Deception (53 page)

Emanuel shook his head. “She didn’t look like no woman I ever seen.” He turned solemn eyes up to her. “Whoever she once was, she’s not her anymore.
Loup-garou.”

She took the cup from the boy’s shaking hands. “Do you want to walk back home tonight or stay here? I’d drive you but gas coupons are dear.”

“I ain’t goin’ home. Not through the woods at night with a demon on the hunt. Likta killed myself gettin’ here.”

There were indeed scratches on the boy’s face, neck, and hands where he’d fought his way through briars and vines, unwilling to take his time in case the werewolf was sniffing his tracks. “Then you’d best make a pallet on the floor. Come daybreak you need to be gone. Won’t do for folks to know you stayed here with me.”

Raymond never gave the woman a chance to run. She seemed enraptured by the moon, her gaze focused on it. He moved in fast, knocking her legs out from under her. She went down hard, the wind forced momentarily from her lungs. The minute Raymond touched her, he knew she was seriously ill. Her skin burned under his hand. She jerked and quivered at his touch like a wild thing, rolling her eyes and gnashing her teeth. She flipped to her stomach and tried to crawl away, scrabbling in the road and revealing her nakedness without a semblance of shame.

“Take it easy,” he said, reaching for her flailing wrist. “I’m trying to help you.”

She snapped at his hand, growling. Her voice was gravelly, as if her throat were raw. Talonlike fingers clutched at the damp clay.

Raymond twisted her arm, rolling her onto her back. She fought him with a ferocity that was completely silent except for her harsh breathing. He straddled her, trying to hold her down without hurting her. As he sought to capture her wrists, his hand found one firm breast. She writhed beneath him, bucking with a strength that was hard to comprehend. At last, he snapped the handcuffs on her and jumped clear.

As he hauled her to her feet, saliva ran in strings from her mouth, mingling with the blood that had begun to dry on her chin. She tried to jerk free, but he held her by the handcuffs.

Her dress was torn, her feet bare. Mud and scratches covered her legs. Blood was drying on her face and down the front of what was left of her dress. She panted from the exertion of her struggles, staying as far away from him as the cuffs would allow. Even in her agitation at being confined, she cast a look at the moon that touched the treetops with silver.

“You’re under arrest. Come with me.” He pulled her toward the car, setting off another fierce struggle. She was weakening, though. Her body carried no extra fat, and the fever clearly burned with an intensity that concerned him.

He forced her into the front seat of the car, cautious of the teeth that snapped close to his face and ears. Normally he transported prisoners in the back, but he didn’t like the idea of her teeth sinking into the nape of his neck while he was driving.

At last she tired, and he relaxed the pressure on her. “What’s your name?”

She looked beyond him to the moon riding low in the velvet sky and smiled. Her mouth opened, as if she might answer, but she slumped against the seat, her body shaking with chills.

He checked her pulse, which was weak and thready. For the moment the fight was gone from her.

He left her in the car and took a moment to examine the body. Aside from the abdominal injuries, Henri’s head had been nearly severed from his body. The wound was such a mess he couldn’t begin to determine what might have caused it. There was nothing to do for Henri Bastion but call the coroner.

Raymond got behind the wheel, turned the car around, and headed back to town. In the bright moonlight, he studied the woman’s slack face. He thought he might have seen her before, but he still couldn’t place her. Her features were distorted, both by the blood and the fever that raged through her. When she was clean, he might be able to recall her name.

Once he’d known all the young women of the parish. He’d danced with most of them, flirting casually, leading those willing to more adventurous activities. The world had been a series of Saturday nights where the pattern of life was simple. The smell of gumbo cooking in a cast-iron pot over a fire, the pulse of a fiddle, a beautiful young woman looking up at him with the promise of a future in her eyes as they danced while the Bayou Teche lapped softly at the bank. He could remember the feel of liquor going down hot, and the taste of kisses under a full moon. But it was a memory that belonged to a dead man.

As he drove down the treacherous road, he let the past slip away. Those nights were gone. He’d had dreams then, normal desires and ambitions. The war had changed all of that. Had changed him in ways he couldn’t explain, not to his family or anyone else. The life he’d once expected had been taken from him, replaced with something dark and violent. He had the sense that destiny had led him to this moment on a lonely road with a gruesome murder and a madwoman.

The motion of the car lulled her. Her eyes opened sleepily, and she leaned against the seat, looking neither left nor right but straight ahead.

“Did you know Henri Bastion?” He tried to block the image of Bastion’s body, the abdomen gutted and the head dangling by a bit of spinal column and muscle.

“The
loup-garou
is hungry.” Saliva dripped down her chin. “I killed him.” Her throat worked.

Raymond watched the way she held herself, ready to flee or attack. The legend of the
loup-garou
was strong among the backwoods people. They believed that the legendary creature was a shape-shifting devil who possessed normal people, both willing and unwilling. Often when children disappeared in the swamps, it was never reported to the authorities. The parents assumed that the child had been taken by the
loup-garou
. To call the law would bring only shame on the family. One of their own had gone to the side of the devil. It was better to hush it up and forget it. And pray the possessed body of the child never made it home again.

“Did you know Henri Bastion?” he asked again. There was a long pause, and he glanced at her. She was awake, her gaze on the moon that seemed to follow them. “What was Bastion doing on Section Line Road?”

Her eyes sparked with fever. She sat bolt upright and then slumped against the door. He reached across and felt her forehead. She was burning up. If the fever went much higher, it might cook her brain. She required a doctor.

He turned the car south at the intersection, avoiding town and the jail. Since she was already in the car, it would be best to take her to Madame Louiselle, a
traiteur
who used herbs and prayers to treat the illnesses of those too poor to afford a doctor. There was no time to drive to Lafayette for a physician, and Doc Fletcher, New Iberia’s resident doctor, was out of town. If Madame Louiselle couldn’t break the fever, the woman beside him would die.

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