Return of the Wolf Man (5 page)

“On its way to the Florida Keys, I would imagine. You and Count Dracula fell into the sea. If that
was
you, I mean.”

“It was,” he said. “But—is that all that happened to Dracula?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was anything else done to his body?”

“I don’t understand.”

The man touched his chest. “Was a stake driven through his heart? Was his body exposed to daylight?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

The man’s look of pain deepened. “Then he may have survived,” he said ominously. “Count Dracula can only be slain if his heart is destroyed. The heart that keeps his accursed body supplied with human blood. What of his companion, the Frankenstein Monster?”

“Professor Stevens—” she began, then stopped. Her eyes lowered, though she avoided looking at the corpse. “The late Professor Stevens set him afire on the wharf. His body fell into the sea.”

“Then the Monster, too, may still be undead.”

Undead,
Joan thought.
Dead for centuries.
She was accustomed to absolutes like someone being cold dead on the train tracks. Stone dead in a barrel of carp. Dead as a doornail in the plates of a printing press. What this man was saying was unbelievable.

Yet so was the transformation she had just witnessed. And she
had
witnessed it. That hadn’t been a hallucination.

“I came from Europe to destroy Dracula and the Monster but I failed,” Talbot said with disgust. He half-turned toward the laboratory. “All I accomplished was killing more innocent people.”

The man fell silent. He did not attempt to introduce himself, nor did he ask anything about the man he’d just slaughtered. Except for his one shamed outburst, everything he’d said was about the monsters. His manner only added to the surrealness of what had transpired in here. Waves crashed in the distance. Somewhere off the Florida coast a foghorn sounded. They were Joan’s only contact with the familiar and she concentrated hard on them.

“Who are you?” Joan asked. “And what—what in God’s name did I just see happen to you?”

“You don’t know?” the man asked.

Joan shook her head.

“But you know about Count Dracula and the Monster.”

“Not very much,” she said. “And what I know and what I believe are two very different things.”

“Believe,” the man admonished. “You’ll live longer.”

The flat conviction in his voice startled her. He wasn’t like the liars and con artists she’d encountered over the years. He wasn’t trying to defend himself. He was trying to protect her.

The man started walking away from the body. As he circled around, Joan stole a quick look into the foyer—just to make sure she knew where the front door was.

“Don’t worry,” the man said softly. “I’m not like the creature I become. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Then why don’t you just stay where you are and talk?”

“I wanted to get away from—from what I’ve done,” he said. “So you wouldn’t have to look at it.”

Joan flushed. “Oh,” she said. “I see. I’m sorry.”

When the man stopped he was standing to her left, the same distance from her as he was before. He drew his shoulders back and bowed his head slighty. “My name is Lawrence Stewart Talbot. As for what happened to me—” He opened the top buttons of his shirt and exposed the left side of his chest. “Do you see this scar?”

Joan looked at his pale, beefy, hairless breast. There was a ruddy cross-hatching of scars over the heart. “I see it.”

“That’s the sign of the pentagram,” said Talbot. “Six years ago I was bitten by a wolf. Only he wasn’t an ordinary wolf. He was a werewolf, a man who becomes a wolf whenever the moon is full. Now there’s a curse upon me. During every full moon
I
become a wolf. I’m forced to kill.”

“Forced? By whom?”

“By some inner beast,” Talbot said. “Yet killing my victims is a mercy.”

Joan glanced at Professor Stevens then looked away with disgust.

“I know that sounds horrible,” Talbot admitted. “But if I bite someone who doesn’t die, then
they
become a werewolf.”

“I see,” she said. “Just like catching a cold.”

“Please,” Talbot said. “Don’t make light of the curse, Miss Raymond.”

“How did you know my name?”

“Professor Stevens told me. You’re an insurance investigator. He and I were searching for you before the full moon caused my hideous transformation.” He lowered his head. “I didn’t want it to end this way. I’d hoped the two of you could get safely away before I changed. But my hopes don’t matter.” His voice began to rise. “You’d think I was the greatest sinner since Cain. But do you know the irony of it? When my older brother John died in a hunting accident, I wasn’t even there.
I
had nothing to do with it!”

