Return of the Wolf Man Read online

  Even a man who’s pure at heart

  And says his prayers by night,

  May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

  And the autumn moon is bright . . .

  The sleepy town of LaMirada is full of stories. Stories of a string of gruesome murders left unsolved fifty years ago. Of a terrifying beast-man lurking in the shadows at the scene of the attacks. And of the strange castle on the edge of the ocean, where the nightmare came to an end.

  Now a new heir, Caroline Cooke, has come to the dark castle called the Tombs. And once again the little town is haunted by brutal murder, strange tales, and the mournful howls of an unknown creature. Some say he is crying out for the human blood on which he must feed. But others say that he is crying for release from his tormented form—release that only the lovely new occupant of the castle can give him . . .

  Talbot’s scream echoed for a moment and then died.

  Caroline could hear him breathing, each breath shallow and labored. She watched as bristly hair grew along the side of his face and across his hairline. It sprouted so quickly and so fully that it just seemed to appear. His lips and nose darkened. His eyes narrowed as more fur grew. It seemed to be closing in on his face—down his forehead, inward along his cheeks, up his chin toward the mouth. As it did, the fur thickened and grew longer.

  The werewolf growled and thrust his arm through the bars. Caroline screamed and fell back on the floor. Enraged, snarling and snapping, the Wolf Man twisted so that his arm stretched farther between the bars. The other hand gripped the bars, rattling them.

  “God almighty,” the deputy said and made the sign of the cross on his chest. “What is he?”

  “A lycanthrope,” Caroline said. “A werewolf.”

  RETURN OF THE WOLF MAN

  A Berkley Boulevard Book / published by arrangement with Universal Studios Publishing Rights, a Division of Universal Studios Licensing, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Boulevard edition / October 1998

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1998 by Universal Studios Publishing Rights, a Division of Universal Studios Licensing, Inc.

  Book design by Casey Hampton.

  Cover design by Steven Ferlauto.

  Cover photograph: Lon Chaney, Jr., as the Wolf Man, Chaney TM likeness, Chaney Enterprises, Inc. The Wolf Man is a trademark and copyright of Universal City Studios, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-425-16576-0

  BERKLEY BOULEVARD

  Berkley Boulevard Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY BOULEVARD and its logo are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  “Even a man who’s pure at heart

  And says his prayers by night.

  May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

  And the autumn moon is bright.”

  —WELSH VERSE

  Thanks—

  To Curt Siodmak, who wrote The Wolf Man, and to writers Edward T. Lowe, George Bricker, Dwight V. Babcock, Fredric I. Rinaldo, Robert Lees, and John Grant, who added to the legend.

  To Lon Chaney, Jr., who played the character with humanity and dignity in his five screen appearances.

  And to Jack Pierce, the makeup artist who designed the Wolf Man and many other great movie monsters.

  PROLOGUE

  1948

  I

  The autumn night was thick with clouds as the Wolf Man pushed on the half-open door. He paused in the doorway, crouching on splayed fingers and toes, and squinted ahead. The bedroom was dark as the heavy oak door opened slowly, creaking noisily on hinges rusted by the sea breeze. After a moment the moon slipped from behind a cloud and painted the room a ghostly blue-white.

  The Wolf Man’s eyes, no sharper than in his mortal state, narrowed as they peered ahead. In front of him, on the right, was a large antique dresser. Beyond it was a wooden stand with a vase of long-dead flowers. He could smell their rankness, even here. The Wolf Man stole a quick glimpse to the left. There was a small canopy bed in the near corner, the lacy white fringe moving gently in the night air. Dolls sat neatly along the side of the bed against the wall; their dead eyes were staring, their smiles fixed. At the foot of the bed was a large chest. The werewolf looked at it carefully: the dust was thick and undisturbed. His eyes rose to old, framed photographs on the walls. They were sun-faded portraits of people, one of whom the werewolf felt he knew: a woman with dark hair and dark eyes. He remembered her as being pale, blanched not only of color but of feeling.

  The werewolf’s brain, only partly human, fought through the mental fog. Who was she? What was her name? Mourn . . . mourn—Mornay?

