Return of the Wolf Man (16 page)

The dry old fabric encouraged the blaze. An instant later, with a sickening
whoosh,
the centuries-old arras was swallowed in a wave of fire.

Shouting with rage, Caroline mounted the staircase as the flames crawled up the tapestry.

“Leave it!” Talbot yelled.

Caroline ignored him.

With a glance toward the Monster, Talbot rushed to intercept her. He grabbed Caroline’s hand and pulled her down the staircase into his arms. Behind him, the Monster backed away from the rising sheet of flame.

“You can’t stay here!” Talbot yelled. “If that falls you’ll be killed!”

“Let me go! The castle—”

Talbot forced her around. He held her arms tightly and looked down into her wide eyes.

“Don’t you understand?” he yelled. “We can’t save this place alone! We have to get help!”

Caroline turned and watched as the fire raced up the fabric toward the ceiling. Within seconds, the rough-hewn timbers above began to darken. Flames found homes in the inviting old cracks and among dry splinters.

Caroline struggled. “I’ve got to reach the phone before the tapestry falls on it!”

“You’ll never make it!” Talbot admonished her.

“I’ve got to try!”
she screamed.

As Caroline shouted and continued to struggle, Talbot wrapped his powerful arms around her waist and pulled her away. He circled wide around the Monster. The creature watched them, afraid to move any closer to the burning tapestry. Even as Talbot carried the struggling young woman toward the front door, the wall hanging ripped in the middle and fell across the banister. Flaming embers broke from the main body of the tapestry and landed on the writing desk. It covered the computer and telephone and set Joan Raymond’s papers ablaze. A moment later the rest of the massive tapestry fell, dropping in a great, diagonal pirouette. It fluttered over Talbot and Caroline, landing between them and the front door.

They jumped away, toward the basement; as they did, the Monster lunged toward them. He reached out with one massive hand and grabbed Talbot around the back of the neck. He squeezed.

Talbot released Caroline, who cried with fury and tried to pry the Monster’s steel fingers free. The giant casually knocked her back with his free hand. The blow dropped her to the floor and sent her sliding toward the door. Climbing onto her knees, she looked around. There was an unburned corner of a flaming piece of tapestry nearby. She grabbed it and swung it at the creature’s head. The Monster stumbled backward, still gripping Talbot. The giant waved his free hand agitatedly as Caroline whipped the flaming fabric around again. This time the flames came closer to the Monster’s face, though they were still well above Talbot’s head.

“Let him go, you bastard!” Caroline screamed, whipping the fiery remnant in front of her one more time.

With a cry of fear, the giant finally released his captive.

Talbot fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Caroline threw the burning piece of tapestry at the Monster. He withdrew fearfully and she helped Talbot to his feet. As soon as he was up again, Talbot spun. Leaping the burning fabric, he threw himself against the Monster’s chest. The creature was knocked back, toward the basement door, though he was too large to fall in. Talbot struck him again, this time in the midsection. The Monster doubled over and Talbot pushed him back, over the rubble. The creature fell through the opening. He teetered on the ledge for a moment, then lost his footing and plunged backward, off the steps. The loud, ugly fall was followed by a splash.

Talbot turned toward Caroline. Behind her, the old desk was aflame and the air was filled with flamelets flying from the stacks of paper. Books on the shelves were beginning to smoke.

“Get out!” Talbot shouted. “I’ll deal with the fire!”

“How?” she screamed. She started running across the foyer toward a door she hoped would lead to the kitchen. “If I could only find a bucket somewhere—”

Caroline had only gone a few steps when fire suddenly erupted from the spines of the dozens of old books. The glue of the newer volumes ignited and books literally exploded in a smoky fireball that rolled toward them.

Caroline twisted and fell backward and Talbot hurried toward her. He waved his hand to swat away the burning pieces of leather, cloth, and paper that swirled around them. By the time he reached the young woman she was on her side, coughing from the smoke and trying to rise.

