Wolfsbane (21 page)

He just made it out of the house. Victoria's screaming filled the yard, and the yard filled with creatures out of hell, snarling and slobbering and howling. Pat spun, charging to his left as his way was blocked by a beast. He lifted his shotgun and fired twice, at almost point-blank range, the slugs hitting the creature in the belly, physically lifting the beast off its feet and hurling it backward.

He ran across the yard, cutting away from the bayou as he spotted more creatures splashing out of the waters. Headlights suddenly burst onto the yard, illuminating the horror. Car doors clunking and footsteps on the damp grass.

Sinclair and Ruth stood in the glare of the lights, the woman a full head taller than the English professor. They held something in their hands.

Pat looked closer, straining his eyes, not believing what he saw.

Frogs.

Squirmy, wiggly, croaking frogs.

Pat groaned as he raced to their side. Someone had to protect these ninnies.

The beasts stood a hundred feet away, the headlights making them cautious. They snarled and stamped their feet, not knowing what to do.

Sinclair stuck out his chest and announced, “ ‘I dare do all that may become a man;/Who dares do more is none.'”

“Oh, Sinclair!” Ruth cried. “I do love you when you're all brave and manly. You're so . . . so . . . Clint Eastwoodish. Say something else pretty.”

Pat's fingers fumbled as he reloaded the shotgun.

“Whhooo!” Sinclair yelled, shaking the frogs at the creatures. “Shake your frogs, Ruth!” he yelled.

“Whhooo!” Ruth yelled, shaking her frogs.

Gribbet, the frogs joined in.

Pat felt like weeping.

The beasts looked at one another, puzzled, then, on an unspoken cue, charged.

“Holy shit!” Sinclair momentarily departed from Shakespeare's eloquent verse. “Look at the size of those mother-fuckers!”

Pat pulled his .41 mag from leather. “Can you fire a gun?” he yelled at Sinclair.

“Heavens, no!”

“Give me that mammy-jammer!” Ruth called, catching the pistol out of mid-air. She jacked back the hammer and put two holes in a charging creature.

Pat's shotgun boomed. Another beast went down. Then the trio was racing for the car. Pat jumped behind the wheel. Sinclair had left the lights on, but had taken the keys out of the ignition.

“Gimmie the friggin' keys!” Pat hollered.

“I lost them!” Sinclair wailef from the back seat. “Run for your lives.”

“What am I suppose to do with this?” Ruth yelled, holding up a squirmy bullfrog.

“Fuck the frog!” Sinclair squalled.

Gribbet.

The trio made it out of the car just two yards ahead of the rampaging creatures. They headed for the blacktop, Sinclair's short legs pumping, pulling away from Ruth and Pat.

Pat looked behind him, slowed, then stopped. He looked all around him. The beasts were gone.

“All right!” he yelled. “Hold it. They're gone.” He caught up with Ruth and Sinclair. The small man was sitting on the side of the road, puffing.

“I failed miserably,” he announced.

“But you tried,” Pat said. “And it was a good try.”

Ruth handed Pat his .41 and then helped Sinclair to his feet.

“You mean that?” Sinclair asked.

“Sure,” Pat said. “Hell, not everyone can be John Wayne, Sinclair. And don't forget: I ran just as hard and fast as you did.”

Sinclair pulled a frog out of his pocket and tossed it into a ditch. “You were wrong, grandmother,” he said. He looked toward the dark mansion and shook his fist. “I'll be back, you Godless heathens.”

“Isn't he the brave one?” Ruth said, her arm around Sinclair's shoulders.

“Yeah,” Pat said dryly, remembering the peace and quiet of South Carolina.

When he was drunk.

“Such a silly, silly, vain little man.” Victoria's voice rang in Pat's head. “He will be a great source of amusement to me when his time comes to die. I think I shall see just how much pain he can tolerate.”

Pat knew neither Ruth nor Sinclair could hear her.

