The Wolfman (36 page)

He did not expect her to cross the room and kneel down in front of him. She touched his face with gentle fingers.

“I’m so very sorry,” she said.

Her words, her kindness, broke him. A huge sob hitched his chest and then he was crying uncontrollably. Gwen gathered him in her arms, and she, too, wept.

L
awrence lay shirtless in a guest bedroom above the apothecary. His clothes had been burned in the furnace. He’d bathed for nearly two hours in a hot tub as Gwen brought endless pots of steaming water. He scrubbed his skin until it was nearly raw, and even though the gore and filth washed away he could not cleanse himself of the feel of it, and knew that he probably never would. Not if he lived for a century, and he doubted he would see the end of this year.

When he had first awakened in the alley and had stripped off his rags to clothe himself in the dead beggar’s garments, Lawrence had been covered with scratches and cuts and the bites of a hundred insects. Now his skin was totally unmarked. Lawrence did not remark on this to Gwen, but he knew that his lack of scars was damning proof that he wore the Mark of Cain. The mark of the Wolf.

The clock was chiming seven o’clock in the evening when Gwen entered carrying a dinner tray. As she set it down Lawrence saw the folded newspaper lying beside the coffeepot. With great trepidation he took the paper and unfolded it. He feared what it would say, but what he saw was worse than he even imagined. There was a photograph of him that must have been taken shortly after his arrival at Lambeth Asylum. The face it showed
was that of a crazed, wild-eyed madman. The headline, with huge letters, read:

“ ‘Dozens’ . . .” he whispered and closed his eyes, and for the first time since his mother’s death, he crossed himself.

Once again he looked at Gwen expecting to see horror and revulsion, but again all he saw was compassion and pity. Fresh tears glistened in her eyes.

“I can help you.”

Lawrence threw down the paper and set the tray aside. He swung his legs off the bed and sat up. “There is no help for me,” he said in a low, savage voice.

“Maybe there is,” Gwen said as she held out her hand to him. Something silver glimmered in her palm. “Here.”

He sat there, unable to move, so Gwen took the medal and looped the chain over his head so that the talisman lay over his heart. The medal was warm from her palm, but the warmth seemed to sink into his flesh and loosen the strictures around his heart, and for the first time all morning he found that he could take a deep breath.

“If such things are possible, Lawrence . . . is not all of it possible? Magic? The Devil?”

He looked up.

“Even . . . God?” she asked.

Lawrence touched the medal, and something like hope flickered within him. A weak flame flickering in the black breath of the wolf, but there nonetheless.

“Yes,” he said softly. “It’s all possible.”

She knelt and took his hands, squeezing them with
surprising strength. “Then there
must
be a way to stop it, too!”

“No . . . ,” he began, but the urgency in her eyes washed the protest from his lips. “Gwen, listen to me. I have to accept what I’ve done, and if there is a God then my doom is already certain. I’ll burn in Hell for the pain I’ve caused.”

“No! You were not yourself. Something
else
did that.”

“
I
did those things, Gwen. Whether I was in control or not.”

“Then it’s like an infection. If you are sick and your sickness causes harm to others then it’s not your fault.” She stroked his cheek. “This morning, when you told me what happened at that horrible asylum, you told me you begged them to lock you up, to chain you, to
kill
you.”

“Yes . . .”

“But they didn’t!
They
did not. If they had done as you asked no one would have been hurt. If your father had warned you in time, if he had locked you up back in Blackmoor rather than locking you out, then you would have harmed no one. This is not your fault, Lawrence. You’re a good, decent man.”

He attempted another smile. “No one has ever accused me of decency before.”

She shook her head fiercely. “This . . . disease or curse or whatever it is . . . this was done to you. Not by you.”

“No one else will think that.”

“I do,” she insisted. “And you must.”

“I don’t know. I have no control over this . . . and I can’t let this happen again. I can’t bear the thought of the beast getting free again. I already have too much blood on my hands.”

“Then don’t let it,” she said.

He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Sir John built himself a cage so that he could contain his beast. You can do that, too.”

“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “I’m a fugitive, Gwen. Even if I manage to escape the police and flee the country, I’ll have to live in hiding the rest of my life.”

“It’s a big world, Lawrence. Change your name, become someone else. Leave all your pain behind. It’s better than becoming another victim of the monster, and that’s what you’ll be if you let this destroy you the way it destroyed Ben.”

Lawrence stood up and paced the room. Her words were like a tonic—not a cure, but at least a respite from the cancer of hopelessness. Then he stopped and turned toward her. “I have to end this with my father,” he said, his eyes hard. “I need to go back to Blackmoor. He may even be waiting for me to return. If I can stop him, then I’ll need to disappear. Forever. I . . . I’ll likely never see you again.”

Gwen rose and crossed the room to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

“No!” she said, her blue eyes fierce. “Please . . . let me find a way to help you. You can’t go into towns, you can’t be seen . . . I can.”

He did not know how to answer that. He wanted to insist that she stay away, but her strength, her sense, her beauty . . . were impossible to resist.

“Lawrence,” she said, “there must be a cure.”

He was intensely aware of the soft warmth of her hands on his naked shoulders, and he could see the moment when she became aware of it, too. And yet she did not move her hands.

“I must confess,” Lawrence said softly, touching her
cheek, “I envy him. My brother. For the days he had with you. What joy he must have felt.”

When she blushed he almost pulled away. “Forgive me,” he said quickly.

“No . . .”

