called a ghoulie. It had that similar ring to it.

The thing was, these monster hunting freaks were tracking both Deacons.

It was creepy.

Audry went back to that first website.

She skimmed over the other deaths.

There was the murder of Mr. Deacon the First, of course, which happened when Mr. Deacon the Second was only nineteen. The man had been shot while they were abroad in Europe, and his son had run off to (some assume) Paris—but there were no exact facts to substantiate that, as he later showed up in New York City and retook the reins of the company. However, that possibly explained the Paris connection to the family.

Another death listed a steward to the Deacon family many years later who had been mauled to death in a New York YMCA—which had strangely happened over a full moon. The weird coincidence of a mauling struck Audry as it was the same way Deacon Gannon had died. Rick would have been thirteen then, and it would have been after the divorce.  

There were also people connected to the Deacon family who were proven to have been killed by the Mob, including one Marco Calamori. Audry recognized the name as Rick's friend's family name. He was a Calamori. She was sure of it. She had a good memory for names. She read that one.

Marco Calamori, a business associate to Mr. Deacon the Second, disappeared during a summer over ten years ago. His death would have remained a mystery, but a year later his body was found in an old abandoned well by the FBI—his location given away during a court session involving his brother-in-law who was connected to the Mafia. According the courtroom minutes, Mr. Calamori's son was in attendance, and in the middle of the brother-in-law's testimony the boy jumped up and shouted that his uncle was lying about the death of another man his uncle was testifying about, revealing that both that man and his father