Wolfsbane

by William W. Johnstone

  “Can’t help it,” Don said, going into the kitchen to get the potatoes and the salad. “I’m naturally horny.” They sat down to eat. “Go on,” Don said.

  “Did you know about that poor Trahan boy?”

  “No,” Doctor Lormand said, disgust in his voice. “But my dad must have. The boy is almost twenty years old. Dad delivered him; records in his office state that. I’m glad he’s in an institution, though. There should have been criminal charges brought against that family for keeping him chained like an animal.”

  “There won’t be. You know small towns. Tell me what’s wrong with him.”

  “Severe case of porphyria. In addition, the young man is highly schizophrenic and is probably suffering from lycanthropy.”

  “Thank you,” Edan said dryly. “Now will you kindly tell me what in the hell you just said?”

  Don grinned. “He has a disease that affects the skin and he’s nuts.”

  “That’s better.”

  Don waved off the offer of another drink. “Better not. I got two ladies that might domino any moment. I’d hate to go to the office half-zonked. Edan? My father kept quite a few very detailed records—like a lot of old-time country doctors used to do—before greed made us all a bunch of mercenaries. That young man was not, according to Dad’s records, Louis Trahan’s son.”

  “Oh?”

  “Seems like, here again, according to dad, Beth Trahan was raped one night—just about twenty years ago. She said her attacker was more beast than man.”

  “I was here then. I don’t remember that, or remember anyone talking about it since.”

  “It was never made public . . . for obvious reasons.”

  “I wonder if there would be any records at the office—hidden away somewhere?”

  Doctor Lormand shook his head. “I doubt it. You know how small communities are when it comes to protecting their own.”

  Sheriff Vallot nodded. “More beast than man?”

  “Yes. A small posse was formed, but they never found anyone . . . or anything.” He paused. “Edan? Reading between the lines of Dad’s notes, I get the strong impression he felt Beth’s attacker was a beast. I know that’s stupid, and not very professional of him. But dad was old-school Cajun, if that’s any defense.”

  “Where did the rape occur?”

  Don thought for a moment. “It’s been a while since I read those notes. Yeah! Okay, I remember: Beth Trahan was cutting across the Amour Estate—used to be a favorite route to take until . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Until what?” Edan urged.

  “Wait a minute. I’m getting some old vibes about this. Yeah. A professor from up north somewhere was visiting a friend at LSU when I was just starting there. I don’t know why you weren’t interviewed. Probably out chasing pussy,” he grinned. “Anyway, this guy was doing a book or a paper or something on tracing the superstitions of Louisiana’s Cajun country; learned I was from Joyeux and wanted to talk to me.”

  “And?” Sheriff Vallot pressed.

  “He came to Ducros and was never heard from again. He just disappeared.”

  “Killed . . . what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When was this?”

  “Well . . . 1960. We’re both the same age; started school together, didn’t we?”

  Edan nodded. “I’m remembering some old cases still on file at the office. Those that escaped the courthouse fire. Claude Bauterre was killed in ’34. In 1946 Tony LeJeune’s son was kidnapped, or something. Never found the boy. In 1956, Beth Trahan was attacked and raped by a beast/man . . . or something. Now you tell me about this professor who came here and just disappeared. But there’s more . . .

  “Yeah,” Don said, excitement building in his voice. “I remember: in 1966 Frank Bares’ boy was killed. And I recall where Beth Trahan was raped and where the LeJeune boy was kidnapped. On the grounds of Amour House.”

  “Right. LeJeune’s boy was playing around a garçonnière on the estate. And in ’66 Frank Bares, Jr., put his boat in there from the bayou and the motor supposedly blew up. They found bits and pieces of his body all over the place. Burned. Never positively identified as Frank. Let’s count it back. 1966, 1956, 1946. The professor disappeared in 1960. And this is . . .”

  “1976,” Don finished it for him. “Edan? You don’t really believe in werewolves, do you?”