  A disgusted snarl gurgled low in the Wolf Man’s throat. This wasn’t the time to try to think. Not when the Master of the Undead still walked the earth. The werewolf’s eyes snapped ahead. On the opposite side of the room dark-amber silk drapes undulated slowly in the gentle wind. The Wolf Man crept ahead then hesitated. His narrow eyes looked around with predatory vigilance.

  His quarry wasn’t hiding in the chest or on the balcony but was very near. The Wolf Man couldn’t see him but he could smell him. The unmistakable stench of death was somewhere ahead—humid and rotting like wet leaves crushed in the soft earth. Death also had a shape—tall and upright, with blazing eyes and two ivory-white fangs. And until it had reached this room death had been moving—sometimes slowly like a mist, sometimes swiftly like a bat. But always fleeing. For all his powers the fiend was a coward.

  The drapes waved, the corners flapping toward him as though beckoning. Beyond them the balcony doors were thrown wide open, their panes lightly flecked with droplets of sea. The werewolf’s short snout crinkled as the warm night air assaulted him with other smells—the salt of the ocean and the stink of fish living and dead. The perfume of a woman sitting on the beach. The sweet and sour odor of hammock trees and mangroves in the fetid swamps. Yet none of these smells was as powerful as the stench of his prey. The tart odor of blood was as long and heavy as the cloak that flapped behind Count Dracula.

  The werewolf lifted his right foot. The claws retracted slightly as he did. The thick pads on the bottoms of his feet were damp with perspiration. He crept forward once again, the wooden boards creaking. He stopped just before the dresser. His thick chest expanded slowly as he sniffed the air. The rich smell of blood was closer now. His narrow eyes shifted to the left and then to the right. The smell was all around him but where was the vampire? The monster’s semihuman mind was confused.

  He gurgled with rising anger. Spittle collected at the sides of his mouth, eager for a kill. Suddenly, the gurgle became a growl as he realized why he couldn’t see his ancient enemy. Slowly, the Wolf Man looked up.

  Count Dracula was clinging to the high rococo ceiling in the center of the room. He hung there spiderlike, his fingertips pressed to the plaster. The vampire’s head was turned around, looking down at him with eyes that were red slits. His satin cape clung to him, also defying gravity. The cloak outlined the stocky, blood-bloated contour of his body.

  Suddenly, Count Dracula’s off-white teeth flashed. Bloody mist swirled down from his mouth, hot and moist. With a hiss, the vampire dropped as though he were weightless. He turned in midfall, his cloak billowing behind him, and landed on his feet. He immediately jumped to the opposite side of the dresser. His long white fingers closed around the top of the antique and, with another exhalation of foul red breath, he easily overturned the dresser in the Wolf M
an’s path. Then the vampire spun and ran toward the balcony.

  The werewolf’s snarl became a roar as he vaulted over the dresser. He landed on all fours, the thick muscles of his arms and legs rippling beneath his fur. His own musky smell permeated the air, mingling with the blood-rich scent of the vampire.

  The vampire stopped. He spun toward the werewolf, his dark brows knit over his fiery eyes. The Wolf Man stopped and glared back at Count Dracula. There was something new in the vampire’s eyes—dark shapes, which seemed to be growing larger and coming toward him. They seemed to be flying.

  Bats. They were two great, black bats slowly merging into one.

  “Stay!” the vampire commanded.

  There was something soothing in the rhythmic movement of their wings, in the swirling red haze behind them. They transfixed the Wolf Man, caused his muscles to relax and his mind to drift. He stayed. He thought of more successful hunts, of less troublesome prey. He found himself yearning for them. How satisfying they were to scent and stalk and kill.

  The Wolf Man was no longer thinking about Dracula. He was thinking about humans, the satisfaction of leaping at them from behind. They’d scream as his knifelike claws plunged into the sinew of their shoulders or their soft upper arms. Sometimes he’d drive a claw up along their spine, the sharp nails digging into their flesh like hooks. The victims would scream and struggle helplessly as his two long, sharp lower canines dug into their throat, holding it in place. And they’d burble for a moment—but only for a moment, as his flat-topped incisors closed on the raw wound. Then the teeth would come together and shear the flesh and slice open the jugular vein. The victims always went limp after that as blood pumped out in lively spurts. The metallic taste of that blood, the sweet satisfaction of the flesh calmed the wildness in him. He felt like he did now, eager to put the night and the chase behind him.

