As he drove he kept hoping he would be pulled over by a Las Vegas Police car.
That never happened.
He found the neighborhood and drove until he found George Fielding's home. It was in an exclusive neighborhood and it sat on a small crest, surrounded by a concrete fence. The driveway was long, blocked off by a large, wrought iron gate. It was like a castle in the middle of the desert. Mark made a note of it, and drove on, cruising half a mile to the subdivision a few developments over, where he parked and waited for nightfall.
The pull of the moon had been strong since yesterday. Only now it was tugging at him fiercely. He had driven around the area, looking for a remote spot where he might stow his clothes, but there was none to be found. The land was all desert, with no cover for miles. He couldn't very well change in his car, then walk the half mile in his lupine state unless he wanted to attract attention. Therefore he would have to drive over to George Fielding's home, break in undetected, and shapeshift in the house somehow without being seen.
He could do that! Mark chuckled, started the car, and pulled away from the curb, heading toward George Fielding's spacious mansion.
Once there, he parked the car at the curb next to the large gate. The street was quiet. He got out of the car and closed the door. A cold wind blew from the north, but it didn't faze him. He sniffed the air; the inhabitants of this neighborhood were all in their homes, some were sitting down to a late supper. As for George Fielding, he was home. Mark tried to listen for sounds amid the rising wind, but couldn't get an accurate read on what was going on. Nevertheless, George Fielding was home, and he was alone and vulnerable. Time to get this show on the road.
Mark Wiseman circled the grounds and noted the signs erected by Base Security. He figured the security system was activated, but who gave a fuck? If security came all he had to do was lie in wait for them and then-wham! Reduce those amateur police offi cers to bloody tatters of bone and ripped flesh. No problem.
Mark Wiseman grunted, pulled himself up on a rock, then stood on a sturdy bush that rested by the north side of the wall. His fingers gripped the top of the wall and, using all his strength, he pulled himself up on the wall, swinging his legs over. For a minute his vertigo swam; he was still drunk, but fuck it. He had a job to do, and he might as well do it. What did he have to live for, anyway? Even if he successfully pulled this off, even if he managed to kill everybody on the Board of Directors for both companies, Bernard Roberts still wouldn't be satisfied. As long as he knew Mark's secret and had those photos, Mark would be under Bernard's thumb for the rest of his life.
Mark dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence. He crouched there for a moment, ears alert to the slightest sound. He didn't hear an alarm, but if there was one, it could be silent. If that was the case he had to move quickly. He sprinted across the grounds, keeping to the shadows as he traveled the side of the house to George's back deck. He climbed onto the deck, then paused to listen. All was silent. George was somewhere upstairs, that much he could tell with his sense of smell. Mark sniffed the air, catching a whiff of soap, cologne, and steam. He smiled. George Fielding was in the shower. Perfect.
Mark burped loudly, then walked to the back door. He touched the doorknob and twisted it. Locked. He looked around the back deck, noting the windows were all secure and locked. If he hadn't set the alarm off by going over the gate he would surely set it if he broke the window. But maybe George Fielding hadn't set his alarm yet. A lot of people didn't set their alarms until they went to sleep or left the premises. I would think if he's showering he has the alarm on, Mark thought, looking for something with which to smash the window. He found a gardening tool on a table, picked it up, and turned to the plateglass door. Here goes nothing, he thought, as he swung the tool at the door.
The glass shattered in a loud explosion. Mark winced at the suddenness of the sound and tensed up, waiting for the cloying beep of the alarm system. It never came.
Mark stepped inside the house warily, his senses on full alert. He saw the keypad of the alarm system right away, positioned by the kitchen phone. It was on, but it wasn't activated. Which meant that he and George were here alone. Mark chuckled drunkenly and almost tripped as he strode across the kitchen to the dining room. His mouth was dry and his head was ringing. Damn, but I'm thirsty, he thought. His stomach muscles clenched in his abdomen.
