by Jan Eldredge
The shaggy black dog threw back its huge head and bayed again, long and melancholy, eliciting goose bumps along her arms.
Mrs. Midsomer crept away from Evangeline and paused, staring down at the grim.
“You won’t interfere again!” Laurent’s face clouded over as he glared at the dog, evidently recalling the beast’s attack on Randall Lowell earlier that evening.
Another chance at escape would not come her way. Evangeline tore off her socks and scrambled down the staircase, casting anxious glances over her shoulder as she went.
“Sons of Circe!” Laurent shouted. He turned his gaze toward the men in suits pacing the lawn, obediently remaining in their place until ordered otherwise. He pointed a small remote control upward and clicked it. “Obey the command of the moon!”
With a humming and whirring, the blinds covering the windows high overhead slowly rose. “Attack the grim!” Laurent ordered. “Kill it!”
Cold white light flooded the warehouse, freezing Evangeline halfway down the steps. The glow from the full moon poured through the windowpanes, its draw so powerful that she struggled to pull her own human gaze away.
The men on the lawn turned their eyes upward, moonbeams bathing their faces. Some dropped to all fours, backs arching, muscles stiffening. Others stood moonstruck, staring at the windows, some of them whining, some of them raising their voices in cold, lonely wails.
At the base of the other staircase, Julian’s familiars released their hold on him and fled. Other familiars scuttled after them.
As the moon’s light spilled across the fake lawn and fake house, mouths dropped and jaws stretched. Ligaments and bones popped. Black claws sprang from stiffened fingers.
“How can this be real?” Julian murmured, shaking his head in denial. He ran his hands through his sweaty hair so that it jutted out at all angles.
“Julian, run!” Evangeline yelled, fear squeezing her heart, unable to pull her stare away from the transforming men. She was a deer, caught not in the headlights but in the moonlight.
The pack members’ muscles and mass expanded as though being pumped with air, shoulders and chests forcing their way free from the confines of white shirts and black jackets. Pants shrank and seams split. Long, needle-sharp teeth, jumbled and crowded like those of a piranha, jutted from their black mouths. Brown tufts of fur sprang from their flesh.
The grim charged across the warehouse floor, past the morphing men on the lawn, over the roadway, and lurched to a stop at the base of the staircase. It set a paw on the bottom step and gazed up at Evangeline.
Evangeline glanced between the black dog below and the creature who was formerly Mrs. Midsomer waiting on the balcony above. She was trapped, but Julian wasn’t. “Run, Julian!” she yelled again.
Snapping out of his bewilderment, Julian dashed away, racing toward the long, silent line of floats.
The last of the frightened familiars scattered like mice. They scurried through the warehouse, leaving their masters behind, looming nearly seven feet tall and sprouting fur, claws, and fangs. Some of them had torn away parts of their tattered clothing; others seemed oblivious to their ruined garments, leaving them to hang in scraps. Shoulders hunching, red eyes gleaming like embers, they loped across the lawn on their two bowed legs, growling in half-human snarls, their paws dangling at their sides.
Camille had not been one of the faithless escapees. From her position beneath the oaks, she kept her eager gaze fixed on her master and mistress, a dark smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
The first rougarou pounced onto the pavement, landing with the grace of a big cat but possessing all the raw power of a full-grown gorilla. He fixed his red eyes on the grim, and his dark lips peeled away from his jumble of saliva-slick teeth.
The grim whirled around from the staircase, its hackles sprouting like a dark picket fence along its spine.
The rest of the rougarous circled around the grim in a gnashing, slavering horde, growling and darting their toothy mouths at the creature.
The big dog reared onto its hind legs, stumbling back and raking its paws at them, whipping its head and snapping its teeth at those within reach, but it wasn’t enough.
The pack descended in a fury, puncturing pink gouges across the grim’s body. It yelped and cried out but didn’t flee from the fight. Droplets of blood spattered onto the pavement. Clumps of its black fur flew. The beast would not survive long.
