with clothes, an extra computer, a couple of old Bose DVD players, and other things he would leave in his new refuge.
He needed this time alone desperately. He needed to be alone tonight with these powers - to study, to observe, to seek to control. Maybe he could stop the transformation at will or modulate it. Maybe he could bring it on.
Whatever the case, he had to get away from everything, including the voices that had drawn him into the slaughtering of four people. He had no choice but to head north.
And ... and, there was always the remote possibility that something lived up there in those northern woods that knew all about what he was and might just share with him the secrets of what he,d become. He didn,t really hope for that, but it was possible. He wanted to be visible to that thing. He wanted that thing to see him roaming the rooms of Nideck Point.
Grace had been at the hospital when he,d slipped out, and Phil had been nowhere around. He,d talked to Celeste briefly, listening numbly as she recounted the horrors of last night to him in boiling detail.
"And this THING just threw the woman out of the window, Reuben! And she landed smack-dab on the pavement! I mean the city is going crazy! It ripped apart two bums in Golden Gate Park, gutting one of them like a fish. And everybody loved your story, Reuben. The Man Wolf - that,s what they,re calling him. You could get a cut from the mugs and the T-shirts, you know. Maybe you should trademark ,Man Wolf., But who,s going to believe what that crazy woman in North Beach said? I mean, what is the thing going to do next: scrawl a poetic message on a wall in the victim,s blood?"
"That,s a thought, Celeste," Reuben had murmured.
When traffic stalled on the Waldo Grade, he called Billie.
"You scored again, Boy Wonder," said Billie. "I don,t know how you do it. It,s been picked up by the wire services and websites around the world. People are linking to it on Facebook and Twitter. You gave this monster, the Man Wolf, some metaphysical depth!"
Had he? How had that happened - with his attention to Susan Larson,s descriptions, and her account of the creature,s voice? He couldn,t even remember what he,d written now. But they were calling him the Man Wolf and that was a small score.
Billie was raving about what had just happened. She wanted him to talk to the Golden Gate Park witnesses and the neighbors on Buena Vista Hill.
Well, he had to go up north, he had no choice, he told her. He had to see the scene of the crime where he was almost killed.
"Well, of course, you,re looking for evidence of the Man Wolf up there, right? Get some pix of that hallway! You realize we never had any pix inside that house? Have you got your Nikon with you?"
"What,s happening with the kidnap?" he demanded.
"These kidnappers aren,t giving any assurance that the kids will be returned alive. It,s a standoff, with the FBI saying don,t transfer the money till the kidnappers come up with a plan. They aren,t telling us everything, but my contacts in the sheriff,s office say they,re dealing with real professionals here. And it doesn,t look good. If this damned San Francisco Man Wolf is so hot to bring superhero justice and vengeance to the world, why the hell doesn,t he go find those missing children?"
Reuben swallowed. "That,s a good question," he said.
And just maybe the Man Wolf hasn,t gotten his act together yet, and is gaining confidence night by night, ever think of that, Billie? But he didn,t say it.
A wave of sickness came over him. He thought of the bodies of those dead men in Golden Gate Park. He thought of the corpse of that woman on the pavement. Maybe Billie should visit the morgue, and take a look at the human wreckage "the superhero" was leaving behind. This was no series of capers.
His sickness was short-lived, however. He was keenly aware that he had no pity for any of those creatures. And just as keenly aware that he,d had no right to kill any of them. So what?
The traffic was moving. And the rain had picked up. He had to go. The noise of the traffic was muting the voices around himself somewhat, but he could still hear them, like a bubbling brew.