Return of the Wolf Man

by Jeff Rovin

  “Suppose you’re correct,” he said, “and the condition is partly physical and partly psychological. What can you do today? Tonight? I don’t want to go through the transformation again. I don’t want to kill.”

  “If this lawyer they’ve gotten for us is any good,” Caroline said, “maybe he’ll let me prescribe something for you. A strong sedative to put you out. We’ll incarcerate you as well, just in case. In the morning I’ll see if we can get you into the LaMirada Clinic. When I first started thinking about moving my practice down here, I checked up on it. It’s a top-of-the-line facility for the treatment of substance abuse.”

  “Substance abuse?”

  “Drugs and alcohol,” she said. “Problems that still plague us in the so-called enlightened and health-conscious nineteen nineties. They have state-of-the-art equipment at the clinic, including rooms that are a whole lot stronger than my great-aunt’s basement. They take emergency cases, and certainly you would qualify. Starting tomorrow, we can extract DNA from your blood and begin doing linkage analysis. Find a means of suppressing your physical reactions.”

  Talbot shook his head. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Not easy,” she said. “But do-able. You’ve got to believe that.”

  “I want to,” Talbot said, “but I’ve been disappointed so often.”

  “I understand,” Caroline said. “But Dr. Cooke is on the case and I promise you, she can be very, very tenacious.”

  Talbot smiled warmly as the boat neared the shore. A few minutes later they were climbing into Trooper Willis’s car.

  As they pulled away from the wharf, Caroline glanced back at the island. She watched as dark smoke churned from the windows of the Tombs, blighting the perfect blue sky. Her confidence in being able to treat Talbot was tempered by what had happened at the castle the night before, by the very vivid memory of the thing that Talbot had become. Despite the sophistication of medical science, she was keenly aware of fact that there were always unknowns. Surprises. And though she had given Talbot hope, there was still one thing that bothered her:

  What if she was wrong about his condition?

  What if Lawrence Talbot was exactly what he said he was?

  NINE

  The gentle tingling of the ring startled him.

  On nights like this, when the moon was full but his blighted soul was empty, he sat on his torchlit veranda. There, surrounded by quiet and serenity, he was brushed by warm breezes and warmer thoughts of a time when existence had a purpose. His memories drifted back more than five hundred years, when he had raised a blood-smeared smallsword and led his people, the Szecklers of Wallachia, to victory against overwhelming armies from the north and south.

  After his father was murdered early in the war, young Vlad realized that he could not afford to show his enemies charity or mercy. Certainly they would not show mercy to him if he were taken prisoner. Thus, like his ancestor, the Hun Attila, the teenage warrior would capture pockets of conscripts and burn them alive at the stake. Then he would leave their bodies where other conscripts were certain to find them. But this tactic was only moderately effective. Death by fire took just fifteen minutes—less if the victims had been able to secure gunpowder. Tucked in packets and hidden upon their bodies—within the armpits was a favored spot, for it was close to the heart and lungs—the powder ignited and killed prisoners quickly. There wasn’t enough time for their screams to reach the ears of their comrades. Not enough horror for those soldiers to gaze on when they arrived. Vlad decided then that the stakes could be used more effectively not to burn the enemies of his people but to impale them. Stripped naked and forced to sit on a sharpened, greased pike until it penetrated the breastbone, death came slower to the individual. Their shrieks lasted longer. It was far more daunting for someone to find a corpse still red with blood, perhaps even still alive, than to find a blackened mound of bones and sinew. However foul the smell of the charred flesh.

  Because of the stakes, he—Prince Vlad—came to be known as Vlad Tepes. Vlad the Impaler. His reputation for sadism spread faster than the blood he spilled, though his guiding principle was not cruelty. It was leadership. If his enemies had not been afraid of him, the Szecklers would have been destroyed long before he was forced to forsake them. And if the Szecklers had not feared his wrath more than they feared the enemy, many would not have stood fast against superior forces. A warrior who was not motivated by courage had to be motivated by fear. Fear of punishment, which was greater than the fear of death or battlefield wounds.

