A Werewolf Among Us

FOUR: An Ugly Incident

"Visitor, Mr. St. Cyr," the house computer said.

The cyberdetective sat up, swung to the edge of the shifting bed and stood. "Who is it?"

"Mr. Dane Alderban," the house told him.

"Just a minute."

"Holding, sir."

St, Cyr took off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair, put the largest of his unopened suitcases on the bed, opened it, quickly dumped out the contents, ran his fingers along the cloth lining and watched it curl back from the concealed pocket in the bottom. He removed a handgun and a chamois shoulder holster, amused as he always was that this one requirement of his profession had changed little in a thousand years. He buckled the holster on, put the gun in the smooth sleeve of it, slipped into his coat again.

"Still holding, sir."

"On my way right now," St. Cyr said, wondering what Dane Alderban had to say on the sly, away from the rest of the family. He stepped out of the bedroom, pulled the door shut, crossed the sitting room as he called for Dane's admittance.

The door slid up, and the young man entered the room fast, stopped beyond St. Cyr, and looked quickly around as if he expected to find someone else there.

"You'll have to excuse the delay," St. Cyr said. "I was dressing for bed when you called."

Dane raised a long-fingered hand and impatiently waved away the suggestion of an apology. He sat down in the largest easy chair in the room, by the patio doors, barely able to contain the nervous energy that normally kept him on his feet, pacing, moving. He said, "I've come here to make a suggestion that could put an early end to this whole affair — if you'll have the good grace to listen to me and to think about what I have to say."

St. Cyr went to the bar, folded it open, looked at the contents and said, "A drink?"

"No, thank you."

St. Cyr poured Scotch, put the bottle back, popped two cubes into the glass and to hell with bruising the liquor, sat down in the chair that faced Dane's from the other end of the closed patio doors, putting a long swath of darkness on one side of them. "My job is to listen to people, consider what they tell me — and put a swift end to the case."

Dane sat on the edge of the chair, his elbows on his knees, his head bent down, looking up at St. Cyr over the ridge of his brow, just as he had done in the drawing room earlier. It almost seemed that he affected the position to conceal most of the expression on his face.

He said, "St. Cyr, I am thoroughly convinced that the native legends are the only answer to the murders."

"The du-aga-klava, a werewolf among us?"

"Yes."

St. Cyr did not reply.

"That thing you wear, the other half of you…"

"The bio-computer?"

"Yes. It rejects the notion of werewolves, doesn't it, discards the consideration right off?"

St. Cyr took a sip of Scotch, found it smooth and hot, a good brand. "It doesn't, strictly speaking, discard any probability. It assigns degrees of possibility to every theory that comes up, that's all."

"To werewolves — a very low degree of possibility."

"Most likely."

Dane drew even more to the edge of his chair, increased the odd angle from which he carried on the conversation. "So low a degree, in fact, that it doesn't give serious consideration to the idea at all."

"It doesn't reason in absolutes," St. Cyr corrected, "neither negative nor positive absolutes."

Suddenly the young man sighed and slid back in the easy chair, as if someone had tapped his skull and released the energy in one puff. He said, "At least, give me a chance to show you a few things. Come with me tomorrow when I go up into the mountains."

"What will we find there?" St. Cyr asked.

"Gypsies," Dane said.

"Native Darmanians?"

"Yes. But there is one old woman, especially, who may be able to convince even your bio-computer. Her name is Norya, and she knows all there is to know about these mountains."

"To convince both halves of me, of the symbiote, she'll have to have facts, not tales, evidence and not superstition."

"She has all of that, facts and tales, evidence and superstition." He slid forward on the chair again, his charge of energy having apparently built up to full strength. "Will you come along with me?"

St. Cyr was about to reply when the bio-computer insinuated a command, unvoiced, into the conversation: Go easy on the liquor; you need to think clearly; you may have to react suddenly. He looked at the glass in his hand and saw that he had finished all but half an ounce of Scotch in the last couple of minutes, though he had not realized that he was even sipping at it.

"Will you?" Dane asked again.

"What time?"

"After lunch; meet me in the garage on the first level."

"Fine," St. Cyr said.

'You won't regret giving me your time."