He was just beginning to ascend to the second floor when a man stepped out from the second-floor hallway. He had a towel wrapped around his portly waist, and his gray hair was dripping wet. There was light from the kitchen below, and a light coming from somewhere on the second floor illuminated the second-floor landing. George Fielding took one look at Mark and almost let go of the towel he was holding around his waist. "What the-"
The man's sudden appearance on the landing took Mark Wiseman completely by surprise. For a moment he was too stunned to react; the alcohol in his system had slowed his reflexes. His stomach lurched and Mark felt the curse struggle to the surface. He let it out, feeling it ripple over him, changing him almost instantly. Mark could dimly hear George Fielding give a startled yelp as Mark bounded up the steps after him, and then he was on him.
He launched himself at George Fielding as the older man ran down the hall to the master bedroom. Mark crashed into him, bringing him down to the plush carpeting with a bone-crunching smash. The air whooshed out of George Fielding, and the momentum created a sickening surge in Mark's stomach. His head swam. All the scents in the house: of soap and warm water, of cologne and shampoo, of steam and hair and sweat, were swimming dizzily in his head, making him sick. George screamed and tried to scramble away and Mark pushed down on his back, his claws gouging the flesh. Blood spurted. George screamed again.
Mark brought his jaws down to clamp onto the back of George's neck, but George's thrashings made him miss his mark; instead, he tore out a chunk of the man's shoulder, sending him into a frenzy. The taste of blood in his mouth simultaneously stoked the curse and his drunkenness; his stomach lurched crazily. The room swam in his vision. It felt like the time he had gone to a frat party and gotten so smashed that when he'd passed a plate of food the mere scent of it had made him sick. The smell of fear, sweat, and blood coming from George Fielding, now coupled with his mad scram ble to fight, was making Mark nauseous. The more his brain tried to tell his inebriated muscles to overpower and take down his prey once and for all, the more they failed him.
Mark slashed out and raked deep cuts in George's upper arm. The force of the blow turned the man over on his back, and George yelled when he got a good look at Mark. "Oh my God, nooooooo!"
"Shut up!" Mark screamed. What came out was a snarl.
George rained blows on Mark's chest. Mark batted them aside, though a few of them met their mark. One glanced across his snout. He slapped George openhandedly. George screamed again.
Mark tried to rip George's throat out with his teeth again, but George scrunched his neck up, his arms flailing out to fight him off. Mark's teeth tore deep furrows into George's upper chest and the bottom of his chin. George screamed, his fists crashing against Mark's skull. Goddamnit, you miserable fuck, Mark screamed in his mind. He clamped his jaws over the top of George's head and sank his teeth in. He felt his teeth pierce skin, then bone. George screamed louder, his body thrashed harder. Mark chomped down on the man's skull and was satisfied when he heard a small crunch. George gave one final scream and swung his fist out, smashing into Mark's left eye. The blow knocked Mark back against the wall and his head slammed into it. The room swirled like a tilt-o-whirl and then the sickness surged again, overpowering him. He couldn't fight it any longer. He turned to the side and vomited.
His stomach muscles clenched and unclenched; wave after wave of nausea washed over him and he threw up. It passed for a moment and Mark was able to catch his breath, then another wave of sickness surged and he dry heaved. Finally, after two minutes of dry heaving, the feeling passed. He fell back against the wall, breathing heavily, d
rool running down his chin. His vision was blurry. He looked over at George Fielding's limp form sprawled on the hallway floor.
He padded over to it and took a faint whiff. Immediately he was assaulted by nausea, and he had to close his eyes and wait for it to pass. The smell of blood and sweat swirled in his nostrils, making him sicker, and he bent over and dry heaved again, gagging on his bile. When it passed again he regarded the body with bated breath; he couldn't detect breathing and George Fielding was very still. A small pool of blood had gathered on the creamcolored rug beneath the body. Mark felt too sick to make sure that George was dead, but he was fairly confident he was. He had crushed his skull with his jaws; that should have been enough. He moved down the hall into the master bedroom, crying out with relief as fresher air came into his lungs.
