The Wolfman (16 page)

He could hear it. The deep, quick breath of the beast.

On the other side of the slab.

Behind him.

Icy sweat ran down his face and stung his eyes. It felt like tears.

He licked his lips and slipped his finger into the trigger guard. There was a chance. Just a chance. If he spun around the stone and backed up, if he did it right, then he could open up with both barrels from point-blank range. It was his best chance. His only chance. But dear God it terrified him. He almost sobbed with the fear of what he was about to do.

God help me
, he cried in his mind.
God . . . if you exist, if you’re there . . . if you give a fuck . . . help me!

He drew a breath and moved!

Lawrence spun off the stone and wheeled to his left, backpedaling five feet as he brought up the rifle. He pulled one of the triggers and the blast knocked him backward even farther as the bullet punched a big hole through nothing at all.

The werewolf was gone.

Lawrence stood there, flat-footed, shocked.

How could he have been wrong? He’d
heard
it.

Lawrence turned in a full circle, sweeping the smoking gun around, urging the creature to step out of the mist.

But it wasn’t in the mist.

He heard the growl. Low, sneaky, hungry.

Above him.

Lawrence looked up and there, standing atop the pillar, immensely powerful against the white splendor of the goddess moon, was the beast.

He tried to bring the gun up. He was fast. It was faster.

The werewolf pounced on him, reaching for him with its taloned hands and smashing him down onto the damp earth so hard that breath and blood flew from Lawrence’s mouth. His clutching finger jerked the second trigger but the bullet blew past the monster’s head and struck fire from the stone before speeding off uselessly into the woods.

The werewolf hissed with fury as it raked him with its claws. Only the thick fabric of his greatcoat saved him from being eviscerated, but even so he felt lines of burning pain across his chest and the whole front of his coat disintegrated into ribbons.

Lawrence fought. This was the last moment of his life
and he knew it, but still he fought. With all of his fury and all of his hate, he fought. For Benjamin and the others who had died today, he fought. For his own soul, he fought. He punched at the thing, smashing his fists into its throat and mouth and eyes. He could feel its bones grind and he could feel his knuckles splinter. He smashed at it and drove his knee up to try and dislodge it. He even bit at it, tearing away a chunk of flesh and fur. He fought and fought and fought.

And then the werewolf swatted his hands away as if they were nothing and with a growl of dark hunger it lunged forward and buried its fangs into his shoulder.

The pain was so vast, so monstrous, that Lawrence was thrust into a world of red hot insanity. The creature shook its head, worrying at him, gnawing on him until finally it reared back and ripped flesh and muscle from Lawrence’s shoulder. Blood sprayed the monster’s face and blinded Lawrence. It splashed into Lawrence’s mouth and he tasted it—hot and salty, smelling of copper and fear.

The creature swallowed the meat and prepared for the final bite. The killing bite that would end all of this pain and madness.

Then—
BANG!

Something struck the werewolf and knocked it to one side. Lawrence, dazed beyond thought, could hear it scream—more in anger than pain. There was another bang, and another. More. A volley of gunfire.

Shouts. Men yelling in a language he didn’t know.

More gunfire.

And then crushing weight of the beast was gone. It leaped from him and ran into the mist as bullets burned and buzzed like hornets and knocked chips from the stones.

Lawrence lifted his head and saw shapes filling the circle. Men. Gypsies. Many of them. Some of them still shooting into the mist. One of them lifted the little boy and kissed his face, his eyes, his brow, his cheeks. Others came to him and crowded around. They touched him. Were they helping? Were they killing him? . . .

Lawrence was losing touch with reality. The mist was spreading, filling his eyes, filling his head. Lawrence looked up into the sky and the huge white face of the Goddess of the Hunt filled his eyes, dominated his mind . . . and then it, too, faded to mist and darkness.

But before his mind collapsed into the great well of shadows he heard the voice of the creature rise above the forest with a single, long howl. Not of pain, not of defeat, but of ferocious triumph.

Lawrence Talbot sank beneath that sound and plummeted into a darkness that had no end.

T
he man should be dead. His wound was terrible. The ground beneath where he’d lain was soaked with blood, and the bandages the men from the camp had put on him were already drenched.

Maleva lit a cigarillo and studied the face of Lawrence Talbot, who lay on a pair of wooden cases that had been lashed together and covered with a clean blanket. His features were drawn, his skin gray and streaked with sweat and gore, his eyelids fluttering open every now and then but there was no sense or understanding in his eyes. The man was dying—should
be
dead—but Maleva knew better. And it broke her ancient heart.

The men of the camp had come back with the boy, who was unhurt but deeply traumatized by his ordeal. They brought the boy to her first, and though they had all seen the medal around his neck, they wanted reassurance from her. She checked the child over and then kissed his forehead.

“Fate has been kind to this little one,” she told them, speaking in the Romany dialect of their tribe. “Even if she has been so cruel to so many others.”

The dead of the tribe had been laid out in a row. Six men of the camp; three women. One child. And the five men from the town—the four with shotguns and the policeman. All of them lying in a row, their broken bodies
covered with cloths. Some were missing arms and legs. The Rom scoured the woods to find the missing pieces, but even when this grisly task had been completed what had been assembled did not add up to ten of her people. The beast had fed as it killed.

The man on the makeshift table groaned and in his delirium he tried to move, but he had lifted his wounded arm no more than an inch when pain exploded through every nerve . . . and he screamed. His eyes opened wide and Maleva saw that the pain had awakened his mind. He stared at her with clear comprehension of what had happened, and the reality of it was close to unhinging his mind.