  No—it was a trick!

  His throat was parched and his teeth ached. He had not killed. He was not sated. He roared and his mind returned to him. The bats vanished and the red haze became white moonlight and the Wolf Man was once more looking at the monster he had been pursuing since his transformation in the castle laboratory.

  The vampire exposed his teeth and hissed. Most of the werewolf’s victims never saw him, let alone fled. But this creature, this awful, tenacious vampire—he was different. Count Dracula’s strength, his senses, and his reflexes were nearly equal to his own. The vampire seemed to be afraid but there was none of the naked panic that overcame humans. Count Dracula wasn’t like that fat little man the werewolf had tried to attack just minutes before. When the full moon had risen above the laboratory window, the Wolf Man had been looking down at captive game: a small, chubby man strapped to a gurney. It would have been a pleasure to feed on him, to watch the fear drain from him along with his lifeblood. Then Count Dracula arrived and everything changed. The Wolf Man and the vampire fought; as they overturned metal worktables and electronic consoles, glass vials shattered on the floor and released sickening fumes and clouds of green and yellow smoke.

  Count Dracula!

  The Wolf Man shook his head furiously as he heard the name in his head. Pieces of human memory came to him, like shards of dream. They told the Wolf Man that he had come here to destroy the vampire, though he couldn’t remember why. Not that it was important. The vampire was a rival, another creature of the night. That was reason enough to want to destroy him. Even London, where they’d been until recently, had not been large enough to accommodate two ravenous predators.

  The werewolf rose slowly. His tawny, bristle-like fur bunched tightly beneath his white trousers and black button-down shirt. Count Dracula continued to stare at his adversary with baleful eyes. But the swirling haze and the bats were gone. Red saliva trickled down the vampire’s bared fangs. The werewolf showed his own teeth. They were yellow near the pale pink gums, white near the crowns. The vampire hissed again and began backing toward the small, alabaster balcony. Frustrated by this long chase, and angered by the vampire’s attempt to attack his mind, the Wolf Man roared and lunged.

  The vampire turned to his left, grabbed the ceramic vase from its stand, and flung it at his adversary. The werewolf ducked easily and the vase shattered behind him. With a cry of rage and desperation, Count Dracula spun and ran onto the balcony. He was outside in two long strides.

  The Wolf Man hunched low and bolted forward. There was nowhere for the vampire to go. The thick spittle that had collected in the corners of his black-lipped mouth spilled over his chin as he anticipated the kill.

  Count Dracula reached the balustrade and stopped running. He faced the sea; the waves crashed loudly over fifty feet below. The vampire raised his arms and spread his cape. The wind filled the cloak, the fabric flapping slowly. Borne by the sea breeze, the smell of blood filled the room behind him. Moonlight glinted off the vampire’s dark, slick hair. It shone on the shiny folds of his cape, on the large ring he wore on his left hand, on his naked fangs. Beneath him, all along the dark, moss-covered northern face of the castle, the denizens of the dark froze—but only for a moment. The moths and spiders quickly turned wings and legs elsewhere. Rats sunk low and crept quietly into drainage ditches, seeking sanctuary under the granite walls. Owls fell silent beneath wide and frightened eyes. The night was no longer theirs.

  The Wolf Man reached the balcony doors and he also stopped, though not out of deference to the Prince of Darkness. There had been a change in the vampire, something subtle. The werewolf’s large, sensitive ears cocked forward. He listened as the vampire’s normally rapid heart began drumming even faster. Faster, yet softer. Smaller. The werewolf dimly remembered other times when the creature’s heartbeat had changed. First his heartbeat and then the rest of the vampire, transforming into a mist or a wolf or—

  A bat. If he changed into a bat Dracula could lose himself in the night, return to his coffin.

