Return of the Wolf Man (40 page)

As she walked past the books she heard the clang again. It startled her because it hadn’t come from another room: it had come from directly behind her. She looked back and took a few steps in that direction.

And gasped.

The dead man with the machetes was standing beside the body of Tom Stevenson. He was facing Caroline, his dead eyes staring at her. After a few moments he slammed the blades together over his head, causing her to jump. Then he lowered his arms to his sides and waited.

Caroline stood her ground. “Who are you?” she demanded, “and what’s going on?” She sounded tougher than she felt.

The man didn’t answer. He cracked the machetes together again and then began walking toward her.

She shook her head. This wasn’t possible. She had felt for a pulse and couldn’t find one. The man was dead.

Clang.
He took another step.

Caroline
was
hallucinating—the entire thing.

Clang.

Being in this place, Tom Stevenson hacked apart, a dead man coming toward her brandishing machetes. It had to be a delusion.

Clang.

“Stop it!” she cried, backing away. “Don’t come near me!”

Clang.

Caroline came up against the wall of books and stopped. She was afraid to run, since that might snuff out the candles; she also didn’t want to turn her back on the machetes. Despite the fact that each bang of the machetes unnerved her, she decided to stand up to the man. She’d taken a self-defense course before her residency and had learned how to do a pretty mean front kick. As soon as he came close enough, she’d let the bastard have it and then try to get around him.

She switched the candelabrum to one hand and grabbed a book with another; she thought it might afford her some protection if he swung one of the machetes at her. Because her attention was entirely on the blank-eyed man, Caroline was not paying attention to the candelabrum. As she stood there, the flame from one of the candles crawled up the spine of an old hardcover volume. The fire ate the brittle leather quickly and crawled to a book beside it. Before Caroline realized what was happening, a line of books on the shelf behind her was ablaze. The flames leaped to the next shelf up and devoured the books in a liquid flash.

Caroline screamed as she saw the flames from the corner of her eye. She jumped away from the fire, nearly losing the candelabrum. As she moved forward, she noticed the man backing away in stiff, awkward steps. It was as though his legs wouldn’t move as fast as his mind wanted them to. Though his expression hadn’t changed, he’d raised his arms to shield his face.

He’s afraid of the fire . . .

Caroline stepped away from the blaze. Still clutching the book, she held it over the candles, set it on fire, and thrust it toward the man. He slashed at it with the machete but the book was out of reach. Caroline threw it at him to drive him back, then circled back toward the foyer. The man followed her, lowering his arms now that he was moving away from the burning shelves. Silhouetted against the wall of flame he raised the machetes and clanged them again.

Let him,
she thought.

Reaching the edge of the Persian rug, Caroline bent and touched one of the candles to the slender red tassels. The man suddenly stopped and lowered his arms; he stood transfixed as the carpet was consumed with a low, creeping flame. Still holding the candelabrum, Caroline backed away as flame raced around the fringe of the rug and began rolling across it. The man shifted from foot to foot, silent and expressionless. He was turning in a tight circle; there was fire on the wall behind him and fire on the rug in front of him. He couldn’t seem to decide which way to move. As the fires raged taller and wider, Caroline ran from the room.

Though all but the leftmost candle blew out, the light from the fire helped Caroline see as she hurried along the foyer. She could not believe that she’d left a man to die in a fire.

Not just left,
she thought. She’d
caused
him to die in the fire!

But he’d probably killed Tom Stevenson and he had tried to kill her. She’d acted in self-defense. And what in God’s name was she thinking, anyway? That man had been dead before she’d started the fire. He had no heartbeat, no pulse, no breath. He was
dead.

Or maybe she was. Maybe this was hell. As she ran she wondered if Talbot had broken out of his jail cell and killed her, just like he’d killed Pratt and Porterhouse. Or maybe she was on an operating table somewhere and this was a drug-induced reverie. People had been known to have some pretty insane ones.

There were sounds coming from outside the house. As Caroline passed the credenza she slowed down and used the one lit candle to relight the others.

The center candle refused to light.