Talbot’s growing passion frightened Joan and she finally began backing away. She stepped into the towering entrance hall with its great spiral staircase and baroque furnishings. Though she had watched the man transform she didn’t believe what she’d seen. He had to be insane. He wasn’t bitten by a werewolf and Count Dracula wasn’t a vampire. This man Talbot had to have willed the change in a way she didn’t understand. Or maybe
she
was insane. Or delirious. Maybe she’d eaten spoiled pâté at the ball and was imagining all of this. Or perhaps this castle was the real McDougal’s House of Horrors and no one had bothered to tell her. Her boss or McDougal or someone else was testing her. This was all a sinister joke.

Whatever it was, she had to get out of the house and back to civilization. The world was mad; it had just proved that in a second World War. But at least that was a madness she understood.

“Mr. Talbot,” she said, “have you ever tried to get help? There are doctors, psychiatrists—”

“I’ve tried doctors!” Talbot lamented. He started walking toward her. “Dr. Mannering, Dr. Niemann, Dr. Edelmann. Some of the most revered and notorious scientists in Europe have attempted to cure me. Dr. Edelmann—he came close.” Talbot smiled faintly. “I was so confident, so sure that he’d succeeded, I even married his assistant, Miliza. Poor, sweet Miliza. We had two beautiful months together before my brain rejected the surgery. Before I . . . I—” Talbot thrust his tortured face into his open palms. “The werewolf seeks to kill the one it loves. She’s dead and Edelmann is dead and whatever he did to me died with him. They
all
tried to help with science or love and they all failed.”

“There are sanitariums,” Joan said softly.

“I’ve been caged and shackled and straitjacketed over and over!” Talbot said. He shook his fists violently. “I tell you, nothing can hold me. Nothing except—” Talbot looked at her.

“Except?” she prodded.

“Except death.” A gentleness and an almost boyish anticipation suddenly came over him. “Miss Raymond, please don’t back away. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” she lied. But she stopped moving. She was standing in the center of the vast hall, just outside a sharp shaft of moonlight that shone through the open door. A cold breeze swept past her, stirring a tapestry that hung along the winding staircase to her right. The wind whistled up the stairs for a moment and then died. When it did, the front door squeaked on its hinges. It shut solidly, snapping off the moonlight. The hall was dark and quiet.

Talbot was standing in the laboratory doorway. His hulking form filled the door, dark and ominous against the lighted room.

“I want . . . I
need
your help,” Talbot said. His voice echoed through the hall.

“If you want to turn yourself in to the authorities,” Joan replied, “I’ll be happy to help.”

“No,” Talbot said emphatically. “That won’t do any good. I only want to die. I don’t want to live through another one of my spells. When I was back in London, I thought I could use my animal cunning for good by hunting down Count Dracula. I wanted to try to atone for all the suffering I’ve caused. That’s why I followed him here. But at best I’ve only delayed him. At worst I’ve strengthened his resolve.”

“You don’t know that Count Dracula has survived.”

“And you don’t know Count Dracula,” Talbot replied. “His coffin was probably hidden nearby. By now he’s had enough time to return to it. When the sun goes down he’ll move it. It will take me days or weeks or maybe even months to find him. And all the while, during every full moon, I’ll kill. Don’t you see, Miss Raymond? There’s no choice. I
must
be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” she said. “You’re not a rabid dog—”

“I know that,” Talbot said sadly. “A rabid dog doesn’t wake up in the morning and wonder where he is or who he’s killed. A rabid dog can’t ask to die. A rabid dog can’t cry. I can, Miss Raymond. And I do.”

Joan could see the pain in his eyes. She forced herself to look at Professor Stevens. Just a few minutes before, the scientist had been alive—a man with a conscience, emotions, memories, and passion. Now he was raw meat already drawing flies. Whether Talbot was cursed or insane, he
was
a killer. Perhaps he deserved death. But that wasn’t for her to decide. And for some reason she felt sorry for him.

“In order to die,” Talbot went on, “I need your help. A werewolf can only be destroyed by someone who feels passionately about him. Someone who wants him to die out of love or pity or even hate.”

“No,” Joan said. “I’m not a killer.”

“Destroying me isn’t murder,” he insisted. “It’s mercy to me and to those I might attack.”