Dane got to his feet as if something had sneaked up behind him and gouged him in the ribs; he laced his fingers and stretched his arms, cracking his large knuckles.

St. Cyr stood too, trying to think if there were something he should ask the boy, some new angle of questioning warranted by the circumstances, and his train of thought was derailed by a curious, abrupt bark that seemed to come from the direction of the patio. They both turned and looked, but saw nothing out of place.

Then the noise came again, longer this time, long enough to identify. It was a woman's scream.

"Betty!" Dane said.

"Where's her room?"

"Fourth level."

"Let's go."

The door opened at their approach, though not fast enough, forcing them to crouch and scuttle under it. They burst into the hallway and ran to the nearest elevator, found that it was in use, turned to a lift farther along the corridor and leaped inside of that. Dane punched a button on the control panel. The doors clapped shut, and the elevator dropped forty feet in one sickening lurch, grooved into horizontal rails and carried them sideways for a moment before opening its doors again on the main corridor of the fourth level. They stepped into the hall, listened, heard nothing.

That struck St. Cyr as being the worst thing they could have heard — anything but silence.

"This way," Dane said.

He led St. Cyr to a side corridor where they came upon Hirschel, who was pounding at a concealed door and calling Betty's name.

"What happened?" the cyberdetective asked.

The hunter shook his head. "I was going into my room upstairs when I heard her scream; knew immediately who it was. I just got here a moment ago."

"Is there any way to open the door?" St. Cyr asked.

Dane said, "We have private voice-coded locks. But Teddy can get in if he has to."

"Call him, then."

"No need, sir," Teddy said close behind them. He had drifted down the corridor without making a sound. "If you'll stand back, I'll get you in." When they followed his instructions, he slid to a point just under the recessed slot that marked the entrance, and he emitted a high, keening tone that was almost beyond the range of human hearing. The door slid open at this unsyllabled command.

At the far end of the corridor Jubal Alderban appeared, dressed in pajamas and a robe, his head bent forward and his shoulders hunched nearly to his ears, not running and yet not taking his time, either. He seemed afraid to react — as if, running, he would generate the reason he had to run, and if walking, he would somehow anger the Fates by taking their portents too casually. Alicia followed him, plainly tired, resigned.

"Keep them out of her room," St. Cyr told Hirschel.

He and Dane went into the suite, where only a table lamp burned near a writing desk, leaving most of the room in deep shadow.

"Betty?" Dane called.

She did not reply.

"The patio," St. Cyr told him, indicating the open glass doors.

Dane started forward.

"Wait!" St. Cyr dipped into his chamois holster and drew his pistol. "You stay well behind me."

"My sister has just—"

"Stay behind me," St. Cyr said, his voice loud but brittle, no tone to debate. "I'm not one of the family, not marked like the rest of you seem to be."

Reluctantly, Dane obeyed, falling into step behind the detective as St. Cyr crossed the room and stepped through the double glass doors. As he placed one foot on the patio, the detective turned and shoved him backwards into Betty's room, almost knocking him down.

"What's the idea—"

"She's dead," St. Cyr told him. He blocked the patio entrance.

"Betty?"

"Yes."

Dane tried to say something, moved his lips without making a sound.

"No need for you to see her."

Slowly the boy's face dissolved, working its way from fear into horror, slowly through the horror into an emotion that would last, into grief. In a few minutes, it would not be a face any longer, just a pale wet mass of doughy flesh.

St. Cyr told him to get the police and to make it quick.

Dane turned slowly and, numbed, not nearly so agile as he had been only a short while ago, started for the door.

St. Cyr added: "And tell everyone to stay together, right in the corridor outside. No one is to wander off by himself. If Tina hasn't heard the commotion by now, two of you go and fetch her back here."

Dane nodded and went through the open doorway, weaving from side to side; he bawled something unintelligible to the others.

St. Cyr turned away from him and walked onto the patio again, careful not to touch anything or to step in the blood. He looked at the corpse and fought down the nausea it caused. Several very sharp tines — claws? — had caught her at the base of her slim neck, just above the collarbone, gouged deep and then ripped straight up with awful force, nearly tearing her head loose.

Everywhere: blood. Blood looked black in the darkness.

