Running with the Pack Part 26

"Well," she sighed. "It's this name Lindhorst . . . it's bothered me from the beginning . . . it rings a bell . . . I think I may have seen the name somewhere in that file."

"I thought you said it was just like MacDonald?" he said wearily.

"I know," she said, "But the more I thought about it . . . And I think Nielsen mentioned the name too-it was all a bit garbled . . . There's some funny connection between the Lindhorsts and the von Merkens."

"Well, we know that," said Fraser. "A historical one. The portraits . . . And the graves."

"Graves?" Eloise eyed him curiously.

"Didn't I mention it?-we were too busy talking about Nielsen!"

Fraser summarised his findings.

Eloise raised her eyebrows when he told her that Sophia von Merkens was a Lindhorst. "Curiouser and curiouser!"

"It's just a case of persistent intermarriage, that's all!" he said, shrugging. "Common amongst the upper cla.s.ses . . . Listen, I'm not really sure where all this is going?"

She frowned. "Nor am I. But I've got to go back to that file . . . Look, you'll enjoy the day exploring Oslo! Enjoy it while it lasts!"

Fraser was, in truth, not in the mood for sightseeing; he felt rather under the weather. It was inflamed where the bird had pecked; perhaps he should have sought first aid. And his nerves were bad; for reasons he could not explain he felt anxious about Eloise, though she was patently capable of looking after herself. He pa.s.sed a depressing, desultory day, flitting from one attraction to another, unable to focus upon any, even the splendid munic.i.p.al gardens. The final hour he whiled away in a bar, sipping an outrageously priced lager, awaiting five o'clock, when he had arranged to meet his daughter outside the National Archives Office.

A commotion of some kind surrounded the elegant nineteenth century building, set back in leafy grounds. Traffic was being diverted, blue lights flashing, the sound of police klaxons. The oscillating wail of an approaching ambulance charged the crisis atmosphere. Fraser's pulse quickened. A large crowd had gathered outside. Yellow-jacketed police bunched around the shrubberies in front of the building. His way was barred by a burly officer, shooing voyeurs away.

"An English girl, some kind of attack," declared a large American woman, catching his mute entreaties. "I thought it was safe to walk the streets here! I'm from Atlantic City!"

Fraser moved too quickly for the officer, who shouted after him as he ran to the rescue scrum in the bushes.

Eloise was lying in a gathering pool of blood with half her face missing.

Once his ident.i.ty had been established, the police began asking questions. The ambulance had arrived too late to be of use, if it ever could have been. A doctor at the morgue a.s.sured him the severed jugular would have been sufficient to kill outright, quite apart from other ravages; it must be the work of a maniac, someone gone berserk. Nevertheless, Fraser's every movement that day, every detail of their trip, were checked and double-checked; and the detectives were very inquisitive about Eloise's purpose in the Archives. A silver-haired, distinguished-looking man in his sixties was introduced to him: Dr. Olaf Muller, Curator of the National Archives. He had questions too.

"Your daughter, Mr. Campbell, it appears, stole something from the Archives, though if this has anything to do with her killing, we are not sure."

A senior officer, of pale blue eyes and unsmiling face, continued to stare right at Fraser, a radar ready to detect every wayward blip.

"Do you know anything about your daughter's work, Mr. Campbell?" continued Muller, "She was a professor once at Kristiansand? . . . For example, does this doc.u.ment have any sense to you?" He extracted from a briefcase several sheets of mottled paper printed in old-fashioned type.

Fraser stared blankly at the Norwegian text. The thick type swirled before his eyes like arcane hieroglyphics.

"Sorry, Mr. Campbell, I will try to summarise . . .

"These papers were found concealed on your daughter's body at the scene. They were clearly hidden to get past our rather poor security . . . This doc.u.ment, it is from 1942, the War? . . . It has the name of a big Swedish arms manufacturer . . . The Swedes, you know, were neutral in the War? This was, what is the phrase-? A double-edged sword! This firm, you see, Mr. Campbell, it traded weapons to the n.a.z.is . . . and, I'm afraid, much, much worse . . . "

He tapped the papers before him.

"The company," he went on, "it still exists today, it is multinational now, very famous, though under a different name . . . and it is not good news, this doc.u.ment, for their reputation . . . for international relations . . . or some politicians in Norway and Sweden . . . So we wonder what your daughter was doing, Mr. Campbell? Maybe working for a newspaper?"

