The Howling III (26 page)

“Are there others here now with you?”

“Yes. You will meet them all when you join us. Come, let’s waste no more time.”

Malcolm hung back. “Derak, I-I’m not sure this is what I want to do.”

The eyes of the sandy-haired man lost their mild look. They glittered, reflecting the lights of the carnival. “My son, you have no choice.”

“But I do. I have a friend who says there may be a cure for me.”

“Cure!” Derak snapped the word off like the crack of a whip. “Cures are for sick humans. You are not sick. And, Malcolm, you are not human. You belong with us. It is your only hope for survival.”

Malcolm pulled in a deep breath. Although Derak seemed to draw him like a powerful magnet, he was determined to assert his own will.

“Dr Lang has promised to help me.”

Derak snorted in contempt. “Dr Lang? That woman in the motel room? What do you think she can do for you?”

“I don’t know,” Malcolm admitted. “But she promised to try, and I believe her.”

“You’re a fool. She will only exploit you like that other doctor.”

“No,” Malcolm said stubbornly. “Holly is different. I trust her.”

“You have much to learn,” Derak said. “Not only about humans, but about yourself.”

“I’m going with her,” Malcolm said. “You can’t stop me.”

“Can’t I?” Derak said darkly. “You don’t know how easily

I could take you right now.”

“Then you’ll have to do it that way.” The boy braced his feet wide apart and faced the man.

Derak made a sound deep in his chest. He took a step toward Malcolm. For a moment the light gleamed off his teeth, suddenly grown longer. Then he stepped back into the shadows.

“No, Malcolm, I will not take you by force. I want you to join us of your own choosing. I ask you once more - come with me.”

Malcolm shook his head. “No. If there is a chance I might be helped, that I might live as a normal human being, I have to take it. I’m going with Dr Lang.”

Derak’s eyes glowed dangerously. “Very well. It is a foolish choice; one you are going to regret. However, the choise is yours to make. When you are ready to come to us, you know we will be near.”

As Malcolm watched, Derak seemed to vanish into the darkness. A second shadow shaped moved too, and the boy was left alone.

He continued to Styles’s trailer, relieved to see there was still no one around. He slipped inside, leaving the door ajar. For a moment he was overwhelmed by the familiar surroundings that had been his home during the happy summer months. He moved about, running his fingers lightly over the cupboard where they kept their supply of food for the butane stove, the board where the old man had been teaching him chess, the perpetually rumpled bed where Bateman slept, his own bedroll neatly tucked away under the fold-down table. Even the stale smell of Bate’s Camels brought back happy memories.

Malcolm shook himself out of the mood and quickly selected a few articles of clothing. He slipped them on, taking the tattered old ones with him to dispose of along the way.

He made his way back to the highway, bouyed by the thought that in an hour he would be back with Holly. Then they could be on their way to a new life for him.

*****

At that moment, however, someone else knocked at the door of Holly’s room. Expecting Malcolm, she opened it to a surprise.

Malcolm quickened his steps as he approached the motel. The same cars that had been there before still stood in the parking spaces. The oriental woman dozed in the office. Holly Lang’s Volkswagen waited outside her room.

He stopped. There was a prickling of his skin as when someone draws a fingernail down a blackboard. Everything looked the same, yet something was different. He could sense it. Something unknown was waiting for him behind the drawn curtains of the motel room.

He approached slowly, looking in all directions, listening, sniffing the air. Nothing moved in the night. There was no sound. He could detect no foreign scent. And yet, he had this feeling…

He knocked lightly at the door, his muscles tense, nerves jumping.

The door opened.

The woman who stood in the doorway was not Holly Lang. She was two or three inches shorter than Holly. Her compact body was beautifully rounded and displayed to good advantage in a tight skirt and top of black leather. The woman’s hair was black as midnight, her mouth wide and inviting. She smiled. Her eyes were wide set and playful. They were green. Deep, deep green.

“Hello, Malcolm,” she said.

The impact of the woman in the doorway kept him from speaking for a moment. He felt very young and clumsy.