Don't sell him too short, Pat projected his reply. He may look like a sissy, but he's long on guts.

“Sylvia was my good and dear friend and companion—for years. I cannot forgive what you have done. ”

Screw you!

“You are a profane, vile man, Pat Strange. I don't know what I'm going to do with you.”

You're going to lose, Victoria. And you know it.

Pat smiled when she did not reply.

After a hundred yards of silence, she asked, “How do you know I won't call on my Master for help?”

I don't think that's in the rules, Victoria. I think your master is watching all this and laughing. And I don't believe he can do a thing about it—more than he's already done. If he could, he would wave his hand or spout some mumbo jumbo and have the entire town, the parish, under his control. But you know what, Victoria: God won't let your master do that, will He?

Her reply was one of rage as a tree by the side of the road suddenly burst into flames from a jarring bolt of lightning.

Sinclair jumped about a foot off the blacktop.

Pat laughed at Victoria's frustration.

Sinclair gave him a sharp look. “You find that amusing, you great, lumbering oaf?”

“Relax, Sinclair,” Pat said, “I wasn't laughing at you. So you-all just keep on truckin'.”

“You better not laugh at Sinclair,” Ruth warned him. “This here is my man. Laugh at him and I'll come back there and tweak your nose.” She slapped Sinclair on the back, almost knocking him off his feet.

“Don't be so physical, Ruth,” Sinclair muttered.

 

“You can all forget about wearing Victoria down,” Pat told the group, assembled at Doctor Lormand's ranch style home on the outskirts of Joyeux. “You might distract her, but you're not going to wear her out. So you”—Pat looked at Annie, Marie, Stella, and the priest—“can turn off your afterburners and save your strength. I think as long as you all stay together, all she can do is harass you mentally. I've been able to fight that off; so should you people. She wants you people, yes—but she wants me more.”

“Everybody can stay here,” Don said. “You're all welcome. But Pat, aren't you working on merely an assumption, not facts?”

“No,” Pat shook his head, “I don't think so. When she did all that with my brother and sister . . . I accepted
that
as fact. Then I got to thinking: it would have been much more convincing—to me—if she had hurt one of them. An arm broken, a leg, a finger. But she didn't. Didn't because she couldn't. None of those people had in any way harmed her or her family. And had she tried to hurt one of them, God would have somehow intervened.” He looked at Father Huval. “Right, Padre?”

“Perhaps. As I told you: God works in mysterious ways.” The priest looked puzzled for a moment. “You think you've been chosen to carry the banner of righteousness in this.. . . conflict, don't you?”

“That's the way I see it.”

“Then tell me this: if God would intervene to help your family, why would He not help us?” The priest indicated the room full of people.

“Oh, He is—now that you're helping yourselves by pulling together. Don't ask me to explain the rules under which Light and Darkness operate. Or why this is a game to them . . . if indeed it is that. I think there are lots of things mortals will not understand until after death—maybe not even then. But I think Victoria got away with what she was doing for as long as she did . . . because you people—or your ancestors—wronged Claude Bauterre. I think.”

Annie Metrejean smiled and patted Janette on the knee. “Your man got plenty smarts, girl.”

Trahan jumped to his feet. “But that's not true! He was a roo-garou. He killed Sheriff Cargol.”

“No, he didn't. I bet you all he didn't. Go back and reread what he wrote in those journals. He was a sick man and knew he was sick—cursed—and wanted to die to free himself. Victoria knew he was the weak link in the devil's chain; I'll bet you all Claude Bauterre wanted Christ, not the devil, but he knew that could never be. We might never know for sure, but I'll bet you his own wife set him up for that killing, and I'll bet you she killed Sheriff Cargol, or had it done so it would look like Claude did it. But she had help.” His eyes touched Annie. “Didn't she, Annie?”

“Cooo, boy! You too smart for dis old woman.
Oui,
I tink maybe you rat. I been tinkin' 'bout what we talk about las time you to the shack.” She winked at Pat. “I tink you know who hep her, don you?”

