Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,89

and I shrugged. What could it hurt?

He followed the instructions, then listened as his contact recited the information in Mandenauer's file. Adam disconnected, appearing a little shell-shocked.

"He is who he says he is," Adam confirmed. "He runs some Special Forces monster-hunting unit."

"You mean werewolf-hunting?"

"According to my contact, there are a lot more than werewolves out there."

I caught my breath. "Simon was right all along."

"And often quite helpful to us," Mandenauer murmured. "We monitored his Internet and library usage, his book purchases - "

My eyes narrowed. The Patriot Act could be a real pain in the ass. Although this seemed to be slightly beyond the realm of the rightly paranoid Homeland Security Force. Just what kind of power did Mandenauer wield?

"Your husband was very good at weeding the truth from the lies," he continued. "Often we followed him, and on more than one occasion we eliminated what he found."

"Those times he said he'd discovered something, but when he took me to see it, it wasn't there?"

The times I'd wondered about his sanity.

"We killed the beasts before they killed someone else."

"What about the night he died?"

I'd always wondered what had really happened. Not that it made any difference. Dead was dead.

Or was it?

Simon had died from a fall. His body had been broken, marked, torn. Then, I hadn't thought to check for bite marks. If there'd been one -

I stiffened. The Simon I'd seen at the window of Adam's shack could very well be running around the swamp on four paws. And if Mandenauer actually had a cure -

My heart leaped with hope, even as my gaze went to Adam. What would I do? I loved them both.

I turned to Mandenauer. "Was one of your agents there that night? Did they see what happened to Simon? Is he - ?"

"Out there killing people? No. We made certain he would not rise again."

"He was bitten?"

"Yes."

I winced. "But you said you could cure lycanthropy."

"The developments are recent. I am sorry."

"Me, too."

I glanced at Adam. He smiled softly. He understood.

"You couldn't save Simon before he was attacked?" Adam asked. "What kind of army are you?"

"The best that we can be. But sometimes even the best are too late. All the Juger-Suchers can do is continue to fight as we've been fighting since the war."

"War?" I asked.

"World War Two."

Adam and I exchanged glances. The idea that monsters had been multiplying for sixty years was disturbing, to say the least

"You had better explain what you mean by that," Adam ordered.

The old man collapsed onto the stump where Frank had been. "I was sent to Berlin to find out what Hitler was up to."

"Hitler," Adam muttered.

'I hate that guy," I said.

Mandenauer's lips twitched. He didn't seem like a man who would smile much or laugh ever, but I'd been wrong about the nature of a man before. I took Adam's hand in mine, some of my tension easing when he not only let me, but held on, too.

"The fuhrer ordered Josef Mengele to create a werewolf army."

"Mengele was the one who performed the experiments on the Jews?" I asked.

"And the Gypsies and those lacking in their mental capabilities, and anyone else Hitler did not like."

"Which means he had plenty of test subjects."

"He had no shortage," Mandenauer muttered. "Mengele was given a laboratory in the Black Forest By the time I discovered this, D-day came and went Hitler panicked and ordered Mengele to release what he'd created into the world. I was only able to watch as unimaginable atrocities emerged from the trees."

"And the werewolf army?"

"Has been multiplying ever since, as have all the other beasts he created."

"What others?"

Mandenauer didn't answer at first; then he clapped his hands on his knees and rose. "One problem at a time." He fixed Adam with a stare. "I can help you, if you will help me. What is going on in New Orleans that has left so many dead and so many others undead?"

Adam took a deep breath and began to tell Mandenauer the history of his family and the curse. He revealed everything, except that he had a son. The old man listened without interrupting.

Though Edward Mandenauer was spooky, he seemed to know what he was doing, and while his story about the Black Forest was far-fetched, it was also plausible.

I had no problem imagining that Hitler might demand a werewolf army; I found it easy to believe Mengele would concoct monsters. He had, after all, been one of them. And it made perfect sense that those horrors had been released