Return of the Wolf Man (39 page)

The millstone stopped moving. The heavy silence was broken when the Wolf Man growled low in his throat.

Dracula continued to retreat. Suddenly, the werewolf crouched and then jumped straight up. He put his left foot on the broken handle and used it to vault to the top of the grindstone. He perched there for just a moment, perfectly balanced, before hurling himself toward Count Dracula. The Wolf Man roared as his powerful legs carried him nearly half the length of the mill. He landed next to the vampire with both arms upraised. The vampire tried to duck away but the werewolf’s claws came down hard on Dracula’s shoulders. The fingers closed tight, digging through the ancient cloak and tearing into the parchmentlike flesh. Before Dracula could react, the Wolf Man swung the startled vampire around, toward the center of the millhouse.

While he was being pulled around, Dracula managed to lock his hands around the werewolf’s throat. Though he closed his long fingers with all of his superhuman strength, the vampire was unable to crush the taut muscle and sinew of the Wolf Man’s throat. The beast easily shoved Dracula backward while at the same time snapping viciously at his face and neck. The vampire did not know how long he’d be able to keep the werewolf’s teeth from his throat. His fangs, because of their supernatural origin, could harm Dracula as effectively as a crucifix or stake.

Dracula wriggled violently and pushed his heels into the soft earth, all to no avail. Just as in Mornay Castle and at the police station at LaMirada, the vampire had to get away from the werewolf. But escaping in human form would be impossible, and transformation to animal or mist required him to be relaxed. If his mind and muscles were blocked, then the beast spirits and the elemental forces, the metamorphic bequests of Satan, could not move easily through his black soul—their conduit to this world from the deepest circles of hell.

Dracula shut his eyes and his lips. He tried to ignore the pain being inflicted by the Wolf Man. The vampire had to become the mists of hellfire and slip disembodied from the werewolf’s grip. He pictured the thick, gray smoke rising from the cratered depths of the inferno. In his mind, he watched as it curled upward through the souls of the damned, emerging from their mouths as their anguished screams transported it from the netherworld. He saw the smoke churn through the earth itself and infuse his body. He felt it become one with his flesh, making him part of it. His cloak began to dissipate, followed by his hair and the tips of his fingers.

All of this transpired in a moment. As the vampire stopped struggling, the Wolf Man sensed the change in his nemesis. Roaring and lifting Dracula chest-high, the werewolf suddenly thrust him backward. The vampire’s eyes shot open and he screamed angrily as he was shoved through the air toward the towering millstone. Toward the broken handle jutting from the side.

Dracula’s angry scream was cut short by a sharp, shocking pain. The vampire’s arms flew outward as the jagged remains of the wooden handle went through his back. The Wolf Man continued to push the vampire until the thick pole was forced through his starched black vest and white shirt, through his aged ribs and heart, and emerged from his chest. With a gasp the vampire folded around the wound. His mouth and hands sagged open as blood sprayed in all directions front and back. Dracula struggled frantically against the millstone, trying to reach his hands behind him so he could push off from the stone. But he was unable to muster the strength he needed to slide from the pole. Air and bloody mist spewed from his mouth, which was quivering now. His cloak and shoes began to decay and fall away. The eyes, which had been so brazen and strong, quickly became disbelieving, then weak, then desolate.

As the vampire’s lids shut they suddenly vanished. The skin of his face became brittle, then flaked and crumbled away. His clothes, once full of hellish breath, collapsed on brittle bone. And then the bone itself became dust, vanishing in explosive puffs. The vampire’s clothes and ring dropped in a heap; the impaled garments landed on top, stained with stolen blood.

The Wolf Man bent low. Both arms were pulled back, his nostrils working feverishly. Steamy red ribbons of blood rose from the vampiric remains and from the tip of the wooden pole. The werewolf was hungry, yet for a moment—for just the briefest instant—a look of contentment passed over his fierce lupine features.

With a snarl, he turned and padded from the mill, following the unmistakable scent of live, fresh meat.

Behind him, the blood of the Frankenstein Monster pooled along his leg and then began flowing toward the millstone. In the air above it, the dust that had been Dracula glittered in the moonlight for several minutes. Then slowly, with what seemed to be a purpose, the thousands of motes began to collect above the thick, bloody stream. And when they had gathered in sufficient number they began to swirl downward like a pale, gray cone.

Or a fang.

THIRTY-FOUR

T
he instant Count Dracula was impaled on the pole, Andre dropped to the ground. A moment after that, Caroline opened her eyes.

The young woman awoke to the near darkness, to the sound of her own faint heartbeat, to a pervasive smell of mold which filled her nose and dried her throat. She stood there for a moment, wondering what had happened, waiting for Deputy Trooper Clyde to say something, when she suddenly realized that he wasn’t there. Nor was she standing in the police station. She was in a dark library, which was lit only by a small flashlight lying by her feet. Her eyes stung when she glanced directly at the light; she had obviously spent some time in the darkness.

But when?
she wondered.
How?

Caroline bent and picked up the light. As she did, she froze. She saw two men lying on the floor in front of her. One had fallen over with a pair of bloody machetes in his hands. The other was sprawled in a lake of blood. It took her a long, long moment to realize that that bloody figure was Tom Stevenson. She only recognized him because of his hiking shoes.

The young woman screamed a short, wrenching cry before she was able to clap her hand on her mouth. She shut her eyes.

Talbot,
she thought. Somehow he must have gotten out of his cell and attacked the attorney. But then she reminded herself that there was no cell and no Talbot. She closed her eyes and took a very deep breath. Maybe this was all a mad delusion, a petit mal hallucination brought on by shock. She would open her eyes and she’d be back at the station house.

She opened her eyes. The hacked body was still lying on the floor in an irregular pool of thick, shiny blood.

