Wolf's Bane

Destroyer 132: Wolf's Bane

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Chapter 1

What's in a name?

Shakespeare had posed the question, and now four hundred years later, Samuel Francisco had the answer. If you gotta ask, he told himself, you obviously haven't got a freakin' clue.

Take his name, for example. "Samuel Francisco" sounded as if his parents couldn't quite decide if he would be a Jewish prophet or a waiter in a Tex-Mex restaurant. He couldn't even trim the "Samuel" back to "Sam," because it came out sounding like a certain northern California city full of fruitcakes. It was perfect, salesmen on the lot going limpwristed when they thought he couldn't see them, mincing little girlie steps as if they were trying out for fairy of the month instead of selling used cars to a bunch of idiots who couldn't tell a differential from a dipstick if their lives depended on it.

Nope, he caught himself. The proper term was not "used"; it was "previously owned."

That was another crock of shit, but one that he could understand from years of leeching off the public, one way or another. Dress up a dog turd with a little glitter and some parsley on the side, there would be some damn fool out there who absolutely knew for sure that he had found the bargain of the century.

The worst thing about Francisco's name, though, was the fact it wasn't even really his. Some pencil pusher back in Washington had picked it for him, maybe snoozing through a slow day, fat and happy with his civil-service paycheck, maybe paging through the telephone directory and playing mix-and-match until something caught his eye. Samuel Francisco had been two years in the federal program when he flipped on the television one night, started channel surfing and wound up in the middle of Alien Nation on TBN. Jimmy Cahn played a cop with an attitude, teamed up with a big-headed freak from Uranus or somewhere. Five minutes into the program, it hit him.

Sam Francisco didn't get his handle from the California fruitcake capital, after all. Some stupid bastard back in D.C. had been watching television, maybe getting high while he was at it, and decided he should name his next dumb pigeon for a bubbleheaded alien. Someday Francisco hoped that he could meet the genius responsible and break his goddamn funny bone.

Not that his real name had been so terrific, mind you, but at least it had belonged to him, no crazy strings attached. He had been Aloysius Leroy Cartier for thirty-seven years, the name his sainted mama gave him, and he used to have some trouble over that name, too, before he learned to fight and everybody had begun to call him Bubba. He was getting on just fine, or thought he was, until the day some Feds showed up and hauled his Cajun ass to jail.

The rest was history. They had an airtight case, and Bubba Cartier was looking at a double deuce, all things considered, if he didn't make a deal. His training from the cradle up was that you should never talk to cops except to pay them off or tell them to go screw themselves, but Bubba had been taught another lesson, too, and that was looking out for number one. He could have gone away behind the federal charges, maybe have some oddball felonies appended by the state so they could ship him to Angola for a while. But his high and mighty bosses had been treating him like shit a month or two before the bust went down, and Bubba didn't feel like doing time to get them off the hook. He started thinking of the shit that happened even in the better jails these days-the race wars, contract killings, AIDS-and he decided, to hell with it.

After he agreed to testify, shit started happening like it was preordained or something, maybe laid out in those horoscopes from TV Guide his wife was always reading to him at the breakfast table, like he gave a damn. Bubba was short on faith in higher powers, even after being raised a Catholic-sort of-in the bayou country of Louisiana, but he figured maybe Uncle Sam could take care of his own. He should have known better.

The marshals on the federal witness program had their rules to follow, little bureaucratic games to play. Bubba understood that kind of shit, but still it pissed him off when perfect strangers started playing with his life. The name, for instance. Some geek's little joke at Bubba Cartier's expense. And then there was the job they got him, covering a used-car dealership. He knew damn well that somebody had checked his file and seen the time he did for running chop shops, thinking, Hey! This asshole likes to work with cars, let's fix him up. Like that, the little things that wound up being Sam Francisco's life.

He didn't even want to think about the home away from home they had selected for him, all the way to hell and gone in Michigan. He could imagine Means or Sheppard, one of those guys, staring at a big wall-mounted map of the United States and wondering where they could send him so the bloodhounds wouldn't track him down. That ruled out Dixie and the border states, for starters. He could almost hear them talking: "Here we got ourselves a Southern boy, we better stick his ass up north somewhere. Nobody gonna look for him in Michigan, you think?" So be it.

Even so, he could have been worse off. They could have sent him to Seattle, where it rained nine months a year, or up to Maine, where inbred fishermen ran lobster traps and answered ay-uh every time you asked them something. When Bubba thought about it that way, he believed that things were not the very worst that they could have been. But Cadillac was bad enough.

They had to name it for a car, of course, it being Michigan. Not that he particularly gave a damn. The main thing was that he was living farther north than certain parts of Canada, where it started snowing in November, sometimes in October, and you froze your ass off through the end of March, more likely into April. Living in the bayou country all those years had thinned his blood, and it got damn cold up there, almost two hundred miles above Chicago. There were days the town closed up because the snow plows couldn't run, much less school buses, garbage trucks and squad cars.

There were also days when Bubba wished that he had gone ahead and done his time.

Too late to think about it now, and yet he couldn't help it. He was well and truly stuck, dependent on the marshals in the Witsec program-short for Witness Security-who had made his life over from scratch. No matter how he really felt, he couldn't piss them off too much, because he knew one thing as sure as hell.

The bloodhounds never really lost your scent. And if they found him, after all this time...

Rita was always bitching at him, over one thing or another. She was paranoid about the coloreds, and while Bubba couldn't fault her logic, he was all the time reminding her that colored money spent the same as any other kind, and they were big on buying cars. She blamed him for the fact that she could never see her friends again-small loss, as far as Bubba was concerned-and for the drop in income they had suffered when he left the outfit, started working eight to six and paying taxes. Rita blamed him when the kids got into trouble at their school. And sometimes, when the PMS kicked in, she even blamed him for the weather.

And so what if she was right. They wouldn't be in Cadillac if he had been a little smarter, quicker on the uptake, watching for the Feds. Once he was busted, Bubba could have kept his mouth shut, let the jail doors slam behind him, trusting that the outfit would have taken care of Rita and the kids. The truth was, though, that he had been shit scared of doing twenty years, had half convinced himself he couldn't do it, and they psyched him out. The deal was done, he had delivered on his end, and Sam Francisco of the Cadillac Franciscos was the end result.

But Christ, he couldn't get a decent plate of jambalaya anywhere within a hundred miles. He was reduced to eating store-bought gumbo out of cans. Some days-most days, in fact, he wished that he had cut a bargain with the Feds to let him disappear alone, leave Rita and the rug rats out of it. His new life would have been a whole lot easier if Bubba weren't saddled with that baggage from the past. He could have saved a fortune, too, on aspirin for the headaches Rita gave him with her nagging, day and night.

What had attracted him to Rita in the first place? Thinking back, he knew it was her body, back when she was dancing at the Velvet Club, outside Metairie. Looking at her now, three kids and all those bonbons down the road, no one would guess that she had once been an A-1 looker.

As for the brats...

Too late, he told himself. You're in it now, and no mistake. A man does what he has to do.

Yeah, right.

On Friday night, not knowing it would be his last, Bubba Francisco parked his trash cans at the curb, for pickup in the morning, and sat up to watch the best of Letterman. That wasn't much, in his opinion, but the fella with the big chin didn't do much for him, either, and the flick on HBO was some damn thing with Whoopi Goldberg.

Wonders never ceased.

Before he turned in for the night, he poured himself another double shot of Beam and went around to check the house, each door and window in its turn. He was supposed to be secure, up there in Cadillac, but you could never really tell.

The bloodhounds could be anywhere.

OUTSIDE, THE LEADER of the pack sat waiting for the windows to go dark. That done, he waited half an hour more, in case the man was pleasuring his woman, then he tacked on fifteen minutes more for them to doze. No time was ever truly wasted if you used it properly, in this case sniffing out the night breeze, studying the deeper shadows with his yellow eyes and looking for a trap. If there were hunters here, he had to give them credit for the way they had concealed themselves. He had to give them special credit for the control they exercised. His own craving was so strong it was almost too much to stand.

When he was sure as sure could be that he wasn't about to walk into an ambush, he went back to fetch the others. They were waiting for him in the van, unsettled by the city sounds and smells perhaps, but calm enough that he wasn't required to warn them about making noise. Six pairs of eyes intently focused on him as he opened up the sliding door. "Come brothers, sister."

They piled out and formed a ring around him, claws tap-tapping on the asphalt. When he started walking, after he had locked the van, two of them automatically took point, the others hanging back. The sleek bitch held her place beside him, on his left. They watched for traffic, crossing streets, and kept to shadows where they could. The residential neighborhood had streetlights at the intersections, but the houses in between were dark and still.

Surrounded as he was by things of man, the leader of the pack could smell the woods nearby. The neighborhood was no more than a half mile from Lake Cadillac and William Mitchell State Park, with Lake Mitchell and the Manistee National Forest a mile farther east. He wished they had the time to do some hunting for the hell of it, but business took priority. Within an hour, tops, they would be homeward bound. By this time Sunday, he could turn the pack out on familiar ground. They could rejoin the rest of the pack and run amok if they were so inclined.

But first they had a job to do.

He didn't know the target's name and didn't care. The men who hired him had supplied a photograph, which he had briefly studied, then devoured. It was his theory that ingesting snapshots of his prey gave him an edge. Before the men he hunted ever met him in the flesh, he had consumed a portion of their souls and thereby weakened them in preparation for the kill.

Or maybe he was full of shit.

Some thought so, back at home, though none of them would say it to his face. Even the ones who knew him best might doubt he had the "power," but they never crossed him. Never more than once, that is. The leader of the pack possessed a fearsome reputation, which was well deserved. Even the bad boys knew it wasn't smart to piss him off.

The target had a five-foot wooden fence around his backyard, as if it would keep anybody out. The leader of the pack went over in a flash, the others following and forming up beside him in the darkness, waiting while he watched and smelled the house.

There would be no alarm, because the target thought that he was safe. You change a name, mock up some history. Time flies. What else was there to do? He was supposed to have protectors running interference for him in the big, bad world, but they were not in evidence this night. Except for bitch and whelps, the bastard would be on his own.

The leader of the pack advanced until he stood before the back door of the house. He crouched and sniffed around the doorknob, smelling whoever had touched it last. A tasty child-smell, meat so tender it would slip right off the bone, no problem. He could almost taste it now.

He straightened, threw back his shaggy head and called upon the power. It responded instantly, fire racing through his veins. He clenched his fists and felt his muscles swelling, straining at the denim fabric of his shirt. Long nails like talons bit into his palms. One of his brothers snarled, but he was used to that. They meant no harm.

He felt the power throbbing in him as he reached out for the doorknob, took it in his hand and twisted it with all his might. The lock resisted for a moment, then gave out a sharp metallic snap. The door swung open and he stepped inside.

He hesitated for a moment, just across the threshold, listening and sniffing at the house, to learn if any of its occupants had heard the noise. When no alarm was sounded, he stepped forward and the others joined him in the kitchen, heavy with the smell of good meat spoiled by fire. He understood that men preferred to char the sweet flesh they consumed, but he was still revolted by the practice.

He would take the real thing, raw and bloody, every time.

He led the pack beyond the kitchen, to a darkened hallway, picking up the odor of tobacco smoke and something else-perfume, cologne, some kind of makeup?-that would lead him to the target's bitch. He paused outside the room where two boys slumbered, opening the door without a sound and nodding to the darkness, smiling as a couple of his brothers broke formation, peeling off to do their work. The next room was a girl's. Another silent signal, and a supple shadow left the pack to go in search of something edible.

That left two brothers and the bitch to follow as the leader of the pack proceeded to a final doorway, also closed. He went down on all fours to sniff the carpet, baring yellow fangs. The sound that rumbled from his throat was out of place in human company.

He reached up for the doorknob, hesitating, head cocked so that one ear almost touched the door. Was that a voice he heard inside? The leader of the pack stood and squared his massive shoulders, grinning fiercely as he turned the knob and stepped into the master bedroom. Taloned fingers found the light switch, flicked it and a ceiling fixture blazed on, noonday bright.

In bed, the target and a woman with a double chin were sputtering toward consciousness. They saw the leader of the pack through bleary eyes, but it was still enough to startle them and make the woman scream.

"Surprise," he told them as he started toward the bed. "We just dropped in to have a bite."

ED BEASLEY HADN'T HEARD such screaming since ...well, come to think of it, he'd never heard such screaming in his life. Oh, maybe on the late show, when they had a horror movie on, but he was more inclined to watch the Playboy channel. The noise was coming from next door.

He glanced in the direction of the bedside clock and saw that it was nearly 1:30 a.m. Too late for parties in the neighborhood, and he had never known his neighbors, the Franciscos, as the entertaining kind. Kept mostly to themselves, they did, and there were no kids old enough to raise this kind of hell, unless...

He fought a brief and indecisive struggle with his sheet and blanket, dragging them behind him as he tumbled out of bed and made a beeline for the window. Pulling back the drapes, he peered across a redwood fence at the Francisco house. No lights were in evidence, and he waited for the screams to be repeated.

Nothing.

Beasley hesitated for another moment, wondering if he had been dreaming. Then he heard a crashing sound, as if some heavy piece of furniture had been upended, maybe hurled across a room and slammed into the nearest wall. He took a quick step backward from the window, trembling in his flannel PJs as he wondered what in hell he ought to do.

Call 911!

Beasley found the bedside lamp and switched it on reluctantly, half fearing someone in the outer darkness would discover him and burst in through the glass. He tapped out 911 and killed the lamp again, already feeling safer in the darkness. Three rings in his ear before another tape came on.

"You've reached the Cadillac Police Department emergency response line. All our operators are engaged at the moment. If your call is an emergency, please hold the line. If not-"

Goddamn it!

Beasley dropped the telephone, stood and lurched back to the window. Only deathly silence came from the house next door, so that he wondered if he had imagined the commotion to begin with.

Crash! Another heavy piece toppled somewhere in the darkened house.

He rushed back to the telephone and scooped it up. "You've reached the Cadillac Police Department's-"

Shit!

He slammed down the receiver, bolting for the bedroom door. He stepped on his cat and nearly lost it as the chunky tom spun out from under him, claws raking at one ankle.

"Move your ass, goddamn it!"

Beasley made it to his back door, fumbled with the dead-bolt lock in darkness, still afraid to show a light. He got it on the second try, but the damn door still wouldn't open, and he finally remembered the primary lock, a little button on the knob he had to press before the knob would turn.

Outside, the night was dark and still. The grass was cool beneath his feet, and Beasley cursed the haste that had permitted him to leave the house without his slippers.

Another crash from the Francisco house drew him toward the fence that marked the boundary between the two adjoining properties. He still had no idea of what he meant to do, unarmed and barefoot, barely dressed, but he would think of something when the time came. If he couldn't help his odd, standoffish neighbors, maybe he could catch a glimpse of the intruders and describe them to police. Sure, that was it. A simple witness didn't really have to get involved. Not like the wacky heroes who went charging into burning houses, dragging out unconscious strangers through the smoke and flames.

He reached the fence and stood on tiptoe in the soft earth of a flower bed. A rosebush snagged one leg of his pajamas, but he managed to ignore it, straining for a clear view of the house next door. From where he stood, he had the back door covered, with the steps that led down to a concrete walk around the east side of the structure. Everything was just like Beasley's house, the carbon-copy layout anyway, that readily identified tract housing from the early 1960s. Unlike Beasley, though, the neighbors wasted little time on sprucing up the yard. They cut the grass back twice a month and that was it. No pets that he could see, no flowers, no rock garden. Nothing.

He was staring at the back door when it suddenly flew open and he had the clear view of the prowlers that he had been hoping for. Too clear, in fact, and Beasley instantly regretted wishing for a glimpse of the intruders.

Who was ever going to believe him now?

The dogs were bad enough, big shaggy mongrels, six or seven of them racing silently across the open yard, but Beasley had no time to wonder what a pack of mutts was doing there. His full attention focused on the man who followed them outside. Scratch that.

He would admit, in subsequent interrogations by police, that he mistook the prowler for a human at first glance. The prowler had two arms and two legs and wore some kind of clothing, maybe denim, but the outward similarity to humankind stopped there.

Beasley had seen the creature's face and hands, all shaggy, sprouting long, coarse hair, like something from an old Lon Chaney movie. He couldn't be sure if the hair was brown or black, and didn't really give a damn. One glimpse had been enough to last a lifetime when the creature went down on its haunches, raised its head and howled at the moon.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he really didn't want to get involved, but somehow fate always found him. All he had wanted was a bowl of rice, for crying out loud.

But before the bowl was half-empty he was called to duty. Defender of the downtrodden. Protector of the innocent. Smiter of evil. Was smiter a word? Whatever the hell, it was obvious he'd made a bad choice in restaurants.

It had turned out to be that kind of day, and it wasn't even noon.

He was en route to Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, when it occurred to him that he was hungry.

Remo started looking for a restaurant in Larchmont, shunning drive-ins with their greasy burgers, "extracrunchy" chicken parts and hot dogs drenched in chili that resembled something from the dysentery ward. He found the Happy Noodle, a decent-looking Chinese place on a side street near the heart of town.

A very pretty Chinese hostess took him to a seat. A male server brought hot tea in a ceramic pot and steamed rice. Remo was chewing away-it took a lot of chewing if you did it right-when trouble walked in off the street.

He counted seven of them, Chinese punks whose taste in clothing ran to leather coats or denim jackets with the sleeves cut off, tight slacks and high-gloss shoes with pointy toes. They all wore sunglasses, despite the dim light in the restaurant, and combed their hair straight back, like Dracula-Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. Most of them sported chunky rings that would do wicked damage in a brawl-assuming they made contact.

Remo watched the hostess move to greet the new arrivals, saw the nervous jitter in her walk as she approached them. The apparent leader met her with a smile, said something in Chinese, then shook his head at her response. The smile winked out, and he was pointing toward the back, in the direction of the kitchen, snapping orders that the slim young woman hastened to obey.

Remo assumed the older man who came to meet the punks had to be the Happy Noodle's manager, perhaps the owner. Remo didn't completely comprehend what was said, but he got the gist. Wherever they were found, established Chinese businessmen were often victimized by hoodlum gangs and forced to pay protection.

None of my business, Remo thought, and turned back to his meal. The loaded chopsticks were poised midway between his plate and mouth when he was forcibly distracted by the sound of knuckles striking flesh and a cry of pain. The hostess rushed to assist the fallen manager and yelled at the punks who loomed above him. There was nothing complimentary about her comments, and Remo saw the leader of the gang slap her hard across the face.

Remo, swearing under his breath, went to join the party. On his right, one member of the gang saw Remo coming, nudged the punk next to him with an elbow, and it went along the line that way until the leader had him spotted, turning just his head to face the new arrival. He was smiling still, his eyes invisible behind the shades he wore, and Remo didn't care. It made no difference what the young man looked like with his glasses off. The eyes were helpful sometimes in a fight, but these punks weren't even a challenge. Rather, it would be a test of his patience and forbearance not to kill them when the first one made his move.

He came on slow and guileless, verging onto stupid, as the youngsters would expect a do-gooder white man to behave. They had grown up intimidating elders, picking out their targets based on fear or weakness. Thus far, the technique had served them well.

"Excuse me." He addressed the cringing hostess, seeming to ignore the young men ranged in front of him, likewise the restaurant's proprietor. "I'm finished, miss. If I could get my check now, please...?"

"Hey, man," the leader of the seven said to him, "does any one of us look like your damn waiter?" Remo made a show of studying their faces and their clothing.

