Return of the Wolf Man (37 page)

Talbot had heard the wood splinter behind him. He turned in time to see the Frankenstein Monster push what was left of the shed door from its hinges. The giant had to bend in order to get through.

Tom Stevenson followed the Frankenstein Monster out. “Talbot!” he cried. “Where are you?”

“I’m over here,” Talbot shouted. “Don’t worry about me. Do what we came here for.”

The Monster had stopped to wait for Stevenson. The giant stood with his arms hanging, his shoulders slumped forward, his powerful hands dangling, like a marionette awaiting a puppeteer.

“Come with me!” Stevenson said.

“Yes . . . Master,” the Monster replied in a deep, gravelly voice.

Dracula watched as the Monster raised his bare, fire-scarred arms from his sides. The fury in the vampire’s eyes grew wilder. The vampire stood facing the Monster. He drew his shoulders back slowly.

“Do not listen to him,” Dracula said. His upper lip curled back to expose his fangs. “Obey me. Return to your resting place.”

The Monster hesitated.

“No!” Stevenson said to the Monster. “We must leave here. He wants to hurt you!”

The Monster growled, straightened his shoulders, and rose to his full, towering height. His jaw shifted to the right, his thick-lidded eyes to the left. He lifted his arms higher and stretched them toward Dracula, his strong fingers flexing, his hands groping. He took a heavy step forward. The
thump
of his footfall was felt as well as heard. He stepped forward again.

With a venomous snarl, the vampire wrapped his serpentine fingers around the edge of his cape. He drew it toward the opposite shoulder so that the folds covered his nose and mouth. His eyebrows formed a diabolical
V
above the cloak and he glared at the Monster.

“Do not come any further,” Dracula commanded the Monster. “Do you hear? Go
back!”

The Monster stopped. His eyes opened wider and his dull gaze seemed to sparkle. “Mas . . . ter.”

“Yes,” Dracula said. “Yes. You remember who I am.”

“Yes . . . Master,” the Monster replied.

Stevenson grabbed the Monster’s arm and held on tightly. “Listen to me. Dracula isn’t your master,
I
revived you!”

Watching the exchange, Talbot could see that Stevenson was losing; even the Monster was not immune to Dracula’s occult powers. Shaking off his dizziness, Talbot ran between the Monster and Dracula. He placed his bloody hands on the Monster’s massive chest.

The creature looked down at him.

“Listen to him!” Talbot implored. “Dracula wants to use you!” He stretched his arm toward Stevenson. “This man is your friend.”

The Monster’s eyes shifted to Stevenson. “Friend?” he repeated dubiously.

“Yes!” said Talbot.

He turned his body slightly so it was facing the attorney. He held his hands palms up and repeated, “Friend?”

Suddenly, there was a blur in the darkness and Dracula seemed to coalesce immediately behind Talbot.

“Lawrence, watch out!” Stevenson screamed.

The warning came too late. Talbot gasped horribly as the narrow blade of the smallsword penetrated his back. He threw his head back, his eyes glaring, and staggered forward.

“God,
no!”
Stevenson screamed as Talbot fell face forward on the floor of the mill.

Dracula stepped toward the attorney, grabbed him by the throat, and threw him violently against the millstone. The attorney’s back struck the base. He groaned, slumped onto his knees, then twisted and fell on his side. He did not get up.

The vampire sneered then turned and looked down at Talbot. The baroque hilt of the smallsword stuck out from a widening stain of blood. Smiling triumphantly, Dracula placed his foot on the bottom of the sword grip.

“You dared come to my home to try to stop me,” the vampire said, his voice and expression rich with contempt. He leaned his weight forward and watched with satisfaction as Talbot squirmed painfully. “Instead, Talbot, our long acquaintance ends with you lying on your belly in the dirt. Not resting, as I do, as you could have done, but cringing . . . vanquished. You never understood what I am.” Dracula raised his foot from the hilt and reached down. Crouching, he grabbed a fistful of soil and held it beside Talbot’s face. “I am this,” the vampire said. “I am the son of the earth. It does not feel your suffering. It drinks your blood and waits patiently for more—unmournful, eternal, inevitable.” The vampire rose. He let the dirt fall through his fingers then wrapped himself in his cape. “I will see to it that you are never again disturbed. The sleep you have sought for all these years shall at last be yours.”

