Shadow Of The Wolf

St. Clare’s driver had taken the circuitous route not necessarily to confuse Ky but to avoid crossing Canal Street, which was closed for a parade. The parade, now fully in progress and blocking out both visual and aural clues with its color and raucousness for a good quarter mile in either direction, had swallowed up the last scent of the werewolf.

His quarry was gone.

Amy said steadily, “What, exactly, are your plans for me?”

She should have been terrified. She was, in fact, on some visceral level almost too intense to be recognized, frightened out of her wits. And yet she could deal with it, she could sit here on the soiled mattress and gaze into that nightmarish monster face and let him fondle her, without breaking into hysterical, mindless screams, because of him. Because there was something about him—his touch, his voice, his manner—that didn’t seem monstrous at all.

He said, drawing a gloved index finger down her cheek from the edge of her eye to the curve of her jaw, “Perhaps I shall just keep you as a pet.”

“That might be difficult. I’ll be missed. And, as you might know, I have a few influential friends.”

He chuckled softly. “Ah, yes. Your friends. Perhaps then, I should think of some other, more amusing, use for you.”

The threat was implicit, the meaning unmistakable. Had Amy been able to see his face, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have been undressing her with his eyes.

She said, “Is that intended to frighten me?”

“Does it?”

“No.”

“I’m not certain whether I’m insulted or flattered.”

“The Werewolf Killer never sexually assaults his victims,” Amy said. “If you were to rape me, you’d only prove to me that you’re not who you claim to be.”

He laughed. “A rather twisted piece of logic, but oddly compelling. And you’re right. I haven’t the least interest in ‘assaulting’ you, as you put it.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

He sat back, regarding her with an attitude of what Amy could only imagine to be amused speculation.

Then he said, “I am going to use you, my dear, to bring my story to the world.”

Amy lifted the wine glass and took another sip. The wine, the conversation, the urbane manners of the gentleman sitting across from her…it could have been lunch at Arnaud’s, cocktails poolside, a casual interview in the lounge of the Ritz Carlton. She concentrated on forgetting that she was not in any of those places.

She said, “I thought that was what I was doing.”

“Indeed.” He inclined his head. “And you’re doing a superlative job. But you only know half the truth. I would like you to know all about me.”

Because the reporter in her wouldn’t die, Amy said, “I’d like that, too.”

He was silent for a time. Amy could feel his eyes on her, the eyes behind the yellow eyes and she wished desperately to see his face…not just for identification purposes, but to see his face, to know the man behind the mask.

“Yes,” he murmured after a time, as though having reached a conclusion in thought, “I think you may be ready to know the truth. Not the whole world, perhaps, but you…yes. And I would like it if at least one person knew.”

Amy said, softly, so as not to break the spell of gentle sadness that seemed to have come over him, “Knew what? What is the truth?”

He looked at her, and though of course she could not see through the mask, she imagined that he smiled. “The truth,” he replied, “is that I am a werewolf.”

Ky stood on the corner, impatiently trying to see over the heads and around the shoulders of jostling parade watchers, reflexively falling back on the ordinary human senses of sight and sound when his extraordinary ones failed him. There was, of course, no sign of the werewolf, nor of the car in which he had been driven away. There were twelve-foot-high floats and belly dancers and acrobats in the street, there were children riding shoulders and men lifting beer mugs on the sidewalk; it was enough to confuse anyone.

The car had obviously passed this way before the parade reached the corner, but in which direction it had gone was anyone’s guess. Whatever residual trace of the werewolf scent that remained was masked completely by the chaos that surrounded him now.

“Damn!” Ky said, and turned to push his way back through the crowd. To be this close, the chance of a lifetime, and to lose him in a Mardi Gras parade…

But St. Clare wasn’t entirely lost. Ky had his money, which meant St. Clare would be in touch. No one just walked off and left fifty thousand dollars without following up on the contract. And he had a name, which he had absolutely no reason to believe was a false one. No, St. Clare was too arrogant, too sublimely confident in his own invincibility, to try something as banal as concealing his identity from a private investigator. Finding St. Clare again would not be the problem. Getting to him would.

