The Wolfman (24 page)

“Please,” urged Singh, “you must let me help him.”

“He doesn’t need your help,” snapped Sir John. “Give me the keys, Singh.”

“No, Sir John—”

Sir John set the lantern down and as fast as a snake grabbed Singh’s left wrist and pried something from between his fingers. Even from that far above Lawrence could hear the dull metal clank of keys. Sir John stepped back, snatched up his lantern, and pointed a warning finger at Singh.

“Don’t follow me,” he ordered harshly.

A
BERLINE LEFT THE
dismal streets of Blackmoor and stepped into the tavern for a wet. He shrugged out of his coat and hung it near the door, loosened his tie, and was about to call for the barman when he realized
that the entire establishment had gone quiet. He turned. Every eye in the place was on him, and in every eye there was suspicion and fear.

Bloody superstitious fools,
he thought and hung his hat next to his coat. He saw a young man—Cramer, the bar-back—coming toward him, but Aberline sank into a seat and unfolded the London paper. He was already engrossed in the paper when someone stopped in front of his table.

“Pint of bitters, please. And if you have any steak and kidney pie I—” He stopped talking as he glanced up and saw that it was not Cramer but rather the publican’s wife, Mrs. Kirk, who stood there, fists on hips, her face harsh with disapproval.

“Good evening, Mrs. Kirk,” said Aberline.

“Why aren’t you out with MacQueen trying to catch that thing what killed my husband?”

Aberline leaned back in his seat and appraised the widow. When he spoke he pitched his voice loud enough for the other patrons of the tavern to hear what he had to say. “Seeing as I don’t know where the lunatic will strike, it seems the most practical thing to do is stay as near as possible to the potential victims. And seeing that two hundred and fourteen of the three hundred and eleven residents of Blackmoor live within five hundred yards of this tavern, I was planning to spend the evening here.”

He glanced around and every face was a study in doubt and fear. Only Mrs. Kirk held her ground and kept her scowl in place.

“Here? Not Talbot Hall?”

Aberline studied her. “Interesting. Why would you say that?”

“They’re cursed,” said Mrs. Kirk. “All of them.”

Around the room, other people nodded or grunted agreement with the widow’s statement. Aberline managed to keep a smile off his face.

“ ‘Cursed.’ Yes, well, unfortunately ‘cursed’ does not get me a bench warrant to wander around Sir John’s estate at night. Rules, rules, rules.” He leaned forward and put a spooky tone in his voice. “It’s all that keeps us from a dog-eat-dog world, you know.”

Even Mrs. Kirk had no answer to that. The people in the tavern leaned their heads together and murmured. A few knocked wood and fingered crosses strung around their necks on silver chains.

Rustic buffoons,
Aberline thought. Aloud he said, “And now, Missus . . . a pint of bitters, please.”

O
UTSIDE THE MOON
rose into the sky with regal grace and the inevitability of death. It was huge and beautiful. The Goddess the Hunt reached down with claws of silver moonlight to take the village of Blackmoor by the throat.

L
awrence finished his whiskey and watched Sir John head down the path toward the forest and the gorge. Without thinking, without even knowing why he was doing it, Lawrence left his room, ran down the stairs, and followed. He did not bother to take a lantern of his own. The moonlight was very bright even though the moon had not yet risen to its full height. Lawrence followed the path his father had taken, and it wound down into the woods, and then the forest floor split as one section continued its descent into a thickly wooded valley and the other skirted the banks of a rocky pool and rose to form a line of jagged cliffs. There was a narrow path choked with young saplings that grew in the shadows of ancient yews.

Lawrence followed the lower path until it vanished into a shadowy tunnel formed by the outstretched arms of the trees. Once inside, the roof of the tunnel rose in a gentle slope and Lawrence could straighten to his full height. He moved forward quickly but quietly, all the while wondering why he did not just call out for his father. But each time he opened his mouth he closed it again. Instinct, perhaps, or the lingering sting of his father’s last words to him.

The corridor of yews opened into a clearing and Lawrence
saw the lantern for just a moment, far ahead. Moving with even greater stealth, he crept forward, knowing now where this path led and where his father was going.

When the ancient stone wall of the family mausoleum materialized out of the gloom, Lawrence knew that his guess was correct.

The door stood ajar.

Lawrence licked his dry lips and pulled the door open all the way. The creak of the ancient hinges seemed horribly loud and he paused, waiting for a sharp rebuke from his father . . . but there was no sound from within.

The place held a superstitious dread for Lawrence. His mother was buried here. And Ben. Would their ghosts welcome his intrusion? If he was truly cursed, would the sacred stone of this place allow him entry?

God
, he thought,
can I do this?

He stepped inside.

There was a short entrance foyer and then a set of wide steps led down into a large circular chamber that was bigger than Lawrence expected. Mist clung to the floor and moss grew from the cracks in the stone walls. There were sconces on the walls and candles guttered in several of them. His father’s work, he knew . . . but why?

