The Wolfman (40 page)

L
awrence pulled the door wide but did so carefully, making no sound. On cat feet he stepped into the foyer. When he was sure that he was alone, he moved deeper into the house.

The entrance hall was as still as a tomb, the floor littered with leaves and the droppings from small animals. He heard creatures scurry away on tiny clawed feet, and he knew that it was not the presence of a man that had scared them but the presence of a predator. The wolf in his blood was screaming for release, and Lawrence threw all of his will against it. He reached under his shirt and closed his fist around the medal, praying for protection, for some fragment of mercy.

Lawrence stopped at the foot of the stairs and listened to what the old house had to tell him. He was certain that Sir John was here . . . but
where
?

All he heard was the night wind whistling through gaps in doors and windows left ajar. The big grandfather clock stood still and silent, the key in place but unwound for days. He crossed to the Ming urn between the double staircases, but his sword cane was no longer there.

Then he heard a soft sound and turned toward the double doors that led to the Great Hall. Though the room beyond the opened doors was pitch-dark, he thought he
saw the faint gleam of something red. Was it something crouched low to the ground?

Lawrence steeled himself and moved into the room, pausing beside the grand piano, momentarily using its bulk to act like a barrier between him and whatever might be waiting in the dark. His night vision was growing sharper with each moment, his muscles tensed to attack. Or to run.

He circled the piano and crept deeper into the Great Hall, his eyes fixed on that one hellish red eye.

Lawrence stopped abruptly as he realized what it was, and didn’t know whether to laugh in relief or cringe in dread. It was a fading coal from a long that had nearly burned out. The soft sound was the log shifting. He saw the edge of his father’s high-backed settee positioned in front of the fire, and moved silently into the room, angling in a wide circle to be able to see if Sir John was sitting there, waiting for him. It took more courage and effort than he thought to cross that room.

He crept closer and closer, his fists balled ready to fight, to lash out at the monster who had made him into a monster. Three steps away he saw a wineglass on the table within easy reach of the settee; at two steps he saw an overturned wine bottle that still dripped blood red wine onto the floor. Then he saw the curve of an elbow, the folds of dark cloth around an arm resting on the settee.

“Father? . . .” he whispered, but his throat was so dry that his voice was barely a whisper. There was no answer.

Lawrence took a breath and then jumped around the edge of the settee.

A man sat there.

But it was not Sir John.

A man he did not recognize, wearing a dark tweed suit with a police detective badge pinned to his chest, sat in the chair. His legs were crossed casually, his hands folded neatly in his lap, his eyes open. But the man’s throat had been slit from ear to ear and blood had drenched the front of his clothes.

Lawrence cried out in shock and horror and backed away.

He ran to the wall and snatched down the big Holland & Holland elephant rifle that rested in brackets on the wall. Sir John must have done this. Even though the moon was not yet up, his father had to have done this. But
why
?

The hunting rifle was heavier than he expected and the stock rasped against one of the clips. Lawrence froze, waiting for a sound from somewhere in the house.

Nothing.

He broke open the rifle . . . but it was empty.

Lawrence was panting with tension now. He crossed to the cabinet beneath where the rifle had rested and quickly opened drawers until he found a box of shells. There was not enough light to tell if the heavy bullets were lead or silver. He selected one and tried to gouge it with a thumbnail. Lead was soft, silver was much harder. His nail left a clear line through the tip of the bullet.

“Damn it to hell!” he snarled. It meant that he would have to go to Singh’s quarters and find his bullets. And he didn’t have the key.

H
E STAGGERED OUT
into the entrance foyer, turned toward the grand double sweep of stairs and ran up the closest set, knowing that time was flying past him. His revulsion quickly gave way to fear as he could feel the
strange itching begin beneath his skin. Not full, not yet. But there.

At the top of the stairs, however, he paused. Singh’s room was at the back of the house, down and around the long hallway that was lined with the trophy heads of slaughtered animals. All of the candles in the sconces were dark and cold, but some faint brushstrokes of moonlight painted the carpet through the open doorways of disused bedrooms: His own, abandoned long ago. Ben’s transformed by the savage hungers of their father into a chamber capable of holding only memories; guest rooms that had provided no comfort for travelers in decades. Lawrence tried to feel some echo of Gwen’s warmth in this place, but the shadows held only threat and awful secrets.

The doors to each room had been left open, and as he passed each black doorway he took a frightened look inside. On one side of the hall, the rooms were completely dark; on the other, the moonlight seemed to grow brighter with each careful step. He listened for the smallest sound . . . and heard nothing. But he did not search the rooms. The fire downstairs had burned low; Lawrence hoped that meant that Sir John had done the sane and decent thing and left the house to lock himself and his appetites in the mausoleum.