Caroline felt desperately ill. She looked away, still covering her mouth. During her residency at the University of California in Los Angeles, she’d treated many grotesque wounds. There had been traumatic amputation of limbs, multiple stab wounds with everything from box cutters to knitting needles to ballpoint pens, and bullet holes in every conceivable part of the body. None of them had ever affected her deeply. Of course, she hadn’t known any of the people. And she’d never seen anything quite like what had been done to Stevenson.

Every inch of him down to the knees had been scored to the bone. Every joint appeared to have been cut through. The tendons hung out hideously, with blood still dripping from the severed ends. It reminded Caroline of forensic photographs of a ritualistic murder victim she’d once seen—a young man cut up by Satanists to make sure he couldn’t rise from the dead. Caroline assumed that had the attacker not keeled over himself he would have continued the mutilation until Stevenson was nothing more than a grotesque mound of flesh.

Caroline suddenly decided that she should determine whether the attacker was in fact dead. She took another deep breath and held it. Then she squatted beside the large man and felt for a pulse. There was none. Not only that but he felt cold—as though he’d been dead for weeks or months, not just a few minutes.

That made no sense, though she couldn’t address the problem just now. It was all she could do to keep from retching.

Caroline bent over the big man. She tugged off his open shirt and lay it over Stevenson’s lacerated face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Somehow, without knowing why, she felt responsible for what had happened.

The young woman stood and, holding the flashlight, turned a slow, complete circle. She didn’t recognize the big man or this place. She didn’t remember blacking out, if that’s what had happened—though it must have. How else could she have come here? She also couldn’t account for the unshakable lethargy she felt or—

Or the two sticky mounds, like mosquito bites, which she found when she went to scratch an insistent itch on her neck. She thought back to Talbot’s remarks about Dracula, about vampires, and she suddenly felt a leg-weakening tremor. Almost immediately she returned to her first instincts, the thoughts she had had at the Tombs: that this entire setup had to be a sick joke. It
had
to be. And if it were, she thought, she’d find a hole in it somewhere. No one could be
that
thorough.

Caroline looked around the large, well-stocked library for a mirror. She saw none. Holding the flashlight waist-high, she took small, tentative steps until she was certain she wouldn’t pass out. Then, walking in a wide circle around the two bodies, she followed the crayon-thin beam across a large, immaculate Persian rug and headed into the dark foyer beyond.

The floorboards creaked underfoot as she cast the light slowly to the left and right. It occurred to her then that she might not be welcome or safe here and that it would be a good idea to go back and take one of the machetes. But she didn’t want to return to the bodies. She wanted to examine her wounds in a mirror, find a telephone, call the police, and get out of here.

There were no mirrors in the foyer. The centerpiece was a long, spectacular tortoiseshell credenza against the left wall. On top were a magnificent candelabrum with three glass-faced cases on either side. The cases contained elegant crowns, jewels, and goblets. Caroline laid the flashlight on the top of the chest and picked up one of the chalices. She held its highly polished bowl close to her throat and used it for a mirror. With an index finger, she pushed and pulled on the flesh around the two marks. They were swollen red punctures, like a pair of enormous, matched mosquito bites. The blood had clotted in the small openings and the wounds didn’t seem serious, but she wanted to wash them out after she called the police.

She rose and looked around for a telephone. There was none. Instead, above the credenza, hanging from the high walls, were rows of ancient weapons—maces, daggers, and crossbows. The wooden handles of the weapons were dark, stained with oil from human hands. These were weapons that had all been used. To the right, filling the entire wall, was a pair of large murals. The first was a portrait of a swarthy-looking man on horseback. The rider had a thick moustache, fine armor, and a helmet with a red tassel. He was raising a saber above his head and trampling men beneath the hooves of his horse. The second painting looked like a woodland scene and Caroline moved closer to examine it. It
was
a forest—a forest grown in hell. It showed row after row of naked and emaciated corpses dangling from stakes.

Caroline knew now what this place was. It was that old chamber of horrors in LaMirada, the one her aunt had been working with. It had to be. Nothing real could be so grotesque.

A phone,
she reminded herself. Maybe in the kitchen—

Caroline jumped as the flashlight dimmed.

“No,” she muttered. “Not now.”

She shook the flashlight gently, then tapped it against her palm, and swore as the batteries began to die. In the fading beam, she looked around desperately for a light switch. There wasn’t one and Caroline hurried over to the candelabrum. She found wooden matches in a fluted cup attached to the back of the base. Striking the match on a scratch board behind the cup, she lit the three branches. She put down the flashlight and picked up the candle holder. Breathing heavily, anxiously, the young woman continued toward the double doors at the end of the foyer. The silence was unnerving, and it was with relief that she finally reached the doors.

As she turned the knob, Caroline suddenly heard a dull clang behind her. The young woman turned back, held her breath, and listened. There was a long silence and then she heard another clang. This one was slightly louder than the first.

Maybe someone else was here—someone who was afraid to show him- or herself. Perhaps there was a kitchen somewhere past the library; the banging might have been someone bumping into a pot. Caroline decided to have a look.

Caroline walked back down the foyer. She moved slowly to keep the candles from blowing out, though the candelabrum was growing heavy in her hand and she was forced to hold it in front of her with both hands. Her forehead perspired from the heat of the candles and her eyes burned from the smoke.

Caroline reached the library and moved through it, thinking she might find a door on the opposite side and wishing the light were a little more illuminating. She was careful to keep the body of Tom Stevenson beyond the glow of the candles. Reaching the back of the library she walked along the bookcase in the hope it would end in a door or hallway. Glancing to the left, she just now noticed that the volumes on the shelves were old ones with grim titles like
Terror of the South Seas
by Alex Gottlieb and
The Five Orange Pips and Other Tales of Fear
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.