White Fangs (12 page)

"Belle, where's Len?" Hal asked, glancing warily around the sitting room.

The woman began to speak, then swooned a little and only the wall was holding her up. She put a shaking hand over her mouth and began to cry in silence, tears trickling down her cheeks. Jack had seen grief far too often in his life and he recognized it, but there was more than sorrow in Belle's anguish. She seemed to want to bolt or to scream, and the way she avoided their eyes spoke of dreadful shame. Her hand slid away from covering her mouth to rub at her throat.

Belle whispered something Jack didn't catch.

"What's that?" Hal asked.

Ghost growled softly. "She said, 'he was so hungry.'"

Jack had a terrible feeling she didn't mean her husband. He glanced at Ghost. "Go have a look."

"You giving me orders now, Jack?" Ghost asked. "Now that you're captain, I mean?"

"There's no ship," Jack replied. "No captain. You want to stay with us, you do your part."

Ghost tilted his head, then gave a small shrug as if he found this eminently reasonable. He strode swiftly from the sitting room, every step full of animal power.

"I don't have to search the rooms," he called back to them. "I could smell him as we came up the steps."

A moment later Ghost returned, carrying the corpse of a slender man in his mid fifties. Len Truman's throat had been torn out, but the ravaged flesh was curiously blanched. Blood had spattered his nightshirt, but far less than there ought to have been.

"He was still in bed," Ghost said. "That's where it found him."

Nobody asked him to clarify that statement. The circumstances of Len Truman's death were clear. A vampire had murdered Len Truman while he slept. Jack studied the late merchant's wife and took two steps toward her.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head, as though she feared he might strike her. But Jack knew it wasn't violence she feared. Not now.

"This is damn inconvenient," Callie said. "I came all the way up here. If I don't get paid, I got no way to pay my way home."

Sabine shushed her and approached Belle Truman, who flinched at first but then allowed herself to be touched. Grim-eyed, Sabine removed Belle's hand from her neck and turned her slightly so that the gloom filtering through the curtains revealed two small wounds on her throat, crusted over with dried blood.

"Why didn't it kill her?" Sabine asked, glancing at Callie.

"Some they kill. Some they just sip at for a while, get 'em weak and confused. Does somethin' to their minds, bein' taken that way, like they got some kinda enchantment on 'em," Callie said. Then she glanced at Jack. "But it'll be back. No question. Once they get a taste, they might take a little at a time, but eventually they take it all. It ain't just blood they drink; it's life."

The tears had begun to dry on Belle Truman's face. Jack thought he saw a flicker of hope there, and for a moment he believed she felt relief that they had come to her aid. Then she met his gaze and the defiant animosity in her eyes made him realize his mistake; it had been Callie's words that gave her hope. Now that she'd been touched by the vampire — blooded by it — she yearned for its return. Something about the process had begun to corrupt her already.

"Get out," she said, her voice flat and terse.

"We've got to get the sheriff," Hal said. "Jack, will you go? I don't want to leave her."

Jack nodded. He had no idea how much of the vampire's evil influence and power its infection might have given Belle Truman, but Callie was there with her silver bullets and her expertise. If danger arose, she would handle it. He almost asked Sabine to come along just to keep her away from Ghost, but then he noticed the way that the werewolf was staring at the ragged wound in Len Truman's throat. He held the corpse like a precious child, but gazed at that wound with a diabolical hunger.

"Ghost, why don't you come with me," Jack said.

The former captain shot a dark look at him. "Afraid you won't find your way back?"

"Put the body down and come with me."

Jack glanced at Callie, who sensed the tension between them and slid a hand to rest on the gun at her right hip. Ghost saw it, too, and knew what kind of bullets were in that gun.

"You're not fast enough, woman," he snarled. "Trust me."

But he dropped the corpse of Len Truman to the wooden floor, where it hit with the crack of breaking bone, and stepped over the dead man as he strode to the door without looking back.

"I'll be quick," Jack said, his eyes meeting Sabine's before he hurried after Ghost.

He caught up to the hulking monster at the bottom of the stairs but said nothing as they walked out to the main street. When Jack turned right, leading the way toward the sheriff's office, Ghost laughed softly.

