Return of the Wolf Man (17 page)

“Electricity—”

“That’s probably right,” Caroline said. “The electricity must stimulate his cells somehow.”

Willis exhaled through his nose. “Now look, you two. I don’t know how you’re used to doing things north of LaMirada, Dr. Cooke, but we don’t play games with the law down here.”

“I already told you we’re not playing games. When your crew gets downstairs they’re going to find an eight-foot-tall creature. And I suggest you have them bring flamethrowers or gasoline and matches because they
are
going to need them.”

Willis put his hands on his hips. “Doctor, I don’t know what you two were smokin’ in there but you’re coming to the mainland with me. I’ll have the town lawyer meet us, because I have a feeling you’re going to need—”

“Trooper Willis,” Talbot said, “before we go, there’s something else you should know.”

“No!” Caroline said. She grabbed his wrist. “Trooper Willis was right. Don’t say anything else until we’ve spoken to an attorney.”

Willis shook his head and looked out across the water. “I’ve got a feeling you two are going to give me a big pain in—aw, hell.”

Caroline followed Willis’s gaze. He was looking past them, toward the channel between La Viuda and the mainland.

“Speaking of pains,” he said. “I’ve got to get you two out of here.”

“Why?” Caroline asked.

“Because crusading Gibson Gowland of the
LaMirada Good Times Dispatch
is on his way,” Willis said. “The last thing I need are stories getting out that there’s a monster on this island.”

“The Communist press lives,” Caroline said.

“Say what you like,” Willis replied, “but a red scare in these parts almost ruined LaMirada fifty years ago. Only the red that scared people wasn’t Communists, Dr. Cooke. It was blood. A lot of it. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” He started to walk away. “Wait here, please.”

“Are we under arrest?” Caroline asked.

“No,” Willis said over his shoulder. “Last time I looked the Communists were still about ninety miles south of here.” Willis shouted something to the fire chief, then hurried back to his boat to make a call. He waited for Gowland’s boat to arrive.

When he was gone, Caroline turned to Talbot. “Lawrence, you musn’t tell him that you were responsible for what happened.”

“Why not? I was.”

“I know that,” she said. “But the fire will be out soon. They’ll find the Monster and blame the murders on him. They’ll have to—there won’t be any other explanation. And you have to let them.”

“If I do that,” Talbot said, “they’ll set me free. And tonight, when the moon is full, I’ll kill again. Don’t you see? It’s better if I’m locked up. Maybe the cell has finally been built that will hold me.”

“And then tomorrow, the curse will come on even stronger,” she replied. “You said so yourself.”

Talbot looked down. He rubbed his knees anxiously.

“Anyway, I don’t want you locked up,” she said. “I want you helped. We’ll get you to a clinic, find a way to sedate you—”

“I don’t want to be sedated!” he cried. “Don’t you understand? I don’t
want
to live. Even if you could cure me I’ve got blood on my hands.” He opened them and stared down at his fingers. After a moment he looked over at Caroline. “But before I die, I want to try to atone for some of the suffering I’ve caused. I want to make sure that at least the Monster is destroyed.”

“The fire fighters will see to that,” Caroline said.

“No,” Talbot said. “We need to go in with someone who can use the terminals on the Monster’s neck to drain his energy.”

“You mean those two silver bolts?”

“Yes,” said Talbot. “I know you have to connect the minus pole to the minus pole, but I don’t know which one is which.”

“And that will kill the Monster?”

“It’s the first step,” Talbot replied. “His nervous system will cease to function. After that he can be dissected, something that should have been done decades ago. When that’s done I’ll find a weapon made of silver. Then I’ll need your help using it—”

“Absolutely not,” Caroline said.

“But you
must—”

“You weren’t responsible for all those killings,” she said. “I’ll help you to deal with that, but not through death.”

Talbot was about to protest but Caroline hushed him. Trooper Willis had finished speaking with Gibson Gowland and was starting back down the dock. He was talking on his cellular phone.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Caroline said to Talbot. “Right now I want you to do for me what you did for my aunt. I want you to trust me. Can you do that?
Will
you do that?”

