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

by Charles L. Grant

  He managed a smile. “You came.”

  “Lieutenant’s orders.”

  His lips quivered. “I need help.”

  “I can see that. I’ll call the ambulance.”

  “No!” He tried to reach for her arm, but she could see the agony that stopped him. “My … my back,” he said weakly. “In my back.”

  She could see nothing when she looked, and hoped her fear wasn’t evident as she yanked open the drapes by the headboard, then turned on all the lights, discarding her coat as she did. The bathroom door was wide open; she switched on that light as well, soaked a face cloth in cold water, and knelt by the bed again.

  “It’s going to hurt,” he said, lips pulled taut over his teeth. “Don’t stop.”

  As quickly and tenderly as she could, she cleaned the blood from his back, circling around a small black smudge between his shoulder blades. He was rigid, and she was angry for not listening to herself, for not fetching a doctor, for not resisting the plea in his voice, however weak it may be.

  “What … what do you see?”

  She leaned close, damning the inadequate light, tilting her head until … “It … damn, Richard, it looks like some kind of splinter. A big one.”

  “Get it out.”

  Trembling and unsure, she tried to pinch the slippery protrusion between her fingers, but they couldn’t do it, and his muffled cry rocked her back on her heels. She flapped her hands helplessly. “I can t.”

  “The knife.”

  “What?”

  “You have that knife?”

  None of it made sense. What the hell did he want with her knife? Dig that thing out? She fumbled in her pockets until she brought it out, stared at it stupidly until, with a silly grin, she remembered the tweezers.

  “If you have to dig,” he said weakly, “do it.”

  “Richard, I am not going to—”

  He did grab her arm then, and yanked her off-balance until their noses nearly touched. “I’m dying, Jo. It’s not just a splinter. It’s killing me. For Christ’s sake, if you have to, dig the damn thing out.”

  His eyes closed before she could react, his hand releasing her, his arm flopping over the edge of the mattress.

  He’s crazy, she thought; hell, I’m crazy.

  Blood rose in droplets around the splinter.

  When she touched his shoulder, it was cold; when she touched his brow, it was clammy; and it took a few seconds before she could see him breathing.

  Poison, she realized; that thing is poisoned.

  She rinsed the face cloth, grabbed a hand towel, and took a number of deep breaths to steady herself.

  Crazy.

  The tweezers were tiny, holding them was awkward, and she had to squint to see the end of the splinter.

  She whispered, “Okay, here we go,” and settled the tweezers as far down the splinter’s shaft as she could without actually pinching it. But as soon she did it, he bucked, startling her and throwing her backward.

  “Jesus!”

  Blood in droplets, flowing freely.

  A vague darkening of the rest of his skin.

  Aw, Jesus, she thought, pushed her hair back, and tried again, this time pressing the heel of her left hand against his spine.

  When the tweezers pinched, he bucked again, but she was ready and held him down while she pulled sharply, feeling the splinter give but not come free. She cursed, dried her palms on her jeans, and tried again. Again there was movement, yet still she couldn’t work it loose.

  Please, she thought; please, don’t make me dig for it, God, I don’t want to do that.

  The third attempt failed when she couldn’t stop her hand from trembling.

  Richard sighed, a long bubbling sound that made her close her eyes until it stopped.

  You shot a kid, you can’t pull out a goddamn splinter?

  This is different.

  “One more time,” she said, “and then I’m getting a doctor, I don’t care what you say.”

  He didn’t answer, and she came close to panic, trying to find a pulse in his neck, nearly sagging in relief when she did, and nearly giving up, the hell with him, this was all just too damn weird.

  Her hand steadied.

  She pressed down on his spine, just below the splinter.

  She held her breath, pinched the tweezers, and this time didn’t try to yank it, just pull it, pausing when she felt the grip slipping, ignoring the flesh rippling beneath her, staring only at the blood and the splinter and seeing nothing but the tweezers as they gripped and pulled, so slowly she wanted to scream.

  “Come on.” She glared at it. “Come on, you stupid … son of a … bitch!”

  So intent on the task was she, that when the splinter slid out of Richard’s back, she didn’t realize she had it until she saw the empty hole, much wider than it should be, welling with fresh blood. Then she stared at the tweezers, blinking, grinning, the grin fading when she saw the splinter’s length.

  Not a splinter, she thought; damn, that’s no splinter.

  It was a good three inches long, and when she held it close to her face, she knew it wasn’t wood.

  “Richard?”

  He didn’t move.

  She swabbed his back with the cloth.

  “Richard?”

  His body shuddered violently.

  “That’s it.” She pushed shakily to her feet. “That’s it. I’m getting—”

  “No.”

  She almost didn’t hear him.

  “No.”

  Her mouth opened, closed, and she stomped into the bathroom, threw the cloth into the basin, and took only a second to stare at the bloody towels lying in a heap in the corner, before she looked in the mirror. “You are an idiot,” she told her reflection.

  “Jo.”

  She turned.

  His eyes were open, mouth parted in a crooked smile.

  Green eyes.

  Green fire.

  “Stay,” he asked, and the Green fire vanished.