  “You want an honest answer?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “I don’t know. A lot of strange things in the world that I can’t explain: the Honey Island swamp man . . . Big Foot. Do you believe in them, Don?”

  “I . . . don’t know. No! Of course not.”

  The men looked at each other without speaking for a time. Finally, Don said, “We’ll talk some more about this, Edan. I’m interested. Somehow, all the troubles seem to tie in, in some way, with Amour House. I think we’re on to something.”

  “Providing you can tear yourself away from Betty Jane, that is,” Edan grinned.

  “She does have something you don’t have, my friend. ”

  Both men laughed as the beeper on Don’s belt sounded its call. “Got to go—duty calls.”

  “Don?” Edan stopped him. “One minute.”

  “That’s about all the time I have, brother.”

  “What do you know about Eli Daily, Jr.?”

  “I . . . uh . . . don’t like him, Edan.”

  “Why?”

  “Lots of reasons. He’s arrogant, he’s a smart-ass—just like his father—and,” he said grinning, “he never gets sick. None of that family ever gets sick. Not even the kids. And that’s weird, pal—very weird. We’re talking about a whole family who never sees a doctor . . . for any reason.”

  “Hell!” Edan said. “Eli’s got three kids. The oldest, Eli the third, has to be . . . twenty years old. Who delivered the babies?”

  “Eli and his father.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Flat out serious. I got to go. See you.”

  Doctor Lormand disappeared into the soft, warm night.

  For a time, Edan sat at his small desk in the den, putting on paper all he knew about this strange case, going all the way back to 1934.

  “Hell,” he muttered. “I was just a baby when this began.”

  As he wrote, he could come to only one conclusion.

  And he didn’t like to think about that.

  Unconsciously, he touched the amulet hanging around his neck.

  Chapter Eight

  The howling came again to Amour House, for the first time in a month. Summer was drifting slowly toward the autumn, but the fierce heat had not abated in the bayou country. Janette had waited for the howling—impatiently. With some fear, but also with a determination to find out what was going on. And she had prepared well for this night.

  She rose from her bed, where she had waited in a sort of morbid anticipation, and walked across the darkened room to the windows. She stood for a time, looking out over the grounds, waiting for the creature to show itself.

  Why didn’t you call Sheriff Vallot? She had asked that question several times. Tell him about the . . . thing?

  She had put her hand on the phone several times to do just that. But each time she drew back at the last moment. Once, she had even punched the buttons, then hung up before the department could answer.

  What could she tell them?

  “Oh, officers? I believe I have some werewolves prowling about the estate. Yes, that’s correct: werewolves. You know, large, hairy beasts, half man, half beast . . . like in the movies? Would you gentlemen please come right out and dispatch them for me? Thank you.”

  Sure.

  Instead, she had driven to Lafayette, to a camera shop. Best in town, she was told. She instructed the clerk to get her a camera, equipped with a telephoto—whatever—the very best he had, or could get in a short time. With all the necessary accouterments. And fix it up so she could take pictures at night. From a distance. With no lights. And no flas
h attachment, either.

  The young clerk, who was dressed in western jeans, western shirt, and high-heeled cowboy boots, with a kerchief tied round his neck (Janette, who was an excellent horsewoman, felt this yo-yo might, if he were very lucky, be able to distinguish the head from the ass of the animal), looked at her as if she might have just escaped from a lunatic asylum.

  “Lady, I’m not a magician,” he said.

  You’re not a cowboy, either—you little twerp, she thought. “You mean to tell me that in this advanced age you don’t have a camera that can take pictures at night, without lights?”

  “Well . . . sure, lady! Yeah, I could fix something up for you. But do you have any idea how much that would cost”

  Janette was reared with great wealth piled around her. As a child, in Paris, her bedroom was adorned with a Renoir, a Picasso, and a Matisse. Originals. Her steady gaze nailed the young clerk to the floor. And probably stunted what growth he had left him.

  “Young man, I really don’t care how much it costs.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, a touch of humility in his voice. And awe.

