Zach moved stealthily along the edge of the grass, until he was directly above the lovers. It was the break in the weather that had brought them here, he understood. They were in their teens and hot to be romantic with each other. They had been planning this and waiting for the night to clear. They had brought some logs and gathered dead seaweed and some driftwood and built a fire. The orange flames were high and snapped in the wind. Pungent smoke trailed black across the deep blue sky.
But Zach’s soul was filled with the boy’s deodorant and the girl’s perfume, a savor on their underlying skin. The flames worried him only a little. He could take the couple safely, he was sure of it. And he wanted them. He wanted his jaw on their throats so very much.
He watched. The boy, returning from a search of the sand, threw another plank of driftwood on the fire. The girl sprinkled seaweed on it as if salting a meal. She danced around, waggling her bottom at the boy. He dropped down onto the sand and lay back and beckoned to her. She came. Dropped on top of him. They rolled together, embracing, and kissed, the firelight turning them to silhouettes.
All this—the action and lust and raw youth of it—made the hunger mushroom in Zach’s being until it filled him, irresistible. He was ready now. He settled back on his massively powerful haunches, preparing to spring.
But all this time—all this time he had been watching—the voice of man-conscience had been struggling to wake itself from the dream of the wolf’s desire. All this time, the silence of Zach’s human point of view was fighting to rise to at least a still, small voice again. He wanted those children—wanted to devour them—oh, he did—he did—there was no division at all anymore between him and the wolf he was. But by the same token, the wolf was troubled by some human sense that these were not merely two hunks of living meat but each an interior universe—attachments and sensations and the ability to love—that he had no business—no right—to annihilate in the service of his hunger.
Still—still—the urge to pounce was nearly overpowering in him. He was like a mechanism that was coiled beyond its limit and had to spring. He was drooling with readiness, heaving with readiness. Now—he wanted them now.
The boy and girl were rolling on the sand in each other’s arms, laughing and kissing. Now they were sitting up. He was drawing her to him. She was resting her head on his shoulder and he had his arm around her. They were dreamily watching the flames. They would have no chance to get away from him. Now. He wanted them now.
Zach felt all that power, all that lust, all that force, that impetus to leap—and had nothing—nothing—to stop it, nothing to hold it back, but that little whisper, like a string on a rocket, that sense he had of what they were, of what he was—man, adult, police, sworn to protect them, to make the world safe for them to kiss in—but oh, the wanting, the taste of their hot life-liquid—he could already feel it in his throat. . . .
The massive, uncanny were-beast gave a shake of his great head and snorted, trying to dislodge the troublesome voice that held him there against his nature.
The girl straightened where she sat. “Did you hear something?” she murmured.
The boy listened.
Zach looked on, thinking he had to take them now—now, or they would leave and he would lose them. But still he hesitated. He had a son. He had a daughter. They would one day go to the beach with lovers of their own. . . .
“No,” the boy said. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Sounded like an animal or something. Up there in the grass.”
“Maybe a dog. Nothing else would be out here. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
They relaxed. She settled her head back down on his shoulder.
Zach pounced on top of them in his mind, in his yearning, but his conscience held his body back another second and another. He was thinking: Do not! He was pleading with himself: Do not! But he wanted them, wanted them the way he had wanted Margo when his hand first touched her naked waist. More.
He hesitated there yet one more second, struggling with himself.
Then the moon crossed the meridian and the curse released its grip on him.
It was a feeling like falling. Less painful than the original transformation, but less pleasurable too. Less violent and less orgasmic both. Just a long drop—as if from black empty space down to the living, blue-green earth—out of the simple immensity of lupine power and instinct into the complex, small morass of his fragile and human being. He whined like a wounded dog and staggered back helplessly into the grass.
“There really is something back there, Brad,” the girl said. “I heard it moving.”
“Yeah, I heard it too that time. Just sounded like a dog or something. What else is it gonna be out here?”
“Well, should you check on it? It might be hurt or something!”
“Really? You want me to go walking through the high grass looking for, like, a wild dog?”
“Well . . . no . . . I guess that’s not a very good idea.”
“It’s not gonna bother us. Listen, it’s moving away.”
Zach was. Feeling the falling change begin, he was dragging himself as far as he could as quickly as he could, deeper and deeper into the grass, farther and farther from beach and fire, boy and girl, until the change overtook him fully and he collapsed by one of the freshwater pools. He lay there, writhing in the dirt and reeds, his immense limbs and torso shriveling, his miraculous strength draining out of him, his fur retracting into the skin to reveal his puny nakedness. His wolf-form curled and shrank into his man-body like paper charring to ash. Finally, metamorphosis complete, he settled onto his back, limp with exhaustion.
He lay there motionless, weak and spent, staring up through the grass-stalks at the moon. He could hear the slap of the waves, and the snap of the lovers’ campfire, and the hiss and sizzle of the retreating surf. And he could hear the lovers themselves, the girl and the boy, reassuring each other there was nothing bad out there in the darkness, nothing they had to fear. She giggled and he murmured and Zach could tell that they were kissing again.