“I think so, Annie.” He picked up his shotgun. “We can't get to him, but we can get to his son.” He swung the barrel of the riot gun toward Eli Daily. “Stand up, Eli, and take off your shirt.”

Eli knew he was going to die . . . but only for a time. He was not afraid. He would be back. In some form. Perhaps not here in Joyeux, but he would be back. And he knew many things the people in this room did not know about the Dark One, and how the Master worked. Eli still had sons. “How did you put it together, Strange?”

“The other night when Edan and Doctor Lormand dropped me off at the mansion. I saw a man running from the rear of the house, toward the bayou. You. Then there is this: all of the people in this room have been frightened half out of their wits. All but one. You. I asked Sheriff Vallot where your family was. He told me they had gone with your father on a trip. Convenient time to take a trip.”

Eli's smile was nothing more than an evil grimace.

Those nearest him edged away. The others sat in shocked silence.

“Stand up and take off your shirt.”

Eli rose and calmly removed his shirt. The dark pentagram was burned into the flesh of his chest.

Pat jerked his head toward the back door. “Move it.”

“Pat . . .?” Sheriff Vallot said.

Pat's gaze froze the man silent. “You want to do it, Edan?”

“God, no!”

Eli laughed.

“Out the rear of the house,” Pat ordered.

The people in the large den sat quietly after Pat and Eli left the room, sat tensely, anticipating the boom of gunfire. All jumped when Pat's shotgun roared three times. He walked back into the den.

“One less,” Pat said.

 

The waiting seemed the hardest. Even though it was a large house, and the people tried to stay out of the others' way, the time passed slowly and nerves began to fray.

Only Pat could, or would, move freely outside the house. He had dragged the body of Eli to Doctor Lormand's pickup truck and driven to the mansion, dumping the body unceremoniously just inside the gate. He returned a half-hour later. The body was gone.

Pat had a funny sensation in the pit of his stomach that he would be seeing Eli again . . . soon.

Pat had not sensed Victoria's presence since the night he had killed Sylvia, but he had not lulled into carelessness by that fact: he knew she had something up her sleeve; knew she had to be pulling some trick out of the dark bag.

“Pat?” Edan approached him on the eve of Claude Bauterre's death. “Deputy Andrus is gone.”

“Gone where?”

Edan shook his head. “I don't know. He's been restless all day. Told me he was going to find a way to stop her. Said he was going to think about it, then tell me his plan. That was just about noon.”

“Why would he do a damn fool thing like that?”

Sheriff Vallot shook his head. “I don't know. Pat? Have you . . . have you felt anything today?”

Pat grinned. “I haven't been near Janette all day.”

The sheriff did not share in his humor. “A power, Pat. Some kind of invisible force is what I'm talking about. I've been experiencing something . . . odd all day.”

Pat shook his head, but knew exactly what Edan was saying. It figures, he thought sourly: Victoria's bypassing me, working on the others.

Janette approached the men. “Pat? Something's wrong with Earl.”

Inside the house, a screaming began. The three of them raced to the den. Earl Latour was holding his hands over his ears.

“Make it stop!” he screamed. “I can't stand it. Make it go away.”

Marie stood by his side. She looked helplessly at the men. “I don't know what it is,” she confessed. “If I knew, maybe I could help.”

“Non!”
Annie said shortly.

“Roaring!” Earl screamed. “Pulling. Roaring. Oh, God—make it stop.”

Earl ran out of the house, into the yard, his hands still over his ears. Several men tried to restrain him, but he fought free of their hands and ran down the blacktop, screaming. He ran toward Amour House.

In the west, the sun was a hot, red ball, casting bloodylike shadows over the bayous.

“Let him go,” Annie commanded. “He's under old witch-woman's power. Don want to lose no more.” She looked at Pat. “You know who she want, don you,
mercenaire?”

