by P. N. Elord
He couldn’t hope to follow the wolf in the Jeep—the beast traveled overland, in a straight line. Cormac had to stick to streets. But that was okay. The sun had started to rise. Monday morning the school would be busy, just starting its day. Good. Easy for Cormac to tell who was missing then.
He was too close to identifying the wolf to worry much about his low profile. Parked in his Jeep, he watched the campus come to life, girls in their uniforms spilling from the dorms in clumps—packs, almost—hanging around on the lawns, filing into the classrooms.
Then came his turn. He kept the rifle under the seat, automatically felt for the handgun under his jacket, and headed toward the newer school building, where most of the activity was. He scanned the faces quickly, efficiently, recognizing many of them from the church service yesterday. His wolf was around a hundred and seventy pounds, and he searched his mental catalog for anyone he’d seen who fit that description. That ruled out most of the students. But a number of the adults were that size. It would all depend on who was missing, who was away, sleeping it off.
He entered the school and made his way down the main corridor, knowing he was out of place here; his skin crawled as people looked at him, stared at him, identified him as a stranger. Wasn’t anything he could do about that, so he concentrated on the job at hand. He walked up and down the hallway once, glancing through the windows in classroom doors, marking faces, noting rooms that didn’t have a teacher in them, making a mental checklist of other staff members he ought to be looking for—administrators, even janitors. He hadn’t seen anything definitive, nothing that worked on his gut feeling. In a sense, he was trying to prove a negative here, trying to prove an identity by its absence. He had to make sure. He couldn’t be wrong when he pulled the trigger.
The building had a lobby, and he waited there while the last of the morning crowd came in and made their way to their classes. A few of the nuns were also teachers—he noted them. Also noted that he didn’t see the nun who’d spoken to him yesterday. But maybe she wasn’t a teacher. He also hadn’t seen the priest. At least, not until he went back outside, where the man was waiting for him on the sidewalk out front.
Out of his cassock now, the man wore plain black trousers and a black shirt with a clerical collar. As Cormac left the building, the priest caught his gaze and started toward him. Cormac could have avoided him, turned around or just walked away. But he’d just as soon hear what the guy had to say. He looked to weigh about a hundred and seventy.
Cormac waited, and the priest stopped in front of him. “You must be the visitor Sister Hilda told me about. I’m Father Patrick.” He didn’t offer his hand. Neither did Cormac, who only nodded a greeting. The priest didn’t seem to mind that Cormac didn’t say his name. “You seem to be looking for something,” he said.
Cormac kept it straightforward. “There’s a wild animal been killing cattle out east of here. I tracked it here. You see anything? Hear anything?”
“And here I was, hoping you were looking for redemption.”
In spite of himself, Cormac chuckled. “No. Not yet, anyway.”
“Maybe someday, then.”
In fact, Cormac was pretty sure he wouldn’t make it that far. It didn’t bear thinking on. “So I take it you haven’t seen anything? If the thing’s bedding down around here, you ought to be worried. All these kids around.”
Father Patrick gave him a quizzical look. “It’s that dangerous?”
“Yeah, it is. I think it’ll kill anything in front of it.”
“You make it sound like a monster,” Father Patrick said.
“Yeah, that’s about right.”
“And why is it up to you to hunt it? You aren’t with the Department of Wildlife, I suspect.”
“No, sir. Look, I won’t take up any more of your time—”
“Not at all.” The priest made a calming gesture with a hand. Like a saint in a religious painting. “But I would ask you to consider letting this go. I’d hate to have to call the police about a trespassing violation.”
Cormac just smiled. He’d heard shit like this a hundred times before. “I’ll get out of your hair, then.” He started to turn away.
“Also consider, that even a monster is a creature of God, and God does take care of His own,” the priest said.
Cormac looked at him. “You believe in a God that creates monsters? Monsters who murder?”
“We don’t get to choose God. We don’t get to make God. God makes us.”
