The Wolfman

by Jonathan Maberry

  Gwen tried to insinuate herself between the inspector and the stairs. “Maybe you don’t know the man as well as I.”

  “Maybe not. But I’ve seen the monster with my own eyes.” Those eyes searched her face as he said it, looking to see how the words affected her, but Gwen forced her expression to remain placid. “And I can tell you, Miss Conliffe, it is worse than anything—anything—you can possibly imagine.”

  Instead of making her more afraid, Aberline’s words made her angry, and that put iron into her resolve. “Thank you, Inspector; I will be careful should I see him.”

  Aberline sighed and turned away from the stairs, and then his eyes landed on something that stopped him in place. A small cabinet on the near wall stood ajar and on the end of the counter nearby was an open box of bandages and a bottle of antiseptic without its cap.

  Aberline smiled thinly. “Miss Conliffe. I admire your noble intentions, truly I do. But you must listen to me now.” He stepped closer. “You think you can save him . . . but you can’t.”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  Aberline snaked out his hand and caught her by the wrist.

  “Please!” he implored. “I must insist that you come with me.”

  “Insist?” she said sharply, hoping that outrage would work where outright lying did not. “Who do you think you are? What am I? Chattel?”

  Gwen struggled, but Aberline’s grip was iron-hard.

  “Take your hand off me!”

  Over his shoulder the inspector called, “Thompson!” Instantly a tall man with bull shoulders came hustling into the room.

  Gwen started to scream. “Let go of—”

  But then Thompson clamped a huge hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him, but the detective was too savvy for that and pressed her back against him, his lower fingers jamming her jaw painfully; at the same time he locked a thick arm around her waist. She was helpless in his grip, though she kicked and fought every inch of the way down the hall and out into the street.

  Aberline leaned his head out into the rain, where a squad of heavily armed officers of the elite Special Police waited. “Now!”

  The waiting officers surged into the house. Dozens and dozens of them, and everyone armed with a rifle, a fire axe or a heavy truncheon. Gwen tried to scream a warning. This was not an arrest . . . this was a hunt, and from the pitiless looks in the eyes of the men who barreled past her into the house, she knew that taking Lawrence alive was not their goal.

  THE SPECIAL POLICE were the elite of Scotland Yard. To a man they were ex-military, hardened and seasoned by wars in every part of the globe, tough and resourceful. A squad of them would be enough to quell a riot. But the mass of them who thundered into the apothecary through the front and back doors and pounded up the steps was enough to stop anything.

  Aberline passed Gwen Conliffe to his sergeant and, drawing his heavy pistol, he re-entered the shop and climbed the stairs at the head of the charge. The images from last night were burned into his brain and his hatred for the vicious monster was matched only by the terror that gripped him.

  At the top of the stairs his men fanned out to kick open doors and toss furniture aside. Aberline himself headed down the hall toward the rearmost room where the door was closed. Six men with rifles followed in close order. If that door opened then anyone or anything who stepped out would be blasted to rags.

  When they were at the end of the hall, Aberline licked his lips, slipped his finger inside the trigger guard, and reached for the door handle. The six rifle barrels leveled out over his shoulders in the narrow confines of the hall.

  As soon as the lock clicked open Aberline kicked the door in and they rushed the room. The room appeared to be empty, but almost at once Aberline saw a pair of legs standing motionless in the gray shadows behind the lower edge of a full-sized mirror. The feet did not look like human feet.

  Sweat popped out on Aberline’s forehead and his mouth went dry. He ticked his chin toward it and the other officers sighted their weapons on it. The inspector held a finger to his lips as he aimed his pistol at the center of the mirror and thumbed back the hammer. The click sounded unnaturally loud in the still room.

  “Talbot!” he growled. “Raise your arms and step out where I can see you.”

  Talbot’s feet did not move.

  “Talbot . . . you have my word that you’ll be treated humanely.”