“Evangeline!” Julian crawled out from beneath a black-and-white-striped float fronted with a beret-wearing, white-faced mime. He rushed toward her, clutching her satchel and knife in one hand and her boots tucked beneath his other arm. Skirting around the grim and rougarou battle, casting worried glances their way but never hesitating, he stopped at the base of the staircase and tossed up her knife and her boots. Then he tossed up the satchel, turned on his heel, and raced back toward the floats.
Relief and gratitude swelled inside Evangeline, not just for the return of her things, but because Julian’s delivery of them signified at least some small belief in their power and in her ability to use them. She yanked her boots on and threw the satchel’s strap over her chest.
At that point, she should have run away. She and Julian were free, and with the exception of her mama’s precious talisman, she’d even regained all her belongings. But she didn’t want to leave. Nor could she bring herself to abandon the grim to face the rougarous all alone. The peculiar sense of calm and clarity had wrapped itself around her once again. She knew what she had to do.
She felt it in her gut.
She took the bottle of holy water from her satchel and poured a stream of the blessed liquid over her knife blade. Then, straightening her shoulders, she spat on the step below for added protection and fixed her eyes on the battling creatures.
With the grim’s yelps ringing out, its cries of pain outnumbering its snarls of aggression, Evangeline raced the rest of the way down the stairs and past the ravaging rougarous, splashing the bottle’s contents onto as many of them as she could.
The holy water hit their unholy backs and shoulders, searing through fur and down to their flesh like boiling-hot acid. A yelping, screeching turmoil erupted. Half the beasts tore away, whining and pawing at their wounds, fleeing like wildlife from a forest fire. They loped across the roadway and stopped on the far edge of the lawn, where they crouched and whimpered and licked at their burns.
Evangeline tossed away the empty bottle, smiling even though she knew she shouldn’t. Without fear or the good sense that God gave a rock, she dove into the fray. She kicked shaggy brown haunches with the tips of her boots, the silver searing and sizzling rougarou flesh at every contact, the odor of burned hair filling her nostrils. Somehow knowing exactly where to aim, she struck with her holy water–doused blade, opening dark wounds along their necks and torsos. Her own arms and wrists were clawed in the process, but she ignored the pain. There was work to do. Pain could be felt later.
With ragged yowls, more of the rougarous peeled away from the fight. Pelts smoking, they scurried off to join their brothers in nursing their wounds.
Out of the corner of her eye, Evangeline spied Julian making his way up the staircase. His marble-shooting crossbow was clutched in his hands, the stalk of rye clamped between his teeth, and the sprig of mistletoe tucked between his watchband and wrist.
Dang it! Why didn’t that boy get himself to safety and stay put? Evangeline bolted for the staircase, but Camille stormed into her path and shoved her to the ground. Scowling like a cat caught in a rainstorm, the housekeeper rushed upward.
Evangeline scrambled to her feet as Camille ripped the crossbow from Julian’s grip.
“Hey!” He whirled around, and she tossed it over the side of the staircase.
“How dare you! You wimpy, mewling boy!” Camille snatched away the mistletoe and rye and flung them into the firepots below, then clamped her hands around his thin arm, doing her best to sling him down the stairs too.
It was with no sm
all amount of pride that Evangeline witnessed Julian fighting back, even if it wasn’t the most graceful of defenses. He slapped and shoved at Camille, but he was desperately in need of a weapon. Evangeline turned to snatch up Laurent’s scepter where it had rolled to the base of Circe’s statue nearby, and she gasped, her eyes growing wide at the figure already leaning over to retrieve it.
“Gran!” Relief rushed through Evangeline. She wanted to shout and cry and wrap her arms around her, but there was no time. “Gran, get out of here.” She waved her away. “Get yourself to safety.”
“Nonsense.” Gran seized the scepter. Using it as a cane, she clumped her way up the staircase faster than any woman her age with a broken leg and a busted head should have been capable of. She narrowed her eyes at Camille, muttering to herself. With tail swishing, Fader trotted along after her.
A few yards away, the grim cried out, still outnumbered by the attacking rougarous. Leaving Gran to deal with Camille, Evangeline tightened her grip on her bowie knife and dove back into the fight.
