Watcher: Based on the Apocalypse (World of Darkness : Werewolf)

by Charles L. Grant

  He rose and walked away, leaving the table and the rose behind. In the far corner of the garden was a crumbling stone staircase, debris scattered at its base, unmoved by the wind. He climbed to the top and looked over the wall, and all the ruined, blasted walls that surrounded him.

  Now the wind did reach him, tugging his hair back and away, pressing his shirt and trousers to his skin. Howling. Forever howling.

  And the sun in the green-streaked sky felt like a match held against his flesh.

  But inside, where it counted, he was cold.

  Curly gaped at the lights, stared at the wall where he thought he heard the noise. The wind was busting the outside something fierce, it could be a branch or something that got flung against the shed.

  Or, he thought miserably, it could be one of the metal trash cans got loose. If it had, he’d have to fetch it before the wind rolled it off the mountain. They hardly cost anything, but Leon always complained whenever they got dented.

  Grumbling, shaking his head, he propped the broom against the workbench and went to the door.

  It was cold out there, freezing; he could feel it through the wood.

  Another thump, not as loud as the first, and he realized his hands were shaking a little.

  “Oh, Lord, Curly, you scared of a little noise?”

  He forced a laugh and yanked the door open, stepped outside, and threw up a hand to protect his face when a flurry of dead leaves leapt out of the dark. He rolled his eyes, and moaned when he saw the trash can shuddering down the length of the building, nudged by the wind. It didn’t take but a few seconds to catch it, and a few seconds more to drag it back inside. He’d fix it in its place tomorrow; tonight he wanted to get the hell out, get home, get showered, kiss his wife, and get the hell to the bar to meet his girl and get laid.

  By the time he had grabbed up his broom again, the lights had steadied, and Emmylou on the radio was whining about Amarillo and something about a jukebox.

  He didn’t much care for the song, but he sang along anyway, making up the words he didn’t know, making up the notes he couldn’t quite reach.

  Not that it mattered.

  As long as the duet kept him from listening to the quiet, measured thumping along the wall by the door.

  Blanchard was impressed.

  They had made their way easily through the lobby throng, smiling and nodding as if they were royalty, as if they belonged. Once they reached the front desk, far to the left away from a handful still checking in, Wanda had leaned her elbows on the polished wood counter, looked at a young man flipping through some cards, and her voice deepened, became smooth and thick as Georgia syrup.

  “Excuse me,” she said, craned her neck so she could read the clerk’s gold nameplate on his blue-blazer chest. “Lane, sugar, could you help me a second?”

  “Jesus,” Blanchard muttered, then yelped when she kicked back with a heel and caught him on the shin. The pain was sharp and deep, and as he gasped for a breath, she turned with a smile, following his gaze down to the innocuous black ballet slippers. “Tempered steel around the rim,” she told him, still smiling. “Specially made.”

  He swallowed, but couldn’t quite manage a smile. “I’d love to have him make something for me.”

  “Too late. Poor man died suddenly at a very young age.” Then she turned her attention back to the clerk. “My key,” she said, the syrup flowing smoothly. “My husband, he goes out on the town, says, ‘Darlin’, meet me here, be dressed to kill.’“ She straightened and spread her arms slightly, her expression now rueful. “Not exactly ready to kill, am I.”

  “You look fine to me, ma’am,” the clerk answered, just shy of flirtation.

  “Well, you know how it is, we women and all.” She looked troubled. “Problem is, the man took the key, and how am I going to get into the shower, get myself ready before he comes back?”

  “No problem, ma’am. I can make another one up for you in a second. And you’re Mrs … ?”

  “Turpin,” she answered without missing a beat. “Richie Turpin.”

  Blanchard turned away quickly before he choked, only half listening as she kept up the chatter to keep the clerk from checking the records too closely. Amazing, he thought. It was as if he had left the restaurant with one woman, and had ended up here with someone else, someone infinitely more seductive.

  He was truly impressed.

