Wolfsbane (12 page)

She waited patiently while he changed, dressing in jeans, denim shirt, and boots. He tossed some shaving gear and a few odds and ends into an old bag, then reached into a trunk on the floor and pulled out an S & W model 57, .41 magnum with a four-inch barrel and several boxes of shells. He stowed that atop the socks and underwear shorts in the bag.

“One of the few things I didn't hock while drunk all those years,” he said. Then he began assembling a riot gun: a twelve-gauge shotgun with a twenty-inch barrel, eight-round capacity. Double-ought buckshot.

“Pat?” Janette said, her voice soft.

He looked up from his crouching position on the floor, questions in his eyes.

“You don't believe me, do you?”

He said nothing.

“You think I'm making all this up, don't you?”

He rose and sat on the edge of the bed. “No,” he shook his head. “No, I don't think that at all, Janette. I think you really believe all you've told me. And I think I owe it to Captain Simmons to help you—one way or the other.”

Her smile was wan. “If you don't believe in
loups-garous,
then why are you taking that pistol and shotgun?'”

“On the off-chance you may be right.”

“I don't know if those things will kill them or not,” she told him.

Humor her, he thought. Someone's only trying to frighten her with all this monster crap. Then another thought lodged in his mind: what if she's right? He shook that thought from his brain. “Right,” he said. “How does one go about killing something that's already dead?” This is insane.

“Pat? Do you believe you're the first man for me since Lyle?”

He moved from the side of the bed and put his hands on her waist. “Yes. That I do believe.”

She kissed him. “Thank you for that.”

“Janette? There is one thing I think you should consider. That is . . . ah . . . assuming all you've told me is on the up and up.”

“And that is?”

“You told me that as far as you know, this . . . whatever you call it only affects the males in the family.”

“That's right.”

“But you have a son. You and the captain.”

“I know,” she said, and would say no more.

 

Pat buttoned up the house and they pulled out just before ten o'clock that morning. He felt no regrets at leaving. He just wished he could be more optimistic about the story she had told him.

But he couldn't get those pictures off his mind. Were they fake? If so, why—why would she fake them? Of course, she was worth millions . . . could it be a power play of some kind? A board takeover? He didn't know enough about corporate business to even think about that.

Of course, he had a job that was paying him well, and a woman that made him feel . . . emotions he hadn't felt in a long while, and she seemed to feel the same about him.

Was that good? he asked silently.

He didn't know.

But, he pulled his mind back to the job that lay ahead of him, those poo-parous . . . roo-boos . . . whatever the hell Janette called them. Werewolves. They just couldn't be real. Things like that don't exist.

Then, as if reading his mind, Janette said, “You'll see, Pat. I know you don't believe me, but you'll see. Soon.”

He grunted a noncommittal reply. “Your grandmother's son . . . your uncle: you said he had been placed in a mental institution years ago?”

“That was what we were told. But I don't believe it. Not any longer.”

“Where was he supposed to have been committed?”

“A private sanitarium in Georgia.”

“Where in Georgia?”

“Just outside of Atlanta, I was told.” She glanced at him, her dark eyes reflective. “Yes, I see what you're driving at. There couldn't be more than one or two there, and this one would be very expensive.”

“He would be under the Bauterre name?”

“I'm sure he would.”

“Well, let's take a run up there and see about him. Maybe we can solve one mystery, at least.”

A faint smile was her only reply.

They chatted of small things until Savannah. There, she went with him to buy a few things at a nice men's store in a shopping mall. The few things turned out to be a trunk load of clothes. She insisted upon buying him several suits, choosing those while Pat picked out his slacks, shirts, and shoes. The suits were right off the rack and did not have to be altered: Pat was the kind of man that would look good in a suit bought off the rack. They were back on the road in just over an hour, heading for Atlanta.

“Janette? You said my weapons wouldn't stop these”—he could not bring himself to say werewolf—“things. Whatever they are. All right, then: what will stop them?”

“No, Pat. I didn't say they wouldn't stop them. I said they wouldn't kill them; but I'm not certain about that. The guards at the villa are all expert marksmen. I would say at least a dozen shots were fired that night—perhaps more. Beaullieu said the man was riddled. Yet the monster was gone when Louviere got to the scene. It had transformed . . . regressed, into its human shape.”

Memories of old horror movies from his childhood rushed into Pat's brain. He brushed them away as a hundred questions leaped into his mind. But he did not know which to ask first. “They burned your grandfather, but you think he's back. Your guards kill a monster, then discover the monster is gone and a man—human—in his place. What the hell will kill these hoo-doos?”

“Loups-garous.
”

“Whatever.”

“I don't know, Pat, and that is an honest reply. But I do believe this: if—and it is a big if—my grandfather is. . . back . . . has returned . . .”

Pat sighed.

. . . I don't think he will harm anyone.”

Casper the Friendly Ghost, Pat thought. “Why?” he felt compelled to ask.

“I told you what he had written in the journals. He
wanted
to
die!
Really die; be free of the Bauterre curse. I am inclined to think the opening of his crypt was
grand'mère's
idea. A macabre joke on the people in Joyeux.”

“She must have a wonderful sense of humor. I'm sure she's in great demand for wakes.”

Despite herself, her Bauterre pride, Janette had to smile.