"What's funny?" Jack asked.

"You," Ghost said, shaking his head in amiable amusement. "You can't make me human, Jack. And you can't tame me."

"No," Jack agreed. "Though I do wonder if you can be civilized."

Ghost did not respond. When Jack glanced at him, he saw that the monster's expression had turned contemplative, as though he wondered the very same thing.

When Jack had last been in Dawson, the sheriff had been a man named Forster, an unwashed lout with a bad mustache, skin like leather, and body odor powerful enough to kill hawks flying overhead and cause them to plummet, dead, to the street. Expecting the beady-eyed Forster, Jack felt distinct relief when he and Ghost entered the jailhouse to find a new man wore the badge. A single glance told him a great deal about the current sheriff. Five foot seven, he'd have been a couple of inches taller if not for the curve of his back that put him in a permanent slouch. Perhaps fifty, he had thinning hair but a much more impressive mustache than his predecessor's. His gut was of ample girth, as if he'd never let a plate of food pass with taking his toll upon it, yet instead of making him seem ridiculous, his barrel-shape only leant to an overall air of formidability. Jack had seen arms as thick as the sheriff's before, but only on dockworkers in Oakland and San Francisco.

"And who might you be?" the sheriff asked, glancing around from where he'd been hammering a nail into the wall, presumably to hang a framed painting that rested on top of his desk.

Jack thought about offering his hand to shake, but the sheriff held a hammer and nail, and anyway didn't seem much interested in formalities.

"I'm Jack London," he said. "This is Ghost Nilsson. It's my second trip to Dawson, sheriff, but Ghost is a newcomer. We just arrived with a small group — all that's left of the passengers who came upriver with us on the
Fort McGurry."

The sheriff grimaced, looked like he might be about to curse loudly, but fought the urge. His knuckles were white on the handle of his hammer.

"I'm guessing you weren't hit by bandits or pirates," the sheriff said.

Jack saw Ghost smile at the mention of pirates, but fortunately the monster said nothing.

"I think you know exactly what attacked us," Jack said. "They stalked us through the night, killed most of our companions. We were lucky to make it to Dawson alive."

"Lucky don't even cover," the sheriff said, stroking that long, thick, drooping mustache. "Miraculous is more like it. But you're wrong, Mr. London. Lots of whispers in Dawson about what's out there . . . what sneaks in here at night . . . but
know
what it is? Not me."

"There's more," Ghost said, his voice a low rumble. He seemed to be sizing up the sheriff. For all the breadth of Ghost's shoulders and the thick cables of his muscles, Jack thought he saw respect in Ghost's eyes.

"Isn't there always more?" the sheriff asked, finally putting the hammer and nail back on his desk and facing them fully, ready to do his duty, whatever it might be.

"A woman in our party, Callie King, was hired by Len Truman to come to Dawson to try to help with your . . . pest problem," Jack explained. "Seems she's encountered this sort of thing before and Truman knew it. Our first stop was his store, which was still locked up tight. We checked on the Trumans upstairs and found Len dead and his wife . . . unwell."

"Son of a bitch," the sheriff said, shaking his head sadly. Jack saw a flicker of suspicion touched his eyes and he studied them both a little more closely, lingering on Ghost. "How do I know —"

"You don't," Ghost said sharply. "But we left others behind with Mrs. Truman, including a boy named Hal Sawyer, who is a friend of Jack's. If his word means anything to you, he'll vouch for us. If not . . . you can try to arrest us."

The sheriff bristled at the challenge in Ghost's tone. Ghost grinned, as if hoping the man would decide they were murder suspects and attempt to put them in jail, and for a moment Jack thought the sheriff might do just that, not because he had any real reason to suspect them of a crime but because he was the kind of man who wasn't used to anyone riling him up on purpose. One of the rules Jack lived his life by was very simple. He'd learned it on the street at the age of nine, thanks to a bully who'd coveted a baseball glove Jack had found in the attic of the house where he and his mother and sister were living.

Don't poke the bear
, the bully had said,
unless you're ready for the teeth
.

Jack had knocked out several of the bully's teeth that day, but that hadn't diluted the wisdom of the words. The problem here was that the sheriff thought he was the bear. A lifetime of reinforcement had made it natural for him to make that assumption, but today it could maim or kill him.

