Wolfsbane (23 page)

Pat jumped to one side as a torrent of blood gushed from out of nowhere, slopping crimson at his boots. Mingled within the thickness were parts of human bodies: eyes looked at him from the horror, unattached to sockets; opened, fanged mouths, with only the lips, snapped and snarled at him; ghostly shapes flung themselves at him. He ignored it all. He stepped into the hall and found it filled with writhing snakes of all descriptions, striking at him. Rats, with red beady eyes and long yellow teeth bit at his boots. He kicked them away and stepped through the snakes.

Everything vanished, leaving the hall, with its polished floor, gleaming and empty as before.

Pat knew the next time the snakes and rats might well be real. He also knew he had but one chance to survive: attack.

He screamed, his voice echoing strongly through the great house. As he yelled, he raced for the large sitting room to his left. Creatures appeared in the door, eyes wide and startled from this unexpected charge. Pat leveled the shotgun and began pumping. The doorway was suddenly cleared, blood and brains and bits of hairy flesh splattering the walls of the room. Pat slipped and slid through the gore on the floor, ropes of slick intestines looping around his ankles. He kicked them away.

A clawed hand closed around one ankle as a beast attempted to pull its shattered body to Pat, the fanged mouth open wide to bite. Pat shot the creature in the face, turning the evil into a bloody, headless torso that thumped its bare feet on the slick floor, jerking in a dance of death.

Pat stepped over the stinking bodies, some still trembling as the shock of death moved over them, stilling the evil. He ran into the next room, pushing fresh loads into the shotgun as he ran.

Sylvia leaped into his path, her gown gore-splattered. It was as if nothing had changed since Pat had last been in the house. The woman's intestines hung in ropes from the hole in her belly. When she screamed at Pat, her breath was a strong wind from an open, rotting grave. Pat jerked the shotgun up and shot her in the neck. Her head lolled to one side, the bones in her neck shattered, unable to hold the weight. Pat fired again; the head blew off, bouncing on the floor. It rolled to a stop. The eyes opened. The mouth grinned at him. The headless body charged at him and Pat gunned it apart, aiming the slugs at the bloody shoulders. She sagged and slumped to the floor.

Bethencourt leaped at him, and the scene was replayed. But this time Pat used the heavy .41 mag on the living dead one, literally destroying the head. Bethencourt ran headless from the room, flapping his arms in a silent race no one among them knew who would win. Only Good and Evil, and neither of them was talking.

Eli appeared before him, a great hole in his chest where Pat had shot him. The man screamed and lunged, exposing fanged teeth, his breath putrid. Pat blew his head off with two fast rounds and kept going, ignoring the gore that littered the area around him.

The bullet-torn form of Emily met him. Then the hovering image changed and she was whole and naked. The sight of her almost brought tears to Pat's eyes.

“They hurt me, Pat,” she said, her voice hollow. “They did things to me before they killed me. You can't imagine what they did to me and mother.”

Pat, with years of combat behind him, knew fully well man's capacity of inhumanity toward man. He had seen rape and torture all over the world.

He tried to wave Emily away, but she would not leave. Her mother joined her in the projected image. They were naked, pinned to the ground, naked men around them, raping them, taking turns with the women. They held the weeping screaming women to the ground, on their knees, and took them as animals, in an anal rape of pain and degradation. And then the torture began.

Pat brushed the screaming women aside and ran past their fading forms. “Pat,” Emily called. “Don't leave me again. You said you loved me. Come back . . . help me. I can't stand the pain.”

“You're dead!” Pat screamed over his shoulder. “You're dead. Go back.”

The image of mother and daughter faded, then was gone. If it had really ever been.

Phoebe almost got him with the club she swung at his head. Screaming, she swung the club again, just missing him. Pat ducked and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. With the muzzle less than six inches from the maid's belly, the impact of the slugs threw her backward. She jarred the wall when she struck it, then slid down to the floor, legs spread wide. She died with her eyes open, cursing Pat, hands clutching at emptiness, clawing nothing.

Sylvia's head rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of gray and red as it came toward him. Her eyes were open and her mouth a gash of fanged horror as she bit at Pat's boots, attempting to pierce the leather.

Pat kicked it as one might kick a football, sending the grotesqueness sailing across the large room to bounce off the far wall. Blood and brains splattered. Pat took aim and blew the head apart.

“I knew it!” the voice roared and gurgled from the bayou. “I knew you liked football better than baseball—you cretin. I just knew it.”