He knows, Cormac thought. Or maybe . . . But he couldn’t have been the werewolf; the timing was off. He wouldn’t have had enough time to shift back to human, to dress and appear so calm and put together. At least, Cormac was pretty sure he wouldn’t have had enough time.
“You know who it is,” Cormac said. “You know what it is. Then you know it’s a devil, a demon—”
“And we’re all God’s children,” Father Patrick said firmly. “I’m going to make that phone call now.”
Cormac walked away.
It could be the priest. If he’d been a werewolf a long time, if he had the experience, maybe he could shapeshift that quickly and appear so calm just an hour after attacking Cormac, after getting shot at. But Cormac wasn’t sure that made any sense.
Something screwy was going on here. Cormac didn’t care what the old man said, he had to take care of it. He had to make the kill soon, because the full moon was approaching and he had a feeling that would be too late. That monster this morning wasn’t a creature of God; it was a pure cold killer. A child of Satan. Didn’t matter what kind of fancy theology you dressed it up in.
Someone was lounging on the hood of his Jeep. One of the students—an honest-to-God Catholic schoolgirl in a knee-length plaid skirt, cardigan, crisp shirt, and maroon tie, the knot hanging loose, about halfway down her chest. Her black hair—dyed, probably—was in a ponytail, with loose wisps hanging around her face. She was looking away at something and seemed to be chewing gum.
This place was too damn crowded, and too many people had seen him already.
Cormac was practically in front of her when she decided to look at him.
He made the automatic assessment: she was older, maybe seventeen, and full-grown. “Big-boned” was the polite way of describing her sturdy frame. Not quite big enough to be the wolf from last night. But he had to acknowledge the rather predatory look to her. She definitely didn’t seem afraid of him.
“What’s your story?” he said, resting his hands on his hips.
“I was framed,” she said. “They weren’t my drugs.”
Chuckling, he looked away. “You out here scuffing up my Jeep for a reason?”
She gave the Jeep a long, pointed look. Pale mud caked the wheel wells, the paint job had gone from olive green to pale green over the years, and rust spots had broken out across the hood, where the paint had been dinged by rocks and hail. Not to mention the shot-out window.
“I heard you talking to Father Patrick. And . . . I don’t know. I shouldn’t even be here.” She slumped away from the Jeep and started to walk away.
“Hold on there,” Cormac said. “What have you seen?”
She glanced nervously toward the school and bit her lip—a physical expression of the tension he’d been feeling since he arrived. So it wasn’t just him. “The other kids tell ghost stories. They talk about hearing noises—howling, banging on the windows. When I first got here, I thought it was just the usual thing, they’re always trying to scare the new girl. But they don’t go out at night. This is my third boarding school, and I’ve never been to one where kids didn’t break curfew. But here, they don’t. They’re scared.”
“You know that for sure?”
“Yeah. And it’s not just them. No one goes out at night. It’s the kids who double-check the locks on the doors and windows. We’ve all heard the noises. The sisters say it’s bears or coyotes. But I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“And what do you think it is?”
She ducke
d her gaze. “It’s crazy.”
Cormac gave a wry smile. “People always say that to me. Something killed some cattle on a ranch ten miles or so out, and it wasn’t coyote or bear. I tracked the thing back here. I think it may be living around here, and I think it’s not going to stay happy just killing livestock.”
The fearful look in her eyes showed shock but not surprise. He had a feeling he could have said the word “werewolf” and she wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I’ll get it,” Cormac said. “Whatever it is.”
“Okay. Good,” she said. Her smile was nervous. “I should get back—”
“Hey,” he said before she could scurry away. He had a bad idea and hated himself for even thinking it. “Would you mind doing something for me?”
He’d asked the girl to walk across the campus at midnight. That was all. Back and forth between the dormitory and the old school building, across the longest stretch of lawn, slowly and leisurely. She’d looked at him as if he were crazy, and Cormac hadn’t wanted to defend himself. He wasn’t crazy, just driven. And he lived in a different world from that of most folks, a world where monsters like vampires and werewolves existed.