“But if love can kill you then maybe it can cure you,” she said.

“I tell you it’s been
tried!”

“You’re in America now, Mr. Talbot. I’ve visited clinics, modern facilities where there are many different ways of treating people. Things are different from how they are in Europe.”

“Are they?” Talbot asked. “I lived with my mother in California for eighteen years. Do you know what will happen if I go to the police? The courts will say I’m insane. Psychiatrists and physicians will study me. They’ll try to discover what causes the transformation.”

“It’s possible they will,” said Joan. “And maybe they’ll succeed. Maybe they’ll find a cure.”

Talbot shook his head. “I’ll escape before that happens. I always do. After being deprived of a kill for just one night the will to attack becomes overpowering. I can bend metal bars, Miss Raymond. I can snap chains. Nothing can hold me. Besides, even if medical science were able to cure me, I dare not put the secret of my curse into anyone’s hands.”

“Why?”

Talbot walked toward her slowly. “Does the name Frank Griffin mean anything to you?”

Joan shook her head.

“His grandfather was Dr. Jack Griffin. Surely you’ve heard of him—the Invisible Man.”

Joan began to wonder if she had slipped down the rabbit hole into Wonderland without realizing it. She raised her hands and waved them in front of her. “Don’t,” she warned and began backing away again. “I’m leaving.”

“But you must listen—”

“No!
Don’t try to tell me that he was real too!”

“But he was,” Talbot insisted, his voice calm. “Hear me out. When the military learned that Frank possessed his grandfather’s invisibility formula, they insisted that he use it to fight the Axis. He became the Invisible Agent. After four or five successful missions he was wounded by German spies in London. But before he was sent home, Allied doctors took samples of his blood. They used it to re-create the formula and turned other men invisible—”

“Stop it, Mr. Talbot!” Joan cried. “I don’t believe that there are squads of invisible spies and G.I.’s!”

“There are records,” he assured her. “Does your firm have contacts in London?”

“Yes—”

“Call them.” He pointed toward an old wooden desk to the right of the front door. “There’s a telephone, Miss Raymond. Get the long distance operator and call. Ask them about an American Army medic, Dr. Peter Drury, who was stationed in Cardiff. He worked with Griffin’s blood. He also came across my case in the files of the old Queen’s Hospital. That was the first place I’d gone to for help. Dr. Drury contacted me at my flat in London and I met with him. He said he wanted to try to cure me.” Talbot’s eyes grew moist and he looked down. He rubbed his hands together. “What he really wanted were samples of my blood for the military. He planned to make soldiers more ferocious and able to hunt at night.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Joan asked.

Talbot fired her a look. “What’s wrong—with spreading this curse?”

“If you are what you say you are, your affliction could have saved American lives on the battlefield.”

“To what end?” Talbot asked. “So that when they returned from the war they could endure night after night of torment, as I do? So they could butcher their wives and sweethearts? And what of the enemy soldiers they attacked? Those men would have become werewolves too.”

“Not if the doctors had been able to work with your blood, find a cure.”

“What if they couldn’t? What if other governments weren’t as charitable with
their
monster-soldiers? No, Miss Raymond,” Talbot said. “I couldn’t be a party to that. And I never will be. That’s why you must help me. My body must be destroyed or hidden. The curse of the werewolf must die with me.”

Joan stopped moving and Talbot stood where he was. Joan was just a few steps from the closed front door. Talbot was in the center of the hall. Standing in the middle of that enormous chamber, blanketed in darkness, he sounded very much alone. But Joan was neither a defeatist nor a coward. Even if what he was telling her was true, she wouldn’t help him flee his troubles . . . or the responsibility for his crimes.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Talbot,” she said, “but I can’t help you. I don’t know if I can live with helping a man kill himself.”

“Even a man who murders?”

“Yes, even a man who murders.”

“And yet,” Talbot said, “I vaguely remember watching you earlier. You didn’t stop Professor Stevens from destroying the Frankenstein Monster.”

“That was different,” she said. “You said it yourself, that poor creature was already dead. Every part of him, every cell. Besides, he was trying to kill those two baggage clerks.”

“Won’t anything I say convince you?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll help you seek counseling or medical care—that’s all.”