The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told

by Martin H. Greenberg

  “It looked like our house,” she said, not looking at him, but not taking her hand off him either. “Like our house that night.”

  “If he was a werewolf, I doubt your Mr. Linnford would have been about to knock him out without taking a lot of damage. Maybe Linnford is the werewolf.” That would fit, most of the werewolves he knew, if they survived, eventually became wealthy. Children were more difficult. Maybe that was why Linnford and his wife fostered children.

  Stella jerked her chin up and down once. “That’s what I thought. That’s it. Linnford might be a werewolf. Could you tell?”

  His chest felt tight. How very brave of her: she’d called the only monster she knew to deal with the other monsters. It reminded him of how she’d stood between him and the boys, protecting them the best that she could.

  “Let me talk to Devonte,” he said trying to keep the growl out of his voice with only moderate success. “Then I can deal with Linnford.”

  The hospital corridors were decorated with garland and green and red bulbs. Every year Christmas got more plastic and seemed farther and farther from the Christmases David had known as a child.

  His daughter led him to the elevators without hesitation and exchanged nods with a few of the staff members who walked past. He hated the way his children aged every year. Hated the silver in their hair that was a constant reminder that eventually time would take them all away from him.

  She kept as much distance between them as she could in the elevator. As if he were a stranger—or a monster. At least she wasn’t running from him screaming.

  You can’t live with bitterness. He knew that. Bitterness, like most unpleasant emotions, made the wolf restless. Restless wolves were dangerous. The nurse at the station just outside the elevator knew Stella, too, and greeted her by name.

  “That Mr. Linnford was here asking after Devonte. I told him that he wasn’t allowed to visit yet.” She gave Stella a disappointed look, clearly blaming her for putting Mr. Linnford to such bother. “What a nice man he is, looking after that boy after what he did to them.”

  She handed Stella a clipboard and gave David a mildly curious look. He gave her his most harmless smile and she smiled back before glancing down at the clipboard Stella had returned.

  David could read it from where he stood. Stella Christiansen and guest. Well, he told himself, she could hardly write down that he was her father when she looked older than he did.

  “He may be a nice man,” Stella told the nurse with a thread of steel in her voice, “but you just keep him out until we know for sure what happened and why.”

  She strode off toward a set of doors where a policeman sat in front of a desk, sitting on a wooden chair, and reading a worn paperback copy of Stephen King’s Cujo. “Jorge,” she said.

  “Stella,” he buzzed the door and let them through.

  “He’s in the secured wing,” she explained under her breath as she walked briskly down the hall. “Not that it’s all that secure. Jorge shouldn’t have let you through without checking your ID.”

  Not that anyone would question his Stella, David thought. Even as a little girl, people did what she told them to do. He was careful not to smile at her; she wouldn’t understand it.

  This part of the hospital smelled like blood, desperation, and disinfectant. Even though most of the scents were old, a new wolf penned up in this environment would cause a lot more excitement that he was seeing: and a sixteen-year-old could only be a new wolf. Any younger than that and they mostly didn’t survive the Change. Anyway, he’d have scented a wolf by now: their first conclusion was right—Stella’s boy was no werewolf.

  “Any cameras in the rooms?” he asked in a low voice.

  Her steady footfall paused. “No. That’s still on the list of advised improvements for the future.”

  “All right. No one else here?”

  “Not right now,” she said. “This hospital isn’t near gang territory and they put the adult offenders in a different section.” She entered one of the open doorways and he followed her in, shutting the door behind them.

  It wasn’t a private room, but the first bed was empty. In the second bed was a boy staring at the wall—there were no windows. He was beaten up a bit and had a cast on one hand. The other hand was attached to a sturdy rail that stuck out of the bed on the side nearest the wall with a locking nylon strap—better than handcuffs, he thought, but not much. The boy didn’t look up as they came in.

