style="font-size:15px;"> “I don’t know much about wine.”
“Oh, that can’t be true, chérie. A woman of your background and education? Don’t be modest. In fact, I chose the wine because I knew you would appreciate it. Subtle but elegant. Understated but genuine. Like you.”
Amy thought, Oh, God. She said, “I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”
He seemed pleased. “My pleasure.”
She searched, in the flickering candlelight, for the door. There was only one, and he stood between it and her.
“Is this your place? Do you live here?” she asked.
Again he laughed. The sound, though muffled by the mask, was not particularly sinister. It was the laugh of a child—or a madman.
“Hardly,” he said. “No one could live in a place like this, not even those poor miserable creatures I send to their eternal rest. How could you think that?”
It was becoming easier to swallow. She took another sip of wine. “Why did you bring me here?”
“To talk. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time now, and after tonight’s newscast, it seemed…appropriate.”
“You—watch my broadcast?”
“But of course. Doesn’t everyone? And why should it surprise you to learn that I, your protégé, in a manner of speaking, am one of your biggest fans?”
Amy felt ill, a cold heavy dread weighing down her stomach, filling up her throat. She said, “Why do you say that? You’re not my protégé, I told you, I don’t even know you.”
“Alas, I am wounded.”
With a sudden swooping motion, he bent down and took her chin in his fingers, grasping hard. Amy shrank back, too frightened to even cry out. Wine sloshed on her blouse.
“You know me, chérie,” he said quietly. His breath was hot on her cheek, and oddly pleasant-smelling. Like fresh grass. His eyes, yellow glass eyes in a hairy-covered mask, were dead and glittering, horrifying. How did he see behind those eyes?
“You were the first to know me,” he said, still soft, still low. His fingers were like talons, gripping her chin, bruising the bone. “That’s why I have chosen you.”
“Chosen me,” she whispered, and she had never before imagined she possessed the courage it took to look into those flat yellow eyes and not shrink away. “For what?”
The seconds ticked off before his reply. Life or death, torture or pleasure; she imagined him weighing the options.
And then he said, “Well now, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
Abruptly, he released her and moved away. She felt the throbbing imprint of his fingers on either side of her chin and she thought irreverently that she would have to wear extra makeup for the show tomorrow to hide the marks. Then she wanted to laugh. Tomorrow, makeup, the show…she, whose chances of surviving the hour were growing increasingly slim, obviously had much bigger worries.
And with nothing to lose, she lifted her chin, tilting her head back a little to look him in the eye, and said, “You expect me to believe you are the so-called Werewolf Killer?”
“Since that is who I am, yes. I should say so. You have an opinion to the contrary?”
Amy glanced around, not too obviously, she hoped, for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. If she broke the glass in her hand, he would be on her before she could get to her feet and would probably use the broken glass to cut her throat. In other circumstances, she might throw the wine in his face and try to dash for the door while he was blinded, but the mask would protect his eyes. The room was small and empty and left her with few options.
She said, “You could be anyone behind that mask.”
“Ah, but couldn’t we all?”
He seemed to be enjoying himself. And why shouldn’t he? He held all the power.
Amy struggled to keep her gaze steady, not to show her fear. She said, “You might at least let me see your face.”
He chuckled. “I think not. Having done that, I would have to kill you, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
Her heart caught a little on hope. “Isn’t that what you plan to do, anyway? Kill me?”
Again the head tilted to the side, assuming a posture of thoughtfulness. “Why, no, actually. I hadn’t planned to kill you, not right away, anyway. I have plans for you first.”
He came to her and dropped to one knee beside her on the mattress. The yellow eyes glittered in the candlelight, the bared teeth menaced. But none of that was as terrifying as his posture, so close to her: intimate, powerful, in control.
Amy stiffened and choked down a scream as he lifted his gloved hand to her face, and stroked it tenderly.
Ky knew that St. Clare was probably aware he was being followed. He was a powerful werewolf with resources at his command Ky could not even begin to guess. At the very least, he might be leading Ky on a wild-goose chase; more likely, into a trap. But not for one moment did Ky consider abandoning pursuit.
A powerful werewolf. The words echoed in his head with a measure of disbelief. In fact, when Ky looked back over the events of the past half hour, he was almost inclined to believe he had imagined all of it. And yet, hadn’t he always known this day would come? Hadn’t he spent his life waiting for it?
Still, in his wildest reckonings, he had not pictured anything like this.
He wasn’t exactly sure what he intended to accomplish by following St. Clare. He might spot his car, get a license-plate number, find out what hotel he was staying at or what flight he was taking home…find out where home was for him and who lived there with him and for how long and how many of them there were and who they were and how they lived and a thousand, thousand other things…
He knew of course that little, if any of this, was a possibility. He would find out only what St. Clare allowed him to find out. But how could he not try?
The old man walked for half a block, then got into a car with a driver. Ky had not anticipated this, which only went to show how rattled he was by events in general; even his normal investigative instincts had deserted him. He had assumed that, since there was no car waiting outside the building, St. Clare had come on foot, but of course a person who was planning on breaking and entering would hardly park his car in plain sight.
Ky hesitated, then decided it would be more efficient to follow for a while on foot while the trail was still fresh, then go back for his car when he had a better idea in which direction St. Clare was headed. He did not, after all, seek another confrontation with St. Clare tonight, so time was not a consideration. He simply wanted to know where the old man was going.
There were a thousand, a hundred thousand sensory clues crowding up the well-worn streets of this ancient city, yet the scent of the werewolf was unmistakable, and Ky followed it effortlessly. Even encased as he was in two tons of metal and disguised by exhaust fumes and fresh rain puddles and the succulent outpourings of open-air restaurants