Talbot picked Caroline up and carried her toward the door. The blaze was hot on her neck and cheek as she looked back. The fire had grown too large for them to fight. Even if there were volunteer fire fighters in LaMirada, they’d never make it here in time to save the castle.

But of course,
she thought. She’d come to LaMirada wondering if she might find a new life here. Instead, in less than twenty-four hours, she’d managed to destroy what might have been her new home. The Caroline Cooke kiss-of-death luck, which had driven her to a career she hated and relationships that ended in her loving someone who didn’t love her, was in full flower.

As soon as they were safely outside, Talbot put her down. Silently, they hobbled into the bright sunlight, trailed by thickening wisps of black smoke. As they did, Caroline found herself preoccupied by the same thought that must have captivated her great-aunt. A thought that had to have made it impossible for her to go back to work as an insurance investigator.

Unless someone jumped out from behind a tree and shouted “Surprise,” the creatures she’d seen were real.

Real.

And everything she’d always believed about science and the supernatural, about what was possible and what was not, suddenly seemed very shaky indeed . . .

EIGHT

C
aroline phoned the volunteer fire fighters from Henry Pratt’s boat.

The fire brigade reached the island nearly a half hour later. The nine men and one woman worked efficiently. They were too far from the ocean so they hooked their hoses to the outdoor water tank and worked hard to save the castle. But they weren’t even able to get in the front door. By the time a large fireboat arrived from Naples to pump seawater on the blaze, over an hour later, the onshore fire fighters had retreated to the dock. They remained there in constant touch with a fire-watch on the mainland, monitoring the burning debris and making sure that none of it was blown across the channel.

Resident State Trooper Matt Willis arrived shortly after the volunteers. A tall, broad-shouldered man in his late fifties, Willis parked behind Henry Pratt’s boat. He greeted the fire chief and then he walked toward Caroline. She and Talbot were sitting in Pratt’s express cruiser. Caroline’s hands were folded in her lap. Talbot was staring blankly at the ground. Neither of them spoke.

Willis stopped in front of the young woman. His back was to the sun and he smelled of coffee and cigars. Talbot and Caroline were reflected in his dark sunglasses.

He tipped his hat at Caroline. “Are you all right, Dr. Cooke?” he asked in a heavy Southern drawl. “Either of you need medical attention?”

“We’re fine,” she said unconvincingly.

“I’m State Trooper Matt Willis,” he said. He glanced at Talbot. “And you are?”

“My name is Talbot,” he said. He looked back down and said softly, as though he were ashamed, “Lawrence Talbot.”

Trooper Willis regarded Talbot for a moment. “I’ll get your particulars in a minute,” he said. He looked back at Caroline. “I saw you at the funeral yesterday. I’m sorry about your aunt. She was a very classy lady.”

“Thank you,” Caroline said.

“And I’m sorry about this,” he said. He cocked a callous-knuckled thumb at the blaze. “Helluva thing to have happen, though you’re both lucky to be alive.”

“I guess we are,” she said.

The state trooper lifted his sunglasses and rested them on top of his forehead. Then he turned to the castle and watched as smoke poured from the upper window of the tower, the old laboratory window. “If it’s any consolation, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of the superstructure survives. This place is tough. Been through storms and explosions and God knows what else. How’d it start, Dr. Cooke?”

Caroline stared ahead. Part of her wanted to tell the truth. Spit it out, then get away from here as fast as possible. Go back to her practice, back to problems she understood. But part of her also wanted to lie. She wanted to make these people go away so that she could explore the world she’d discovered here. She was a doctor, and in one evening she’d witnessed two of the most extraordinary phenomena in medical history. She’d watched a living corpse rise from decades of submersion in a lake and she’d met a man who was a—what had Pratt called it? A lycanthrope.

“Dr. Cooke?” the trooper said.

She looked up at him. “Yes?”

“How’d it start?” he repeated. He sniffed the air. “Were you cooking? There’s a real strong smell of garlic.”

“No,” Caroline said. “I wasn’t cooking.”

“Then what were you doing?”