Pat was silent for a time, concentrating on driving the luxurious automobile. “Well, hell!” he finally said. “If you don't know what will kill them—I sure don't.” Christ! he rebuked himself. You're beginning to sound as though you believe in these boo-boos. “I've hunted men all my life. In combat,” he hastened to add. “But I could kill them with a gun or knife or grenade or club or piece of wire. I've never hunted a . . . a roogoogoo.”

“Whatever.”

“A blessed silver bullet, then,” she said.

“Oh, come on, honey!”

“Well, I don't know, Pat. You're the weapons expert. That's one of the reasons I hired you.”

He glanced at her. “What was the other reason?”

She smiled. “I didn't know anyone else.”

“I get all the winners,” he mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“I think you're beginning to take me seriously.”

“When I see the things with my own eyes.”

“Are you sure you're not from Missouri?”

Pat laughed.

 

Full dark when they reached Atlanta and checked into a motel. They took their dinner in the room and went to bed early, making love slowly and gently, finally falling asleep in an exhausted sprawl of arms and legs.

 

“I am sorry, Miss Bauterre,” the director of the institution told her. “But there has never been anyone here by that name.” He had checked the records carefully and questioned several of the doctors. But only after he had talked at length with Janette, determining her identity.

It was the last and most expensive private institution on the list. They had checked all the public and private sanitariums in the state. They had received the same answer at each: nothing.

On the interstate heading west, Janette said, “I
know grand'mere
said he was in a home near Atlanta. She's said that several times. She would never put him in an institution in Louisiana.”

“So she lied,” Pat said bluntly. “If any of this story is true, she's been lying to you for years. All right, Janette”—he had seen her stiffen slightly at his remark—“ let's assume that all you've told me is true—and I said assume. How about your parents? Your father? Could he have been one of these . . . things?”

She nodded after a short pause. Nodding reluctantly.

“Your mother?” Play along, Pat—humor her.

“I've only found where it affects males.”

“But is it a possibility?”

“I . . . suppose.” She did not tell him about the quick dreams she was having of late. Dreams of her mother and father. She was beginning to fear she was losing her mind. The dreams were horrible.

“All right. Is there any place around or in that mansion where several people—say, half a dozen–could hide, undetected, for years?”

She thought for a moment. “It seems to me that Amour House is built on the only high ground in the parish.” She was thoughtful for a moment longer. “Yes, I suppose a basement could have been built.”

“Have you seen any sign of one?”

“No. But that means nothing. I was raised in
grand'mère's
villa in France and never knew about those passageways.” She suddenly gasped.

“What's wrong?”

“There is a locked door in the kitchen. In the pantry. I remember, now.”

“You said those things ran toward a . . . what'd you call it?”

“Garçonnière.
Young man's bachelor quarters a hundred years ago. Yes, I did.”

“Carrying something large . . . like a body?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why you didn't report that to the sheriff?”

“Because . . . this is family business.” She looked at him. “And I am a Bauterre.”

“Since when is murder family business? Outside of the Mafia, that is.”

She found no humor in his remark. “I don't know there have been any murders, Pat. Another reason I hired you.”

“If I find there have been, I go to the law, Janette,” he warned her.

She offered no reply.

 

In New Orleans, they checked into a motel and pulled out early the following morning, for Ducros Parish.

“Pat?”

“Ummm?”

“Sheriff Bradshaw said you were a drunk. Were you?”

“For five years I wandered around in an alcoholic fog. Wonder I wasn't killed. Or killed some innocent person. If there is such a thing.”

“How long have you been on the wagon?”

“Close to three months. If you're asking do I crave a drink—no. I can truthfully say—and probably most doctors would agree with me—I never really craved a drink. But I think I was getting very close to that point. I just wanted to get drunk. I prefer beer to whiskey, but whiskey gets you drunker faster. I just woke up one morning and decided that was it for my drinking. Come to think of it,” he frowned, “I was drawn to my parents' graves that morning. Never been able to . . . figure that out. And a funny kind of feeling came over me. Almost a religious feeling.”

“Do you feel that way now?”

“Sometimes, yes. It's . . . odd. 'Cause I've never been a religious man.”

“God liked his warriors, too, Pat.”

He smiled. “Funny you should say that. I've thought the same thing several times over the past few months.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“Huh?” Her question startled him, for he had been thinking of his ex-wife and of Emily at that moment.

“The woman—or women—who brought you to the drinking? Was she beautiful?”

“Very. But it wasn't just that . . . her. It was a series of events.”

“Care to talk about it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? I never have. Might as well. I was a warrior, and I enjoyed it. Then I got tired of killing and sweat and pain. But when I got back stateside, I found I didn't know how to do anything else: couldn't keep a job, couldn't keep a wife, fought all the time. I probably never would have come back if . . . she . . . Emily had not been killed.”

“Who is Emily?” She felt a pang of jealousy hit her.

“A girl I met in Africa.”

“You were in love with her?”

“It was developing into that, yes.”

“So you married on the rebound, so to speak?”

“Looking back, I would say so. Yes. I thought I saw something in her I'd found in Emily. I was wrong. Well, I paid for my mistake.”

“And now here
we
are,” Janette said.

Pat smiled at her words. He did not reply.

A few miles rolled past, the only sound the hissing of the tires. “Pat?”

“Ummm?”

“In combat, were you ever afraid?”

“God, yes! Any man who spent time in combat and tells you he wasn't afraid at times is a damn liar. Or a damned fool.”

“Did you ever run away?”

“In combat?”

“Yes. ”

“Hell, yes!” He chuckled at a memory. “One time we were on a Silent Op . . .”

“A what?”