GWEN CONLIFFE RAN faster than she had ever run, the heavy pistol clutched to her breast. She kicked off her shoes and ran barefoot across the cold autumn grass, straight into the forest, her speed fueled by terror and hopelessness. Trees and shrubs plucked at her dress, tearing away ribbons and bits of cloth. Gwen ran and ran as the scream behind her died away into a dreadful silence. She ran until she could no longer hear the hungry, wet sounds of the monster as it savaged the man who had died trying to save her.
The ground began sloping upward and she raced along it, hearing the roar of running water to her left. She followed the rising cliff wall up into the moonlight. Even with hysteria chewing at the fabric of her mind she was able to think. She had no illusions as to whether the creature could track her through the night, but she had to try. If she reached the waterfall maybe she could cross it and somehow confuse the thing, but first she had to reach the gorge and after that follow a winding path through a forest so dense that not even moonlight as bright as this could help her find a path. She ran . . . but she knew that running was only delaying something that now seemed terrible and certain.
The ancient trees rose around her as she fled into the forest, splashing through streamlets that led to the waterfall. She heard the sound of something fast and heavy crashing through the woods. She stopped for a moment with her back pressed hard against the trunk of a giant yew, listening to the jumbled sounds of the forest. Was the thing up here on the ridge or down by the moors? She couldn’t tell and she did not dare risk looking for fear that if she saw it then it would immediately see her.
The sound died away and Gwen left the shelter of the old tree and circled back toward the cliff. If the monster was out here now, then maybe she could sneak back to the Hall and find her horse. Not even this creature could outrun a horse. Could it?
Doubt was a gnawing thing that tore at her as she ran.
The ground before her was spread with shadows and she almost ran through them until she realized that there was no ground at all: a deep gorge had been cut into the path by ten thousand years of rain and she almost stepped into it. Gwen edged around it and then turned to run toward the sound of the waterfall. She heard a rustle. A small, furtive sound.
Was it here?
Gwen raised the pistol.
“Lawrence,” she said in a voice that shook as badly as her hands. “It’s me. It’s Gwen.”
Another sound. Closer. Much closer. But she could not tell if it was to one side or in the shadows ahead of her. Was she walking right toward the creature?
“You know who I am,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm. To sound ordinary, unthreatening . . . and at the same time trying to reach Lawrence. If Lawrence still existed.
She could not hold the pistol steady.
“Lawrence? . . .”
In the darkness, not ten feet from her, were two yellow eyes. Fierce, unblinking, unnatural. Gwen froze to the spot, knowing that her luck and her life had run out.
The Wolfman came slowly out of the shadows of the woods, its eyes fixed on her. Gwen backed slowly away, feeling the marshy ground give way to the packed clay and rock that formed the edge of the cliff. The Wolfman came closer. She had not seen it this close before. It was enormous. Eight feet tall, packed with muscle, and twisted into a parody of life that was not animal and not man. Its claws twitched as if aching to rend and tear.
She stepped onto a loose rock that slid out from under her and she went down—and the Wolfman leaped at her, following her down to the hard rock, straddling her, looming over her, filling her entire consciousness with all of its dark promise.
“There must be some part of you left. Please . . .”
The creature’s only reply was a bloody leer of naked hunger. Its clothes were torn, stained with gore, smudged with soot. There was nothing human about this thing.
Gwen started to cry. A sob broke in her chest and tears filled her eyes. She raised a hand toward the monster.
“Please. . . . Remember the things you said to me?”
Her fingers were inches from the monster’s face. Gwen knew that she was going to die, but she could not accept that there was nothing of the good man she knew left within this fearsome form.
“Remember how you kissed me?”
The Wolfman’s yellow eyes narrowed to predatory slits. Gwen was weeping, calling his name, her fingers touching the very tips of the creature’s stiff black hair. The Wolfman’s face changed for just a moment. It did not transform, but the snarl of hate eased for a second, the lips lowered to cover those awful fangs, and hope flared in Gwen’s breast.
“Lawrence? . . .”
HALF A MILE away a line of torches moved through the darkness. The men of the Special Police squad had arrived. Aberline was with them, his face tight with pain, leaning on Adams as they moved away from the pyre of Talbot Hall. A dozen men from the town were with the officers, and they’d brought shotguns loaded with silver and a pack of hounds that bayed and howled at the scent of blood on the air.
Aberline’s knees buckled and Adams lowered him to the grass.
“Leave me,” the inspector gasped. “Find her.” He waved the bloody rapier blade toward the forest. “Go!” he croaked.
The hunting party set off at a run toward the woods, following the hounds who had the scent.
Aberline looked down at the ruin of his shoulder. The fangs of the monster had torn muscle, cracked bone. The wounds burned and itched. It felt as if ants were crawling under his skin.
The moonlight struck silver fire from the sword’s razor-sharp edge, and for a long time Aberline stared at the weapon.
“God,” he breathed, amazed that he had survived the creature’s attack when so many others had fallen. “Thank God. . .”
Gripping the silver sword, Aberline staggered forward into the murk, following the men, following Gwen Conliffe. Following the monster.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
The moment seemed eternal. Gwen lay upon the cold stone, one hand curled around the pistol butt, one finger laying alongside the trigger guard; the other hand lifted to touch the matted fur of the monster who crouched over her.