  Maybe it was the name, or maybe the image that “foster kid” brought to mind, but he’d expected Devonte to be black. Instead, the boy looked as if someone had taken half a dozen races and shook them up—Eurasian races, though, not from the Dark Continent. There was Native American or Oriental in the corners of his eyes—and he supposed that nose could be Jewish or Italian. His skin looked as if he had a deep suntan, but this time of year it was more likely the color was his own: Mexican, Greek or even Indian.

  Not that it mattered. He’d found that the years were slowly completing the job that Vietnam had begun—race or religion mattered very little to him anymore. But even if it had mattered . . . Stella had asked him for help.

  Stella glanced at her father. She didn’t know him, didn’t know if he’d see through Devonte’s defiant sullenness to the fear underneath. His expressionless face and upright military bearing gave her no clue. She could read people, but she didn’t know her father anymore, hadn’t seen him since . . . that night. Watching him made her uncomfortable, so she turned her attention to the other person in the room.

  “Hey, kid.”

  Devonte kept his gaze on the wall.

  “I brought someone to see you.”

  Her father, after a keen look at the boy, lifted his head and sucked in air through his nose hard enough she could hear it.

  “Where are the clothes he was wearing when they brought him in?” he asked.

  That drew Devonte’s attention and satisfaction at his reaction slowed her answer. Her father’s eye fell on the locker and he stalked to it and opened the door. He took out the clear plastic bag of clothes and said, with studied casualness, “Linnford was here asking about you today.”

  Devonte went still as a mouse.

  Stella didn’t know where this was going, but pitched in to help. “The police informed me that Linnford’s decided not press assault charges. They should move you to a room with a view soon. I’m scheduled for a meeting tomorrow morning to decide what happens to you when you get out of here.”

  Devonte opened his mouth, but then closed it resolutely.

  Her father sniffed at the bag, then said softly, “Why do your clothes smell like vampire, boy?”

  Devonte jumped, the whites of his eyes showing all the way round his irises. His mouth opened and this time Stella thought it might really be an inability to speak that kept him quiet. She was choking a bit on “vampire” herself. But she wouldn’t have believed in werewolves either, she supposed, if her father weren’t one.

  “I didn’t introduce you,” she murmured. “Devonte, this is my father, I called him when I saw the crime scene photos. He’s a werewolf.” If he was having vampire problems, maybe a werewolf would look good.

  The sad blue-gray chair with the ripped naughahyde seat that had been sitting next to Devonte’s bed zipped past her and flung itself at her father—who caught it and gave the boy a curious halfsmile. “Oh I bet you surprised it, didn’t you? Wizards aren’t exactly common.”

  “Wizard?” Stella squeaked regrettably.

  Her father’s smile widened just a little—a smile she remembered from her childhood when she or one of her brothers had done something particularly clever. This one was aimed at Devonte.

  He moved the chair gently between his hands. “A witch’s power centers on bodies and minds, flesh and blood. A wizard has power over the physical—” The empty bed slammed into the wall with the open locker, bending the door and cracking the drywall. Her father was safely in front of it and belatedly she realized he must have
jumped over it.

  He still had the chair and his smile had grown to a wide, white grin. “Very nice, boy. But I’m not your enemy.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall and shook his head.

  “Someone ought to reset that thing. Do you know what time it is?”

  No more furniture moved. Her father made a show of taking out his cell phone and looking at it. “Six-thirty. It’s dark outside already. How badly did you hurt it with that chair I saw in the photo?”

  Devonte was breathing hard, but Stella controlled her urge to go to him. Her father, hopefully, knew what he was doing. She shivered, though she was wearing her favorite wool suit and the hospital was quite warm. How much of the stories she’d heard about vampires was true?

  Devonte released a breath. “Not badly enough.”

  On the tails of Devonte’s reply, her father asked, “Who taught you not to talk at all, if you have a secret to keep?”

  “My grandmother. Her mother survived Dachau because the American troops came just in time—and because she kept her mouth shut when the Nazis wanted information.”

