The Howling II (3 page)

“She was my wife,” Roy said.

“Your wife!” Marcia spat out the words. “What did that woman know about being a wife? If she had pleased you, you would not have come to me.”

“But it all seems so long ago.”

“Does it? Does it, Roy? To me, it seems like yesterday.” Marcia touched the slash of silver that ran through her dark hair above the left eyebrow. “I think of that woman every time I look into a mirror and see how she marked me when she fired the silver bullet into my head.”

“She was defending herself.”

“And now you are defending her.”

“Marcia, no, I am with you always. You know that.”

“And yet you take the part of the woman who tried to kill me.”

“She couldn’t have known it was you. All she saw was a wolf.”

“You underestimate her, Roy. She knew. Oh, well she knew. Yes, she saw the body of a wolf, but what she tried to kill was the spirit of the woman who had taken her man.”

He reached out and stroked the satiny black hair. “My poor Marcia. You were so close to dying.”

Marcia’s mouth tightened. “But now I am well and strong. At least the woman part of me. As for the other - it might be better if the silver bullet had struck a fraction lower and done its work completely.”

Roy looked away.

“You know, do you not, what that woman stole from me with her silver bullet? She stole the power of the wolf, the freedom of the night. Do you remember, Roy, those nights when we ran wild and free? Do you remember the times together? The pleasures we gave each other? The pleasures we took?”

“I remember,” he said. Still he did not look at her.

“Never again will I know that wild joy,” she said. “Now in the night you must walk alone.”

Roy faced her. He looked deep into the green eyes. “Is there no way - “

“None. The thing that happens to me now is my curse for as long as I live. I must bear those nights alone.”

“Let me stay with you,” Roy said.

“No. The change - I would rather die than have you see the thing I become. Now that my strength has returned, I can control it on most nights, but sometimes, when the moon is low and full, as it is tonight - ” Marcia left the sentence unfinished.

Roy stroked the smooth, naked curve of her waist where it flowed into the lean hip. “I love you, Marcia. I would share anything with you.”

“Not this,” she snapped. Then her tone softened. “But you can share with me the vengeance against the woman who has destroyed half of me.”

Roy nodded slowly. He would do whatever he must to keep this green-eyed woman.

Marcia looked over at the darkening curtain across the window. Outside, the daylight was falling. “If it were possible, we would leave tonight,” she said, “but I cannot travel when the moon is full.”

“Are you - can we be sure Karyn is still in Seattle?”

“She is still there,” Marcia said. “The gypsies watch her for us. She can make no move that the gypsies do not see.”

“Why do the gypsies do this for us?” Roy asked.

“Because they fear us. They know the power we have, and what we could do to them and their children if we wished. We have, their help and their protection only because they fear the werewolf.”

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Roy said.

Marcia’s eyes were bright and mocking. “Oh, don’t you? Tell me you don’t like it when the night comes and you feel your body change. Tell me you don’t like the taste of living flesh and raw hot blood.”

Roy could not answer. The woman’s words brought on an excitement that was almost sexual.

“Of course you like it,” Marcia went on. “Out under the moon you glory in the power of the werewolf. You are unstoppable, invincible. No living thing can hurt you. Nothing can kill you. Nothing, save the fire…” In the dim light her teeth gleamed. “And silver.”

It grew dark inside the trailer. Roy could barely make out the long, white shape of the woman lying among the cushions. Outside, the night had come. A pale glow beyond the green curtain signaled the rising moon. Roy felt its pull in the quickening of his senses and the uneasiness in his joints. His eyes were drawn toward the curtained window.

On the bed Marcia’s body jerked in a sudden spasm. Her mouth twisted in pain.

“Leave me now,” she said.

“Marcia, I - “

“Leave me!” The green eyes blazed with pain and pent-up fury.

Roy rose awkwardly to his feet. He stumbled to the door at the rear of the trailer. He pushed it open and stepped out into the cool night. As he closed the door he heard the rusty bolt scrape into place on the inside.

He turned toward the edge of the clearing where the moon was coming into view over the tops of the trees. To his sharpened senses the night held no secrets. He heard the scuttling of small creatures through the brush, and saw them darting among the shadows. The scents of the trees and the grasses and the night flowers were sharp in his nostrils.