  She said nothing. Carefully she placed the splinter, blade, spike, whatever the hell it was, on a narrow shelf beneath the mirror, rinsed the cloth, and took it back into the bedroom.

  There she washed his back again, felt his brow, and it was warm.

  Then she looked at the place where the splinter had been.

  “Oh.”

  The hole was gone.

  Just before noon, the snow began to fail.

  Small flakes mixed with large, not enough wind to make them all dance.

  The city was convinced that it wouldn’t last long. It seldom did. When it snowed.

  Richard woke with a start, a loud grunt, and sat up. And tensed when he remembered the fire in his back. But it was gone, and he relaxed, tempted to slump back and sleep a little more.

  “Richard, you okay?”

  He looked to his right. Joanne stood nervously in the center of the other room, looking small in the gray light that came through the window. “Yes,” he said at last. “Thanks to you, yes.”

  He could smell the fear, and the undirected anger.

  “You owe me,” she told him, trying to be firm. “You promised me an explanation.” She shook her head. “You owe me big time. Now.”

  He didn’t bother to argue; she was right. He flung the covers aside and, ignoring his nakedness, strode to the armoire to fetch a clean pair of jeans from the top drawer. As he pulled them on, he debated how much to say, how much she could receive before she couldn’t take anymore. He pulled up the zipper, fixed the brass button, and used his hands to comb back his hair.

  “Talk to me,” she said, just shy of imploring. “Please.” An impatient gesture toward the telephone. “I have to be at headquarters soon.”

  He moved to the archway, watching as she put the coffee table between them. Doing his best not to smile, he pointed at the couch. “Sit down, Jo, please. There’s a story I have to tell you.”

  He came out of the bathroom with his old face back on. The bloody clothes he had worn wer
e already resting at the bottom of the river, and the hot shower had taken care of the rest. He didn’t think the cops would be fooled for very long, but it would make Turpin wonder, maybe confuse him a little.

  The telephone rang.

  He glared at it, ignored it, and when it stopped, he rubbed his stomach and decided it was time to eat.

  The telephone rang.

  He knew who it was. What surprised him was how suddenly nervous he was. All that brave talk yesterday, all that anger in California—bluster, nothing but bluster.

  If I don’t answer, he’ll get Strand to find out what’s the matter. If not her, then someone else. Lots of them.

  The Man of a Thousand Faces would have nowhere to hide.

  He grabbed the scrambler from the closet, hooked it up, and waited.

  When the telephone rang again, he cleared his throat and lifted the receiver.

  “Mr. Blanchard.”

  Carefully neutral, a hint of his old arrogance: “Yes.”

  “Are we rested now, Mr. Blanchard? Are we more levelheaded today?”

  He took a chance: “I don’t know, sir. Are we?”

  The pause gave him time to sit on the bed, light a cigarette, stare at the snow slapping wetly against his window.

  “There are pressures, Mr. Blanchard, most of which you’ll never understand. If you’re lucky.”

  It was as close to an apology as he would ever get. He didn’t push it, nor did he gloat. “And on this end, too, sir. Absolutely.”

  Another pause until: “There’s been a slight alteration in the overall campaign.”

  “I just want to know—you didn’t hypnotize me or something like that, right?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, I saw what happened to you, right? It wasn’t the lights or anything. Up there.” She pointed at the window over her shoulder. “And here. This morning. I saw it. I saw the blood.”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “Impossible. It’s a trick.”

  He pulled the coffee-table back, giving him enough room to sit on its edge without getting too close. He held out a hand. “Let me have the knife.”

  “Sure.” She reached into her jeans and pulled it out.

  He took it without comment, opened a blade, and stared at her while he draw a line down his forearm.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Watch,” he said. “Watch.”

  “Alteration?”

  “Addition, rather.”

  “I don’t get it.” He was feeling much better. Crimmins sounded like his old pompous-ass self. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Strider, Mr. Blanchard.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I thought you wanted to wait until tomorrow, just before I left.”

  “That’s not the alteration. Not all of it.”

  Blanchard scowled. This whole thing was getting too bizarre. First, he’s threatened if he doesn’t take care of Turpin and the rogue, then he’s screamed at, now he’s told the rules are being changed. Whatever the old fart was up to, Blanchard wished he’d stop playing games and for change be straight with him.

  “Are you in position?”

  Blanchard nodded. “Yes, sir. lust name the time.”

  “Tonight.”

  He shrugged. “No sweat. That it?”

  “Not quite, Mr. Blanchard. Not quite.”

  Richard wanted to take her hand and stroke it, stroke her cheek, stroke her brow. He wanted to take the contusion and the fear from her eyes and from the way her lips struggled not to tremble.

  He couldn’t.

  “It’s not a trick, is it.” she said, unable to take her gaze from the unblemished arm, or from the blood that had dripped into the handkerchief he had held under the cut.

  He shifted.

  She shied away to the corner of the couch.

  “No. Not a trick.”

  A hand rose and fell helplessly in her lap, and she looked at the ceiling, out the window, at the ceiling again. She seemed to have a hard time breathing, a hard time focusing. “You going to tell me you’re one of those cyborg things? Androids? You know, people that are part machine?”

