Chapter Ten Sam and Susie
“My car will never be the same,” I say, holding Susie close, practically crushing her.
My whole body is shaking, as it has been ever since the poor telegram delivery boy on his bicycle puffed up the long, half-hidden driveway to Llwellyn’s place—not that Llwellyn and his family had been there for three days at that point.
Susie hugs me back just as hard, which is a relief, considering I’m the one who put her in this danger. “I wasn’t sure you’d get here in time, so I beaned him,” she pants, clutching me like she’ll never let go.
“Brilliant.”
“I gave him sleeping pills in his coffee, too. Three of them. That won’t kill him, will it?”
I’m tempted to say that I don’t care, but I don’t want to upset my girl any further. “No, sweetie, just keep nice and drowsy. I hope.”
Susie pulls back at last, and I make for the body, turning him over.
Etienne Girarde. He has Martine’s coloring, her beautiful skin, but he must have his father’s blonde hair. The build? Perhaps that’s training.
Perhaps that’s the wolf.
“I wasn’t sure a typewriter would knock out a werewolf. But you said the sleeping tablets work on you, so...”
I freeze, kneeling over Etienne, everything in my soul crumbling and sinking.
“I would have told you. A little at a time. Especially once you knew you could trust me, sweetheart. I’m not like the ones in the books. I’m not like Etienne.”
“Etienne? Conrad Wayne?”
“Is that what he calls himself? Well, he’s most likely got the papers to back it up.
” I hesitate before reaching in his pocket.
“A good operative wouldn’t have his real papers on him...
If he is who I think he is, this is Claude Girarde’s son.
Claude Girarde was a French pilot killed during an accident when testing an in-air refueling system about 13 years ago.
Professor Llewellyn was on the team that worked on that air-to-air refueling system, along with Harris, Brunley, and Averman.
Those three men were all killed in New York state, and they had never been approached by an operative—at least not according to Washington.
The way they were killed looked like an accident.
An animal attack on a hunting trip. An accident in a car—where there were huge pawprints left behind. ”
“A wolf.” Susie’s face is pale.
“A wolf who could wait around until daylight and do a good job of covering his tracks. A wolf who hunts and gathers information, and plans his kills, tracks his victims. No, Susie, not just a wolf. Wolves are smart animals. Loyal animals. Fascinating, really.” I gingerly feel for a pulse, one hand still on my gun.
He’s alive, and his pulse is slow and strong.
When he comes to, things are going to get ugly.
Susie knows I believe in werewolves. She knows I am one.
Things are already ugly.
Susie walks around the unconscious man, sits in the chair, a silver letter opener pointed at me.
No, at Etienne.
“I don’t trust him at all. He could be playing possum,” she murmurs.
“You’re smart. You were already starting to figure out there was a beast living in me, Susie. You just thought it was memories from the war. I got bitten in France, during the war, so true enough, the wolf is a war wound.”
“And it makes you kill on the night of the full moon?” she asks, voice tight, hand tighter on the handle of the little silver paper knife.
“Not me. Others? Yes. You’ve seen the basement—”
“I saw your office closet, too,” she whispers. “That’s your fur, isn’t it?”
“I’m a rotten housekeeper,” I sigh.
“But you make good coffee.” Susie gives me a small, crooked smile.
There’s hope, maybe.
My voice tears out in a mad rush, and I reach for her hand with the one not holding my gun.
She doesn’t even flinch, my brave gal. “Look, I’m about to tell you a lot of crazy things in just a few minutes, baby, because we don’t have much time until he wakes up.
The main thing you need to know is that most werewolves are no longer human at any time of the month, even if they look like it.
The bite infects your mind and soul with the desire to hunt and kill.
I don’t know if Etienne is a member of some secret sect of operatives who are also monsters, or if he got bitten in a tragic accident, like me.
I know that since I was in the war, I was sick of bloodlust. Killing and death were a plague to me; I hated it.
I kept my wolf calm with sleeping powders, silver chains, and whatever lore I could learn in books that everyone thinks are full of hooey.
My soul is my own—whoever is hunting and killing the members of Claude Girarde’s old team sold his soul to the bite a long time ago.