Movement from within startled him to stillness. Hidden in shadow, Lawrence watched as Sir John moved across the chamber and stopped by a large sarcophagus. On the day of Ben’s funeral this tomb had been draped in black cloth, but now it stood revealed in the light of Sir John’s lantern. The old man stood beside it, looking down at the likeness carved on the ponderous marble cover. Then he bent and tenderly kissed the cold stone.

Then Sir John straightened and brushed at his face.
He looked around, drew a heavy breath, and then moved across the chamber and vanished into a narrow corridor.

Lawrence waited for a full minute to be sure that his father was not coming back, and then he came into the chamber, moving silently, drawn to the central sarcophagus. He could not take his eyes off of it. It was made from creamy marble, a masterwork of the stonecutter’s art. A woman in regal dress, her hands clasped upon her chest, fingers curled around the stem of a rose. A beautiful face in eternal repose, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. So real, so peaceful.

“Mother? . . .” he whispered and nearly fell to his knees.

Here she was, her likeness in stone so real that his crumbling mind thought for a moment that it
was
her, that a kiss would awaken her. Not a lover’s kiss, but one from her loving son. The son who, as a young boy, had stood by and watched with impossible horror while her lifeblood drained away in the rain on that terrible night a lifetime ago.

Tears burned in Lawrence’s eyes and he did not wipe them away, letting them fall like the rain that had fallen upon his mother that night.

“Mama,” he said, and for a moment his voice was that of an even younger child. A baby learning its first words, expressing its most basic needs and reaching out to establish its first connection with the world. He placed his hand gently atop the clasped hands. “Mama . . . I miss you,” said Lawrence Talbot.

Then a sound echoed faintly from behind him and Lawrence came instantly back to himself. He turned and searched the room with his eyes for the source of the sound, and then found it. On the far side of the chamber, half hidden at the back of a niche that held a
statue of a nameless saint, was a small door. It was open and the steady glow of lantern light shone within.

Lawrence hurried over and knelt down so he could peer inside. His father’s lantern stood just inside and its glow revealed a set of stone stairs that spiraled downward into the bedrock. His father must have gone that way.

Did Sir John know he was being followed? Did he leave the lantern as an invitation? Or did he have some other source of light down there and the lantern was merely there to help him find his way back?

“Father?” Lawrence called softly, but there was no answer.

He picked up the lantern and slipped into the walls of the mausoleum. The spiral staircase was narrow and shallow and Lawrence had to be careful not to slip. He held the lantern in front of him and its constantly advancing light gave the eerie illusion that the shadows below were slyly retreating step by step as he descended.

The stairway widened out at the base and Lawrence held the lantern high to reveal the cobbled walls of an ancient catacomb that stretched far into the darkness. There were many niches cut into the walls, each one containing a life-sized statue with arms crossed and eyes closed, and between each niche was an earthen burial chamber with carved sarcophagi. These were more than the remains of all the Talbots who had ever lived here, Lawrence knew. This crypt was vastly old and God only knew who or what had been buried down here over the centuries.

Lawrence steeled himself and began moving down the long hall of the dead, and again the movement of the lantern light transformed the shadows into capering creatures that darted out of the way as he passed. He
did not stop to examine the statues or the burial chambers. At the far end of the corridor there was a pale flickering light and all of his attention was drawn to it.

And so he never saw the eyes of one of the statues in a darkened niche open as he passed. The figure stepped out into the corridor without making a sound and when Lawrence was far enough ahead, the figure followed.

Lawrence reached the end of the hall and found another door left ajar. This one was very heavy, made from oak timbers and heavily reinforced with studded iron bands and massive hinges bolted into the unyielding rock. It had a single small window set with thick iron bars.

Lawrence took a breath and then stepped inside.

The chamber was a large vault but it was not a tomb. Instead of a sarcophagus there was a massive iron chair fixed to the floor. There were no other furnishings, but the entire chamber was littered with garbage—bits of food, empty wine bottles, waxed paper wrappers, chicken bones and other filth.

But what drew Lawrence’s attention—drew it and locked it—was a little alcove cut into the wall facing the chair. A pair of candles had been lit and their glow revealed many bunches of old roses—some withered nearly to dust—and a small portrait of
Solana Talbot
.

Lawrence stared at it, unable to look away, barely able to breathe.

“She was a magnificent woman,” said his father from right behind him.

Lawrence cried out in surprise and alarm and jumped to one side, turning to face Sir John. Lawrence had not heard his father enter the chamber.

“What . . . ,” stammered Lawrence, “what
is
this place?”

Sir John did not look at him. His eyes were focused on the portrait and he was smiling a strange, sad smile.

“She was beautiful. I know losing her wounded you deeply. It is monstrous, a young boy seeing his mother like that.” He shook his head and began pacing around the chamber.