“Oh, shut up!” Pat panted, attempting to catch his breath and control his shaky nerves.

The walls in the mansion began dripping blood as scenes from his childhood assailed Pat. The time his playmate had jumped into the water in the sluggish river where they had been swimming. He had surfaced just once, with water moccasins—literally hundreds of them—twisting and coiling around him. Pat had been able to see only one hand and part of his head. The rest had been covered with striking snakes. When his body was recovered, it was three times normal size and black from the effects of the venom . . .

The funeral . . .

The time Pat had witnessed the old man, deaf and mute, step into the path of that fast freight. The townspeople had found bits and pieces of him for days afterward. . .

His brother, stillborn . . .

His mother's screaming . . .

All those scenes were replayed for him, as vividly as life. The ghastly wailing of the boy with the snakes encircling his small body. The old man, flung high into the air, coming down on the cattle guard, rolling off.

A wailing sound filled the room in the mansion. An infant, umbilical cord attached, floated toward him, crying from a wound on its chest. The baby drew closer. Pat could see the name STRANGE spelled out, burning into the child's flesh. The odor of burning human flesh assailed his nostrils.

Pat ran from the room into a room filled with creatures that were slobbering and howling. They seemed to be in a panic, not knowing what to do or where to go. The booming of the shotgun and Pat's yelling had confused them.

Pat emptied his shotgun into a hairy mass of them, turning the elegant room into a slaughterhouse. He was pumped up, the adrenalin flowing hard in him. He continued his attack, reloaded as he ran into the next room.

There seemed to be no end to the creatures, in various forms of transformation. Pat knew then he had been wise in choosing the daylight to attack: the beast/men were addled, their systems not knowing how to react. Some of them unable to alter their human forms into that which the devil had made them.

Pat fired into them, again and again, emptying the riot gun, finishing the gruesome task with his .41. He quickly reloaded and stood with his back to a wall, his chest heaving from the sudden exertion.

His breathing was the loudest noise in the mansion. Could it be . . . ?

He mentally counted the bodies, comparing the number with the total Janette had said were buried around the parish.

One left, he concluded.

And he knew where that one would be hiding.

He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and removed the knapsack, fingering the small bottles of gasoline. “I'll be damned if I'm going down in that basement after him,” Pat muttered.

He grimaced. Damned is a swell word to use at this time, Strange, he thought.

Stepping over the gore, Pat walked into the kitchen, opening the door to the pantry. There stood a door. It could lead only one way: down.

Pat rigged his cocktails, lit the rags protruding from the necks of the bottles, opened the door leading to the basement, and tossed the cocktails into the foul-smelling darkness. The bottles shattered, the gas exploding, lighting the basement. Something howled in pain and fright. Feet and toenails scraped on the steps, the sound coming toward Pat. Pat leveled the shotgun and emptied all eight rounds into the darkness. A thudding sound drifted upward.

At least a part of the battle was over.

Pat removed two shotgun shells from his pants pocket and loaded the shotgun with them. These two had to do it or the game was over. For him. He stepped into the once-elegant hallway, with the upper gallery overlooking. He glanced upward. Victoria Bauterre was staring down at him.

“Quite a show, Pat, darling,” she complimented him. “You took my people by surprise. I have to respect you for that. Too bad you're still going to lose the game.”

Pat smiled. “I'm not going to lose, Victoria.”

“Oh, Pat—my dear, dear man. Why do you do this? You can't kill me; don't you see that?”

“I don't see anything of the kind, Vicky baby.”

“Fat . . . listen to me. I was once the most beautiful woman in all of New Orleans.”

Smoke drifted from out of the kitchen; the floor under Pat's feet was growing warm.

“My beauty far surpassed Janette's. And I will be beautiful again . . . in my—our—next life. My Master has promised me that. And one more thing, darling.”

“Yeah?”

Her smile was ghastly. “He promised me you, Pat.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Vicky—but that'll never happen.”

Her smile broadened, exposing teeth that were fanged. “I have often wondered how your blood would taste, my darling. Now I'll find out. Don't despair, Pat, my precious—we'll have a marvelous time. Hundreds of years of lovemaking.”

“I can't think of anything more disgusting!”

She hissed at him.

“Victoria? You remember that silver bracelet Janette liked so much? The one with the tiny crosses on it?”

“Yes, of course. I gave it to her when she was a very little girl. I stole it from a nun.” She laughed. “Isn't that hysterical?”

“Yeah, very amusing. It's pure silver, isn't it?”