  More so when she thanked the clerk with a smile that damn near made him blush, whirled and walked by, holding the key up and grinning. “You ready?”

  He touched his jacket at the breast. “Always.”

  “Wonderful.” She linked her arm with his. “In and out, and then we go.” An overweight woman in a costume more skin than cloth bumped into her and apologized with a laugh. Without a glance in her direction, Wanda shoved her away. “Christ, I hate this fucking city.”

  Curly swept the pile of dust and crap his broom had gathered over to the door. Ordinarily he would have used the little broom and the dust pan now to pick it up, and drop it in the metal trash barrel outside. Not tonight. Leon had left him alone all damn day, nobody to talk to but the birds, the wings in the rafters, and those cops. Fuck the dust, he wanted to go home.

  If he had any brains, he’d quit come morning, let Leon do his own damn work.

  If he had any brains, which Leon kept telling him he didn’t. All the time.

  He grabbed the broom in a strangle-hold, kicked open the door, and barely had time to catch his breath before the wind slammed into him, scattering the dust back across the floor.

  His shoulders slumped. “Aw … shit.” He let the broom fall. “Come on, Curly, you stupid or something? Use your head, huh? Jesus.”

  He stared at the mess helplessly, wiped a hand over his face, and kicked at the floor.

  The hell with it; he’d do it in the morning.

  He grabbed the edge of the door to slam it closed, and barely registered the thing that whipped out of the black to slash across his chest.

  “Jesus!” he yelled, and stumbled backward, looking dumbly at the coveralls hanging in shreds down to his belly. “Jesus God!”

  He didn’t feel the pain until the dark came inside and ripped out his throat.

  By then it was too late.

  He was sprawled on his back, on the floor, praying as hard as he had ever prayed in his life.

  Not to be spared.

  Just to die.

  The pain was awful, almost too much to feel, but it wasn’t as bad as the teeth that tore open his stomach, as the red eyes that watched him, and he could swear they were smiling.

  Please, Lord, he thought; please, Lord, please.

  But it didn’t happen.

  Marcus Spiro was in the ballroom, at the top of the gallery. He was seated at a long, white cloth-covered table on a raised platform with the rest of the convention’s guests, most of whom seemed to wish they were somewhere else.

  He smiled.

  He had arrived late, panting a little, and twice he had counted the number of people in the theater-style setup, and couldn’t get more than fifty, no matter how hard he tried. Fifty out of what? A thousand, at least? Fifteen hundred? Not that he was surprised. Every convention he had ever been to was like this—they had opening ceremonies, nobody came, the few who did applauded politely, then everyone headed for the nearest room party.

  It was a joke.

  He smiled at them all as if they were his closest, long-lost friends.

  He looked toward the back and saw Leon standing behind the last row, still wearing an anorak, cheeks faintly red. Late, too, but that was all right, because that big oaf understood that a man had to be alone once in a while, and he asked no embarrassing questions whose answers would have to be lies. He hated lying. It caused too many complications.

  A faint noise made him shift his gaze down to the first row, at the woman in her tank top, she called herself Pear, who saw his discomfort and leaned forward a little. A reminder.

  He smiled at her, pr
aying that the evening wouldn’t be wasted.

  Christ, he thought, I hate this fucking stuff.

  Joanne had been at the Read House a number of times, officially and not, and she could see at a glance that using the elevator to get to the third floor would be a waste of time. She was too impatient for that. Instead, she took the fire stairs at a run, slammed through the fire door, and rounded the corner.

  She stood in front of 303 and pressed a hand to her chest while she caught her breath.

  Be there, she willed, and knocked as she raked a hand through her wind-rumpled hair.

  He didn’t answer.

  The halls were quiet.

  She knocked again, harder, and this time called his name.

  He didn’t answer.

  Okay, maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she had no right to barge in on him like this. Maybe she ought to be a good little girl and play by the rules. He wasn’t here to help in the investigation; he was here to run an investigation on his own. No problem. She was a cop, he wasn’t, and who the hell are you kidding, girl?

