Watcher: Based on the Apocalypse (World of Darkness : Werewolf)

by Charles L. Grant

  “Damn,” he whispered.

  The sleet had turned to mostly rain, and it fell heavily, springing fountains in the street, drumming hard on the canvas canopy, sounding like the thunder of a stampede.

  “Okay.” She poked his chest with a stiff finger.

  “Use the public phones, stay out of crowded rooms—and empty ones—and keep yourself visible. All the time, Richard, all the time.”

  He slipped his arms away and gripped her shoulders. “I can’t.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “I have to go someplace first.”

  “What? Listen, Richard, you can’t—”

  He silenced her with a finger. “This is something I must do, and it’s a place where you can’t go. It won’t take long by your time, but I have to do it if I’m going to have a chance.”

  Her protest sputtered on, but it was only words without meaning. She lay her palm against his chest. “This is some kind of… Garou thing?”

  He nodded.

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Not yet. I won’t lie to you, Jo. It could be, but not yet.”

  “And when you get back?”

  “I will do exactly what you told me. I swear it.” He shook his head. “No. I give you my word.”

  She snapped a thumb toward the parking lot. “My car’s over there. I’ll be back as fast as I can.” With a sly smile she patted her breast pocket. “I still have the key.”

  “Call the room first, look for me,” he said sternly.

  “Hey,” she said, insulted. “I’m a cop, gimmie a break, okay?”

  There was nothing left to say, and without bothering to think, he pulled her close again, and he kissed her, soft and quickly on the lips.

  Flustered, she broke away and hurried to the curb, hurried back and said. “I have to get one thing straight, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “When you say this Garou thing, these people of yours, we’re talking about …” She swallowed and looked sheepish.

  He couldn’t help but grin. “Yes, Jo, I’m talking about werewolves.”

  She nodded sharply. “Good. Okay. just wanted to be sure.”

  Seconds later the rain took her, smearing her to a formless figure that disappeared when she crossed the street. He waited a moment longer, then went inside and gasped at the too-warm air that hit him from a ceiling vent. He took off his jacket and shook it hard, away from his side, then grabbed it in the middle and headed for his room.

  The desert was silent.

  He made his way through the ruins to the garden, and sat in the chair where Fay’s spirit had been.

  The stone vase was still there.

  The rose was gone.

  He looked at the table, sighing when he saw the thin layer dust from the drying of her black tear. He passed a hand over it, and the dust scattered and was gone, and he wished, too late, he had kept some of it for himself.

  Emerald sky and gold-tinged light.

  No one came, nothing moved.

  He rose and began to walk, skirting the barren flower beds, searching the crumbling stone paths for something, anything, that would send him where he needed to go.

  The rogue wasn’t a rogue.

  He came to a low wall and fingered the brittle straw that poked out of the mud.

  The photograph in the hallway.

  He followed the wall around the garden’s perimeter, breaking off straw, crumbling bits of clay between his fingers.

  Fay’s warning.

  He stopped at a tree, whose bark was sickly gray, whose branches were bent and twisted as if in frozen torment. There were no leaves. The knees of a root broke through the faded tiled floor.

  It was inconceivable that a Garou could be so careless a hunter. The monthly pattern was deliberate, deliberately staged to attract the Warders’ attention. To attract him. And it had worked. But to hunt a Garou who has lost touch with Gaia and his mind was one thing; to hunt one in control, to hunt one as he had hunted the rabbit, was something he wasn’t sure he could do, no matter what tribe the false rogue belonged to. It fell too close to blasphemy. Too close to treason.

  Emerald sky and black-emerald clouds.

  Gold-tinged light.

  The soughing of a slow wind sifting sand from the wall, the grains falling through the dead tree like the scratch of ice against glass.

  This man called Blanchard. He knew Richard, knew him by name and most likely, therefore, knew who and what he was. Did he work with the Garou whose picture was in the hall? Or was there a third party, unknown to both?

  Why the hell wouldn’t the Warders return his calls?

  He punched the trunk in frustration, and a thin branch swayed under the impact, snapped, fell, shattered to pieces at his feet.

  And something moved on the bark.

  It startled him into taking a step backward, then puzzled him into drawer nearer again.

  He smiled, but briefly.

  A chameleon, ridged skin almost the exact hue of the bark, moved ponderously around the trunk toward the thick stump of a branch. Its tail was blunt, its sawtooth back broad, its head marked by a pair of forward-aiming horns.

  Gently Richard picked it up and carried it in his palm to the table, sat, and watched it lumber toward the vase.

  Gray shifted to sandstone.

  Almost, but not quite.

  He leaned back and stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, studying the little beast, watching it try to vanish. One hand shook the table slightly, and the chameleon froze, sandstone lids slipping over its bulbous eyes.

  Now. Now it was gone.

  The soughing became a keening, and beneath it a deep calling that turned his head toward the tree. In the uppermost branches, the ones that formed jagged cracks in the emerald-streaked sky, he saw a bird, huge and brown.

  “Ah,” he said, and nodded to it. “I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.”

  The owl’s wings spread, and the wind took it aloft.