“As pure as can be, darling, and it's hundreds of years old. Very valuable. Why do you ask?”

“She gave it to me before I left the house this morning. ”

“How sweet of her. You may keep it as a memory of your precious Janette.”

“Father Huval blessed it, Vicky-poo.”

Her laughter was an evil howling. “And you think that will stop me? How naive of you,
mercenaire.”

“You remember the time you gave us alone this morning?”

“Yes—what is the point of all this?”

“I removed all those crosses and hammered the chain into pieces.”

“You idiot! Why would you ruin such a beautiful object?”

Pat held up the riot gun. “To fill two shotgun shells, Victoria. Sorry, you ugly bitch, you lose the game!”

Pat shot her twice in the chest, the silver piercing her heart. She was flung backward, bouncing off the wall. She pitched forward, over the polished rail. It seemed to take an eternity for her to fall from the gallery to the floor, and she was changing even as she fell. When she hit the floor, she splintered as a porcelain doll might if hurled against a wall.

Only a handful of dust remained.

“Oh, my!” the voice bubbled from the bayou. “Now, this just won't do. Oh, no, not at all.”

“I won, bubble breath,” Pat said. “Now go back to wherever you call home.”

“Oh, but you broke the rules. I said no fires.”

“No you didn't, asbestos lips. You said I couldn't start the fire from the outside. Remember?”

“That's a play on words. Foul! Foul!”

“No way, pal. You gave your word.”

“Yes.” The voice hardened. “I did do that, didn't I? Very well, you shall live. After a time.”

“Changing the rules again?”

“No, Mr. Strange—not at all.”

Flames suddenly belched out of the kitchen and the floor buckled under Pat's feet. He felt himself falling as the floor opened up, dumping him into the basement. Something smashed into his head, spinning him into darkness. Pain tore through him.

He felt the basement floor coming up fast, but he never felt the impact.

And then . . .

Nothing.

He had spun in darkness, sometimes amid a whirlwind of colors, for what seemed a lifetime. He experienced no pain, and dreamed no dreams, good or bad. But Pat did sense a very real loss of time as he spun, and he could not explain that. And then, for a time, he slept.

When he awakened, every muscle in him ached; when he moved his right arm, the joints creaked and protested. He felt weak. He opened his eyes and for a time, almost went into a panic, believing himself blind. He dug at his eyes and was astonished at the thick, hard layer of matter that fell away.

But he could see a thin beam of light from above.

A thick, dirty tarp was covering him. He pushed that from him and sat up, groaning with the effort, every joint and muscle in him objecting. He ran a hand over his face and jerked his fingers away in shock.

His face was covered with a thick beard.

“What the hell!?” he croaked, his voice sounding rusty, as if it had not been used in a long time.

He cut his eyes to the dirty floor, filthy even in the dim light from above. His shotgun lay by his side, but the metal had rusted and the wood was rotting. He put his hand to his right side. The leather that had once held his .41 had rotted away. The magnum was a mass of rusting metal.

Pat crawled to his knees, his head spinning in confusion. He rose to his feet and painful cramps gripped his legs, tossing him to the floor as his legs jerked from the unaccustomed task of supporting his weight.

He rubbed circulation back into his legs and fought to clear the confusion in his head. He stood up, looking around him at charred timbers and ruins from the fire. The mansion had burned, the old wood going up like a tinderbox. Dust and crud lay inches thick over everything.

Pat looked down at his clothing: ragged and dirty and torn, the material rotting. He shook his head in disbelief and then set about finding a way out of the basement.

When he struggled out of the basement, finally having to stack boxes and timbers and climb out, he stood for a moment in numb shock. The grounds were overgrown with weeds; the once lovely plants and shrubs looked as though they had not been trimmed or cut back in years. Only the great columns were left of the house. He walked slowly down to the blacktop, the sole of his left boot flapping as he walked. The exertion of walking still hurt, but the pain was lessening with each step as the atrophied muscles grew stronger.

Something fell from his chest, clattering on the gravel of the drive. Pat looked down. A bandoleer of shotgun shells lay at his feet, the thick canvas rotting. He struggled to remove his web belt; the buckle had rusted and it resisted for a time, then broke free. He dropped it to the ground. He felt in his hip pocket for his wallet and opened it: green stared back at him. The wallet was thick with the money Janette had given him.

Well, at least I'm not broke, he thought. But I sure as hell don't know what has happened to me.