Fraser had ceased to listen; a faded photograph had slipped from within the pages of the doc.u.ment in Muller's hand. It showed top-hatted dignitaries celebrating. There was one face he had seen before-or some-thing very similar. It was remarkable how the same grotesque features reconfigured: as arcane beauty in the female, phenomenal ugliness in the male . . .

"The signature here, Mr. Campbell," continued Muller, glancing over his gold bifocals, "is the head of the family firm in those days, who you see there in the company photograph with n.a.z.i businessmen in Munich . . . " He was pointing to a man with formidably high cheek bones and an ugly jutting jaw. "Cornelius Lindhorst, Managing Director of Rback Chemicals. A powerful man!"

"Are you feeling alright, Mr. Campbell?" exclaimed Muller, dropping his papers. The silent officer moved forward to steady him as he swayed.

Fraser had arisen from his chair in a great agitation. He was staring behind them, beyond the desk at which they sat, towards the tall third-floor windows.

His interrogators didn't seem to be aware of the frightful fluttering outside, the scratching at the panes, the darkening of dreadful wings.

INSIDE OUT.

ERZEBET YELLOWBOY.

Gretchen's dreams were drenched in forests, luminous and thick. In them she ran until she faded and dissolved, a spill of black ink ever thinning on the surface of a bright moon. That moon, which also shone in her dreams, was fading now as the sun slowly burnished the landscape beyond her open window. Sheer curtains wavered as the day's first breeze touched them. The hem of one caressed Gretchen's face as she slept. She pushed it away and watched as mist was swept from the field by a broom made of eldritch light. She did not need an ephemeris. Her blood knew what this night would bring.

She had the day, she thought. Might as well make the most of it; her sisters would insist. They shared an old farmhouse on the far edge of town, rented it from the owners who gave up their crops many years ago. The house was run down, the shingled roof sagged and paint flaked from the wooden siding. Behind it, unkempt fields spread out, sometimes spitting up stalks of corn in late summer. Gretchen's older sister, May, had her own small garden where lettuce, onions, tomatoes, beans and other greens Gretchen cared nothing for grew wild, almost, for May was a lazy mistress to her own crop. She worked hard, she said, at the grocer's in town, and besides, rain and sun did most of the growing for her.

Gretchen twisted her black hair in a knot, wishing for the thousandth time for the courage to cut it all off. Her sisters would murder her and she knew it, especially Molly, youngest of the three women. Molly's hair had never known scissors; she abhorred them. Her hair hung to her thighs in a thin wash of amber, straight as a carpenter's line. Molly worked at the bar serving drinks to the locals, a perfect job for a pinched and unpleasant young woman. The men respected her, the women ignored her, and Molly was fine with that. There were few enough jobs to be had in this small, nowhere town, and Molly didn't care who thought what as long as she was employed. The clients tipped her well, no doubt for her loyalty. When strangers came in for a night on the drink, she made certain they knew their place and she kept them in it.

Gretchen did not have a job and resented her sisters for theirs. If ever she could work, it wouldn't be in this town. People asked too many questions in a place like this and she and her sisters were already considered a bit strange. What kind of women would live on their own? What sort did not entertain men? May swore she had no time for such things, while Molly kept her dalliances far away from home. As for living alone, they simply said they preferred it that way.

"Morning," May said as Gretchen wandered into the kitchen. There was bacon on the stove and coffee in the pot, but Gretchen could not eat today.

"How do you feel?" May asked, as usual.

"I'm fine."

"You sure you won't eat something? I made enough for all of us."

Every month, the same. Gretchen sighed. Good-hearted, frumpy May meant well-both of her sisters did. Still, Gretchen felt stifled by their overbearing care. Trapped, she was, no better than an animal in a cage, unable to fend to for herself.

"Thanks, but no. You know how it is." Gretchen shrugged and sat at the table, unable to pretend she led a normal life.

"Have you seen Molly yet this morning?" May said.

"No. She worked late last night, didn't she?"

"Yeah, traded shifts with Paul so she could have today off. She'll sleep in, I guess."