  Her father’s face softened. “Tough woman. Was she the Gypsy? Most wizards have at least a little Gypsy blood.”

  Devonte shrugged, rubbed his hands over his face hard. She recognized the gesture from a hundred different kids: he was trying not to cry. “Stella said you’re a werewolf.”

  Her father cocked his head as if he were weighing something. “Stella doesn’t lie.” Unexpectedly he pinned Stella with his eyes. “I don’t know if we’ll have a vampire calling tonight—it depends upon how badly Devonte hurt it.”

  “Her,” said Devonte. “It was a her.”

  Still looking at Stella, her father corrected himself. “Her. She must have been pretty badly injured if she hasn’t come here already. And it probably means we’re lucky and she is alone. If there were others they’d have come yesterday or the day before—they can’t afford to let Devonte live with what he knows about them. Vampires haven’t survived as long as they have by leaving witnesses.”

  “No one would have believed me,” Devonte said. “They’d have locked me up forever.”

  That made her father release her from the grip of his gaze as he focused his attention on Devonte. The boy straightened under the impact—Stella knew exactly how he felt.

  “Is that what Linnford told you when his neighbors came running to see why there was so much noise?” her father asked gently. “Upscale apartment dwellers aren’t nearly as likely to ignore odd sounds. Is that why you threw around so much furniture? That was smart, boy.”

  Devonte was nodding his head—and he straightened a little more at her father’s praise.

  “Next time a vampire attacks you and you don’t manage to kill it, though, you shout it to the world. You may end up seeing a psychologist for the rest of your life—but the vampires will stay as far from you as they can. If she doesn’t come tonight, you tell your story to the newspapers.” Her father glanced at Stella and she nodded.

  “I know a couple of reporters,” she said. “‘Boy Claims He Was Attacked by Vampire’ ought to sell enough papers to justify a headline or two.”

  “All right then,” her father returned his attention to her. “I need you to go out and find some wood for us: a chair, a table, something we can make stakes out of.”

  “Holy water?” asked Devonte. “They might have a chapel here.”

  “Smart,” said her father. “But from what I’ve heard it doesn’t do enough damage to be worth running it down. Go now, Stella—and be careful.”

  She almost saluted him, but she didn’t trust him enough to tease. He saw it, almost smiled and then turned back to Devonte. “And you’re going to tell me everything you know about this vampire.”

  Stella glanced in the room next to Devonte’s, but, like his, it was decorated in early naughahyde and metal: no wood to be found. She didn’t bother checking any more but hurried to the security door—and read the note on the door.

  “No, sir. She lived with them—they told me she was Linnford’s sister.” Devonte stopped talking when she came back.

  “Jorge’s been called away, he’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Her father considered that. “I think the show’s on. No wooden chairs?”

  “All the rooms in this wing are like this one.”

  “Without an effective weapon, I’ll get a better chance at her as a wolf then as a human. It means I can’t talk to you though—and it will take a while to change back, maybe a couple of hours.” He looked away, and in an adult version of Devonte’s earlier gesture, rubbed his face tiredly. She heard the rasp of whisker on skin. “I control the wolf now—and have for a long time.”

  He was worried about her.

  “It’s all right,” she told him. He gave her the same kind of keen examination he’d given Devonte earlier and she wondered what information he was drawing from it. Could he tell how scared she was?

  His face softened. “You’ll do, my star.”

  She’d forgotten that he used to call her that—hated the way it tightened her throat. “Should I call Clive and Steve?”

  “Not for a vampire,” he told her. “All that will do is up the body count. To that end, we’ll stay here and wait—an isolation ward is as good a place to face her as any. If I’m wrong, and the guard’s leaving isn’t the beginning of her attack—if she doesn’t come tonight, we get all of us into the safety of someone’s home, where the vampire can’t just waltz in without invitation. Then I’ll call in a few favors and my friends and I can take care of her somewhere there aren’t any civilians to be hurt.”

  He looked around with evident dissatisfaction.