"Gosh, no," he said at last. "My waiter didn't have a quart of oil in his hair, and there didn't seem to be a problem with his eyes. His clothes were nicer, as I recall. His shoes weren't greaser retro from the 1960s and he didn't use that cheap cologne. In fact, you ought to ask him for some pointers on style. I'm sure he-"

"Shut up!"

The young Chinese thug was livid, anger darkening his sallow cheeks. He stared at Remo from behind his shades, while the others muttered among themselves and fidgeted. A couple of them slipped hands inside their leather jackets.

"You got a big mouth for a round-eye," said the leader of the gang.

"You know, that's just what my wife says," Remo replied. "Somebody asks a question, I just fire back with the first thing that comes to mind. By which I mean God's honest truth, you understand. It gets me into trouble sometimes, I'm the first one to admit, but what the hey, that's life. Your hair, for instance. Now, I hope it didn't hurt your feelings when I said-"

"You wanna die, man?" the leader asked him.

"Well, it's not as if I have a choice, now, is it? Certainly, like anybody else, I hope to live as long as possible, but let's not kid ourselves, okay? I mean-"

"I'm asking if you wanna die today."

"Oh, well, that's different, isn't it? When you get down to the specifics of it-"

Remo heard the switchblade open with a snap before he saw it, glinting on his left. The farthest hoodlum from him was the first to draw a weapon, but the others quickly followed suit. He checked the hardware, counting off three knives, one cutthroat razor, one blackjack, one pair of knuckle dusters and a pair of plastic nunchakus. They might as well have armed themselves with some of the restaurant's signature noodles.

The leader twirled his nunchakus, making his companion on the right step back a pace to keep from getting swatted on the jaw. The members of his gang maintained respectful silence as he whipped the nunchakus through a short routine and caught the loose end underneath one arm.

"Enter the Dragon, right?" Remo asked. "Hey, I loved that movie, too. I must have seen it half a dozen times. I think I've even got the video at home. If I could make one observation, though... Your stance, I mean, well, it appears to me you're sort of leaning to the left, and-

"You're a ninja, right? Some kind of expert, because you saw a movie?"

"A ninja? Oh, my goodness gracious, no! But, then again, it doesn't always take an expert to detect the weakness in an amateur's approach. Sometimes, I mean, the errors are just quite obvious."

The hostess and the manager were staring at him now, clearly expecting Remo to be mobbed at any moment. He ignored them, focused on the nunchaku man, believing that the others wouldn't make a move until their leader gave the order.

"More tact," the Chinese hoodlum said, "is what you need. It's like you said, that mouth of yours. Besides-" he nodded toward the scowling manager "-old Grandpa here could use an object lesson. He's too brave for his own good these days. That's not a healthy way to be, you know? He doesn't care enough about himself, his building, his employees. Maybe he still cares about his customers. You think?"

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Remo said.

"Well, hey," the young man told him with a smile, "let's check it out."

He had rehearsed the move; that much was obvious: Remo could almost see him posing with his 'chuks before a full-length mirror, maybe in the nude, and smiling at his trim reflection as he worked on different angles of attack. It didn't hurt to practice that way every now and then, but a person could overdo it, just like anything in life. Some mirror fighters focused so much on technique, the way they looked to others when they struck a pose, that they lost sight of basics. They forgot that fighting in real life had more to do with raw survival than with looking good. A handsome corpse was still stone dead, no matter how his hair was styled.

He gave another flourish of his nunchakus, letting out a "Yaoweeee" kind of sound he had to have borrowed from the late Bruce Lee. It warbled through two octaves, rising to a sharp soprano pitch before it ended with a startled-sounding "Oof!" The next move was apparently supposed to startle his victim, take him by surprise, but Remo Williams saw the windup coming from a mile away.

The self-styled tough guy whipped the nunchakus left to right from his perspective, counting on the backhand to connect with Remo's skull and take him down with one blow.

Remo hardly seemed to move, yet he ducked backward far enough to let the nunchakus whisper past his face with a quarter of an inch to spare. Before the young man had a chance to register his miss, process the information and react accordingly, Remo was gliding forward, still moving faster than the human eye could follow, one hand floating out in front of him to find his attacker's jaw.

Reach out and touch someone.

Remo pulled the punch, but the strike still carried force enough to shatter bone. One moment, Remo's enemy was snarling at him, showing gritted teeth; the next, his lower jaw had shifted two inches to the right. The change was accompanied by a sickly ripping sound, and a handful of his pearly whites exploded from between slack lips and pattered on the vinyl floor.

Remo was back in place and gaping at the young man as he fell. "Oh, no!" he said to no one in particular. "Did I do that?"

It took a moment for the other six punks to recover, and the next rush came from Remo's left. The grinner with the long bone-handled switchblade in his hand knew enough to hold the knife well back, against his right hip, while his left hand pawed the air in front of him. He was ducking, weaving as he came toward Remo, muttering some vulgar malediction in Chinese.

Remo half turned to face him, raising empty hands as if to placate his assailant. "Hey, wait a second here," he said, still clinging to his character. "I didn't mean-"

Remo brushed the empty hand aside as the other hand made the thrust that was designed to disembowel him. Remo wasn't in the mood to be disemboweled. He smacked the knife hand up, hard. The knife rocketed skyward, the hand broke and the blade man bonked himself in the head with his own forearm with such magnificent force he knocked himself out.

The impact left him stretched out on the floor, face-down, his right arm showing jagged angles that were never planned by Mother Nature. The unnatural speed of the movement of his arm had also shredded every tendon and ligament from the shoulder on down.

"My favorite Moe move," Remo explained. The five remaining hoodlums had already seen what happened to their buddies when they tried to take the round-eyes one on one. Accordingly, the next rush was a two-man effort, more knives coming at him from the left and right.

Remo reversed his stance at the last moment, with a simple pivot on his toes, and saw the glimmer of the knife slide past his face as his right elbow rose to meet the youngster's rushing face. He was rewarded with a satisfying crunch of bone and cartilage, the cutter's nose and cheek imploding, impact robbing him of consciousness while sheer momentum kept him moving.

"Oops! Sorry!" Remo yelped as he gave the little punk an extra nudge and sent the limp form into his other adversary's path. "Coming through!" he warned.

The two young gangsters came together with a jolting impact, one a flaccid scarecrow. Remo heard a muffled grunt and saw the second attacker's blade slide home above the tumbling rag doll's hip. It shouldn't be a mortal wound, if Remo wrapped up his engagement in the next few minutes and the manager could summon an ambulance, but there was bright blood on the fourth man's knife as he and his comrade toppled to the floor.

"That has got to hurt," Remo commented.

The young man with the knuckle dusters seemed to have forgotten he was wearing them, or maybe he was simply frightened by the thought of closing to within arm's length of this most startling round-eyes. Whatever the excuse, he aimed a looping kick at Remo's face instead of striking with his fists. As with his leader, noise appeared to help the kicker with his move, a high-pitched yipping sound that may have been designed to psych out his adversary.

Remo registered the high kick as a rush of air before he turned to face it. Ducking back as the pointy shoe rushed toward his face, he caught the heel between his thumb and index finger, lifting as he pivoted, the kicker's other foot swept off the ground by leverage and centrifugal force. The knuck man's skull collided with the floor and he went limp, another flesh-and-floor-tile speed bump on the battlefield of life.

And that left two.

"You guys suck," Remo commented.

The young man with the blackjack should have moved while Remo was demolishing his buddy, but he hesitated, checking out the odds and angles. "Seriously. The Drunken Masters are better than you. The Crippled Masters are better than you. David Carradine is better than you and he's like eighty years old. You even make Jean-Claude Van Damme look talented."

"Shut up, Cauc!" His attitude told Remo that he longed to cut and run, but there was still his reputation to consider, and a witness who would tell the world if he showed yellow in a pinch. The razor man, meanwhile, was standing back and shooting glances toward the exit, measuring the distance, wondering if he could make it to the street.

"I hate to say this," Remo said regretfully, "but you know who you guys remind me of?" He winced and stage-whispered, "Steven Seagal."

That did it. A blend of rage and stubborn pride propelled the sap man forward, swinging wildly with his leather-shrouded weapon. Remo ducked beneath a reckless swing and poked a few stiff fingers up into the young man's solar plexus. He could easily have stopped the beating heart inside that rib cage, maybe ripped it out and placed it in the hoodlum's hand, but he was satisfied to drive the wind out of his adversary's lungs and spray the remnants of his breakfast on the nearest wall.

The sap man staggered, went down on one knee and lost his weapon as he clutched his burning abdomen. Still conscious, there was nothing he could do to help himself as Remo stepped in close and tapped him at the junction of his skull and spine, obliterating awareness. The slump became a sprawl, the punk collapsing on his side.

When Remo turned to face the razor man, his final standing target met him with a show of teeth that could have passed for either a smile or a grimace. He had grabbed the hostess and was holding her in front of him with one arm wrapped around her upper body while his free hand held the open razor to her throat.

"I'll cut her, man!" he said.

"That wouldn't be the smartest thing you've ever done," said Remo.

"Oh, yeah? Why not?"

"Because your friends are still alive. They came at me, and I gave them a break. You cut the girl-" he frowned and shook his head "-no breaks for you."

"She'll still be dead," the razor man retorted. "Maybe she can be my prom date when I get to hell."

"Did anybody mention killing you?" asked Remo. "Hey, not me. I couldn't bring myself to let you off that easy, kid. I'd have to break your legs in six or seven places each, the same thing with your arms. The spine's a little trickier, but I know how it's done. A simple twist, not too much pressure.

You're a basket case before you know it, paralyzed from the neck down, but still in constant pain. Can't scratch your nose or wipe your ass, but that's all right. You'll have a nurse to do it for you. Hell, the tricks the doctors know these days, you ought to live another sixty years, at least. I might drop in to visit you and celebrate our anniversary, make sure those pain receptors keep on functioning. Sound good to you?"

"You're fulla shit!"

"So call my bluff if you're feeling lucky, punk," said Remo. "Go ahead. Go for it. Make my day. One thing, though-make sure it's what you really want to do, because you'll wind up paying for it for a long damn time."

The hoodlum thought about it. To be fair, thinking was probably not something he did often. He certainly didn't do it well, and at this moment he made one of his least successful thinking attempts ever.

He decided to cut.

Remo saw the slight whitening of his knife hand and the smallest change in the indentation of the hostess's skin at the moment the pressure of the blade increased.

Remo moved. Fast. Faster than the kid would have thought possible, even though he'd seen the round-eyes do some pretty amazing stuff in the past minute or so.

But that was all nothing compared to what happened now. Remo moved in and took the razor out of the punk's hand-before the pressure was sufficient to slice into the flesh of the poor hostess.

Then Remo took the hostess away, as well.

She was surprised to find herself suddenly safe-for a heartbeat she had thought the guy was starting to cut her, and now where she was standing was-several paces away from the action.

Such as it was.

The punk who until recently had been in possession of hostage and victim now was trying figure out where both had gone.

Well, there was his victim. What was she doing way over there?

Oh. There was a razor. The Caucasian with the quick moves had it. He was bending it.

That was a pretty damn good blade. Stainless steel. Strong. Bending it should be difficult. Twisting and squeezing it into a small metal ball should be impossible.

That's exactly what round-eyes was doing. But his eyes weren't round anymore. They were the shape of death.

Enlightenment came to the punk. He didn't know what the guy was, but he was way beyond normal. And he had made the punk a promise. Something about a lifetime of pain and paralysis.

The punk turned and tried to run out the door, but the frantic movement of his feet wasn't matched by the rapid transition of the scenery from the interior of the restaurant to the exterior of Larchmont, New York. This had a lot to do, he decided, with the fact that his feet were not in contact with the ground.

The Caucasian had him by the collar and was holding him high without apparent strain.

"Just kill me," the punk begged.

Remo Williams smiled a smile that would haunt the nightmares of the punk for years and years. "Sorry. A promise is a promise."

Remo quickly did what he had promised.

THE HOSTESS SAW IT ALL. Described it all to the police. She couldn't describe the perpetrator. She never got a good look at his face. Nobody did.

"You wouldn't be covering up for the guy?" the Larchmont detective demanded.

"Covering up for him?" she asked. "What is there to cover up for? He is a hero. If I knew who he was, I would go to the press and proclaim to the world that he is a courageous man who stood up for the unprotected ethnic citizens when the Larchmont police were conspicuously absent. I know people in the media."

The detective lost his bluster. "Okay, miss, we're all on the same side here. No need to get Barbara Walters."

The hostess's dark eyes glinted with determination as she corrected him. "Connie Chung," she said distinctly.

The detective stammered for a minute. "Now, let's be reasonable-you can't go publicizing things like that," he whined. "People get in trouble. People get fired. It's not fair and it's just not true."

"Then why were our complaints ignored?"

"Complaints?"

"Six complaints called in to the Larchmont Police Department in three weeks. We recorded the calls. Would you like to hear our tapes?"

"That won't be necessary...."

"Aunt Connie would like to hear them, I bet." Remo was already long-gone by then. When he noted the wail of approaching sirens, he left the restaurant, pausing briefly to choose a fortune cookie from a bowl beside the register.

He liked fortune cookies. Not that he ever ate them. It was the fortunes themselves, delivering their tidbits of erudition silently, unlike some other fonts of wisdom Remo could name. If you didn't like your fortune, you could just toss it out and forget it. A fortune cookie didn't follow you around nagging you for days. Or weeks. Or years.

Outside, he cracked the cookie open and removed the slip of folded paper from its ruptured heart. The fortune told him "You will meet a fascinating stranger when the moon is full." And underneath that prophecy, in smaller print: "Your luck number is seven."

Remo threw the cookie in the sidewalk trash can, but he put the crumpled fortune in his pocket as he walked on to his car.

Chapter 3

Dr. Harold W. Smith reminded Remo of a lemon. His complexion called to mind a dimpled lemon rind. His expression typically suggested he'd bitten into something sour but was too dull to complain about it.

Before his long-running role as director of CURE, the supersecret crime-fighting and security organization, Dr. Smith had done a long tour of duty with the CIA, where he confounded Langley's staff psychiatrists.

They put him through a standard Rorschach test, but all that Smith could see was ink blots. Other testing was performed-crude by the standards of the twenty-first century but the state of the psychoanalytical art in the 1950s. The results were perplexing.

The CIA doctors were convinced that Smith was playing games or, worse, being deliberately misleading. Finally, they were convinced of the unbelievable truth.

In the words of one examiner, "The man has absolutely no imagination. None." The men in charge at Langley were delighted. Men with no imagination were exactly what the covert Cold War intelligence apparatus needed in those days. In the CIA, where he was sometimes called the Gray Ghost, his career had been highly successful.

He was often described as extremely competent, but his direct superior was known to add, "Competent is the right word for Smith, but it's not a big enough word."

The shrinks were wrong about Harold Smith, of course. They failed to understand that Smith was one who dealt in hard and fast reality. He could imagine Armageddon well enough, projecting what would happen if a raving lunatic in Moscow pushed the button, but he had no time for parlor games, no knack for spotting bats or butterflies in what were honestly and truly smears of ink. Case closed.

Aside from Harold Smith's steadfast fidelity to reality, he was possessed of an integrity that ran bone-deep and would put most public servants in the shade, where they belonged. Smith's honesty was such that he had never swiped a pencil, paper clip or piece of stationery from the office and never would.

Along with his honesty, Smith was distinguished by a patriotism that ran to the very fiber of his being. Even without tests to prove them, these traits were known to his superiors. And to their superiors. And eventually Smith was mentioned in the presence of the most superior official in the federal government. It was back in the early 1960s, and the President of the United States was looking for a man just like Harold W. Smith-a loyal, pragmatic man, one utterly devoted to the precepts of liberty as described in the Constitution of the United States of America. His task would be to successfully control a great violation of that Constitution.

That violation had a name. CURE. Not an acronym. CURE was a cure for a sick world. CURE was an attempt to stabilize the magnificent constitutional democracy by violating its constitution. Organized crime didn't follow the rules. Espionage cells and other threats to the U.S. didn't follow the rules. CURE wouldn't follow them, either.

Smith had his doubts about the success of such an organization, but he would not, could not turn down an appointment by the President of the United States. He was retiring from the CIA and had already accepted an academic position, but instead he became head of CURE. He also became the director of the Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York, where CURE was based.

In the early days, successes came slowly. When the young, idealistic President who had formed the organization was gunned down, murdered in front of thousands of spectators while riding in a motorcade next to his lovely young wife, Smith had been demoralized.

For all of twenty minutes. Then he was back on the job. Forty years later, he was still on the job.

In the intervening years he had ordered the commission of grave violations of most of the freedoms granted by the Constitution of the United States, but always with the goal of preserving it. And preserve it he had. CURE worked. No one-not even the Presidents under whom Smith served-knew the scope of activities it had been involved in and the disasters CURE had prevented.

Harold W. Smith was prepared to die by his own hand rather than share the secrets now locked inside his brain. If a threat ever materialized to undermine the federal government by exposing CURE, Smith would initiate a full-scale self-destruction of the organization, its computers, its records and even himself. He had the will and he had the pill.

Maybe, Remo thought, it was all that keeping-it-inside that made Smith sour. This afternoon, the director of CURE looked even more dyspeptic than was usual. He stared at Remo from behind his tidy desk, and while it wouldn't have been strictly accurate to call his look a scowl, it was the next best thing.

"The Happy what?" Smith asked.

"The Happy Noodle," Remo told him. "Just down the road, in Larchmont."

"Ah." The lesson in geography didn't appear to calm Smith's nerves or roiling stomach. "How many were there?"

"Just seven," Remo said.

"Just seven."

"Well, now there's six and a half."

Dr. Smith steepled his fingers and braced them under his chin, as if the whirlwind of thought inside his head had grown too much for his ancient neck muscles to support.

"You couldn't let it pass?"

"Not really," Remo said. "The situation was escalating, getting out of hand. Besides, they're alive. No problem, Smitty."

"No problem? What about the publicity?" Smith said. "My God, I hate to think of it."

"No sweat," Remo said. "It's a restaurant, okay? It's not like they take names or check ID unless you walk in looking twelve years old and order booze. Which I don't and I didn't, and if they did card me I'd tell them I'm Remo Toohugandkiss or whatever the hell name I'm going by today."

"But you were seen," the director of CURE reminded him stiffly. "Keep in mind you're not exactly a stranger at Folcroft. Someone on the staff would know you if they saw you, and it isn't inconceivable that some of our staff were there or on the street. Larchmont's practically in our own backyard."

"I had my mean face on," Remo griped. "Nobody'll be able to pick me out of a lineup, I swear." Smith spread his hands and turned his lemon face toward the ceiling, as if seeking guidance from the stained tiles. He shook his head at last, fingers coming to rest on the onyx surface of the desk and eyes focusing on the computer screen that came to life, hidden under the desktop.

"All right," he said, "let's all forget about this noodle business for the moment, shall we?"

Remo glanced behind him, wondering if Mark Howard, Smith's associate, had joined the party, but they were still alone.

Smith was focusing his attention on the glowing screen that was quite literally his window to the world.

"There's been some kind of cock-up in the federal witness program," Smith said. "We-"

"Some kind of what?"

The lemon face was raised. "Excuse me?" Smith appeared confused.

"Some kind of what?" Remo repeated.

"What?" Smith's frown showed irritation now.

"Nothing. Forget it."

"Right." Smith stared at Remo for a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, then his eyes dropped back to the hidden display. His fingers had never stopped moving, as if they had their own guiding will.

"The Witsec program has begun to leak," he explained. "Or, more precisely, it's begun to hemorrhage. We have three witnesses eliminated in the past two months, along with relocated members of their families. Nine victims altogether, plus a bystander who may have stumbled on the second hit in progress."