  She slammed a fist against the door, glaring at the peephole, daring him to look out and ignore her.

  He didn’t answer.

  Damn it, where the hell are you?

  To her left and around the corner, she heard the metallic creak of the fire door opening, quiet voices sounding hollow in the stairwell beyond.

  Then Turpin’s door opened slowly, and she didn’t wait for an invitation. She pushed her way in without bothering with an apology, frowned briefly at the darkened room, and strode to the couch, standing between it and the coffee table, facing the street, arms folded across her chest.

  “We have to talk, Turpin,” she said tightly, not turning around.

  “Yes. Yes, we do.”

  Blanchard closed his eyes, searching for calm. His lips moved in a litany of obscenities, but he didn’t make a sound.

  Wanda didn’t bother to keep silent, and she didn’t bother to temper her language. In her left hand was the ivory wand, which she tapped angrily against her leg.

  “We should go in anyway,” she said at last.

  He shook his head emphatically.

  “Why not? Two of us, two of them, Jesus Christ, Miles or whatever the hell you’re calling yourself these days, what’s the goddamn problem?”

  His eyes snapped open.

  She backed away, but not fast enough. He grabbed her upper arm and squeezed it, hard, as he yanked her away from the corner. Heat swept over his face. He pulled her so close she had to lean her head back to focus on his eyes.

  “She,” he said tightly, “is a cop, remember? A detective. We take care of him, there’s no real problem. We include the bitch, we’ll have the whole fucking force crawling all over the damn place.”

  Her gaze was steady, no emotion at all. “What’s your point? We’ll be long gone by the time they find them.”

  He tried to speak, couldn’t, tried again and failed, and finally flung her away, so hard her head bounced off the wall and her knees almost buckled at the impact.

  But she didn’t blink. Not once.

  “Messy,” was all he could bring himself to say. “I don’t like messy. Messy makes for messy questions. Messy questions sometimes get real answers.” Then, for good measure, he added, “Crimmins.”

  The ivory slipped back into her pocket. She adjusted her cardigan, ran a smoothing palm down her blouse, and brushed by him, heading toward the elevator alcove.

  “I’m going to the bar,” she said. “Call me when you find out where you left your balls.”

  A tree had been planted at the curb outside the window, its branches merging with the early night. There were no cars that she could see, nothing but streetlights and reflections and the Chubb Building in the distance, glowing red, like sullen fire.

  All her anger and impatience had instantly drained at the sound of his voice, but she couldn’t turn around.

  The room was still dark; she didn’t want to see his face in what dim light there was.

  Footfalls behind her; he was pacing, not wearing shoes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I … I’ve had some bad news.”

  She nodded.

  “My, uh, best friend … her name is Fay …” A soft exhalation; he cleared his throat harshly. “Was Fay. She’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry. An accident?”

  “Murder.”

  She did look over her shoulder then. He had dropped into a chair at the table, legs spread, one arm on the table, the other in his lap. The outside light didn’t reach far enough—it looked as if he had no head. There was a glint, however, to mark his eyes. They looked almost green.

  “Murder,” he repeated dully.

  She recognized then what she had heard in his voice—he’d been crying, or fighting so hard not to that the result was the same—he was hoarse, barely sounded human.

  Bracing one hand against the sofa’s back, she lowered herself onto the cushion, pushing into the corner, one leg up, one foot on the floor. She winced when her beeper dug into her thigh, undipped it from her belt and placed it on the end table without looking. “Not … not your wife?”

  A sad laugh. “No. No, we weren’t … we couldn’t.”

  Helplessness prevented her from asking more questions simply because she didn’t know the right questions to ask.

  He leaned forward into the light, forearms on his knees, staring at the floor. “Look, Jo, it’s…” Another laugh, this one bitter while he shook his head. “It’s been less than two days, and I’ve done nothing but treat you like you aren’t even here. You probably won’t believe it, but that’s really not my style.”