"Look, sheriff," Jack said, stepping between them. "We're not a part of this. The only reason we're involved is because we were on that steamer with Callie King and wanted to see her safely to her destination. But we'll go back to the Trumans' place with you and answer whatever questions you have. After that, a bath and a meal would suit us both. I know he nights are short up here this time of year, but this last one felt like forever."

The sheriff seemed mollified by this. He looked thoughtful a moment and then nodded. Resting one hand on his gun belt, he thrust out a hand. "Walrus Killebrew."

"Pleased to meet you, Walrus," Jack said, shaking his hand.

"My momma named me Walter, but some folks think Walrus fits," Sheriff Killebrew said, arching an eyebrow. "Best if you keep your thoughts on that to yourself." He glanced at Ghost. "What about you, sir? Where did you come by your name?"

Ghost shook his hand, both men taking the other's measure again.

"I should be dead," Ghost said. "But somehow I'm still here."

"Fella, I wake up every day thinking the same thing," Sheriff Killebrew replied, giving Ghost's hand a firmer shake before letting it go.

A strange, grudging respect seemed to have formed between them like a temporary truce, though Jack thought both men would be keeping an eye on each other. Sheriff Killebrew turned to Jack and gave another thoughtful pause.

"I said I don't know what they are . . . these things," the sheriff said. "But there's at least one man who thinks he knows. I guess Hal will have told you lots of folks in Dawson blame the Indians. There's talk the Tlingits have called demons down on us 'cause we're stripping the gold from their ancestral lands. But there's a fella named Kikono — kind of a medicine man type for the local Tlingits — who has an interesting story to tell."

"And what does he say?" Ghost asked, scratching at his beard, blue eyes haunted with curiosity.

"Ask him yourself," Sheriff Killebrew said, gesturing toward the door behind him. "He's back there in a cell."

"For what crime?" Jack asked.

"For his own damn protection," Sheriff Killebrew explained, exhaling to release a stress Jack hadn't realized he was carrying. "Scared as people are, half the town thinks killing Kikono is a grand idea — thinks maybe he's the one brought these demons down on us to begin with."

"You don't believe that?" Ghost asked.

Sheriff Killebrew smiled. "Up till a couple of months ago, the most trouble Kikono ever caused in Dawson was getting so drunk he'd slip off his stool down at the bar. He's a crazy old man, but he's nice enough. The only demons he's been raising are the ones in the whiskey bottle."

Intrigued, Jack nevertheless worried they'd been gone too long and Sabine and the others might begin to wonder what had become of them.

"Shouldn't we head over to the mercantile first?" he asked.

A sad, grim look passed over the sheriff's face. "Another few minutes ain't gonna make Len Truman any deader."

"I remember you," Jack said.

The old Tlingit Indian had glanced up at the sound of their approach and a shard of memory had flickered across Jack's mind. He could picture the guy in the saloon, telling stories about all of the myths and legends of his people, trying to warn the stampeders who'd arrived in Dawson in search of gold that they might find things out in the wild that they hadn't come looking for. He had never known the man's name. Everyone had referred to the man as "the crazy old Indian" or simply "the drunk," though the latter was less specific, as there were many drunks in Dawson; it was, after all, a place of heartbreak and failure.

Kikono frowned, studying Jack's features as Sheriff Killebrew unlocked his cell and swung open the door.

"I don't know your face," Kikono said, "but you feel familiar, like I should know you."

"My name's Jack London."

The old man paused, his contemplation written in all the deep lines of his leathery countenance, and then he shrugged. Whatever thought or memory he'd been chasing, he'd given up on it. When Jack and Ghost entered the cell, though, Kikono frowned even more deeply. He sniffed the air, then held up a hand. "You stop there," he said to Ghost.

"Me?" Ghost asked, amused.

Kikono looked at the sheriff. "It would be even better if he were outside the bars, or behind his own."

"You know this fella?" Sheriff Killebrew asked.

"No," Kikono said, eyeing Ghost sternly. "I know his breed."

"He's all right," Jack said, though they all must have heard the way his voice wavered uncertainly. "We're all friends here."