The Baron Blasko Mysteries (Book 3): Claws

by Howe, A. E.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Do you have a weapon?”

  Matthew showed Blasko a snubnose revolver. “A friend loaned it to me once he was convinced I was off the sauce. For backup, I got a boot knife.”

  Blasko had his own hardware in the form of a Colt 1911 tucked into a shoulder holster. He didn’t know what effect it would have on the monster if he met it. The reports he’d read when he was chasing the beast through the mountains back home were mixed. Some said that a bullet could kill a werewolf, while others said it would have little or no effect. Blasko was willing to try anything.

  “Have you had any luck procuring a sword?” he asked.

  “When was I supposed to do that?” Matthew said, exasperated. “If you want two jobs done at once, you’re going to have to double your henchman staff.”

  “Never mind. I’ve sent for one,” Blasko said, ignoring Matthew’s sarcasm and leaving the man wondering if he meant he’d sent for a sword or another henchman.

  Blasko walked back to the house and got his car, an enormous 1931 Daimler Double-Six. His driving skills had improved over the last few months, though there were still a few deficiencies. He bumped off of the curb and headed out to the Murphy farm.

  He parked the car in a field with several others and got out, standing for a moment in the cold moonlight. The hill provided a perfect spot for his enhanced hearing to distinguish sounds originating from miles away. Not that he needed any special abilities to hear the sounds of a dozen men traipsing through the nearby fields and woods.

  Blasko headed down toward the creek where he thought he’d heard Bobby Tucker whisper to another man. After carefully stalking them for half an hour, he approached Bobby close enough to be heard.

  “You aren’t going to find anything tonight.”

  Bobby jumped and whirled around, stopping just before he leveled the shotgun he was holding at Blasko’s head.

  “Damn it! Don’t sneak up on people like that. Especially out here tonight. You’ll get yourself shot for sure,” Bobby chastised him.

  “I didn’t sneak up on you,” Blasko said dryly. “If this mob wasn’t making so much noise you might have heard me.”

  “Tell me about it. From the sound of it, you wouldn’t know that all these boys have hunted deer and turkey since they’ve been able to walk.”

  “If this creature is what I think it is, then this hunting party isn’t going to catch it.” Blasko couldn’t keep the disdain from his voice.

  “I know that. I don’t know what we’re dealing with, but I know that he, she, it, whatever-the-hell ain’t gonna be stalking around here with all this going on. Josephine tell you that your prime suspect has an alibi?”

  “I’ll admit I might have been too hasty,” Blasko allowed, then stopped and turned his head. Placing a finger to his lips, he drifted off into the underbrush. Five seconds later, Colonel Etheridge approached Bobby, moving cautiously on a deer trail.

  “Tucker, that you?”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Damn fools are tearing up the underbrush and making a racket. Can’t see a darn thing with all these lights on. Told them the full moon was bright enough.”

  “Sorry, Colonel. They know better. They’re just overly excited, not knowing what they’re looking for.”

  “I’ve been in the brush with their sort. Good way to get yourself killed.”

  “Colonel Etheridge, I’d like to introduce you to Baron Dragomir Blasko.” Bobby couldn’t see the man, but he knew he wasn’t far away.

  Blasko drifted back out of the woods and the colonel stared at him with lifted eyebrows. “Now there’s a man who knows how to move through the woods!” he said, sticking out his hand. “Colonel Samuel Etheridge. Pleased to meet you.”

  Blasko gave the colonel’s hand a quick shake. “Likewise. These idiots are wasting their time.”

  “Quite agree.”

  “Folks expect this. Only good thing I can say about it is that it’s keeping things under the control of the sheriff’s office so no one tries forming their own posse,” Bobby grumbled.

  “Makes them feel like they’re doing something. I can understand that,” the colonel said.

  The three men talked for a while and listened to the other men moving through the underbrush before the sheriff called a merciful end to the hunt an hour later.