“Lawrence . . .” she whispered.
The Wolfman looked at her and for a moment all traces of hate and hunger were gone from its face. Gwen’s heart lifted. She knew that he was still in there. Beneath the surface of this impossible thing, Lawrence Talbot still existed.
She raised her hand to touch his face.
And then they heard the dogs.
The Wolfman whipped his head around toward the house. Dogs brayed and barked. Men yelled and called to one another.
Gwen knew with a sinking heart that Fate, cruel and malicious, had stolen the moment away from her. From them. She could see the tension crawl beneath the monster’s skin, tightening his muscles, putting back all of the animal fury that her words and her touch had taken from him.
The Wolfman turned its head slowly back toward her, and when Gwen looked into its eyes there was not the slightest trace of Lawrence Talbot. What remained, what she saw, was only the beast.
“No . . .” she said softly, but the monster peeled its lips back to show her the teeth that would be the last thing on earth she felt. It began a deep-chested growl, a promise of the howl that Gwen knew would mark the moment of her death.
Then the Wolfman reared back, throwing a howl toward the moon that was filled with all of the infinite pain and misery and torment that has ever troubled the world. The howl tore at the fabric of the night, slashing at sanity, clawing the face of the Goddess of the Hunt until the sky itself shuddered at the sound.
“I love you,” Gwen said.
And then she pressed the barrel of the gun against his chest and fired.
The heavy gun bucked in her hand, the explosion was louder than all the sound in the world, and the silver slug tore through flesh and muscle and bone, destroying everything in its path.
The Wolfman howled in surprise and terrible pain and fell over o
nto its side. Screaming, Gwen shimmied and clawed and kicked her way out from under, bringing the gun back up. Sobs broke in her chest as she watched the monster’s blood well out of wounds that would not close, that could not close.
The creature lay still on the ground beside her. The hunting party were yelling now, the dogs insane with bloodlust as they all ran toward the gorge.
But the creature did not move.
Suddenly it snaked a hand out and grabbed her hand. Gwen screamed. She struggled to break free . . . but the hand did not claw her, the talons did not tear at her skin. The Wolfman did nothing more than hold her. She froze, watching.
And as she watched, the hand changed.
The dark hairs seemed to writhe like grass in a breeze, but as she looked she saw that the hairs were retreating into the skin. The hooked nails thinned and retracted into the pads of each finger. The body changed, too. Even in death the process of transformation could not be stopped. Hands that had become twisted mockeries resumed their human shape. Bones straightened. The thick pelt of the werewolf vanished and the unmarked flesh of the man emerged into the moonlight until the Wolfman was entirely gone and only Lawrence Talbot remained.
With a cry, Gwen bent forward and pulled Lawrence to her, pressing his head to her breasts, kissing his tangled hair. Cradling him to her, she rocked back and forth as tears fell like rain from her blue eyes.
“Lawrence! Oh God . . . Lawrence. Forgive me. Please . . . forgive me. I’m so sorry. Forgive me . . .” Her words spilled out in a tumble as the sound of the dogs and the shouts of the men grew closer.
LAWRENCE COULD NOT find the strength to speak. He raised one hand and looked at it in wonder. Seeing his own skin, seeing his humanity. He felt no pain. All of his awareness was drawn by the purity of the goddess who held him. Not the fierce Goddess of the Hunt, whose face had become a twisted mask of disapproval and disappointment, but the smaller, more beautiful face of the goddess who clutched him to her breast and kissed him and wept. The goddess whose eyes were filled with tears and pain and loss. And with love.
The goddess who had saved him.
He wanted to say something to her. To tell her that he loved her. To say thank you, but there was not enough of him left. Lawrence used the last of what was left to touch her hand, to stroke the smooth skin. Would she understand? Would she know that there was no need for him to forgive her? Salvation does not require forgiveness.
His fingers trailed along the back of her hand.
It was all he could do.
He was safe now.
He could sleep.
GWEN CONLIFFE FELT him die. His body settled against hers and when she looked at his face, so clear in the moonlight, there was no trace of pain. His eyes were closed, and all of the pain and fear was gone. She bowed over him and wept as the hunting party swarmed into the clearing.
The men stopped and stood at the edge of the grassy slope, staring at the weeping woman and the man she held. The sound of her desperate, broken sobs struck them all to silence, and even the dogs stopped baying.
A moment later Aberline himself came out of the shadows. His wounded arm hung at his side, but the bleeding had stopped and he no longer staggered. The men held their ground as the inspector walked out onto the rocky lip of the gorge and stood over the sobbing woman.
Aberline looked at Lawrence Talbot’s face and knew that this hunt was over. The poor man was at peace. He felt a strange twist of grief for Talbot, and more for the woman. Moonlight glittered on the blade of the sword cane he still carried. Aberline raised the rapier and looked at the reflection of his own eyes in the slender mirror-bright blade. Then he raised his eyes and stared at the laughing face of the Goddess of the Hunt.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Maberry is a multiple Bram Stoker Award–winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator, and writing teacher/lecturer. His novels include Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, and Patient Zero. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com.
Jonathan Maberry, The Wolfman
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