At the patio railing, not daring to lean against the bars for fear of smearing some trace of the killer, St. Cyr looked down on the well-kept lawn, at the lumps of shrubbery, the well-groomed trees and the hedge-bordered flagstone walkways. It was all so manicured, so still and perfect in outline, that it might have been made of wax, a stage setting. He looked beyond the boundaries of the estate, at the rangier valley floor where all manner of scrub grew, beyond that at the foothills and the mountains in the distance, the peaks from which that afternoon's dark thunderhead clouds had come. So far as he could see in the dim light of the two tiny moons, nothing moved in that adumbrative landscape.

He knelt beside the corpse and peered into the wide, glassy eyes that stared at the patio ceiling. Her fixed stare reminded him of the trophies on Hirschel's wall, and from there it was an easy second step to visualize Betty's head ranked among the others, posed between the snarling, wild-eyed boar heads…

Suddenly, thanks to the bio-computer, St. Cyr recalled that the suite had been in darkness when he and Dane had first entered — still was, for that matter. Taking his gun out of the holster again, he stepped off the patio into the sitting room again, called up the overhead lights, which reacted to vocal stimuli. In two minutes he had been in every closet in all three rooms and bath, and he had not encountered anyone.

He put his gun away once more.

He had known it would not be that easy.

Dane appeared in the doorway, still holding himself together, much to St. Cyr's surprise. "I called the police."

"How long until they'll be here?"

"Always been fast — other times. No more than twenty minutes by helicopter."

"Tina?"

"She's in the corridor, with everyone else."

"Keep her company."

Dane went away, and no one else tried to enter. Alicia Alderban was sobbing loudly, and Jubal seemed to be trying to console her. Both of them sounded distant, faint. If Betty had been killed indoors, rather than on the open patio, the noise would never have carried far enough to alert anyone. The sound-proofing truly was excellent.

St. Cyr pulled a chair up next to the open glass doors and sat down to wait for the authorities. He did not join the family because he wanted time to think, to sort out these recent developments and decide what they meant

One thing: Dane must be innocent, for he was with St. Cyr when Betty was killed. Forget him as a suspect, then.

Do not completely forget him, the bio-computer qualified.

And why not? He could not possibly have torn the girl's throat out; he could not have been two places at once.

He could be an accomplice. If two persons are involved, it could have been Dane's responsibility to see that you were occupied during the murder — and to be certain that you quickly identified the screamer. Without him, you would not have reached her room as quickly, for you do not know the way without a map. He may have been assigned to lead you to the scene.

To what purpose?

The bio-computer shell, still tapped into his spine, its gossamer fingers still splayed throughout his flesh, offered no further postulation.

St. Cyr thought, forming the segments of the thought rigidly as if trying to convince himself more than anyone else: Dane would not have any reason to lead me to Betty's room if he were mixed up in the murders.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. This is merely a point that should be given careful consideration.

The more he thought about it, the more St. Cyr found that he had to agree. It was something to consider, all right. From the beginning he had doubted the sincerity of Dane's belief in werewolves, for he knew that the Alderban boy — like the entire family — was well-educated. Too well-educated to hold such silly superstitions easily. It had occurred to him that Dane was feigning these beliefs, acting out some role that, somehow, would protect him against accusation. Perhaps he felt that, playing the superstitious fool, his true reaction to anything that happened or anything that was asked him would be misinterpreted, and that his genuine intentions would therefore be obscured. This notion, atop the possibilities the bio-computer had just suggested, made it impossible for him to remove Dane from the list of suspects.

In the distance, the night was broken by the clatter of helicopter rotors turning at high speed.

St. Cyr rose and stepped onto the patio. Far down the valley but drawing swiftly closer, large yellow headlights burned three hundred feet above the valley floor.

St. Cyr turned and looked at the dead girl one last time.

She had not moved, even though he would not have been surprised to find her position changed.

Nonsense.

He bent and pulled her lids closed, one at a time, holding them down until they remained in place. It was a small gesture. He had not known the girl well enough to feel sorry for her, but since she had lost her classic beauty to the wicked tines that had torn her open, he felt that the least she deserved was a bit of dignity when the strangers started pouring in.