“Damn,” Ky muttered again, and broke through the crowd, turning the corner that led to his apartment.

That was when he caught the scent.

“I see,” Amy said.

Her tone wasn’t convincing, even to herself, and she wasn’t surprised that he was angered by it.

“Don’t humor me!” he snapped and got to his feet. “You forget your place, human! I have the power, do you understand that? I am in charge here, and I will not be patronized!”

His fury, though not entirely unexpected, was nonetheless terrifying, like a quick harsh storm that broke tree limbs and blew shingles off roofs and then, as abruptly as it began it was over. The roar of his voice actually hurt her ears and she even imagined—surely she imagined—a gust of wind created by the force of his rage. He seemed to grow larger, more menacing, and when he loomed over her in that horrible mask, she could believe he was anything….

“Is this how you use your power then?” she cried. “Frightening helpless women? Kidnapping them and holding them captive and then terrifying them with threats? Does that make you feel strong? Does that make you feel like a man?”

She couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth. The minute they were spoken, she wanted to drag them back in. She was antagonizing a madman, taunting a killer who was already enraged. She expected him to strike her, to pull his gun or his knife and finish doing what he had obviously brought her here for. She prepared herself for the worst.

And then he said, quite matter-of-factly, “Now you do insult me. I should kill you for that, but I won’t. As I said, I have other plans for you. And…” Again he cocked his head at her, and she imagined a smile. “I admire your pluck. Not that I will put up with a great deal of it, but I did choose you for your spirit, among other things. I can hardly blame you for being true to your nature…any more than your kind can blame me for being true to mine.”

Amy felt like a condemned felon upon receiving that phone call from the governor; like that rabbit trapped in the glare of headlights when the car suddenly swerved to miss it. She had been given a reprieve when she had had no reason to expect one and every muscle in her body went weak with relief.

“Your nature?” she managed to say. Her throat felt gummy. She wanted another sip of wine but didn’t trust her hands to hold the glass steady if she tried. “And what would that be?”

There was pity and impatience in his tone. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. I had forgotten how slow even the brightest human can be. I do the planet a favor by thinning your herd.”

He sat beside her again, and she held herself very still, refusing to tremble. He moved closer.

“I am,” he said, “a werewolf. My nature is to hunt, to kill, to run with the night and to follow the moon. You think you’re very clever for discerning a connection between me and a dozen or so dead vagrants, and I suppose you are, by human standards. But listen to me, chérie. You’ve only found what I wanted you to find. You only know what I wanted you to know. There have been hundreds, do you understand that? Hundreds.”

Amy felt ill. She liked to think she had been born with reporter’s instincts, an innate sense of who was telling the truth and who was lying, when she was being given a genuine lead and when she was being led down the garden path. Those instincts were telling her now that she was looking into the masked face of a madman and a killer, and that every word he spoke was the truth as he knew it. Hundreds. He had killed hundreds.

She said, “Why are you telling me this?”

And he replied, “I already answered that. I like your style. I saw you on the news this evening with that piece of horse fodder Devereaux—something will have to be done about him, I’m afraid—and I saw how you stood up for me with such calm nobility of character and it was then it occurred to me—you are a woman of deep convictions and genuine involvement. You, and only you, can be trusted to bring my story to the world.”

Still she kept her voice calm, her gaze steady. She thought she was beginning to understand him. That did not make her less afraid of him, but she thought she knew enough to deal with him, or at least to prolong her life until she could think of something to do, some way to escape or to convince him to let her go.

“That presupposes, of course, that I believe your story. That you are who—and what—” she added to pacify him, “you say you are.”

He bent a gaze upon her that was long and filled with silent menace. “You try my patience,” he said at last.

He got slowly to his feet. “Very well, chérie.” His voice was soft, calculating, and even more frightening than a shout. “I shall give you what you want. I’ll show you proof. And you may yet be sorry you asked.”