Carys stood aside from the doorway so that Peter could see the creature chained up to the wall by the silver chains and manacles. A huge wolf, its grey-white fur matted and stained. Red eyes gleamed hungrily in the light filtering in from the main room. Massive jaws crunched together as the animal strained at its bonds. Claws raked the air as it tried desperately to reach its prey. To reach Peter.
He stepped back, throat dry and stomach dropping away with fear. Even though he knew, he breathed. “What the hell is it?”
“It’s Mr Seymour,” Carys said, looking back the creature. Fear, pity and anger all mixed together in her expression. “It’s my grandfather.”
“The reaction’s more extreme in direct moonlight,” Carys told him.
“More extreme? It looks pretty extreme to me right now,” Peter said.
He was sitting on the bottom step. The creature that was actually Mr Seymour growled and whimpered in the next room. Occasionally it let out a howl of rage. The heavy cellar door from the pub blocked the sound.
“I thought you should know. Since you’ve already seen, already experienced…” She didn’t need to say what.
“Thanks.”
Mrs Seymour came through from the room where the creature was chained up.
“He’s calmer now. We do what we can for him,” she told Peter.
“I’m sure. Has he always…?”
“My father-in-law has been like this for as long as I’ve known him,” she said. “Though when I married Jeff , I didn’t… Well, never mind. It’s not hereditary, not in this form. Thank God.”
“Just so long as we don’t let him bite any of us,” Carys said.
“There’s no cure?” Peter asked. Immediately he felt daft. “Of course not,” he answered his own question.
“The wolf’s blight can counteract the effects of a bite,” Mrs Seymour said, “but it has to be administered almost at once.” She turned to Carys. “I can cope for now. If you two want to take a break.”
Carys nodded. “I should get back to the bar. Just in case anyone comes in.” She gave her mum a hug.
Abby and Mike had gone and the pub seemed deserted.
“Does everyone know about… you know?” Peter wondered.
Carys shook her head. “Not specifically. But the locals know not to go out when it’s a full moon. That’s just the way it is round here. Always has been.”
They went into the restaurant, and sat at a table by the glass-fronted bookshelves.
“What do you know about werewolves?” Carys asked.
“Loads,” Peter said. “And nothing… I mean I’ve seen films and stuff. So I know that if you get bitten you turn into one. Then you change into a wolf every full moon, and you can only be killed with a silver bullet. But is any of that actually true?”
“There’s some truth in it. Though lots of it was made up for the movies. Even more is rumour or gossip passed down through the centuries.”
“But – I mean, werewolves – they’re just a story, a myth. Well,” Peter corrected himself, “they’re obviously not, but even so…”
“There’s a lot of legend and myth surrounding them, shrouding the truth,” Carys agreed. “I already told you that most werewolves can choose whether or not they change in the days and nights close to a full moon – what we call the cusp. They only really lose control when the moon is actually full. Though Grandad’s so old and weak now that he finds it hard not to change on any cusp night.”
“But why do they change at all?” Peter wondered. “I mean it’s not, well, magic, is it?”
“There are theories. Lunacy gets its name from the fact that some people who are mentally ill seem even more insane on a full moon. There are suggestions that it’s maybe to do with the moon’s gravity affecting the fluid content of people’s brains.”
“Like it affects the tides?”
“Exactly.”
“But don’t people know? Important people – like the government? Surely there would be scientists working on it.”
Carys sighed. “It’s always been ignored. People try to forget about it or pretend it really is just a legend. And, to be fair, it’s not like there are many werewolves about these days.”
“Except here,” Peter said. “Except now.”
“True. But that’s… unusual.”
“Then there must be a reason.”
Carys opened the bookcase, looking along the titles. “This place has always been associated with the wolf,” she said. “Hence it’s name. You know the legend of the du Bois family and the stories about the origin of the stones?”
Peter certainly did. He’d dreamed it – more than that, he’d experienced it.
“So people have known about werewolves for centuries,” Carys said.
“Ah!” She had found the book she was looking for. She pulled over a chair to stand on and reached it down from a high shelf. The book was old, bound in leather and filmed with dust. She placed it carefully on the table and leafed through the thick, yellowing pages.
“It’s a translation of a French book from the eighteenth century.”
She turned the book so Peter could read it. The print was old and faded and the paper was dry and brittle.
That night, Antoine was walking in the forest close to his home as he was wont to do, and the moon was full and clear. As he walked, a wolf attacked Antoine and would have slain him but that Antoine never travelled without his sword. He smote the beast, and did sever the animal’s forepaw, which was cut clean away and fell to the forest floor.
The wolf howled in pain and limped away, wounded. Antoine recovered his breath and cleaned his sword. He took the paw of the wolf and placed it in his bag to prove to others that the great beast was a danger and should be hunted.
Then Antoine went to the house of his friend Jules, who lived nearby, so he could rest and recover his strength, and tell his story.
But when he took the beast’s paw from his bag to show his friend, the skin was smooth and it had become the elegant hand of a woman. There was a ring on the third finger of the hand, which bore a stone both men knew at once.