She motioned for her apprentice, a lovely woman who was not yet twenty-one but who was already deep in the practice of the healing arts.

“Hold him, Saskia,” ordered Maleva. “But have a care.”

Lawrence was thrashing and screaming, but the young woman pressed Lawrence gently but firmly down, whispering soothing words in Romany. Lawrence jabbered at her in nearly incoherent English, which the woman did not understand. His panic was like a storm in the narrow confines of the vardo. Maleva stepped close and took a bowl of mingled herbs, struck a match and dropped it into the bowl. Instantly, blue smoke coiled upward, filling the wagon with a powerful scent.

“Hold your breath,” said Maleva, and Saskia did as ordered; then the old woman held the smoking bowl under Lawrence’s nose and with each desperate panting breath he drew the herb smoke into his lungs. Within seconds his screams died to a confused moan and his eyes lost their focus. In half a minute he sagged back against the blanket and was still except for his labored
breathing, but soon that slowed, too. Maleva opened the door and dumped the burning herbs into the dirt, and then opened the windows so that the cold night air swept the drugged smoke away.

Maleva and Saskia let out their pent-up breaths, each of them desperate for air. For a time they did nothing but breathe. Maleva was the first to move, and she opened a chest that contained the tools of her healing craft. She selected a needle and threaded it with gut and handed it to Saskia. Then Maleva fished in Lawrence’s pocket for the St. Columbanus medal and looped the chain over the dying man’s head. She placed the medal over Lawrence’s heart, and shortly his breathing came more regularly.

The young woman looked at the wound and then raised her eyes to Maleva.

“Why do you save him?” asked Saskia. The sounds of weeping and grief still filled the camp. She knew everyone who had died, and grief was a knife in her heart.

“He risked his life for one of ours. For a child that he did not even know.”

“He has been bitten! If you have compassion for this man, then you should end his misery before it begins.”

Maleva shook her head. “You would make me a sinner?”

Saskia set aside the needle and took Maleva’s hands in hers. “There is no sin in killing a beast.”

The old woman stroked Saskia’s hair. “Is there not?” she asked. “What of killing a man?”

“It’s not the same.”

“Where does one begin and the other end?”

Saskia pulled back, her face clouded with doubt. She picked up the needle and turned to address the gaping wound. The needle went into the flesh easily and
Saskia’s quick, clever fingers began the process of sewing the wound shut. It was a huge wound and it would take a lot of time. As she worked she kept shaking her head.

“Speak your mind, girl,” said Maleva gently.

“Many will suffer for this.”

Maleva watched in silence for a long time before she answered, and when she spoke her voice was as soft as a heartbroken whisper. “Sometimes Fate’s way is a cruel one. But she seeks a greater end.”

Saskia looked up from her work, clearly troubled, but the old woman touched her cheek.

“Always?” Saskia asked.

“Always,” said Maleva, though she did not meet Saskia’s eyes when she said it.

M
aleva’s one-horse cart was small, just enough to carry bags of vegetables or stacks of pelts for trade in the towns. She sat perched on the bench seat, her traveling cloak pulled around her, her face lit by a tiny lantern that swung from the canopy by a rusty chain. Before her, Talbot Hall rose like a dark fortress, but all of its windows were ablaze with light.

The front door opened as she pulled the cart to a stop at the base of the broad stone stairs, and a tall Sikh stepped out. He held a big oil lamp in one hand and a wicked-looking knife in the other.

“What is your business?” he demanded. “There is trouble abroad tonight and you have no—”

Her voice cut through his protests. “I bring grief to the house of sorrow.” And with that she reached back and pulled away the blanket that covered the body that was strapped to boards in the cart.

Singh cried out in Urdu and then in English. But Sir John, looking exhausted and disheveled in his leopard-trimmed dressing gown, was right behind him. He rubbed his tired eyes and then became instantly still as he stared past Singh at the body on the cart.

“Lawrence!” The name was torn from him and he shoved Singh aside and bolted down the steps. The Sikh
was at his heels. They crowded around the body, examining him by lantern light.

“He’s alive,” Singh gasped.

Sir John closed his eyes for a moment as he gripped the sides of the stretcher boards. “Thank God . . .”

On her perch, Maleva watched as the two men carried Lawrence up the stairs and into the hall. The door closed with a crash and the courtyard was bathed in darkness and silence.

“May Fate protect you,” she murmured. “May Fate protect us all.”

She turned the cart around and let the horse find its way back to her people.

F
or Lawrence time had lost all meaning. There was no sense of its passing. He did not know when it was—neither the day nor the hour—and only vaguely grasped where he was. He swam for what seemed like centuries in a sea of darkness that had no up or down. He was like one of those blind creatures who lived in the lightless depths of the ocean, moving through eternal nothingness, with no destination and no purpose. The only sound was that of his own breathing, which was low and deep and steady, and when he listened to it his consciousness faded back into sleep.

One time he opened his eyes to see an empty room and the slanting golden light of afternoon sun.

When he blinked it was night and only the light of a single candle lit the room. A form slept in a chair but he could not tell if it was real or if it was a heap of old coats. He did not—could not—care, and let his eyes drift closed again.

Another blink and Gwen Conliffe was there, seated in a chair by the window, sunlight on her face, a Bible open on her lap. Gwen? Why was she here? Lawrence struggled to even remember who she was, but the harder he tried the more elusive the answer became. He saw her stir and turn toward him, but he was already slipping
into darkness again. If she saw him, or spoke his name, he did not know it.