Not that a single act of self-control on Sir John’s part would change how this night would end. How it had to end. Even if Sir John was locked in his cell Lawrence had decided to do what had to be done. He was going to kill his father. No pleading, no lies, no clever manipulations would save that monster now. Not after Ben. Not after all of the hurt and harm Lawrence had inflicted after his father—his own
father
—had passed along this spiritual cancer. This unholy curse.

A single silver bullet to atone for the combined crimes of father and son, to wash away a river of blood.

As Lawrence passed Ben’s room, he heard something and it froze him in place.

A sound.

Heavy breathing. Panting. Low and fierce.

An animal sound.

God! Was he here after all? . . .

Lawrence put the rifle to his shoulder and stepped slowly into the room. The chamber was awash with moonlight and in the mirror Lawrence could see the reflection of the nearly risen Goddess of the Hunt. He licked his lips. The panting was coming from the far side of the bed. Something was there, hunkered down out of sight. As he slowly rounded the foot of the bed, Lawrence turned the rifle around and held it like a club, ready to smash, to crush.

Let it end here
, he prayed.
Let it end now . . .

He took the last step as a jump and raised the gun high, setting his teeth as he prepared to kill his father.

Animal eyes stared up at him.

But not the eyes of a monster.

Samson, the great wolfhound, had worked itself into a narrow gap between bed and wall, and the massive dog shivered with terrible fear. It lay in a pool of its own urine, nervous drool flecking its muzzle, its eyes insane with a terror so profound that the animal looked near to death. Its breath steamed in the moonlight and when it saw Lawrence it simply closed its eyes and lowered its head as if expecting to die and willing to be killed without a fight.

The sight struck Lawrence deep in his heart. He lowered the gun and backed away, sorry for the dog that he had hated and feared. No animal should suffer as it suffered,
though Lawrence understood its terror. Or thought he did.

Then, like the icy fingers of a ghost on the back of his neck, Lawrence felt an awareness touch him. Still holding the rifle like a war club, he whirled . . . but the room was empty. The doorway was empty, and when he stepped into the hall, it, too, was empty.

What had he felt? It was as if he knew that eyes were upon him, but there was no one else here. The shadows on both sides of him stretched to the ends of the hallway, and nothing lived within them.

T
HE FEELING GRADUALLY
subsided, and it took Lawrence a dizzy moment to re orient himself. This once familiar house now felt like an alien landscape. The itching beneath his skin was maddening, and he snarled aloud in fury and frustration—and that cleared his head. The shapes and angles of the hallway regained their familiar form, and he staggered onward toward Singh’s room.

The door was closed but not locked, and Lawrence burst through and into the Sikh’s quarters. Moonlight fell jaggedly into the room, and Lawrence turned to see that the windows were broken, the remaining fragments of glass like broken teeth.

Lawrence turned slowly, seeing that the damage was not confined to the window. The whole room was a shambles. Furniture was broken, the heavy carpets torn from the walls, pillows gutted so that their stuffing spilled like pale entrails onto the littered floor. He looked for the parallel marks of savage claws but saw none. This room was a study in rage, but it was the rage of men.

Lawrence took an involuntary backward step, but
then the texture of the carpet beneath his shoes crackled strangely. He looked down to see that he was standing in a large puddle of some black, viscous fluid. He bent and touched it with his fingers.

Blood.

But it was dried, days old.

Lawrence looked up slowly, following the line of blood from the carpet to the baseboard and up the wall. Then all at once the weapon sagged in his hand and his mouth dropped open.

A dead man hung in the shadows of the wall behind him, his body impaled by a heavy silver-bladed knife that had been slammed through his chest. The man’s head lolled backward, mouth thrown wide into an eternal scream.

“Singh!”

The sight nearly took the heart out of Lawrence. The gun fell from his nerveless fingers, and he backed away in mute terror.

“Oh my God . . . ,” Lawrence whispered. Tears burned in his eyes.

Realization and understanding flooded into Lawrence. Singh had been the guardian of the family, the holy Sikh warrior of God who had dedicated himself to keeping the Talbots safe while at the same time protecting the world from the family’s curse. Singh might have forgiven Sir John for the death of Ben. It had been a kind of accident that had allowed the beast to roam free that night. But there was no way that Singh could have been a party to what had happened beyond that. He would have been outraged when Sir John allowed the beast within Lawrence to roam free and to kill. He would have confronted Sir John about it. The state of Singh’s room spoke to how that confrontation must have played out.

Singh had tried one last time to oppose evil in the name of his God and for his love of the family.

Somehow Sir John had taken away the Sikh’s holy
kirpan
and had used the heavy knife to kill this good and faithful man and then perversely mount him on the wall as if he was just another trophy.

In Lawrence’s heart, sickness gave way to grief, and grief crumbled in the face of rage. It was more than the beast that howled within his chest. Those things that made Lawrence Talbot the man he was screamed now with bestial wrath as terrible as that of the wolf.