He saw himself in the large wall mirror and the thing that glared back at him with haunted, sick eyes was a crude caricature; he had only changed halfway. His features were human but grossly wolfish in appearance, his lower jaw pushed out like a deformed fetus. His teeth sprouted out at crazy angles from his mouth. His body, though more sparsely covered with hair, was still hairier than normal. Only his hands had completed the change, and as he held them up to his face he saw that they were already starting to transform to normal. Sobriety set in almost instantly and within moments he was able to will the change back to human form. He looked at himself in the mirror-his clothes were torn, bloodstained, in disarray, his eyes were sunken, his face pale. Mark began to cry.
He couldn't remain in this depressed state now; he had to get the hell out of here. He exited the room and made his way down the hall, being careful to hold his breath as he came upon George Fielding's corpse. The urge to push the change back through, to lay open George's throat just to make sure he was dead popped into his mind, but he dismissed it. He was still feeling the faint tinges of nausea and to even catch a whiff of George Fielding's blood would bring the sickness back again. Just thinking about it was making him ill, so he clomped down the stairs and made his way through the house to the shattered back door. Once in George Fielding's back yard, he took deep breaths and closed his eyes, willing the sickness to pass. The wind whispered in the winter desert night and the sounds that came back told him that the violence he had wrought in the house had not disturbed the natural rhythms of the evening. He opened his eyes. His vision was no longer blurry and he didn't feel woozy anymore. Mission accomplished.
He made it over the fence and to his car without attracting any attention. He started the car and looked around cautiously; the street was deserted and silent. His nerves settled. Despite the problems he had encountered, he had pulled this off successfully, though barely. Taking a deep breath, Mark put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. He drove back to his hotel calmly, feeling better the closer he got to the Golden Nugget.
But his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Chapter Seventeen
The ringing of the telephone woke him up from a sound sleep.
He groaned and reached for the phone with a groping hand. His head still hurt and he was still feeling the effects of two nights of hard drinking. The plane trip home had been murder and he had tried to counterbalance the effect of the alcohol by drinking coffee. While the caffeine had helped, it had made him more wired than anything, and when he'd landed at John Wayne Airport at one-fifteen a.m. he was wide-awake. Thankfully he had been hungry, so he'd driven to a Denny's and eaten a Grand Slam breakfast with two glasses of orange juice. Then he'd driven home and had tried to go to sleep, but the caffeine had done the trick. He'd stayed up until eight o'clock drinking water, trying to replenish his dehydrated system. Finally he'd succumbed to sleep and tumbled into bed.
He glanced at the clock on the nightstand by his bed. It was two-thirty p.m. It couldn't be Carol; he told her he wouldn't be getting back till six p.m. this evening. He picked the receiver up and brought it slowly to his ear, rubbing his eyes as he raised himself off the bed on his elbow. "Yeah?"
"What the fuck happened?" It was Bernard. He sounded more than angry; he sounded righteously pissed.
An elevator dropped in Mark's stomach. He had completely forgotten the phone rendezvous. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about why the hell didn't you kill George Fielding!" Bernard yelled. "Jesus Fucking Christ, you fucked this one up, Mark."
Mark's heart raced. His veins were filled with ice. "That's impossible."
"Believe it. It's not only possible, but it has created a whole fuckload of trouble on my end. Goddamn, fuck!" Mark could picture Bernard dressed in a silk dressing gown throwing a temper tantrum in his comfy beachfront home.
"He can't be alive," Mark said, his voice shaking. "I crushed his skull ... I ..."
"Well, he is," Bernard said, his voice loud and angry again. "And I am holding you personally responsible if he comes out of it. He comes out of this and lives and you are fucked."
"He's in a hospital?"
"Yeah, he's in a fucking hospital. He's in a goddamned coma, but he's alive."
Mark didn't realize he was holding his breath until he exhaled. He sat up in bed, his nerves on edge. "He's in a coma...."
"Yeah, he's in a coma. What the fuck's the matter with you? Can't you fucking hear what I'm saying?"
"I hear you," Mark said. His mind was trying to track on how it could have happened. But he already knew how it had happened; his drinking, his reluctance to go through with another murder. What had happened with George Fielding had been inevitable.