The change from man to wolf, Roy had learned, could come on any night. He could will himself to change or, sometimes, prevent it. But on a night like this, with the moon at its full power, the call was impossible to resist.

Roy pulled at the collar of his shirt, letting the cool night air flow in at his throat. He began to walk toward the forest that rimmed the clearing. He tore his shirt open, heedless of the flying buttons, and pulled it free of his belt. The muscles jumped beneath his skin, his limbs twitched against the growing ache in his joints. He stripped the shirt from his back and let it fall to the grass. His breath came in short, hot bursts. He began to run.

THE UPPER RIM OF the full moon edged above the tops of the Douglas firs on the hill to the east of Karyn Richter’s home in Mountlake Terrace. Karyn stood at the French windows, watching it, her mind far away.

“How did it go with the doctor today?”

Startled, Karyn turned to see David standing in the room behind her.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

David Richter had a strong, clean-shaven face. He kept his graying hair short and neatly combed. He was in good physical condition, except for a slight bulge around the middle, and looked younger than his forty-eight years.

“Were you watching something out there?” he asked, nodding toward the window.

“No, just daydreaming.” She gave a small, unconvincing laugh. “Can you daydream after dark?”

David smiled briefly, but his eyes remained serious.

Karyn shrugged. “Dr. Goetz said ‘Come back next week.’ Aside from that he didn’t have much to say. No suggestions, no advice, just ‘See you next week.’”

“Well, you look good, so he must be helping.” Karyn smiled at her husband. Dear, stolid, loyal David. In his heart he was surely convinced that her fears were the delusions of a borderline hysteric, but he would spring to her defense if any other man suggested as much. It was for David’s sake as much as her own that she had to rid her mind of the horrible memories of Drago. For David, she would go on seeing Dr. Goetz or any other doctor he wanted, as long as there was a chance of getting better.

They both turned at a commotion in the next room, and six-year-old Joey Richter dashed in and skidded to a stop in front of them.

“Can I stay up and watch television?” the boy said hopefully, switching his gaze between Karyn and David. “It’s Clint Eastwood,” he added, as though this would influence the decision in his favor.

David looked to Karyn, signaling with his eyes that this one was up to her.

“What did Mrs. Jensen say?” Karyn asked.

The boy looked down at the scuffed toes of his tennis shoes. “She said no,” he reported.

“Then it’s no,” Karyn said. “It’s time for bed, and anyway, you’ve seen Clint Eastwood.”

“I saw Dirty Harry,” he explained patiently. “Tonight it’s Magnum Force.”

“To bed,” Karyn said firmly.

“Oh, okay,” Joey said, with all the martyrdom a six-year-old could muster. In another moment, though, the defeat was forgotten as he kissed first his father, then Karyn, good-night.

“Will you come up and tuck me in?” he asked Karyn with his arms tight around her neck.

“I’ll be up just as soon as Mrs. Jensen gets you ready,” she promised.

At the sound of her name, Mrs. Jensen appeared in the doorway. To Karyn and David, she said, “He was trying to get you to let him stay up, I suppose.”

“There was some mention of a Clint Eastwood movie,” Karyn said.

Mrs. Jensen clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Always he wants to watch the shoot-‘em-ups. Such trash. You couldn’t force him to watch a nice wholesome Walt Disney.”

“They’re dumb,” Joey complained. “Nobody ever shoots anybody.”

“That’s enough, Joey,” David said, not unkindly. “Go along up with Mrs. Jensen now.”

From a standing start the boy took off and dashed past the housekeeper and out the doorway. They could hear his small feet pounding up the stairs to his bedroom. Mrs. Jensen sighed and rolled her eyes in a long-suffering expression that did not hide her affection for the boy. She followed him out of the room.

David stretched and yawned. “I think I’ll turn in early myself tonight. How about you?”

Karyn felt the tightening of her skin that always came when she thought about sex. The years of therapy had helped her considerably, but she still had problems.

She could never completely forget those last weeks with Roy, when he was going through the terrible change. She had not known at first what was happening to him, but found his touch suddenly repellent. Then after Drago, there was the crazy time with Chris Halloran. They had plunged into wild sex games, hoping to dull the remembered horror. Finally, inevitably, they had failed.