  He fixed me up, all right, Janette thought. And probably ripped me off, as well. But she had her equipment, and half a dozen books, too.

  She read the books, learned how to assemble the equipment quickly, for she did not want her grandmother to know of this, and for a week practiced taking pictures at her bedroom window. A shop in Lafayette developed the pictures.

  The first shots were terrible, the second only slightly better than lousy. But by the fifth try, she felt she could handle the camera and take some decent pictures.

  The shop manager had been puzzled by her shots and the expensive film, which was costly to develop. “I don’t mean to pry, ma’am . . . but just what are you trying to take pictures of?”

  Janette smiled her best smile, bringing beads of sexual-fantasy-induced anticipatory sweat to his forehead. “We’re going to have a float in the Mardi Gras parade. We’re just practicing to get the most bizarre illusory effect possible. The float is to be called: the secret dreams of Marie Laveau.”

  The shop manager looked at her, then at the fuzzy shots. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

  This night, Janette was ready.

  She had placed the stand for the camera just behind the fold of the drapes, between the drape and the wall. Since the deaths of Eddie Guilbeau and his wife, and the whispered comments about town—she had overheard them, usually from older people—of sightings of beasts in the swamp, she had felt the creature that appeared on the grounds of Amour House must be connected to the incidents. And she was irritated that her grandmother would not discuss the matter with her.

  And the garçonnière by the edge of the estate, by the bayou, was strictly off-limits to her.

  “Dangerous,” Madame Bauterre told her. “The floors are very crumbly and the walls are trembly. I’m going to have it renovated or torn down. Until I make up my mind, stay away.”

  Then a fence was put around it. Janette had gone to Lafayette one morning, and when she returned that afternoon, a chain link fence was in place. A tall fence, with a huge padlock on the gate.

  On this night, she had waited for hours, occasionally nodding off as sleep slipped past her vigilance. Then she heard the howling, and the howling chilled her.

  She readied her equipment, carefully checking each intricately operated part, making certain the electrically activated infrared was ready. Then her heart quickened as she watched a form walk slowly onto the grounds.

  Madame Bauterre, like a wraith in flowing white, walked to a moonlit spot and held out a hand.

  A creature out of hell came to her, snarling, its red eyes winking in the moonlight. Janette was shooting every second, stopping the action with each heartbeat . . . imprinting the bizarre and ungodly rendezvous for proof.

  Then a second howling was heard in the distance. Madame Bauterre patted the beast on the arm and pointed to the bayou. The creature obediently turned and loped away, toward the dark waters of the sluggish bayou. Victoria turned, looking toward Janette’s window. Although she knew the old woman could not see her, Janette instinctively shrank back against the wall. The old lady stood for a time, gazing up at the window, then, satisfied she had not been seen—so Janette supposed, although she was beginning to suspect her grandmother had powers beyond the norm—Victoria disappeared from view, walking under the gloom created by the overhead gallery.

  Janette checked her watch. Several hours until first light in the bayou country.

  She carefully hid her equipment, then slipped into bed. She was wide awake when her bedroom door was quietly pushed open, aware of her grandmother’s eyes on her back. Janette breathed evenly and slowly, as if deep in sleep. The door closed with a whisper.

  Janette threw back the thin covers and stepped from the bed, slipping into her gown. She walked to the window, looking down on the grounds. What she saw made her stomach boil. She fought to keep hot bile from rushing upward.

  The beasts were just below her window, carrying something toward the garçonnière. Whatever it was was alive, for Janette heard it moan. Silently cursing the fact she had disassembled her equipment, Janette opened the window to get a better look. The hinges groaned in protest and the creatures looked up, spotting her. They screamed their displeasure and ducked into the shadows.

  Janette backed away from the open window as she heard a door slam somewhere in the huge mansion.

  The creatures, carrying whatever it was, and it looked like a large dog, loped toward the garçonnière, the night swallowing them.