“Yes. Just like I told you all the other night: me.”

Janette moved to his side and put her arms around him. Pat touched her face; a gentle touch. “She's trying to force her will on anybody she can. That's what you felt, Edan.”

“Everyone resisted but Earl, ” Marie said. “Just like always, he was weak.”

The dwindling group had gathered on the front lawn of Doctor Lormand's house.

“Then let's all band together and kill Victoria!” Sinclair said. “I know, I know.” He waved his hand impatiently. “I realize you all think I'm not much of a man, and perhaps in your eyes, I'm not.”

“I never tought that, Mr. Charlevoix,” Bares said. “I jes din understand you 'at's all. Mos of us 'round here, we work ver' hard, wit our hands. Maybe we don talk so good, neither. But you took us wrong. What we felt was admiration for you; the way you talk and know so much. Make us feel a little foolish. But jes cause you know how to talk real good—
propre
—that don make you les a man. Look what you done the other night. You had the courage to go—we din.”

Both Sinclair and Bares were embarrassed. “Thank you, Mr. Bares,” Sinclair said.

“Aint nuttin. Jes the truth, 'at's all.”

“Ain't he just a hell of a man, Frank?” Ruth slapped Sinclair on the back, knocking the wind from him and almost dumping him on the lawn.

Sinclair recovered, glared at her, and said, “And that will be
quite
enough physical abuse from you! The very next time you strike me, I shall take a stick and blister your derrière. Now be silent and allow the men to discuss this dilemma confronting us all. Go make yourself useful. Make me a cup of coffee. Now!” he roared.

“Yes, dear,” Ruth replied meekly, and trotted off to the kitchen.

Pat smiled despite the situation. “Sinclair? You ought to marry that lady. When this is over,” he added.

“I believe I shall,” Sinclair said. “Smashingly good idea, Mr. Strange. Of course, there is the small problem of her husband, but that is not an insurmountable obstacle. Now then . . . how may we be of assistance this night? We
must
destroy Madame Bauterre.”

“No, Sinclair,” Pat shook his head. “Not we—just me. I've been the fly in the ointment ever since I got here. She's tried to bribe me into leaving; tried to threaten me into leaving. So it's up to me to kill her.” He smiled. “I'm . . . I won't be alone. I have some very good backup.”

“I been tinkin,' ” Annie said. “For several day, now. Where your daddy come from, Strange?”

“South Carolina.”

“No, no. I mean: where your family come from—long time ago?”

“A long time ago, from France. I think.”

Annie looked at her daughter and both women smiled. “Uh-huh,” she said. “But your name wasn't Strange in France. Bet your boots on dat, Big Man.”

Pat shrugged. “Then you tell me what it was and what difference it makes now?”

“I betcha your name—long time ago—was Strahan.”

A hot wind suddenly picked up, blowing hard across the bayou in back of the house.

Annie cackled. “See! I rat. I knew it.”

“I don't understand,” Pat said. But he felt the force of Victoria hard on him.

“Boy!” Annie said. “Don't you 'member me tellin' you all at ma shack 'bout de Strahan family? Old Victoria caint kill you—you blood kin to her! She desire you; want you for her lover—jes lak she done all dem others over hundreds of years. But she caint kill you. And she aint gonna 'low dem beasts to kill you, neither. But dey can take you 'live. So watch out.”

Someone—or something—began laughing from the depths of the dark waters of the bayou. Father Huval crossed himself, and the others quickly did the same.

The laughter was profane—evil. The howling mirth increased in volume, startling the birds, sending them flapping into the sky.

“What . . . ?” Pat looked at the dark waters behind the house. He felt a force, but he knew it was not Victoria. This was . . . much different. The force pulled at him, urging him to come to the water's edge. He walked away from the group, to the bayou bank.

“Pat!” Janette called after him.

“No, girl,” Annie put a hand on her arm. “It be allrat. Dey gonna talk 'bout the rules of de game, 'at's all.”