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.
"lo."
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.
lust before noon, the snow began to fall.
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 were 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: “1 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.
"iesus Christ!"
“Watch," he said. “Watch."
"Alteration?"
"Addition, rather."
"1 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. 1 thought you wanted to wait until tomorrow, just before ! 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. "1 don't think 1 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, 1 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, )o. We keep on trying."
"You rip it, Mr. Blanchard."
He sat up sharply. "1 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. "lesus 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 was 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.”
"And then what?”
There was no answer.
She refused to allow him to touch her, but did as she was bidden when asked to take his place by the coffee-table, her back to him. Then he closed the drapes in both rooms, turned out all the lamps but one.
"Look at the wall, Jo."
She folded her arms under her breasts and scowled. "Some kind of game?”
"Trust me, Jo—"
"Ha."
"—it’s better this way."
His shadow rose on the wall by the door.
"You do rabbits and birds?”
"Watch."
"Mr. Crimmins, once I do this thing, then what?"
The shadow began to change.
"You run, Mr. Blanchard."
The shadow grew. Expanded. "That's pretty good,” Joanne said. The shadow began to shift.
"You run as far away as you can."
He knew what she saw, spreading toward the ceiling: The muzzle, the ears, the extended arm and the claws.
Anubis.
He heard the whimper, saw her spine grow rigid, and saw her head begin to move.
"No," he cautioned. Voice deeper. Much deeper. As quiet as it was, it filled the room with its power. "Not unless you really want to know.”
"Trick.”
"No."
She turned, and she saw him.
"Oh, Lord," she said, and sat down hard on the floor. "Aw, Jesus."
Blanchard hung up, cursing at the way his hand trembled. He unhooked the scrambler and put it back in his bag. He stood for a long time at the window, watching the snow accumulate on the sidewalks, imagining how it would be when the Veil was torn and the Garou were exposed.
Not many believers at first, except perhaps those who saw the deed. Then the word would spread. Especially, he thought, if he could get television to record the proof.
His lips twitched.
There would be coverage tonight. The costume thing. Local news. Stringers, or reporters who were at the bottom of the ladder. Unless ...
His lips twitched.
Unless he made a couple of calls, let a couple of people know that tonight wasn't just going to be a bunch of jerks walking around like it was Halloween.
Unless he let it slip that... that maybe the police were set to make a major arrest . . . that the killer was actually someone here at the convention.
Imagine, he thought.
Armageddon in Chattanooga.
Ft would almost be funny, if so many people weren’t about to die.
Rich ebony fur edged in silver on crown and chest. "Richard?"
"Yes."
Gently slanted eyes filled with green fire.
"Oh, God ”
He said nothing.
"Oh, God, Richard, 1 think !’m gonna be sick."
He took his time dressing, all the while listening to Joanne in the bathroom, retching, moaning, stumbling around, retching and moaning again. Once, he heard a fist slam against the wall. He opened the drapes and turned off the lights. He watched the snow as it began to turn over to sleet. He knocked on the bathroom door and didn't react when she screamed at him to go away. She was terrified, and terrified tha
t she might be going insane; she would find a hundred reasons why she hadn't seen what she had, and a hundred more why all of them wrong; she might huddle in there for hours, believing she was dreaming until she knew that she was awake; she would rehearse what she would tell the others, and she would weep and scream again.
Because she knew no one would believe her.
And there was nothing, not now, he could do to help her through it.
He couldn’t stay. He had to trust his own judgment and hope that she would make the right decision.
On a pad of hotel stationery he left a short note, picked up his jacket, and left without a good-bye. On
the way to the elevator he caught up with the whitehaired man he had met on the first night, who smiled wanly in greeting. He looked exhausted, massively hung over, and Richard couldn't help a sympathetic smile.
"Rough night?” he asked as they stepped into the car.
A woman's voice called plaintively just as the doors closed.
"insatiable," he groaned.
“Doesn’t sound too bad to me."
Marcus Spiro chuckled. "At my age, it either kills you or makes you younger."
"And?"
The door opened on the gallery floor.
"Well, my hair is still white, but I’m not dead. Could be worse," and he left with a wave over his shoulder.
Richard felt himself grinning as he rode down to the first floor, and felt the grin fade as he stepped into the nearly empty lobby. Not all the chairs and sofas were taken; those people he did see were clearly on their way to someplace else. Despite the noise he heard from the gallery above, down here the world was hushed. After a moment’s indecision, he made his way to an alcove that contained public telephones and tried to call iohn Chesney, but again there was no response; nor could he raise Viana or Maurice.
He almost dialed Fay's number.
Until he remembered.
Disturbed, and feeling flashes of anger at being deserted, he wandered aimlessly around the first floor, noting the sheet of ice forming on the streets, looking through the window of the gift shop at the day's headlines in the local paper.
Another murder.
That stopped him until he saw "copycat killer" in the body of the text. He went in and bought a copy, took it to the restaurant and ate a fast lunch while he read what little there was, plus a lengthy sidebar on the serial killer and his latest attack on the mountain. By the time he was finished, he suspected that the copycat killer wasn't a copycat at all.
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