  Two weeks passed and the county was growing hopeful that Seth Taylor’s death had been a fluke. Every night the sheriff led a group of men into the woods, hunting whatever was the animal of the day. The consensus regarding bear, wolf, coyote and even a rogue alligator changed daily. Fewer men went out as the fear subsided. Meanwhile, Blasko and Matthew kept watch over François, who slept all day and held séances almost every night. More and more of Sumter’s upper and middle class had attended one of the séances and no one walked away unimpressed.

  “You look awful,” Josephine told Bobby one day in late February. He’d come into the bank to make a withdrawal. Josephine pulled him out of the line and into her office.

  “Thanks. I’d make the effort to be offended, but I’m too tired.”

  “How much longer is the sheriff going to keep this up?”

  “You mean Sheriff Ahab? I swear he’s coming loose at the seams. We haven’t even seen a raccoon in over a week. We’ve scared all the animals away.”

  “Have you gone back out to the Chester place?”

  “I don’t want to spook them. I talked to a couple of Molly’s friends who knew that she was seeing a boy, but none of them knew who it was.”

  “You didn’t tell them it was Seth, did you?” Josephine asked.

  “No, this town doesn’t need any more grist for the gossip mill. I just wish I could get Molly out of the house and talk to her alone. No one’s seen her since Seth was killed.”

  “Maybe you’re going about it the wrong way,” Josephine suggested.

  “How’s that?”

  “Today is Friday. The Chesters come into town every Saturday morning.”

  “Like most of the farmers around here,” Bobby said, realizing where she was going.

  “Exactly. I think tomorrow morning would be a good time for Mohammad to go to the mountain.”

  “Are you inviting yourself along?”

  “Are you going back out with Ahab tonight?”

  “Do I have a choice? We’re mostly down to our part-time deputies. Every time someone drops out, Logan gets crazier.”

  “Then you may be too tired to drive yourself out to the Chesters’.”

  “You’ve got a point,” Bobby agreed, and they made arrangements to meet in the morning.

  An hour after dusk, Blasko walked into the parlor. Josephine thought he looked as tired as Bobby.

  “Good evening,” he said morosely. “Can I fix you a drink?”

  Josephine held up the glass she’d poured earlier.

  “Ah,” Blasko said, distracted.

  “I saw Bobby today,” Josephine told him, hoping to jar him out of his mood. It had grown increasingly dark as the days and nights ticked over without any results from the surveillance of François or the misguided posse roaming the woods.

  “I saw him last night. This is ridiculous. They aren’t going to catch anyone wandering around in the woods like madmen.” Blasko just managed to keep his anger in check.

  “Then why are you still going out there?”

  “Because if this is anything like the creature that attacked your grandfather’s village, then he might turn the tables on that rabble of hunters.”

  Josephine remembered her grandfather’s diary. The monster had killed some of the very men who were hunting him. “I see your point. So you think you might have a chance of catching him when he comes for the hunters?”

  “That was my hope. I don’t know… Maybe the monster was just moving through the county and there won’t be another attack.”

  Josephine told him that she was going with Bobby in an attempt to talk with the Chester girl in the morn
ing.

  “I need blood,” Blasko said bluntly.

  “You still have some from the last order, don’t you?” Josephine asked, though she thought she knew what he was driving at.

  “Yes, but what I need is real blood.”

  “We have an agreement.”

  “And I’ve honored it. But now… with the murder and the hunt… I need to drink fresh blood.” He was almost pleading with her.

  This was an argument they’d had before. She didn’t want him taking blood from people, but she hated to see him suffer.

  “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

  Blasko clenched his lips shut to keep from saying something he might regret.

  He left the house and, as it had been for the past two weeks, his first stop was to check in with Matthew near the courthouse.

  “I think there’s something about this guy…” Matthew said.

  “Don’t fall for his routine. It’s all smoke and mirrors,” Blasko answered dismissively.

  “I’ve followed him for two weeks now. Every time he holds one of these séances, I see the people afterward. They aren’t fools, but they’re deeply affected.” There was a wistfulness to his voice that Blasko hadn’t heard before.