“Are you going to stand out there staring all night?”

“Who are you?” he managed finally.

“I am Lupe. I’ve been waiting for you. Come in.” She stepped aside and watched him with amusement.

Malcolm entered the room hesitantly. No one else was there. He saw Holly’s suitcase lying open on the floor, her things packed neatly inside.

“Where is Holly?”

“We have her now.”

“We?”

“Oh, come Malcolm, you know me. We can always recognize each other.”

“What do you mean you have Holly?” A blade of fear stabbed into him.

“Oh, not that way,” Lupe said. “She’s still all right, as far as I know.”

“You’re one of Derak’s people?”

“Yes, of course. Derak has your friend.”

“Where has he taken her?”

“To the hills. I can show you.”

“Well, come on’, He started toward the door.

“What’s your hurry?” The dark woman’s voice was husky and insinuating. “He won’t do anything to her. Not until you get there, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you’d better hear the rest from Derak. We’ll go after them in a little while.”

“Why not now?”

“There are other things we can do now.” She reached up and undid the top button of the leather blouse. “How old are you, Malcolm?”

“Almost sixteen.”

Another button.

“Have you been with a woman?”

“Yes.”

The third button.

“Many?”

“No.”

“I’ll bet you have never been with a woman like me.”

She undid the last button and dropped her arms. A shrug and the leather top was on the floor. She wore nothing underneath. Her breasts were large and firm and proud. Malcolm could not pull his eyes away.

Lupe reached for the fastening at the side of her skirt. “Have you?”

“What?” Malcolm’s mouth was dry.

“Have you been with a woman like me?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

A soft snap, a zip, and the leather skirt joined the top on the floor. Lupe stood straight before him. She touched the dark triangle of pubic hair, slid her hand up over the rounded belly and cupped one heavy breast. Her finger played with the nipple until it stood erect.

“Do you like me?” she said.

“I-I have to find Holly.”

“I told you I’ll help you. But first, wouldn’t you like to get to know me better?”

She came toward him, stopping inches away. He could feel the heat of her naked body. There was an ache between his legs.

“I can make you feel really good,” Lupe said. “Would you like that?”

She reached down and touched him. His erection grew under her fingers.

“Well, what do we have here?” she teased. “And only sixteen years old. You are going to be quite a man, Malcolm.”

He began to perspire. He could feel his shirt going damp at the armpits. Conflicting emotions ripped him. He wanted to take the hand of the taunting woman away, and he never wanted her to move it.

She undid his trousers and slipped her hand inside. The sensation was unbearable pleasure.

He tried to speak, but all that came out was a long “Aaahhh!”

“Take those things off,” Lupe told him. “Come into bed with me.”

She peeled back the spread, blanket, and top sheet, then lay down, spreading her midnight hair over a pillow. She cocked one knee and massaged the velvety inside of her thigh with gentle strokes of her fingertips.

“Hurry,” she said in a husky whisper.

With his eyes never leaving the woman in the bed, Malcolm stripped off. He pulled off shoes and socks and lay down on the bed beside her.

Instantly Lupe was on him. She kissed his mouth, her tongue probing deep. Her hungry lips nibbled at his chin, his throat, and down across his chest to his belly. The green eyes looked up at him teasingly.

“Feel good?”

“Y-yes.”

“Want me to stop?”

“No.”

“I told you so.”

She took him inside her mouth then. Her tongue and lips worked on him, her white little teeth giving him gentle love bites. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked. Malcolm felt as though he were being pulled inside out.

Just when he thought he could not last a second longer, she drew her head back, her mouth making a little popping sound as he slid out. She rubbed the length of her body up along his, the flesh lubricated by their mingled sweat. She raised her head and looked down on him. Her hair was a shiny black curtain framing her face. She smiled. Her teeth were very white, and very sharp. And not so little any more.

Slowly, tantalizingly, she lowered herself down on him and took his length inside her. He felt the heat radiate through his body.

“Good?” she said, her breath moist on his face.

He could not answer.