He walked on to the estate's edge, then looked up at the sounds of a car. A priest behind the wheel. The priest took one look at Pat, put on the brakes, and backed up, getting out of the car.

“Are you all right?” the priest asked. “You look rather. . . unsteady.”

“I . . . think I'm all right, Padre.” The car was a model Pat had never seen before. “What kind of car is that?”

The priest smiled. “It's a Ford, sir. What did you think it was?”

Pat shook his head, afraid to ask any further questions.

“Do you work around here?”

“Just passing through,” Pat lied, not knowing why he was lying. “Tell me, is Sheriff Vallot around?”

The priest's smile was sad. “No, sir. He and his wife were killed in an accident a couple of years ago. Almost to the day a year after Father Huval had his heart attack.”

Fear hit Pat in the pit of his stomach, almost doubling him over. A couple of years ago! “Doctor Lormand?”

“Gone. He and his wife moved to Lafayette.”

“His wife being Betty Jane?”

“That is correct. You know some people around here. Just get out of jail, sir?”

“No,” Pat sighed, “I'm just recovering from a bad illness. I've . . . been out of touch for a long time. In case you're wondering, I'm not a vagrant. I have ample funds. I took sick yesterday and spent the night over there.” He pointed to the burned-out mansion.

The priest smiled. “You haven't been here for a time, have you? That place is supposed to be haunted.”

“I don't doubt that,” Pat said grimly. “How about Frank Bares or Louie Trahan?”

“Gone.”

Pat chose not to inquire how they had ‘gone.' “Sinclair Charlevoix and Ruth Vickers?”

“I . . . believe they married. I know they moved away. I really don't know where they are.” He hesitated. “Look, would you like for me to run into town and get you some decent clothing. Better yet, ride with me. You can bathe and change at the rectory.”

“Would you just get me a few things? I can bathe in the bayou.” Pat handed him a hundred dollars and gave him the sizes—minus one size shirt and a couple inches off his waist. He had lost some weight. “You don't mind doing this, Father? If you like, you can call the sheriff's department and have them run a check on me—I'm really not wanted by the law.”

The priest laughed. “I believe you, sir. This won't take me long. I'll be back in a few moments.” He pointed down the highway. “See that shopping center? That's where I'm going.”

“Father . . . do you know a Janette Simmons?” Shopping center? Where in the hell did that come from?

“No,” the young priest shook his head. “I don't believe I'm familiar with the name.”

“Could you bring me a couple of papers, too, Padre?”

“Surely.”

The priest was back in fifteen minutes. “Do you know where Saint Anthony's is?”

Pat shook his head.

“Down this road to the first stoplight. Turn right. It's three blocks down, on your left. You . . . may want to speak with me . . . after a time. I'll be waiting.”

The priest turned and walked away, leaving Pat more confused than ever.

Then he glanced at the dates on the papers and felt sick to his stomach. October 31, 1981.

1981!

Pat stumbled around to the back of the house, carrying his new clothing and boots, and found an outside hydrant that worked. The priest had brought him a bar of soap and a thick towel, also a sack containing several hamburgers, french fries, and a quart of milk.

Almost as if . . .

Pat shoved that thought from him and set about washing the grime from him. Bathed, wearing new clothing from the inside out, Pat sat down under a huge oak tree and ate slowly. Then he picked up the papers and again checked the date.

1981.

He had been . . . somewhere for five years.

But how was that possible?

Five years to the day.

He rose and walked toward the dark waters of the bayou. I'm forty-seven years old! the thought hit him hard. At the bayou bank, the waters began bubbling. Pat remembered the sound very well.

“You rotten son-of-a-bitch!” Pat spoke softly but with a great deal of conviction.

“Really, Mr. Strange! There is no need for profanity.”

“You lied to me.”

“Of course, I lied to you. What am I—a Boy Scout?”

“Bastard!”

“I resent that. Really, I sprang from rather regal surroundings. . . in the beginning.”

“I'm five years older, bacteria breathl”

“I think you aged rather well. You are taking this rather badly, you know I hope you don't plan on doing anything rash.”

“I'm thinking lots of things. None of them pleasant. You killed Edan and Stella.”

“I most certainly did not! Theirs was an accident, that's all.”

“Bares, Trahan, and Father Huval?”

“Bares and Trahan died natural deaths. That simpering priest had a heart attack while watching a stupid football game. The New Orleans Saints won and he got so excited he dropped dead. Now, really, Mr. Strange, you can't blame me for that!”

“Janette?”

“I am sorry about that—I really am. She's married and lives in Paris.”