Molly and May both always made certain they were home on this day and the next. They did whatever they must to protect Gretchen. She should be grateful for that, but instead it made her more aware of the freak she was.

Gretchen watched May eat jealously. The scent of meat made her mouth water, but if she gave in to hunger now, it would not go well this night. She rose and pushed open the screen door leading out to the back, where bindweed covered the remains of an old stone step. In the sky, barely visible, she could see the moon outlined by the light of the sun. It would glow, fully rounded, when night fell. Her hair felt heavy and thick, it bristled along her arms and behind her neck. Her skin tightened, grew uncomfortable. She scratched at her calves with her foot.

May watched-Gretchen could feel her sister's eyes on her. By the end of the day, she would feel everything.

Momma always said, "Beware the wolfweed, it will change you," but Momma said many odd things. It was ten years too late to wonder at what else Momma knew. When Gretchen was fifteen years old, Momma died. May, eighteen then, took over the care of her sisters. They had been together ever since. Where their father was, no one knew.

If only Momma could see me now, Gretchen thought. She'd never say I warned you or I told you so. No, Momma would have held Gretchen as she cried, and as she changed.

Momma knew every herb in the field, every tree in the forest and every flower that bloomed by the road. Wolfweed grew wild in the woods near the house where the four of them lived, when they were a happier family. The plant was dense, dark and beneath wide, purple leaves there were thorns as long as fingers.

"This one, we can eat. This one here," she would say, "we must avoid."

She was soft-spoken and gentle, and stronger than anyone Gretchen knew. She must have been, to raise three daughters alone. The night she died none of them heard a thing. Momma, too proud and perhaps too strong, never once called for their help. May found their mother the next morning, sideways in her bed. Gretchen ran. Into the woods, heedless of danger, she fled from the blood-stained sheets upon which her mother had vomited up her life.

It was dark in the trees. Gretchen tripped over a root and fell. She hit the thorns before she saw them, felt the welt raise on her shoulder when she landed in the patch of wolfweed. She thought nothing of the plant, but the pain brought her back to her senses. Slowly, brushing leaves and needles from her hands, she rose and looked back toward home.

May wrapped her arms around Gretchen as she entered, put salve on the wound and said nothing of her flight. They each had to deal with Momma's death in their own way. Molly, thirteen then, had curled into a ball on the sofa and was crying.

Two weeks later it began to happen. The moon, bloated with their grief, hung low in the sky. They were packing; May was moving them. They could not live in that house, she said. Not where Momma died. It was late, the three were tired. Molly was rubbing her eyes.

Gretchen, wrapping dishes in newspaper, suddenly felt her skin begin to burn. It started at her shoulder where the wound, red still but nearly healed, raised up, incredibly inflamed. Gretchen yelped, attracting the attention of her sisters, whose eyes widened as they turned to her.

"Gretchen, what is it?" May said as she rose from the floor and ran to her sister's side.

"It burns," Gretchen whimpered, her hands clutching her arms.

She began to rock back and forth as May held her. Molly crept over to her side. Huddled there, on the floor of the old kitchen, Gretchen learned the language of pain and her sisters, that of fear.

Gretchen didn't know how they'd managed to get from there to here, but here they were, in another old house, near woods with no sign of wolfweed. Ten years gone, and it never got any easier. May and Molly still held her as it happened, still stroked her hair and whispered in her ear, we love you, Gretchen, speaking her name over and over as though to help her remember who she was. They accepted, now, there was no cure.

May put her plate in the sink as Molly staggered into the room. Gretchen turned from the door to greet her, but all she received in response was a savage grunt. Molly was no morning person, that was sure.

"Coffee," she said, and May obliged.

"Rough night?" Gretchen asked when the cup was empty.

"h.e.l.l yeah. The Bailey boys were at it again, had Tucker pinned to the wall and would have beat him senseless if John hadn't of walked in."

May rolled her eyes. "John's after you, you know."

"I know it," Molly said. "I'm not messing with a cop, no way."

Gretchen and May exchanged a glance. They both knew Molly fancied him, but didn't want to risk the law getting too close.

"I don't see how it could hurt," May said.

"I do."

Gretchen turned away from them. "I'm going for a walk."

"You're in a mood," Molly said.

"Yeah."

"She's hungry, leave her alone." May put her hands on her wide hips and tried to stare Molly down.