It was Remo's turn to frown. "This is something new? They go through witnesses like I go through shoes."

Smith looked at him sharply. "You don't go through shoes so much as waste them."

"They wear out fast," Remo said with a shrug. The sour face Smith made was potent with doubt.

"Perhaps you would like to see an accounting of CURE expenses arising from your shoe habit."

"Hey, what's wrong with having a shoe habit? Most of us have shoe habits. I hardly ever see you strolling around here in your socks."

"Your shoes are handmade in Italy."

"Forgive me for appreciating quality."

"And they are exorbitantly expensive," Smith persisted.

"So are yours, I'm sure," Remo protested. Smith pursed his lips.

"Remo, I have three pairs of shoes. Today I am wearing my newest pair. Black wingtips. I purchased them in 1989."

"They must be really stinky."

"A good pair of shoes lasts a long time, that's my point," Smith said in exasperation.

Remo made a resigned face. "Okay, Smitty, so when do you throw your shoes away?"

"When they're worn-out, of course."

"Me, too. Case closed. Now tell me why we should care about the Feds losing witnesses." Smith knew Remo was right. Shoes was not the subject at hand-but he made a mental note to have Mark Howard generate the expense report he had mentioned.

"The federal witness program has had its glitches over the years, and a protected subject is inevitably lost from time to time," Smith admitted. "The typical scenario involves a homesick witness who can't resist a phone call or a visit home. He is spotted or traced, and then it's not long before he's neutralized. It is an effective reminder to other witnesses in hiding that the act of reaching out to touch someone is often tantamount to suicide."

"I guess it oughta," Remo said.

"Three witnesses in two months' time is different," Smith continued. "It defies the odds of mere coincidence. It should be impossible."

"Never underestimate the screw-up potential of a federal bureaucracy," Remo said. "Were the killings connected?"

"Indeed they were," Smith said. "Are you familiar with the Cajun Mafia?"

"They put hot sauce on everything," said Remo. "Cross them, and you wind up sleeping with the blackened fish."

Smith was used to Remo's quips and ignored them whenever possible. "In fact, they're ruthless. Deadly. Thugs and outlaws from the bayou country of Louisiana who have learned by watching other, larger syndicates, adapting the procedures to their own requirements. Since Marcello died, they've given the Sicilians lots of competition in New Orleans and throughout the state, with feelers out to Arkansas and Texas, drug connections of their own in Mexico, Colombia and Southeast Asia. They're involved in everything from vice to crooked politics and real estate. You name it, and the Cajuns have a slice of the potato pie."

"That's sweet-potato pie," said Remo.

"Whichever." Smith had already allowed Remo to distract him too many times and the conversation was only ten minutes old. "Until a few months ago, the leader of the so-called Cajun Mafia was Armand Fortier, known to his cohorts as the Big Crawdaddy. Please don't ask me why."

"Why?"

"Recently," Smith continued sternly, "after several failed attempts, he was convicted on a RICO charge including several homicides, extortion, drugs-the works. Unlike the previous attempts, which ended in acquittal or hung juries, this time there were witnesses prepared to talk, insiders who believed that Fortier was planning to eliminate them, just in case."

"And was he?" Remo asked.

"Probably. What difference does it make? My point is that they testified, resulting in conviction, and all four were relocated, with their wives and minor children."

"As opposed to major children?" Remo said. Smith wished Chiun were there. The presence of the old Korean seemed to have the effect of humbling Remo or at least reducing the number of pointless comments. But Chiun was spending a lot of his time "meditating" these days. Smith had been assured the old Korean wasn't ready for retirement, but he wasn't sure what else the old Master's decreased involvement could signify.

The chief of CURE forged on. "As you may imagine, whether Fortier was after them before the trial or not, he wants them now. Or, rather, he wanted them, since three are dead. Mark will be here in just a moment with some shots from the crime scenes."

There was a knock at that very moment and the door opened. Mark Howard entered with a manila envelope. "Remo," Howard said with a nod.

"Did he train you to do that, Junior?"

"Do what?"

Howard slid over the envelope and took the chair next to Remo. Smith opened the manila folder and removed a stack of photographs. He began to pass them across the desk, inverted, as if he were dealing outsized playing cards. The crime-scene photos were in living, bloody color, several of them close-ups. While they weren't the worst things he had ever seen, Remo decided they were bad enough. No slick, professional hits in evidence here. It was amateur night at the butcher shop.

"Okay, these are really nice and all, but do I care what the crime scene looked like?" Remo asked.

"The first one, on your left there," Smith directed his attention, "is what's left of Justin Marchant and his wife. They lived in Medford, Oregon, under the cover name of Wilson. Marchant was Fortier's accountant. One of them, at least. He juggled books to hide the income from a string of brothels, drug transactions, this and that. He testified. And now he's dead."

"Dead hardly covers it," said Remo. Peering at the photograph, he had some difficulty sorting out where Justin Marchant ended and his wife began. The bedroom-if it was a bedroom-was awash in blood.

"Next up," Smith said, "you have Adrian Pascoe and friend. The woman was identified as Louise Lascar, no connection to the case. Pascoe apparently hooked up with her after his relocation to Scranton, Pennsylvania, as William Decker. They were sharing quarters."

The way Smith sounded when he spoke of "sharing quarters," Remo half expected him to add that Pascoe and his lady had been living in sin. It hardly mattered, though, since neither one of them was living any longer.

"Yech. Bet it was a closed casket. What was the link to Fortier?" he asked.

"Pascoe was muscle, but ambitious muscle," Smith replied. "Apparently, he started out on the New Orleans docks as an enforcer for the union. Cajun stock, of course. His father and a couple of his uncles have done time for poaching, liquor violations, felony assault, grand theft. His testimony helped sink Fortier on contract killings dating back to 1987.

"Third photo," Smith said. It showed what could have been a shattered mannequin, except for all the blood and scattered viscera. The setting seemed to be a lawn or grassy field.

"That's Wyatt Greaves," Smith said. "He was a neighbor, more or less, no evidence of any personal connection to the witness. Greaves apparently liked late-night jogging. The police surmise that he heard something as he passed by Pascoe's house, or maybe he just met the killer coming out. In any case, it was bad timing."

"Bad is right."

"The last three shots," Smith said, "show Aloysius Cartier, his wife and their three children. Cartier ran chop shops for the Cajun mob and worked his way up into middle management. The FBI caught him red-handed with some stolen property and squeezed until he sang. The family was relocated to Cadillac, Michigan, with the surname of Francisco. They were safe, from all appearances, until three days ago."

Now they were safe again, thought Remo, as only the dead were ever truly safe from harm. But Jesus, what a way to go. The man and woman tangled up in bloody sheets, another bedroom transformed into a mad surgeon's operating theater. The children...

"What's the weapon?" Remo asked. "Machete? Ax? A chain saw?"

"Teeth," said Dr. Smith.

Remo Williams said nothing for a long moment. Then he said, "I see."

He did see. He saw it as big as death.

Smith didn't typically involve CURE in something as mundane as organized-crime murders. Now Remo knew why Smith was involving them this time. "Goddamn it!" he growled.

"Autopsy reports on all nine victims are consistent," Smith continued relentlessly. "Medical examiners from three states have confirmed their findings with the FBI in Washington. It would appear the victims were attacked and killed by one or more wild animals. Aside from the dismemberment, there is persuasive evidence that parts of several bodies were, well, devoured."

"As in eaten."

"That appears to be the case."

"In addition to the damage you can see, the female victim in Nebraska was discovered to have several canine hairs clutched in her hand," Mark Howard said.

"Canine as in dog," Remo stated, feeling hollow.

"There was a witness to the last attack," Smith added. "Or, rather, a witness to the getaway. A neighbor of the Cartiers, one Edward Beasley, heard some kind of a commotion at the time of the attack and ran outside in time to see the, um, the suspects fleeing from the scene."

"Suspects," said Remo, "as in more than one?"

"It gets a little shaky here," Smith said. "The witness has described a pack of dogs, no breed confirmed. They were, he says, accompanied by a monster."

"What kind of monster?"

"His words, not mine," Smith said. "A hairy monster, if you want to be precise."

Mark clarified. "Specifically, he called it 'A hairy wolf man howling at the moon.'"

"To top it all off," Smith said, "saliva from a number of the wounds has been identified as human."

"That bitch!" Remo stated harshly.

"Judith White," Smith intoned morosely.

"Who else?" he demanded angrily. "I let her get away."

"She engineered an escape," Mark Howard said.

"Whatever."

Smith took a deep breath. "We don't think it's her, Remo."

"Huh? Of course it's her."

"There are a number of things about it that don't fit," Howard said. "Even if she is still alive, you did close down her stable."

"So what? You know how fast she works when she sets her mind to it. You drink her special blend, and next thing you're a human animal hungry for meat. This is right up her alley."

"It's not, though," Howard said. "Judith White wouldn't work for organized crime. Why would she?"

Remo gave him a bitter stare. "We're not talking about a woman with a lot of scruples, Junior. She needs cash to fund her little mad-scientist research labs. She wouldn't have qualms about doing hits for the mob if it pays for the Bunsen burners."

"She'd know the crime scenes would be full of odd clues to tip off law enforcement, for one," Smith said. "And she is not fond of publicity."

"Also, the hairs at the scene were canine," Mark Howard reminded Remo. "White has not been known to make much use of canine DNA in her gene-splicing experiments."

Remo was exasperated and angry. "Earth to stupid guy-that bitch put a little of everything in her special brew. A little tiger, a little leech, a little whatever. If there happened to be a stray dog raiding the garbage cans, she'd have wrung his neck and dumped him into the pot, too."

There was a moment of silence while they considered this. Then Remo sighed. "You're right. These killings aren't her style. That means it's one of her pups."

"Now I think we are on the same wavelength," Smith said, nodding. "We have to consider that's the source of this so-called monster."

Remo laughed hollowly. "What the hell else would we consider?"

THE OLD Asian was about to say something when Remo walked into the duplex. Maybe something derogatory. Maybe just a mild insult. Whatever it was, he swallowed it when he sensed Remo's smoldering self-recrimination.

Chiun, Master of Sinanju Emeritus, said simply, "My son?"

"Little Father." Remo paced the nearly empty living room.

A minute later he lowered himself to sit crosslegged on the mat, facing Chiun, and started again. "Little Father. I failed."

"How did you fail?" asked the little man in a singsong voice that held a deep compassion at rare times. Like now.

"Judith White. She's started killing again. Or one of her litters, anyway." He told Chiun all the details. "She got away from me in the end," Remo said. "If I would have stopped her then, this wouldn't be happening."

"But Emperor Smith and the young Prince believe this is not her," Chiun mused.

"They think it's probably connected to her. A bad batch of her potion that she threw out or forgot about or just didn't care about. A bunch of rabid Rin Tin Tins that slipped through the net. The way they're behaving, Smith thinks they might have even been operating for several months, maybe years."

"So how could you have known of their existence, let alone been responsible for their removal?" Chiun asked in a very straightforward way.

Remo sighed. "I don't know."

"You could not," Chiun summed up. "They may have been created before we last encountered Dr. Judith White at her water factory."

"That lets me off the hook? That just means it was my first kill-Judy failure rather than my second. Either way, I let her get away and now people are dying."

"There is no way you could have known she did not die in the fire. There was no way you could have foreseen her slippery escape in Maine."

"Aren't I supposed to be the freaking Master of Sinanju?"

"You are the Master of Sinanju. There is no 'freaking' and there is no 'supposed' about it. As the Master of Sinanju, you have skills beyond any possessed by other men. But this does not make you omniscient."

Remo frowned. "Omniscient means knowing everything?"

Chiun sighed heavily. "Yes."

"So you're trying to say I don't know everything?"

"Yes, as you've just demonstrated wondrously."

"So how come I feel like I let those people die?" Chiun didn't answer that. He could have harangued on the subject for a half hour if he wanted to. And he probably would. Later.

"Smitty and Junior aren't even convinced it's her or her kids," Remo said bitterly. "Get this. The FBI thinks maybe it's just some guy dressed up in a monster costume. You can buy them anywhere, mail order if you want to skip the stores. Full head and gloves, the feet, whatever. Smitty tried telling me the Feds might be right."

"And the other canine creatures?"

"The theory is they're attack-trained dogs," Remo said. "That's easy. You can train a dog to do almost anything. They had a German shepherd in L.A. a few years back, somebody trained him to snatch purses on the street. In Argentina, when Peron was still around, the state police had special handlers training dogs to rape their female prisoners."

"Trained dogs and monster masks do not explain human saliva in the wounds," Chiun said.

"Smith says maybe the guy's just a biter," Remo said. "I guess stranger things have happened. Look at Dahmer."

"What of the witness who survives?" asked Chiun.

"His name's Jean Cuvier. Some kind of secondstring lieutenant in the Cajun mob before the FBI grabbed Fortier. His specialty was fixing sporting events. He started yapping to the Feds and wound up with a contract on his head and asked the government to help him out. He squealed on the stand about Fortier's dabbling in extortion. He told the jury about Fortier acid-blinding a jockey who forgot he was supposed to lose a race. After the verdict, Cuvier was relocated to Nebraska. Omaha."

"He will be next," Chiun said, not making it a question.

"Maybe," said Remo. "I'm gonna go baby-sit him for a while and hope the wolf man comes back. Then we'll know for sure if it's one of Dr. Judy White's little experiments or a guy in a wolf suit. But somebody is bound to try for Cuvier. Fortier's attorneys have a motion for a new trial pending in the Seventh Circuit, and it could go either way. If it goes back to trial and he's eliminated all the prosecution witnesses, Fortier walks."

"When the killers come for this Cuvier, they will be forced to reveal their true nature," Chiun mused. "This will put your mind at ease."

"Huh? How?"

"To know their origin is to understand them. Once you understand them, then you will know you are not responsible for their being or culpable in their crimes. It is as the Emperor says, Remo-they are not necessarily the offspring of the madwoman Judith White."

Remo wasn't buying it. "But another set of cannibal killers springs up just a few months after Dr. White slips through the net? Not likely."

"Maybe it is. Since we encountered the cannibal woman, Smith has doubtless inveigled his electronic information machines to look for the telltale signs of an attack matching the nature of Dr. White. The killers were there, but only now has it come to the attention of Emperor Smith."

"I think you're reaching for straws."

"I do not reach for straws. Ever. Also, consider that perhaps this creature is not a product of Dr. White and is not a masquerader in a costume, but a true wolf man."

"Huh?"

"Spoken like a true Master. It is unlikely, I agree, that an American would have such powers. All the more since his ancestors came from France. If he was Asian, now, perhaps..."

"You don't believe in werewolves, do you, Little Father?"

Chiun regarded Remo with a frown. "Such tales are not unique to Europe and America," he said at last. "Koreans have never sought communion with the lower beasts, but it is not unknown in China and Japan, where degradation of the species is routine."

"A Chinese wolf man?"

"In fact, the were fox is more common," Chiun replied. "No doubt, the lowly Chinese once attempted to improve their ignoble mental state by interbreeding with a wiser animal. The end result, predictably, was not as they intended."

"You're not serious." Remo had conjured a mental image. "I can't picture it. I mean, I guess I can see a Chinese were-fox, but what I can't picture is the actual mating between the human and the fox."

"I chose not to even attempt to visualize such a thing," Chiun said rancorously.

"Especially since you gotta know the fox is not going to be a willing partner," Remo added before Chiun could continue. "So the poor thing probably had to get tied up or something."

"Doubtless."

"So you're talking about Chinese bondage bestiality."

"No," Chiun replied firmly, "it is you who keeps talking about it."

"It's outlandish. I don't believe it."

"That is because you are incapable of using a computer and thus cannot know that such outlandish things are reality. Ask the Prince Regent to locate such material on the Internet. I seriously doubt he will fail to find photographic evidence of some poor fox enduring what I have described. I'm sure you will find it utterly fascinating and it may pique your interest in a new hobby. Now may I continue with my story?"

Chiun's tone told Remo that it was a rhetorical question and he had better not answer at all if he didn't want to get slapped upside the head.

"It is well-known that in some parts of China there are foxes who can take on human form at will," Chiun said sternly. "For some reason best known to themselves, they nearly always take the form of women, to entice some lowly peasant from his toil and trap him in a web of sensual delights before they rob him of his meager senses and his life."

"That sounds more like a succubus," said Remo, "but we're talking werewolves here. Full moons and silver bullets. Pentagrams and Michael Landon. Did you ever see the movies?"

"There is, of course, a classic story of a werewolf from Korea," Chiun said. "The fairy tale told to Korean children says the man in the story is a common woodcutter. What the Korean legend fails to recall is that it was actually a Master of Sinanju."

"I hope it's not Master Pak," Remo warned. Chiun looked at him askance and slightly confused. "Why do you hope it is not Master Pak?"

"Because Pak's the one who met the vampire, right?"

"Yes. Why does this matter?"

"Come on, Chiun, didn't you ever see the Universal black-and-whites where they started pairing up monsters without logical explanation? Even when I was a kid it strained my credulity."

"Are you speaking of motion pictures?"

"Yeah. Like in Frankenstein Versus the Wolf Man. They had the wolf man just happen to stumble across Frankenstein's castle. So, never mind that the wolf man could have been running around in any forest in all of Eastern Europe, it's pure coincidence he finds the one place where there's another monster. "

"Do you have a point?" Chiun demanded.

"There was one that was even worse but I can't remember which-it had the Frankentsein monster and the wolf man and Dracula. The big three 1940s monsters all ending up together for no adequately explained-"

"Enough!" Chiun barked.

"What? What?"

"You are babbling, imbecile!"

"I'm just trying to tell you that I'm gonna have a hard time believing that Master Pak ran into both a vampire and a werewolf."

"It was you, not I, who mentioned Master Pak!"

"So was he the one who met a werewolf?"

"No, white blabbermouth, it was Master Hun-Tup."

Remo considered that and nodded. "The guy who rode around with Marco Polo."

"As you would have learned long, long ago if you would only have exerted the will required to lock your grotesquely swollen lips together long enough to allow me to speak!"

"Long ago? We just started discussing it thirty seconds ago."

"An eternity of interruptions."

"Hey, fine," Remo said, tightly closing his mouth and pantomiming locking them with a key. "Mm. Mmmmm?"

"I'll be satisfied only if you manage to keep them like that long enough for me to finish telling the history of Hun-Tup's encounter with a werewolf."

Remo looked at him expectantly and, Chiun noticed, not a little sarcastically.

"Master Hun-Tup was traveling when he came to Kanggye. The people, when they realized they had a Master of Sinanju in their midst, came to him in great numbers, offering to collect a great sum of gold from every citizen for miles around if he would rid them of their terrible menace-a wolf of enormous size, who attacked and devoured men, women and children. Hun-Tup turned down their offer, for the Masters of Sinanju worked only for kings and emperors. Not the common rabble. Still, he was intrigued, and he went into the forests near Kanggye and quickly found the spoor of this great wolf."

Remo fought back the urge to ask, "You have wolves in Korea?"

Chiun glared at the almost-interruption he had seen on Remo's face. "Master Hun-Tup followed the trail and found himself face-to-face with a ferocious wolf. Hun-Tup wounded him mortally with a single blow to the skull, but didn't kill the beast instantly. He was curious about the beast, and where it went to die, he hoped, would tell him something of its nature. And he was correct. He followed the fleeing beast's trail of bright blood, which led him to a lonely peasant's hovel. There, inside, he found an old hermit lying on the bed, naked except for bloody rags wrapped tight around his wounded skull. Hun-Tup attempted to speak to him, but the old man would not answer. Soon he died and was transformed into a wolf once more."