  Nothing. Not so much as a twitch.

  Very well, damn you, thought Aberline. With the six rifles fanned out on either side of him, he carefully approached the mirror and then with a sweep of his hand grabbed it and sent it hurtling onto its side. Wood and glass splintered.

  Behind the mirror stood a full-size statue of the woodland god, Pan. Half man, half goat. All bronze.

  Lawrence Talbot was gone.

  Behind him the Special Officers let out a collective sigh. All of them had wanted to bag Talbot, but none of them had wanted to face the creature. Detective Adams pushed his way through the throng and looked from the statue to Aberline, who stood looking out of the windows at the endless rows of empty rooftops.

  “There’s some bad luck for you,” Adams said.

  Without turning, Aberline murmured, “It’s bad luck for everyone.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Lawrence snuck back into the house in the gray bleakness before dawn. As he went silently to the top of the stairs, he heard muffled conversation downstairs. Men’s voices. Aberline was smart and careful. That was fine. Lawrence knew that he could be smart and careful, too.

  He wrapped his feet with towels and so did not make a sound as he prowled the upper floors for supplies. He found a small satchel with a shoulder strap and, in a bedroom on the third floor he surprised himself by finding a wardrobe filled with men’s clothes. It was all too big for Gwen’s father and when Lawrence checked them he found a tie with BT embroidered on it. BT . . . Benjamin Talbot. Ben must have used this room when visiting the city. Touching his brother’s clothes gave him equally sharp pangs of grief and guilt. He could still remember the taste of Gwen’s kisses, and the curve of her breast.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, etching the memory into his soul. If he died then he would at least have had one perfect moment, and when he died he would recall that beauty so that it was the last thing he saw before darkness consumed him.

  Then he opened his eyes and set to work, changing his clothes and packing essentials for his escape from London.

  AN HOUR LATER he was on the streets walking briskly away from Essington Lane. With the dawn the newsboys took to their calling and began hawking the day’s headlines. He was still the running story.

  Lawrence had a muffler wrapped around his mouth and nose and a top hat pulled low so that only his eyes showed. He lingered near a newsagent’s stall just long enough to see that his photograph was still on the front page above the fold.

  The newsboy shouted the headline: “Monster still on the loose! Two weeks until the next full moon! Talbot missing!”

  Over and over again.

  Lawrence fled from the sound of it.

  “PUT THEM OVER here,” Gwen said to the clerk from the bookshop, and the young man tottered over to the indicated table and set down his burden. It was the fifth load of books he had delivered to this address, and each of them on the strangest subjects. Medical reference books of all kinds. Books on disorders of the mind. Books on Gypsy magic. Books on mythology and legend. And every text on the legends of werewolves and the mystery of lycanthropy that his employer could find.

  He lingered for his tip and knuckled his forehead when she handed him some coins, then, as he turned to leave, he paused and asked, “Pardon my insolence, ma’am, but are you selling charms?”

  Gwen looked puzzled. “Charms?”

  “For the monster.” The boy nodded to the apothecary shelves. “Is there some kind of potion or something you’re making to ward off monsters? If so, my mum would like to—”

  “No,” said Gwen with a faint
smile. “Nothing like that.”

  The clerk glanced at the stack of arcane books.

  “Just indulging in a curiosity,” Gwen said.

  The clerk bobbed his head and left, but once he was outside he threw another long look at the apothecary. “ ‘Indulging in a curiosity,’ ” he muttered. “Bloody mad as a hatter.”

  LAWRENCE HAD ALWAYS needed to shave twice a day, so thick was his beard, and now he was glad of it. Within three days his jaw was covered with a beard so dark that most men would have required a week to grow it; by the end of the second week the beard was a wild tangle. Even so, he drew some cautious glances from passersby, so he seldom made eye contact and kept to the shadows as much as he could. He had found money in Mister Conliffe’s bedroom and booked a room in Lime house, a squalid part of town where no one ever poked their noses into anyone else’s business. If anyone gave him a moment’s thought they probably guessed him to be a toff drawn to the whores and opium dens of the neighborhood.