"She shouldn't be out there alone today, you know." Molly stared back.

"She knows what she's doing."

Molly raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more.

Gretchen left them to their bickering. She wouldn't be gone long, she knew the dangers and the risks. She was restless; she only wanted a little time alone. It happened this way, sometimes. The morning would call her out, as though the monster in her was willing to greet the sun, if only it was able.

She no longer knew who was the monster and who was not. She, Gretchen, walking upright, dressed in ordinary jeans and a shirt, brown eyes and black hair, could pa.s.s through any town without notice. No one would ever guess, much less believe, what she was. She carried her terrible secret and knew, as she pa.s.sed bland strangers on the street, she would sink her teeth into any one of them if she must. She, it, hunting on all fours, sniffing the air, saliva dropping from her jaws, knew nothing about secrets. She, it, was a pure thing, run on instinct. It knew nothing but scent and sound. Gretchen hated the monster. She hated the unholy charade her life had become.

Her sisters were waiting for her when she returned to the house. They worried too much about the wrong things, Gretchen thought, but she smiled at them anyway.

"It's a beautiful day. You want some help out in the garden?"

"Sure," May replied to Gretchen's offer with a smile. "The weeds must be taking over by now."

"They are. Molly, you coming?"

"Why not," Molly said. "There's nothing else to do."

The three sisters spent several hours beneath the sun, sharing gossip and a jug of water and laughing as though it was any other day. For a time, the specter of the evening was vanquished.

"I'm starved," Molly finally said, and then glanced at Gretchen, who had suddenly become very still. "Sorry."

Gretchen shook her head. "It's okay. I'm not that hungry now."

She lied. Her belly growled, but not with a hunger her sisters could ever feed. Unless she ate them, she thought.

It was a fear they had, early on, before they realized their scent scared her off. They would not be pleased to find Gretchen contemplating it now. Gretchen stifled a cruel laugh. It was the monster, easing its way out.

She showered as they ate their supper and cleaned up after them when they were done. They worked, she tended the house. It seemed an unfair trade, but fair had nothing to do with this life they lived.

Afterward, they all became restless. These last hours were the worst as they waited for a thing that would give them little warning when it finally appeared.

They never, ever used the word werewolf. Gretchen was not some figment of myth or superst.i.tion. But they knew, sure as they knew the sun would rise in the morning, that's exactly what their sister was.

Wolfweed: rare, mysterious, grown out of the book of legend. They would never have believed it, had they not seen firsthand what it could do. When they finally made the connection, they went back to the old woods and burned every inch of it out. Only one thorn survived and this, Gretchen kept, as a reminder to heed Momma's words.

They had no idea how it worked. Years of their own research had not offered a clue and a medical a.s.sessment was entirely out of the question. Even to ask that the thorn be examined was too dangerous. May had visions of her sister being used in weird genetic experiments. She imagined the military becoming involved. No sister of hers would be treated like an animal, even if animal she was.

At dusk, Gretchen stripped off her clothes, right there in front of her sisters. They watched as she wrapped a sheet loosely around her lithe body. They would reach out to her then, if they could, but Gretchen was tense and closed in. Her long night was already beginning as she prepared for transformation.

As the sun touched the ground, they filed out of the house. Somberly they sat on the earth behind the garden, where laughter echoed from only a few hours ago. The moon was still pale, but as night crept in around them it pulled shadows along the ground. Gretchen began to shiver and her eyes rolled.

May gently unwound the sheet from Gretchen's shoulders and pulled her into her arms. Molly, close behind, leaned against her.

"We're right here," they said. "Gretchen, we'll be right here."

Gretchen could no longer hear them. Her body was aflame and her sinews tense as her bones reconfigured themselves. She growled and groaned as fine hairs thickened in their follicles. She arched her back and flung out her arms. Her sisters ducked, but did not leave her side. Gretchen wept and she screamed as though touched by a thousand suns.

They clung to her as long as they could, until-for their own safety and hers-they had to back away. Squatting, they watched as their sister transfigured from young, lovely woman to wolf.

It rose on trembling legs, shook itself and loped away, bristling. It would have run if it were not so weak; the scent of humans terrified it. The woods called, the moon shone down and behind it, two sisters put their heads in their hands and cried.