The Wolfman (23 page)

Aberline walked the town, taking its measure, and with every step he felt his own mood darken.

He passed a house where a father and his two half-grown daughters worked with reckless haste to nail boards across their windows. Aberline paused to look down the row and he saw that every house was either shuttered or boarded.

He stopped into the big church and stood for several minutes in the back, listening as Pastor Fisk hurled fire and brimstone from the pulpit. It was a Tuesday evening
and there was no saint’s feast day that he knew of, but most of the pews were filled.

“There are those who doubt the power of Satan!” Fisk’s voice was hushed and threatening. “The power of Satan to change men into beasts. Yet the ancient pagans did not doubt. Nor did the prophets.”

Blimey
, thought Aberline,
he’s barking mad.

“Did not Daniel warn Nebuchadnezzar that Pride goeth before destruction? A haughty spirit before the fall?”

The parishioners murmured agreement.

“But the proud king did not heed Daniel, and so, as the Bible says, he was made unto a wolf and cast out from men.” He paused and his face was alight with holy purpose. “A beast has come among us.”

L
AWRENCE WAS GLAD
Gwen was gone, though it broke his heart to have been so rude to her and to see that hurt in her blue eyes. However, he knew that on this dreadful night, hurt was the kindest thing he could offer her.

After the carriage had clattered away down the road, Lawrence turned and began walking. Not toward the house, but down the garden path that led to the woods. He needed to think things through, to decide how to act, and the house was too claustrophobic. He needed to be out in the wind.

His footsteps carried him down through the first patch of woods and to the rocky shelf that looked out over the gorge. Even in the failing light the vista was beautiful. The sun was swollen to an unnatural size and as it fell behind the distant line of trees it seemed as if the whole world was ablaze.

Lawrence watched the sun fall, dreading it and all that it meant. He turned away from it and continued walking toward the dense black shadows under the trees. Back to the Hall.

O
N
T
HE
O
THER
side of the ancient forest that edged the Talbot lands stood the crumbling and vine-shrouded ruins of an old abbey. Only parts of the thick walls still stood and trees grew between the cracked and displaced flagstones. Colonel Montford stood with Dr. Lloyd, heavy-bore hunting rifles cradled over their arms, their faces grim and set. Montford’s face was crisscrossed with sticking plasters and discolored by bruises; the doctor’s face was flushed with fear and hyper tension. A few yards away MacQueen and a pair of stout lads from the squire’s estate worked to position a sturdy stake and pound it deep into a cleft between two of the broken flagstones. MacQueen gripped the shaft and gave it a shake to assure himself that it was solidly placed.

He nodded to Montford and Lloyd. “This’ll do ’er fine.” Then he crooked a finger to the squire’s men, who went to a wagon where a stag was tied. They loosened the tether and led the animal to the post, and MacQueen knelt and tied it firmly in place. MacQueen produced a knife from his belt, and with a deft flick of the wrist he opened a long but shallow cut on the stag’s flank. The animal screamed and bucked as hot blood flowed down its side.

MacQueen wiped his knife clean on his trousers and stalked over to Montford. “The breeze will carry that scent for miles.”

Dr. Lloyd mopped his face with a cloth. “Shouldn’t we get back to town?”

Colonel Montford and MacQueen looked into the sky. The full moon was nearly over the horizon.

“Get indoors if ye want to,” muttered MacQueen. He unslung the hunting rifle and checked that it was loaded. “I’ll go home when this bastard’s dead.”

W
HEN LAWRENCE ENTERED
the foyer his father stepped out of the Great Hall, his face dark with fury. “What have you done?” Sir John demanded. “Miss Conliffe has left Blackmoor. Explain yourself.”

Lawrence did not bother to ask how his father knew of this. He could not manage a single new complication.

“This place is cursed, Father,” he said weakly. “I sent her away. She’s back in London by now.”

His father went very still and his eyes were hard as fists.

“You’re a fool,” hissed Sir John as he briskly pushed past Lawrence and vanished into the empty heart of the Hall.

