“Someone’s idea of a sick joke,” concluded Ferro.

“Sure,” said Crow.

Ferro looked at Weinstock, whose face was weary beyond words, and grave; he looked at LaMastra, who was flushed and fighting to keep tears out of his eyes. He looked at Val, who nodded silently.

“Oh, God…” he said at length.

Chapter 28

1

The bottle of Scotch was half empty. Ferro got up and walked over to the couch and stared hard at Crow.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what, Frank?”

Ferro’s hand snaked out and took a fistful of Crow’s shirt and pulled him roughly to his feet. He was six inches taller than Crow and his face was filled with fury. “Why did you bring us into this…this…?”

Crow began to say something but Val stood and put her hand on Ferro’s wrist. “No, Frank,” she said. His eyes snapped toward her and they seemed to generate heat. Val raised her other hand and put her palm on his cheek. “No.”

Ferro’s eyes went moist. He let go of Crow and stepped back.

Val said, “We brought you in because we’re scared and we’re desperate and we didn’t know where else to turn. You and Vince are outsiders, which means we can trust you. We can’t say as much for the police here. Gus is a fool and Polk…well, there’s a possibility that Polk is involved.”

“It was wrong of you to call us,” Ferro insisted, but his voice lacked conviction.

“I won’t apologize, Frank,” Val said. “I’ve lost too many of the people I love to want to play it coy. I’ll do anything I have to do in order to stop this. Anything.”

Ferro tried to hold her gaze, tried to win the contest, but there was just no way. His eyes dropped and he turned away, swatting at the air as if he could put the whole thing behind him.

Crow cleared his throat. “We have other help on this.” He told them about Jonatha Corbiel and filled them in on all of the information she’d dug up. “She’s doing the deep research for us, her and that reporter, Newton. Maybe she’ll come up with something.”

“Frank…Vince,” Val said, “sit down. We have to tell you all of it now. From the very beginning.”

Their faces registered the horror that each of them felt at the thought that there was more, but Val was implacable. She waited them out and they did sit down. Then she and Crow told them about Griswold and what they believed he was; about the Bone Man; about everything they knew and believed. Weinstock brewed a pot of coffee and everyone had a cup. When they were about three-quarters through the story Newton and Jonatha joined them, crowding the office. The detectives’ greeting was less than cordial.

“This is like a plague,” Crow said. “And the plague started with a single vampire. The main vampire.”

“In folklore the paradigm is known as the ‘vampire over-lord,’” Jonatha said.

“This is getting out of hand,” growled LaMastra. Anger was replacing shock by slow degrees. “Vampires, werewolves, and ghosts?”

Ferro held up a hand. “There’s something wrong with your theory about this, Crow. All the stories about werewolves I ever heard of say that whoever gets bitten by one becomes one. So why didn’t the mayor ever turn into a werewolf after all this time?”

Jonatha fielded that one. “There is very little in the folklore that suggests that the bloodline of a werewolf follows through victims of their bite. That’s a fictional device. Like vampires, werewolfism is something that manifests based on a person’s nature. An evil, twisted person can become a werewolf. Unlike a vampire, though, this can happen while the person is still alive.”

“So, Mayor Wolfe—and excuse me if I don’t think that his name is just too goddamn bizarre—is not in danger of becoming a werewolf?”

“I didn’t say that. Actually, we don’t know. From what Crow and Val said, he was going through a terrible psychological breakdown, including intense dreams about becoming a monster.”

“Shit,” Crow said.

“So if he does carry the curse—or infection, to use Val’s word—then his own good nature has probably been at war with the werewolf nature all these years.”

“That’s why he tried to kill himself,” Val said, her eyes going wide. “My God…he thought he was losing the struggle. He tried to kill himself to save Sarah.”

Weinstock covered his mouth with his hands. “Dear God.”

“On the other hand,” Jonatha said, “there is evidence in the folklore to support the theory that a werewolf is not inherently evil. Take the case of the Benendanti of Italy. They are ancient families who claimed that they became werewolves at night and descended into Hell to fight vampires and other monsters. Some were put on trial by the Inquisition, and there’s at least one case where a Benendanti was acquitted because the inquisitors could not prove—either through evidence or coercion—that the werewolf was not a servant of God.”