  In the end, Vlad’s so-called Reign of Blood secured peace for his people. Yet there was no peace for the prince. Vlad worried what would happen if he were ever succeeded by one who lacked his resolve. So he journeyed to Scholomance, a small, hidden university of the dark arts, to learn if there were some way to forestall death. He studied necromancy and the language of animals. He learned alchemy and the black arts. His diligence was such that he came to the attention of the mysterious headmaster, a cloaked figure who moved about only at night. Though the eerie pedant spoke all languages, he said little.

  Then, one night, when Vlad was alone in the dark library of the school, the shadowy headmaster approached. In a deep, whispered voice he offered the Wallachian what he desired: immortality.

  Vlad was amazed but not surprised. What must I do for this? he asked.

  He was informed, still in a whisper, that all he needed to do was accept it.

  Five centuries later he could still hear himself reply, If that is all, master, then I accept. What fool would not?

  The headmaster replied, What fool would not.

  He gave Vlad a ring made of black ivory and bade him put it on and kiss it. Vlad obeyed. Then the headmaster lifted his head and Vlad could see his chiseled beard and thin smile. And the Devil himself said quietly, sibilantly, Tonight you have made a pact with me, Vlad Tepes. When you leave this chamber, it will be as one of the fanged predators of the earth.

  Headmaster, I don’t understand, the young student replied—so very young and so very naïve.

  The Devil’s smile deepened. I remain immortal by consuming the souls of the damned. You will survive by drinking the blood of innocents. They will become the damned. They will become mine.

  No— Vlad had protested. He rose from his seat and held out his hands, imploring. Please, no!

  Henceforth, said the immutable fiend, you will shun the sun and the symbols of my enemies. Your familiars will be those predators of earth and the mists of my own abode. If you fail to obey, your own soul will serve me in the pits of Hell. The Devil laughed then. That, Vlad Tepes, is a fate you will find more disagreeable than undeath . . . as a vampire.

  Vlad looked with disbelief from the Devil to the ring. With mounting horror, which he could still feel to this day, he tugged the ring off. Carved on the inside of the band were the words of indenture the Devil had uttered. On the front was a design, which Vlad also examined for the first time. It was a crest, one which thenceforth would be his. A shield with a D in the center and two crowns on either side. Above it was a larger crown beneath which was a bat with its wings outstretched. It was the crest of the Devil’s Son. It was the seal of Dracula.

  Seeing the crest and realizing what he had done, Vlad Tepes screamed. It was the last mortal sound he would ever make. For even as he cried out, his tongue became parched and his teeth began to throb against his gums. He grew sickly cold all over, save for the heat in his throat and the longing in his mouth. Thirsty beyond anything he had experienced before, he ran from the library and claimed his first victim, a milkmaid who had been unable to sleep and had gone for a walk.

  Her last walk.

  Count Dracula’s dark brow knitted now as he looked at the ring. It was one of two things he owned from those long-ago days. The other was the smallsword with which he’d fought the enemies of his people. He’d stolen it from the Visaroff Museum in Transylvania after recognizing it during a recent visit there. Upon returning to his estate, he had entru
sted the blade to his devoted manservant, Andre. The sarpe carried it to protect his master and also as a symbol of the authority he wielded over his own kind.

  A sword is my salvation, a ring my damnation, he thought ironically as he regarded the ring. The infernal crest was flat black, a sinister contrast to the vampire’s black dinner jacket and trousers, which gleamed in the moonlight. His mind left the past, which could not be changed, and moved to the future, which could. There was only one reason the ivory would tingle. Over a half century before, Count Dracula had used the ring to pass some of his own life force to the ailing body of the Frankenstein Monster. The arc between donor and recipient could only be broken by the death of the latter. Since Count Dracula had never felt any further drain on the ring, he’d assumed the Monster had somehow perished that night at Mornay Castle. He thought that perhaps the too-clever Professor Stevens had used the journal of Dr. Frankenstein to dissect the brute. Apparently he had not. The tingling indicated that the Monster had survived somehow and was seeking strength. And the laboratory Dracula had built here, in hopeful expectation of this day, would not go to waste.