As more and more rougarous loped away, their flesh covered with cuts, bites, and scratches, Evangeline cast a glance toward the staircase, just as Gran swung the black scepter whooshing at Camille.
Camille stumbled back, tripping over Fader, who was strategically crouched behind her feet. She cried out, her arms pinwheeling, and she fell, tumbling and thumping against each marble step as she rolled her way down. She sprawled to a stop at the bottom of the staircase, moaning and sobbing. “It’s broken!” she wailed, clutching her leg as it lay bent at an ugly angle.
Julian took another step up as his mama crept across the balcony toward Laurent, snarling and snapping and backing him against the wall. Laurent held his hands out toward her, murmuring, trying to cajole her into not attacking.
“Julian! Get down from there!” Evangeline yelled. Despite what he might hope or believe, his mama’s mind was gone. The instincts of a rabid she-wolf had taken its place, and she would rip him limb from limb.
With only one rougarou remaining in the fight, Evangeline leaped away from the grim. The two beasts crashed to the pavement, rolling and snapping and snarling, dark fur flying. She hurried up the staircase.
Drawing ever closer to the balcony, Julian moved to take another step up, but Gran tugged him back.
“Mom, it’s me, Julian!” he called.
Mrs. Midsomer stopped in midcrawl. She turned away from Laurent and toward Julian, tilting her head like a pet recognizing the sound of its name.
Despite knowing better, a small hope flickered inside Evangeline, and she paused. Was it possible some part of the woman still knew her son? Was Mrs. Midsomer somehow able to distinguish his voice through the fog in her mind, the way she had heard him reading to her all those times when she’d been asleep?
“No, no, my dear.” Laurent cupped his hand to Mrs. Midsomer’s pale face and turned it toward his. “Don’t listen to the boy.”
Mrs. Midsomer bared her teeth at Laurent and whipped her head back toward Julian on the staircase.
Shaking Gran’s hand away, Julian took another step up. Mrs. Midsomer watched him with her blazing green gaze. “Mom?” he said softly.
“Enough!” Laurent shouted, his face darkening. He kicked off his black boots and pointed a finger down at Julian. “You are a distraction who must be removed. Then my queen will be free to fully transform. And you, old woman.” He rounded on Gran. “This time I’ll make sure your heart stops, and I’ll do it with my own claws.”
Laurent thrust his head back and gazed toward the high windows, up at the white orb shining down like a hole cut through the night sky. His eyes grew round, the light reflecting brightly inside them, and his pupils constricted, as though to lock the moon’s power behind them. His mouth stretched wide, popping and cracking as his teeth lengthened and sharpened like skewers. Claws burst from his toes and fingertips. Silvery-gray fur sprouted from his flesh.
Midway up the staircase Evangeline paused. She tightened her grip on her knife. She tried to yell, but her voice came out like a frog’s croak instead: “Gran. Julian.”
Camille dragged herself across the floor, casting glances up at her morphing master as his chest broadened. He tore off the doublet and flung it away. His leg bones stretched and bowed, his dark blue breeches shrinking above his hairy knees.
Evangeline remained as paralyzed as Gran and Julian appeared to be. The Laurent rougarou stood a foot taller than any of his pack members. There could be no doubt he was the alpha. Not only was he able to maintain control over his transformation and morph at will, he was also physically grander in every way. His silver-gray fur lay smooth and sleek, not scruffy like that of the other rougarous, and his eyes blazed a piercing blue instead of red.
Alpha Laurent roared, spittle flying from his ridge of razor teeth. With shoulders hunched, he clomped from the back of the balcony toward the steps on his two furry, bent legs.
Near the top of the staircase, Gran positioned herself in front of Julian, swinging the scepter at the oncoming monster. “Run, Julian,” she ordered. “I’ll hold this beast off.”
Julian shook his head. “I’m not leaving my mother!”