The vampire straightened imperiously and looked over at the Monster.

“Go back to the shed,” Dracula commanded. “I will return shortly.”

The Monster regarded Dracula for a moment. Then his head turned slowly toward Stevenson.

“Friend . . . ?” the Monster said.

“Go back!” Dracula said. He stepped between the Monster and the unconscious Stevenson. “Go back where you belong!”

“Belong . . . with friend,” the Monster said piteously.

In a flash of anger that came like lightning, the Monster bent his left shoulder down and swept his arm outward. He struck the vampire hard, throwing him aside. But as Dracula stumbled backward he spread his cloak. His hands became claws and, instead of falling, he soared into the musty air on great wings. His eyes grew small and round, his nose became a snout, and his ears flared dramatically. Within a heartbeat his body had shrunk and, after hovering for a moment, he swooped back at the Monster as a large, gray bat. His claws dug into the giant’s shoulders and his great wings folded tight around the Monster’s eyes. As the giant struggled awkwardly, the vampire’s thin, powerful teeth gnawed great chunks of burnt, dead flesh from the back of his neck.

The giant reached back over his head. His chalky, powerful arms moved one way and then the other as he tried to grab the bat. His fire-blistered fingers finally found the creature’s body and he wrested it from his neck. Yet while it was a bat that the Monster ripped free, it was Dracula who landed on the ground. The vampire was crouched low beneath his cape, his fangs bared and his eyes flaring.

Moaning and slapping at his painful wounds, the Monster stumbled over the millstone base. He fell heavily against the wooden arm.

“Stay where you are!” Dracula shouted. “I command you!”

The giant snarled and waved his left hand violently in front of his face. He rose slowly.

“Vollin! Benet!” Dracula shouted. “Come here!”

The
sarpes
standing outside had not moved until they were summoned. Now the two large men turned and stepped in through the open door. They made no indication that they saw the Monster.

“Shut the door and go to the shed,” Dracula said quietly. “Get chains. Restrain the Monster.”

“Yes, Master,” the men said flatly, in unison.

The men dutifully shut the mill door and then walked toward the back. As they approached the millstone, the Monster’s eyes shifted from Dracula to the
sarpes.
He watched them warily.

“You will obey me,” Dracula said to the Monster. “I am the one who restored you to life.”

The Monster’s eyes snapped toward him.

“I am your master.”

The Monster shook his head slowly. He touched the back of his neck where the vampire’s teeth had torn his flesh. “You . . . are not.” He jabbed a finger toward Stevenson. “Friend.”

“No,” said Dracula. “He is human. He and his kind fear you and destroy you. Our way is different.”

“Friend,” the Monster repeated insistently. He turned toward the unconscious Stevenson.
“Friend!”

As Dracula and the Monster spoke, the
sarpes
quietly approached the creature from behind. They were carrying the heavy length of chain from the block and tackle. Each man held an end of the chain in one hand, an iron spike in the other. As soon as the two were within range, they threw the chain over the Monster. It landed around his chest and they immediately pulled back hard.

Roaring, the Monster fell on his shoulders. The
sarpes
knelt on either side of him and with a single sweep of their arms they drove the iron spikes through the links into the ground. Their aim was accurate, the thrusts deep. Screaming with rage, the Monster expanded his chest and lifted his arms; the
sarpes
had to lean their full weight on his wrists to restrain him.

Dracula approached the Monster. “Listen to me!” he commanded. “Dr. Cooke will repair your wounds. You will be even stronger!”

The Monster shook his head as he continued to fight against the
sarpes.
Then, with a cry that rose from centuries of torment and oppression, the Monster lifted his arms. He raised the
sarpes
with them and threw the zombies off. Then he reached for his chest. He snapped the chain and threw the two pieces aside. Rising, he grabbed the wooden pole from the millstone and broke it off in rage.