  The vampire’s upper lip curled slightly, exposing the long white canines. He had needed the Monster back then. Doctors Van Helsing and Jeffrey Garth and their newly formed League of Anti-Diabolists had become relentless in their search for the vampire’s coffin. Count Dracula had feared that they would find his soil and satin resting place and send him to eternal damnation. The vampire had needed a tireless guard, and he had worked with Dr. Mornay to give the Monster an obedient brain. It was an effort that that accursedly self-righteous Wolf Man had foiled.

  What a foolish mistake we made, Count Dracula thought. He and Dr. Mornay should have replaced the brain of the sanctimonious Talbot with that of the compliant Wilbur Grey. What a dogged guardian the Wolf Man would have been.

  Count Dracula often wondered what had become of his old nemesis. Like him, the Wolf Man was not subject to the natural laws of death and decay. Even if his mortal form died, it would be reborn during the full moon. Dracula had no difficulty imagining Talbot still searching for him, still yearning to atone for the blood on his own lips by destroying the vampire. Dracula would have slain the cur the last time they met, if only it hadn’t been so close to sunrise and he’d had time to find something made of silver.

  Count Dracula looked down. There was an ivory-white arm in his lap. The woman who owned it had been leaning against him as she gasped her life away. Now that her pulse had finally stopped throbbing, the vampire picked up the arm and laid it aside. The woman’s lean, bloodless body followed it with a thump to the planks of the portico. The vampire peered into the night.

  The Anti-Diabolists. The Wolf Man. The Monster. Count Dracula had thought he was done with them all. Doctors Van Helsing and Garth were surely dead by now. The Wolf Man had wanted to die; perhaps he had succeeded. But the Monster—the Monster was alive!

  The percussion of old ambition returned loudly. Not just the desire to survive. Count Dracula no longer needed the Monster for that. Here on Marya Island, midway between Key West and Havana in the Morgan Islands, the vampire had no need of another guardian. His estate was located more than three and a half miles from the nearest shore, in the jungle-thick foothills of Mt. Mord. Unlike himself, who had to be bidden to enter a place, people could come into his home—if they got that far. Should anyone approach the estate, the vampire would be warned by a native population that feared the black arts and revered its practitioners. And then his slaves or his trained wolf pack would attack the intruder. Sometimes Dracula himself would go forth and greet the tourists. Invariably they were journalists seeking exiled political figures, psychologists researching voodoo, or military officers hoping to train an army in secret. To him, if he hadn’t yet fed, they were the evening’s bill of fare. If he’d already eaten and could take no more, he would invite them to his home where he kept them until the following night. Because of the skyscraping peaks of Mt. Mord, the sun set early and Dracula was free to leave from his coffin before dark. Many of his most cherished encounters occurred during those twilight hours, when the unwary thought the only dangers were clouds of black flies or venomous snakes.

  But while Count Dracula was perfectly safe, he was not content. As the ring continued to tingle, the vampire’s mind returned to the old war. Not the battle with his personal enemies. The war against the new oppressors of Wallachia.

  “Andre, come here.”

  A tall, bald, shirtless man came through the open double doors. He moved slowly as though in a dream, his eyes wide and unblinking. His bare feet hardly made a sound as he walked past the mansion’s plain white columns. His thickly muscled arms swung easily beside him. The silver smallsword he wore through a loop in his belt gleamed brightly in the moonlight.

  Andre was the one who had brought Dracula this woman, a student who had been doing a doctoral thesis on the history of sugar cane. Andre was one of eleven sarpe who dwelt on the estate. They were zombies, the animated dead who had been raised from the grave over sixty years before by a houngan, a voodoo priest. Once resurrected, the sarpe responded only to their leader. Without one, they would collapse and revive when the fragmented memories of what they were rose from the mists of the past. And they would become that again, imperfectly, until they could be decapitated. Andre had been a murderous smuggler and was the ideal bodyguard. If anything ever happened to him—and there was always the chance that a fire or an accident at the mill could destroy him—the vampire would be without his bodyguard and manservant.

