“I don’t remember.”
“Audrey, you’ll remember or I’ll kick the shit out of you.”
“It was something about a gypsy. The gypsy’s cabin.”
Chris swore under his breath. If Karyn had been lured up into those mountains, there was no way she could get back before dark. She would be easy prey for the werewolves, and out of reach of help.
“Didn’t she question you when you told her that?” he demanded.
“I - I gave her something of yours so she’d believe the message came from you.”
“What did you give her?”
“That little lump of silver you always carried around. The one that looked like a bullet.”
Chris’s hand went to his pocket. Things had happened so fast the last few days, he hadn’t even noticed the bullet was missing. He whirled and started toward the door. He yanked it open, then turned back.
“I’m going out now, Audrey. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but when I come back I don’t want to see you here.” He went out and slammed the door without waiting for a reply.
The taxi he had come in was gone, but there was another just turning around in front of the hotel and heading back toward Mazatlan. Chris ran toward the car.
“Taxi! Hey, taxi!”
The driver, with a full load of passengers, ignored him. Chris stood in the roadway cursing after the departing cab.
“Senor?”
The voice close behind him made Chris start. He turned to see Luis Zarate nervously fingering the zipper of his jacket.
“Luis!”
“I came looking for you, senor. I should not have left you today in the city. I am very ashamed.”
“Never mind that,” Chris said, “I need you now. They’ve tricked Karyn into going to the gypsy’s cabin. I’ve got to go after her.”
A stricken look came over Luis.
“What’s the matter?”
“The gypsy, senor. Philina. Ella esta muerte.”
“She’s dead?”
“Si, senor.” With a shake of his head, Luis returned to English. “The word was spread today among the gypsies and the people of the streets. Philina is dead, and anyone who helps the gringos will follow her. They will know the vengeance of lobombre.”
“That’s why the salesman in the jewelry store acted so funny this morning.”
Luis nodded.
“And that’s why you left me there on the street.”
“Yes, but now I am ashamed. My poor taxi is at your service.”
“Then let’s go. Take me to your cousin’s place, the one with the burros.”
“Mucho gusto, senor, mucho gusto!”
They roared out of the hotel compound in the old Plymouth and up the highway toward Mazatlan. Luis swerved expertly onto the narrow rutted road leading into the foothills. The car bounced and rattled and seemed at times about to fly to pieces, but Luis never let up on the accelerator. When they reached the shack of Guillermo the burro keeper Chris jumped out and hit the ground running. Luis followed close behind him.
Chris hammered on the door, but received no response from within.
“Where could he be?” Chris demanded.
Luis stepped forward. “Permit me, senor.” He put his mouth close to the door, and in a voice of thunder shouted, “Guillermo! Nombre de Dios, abre la porta!”
After a moment there was the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor inside. The door opened a crack, and Guillermo’s one good eye peered out.
“What do you want?”
“Has the woman been here?” Chris said. “The woman who came with me last time?”
“She was here.”
“When?” Chris’s question snapped like a whip.
“Two, three hours ago.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She said nothing. I did not open the door.”
“Why, for God’s sake? What’s the matter with you?”
The eye squinted out at Chris from the crack in the door. “There is evil and death in the mountains. It is a time for a poor man like me to stay behind doors.”
“Well, where did she go?”
“She took one of my burros and started up the trail.”
“Give me a burro,” Chris said. “Quickly. I have to go after her.”
“I do not think you can help her now.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think. What about that burro?”
“Go to the back and take one yourself, senor. It will be ten dollars for yours and the lady’s.”
Chris started to say something, changed his mind. He pulled a bill from his wallet, tossed it at the crack in the door, and started around the shack.
In the pen he found a sturdy-looking burro and led him around to the front. Luis Zarate was standing there by the Plymouth.
“I would go with you, senor,” said Luis, “but I have both a wife and a mother who depend on me. And the truth is that I am not a very brave man.”
“That’s all right, Luis. From here on it’s my fight. What do I owe you for the ride?”
“No charge, senor.”