  He could not yet risk taking a train to Blackmoor. The stations would be closely watched. All he could do was wait for the hysteria and heat to die down, but every new day brought more screaming headlines and constant patrols by the police. Time ground on and each night Lawrence looked up at the sky to see the moon roll through its phases.

  One evening, with the moon three-quarters full over the smog of London, he found a small church with a crooked steeple and he slipped inside. It was dark and empty and Lawrence hunkered down in a corner pew, but once he was there the faces of the saints and the bloody image of the crucified Christ were like cudgels that beat him down. He buried his face in his hands, unable to meet the eyes of the icons.

  He heard a rustle and saw a small man sliding onto the other end of the pew. Lawrence raised his head and saw a kindly old face above a Roman collar.

  “Hello, my son,” said the minister. “What brings you here?”

  Lawrence did not know how to answer that. He saw no hint of recognition on the minister’s face. That, at least, was a blessing.

  “I need to pray,” Lawrence said.

  “May I join you? As the Lord says, when two or more are gathered in My name . . .” He waited for a response; when he did not get one the minister cocked his head to one side and gave Lawrence an appraising look. “So . . . what are we praying for? Peace? Help? Forgiveness?”

  Lawrence shook his head.

  “Strength,” he said wretchedly.

  GWEN CONLIFFE BENT low over the ancient text, picking through the Latin slowly. She had learned the language from her father, who used it regularly as part of his trade, but some of the phrasing here was very dense and obscure. She spoke the English translation slowly as she read. “. . . buried deep within this terrible aspect the heart of the victim still beats. Though the werewolf is a monster of the Devil’s creation . . . the immortal human soul still resides therein, trapped and helpless by the evil power of this unnatural transformation. . . .”

  She looked up, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “Lawrence,” she said softly.

  Then she took a steadying breath, brushed the tears angrily from her eyes and bent back to her work.

  THE NEXT DAY Lawrence Talbot left London on foot. With his satchel of clothes slung over his shoulder and his back bent beneath the weight of loss and guilt he headed away from the gray sprawl that was the City. Perhaps once he was away from the scene of his crimes he could beg, borrow or even steal a ride. He needed to reach Talbot Hall while there was still time.

  If, indeed, there was still time.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Lawrence waited for the stable lads to finish mucking out and head back to the main house and then he slipped from his hiding place in the hedges and crept toward the stables. If he could steal a horse then he might still make it home before the full moon. It was a ride of no more than twelve hours, but on foot it would take two full days.

  The barn door was latched but not locked and he lifted the metal bar slowly, making no noise at all. The barn smelled of horse manure and fresh straw. Light slanted in from several small windows and the whole thing had a smoky, homey feel. It made Lawrence want to find a corner and curl up on a pile of straw. But that was a fantasy he knew he would never make real.

  He slipped inside and looked down the row of horses. A dozen animals, all of them munching hay or oats. The nearest was a roan with strong legs. A horse that could take a heavy pace, or so he hoped. Lawrence scooped a handful of straw from a manger and held it out, speaking slowly and soothingly as he approached. He’d always been good with horses . . . but when he was ten feet from the animal it tossed its head and rolled an eye toward him. Lawrence froze. The horse suddenly shied backward, neighing in protest and fear.

  “No!” called Lawrence. “Shhhhh, shhhh . . . it’s all right . . .”

  But the horse was panicking. It reared back and kicked at the stall door, which startled the horse in the adjoining stall. Within seconds all of the horses were crying out in fear. They bucked and kicked and bit the air in terror.

  There were human shouts from outside.

  “God damn it!” Lawrence swore; then he turned and fled.