“But you don’t understand,” Talbot said. “When the full moon rises I’ll kill again. Perhaps I’ll even attack you. I’m drawn to kill those who are closest to me. That’s part of the curse.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Caroline said. “I’m a doctor. I’ve seen medicine do powerful things, things you never dreamed of. Give me the chance to try and help you, Lawrence. I don’t want your blood on my hands.”

Talbot hesitated for a long moment. Finally, he nodded.

“Good,” she said. “So we’ll have no more talk of silver weapons. Not a word. Understand?”

He nodded again as Trooper Willis returned.

“Well, I’ll say this for young Gowland,” Willis said. “He’s smart enough to know that you cover a murder to sell papers, but you leave out the really scary stuff. Otherwise folks flee and you have nobody left to read the paper. Come on.”

“Where to?” Caroline asked.

“My little corner of LaMirada,” Willis said. “I just spoke with Tom Stevenson’s secretary. Tom’s the town attorney and also the local pro bono man. He’ll come to the office when he gets out of court.”

“When will that be?” Caroline asked.

“He had a morning session—should be back before noon. Until the fire fighters are inside the castle and can see what’s what, he’ll make sure you’re treated without prejudice, as they say in the law business.”

“All right,” Caroline said as they followed him toward his four-seater.

Though the trooper offered Caroline the seat beside him, she elected to sit in the back next to Talbot. When the engine started up she found that it was surprisingly quiet back there. That was due, she realized, to the Plexiglas shell that prevented prisoners from jumping overboard. She spotted a pair of wading boots under the seat and asked the trooper if the barefoot Talbot could borrow them. He said all right.

Caroline glanced at Talbot as he put the boots on. She was struck by his composure now, by the contrast between the peaceful man he seemed to be by nature and the ferocious thing that nature had made him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He sat up and nodded once.

“What were you thinking?”

He took a long breath. “You don’t really want to know.”

“Sure I do,” she said. “One thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t say what I don’t mean. You seemed far away. Where?”

He looked out at the bay. “I was back in California.”

“A happier time, I’m sure,” she said. She took his hand in hers.

Talbot looked at her and smiled. “Do you want to hear something funny?”

“Please,” Caroline said.

“When I was living in California I had a letter from my father’s solicitor. He said he was also representing a gentleman who was buying property near my mother’s home in North Hollywood. Seven acres up in the hills, on a wooded peak. The solicitor wanted to know if his client could call on me if he needed anything. That ‘gentleman’ was Count Dracula. I wrote back that I’d be happy to help the Count in any way I could. He sounded very cultured, a little eccentric, very European—an interesting man to know.”

“Did you meet him then?”

Talbot shook his head. “I’m not sure that he ever even came there. Perhaps he was looking for a haven in the event of war. I don’t know.” Talbot looked down again. “He always plans ahead, and he’s ruthless. That’s how he’s managed to survive.”

Caroline squeezed his hand. “The moral of the story is that a title and fancy clothes do not a refined person make. Speaking of appearances, how does the world look after one’s been away for fifty years?”

Talbot looked up. “You know—I hadn’t really noticed.”

“You hibernate for half a century and then you don’t see the world when you awake?”

“I know that sounds strange,” Talbot said. “But when your nights are crowded with heightened sounds and smells, all you want to do during the day is retreat from your senses . . . if you can understand that.”

“I think I can,” Caroline said, “and I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t be crowding you like this.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “Now that you mention it, it is a very interesting question. In California I worked for an optical company. Back then I was always thinking about the future, trying to imagine what wonders there would be.”

“What did you think it would be like?”

He brightened a little. “Oh, I thought there would be things like flying cars and robots and rockets to the moon.”

Caroline smiled back. “Well, humans
have
been to the moon. We also have planes—shuttles, we call them—that travel into outer space. And we have robots. They’re not humanoid, the way you might have pictured them, but there are automated machines that build cars and do our banking and even explore other planets for us.”

“Then I don’t understand,” Talbot said, “why I don’t
feel
as if anything has really changed. Clothes, attitudes, places like this where people have closed minds. We always thought that things would be better in the future. That people would be wiser and more compassionate.”