  The Wolf Man howled from deep inside as the vampire’s change came faster. His cape began to shrink and tighten. The cloak lost its luster as the satin became leather. The vampire’s legs withered and rose and dangled in the air beneath his compacting torso. His shoes and socks became spurlike calcars on each foot and his toes stretched into small, sharp claws. The hair on his head shortened into bristly fur and the head itself grew smaller and darker. Count Dracula’s ears sharpened and his nostrils flared into wicked gashes. His fingers lengthened into delicate ribs along the top of his cape. And then, save for the flapping of its great wings, the large gray bat rose silently above the balcony.

  Oblivious to his surroundings, aware of nothing but his prey, the Wolf Man raced onto the balcony. His mouth was pulled wide in a cry of rage, saliva flying from the sides as he ran. As the vampire took flight, the werewolf planted his shaggy left foot on the top of the balustrade. He hurled himself after the creature. The bat veered to the right and the werewolf’s right hand shot out. He snatched the vampire around the torso and pulled it to his breast. The winged creature squealed as the two beasts hung in the air for a moment, suspended by the bat’s frantic flapping.

  In that instant, as they hung in the warm night wind, the Wolf Man knew he’d lost this fight. He could clearly see both bat-wings: neither of them bore the sign of the red pentagram, the symbol that always glowed bloody and clear on the right hand of his next victim. Count Dracula would survive this encounter.

  Unless—

  Unless he could hold on to the vampire until sunrise. A fragment of human memory told the Wolf Man that it wasn’t necessary for the vampire to die beneath his rending claws. If he could prevent Count Dracula from returning to his coffin, the vampire would perish under the gentle caress of morning.

  The bat’s strength ebbed and his wings slowed and suddenly the two figures were plummeting through the night. The creatures were still locked together, the vampire biting and scratching at his captor as they somersaulted slowly toward the dark, churning ocean. As they fell, the werewolf didn’t know whether the roar in his ears was the howli
ng of the wind or his own ferocious cry.

  They hit the choppy water hard and threw up a towering funnel of sea. The white-capped geyser cascaded around them, the sound deafening, the cold spray chilling. Tossed and pulled by the powerful currents, the mortal enemies fell deeper into the sea. Though he was winded from the landing, the werewolf fought to hold his struggling quarry. He was guided by instinct rather than reason, the awareness that he must not let Count Dracula go. Shafts of moonlight penetrated the blackness as the Wolf Man held tightly to his violently thrashing prey. The swirling sands and salt water stung his eyes and rocks jutting from the shoal punched his back and sides. His lungs ached for breath. But the Wolf Man would not release his prey. The animal heart in him did not understand surrender.

  Then, through the murky waters, the werewolf saw the green-rusted remains of an ancient anchor. Fighting the ruthless undertow, the Wolf Man twisted in an attempt to thrust the bat onto a pointed fluke. But as the werewolf turned, the vampire’s beating wings and slashing teeth quickly gave way to powerful arms and mighty fangs. Count Dracula once again assumed human form and with an explosion of strength he broke free. He arched away like a giant manta, leaving a trail of seaweed and silt in his wake. And then the vampire was gone, swallowed by the gloomy waters.

  Aching for air, the Wolf Man shot to the surface. Wave-tossed against a mossy outcropping of rock, he clawed to the rounded top and clung there as the ocean beat around him. The sound and smell of the vampire was already gone. The details of the conflict also faded quickly. There was a trace of human despair, of human frustration in the Wolf Man’s intense eyes. But it passed quickly. Exhausted and weak, what the werewolf felt most intensely right now was the need to feed.

  He dug his toes into the rock and brought his legs up under him. Crouching, he leaned forward on his claws. He sniffed the air. Almost immediately he was distracted by other smells, smells that beckoned and tempted him. He looked along the shore of the island, toward the cove. The water broke high and loud on the rocks, obscuring his view. But he didn’t need to see. He smelled a woman and a man there as well as something else. Something uninviting. The odor of dead flesh. He had smelled it earlier this evening in the laboratory, where the vampire had kept his giant—the monster constructed long ago, made of bodies torn from the grave or plucked from the gallows. Following his nose, the werewolf was able to pick out the pale green giant beyond the breakers. The creature was standing on the end of a dock, throwing crates and barrels at a rowboat. The Wolf Man dimly remembered fighting the monster once, also in water. In a flood at a different castle.