Remo looked dubious.

"Speak now!" Chiun said. He disliked having the history of Sinanju doubted, especially by Master Remo the Illiterate.

"But you said Koreans don't-"

"The hermit was Chinese," Chiun replied. "If you applied yourself to study of geography, you would have known that Kanggye stands beside the Yalu River, but a few miles from the Chinese border. "

"Ah. Of course, it all makes sense now."

"You are skeptical," said Chiun.

"Sounds like a fairy tale," Remo replied.

Chiun made a little sniffing sound, as of dismissal. "I despair of bringing the great history of our village to the blighted desert of your mind."

"Hey, I've got a hell of a lot of Sinanju history stored up here," Remo protested.

"Prove it. I will quiz you."

"Love to but I gotta run," Remo said with a glance at his watch and getting quickly to his feet. "I'm on the next flight out to Omaha, at six-fifteen," said Remo.

"I'll come, as well," Chiun said, rising.

"I thought you had a lot of meditating to do."

"I will meditate in the hotel room while you go about serving your Emperor and performing your duties as the Reigning Master of Sinanju. And on the aircraft you can take my quiz."

"That," Remo said, "would be wonderful." Remo was lying. It would, in reality, suck.

"I knew you would think so," Chiun sang out brightly. Chiun was lying, as well. He knew Remo would hate it. That was part of what made it fun.

Chapter 4

The flight to Omaha was perfectly routine. Routine required that Chiun, the Master of Sinanju Emeritus and veteran of more airplane flights than the entire flight crew, spend the majority of the time staring out at the wing. Watching for the signs that it was about to snap off. He lost interest in quizzing Remo somewhere over Kentucky.

The flight was over its quota on annoying and obnoxious travelers, including a big-mouthed businessman crammed in next to Remo. A bleached-blond single mother and her two unruly children swarmed into the row in front of them. A red-haired boy with catastrophic freckles stood on his seat and spotted Chiun, calling out to his mother, "Lookee at the Chinaman!"

Remo could feel Chiun steaming in the seat immediately to his left. The mother shushed her brat, and Remo was relaxing when the stranger to his right said, "So, your friend's Chinese?"

"Korean."

"Too bad. I was in China for a couple months last year. Wide-open marketplace for auto dealerships, you know. Fantastic. I don't know about Koreans, but the Chinese people are the nicest folks you'd ever want to meet. Of course-"

"You've got a piece of lint there," Remo said and reached out toward the salesman's lapel.

The slightest touch was all it took. The businessman who liked Chinese people went to sleep. He'd regain consciousness about the time they landed in Omaha.

"Sweet dreams," said Remo, making his face into an evil sort of grin.

The red-haired child saw it all and watched wideeyed.

"I think he'll stay quiet now," Remo said with a manic grin. "Will you?"

The boy nodded, mouth agape, and sat in his seat. He didn't make another sound.

Chiun's face was blank but his breath came out, "Heh heh heh."

"You're welcome," Remo said. "Heh heh heh."

AT OMAHA'S EPPLEY AIRFIELD they picked up a midsize Chevrolet sedan in the Avis lot. Remo puzzled over the Auto Club street map and drove them north and west of Omaha on Interstate 680, catching Highway 6 eastbound, for a run past malls and hospitals to Eastland Park.

Jean Cuvier-alias "Rick Baker"-lived alone in a smallish house near the Elmwood Park country club. Small didn't mean cheap in that neighborhood, and Remo wondered briefly if the informer would miss it.

Not that it mattered. He was leaving, one way or another. The witness had run out of options. He could leave or he could die.

Remo found the house after only a couple of wrong turns and parked half a block away, to the west. He had already worked out the move with Chiun, who had decided at the last minute to come along.

Remo waited for a moment near the car, while Chiun vanished into the backyard of a house two doors from Baker's. He gave the Master of Sinanju a few seconds, then ambled down the block and up to Baker's door.

Inside the house the doorbell played a little tune that Remo couldn't quite recognize. He rang it again. The door opened and he was still trying to figure out the song so he rang it a third time.

"Oh," he told the man at the door. "The Rocky theme. Oh, brother."

Remo had been expecting some sort of a tough guy to answer. What he got was an animated version of the Pillsbury doughboy.

"I don't want nothin'," the man said. "I guess that makes you one of a kind."

"Says what?"

"Everybody wants something," Remo answered.

"Not me. Now go away."

"Staying alive. I bet you want that, don't you?"

The eyes narrowed. "Does I know you?"

"I know you, Mr. Cuvier."

It took a second for the name to register, then the doughboy recoiled-and backed into Chiun, who'd come in through the rear without making a sound. The witness yelped and Remo caught his arms before he started sending windmill punches at the old Korean.

"See, now that will get you killed," Remo chided Cuvier. "I've already saved your life, and we've only known each other fifteen seconds."

Remo carried him into the living room and propped him upright on the sofa. Cuvier started swinging again as soon as Remo freed his hands, so he grabbed them again. Cuvier found his hands locked in twin steel vises. The guy wasn't even putting an effort into holding him prisoner.

"All right," Cuvier said at last, slumping. "Go on and do what you come for."

"That would be the saving-your-life thing I was talking about," Remo told him.

"You all want to explain that?"

"Three of your former associates have been killed recently." Remo gave him the names, watching the color drain from Cuvier's face as he spoke. "Someone traced their new identities and ran them down. It wasn't pretty. You're the last in line."

"How were the killings done?" Cuvier demanded.

"The medical examiner suspects a pack of animals."

"Loup-garou!" Cuvier nearly bolted from the couch, despite Remo's restraining grip.

"What's that again?" he asked.

"Never you mind."

Remo looked at Chiun, who looked bored. "Loup-garou is werewolf," he explained.

"I'm getting out of here right now," Cuvier declared.

"That's exactly what we had in mind," Remo said.

Chapter 5

The rabbit had been dead for half an hour, maybe forty minutes. It was crossing Highway 85, between Papillion and La Vista, when it met a Dodge Intrepid doing half-past sixty in the northbound lane and was dispatched to bunny heaven on the spot.

It was a clean kill, relatively speaking: fractured vertebrae and shattered skull, with visible extrusion of the brain, but no great damage to the carcass overall. In fact, the rabbit's body still retained a hint of warmth that pleased the leader of the pack, his nostrils flaring.

He was a carnivore by breeding and by inclination, craving meat and mostly passing on the veggies when his stomach growled for food. As it was growling now.

The little problem that isolated him from humanity also prevented him from strolling through a supermarket, loading up his basket with a pile of steaks, chops, ribs and such-but still, he had to eat. Back home, in the bayou country, he would go out prowling with the pack, or sometimes on his own, and not stop looking until he had satisfied his hunger. On the road, it was a different story. He could pack meat with him, ice it down, but it would only last so long and stretch so far. When he ran out, or the supply on hand went bad, the leader of the pack improvised.

Roadkill, for instance.

It was everywhere, though obviously more abundant in some areas than others. If you had the time to shop around, the nation's highways offered up a menu that would rival that of any gourmet restaurant. A savvy shopper had his pick of snake and turtle, squirrel and chipmunk, raccoon and opossum, rabbit, woodchuck, every now and then a deer to feed the whole damned pack. Some districts had their local specialties, like Texas armadillo, prairie dog on the Great Plains and wolverine in Michigan. He didn't care for cities, where the bill of fare was mostly cats and dogs, but meat was meat.

This night, the rabbit was an appetizer. There wasn't enough of it to go around, and he wasn't inclined to offer any of it to the pack. They leered and grumbled at him, little whiny noises from the bitch, but he ignored them. They would all be feeding soon enough.

And so would he.

In truth, he could have passed by the rabbit and waited for the main event, but they had time to kill, and there was no point wasting food. If life had taught him anything, it was that you could never count on getting lucky. When you saw a free meal lying on the center strip and failed to stop, you could just as well go hungry down the road.

He twisted off the rabbit's shattered skull and slit it down the belly with a ragged talon, disemboweling it before he peeled the skin. A glance in each direction told him that he had the highway to himself, no traffic at the moment, but solitude was like luck.

It didn't last.

The leader of the pack wasn't inclined to reminisce in any great detail, but there were times, like now, when he considered the peculiarities of life. A simple accident of birth had made him stand apart from others of his kind, shunned even by his father and his older siblings. When his mother stubbornly refused to give him up, the old man thrashed her and expelled them both, to live or die according to their wits. His mother had been smarter than the old man reckoned, though, devising ways to make ends meet. Survival was the first priority, pursuit of food and shelter, leaving little room for dignity. They had survived, all right, but it had worn his mother down by degrees, with physical exhaustion, personal humiliation, finally disease, until the beast-child found himself alone at ten years old.

He had never been to school in all that time, of course-it would have been impossible, unthinkable-and there was no thought of it now that he was on his own. His mother loved him, but she recognized that others would not share her sentiment, so she had concealed him from the world at large. So skilful was the deception, that at her death, no social workers had come sniffing after him to place him in a foster home. Nobody came at all, in fact, until the next month's rent was two days late, and Mr. Landlord used his master key to let himself inside the miserable two-room flat. Later, when he was babbling to the lawmen, they smelled whiskey on his breath and would have locked him up to sleep it off, if not for the ragged bite marks on his arms.

There was no living in the big town after that. His mother had been Cajun through and through. Her roots were in the bayou country, and she used to take him there sometimes, on the rare occasions when she had some free time on her hands. Not to visit her people, mind you-they would certainly have viewed her monster offspring as a curse from God-but to show him the ways of nature, teaching him by bits and pieces how the greater system worked. It wasn't long before he had the basics figured out.

Kill or be killed.

Once he was on his own, he went back to the bayou country. It was touch and go, the man-child trying to compete with predators who had their act down cold. He lived on carrion at first, and precious little of it, but he learned. And it was almost good enough.

Almost.

A careless accident had nearly ended it, when he was coming up on twelve years old. He should have seen the moccasin, its thick body draped across a drooping mangrove branch, but he was concentrating on the fish that darted just beneath the surface of the brackish water. When the snake struck him, going for the face, there was no warning but a blur of motion and the stinging impact as its fangs sank home.

Between his panic and the poison coursing through his system, he had nearly died. He would have died were it not for the old Cajun hermit who had found him and decided it was worth a try to save the boy-thing's life. He had recovered, slowly, and the old man let him hang around, taught him the fine points of survival in the swamp ...and other things.

It was the hermit who had taught him he was special, blessed with certain powers that made other people cringe from him in fear. It was the old man who had shown him what it meant to be a loupgarou.

By teaching him to accept and even embrace his true nature, he had been prepared for the next great change that came over him.

Years later, when the hermit was too old to scrape a living out of the harsh and merciless bayou, his young protege was more than skilled enough to provide for them both. But the hermit was worried for the young beast he had adopted. The beast was mature, full-grown and vibrant with energy and vitality that should not be confined to their isolated corner of the swamp.

Then fortune, for the first time, smiled on the hermit. The strange woman appeared out of nowhere and offered the hermit cash money. In exchange, he gave her a piece of paper allowing her to set up her house trailer on their lonely bayou for three months.

She wasn't on vacation, and her mobile home was different from any RV the hermit or his ward had ever seen before. It was a living machine, always humming with energy. There were generators and air-conditioners and other roof-mounted machinery. The smells that came from inside were not to be believed.

The woman was fascinated with the hermit's young beast. She spoke to him without pity and exhibited no fear of him or his bizarre appearance.

She was a scientist, she said, and she recognized the young man's condition as nothing more than a standard case of hypertrichosis. Well, maybe a little more extreme than the cases she had heard of. "All victims of the condition are covered with dense hair all over their bodies," she explained matter-of-factly.

Aside from his mother and the hermit, this scientist woman was the only person he had ever known who treated him as something other than a freak.

When he told her he liked being what he was, the scientist smiled and asked, "Why?"

He told her about his love of the hunt.

The scientist began to show a glint in her eyes. Suddenly, the young man knew. It seemed impossible, but he knew. The woman scientist also enjoyed the hunt, strange as it seemed.

"What if you could be more of what you are?" she asked him then.

He was confused.

"What if you could be faster, stronger? The ultimate hunter? The leader of your own pack?"

He wasn't even sure what she was talking about. But of course he answered, "Yes."

WAY NORTH, from the direction of La Vista, the leader of the pack saw headlights coming, shining like a distant pair of luminescent eyes. He finished with the rabbit, tossed the clean-picked bones aside and walked back to the van. His brothers and the bitch all crowded in to lick his bloody fingers, and he left them to it. It would whet their appetite for what was coming.

The final target lived near Elmwood Park in Omaha, a few blocks from the College of St. Mary.

Cruising in his Dodge Ram cargo van, the leader of the pack watched street signs, checking them from time to time against the map he had draped across the shotgun seat. His eyes were keen enough to chart a course without the dome light, following the trail that he had marked out with a yellow felt pen on the map when he was laying out the hit. The others huddled close behind him, bright eyes peering through the van's bug-speckled windshield as he drove.

This was the last one. When this night's work was completed, he could go back home, rejoin the rest of his pack and recuperate for a while from the stress of being on the road. The balance of his money would be paid as usual, delivered by a pair of jumpy shooters who would drop the satchel at a designated point and speed away to minimize their risk of meeting the recipient. So far, the system had worked well enough. If he was lucky, there might even be some roadkill waiting for him on the highway near the drop.

He found the street he wanted, signaled for the turn and held the van a mile or two below the posted speed limit. No cops in sight, but it could be a problem if he met one. There was bound to be a hassle, and he couldn't guarantee that his reaction would be swift enough to drop the officer before he reached his weapon, much less handle two of them if they were traveling in pairs. That would mean shooting, and while he wasn't concerned about the bullets on his own behalf, the noise alone would cancel any hope of taking his appointed quarry by surprise.

This one was Cajun, like the last three, and he might know things. A trick or two for dealing with a loup-garou, perhaps. The leader of the pack had no desire to take that chance, if he could help it. It was better all around if he could catch his prey asleep, or at the very least distracted, tied up with the mundane chores of life when death dropped in to pay a call.

The house was dark, as he had hoped it would be. Likewise with the neighbors, at this hour of the night. Nebraskans came from farm stock, as he understood it, early to bed and early to rise. His target was a working man, as well, some kind of minigolf amusement park where children gathered, chasing little balls on artificial grass. The leader of the pack had hoped he wouldn't have to take his prey at work, where there were witnesses. It would be so much cleaner this way, better for all concerned.

He drove past the house and found a vacant house four doors down. There was a realtor's sign out front, and the carport was empty. He killed his headlights as he nosed the Dodge in off the street. His brothers and sister, handpicked by him from the pack for this arduous journey, were obedient. They would wait for him, as always, while he checked the house. It made them restless, but they understood the rules and didn't challenge him.

He left the van and closed the driver's door behind him softly, pressing gently till the latch engaged. It was a challenge, keeping to the shadows with a light directly opposite, but he was good at tracking, stalking prey. A little dog was yapping at him from a yard across the street, but it was no real threat. He worried more about the mongrel's owner waking, glancing out and spotting him, but he was almost at his destination now. A few more yards...

He slipped into the target's backyard through a side gate. The grass was several inches long, in need of mowing. It was obvious the man he came to kill was not a conscientious gardener. He left weeds in the flower beds and didn't trim the shrubs that grew close in against his house. Not that it mattered now. A few more minutes, and his worries would be over for all time.

He kept an eye out for security devices, spotting none. He was surprised from time to time that those he hunted made no greater effort to protect themselves. Not that a burglar alarm would have prevented him from doing what he came to do, but still, his quarry could have made the hunt more challenging.

He found the back door, reached out with his thick, dark fingers. He tried the knob, gently, and was startled when it turned. Unlocked? He crouched and sniffed around the door, suspecting something in the nature of a trap, and drew back without noting any kind of threat.

Should he go in without the others? They would never let him hear the end of it if he deprived them of a feast, but he could always scout the territory first, make sure the way was clear before he fetched them from the van. The kill itself was less important to the pack than feeding, after all.

He took the chance.

There was no word for protocol in his vocabulary, but he understood that he was stepping out of line. It was a small thing, but he told himself the others wouldn't mind. They would forgive him when they saw the kill and tasted blood. And if they didn't, well, it would be too damn bad.

But there was something wrong.

He knew it when he crossed the threshold, entering a little claustrophobic place that some would call the mud room, but was more a skimpy corridor than any kind of room at all. The house was quiet, as he had expected, but it was not sleeping quiet. Rather, it felt dead, abandoned, vacant.

No, he thought. The kitchen still bore cooking smells-another man who ruined his meat with fire-and there was glassware in the cupboards, silverware and other items in the drawers that flanked the rather dingy sink. He moved beyond the kitchen, traveling silently in darkness, and turned left down a corridor that took him to the living room. The place was fully furnished down to magazines splayed on the coffee table, and smelled strongly of cigar smoke.

He didn't possess his quarry's scent. The men who hired him didn't work that way, but they had left him photographs instead. It mattered not that they were out of date. The leader of the pack would know his prey on sight, and that was all he needed. Still...

He knew the feel of houses that have been abandoned. Something left them when the people departed, beyond the noise and everyday aromas that life generated: sweat, urine, feces, sex, the rest. When houses stood unoccupied, the smells began to fade, a little at a time, but there was more to it than that. An empty house felt empty, and it made no difference how much furniture was left behind to clutter up the lifeless rooms.

Could he have missed his final target? It defied all logic, but his senses told him that the man was gone. It seemed impossible, but life had taught him early on that anything could happen, and the worst shit came upon you when you least expected it.

Damn! The last one on his list before he went back home, and now the hunt would have to be prolonged. Worse, he had exhausted all the helpful information his employers could provide. Once he left Omaha behind, he wouldn't have the faintest glimmer of a clue where he should look.

He was a werewolf, damn it, not a fortune-teller. Maybe visiting? he asked himself, and clutched the slender reed of hope in shaggy, taloned hands. There was no rule that said his quarry could not have a friend, unknown to those who paid to have him killed. The others had their women, one with children who were tender and delicious in the end. Who said the final target couldn't have a-

No.

He knew that it was wrong. The house didn't feel gone-to-visit empty, waiting for the occupant's return. The ceiling, floor and walls boxed in dead air. Not long dead, granted-maybe no more than a day or two, but it may just as well have been a year. In his world, gone meant gone, and he couldn't pursue the stranger on his own without a scent.

Keep looking.

He pretended there was still a chance that he might be mistaken, moving back along the silent corridor in the direction he had come from. Past the doorway to the kitchen, past a bathroom on his left. Its door stood open, showing him a sink and toilet. There was no need for a light to prove the indoor privy was unoccupied.

There were two bedrooms at the south end of the house. He tried the smaller of them first, eliminating possibilities, and found the room unfurnished, used for storage, several stacks of boxes standing shoulder-high. One of them had been neatly labeled with a black marker, the name R. Baker printed on the side directly facing him.

He didn't know the quarry's name, but guessed it wasn't Baker. Something French, he would have wagered, for the moneymen had set him hunting Cajuns this time, targets who had scattered from the bayou country, moving north, then east or west, and covering their tracks.

But not quite well enough.

One room remained, and his last hope of an easy kill evaporated as he turned the doorknob, stepped across the threshold into darkness. Nothing, even though the bed was rumpled and a night light burned inside a small adjacent bathroom, barely large enough to hold the mandatory sink and toilet.

Gone. His frustration and his unsated hunger brought on the rage. First he felt the burning in his stomach, then the too-familiar clenched-fist feeling in his chest-yet he kept his balance, lashing out in blind, instinctive fury at the nearest objects he could reach. Trashing his quarry's lair, in case the yellow bastard ever tried to move back in.