“I paid a high price, didn't I, bayou bubbler?”

“I said I was sorry. What do you want from me—another promise?” the bayou giggled.

Two suitcases suddenly appeared at Pat's feet. He recognized them as the ones Janette had bought in the men's store in Savannah . . . five years ago.

“My clothes, I suppose, are freshly laundered and pressed?”

“Certainly! I am a person of breeding, don't you know? I can't have you wandered about looking like a rag picker.”

Pat said nothing.

“Where will you go, Mr. Strange?”

“I don't know. I might become a Baptist preacher.”

“Now, that is going a bit too far! I can do without another one of those!”

“I might go back to South Carolina.”

“Ah . . . well . . . you see, Mr. Strange, you no longer own any property there. Sorry. Taxes, you know.”

“Sold at public auction.”

“Correct.”

“Well, that does change things a bit.”

“Not really, sir. You haven't aged any. You're just as young as you were when you came tootling along with Mrs. Simmons, sticking your noses into something that didn't concern you. You have ample funds in your wallet—I saw to that. So why don't you just hit the road and keep your nose out of other people's business from now on.”

“That sounds like a threat to me.”

“It is, Mr. Strange.” The voice was no longer friendly. “Leave this community.”

“I don't take orders worth a damn, bubble head. I think I might stick around.” He looked at the Joyeux paper in his hand. His eyes fixed and held on the masthead. Eli Daily, Editor. “Eli's son?”

“I wish you hadn't seen that,” the bayou rumbled.

“I got a date with a priest, carp mouth.”

“Carp mouth! I'll destroy you, Strange. No rules this time, you . . . you . . . enlisted man!”

“I lost material and personal things, snake breath, but I don't think I lost my Main Man.”

“He won't help you this time, Strange. What makes you think . . . that Person would intervene to save a miserable wretch like you. No, Mr. Strange, not again.”

“It's this community, isn't it? You've got the whole damn community in your hand. That's it, isn't it. How did you do it? Answer me, Bubbles!”

“I'm warning you, Strange: that overrated carpenter's helper won't save you this time.”

In the distance, a singing was heard, the sound faint, but strong in timbre. A choir thousands strong.

“Oh, no!” the waters boiled. “Not again.”

Pat smiled. “How's that grab you, catfish bait?”

“This will be no game, Strange. I mean that. No rules. Lose this time and your soul is mine. You'd better understand that.”

A feeling of strength filled Pat. “All right,” he said softly.

“Don't expect much help from the psalm-singing choir-director, either.”

“I'll take my chances.”

The singing grew louder.

“I can't stand that noise,” the bayou rumbled. “Why anyone would choose to spend eternity floating about, wailing like a banshee is beyond me.”

Pat picked up a rock and hurled it into the bayou.

“Oowww! Stop that this instant!” The waters erupted in steam.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pat saw the young priest pull into the drive, get out of his car, and walk toward the bayou.

“I'll have your soul, Strange.” The voice was dark with all the evil of thousands of years.

Pat picked up a handful of rocks.

“All right—all right. Have it your way, Strange. But we will see each other again. And this time, Strange—I promise you: you will see Me!”

The bayou erupted in a hissing gush of dark water.

The young priest walked up to Pat and held out his hand. “I'm Father Strahan, Mr. Strange.”

“You know my name.” Pat took the hand.

“I'm blessed with a power, Mr. Strange. Don't ask me to explain it.”

“Where are you from, Father?”

“France, originally.”

“Strahan. My name was Strahan, centuries ago. So I'm told.”

“Yes,” the priest said, smiling. “I know.”

“I guess we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes. You don't have to do this thing, you know?”

“I know.”

“Is your soul on the line like mine?”

“Yes, I'm afraid so.”

“Why are you doing this?”

They began walking back to the priest's car. Each carried a piece of luggage.

“Because I'm a man of God. Why are you?”

Pat smiled. “Because I just enjoy the hell out of a good fight!”

The priest laughed. “I think we're going to get along, Mr. Strange. Come on, we've got a boat ride to take.”

“Oh?”

“Up into Blind Bayou. Someone is waiting to see you.”

“Annie?”

“Annie is dead. Her daughter assumed the power of Black Magic—for the good—I might add.”

“This town,” Pat asked, as they drove away from the ruins of Amour House, “how possessed is it?”

“Let's just say I hope you really enjoy the hell out of a good fight.”

“It'll be dark when we get to Annie's—Mane's—shack.”

“Yes. ”