coarse army blanket pulled up over him, his large blue eyes peering up at Reuben, from the sleek shining brown hair of his wolf-face.
"You!" the Boy Wolf said. "It,s you!"
"Yes. I,m the one who did it to you," Reuben said. "I,m the one who passed the Chrism to you. I didn,t mean to. I meant to kill the men who were trying to kill you. But I did it."
The eyes continued to fasten on him.
"I killed my stepfather," said Stuart, his voice deep and rough and vibrant. "He was beating my mother, dragging her through the rooms by her hair. He said he would kill her if she didn,t sign the papers to commit me. She was saying no, no, no. Her hair was full of blood. I killed him. I tore him apart."
"Figures," said Reuben. "Did you identify yourself to your mother?"
"God, no!"
The Jeep bumped and jogged along the freeway, swerving to pass a car, and then gained speed again as it sailed into the left lane.
"Where can I go? Where can I hide?"
"You leave that to me."
They were still speeding along Highway 101 north under the heavy iron sky when Stuart began to change.
It took perhaps five minutes. Reuben timed it. Not even that much.
The boy shuddered, and bowed his head, elbows on his naked knees. His long blond curly hair covered his face. He was gasping in syllables but the syllables didn,t add up to words. Finally, he managed to say:
"I thought I wouldn,t change back. I thought I would be that way forever."
"No, not the way it is," said Reuben calmly.
He helped Stuart put on one of the knit shirts that Laura had brought for him. The boy managed the jeans and the running shoes on his own.
He was bigger all over than Reuben was, with a broader chest and obviously longer legs. He had powerful muscular arms. But the clothes were okay. He sat back staring at Reuben. It was the boy face again, with freckles and the big alert eyes, though not the familiar grin.
"Well, you,re one splendid boy wolf, I,ll tell you that," Reuben said.
Silence.
"You,re going to be all right with us, Stuart," said Laura. She never took her eyes off the road.
The boy was too stupefied and exhausted to answer. He kept staring at Reuben as though it was a miracle that Reuben looked like a perfectly ordinary man.
Chapter Thirty-Four
HIS EYES SNAPPED OPEN. By the digital clock it was just after 4:00 p.m. The blinds were drawn. He,d been sound asleep for hours. There were voices outside the house, voices in front and in back, voices on the sides.
He sat up.
Laura was nowhere around. He could see the landline blinking. He could hear it ringing far off somewhere in the house, perhaps in the kitchen or even in the library. On the night table, his iPhone throbbed.
The TV screen flickered and flared in silence, the news crawl recycling the news he,d been watching when he went to sleep: SANTA ROSA PANIC OVER MAN WOLF.
He,d watched as much as he could before he,d passed out.
There was a statewide search for Stuart McIntyre, who,d disappeared from St. Mark,s Hospital during the night. His stepfather had been murdered by the Man Wolf at 3:15 a.m. His mother had been hospitalized. Sightings of the Man Wolf were coming in from all over Northern California.
People were panicking up and down the coast. It was not fear of the Man Wolf, so much as it was utter confusion, helplessness, frustration. Why couldn,t the police solve the mystery of the werewolf avenger? He saw clips now from a governor,s news conference, flashes of the attorney general, the redwood-and-glass house in Santa Rosa on its knoll.
Voices out there, around the house. Scent of any number of human beings, moving along the western side of the property and the east.
He got out of bed, naked, barefoot, and crept to the front window, cracking the drapery just a tiny bit, letting in the dull afternoon light. He could see the police cars down there, three of them. No. One was a sheriff,s car. The other two were highway patrol. There was an ambulance there, too. Why an ambulance?
There came a booming knock on the front door. Then another. He narrowed his eyes because it helped him to hear. They were moving around the sides of the house, yes, both sides, and hovering at the back door.