They took their swords and ascended to the bedchamber where Jules found his wife bandaging the stump of her wrist. And together Antoine and Jules did slay the beast.
“They killed her?” Peter said in surprise.
“Of course. As they saw it, she was a monster. But don’t forget every werewolf story is also a tragedy. The wolf doesn’t choose his nature – it’s inherited, or caught from a bite. No one wants to be like this, and most of the time they’re perfectly normal.”
“I guess it’s only a story,” Peter said.
“Every fiction has some truth behind it,” Carys said. She closed the book, climbing up on the chair again to put it back. “Ovid told a similar story,” she said. “You know who Ovid was?”
“Roman poet,” Peter said. “Dad bangs on about him sometimes. He was around just as BC became AD.”
“There was another Roman writer called Petronius, I think,” Carys said, “who told of a soldier who stripped off his armour in some sort of fit. His servant ran to a nearby farmhouse for help, and was told the dwelling had just been attacked by a wolf that was driven off and wounded.”
“And that was the soldier?”
Carys nodded. “When the servant found his master again, the soldier had a sword wound in his shoulder. And don’t forget that Rome was founded by twins who were brought up by a she-wolf.”
“Now that is just a story,” Peter said. “There have always been wolves in stories.”
“Usually as the villains,” Carys pointed out. “Think of Red Riding Hood, or The Three Little Pigs.”
“Peter and the Wolf?” Peter suggested with a smile.
“Beauty and the Beast is the same sort of story too. We’ve always been afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”
Peter frowned. “Are you suggesting it’s more than just a fear of being attacked and killed?”
“Why just wolves? There
are other animals that can kill. Wolves aren’t even that dangerous to humans, not usually – remember what Janey said at the sanctuary? The fear stems from something deeper, more personal.”
“The fear that we might not just die. We might actually become the thing we fear,” Peter said.
“It’s a thought, isn’t it?”
They sat in silence for a while. Then Carys said, “I used to think they were all just stories, and that my grandad was the only one. That he was special. I guess that made things easier to cope with, seeing it like that.”
“What changed your mind?” Peter asked.
“The weight of evidence. If they are all just stories, there are a hell of a lot of them. You know, werewolves were seen as such a serious problem in medieval France that they started a register. Every case had to be reported and logged, though a huge number must have gone unreported. Guess how many werewolf cases are registered in the hundred years from 1520?”
Peter had no idea. “Perhaps a couple a year, I suppose,” he guessed. “And some of those would be mistakes… So maybe three hundred?”
“Not even close. Add a few noughts and you’re there.”
“How many?”
“Over thirty thousand.”
Peter was surprised and shocked. “If only a fraction of those were actually true, that’s still… a hell of a lot.”
Carys was reaching down another book. This one was not so old. It had a plain cover, and Peter just caught the title on the spine: The Werewolf in Fact and Fiction.
“Here we are.” Carys ran her finger down the text as she read. “The English clergyman Montague Summers claimed the werewolf myth was reality. He described a creature possessed of all the characteristics, the foul appetites, ferocity, cunning, the brute strength, the swiftness of that animal…”
“More medieval superstition?” Peter said, though he didn’t for a moment believe that was all it was.
“Summers was writing in 1933,” Carys said. “People still believed even then.”
“And with good cause,” Peter agreed. “But like I said – why here, why now? And what’s it got to do with poor Annabelle Forrest? You know what I don’t get?”
“Surprise me.”
“Forrest himself is involved, right – in whatever is going on. I saw him.”
“So?”
“So why’s he got Dad doing a survey of the stone circle if he’s conducting some sort of weird ceremony there? You’d think he’d want to keep it private. Off limits.”
“But that’s just it,” Carys realised. “He has. Everyone knows that your dad’s working up there and the locals have been asked to keep away so as not to interfere with the work.”
“Of course – so Forrest knows he’s safe when Dad and Abby and Mike aren’t there. Maybe he arranged it so that Dad got called away when there was a full moon?”
“It’s a possibility. And you asked “Why now?” Maybe that’s the answer – it’s only now that Forrest owns the circle. It was in the du Bois family for centuries before that.”
“Why did they sell up?”
Carys didn’t know. “They”ve not lived here for decades. Not since the Second World War, Grandad said. I think he knew old Lionel du Bois.”
“He’s older than he looks, your grandfather.”
“Something to do with his condition, Mum says. But none of us really understands it.”
Mention of her grandfather prompted Carys to check her mum was coping. While she was gone, Peter looked again at the book by the local historian, Arterton. There was a short section about the fabled ‘lost’ Rogue Stone. He showed it to Carys when she returned.
“I’ve seen it,” he said. “It’s not lost. It’s in the cellar under Wolfstone Manor.”
“They must have built the place round it,” Carys said.
“How’s your grandad?”
She made a face. Obviously he wasn’t good. “I just wish…” She shook her head.
“Do you want to call it a day?” Peter offered. “If you need to—”
“No, no.” She cut him off. “Mum’s coping. She doesn’t really want me there fussing and worrying. She gets very protective. Tell me again about the other lot.”