  “What are you looking for?” Devonte asked so she didn’t have to.

  “A place to hide.” Then he looked up and smiled at the dropped ceiling.

  “Those panels won’t support your weight,” she warned him.

  “No, but this is a hospital and this is the old wing. I bet they have a cable ladder for their computer and electric cables . . .” As he spoke, he’d hopped on the empty bed and pushed up a ceiling panel to take a look.

  “What’s a cable ladder?” Stella asked.

  “In this case, it’s a sturdy aluminum track attached to the oak beam with stout hardware.” He sounded pleased as he replaced the ceiling panel he’d taken out. “I could hide a couple of people up here if I had to.”

  He was a mercenary, she remembered, and wondered how many times he’d hidden on top of cable ladders.

  He moved the empty bed away from the wall and climbed on it again and removed a different panel. “Do you think you can get this panel back where it belongs after I get up here, boy?”

  “Sure.” Devonte sounded thoroughly pleased. If anyone else had called him “boy” he’d have been bristling. He was already well on the way to a big case of hero worship, just like the one she’d had.

  “Stella.” Her father took off his red flannel shirt and laid it on the empty bed behind him. “When this is over, you call Clive, tell him everything and he’ll arrange a cleanup. He knows who to call for help with it. It’s safer for everyone if people don’t believe in vampires and werewolves. Leaving bodies makes it kind of hard to deny.”

  “I’ll call him.”

  Without his shirt to cover him, she could see there was no softness in him. A few scars showed up grey on his dark skin. She’d forgotten how dark he was, like ebony.

  As he peeled off his sky-blue undershirt he said, with a touch of humor, “if you don’t want to see more of your father than any daughter ever should, you need to turn your back.” And she realized she’d been staring at him.

  Devonte made an odd noise—he was laughing. There was a tightness to the sound and she knew he was scared and excited to see what it looked like when a man changed into a werewolf. For some reason she felt her own mouth stretch into a nervous grin she let Devonte see just before she did as her father advised her and turned her back.

  David
didn’t like changing in front of anyone. He wasn’t exactly vulnerable—but it made the wolf edgy and if someone decided to get brave and approach too closely . . . . well, the wolf would feel threatened, like a snake shedding its skin.

  So to the boy he said quietly, “Watching is fine. But wait for a bit if you want to touch . . .” He had a thought. “Stella, if she sends the Linnfords in first, I’ll do my best to stay hidden. I can take a vampire . . .” Honesty forced him to continue. “Maybe I can take a vampire, but only with surprise on my side. Her human minions, if they are still human enough to walk in daylight, are still too human to detect me. Don’t let them take Devonte out of this room.”

  He tried to remember everything he knew about vampires. Once he changed, it would be too late to talk. “Don’t look in the vampire’s eyes, don’t let her touch you. Unless you are really a believer, don’t plan on crosses helping you out. When I attack, don’t try and help, just keep out of it so I don’t have to worry about you.”

  Wishing they had a wooden stake, he knelt on the floor and allowed himself to change. Calling the wolf was easy, it knew there was a fight to be had, blood to be shed, and in its eagerness it rushed the change as if called by the moon herself.

  He never remembered exactly how bad it was going to hurt. His mother had once told him that childbirth was like that for women. That if they remembered how bad it was, they’d lack the courage to face the next time.

  But he did remember it was always worse than he expected, and that somehow helped him bear it.

  The shivery, icy pain slid over his bones while fire threaded through his muscles, reshaping, reorganizing and altering what was there to suit itself. Experience kept him from making noise—it was one of the first things he learned: how to control his instincts and keep the howls, the growls, and the whines inside and bury them in silence. Noise can attract unwanted attention.

  His lungs labored to provide oxygen as adrenaline forced his heart to beat too fast. His face ached as teeth became fangs and his jaw extended with cheekbones. His eyesight blurred and then sharpened with a predatory clarity that allowed him to see prey and enemy alike no matter what shadows they tried to hide in.