I could tell you more about the clues I have, but there’s no time right now.
The only other important thing you need to know is that there are places in the world full of energy for the supernatural, and you can use it for good or for evil.
There are lines which form in ancient places, like the forests in Bavaria, or places where thousands of men have died, like the Somme and Verdun.
Pine Ridge has three of those lines, and as far as I can tell, they occurred naturally.
There’s no record of some great evil here.
But it means that creatures like werewolves and monsters are drawn to this place.
People like me, good monsters, let’s say—need to stay here to keep this place clean.
A wolf can sense another wolf, and I’ve known something dark and dangerous was lurking for weeks.
Now I know why. This is the nearest place to Windsor with a hot bed of magical juice to keep the supernatural fed.
Llwellyn’s move to Windsor, New York, wasn’t widely known. But you know who did know?”
“Who?”
“Etienne Girarde. Because his widowed mother, Martine Girarde, a woman who had known and befriended a widowed Professor Llwellyn all those years ago—stumbled across him when she moved to this country to get away from all the sad memories that surrounded her in France. They rekindled a friendship and then a romance grew, and before you knew it, they were married, and he planned to leave Washington to enjoy life with his bride. Llwellyn and his wife kept their movements private, except, of course, from their families, including their grown sons. Why Windsor, you ask?”
“I didn’t, but I was going to,” Susie’s smile stays small, but it’s evening out.
“I was with Llwellyn for a few days, you know, and he happened to mention that Averman, Brunley, and Harris loved camping, hunting, and fishing in New York state. All three of them had met—when they were at West Point.”
“In New York, Orange County,” Susie gasps. “God, you’re a clever one, Sam.”
“Not as clever as you, dollface. We make a great team. We’d make a great couple—if you can live with my secret.”
Susie hesitates, even though she’s nodding. “But what do we... What do we do with him? We need to worry about that first, Sam.”
She’s right. “Get the silver chains out of the closet.”
“You can’t turn him over to the police, can you?”
“What are they going to do when he transforms in a little over a week and slaughters a cell full of men? Or eats a couple of wardens? Or worse, turns them?”
Susie shudders. “You have to put him down. Like a rabid dog?”
I close my eyes. If I look at him for too long, I see the grieving boy who didn’t know how to heal, who probably didn’t get enough help in a war-torn country where everyone was grieving, where everyone was healing.
“Pine Ridge is a place for monsters who want to do good, Susie. If I thought there was a single chance that he could reform, I’d give it to him. ”
“He knew you were a wolf. That I was your mate. I was using the old feminine charm routine to keep him off balance, but it was making him angry. Called me a faithless woman.”
“He was right about us—but wrong about you. I think Llwellyn and his mother getting married did his head in more than it was before. To him, that was as good as marrying his father’s killer.”
“Awful. He said mate a lot. You’ve slipped and said that, too.”
“Because you are, Susie. Werewolves know. They pick one, and they mate for life. You were the one for me, the only one I’ve ever gone into heat for, grown the knot for, proposed to...
” I wince at all the intimate things we have to rush to discuss over some unconscious fiend.
“I love you. We mate for life. Even if you don’t want me, that’s the way it is, Susie.
But you can know you had my heart, right from the start, beautiful, and it’ll always belong to you.
” I sit back and watch her disappear to get the chains, daring to check the pupils of our “guest” by lifting his eyelid.
He flinches at the sudden light, but he’s mostly out.
Susie comes back with the chains, face troubled. “You can’t carry him out in the daylight like this. People will see.”
“Then I’ll wait until dark. You can go home, Susie. Back to Dullahan’s, or back to Yonkers.”
“What, and leave you alone with him? He’s a killer. That’s not very good ‘mate for life’ material, and my mother is convinced that I’m going to be a banker’s wife.” She clucks her tongue. “If you get yourself killed, she’ll nag me until I marry Bobby Hickman, the chicken mash salesman.”
“Oh, goodness. Can’t have that.”
“Can’t have that,” she repeats, and passes me the chains. “Are these going to work in human form? I mean, you can touch them.”