Talbot looked up at him. “Trooper Willis, we were fighting hell with its own weapons.”

Willis’s gaze shifted to the big man. “You were . . . fighting hell.”

“Yes, sir.”

“With its own weapons?”

“That’s right.”

“Which would be fire,” Willis said.

Talbot nodded.

“I guess I’ll talk to you first, Mr. Talbot. Your name doesn’t ring a bell. You from around here?”

“No, sir. I was born in Britain. Wales.”

Then he
was
from Wales,
Caroline thought. That was another indication that Talbot knew her aunt, that he was what he said he was. There was no way she could run away from this thing now. No way at all.

“You don’t sound English,” Willis said.

“My mother lived in Southern California,” Talbot told him. “I was raised there.”

“Los Angeles?”

Talbot nodded.

Willis shifted his weight to one leg. “Where’s your tan? Usually gets baked into kids out there.”

“Mr. Talbot didn’t get a lot of sun,” Caroline said.

Willis looked at her. “Nightcrawler, huh? Not the kind of element we want in our little hamlet. How do you two know each other?”

“Mr. Talbot is a very old friend of the family.”

“I see.” Willis said. “You, uh—you care to clarify what your old family friend said about how the fire started?”

“Not just now. I’m not sure I could.”

“You’re not sure,” Willis said. “Well, you probably want to wait and talk to your lawyer.” He looked at the cruiser. “Henry Pratt’s your lawyer, right?”

Caroline said nothing. She had known where this was going; Willis was anything but subtle. The only thing she had to decide was how much to tell him. She did not want Talbot incarcerated. If what he’d said was true about his “curse” and the strength he possessed, he’d be better off on the island than on the mainland.

“Of course Hank’s your lawyer,” Willis continued. “Hell, he’s everyone’s lawyer in LaMirada since Tom Stevenson went to work for the town and D’Arcy Corrigan raised his rates. Where is Hank? On the other side of the castle, maybe? And what about Bill Porterhouse?”

Caroline stared out at the fireboat.

“You see, Dr. Cooke,” Willis went on, “even if this fire hadn’t happened I was going to come out and visit you. So happens that neither of those gentlemen showed up at home last—”

“Trooper Willis,” Caroline said, “let’s cut this dance short, okay? Henry Pratt and Mr. Porterhouse were killed last night.”

Willis stood up straight. His sunglasses slipped down over his eyes. “Say again?”

“There’s something in the castle,” she said, “something not human. It kept Mr. Talbot and me cornered in the basement until this morning. We were finally able to chase it away with fire.”

“Hold on,” Willis said. “Something not human? You mean like an animal or a serial killer?”

Caroline was about to answer when Talbot spoke.

“Officer, what Dr. Cooke and I encountered in the castle basement was the Frankenstein Monster.”

Willis stared at the big man. “Mr. Talbot—don’t screw around with me.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Talbot insisted. “It’s the very same creature Dr. Henry Frankenstein built on the outskirts of the Tyrolean Alps over a century ago.”

“Built?”

“That’s right,” said Talbot. “From the bodies of the dead.”

The trooper stared at them for another moment. Then he shook his head and chuckled. “Oooookay. I get it. You’re trying out a plot for a novel—like the ones your aunt used to write. And Mr. Talbot is what? Your publisher? A reporter doing a story on Joan Raymond, the next generation?”

“I wish that were the case,” she said. “But the Monster
is
in there. The fire fighters will find the creature in the basement, along with the bodies of Mr. Pratt and Mr. Porterhouse. And when they go down there, they’d better be armed.” She looked at Talbot. “With what, Lawrence? Fire?”

“Yes,” he said sullenly. “That’s the only thing the Monster fears. But even that won’t kill him.”

“I see,” Willis said. “Fire won’t kill him and he’s bullet-proof.”

“No,” Talbot told him. “Bullets penetrate his skin. He can bleed. They just don’t harm his internal organs. He seems to have the capacity to regenerate tissue, perhaps as a result of the electricity in his body.”