  He followed its effortless glide above the ruins, shifted back a little when the owl began its glide, wings high, talons out. soundless save for the wind, until it swept with a rush across the table and vanished over the far, falling wall.

  He had to brush a hand across the table to make the chameleon was actually gone.

  The keening became a roar.

  He didn’t keep track of the time he sat there.

  Time, in the desert, meant less than nothing.

  When he finally rose, he lifted his face to the wind and the emerald sky and the hunter bird, and he shifted.

  And he bellowed until walls began to crack, and the stone vase exploded.

  Shifted again and walked to the nearest gate. When his shadow brushed the tree, the tree shimmered and fell to dust, twisting slowly in the wind.

  He opened his eyes, feeling the desert heat still radiating from his skin. He sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, stripped to the waist, feet bare, hands cupped lightly over his knees.

  In the middle of the sitting room, Joanne sat in a chair, legs out, hands in her jeans pockets.

  “You were gone a long time,” she said when he allowed himself a smile of greeting.

  “I guess.” His voice was hoarse, his throat dry. “It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

  She glanced at the window. “The sun’s down.”

  He eased himself to the edge of the mattress, grimacing as he straightened his legs. “Then it was a long time.”

  “Where … where were you?”

  “Away. I’m sorry, but that’s the best way I can describe it. Away. In a place, like I said, where I’d hoped to find some answers.”

  “Did you?” She hadn’t moved.

  He shivered a little in the room’s cool air. “I don’t know. I think so. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Things where I was, they aren’t always what they seem.”

  She moistened her lips. “And sometimes they are?”

  “Yep.”

  “So how do you kn
ow the difference?”

  He laughed quietly. “Practice. And a whole ton of mistakes.”

  She drew her feet back toward the chair and sat up. “You made a noise there, at the end.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I did?”

  “Kind of a grunting or something. Like you were growling.”

  He looked at her in admiration. “You know, Detective, you’re taking all this damn calmly.”

  “The hell I am.” She wiped a hand under her nose. “I’m sitting in a room with a half-naked man, who, if you can believe it, can turn himself into a wolf.”

  “A sort of wolf.”

  “Whatever. And he tells me there are others like him, all over the damn place. One of them, he tells me, is the guy I’m after. Then he sits there, on that bed, in some kind of spooky trance, doesn’t move a muscle for hours, makes me think maybe he’s some kind of dead, makes these noises that scares the shit out of me, then has the nerve to tell me that I’m taking all this damn calmly.”

  She took a deep breath.

  “You could have been killed, you stupid son of a bitch.” Her voice deepened. “Anyone could have come in here while you were like that, and you could have been killed!”

  “I would have known, Jo. I would have sensed it.”

  “You could have been killed,” she insisted, and something glittered in her eyes. Then she spat dryly. “Calmly. Good … Lord.”

  Another deep breath.

  “And if you don’t stop looking at me like that, Turpin, I’m going to scream my frigging head off.”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it, it just started, and once started, he couldn’t stop it. When she stood, fists at her side, he raised his hands in apology, laughed even harder, and fell onto his back, bounced to a sitting position, and she was there, right there, standing at his knees.

  Hands still raised, he gulped for air, forced himself to calm down, and hiccuped so loudly he started laughing again …

  She stared.

  “Oh, God.” He shook his head violently. “Oh, God,” and used the backs of his hands to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  “The noise,” she said evenly.

  He looked into her eyes, and sobered. “Yes?”

  “What did it mean?”

  “I’m a hunter,” he told her.

  “I know that.”

  “It means the hunt has begun.”

  For a moment, just a moment, the lobby was empty.

  Silent except for the distant sound of the wind.

  A long table had been set up against the west wall, opposite the elevators, a white cloth draped over it, four chairs behind. The Green Room Restaurant’s tall double doors were open, the tables inside the elegant dining room pushed against the walls. The easels had been taken down, the photographs gone.

  For a moment, just a moment, nothing moved.

  A cough, then, and a murmur as a group of people came out of the bar’s rear entrance, their footsteps echoing until they reached the carpet.

  The contest judges took their seats behind the table—an artist, a professional costumer designer, and an editor from the sponsoring publisher. The fourth chair was for the guest of honor, but Marcus Spiro hadn’t yet arrived; no one seemed too concerned. Low voices from above as regular guests lined the gallery railings, while others drifted around the lobby perimeter. Waiting.

  The muffled cry of a siren.

  The sound of the wind.

  When the elevator doors next opened, the evening began.

  They drifted out in singles and in pairs, their costumes simple in the beginning—generations of Star Trek, uniforms and masks, and a few who had almost learned the art of latex and paint. Star Wars. The Highlander. A few capes and white faces and red-tipped fangs. Doctor Who. They were nervous despite their smiles, avoiding the judges’ gazes, avoiding those who watched from above and behind. Walking slowly. Posing. Trying a bit too hard not to stare at the competition.

  The doors opened.

  The doors closed.