“Thanks.” Chris climbed on the burro’s back and urged the animal up the trail.
“Buena suerte, senor,” Luis called after Mm. “Vaya con Dios.”
He would need more than luck this time, Chris thought as the burro jogged toward the mountains. Maybe even the company of God would not be enough. He rode upward into the gathering darkness.
THE PAIN CAME BACK first. Pain in her throat. In the instant before she regained consciousness, Karyn was a little girl again. She was lying on a high, white bed in the hospital, and the doctor had just taken her tonsils out. In a moment she would open her eyes and her mother would be there. And Daddy. And they would let her eat all the ice cream she wanted, and before long the pain would go away.
Karyn tried to reach up with a hand and touch her throat where it hurt. But the hand would not move. Her lungs heaved, pulling in air, but it did not have the sharp, clean smell of the hospital. The roughness against her back was no bed.
She forced her eyes open. No loving faces looked down on her. It took only a moment for her to realize where she was. In the gypsy’s cabin. The light from the fire pit cast grotesque shadows throughout the room. Karyn was sitting in the chair with no back. Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, her wrists tightly bound behind her. The roughness against her back was the log wall of the cabin.
She turned her head. It hurt her throat when she moved. Beside her was the pile of old rags where Philina the gypsy had sat talking to her and Chris such a little while ago. Beyond the rags she could see another torn bundle. Only the clawed hand, lying limp and palm up, told her that it had once been human.
Karyn looked away quickly. Through the open doorway the world outside was in deepening twilight. Someone stepped between her and the doorway. A tall, slim silhouette with flowing black hair that was shot through with silver.
“Marcia!” Karyn’s voice was a rasping whisper.
“I see you remember me. I’m glad. You will have much time for remembering in the hours before dawn.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to hurt you, Karyn. I’m going to hurt you very badly.”
Karyn squinted in the darkness, trying to get a better look at the woman. “Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you persecuting me? You took my husband from me back in Drago. What more do you want?” She broke off as the effort of talking hurt her throat too much.
Marcia took a step toward her. The fire pit lay between them. The tall woman knelt so the light of the fire shone full on her face. “You want to know why, do you? Then look!”
She raised a hand to her forehead and ran long fingers through the white streak in her midnight hair. “This is why. I have this mark to remind me of the night you put the gun inches from my head and fired. I will never forget the agony of that moment and the long months that followed. In those months, Karyn, I thought of you above all else. I have lived for just one thing - to give you some measure of the pain I felt. And finally to see you die.”
“I had to shoot that night,” Karyn whispered. “I saw only a wolf. I couldn’t know it was you.”
“You lie!” the other woman spat. “Just before you pulled the trigger I heard you speak my name. Oh, yes, you knew.”
It was true, Karyn realized. In that long-ago night when she fired the silver bullet into the head of the sleek black wolf, she had known full well it was the woman Marcia. Lura. What a tragic shame that the creature had not died.
“I have had much time to think,” Marcia went on. “In that time I have imagined many ways for you to die. In all of them you suffered greatly. And now things have worked out even better than I could imagine. Now I can kill you in a most appropriate way.”
Marcia reached down to the edge of the fire pit. There the taped ends of a long-handled pair of pliers protruded from the fire. The other end, with the pincer jaws, was buried deep in the glowing coals.
“In the Middle Ages,” Marcia said, “there were many interesting ways of dealing with people suspected of being witches. Or werewolves.” She lightly caressed the taped handles of the pliers as she spoke. “One of the ways was to use a red-hot pair of tongs to pull the flesh from the body of the victim. A pinch at a time. It takes a very long time for someone to die that way. Very long, and very painful.” She looked up and the fire struck glowing red sparks in the deep green eyes. “That, Karyn, is the way you are going to die tonight.”
Karyn pulled her eyes away from the woman, and from the vicious tool jammed deep into the coals. She looked toward the open doorway. Outside the twilight had deepened to the charcoal gray of approaching night.