When he was finished, he would mark his territory, urinating on the walls and doorjambs, defecating in the middle of the living room. But first...

He couldn't see the moon, but he could feel it, tugging at the tide within his body as he ran amok, gouged flimsy plaster walls with jagged fingernails, grabbed bits and pieces of his quarry's wasted life, destroyed each object in its turn and flinging it aside.

And somewhere in the middle of it, he began to howl.

"GODDAMN DOMESTIC BEEFS!"

Patrolman Roger Miller was responding to the code-two call-with flashing lights, no siren-but he didn't like it one damn bit. Domestics were the worst, especially at night or in the early-morning hours, when the parties had had all day to let their ancient bullshit grudges marinate in alcohol. You never knew what you were walking into, whether one or both of the belligerents would turn on you and vent their rage against the uniform. A little change of pace from beating on their spouse or lover, maybe reaching for a pistol or a butcher knife to make the point.

I oughta call for backup, Miller thought, but didn't. He would take a gander at the situation first. If the racket was enough to wake the neighbors, he should have a fair idea of whether help was needed by the time he rang the doorbell.

Anyway, it broke up the monotony of what had been a long, dull night. He had the eight-to-four this week and next, before he cycled back to days, and while the graveyard shift meant nonstop action in some precincts, Miller's beat was strictly middle class. No drive-by shootings, only one convenience store to watch, no bars or teenage hangouts where the booze and blow made tempers short, drove pimply punks and Milquetoast working men to raucous feats of derring-do. Most nights he had it easy to the point that he was bored out of his freaking mind. But not this night.

He had been counting on the usual: some moving violations, maybe a white-collar DUI, perhaps a residential burglary discovered once the perps were long gone with their swag. There was a curfew on the books these days, as well, and that meant rousting kids on Friday night or Saturday, but weeknights were a snooze.

The young policeman-twenty-six come next July-knew that he should have thanked his lucky stars for the assignment. Others from his graduating class at the academy had gone directly to the ghetto, hassling with the brothers every night, chasing graffiti taggers, dodging bricks and bottles-sometimes filled with gasoline-as they were watching out for car thieves, crackheads, any kind of human garbage you could name. The white-trash precincts were no better, stupid rednecks with their stringy hair, motheaten beards and blue jeans frayed in back from dragging on the pavement when they walked, their John Deere caps on backward. Up close, they smelled like beer and cigarettes, teeth stained orange and brown from packing snuff.

Patrolman Miller used his spotlight, mounted on the driver's door, to check house numbers as he rolled along the quiet residential street. On either side, the reflections of his own blue-and-white emergency flashers bounced back at him with a strobelight effect, distorting shadows so that they appeared to take on life and dance in weird, surrealistic shapes.

He found the number he was looking for and pulled into the driveway, switching off the flashers as he killed the engine. Miller took a moment to inform the radio dispatcher that he had arrived. Still no request for backup, as he sat there with his window down and listened to the night.

There was no racket emanating from the house in question, damn it. Miller wondered if he had been called out on a wild-goose chase, some idiot's idea of an amusing prank. Dispatch would have a record of the caller's number and a tape recording of the call, but you could always phone in from a public booth, disguise your voice and give a bogus name. It was like sending taxis or a dozen pizzas to a neighbor who had pissed you off somehow. Embarrassment was all that counted, never mind the waste of time for a patrolman who could otherwise be elsewhere, maybe interrupting crimes in progress.

Right, thought Miller. Like they caught me in the middle of a freakin' crime wave.

Darkened windows all around and silence on the block. Miller was just about to write it off and check back with dispatch, when someone turned the porch light on next door. A yellow bulb, to keep the bugs away. He glanced in that direction, saw a stocky woman in a quilted bathrobe waving at him.

"Jesus H."

He stepped out of his cruiser, gave the silent house in front of him another glance, then moved across the intervening strip of grass between two driveways, toward the woman on the porch next door.

"It stopped just when I saw your lights," she said.

"What did?"

"'The noise I called about. It sounded like somebody screaming, only different. For just a minute there, it could have been some kind of animal."

"The people here keep dogs?" he asked.

"Not people," said the woman. "Just one man, by himself. No dogs at all. I would have seen or heard them, don't you think? I mean, he's lived there for eleven months."

"And you are... ?"

"Lucy Kravitz," said the woman. "My husband Joe's away on business, or he would have-"

"What's your neighbor's name?" asked Miller, interrupting her.

"Well, I'm not sure."

"How's that, ma'am?"

"We haven't actually met, you understand, but still-"

''I see."

She doesn't know his name, thought Miller, but she's positive he lives alone and doesn't have a dog. Another freakin' busybody. Christ!

"And when I heard these sounds, the shouting and the crashing noise-"

"A crashing noise?"

"Like someone was destroying all the furniture!" she said.

"Okay," he said reluctantly. "Why don't you go on back inside. I'll check it out."

"Well, if you think-"

The sudden crashing sound made Miller jump. He covered it by pointing to the Kravitz woman's open door and telling her again to get inside. Backtracking toward the darkened house next door, he was beside his cruiser when the growling started, loud enough to reach his ears from somewhere in the house, but muffled somewhat by the intervening walls. Sure didn't sound much like a freakin' dog.

Patrolman Miller thought about the backup one more time, but he was already embarrassed by his first reaction to the noises from the house. Old biddy next door had to be thinking he was yellow, and he would confirm her judgment if he called for help. It was a rule, of course, to call for backup, but the rules were bent or broken every day.

He drew his pistol, making sure he had the safety off, and eased around the south side of the house. The noise was coming from a room in back somewhere, and Miller didn't feel like leaning on the doorbell when he could retain the prime advantage of surprise.

It was pitch-black behind the house, a bank of clouds obscuring the moon, but they began to break up moments later, letting Miller find his way. The noises from the house were growing closer, louder. Christ, forget the dog. It sounded like a freakin' leopard in the house, or something.

Maybe I should go back for the 12-gauge, Miller thought, and then the back door blasted off its hinges with a crash, propelled halfway across the scruffy yard. A walking nightmare followed it outside, half crouching, shoulders hunched. Patrolman Miller took it for a burly man until the moonlight fell across its face.

By that time it had spotted Miller and was rushing toward him, snarling as it came, with outstretched talons.

And there wasn't even time to scream.

Chapter 6

The federal penitentiary outside Atlanta, Georgia, was among the toughest in the nation. There was nothing to suggest the "easy ride" or "country club" approach to housing prisoners so often noted in the press and by potential office-holders in election years, when fear of crime translated to votes. Atlanta's federal pen received no white-collar swindlers, kinky televangelists or presidential campaign managers who got caught with their fingers in the public cookie jar. At one time, it housed Al Capone, before he was transferred to Alcatraz-the Rock-but Alcatraz was now a kind of morbid theme park, while Atlanta's federal prison endured.

Atlanta's clientele included drug dealers, bank robbers, kidnappers, self-styled gangstas. A majority of those confined were black, but there was also room for redneck "soldiers" in a race war of their own imagining, a handful of Sicilian mafiosi, certain careless Teamsters, Cubans and Colombians, a spy or two.

And Armand Fortier.

The Cajun godfather was in a bad mood when his lawyer came to visit him on Saturday. It always pissed him off to see the shyster who was charging him three hundred bucks an hour while he sat in prison on a bullshit RICO charge that should have been thrown out at the preliminary hearing. Fortier had canned his trial attorney-literally, at a plant outside Metairie, where they turned decrepit horses into dog food. But the new guy hadn't shown results, either, in their pursuit of an appeal. He had a new-trial motion bogged down somewhere in the system, plus a handful of concocted "evidence" so thin you could have read the Sunday funnies through it, but the key was getting rid of those who had betrayed Armand the first time out. The traitors who had sold him down-no, up-the river to Atlanta in the first place. Scumbag ingrates.

Fortier had put his best man on it-if you thought of Leon Grosvenor as a man-and he had thought that things were working out all right.

Until today.

"What you mean, he missed them?" Fortier demanded, leaning forward with his broad, big-knuckled hands spread on the table that was bolted to the floor inside the room reserved for inmate visits with attorneys. Theoretically, the room was soundproof and the screws were barred from eavesdropping, but Armand kept his voice down all the same, despite a sudden urge to scream.

The lawyer swallowed hard, as if he had a fish bone or a little piece of oyster shell lodged in his throat. "Um, well, I mean there was a problem. The fellow seems to have, um, well, moved on."

"What the hell you mean, moved on?" the Cajun snarled. "Cost me two hundred grand to find out where they at, them dickwads, and you tellin' me it's wasted."

"Well," the lawyer said, frowning, "three out of four-"

"Ain't good enough!" said Fortier.

"But if the man has disappeared-"

"Feds hid him one time, they can hide him twice. What you use for brains there, little man?"

An angry flush suffused the lawyer's cheeks, but he didn't possess the courage to reply in kind. Instead, he tried to humor Fortier, play to his mood. "We found him once before, we can-"

"We found him?" Fortier was staring at him with the rapt attention of an entomologist who has unearthed a new and unexpected insect species. "I hear you said we found him? Make it sound like you been out there lookin', instead of sittin' on your ass and billing me for shit, half the time I don't know what."

The lawyer found a thimbleful of nerve. "If you're in any way dissatisfied-"

"I'm in a damn zoo with crazy blacks and a bunch a guys that think they Hitler. Now you want me to be satisfied?"

"I meant-"

"Screw what you meant," the Cajun said. "I tell you something true, I guarantee. You don't mean shit, hear what I'm sayin'? You take my money, say you going to do certain things for me, I expect them things to be done. You come round here with sad old stories, asking for more money, I start thinking maybe you be screwin' me."

"No, sir, I can assure you that-"

"Thing is, when I get screwed, I wanna know it's comin', see? That way I can enjoy it, like. Your way, it's just a big pain in the ass."

"He can't go far," the lawyer said.

"You know that for a fact? He call you up and say, 'I don't be going far'?"

"Well, no, but-"

"What you do is listen now, and do just what I say."

"Yes, sir."

"Reach out for Leon and remind his hairy ass he still owes me a pelt. He let me down on this, it be wolf season where he at, I guarantee. Then next thing, you call up that boy what took two hundred grand to do a job that still ain't done. Feds got old Jean, I wanna know the zip code by this time tomorrow."

"Suppose the Feds don't have him?" asked the lawyer, "What shall I do then?"

"You bring your high-rent ass back here and tell me that. What you use for brains, boy? Seem like chicken gumbo."

A GUARD ESCORTED Fortier back to his cell in Ad-Seg, which he understood was fedspeak for administrative segregation. Once upon a time, they used to call it solitary, and it was reserved for punishment of prisoners who broke the rules. These days, Ad-Seg still housed its share of troublemakers, but it also held inmates who were isolated for their own protection: snitches, racial activists, high-profile cons whose very notoriety had made them targets for the rank and file of mainline prisoners who hoped to build a rep by shanking someone famous. They were strictly one-man cells in Ad-Seg, and the chosen few were fed right where they lived, without exposure to potential dangers in the mess hall. When they exercised, it was in groups of three or four, a private corner of the joint where they were safe from shivs and prying eyes. The Cajun's closest neighbors on the cell block were a former agent of the CIA who sold out brother agents to the Russians in the last days of the cold war and a transient pedophile who sometimes killed and ate his victims as he roamed from state to state. They both seemed nice enough, but Fortier wasn't concerned with making friends.

He wanted out, and soon. The wheels were greased, but he could never make it work while any of the witnesses who sent him to Atlanta in the first place were alive.

Three down and one to go.

He meant to see it done, or know the reason why. And if the plan fell through, there would be one extremely sorry loup-garou to answer for it.

"No more Mr. Nice Guy," Fortier informed his empty cell. "I guarantee."

REMO COULD SMELL the stagnant swamps ahead of him before the interstate conveyed them out of darkest Mississippi and into bayou country. Everything from that point on would have a kind of continental flavor once removed, which made Louisiana stand out from the other Deep South states. It was the only state in Dixie where the Roman Catholic Church claimed a majority of Christians, counties were called parishes and everything from food to architecture had a strong French accent. The swamps were "bayous" here, and many residents still put their faith in voodoo-from the French voudun-regardless of their race or ethnic origin. If there was any place in the United States today where legends of medieval lycanthropes still clung tenaciously to life, Louisiana fit the bill.

"You grew up here?" Remo asked their reluctant navigator in the front passenger seat.

"Louisiana born and bred, that's right," the Cajun said.

"You like it?"

Cuvier considered that one for a moment, frowning as if Remo's question puzzled him, presenting issues he had never taken time to ponder.

"Like it?" Shoulders thick with muscle lifted in a shrug. "Is where I'm from. Like it or don't like it, what difference? Tell you one thing true-I like it more than Omaha."

He stretched the last word out as if its syllables were unfamiliar to him, something from a foreign language-which, Remo decided, was a fair enough description in the circumstances.

"You may not be safe here," Remo told him, "even if we find the man who's tracking you."

"I told you three, four times already, ain't no man," said Cuvier. "Armand done hire himself a loup-garou. You find him, he find you, don't matter which. That's all the trouble you going to need."

"Tell me something," Remo said. "In all the time you worked with Fortier, did he have lots of werewolves on the payroll?"

"Go on with jokin'," said the Cajun. "That's all right. You meet old loup-garou, then you'll be laughing out the wrong side of your face."

"I wasn't joking."

Cuvier gave him a quick sideways glance and they rode in silence for a few more minutes, Remo concentrating on the road, Chiun pretending to be asleep in back, before the Cajun spoke again.

"There's not just one old loup-garou around here, if you wanna know. Not many, but a few. A few is all it'll take. Pass on the secret and the power."

"But you never met one?"

"Not me, no," said Cuvier. "My grandpa seen them, back a time, before I was born. See one, it last you for a lifetime, if you live that long."

"I'm only interested in recent werewolves. You don't know this werewolf," Remo pressed him. "Where he lives or what his name is, anything to help us track him down."

"Done told you not to worry about that thing. He'll find us when he feel like it, I guarantee. He find us, and that's all she wrote."

Remo veered to a different tack. "What would you pay your average wolf man for a job like this?"

"A contract? All depend on what he ask for, what he needs. I reckon some take money, just like common folks. You can't be sure, though. Loup-garou might ask you something else."

"Such as?"

"No tellin'. He be lookin' for someone to carry on the line, might ask you for a soul."

"How's that?"

"Your firstborn baby girl, for example. Raise them up a litter that way, keep the pick and lose the rest."

Remo was trying to get real-world answers, and this guy was hanging out in the twilight zone. "The white man in his arrogance assumes that he knows everything," Chiun said from the back seat. "He visits distant lands, interrogates the people who have lived there for a thousand generations, then dismisses half of what they say as fantasy, the rest as lies."

"Is there a point?"

A bony index finger, moving with the speed of thought, tapped Remo sharply on the head. "Your point is sadly obvious," the Master of Sinanju said. "Do not take wisdom for granted. A man with wisdom accepts that there are things he does not know. Koreans understand this basic truth. Even Chinese and Japanese can grasp it, with some effort. White men, on the other hand, display their ignorance by claiming knowledge of all things."

"Okay, I get your drift," said Remo, switching to Korean for privacy. "But I wasn't raised on spooks and demons. We know what this werewolf is and what it's not. This wolf man is brought to you by Judith White, not Hammer Horror."

"I assume nothing. Perhaps this creature is not what we think it is, but what the Cajun criminal thinks it is."

"Huh? You trying to tell me that you believe in werewolves? The supernatural kind? Silver bullets and all that?"

Chiun answered with a haughty silence.

Remo sighed. "Okay, Little Father, look-this has the signature of Judith White's little projects. Judith White ran away just a few months ago. Seems to me Judith White's the most likely culprit."

"Perhaps," Chiun replied without conviction. Cuvier was looking concerned at the unintelligible conversation going on around him. Remo didn't want him freaking out on them. Not while he was still good bait. He switched back to English. "So," he said, glancing over at the Cajun, "how does someone go about becoming loup-garou?"

"Some born that way, what I been told," said Cuvier. "Them others go on out lookin' for it. Wanna grab the power for themselves."

"Is there some kind of formula?"

"Ain't made no study on it," said the Cajun. "Heard some stories, long time back. One say you gotta have a wolf skin, other say you don't. One talks about some kind of ointment made of herbs. Another one tells how you gotta say the right words at a certain time of night."

"That's helpful," Remo muttered.

"Ain't no help to get," the Cajun said. "Go on up against old loup-garou, best say you prayers before you start."

"I'll make a note."

"One thing I'm happy 'bout," Cuvier said. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"Time we be gettin' into New Orleans," said the Cajun, "we'll be right in time for Mardi Gras. We have a little party before the end."

HUMILIATION and frustration kept Leon from sleeping on the long drive home. The leader of the pack didn't need the others grumbling at him, but they did it anyway-except the bitch, who simply glared at him from time to time, then slowly turned away without a sound, a gesture of supreme contempt.

The pack was pissed because Leon had made a kill without them, and there was no time to share. The cop had stumbled into it as he was leaving, more than likely summoned by a neighbor who had wakened to the noise of Leon freaking out and tearing up the absent target's house. It had been close, that one. Not from the aspect of a risk, since he didn't think an ordinary bullet would have fazed him, but because there could have been another cop, one who escaped if he was lucky, sounding the alarm.

Leon's chief weapon, other than the pack, his teeth and talons, was the fact that 99.9 percent of all Americans would swear upon a stack of Bibles that there were no loups-garous. That kind of ignorance protected him and made him stronger than he was already. Granted, one scared cop wouldn't be able to convince the world at large-hell, they would more than likely slap him in a straitjacket-but if enough people reported a phenomenon, somebody from the government was bound to check it out eventually, and that spelled no end of trouble for a werewolf on the prowl.

So all of them were angry for different reasons as he drove around the clock to get back home. His brothers and the silent bitch had their noses out of joint because they hadn't had a chance to chow down on the cop-as if he had-and they were making due with cold ground beef from several all-night markets strung along the highway.

Leon, for his part, was mad and worried all at once, because it was the first time he had blown a paying job, and he had no idea what his next move should be.

The shopping was a problem, same with gassing up the van, but he had worked it out with help from the old man who raised him long ago. He had to hide his face and hands when he was out in public, meaning off the bayou, anywhere on the road. You couldn't travel far in the United States, even by night, and remain invisible. Even if he could satisfy the pack with roadkill, there would still be stops for fuel, other essential shopping expeditions, maybe even rare occasions when he had to ask directions from the locals.

The old man's solution was to purchase a hat and raincoat from the Goodwill people, with a pair of roomy leather gloves, and big rolls of gauze. Dressed up, with gauze wrapped all around his head beneath the snap-brim hat, sunglasses on, the leader of the pack resembled someone who had suffered facial burns, or maybe was recovering from some kind of extensive plastic surgery. The old man took one look at him back then and beamed. "Just like Claude Raines," he said.

Whoever that was.

Leon didn't care for movies-had no television at his present den, in fact-because they always ended wrong. He had to have seen two dozen movies about loups-garous when he was growing up, and every stinking one of them had all the facts backward. They inevitably showed the loup-garou as a half-pathetic human-always agonizing over how he had been "cursed"-and half-demented monster who was forced to change against his will and run amok, so crazy-stupid that he would attack his mama if she didn't wear a sandwich sign.

Bullshit.