Which was, in fact, one definition of crazy.
But Cormac had promised he would be there, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And that he would fix whatever the trouble was. He tried to tell himself that even if something did happen to her, it was a small price for getting rid of the werewolf. He didn’t ask for her name on purpose.
But he was nervous. He’d never worked with live bait before. Not intentionally.
He left the Jeep, plastic sheeting taped over the driver’s-side window, at the motel. It would be too hard to hide, and the werewolf would recognize it right off. Easier to sneak around on his own. But without the Jeep he didn’t have an escape route.
It was all in the setup. No reason he’d need an escape route, unless this went south. Really far south.
The open lawn separated the campus’s buildings from the street. A few trees, towering cottonwoods for the most part, with some maples scattered around and a few clumps of shrubs made up the landscaping. Not a lot of cover available. A long sidewalk led from the street to the church doors, and a couple of tall, well-trimmed shrubs served as a sort of gate at the end of the sidewalk. Cormac settled here with his rifle. The spot offered a view of the lawn and was downwind from most of the campus. The werewolf wouldn’t be able to smell him.
He arrived early and waited there for more than an hour. All the lights in all the buildings went off at ten P.M., except for a porch light over the door of the church. A faint light was visible within as well, over the altar, filtered through stained glass. Cormac supposed the door to the church was unlocked, if tradition held. Maybe that would be his escape route. Ironic.
Midnight came, and he didn’t see anything. The girl might have decided not to help him after all. He couldn’t blame her. He’d give it another half hour, then go looking for the monster himself. He had to be able to flush out the werewolf somehow. Quietly, he flexed his legs and arms, stretching in place to keep the blood flowing, to keep warm.
There she was. He recognized the dark figure by the shape of her ponytail. Out of the uniform, she wore torn jeans and hugged a short leather coat around herself, hunched over as if cold or fearful. She stomped down the walk aggressively, as though she had something to prove. Cormac might have wished for her to be more skittish—to move like a prey animal. But she was alone, obviously nervous. That would have to do to attract the wolf.
She made her way quickly across the open space, taking the concrete sidewalk from the dorms to the school building. She moved more quickly than he’d have preferred, just short of jogging, looking anxiously around her the whole time.
The werewolf wasn’t going to go for such obvious bait, Cormac decided. But he wondered. It was losing control, that much was clear. Killing livestock was the first step. Attacking people was the next. It had to know it was losing control, so why stay here? The town was rural, but this spot was full of tempting targets—a hundred kids, easy pickings. He had to conclude that the monster just didn’t care. Or the thing thought it could handle itself. And it was wrong.
Even if the werewolf was too smart to go after such an obvious target as the girl, Cormac was pretty sure the monster still had a bone to pick with him, so to speak. One way or another, the werewolf would make an appearance.
The girl was two-thirds of the way to the school building when he saw it, a shadow pouring across the lawn. It wasn’t stalking; it had already targeted her and was running, ready to strike. Wolves hunted by running, smashing into their prey, which they knocked over as they anchored their jaws and teeth in its flesh. The girl wouldn’t even see it happen. She might have enough time to scream.
No hesitation, Cormac stood, braced, aimed, and fired, all in the same motion, as reflexive as breathing.
The wolf fell and cried out.
Cormac walked toward it and fired again. The wolf flinched again. It rolled over itself in a chaos of fur, biting at its own flank, whining in pain.
The girl had stopped, frozen in fear or panic, hands to her face. Then she stepped forward, arm outstretched as if to comfort the monster.
“Get inside! Get inside right now!” Cormac yelled at her. She ran inside the dorm and slammed the door.
The silver ought to be traveling through the wolf’s veins, ought to be poisoning its heart and killing it in slow agony. The beast looked to the sound of Cormac’s voice and snarled, lips pulled away from gleaming teeth, hackles bristling. Then the wolf turned and ran.