He shuddered and began to cry. He rocked himself back and forth, the tears streaming down his temples, dampening his hair. So close. That had been so awfully close. He had nearly killed those children. Another moment or two and he would have. He bit back sobs. He stared up at the blurring moon. He thought thank you, thank you, thank you to the God of his creation, who had spared him this one horror at least—thank you, thank you to the God who had taken from his blood-drenched lips the bitter cup of at least this horror.
PART IV
A VISION OF HELL AND HEAVEN
25
SUPER COP IN HOUSE OF HORRORS
The werewolf called his wife. It was after two A.M. now. Her voice was small and childlike with sleep, so he could tell that he had wakened her. He could also tell, by how quickly she had answered the phone, that she had dozed off in a chair or on the living-room sofa, waiting for his call.
“Zach?”
“Yeah, it’s me, baby, I’m okay.”
“What happened, baby? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, yeah.”
“Everyone was so worried. No one knew where you were. Even Martin didn’t know.”
“I had some trouble with the bad guys, but it’s all right now.”
“Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”
“They did not. I am okay. I’ll be home in a few hours. Go to bed.”
“They were all out looking for you. I was afraid.”
“It’s all right now, sweetheart. Go to bed. I’m okay.”
He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket. He bowed his head, pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, and closed his eyes, weary to the bone. The red and blue lights played over him where he stood.
He was at Sea View again. He’d retreated to a corner den for privacy. The cops were everywhere out there, inside the house on every floor, down on the beach, and out in the driveway, where their figures were lit by the red and blue flashing lights of the
ir cars—the same lights that came through the den window and flickered on him. The coroner was already in the wine cellar. The meat wagons were pulling up outside to collect the bodies.
It had all happened that quickly—very quickly, when he considered where he’d been and what he’d been up to when the moon crested.
Cleaning up the aftermath of his wolf escapades had been even easier this time than the last. The devil was on his side again, he thought. The devil was with his own.
After finding himself human in the tall grass, he had made his way naked along the dunes back to Abend’s secluded beach house. It wasn’t far. He was there in under twenty minutes.
Still naked, he had gotten rid of the corpses: he had dragged the bloody remains of Satan and the monk deep into the surf, trusting to the sharks to dispose of them. He had driven the wrecked Camaro back into the driveway. He found his own Crown Vic behind the closed door of the garage.
His clothes were inside the house: his phone, his wallet, his change, everything was lying atop his neatly folded suit on the floor in a small empty room near the room where he’d been shackled to the cot. He found his shredded, blood-soaked undershorts on the floor in the living room. He took the rags with him to toss out later and quickly cleaned his blood off the floor.
As it had been with Margo’s house, so here: he wasn’t worried about forensics. Abend had chosen this place for its isolation. The cops might never find it. If they did—well, he had an excuse for having been here: the bad guys had brought him here after they’d kidnapped him. If anything, the story of his travails in the clutches of the evildoers would help explain the bruises and scratches he’d gotten in the woods after his wolf-self had murdered Margo. As for the monk and Satan, if their remains happened to wash up onshore, so be it. He didn’t know how they had gotten themselves killed. Maybe Abend had punished them for letting him get away. Anyone’s guess was as good as his. If they washed up. Which they probably wouldn’t. Probably the sharks would get them. The devil helps his own.
And as before, he didn’t have to get away with it forever. Just one more day. Just one more chance at Abend and the dagger. After that, win or lose, it wouldn’t matter. After that, win or lose, he couldn’t go on living with himself anyway.
When he was done with the cleanup, he got in his car and made his way back to Sea View. He didn’t turn his phone back on until he reached the place. Once there, he called the local law, then Rebecca Abraham-Hartwell, and finally Grace. He told them the story pretty much the way it had happened. He had been suspicious of Angela Bose. He had returned to question her. He had found her house deserted and unlocked. Fearing that Bose was in danger, he had searched the place and discovered the bodies. Then the bad guys had captured him.
On what had happened after that, he was unclear. He had been drugged and held for hours, unconscious most of the time. He had a vague memory of being questioned by Abend, but ultimately the gangster had left him to the tender mercies of his two thugs. Zach had managed to escape them somehow and to drive back to Sea View. But he’d still been under the influence of the drugs, and he couldn’t remember where he’d been or how he’d gotten back.
He conveniently left out the whole turning-into-a-wolf-and-eating-people business. Too difficult to explain.
There were more cars outside the mansion now, more flashing lights, more cops. Zach came out of the den and wove his way through the milling crowd of uniforms and detectives. He found the homicide guy in charge, a balding, beefy working stiff with the unlikely name of Stinger Blaine. Taller than Zach and much bigger around, he was in a rumpled gray-blue leisure suit—looked like he’d dropped it at the foot of his bed before collapsing for the evening. A taste of beer was on his breath, but he seemed sober enough. His cop-suspicious eyes were alert, at any rate.
“What a mess,” he said, shaking his head, resting from the general melee with his hands on his wide hips.
“How many are there, does it turn out?” said Zach.
“Seven-fucking-teen of them, can you believe it? The last one, the M.E. says, within the last forty-eight hours.”
“Yeah, the one on the table. He looked pretty fresh.”