“I read about them in a couple of books,” Crow said. “The name means…”

“‘Good walker,’” Jonatha said. “Though their nicknames are ‘The Hounds of God.’”

“You think that’s what Terry was?” Val asked.

“Oh, I have no idea,” Jonatha admitted. “I’m shooting in the dark here, trying to make what’s happening fit somewhere into what’s in the folklore.”

“Christ,” said Crow, “I don’t think Terry tried to kill himself just to protect Sarah…maybe he was afraid of the beast getting out and starting a new series of murders, like the Massacre. I think he did it to protect the town!”

“I feel sick,” LaMastra said looking into the bottom of his empty coffee cup.

Val said, “So what we’re dealing with is both the werewolf’s bloodline in Terry and with the fact that after thirty years, the monster that killed my uncle and Crow’s brother and all those other people has come back as a vampire. Only now he’s stronger. He’s making more like himself. And it’s pretty clear that he’s doing a lot of this on the QT.”

“How do you figure that?” Ferro asked.

“Look at it. It’s been going on for a while and we’re only just putting it together now, and we wouldn’t even be this far if it hadn’t been for the lucky accident of the morgue’s video cameras.”

“‘Lucky accident,’ he says,” complained LaMastra.

“It makes me wonder how much else is going on that we don’t know about,” Crow concluded.

“Well, we know some of it,” said Newton. He shot a look at Crow, who nodded and gave Newton a wan smile of encouragement. “We know he’s organized, and we know he has help. Probably human help.”

Ferro shot him a glance. “Human help? How do you figure that?”

Quickly Newton related the trip down to Griswold’s house and all that happened there. After the horrified reactions had calmed down, he said, “Crow pointed out that the lumber was fresh, and so was that chain. Can you see a vampire going to a lumberyard and a hardware store?”

Ferro shook his head.

Crow said, “Then we should assume the presence of human help. I mean, in the books and movies about vampires, doesn’t he always have someone who looks after things during the day? A Renfield sort of character. So, either we have a human handyman, or we have a vampire that likes to use tools.”

“That can give us a starting place, can’t it?” asked LaMastra, but Val shook her head.

“In farming country nearly everyone knows some basic carpentry. No, the point is that the helper is probably someone local.”

Ferro scanned the faces of the others. “So…does anyone have a useful suggestion for what we should do now? We have to be careful about how we release this information. You have a full town here, and we could be wrong…I mean, sure there may be vampires, God help us, but Ruger could actually be dead and rotting out in some shallow grave and this whole thing could be over.”

“That’d be nice,” Newton said. “Crow and the Doc dug up those two cops and they seem to be pretty well dead. So, maybe this is all after the fact.”

“Regardless,” Ferro said, “I don’t think it’s wise to tell anyone about this just yet.”

“What are you talking about?” LaMastra said, goggling. “I intend to tell every frigging person in the tristate area. This is not the time to play it close to our vest.”

“It could cause a panic. We can’t risk that.”

“Well fine then, Frank. Let’s have a panic. Let’s do ’er up pretty, too. Let’s have everyone in this end of the country running around with crosses and stakes. Hey, I’m all for the whole villagers with torches thing here.”

“If we have a panic,” Ferro said patiently, “it will be impossible to control the situation.”

“Control it? Christ, Frank, we are not in control of it now. Like, I’m all for calling the National Guard and maybe even the Vatican. Let’s have a Vampire Slaying party. Invite your friends. Control it? Jesus, you’re right out of the movies.”

“No, Vince,” said Val quietly, “Frank’s right. If people start panicking, then how are we going to try and organize our attack?”

“Our attack on whom?”

“Why…on the vampires,” Val said so softly that it chilled everyone in the room. After a moment Crow, Weinstock, and Newton all nodded.

LaMastra folded his arms and sat back in his chair. There was an enigmatic smile on his lips. “Have you guys been smoking crack? You just told us that Griswold dropped a porch on you and then called up a couple billion friggin’ roaches to run you off. You never even got inside. Who knows what would have happened if you had and Boyd or Ruger had been there. You’d both probably still be there with beer taps in your necks.”