  She tilted her head in a half shrug. “You’ve been a shit, more or less.”

  “More or less.”

  “And you know a lot more than we do. About this killer, I mean.”

  “Oh, yes.” He looked up without raising his head. “Oh, yes.”

  She settled deeper in the corner and pulled her other leg up, hooked fingers around the ankle to keep it in place. “Do you know who he is?”

  “I don’t even know yet if he’s a he.”

  She shook her head doubtfully. “No offense, but a woman generally doesn’t commit crimes like this. Like they say, it’s not really in the profile.”

  He looked at the floor again before scratching fiercely through his hair. “For the time being, you’ll have to take my word for it—there is no profile for the kind of madman we’re after.”

  Her mouth opened, closed quickly, and she gripped her ankle more tightly. The room felt unusually warm, but a chill slithered across her shoulders anyway, making her shift them until it dissipated. When he sat up slowly, his face retreating into shadow, she could almost hear the pain, almost felt it with him. That bothered her. She didn’t know this man at all, had no idea who he was or where he was from, so there was no reason at all why he should affect her this way.

  No reason at all.

  But he did.

  The silence expanded, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. What questions she had—and there were dozens—would have to wait. In his own good time, she knew; in his own good time.

  In the main hall outside, a voice called and another answered.

  A truck backfired to a halt at the traffic light below the window, gears grinding, brakes hissing.

  His chair creaked as he shifted.

  The room no longer felt too warm, but a peculiar scent remained, dry heat and hot sand. She blinked slowly, almost sleepily.

  “You’re very good,” he said suddenly, quietly.

  She started, and bit back a yelp.

  “At waiting, I mean.”

  “I have to be.” And she did. Often, interrogation yielded more just by sitting there, not looking at but watching the person who had the answers she was after. By saying little, or nothing at all, she could elicit outrage, then denial, outrage again, and finally, if she was lucky, a slow crumbling of defenses that often told her more than words.r />
  “So do I.” He left his chair, took his time moving to the opposite corner of the couch, angling his body so he could see her without having to turn his head. Because of the furniture’s size, there wasn’t much more than a foot between them.

  More calling in the hall, and an outburst of explosive laughter that lasted for several seconds.

  “Listen, Jo—”

  “How did you know?” she demanded sharply.

  “What?”

  “Jo. How did you know to call me Jo? Hardly anyone does anymore. You did it before, too.”

  A one-shoulder shrug. “I don’t know. It feels right.” A momentary frown. “Sorry if it offends you.”

  She waved him off—it doesn’t—and squirmed a little to regroup.

  This was crazy. She wanted to reach out, touch his leg, so much so that she clasped her hands in her lap and forced them to stay there.

  “I have a problem, Joanne,” he said.

  “Jo—”

  He smiled. “Okay. I have a problem, Jo, and it goes beyond what your superiors might have told you.” He gazed out the window, staring and seeing nothing, one arm resting along the back of the couch.

  “If it’ll make you feel any better, they’ve told me squat.”

  He chuckled. “That’s because they don’t know squat. About me, that is. What I do.”

  “So? What do you do?”

  A finger lifted. “That is the problem.” The finger pointed at the window. “Out there is a killer. He, maybe she, is insane and getting worse. He’s going to kill again, I don’t know when, and I’m supposed to stop him.”

  She shuddered, and pulled her lower lip thoughtfully between her teeth. When he said “stop,” she had a bad feeling he didn’t mean “catch.”

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered suddenly. Then, louder, “Son of a bitch.” She straightened. “You’re not official, are you?” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation.

  He turned toward her, sliding the left side of his face into the room’s shadow.

  As if he were wearing a mask, she thought, and didn’t like it.

  “You’re not government at all. FBI, CIA, something like that, I mean.” She sat even straighter. “Goddammit, Turpin, you’re a civilian.” The heat of her indignation began to creep into her face. “What the hell is going on around here? Who the hell has that kind of pull?”