The movies had it all wrong, which was no surprise to Leon. They were advertised as "science fiction," after all. He knew nothing about the science part, but there was plenty of fiction in the werewolf movies he had seen. The moon, for one thing, how it was supposed to make a loup-garou transform against his will. That was a load of crap. The moon was nice for hunting when you needed light, but it couldn't compel the change. Leon had heard that some loups-garous transformed by will, regardless of the season or the hour. Others, like himself, had grown so comfortable with their primal state that they had basically forgotten how to slide back into human shape-come to think of it, had he ever known how?

Leon was different, and he was better than all the other loups-garous. The woman had seen to that. She had taken what was nothing but your average bayou werewolf and made him into something spectacular.

When he was growing up, when the old man was teaching him how special he was, he'd been full of pride. But then she came. She remade him into the baddest loup-garou that ever was. And all it took was a glass of water to do it.

He was ecstatic with the new him, and his appreciation for the strange woman-what was her name?-was boundless. She was his savior. She was his angel. He had fallen in love with her.

Then she betrayed him.

LEON HAD NO USE for motels and less for restaurants; all risk aside, they were a waste of money spent on luxuries he didn't crave and meat that was spoiled by fire. Whatever groceries and other things he couldn't pick up in the swamp, he had delivered by a black youth who was smart enough to do his job and ask no questions. When he needed new clothes, every second year or so, he put on his disguise and made a quick run into St. Charles after dark, to the Goodwill store, to pick up blue jeans, overalls and denim shirts.

Around St. Charles, they figured Leon had some kind of skin disease, most likely leprosy, that made him hide his face and hands that way, go shopping only once or twice a year, and always on the razor's edge of closing time. He didn't know it, but the gray-haired folks who ran the Goodwill store kept kitchen tongs behind the counter, underneath the register, against those days when Leon paid a call. They never touched his money with their hands while it was lying on the counter, but waited until he was gone before they grabbed the tongs.

It would have made him laugh to see the "normals" going through their paces, acting like the power of a loup-garou was something you could catch like mumps or measles, rubbing shoulders in a crowd. Hell, if it worked that way, Leon wouldn't have been the only loup-garou he knew, and he would have more friends to talk to than the members of his pack.

You didn't catch it like a disease. You were born with it, and then, if you were lucky, you drank the strange woman's special water to make you complete.

Not that he knew of others like himself. He was alone, except for the pack, and they weren't really like him. His brothers and the bitch weren't exactly acting very friendly at the moment. It would take some time, he knew from past experience, for them to lay the grudge aside and stop their sulking. Being home again, with the entire pack, the whole family, would make things feel right.

But the pack had learned to covet human flesh and blood; it was a delicacy they enjoyed far more than the venison, raccoon or rabbit he collected on his night runs over Highway 90. None of them were capable of checking out what the old man had called the long view, sometimes the big picture, which meant looking down the road to what might happen days or even weeks ahead.

Leon himself had trouble with the long view, but at least he understood the process, realized that simply living in and for the moment, like a full-fledged wolf, could lead you into mortal danger.

Not that laying plans was any guarantee of long life and success, by any means. He had sat down and planned his latest road trip, even buying road maps from the retard who worked graveyard at the Texaco in Luling, but it all came down to shit if one of his intended meals skipped out ahead of time. The Cajun who was paying him had given Leon names, addresses, everything he needed to complete the job, but he had seemingly ignored the possibility that one or more of Leon's targets might evacuate before the loup-garou arrived, and he couldn't wait around to see if number four was coming back.

Not after he had trashed the house and killed that cop in the backyard.

The Cajun would be furious; that was a given. Leon thought about that for a moment, and decided it was logical for him to worry. Not because he feared the man, per se, but rather for the knowledge his employers had. Someone behind the Cajun knew enough to seek a loup-garou, which meant he not only believed, but he had also done his homework and would have a few tricks up his sleeve.

Like silver, for example.

Leon felt his hackles rising as he thought about it, and the bitch picked up on something, possibly a subtle variation in his body odor, peering at him curiously from the shotgun seat. She knew the fear smell of a human, but it had no place among the members of the pack. She studied Leon as he drove a good five miles, and finally decided not to push it.

Never let them fool you, Leon thought. The bitch was smart.

He had to be smart, too. He had to think carefully about his employer, the big man behind the Cajun who gave orders and expected prompt results. The name of the employer was Fortier, and everyone knew Fortier was a man to reckon with. He could be generous or vengeful, depending on the circumstances and his mood. These days, since he was locked up in a cage for violating human laws, his mood was seldom jovial. It would be less so when he heard that target number four had slipped through Leon's paws.

The leader of the pack knew he had to come up with a plan quickly if he intended to retain his lucrative employment. And yet, no matter how he tried to concentrate, no plan announced itself. His mind was filled with jumbled images of blood and violence, but nothing that would qualify as strategy.

It'll be better once we're home, he told himself, and hoped that it was true.

Chapter 7

Remo took one look at the New Orleans streets, decked out for Mardi Gras, and recognized a good news-bad news situation off the top. The Crescent City was in jubilant chaos, swinging with the massive party residents and tourists spent a whole year looking forward to, and no district of New Orleans was more rowdy than the teeming French Quarter. Remo watched the costumes and figures lurching past him, everything from painted dwarves to looming giants, all apparently intoxicated and intent on staying that way for the next several days.

A vacationing trio of sophomore coeds from Northern Illinois University ran up under Remo's balcony and yanked their shirts up to their chins. Remo found himself admiring their bare breasts, each pair more pleasing than the next.

"Sorry, girls," he said. "No beads."

"You don't need beads, shweetie!" one of them slurred. "We'll show you whatever you want! For free! How 'bout we come on up?"

"Cops!" Remo called. "Here they come!"

The coeds couldn't focus well enough to see that it was a lie and jogged off into the seething crowds. Smith and the insidious tentacles of CURE had reached out from Folcroft Sanitarium and somehow managed to get hotel reservations on Tchoupitoulas Street. Such rooms were normally sold out a year in advance of Mardi Gras, many of them to a clientele that showed up every year like clockwork. Remo and Chiun had one large room with a bed and a sleeper sofa, together with a tiny balcony that overlooked the crowded street and faced a rank of quaint saloons across the way.

The crush of inebriated flesh would complicate the task of finding Cuvier's old cohorts from the Cajun mob and squeezing them for leads on the elusive hit man. Staring at the freak show on parade below, Remo decided that a real-life werewolf would have no difficulty strolling down the boulevard and plucking victims from the crowd. No look was too grotesque for Mardi Gras, no behavior too bizarre. There would be witnesses, of course, but most of them would laugh it off, assuming that the act was some kind of burlesque, a Grand Guignol performance staged for their amusement.

Chiun had the television on. His ages-old infatuation with American soap operas, which had dimmed when they became too heavy on the gratuitous sex and violence, had recently reemerged with a twist. These days the old Korean was drawn to Spanish serials.

It got worse. Remo had recently begun to suspect that the ancient Korean was leaving the Spanish-language stations on a bit too long after the soap operas ended. Remo was wondering if maybe Chiun had become interested in...

No. Couldn't be. It was too horrible to contemplate.

But the guy on the screen right now was bad enough, and he spoke English, more or less. It was some kind of infomercial with a white-haired Southern statesman-type gesticulating for the camera, grinning like a used-car salesman. Was he selling fried chicken? No, Remo realized, it was politics.

"Now, my esteemed opponent likes to quote the Good Book in his speeches, tellin' you all the Lord Himself would vote Republican if He was registered in the great State of Louisiana. My dear old mama always taught me it was rude to argue with another man's religion, and I ain't about to go against her teaching now. But I will take a moment to remind you all of what the Book of Proverbs tells us, chapter twenty-six, verse five. It says, 'Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.' By which I mean to tell you all-"

"Who's the windbag?" Remo asked.

"That's Elmo Breen," said Cuvier. "Big man here in the parish and all across the state. He's friendly with Armand 'Big Crawdaddy' Fortier, I guarantee. The two of them are like that." He raised a hand, the first two fingers intertwined.

"This seersucker's running for office?"

"Governor," Cuvier said sincerely. "I expect he's going to make it, too, less Marvin pull a bunny out his hat."

"Who's Marvin?"

"You all ain't heard of the Reverend Marvin Rockwell?" Cuvier appeared to have some difficulty grasping the idea.

"We're not from around here," Remo explained. That was no excuse, Cuvier's expression told him.

Out loud the Cajun said, "Reverend Rock, I call him. He got a show on TV where you can save your soul without ever having to get up off your sofa. Fact is, Reverend Rock got him a network out of Shreveport there. They call it JBN, I think it is. The Jesus Broadcast Network, or something like."

"And he's running for governor, too?" asked Remo.

"Bet your life he runnin'. Runnin' hard, I guarantee. Old Rock got most of the Jesus people prayin' for him, sendin' in their money to help redeem the State of Louisiana. Throwing away their money is what they're doing."

"You're not a believer?"

"I believe in me," the Cajun said. "What else I got?"

"I thought all of you were Catholic down here," Remo said with a shrug.

Chiun ran through the channels once more, found little besides political announcements and Mardi Gras coverage, and glared hatefully at the television.

"Praise God for your video recorder, eh, Little Father?"

Chiun pinned Remo with a baleful glance. "I will offer no thanks to meddlesome carpenters or to bumbling sons."

"Hey, what's your problem with me all of a sudden?"

"You have displeased Emperor Harold Smith in some way, that he sends us to such barbarous surroundings."

"You may recall that you volunteered to come along," said Remo. "And the trip was my idea, not Smitty's."

"Even worse," Chiun huffed. "No consideration for others. No regard for your frail Father."

"Say," the Cajun interrupted, "is you all related some way?" It was the first time Cuvier had spoken directly to the old Korean. He had shown an extreme reticence toward Chiun since the old Korean gave him a mild traumatic shock by sneaking up on him in his own house.

Chiun made a disgusted sound. "Related?"

"Yes," Remo said.

"No," Chiun insisted.

"We're from the same bloodline," Remo explained.

"We are related as the pigeon is related to the eagle," Chiun clarified.

"Just asking," Cuvier replied, then turned to Remo. "How you figure to go lookin' for the loup-garou?" he asked.

"I thought I'd start with some of your old cronies," Remo said. "They may have an idea who Fortier is using for the contract."

"Best you try another way before you talk to anybody in the family," Cuvier suggested.

"What did you have in mind?"

"You best go see the Gypsies right away, before you get yourself in some kind of mess you can't get out of. They set you straight about the loup-garou."

"Gypsies." It was perfect. Now, if he could only get directions to the good witch of the west, Remo decided he would have it made.

"You be surprised what Gypsies know," said Cuvier. "Might teach you something if you listen close and keep your mouth shut."

"I suppose you know where I can find some, just like that?"

It was the Cajun's turn to smile. "Fact is, I do," he said. "I do indeed."

"Y'ALL THINK it went all right?" Elmo Breen asked of no one in particular.

"You looked great," said Elmo's lackey, Maynard Grymsdyke. "Phones are ringing off the hook already, with the new spot. Answering old Rockhead from the Bible made the difference, like I said. You're winning hearts and minds."

The candidate stopped short and turned to face the shorter, balding Grymsdyke. "Son," he said, "how old are you?"

"How old?" The lackey paused and thought about it, as if searching for the proper and politically correct response.

"Your age, for Christ's sake!" Elmo snapped at him. "It ain't a loaded question."

"Forty-two," Grymsdyke replied, still frowning.

"Forty-two," the white-maned politician echoed, almost wistfully. "So, you was still in diapers when we got our asses kicked by little point-headed folks in Vietnam. That right?"

Grymsdyke delayed responding for another moment. This time he was counting. "Not quite, sir. I was eight years old when Mr. Nixon-"

"Never mind!" Breen snapped. "My point is that you make me nervous sometimes, Maynard."

"Sir?"

"That crap you're shoveling about winning hearts and minds. Our people used to say that all the time in Nam. Went on and on about how the majority of dinks just loved us. Couldn't wait to help us kick the Commies out, they said. 'We're winning hearts and minds.' Thing is, we lost that war, in case you disremember."

"I recall that, sir. In fact-"

"In fact," Breen interrupted him, "I never put much stock in phone calls stirred up by a TV ad. Been my experience in thirty-nine years as a public servant that folks who'll take the time to call and praise you are the ones who would of voted for you anyhow. Same things for polls, most of 'em. Some guy asks a couple dozen people what they think about abortion or campaign finance reform and tries to say he knows what everybody's thinking. That's a pile of bullshit, and you know it well as I do."

"Sir, if you could try to keep your voice down..."

They were moving briskly toward the ninth-floor elevator in the east wing of the Crescent City Hilton, and they had the spacious hallway to themselves, but Grymsdyke nurtured his paranoia like a gift from God. He wasn't happy, Breen had long ago decided, if there did not seem to be at least the risk of spies and eavesdroppers. The threat of being overheard and somehow shafted with the very things he said made Grymsdyke feel important, useful, even vital to the cause. Without that feeling of supreme importance, Elmo Breen had long ago decided, Maynard Grymsdyke would have shriveled up and blown away.

There wasn't much left of him, as it was. Grymsdyke stood five foot two or three, almost completely bald, and weighed perhaps 120, counting shiny wingtips and the two mobile phones that he carried wherever he went. As if it weren't enough to have one with Call Waiting, in case some great thinker was trying to reach him and pour out the secrets of life. He wore one of the phones on his belt, while the other was snug in his left armpit, cradled in some kind of harness that looked like a holster. Breen used to call his flack and campaign manager "Two-Gun," until he saw how Maynard flinched each time and realized that he had hurt the stubby gofer's feelings. It had shamed him for a moment, as if he had been caught teasing a disabled child.

Looks were deceiving when it came to Maynard Grymsdyke, though. Inside that shiny head reposed the knowledge of a Princeton Ph.D. in political science, which meant that he knew everything the books could tell him about nailing down elections. What he didn't know so well, as yet, was people. After all those years in classrooms, seminars and such, he still put too much faith in raw statistics for Breen's taste.

Elmo himself had barely lasted two years in a third-rate junior college, never quite acquired the units necessary for a grand Associate of Arts degree in history, but he knew people inside out. He knew what turned them on and off, the knee-jerk issues that would make a bloc of voters love or hate you once you took a public stand. He knew the rules, of course: blacks "always" voted Democrat; white born-agains were "always" staunch Republicans-this list went on and on. One thing Breen knew that Grymsdyke had not fathomed yet.

A lot of it was bullshit.

There were ways around the rules, he understood, if you appealed to people, touched them where they lived. For most, that meant the pocketbook, religion, family, sex-the basics. A successful politician made a point of finding out what his constituency wanted out of life, and he would promise to fulfill those needs by any means at his disposal. Clearly, most of what he promised was impossible-a leftwing Democratic president could never overhaul the welfare system, for example, if conservative Republicans controlled Congress-but you didn't really have to do that much in public office. It was more important that you seem to try. And if you failed, well, there was always some reactionary, radical or plain old crooked bastard you could point a finger at, make him the scapegoat for your failure. Lay it off on someone else.

Going up against a TV preacher, now, that was a special problem. Ticklish. Any other candidate, Breen could have started slinging mud right off the bat, hoping that some of it would stick, but with a preacher man you needed special mud-a bimbo in the woodpile, for example, or a Cayman Islands bank account where all that "seed faith" money went to hide-but so far Grymsdyke's people hadn't found a thing on the Reverend Mr. Rockwell.

It was time to pull an ace out of his sleeve, and that meant Breen would need some extraspecial help. Before the Feds put Armand Fortier away for life and then some, Elmo would have made a phone call, talked it over with his friend and struck some kind of bargain. Cash or favors in return for pictures of Reverend Rock cavorting with a prostitute, perhaps-or better yet, a little boy. Presumably, Armand's successor had the same kind of connections, held the same strings in his hand, but Elmo didn't really know him as he had known Fortier for years on end.

Still, this was war, and he couldn't afford to let some grinning Holy Roller beat him to the statehouse. Quoting scripture on TV was one thing, but he would feel better, closer to the finish line, if he nailed down the Devil's vote, as well.

"Maynard," he said at last, his mind made up, "get me a private meeting with Merle Bettencourt."

"I DON'T BELIEVE he has the everlasting nerve to throw back scripture in my face. Do you believe it, Jerry?"

Jeremiah Smeal displayed the same sour face he wore around the clock. "Sin's what it is," he said, his high-pitched voice unsuited to a man who measured six foot one and topped the scales around 350 pounds. "A shameless mockery."

"Still, it could hurt us," Reverend Marvin Rockwell said in answer to his aide.

"The faithful-"

"Screw the faithful!" Rockwell cut him off. "This ain't some kind of weekend show or camp revival meeting, Jerry. This one is for all the marbles, son. If I'm elected governor of this great state, think of the grand work I can do for Christ our Lord!"

"Yes, sir."

And all the perks, thought Rockwell, keeping that one to himself. What he came out with in its place was: "We must not allow him to preempt us, Jerry. I'm God's candidate, and everybody knows it! Spirit-filled at nine years old, I was, speaking in tongues before my whole damn class in Bastrop. I've healed the sick and lame from Dallas all the way to Pascagoula. I heal people on TV, for Christ's sake! What more do they want?"

Smeal shrugged. "'Even the Devil can cite scripture for his purpose'," he replied.

"That's perfect!" Rockwell said. "What verse is that?"

"It's Shakespeare, sir. Merchant of Venice."

"Shit! I can't go literary on these yokels. Give me something I can use!"

The fat man, suddenly disconsolate, was trying to stare holes in his black loafers. Rockwell could almost hear the cog wheels grinding in his head, trying to conjure a rebuttal for their adversary's latest TV spot.

"There's Jeremiah 7:4," he said at last.

"'Trust ye not in lying words,'" the televangelist recited, knowing it by heart. "Could work. Keep thinking, though."

"Yes, sir."

The trouble went beyond quotations from the Bible, Rockwell understood. That peckerhead in Houston, Pastor Benny Bobbit, hadn't helped the cause when Sixty Minutes caught him skimming money from his ministry to keep an eighteen-year-old strumpet in the mood for steamy fun and games. It had been bad enough that Bobbit was a preacher in the first place, but he also paid for thirty minutes twice a week on Rockwell's Jesus Broadcast Network. Reverend Rockwell had been a guest on Benny's show, for God's sake. They had stood together in the spotlight, grinning, shaking hands. Now Rockwell had to cut the bastard loose and pray that not too many of the faithful started drawing close comparisons.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!"

"Sir?"

Rockwell didn't realize that he had spoken until Jerry Smeal's shrill voice intruded on his gloomy thoughts. Now he was talking to himself, goddamn it, and in front of witnesses.

"Just praying, Jerry. Never mind."

"Yes, sir."

It was a tough job, trying to escape the stereotype of a money-grubbing TV preacher, all the more so when he fit the mold so perfectly. Rockwell had hopes that politics would save him, launch him from the Christian junior varsity into the Lord's own Super Bowl contingent. Then and only then would he be recognized by millions for the man he truly was.

Or, rather, for the man he wanted them to think he was.

The yellow press had made a run or two at him already, looking into his credentials, sniffing after the diploma mill that had declared Rockwell a doctor of theology in 1986. That piece of paper cost him fifteen hundred dollars, but at least he never had to crack a textbook other than the Bible, and the Ph.D. had granted him a measure of respect among survivors of the TV holy wars. A year's apprenticeship on Christian Airwaves International, and he had launched off on his own, building the Jesus Broadcast Network from a single run-down station in Metairie to a web of thirty-seven stations scattered through the hard-core Bible Belt. Come Easter, he would crack the Southern California market, and with all the nuts out west, he hoped the money would be flowing soon, to justify his effort. In the meantime, though...