“Well, there’s the catch,” Caroline said. “As the universe got smaller I guess we all started feeling a little crushed together. Brutalized. And I think people pushed back, became more intolerant.”

Talbot sighed. “I understand how intolerance can hurt a person.”

“I take it you’re speaking from experience?”

Talbot grinned self-consciously. “You don’t really want to hear about that.”

“I do,” she insisted.

Talbot found another little smile for her. “You’re a kind girl.”

“And you’re politically incorrect, though I’ll break you of that naïve charm before we’re through. Let me guess. Does intolerance have anything to do with why you were in California?”

Talbot nodded. “My father’s family disapproved of his second wife. My mother was an American actress. She was appearing in London in a play while my father was still mourning the death of his first wife. He married her not long before I was born, and she went back to California shortly thereafter.”

“With or without you?”

“Initially, without me,” he said. “I spent summers with my mother, but my father wanted me to be raised in the castle in Llanwelly Village where five generations of Talbots had lived.” He snickered bitterly. “I tried to be a Talbot. But my older stepbrother, John, regarded me as a bastard—”

“Though you weren’t.”

“No, I wasn’t. And he also saw me as a threat. He was very serious and harsh with the people who worked at the estate. I was easygoing and I knew how to have a good time. He was an outdoorsman who had no patience for books and I loved reading, learning. My father wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. I was sent to boarding school in London and visited the estate on weekends. It was a terrible, lonely life.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Finally, when I was fourteen, my brother insisted that I go and live with my mother and my father obliged. I was hurt but I really didn’t mind. I was happy in Southern California. We lived modestly and my mother worked regularly in motion pictures as an extra. When she died, I remained in Los Angeles.”

“Did you see your father at all during that time?”

“No,” Talbot said. “We exchanged letters.”

“Why did you finally go back?”

“When I was thirty-one, John was killed in a hunting accident on the grounds. My father asked me to return and take my place as heir. This may sound cruel, but I went back and for the first time I really
enjoyed
being there. Though my father wasn’t an affectionate man I was happy with the prospect of having him to myself.”

“That doesn’t sound cruel at all,” Caroline said. “I understand how you must have felt.”

Talbot’s smile broadened. “That wasn’t the only thing that made me happy.” He was staring off now, at something only he could see. “My father had this magnificent reflecting telescope in his attic. In California, I used to look at the stars with a sense of wonder. In Llanwelly Village, I used it to spy on beautiful women with a greater sense of wonder. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that I was always quite the wolf.”

Caroline didn’t find it ironic. If she were a psychiatrist, that’s an avenue she’d have pursued.

“I met my beautiful Gwen Conliffe that way,” Talbot continued. The smile quivered around the edges. “Then came the awful night when I was out with Gwen and her friend Jenny Williams. We’d gone to a Gypsy camp to have our fortunes told. Gwen and I walked off and Jenny was attacked by a wolf—only it wasn’t a real wolf. It was Bela the Gypsy—a werewolf.”

Caroline noticed Trooper Willis cock his ear back. She motioned for Talbot to lower his voice. Talbot fell silent.

“No, go on,” Caroline urged. “Just quieter. Please, Lawrence?”

“All right,” he said, “but only if you call me Larry.”

“All right, Larry,” she said. She scooted closer to him, their thighs touching. “I want to hear more.”

Talbot breathed deeply. “When Jenny screamed I ran to help her. I struck the wolf with my walking stick. As I did, he bit me.” Talbot absently rubbed his chest, just above his heart. “Bela died, but not before passing along his curse. After that, I no longer looked at the stars and the moon with a sense of wonder. They were merely another reminder of what I had become. After that, women were no longer objects of admiration and respect. They were simply prey.”

Caroline touched his arm. “Wasn’t there anyone who could help you? Didn’t you see doctors?”

“I saw doctors. I saw countless doctors, the best in Europe. The best in the
world.
They tried to cure me with surgery. They tried medicines, electricity, even fungus. Nothing worked.”