  IT WAS STILL early morning when the rear door of Conliffe Apothecary was opened slowly by a cautious hand. Gwen peered out, looked up and down the alley, and saw no one. She slipped outside and closed the door silently. Her father was busy in the shop and was convinced that Gwen, exhausted from her ordeal, was asleep. Fat chance. She may not be an actor like Lawrence, but there wasn’t a woman deserving of the title who could not conjure tears on cue or playact a case of the vapors. She was a little surprised, though, that her father—who knew how strong and independent she was—fell for the drama anyway.

  Gwen gathered some money and put a few things in an oversized purse, and once she was convinced the alley was clear she hurried along to the bystreet where she could catch a cab.

  LAWRENCE TRUDGED ALONG the back roads, frequently cutting across country—both to shorten the trip and to avoid the main roads. He spent a night huddled in the lee of the remaining wall of an ancient Roman fortress whose name was forgotten even by historians of the region. In the morning, while digging a small hole to bury the remains of his meager breakfast, he found a Roman coin on which the profile of Caesar could still be seen. Lawrence pocketed the coin, telling himself that it was a lucky find, and he needed any luck he could take with him on this last leg of his journey.

  He walked all day, cold and weary to the bone, his mind unable to let go of the image of last night’s moon, which was nearly full and heavy with threat. Twice he saw mounted men riding in pairs across the fields and rightly guessed them to be police. Aberline was no fool, so it was reasonable that he would have men watching the roads leading to the Hall. Lawrence was glad of the warning and doubled his caution as he picked paths whose dirt and grass showed little or no signs of recent use. And as he walked these paths he stayed to the edges or just inside the edge of the forest so that he left no marks of his own. Like the wolf who howled within his blood, Lawrence had grown cautious. There was a wisdom that becomes apparent to those being hunted, and Lawrence let his mind work through the logic of cause and effect so that he made it all the way to Talbot Hall without once being sighted.

  The forest path was the safest for the last part of the journey, and he walked along the pool at the base of the cliff that separated the old growth forest from the marshy downlands. He passed the circle of standing stones and stood for a long time glaring at the heel stone. Tonight the full moon would spill her light across the stone and the hour of the wolf would be here. Moonrise was only a few hours after sunset.

  Lawrence had made a decision that if he could not find and stop his father by moonrise, then he would throw himself off of the cliff wall into the jagged rocks of the shallow pool, or if not there then from the top of the house. He was not optimistic enough to believe that the fall would kill him, but if he did it while he was still human then maybe the inj
ury plus the St. Columbanus medal would interfere with the transformation. Perhaps he might make it through the rest of the night unable to do harm.

  The other option was Singh and his silver bullets. If the Sikh would not take a hand in the fight, then Lawrence would do it himself. A silver bullet in the thigh would surely disable him, possibly even prevent the transformation . . . and it would still give him his arms with which to shoot should his father finally come around.

  On the other hand, if he found his father, then everything would need to be handled once and for all time. Lawrence no longer cared if he lived. Not unless a cure was guaranteed, and he was less optimistic about that than Gwen had been.

  Gwen . . . Her name brought the memory of sweetness and hot kisses to his mind and he touched the medal beneath his shirt.

  “God . . . whatever happens,” he prayed as he walked, “please spare her more pain. Please God . . . spare her.”

  The cold wind blew past him and brought no answers and no promises.

  GWEN RODE THE train to the stop before Blackmoor and then grabbed her bag and departed quickly, checking always to see if she was being followed. If there were any of Aberline’s men on her trail then they were too subtle and sly for her to spot. Even so, she took every precaution she could manage.

  She spent several hours asking questions, occasionally having to pay for reliable answers. In the early afternoon she hired a horse from a stable and headed quickly out into the country, following a series of directions scrawled on a slip of paper by a milkman who had sworn he had spotted the person for whom Gwen was searching. Just before two o’clock, Gwen spotted a wagon further along the road. A Gypsy vardo. Gwen kicked her horse into a trot and soon caught up with the wagon.