“One of them in the closets I recognized. Pross. Questioned her a year or so ago after one of the local girls helped her john speedball himself to death. Fucking Guyland, man. You city boys have no idea.”
“Was she homeless, the pross?”
“Off and on, yeah, why?”
“I’ll bet they all were,” said Zach. “Bose supported homeless shelters all across the island.”
“You’re thinking she gave some of her clientele a lift home from time to time.”
“Brought them back to Abend, yeah.”
“I thought this Abend guy was gangsta. Organized crime and such. What was this—his hobby?”
Zach gave a snort and nodded vaguely. He didn’t want to mention the dagger or human sacrifice or the whole centuries-old-evil angle, though he was pretty sure that’s what this was about. In fact, he was pretty sure that if he could get some time alone to think it through, he could figure out the whole case now. He had a sense that he was closer to Abend than ever, closer than anyone had been since he’d escaped the gulags and recovered the baselard. That was the thing that was keeping him going, despite all the horror: he was so close.
Driving home, he tried to focus on the facts he knew. If nothing else, the exercise was a refuge from the chaos in his mind. When he wasn’t thinking cop-thoughts, he had to fight off the wolf-flashbacks of the night: the monk’s throat in his mouth—running on the beach with the weird eternal animal life-force in him—the urge to kill like lust coursing all through his body as he crouched poised above the teenage lovers, his muscles tensed to spring. Memories no human mind should hold. Sensations no man ought to know.
The intermittent highway street lamps glared in his face through the windshield. The interplay of dark and light was soporific and God, he was already tired to his bones. But the flashbacks—ripping open the monk’s belly like tearing a canvas sack—pausing to savor the weeping terror of Satan before he struck—these jolted him awake whenever his head bowed toward the wheel. Then, alert for a while, he focused his mind on the case to hold the flashbacks at bay. Dark and light. Thoughts and flashbacks. A hypnotic checkerboard pattern within and without him.
“The dagger was never stolen,” he murmured aloud. “It was never missing at all.”
The headlights of an oncoming semi blinded him. When the truck passed with a rumble and whoosh, he had to squint through the glass to make out the black highway. Then, suddenly, his own high beams picked out a woman standing right in front of him.
There was no time to brake. He drove right into her. He gasped—but there was no impact: the fender passed straight through her. The next moment, Zach smelled cigarette smoke and the sour aroma of meat going rotten. He turned to see Gretchen Dankl smoking sullenly in the seat beside him.
“She had it,” he said to her groggily. “Angela Bose had the dagger all along.”
“There is always a woman,” said Dankl, lifting the cigarette to her lips in those long witchy fingers, the smoke swirling around that anxious-monkey face of hers. “But it never lasts.” Then she dissolved into shadow, leaving only those faintly sickening scents to stale the air of the car.
Only after she was gone did Zach think of all the questions he wanted to ask her. He remembered Abend’s blade ripping him open—the agony—the sense of mortal violation—and the wounds miraculously healing as the full moon rose. Was it like that now? Was he indestructible? Could only a person of faith with a silver bullet end him—as he wanted to be ended—as he had ended Dankl herself?
And was that the power that had entered the baselard when the executioner had cut Peter Stumpf’s hand off, when the demonic blood and holy water had mingled on the blade? The power of life? The power of rejuvenation? Or was there more to it than that?
He sensed that the rules of this new game were more complex
and dangerous than he yet knew, but still he felt his way forward, figuring out what he could.
Dominic Abend had been alive for a long time. Zach thought back to the photograph Dankl had shown him: a man in his thirties in a Nazi uniform. And he remembered his own naïve reaction: Why, he’d be well over a hundred years old by now! That was just it: he was. Something—the power of the dagger—had extended his life.
Here, a street lamp shone in on him sharply, and he flashed back to Abend’s strangely bulging eyes, his sunken cheeks and sockets, the shifting in his skin like maggots. . . .
He was rotting. Abend. He was dying. He had lost the dagger and was decaying. That was why he was so desperate, so crazily violent, so willing to break his own rules and show himself in his quest to get the dagger back.
Zach shook his head quickly, fighting off sleep. This was falling into place now, all falling into place as he had hoped it would. Seventeen dead in the Sea View wine cellar. Angela Bose had been there for a year and a half. One sacrifice a month. At the full moon when the wolf’s blood in the blade became active. The magic of the dagger supercharged the blood of those it slaughtered. The blood of the sacrifice reinvigorated the blood of the living. . . .
“Am I getting this right?” Zach murmured. Because it all sounded so much like madness—but here he flashed back to the change that had exploded through him as he hung chained to the bars in the beach-house doorway. What could seem like madness after that? What could “madness” even mean?
There was a faint fizzle of static from the radio. Zach cursed. His lips twitched as he tried to sneer the machine into silence. Because he hadn’t turned the damned thing on, for Christ’s sake. It ought not to be making a sound.
He went on thinking, working it through. There was always a woman, but it never lasted. Angela Bose had sensed that her time with Abend was ending. How long had they been together? A year and a half? A decade? Two? Twenty years of never aging. But Abend was tired of her. Soon he would get rid of her and find another companion, and she would be left to grow suddenly old and die.