  “I tell you, it’s all nonsense.” The baron was irritated that Matthew seemed to be falling under François’s spell.

  “But if it is true…”

  “When a man wants to swindle another man he shows him gold, not lead. Why? Because gold is something men want with a raw passion. This man is using the lure of contacting dead family and friends. Everyone has a lost love they want to talk with one last time. He uses that universal desire.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if he does have some supernatural ability to contact the dead?”

  Blasko looked at Matthew. Some of his cynicism and pain has been replaced by what… hope? Wonder? Desire?

  “Go to one of his séances, then,” Blasko said.

  Matthew looked surprised. “But you just said it was all nonsense.”

  “Exactly, it is. But I can see that the notion has gotten under your skin. So go see for yourself. You want to, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bah! Indecision is a crippling disease.”

  Matthew shrugged. “I’ll be here the rest of the night,” he said with a curt nod toward François’s hotel.

  Before Blasko could turn and head back to his car, Matthew uttered an expletive. Blasko turned to see him heading off down the street. Across from the courthouse, Blasko saw François strolling down the sidewalk looking like a man without a care in the world. For a moment Blasko considered following them, but he decided his best course of action was to head to the woods.

  Tonight the small hunting party was parked along a dirt road about two miles from the Murphy farm. With each fruitless night, the group had moved out farther away from where Seth’s body had been found. Taking stabs in the dark, Bobby had called it.

  Blasko got out of his car and listened. With fewer men participating, it was harder to tell where they were. But he found their location soon enough and headed into the woods.

  “Shame on you,” said a voice to Blasko’s right. “You should have known I was here.”

  The baron spun around to find Colonel Etheridge crouched in the underbrush. He stood up. “I’ve hunted some dangerous predators—man and beast,” he said with a crooked grin.

  “What are you doing here?” Blasko asked in an attempt to hide his embarrassment at being caught unaware.

  “I’ve never believed we were just hunting an animal. Not around here. I thought it might be a good idea to see if anyone was hunting the hunters.”

  “And you are smart enough to know that those heavy-footed oxen aren’t going to catch anything.”

  “They might tree a raccoon,” Etheridge said with a shrug. “Not much else. I suspect that you and I have some things in common.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Hunters who don’t like hunting in a pack.”

  “I…” Before Blasko could answer, they both heard the sound of a car horn in the distance.

  “Here now, what’s this?” Etheridge said as the sound got closer, accompanied by the roar of a car engine. Etheridge and Blasko walked the fifty yards back to the road.

  A car was careening down the dirt road, its headlights bouncing wildly as the car hit potholes and the driver tried to keep it from swerving in the clay roadbed. The vehicle screeched to a halt just short of Deputy Tucker’s patrol car.

  “Where’s the sheriff?” the man in the car yelled as he threw the door open and half fell out of the roadster. Blasko recognized the man as Claude Elliot, a reporter for the Sumter Times.

  “Slow down. He’s leading the hunting party down in the woods,” Etheridge said.

  “The beast is in town!” the newsman said. “You got to get him, Colonel. There’s been an attack at the Handlins’ house.” Claude was breathing so hard that he might have run all the way to find them instead of driven.

  “You find the sheriff. I’ll go back to town with this man,” the baron said.

  Etheridge hesitated for just a moment, then nodded and turned back into the woods.

  “Oh, it’s you, Baron,” the newsman said, having just noticed him.

  “I’ll follow you.” Blasko pushed past him and headed for his car.

  Claude hopped back into his own car and they awkwardly turned their vehicles around and raced back toward town.

  Chapter Ten

  There was a crowd outside the home of Timothy and Madilyn Handlin. Lights were on up and down the street and groups of men and women milled about in the yard and on the sidewalk, many carrying lanterns or flashlights.