She began to ride slowly up and down on him, pausing at the top just before he would have slipped out, then sinking gradually to swallow him up again.

Malcolm closed his eyes, giving himself to the sensations of his body. Sitting on him, riding him, Lupe stepped up the rhythm and the vigour of their joinings until her buttocks smacked his upper thighs with a report like a pistol shot.

His climax came a second before hers. She dropped down on him, her arms wrapped about his neck, nails digging furrows in his back. They cried out together and rolled back and forth over the king-size bed until his seed was spent. Then they continued to cling to each other like drowning children as their breathing slowly returned to normal. Lupe was the first to speak. “I told you you’d never had a woman like me.”

“Mmmm,” was all Malcolm could manage.

“It gets better.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, yes. When you really know about yourself, and about what we are, there are ways to make it much better.”

Malcolm opened his eyes. He rolled to one side and pushed the woman away. “You said you’d take me where Derak went with Holly.”

“Did I say that?” Lupe’s eyes danced with mischief. “I don’t know why you’re so anxious to see Derak.”

“We have to settle something.”

“You’re not thinking of challenging him?”

“Why not?”

“Because you are just a pup. Derak has been a leader of his people for a long time. You’re lucky he has let you come this far on your own.”

“Let me?”

“Of course he has. He could have taken you many times over the past year.”

“Then why didn’t he?”

“You don’t know?”

“I’m asking.”

“Because he is your father.”

Malcolm sat up and stared at her. Derak, his father? The knowledge hit him like a fist. Malcolm knew him as a leader, a teacher, one to be respected. And perhaps feared. But a father? How was it possible? He felt closer to Holly, to Jones, to Bateman Styles than he did to the quiet-spoken man with the deep green eyes.

“Don’t start thinking that makes you too special,” Lupe went on. “Derak was father to half the children in the village of Drago. Of course, many of them did not survive the fire. Maybe that is why he is so patient with you.”

“And my mother?” he said.

“She died in the fire. You must not think of her. It is not important, as you will learn.”

He swung his feet off the bed and began putting on his clothes. “Take me to Derak now,” he said.

Lupe reached over and slid a hand between his bare buttocks. “So soon? We’ve just got started.”

He stood up, moving back out of her reach. “You’re wrong, we’re finished. Let’s go.”

“You mean you had your fun and now you’re through?” she said petulantly. “What about me?”

He glared at her. “You promised.”

She patted the damp sheet beside her. “Come back. Once more, then I will take you to Derak and your lady friend.”

He cinched the belt buckle tight and crossed to the door. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find them myself.”

“Go ahead, if you think you can,” Lupe taunted him from the bed. “But it will be much nicer in here with me.”

“The hell with you.”

He went out and slammed the door. The night surrounded him. He looked at the lonely cars crouching like abandoned beasts in the painted spaces. The lights were out now in all the rooms, except the one where Lupe waited. Malcolm felt terribly alone.

He walked back past the motel units to where the land sloped up into the foothills. Up there somewhere was Derak, and he had Holly with him. But where? How to find them in all that expanse of dark, rolling country? The boy’s doubts made the night even colder.

The he heard it. The howling.

Unmistakeably, it was a call to him. Malcolm closed his eyes. He sniffed the air. Small, invisible changes happened inside his body, and the night was not so cold any more.

When he opened his eyes, their green colour had deepened. He started confidently up into the hills.

Gavin Ramsay sat staring at the little digital clock on his desk in La Reina County sheriffs office. He caught himself counting the seconds as they ticked by, and angrily turned the face of the clock away from him.

All right, so Holly Lang did not call last night. That didn’t mean anything. There were a hundred reasons she might not have telephoned him. Yeah, he told himself grimly, and about fifty of them were bad news.

The new, slimmed-down version of Deputy Roy Nevins came into the office. His leather gleamed, his uniform was freshly pressed. He was shaved, trimmed, and looked maybe ten years younger than he had a year ago. Gavin marvelled at the varying effect exposure to violence had on different people.

“Any action, Roy?” he asked.