David Richter was a gentle, if unimaginative, lover. Sex with him had been satisfactory most of the time. Still, for Karyn, the residue of fear remained. Naturally, she had talked about it with David and with Dr. Goetz. They were both most reassuring and supportive, but there was always the worm of doubt.

She took David’s hand and pressed it warmly. “I’m not really sleepy,” she said. “I think I’ll stay up and read for a while.”

“Do you want me to get you a pill?”

Karyn did not miss the flicker of David’s eyes as he glanced through the window at the rising moon. Normally he did not approve of her taking sleeping pills, but he knew how the full moon disturbed her.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I haven’t used a pill in months, and I’d just as soon stay away from them.”

“Would you like to play a little backgammon? Give me a chance to win back some of my losses?”

Karyn smiled at him. She knew he was reluctant to leave her downstairs alone, and she loved him for it, but it was high time she made it clear that she was not an invalid.

“You go on to bed, dear,” she said. “I know you have to be up early. I’ll be along in a little while.”

Mrs. Jensen reappeared in the doorway. “The young man is ready to be tucked in.”

Karyn and David went up together to Joey’s room at the head of the stairs. The wallpaper featured the exploits of Spiderman. It was chosen personally by Joey to replace what he called “those dumb ducks” that had decorated the walls when the room was a nursery.

Karyn smiled down at the boy and remembered how the idea of being a stepmother had worried her at first. When she was married to Roy, they had talked now and then about having children, but there was always a list of things they wanted to do first.

David Richter had become, unexpectedly, a father at forty-two. He treated the child with a kind of careful affection, as though afraid he might somehow damage the boy. Joey was three when his mother had died of cancer, and David had a couple of rough months trying to be both parents until he found Mrs. Jensen. Karyn was the first woman David had been seriously involved with since his wife’s death, and he was delighted when she and Joey had hit it off.

The boy sat up in bed and hugged first his father, then Karyn. He lay down again while Karyn went through the nightly ritual of tucking the blankets close to his firm, wiry little body.

“G’night, Mom,” the boy said. “G’night, Dad.”

David and Karyn had spent considerable time discussing what Joey should call her after they were married, but the boy solved the problem for them immediately, figuring that if the blond lady was married to Dad, she was Mom, and that was that.

Leaving the door open a couple of inches, the way Joey liked it, Karyn and David stepped back into the hall. Karyn kissed her husband lightly.

“Go on to bed,” she said. “I’ll be in soon.”

She went back downstairs and into the living room. A stack of magazines was spread across the coffee table. Karyn picked out this month’s Redbook and carried it back into the family room. She could hear Mrs. Jensen’s television set playing faintly in the housekeeper’s room at the rear of the house. Karyn smiled at the distant popping of gunshots. Mrs. Jensen was watching Magnum Force.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour, Karyn tried but failed to focus her attention on the magazine. What she needed, Karyn decided, was something to really occupy her mind during the day. Something that would take enough effort to leave her honestly tired at bedtime. There was little for her to do around the house. Mrs. Jensen ran it with cool Scandinavian efficiency. Karyn was grateful for the help, but secretly wished that once in a while the housekeeper might leave something for her to do.

To help fill in the days, Karyn spent a few hours a week doing volunteer work at the Indian school. It was useful work, but also very “in” this season, and they had more volunteers up there now than Indians.

What she really wanted to do was to go back to work. Karyn had experience in working with conventions, and felt she could find some sort of related work with one of the large Seattle hotels. She could handle it now, physically and mentally,

Karyn was sure. David might not be enthusiastic, but if she really wanted to do it he would not stand in her way.

Finally she laid the magazine aside and stood up. She was still not sleepy, and did not want to go up and lie awake in bed, disturbing David. She wandered into the kitchen and took down the plastic spray bottle and long-nosed watering can she used for her plants. Karyn had an understanding with Mrs. Jensen that Karyn alone had responsibility for the plants. It pleased her to look after them - tiny living things which were hers alone, and which depended on her for their existence. After the sadistic slaughter of her little dog that summer by the creatures of Drago, Karyn would never again keep a pet. The plants were as close a substitute as she felt she could handle.