As the Frankenstein Monster swung the pole at the zombies, smashing bone and skull, Dracula sprang at the giant. But they weren’t hands that struck the creature’s chest, they were large, powerful paws. And the jaws that clamped themselves around his neck were not those of a vampire those but of a wolf. The gray-furred beast bayed loudly as his teeth ripped at the dead flesh. The Monster fell back again, dropping the pole as he struggled to pull the ferocious animal from his chest.

Unknown to both Monster and beast, the figure on the other side of the millstone stirred.

THIRTY-ONE

T
om Stevenson awoke to the sounds of an awesome struggle.

The millhouse was filled with bellowing cries, snapping jaws, and the stomp of heavy feet. His neck hurt worse than before and now his back was stiff and painful; it hurt every time he breathed. With slow, brittle moves he raised himself onto his elbows and looked over at the source of the sounds.

The dim light of the full moon slipped through the chimneys. In it, he could see the Frankenstein Monster engaged in battle with what appeared to be an enormous gray dog or wolf. The Monster had his arms around the animal. One muscular arm was locked about his neck, the other was wrapped about his body. The jaws of the maddened wolf were locked on the Monster’s throat. Sprawled on the ground behind them were the two zombie guards. They were twisted and broken, like disassembled store mannequins. The broken handle of the millstone lay between them.

Could that wolf be Talbot?
Stevenson wondered. It looked nothing like the two-legged creature he’d seen the night before, but that probably didn’t mean anything. Logic and consistency seemed to have little to do with the sights that had been assaulting him during the past twenty-four hours.

Stevenson turned away. He had seen human and animal savagery at its worst many times and in many places. He didn’t need to watch hell unleash its brutality as well. He peered through the other side of the millhouse and his eyes stopped on a silhouette near the back.

It was Talbot. Stevenson’s spirits rose—until he noticed that the man was lying facedown with the hilt of Dracula’s smallsword sticking from his shoulder. He did not appear to be breathing.

Pushing away from the stone base of the mill, Stevenson moaned as a sharp pain punched through his back; he was certain he’d suffered at least a couple of broken ribs. But he forced himself to crawl ahead, just as he’d done when the seal hunters had pummeled him with fists and clubs on the icy floes of the Arctic Ocean. Throughout Stevenson’s life pain had always been the reward of a job well done. And it had always inspired him to press on.

The attorney felt the blood-muddied soil before he reached Talbot’s side. He stopped beside the body, lifted Talbot’s wrist, and felt for a pulse. There was none. After several seconds he gently laid the wrist back down and held two fingers beneath Talbot’s nostrils. There was no hint of life.

The attorney squeezed Talbot’s hand. He hadn’t been very happy in this world. If there were an afterlife, he hoped that Talbot would find peace in it.

Stevenson climbed to his knees and leaned over Talbot’s body. It occurred to him that he might need a weapon if he were going to get Dr. Cooke away from here, and Dracula’s smallsword was the only one handy. Putting his left hand on Talbot’s bloody lower back, he grabbed the hilt in his other hand and pulled. The smallsword slipped out smoothly. The attorney made a face as he wiped the blood and bits of sinew on the straw beside Talbot’s body.

With monumental effort, he stood and turned back toward the monsters. It was like a tableau from a hellish painting by Hieronymus Bosch. Frankenstein’s creation had managed to wrest the wolf from his throat. Now he was attempting to pin it to the floor with one hand while striking it with the other. The wolf continued to bark and snap at the Monster’s pale flesh. Stevenson wished he could help the sad, dumb giant. But this was not a fight for men. Clenching his teeth to keep from crying out, he crouched very low, walked past the grindstone, and hurried out the millhouse door.

Moonlight lit the way as Stevenson made his way to the mansion. Except for moths drawn toward the amber light at the front entrance, he encountered nothing living or dead as he crossed the yard and the path. He stepped onto the portico, the sword held in front of him. The drapes were drawn at the windows and he made his way quickly to the front door. He stood to the right of the double doors and listened. He heard nothing, not even the shuffle of feet.