A last burst of adrenaline, a final gasp before death. This thing wasn’t going to go down so easy after all. But it was only a matter of time.
Cormac jogged after it as it ran, trailing drops of blood, to the church.
The wolf had slowed to a stumbling trot, limping badly, to the front steps of the church, where Father Patrick was waiting for it.
Cormac watched dumbfounded as the priest guided the injured wolf inside and closed the door behind them. He ran up the steps and stopped himself against the door, rattling the handle. Locked, the son of a bitch.
On the plus side, it was an old lock on an old wooden door, a latch and not a dead bolt. He stood back, put his shoulder to it, and rammed hard, and again. The wood splintered. The third time, the latch ripped out of the wood and he was inside.
A shaded electric light illuminated the altar area of the church, at the far end of a long aisle. Father Patrick and the werewolf had made it about halfway there. A trail of blood dripped unevenly along the hardwood floor from them to the door. Cormac stepped around it, hesitating at the last pew.
The wolf was gone. Father Patrick held Sister Hilda’s body on his lap. Two bloody wounds were visible on her naked back, blackened from the poison. Dark streaks of silver-poisoned blood crawled up her back and down her legs, along the veins.
Cormac’s hands flexed, ready to raise the rifle and aim at Father Patrick.
“She smelled you. Sunday, after Mass. She knew what you were and told me. Told me to be careful.” His voice was stretched to breaking, but he held back the tears. He didn’t look at Cormac but kept his gaze on the woman. “She controlled it for forty years. She took orders to help her control it, and it worked. The routine, the structure of this life—it worked for so long. I helped her, helped take care of her. But she was losing the fight, she knew she was losing. I suppose I should thank you for doing this before she hurt anyone. She isn’t a killer. And she’s with God now. This wasn’t her fault.”
What a story. And of course it wasn’t her fault; it was never anyone’s fault, was it?
“This is just God playing tricks, is it?” Cormac said, his voice flat, his patience thin. He just wanted to get out of here.
“God sends us obstacles,” Father Patrick said. “It’s up to us to overcome them. Like she did.”
He’d killed a monster, Cormac reassured himself. He’
d done the right thing, here. He knew it.
“I have to ask—are you infected, too? Has she ever bitten you?” Cormac asked. He’d shoot the man right here if he said yes, if he even hesitated, if he gave the slightest hint that the werewolf had bitten him.
The priest shook his head and murmured, “No.”
There were ways of telling for sure. Slice his skin with a regular knife and watch if it healed fast. Slice it with the silver-inlaid knife and watch if he died from it. But Father Patrick didn’t have the wolfish look in his eyes. He didn’t have the rage, the tension, as if he were holding something back. Cormac believed him and left him alone.
Cormac retreated from the school without saying anything to the girl. He’d already done a piss-poor job of covering his tracks; no need to make it worse. At dawn’s light, he checked out of the motel and showed up on Harrison’s doorstep.
He knocked on the front door and waited for Harrison to answer, which he did after a couple of minutes. His wife was looking over his shoulder, until he barked at her to leave them alone.
“Did you finally get it?” the rancher asked.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Who was it?”
“It doesn’t matter. But you won’t have any more problems.”
“And where’s your proof that you got it?”
“Talk to Father Patrick over at the church. He’ll tell you.”
Harrison frowned, plainly not happy with that idea. “Just a minute, then.”
He went inside, leaving Cormac standing alone on the porch. Didn’t even invite him in for morning coffee. Mrs. Harrison would have invited him in, which was maybe why Mr. Harrison had ordered her away. Folks didn’t like having Cormac around much more than they liked having the monsters. Two sides of the same coin in some ways, Cormac supposed. Though Sister Hilda never killed anyone, did she? And Cormac had. Over and over.
Harrison returned with a fat envelope to round out the job. He didn’t hand it to Cormac so much as hold it out reluctantly, making Cormac take it from him.