  Blasko could see Dr. McGuire attending to someone on the porch. There were others gathered around him, including Emmett Wolfe, the editor and owner of the Sumter Times. Emmett came down to meet them when he saw Blasko and Claude approaching.

  “Is the sheriff on his way?” he asked.

  “He should be right behind us,” Blasko said as he continued toward the house. “What happened?”

  “There was an attack. According to McGuire, Mrs. Handlin is dead.”

  Blasko could smell the blood… a lot of blood. Underneath was the odor of wild animal. He climbed the front porch with Emmett at his heels. Dr. McGuire was tending to wounds on the face of a man in his late thirties, who was sitting in a wicker chair. A woman stood behind the doctor, holding a large flashlight so that he had light to work.

  “I need to get you down to my office so I can clean these wounds properly. Several of them are going to require stiches.”

  “You can do what you have to do right here. I’m not leaving Maddie,” Handlin said. His voice held a tremor, but didn’t allow for argument.

  Dr. McGuire glanced up, cringing as Blasko approached the front door. “No one should go in there,” he said. “She’s tore up bad.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Blasko said to Handlin, who flinched as Dr. McGuire poured peroxide on a cut across his cheek.

  “I… I was upstairs. I heard a noise, sounded like breaking wood and glass. I started down the stairs and heard Madilyn scream. It all happened so fast. When I got to the kitchen the… thing was done with Maddie. I… I couldn’t move.” He sounded dazed. “The monster looked at me. I’ve never seen anything like it. Couldn’t even imagine such a blasphemous abomination. I think it smiled at me before it reached out and raked me with its claws. It was like it slapped me. For a moment, I thought I was looking at a man in a mask, but… it couldn’t have…” His voice trailed off.

  “Maybe you were,” Dr. McGuire said, putting plaster over a deep cut on Handlin’s jawbone.

  “That was no man,” Handlin murmured.

  Blasko heard a ruckus in the street and turned to see half a dozen cars and trucks pull up. It was the posse from the woods. Sheriff Logan came charging out of his car with Bobby Tucker right behind him. Colonel Etheridge and the other men tra
iled after them. All of them were well armed.

  “The animal couldn’t have attacked anyone here,” Logan said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone around the house. “Not in town.”

  Timothy Handlin tried to stand as the sheriff stomped up the porch steps. “It wasn’t any animal I’ve ever seen,” he said, unable to stay on his feet and sinking back down in the chair.

  “Bullshit!” the sheriff spat at him. He turned to Dr. McGuire. “Who was hurt?”

  “My wife was ripped apart by that thing,” Handlin said before the doctor could answer.

  The sheriff leaned in and examined Handlin’s wounds. “You don’t look hurt too bad,” he said with a snide smirk on his face. “Watch him,” he told Bobby.

  The sheriff entered the house, followed by Blasko and Deputy Paige. It was warm inside thanks to the oil heater. The lights were on and everything looked normal except for smears of blood on the wall left by Handlin after his encounter with the creature. The kitchen, however, was a slaughterhouse. Madilyn Handlin’s body lay on the floor, with deep gashes across her stomach and chest. From the amount of blood, it was clear she’d bled almost dry.

  The odor and sensory input from the blood was almost too much for Blasko to handle. His heart raced as he felt the rich, dark fluid calling to him. The anemic blood that Josephine provided for him was doing little to restore him after spending so many nights in the woods, and now he felt his craving intensely. He took a deep breath and balled his fists, fighting against his nature before he could he speak.

  Finally he said, “The animal would have had to be quite large to do this much damage so quickly.” He noted that the woman hadn’t had time to grab anything to defend herself. Nothing in the kitchen was out of place except for the back door, which hung half off its hinges, the frame busted and window glass shattered.

  “Or she knew her attacker. Looks like he used some sort of farm implement or gardening rake,” the sheriff said. “Paige, check the back yard for the murder weapon and secure that door. And you, Mr. Baron, need to get the hell out of my crime scene!” After ordering Blasko out, he turned on his heel and marched back to the front of the house.