  A princess from someone’s book, in glitter and gown, with a page for an escort and a tiny dragon on her shoulder that spat sparks for fire; a Southern belle in a hoop skirt with a parasol and a wide-brimmed hat, with an exquisite leopard’s face and a leopard’s tail, and where flesh should have been there was fur; a satyr complete with cloven hooves and pointed ears; an impossibly tall Frankenstein’s monster-, a couple in Elizabethan dress, the woman carrying her grinning head under her arm, the man carrying an executioner’s ax.

  A slender figure dressed in shimmering black; when he raised his arms before the judges, his cloak was lined with black feathers edged in silver and gold.

  Toad and Mole; Pinhead and the Candyman; Xena and Hercules; the Hunchback of Notre Dame and a scantily clad Esmeralda.

  The lobby filled.

  There was, here and there, a smattering of applause. A few catcalls and some laughter. Whistles. More applause.

  Antennae and claws, rhinestones and feathers, chain mail and leggings.

  They flowed smoothly in and out of the lobby and Green Room, the best always in character, whether fairy tale or nightmare.

  The judges conferred and made notes, and the fourth chair remained empty.

  Wanda leaned back against the wall beside the bar’s entrance. To her right, some thirty yards away, was the hotel’s Broad Street entrance; directly ahead was the boutique promenade that led to the parking garage entrance; and to her left another sixty feet distant were the backs of scores of people watching the costume contest.

  Her hands were deep in her trench coat pockets, and though her expression was studiously blank, she was more than a little disturbed.

  The storm had changed everything.

  She could see the glitter of sleet turned to snow, and knew it was going to be hell getting out of the city tonight. She was a Georgia woman herself; she knew how folks down here reacted to unexpected winter storms like this, storms more suitable to places north of the Mason-Dixon line. If she wanted to put some distance between her and what pursuit there might be, she had to act within the hour, or she’d be lost.

  In more ways than one.

  Applause filled the lobby.

  Beyond the heads of the onlookers, she spotted the glare of television lights.

  Maybe she just ought to leave. Now. Crimmins could hardly blame her. A touch of sugar in her voice would smooth that old man’s temper. Besides, there would be other times, other places, where her particular skills would be needed.

  She didn’t move.

  Her left hand left its pocket and touched the back of her head, touched the lump Blanchard had left there.

  A spattering of laughter; a few more catcalls and whistles.

  The crowd shifted, people exchanging places, coming down the stairs from the gallery, going up in search of a better view.

  The hand returned to her pocket.

  Her priorities had changed. Turpin was no longer at the head of the list. He would die if she had the opportunity, but she wanted Miles Blanchard.

  Not dead; that would be too easy.

  What she would do, what her silver blade would do, would make sure that nothing in that stupid kit of his would ever be able hide him again.

  He would be, quite literally, a marked man.

  And only then, when she felt like it, would she cut out his heart and shove it down his throat.

  The elevator doors opened, and Beauty and the Beast stepped out, courtly and splendid.

  One more time, Richard thought, dropping wearily onto the couch and grabbing the telephone; one more time.

  Jo stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “You’re stalling.”

  Chesney didn’t answer his phone; neither did Viana or Poulard.

  He could hear the patter of sleet on the pane behind him, punched by the wind.

  “Richard, come on, you’re stalling.”

  With a disgusted noise he replaced the receiver and looked out at the city. The lights were extra bright, and
a car skidded across the intersection in maddeningly slow motion.

  Her voice was quiet and hard: “They say, you have an idea, Detective? You think you have a hunch? Fine. Pursue it on your own time, don’t come crying to us when you get burned, ‘cause we don’t know you.”

  He shifted his gaze to her face.

  “If you’re right, they take the credit; if you’re wrong, they’ve already put the distance between you, and you get all the blame when the shit comes down.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not the same, Jo.”

  “They’ve cut you loose, Richard, and you know it. Think about what they said to you, for God’s sake. They never really expected you to bring this rogue thing back alive, and you know it. But because you’re you, they expect you to try, and they don’t expect you to come back at all.”

  “No. It’s not like that.”

  “Oh, yeah, it is,” she contradicted softly, reached out and grabbed his hand. Pulled gently until he stood. “Yeah, Richard, it is.”

  “If you’re so smart, you want to tell me why?”

  She grinned. “I’m working on it.”

  So am I, he thought reluctantly; so am I.

  “Meanwhile, we get this rogue who isn’t really a rogue, right?” She slipped on her jacket, clipped her holster onto her belt at the small of her back.

  “And I suppose you know who it is.”

  She stared at him, surprised. “Well, sure. Leon Hendean.”

  He gaped.

  She reminded him of their talk with Curly Guestin, that he had complained that he hadn’t been the one to fix the glider Trish McCormick had used the day she’d died. No one else worked at the place, except its owner. No one else had been there the day of the murder, except Hendean. If, she continued as they left the room, Richard could go down the mountainside, so could Hendean; it was entirely possible he had planned the woman’s death. Maybe Curly had figured it out, and had to be killed for it. As well, she added, as to bring more attention to himself.

  “To get me down here.”

  She nodded.

  He rubbed the back of his neck absently, following her down the hall. “No proof, though.”

  “We’ll get it. Be patient. First, we have to get hold of our boy.”