The first time Rockwell had thought of running for the statehouse, it had been hilarious. A joke. Then Jerry Smeal had talked to him about it for a while, pointing out some of the advantages-state matching funds, to start with-and had told him there was actually a chance that he could win. Of course, he had to edge by Elmo Breen to win the primary, and that was no small challenge in itself. Elmo had been around forever, held most every office in the state except for governor at one time or another, and his easygoing style appealed to voters in Louisiana, where the choice between a raving Klansman and a proved thief had been too close to call, a few years back. That was the kind of atmosphere where Rockwell could let his hair down, use his gift for hellfire oratory to the utmost, and perhaps-just maybe-make a slim majority of the benighted yokels buy his vote-for-Jesus rap.

The free publicity was working to his benefit already. Three new stations were asking if they couldn't please become a part of Reverend Rockwell's great network for salvation, and you had to love a country where that kind of thing was possible.

The polls told Rockwell that he was trailing Elmo by a hefty nineteen points, and Pastor Bobbit's trial was coming up in three or four weeks' time, a golden opportunity for Breen to point a finger and remind the no-neck voters of exactly what they could expect from TV preachers. Never mind that he was right. It damn well wasn't fair!

I need an angle, Reverend Rockwell decided, and this time he caught himself before he spoke the words aloud. Instead, he spoke a name.

"Merle Bettencourt."

"Sir?" Jerry Smeal was visibly confused.

"Still praying, Jerry," Rockwell informed his aide. "Never you mind."

THE GYPSY CAMP WAS situated three miles south of town, outside Westwego, with the stagnant bayou close enough that Remo smelled it even with his windows rolled up tight and the air-conditioning on high. There was a dead snake in the middle of the highway, seedy strip malls off to either side, and Remo wondered where it had been going when its time ran out.

He hadn't asked how Cuvier knew where the Gypsies would be found. They were supposed to drift around the countryside, and since the Cajun had been up in Omaha for something like a year, presumably without connections to his former stomping grounds, it puzzled Remo. Still, he let it go. He had enough things on his mind, werewolves included, without trying to discover if his witness was a closet psychic.

In the old days, he had been led to believe, the roving Gypsies packed their lives in horse-drawn wagons, gaily painted, drifting aimlessly from town to town as they told fortunes, read the tarot cards, picked pockets, rustled livestock-anything, in fact, that would keep money flowing in without the grim necessity of taking honest work. There had been Gypsies in New Jersey, back in Remo's former life. He had arrested one of them for swindling senior citizens, some kind of scam involving eggs and evil spirits. No one in the suspect's family had seemed especially resentful of the bust. It was like weather, something you could never really change.

These Gypsies had progressed from horse and wagon to an ancient school bus painted green, with different-colored swirls resembling psychedelic cloud formations on the sides and rear. He was reminded of the sixties and a song about a magic bus, some kind of acid groove, but quickly pushed the reminiscence out of mind. Behind the bus, an old VW van sat on the shoulder of the road, more primer gray than any other hue, and there were three mopeds lined up behind the van.

Beyond the bus, an open field lay in between the highway and the swamp. The Gypsies had a campfire going, and a mismatched pair of portable barbecue grills was producing aromatic smoke that almost canceled out the rank smell of the swamp. Almost.

The kids saw Remo first as he pulled up behind the mopeds, killed his engine, stepping from the Blazer. There were six or seven of them, Remo was sure, plus three apparent teenagers, and better than a dozen adults, ranging from late twenties to a crone of seventy or eighty. By the time he cleared the van and started to approach them, they were all aware of Remo, and he could have sworn that other eyes were following his progress, from the van, the bus or both.

Must be damn crowded when they're on the road, he thought, and then dismissed the thought as being of no consequence.

As Remo neared the fire, a forty-something Gypsy with a fierce mustache stepped out to intercept him. He was dressed in a bright red shirt with bishop sleeves, long collar points and shiny buttons, black pants resembling jodhpurs and riding boots that gleamed like patent leather, fitted out with silver buckles on the sides. His neck and hands were bright with gold, including rings on six of his eight fingers. As the gap between them lessened, Remo noticed that the Gypsy's left eye was possessed of a nervous tic that made it blink and twitch, as if the orb were trying to escape its socket.

"You have business with my family?" the Gypsy front man asked, with twenty feet between them. Remo nodded toward the teenagers and tots. "All yours?"

Broad shoulders rolled inside the crimson shirt.

"Some mine, all Romany," the Gypsy said. "I think you didn't come here for no genealogy."

"You must be psychic," Remo offered, but the joke fell flat. "The fact is, I was told... I mean to say I'm hoping you can help with some information."

The Gypsy smiled and stroked the side of his nose with a nicotine-stained index finger. "You are looking for New Orleans, yes? You must go back the way you came."

Strike one on fortune-telling, Remo thought. He said, "It's not directions, Mr.... ?"

"Ladislaw," the Gypsy said. No telling if it was his first name or his last.

"Well, Mr. Ladislaw-"

"King Ladislaw," the walleyed man corrected him.

Remo let that one pass. "I'm looking for a different kind of information. I'm not sure-"

"About your future, yes?" The Gypsy's smile increased in wattage, pearly whites on bold display. "You come to the right place, all right. The Romany have powers. But, of course, it is no easy thing. We must-"

"It's not about my future," Remo told him, interrupting the sales pitch. "I need to ask about ...well, um, a loup-garou."

The Gypsy lost his smile as if someone had wiped it from his dark face with a washcloth. Remo watched his left eye jiggle for a moment, dancing to a different beat, before both pupils locked like gun sights on his face.

"Who sent you here?" King Ladislaw demanded. "You said someone told you to come here."

"Slip of the tongue?" Remo suggested.

"Now you lie."

"Okay, you're right. It was a Cajun friend of mine," he told the Gypsy, stretching the relationship. "I'm not at liberty to give his name, but I can tell you that he wishes you no harm. I'm not with the police or-"

"Why should Romany have fear of the police?" asked Ladislaw, his bad eye veering sharply north-northwest.

"No reason I can think of," Remo said. "Let's just forget it, shall we? My friend was obviously wrong."

He turned to leave, but barely took a step before King Ladislaw called out to him, "You stop!" Remo turned back to face the Gypsy, waiting.

"You say this friend of yours is a Cajun?" Remo nodded, kept his mouth shut, waiting. Ladislaw reached up to tap his own forehead, above the jerky eye. "Is he a special man, this friend?"

"I doubt it," Remo answered frankly. "If he had the power and knowledge, I suppose he wouldn't send me here, to you."

The Gypsy's left eyelid came down, as if to better study Remo without interference from the rebel orb. "You are a wise man, I believe."

"I know an old Korean who would disagree."

"Excuse me?"

"Forget it. Can you help me?"

Ladislaw had found his smile again. "My eldest daughter has considerable knowledge of such matters. She is, how you say?" The Gypsy raised a hand and tapped his head again.

"Brunette?" Remo suggested.

"Sensitive!" King Ladislaw seemed pleased that he was able to recall the word. "Of course, it still requires great effort, sometimes pain. For something dangerous, like loup-garou, two hundred dollars."

It was Remo's turn to smile. "I'm after information, not the pelt," he said. "I'll give you fifty down, and match it afterward if I'm completely satisfied."

The Gypsy king seemed infinitely pained, but he was clearly in his element, adept at dickering. "For such a risk," he said, "one-fifty is the best that I can do."

Remo considered it, deciding what the hell. It was CURE's money, anyway, and fifty bucks was nothing to the organization that had eluded government auditors for decades on end.

"Half down," he said.

"A deal!" King Ladislaw relieved him of the cash and led him to the former school bus, where the back door-once reserved for exit in emergencies-now stood ajar.

"Step in, my friend," the Gypsy said, "and learn what you must know. I only hope you do not see too much."

Chapter 8

The windows in the rear part of the bus were painted over, but some fading daylight spilled in through the open doorway, and the space inside was lit with candles. Remo counted twelve candles while he was waiting for his eyesight to adjust, examining the portion of the bus that had been artfully converted to a kind of sitting room. The rug beneath his feet was clean and looked handwoven. Furniture consisted of some large embroidered pillows in the place of chairs, with a low table just in front of him, standing ankle high. Remo was put in mind of certain geisha houses he had visited ...until he saw the girl.

She occupied a cushion on the far side of the table, sitting with her back against a folding screen that blocked his vision of the bus interior beyond that point. In fact, he didn't care what lay beyond the barrier, so captivated was be with the girl. She wore an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse with puff sleeves and a ruffled skirt that hid her legs completely. Tawny cleavage showed above the scoop neck of her blouse, but Remo's eyes were drawn inexorably to her heart-shaped face, framed by jetblack hair that spilled across her naked shoulders. Her complexion was a light cafe au lait, and while she didn't have her father's eyes, it seemed that perfect teeth ran in the family.

"Your father said-"

"Sit, please."

Her voice was soft but firm. He did as he was told, and quickly scanned the tabletop, noting the crystal ball that stood to one side, near a deck of tarot cards.

"I am Aurelia Boldiszar. And you are..?"

"Remo," he replied.

"Not such a common name. What is it that you wish to know?" she asked.

Remo was tempted to suggest that she tell him, but Master Chiun had frequently reminded him-in diplomatic terms, of course-that no one liked a smart-ass.

Remo said, "A Cajun friend of mine told me that Gypsies-"

"Romany," she said, correcting him.

"Okay, that Romany could give me information of a certain nature, and your father told me you're the one to see."

"My father." There was something in her smile, but Remo couldn't make it out and told himself it was a waste of time to try. "This 'information of a certain nature,'" she went on. "Can you be more specific?"

"It concerns a loup-garou."

If she was startled by his statement, she concealed it like a pro. There was no show of fear, not even hesitation, as she ordered, "Let me see your hands."

"Say what?"

"Your hands. Palms up, please."

"I don't need-"

"I need to see your hands," she told him, with enough steel in her voice that Remo offered up his open palms.

Aurelia studied each in turn, some twenty seconds each, and then sat back, appearing to relax. "You are not loup-garou," she said.

"I could have told you that."

"A loup-garou would lie," she told him. "Some, despite their power, strive for greater knowledge, greater skill. They do not shrink from subterfuge."

"Uh-huh." He made a vain attempt to hide the skepticism in his tone, but her expression told him he had failed.

"You don't believe in loups-garous," she said, "and yet you come in search of information on their habits-and, I think, their weaknesses. Why do you waste your time and money, Mr. Remo?"

"Just plain Remo."

"You avoid my question, Just Plain Remo."

"What I search for is a loup-garou, but it is one that is made by science. Not magic."

She considered that. There was wisdom residing in the depths of her eyes. "Does it matter?"

He was wondering how much to tell her. If she was possessed of psychic powers, there would be no point in trying to conceal the truth. Conversely, if she was a charlatan, he had already wasted time and money on a wild-goose chase.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I assume a mutant created by science is not going to behave like a guy who goes all feral when the moon's full."

"And you seek the loup-garou why?"

"I'm a security consultant," he said, treading softly on the borderline of truth. "My present client, one whom I have promised to protect, is being hunted by bad men."

"In other words, he has a contract on his head." Her smile was almost taunting. "I'm not an idiot, all right, Just Plain Remo? Just run it down."

He smiled in spite of himself. "Okay. Some of my client's late associates have died-been killed-in the past few months, apparently attacked by a large animal. The man I'm working for insists they were the victims of a loup-garou, a werewolf. He insists the thing is coming after him and that there's no way to avoid it. He suggested I talk to Gyp-I mean, to Romany, and get more information. I decided that it wouldn't hurt to humor him."

She sat there looking at him before she gave him a nudge. "There's more to it than that. You think this is a laboratory-created monster."

"Yes."

"So you do not disbelieve in the loup-garou. That's strange enough for a policeman. Or-" Aurelia Boldiszar smiled slightly "-whatever you are."

Abruptly she was all business, turning her gaze intently into his hand. "This I see. You are indeed protecting someone, but he is not your employer. You would not take money from this man, but someone else prevails upon you to defend his life. You demonstrate humility in describing yourself as a security consultant-you are certainly a great deal more than that."

"Well..."

"You did not seek me out to humor anyone," she declared flatly. "For that, you could have left your client where he is and simply gone to dinner. Kill some time, then tell him that you saw the Gypsies. He would never know the difference. You are here because you seek out certain information for yourself."

"Meaning?"

"You want to believe the loup-garou is what you think it is-a science experiment gone bad-but you're not sure. You have seen something else, long ago, not in America, I think, and it makes you wonder. Something..." She considered it for several moments, finally shook her head. "No. Much about you is shrouded in darkness. Your past is a swirl of images that seem real and can't possibly be real. Your present is like the presence of something giant and huge out of the old myths. Except I don't picture the giants of legend wearing goofy grins like they just saw their first dirty magazine. Your future-" Aurelia Boldiszar shuddered.

Remo Williams stopped the goofy grinning. "What about my future?"

"It is difficult-" What was difficult she did not say. Even the speaking seemed to be an effort.

"Tell me," he commanded sharply.

She looked up. Her dark eyes glimmered with moisture. "It is indecipherable," she said, her words fracturing, and for the first time she was something other than in control.

"You're lying," Remo snapped.

She shook her beautiful head very slightly. "No. I speak the truth, Just Plain Remo. I see something that I think is your future. I see you. I see the swirling darkness and chaos of your life. I see your fathers and your daughters and your sons, battling one another......

Remo blinked. "You got the part about the fathers right," he said. "But as for the daughters and sons, there's just one of each."

She just looked at him.

"Tell me the truth," he said quietly.

"Somehow, you would know if I was lying to you," she said. "I believe that what I say is true, and believe it because I have seen it. You must decide if what I see is true."

She was right. Remo could hear her conviction in the beat of her heart and the rhythm of her breath. He could see it in the pattern of her pupils' dilation.

"I have one son," Remo Williams declared flatly. "I have one daughter. That's all."

They both knew he was trying to convince himself. He felt his face warm up and willed his circulation to get control of itself.

"You're distressed."

"Distressed?" Remo demanded. "Lady, three minutes ago my biggest concern was a swamp-dwelling wolf man and how to talk you out of your Romany uniform. Now you tell me I've got more kids than I know about and soon they'll be fighting among themselves."

"I did not say soon," she protested. "I did not say when."

"Whatever. Just threw me for a loop."

"That means you believe in what I say?"

Remo looked at the Romany princess and exhaled a long, long time and it sounded like the word "crap" stretched out inhumanely.

The problem was, he didn't want to believe in this kind of mumbo jumbo. The other problem was, this was the kind of mumbo jumbo that came true for him with annoying frequency.

"Back to the subject in hand, so to speak," he announced, trying to get his own mind back on track. "The Loopy Garou of the Backwoods Bayou."

"Whether he is the product of dark art or dark science, he's not to be taken lightly," the dark-eyed woman chided him. "This is advice that comes not from a vision. It comes from something I have seen with my own eyes."

"You've seen a werewolf?" Remo asked.

"I've seen enough," Aurelia Boldiszar said. "Beyond that, I can tell you that there is a loup-garou near by. Within a day's walk of New Orleans, perhaps. Whether he is the one you seek-or who seeks you-I cannot say. If so, it won't be long before he takes your scent. Your client is at risk, and so are you."

"I should be stocking up on silver bullets, then?"

"You're pleased to joke," she said. "So be it. But remember this, Remo. Like you, the loup-garou is not as other men. He can be beaten, even killed, but it requires more dedication to the task than you may be accustomed to."

"How do you know what I'm accustomed to?" asked Remo, curiosity encroaching on uneasiness. Would Harold Smith consider a seer's seeing as a breach in CURE security?

"Loups-garous and Romany have never been good friends," she said. "I may be able to assist you in your search."

"Well... "

"At the moment," she continued, "I do not know where this loup-garou is hiding, if or when he will approach you, but I may be able to discover more if I apply myself."

"How much?"

"My treat," she said, and flashed another dazzling smile. "I am interested in the manner of man you are. Tracing palms and looking into the crystal and reading the tarot, these are imprecise methods of divination. To understand the person and his soul and his fate, one must live within the arm's length of his or her aura."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm one of those people you don't want to know," Remo said, and he realized he was offering her a way out. But he was fervently hoping she wouldn't take it.

"My choice, my risk," Aurelia said.

He saw no downside to it and responded with a shrug, "Why not? I'm at Desire House, in the Quarter. That's on Tchoupitoulas Street. Don't ask me how to spell it."

She was smiling now. "Desire House?"

"From what I've seen, it's nowhere near as friendly as it sounds."

"You'll hear from me," Aurelia said.

"Good night."

Outside, King Ladislaw was waiting to accept the other half of the one-fifty. Remo handed it over. "You are satisfied?" the Gypsy asked.

"Ask me again tomorrow," Remo answered, "If I'm still alive."

LEON WAS DRESSING out a raccoon, ready to discard the guts for anyone who might desire them, when the bitch heard trouble coming. Privately, he could admit that every other member of the pack had keener senses than his own. It galled him, but there was no arguing with simple facts of life. Whenever it began to get him down, Leon consoled himself with a reminder that he had the only working set of thumbs in camp, and thus was still the only one among them who could drive the van.

He had no license, registration or insurance, granted, but such details were a bore. Leon dismissed them out of hand. He liked to think of the Dodge Ram as his inheritance, although its former owner was no kin of his. They hadn't even known each other, really. Their acquaintance lasted all of six or seven seconds, while his shaggy hands enclosed the driver's head and twisted sharply to the left, with force enough to snap his neck and end his life.

Good eating, he had been. Not scrawny, like so many of the bayou dwellers Leon saw when he was out on hunting expeditions. Mr. Dodge Ram had been positively plump and redolent with health, a feast unto himself. A gift of Providence, which Leon had accepted in addition to the van.

Now he laid the 'coon aside, rose from his crouch, pricked up his ears. The others had begun to melt into the undergrowth before he rose, anticipating his command and acting on it while the thought was taking shape in Leon's head. It never crossed his mind that maybe they were leading him, and not the other way around.

He was the loup-garou. He ruled the pack and he always would.

At least as long as he was cozy with the bitch. He started moving toward the water, following his nose and instinct, picking up the first sounds from the skiff before he cleared the chest-high reeds. Deep night and trailing Spanish moss concealed him as he watched the lone intruder moving closer, paddling his cheap flat-bottomed boat and watching out for landmarks on the bank.

He didn't recognize the boatman yet, moonlight behind him making him a silhouette against the restless water, but the man was close enough now that he caught a smell he recognized. It was the smell of fear.

Off to his left, Leon heard one of his brothers approaching the water's edge. A "normal" man would probably have missed it, but the leader of the pack knew swamp sounds, and he knew at least approximately where the others were right now. The bitch was roughly fifteen yards to Leon's right, downstream, which put her closest to the new arrival. If the man kept veering toward the shoreline with his skiff, she could spring out and join him by the time he reached her hiding place.

The small man in the skiff stopped paddling then, as if he had picked up on Leon's thought somehow. It made no sense, of course. More likely he was tired, or maybe lost. Good luck if that turned out to be the case. A man could sit for hours in the bayou country, searching for familiar landmarks, and come up with nothing. He could sit forever, until the ants and larger scavengers arrived to pick his bones.

But this one wouldn't go to waste. Leon had already forgotten the raccoon. It was a simple appetizer. This was food.

Just when he knew the bitch was winding up to make her leap--a bit too far, in Leon's estimation, but he couldn't tell her that-the small man in the skiff produced a match and struck it on the gunwale of his old flat bottom, holding up the tiny light beside his face. A wave of feral disappointment surged through Leon as he recognized the thin, dark face.