Marcia saw the direction of her glance. “If you’re expecting help from your friend Chris or anyone else tonight, you’re going to be disappointed. Even if he does learn where you are and foolishly comes after you, he will never reach us. There is only one trail to this cabin, and someone is waiting for your friend on that trail. Someone you and I both know very well.”
“Roy!” The name tore at Karyn’s throat as she spoke it.
The other woman smiled. A slow smile of triumph. “Yes, Roy. Your husband once, but
not any more. Now he is mine. He belongs to me more completely than ever he did to you. He will be there to meet anyone who comes up the trail, and he will see that you and I are left alone.”
Karyn stared at the dark woman. Fear rose like bile in her aching throat. Slowly, slowly Marcia drew the long pliers from the fire. The cruel pinchers glowed a bright red-orange.
Without warning, one side of Marcia’s face jerked for an instant in a tic brought on by violent emotion. She threw one quick look over her shoulder, then came around the fire pit toward Karyn. She gripped the handles of the pliers and thrust the glowing-hot jaws before her.
THE LAST RED SLICE of the sun slipped below the horizon, and night came all at once on the trail leading up the mountain. Chris swore at his failure to bring a flashlight. He could still make out the trail itself, but the deep shadows at either side could have concealed anything. To the little burro, day or night made no difference. He plodded patiently upward, breaking into a jog occasionally as Chris dug in his heels.
He tried not to think about what he might find when he reached the gypsy’s cabin. The old woman was dead, that much Luis had told him. He did not say the werewolves had killed her, but the implication was clear. What would Karyn have found at the cabin? Would she panic? He could only hope that Karyn had locked herself inside when darkness came, and would stay there until he arrived.
With no details visible in the darkness, it was difficult for Christ to calculate how far he had come. Since the afternoon, he had paid no attention to time and distance, except for the position of the sun. He had been on the trail almost two hours before darkness fell. By now, he reckoned, he should be nearing the crest where the cabin was. He prayed he would find Karyn there alive and unhurt. Together they had a chance to survive this night. Separately -
The thought died in Chris’s mind. Subtly, a change came over the mountain trail and the brush alongside. Details became visible as the blackness gave way gradually to a cool, pale light. He looked up through a gap in the trees and saw the round, bland face of the moon edging into view above the ridge of mountains.
With more light, the climb became easier, but the coming of the moon reminded Chris of the horror he must yet face this night.
The burro stopped as though someone had jerked him back on a rope. His ears swiveled to catch a sound, his nostrils widened, testing the air. Chris urged him on, but with a frightened bray the burro moved stiffly backward.
“Up, burro, come on,” Chris coaxed. “Don’t go spooky on me now.”
The burro refused to move forward even when
Chris slapped his rump. The animal shivered and showed the whites of its eyes.
“What’s the matter, burro? What is it?”
Something moved on the trail up ahead. A shadow eased toward them into the moonlight that now illuminated the trail. The shadow stopped and waited. A huge tan wolf.
The burro bucked and shied away. Its hoofs slipped on lose dirt and the animal fell heavily to the ground. Chris pushed himself away in time to avoid falling under the burro. He heard it scramble upright and go thudding back down the mountain. He was alone on the trail with the wolf.
For a long moment the man and the animal looked at each other. As the wolf moved, the muscles rippled under its shaggy tan pelt. It growled softly, and the teeth gleamed in the moonlight.
Chris reached for the knife, but he was too slow. Before his hand closed over the hilt, the wolf crouched and sprang. Shocked by the suddenness of the attack, Chris dived forward and skidded in the dirt on his chest. He felt the night air stir as the long, powerful body of the wolf passed over him. He scrambled into a crouch as the wolf hit the ground and whirled to come at him again.
Chris slipped the knife out of the leather sheath. He held it out between them so the silver blade glinted under the moon. The pale eyes of the wolf followed the arc of the knife as Chris swung it slowly from side to side. The wolf growled again, deeply and menacingly.
“You know what this is, don’t you?” Chris said. “You know what it can do. Now, come and get me if you can.”