Warren Murphy: Wolf's Bane

Leon reacted with inhuman speed, twisting in midflight to dodge the blow. But he couldn't avoid it. Remo felt ribs snap on impact, heard the grunt of pain and saw his adversary stagger as he regained his feet. The loup-garou pivoted to face his enemy, returning to the fight with greater caution, snarling as he came.

Remo dropped and spun, lashing out at Leon's right knee with a kick and heard it snap. The wolf man clawed at the empty air where Remo had been, then yelped in pain and flung himself down, hoping to trap his adversary beneath him.

Remo was gone.

The wolf man pushed up off the floor, craning his head to find where his enemy had gotten to.

Remo was coming at him from behind, and he planted a palm on the wolf man's back. Leon Grosvenor was slammed to the floor with such force he felt as if a concrete wall had come down on him.

"Okay, dog-face boy," Remo said. "Time to talk."

The wolf man struggled weakly for a moment, dazed. "Fu-!"

Remo pushed harder. The wolf man's entire rib cage compressed, his lungs being squeezed into a smaller space as his ribs creaked like the timbers of an overloaded pirate ship of old.

"Speak, Fido," Remo commanded.

Leon wheezed and struggled. "It was Armand Fortier. Merle Bettencourt. Them's the ones that hired me."

Remo felt the stall. There was still a massive ripple of strength alive in the wolf man's body, and Remo knew Leon was talking while he got his wits together. But talking was necessary.

"I don't give a fur coat for those two losers," he said. "It's you I'm interested in."

"Me?" Leon grunted.

"More precisely, your maker. How did you get this way?"

"I was born this way, you stupid son of a-" There was a nerve in the neck. People had it. Leon probably had it, too. Remo felt around.

Leon howled.

"Yep. You got it," Remo said. Then he released the nerve. "Now, listen to me, you stupid piece of dog shit, and listen good. I want straight answers from you, and I want them fast. Because good answers is all you've got right now that makes you worth keeping alive."

"I'll talk," the wolf man moaned, long and low. Remo pressed Leon Grosvenor a little harder into the floor, just as a reminder. Leon grunted. Remo wanted to keep pushing. He wanted to do things to Leon Grosvenor that would make a werewolf killing look tame. And for a moment the Reigning Master of Sinanju was surprised at the depths of his rage. "Who made you, dog?"

"A woman," Leon said. "She came to the bayou."

"And?"

"She asked me if I wanted to be a real loup-garou. She gave me something to drink."

"What did she look like?"

Leon described the woman.

Remo glanced at Chiun, who stood impassively watching. Chiun nodded and asked, "What about her arm, mongrel?"

Leon turned his head in surprise. "Her arm?" Then some sort of understanding opened on his face. "Her arm. It was smooth. It had skin like a baby's arm."

Remo breathed. There was the evidence. That was the kind of unusual detail that proved it. Judith White had lost her arm when she first encountered Remo. But by the time they had met the last time, she had managed to grow it back. The skin on the new arm was pink and new. "Even Smitty can't deny it was Dr. Judy."

Chiun nodded.

"How many others did she make?" Remo demanded.

"I made them. She ran away. I was too strong and she became afraid."

"How many?"

Remo knew the question wouldn't be answered when his hand detected the surge of impulses in the wolf man's muscles. Leon twisted violently to free himself-and Remo let him do it. One taloned claw slashed at him and Remo slapped it aside, shattering the bones. The other hand groped for him, weak and wounded, and Remo squeezed it into pulp.

The wolf man howled with rage and pain, and his eyes flashed to the left and right.

The wolf man's sanity had fled him.

He rose to his knees without warning, with the power of the insane, the speed of an unnatural creature and the adrenaline rush of a dying lunatic. His teeth gnashed at Remo's throat with dizzying speed.

Remo met the face full of fangs with his own fist, thrusting his hand into the wolf man's maw. The jaw full of fangs disintegrated. The back of his shaggy neck exploded.

Then Remo extracted the arm fast. But not fast enough to keep it from getting covered in blood and gore.

The loup-garou of Louisiana wavered. He was still alive and gagging on his own teeth and blood. He struggled, amazingly, to get to his feet. Remo sneered. "Forget about it. You can't even bite my legs off."

Angry breath wheezed out of the werewolf's bloody throat.

"You gonna huff and puff and blow my house in?" Remo demanded. "Not this house, Leon." He struck hard and fast, his palm crushing the wolf man's skull with his palm, and Leon collapsed like a ton of bricks.

Incredibly, he was still alive, still moving weakly.

"No wonder Dr. Judy was scared of this guy," Remo said, "Whatever she gave him, it was kick ass."

Then the gurgle of death rattled out of the throat of the beast-man. The great, hairy brute went limp. "Is he really dead?" It was Aurelia, without her pistol, stepping tentatively in Remo's direction.

Remo nodded. "He's dead. And too ugly even for a rug."

Chapter 19

"Hey, Big Crawdaddy."

Armand Fortier awoke in a panic. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. There was someone in his cell!

"Be cool, Armand. I just need to talk to you for a little old minute."

Now he saw the shape of the man. It sure the hell wasn't the big black guard. It was-

The hand was removed from his mouth. "Keep it down now, will you?"

"You're the one who came to visit me last week!" Armand accused.

"Oooo, eee. I guarantee that's me," said the Reigning Master of Sinanju.

"How did you get in here?"

"That doesn't matter. I just wanted to tell you that I came to wrap up some loose ends," Remo Williams explained.

"What loose ends?" Armand Fortier looked around wildly for some sort of an explanation. Sure enough, he was in his cell, in the middle of the night, just where he thought he was. The door to his cell was closed. The penitentiary was silent and lit only by the nighttime lights. Everything was as expected, except for the man in the cell with him.

"You see," the stranger was telling him, "I killed old Leon the loup-garou."

Fortier glared at him. "You killed Leon?"

"But one of Leon's pups took out old Merle before I got there."

"Merle's dead?"

"Also, about ten of your guys bought it tonight."

"No way-!"

Armand Fortier found himself paralyzed. The stranger was holding him by the neck.

"I asked you to be quiet, now, didn't I, Big Crawdaddy," Remo said. "Let me ask you this. I just snuck into a federal penitentiary in the middle of the night. Why would I lie to you about the other stuff?"

Fortier's eyes were wild.

"It's true. I guarantee." Fortier tried to nod, but he couldn't.

"There are a few loose ends, though," Remo explained in a reasonable, quiet voice. "A few wolves running around in the bayou. I don't know if we'll ever find them all. And then there's you. You, I knew right where to find."

Fortier was confused.

"Got to tie up those loose ends," Remo Williams said.

Then he did. Literally.

Chapter 20

The sour face of Dr. Harold W. Smith was more pinched than usual.

"You didn't have to knot him up like that."

"Yes, I did," Remo answered.

"He was still alive when they found him, you know," Smith added. "Paralyzed and mute, but conscious. They said his legs and arm bones had been broken in dozens of places."

"Had to do that," Remo said reasonably. "Had to make him all floppy in order to make the knots. You know, the little fox goes through the hole?"

Dr. Smith sighed. Chiun stood impassively at the corner of the desk. Mark Howard, in the other chair, added, "Fortier died while they were trying to untie him."