“I would have given anything to have known you in another life. And I can only pray that Ben forgives me. For . . . my feelings for you.”

He bent and kissed her lightly on the mouth, without force but with heat. Then he pulled his head back. “God, I’m sorry—”

“No,” said Gwen. “No . . .”

She pulled him to her and her kiss was filled with urgency and a passion unlike anything Lawrence had ever experienced. The intensity of it was fueled by the honesty and freedom with which the gift was offered, and he took her in his arms and the kiss became a scalding point of contact that spread its heat down through every other place at which their bodies touched—breasts and hands and hips and thighs moving toward each other, discovering the place where they fit and the ways in which they were welcomed. Their hands explored each other, running over bare flesh and pulling aside clothing to discover the reality of things seen and imagined. Lawrence began unfastening her gown as Gwen tore at the lacings of his trousers when—

Bang! Bang!

A heavy fist began pounding on the door downstairs and they froze together, clothing askew, eyes alert and afraid.

“Miss Conliffe!” a voice called from outside. Gwen disentangled herself and hurried to the window to peek out. Her gown was halfway off, one perfect breast exposed, the nipple swollen from his kisses. She appeared
not to care about that, but instead peered carefully down through a slit in the curtain.

“My God!” she breathed. “It’s Inspector Aberline.” They stared at each other for a long moment. Lawrence crossed to her and kissed her forehead and then bent to kiss her breast once more; then he gently lifted the strap of her gown and placed it on her shoulder.

“You had better let him in,” he said softly.

G
wen opened the door. Inspector Aberline stood on the doorstep, his eyes smudged from exhaustion and stress. Two of his bulky assistants waited on the pavement, their faces set and hard. One of them carried a shotgun, the other had a pistol poorly concealed beneath one flap of his jacket. A light rain had started to fall, but the men from Scotland Yard seemed not to care.

Aberline touched the brim of his rain-spattered bowler. “Miss Conliffe, good morning.”

“Inspector,” Gwen said with forced politeness.

He glanced past her into the foyer, which was lit by a single candle in a wall sconce. “May I ask if you’re staying here on your own?”

“Yes. My father is away.”

“May I impose?”

Gwen hesitated, but Aberline looked over his shoulder at the rain. She felt trapped by the moment and the demands of social graces. To refuse him entry under the circumstances would make him suspicious, so she nodded and stepped back and opened the door.

“Of course, Inspector, please come in.”

Aberline nodded his thanks and once inside he removed his hat and looked past her into the darkened
shop, but Gwen held her ground, keeping the encounter confined to the foyer. The inspector smiled faintly.

“Ma’am, I must ask you directly: have you seen Lawrence Talbot? I’m sure by now you’ve heard of his escape.”

“Yes. I did take the news,” she said neutrally. “But, no, I haven’t seen him.”

Even as she said it Gwen knew that she had pitched her voice the wrong way. Her denial sounded flat and as false as it was. She saw Aberline’s tired eyes sharpen at once, and his gaze flicked quickly to the shop.

“I’m alarmed that your father allows you to remain here unaccompanied with a murderer on the loose. I would like you to come with me.”

“That’s entirely unnecessary, Inspector. However, I puzzle over why you think I may be in danger. Lawrence would never harm me.”

“Miss,” said Aberline firmly, “I cannot stress to you what mortal peril you are in.” With that he produced a newspaper from his deep pocket and let it fall open on the counter. It was the same edition she had brought to Lawrence, with the same bold headlines and a photo that made him appear quite deranged. “What peril you would
be
in should you find yourself in his presence.”

Aberline put his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her to one side. She knew that if she had been a better liar he would never had taken such a liberty. The inspector entered the shop and began opening the doors to any closet or cupboard that was large enough to hide a man. When he found nothing he parted the curtains at the back of the shop and saw the set of stairs that led to the apartment above.

Gwen tried to insinuate herself between the inspector
and the stairs. “Maybe you don’t know the man as well as I.”

“Maybe not. But I’ve seen the monster with my own eyes.” Those eyes searched her face as he said it, looking to see how the words affected her, but Gwen forced her expression to remain placid. “And I can tell you, Miss Conliffe, it is worse than anything—
anything
—you can possibly imagine.”

Instead of making her more afraid, Aberline’s words made her angry, and that put iron into her resolve. “Thank you, Inspector; I will be careful should I see him.”

Aberline sighed and turned away from the stairs, and then his eyes landed on something that stopped him in place. A small cabinet on the near wall stood ajar and on the end of the counter nearby was an open box of bandages and a bottle of antiseptic without its cap.

Aberline smiled thinly. “Miss Conliffe. I admire your noble intentions, truly I do. But you must listen to me now.” He stepped closer. “You think you can save him . . . but you can’t.”

“I don’t know what you—”

Aberline snaked out his hand and caught her by the wrist.

“Please!” he implored. “I must insist that you come with me.”

“Insist?” she said sharply, hoping that outrage would work where outright lying did not. “Who do you think you are? What am I? Chattel?”

Gwen struggled, but Aberline’s grip was iron-hard.

“Take your hand off me!”

Over his shoulder the inspector called, “Thompson!” Instantly a tall man with bull shoulders came hustling into the room.

Gwen started to scream. “Let go of—”

But then Thompson clamped a huge hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him, but the detective was too savvy for that and pressed her back against him, his lower fingers jamming her jaw painfully; at the same time he locked a thick arm around her waist. She was helpless in his grip, though she kicked and fought every inch of the way down the hall and out into the street.