P
ASTOR FISK WAS
warming to his rant, his voice rising to a bellow of righteous fury. “But God will defend His faithful. With His right hand, He will smite the foul demon!”

The congregation said nothing, but everyone was bent forward, hanging on the vicar’s every word.

“I say to you, the Enemy’s ploy is a devious one. Twisting the accursed into beasts, he seeks to bring us low. Make us as animals. Teach us self-loathing, so we forget that we are made in the image of Almighty God!”

That brought murmurs of angry protest from the crowd.

“You ask me, brothers and sisters, why does God tolerate this mockery?” Fisk stared around at his flock and beat upon the pulpit with his fist. “Because we have sinned against Him! Because our crimes reek to Heaven. And our sins demand vengeance.”

As another pair of congregants entered the church, Aberline slipped outside. He was not a churchgoing man. He had some faith, but it was rusty from disuse, and even as an idealistic lad he had never had much use for all the talk about hell and damnation. Aberline placed a much higher stock in crime and punishment, and in the growing police practice of scientific investigation. Evidence and analysis. The devil, he mused, was truly in the details.

He walked past the blacksmith’s shop, surprised to see it open for trade this late. A small crowd of villagers were gathered in the doorway and Aberline joined them, looking over the heads of a pair of boys to where the blacksmith’s assistants were taking silver plates and bowls and spoons and dropping them into a big iron pot that was so hot the metal began melting at once. Another assistant scooped the melted metal out with a stone ladle and poured it into a set of heavy molds. Aberline frowned and shifted so he could see what the blacksmith himself was doing at the far end of this production line. The big metalworker, wearing only trousers and a leather apron in the inferno heat of the workshop, held an old-fashioned bullet mold in his big hands. As Aberline watched, the blacksmith dumped a batch of bullets into a bucket of water and then scooped them out with a ladle before handing them to another assistant who checked them for burrs and smoothed their edges and finally stacked them with the dozens of others that had already been cast.

Aberline shook his head. Beyond the blacksmith were several bullet molds that had been discarded, and he had little wonder. Silver had a much higher melting point than lead and it probably ruined the molds after only a few castings. This nonsense was costing the blacksmith a lot of money and very likely going to result in him having a shop filled with useless junk instead of instruments of his craft. And yet . . . these people were all here with their precious silver—family heirlooms, wedding dowries, keepsakes—all to acquire bullets for something that didn’t exist.

He hid a smile as he turned away and continued his stroll through the town. It was all madness. But maybe amid the madness some truth would be revealed, and then he would make his move.

He lit a cigar and kept his eyes and ears open.

T
WICE LAWRENCE TRIED
to go back to bed, to lose himself in sleep. Each time he was out of bed within a few minutes, pacing his room with nervous energy, sometimes muttering to himself. Fear was a clawing thing that tore at the walls of his chest.

He thought about the box of bullets Singh had shown him. Should he go there, ask for some cartridges?

Maybe
, he thought,
but why
?
Defense or escape?

He still did not know which option was his to take. Maybe it would be better if Colonel Montford and his lackeys succeeded in their murderous plans. It might be the best way for this madness to end.

He stood in the emptiness of his room and tried to decide what to do. He wished he had an opium pipe. Losing himself in the velvet dreams would help, but the
last train to London had already passed through town, taking Gwen Conliffe with it.

Whiskey, he thought. A lot of whiskey might do the trick, and so he hurried downstairs to the Great Hall, filled a tumbler to the brim with his father’s scotch and gulped half of it down. He choked and coughed, but the warm burn inside his chest felt good. He took a second gulp, and a third, then refilled his glass and went back to his room, but as he entered he heard voices. Outside. He crept to his window and peered out. Below, half hidden in the shadows of the garden, he saw his father and Singh. Sir John was uncharacteristically ruffled, his face haggard and distressed. He held a shielded lantern in one hand. The big Sikh looked frightened, and he stood with his right hand resting on the hilt of his silver
kirpan.