“Sorry?”
“You said another lot turned up, in a helicopter, to this ceremony or whatever it was.”
Peter repeated what he could remember. He described again the man they had called the Old One – with his limp arm and grey skin. “I just ran for it, hid in the woods. One of the wolves found me, but I fought it off.”
Carys looked impressed, which was a first. “It didn’t bite you?”
“No, I’m sure it didn’t. It got a sharp branch through its paw.” He demonstrated with his finger, poking it into his palm. “Then I got shot… Hang on!”
“What is it?”
Peter jumped to his feet. “They shot me with a dart. I pulled it out and put it in my coat pocket. I bet it’s still there!”
“Careful!” Carys warned as Peter rummaged through his pockets.
They’d gone to his room, and he was emptying out his coat on the bed. There was a half-finished pack of Polo mints, scraps of paper and old receipts… And, finally, the small metal dart.
Carys picked it up carefully, holding it through a tissue. The back end of the dart was a glass vial. She held it up to the light and they could see there were several drops of clear liquid inside the small reservoir.
“Venom?” Peter wondered.
“Saliva, I’dguess.”
“Like being bitten at long range.” He peered closer. “What’s that? Something’s scratched on the glass.”
“The manufacturer’s logo? Might be a number. Looks like a figure of eight.”
Peter carefully took the dart from Carys and looked for himself. It might have been a figure of eight, though it was angular – like two squares, one on top of the other. “I’ve seen this somewhere before,” he remembered. “And recently.” He thought hard. He could see the symbol, on a notice. Outside a building… “At the Lupine Sanctuary.”
“Why would they have the same symbol?” Carys said. “Unless Janey and the others are involved somehow…”
“They do work with wolves,” Peter pointed out.
Carys wasn’t convinced. A few minutes with Peter’s laptop proved she was right to be sceptical. The logo that looked like a squared figure of eight was actually the letters EI written over each other.
“Einzel Industries is the name of the company that sponsors the sanctuary’s work,” Peter said, scaning the screen. “As well as Forrest.” He clicked through to a website for the corporation. “Based in Vrolask, wherever that is.” There was a page of location information – the nearest airport was given as “St Petersburg (LED)”.
“I recognise that too,” Peter said, feeling suddenly cold. “I found an airline ticket, just the stub – the boarding pass – in Annabelle’s room at the Manor. ‘LED’ was one of the airports. The other one was ‘LHR’, which is London Heathrow. That’s quite a coincidence.”
Carys was looking over Peter’s shoulder at the screen. “More of a coincidence than you think,” she said. “David Forrest had a plane ticket to St Petersburg. I saw it when I was cleaning his room the other day. That must be where he and his father have gone. And Vrolask – where this Einzel Industries company is based – is also where the other stone circle is. The one in Russia that’s laid out exactly the same as Wolfstone.”
If Forrest had taken Annabelle to Russia, then there was nothing Peter could do to help her. Unless he followed them there, but that was hardly an option. He felt tired and suddenly he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
Carys obviously noticed. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep.”
“You don’t seem tired.” He wasn’t sure if he was jealous or feeling guilty that he couldn’t keep going himself.
“I knew I was in for a difficult night with Grandad, so I slept this afternoon. We’ve kind of got into a routine. I’ll go and ta
ke over for a bit so Mum can get some rest.”
Peter yawned. “I’m sorry I’m so useless.”
“You’re not useless.” She smiled. “Not entirely. I doubt we can persuade Mum we need to go to Russia. But we should check out Wolfstone Manor again tomorrow.”
The next morning was bright and sunny. Peter thought they’d get a lecture from Carys’s mother about how the manor was private property and they’d be trespassing if they went up there. They didn’t. Instead, she insisted on coming with them.
“I don’t like what’s happening here,” Faye Seymour said simply. “Things aren’t right. I can tell.”
Peter half expected her to add that she’d cast the runes and dealt the cards and consulted the talisman of Mercury or whatever. But she did seem genuinely worried – which for someone whose father-in-law was a werewolf meant things must be pretty serious.
They walked so as not to attract any more attention than they had to. They talked about everything and nothing as they went.
Glancing back, Peter thought he saw movement in the trees that lined the footpath. But it was a good way back, and the sun was in his eyes. Probably nothing. But he couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that they were being watched.
The feeling grew more intense as they approached the manor. In daylight, it was still forbidding, the detail lost in shadows. Peter showed them where he had prised away the board over the window, and they climbed inside.
Faye Seymour looked round in obvious distaste. “I suppose it’s been empty for quite a while,” she said. “But really…”
Carys sighed. “It’s falling down, Mum. The whole place is a wreck, they’re not going to be sending in the cleaners every week.”
There was a tearing, creaking sound from behind them. They all turned as the board over the window was torn away. A dark shape hauled itself up and through the window, landing heavily and crouching inside the room.
Peter felt a rush of adrenaline and fear. Carys gave a startled cry. Only Faye seemed unsurprised.
“I thought you were asleep,” she accused.
The Wolfstone Curse Page 11