“Come
on!”
she yelled.

The candle finally caught fire and she moved on to the one on the right. She started walking ahead. The last candle finally ignited. She replaced the first candle in its cup and looked up as she headed toward the door.

She stopped suddenly as a giant of a man stepped heavily into the doorway. He was an albino who stood about seven feet tall and had the same wide-eyed, vacant expression as the man in the library. He wore a tattered floor-length cloak of dried skin—human, she suspected, based on the faded tattoo of a nineteenth-century sailing ship on what looked like had once been an arm. He also wore dirty green trousers and a necklace made of small bones—human metacarpal and metatarsal bones. Tucked in the waistband of his trousers was what looked like a pearl-handled flintlock pistol. There was a matching pistol in his right hand and it was pointed at Caroline. It occurred to the woman just then that the clanging of the machetes had been a call to arms, though she hadn’t a clue as to who was being summoned, how many others there might be, and why they were being called. Just to kill her?

Caroline was about a yard from the man’s gun. In the instant she had to think about it she decided not to run; she couldn’t outrace a bullet. She was holding the candelabrum chest high. Stepping to the left she thrust the candles forward, hoping this man would back away like the other one and she could slip around him—

The man staggered back at the same instant as the vintage gun discharged. The loud report filled the foyer and merged with Caroline’s scream. The bullet struck the outside arm of the candelabrum; the impact stung her hand and she dropped the candle holder. As it hit the ground the two outer candles broke off and died. The center candle remained in the cup, still burning.

Still holding the smoking gun, the man regained his balance and withdrew the second pistol. Caroline glanced quickly behind her. The library was filled with fire and there was nowhere to run. She looked back at the man. His ghostly face showed no expression as he pulled back the hammer and held the weapon waist high.

“Why are you
doing
this?” Caroline cried. “Who are you? What have I done to hurt
any
of you?”

The man said nothing. He fired the second shot.

The bullet flew wide as something long and dark literally came through the man. It ripped through his abdomen violently, sending dry pieces of flesh and viscera in all directions. The man lurched as the clawed hand that had come through him unfurled and turned upward. Then the splayed fingers tore backward and up, ripping through the chest, grabbing the chin, and snapping the head backward.

Despite the stuffiness in her ears caused by the gunshots, Caroline heard the man’s neck snap. She watched as the hand withdrew, pulling the albino into the darkness. Save for the roar of the fire in the library, all was silent.

Caroline stood with her heart speeding, her jaw trembling, her mind spinning. That was a very distinctive claw she’d seen. The only one she’d ever seen like it had belonged to Lawrence Talbot. If this were him, she wondered if he had saved her intentionally or whether he’d killed the man in order to eat him. She also wondered if she were going to be his next victim.

The young woman bent slowly, never taking her eyes off the front door. She picked up the candelabrum, retrieved the two broken candles, relit them, and carefully fitted the pieces into the cups. She looked toward the door. She had to get away from the house before the fire spread to the foyer, and there was only one way out. Taking a long, calming breath, Caroline kept her eyes on the doorway and took a tentative step forward. Then she took another step, then a third.

Suddenly, she heard a bellowing behind her. It was like the howl of wind through a graveyard. She turned and saw the tall man with the machetes walking from the library. He was afire from forehead to feet, stomping toward her, his machetes still flashing. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was burning.

Whimpering, Caroline fought to overcome the sudden weakness in her legs. She shielded the candles and stumbled outside. As soon as she stepped onto the portico, a low roar turned her to the left. The glow of the three flames revealed a dark, manlike figure squatting beside the albino. Wiry brown fur covered the figure’s face and hands and poked through the holes in its shirt and trousers. It
was
Talbot. The Wolf Man was bent over the albino, the dead man’s white flesh coating his claws and mouth—if indeed it was flesh. It looked to Caroline like flecks of white ash, bloodless and tissue-thin.

The werewolf looked up at Caroline. Still crouching low, he stepped over the body and roared again. He didn’t appear happy with his kill and Talbot’s words of the other day came back to her:

The curse that transforms me into a wolf when the moon is full—a curse that drives me to eat human flesh.

