The spasms made a fist inside of Reuben. He felt the blood drain from his face. At the same time he felt a wave of nausea and his knees went weak.
The man wolf,s great paws reached out for Dr. Klopov and caught her by her arms, lifting her off her feet.
"You will not, you will not!" she bellowed, squirming, feet thrashing, struggling to make her own groping fingers into claws, as the beast raised her up into the full glare of the outside lights.
Everyone in the room was in motion, Reuben himself stumbling backwards, and Dr. Cutler shrieking over and over again as if she couldn,t stop herself, and Jim scrambling to his mother,s side.
The men and women outside were in total panic, yelling, fighting with one another. Shots rang out and then came the inevitable, "Don,t shoot, don,t shoot."
"Rush it, take it alive!" roared Dr. Jaska, grabbing at the petrified sheriff. "Capture it, you fool!"
Reuben watched utterly astonished as the man wolf sank its gobbling fangs into the doctor,s throat, the blood spurting and pouring down over her rumpled clothes. Her arms went dead like broken branches. Dr. Jaska gave the loudest and most terrible wail. "Kill it, kill it!" he was now screaming, and the sheriff was struggling to get his gun out of the holster.
Shots came again from the screaming crowd on the outside.
Undeterred the beast closed its powerful jaws on the woman,s flopping head and tore it loose from her neck, snapping ribbons of rubbery bloody skin. Then swinging the head back and forth wildly, the beast sent the head flying out into the night.
The mangled bloody body of the doctor, it dropped to the steps - lunging into the room and knocking the sheriff flat on his back, as it caught the fleeing Dr. Jaska in the doors of the conservatory.
Crashing into the potted trees and flowers, the two figures merged as the doctor let loose a desperate boiling tirade in Russian before the man wolf ripped his head off as he had done to the woman doctor and threw the head back into the great room where it rolled across the floor before the open door.
The sheriff was struggling to get up and almost fell on the head, and then got his gun out and couldn,t get control of his right arm to aim.
The towering man wolf strode past him, pale eyes staring forward, dragging the headless broken body of Jaska by one hook of a claw.
Reuben stared aghast at its powerful hairy legs, the way it moved on the balls of its feet, heels high, knees flexed. He had felt all this, but never beheld it.
The monster dropped the body. With one great leap it vaulted through the assembly, pounding past Grace and Jim as it raced across the great room and into the library where it burst through the drapery and glass of the eastern window and vanished into the night. The shattered glass clattered down with the brass drapery rod and the crumpling fabric and the glittering rain swept in.
Reuben stood stock-still.
The spasms were running rampant inside him. But his skin was like an icy armor containing him.
He saw around him utter pandemonium - Dr. Cutler in hysterics being held by the desperate stammering Stuart, his mother climbing up from her knees and staring after the monster, and Jim down on his knees with his hands over his face, praying with his eyes shut.
Phil rushed to the aid of his wife. And Laura, who appeared now in the open door, and standing well to one side of the doctor,s dead body, stared at Reuben and Reuben stared at her. He reached out to welcome her into his arms.
Simon Oliver had fallen into a chair, and clutching at his chest, his face flushed and wet, was struggling to get back to his feet.
Only the three men - Felix, Margon, and Thibault - had not moved. Now Thibault collected himself and went to assist the sheriff. The sheriff took his arm gratefully and rushed past Laura and Reuben, shouting commands to his men.
The sirens of the patrol cars were now slicing up the night with their shrill pulsing wails.
Felix stood quite still, looking to his right at the severed head of Dr. Jaska that lay on its side, as heads apparently tend to do, staring blankly at nothing. And Margon went to put his arms round Dr. Cutler and assure her in the most tender voice that "the creature" had apparently fled.