  Janette stepped back to the window in time to see her grandmother look up toward her room. Their eyes met in the darkness.

  “I heard something,” she called down to the old woman. “I thought it might have been a prowler.”

  “Whatever it was,” Madame Bauterre said, “it’s gone.”

  “Is it?” Janette said.

  Madame Bauterre chose not to reply. She turned her back to her granddaughter and disappeared from view, walking toward the far garçonnière, now cloaked in darkness.

  “Be careful, grand’mère!” she called.

  “I have nothing to fear, child.” The voice seemed strangely disembodied, seeming to float through the night. “But were I you, I would dampen my curiosity toward events that do not concern you.”

  “Why not tell me about them?” Janette called into the night.

  “Them? Are you becoming paranoid, child? Mentally unbalanced as you became after Lyle’s death?”

  “I saw them, grand’mère!” Janette called. “Whatever they are.”

  The old woman stepped back into the dim light by the side of the mansion. “You saw nothing.”

  “You wait right there. I’m coming down.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  But Janette was already moving out into the dimly lit hall of Amour House, down the curving stairs. She stepped into the grand hall and out the doors.

  The humid night was silent as she stepped into its warmth. She turned to her right, walking toward the bayou side of the mansion.

  Her grandmother met her before she could step off the porch. “Imbecile!” Madame Bauterre gripped her granddaughter’s arm. “Do I have to order you away?”

  Janette jerked her arm from her grandmother’s grasp.

  In the darkness, the old woman peered through her glasses at the young woman. “You never did take orders well, child.”

  “I saw two creatures, grand’mère, carrying something. Maybe it was a large dog. But I think it was a body. And I think we should call Sheriff Vallot—right now.”

  “Do you, now?” the old woman’s gaze did not waver, but a puzzled look came into them, reflecting behind the lenses of the glasses. She smiled fleetingly. “Whatever else you may be, Janette, you are a true Bauterre.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Another woman would be hysterical. Probably still in her room, passed out on the floor in a frightene
d swoon.

  “I did that the first time I saw the creature from my bedroom window.”

  “Yes, I know. I helped put you back in your bed.”

  One mystery solved, Janette thought.

  “What do you intend doing with the pictures you’ve taken, child?”

  How did she know about that? Janette wondered. She shrugged her shoulders. Why, have you nothing to fear from them?” Janette asked. ”And were you implying I do have something to fear?”

  “You can prove nothing,” her grandmother replied. “No one in authority will believe you.”

  The old woman laughed, the laugh hollow, touched with evil, matching the blackness of the bayou night. “Real? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The mist over the bayou in the morning is real, but can you put it in a bottle to keep? Non. A memory is real—to those who treasure it—but can they show it to a friend? Non. What is real to you may not be real to another. And I would consider that if you are thinking of going to the authorities, my child. And there is this: you realize there is a history of mental disorder in the family. And you were under a doctor’s care after Lyle was killed, were you not?”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  The old woman’s shoulders lifted in silent reply.

  “Good night, grand’mère.”

  Her answering smile was, to Janette, ghoulish, containing all the warmth of a vampire. And she began viewing her grand’mère in quite a different light. “Good night, child,” the old woman said. “And . . . do sleep well.”

  The old woman disappeared into the darkness by the side of the mansion.

  The man moaned in fear and pain as yellowed teeth sank into the external jugular, greedily sucking the warm, salty blood from his body. Strong, clawed hands held him in a viselike grip as yet another set of fangs kissed him with a needle prick on his neck, sinking into his flesh, piercing the vein, slurping and sucking at the crimson flow that leaped from the severed vein.

  The man cringed at the foul odor of death breathing heavily at his neck; revulsion mingled with dread filled him as a ghostlike shape entered the garçonnière. Dressed in black, with a thin, whispy veil covering her head, the thin woman waved one age-spotted hand and spoke in a language he could not comprehend. He felt the icy touch of her talonlike hands on his bare belly and the sharp pain as fangs left his neck.