But what if the flesh weren’t human? What if these people in this house were all like Dracula—undead?

Her mind swimming, Caroline backed toward the doorway. She stopped as she remembered the burning man; she turned and looked down the foyer. He was just a few feet away, still swinging his machetes blindly as he came toward her. Seeing him, Caroline screamed long and loud, as much from frustration as from fear.

She stopped as one of the machetes came slicing up toward her chin. She hopped backward, toward the Wolf Man.

“No more!” she screamed.

Driven by desperation, Caroline faced the burning man, wrapped both hands around the base of the candelabrum, and swung it at his head. The left and center arms connected with his jawline and knocked him against the mural. He hit it hard and leaned against it for a moment. Then he pushed off. As he did, his burning hands set the canvas on fire. The impaled bodies vanished into the blackening canvas, their tortures ending forever. As soon as the man was standing Caroline cried out in rage and hit him again. This time the candelabrum struck the side of his head. He fell against the painting once again and slipped to the ground. The machetes dropped from his hands and landed beside him. This time he did not get up.

Caroline looked down. Whatever had been inside this man’s head—she was reluctant to think of it as a brain—fell from the long break she’d made in his skull. The gray clumps and smaller gray-white crumbs burned cobalt blue as they tumbled through the flames.

Panting with fear and disbelief but still gripping the candelabrum, Caroline looked back at the Wolf Man. She turned just in time to see him enter the front door. Still bent low, he seemed oblivious to the flames. His claws were open and working, his lower teeth shifting back and forth. Thick saliva ran from the sides of his mouth. His red eyes, fierce and inhuman, were fastened on hers.

There were only a few feet between Caroline and the inferno behind her. Her back was thick with sweat and her scalp was hot. Squeezing the base of the candle holder, she faced the werewolf.

“Lawrence, listen!” she said. “It’s me—Caroline Cooke! Do you remember? I helped you at the castle!”

The werewolf hesitated. He tilted his forehead forward, creating blackness in which only his white eyes shone. It seemed to Caroline as though he were struggling to think or to comprehend. A growl gurgled in his throat.

“I promised I’d help you again,” she said, “and I will. That’s why I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”

The Wolf Man hestitated for a moment. Then, snarling and sinking low on his coiled legs, he jumped at her.

With an agonized cry, Caroline swung the silver candelabrum at him. It struck the left side of the Wolf Man’s head and knocked him against the credenza. He got right up but Caroline had moved in and hit him again, this time in the forehead. The monster rolled along the top of the sideboard, squirming with pain and smashing the glass cases. Blood leaked from his shattered temple; his eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth was opened wide.

Caroline stayed with him; she wasn’t going to let him get up again. She pulled the candles from their cups, dropped them to the floor, and turned the candelabrum over so that the heavy base was on top. She held it in both hands and raised it above her head.

Suddenly, the werewolf stopped writhing. He opened his bloodshot eyes and looked up at her. There was no longer ferocity in his expression and his breath came in shallow gasps.

Caroline hesitated. Perspiration stung her eyes and she was breathing heavily. As she looked at the now-placid creature beneath her, the young woman found herself wondering who was the animal and who was the creature with a soul.

Then, with obvious effort, the Wolf Man stretched a shaking paw toward her.
“Ag . . . againnn!”
he begged.
“Pl . . . please.”

Sobbing, Caroline shut her eyes and brought the candelabrum down hard on his forehead. She felt the warm blood splatter her hands. She heard the body fall to the floor in front of her. She choked as a claw touched her ankle and then went still. She opened her eyes and looked toward the library.

The fire was crawling closer now. The paintings crashed to the floor and she could hear shelves crumbling in the library. Clouds of fiery ash were drifting closer. Dropping the candelabrum, the young woman looked down at the face of her victim. Not at the face of the Wolf Man, but at the face of Lawrence Talbot. Though blood was still spilling from the wound in his head, his features seemed relaxed. The mouth, once perpetually bent with sorrow, seemed almost to be smiling.