  “No.” He smiled. “Nothing like that.”

  “But—”

  “The story,” he reminded her. “Let me tell you a story.”

  She pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her shins. “I don’t think I want to hear it.”

  “It’s too late, Jo. I’m really sorry, but it’s too late. You have to know.”

  “Look,” Blanchard said, feeling his temper slip again, “you want me to take care of Turpin, I can do that. You want me to do it tonight, I can do that, too. What the hell else is there? Sir. The rogue?”

  “No. Forget it.”

  “Then what? Strand?”

  “Partly.”

  He had a hard time not yelling. “Partly what?”

  “The Veil, Mr. Blanchard.”

  “Garou,” Richard said. And once it was said, he felt both relieved and fearful. There was only one way to prove the story he would tell, and if it failed, he didn’t want to think about what he would have to do.

  “Garou?” Jo pushed a nervous hand back through her hair. “I’ve heard of that. Loup-garou, right? Louisiana? Werewolves or something.” She laughed, stopped when he didn’t join her. “Oh sure. Right. Lord, how many kinds of fool do you take me for, Turpin?”

  “None at all, dahlin’,” he said, gently mocking her accent. He stood and returned to the bedroom, searching for the clothes he had worn last night. He found them in the bathroom, in a pile with the bloody towels. He picked up the jeans and took out the cloth sack. Pressed it to his forehead. Inhaled slowly.

  When he returned to the sitting room, he swung a chair away from the table, sat, and untied the emerald thread that held the sack closed. He spread it open on the coffee table, and took out the black figure. Held it up between two fingers.

  “I know that thing,” she said, leaning forward, squinting, interested in spite of herself.

  “Anubis.”

  “Yeah. Right. Egyptian god.”

  He nodded.

  Sarcastically: “That’s you?”

  He straightened slowly, rose slowly, and moved until the table was between them. “I don’t have much time. No time at all.”

  “Richard, are you all right? I mean, that was a hell of a fall you took.”

  She had begun her retreat; he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Egypt,” he told her. “My people, my tribe, came out of Egypt.”

  Blanchard rolled his eyes, looked heavenward for a large dose of patience. “Okay, the Veil. What about it?”

  “It’s the way you kill Turpin, Mr. Blanchard.”

  He scratched the back of his head, hard. “What do you mean? I don’t get it.”

  * * *

  “All of us, all the tribes of the Garou, spend our lives trying to save Gaia. The Earth. There are forces that work against us, not all of them human. But we try, Jo We keep on trying.”

  “You rip it, Mr. Blanchard.”

  He sat up sharply. “I what?”

  “No secrets anymore, do you understand? No secrets. Their safe time is over.”

  He didn’t like the way the snow sounded like tiny claws on the pane; he didn’t like the way the snow blurred the view and turned daylight to gray; he didn’t like the way his throat abruptly dried.

  “No offense, Mr. Crimmins, but do you know what the hell you’re saying here?”

  “I know precisely what I’m saying, Mr. Blanchard. I’ve given it more thought than you’ll ever know.”

  “Jesus.” He inhaled slowly. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “What separates us from you is something we call the Veil. I am sworn to protect it, as well.”

  “Can I have a minute here?”

  “Take your time, Mr. Blanchard, take your time. I want no misunderstandings.”

  He placed the receiver carefully on the bed, rose, and walked to the window. There wa
s nothing to see except for the snow, for the struggling traffic, but when he placed his fingertips against the pane, the cold felt damn good.

  They were nuts.

  Those guys were fucking nuts.

  Rip the goddamn Veil?

  He made a small noise in his throat, covered his mouth with one hand, and looked over his shoulder at the bed.

  Were they out of their goddamn minds? Christ, this wasn’t just some war they would start. This was goddamn Armageddon.

  “Your rogue, Jo, is a Garou That’s why you’ve never found him. You started out looking for an animal, now you’re hunting a human. You should have been looking for both.”

  He couldn’t tell a thing from her expression; he couldn’t tell how deep her retreat had taken her.

  “It’s a hunger born of madness. We all …” He faltered, looked away, decided to concentrate on the window and the leafless branches outside. “We all must kill to eat. To live. It’s a part of us, there’s no getting around it, and we … I make no excuses for it. The madness is just… killing. For the hell of it. For the pleasure of it.

  “And my job is to stop it.”

  “You’re crazy,” she whispered. “We’re both crazy.”

  “I am a Silent Strider. A loner. Always alone.” The wind caused the branches to quiver. Shadows darted across the pane like smears of black rain. “And I am one of the best at what I do.”

  “Tell that to Curly Guestin.”

  He glanced at her, pleased—for just that split second, she had taken his word. Right now, it was enough.

  “So tell me,” she said, shuddering a deep breath, “are you like in the movies? Full moon? Silver bullets? A normal guy one minute, a wolf the next? Fangs and claws, all that shit?”

  The bravado and derision were back.

  “You’ll see.”

  * * *

  He picked up the receiver, but he didn’t sit down. “Back, Mr. Crimmins.”

  “Good.”

  “So let me get this straight: You still want me to take care of Turpin, but you want me to do it so these people will know what he is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”