Icy sweat broke out against the back of Evangeline’s neck. There was no way this standoff would end in their favor. The scepter wasn’t much of a weapon, not against an alpha rougarou. And with her broken leg, Gran was no match for him either. He would kill the both of them, and he would do so with two easy swipes of his killer claws.
Snarling and snapping, Mrs. Midsomer pounced onto Laurent’s back, driving her claws into his shoulders and sinking her fangs into his neck.
“No, Mom!” Julian yelled.
With a thunderous growl, Laurent swung his paw around, slamming it into the side of Mrs. Midsomer’s head and knocking her away.
She fell in a tumble, then scrambled onto her hands and knees, the muscles bunching on her enlarged forearms. She darted forward again, this time sinking her sharp teeth into his leg.
If Evangeline had doubted before, she no longer did. There was no question part of Mrs. Midsomer was still aware, the part driven by a love so strong, she’d sacrifice herself to protect her son.
Laurent tore the woman away and flung her against the wall of the house. She impacted with a yelp and crashed down onto one of the firepots, sending hot coals and flames scattering across the balcony.
Mrs. Midsomer lay motionless in an unconscious heap, half woman, half wolf in a beaded satin gown.
Flames raced up the wooden columns and jumped to the white fabric draped between them. Laurent raised his snout and wailed mournfully.
“Mom!” Julian cried. Gran put a restraining arm around his shoulder.
Time was up. Evangeline saw it as clearly as a clock hand ticking onto the number twelve. Laurent would round on Julian and Gran. His animal fury would know no bounds. She pressed her hand to the place where her mama’s talisman used to rest, and her newfound focus and courage grew even stronger.
She swept her eyes over her surroundings, from the balcony’s burning drapes down to the tips of Circe’s bronze sandals. She knew what she needed to do. Her next course of action lay before her so distinctly, she could almost see it shimmering like a movie projection.
Quantity, angles, and velocity were concepts she’d never thought much about, and she didn’t really contemplate them now. They were just there. Everything connecting. Everything clear.
Placing all her faith in her senses and instincts, she took the jar of aconitum from her satchel.
There would be no going back. But this was the only way. The alpha’s blood hold over his pack had to be broken. Laurent had to be destroyed.
She dipped her knife tip into the dark, deadly extract and returned the jar to her satchel.
Hot flames from the drapery had spread, now racing their way up the wall of the fake house and jumping onto its roof. Thick smoke rolled against the beams of the warehouse ceiling.
Alpha Laurent reeled around on
his hairy clawed feet and tromped toward Julian and Gran on the stairs. He bellowed a roar, his electric-blue eyes flashing with fury.
Despite his previous protestation, Julian took a step down, and then another. He and the scepter-swinging Gran slowly descended the staircase as Evangeline raced up and past them.
“Evangeline, stay back!” Gran commanded, but Evangeline didn’t listen.
She leaped onto the balcony and in front of Laurent. Bracing her booted feet, she drew back her knife arm. There was no need for guesswork. She sensed the location of the alpha’s heart, its pulsing and poundings somehow visible to her eyes and her ears.
Laurent swung a huge paw, his claws swooshing through air and brushing the tips of her hair as she ducked. She sprang up, reared her arm back again, and drove her knife toward his chest.
But the alpha rougarou’s reflexes were unhumanly fast, and the blade impaled in his forearm instead. It was enough distraction to allow Evangeline to dash to the right.
Bellowing, he yanked the knife free. He grasped it in both meaty paws and snapped the hilt from the blade, then flung the pieces to the pavement below.
“Come on . . . ,” Evangeline urged him as she backed away. She slipped her hand into her satchel, sidling closer to the balcony railing until she bumped into it.
Snarling, the monster who had once been Laurent Ardeas stalked toward her.
She withdrew the aconitum, opening the jar as she turned away from him. Not thinking, letting her hands do the work on their own, she shook the purplish-black contents over the edge of the balcony, hoping her plan would succeed.
Thick claws clicked against the floor behind her. The alpha’s hot breath hit the base of her neck.
“Hey!” Julian yelled from the top of the staircase.
Evangeline spun toward him as he flung a handful of marbles at the rougarou.