  Andre stopped a respectful distance from where the vampire was sitting. His eyes were dry and disinterested.

  “Take her,” the vampire said without looking down. His manner was imperious, his accent thick with his proud Wallachian ancestry.

  “Yes, Master.”

  The servant picked up the slender body in jeans and a halter top. The pale, glassy-eyed youth would carry it to the swamp and make certain that she was never found. The authorities would see to it that whoever came looking for her would receive no help. Count Dracula paid them well from his account in London.

  “Before you leave,” said Count Dracula, “have Maurice ready the boat for a trip to the Continent.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Be sure there are two coffins onboard and that Maurice brings proper documentation from the governor.”

  “I will, Master.”

  The vampire continued to gaze at the foliage as Andre walked off with the dead woman in his arms. From the corner of his eye he saw a large, mottled gray underwing moth bat toward the light. With an easy snap of his elbow he caught the insect by pinching its wing. The moth struggled violently as Count Dracula rose. He held the insect inches from his face.

  “If I let you go,” he said, “you will die in the flames of the torch. Yet you struggle. Perhaps only vermin can appreciate the beauty to be found in death.”

  The vampire regarded the moth a moment longer and then released it. The insect fluttered away quickly. It circled the flame once and darted closer. Then it wobbled and dropped to the ground. Its wings moved sluggishly for a few beats before stopping.

  Count Dracula seemed sad. “The soil offers you eternal peace,” he said softly. “For me, the earth I rest upon is a reminder of a vanished home, a lost life.” The black leather of his shoes crunched sharply as he stood. He pulled his shoulders erect and made a fist. His strong chin rose along with the bold profile of his nose. “But a Szeckler does not lament. He acts. And the time has come to resume an old crusade, and this time to win it.”

  His soul filled with fire, Count Dracula closed his eyes. In his mind he saw a large black bat. The creature was a vision made of mind and spirit. It left the portico and flew across jungle and sea. It flapped low over the breakers and came to rest on a patch of overgrown land. There, in the shadow of a dark stone edifice, the wings became a cape and the ribs became fingers. The tiny legs grew long and sturdy as the black silhouette of the
bat became the black silhouette of a man. The man looked down at a small stone marker.

  Come, the vampire commanded silently. Come here.

  After a long moment, he heard a small, raspy female voice reply, “Yes . . . Master.”

  The Monster’s body was too weak, his brain too simple, to respond to a command across so many miles. But there was another who would answer the call of the vampire. One who had been waiting for him. One who for a short time had been his.

  One who would serve him again after a too-long rest.

  TEN

  Everything had been black. Blacker than the mind dared to imagine.

  And it had been damp. Moisture was everywhere. It was on her pale flesh and on her white dress. It was in her matted black hair and even under her eyelids and long fingernails.

  And there were things. Warm, wet, wriggling things. She felt the small creatures squirming all over her from the moment she heard the voice. They were on her pale lips and in her nostrils when she drew a sharp, sudden breath. They slipped inside her dry mouth as she opened it slowly and uttered her first, raspy words—

  “Yes . . . Master.”

  They wriggled on her hands and forehead as she lay there for a moment, adjusting to a different kind of blackness. A blackness in which you can feel and smell, hear and think, but not see. She lay there trying to grasp what she’d been told to do. Then she heard it again, that familiar voice.

  Come . . .

  She raised her hands. Countless things slid from her hands and from her white sleeves. She felt them crawl under her back and along her bare shoulders as she moved, but she ignored them. She splayed her fingers and raised them and put them stiffly against the satin just inches above her face. It was odd to experience touch again, to feel. She pushed on the lid of the coffin.

  The old fabric tore easily beneath her palms. The rending sound was exciting, like clothing being pulled away before an incision could be made. It brought back memories of living organs being removed. Of screams. Of blood. Her heart beat quicker and now she heard that too. Beneath the satin above, her hands encountered metal. She felt around with the tips of her fingers. She hesitated. Her mind and her body didn’t seem to be her own.