"Did George Fielding see you?"
"No," Mark said, a little too quickly.
"Bullshit!"
"He didn't see me, I'm telling you-"
"Don't fucking bullshit me! You broke his back patio door and gained entrance to his home that way; you probably jumped the fence. If a neighbor didn't see you, George certainly did when you encountered him on the stairs."
Mark was nervous. His hands were shaking as he sat up in bed, his feet on the floor. "L-look," he said. "When George came out onto the landing he surprised me. He put up a fight, I admit, but I got him. I-"
"I don't know what the fuck happened there, but whatever it was it's your death warrant. I'm told the police found a bunch of clues, one of which is the pool of puke you left on the hallway rug."
Mark felt his stomach lurch again at the mention of his sickness. "Shit. . ."
"What the fuck happened to you back there?" Bernard exclaimed, his tone pleading. "Talk to me, Mark. What the fuck happened?"
"I ... I don't know ... I ... thought I got him."
"Christ."
Mark waited, his breath coming in fast and hard. It sounded like Bernard was trying to control his anger on the other end of the line; he could hear the man pacing the floor. "Look, Bernard ..."
"For your sake, you better fucking pray that George dies. You got me?"
Mark nodded, shuddering at the tone of George's voice. "He's gonna die, Bernard. Trust me, I...I crushed his skull...." Mark winced at the sound of his voice; it was pleading and groveling. He felt pathetic and ashamed of himself.
"I should kill you now," Bernard growled.
"Listen, Bernard," Mark stammered. "It-it's going to be okay. He didn't see much, and what he did see, if he tells anybody they ain't gonna believe him."
"You better fucking hope," Bernard said, and hung up.
Mark held the receiver to his ear, the dial tone echoing. His stomach felt full of lead. He slowly replaced the receiver.
Fuck, what am I gonna do? The question went unanswered as he sat on the bed dressed in his underwear, the blinds shut to block out the sun. His body still felt like it had been put through the ringer.
With a heavy feeling of dread, Mark Wiseman stood up on shaky legs and wobbled to the bathroom where he was sick again.
Chapter Eighteen
Mark was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang again.
He let it ring. It was probably Bernard Roberts calling again to chew
him out. He towel-dried his hair and peered into the mirror, noting his gaunt features and his red eyes. He had gotten rid of the beard a few months ago but he hadn't shaved in a few days; stubble graced his cheeks and jaw line. Despite the shower he still felt like shit.
The answering machine picked up; he heard his outgoing message and then there was a click. Carol's voice came through the answering machine speaker. "Hi Mark, it's me. Listen, I know you're probably still gone, but I wanted to call so you'd get this message when you come home." Mark started heading toward the phone. "I've been doing a lot of thinking and-"
Mark picked up the phone. "I'm here."
"Mark?" Carol sounded surprised. "I wasn't expecting you back this early. Have-"
"Can you come over?"
Carol seemed to notice the tension in his voice. "Well, yeah ... is anything wrong?"
"I can't explain over the phone," Mark said, trying to keep his voice level and calm. "Just come over."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
Twenty minutes later Mark was dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, his hair halfway dry, the tips lying wetly against his shoulders. He ushered Carol in and swept her up in a hug. Carol laughed and hugged him back. "Mmmm, I'm glad to see you too."
Mark kissed her and when the kiss ended he gazed into her eyes a moment. He had been thinking about what he was going to tell her for the last twenty minutes and while he didn't have a particular script in mind, he knew he was going to finally do it. He had to. She had to know the possible danger she was in. "Come in," he said, leading her by the hand to his sofa. "We've got to talk."
Carol's expression turned to concern as he led her to the couch. "You okay, Mark? What's wrong?"
Mark sat down beside her and took her hands in his. "I need us to be completely honest with each other, Carol. What I have to say may be difficult for you to believe, but ... well, before I tell you I have to know everything about Bernard. Everything that you even suspect about him. It will help you understand what I'm about to tell you."
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