HE knew this man. They had a deal of sorts. It would be wrong to share him with the pack... at least until he found out what the slender Gypsy had to say.

Leon wasn't much good at whistling, with his teeth and all, but he produced a low-pitched warning sound that told the others to stand back. No sooner had the order passed-a whimper from the brother on his left, a quick snarl from the bitch-than Leon stepped from cover, moving toward the water's edge. This man had seen him and was theoretically prepared. There was no point in hiding when a frightened man came all this way to bring him news. "What is it you want?"

His throat felt dry, the words emerging as a raspy whisper. With the pack, he mostly spoke their language-yips and growls and whines that drew their meaning from the circumstances of a given situation. It was a fact that Leon often muttered to himself, sometimes in French, sometimes in English, but he tried to keep it down so as to not offend the pack. It was a very different game to speak deliberately with "normal" men, so that your words conveyed coherent meaning.

In the skiff, his uninvited visitor recoiled, then caught himself and tried to make it look as if he simply had a nervous twitch. The overall effect was laughable, but Leon missed the humor in it, scanning back upstream in case the Gypsy had turned traitor on him, leading other "normal" men to find the pack. So far, there was no sight or sound of followers.

"I have news," the Gypsy said.

"I am listen," Leon said, suspecting that his choice of words wasn't exactly right but guessing it made no difference.

"Stranger come by the place today." The Gypsy didn't have to say which place, and time had little meaning in the bayou, once you drew a line between the daylight hours and the hungry night. "Asked some funny questions about you."

The wolf man felt his hackles rising, curled his upper lip to show a flash of crooked yellow teeth. His shaggy hands flexed in the darkness, talons scratching at his palms.

"He call my name?" asked Leon.

"Didn't have to," said the Gypsy. "He said he was looking for a loup-garou. I hear that, and think of you."

Leon tipped back his head and scanned the crazy quilt of stars above him. They were timeless, changing with the seasons and rotation of the earth, but always coming back again, as inescapable as weather, permanent as death.

It took a moment for the bayou night to mellow him, but he was getting there. When Leon spoke again, his voice was calm, no snapping at the messenger, no matter how he longed to roar and tear the Gypsy limb from limb.

"So, what did you all tell him?" Leon asked. His uninvited guest first looked dismayed, then terrified. It was a good choice in the present circumstances.

"Now you joke with me," the Gypsy said, lips spasming into the semblance of a smile. "Man didn't talk to me at all. What do I know?"

"You know how to find me," Leon answered. "Know about where I live."

"I never talked to him," the frightened man repeated stubbornly. "Man comes, he talks to Ladislaw, then goes in to spend some time with Aurelia. Paid Ladislaw handsome for whatever Aurelia had to tell him and then he goes away. Use your second sight and see if I be lying."

Leon wasn't big on second sight, but he stared at the quaking Gypsy for a moment more before he spoke. "Got what he come for," said the leader of the pack. "Got his palm read."

"I can't say that," the trembling Gypsy said, "but that Aurelia sees things. She has powers."

So do I, thought Leon. "That's it?" he asked. The Gypsy nodded, jerky little motions with his head. His hands clung desperately to the oars. If he was lying, Leon thought, the little man deserved some kind of an award.

"All right," the wolf man said at last. "You told me something, now I'm telling you. Don't go on right back to where you been. Find some other place to spend the night."

The Gypsy mulled that over for a moment, then finally nodded. The full weight of his betrayal made his shoulders slump and forced his head down, eyes avoiding Leon's sharp chin almost resting on his chest.

"Go on now," the leader of the pack commanded. "I got things to do."

He didn't wait to see the Gypsy turn his skiff and paddle back the way he came. Retreating toward his dark camp, Leon heard the others padding in around him, stony silence from the bitch, a couple of the others whining questions.

"We're going to take a little ride," he told them, smiling in the darkness. "Maybe get a bite to eat."

AURELIA BOLDISZAR HAD not told Remo everything she saw and felt when she was in his presence.

Then again, she never told outsiders everything. It was a lesson she had learned, partly from the instruction of her mother, but more by trial and error. She was twenty-five years old, and that was plenty old enough to understand that even members of her family, the Romany, did not desire to know the whole truth of their futures or to realize how much she knew about their secret pasts.

In truth, the other Romany rarely consulted her these days. They were polite enough, and treated her like family-her father was their leader, after all-but she still caught them glancing at her furtively, as if afraid that she was "reading" them against their will. They feared she would learn secrets they had closely guarded over years or decades, sometimes even from their wedded mates.

And they were right.

Aurelia didn't understand the power, but she had it. That was all that counted in the end. It didn't operate continuously, or she would have lost her sanity when she was just a teenager. Instead it came and went, influenced to some indefinable degree by her attempts to focus, calling on the energy or whatever it was to let her see behind the public masks that men and women wore in daily life.

This Remo, now, he was a different matter altogether. From her first glimpse of him, there had been confusion-not because he was inscrutable, but rather because she saw so much. Aurelia couldn't always say when those about her would face death, or how; in fact, that dark, oppressive knowledge thankfully eluded her most of the time. With Remo, though, there had been the inescapable sensation that he had already known death. Maybe that first, irrational impression was what had muddled everything else she saw when she was with him.

She knew he was an orphan-or had been one, rather, until he had found a father figure relatively late in life, and then, much later, found his biological father.

Aurelia felt that Remo was basically a good man, though his path had taken him to many places he would not have chosen for himself and forced him into contact with a brooding cast of villains. Most of them were dead now, she was certain, and she had no doubt that a majority of those had died by Remo's hand.

Consumed with her thoughts of her enigmatic visitor and his equally strange task, Aurelia missed the early-warning signals that might have saved her people.

Then again, it was entirely possible that the impending danger-like so many others-would have failed to warn her, even if she had been concentrating, actively pursuing any strange vibrations in the night.

When she heard the first scream, it took her utterly by surprise.

There was a vicious snarling, and a young girl cried out again. Aurelia thought it had to be Janka, but the knowledge didn't help her. Even as she struggled from her sleeping bag and pressed her face against the nearest window of the bus, the cry was cut off with a brutal, inescapable finality. Aurelia felt the life force torn from little Janka as if it had been her own. She didn't have to see the child to know it was too late to help her.

More of her people shouting now, some of them men. There was confusion, fear and anger mingled in their voices. Where the snarling, baying canine sounds originated, she couldn't be sure-until it struck her like a swift blow to the solar plexus. Loup-garou!

The cursed man-thing had been smarter than she reckoned. It had found her out and tracked her down within a few short hours of her conversation with Remo. Something in the werewolf's cunning nature drove it to make a preemptive strike, to prevent her from assisting Remo with his hunt.

A flash of insight, crystal-clear, told her the best way to protect the others was to flee. The wolf man wanted her, and while she knew he wouldn't hesitate to massacre the Romany in search of her, there was at least an outside chance that he would follow if she ran.

There was no time to plan where she would go, grab any items from her minimal belongings. Gypsy life meant traveling, and traveling efficiently meant readiness to leave at a moment's notice. Thought translated into action almost instantly, and she exploded from the bus into the milling chaos of the camp, beelining for the mopeds parked behind the old VW van.

Before she traveled half a dozen strides, Aurelia almost stumbled on a corpse. The dead man lay facedown, but she could tell it was Sebestyen from his shirt-what there was left of it. He had been mauled, pale ribs exposed on one side, where the flesh and muscle had been torn, and blood was everywhere.

Aurelia glanced back toward the bus, in time to see a canine form leap through the open doorway she had vacated. Around the corner of the vehicle, a hulking man-shape suddenly appeared, moving with massive shoulders hunched, arms flexing, fingers opening and closing, seeking prey. She didn't see the creature's face and had no wish to, sprinting past the van.

One of the mopeds was missing, but that knowledge barely registered before she was astride the first in line, stamping on the kick starter. The two-wheeler was old but lovingly maintained, its engine sputtering to life upon demand. Aurelia hung on for dear life and whipped it through a tight U-turn, part of her terrified that she would fall, another part assuring her that she would not.

Behind her, an inhuman voice roared out stark fury. She was on the blacktop now, and had the moped's throttle open. It had not been built for speed, like some two-wheelers. Could it outrun a loup-garou ... or more than one?

It struck her that she had been wrong, somehow, about the local wolf man being on his own. There had been two of them, at least, and from the sounds she heard as she was running for her life, Aurelia guessed that there were still more in the camp. How many? She had no idea, and no sensation spoke to her as she drove north, the night wind in her face. The Gypsy camp was better than a mile behind her when it came to her that she was driving without lights. When she had remedied that situation, she felt safer from collision with oncoming motorists. Police would be another matter if they stopped her, since she didn't own a driver's license, but at least there was a chance she could persuade them to go back and check the camp.

By which time, she assured herself, it would already be too late.

She knew where she had to go. Desire House.

Remo didn't know it yet, but he was waiting for her. And there was a chance, although it seemed increasingly remote, that she might even save his life.

Chapter 9

At half-past midnight Remo was asleep and dreaming of Lon Chaney, Jr. The dream was in black and white. Just like when he dreamed about the Three Stooges.

He recognized the street scene as an image from another time and place. He couldn't have identified the town, wasn't convinced it had a name, but knew that he had seen it many times before. The cobbled streets and architecture told him that he was somewhere in Eastern Europe, in that blissful time before the War to End All Wars. Behind him, if he glanced across his shoulder, Remo knew that he would find the full moon just emerging from a mass of brooding clouds.

Lon was somewhere in front of him, most likely hiding in the pitch-black alley to his left, a half block farther on. Remo hadn't yet laid eyes on him. But he could feel what was supposed to happen next. Lon had ducked offstage to don his wolf-man costume, but he was returning shortly, with a vengeance. You could bet on it.

There came a strange sound from the alley. Not growling, or the scuffling sound of semihuman footsteps Remo had expected. Rather it was the thud of feet on a carpeted floor, far away and coming closer on the run. It was a panicked run.

Remo sat up in the same instant as Chiun. They were both on mats on the floor of the hotel suite they were sharing with Cuvier. The mob target was snoring on the bed.

"Well, are you going to answer it?" Chiun demanded. A second later there was a frantic rapping on the door.

Cuvier was a light sleeper, too. He snorted and snuffled back to consciousness and feebly grunted a warning. "It be the loup-garou!"

"Don't think they knock," Remo said. He was already opening the door, and the delicate aroma coming from the hall identified the visitor before he saw her.

Aurelia Boldiszar looked shell-shocked.

"I didn't know where else to go," she said by way of greeting. "There's a chance it may already be too late."

Remo stood aside, then poked his head into the corridor and listened. It was empty and there were no suspicious sounds.

"What may be too late?" he asked, closing the door and flipping on the light.

Aurelia uttered a small "Oh!" and put her hand to her mouth, as if to stifle a cry of alarm. She stared directly into the vivid emerald eyes that resembled those of an intense child. But the head they were inside of was covered in yellowed, water-wrinkled parchment.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just that I've seen-"

"I understand, child," said the ancient Master. Remo caught the unexpected compassion in Chiun's voice and realized he hadn't exactly been quick on the uptake. Chiun had sensed that what had brought Aurelia there in the middle of the night wasn't just a sense of urgency. It wasn't even just an emergency.

"I've made a terrible mistake," she said. "There is not one loup-garou, but several. I've seen them."

"Excuse me?"

"They came to the camp," Aurelia said, and her eyes seemed to grow hollow. "They were killing us. Killing and killing. I don't know how many. The loups-garous were after me. The best thing I could do was get away."

And lead them here, thought Remo. But instead of saying it, he asked, "When did this happen?"

"Half an hour, maybe forty minutes. It took time for me to locate the hotel."

"And now you're telling me you actually saw these things?"

"Two of them," she replied. "One was transformed completely, while the other...I can't do it justice. It was manlike, walking upright in the shadows, but its face..."

Aurelia's voice trailed off. She met his eyes, then turned her gaze away, as if embarrassed. Why? Because she had run out on her companions, even with the best of motives?

Remo and Chiun knew she was telling the truth. They could read it in her breath and the pulse of her blood under the skin of her throat. Cuvier knew she was telling the truth because he had faith.

Faith in the existence of the loup-garou.

Remo thought of going back out to the camp to see it for himself, but quickly scrubbed the notion. If Aurelia had been followed-even if she hadn't-it was far more likely that the loup-garou would try for Cuvier at their hotel than wait around the Gypsy campsite for a little one-on-one with Remo.

They could hole up in the hotel, thought Remo, or he could approach the problem from another angle. He could do, in fact, what he probably should have done as soon as they were settled in New Orleans.

"You'll be safe here," he told Aurelia, wondering if it was true. Chiun could handle any man alive, but if their adversary wasn't human...

"Why?" Aurelia pinned his eyes with hers. "Where are you going?"

Remo hoped his smile was reassuring, but it didn't feel that way from where he stood. Still, he plastered on a smile. "Let's say I've got a hankering to see Mardi Gras."

MERLE BETTENCOURT was happiest when telling other people what to do. He loved the sense of power and authority that came with giving orders, telling his subordinates to jump and noting that they didn't even ask how high. The power of life and death especially excited him. It was better than sex.

At the moment, though, Merle Bettencourt was mired down in the bog of party politics. Venal politicians were a key part of the system, human cogs that kept the great machine moving forward, but that didn't mean he had to like them. Every time he was compelled to work with some asshole who styled himself a "statesman," it made Bettencourt feel he ought to take a long, hot bath. Given a choice, he would prefer the company of killers, pimps and pushers-they were at least honest about their motives and desires.

But here he was in an election year, and the primaries were unusually early, due to anticipated irregularities. Armand had to find it inside himself to finesse the oily bastards who were bent on suckling from the fat teats of the body politic. It seemed to Bettencourt that this year's candidates were worse than usual, and that was saying something in a state where politics and criminal behavior had been more or less synonymous since the days of Huey Long. The Kingfish was a pioneer of sorts; he set the tone for all that followed, teaching future generations of disciples how to realize their dreams, be all that they could be, and during his tenure graft had been refined to an elusive art form.

Still...

Gut instinct made him want to go with Elmo Breen. Breen was a lifelong veteran of gutter politics and had the morals of an alley cat, disguised by oily charm. He had started out with the Sicilians, in Marcello's pocket, but the changing times had prompted Breen to look for sponsorship among the nativeborn. For the past ten years or so he had been snuggling up to leaders of the Cajun outfit, kissing major ass at any given opportunity. He was a pro who asked no questions and provided value for the money he received, dodged nasty questions with the flexibility of a sidewinder and never let his patrons down.

Unless, of course, he saw the chance to cut himself a better deal.

It was an iron-clad rule of Armand Fortier's, with which Merle Bettencourt agreed, that you could never really know what the stupid voters might decide to do once they were shut up in the polling booth and confronted with a list of names. That being true, it only made good sense to have friends on both sides in any given contest, just in case. No matter how the dice came up, that way, the outfit couldn't lose.

Which brought him back to Reverend Rockwell. The TV preacher was a hopeless ego-tripper, like so many of his colleagues, with a penchant for insisting that his words were Jesus Christ's. Whether the Rock believed his own spew or not, Merle Bettencourt had no idea, nor did he give a damn. Old Rockhead was amusing in his way, but he could also be a liability in public office if his fire-and-brimstone calls for cleaning up the state were taken seriously. As it was, however, Bettencourt had learned enough about the pastor that he felt he could relax.

Rockwell was living, breathing proof of Romans chapter three, verse twenty-three, where it declared that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Not that the pastor was a womanizer, pedophile or any suchlike kinky specimen; in fact, there was no solid evidence that he engaged in sex of any kind, or ever had. He didn't drink or play around with drugs, as far as Bettencourt could tell, nor did he squander cash on games of chance. There were suspicions-at the FCC, the IRS and elsewhere-that he might be skimming more than his reported salary from JBN, and there was no real doubt that he had flouted campaign finance laws, but that was small potatoes when you got down to it, hardly worth the cost of an investigation, much less months or years in court to prosecute and maybe see him wriggle off the hook.

No, Bettencourt had finally decided, Reverend Rockwell's great sin was pride, a driving need to lord it over others with his stern self-righteousness and tell the whole damn world how it should live. His TV network was a vehicle for self-promotion, plain and simple, with the holy smoke screen dazzling Rockwell's simpleminded followers. The pastor spoke to them in tongues, which sounded more like bullshit baby talk to Bettencourt. He dubbed the ones who sent him money on a monthly basis "soul survivors." Stupid puns were something of a trademark with the Rock, in fact. He had been known to call the money sent in by his TV flock "hellfire insurance," and sufferers from terminal disease-who somehow lacked the faith required for Reverend Rockwell to heal them of their ailments-were harangued to "cram for finals" by enrolling in a cut-rate Bible correspondence course. At one point, early in his televangelism days, he had sold tiny bits of rock and concrete swept up from construction sites and advertised as chippings from the Rock of Ages.

Bettencourt admired that kind of gall, and it had been no great surprise when Rockwell's campaign put out discreet but urgent feelers to the Cajun Mafia. The pastor knew of Elmo Breen's connection to the mob, and while it suited him to blast his opposition as a crook and friend of crooks, Rockwell also knew that big-time money was required to win the statehouse. Even with the Jesus Broadcast Network pumping covert thousands into his campaign, he needed more, as much to fox the watchful Feds as to defray his costs. Of course, the Rock couldn't be seen with Bettencourt or any of his Cajuns, but that didn't stop his bagmen from soliciting, collecting and transporting better than a million dollars from the mob to Rockwell's primary campaign.

That kind of money came with certain obligations stamped into the greenbacks like a hidden watermark. In public, Rockwell continued to denounce corruption and the men behind it, promising a swift return to "ancient family values" if he was elected governor, but in the meantime he had reached an understanding with his covert benefactors. If he won-and there was still no guarantee, despite the extra million in his war chest-Rockwell would keep his campaign promises by going through the motions of a shake-up, mostly concentrated in Baton Rouge. There would be raids, investigations, show trials and convictions, but he promised to avoid disturbing his supporters any more than might be absolutely necessary. If the Cajun mob saw fit to offer scapegoats-say, perhaps, their leading competition in the drug trade and illegal gambling, loan shark and extortion rackets-Reverend Rockwell's investigators would accept the sacrificial goats and let it go at that. Come next election year, they could negotiate new terms.

But now, with the primary just a few weeks off, both candidates had started calling Bettencourt at crazy hours, whining that the money wouldn't stretch to cover all their needs, asking if maybe there was something Bettencourt could do about the no-good rotten bastard who obstructed the path to the governor's mansion. Bettencourt would have been tickled pink to smoke them both, but those techniques had mostly gone out with the Kingfish. For the moment, all that Merle could do was lend a sympathetic ear and keep on filling briefcases with cash.

Whoever won the race would be presented with a bill, detailed and itemized. If he contested it or tried to bluff his way out of the game, Merle Bettencourt had tapes-both audio and hidden-camera video-that would be guaranteed to change the rebel's mind in nothing flat.

So much for politics. It took a measure of finesse, but Bettencourt was getting there, remembering to watch his temper and keep stroking the gargantuan ego that every politician carried like a monkey on his back. Some months earlier, in private, he had started browsing through the dictionary and thesaurus, peppering his speech with new words, cutting back on the profanity when there were ladies-as opposed to whores and bitches-in the room. Merle had begun to think that maybe he could fill old Armand's Gucci loafers, after all.

But there was still one problem to be dealt with, and he couldn't let it slide now that the wheels were turning, even if he didn't really give a shit about Armand's new trial. The Cajun godfather still had his loyalists in the family, enough of them to stir up holy hell if Bettencourt appeared to give the liberation effort less than everything he had.